People keep asking me if I have heard the latest gossip or rumor or corporate/governmental propaganda pretending to be a news story on a website that pretends to be a news source. I always respond "No. I don't read that, it's not a news source." The questioner always looks confused. Afterall, these blogs and websites SAY they are news sources.... If I said I was Elvis would you believe me?
SO for those too young, or in their youths too unconcerned to know, there is a difference between a news source and a propaganda outlet. Here are a few pointers:
1. A blog or gossip rag has a point of view, and people that are on it's side and people who are enemies. The friends get unqualified support, the enemies get ignored or derided when doing something good, and flamed beyond all reason at every opportunity to be claimed to be doing something bad. News sources are different. They may have friends and a viewpoint BUT, they cover both sides of the story, and attempt to treat those two, or three, or five sides, with equal fairness or suspicion. The Iconoclast knows of A local blog touting itself as a news source that when reached with evidence of a really juicy wrongdoing by one of the writers friends said "Well there are two sides to a story" and then buried it. A REAL NEWS OUTLET won't do that. A real news source will go get both sides of that story and COVER IT, even if, or actually, especially if, it will kill a friends career.
2. A real news source will out the editors best friend, his wife, his kids, anyone for a story. Real news sources are devoted to this long lost idea called journalism, getting to the bottom of societies underbelly and shining a big 500,000 candle power light on it and taking a photograph.
3. If you happen to be a public figure, before a real news source publishes a negative story about you, they will at least show you the decency to know they are doing a story, and allow you to respond to what they see as the facts. A gossip rag fake news source, like A blog, will not.
4. If you are a public figure and a reporter calls you and asks for a quote and you tell them what you think, the reporter doesn't say "Well Gee we wrote the story and thought you would say something else" and when you explain why you didn't say something else and why you don't believe something else, they put your actual words together with dots.....and turn your thought around 180 degrees, what you have is NOT a News source. Especially if you complain to the publisher and they promote that reporter to City Editor. Ever.
5. Real news sources have multiple reporters, editors, and people who do research. Of course some gossip rags have the same, but generally a totally ersatz imitation news source is one guy with a computer.
6. Real new sources have people working at them who went to real journalism schools or have real degrees in disciplines subjects like science, history, art, music, architecture, not squishy degrees like communications, theology, general humanities and political science.
7. If its a real news source on the internet it also has a hard copy printed, a radio or television version. If its net only, sorry not a news source.
For those who are confused, the Altadena Iconoclast is NOT a news source its a personal opinion/observation/memories blog. Also for those still confused, there are only four local news outlets:
The Pasadena Weekly
KPCC
Crown City News
the Pasadena Journal
Each of those way back in my public life published both favorable and unfavorable stories about me or things I was doing. Sometimes they even got it right.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
"Those Liberals"
A friend (former) posted to Facebook a song from U Tube sung by Doris Day. I noted below in the comments "Doris Day always makes me want to run out of a room screaming." It was an innocent observation, not intended on my part to be anything else. Certainly not a declaration of war. The posting person is in her early forties, is a divorced working professional, very intelligent hard working woman. Not one would think the sort of person who would idolize the Doris Day public persona.Doris Day's public persona not only makes me want to scream, it makes me want to vomit.
It was foisted upon the American Public as the role model for American Womanhood. No wonder Bettie Freidan and Gloria Steinem rebelled. For those too young to remember, the Doris Day Public Persona (DDPP for the rest of this essay) was one of a well dressed woman who was in a professional world where in order to survive due to the fragile male egos she was surrounded by she pretended to be both dumb as a rock and submissive as a starving kitten. She desired marriage to wealthy powerful successful men, and fended off every advance from them until they were "bagged". She outwitted everyone through continual and deep deception. There was not an honest dimension to her, and if society was in the 1950's and 1960's as portrayed in her movies, there was not an honest moment in it, either. The movies, values and society they portray are revolting. I am very glad the world went through the sexual and women's liberation movements of the late 1960's every time I think of Doris Day, because I can not imagine the hell of being married to such a creature. I can't imagine the hell of a society where men and women are on every level absolutely dishonest with one another. The world we live in today is not perfect, but its a whole lot better than the Stepford Doris Day world
Anyhow, my well educated hard working now former friend took great umbrage to my dislike of the DDPP. She wrote me a nasty couple of notes about me attacking her. I was confused. I have never seen personal disagreement as an attack. I thought that was strange, since she is an unconventionally lovely woman who I had in the past ALWAYS complimented on both her beauty and her intelligence. Her response was way, way, way out of scale, cutting and totally unexpected. It told me I had completely misjudged her as a person. She was "one of those "Liberals."'
One of "those Liberals"? you ask. Sadly, yes, "Those Liberals". Those liberals who listen to liberal talk radio and or go to events sponsored by some "enlightened" Church and can not, will not, tolerate anyone who disagrees with them on any issue. 'Those Liberals". You know the remarkably always in sync group thinkers who seem to have some chip implanted in their sub cortex that gets the latest talking points uploaded every morning from Palosi Central. You know, the ones who while they would be inflamed enough to shoot you, if they owned a gun, if you mentioned the remarkable similarity between them and Rush's Ditto Heads? "Those Liberals".
You know, the ones who have never disagreed with the Party Line of the moment, even if the party Line is 180 degrees opposite of what it was last year or last week? The ones who behave as if all politics and all philosophy are team sports, and if you are not 100% on MY team YOU are the ENEMY? you know, "Those Liberals" The intolerant of difference, while celebrating "diversity" ones? They make me feel nostalgia for my years spent with rabid Pentecostals.
They also make me feel very alone and very old. I suddenly remember my good friends of old...Hari Sihng Khalsa, a friend of many years with a absolutely razor sharp mind, wit and tongue. Hari and I worked tirelessly on the LaVina and water pumping at Devils Gate projects. We disagreed on many issues and perspectives, quite sharply. From what I understand, outside observers had no idea of either our humor, or friendship, and were both confounded and afraid of an outbreak of violence. We got each other and were free to express ourselves fully. Hari died of leukemia Thanksgiving Day 1995, as Veronica, his wife, and I held him. It was a deep loss.
I think of my childhood friend Larry Walton. Very similar story, except, sadly, Larry died alone some thirty years ago. I think of my friend Tim Berends. Tim and I volunteered together in Christian ministry and had the deepest of doctrinal disagreements, but we always pulled together for each other and the cause. I think of Max and Guy, two Republican lawyers who came to my rescue when Supervisor Antonovich arranged to have Art Snyder sue me. And Robin Salzer, also a Republican, also a friend, who at that time held fund raisers to pay Guy and many of my legal costs.
I think of Oscar Werner, who was a hard right Republican and on the Altadena Town Council in my early years. Oscar had heard the rumors I was a liberal and stayed quietly away, until he realized lable or not, I was about protecting Altadena as a specific place and culture. Then Oscar took me under his wing and we became fast friends, with fifty years of time between us. I also think of Altadenas leading "liberal" light of that time, Edna Smith, who decided any friend of Oscars was the enemy. She didn't speak to me until Oscar was long dead and about a year before she died. For her public life was a matter of a team sport, and one had to always be on HER side or the ENEMY.
Life is not a team sport. Life requires listening. Sometimes you totally agree with the people on the other side. Oscar and Edna never realized it, but they agreed 95% of the time. They never spoke to each other long enough or calmly enough to know that. Sadly, I am not going to advocate discussion.
