In 1982, when the UNC tarheels won the first NCAA championship of my lifetime, my stepdad and I went up to Franklin Street to watch the celebration.
In 1993, I was in graduate school and watched the game with my Chapel Hill homies in the bare, muddy, and bone-cold Minnesota April
And in 2005, woo hoo, I spent the game alone on the couch in Brooklyn, calling my Mom, Step-dad and brother during almost every commercial break to either share nail-biting panic or goofy cheers.
This one is especially Suh-weet, as we used to say back in the high school days because it's Coach Roy Williams' first win. Maybe it is just because I was raised to be a fan, but I think Dean Smith left the Tarheels with a sort of moral legacy in college basketball. Watching Sean May give that victory speech also reminded me of how much sweeter and more honest college basketball seems that the big money NBA...but when I was living in Chapel Hill, we all knew the basketball players were practically professionals already, that they got perks,etc. However, it is true that Michael Jordan and James Worthy, both of whom went for the NBA draft before graduating, both did finish their degrees in the summer.
How dedicated are Tarheels fans? How obsessive? One of our common practices is to "turn down the sound" on the tv in order to listen to local sportscaster Woody Durham . However, now that Digital Cable has come into use, the 3 second delay that WCHL had added for tv-watching fans, is not enough. My Stepdad told me, "Woody's described the whole play before you see it." They were talking about this all important need to listen to Woody Durham on UNC's student radio station, WXYC, and my Stepdad called up and found out that there is a device that costs $140.00 that will put a delay on the radio to match the TV.
Another measure of Tar Heel Fandom is its universality, its capacity to cross all social borders. Back when I was an alienated punk-rock highschool kid, I recall hanging out at Schoolkids records with some local rock guys and hipper-than-thou record store workers right after Marvin Levi(of "The Veldt") (oh yeah, and check this nice bit about them.) had gotten so excited by the game a few minutes before that he went running out of the store and did a back flip on a car parked on the street outside. I believe, sadly, that was one of those years when the Tarheels didn't win...despite that insane tournament game when Matt Dougherty scored a basket with something like 7 seconds left in the game. Oh Tarheel readers, help me out -- was that the '86 season? Was it the Arkansas Razorbacks that defeated the heels that year?
Well, thank goodness, that didn't happen this year - but it was a close one.
Tomorrow, I will write about real news again, but today, I'm enjoying a little vicarious victory.
Monday, April 04, 2005
Injury and Death, The Lot of the Poor
Thanks to Bob Herbert for his comments on the stadium.
Also in today's New York Times there is a report about the terrible experiences that one can encounter at Rikers. In case you're not familiar with the basics, Rikers is a JAIL, which means a place that people are held before they go to court. While some people are actually given sentences to be in jail, most of the people who are there are those who have not been convicted of any crime. If you look at this story, it's unclear whether David Pennington, 27, whose suicide was one of 23 deaths in NY jails, had been convicted of any crime.
The NYT also has an article commemorating the 1980 transit strike. The key issues, according to the Times were management's response to a call for a 10%-15% wage increase with an offer of 6% over two years. The result of the strike was an 8%-9% wage increase. What were the non-economic issues at stake, I wonder. OK, transit union experts...perhaps you have more details on strike gone by?
And speaking of commemorations, there was an memorial to the victims of the Triangle Fire last week. Gvven that the names of the victims were put on the walls of their former homes, mostly on the Lower East Side, it may have been a reminder to present-day yuppies of the history of their playground and living space.
When I think of the Triangle Fire, I'm reminded of the factory fire that occurred in North Carolina in 1991, which is commemorated in this four year old notice by the ufcw, and described more vividly in this 2003 article from the Christian Science Monitor.
For an update on the Bush administration's record of health and safety laws, go check out this afl-cio record, which notes the 50,000 occupational deaths of workers every year. If you are interested in the number of people killed this week, I recommend reading the weekly toll, which appears on the blog, "Confined Space."
Continuing in the same morbid vein, may I suggest reading George Orwell's essay, How the Poor Die.
Also in today's New York Times there is a report about the terrible experiences that one can encounter at Rikers. In case you're not familiar with the basics, Rikers is a JAIL, which means a place that people are held before they go to court. While some people are actually given sentences to be in jail, most of the people who are there are those who have not been convicted of any crime. If you look at this story, it's unclear whether David Pennington, 27, whose suicide was one of 23 deaths in NY jails, had been convicted of any crime.
The NYT also has an article commemorating the 1980 transit strike. The key issues, according to the Times were management's response to a call for a 10%-15% wage increase with an offer of 6% over two years. The result of the strike was an 8%-9% wage increase. What were the non-economic issues at stake, I wonder. OK, transit union experts...perhaps you have more details on strike gone by?
And speaking of commemorations, there was an memorial to the victims of the Triangle Fire last week. Gvven that the names of the victims were put on the walls of their former homes, mostly on the Lower East Side, it may have been a reminder to present-day yuppies of the history of their playground and living space.
When I think of the Triangle Fire, I'm reminded of the factory fire that occurred in North Carolina in 1991, which is commemorated in this four year old notice by the ufcw, and described more vividly in this 2003 article from the Christian Science Monitor.
For an update on the Bush administration's record of health and safety laws, go check out this afl-cio record, which notes the 50,000 occupational deaths of workers every year. If you are interested in the number of people killed this week, I recommend reading the weekly toll, which appears on the blog, "Confined Space."
Continuing in the same morbid vein, may I suggest reading George Orwell's essay, How the Poor Die.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Lizz Winstead's website, News from Iraq
I just went and read old issues of the Unfiltered blog today and found a link to Lizz Winstead's brand new website. Lizz has a comic bit here about her departure called "I'm all lost in the Super Wal-Mart." She promises she is on the way to doing a daily Podcast, and that sounds thrilling. Although her role was to play the funny girl on the radio, Lizz was and is generally incredibly well-informed. I liked that she said in an interview that it was problematic for Daily Show host John Stewart to be so friendly to arch-villain guests like Henry Kissinger. And indeed, it turns out that she is a fan of Barry Crimmins, who pointed out in his book that one should follow at least one rule: Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal.
And then it's down a not-so amusing or liberating avenue in the Pop Culture universe; I went to see "Sin City" last night (no link, because I'm sure it's easy enough to find it.) The movie reminded me of the book Male Fantasies, about the pulp fiction of Germany in the 1920s, where dead women figured significantly in the plot as the reasons for heroic quests of vengeance, but in which the heroes never actually have sex with anyone. The closest to an actual relatiionship in this movie was articulated in the line, "I'll love you always....and never," as studyly mand and woman embraced with guns in hand. Theleweit argues that these kinds of stories and characters reveal something about the sexual roots of Nazi psychology, which rejects all forms of male vulnerability and seeks instead a pornography of death. As in the proto-Nazi pulp fiction, the only "money shots" in this movie were various different colors of cartoon-blood (white, red, and yellow) spurting out of various wounds - at which members of the audience cheered enthusiastically. ick. And next week, perhaps they'll be killing some Iraqis...just like the heroine asked, "kill him for me...kill him good."
Speaking of Iraq, Juan Cole has a good set of answers to important questions about the meaning of the Sunnis decisions to cooperate with the Iraqi army and police forces, which certainly raised my eyebrow when I saw it reported in the NYT this AM.
And then it's down a not-so amusing or liberating avenue in the Pop Culture universe; I went to see "Sin City" last night (no link, because I'm sure it's easy enough to find it.) The movie reminded me of the book Male Fantasies, about the pulp fiction of Germany in the 1920s, where dead women figured significantly in the plot as the reasons for heroic quests of vengeance, but in which the heroes never actually have sex with anyone. The closest to an actual relatiionship in this movie was articulated in the line, "I'll love you always....and never," as studyly mand and woman embraced with guns in hand. Theleweit argues that these kinds of stories and characters reveal something about the sexual roots of Nazi psychology, which rejects all forms of male vulnerability and seeks instead a pornography of death. As in the proto-Nazi pulp fiction, the only "money shots" in this movie were various different colors of cartoon-blood (white, red, and yellow) spurting out of various wounds - at which members of the audience cheered enthusiastically. ick. And next week, perhaps they'll be killing some Iraqis...just like the heroine asked, "kill him for me...kill him good."
Speaking of Iraq, Juan Cole has a good set of answers to important questions about the meaning of the Sunnis decisions to cooperate with the Iraqi army and police forces, which certainly raised my eyebrow when I saw it reported in the NYT this AM.
Friday, April 01, 2005
This is what Plutocracy Looks Like
Oh well, the Jets won the bid for the stadium. And it's especially nice because NY1 reported that according to a "Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday, Fifty-three percent of city voters don’t want the stadium, and 38 percent approve of the project." Thanks Mayor. Check out the commentary from Neil DeMause, and this one from Mike Lupica.I do have one friend who is super excited. "I'm a Jets fan!" he said, "Of course I want the stadium,"
but that guy's related to an actual former Jets player. In case you're under any delusions about union support for this stadium, note this connected guy's role in bringing out the union support.
But enough about that. In old news, the kind I'm just catching up on, go check out this article about priorities in the AFL-CIO from In These Times on 3/25. There's a really interesting set of comments following the article which gets into a discussion of reasons for the 1970s economic turn. For even more discussion of what's going on, you might want to check out this blog: working life and of course, labor notes.