I have learned much to my deep regret that some people, "those liberals" have their minds made up, even more, I find, than the " DittoHeads". Even worse, as much as any Christian or moslem Fundamentalist, even if they are a professed Atheist, they believe God is ALWAYS on their side. They don't seem to have taken the point from Abraham Lincoln that we must be on god;s side, not he on ours. They can not, and will not, hear you as you attempt to explain your position and embrace your commonalities. They are very like a religious Fundamentalist: Submit 100% to my viewpoint or be banned for all eternity. It's kind of comical but no longer entertaining, to observe them.
My former friend demanded retractions, the cessation of any FB disagreements, or she would defriend me. I defriended her, realizing she had never been my friend, and never would be.
I so miss Hari.
It was foisted upon the American Public as the role model for American Womanhood. No wonder Bettie Freidan and Gloria Steinem rebelled. For those too young to remember, the Doris Day Public Persona (DDPP for the rest of this essay) was one of a well dressed woman who was in a professional world where in order to survive due to the fragile male egos she was surrounded by she pretended to be both dumb as a rock and submissive as a starving kitten. She desired marriage to wealthy powerful successful men, and fended off every advance from them until they were "bagged". She outwitted everyone through continual and deep deception. There was not an honest dimension to her, and if society was in the 1950's and 1960's as portrayed in her movies, there was not an honest moment in it, either. The movies, values and society they portray are revolting. I am very glad the world went through the sexual and women's liberation movements of the late 1960's every time I think of Doris Day, because I can not imagine the hell of being married to such a creature. I can't imagine the hell of a society where men and women are on every level absolutely dishonest with one another. The world we live in today is not perfect, but its a whole lot better than the Stepford Doris Day world
Anyhow, my well educated hard working now former friend took great umbrage to my dislike of the DDPP. She wrote me a nasty couple of notes about me attacking her. I was confused. I have never seen personal disagreement as an attack. I thought that was strange, since she is an unconventionally lovely woman who I had in the past ALWAYS complimented on both her beauty and her intelligence. Her response was way, way, way out of scale, cutting and totally unexpected. It told me I had completely misjudged her as a person. She was "one of those "Liberals."'
One of "those Liberals"? you ask. Sadly, yes, "Those Liberals". Those liberals who listen to liberal talk radio and or go to events sponsored by some "enlightened" Church and can not, will not, tolerate anyone who disagrees with them on any issue. 'Those Liberals". You know the remarkably always in sync group thinkers who seem to have some chip implanted in their sub cortex that gets the latest talking points uploaded every morning from Palosi Central. You know, the ones who while they would be inflamed enough to shoot you, if they owned a gun, if you mentioned the remarkable similarity between them and Rush's Ditto Heads? "Those Liberals".
You know, the ones who have never disagreed with the Party Line of the moment, even if the party Line is 180 degrees opposite of what it was last year or last week? The ones who behave as if all politics and all philosophy are team sports, and if you are not 100% on MY team YOU are the ENEMY? you know, "Those Liberals" The intolerant of difference, while celebrating "diversity" ones? They make me feel nostalgia for my years spent with rabid Pentecostals.
They also make me feel very alone and very old. I suddenly remember my good friends of old...Hari Sihng Khalsa, a friend of many years with a absolutely razor sharp mind, wit and tongue. Hari and I worked tirelessly on the LaVina and water pumping at Devils Gate projects. We disagreed on many issues and perspectives, quite sharply. From what I understand, outside observers had no idea of either our humor, or friendship, and were both confounded and afraid of an outbreak of violence. We got each other and were free to express ourselves fully. Hari died of leukemia Thanksgiving Day 1995, as Veronica, his wife, and I held him. It was a deep loss.
I think of my childhood friend Larry Walton. Very similar story, except, sadly, Larry died alone some thirty years ago. I think of my friend Tim Berends. Tim and I volunteered together in Christian ministry and had the deepest of doctrinal disagreements, but we always pulled together for each other and the cause. I think of Max and Guy, two Republican lawyers who came to my rescue when Supervisor Antonovich arranged to have Art Snyder sue me. And Robin Salzer, also a Republican, also a friend, who at that time held fund raisers to pay Guy and many of my legal costs.
I think of Oscar Werner, who was a hard right Republican and on the Altadena Town Council in my early years. Oscar had heard the rumors I was a liberal and stayed quietly away, until he realized lable or not, I was about protecting Altadena as a specific place and culture. Then Oscar took me under his wing and we became fast friends, with fifty years of time between us. I also think of Altadenas leading "liberal" light of that time, Edna Smith, who decided any friend of Oscars was the enemy. She didn't speak to me until Oscar was long dead and about a year before she died. For her public life was a matter of a team sport, and one had to always be on HER side or the ENEMY.
Life is not a team sport. Life requires listening. Sometimes you totally agree with the people on the other side. Oscar and Edna never realized it, but they agreed 95% of the time. They never spoke to each other long enough or calmly enough to know that. Sadly, I am not going to advocate discussion.
I have learned much to my deep regret that some people, "those liberals" have their minds made up, even more, I find, than the " DittoHeads". Even worse, as much as any Christian or moslem Fundamentalist, even if they are a professed Atheist, they believe God is ALWAYS on their side. They don't seem to have taken the point from Abraham Lincoln that we must be on god;s side, not he on ours. They can not, and will not, hear you as you attempt to explain your position and embrace your commonalities. They are very like a religious Fundamentalist: Submit 100% to my viewpoint or be banned for all eternity. It's kind of comical but no longer entertaining, to observe them.
My former friend demanded retractions, the cessation of any FB disagreements, or she would defriend me. I defriended her, realizing she had never been my friend, and never would be.
I so miss Hari.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
LACMA measurement issues,
The new director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Michael Govan has a huge desire to leave his mark, in terms of a major building, on the art, cultural and civic scene in Los Angeles. In the Not for profit and governmental circles, this is how one's genitalia are measured. The Gawd awful American wing that blocked William Pereira's early 1960's campus and defeated the museums openness to Wilshire was built almost three decades ago. It's been a long time since a LACMA Museum Director could claim huge genitalia, and while there was almost universal high regard for the hideous American Wing by the press and civic establishment when it was built, everyone almost instantly discovered that the emperor had no clothes and that the American Wing destroyed what grace of the Pereira campus was left.
Govan, rather than choose an local LA Architect of merit such as Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Fred Fisher, Mike Rotundi, Dean Nota, Wallace Cunningham, Chris Carr, Louis Wiehle, Michael Pinto, Julia Strickland, Duncan Nicholson, Helana Arahuete, or Vaughn Trammell, or a American Architect of Merit outside of LA such as Ken Kellog, Anthony Puttnam, Josh Safdie, David E. Dodge or say Bart Prince, went way way FAAR away and chose a man who views America and LA as strange exotic places, the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor.
As a fifth generation Southern Californian, I admire in a way, the provincialism of the civic leaders two generations ago who chose William Pereira as our art museum Architect. That generation understood that one defined LA as a art capital not only by its collection of works of the past and present, but by having a local society capable of producing and making thrive, architectural talent at least as good as the collection that was being housed. All of the LA Architects I listed above have superior talent, at least the equal of anyone worldwide, no matter their awards or press reputation.
Pereira's original campus was open to Wilshire, was inviting, did have welcoming exterior spaces and the buildings could be sensitively adapted by even a mediocre Architect, to have movable partitions. Our technology is better today, we could make the multiple water elements work, even on the tar pits, and certainly the buildings can be retrofitted to be more energy efficient. All of this can be done for far lower a cost than the new building, even including building another nearby expanded display space. The reason not to do this, of course, goes right back to Mr. Govan and his measurement issues.
As to the Zumthor proposal itself, Mr. Zumthor is noted and has won design awards for his tight vertical rectilinear buildings. Mr. Zumthor seems to realize that much of Los Angeles Architecture from the 1950's on made use of long horizontal amoeba shaped buildings or portions of buildings. here in his LACMA proposal he attempts to fool us into believing he has been seduced by LA into a Architectural form that seems at first to have evolved from John Lautner. This is both an illusion and a insult to Mr. Lautner. In the case of Mr. Lautner, every form did actually arise, and could be easily seen to related, directly to a FUNCTION. Unless trickery is a function, the Zumthor building's amoeba shapes do not arise from function. They mainly serve to tie groups of rectilinear structures together. The Ameba shape just hides the fact that Zumthor is giving us several really dull vertical rectilinear rooms as a museum. There really is no difference between this and Pereira's original campus EXCEPT that Pereira's was conceived honestly and as a complete artistic expression with integrated water, hardscape, and landscape elements. Zumthor has not yet worked out what will be under his amoeba shapes, he plans seven stairwells to both support this thing thirty feet off ground level and be his access points, yet he has not worked these out in any detail. So we are being shown a series of incomplete sketches for a three quarter of a billion dollar building. Zumthor has no idea what the underside of his building will be or what the landscape interface will be. Frankly, this project as shown would get a "F" as incomplete in any Architectural design class.
I would like to respectfully submit that Mr. Zumthor's contract be ended at this point, and that the LACMA board hire a local preservation firm to design a preservation alternative that restores the Pereira campus, makes it energy efficient, allows gallery walls to move and finds an annex space nearby for more exhibit space, and also hire any one of the GREAT local LA or California Architects I have listed, many of whom worked either with Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, Bruce Goff or a combination of those three, to come up with a completely new design. LA is a mature enough arts community to have the talent to do a world class art museum and in fact, all of our local talent I have mentioned would turn out a much better museum plan than the present mediocre Zumthor sketch, that frankly it is embarrassing to see the press praise so highly, as they once praised the "American Wing".
As to Govan's measurement issue, he could attempt for a change to mount the kinds of world class exhibits LACMA had in the 1980's and 1990's, like the Soviet Constructivism exhibit, the Arts and Crafts in California exhibit, the Charles Rennie MacIntosh exhibit, the Clay army of the Chinese Emperor exhibit. Much as I love Architecture, the way I measure a museum is not primarily in its buildings, but in its exhibits, public outreach and programs. New building programs as the primary objective of any institution reflect a lack of imagination or commitment to core objectives, on the part of its board and executive director. That is the present measurement of LACMA.
Govan, rather than choose an local LA Architect of merit such as Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Fred Fisher, Mike Rotundi, Dean Nota, Wallace Cunningham, Chris Carr, Louis Wiehle, Michael Pinto, Julia Strickland, Duncan Nicholson, Helana Arahuete, or Vaughn Trammell, or a American Architect of Merit outside of LA such as Ken Kellog, Anthony Puttnam, Josh Safdie, David E. Dodge or say Bart Prince, went way way FAAR away and chose a man who views America and LA as strange exotic places, the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor.
As a fifth generation Southern Californian, I admire in a way, the provincialism of the civic leaders two generations ago who chose William Pereira as our art museum Architect. That generation understood that one defined LA as a art capital not only by its collection of works of the past and present, but by having a local society capable of producing and making thrive, architectural talent at least as good as the collection that was being housed. All of the LA Architects I listed above have superior talent, at least the equal of anyone worldwide, no matter their awards or press reputation.
Pereira's original campus was open to Wilshire, was inviting, did have welcoming exterior spaces and the buildings could be sensitively adapted by even a mediocre Architect, to have movable partitions. Our technology is better today, we could make the multiple water elements work, even on the tar pits, and certainly the buildings can be retrofitted to be more energy efficient. All of this can be done for far lower a cost than the new building, even including building another nearby expanded display space. The reason not to do this, of course, goes right back to Mr. Govan and his measurement issues.
As to the Zumthor proposal itself, Mr. Zumthor is noted and has won design awards for his tight vertical rectilinear buildings. Mr. Zumthor seems to realize that much of Los Angeles Architecture from the 1950's on made use of long horizontal amoeba shaped buildings or portions of buildings. here in his LACMA proposal he attempts to fool us into believing he has been seduced by LA into a Architectural form that seems at first to have evolved from John Lautner. This is both an illusion and a insult to Mr. Lautner. In the case of Mr. Lautner, every form did actually arise, and could be easily seen to related, directly to a FUNCTION. Unless trickery is a function, the Zumthor building's amoeba shapes do not arise from function. They mainly serve to tie groups of rectilinear structures together. The Ameba shape just hides the fact that Zumthor is giving us several really dull vertical rectilinear rooms as a museum. There really is no difference between this and Pereira's original campus EXCEPT that Pereira's was conceived honestly and as a complete artistic expression with integrated water, hardscape, and landscape elements. Zumthor has not yet worked out what will be under his amoeba shapes, he plans seven stairwells to both support this thing thirty feet off ground level and be his access points, yet he has not worked these out in any detail. So we are being shown a series of incomplete sketches for a three quarter of a billion dollar building. Zumthor has no idea what the underside of his building will be or what the landscape interface will be. Frankly, this project as shown would get a "F" as incomplete in any Architectural design class.
I would like to respectfully submit that Mr. Zumthor's contract be ended at this point, and that the LACMA board hire a local preservation firm to design a preservation alternative that restores the Pereira campus, makes it energy efficient, allows gallery walls to move and finds an annex space nearby for more exhibit space, and also hire any one of the GREAT local LA or California Architects I have listed, many of whom worked either with Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, Bruce Goff or a combination of those three, to come up with a completely new design. LA is a mature enough arts community to have the talent to do a world class art museum and in fact, all of our local talent I have mentioned would turn out a much better museum plan than the present mediocre Zumthor sketch, that frankly it is embarrassing to see the press praise so highly, as they once praised the "American Wing".
As to Govan's measurement issue, he could attempt for a change to mount the kinds of world class exhibits LACMA had in the 1980's and 1990's, like the Soviet Constructivism exhibit, the Arts and Crafts in California exhibit, the Charles Rennie MacIntosh exhibit, the Clay army of the Chinese Emperor exhibit. Much as I love Architecture, the way I measure a museum is not primarily in its buildings, but in its exhibits, public outreach and programs. New building programs as the primary objective of any institution reflect a lack of imagination or commitment to core objectives, on the part of its board and executive director. That is the present measurement of LACMA.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Preach that on Faith Promise Sunday
So I am sitting with a lawyer friend (yes I do have those) who specializes in helping poor people. He has a client who is a single mom. She is behind on her mortgage and about to be foreclosed on. She owes a small amount of money back, is making enough to pay monthly, but was sick is self employed and cant get enough to make up the money she fell behind on.
SOOOOOoooooo I say to my lawyer friend," Hey I know Sister So and so, she's been a Church Member in good standing for twenty five years, lets go to her pastor and have the church raise the money." My lawyer friend looks at me as if I have dropped fifty tabs of acid, smoked some crack and consumed three fifths of Jack Daniels all in a second. Its a look of pity, revulsion and fear. He laughs and says "You're not serious?" 'Well yeah, that's one of the things churches are FOR, of Course I am serious." Now he looks at me with almost pure pity. Slowly he says, as if I were some stoned drug filled homeless person "S t e e e v e, Churches don't give money to poor people, they snatch it from them. They NEVER help anyone."
Now I know this is probably generally true. Its a heartbreak, really, that the general condition of the so called Church of Jesus Christ, the supposed representatives of the Kingdom of Jehovah here on Earth, is that they do not distribute, but take storehouses unto themselves. Seems they never have read where it is written:
"Will a man rob G_d"
You will say "How have we robbed you?"