If you want to know more about that global downturn though, I suggest reading things by Giovanni Arrighi, such as this online article or this book.
and finally -- about Iraq:
There were at least two good round-ups of information about what's going in Iraq right now. One appears in today's Common Dreams, an article by Carolyn Eisenberg (who I heard speak at the American Historical Association conference, where she really rocked the house, as much as historians do that) and in this London Review of Books piece by Rory Stewart and this radio commentary from Rahul Mahajan.
and that's it for today.
but that guy's related to an actual former Jets player. In case you're under any delusions about union support for this stadium, note this connected guy's role in bringing out the union support.
But enough about that. In old news, the kind I'm just catching up on, go check out this article about priorities in the AFL-CIO from In These Times on 3/25. There's a really interesting set of comments following the article which gets into a discussion of reasons for the 1970s economic turn. For even more discussion of what's going on, you might want to check out this blog: working life and of course, labor notes.
If you want to know more about that global downturn though, I suggest reading things by Giovanni Arrighi, such as this online article or this book.
and finally -- about Iraq:
There were at least two good round-ups of information about what's going in Iraq right now. One appears in today's Common Dreams, an article by Carolyn Eisenberg (who I heard speak at the American Historical Association conference, where she really rocked the house, as much as historians do that) and in this London Review of Books piece by Rory Stewart and this radio commentary from Rahul Mahajan.
and that's it for today.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Corporate Give Away news....
I hope that this time the NY Post is as wrong about the stadium deal as they were about Election 2000. Meanwhile, while the Jets may get a sweet deal, the service in the subway will continue its steady decline, but perhaps the legislature's approval of the capital plan will help. As the same story will tell you, our fearless Governor is still planning on going after the already too-small education budget with a big pair of scissors. In national corporate give-away news, today is the AFL-CIO's official national day of action to stop the privatization of Social Security. And then there's this cheery news from last week: The Indian parliament has formally caved in to the WTO's TRIPS agreement.
My favorite source on all things WTO related is Walden Bello, whose znet page is a bit out of date, but check here: to read his biography. Perhaps he is behind on his internet life because of the publication of his name on a Communist Party hit-list in the Philippines. In case you are tempted to imagine that there is some reality to the CPP's attacks on Bello, please note that this comes as part of their attack on the Porto Allegre World Social forum as an “imperialist plot to derail people from world revolution." Search as I might, I have been unable to locate any published commentary from E.San Juan on this conflict. Has he written anything about it? My time on the internet today must draw to a close.
My favorite source on all things WTO related is Walden Bello, whose znet page is a bit out of date, but check here: to read his biography. Perhaps he is behind on his internet life because of the publication of his name on a Communist Party hit-list in the Philippines. In case you are tempted to imagine that there is some reality to the CPP's attacks on Bello, please note that this comes as part of their attack on the Porto Allegre World Social forum as an “imperialist plot to derail people from world revolution." Search as I might, I have been unable to locate any published commentary from E.San Juan on this conflict. Has he written anything about it? My time on the internet today must draw to a close.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Iraqi Trade Unionists, American College Politics, MTA and Sharpton
you've seen it and heard it, but just in case, here's the latest news on the west-side yards from Field of Schemes. In my half-awake state on Sunday morning, I also heard Al Sharpton talking about why he had decided to back the stadium proposal, and here's another similar story about the Jets proposal to hire black workers. I don't know what Sharpton's strategy or reasoning is...because in the long run, those jobs aren't going to be permanent and the stadium is a rip off, as Freddy Ferrer pointed out in a recent speech. Apparently, there's a possibility that the MTA will reject both bids. Cross your fingers - two days till the decision, unless!
I have been wanting to know, but haven't seen very much coverage of Iraqi trade union activity, but here is a succinct summary of union mobilization in Iraq.
In the somewhat far-off future, I'm glad to see that there will be a tour of Iraqi trade unionists from May 6th-22nd, organized by US labor Against the War.
Locally, there is much to complain about. At Columbia, the University President continues to equivocate about academic freedom and pander to the right wing. Here's a nice editorial commentary by Baruch Kimmerling of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
At CUNY, four people at CCNY are still threatened with prosectuion for their participation in a protest against military recruiters...and don't forget, they're holding a rally on Thursday at noon at the NAC center -- if you happen to be around there during the day.
And speaking of the limits of speech....back in the day, well, Barbara Goldsmith's story of the life and times of Victoria Woodhull is pretty fascinating stuff. Woodhull really did scandalize everyone with her arguments against marriage, and when she got in trouble for being too challenging, seen as not quite the proper vehicle for Suffrage politics, she got even. Bizarrely, her proclivity for digging up scandal and pointing out hypocrisy reminded me of Larry Flynt, who, despite every claim he might try to make, is no feminist champion.
I have been wanting to know, but haven't seen very much coverage of Iraqi trade union activity, but here is a succinct summary of union mobilization in Iraq.
In the somewhat far-off future, I'm glad to see that there will be a tour of Iraqi trade unionists from May 6th-22nd, organized by US labor Against the War.
Locally, there is much to complain about. At Columbia, the University President continues to equivocate about academic freedom and pander to the right wing. Here's a nice editorial commentary by Baruch Kimmerling of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
At CUNY, four people at CCNY are still threatened with prosectuion for their participation in a protest against military recruiters...and don't forget, they're holding a rally on Thursday at noon at the NAC center -- if you happen to be around there during the day.
And speaking of the limits of speech....back in the day, well, Barbara Goldsmith's story of the life and times of Victoria Woodhull is pretty fascinating stuff. Woodhull really did scandalize everyone with her arguments against marriage, and when she got in trouble for being too challenging, seen as not quite the proper vehicle for Suffrage politics, she got even. Bizarrely, her proclivity for digging up scandal and pointing out hypocrisy reminded me of Larry Flynt, who, despite every claim he might try to make, is no feminist champion.
Room-mate Searching, File Sharing and More
Back from the bloggie-break. You guys have no idea how much time this can take up. Or, maybe you do. I started to think that I was falling behind in my work because I was staying up reading the news and choosing links.
A lot has happened in the world, and I got feedback that some of my readers enjoy the dating stories and personal life musing more than anything else I write here. Sorry folks, but there's nothing to report except a sad afternoon meeting with a certain librarian involving the exchange of various books and socks. The next day I met a nice couple at a party who enthusiastically told me the story of their previous break up a year ago. They exchanged their stuff and it was sad, they said, awful, hideous, but the very worst was disconnecting their joint phone account, for which they both had to go in person to the corporate office. The whole thing got so ridiculous that they got back together. They were a different type of couple entirely, obviously.
Other relatively trivial news involves my search for a room-mate, which has gone on much longer than I would like. Last night, I met a fellow who must not have read my room-mate ad very carefully. He was an odd character, an unemployed, fiftyish Southerner, a waiter of uncertain sexual preference, very nervous, never took his coat off while looking at the place, mentioned that one of his room-mate requirements was that the room-mate not have many overnight guests "loafing around" the place. That all seemed a bit of an awkward and repressed way to discuss his discomfort with my potential sex life, and then he let it out that he was actually a Republican. As a neo-con waiter, who seems much like a closeted Gay man, he won't have an easy time settling in NYC, but maybe his mental insulation is very strong.
Real "news": I woke up this morning listening to Marc Maron and Mark Reilly discussing file sharing with their listeners. Then there's the ongoing story about ipod subway thefts. Damn, I would hate it if someone ripped off my "creative zen" player because of its little white earphones just to get some of the music I stole on the internet. No, that's a joke, most of the tunes on there were legally acquired, I swear. I am sure that the reason for increased subway crime is not the desirable little pods, but rather the decrease in number of booth attendants, etc. I'm sure it's connected to all the Corporate welfare that sucks up all the money in this burg. On the same, hideous note, NY1's top story today was that suburb loving, city wrecking Governor is now officially planning on running for president. The whole thing makes me feel like crying or tearing my hair, the way people whose primary achievement in office was to destroy the places that they "represented" wind up getting rewarded for it by being "elected" president.
Speaking of music...for the first time in months perhaps, Amy Goodman is actually playing good music ("where's the love" - by the Blackeyed Peas, damn, I'd love to download that.) in between stories on her show "Democracy Now." Her taste is dictated entirely by the topicality of lyrics. And she mentioned, speaking of lyrics, the scandalous news of McDonalds' offer to rappers to advertise for them. I was noticing the number of brand-names in Jay-Z's raps the other day, and I felt much less guilty for downloading that stuff. If you read the story I just linked to, you'll find that this is not the first time. Apparently, Seagrams' gin has paid several rappers. What about Hennessy and Crystal? Have they paid to become the most name-checked brand liquors in rap lyrics?
I couldn't find out, but I did find this amusing little piece comparing rappers and bloggers.
and that's enough rambling for one day.
A lot has happened in the world, and I got feedback that some of my readers enjoy the dating stories and personal life musing more than anything else I write here. Sorry folks, but there's nothing to report except a sad afternoon meeting with a certain librarian involving the exchange of various books and socks. The next day I met a nice couple at a party who enthusiastically told me the story of their previous break up a year ago. They exchanged their stuff and it was sad, they said, awful, hideous, but the very worst was disconnecting their joint phone account, for which they both had to go in person to the corporate office. The whole thing got so ridiculous that they got back together. They were a different type of couple entirely, obviously.
Other relatively trivial news involves my search for a room-mate, which has gone on much longer than I would like. Last night, I met a fellow who must not have read my room-mate ad very carefully. He was an odd character, an unemployed, fiftyish Southerner, a waiter of uncertain sexual preference, very nervous, never took his coat off while looking at the place, mentioned that one of his room-mate requirements was that the room-mate not have many overnight guests "loafing around" the place. That all seemed a bit of an awkward and repressed way to discuss his discomfort with my potential sex life, and then he let it out that he was actually a Republican. As a neo-con waiter, who seems much like a closeted Gay man, he won't have an easy time settling in NYC, but maybe his mental insulation is very strong.
Real "news": I woke up this morning listening to Marc Maron and Mark Reilly discussing file sharing with their listeners. Then there's the ongoing story about ipod subway thefts. Damn, I would hate it if someone ripped off my "creative zen" player because of its little white earphones just to get some of the music I stole on the internet. No, that's a joke, most of the tunes on there were legally acquired, I swear. I am sure that the reason for increased subway crime is not the desirable little pods, but rather the decrease in number of booth attendants, etc. I'm sure it's connected to all the Corporate welfare that sucks up all the money in this burg. On the same, hideous note, NY1's top story today was that suburb loving, city wrecking Governor is now officially planning on running for president. The whole thing makes me feel like crying or tearing my hair, the way people whose primary achievement in office was to destroy the places that they "represented" wind up getting rewarded for it by being "elected" president.
Speaking of music...for the first time in months perhaps, Amy Goodman is actually playing good music ("where's the love" - by the Blackeyed Peas, damn, I'd love to download that.) in between stories on her show "Democracy Now." Her taste is dictated entirely by the topicality of lyrics. And she mentioned, speaking of lyrics, the scandalous news of McDonalds' offer to rappers to advertise for them. I was noticing the number of brand-names in Jay-Z's raps the other day, and I felt much less guilty for downloading that stuff. If you read the story I just linked to, you'll find that this is not the first time. Apparently, Seagrams' gin has paid several rappers. What about Hennessy and Crystal? Have they paid to become the most name-checked brand liquors in rap lyrics?
I couldn't find out, but I did find this amusing little piece comparing rappers and bloggers.
and that's enough rambling for one day.
Friday, March 25, 2005
The Results of "Starving the Beast"
Did you see this story about how the people in charge of testing kids in the public schools sent out tests rife with spelling errors and incorrect answers to math problems? Thank you soooo much for "raising standards." For all who haven't read it, I recommend reading the book Standardized Minds.
It's a double disservice. Thanks to the Daily News for covering the maddening transit delays. The Times had a similar story about worsening service. Unfortunately, the NYT seems to blame riders and workers instead of the stingy budget.
and finally, a friend mentioned this article about Pataki's influence on SUNY. The article at one point contrasts the reputation of CUNY in the State Legislature with SUNY, calling the City University a "darling" while SUNY is a "problem child." If that is so, then why are CUNY's faculty being offered a measley 2.5% raise -- out of which contributions to our collapsing welfare fund (which pays dental, eyecare, and prescription drug benefits) are supposed to be made?
It's a double disservice. Thanks to the Daily News for covering the maddening transit delays. The Times had a similar story about worsening service. Unfortunately, the NYT seems to blame riders and workers instead of the stingy budget.
and finally, a friend mentioned this article about Pataki's influence on SUNY. The article at one point contrasts the reputation of CUNY in the State Legislature with SUNY, calling the City University a "darling" while SUNY is a "problem child." If that is so, then why are CUNY's faculty being offered a measley 2.5% raise -- out of which contributions to our collapsing welfare fund (which pays dental, eyecare, and prescription drug benefits) are supposed to be made?
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Air America and its Listeners
Tonight I spent the time I should have spent reading about Victoria Woodhull, Teddy Roosevelt and others trying to figure out why Air America Radio decided to put Jerry Springer on the air where the show "Unfiltered" has been. I had stopped listening to the show during the election because I just couldn't take the obsessive focus on the Democratic party anymore, but I initially enjoyed it. I hadn't listened to the station at all until I went on a bus trip to DC for the pro-choice march last Spring with Lizz Winstead and Rachel Maddow and the female staff of the station (unfortunately no Janeann Garofalo). I was so impressed by both Lizz and Rachel. They were hilarious and smart, and actually, on the bus, sounded further to the left than they did on the radio. Lizz went on and on about how much she hated Clinton and the DLC, and Rachel Maddow knew a bunch of people who did prison work in California, it all gave me confidence in the station.
During my quest for info, I didn't find out much, but I did read the Unfiltered blog with its long threads of commentary of Maddow/Chuck D. and Winstead fans, AND I visited a right-wing blog dedicated to listening to Air America all day long and trying to find ways to attack it called Air America Listen. Look, I linked to it, but I don't recommend going there. The guy thinks that the democrats are socialists! He thinks taxes are a form of socialism. He opposes minimum wage laws because he says they would "put someone in jail" if they wanted to trade their labor for $5.00 per hour instead of $5.25. Here's a guy who has no understanding of the coercive force of the market, or even how the laws he opposes actually work. Maybe he would think Adam Smith was a socialist. I think he's a twenty-one year old guy with a bowtie, who keeps a copy of The Fountainhead under the bed next to his porno magazines.
I had a student who said things like this. She drove me crazy - not just because I disagreed with her politics, but because she was just objectively wrong: wrong about what socialism is, wrong about what the Democratic party's positions were, wrong about what the actual Republican policies were, wrong about how markets work, wrong, wrong, wrong. She was living in a universe of her making, as are so many of the far right people now. Because they believe in a vast, Soviet style conspiracy, liberal media, etc. that they think is weilding power over them, it is very hard to get them to see how distorted their perceptions of reality actually are without instantly being labled part of the conspiracy. This is the sort of thing that Hofstadter was talking about when he wrote that book, which I generally don't like because of its anti-communism, The Paranoid Style in American Politics This is what 20+ years of Reganomics, Rush Limbaugh and the rest have done...made total stupidity pass as wise, "refreshing" commentary.
During my quest for info, I didn't find out much, but I did read the Unfiltered blog with its long threads of commentary of Maddow/Chuck D. and Winstead fans, AND I visited a right-wing blog dedicated to listening to Air America all day long and trying to find ways to attack it called Air America Listen. Look, I linked to it, but I don't recommend going there. The guy thinks that the democrats are socialists! He thinks taxes are a form of socialism. He opposes minimum wage laws because he says they would "put someone in jail" if they wanted to trade their labor for $5.00 per hour instead of $5.25. Here's a guy who has no understanding of the coercive force of the market, or even how the laws he opposes actually work. Maybe he would think Adam Smith was a socialist. I think he's a twenty-one year old guy with a bowtie, who keeps a copy of The Fountainhead under the bed next to his porno magazines.
I had a student who said things like this. She drove me crazy - not just because I disagreed with her politics, but because she was just objectively wrong: wrong about what socialism is, wrong about what the Democratic party's positions were, wrong about what the actual Republican policies were, wrong about how markets work, wrong, wrong, wrong. She was living in a universe of her making, as are so many of the far right people now. Because they believe in a vast, Soviet style conspiracy, liberal media, etc. that they think is weilding power over them, it is very hard to get them to see how distorted their perceptions of reality actually are without instantly being labled part of the conspiracy. This is the sort of thing that Hofstadter was talking about when he wrote that book, which I generally don't like because of its anti-communism, The Paranoid Style in American Politics This is what 20+ years of Reganomics, Rush Limbaugh and the rest have done...made total stupidity pass as wise, "refreshing" commentary.
Schiavo, Iraq Vets Vs. War, Free Speech on College Campuses
Today, I really couldn't avoid this Terry Schiavo business, as everywhere I looked on the subway, people were reading AM New York, New York Metro and the Post, all of which had Schiavo headlines. As I noted the picture of the woman arrested for attempting to bring Schiavo a glass of water, it occurred to me that while DeLay and his cronies may have picked this issue as a convenient distraction from the any number of more important events, such as growing opposition to the 2 year old war, many people have glommed on to her as if she represents "the right for the unwanted to live."
One right-wing evangelical blogger, Dory Zinkand, whose blog Wittenberg Gate advertizes its function to "apply the scriptures to every sphere of life," was quoted in an abc news story on the Schiavo-blogging, "Terri's situation is important, not only because of her precious life, The truth is, many people are killed because someone decides their life would not be worth living." This speaks to some great sense of worthlessness among those who identify with Schiavo and make bizarre arguments about her supposed victimization by her husband. It's interesting to me that these concepts of life as valuable are always made in the case where life is an abstract quality that doesn't speak or act, a brain-dead woman, or a foetus. It is literally the concept of life that these people are defending, not the actual living people that we share our world with every day.
Juan Cole's March 22nd post on Schiavo and the "Islamization" of the Republican party is astute. I have to admit that I learned of his analysis not because I was diligently reading his site, but because I was listening to a two-day old podcast of "The Majorty Report" while I was watching people read about Terry Schiavo on the train today.
More importantly, there is real news to report. Yesterday, I heard several great speeches, including one by one of those CCNY students who were arrested for protesting military recruiters on their campus. The latest information is that three students were suspended and banned from the City College campus, accused of "posing a continual danger." A staff member was also arrested in connection with the events and is now the fourth of the group to face criminal charges. They are holding a town hall meeting in the NAC ballroom at City College on Thursday March 31st at 12:30pm, so if you're in the neighborhood, it should be worth going. You can reach them for more information at this email address: cityfreespeech@earthlink.net
Alex Ryabov, Victor Paredes and Carl Webb also gave great talks last night about military resistance. Ryabov, a 22 year-old Brooklyn college student, who returned from Iraq and helped found Iraq Veterans Against the War continues to impress with his clear presentation of his own story, politically astute without being strident or ideological. One of the things that all three agreed upon was that most people who go into combat don't go because of the mission that they are on, but because they are told they are going to protect their buddies in the military, to watch each others' backs. This kind of loyalty usually trumps people's political and personal opposition to the war, and explains why a lot of people will go even if they know the war is for oil, as Ryabov's commanding officer told his squad before they left for Iraq. They also talked about how much they disagreed with Op-Truth's analysis of the Fort Bragg protest as being "anti-troop." It was interesting to hear Webb and Ryabov, both members of the military, talk about what the best way to reach out to people in the military might be. All together, if you get a chance to hear them, I recommend going.