"You have robbed me in that the storehouse for the poor is not distributed to them, but my house is made a gathering place for wealth for the priests, who oppress the poor. In this have you robbed me."
Preach that on Faith Promise Sunday!
Sadly, I reached out to my lawyers clients pastor. he was not interested in helping her. Another storehouse of iniquity and thievery. I( am not so sad for her though, but fort he pastor. For all the Pastors who can not condescend to help their own parishioners, who can not, who will not roll their sleeves up and lift one of the sheep up. These ravenous wolves will be lost at the end of time, standing at the Great White Throne Judgment, announcing their degrees, their so called good works, their preaching and some even miracles, and Jesus the Christ will look them straight in the eye and say "Depart from me you evil doers of iniquity, I know you not. When I was hungry you did not feed me. When naked you did not clothe me, when broken you did not bind me up, when in prison and alone you did not visit me."
They will say "When did we ever see YOU such?'
And he will say "As you saw the LEAST of these who are my brothers, so there was I."
Preach THAT on Faith Promise Sunday, you brood of vipers.
Can I hear an Amen?
SOOOOOoooooo I say to my lawyer friend," Hey I know Sister So and so, she's been a Church Member in good standing for twenty five years, lets go to her pastor and have the church raise the money." My lawyer friend looks at me as if I have dropped fifty tabs of acid, smoked some crack and consumed three fifths of Jack Daniels all in a second. Its a look of pity, revulsion and fear. He laughs and says "You're not serious?" 'Well yeah, that's one of the things churches are FOR, of Course I am serious." Now he looks at me with almost pure pity. Slowly he says, as if I were some stoned drug filled homeless person "S t e e e v e, Churches don't give money to poor people, they snatch it from them. They NEVER help anyone."
Now I know this is probably generally true. Its a heartbreak, really, that the general condition of the so called Church of Jesus Christ, the supposed representatives of the Kingdom of Jehovah here on Earth, is that they do not distribute, but take storehouses unto themselves. Seems they never have read where it is written:
"Will a man rob G_d"
You will say "How have we robbed you?"
"You have robbed me in that the storehouse for the poor is not distributed to them, but my house is made a gathering place for wealth for the priests, who oppress the poor. In this have you robbed me."
Preach that on Faith Promise Sunday!
Sadly, I reached out to my lawyers clients pastor. he was not interested in helping her. Another storehouse of iniquity and thievery. I( am not so sad for her though, but fort he pastor. For all the Pastors who can not condescend to help their own parishioners, who can not, who will not roll their sleeves up and lift one of the sheep up. These ravenous wolves will be lost at the end of time, standing at the Great White Throne Judgment, announcing their degrees, their so called good works, their preaching and some even miracles, and Jesus the Christ will look them straight in the eye and say "Depart from me you evil doers of iniquity, I know you not. When I was hungry you did not feed me. When naked you did not clothe me, when broken you did not bind me up, when in prison and alone you did not visit me."
They will say "When did we ever see YOU such?'
And he will say "As you saw the LEAST of these who are my brothers, so there was I."
Preach THAT on Faith Promise Sunday, you brood of vipers.
Can I hear an Amen?
Friday, May 24, 2013
Who would Jesus dispossess for a lousy buck?
Recently, I was having coffee with a young friend. My young friend was seeking both advice and connections. My friend was perplexed. He had spent some $8000 on lawyers, consultants and filing fees to start a Not for Profit and he didn't yet have enough donations for it to be "self sustaining".
So, I asked the young man "What's your Not for Profit about?" He said "Feeding homeless people." Soooo I asked, with a slight chuckle, "Well how many sandwiches can you make for eight grand?"
My young friend seemed confused. I explained to my young friend that decades ago I volunteered for a Not for Profit in Hollywood. We had a suicide prevention hot line, provided three meals a day and housing for at least sixty people every night, did free drug rehab, rescued hookers from pimps and got their lives turned around, and on Wednesday night we distributed several hundred sandwiches.
On Wednesday mornings Restaurants, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, local Churches and mostly private individuals dropped groceries off. On Wednesday afternoon the staff made as many sandwiches as we could with the groceries. On Wednesday night we distributed hundreds of those sandwiches on Hollywood and Santa Monica Boulevards to every hungry homeless and hooking person we could find. No paid Executive Director, no paid staff, no four color mailer, no paid fund raiser or grant writer. Just "What would Jesus do?" We used to talk about the fact that if every church, temple and synagogue in America made and distributed 100 sandwiches once a week, there would be no starving hungry people in America. Alas, I was not confused about my young friend. His interest was not in feeding homeless people, for him this was just a "hook".
In America there are millions of Churches and Not for Profit organizations that receive property tax, parsonage tax, income tax exemptions. Their donors receive income tax breaks. In 1937 the U.S. Supreme Court found that these tax exceptions are given for "good works" Churches and Not for Profits do in feeding hungry people, providing health care for the sick, sheltering homeless people, and ameliorating the effects of privation and poverty. Since the 1950's they have been technically not allowed to be directly involved in politics.
But Churches and Not for Profits are NOT doing these good works. They are busily building real estate and investment portfolios and building payrolls of people who mostly support the institution itself, rather than serve the needy.
My young friend was upset not because feeding hungry people was something he was being prevented from doing, but because he was not yet able to become a salaried Executive Director, consider lunching to be "work", have a staff , free car, and live a luxury lifestyle of ease and moral superiority, on the backs of poor people. Needless to say, he left our meeting with no new connections and the advice to go to Super King Market, buy a bag of groceries, and find some people to give them away to. He left very sad. The greedy motivation of my young friend, and the lavish life of many Not for Profit Executive Directors and staff, while achieving little, if any, of their mission, have become common in the Church and Not for Profit world.
One Pasadena Church is so dominant in political issues that last year when several Altadenan's called Unions asking for help in fighting the opening of a local Walmart, they were told that the Union organized ALL of there political efforts in the San Gabriel Valley though one Pasadena Church. Several Unions claimed they would not work with any activists who were not under the direction, influence, supervision and control of this particular Pasadena Church. This particular Pasadena Church recently purchased a Altadena not for profit facility that had for 100 years provided housing and healthcare for old indigent people form the Altadena area. That Altadena Not for Profit, run by godless humanist had adhered to the tenants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, until the Pasadena Church took it over. The particular Pasadena Church tore down the buildings, left the land fallow for five years, and is about to build over 300 luxury retirement villas for wealthy people from all over America. Because ownership will be retained by the Church, no property tax will be paid. There will be no services provided for Pasadena's or Altadena's indigent poor people. I guess that Pasadena Church's Gospel goes something like "What old poor unhealthy people would Jesus dispossess to make a lousy buck?" This is not uncommon. Churches all over America are dishonoring the life and Gospel of Jesus Christ in this kind of greedy, despicable, Hypocritical, and may I say Satanic, salary serving careerist manner.
We need a change. tax breaks for Churches and Not for Profits must be DEEDS tested. The majority of funds raised must be expended directly on the mission of feeding, housing, clothing the poor, drug rehabilitation, real job training, re entering prisoners to society, tending the sick, ill and dying and relieving the conditions of poverty. Every Citizen and for profit corporation is being taxed more than they would be, more than their fair share, because religious institutions and Not for Profits are getting a free ride. That would be OK were they serving the functions they get the free ride for, but in the main, they are not, and we are all also being taxed to fulfill those functions through government. So we outside of the not for profit world are paying at least twice.
Oh that wonderful all volunteer Not for Profit I volunteered for in Hollywood? Our founder and Executive Director fell in love and got married. He needed a job and needed to hand off our not for profit to others. It was difficult for him, a very reserved person, to glad hand enough to raise our $50,000 a year budget, manage our staff, and actually do redemptive work himself. He was exhausted. We found a International Not for Profit that promised us the world in the funding they would bring to bear to accomplish the mission. They got our donor list, fired all the volunteer staff one afternoon, closed down all operations the next, and with four color glossy print materials raise millions of dollars a year on doing good works in Hollywood. They have no operations there, not a dime raised by them is feeding, clothing, housing a single homeless kid, rescuing a hooker, or preventing a suicide. they raised almost three million dollars through our old organizations name last year. Yes, that is painful to type. They are basically stealing 3 million dollars a year from poor people, and doing it with a name that used to serve them well.
The Not for Profit industry needs to become accountable and brought to heel. The gravy train of high salaries, and questionable, if any deeds, must come to an end.
So, I asked the young man "What's your Not for Profit about?" He said "Feeding homeless people." Soooo I asked, with a slight chuckle, "Well how many sandwiches can you make for eight grand?"
My young friend seemed confused. I explained to my young friend that decades ago I volunteered for a Not for Profit in Hollywood. We had a suicide prevention hot line, provided three meals a day and housing for at least sixty people every night, did free drug rehab, rescued hookers from pimps and got their lives turned around, and on Wednesday night we distributed several hundred sandwiches.
On Wednesday mornings Restaurants, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, local Churches and mostly private individuals dropped groceries off. On Wednesday afternoon the staff made as many sandwiches as we could with the groceries. On Wednesday night we distributed hundreds of those sandwiches on Hollywood and Santa Monica Boulevards to every hungry homeless and hooking person we could find. No paid Executive Director, no paid staff, no four color mailer, no paid fund raiser or grant writer. Just "What would Jesus do?" We used to talk about the fact that if every church, temple and synagogue in America made and distributed 100 sandwiches once a week, there would be no starving hungry people in America. Alas, I was not confused about my young friend. His interest was not in feeding homeless people, for him this was just a "hook".
In America there are millions of Churches and Not for Profit organizations that receive property tax, parsonage tax, income tax exemptions. Their donors receive income tax breaks. In 1937 the U.S. Supreme Court found that these tax exceptions are given for "good works" Churches and Not for Profits do in feeding hungry people, providing health care for the sick, sheltering homeless people, and ameliorating the effects of privation and poverty. Since the 1950's they have been technically not allowed to be directly involved in politics.
But Churches and Not for Profits are NOT doing these good works. They are busily building real estate and investment portfolios and building payrolls of people who mostly support the institution itself, rather than serve the needy.
My young friend was upset not because feeding hungry people was something he was being prevented from doing, but because he was not yet able to become a salaried Executive Director, consider lunching to be "work", have a staff , free car, and live a luxury lifestyle of ease and moral superiority, on the backs of poor people. Needless to say, he left our meeting with no new connections and the advice to go to Super King Market, buy a bag of groceries, and find some people to give them away to. He left very sad. The greedy motivation of my young friend, and the lavish life of many Not for Profit Executive Directors and staff, while achieving little, if any, of their mission, have become common in the Church and Not for Profit world.
One Pasadena Church is so dominant in political issues that last year when several Altadenan's called Unions asking for help in fighting the opening of a local Walmart, they were told that the Union organized ALL of there political efforts in the San Gabriel Valley though one Pasadena Church. Several Unions claimed they would not work with any activists who were not under the direction, influence, supervision and control of this particular Pasadena Church. This particular Pasadena Church recently purchased a Altadena not for profit facility that had for 100 years provided housing and healthcare for old indigent people form the Altadena area. That Altadena Not for Profit, run by godless humanist had adhered to the tenants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, until the Pasadena Church took it over. The particular Pasadena Church tore down the buildings, left the land fallow for five years, and is about to build over 300 luxury retirement villas for wealthy people from all over America. Because ownership will be retained by the Church, no property tax will be paid. There will be no services provided for Pasadena's or Altadena's indigent poor people. I guess that Pasadena Church's Gospel goes something like "What old poor unhealthy people would Jesus dispossess to make a lousy buck?" This is not uncommon. Churches all over America are dishonoring the life and Gospel of Jesus Christ in this kind of greedy, despicable, Hypocritical, and may I say Satanic, salary serving careerist manner.
We need a change. tax breaks for Churches and Not for Profits must be DEEDS tested. The majority of funds raised must be expended directly on the mission of feeding, housing, clothing the poor, drug rehabilitation, real job training, re entering prisoners to society, tending the sick, ill and dying and relieving the conditions of poverty. Every Citizen and for profit corporation is being taxed more than they would be, more than their fair share, because religious institutions and Not for Profits are getting a free ride. That would be OK were they serving the functions they get the free ride for, but in the main, they are not, and we are all also being taxed to fulfill those functions through government. So we outside of the not for profit world are paying at least twice.
Oh that wonderful all volunteer Not for Profit I volunteered for in Hollywood? Our founder and Executive Director fell in love and got married. He needed a job and needed to hand off our not for profit to others. It was difficult for him, a very reserved person, to glad hand enough to raise our $50,000 a year budget, manage our staff, and actually do redemptive work himself. He was exhausted. We found a International Not for Profit that promised us the world in the funding they would bring to bear to accomplish the mission. They got our donor list, fired all the volunteer staff one afternoon, closed down all operations the next, and with four color glossy print materials raise millions of dollars a year on doing good works in Hollywood. They have no operations there, not a dime raised by them is feeding, clothing, housing a single homeless kid, rescuing a hooker, or preventing a suicide. they raised almost three million dollars through our old organizations name last year. Yes, that is painful to type. They are basically stealing 3 million dollars a year from poor people, and doing it with a name that used to serve them well.
The Not for Profit industry needs to become accountable and brought to heel. The gravy train of high salaries, and questionable, if any deeds, must come to an end.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Why the American People Are Not Excited this Election Year.
It's August in Altadena. A hot still humid sweltering August. It's a Presidential election year summer, volunteers should be calling and walking precincts, but here in the blazing foothills of Southern California it seems as if no election is happening. Those Southern Californians who are calling are calling into "battleground States" . California is assumed to be deeply in the Obama camp, so no one, not Governor Romney, nor President Obama, Not Even Congressman Ron Paul, is "wasting" money on the most populace state in the Union. So far this means that Californians can contemplate the election from afar.
I have been doing just that. I will not deny I have at times made calls for President Obama into a few "battleground States". The voters there are just as un enthused about this election as I am. Yes, they will vote for the President, but they will not do so enthusiastically. Why?
The first problem is President Obama's first year in office. He lost the troops there. Candidate Obama had said to the party faithful, the hard core of believers who march through precincts, make phone calls, and volunteer every waking hour for the candidate, that they would have to hold his feet to the fire (actually quoting FDR) and "make me do it". They did. The reaction from Rham Emannuel and his staff, who ran all the White House Communications was antagonistic, rude, spiteful and in a short time alienated the troops on the street that Obama administration would have had. It was a betrayal and a slap in the face. The ground troops have never stopped being disaffected. The Obama machine pretends to not notice this on the one hand and on the other snickers that the disaffected have no where else to go. Have they considered that the disaffected can just stay home?