These people talk about the importance of valuing the lives not only of those guys that they served next to, but those of the people that they recognized as civilians left by the side of the road after they had been firing ammunition rounds.
One right-wing evangelical blogger, Dory Zinkand, whose blog Wittenberg Gate advertizes its function to "apply the scriptures to every sphere of life," was quoted in an abc news story on the Schiavo-blogging, "Terri's situation is important, not only because of her precious life, The truth is, many people are killed because someone decides their life would not be worth living." This speaks to some great sense of worthlessness among those who identify with Schiavo and make bizarre arguments about her supposed victimization by her husband. It's interesting to me that these concepts of life as valuable are always made in the case where life is an abstract quality that doesn't speak or act, a brain-dead woman, or a foetus. It is literally the concept of life that these people are defending, not the actual living people that we share our world with every day.
Juan Cole's March 22nd post on Schiavo and the "Islamization" of the Republican party is astute. I have to admit that I learned of his analysis not because I was diligently reading his site, but because I was listening to a two-day old podcast of "The Majorty Report" while I was watching people read about Terry Schiavo on the train today.
More importantly, there is real news to report. Yesterday, I heard several great speeches, including one by one of those CCNY students who were arrested for protesting military recruiters on their campus. The latest information is that three students were suspended and banned from the City College campus, accused of "posing a continual danger." A staff member was also arrested in connection with the events and is now the fourth of the group to face criminal charges. They are holding a town hall meeting in the NAC ballroom at City College on Thursday March 31st at 12:30pm, so if you're in the neighborhood, it should be worth going. You can reach them for more information at this email address: cityfreespeech@earthlink.net
Alex Ryabov, Victor Paredes and Carl Webb also gave great talks last night about military resistance. Ryabov, a 22 year-old Brooklyn college student, who returned from Iraq and helped found Iraq Veterans Against the War continues to impress with his clear presentation of his own story, politically astute without being strident or ideological. One of the things that all three agreed upon was that most people who go into combat don't go because of the mission that they are on, but because they are told they are going to protect their buddies in the military, to watch each others' backs. This kind of loyalty usually trumps people's political and personal opposition to the war, and explains why a lot of people will go even if they know the war is for oil, as Ryabov's commanding officer told his squad before they left for Iraq. They also talked about how much they disagreed with Op-Truth's analysis of the Fort Bragg protest as being "anti-troop." It was interesting to hear Webb and Ryabov, both members of the military, talk about what the best way to reach out to people in the military might be. All together, if you get a chance to hear them, I recommend going.
These people talk about the importance of valuing the lives not only of those guys that they served next to, but those of the people that they recognized as civilians left by the side of the road after they had been firing ammunition rounds.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
subways, stadiums, city council
I don't know how closely y'all read your local news, but there have been so many track fires and service disruptions recently that Flushing's John Liu, transportation chair of the City Council, is calling a meeting. Liu, who has often targetted the MTA for its lack of accountability in previous events, has also participated in at least one Straphangers/NYPIRG action in the city.
I found a great stadium news site today, which is a relief. It's Field of Schemes, a website maintained by Neil deMause and Joann Cagan, authors of the book of the same name. This site has got more information on stadium deals than you can possibly imagine, including a detailed discussion of today's city council meeting relating to the various offers on the MTA yards.
That horrendous shooting in Minnesota has already been linked to the neo-Nazi movement in an article in The Guardian. This shooting, unlike most of these types of shootings, which are discussed in the book Rampage originated on a poverty-stricken Indian reservation, which according to all the press I've seen, was also plagued by violence. The coverage has been different from the sort you see when you look at white suburban kids, as everyone noticed the differences in the desciptions of that type of school violence from violent incidents plaguing predominantly black schools. I think it's significant that the shooter's grandfather was a cop, though, and I am curious to know more about the circumstances of his life.
I found a great stadium news site today, which is a relief. It's Field of Schemes, a website maintained by Neil deMause and Joann Cagan, authors of the book of the same name. This site has got more information on stadium deals than you can possibly imagine, including a detailed discussion of today's city council meeting relating to the various offers on the MTA yards.
That horrendous shooting in Minnesota has already been linked to the neo-Nazi movement in an article in The Guardian. This shooting, unlike most of these types of shootings, which are discussed in the book Rampage originated on a poverty-stricken Indian reservation, which according to all the press I've seen, was also plagued by violence. The coverage has been different from the sort you see when you look at white suburban kids, as everyone noticed the differences in the desciptions of that type of school violence from violent incidents plaguing predominantly black schools. I think it's significant that the shooter's grandfather was a cop, though, and I am curious to know more about the circumstances of his life.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Too Many Martyrs, Too Many Victims
Today, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting sent out an action alert about the under-reporting of Iraqi civilian casualties by all the major newsmedia. Instead of using Lancet's figure of 100,000+ Iraqi casualties, the networks have reported between 11,000 and 16,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.
For my friends who follow the work of Michael Klare and others, it should be refreshing to see this piece that Truthout picked up from the San Francisco Chronicle, about the actual "age of [oil] scarcity" of which this war is one example.
One of my favorite readers asked for more dish on the WWP split, and after some very brief google searching, I found an article on Bella Ciao which is not only an unusually good news site, but also must be named after that great Italian Partisan song, whose lyrics are to follow, first in Italian then in English. However, that article, which had the most information I could find, was still not completely clear, and this relates to the WWP's decision not to explain their split publicly.
And since I'm feeling a bit hopeless about things, on this second anniversary week of the U.S.'s continuing planet-wrecking, youth grinding, global crisis inducing war, maybe it's good to close with this old partisan song, that sees hope in the moment of martyrdom. I'm sure it's very much how those in the world's many occupied "zones" must feel today.
Bella Ciao.........
Una mattina, mi sono alzato
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
Una mattina mi sono alzato
e ho trovato l'invasor
O partigiano portami via
o bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
O partigiano portami via
perche mi sento di morir
E se muoio da partigiano
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
e se muoio da partigiano
tu mi devi seppellir
E seppellire lassa in montagna
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
e seppellire lassa in montagna
sotto l'ombra di un bel fior
E le genti che passeranno
o bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
e le genti che passeranno
ti diranno che bel fior
È questo il fiore del partigiano
o bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
è questo il fiore del partigiano
morto per la liberta
English translation
This morning I awakened
Oh Goodbye beautiful, beautiful, goodbye Goodbye Goodbye
This morning I awakened
And I found the invader
Oh partisan carry me away
Oh Goodbye beautiful, etc
Oh partisan carry me away
Because I feel death approaching
And if I die as a partisan
Oh Goodbye beautiful, etc.
And if I die as a partisan
Then you must bury me
Bury me up in the mountain
Oh Goodbye beautiful etc.
Bury me up in the mountain
Under the shade of a beautiful flower
And those who shall pass
Oh Goodbye beautiful (etc)
And those who shall pass
Will tell you what a beautiful flower it is
This is the flower of the partisan
Oh Goodbye beautiful (etc)
This is the flower of the partisan
Who died for freedom
For my friends who follow the work of Michael Klare and others, it should be refreshing to see this piece that Truthout picked up from the San Francisco Chronicle, about the actual "age of [oil] scarcity" of which this war is one example.
One of my favorite readers asked for more dish on the WWP split, and after some very brief google searching, I found an article on Bella Ciao which is not only an unusually good news site, but also must be named after that great Italian Partisan song, whose lyrics are to follow, first in Italian then in English. However, that article, which had the most information I could find, was still not completely clear, and this relates to the WWP's decision not to explain their split publicly.
And since I'm feeling a bit hopeless about things, on this second anniversary week of the U.S.'s continuing planet-wrecking, youth grinding, global crisis inducing war, maybe it's good to close with this old partisan song, that sees hope in the moment of martyrdom. I'm sure it's very much how those in the world's many occupied "zones" must feel today.
Bella Ciao.........
Una mattina, mi sono alzato
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
Una mattina mi sono alzato
e ho trovato l'invasor
O partigiano portami via
o bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
O partigiano portami via
perche mi sento di morir
E se muoio da partigiano
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
e se muoio da partigiano
tu mi devi seppellir
E seppellire lassa in montagna
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
e seppellire lassa in montagna
sotto l'ombra di un bel fior
E le genti che passeranno
o bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
e le genti che passeranno
ti diranno che bel fior
È questo il fiore del partigiano
o bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
è questo il fiore del partigiano
morto per la liberta
English translation
This morning I awakened
Oh Goodbye beautiful, beautiful, goodbye Goodbye Goodbye
This morning I awakened
And I found the invader
Oh partisan carry me away
Oh Goodbye beautiful, etc
Oh partisan carry me away
Because I feel death approaching
And if I die as a partisan
Oh Goodbye beautiful, etc.
And if I die as a partisan
Then you must bury me
Bury me up in the mountain
Oh Goodbye beautiful etc.
Bury me up in the mountain
Under the shade of a beautiful flower
And those who shall pass
Oh Goodbye beautiful (etc)
And those who shall pass
Will tell you what a beautiful flower it is
This is the flower of the partisan
Oh Goodbye beautiful (etc)
This is the flower of the partisan
Who died for freedom
Friday, March 18, 2005
Anti-War Movement and the various Tendencies
Common Dreams had an interesting discussion of the marches today in the U.S.
I went looking for more info, because when I saw the address on the first "Troops Out Now" flier I assumed, that because its hq was that office on 14th street, that they were a new group aiming to sanitize the name of the IAC. That wouldn't stop me from going on the march - Hell, if you're in the city, you should go, unless you go on another march in the city. Even the IAC (or just a group that includes them) is still better than war in Iraq. If you thought it was OK to vote for Kerry, you should feel like it's OK to go on a march sponsored by some people whose politics you don't totally support.
But to be more specific...According to "sabate's" post on the Indymedia newswire,
TTruth be told, there was an internal split in WWP around the elections, and the strategic orientation of the antiwar movement, among other issues. A faction led largely by Brian Becker in Washington, DC Richard Becker, Gloria La Rivera on the West Coast - all active in the ANSWER national leadership, left the WWP to form the Party for Socialism and Liberation (http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php) - which continues to work within the ANSWER coalition framework. Remaining Workers World Party loyalists continue to orient around the IAC, based in NYC. It was this split, along with the IAC's desire to actively engage groups like NY Labor Against the War that propelled the emergence of a new Troops Out Now Coalition in NYC.
The Troops Out Now group has sent an open letter out condemning UFPJ for being racist, etc.
UFPJ responded:
People in the NYC UFPJ coordinating committee had three different reasons for reaching this conclusion (not to co-sponsor the march):
(1) Major concerns that in some of the early materials for this protest there was language about supporting the Iraqi resistance, which is not a position that the NYC coalition (or the national UFPJ, for that matter) has taken, and is a position strongly opposed by some groups in our coalition.
(2) Concerns about the involvement of the International Action Center in the action. In an attempt to strengthen the antiwar movement United for Peace and Justice has spent much of the past three years attempting to work with the International Action Center (IAC) and ANSWER, two (at times) overlapping groups. Our experience with these groups has been extremely negative, even though we recognize that they have made contributions to the antiwar movement.
While professing to desire unity, ANSWER and the IAC have repeatedly misrepresented the positions of, attacked, and attempted to isolate and split UFPJ and other antiwar groups, even when we were supposedly in alliances.
In addition, many people in UFPJ have disagreements with the style and approach that the IAC and ANSWER take, an approach that sometimes makes it harder to reach the broadest constituencies possible and therefore limits the potential power of the antiwar movement.
(3) Capacity issues. In January the local UFPJ – NYC coalition committed to build several actions the weekend of March 18-20 (a send off rally for buses to Fayetteville, NC; nonviolent civil disobedience at military recruitment centers; a US Labor Against the War action (since cancelled); and an interfaith gathering in Riverside Church). In December UFPJ’s National Steering Committee decided to allocate staff time to building March 18-20 activities nationally and to support the major regional demonstration being organized in Fayetteville, NC by UFPJ member groups. They gave clear instructions to staff that they could only put a limited amount of time and resources into building any activity in New York. On top of that, through late February staff time was focused on organizing our national assembly in St. Louis. Given all this, many people felt the UFPJ – NYC coalition didn't have the capacity to spend many hours in negotiations over language and other issues with members of the Troops Out Now Coalition.
So readers, I don't know what your position on all this is, but I'm going to a War Resister's March in Brooklyn, and I'd like to see a group that would take an anti-imperialist stance, focus extensively on issues of racism, not get caught up in the electoral distractions, and NOT be a bunch of Maoist/Stalinist wingnuts.
I went looking for more info, because when I saw the address on the first "Troops Out Now" flier I assumed, that because its hq was that office on 14th street, that they were a new group aiming to sanitize the name of the IAC. That wouldn't stop me from going on the march - Hell, if you're in the city, you should go, unless you go on another march in the city. Even the IAC (or just a group that includes them) is still better than war in Iraq. If you thought it was OK to vote for Kerry, you should feel like it's OK to go on a march sponsored by some people whose politics you don't totally support.
But to be more specific...According to "sabate's" post on the Indymedia newswire,
TTruth be told, there was an internal split in WWP around the elections, and the strategic orientation of the antiwar movement, among other issues. A faction led largely by Brian Becker in Washington, DC Richard Becker, Gloria La Rivera on the West Coast - all active in the ANSWER national leadership, left the WWP to form the Party for Socialism and Liberation (http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php) - which continues to work within the ANSWER coalition framework. Remaining Workers World Party loyalists continue to orient around the IAC, based in NYC. It was this split, along with the IAC's desire to actively engage groups like NY Labor Against the War that propelled the emergence of a new Troops Out Now Coalition in NYC.
The Troops Out Now group has sent an open letter out condemning UFPJ for being racist, etc.
UFPJ responded:
People in the NYC UFPJ coordinating committee had three different reasons for reaching this conclusion (not to co-sponsor the march):
(1) Major concerns that in some of the early materials for this protest there was language about supporting the Iraqi resistance, which is not a position that the NYC coalition (or the national UFPJ, for that matter) has taken, and is a position strongly opposed by some groups in our coalition.
(2) Concerns about the involvement of the International Action Center in the action. In an attempt to strengthen the antiwar movement United for Peace and Justice has spent much of the past three years attempting to work with the International Action Center (IAC) and ANSWER, two (at times) overlapping groups. Our experience with these groups has been extremely negative, even though we recognize that they have made contributions to the antiwar movement.
While professing to desire unity, ANSWER and the IAC have repeatedly misrepresented the positions of, attacked, and attempted to isolate and split UFPJ and other antiwar groups, even when we were supposedly in alliances.
In addition, many people in UFPJ have disagreements with the style and approach that the IAC and ANSWER take, an approach that sometimes makes it harder to reach the broadest constituencies possible and therefore limits the potential power of the antiwar movement.
(3) Capacity issues. In January the local UFPJ – NYC coalition committed to build several actions the weekend of March 18-20 (a send off rally for buses to Fayetteville, NC; nonviolent civil disobedience at military recruitment centers; a US Labor Against the War action (since cancelled); and an interfaith gathering in Riverside Church). In December UFPJ’s National Steering Committee decided to allocate staff time to building March 18-20 activities nationally and to support the major regional demonstration being organized in Fayetteville, NC by UFPJ member groups. They gave clear instructions to staff that they could only put a limited amount of time and resources into building any activity in New York. On top of that, through late February staff time was focused on organizing our national assembly in St. Louis. Given all this, many people felt the UFPJ – NYC coalition didn't have the capacity to spend many hours in negotiations over language and other issues with members of the Troops Out Now Coalition.
So readers, I don't know what your position on all this is, but I'm going to a War Resister's March in Brooklyn, and I'd like to see a group that would take an anti-imperialist stance, focus extensively on issues of racism, not get caught up in the electoral distractions, and NOT be a bunch of Maoist/Stalinist wingnuts.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Information Overload, Vai Passar
I got so much interesting information in my various information slots today that I could barely keep up. When I got up this morning, there was a new "Tomgram" in my email; it was Dilip Hiro, one of my faves, reviewing about a week's worth of stories on the current situation in the Middle-East. It's great. Go there and read it.
Then, when I was on my way to teach my class this afternoon, I opened up my campus mail and there was this cool green envelope full of actual newspaper clippings about the MTA! From AM New York (a paper I usually ignore when it is thrust upon me as I enter and leave the subway): Chuck Bennet writes that the increase in bridge/tunnel tolls,70% of which are actually paid by city residents, are being funneled out to the suburban rail systems, so that "a half-million suburban rail riders get about 1/2 of the subsidy while 7 million subway and bus riders get the other half."
The Brooklyn College student newspaper had a nice editorial on Monday criticizing the MTA that noted the "curious quiet" of the straphangers campaign.
Thanks, Alex!
And then there was more. I came home from my office with Robert Fiske's book on Lebanon, Pity the Nation in my bag. It's a beautifully written and completely informative story of the roots of the conflict now ongoing and is worth reading.
Juan Cole's blog was full of the usual excellent info, including the exciting news that the number of Americans opposed to the war is growing, and the more disturbing news of corruption in Iraq.
If you are sweating now about what you can do to oppose this brutal and dreadful war, don't forget that this Saturday is the second anniversary of the American invasiono of Iraq, and it will be a day filled with protest around the world. One of the many things you can do if you are in NY can be found at the war resister's league.
PS.....
As I've been writing today's entry, I've been listening to sambas, such as "Hino Da Bahia" by Maria Bethania and Gal Costa and "Vai Passar" by the immortal Chico Buarque. In a way, these happy songs connect the bad news and urgency to a breathing humanity, so that you can both appreciate the real pain and loss involved in the death and destruction, and feel hope at the same time. Someone else figured this about Carnaval music, and in the honor of the 2003 "Free Carnaval Area of the Americas" group," who wanted "Vai Passar" sung at the FTAA protests, I've reprinted the lyrics to Chico Buarque's song here (in both the original Portuguese and in an English translation (provided by the "FCAA" group w/minor edits by me.)