The second problem was the Health Care Reform fight. A large portion of the members of the Democratic Party wanted Universal Coverage, Single Payer. Perhaps the President and his administration knew that Universal Coverage Single Payer was not possible with Congress, but they never started there. They started with Romneycare and slowly negotiated pieces of that away to the Republicans in Congress. Lobbying for Single Payer Universal Coverage would have made the President seem as if he had stood up high in the saddle, and eventhough he may not have won, He would have been a hero to his troops. He could have on his initial wave of popularity galvanized the nation. Instead by being a mealy compromiser, he threw that popularity away, almost instantly. Probably starting from that point could have negotiated more from the Republicans. Instead he passed the Heritage Foundations bill, was escoriated as if he had passed a socialist program by the Republicans, whose very legislation is what he must take "credit" for, and gave the Democrats a "Success" they can not be proud of.
So far not very good.
But the REAL problem with this election isn't that Governor Romney is as honest as a kid with his hands in a cookie jar and as dull as white paint in the Mojave desert on a stucco west facing wall, nor is it that President Obama has disaffected his troops, it's that this election is not about the crisis the American public have been living through and dealing with for thirty years now.
Somehow the election is about how much various benefits the baby boomers have paid into their whole lives, will be reduced, who is the biggest tax cheat, and whose Vice Presidential candidate has had the biggest gaffe this week. Most American voters are tired of the dog grooming show. They want some reality and some answers to what they face. No one is excited because so far this election is not about anything real.
You see real America, Street Level America, if you call that the 99% or the 49%, is in trouble. Deep trouble. our politicians are gleefully ignoring the trouble. The wealth of any nation is in three areas: labor, infrastructure and natural resources. We are in the water surrounded by sharks on all three.
First Trouble: Labor.
The work is in China, everything we buy seems imported from there and we are surviving on loans from China. For some reason, America's industrial and political classes have deemed this "inevitable", It wasn't. \Laws were changed, factories unbolted and shipped. The American People want the laws changed. they want work to come home. They want to create wealth here and loan the fruits from ourselves to ourselves. The political classes pretend they can't hear us. We need Tariffs based upon the working conditions and wages of the nations we are importing from and the environmental costs of producing those same goods here. It's not protectionism, it a level playing field.
Second Trouble: Labor.
Many of the jobs that do remain here are to a large part being taken by Illegal alien workers so that those jobs can be done for the investor class at low wages and in 19th Century working conditions. Both parties are complete total whores to this investor class and explain the exploitation of these workers in bizarre terms of kindness and compassion for mankind. I kid you not. the Bullshit can not be believed, but when this bullshit is challenged, one is accused of a lack of compassion and racism by the people benefiting form the largess of those exploiting these illegal aliens. Even worse, there has been bipartisan support for allowing the children of illegals imported here to be educated for free, stay, get professional licenses and have an easy route to citizenship. This is killing American wages. We need a immigration policy that is kind and compassionate, We already take 500,000 people a year legally, and almost half of those are from Mexico, we take more people every year than the rest of the world combined. Isn't that enough? Each year we import three and one half cities the size of Pasadena Ca. in population and we build no sewage plant, no electrical generation plant, no roads, no bridges, no schools for them...And we have to compete with these legal and illegal folks for our jobs. What American worker really thinks thats a good idea?
Third trouble: Infrastructure.
Anybody who has driven a crater filled road in California, stood below a bridge after the first thaw of winter and listened as the concrete chips fell to the ground as cars rolled across, seen the eroded condition of a levve sidewall on an American river, or experienced a summer brownout, knows that this countries infrastructure needs some serious and thoughtful reinvestment. Our great grandparents and grandparents built harbors, airports, highways, damns and bridges that this nation has used and benefitted from for seventy five years. Our work, companies, and personal lives all benefitted far beyond the cost of these improvements. They were indeed investments in the future. Now we are told we can not afford to build more and better roads and bridges and that what scant work will be done will be done with materials and crews imported from China. We need to rebuild our country, the great things our great grandparents built are all worn out. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren deserve smooth roads, functioning electrical plants, water purification plants, bridges the envy of the world, national parks, railroads, mass tansit, and a world of wonders.
We can afford these things, we just can not have them and endless war for no real reason. It's time we chose life for our people instead of the ability to potentially destroy any population disobediant to the will of our Oligarchs, at a moments notice. We need the oil you say? Buying it at three times its present price would be cheaper than the three wars we have fought this decade and for that we could have solar panalized every roof on every house in the county twice over...
Fourth trouble: Natural resources.
This ties in with infrastructure. Our water is impure and we are running out of it. We need a system nationwide that cleans our sewage (YES, I said that) makes the water pure and pumps it back into our rapidly depleting aquifirs. We need to stop running water off our roofs into gutters and out to sea. Again it needs to be cleaned and pumped back to the ground. Our residential developments need to be built so that water runs into french drains at the property edge and back to the ground.
Fifth trouble: Natural resources.
The soil. We depleted our top soil of natural minerals and nuetriants by 1937. The Nation has been living off petrochemically derived fertilizers ever since. The nuitrition of American grain, fruit and vegetables grown with these petrochemical fetilizers has steady declined over time. Presenlty America takes all of it's green waste, food waste and solid sewage waste and landfills it. We need a national drive to restore our soil.
The American People are aware of most of these issues. they dont know what to do about them and we can not understand why our "leaders" wont even discuss them. Thats why we just can't get excited about this election.
We should have two years of national service for every American, not to build up our war machine, but to build our roads, our bridges, our sewage reclamation plants, our national parks, to restore our streams, to rebuild and re-envigorate our topsoil, to make America once again the shining city on the hill. We can give all our Children the same benefits as we now give military veterans. Free health care, Assisted living when they are old, reduced or free University.
This time we can make it not an illusion, not Las Vegas lights made up of gas from the death cycle, but made up of regenerative policies that care fro the land as if we believe that Genisis is true, God placed mankind upon the earth to tend it as a garden fit for his children to live in. We the American People can repent of our love of the war machine, of endless profligate waste, or carelessness of everything and everyone, and we can heal our land.
Thats the kind of thing a voting public can get excited about.
I have been doing just that. I will not deny I have at times made calls for President Obama into a few "battleground States". The voters there are just as un enthused about this election as I am. Yes, they will vote for the President, but they will not do so enthusiastically. Why?
The first problem is President Obama's first year in office. He lost the troops there. Candidate Obama had said to the party faithful, the hard core of believers who march through precincts, make phone calls, and volunteer every waking hour for the candidate, that they would have to hold his feet to the fire (actually quoting FDR) and "make me do it". They did. The reaction from Rham Emannuel and his staff, who ran all the White House Communications was antagonistic, rude, spiteful and in a short time alienated the troops on the street that Obama administration would have had. It was a betrayal and a slap in the face. The ground troops have never stopped being disaffected. The Obama machine pretends to not notice this on the one hand and on the other snickers that the disaffected have no where else to go. Have they considered that the disaffected can just stay home?
The second problem was the Health Care Reform fight. A large portion of the members of the Democratic Party wanted Universal Coverage, Single Payer. Perhaps the President and his administration knew that Universal Coverage Single Payer was not possible with Congress, but they never started there. They started with Romneycare and slowly negotiated pieces of that away to the Republicans in Congress. Lobbying for Single Payer Universal Coverage would have made the President seem as if he had stood up high in the saddle, and eventhough he may not have won, He would have been a hero to his troops. He could have on his initial wave of popularity galvanized the nation. Instead by being a mealy compromiser, he threw that popularity away, almost instantly. Probably starting from that point could have negotiated more from the Republicans. Instead he passed the Heritage Foundations bill, was escoriated as if he had passed a socialist program by the Republicans, whose very legislation is what he must take "credit" for, and gave the Democrats a "Success" they can not be proud of.
So far not very good.