Vai passar
Francis Hime - Chico Buarque
1984
Vai passar
Nessa avenida um samba popular
Cada paralelepÃpedo
Da velha cidade
Essa noite vai
Se arrepiar
Ao lembrar
Que aqui passaram sambas imortais
Que aqui sangraram pelos nossos pés
Que aqui sambaram nossos ancestrais
Num tempo
Página infeliz da nossa história
Passagem desbotada na memória
Das nossas novas gerações
Dormia
A nossa pátria mãe tão distraÃda
Sem perceber que era subtraÃda
Em tenebrosas transações
Seus filhos
Erravam cegos pelo continente
Levavam pedras feito penitentes
Erguendo estranhas catedrais
E um dia, afinal
Tinham direito a um alegria fugaz
Uma ofegante epidemia
Que se chamava carnaval
O carnaval, o carnaval
(Vai passar)
Palmas pra ala dos barões famintos
O bloco dos napoleões retintos
E os pigmeus do bulevar
Meu Deus, vem olhar
Vem ver de perto uma cidade a cantar
A evolução da liberdade
Até o dia clarear
Ai, que vida boa, olerê
Ai, que vida boa, olará
O estandarte do sanatório geral vai passar
Ai, que vida boa, olerê
Ai, que vida boa, olará
O estandarte do sanatório geral
Vai passar
there will pass
in this avanue a samba popular
every stepping stone
of this ancient city
tonight
will shudder
to remember
that by here passed by immortal sambas
that here here we bled by our feet
that here samba-ed our ancestors
once
un unhappy page in our history
a passage erased in the memory
of our new generations slept
our mother land so distracted
without percieving that she was in the underground
of shadowy transactions
her children
wandered blind across the continent
lifted penitent stones
raising strange cathedrals
and one final day
they had a right to an fleeting happiness
a breathless epidemic
that we call
carnival, o carnival
this will pass...
palmos for the famished barons
the block of painted napoleons
and the pygmies of the boulevard
god, come see
come see close up a city singing
the evolution of liberty
until the day clears up
o what a beautiful life, hey
o what a beautiful life, hey
the banner of the madhouse will pass by
o what a beautiful life, hey
o what a beautiful life, hey
the banner of the madhouse
will pass by
Then, when I was on my way to teach my class this afternoon, I opened up my campus mail and there was this cool green envelope full of actual newspaper clippings about the MTA! From AM New York (a paper I usually ignore when it is thrust upon me as I enter and leave the subway): Chuck Bennet writes that the increase in bridge/tunnel tolls,70% of which are actually paid by city residents, are being funneled out to the suburban rail systems, so that "a half-million suburban rail riders get about 1/2 of the subsidy while 7 million subway and bus riders get the other half."
The Brooklyn College student newspaper had a nice editorial on Monday criticizing the MTA that noted the "curious quiet" of the straphangers campaign.
Thanks, Alex!
And then there was more. I came home from my office with Robert Fiske's book on Lebanon, Pity the Nation in my bag. It's a beautifully written and completely informative story of the roots of the conflict now ongoing and is worth reading.
Juan Cole's blog was full of the usual excellent info, including the exciting news that the number of Americans opposed to the war is growing, and the more disturbing news of corruption in Iraq.
If you are sweating now about what you can do to oppose this brutal and dreadful war, don't forget that this Saturday is the second anniversary of the American invasiono of Iraq, and it will be a day filled with protest around the world. One of the many things you can do if you are in NY can be found at the war resister's league.
PS.....
As I've been writing today's entry, I've been listening to sambas, such as "Hino Da Bahia" by Maria Bethania and Gal Costa and "Vai Passar" by the immortal Chico Buarque. In a way, these happy songs connect the bad news and urgency to a breathing humanity, so that you can both appreciate the real pain and loss involved in the death and destruction, and feel hope at the same time. Someone else figured this about Carnaval music, and in the honor of the 2003 "Free Carnaval Area of the Americas" group," who wanted "Vai Passar" sung at the FTAA protests, I've reprinted the lyrics to Chico Buarque's song here (in both the original Portuguese and in an English translation (provided by the "FCAA" group w/minor edits by me.)
Vai passar
Francis Hime - Chico Buarque
1984
Vai passar
Nessa avenida um samba popular
Cada paralelepÃpedo
Da velha cidade
Essa noite vai
Se arrepiar
Ao lembrar
Que aqui passaram sambas imortais
Que aqui sangraram pelos nossos pés
Que aqui sambaram nossos ancestrais
Num tempo
Página infeliz da nossa história
Passagem desbotada na memória
Das nossas novas gerações
Dormia
A nossa pátria mãe tão distraÃda
Sem perceber que era subtraÃda
Em tenebrosas transações
Seus filhos
Erravam cegos pelo continente
Levavam pedras feito penitentes
Erguendo estranhas catedrais
E um dia, afinal
Tinham direito a um alegria fugaz
Uma ofegante epidemia
Que se chamava carnaval
O carnaval, o carnaval
(Vai passar)
Palmas pra ala dos barões famintos
O bloco dos napoleões retintos
E os pigmeus do bulevar
Meu Deus, vem olhar
Vem ver de perto uma cidade a cantar
A evolução da liberdade
Até o dia clarear
Ai, que vida boa, olerê
Ai, que vida boa, olará
O estandarte do sanatório geral vai passar
Ai, que vida boa, olerê
Ai, que vida boa, olará
O estandarte do sanatório geral
Vai passar
there will pass
in this avanue a samba popular
every stepping stone
of this ancient city
tonight
will shudder
to remember
that by here passed by immortal sambas
that here here we bled by our feet
that here samba-ed our ancestors
once
un unhappy page in our history
a passage erased in the memory
of our new generations slept
our mother land so distracted
without percieving that she was in the underground
of shadowy transactions
her children
wandered blind across the continent
lifted penitent stones
raising strange cathedrals
and one final day
they had a right to an fleeting happiness
a breathless epidemic
that we call
carnival, o carnival
this will pass...
palmos for the famished barons
the block of painted napoleons
and the pygmies of the boulevard
god, come see
come see close up a city singing
the evolution of liberty
until the day clears up
o what a beautiful life, hey
o what a beautiful life, hey
the banner of the madhouse will pass by
o what a beautiful life, hey
o what a beautiful life, hey
the banner of the madhouse
will pass by
Update on CCNY arrests from Znet, Paredes links
What do my gentle readers think of Ferrer's comment to the City Cops' union that the Diallo shooting wasn't a "Crime" and was "over-convicted?"
It seems pretty weak to me. It seems as if Ferrer had counted on any news organizations publishing the content of this speech to the cops, and now I can't imagine it will help his campaign.
..In another NYPD story, Znet just published an article about the arrests at City college, which says that at least one of the students has been suspended from school. This is really an outrage. Unfortunately, with Znet, it's hard to get page links, but you can find this one by looking for the article on recruiting protests. Students are urging people to call a whole set of people. You can find out about action plans on the campus anti-war network website.
And speaking of Znet, I hadn't read Norm Solomon lately, but I almost always appreciate his comments. He has a short piece from 3/11 about Moveon's refusal to take a strong stand against the war. I have been quickly deleting their mailings for a while now.
Finally... The recent Democracy Now story on AWOL soldiers, which began with a Harper's cover story was really excellent and provided a new take on how best to support the troops. People representing AWOL soldiers (including Pablo Paredes) will be speaking next week at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, March 23rd at 7pm - It's definetely worth going if you can. You can find more info about Pablo, along with comments from Howard Zinn, Chalmers Johnson and Ron Kovic at swiftsmartveterans.com There is also a bizarre comment from Oliver Stone there that sounds like someone trying to be clever and ironic, but doesn't make any sense.
It seems pretty weak to me. It seems as if Ferrer had counted on any news organizations publishing the content of this speech to the cops, and now I can't imagine it will help his campaign.
..In another NYPD story, Znet just published an article about the arrests at City college, which says that at least one of the students has been suspended from school. This is really an outrage. Unfortunately, with Znet, it's hard to get page links, but you can find this one by looking for the article on recruiting protests. Students are urging people to call a whole set of people. You can find out about action plans on the campus anti-war network website.
And speaking of Znet, I hadn't read Norm Solomon lately, but I almost always appreciate his comments. He has a short piece from 3/11 about Moveon's refusal to take a strong stand against the war. I have been quickly deleting their mailings for a while now.
Finally... The recent Democracy Now story on AWOL soldiers, which began with a Harper's cover story was really excellent and provided a new take on how best to support the troops. People representing AWOL soldiers (including Pablo Paredes) will be speaking next week at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, March 23rd at 7pm - It's definetely worth going if you can. You can find more info about Pablo, along with comments from Howard Zinn, Chalmers Johnson and Ron Kovic at swiftsmartveterans.com There is also a bizarre comment from Oliver Stone there that sounds like someone trying to be clever and ironic, but doesn't make any sense.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Dollars, Stadiums and Staff-Run Unions: It's a background day
Interesting Take on U.S. Foreign Policy
I was crusing along with my mp3 player yesterday, listening to the podcast of last Sunday night's Laura Flanders' show and heard this guy Jim Willie talking about the U.S. dollar, the Euro and the invasion of Iraq. He is one of those who argues that one of the major reasons for the invasion was Sadaam Huseein's shift to the Euro. Apparently, Iran has also made this move, and this, he says explains the U.S's increasingly threatening posture there. He was on the show talking about a number of things, including the notion that the real topic of Bush and Putin's meetings was the currency used in oil exchange. His "Hat Trick Letter" is part investment advice, part anti-Greenspan diatribe, part dire prediction of complete, Germany-in-the-1920s-styel collapse.
MTA/stadium update: Yesterday's NYT reported that the NFL have picked the non-existent (and as The Gothamist says) possibly doomed West-Side stadium as a site for the 2010 Superbowl.
and back-ground, as PPRM (That's a "pissed-off Puerto Rican Medievalist" in case you were wondering) pointed out in a comment on the last post, Stadiums are a bad sell. Andrew Zimablist's and Roger Noll's 1997 study found
that stadiums did not put money into local urban economies as promised. A more recent study by economists Victor Matheson and Robert Baade says that the Superbowl usually delivers about 1/4 of what the promoters promise.
But will that stop the corporate welfare?
Finally: What ya gonna do with a "staff-run" union ?
There's an interesting debate from last April's Labor Notes on the problem of union professional staff that covers a lot of the reasons for the problems of staff-run unions. I've had my own experiences with this phenomenon, and noted in a talk I gave back in 1998 at the American Studies Association, that the power of "professionally trained" union staffers to over-rule the rank and file members may actually be magnified where you'd least expect it, in academic unions, where new union activists from the middle-class see themselves as "bourgeois" while their staff (often from the same class as themselves) are defined as "working-class" simply because of their status as union activists. At the same time, academics and other white-collar union members tend to respect the authority of professionals and bureaucrats in a way that blue-collar unionists might not. More on this later.
I was crusing along with my mp3 player yesterday, listening to the podcast of last Sunday night's Laura Flanders' show and heard this guy Jim Willie talking about the U.S. dollar, the Euro and the invasion of Iraq. He is one of those who argues that one of the major reasons for the invasion was Sadaam Huseein's shift to the Euro. Apparently, Iran has also made this move, and this, he says explains the U.S's increasingly threatening posture there. He was on the show talking about a number of things, including the notion that the real topic of Bush and Putin's meetings was the currency used in oil exchange. His "Hat Trick Letter" is part investment advice, part anti-Greenspan diatribe, part dire prediction of complete, Germany-in-the-1920s-styel collapse.
MTA/stadium update: Yesterday's NYT reported that the NFL have picked the non-existent (and as The Gothamist says) possibly doomed West-Side stadium as a site for the 2010 Superbowl.
and back-ground, as PPRM (That's a "pissed-off Puerto Rican Medievalist" in case you were wondering) pointed out in a comment on the last post, Stadiums are a bad sell. Andrew Zimablist's and Roger Noll's 1997 study found
that stadiums did not put money into local urban economies as promised. A more recent study by economists Victor Matheson and Robert Baade says that the Superbowl usually delivers about 1/4 of what the promoters promise.
But will that stop the corporate welfare?
Finally: What ya gonna do with a "staff-run" union ?
There's an interesting debate from last April's Labor Notes on the problem of union professional staff that covers a lot of the reasons for the problems of staff-run unions. I've had my own experiences with this phenomenon, and noted in a talk I gave back in 1998 at the American Studies Association, that the power of "professionally trained" union staffers to over-rule the rank and file members may actually be magnified where you'd least expect it, in academic unions, where new union activists from the middle-class see themselves as "bourgeois" while their staff (often from the same class as themselves) are defined as "working-class" simply because of their status as union activists. At the same time, academics and other white-collar union members tend to respect the authority of professionals and bureaucrats in a way that blue-collar unionists might not. More on this later.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Outfoxed on "Boston Legal" : Again with the "Liberal Media" Canard. Oy!
I just got done watching the "Boston Legal" episode which featured clips from Robert Greenwald's documentary, Outfoxed. The episode, which focused on a school principle who had put a "Fox blocker" on the TVs in his school being sued by a student for censorship, was edited by the network execs, who forced the writers to take out all mentions of the network's name. How ironic.... The "fox blocker" became a "news blocker," for example. The best line in the episode was Spader's. He turned to his colleague and said that the First Ammendment is edangered, noting that some major networks even edit fictional TV shows for content these days. (oh ho!, so daring, David Kelley.) It has gotten a bit of media coverage, particularly because Greenwald's effort to buy an ad for his doc. during the show was rejected. If you've never watched Fox, you might want to check out this website, or this one.
The episode was pretty weak and not just because no one asked why there were televisions in the school at all. What bothered me most was that during the courtroom scene, judges, lawyers, defendants and everyone kept repeating this idea that Fox represents just one of many widely varying views presented on major television. Some networks have a liberal slant, and some are conservative," actors kept saying, while others nodded. I think that it was the Judge who said to the defendant that one network even "lied about the President's military record." Despite the fact that pretty much every TV show, except Democracy Now! (of deepdish, public access, and internet tv fame) just keeps boosting the prez, announcing the cause-of-the-week for the occupation of Iraq, etc. etc. etc.,no one challenged the notion of a widely varying set of representations on television news.
The script was virtually a mirror of all that is wrong with the effort to present a "balanced" and "unbiased" view when one of the sides of the "debate" is simply bullshit, and the OTHER side just isn't even discussed. Therefore...while some say that the sky is green, there are others who say it is a lighter shade of green. Who can say, Marty, who's right? The only people who could possibly think that the U.S. media has "liberal" bias must either be such Fascist innovators or such Medieval reactionaries that they reject even the Enlightenment liberalism that gave us the First Ammendment and dis-establishment of religion as too liberal.
It's funny to think about this attack on classical liberalism, because I just got done with a lecture in which I insisted (perhaps too strongly) on the continuing influence of Enlightenment values on our current lives (no, that doesn't mean that people actually live up to the values, simply that their ideas of what's good and bad are based on the oppositiona of reason vs. unreason, individuals vs. herds, etc. regardless of how they behave). I may not be able to give that lecture for much longer.
The episode was pretty weak and not just because no one asked why there were televisions in the school at all. What bothered me most was that during the courtroom scene, judges, lawyers, defendants and everyone kept repeating this idea that Fox represents just one of many widely varying views presented on major television. Some networks have a liberal slant, and some are conservative," actors kept saying, while others nodded. I think that it was the Judge who said to the defendant that one network even "lied about the President's military record." Despite the fact that pretty much every TV show, except Democracy Now! (of deepdish, public access, and internet tv fame) just keeps boosting the prez, announcing the cause-of-the-week for the occupation of Iraq, etc. etc. etc.,no one challenged the notion of a widely varying set of representations on television news.
The script was virtually a mirror of all that is wrong with the effort to present a "balanced" and "unbiased" view when one of the sides of the "debate" is simply bullshit, and the OTHER side just isn't even discussed. Therefore...while some say that the sky is green, there are others who say it is a lighter shade of green. Who can say, Marty, who's right? The only people who could possibly think that the U.S. media has "liberal" bias must either be such Fascist innovators or such Medieval reactionaries that they reject even the Enlightenment liberalism that gave us the First Ammendment and dis-establishment of religion as too liberal.
It's funny to think about this attack on classical liberalism, because I just got done with a lecture in which I insisted (perhaps too strongly) on the continuing influence of Enlightenment values on our current lives (no, that doesn't mean that people actually live up to the values, simply that their ideas of what's good and bad are based on the oppositiona of reason vs. unreason, individuals vs. herds, etc. regardless of how they behave). I may not be able to give that lecture for much longer.
Understanding War
Instead of reading news I've been living in the past for several days, reading three different books from three different eras. Some seem truly past, such as The Federalist Papers, which I'm supposed to be teaching next week, and Barbara Goldsmith's book on Victoria Woodhull and 19th century reform movements, Other Powers. While the conflict between debtors and creditors that shaped the constitution remains pressing, and the intersection of sex and evangelical christianity does continue to amuse today, it was the third book on my list that was eerily current.
14-18: Understanding the Great War is part of a growing field of French scholarship about memory, and is part critique of myths of WWI in contemporary European (particularly French) society, and part an attempt to correct war nostalgia by reanimating the gore and pain of the battlefied and the prison camp. This book is pretty fascinating as an approach to war in general, and I think its familiarity comes largely from the fact that WWI so shaped the twentieth century and modern wars. While much of the book illuminates differences between European and American memories of the 20th century, there were aspects of the experiences and mythologies surrounding WWI itself that felt creepily familiar.
For instance, the authors note the intense religiosity of the war and the way that religious mysticism permeated the culture as a whole during the war.
One of the central points in the book is that in contemporary European memorials to soldiers, the young men are described as victims only, and the acts of cruelty, even the breaking of common conventions of warfare up to that time, are rarely discussed. The book questions this notion of the WWI soldiers as victims and argues that many of the young men had volunteered for the war. It also challenges the idea that propaganda came from above and disseminated the myths of war to the population. On the contrary the authors say, the propaganda came from below, in a massive welling-up of patriotism. This part of the book seems on shakier ground, as it does not present much evidence to explain this point, or to discount the concentrated propaganda efforts of all sides during the war.
Also, much of the presentation of soldiers as victims seems reasonable. When I've taught the "Great War" in the past, I've always relied on Rosa Luxemburg's Junius Pamphlet with its evocative introductory passages:
Gone is the euphoria. Gone the patriotic noise in the streets, the chase after the gold-colored automobile, one false telegram after another, the wells poisoned by cholera, the Russian students heaving bombs over every railway bridge in Berlin, the French airplanes over Nuremberg, the spy hunting public running amok in the streets, the swaying crowds in the coffee shops with ear-deafening patriotic songs surging ever higher, whole city neighborhoods transformed into mobs ready to denounce, to mistreat women, to shout hurrah and to induce delirium in themselves by means of wild rumors. Gone, too, is the atmosphere of ritual murder, the Kishinev air where the crossing guard is the only remaining representative of human dignity.