But the REAL problem with this election isn't that Governor Romney is as honest as a kid with his hands in a cookie jar and as dull as white paint in the Mojave desert on a stucco west facing wall, nor is it that President Obama has disaffected his troops, it's that this election is not about the crisis the American public have been living through and dealing with for thirty years now.
Somehow the election is about how much various benefits the baby boomers have paid into their whole lives, will be reduced, who is the biggest tax cheat, and whose Vice Presidential candidate has had the biggest gaffe this week. Most American voters are tired of the dog grooming show. They want some reality and some answers to what they face. No one is excited because so far this election is not about anything real.
You see real America, Street Level America, if you call that the 99% or the 49%, is in trouble. Deep trouble. our politicians are gleefully ignoring the trouble. The wealth of any nation is in three areas: labor, infrastructure and natural resources. We are in the water surrounded by sharks on all three.
First Trouble: Labor.
The work is in China, everything we buy seems imported from there and we are surviving on loans from China. For some reason, America's industrial and political classes have deemed this "inevitable", It wasn't. \Laws were changed, factories unbolted and shipped. The American People want the laws changed. they want work to come home. They want to create wealth here and loan the fruits from ourselves to ourselves. The political classes pretend they can't hear us. We need Tariffs based upon the working conditions and wages of the nations we are importing from and the environmental costs of producing those same goods here. It's not protectionism, it a level playing field.
Second Trouble: Labor.
Many of the jobs that do remain here are to a large part being taken by Illegal alien workers so that those jobs can be done for the investor class at low wages and in 19th Century working conditions. Both parties are complete total whores to this investor class and explain the exploitation of these workers in bizarre terms of kindness and compassion for mankind. I kid you not. the Bullshit can not be believed, but when this bullshit is challenged, one is accused of a lack of compassion and racism by the people benefiting form the largess of those exploiting these illegal aliens. Even worse, there has been bipartisan support for allowing the children of illegals imported here to be educated for free, stay, get professional licenses and have an easy route to citizenship. This is killing American wages. We need a immigration policy that is kind and compassionate, We already take 500,000 people a year legally, and almost half of those are from Mexico, we take more people every year than the rest of the world combined. Isn't that enough? Each year we import three and one half cities the size of Pasadena Ca. in population and we build no sewage plant, no electrical generation plant, no roads, no bridges, no schools for them...And we have to compete with these legal and illegal folks for our jobs. What American worker really thinks thats a good idea?
Third trouble: Infrastructure.
Anybody who has driven a crater filled road in California, stood below a bridge after the first thaw of winter and listened as the concrete chips fell to the ground as cars rolled across, seen the eroded condition of a levve sidewall on an American river, or experienced a summer brownout, knows that this countries infrastructure needs some serious and thoughtful reinvestment. Our great grandparents and grandparents built harbors, airports, highways, damns and bridges that this nation has used and benefitted from for seventy five years. Our work, companies, and personal lives all benefitted far beyond the cost of these improvements. They were indeed investments in the future. Now we are told we can not afford to build more and better roads and bridges and that what scant work will be done will be done with materials and crews imported from China. We need to rebuild our country, the great things our great grandparents built are all worn out. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren deserve smooth roads, functioning electrical plants, water purification plants, bridges the envy of the world, national parks, railroads, mass tansit, and a world of wonders.
We can afford these things, we just can not have them and endless war for no real reason. It's time we chose life for our people instead of the ability to potentially destroy any population disobediant to the will of our Oligarchs, at a moments notice. We need the oil you say? Buying it at three times its present price would be cheaper than the three wars we have fought this decade and for that we could have solar panalized every roof on every house in the county twice over...
Fourth trouble: Natural resources.
This ties in with infrastructure. Our water is impure and we are running out of it. We need a system nationwide that cleans our sewage (YES, I said that) makes the water pure and pumps it back into our rapidly depleting aquifirs. We need to stop running water off our roofs into gutters and out to sea. Again it needs to be cleaned and pumped back to the ground. Our residential developments need to be built so that water runs into french drains at the property edge and back to the ground.
Fifth trouble: Natural resources.
The soil. We depleted our top soil of natural minerals and nuetriants by 1937. The Nation has been living off petrochemically derived fertilizers ever since. The nuitrition of American grain, fruit and vegetables grown with these petrochemical fetilizers has steady declined over time. Presenlty America takes all of it's green waste, food waste and solid sewage waste and landfills it. We need a national drive to restore our soil.
The American People are aware of most of these issues. they dont know what to do about them and we can not understand why our "leaders" wont even discuss them. Thats why we just can't get excited about this election.
We should have two years of national service for every American, not to build up our war machine, but to build our roads, our bridges, our sewage reclamation plants, our national parks, to restore our streams, to rebuild and re-envigorate our topsoil, to make America once again the shining city on the hill. We can give all our Children the same benefits as we now give military veterans. Free health care, Assisted living when they are old, reduced or free University.
This time we can make it not an illusion, not Las Vegas lights made up of gas from the death cycle, but made up of regenerative policies that care fro the land as if we believe that Genisis is true, God placed mankind upon the earth to tend it as a garden fit for his children to live in. We the American People can repent of our love of the war machine, of endless profligate waste, or carelessness of everything and everyone, and we can heal our land.
Thats the kind of thing a voting public can get excited about.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Uh No the Middle Class Wasn't divided by Scott Walker.
O.K. I'm at LEAST as liberal as the next guy. More so, mostly. This week Scott Walker narrowly escaped recall as Governor of Wisconsin. The pundits left and right are declaring the working class of Wisconsin was split in half. Half voted for Tea party Walker, half voted for the Union Champion, Barrett.
A couple things that are important, especially for those of us on the left who may want , moving forward to take lessons from this loss...
1. You don't run the guy the People didn't like so much last time that they elected a Tea Party Whackadoodle , this time in the recall. Hey, the People said "No thanks" to this guy once already.Get a new face. Americans LOVE new, that's why the same old products always have a NEW AND IMPROVED label on them every six months.
2. Working class unionized and non unionized private sector workers don't see any public sector workers as their brothers and sisters. They see them as what they generally are: the enforcement arm of the Corporatist State. Private sector workers and voters see these public sector employees as the ENEMY. Until the left comes to terms with this, understands it, admits it to themselves, they won't be able to capture the working class like the Tea Party has. It's not that there is something wrong with Kansas, its that Kansas has experiences we on the left have refused to recognize.
"Steve, Steve , Steve", you say in a condescending, humoring mockingly gentle voice, "How can you say
T H A T ?" Well, in my many years as a Activist and Town Councilman no one ever came to my office or called my phone asking for solidarity with some Union.
Little old widow ladies called in panic because they had signed a petition against some development and two weeks later the County Zoning Department with Sheriffs carrying pistols and shot guns swept down on her property and demanded costly and extensive repairs and alterations be made. Those were Unionized Public Sector Employees devastating her meager retirement funds, attempting to drive her out of her home, and being used to retaliate against her free speech rights. That happened a few times and each incident took years of the little old ladies life and all of her energy to resolve.
A Little old woman whose family had lived in her house since it was built in 1919 owns three homes in a row on a small street next to a commercial district. A developer wanted her land. She spent six years with endless inspections, demands, shotguns pointed at her, her family members, her friends. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the Public Sector employees gave up, after they had gone through every single home on the block subjecting them to Zoning hell. Those folks were all working class, some unionized, some not, but none of them see Public Sector employees union or not, as friends.