It is coming up on the second anniversary of the U.S.'s sadistic "shock and awe" air attack, and it seems that for about 50% of us, the patriotism has not yet dimmed. So Bush makes Wilsonian claims for his invasion and occupation of Iraq, and some call him Wilsonian, also drawing parallels between WWI and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Let's hope that the emergence of IVAW and similar groups signals a similar disillusionment to follow.
14-18: Understanding the Great War is part of a growing field of French scholarship about memory, and is part critique of myths of WWI in contemporary European (particularly French) society, and part an attempt to correct war nostalgia by reanimating the gore and pain of the battlefied and the prison camp. This book is pretty fascinating as an approach to war in general, and I think its familiarity comes largely from the fact that WWI so shaped the twentieth century and modern wars. While much of the book illuminates differences between European and American memories of the 20th century, there were aspects of the experiences and mythologies surrounding WWI itself that felt creepily familiar.
For instance, the authors note the intense religiosity of the war and the way that religious mysticism permeated the culture as a whole during the war.
One of the central points in the book is that in contemporary European memorials to soldiers, the young men are described as victims only, and the acts of cruelty, even the breaking of common conventions of warfare up to that time, are rarely discussed. The book questions this notion of the WWI soldiers as victims and argues that many of the young men had volunteered for the war. It also challenges the idea that propaganda came from above and disseminated the myths of war to the population. On the contrary the authors say, the propaganda came from below, in a massive welling-up of patriotism. This part of the book seems on shakier ground, as it does not present much evidence to explain this point, or to discount the concentrated propaganda efforts of all sides during the war.
Also, much of the presentation of soldiers as victims seems reasonable. When I've taught the "Great War" in the past, I've always relied on Rosa Luxemburg's Junius Pamphlet with its evocative introductory passages:
Gone is the euphoria. Gone the patriotic noise in the streets, the chase after the gold-colored automobile, one false telegram after another, the wells poisoned by cholera, the Russian students heaving bombs over every railway bridge in Berlin, the French airplanes over Nuremberg, the spy hunting public running amok in the streets, the swaying crowds in the coffee shops with ear-deafening patriotic songs surging ever higher, whole city neighborhoods transformed into mobs ready to denounce, to mistreat women, to shout hurrah and to induce delirium in themselves by means of wild rumors. Gone, too, is the atmosphere of ritual murder, the Kishinev air where the crossing guard is the only remaining representative of human dignity.
It is coming up on the second anniversary of the U.S.'s sadistic "shock and awe" air attack, and it seems that for about 50% of us, the patriotism has not yet dimmed. So Bush makes Wilsonian claims for his invasion and occupation of Iraq, and some call him Wilsonian, also drawing parallels between WWI and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Let's hope that the emergence of IVAW and similar groups signals a similar disillusionment to follow.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Students Arrested for Counter-Recruitment Activities at CCNY
"There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part,...And you've got to put your bodies on the gears, and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus. And you've got to make it stop."
- Mario Savio, Berkeley, 1964
If you try googling various combinations of "three students arrested" "City College," CCNY and similar things, you'll wind up with a whole history of student activism, but not news of the recent arrests at City.
To learn more about why three students were arrested for protesting military recruiters on campus, and how it is that they came to be charged with assaulting the police, you must go to:Indymedia, which will send you to a story on an indymedia blog dedicated to activism against military recruitment called: Counter Recruiter. The same site also has information about how to support Tom Keenan, who was arrested for handing out anti-recruitment fliers at William Patterson University in New Jersey.
The students are also struggling over the college president's assertion that if protests occur on campus, they must do so in "pens" as a condition of "free assembly." Keep your eyes peeled; Atty. Ron McGuire has (perhaps hyperbolically, perhaps not) compared the coming protest to Berkeley's free speech movement of 1964. Regardless, the number of arrests made of people for simple speech acts should be increasingly difficult for all of us to either ignore or accept.
- Mario Savio, Berkeley, 1964
If you try googling various combinations of "three students arrested" "City College," CCNY and similar things, you'll wind up with a whole history of student activism, but not news of the recent arrests at City.
To learn more about why three students were arrested for protesting military recruiters on campus, and how it is that they came to be charged with assaulting the police, you must go to:Indymedia, which will send you to a story on an indymedia blog dedicated to activism against military recruitment called: Counter Recruiter. The same site also has information about how to support Tom Keenan, who was arrested for handing out anti-recruitment fliers at William Patterson University in New Jersey.
The students are also struggling over the college president's assertion that if protests occur on campus, they must do so in "pens" as a condition of "free assembly." Keep your eyes peeled; Atty. Ron McGuire has (perhaps hyperbolically, perhaps not) compared the coming protest to Berkeley's free speech movement of 1964. Regardless, the number of arrests made of people for simple speech acts should be increasingly difficult for all of us to either ignore or accept.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
more on the MTA and its doings
After the Educators to Stop the War conference, I met Alex Vitale, a really great NYC activist & Brooklyn college prof. who has his own website dedicated to navigating "the complex world of criminal justice activism" in NYC. This is a really cool website, with all kinds of otherwise hard-to-find information. It's easy to navigate and includes a calendar of local activist events. Go there and check out what's going on.
He also posted a cogent comment to the last in my series of fumbling subway politics posts, suggesting that I write more about Pataki's general preference for funding commuter rail projects, also noting that the gov.doesn't have complete control over the MTA, but that the Mayor too has a say on who sits on the board. Specifically, Bloomberg appoints four out of seventeen of the board-members, and according to the Straphangers' campaign, these members have made a difference in the past, for example, creating "cityticket" for w/in the city stops on the Metro-North and LIRR.
The relationship between these "duelling" republicans is confusing, and I don't usually trust NY Magazine, because I think of it as a yuppie-scum rag (really, I think of it in 80s parlance, when I first became aware of its existence when I was a wannabe punk rock college kid). However, it makes this nice point, "Pataki is doing whatever it takes to keep his presidential fantasy alive, and if that means cutting taxes while the subway crumbles, well, no one voting in the Iowa caucuses cares about the subway part. The mayor’s failure, though, is his inability to find an effective substitute for public ranting. He could have used the rebuilding of downtown as a lever against Pataki, but largely ceded ground zero to the governor in favor of taking the lead role in the development of the far West Side."
As stadium politics become more confusing, and more exciting, I paid a brief visit to the anti-Nets stadium activists' site: Nolandgrab which led readers to this article from the NY Observer. It's all up for sale, and these stadium deals with all their complications remind me of old stuff, like those bond issues that went out to the RRs in the 1870s. Oh yeah, I think that this book by Matthew Josephson should provide most of the gory details on that era.
I guess it's important to understand some of the complexity of the local politics when it matters for deciding strategy, but generally I think it's safe to assume that when it comes to big capital in action, the larger similiarities tend to outweigh the differences. As much as we tend to attribute anything to the personalities, hopes, and ambitions of the key elected players, about a hundred years from now, it's likely that the history books will have more to say about the corporate giants than they will about the goings on in City Hall and Albany. The actual politicians will be more and more like the Grover Clevelands and Chester Arthurs: interesting if you really know about them, but somewhat remote and even picayune... significant and comprehensible only when examined for their facilitation of the actions of the true giants of the age: major league sports owners, media conglomerates, oil companies and the rest.
He also posted a cogent comment to the last in my series of fumbling subway politics posts, suggesting that I write more about Pataki's general preference for funding commuter rail projects, also noting that the gov.doesn't have complete control over the MTA, but that the Mayor too has a say on who sits on the board. Specifically, Bloomberg appoints four out of seventeen of the board-members, and according to the Straphangers' campaign, these members have made a difference in the past, for example, creating "cityticket" for w/in the city stops on the Metro-North and LIRR.
The relationship between these "duelling" republicans is confusing, and I don't usually trust NY Magazine, because I think of it as a yuppie-scum rag (really, I think of it in 80s parlance, when I first became aware of its existence when I was a wannabe punk rock college kid). However, it makes this nice point, "Pataki is doing whatever it takes to keep his presidential fantasy alive, and if that means cutting taxes while the subway crumbles, well, no one voting in the Iowa caucuses cares about the subway part. The mayor’s failure, though, is his inability to find an effective substitute for public ranting. He could have used the rebuilding of downtown as a lever against Pataki, but largely ceded ground zero to the governor in favor of taking the lead role in the development of the far West Side."
As stadium politics become more confusing, and more exciting, I paid a brief visit to the anti-Nets stadium activists' site: Nolandgrab which led readers to this article from the NY Observer. It's all up for sale, and these stadium deals with all their complications remind me of old stuff, like those bond issues that went out to the RRs in the 1870s. Oh yeah, I think that this book by Matthew Josephson should provide most of the gory details on that era.
I guess it's important to understand some of the complexity of the local politics when it matters for deciding strategy, but generally I think it's safe to assume that when it comes to big capital in action, the larger similiarities tend to outweigh the differences. As much as we tend to attribute anything to the personalities, hopes, and ambitions of the key elected players, about a hundred years from now, it's likely that the history books will have more to say about the corporate giants than they will about the goings on in City Hall and Albany. The actual politicians will be more and more like the Grover Clevelands and Chester Arthurs: interesting if you really know about them, but somewhat remote and even picayune... significant and comprehensible only when examined for their facilitation of the actions of the true giants of the age: major league sports owners, media conglomerates, oil companies and the rest.
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