A carpenter has a trailer on his commercial property at his shop. There is mixed zoning on his land and he rented the trailer to the local Parking Enforcement Officer. She filed a complaint against the department for discrimination. Zoning, Building and Safety, Edison Inspectors, and the Sheriff's Department, guns brandished forced their way warrent-less into the friends property. He had to remove the trailer,so the complaining unionized County employee became homeless at the hands of complying unionized County employees, Solidarity? There was no permit on the storage building that had been there for at least seventy years, that had to go. They made him install fire systems in his studio. Cal Osha showed up to inspect all of his vintage saws and equipment, and wanted thousands of dollars of safety equipment on them and tens of thousands of dollars in dust collection and spray booth equipment. All this in spite of the fact that my carpenter friend has no employees. You see he MAY have them someday. That went through rounds and rounds of administrative hearings. Cost my buddy a FORTUNE, all because he had committed the crime of renting to a County employee who thought she had rights.
A friend works at a Automotive repair shop. Its been in business here in town since 1916. It is the oldest continuing operating automotive repair shop in Los Angeles County. My friend buys the shop from his boss. I go with him to the County when he transfers the business licenses. We are told everything is in order. Six months later, my friend who has put his life savings into purchasing his shop, gets a letter from the County saying his licenses have been revoked. His business that has continuously operated in the same fashion since 1916 at the same location was rezoned at some point. He has to apply for a Conditional Use Permit and he has to stop operations until he does. This normally takes a year and a half, costs about $30,000 by the time all the permits, fees, drawings, and fixers are paid. In the meantime the mortgage on the shop must be paid. I make an appointment with my friend and the County Zoning guy. Eight County thugs show up who proceed to mock and humiliate my friend for starting his own business and not getting a good paying safe secure County job. I would not have believed it had I not heard it. We ran out of the meeting before we each killed some County Bastard. We organized. we got the County to lay off, yet every eight months some new person would take over the County Zoning desk, start again, and we would have to start everyone calling to save this guys shop. Some brilliant County employee figured out the way to ruin my friend was to call in the State. My friend got inspections and fees and fines and work orders on a monthly basis until the oldest continuous business in town and my friends bottom line and life savings were completely destroyed. Do we imagine my mechanic friend sees government employees as people he has some kind of solidarity with? Uh NO.
These are not unusual stories. I can go on for pages upon pages of people just going about their lives in a way we would all consider "normal" who upset someone in government and were then persecuted by government employees.
Working class people see government employees as the enemy, because they behave that way, and with complete total contempt for members of the public. Until we on the left UNDERSTAND this, we will continue to lose to the Tea Party, to the Koch brothers, and the Oligarchs. We have to understand, government employees are not the same as private sector workers and small employers. There is and as long as they function as arms of enforcement for the international corporations and government who are attempting to destroy the workers and the middle class, never will be any solidarity with the Working and middle classes and government employees.
We on the left need to figure out a message that is for the Working Class, By the Working Class and Of the Working Class, or we will continue to lose and be irrelevant noise.
A couple things that are important, especially for those of us on the left who may want , moving forward to take lessons from this loss...
1. You don't run the guy the People didn't like so much last time that they elected a Tea Party Whackadoodle , this time in the recall. Hey, the People said "No thanks" to this guy once already.Get a new face. Americans LOVE new, that's why the same old products always have a NEW AND IMPROVED label on them every six months.
2. Working class unionized and non unionized private sector workers don't see any public sector workers as their brothers and sisters. They see them as what they generally are: the enforcement arm of the Corporatist State. Private sector workers and voters see these public sector employees as the ENEMY. Until the left comes to terms with this, understands it, admits it to themselves, they won't be able to capture the working class like the Tea Party has. It's not that there is something wrong with Kansas, its that Kansas has experiences we on the left have refused to recognize.
"Steve, Steve , Steve", you say in a condescending, humoring mockingly gentle voice, "How can you say
T H A T ?" Well, in my many years as a Activist and Town Councilman no one ever came to my office or called my phone asking for solidarity with some Union.
Little old widow ladies called in panic because they had signed a petition against some development and two weeks later the County Zoning Department with Sheriffs carrying pistols and shot guns swept down on her property and demanded costly and extensive repairs and alterations be made. Those were Unionized Public Sector Employees devastating her meager retirement funds, attempting to drive her out of her home, and being used to retaliate against her free speech rights. That happened a few times and each incident took years of the little old ladies life and all of her energy to resolve.
A Little old woman whose family had lived in her house since it was built in 1919 owns three homes in a row on a small street next to a commercial district. A developer wanted her land. She spent six years with endless inspections, demands, shotguns pointed at her, her family members, her friends. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the Public Sector employees gave up, after they had gone through every single home on the block subjecting them to Zoning hell. Those folks were all working class, some unionized, some not, but none of them see Public Sector employees union or not, as friends.
A carpenter has a trailer on his commercial property at his shop. There is mixed zoning on his land and he rented the trailer to the local Parking Enforcement Officer. She filed a complaint against the department for discrimination. Zoning, Building and Safety, Edison Inspectors, and the Sheriff's Department, guns brandished forced their way warrent-less into the friends property. He had to remove the trailer,so the complaining unionized County employee became homeless at the hands of complying unionized County employees, Solidarity? There was no permit on the storage building that had been there for at least seventy years, that had to go. They made him install fire systems in his studio. Cal Osha showed up to inspect all of his vintage saws and equipment, and wanted thousands of dollars of safety equipment on them and tens of thousands of dollars in dust collection and spray booth equipment. All this in spite of the fact that my carpenter friend has no employees. You see he MAY have them someday. That went through rounds and rounds of administrative hearings. Cost my buddy a FORTUNE, all because he had committed the crime of renting to a County employee who thought she had rights.
A friend works at a Automotive repair shop. Its been in business here in town since 1916. It is the oldest continuing operating automotive repair shop in Los Angeles County. My friend buys the shop from his boss. I go with him to the County when he transfers the business licenses. We are told everything is in order. Six months later, my friend who has put his life savings into purchasing his shop, gets a letter from the County saying his licenses have been revoked. His business that has continuously operated in the same fashion since 1916 at the same location was rezoned at some point. He has to apply for a Conditional Use Permit and he has to stop operations until he does. This normally takes a year and a half, costs about $30,000 by the time all the permits, fees, drawings, and fixers are paid. In the meantime the mortgage on the shop must be paid. I make an appointment with my friend and the County Zoning guy. Eight County thugs show up who proceed to mock and humiliate my friend for starting his own business and not getting a good paying safe secure County job. I would not have believed it had I not heard it. We ran out of the meeting before we each killed some County Bastard. We organized. we got the County to lay off, yet every eight months some new person would take over the County Zoning desk, start again, and we would have to start everyone calling to save this guys shop. Some brilliant County employee figured out the way to ruin my friend was to call in the State. My friend got inspections and fees and fines and work orders on a monthly basis until the oldest continuous business in town and my friends bottom line and life savings were completely destroyed. Do we imagine my mechanic friend sees government employees as people he has some kind of solidarity with? Uh NO.
These are not unusual stories. I can go on for pages upon pages of people just going about their lives in a way we would all consider "normal" who upset someone in government and were then persecuted by government employees.
Working class people see government employees as the enemy, because they behave that way, and with complete total contempt for members of the public. Until we on the left UNDERSTAND this, we will continue to lose to the Tea Party, to the Koch brothers, and the Oligarchs. We have to understand, government employees are not the same as private sector workers and small employers. There is and as long as they function as arms of enforcement for the international corporations and government who are attempting to destroy the workers and the middle class, never will be any solidarity with the Working and middle classes and government employees.
We on the left need to figure out a message that is for the Working Class, By the Working Class and Of the Working Class, or we will continue to lose and be irrelevant noise.
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