The biggest impediment to solving the problem of racism in the USA is the denial that comes from all sides of the divide. Only when this denial is confronted will we get anywhere closer to solving this seemingly intractable issue. Let’s take the latest Clinton campaign dust-up. Geraldine Ferraro- one of HRC’s big feminist supporters- made probably the most nonsensical statement of this campaign cycle so far, when she suggested that Barack Obama has gotten where he is (his success in this presidential race to date) because he is lucky to be black. This is the same woman, who in 1988 said that Jesse Jackson was only running in the presidential primary (and with some success too), because he too “was black”. Talk about double-speak/lol; or is it double-talk? This was not accidental or coincidental; this was deliberate on Ms. Ferraro’s part. This lady needs some sensitivity training; even at age 72 it can be useful.
The Latest
FDR You Serious?
|In their enthusiasm to be rid of Eliot Spitzer, many news outlets have overstated the firsts in David Paterson’s, and his father Basil’s, biographies.
As has already been widely note, Paterson is not the nation’s first legally blind Governor, that distinction belongs to Bob Reilly of Arkansas.
And Basil Paterson was not the first black man to be nominated for statewide office by a major party. That would be Edward Dudley who was the Democrat-Liberal candidate for Attorney General in 1962, years before Basil Paterson even entered the State Senate.
And surely Basil was not, as Herb Boyd stated last night on NY One, the first African-American to serve in the NY State Senate, although Basil did succeed the first African-American woman, Constance Baker Motley, who’d left to replace Dudley and become the third African American to serve as Manhattan Borough President (the first was Hulan Jack, elected in 1949), as well as the first woman of any color to serve on the old Board of Estimate.
THE SUPER-DELEGATES: “No big thing but a chicken-wing”
|On the street corners of many a black congressional district, you would often hear soul-folks saying: “no big thing but a chicken wing”. This can be heard whenever there is a fuss about something or the other that soul-people think is being overblown. On corners of white congressional districts (and by white and black, I am only alluding to where the majority of the residents are of that color; that’s all), you may hear the same sentiments expressed this way: “much ado about nothing”. Well that’s how I feel about all this super-delegate noise, coming out from many tense corners of hot and heavy political competition; like the kind taking place between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama- as they compete for the Democrat’s presidential nomination.
Forget the On-Time Budget
|The real measure of this year's state budget is not whether it is on-time, but whether there is a second, devastating budget after the November elections. If Bear Stearns merges, as seems likely, it will take a big chunk of the city and state tax base with it, and that may be just the beginning. My guess is this state faces two years like it hasn't seen since the 1970s, with the only "good news" being that this time most other parts of the country will be faring worse, so there will be nowhere to flee to.
Affordable Housing the Easy Way
|In New York, it isn't "affordable housing" unless it is made such under a government program, so it can be allocated in the way government often allocates things — politically. Elsewhere, however, something else is going on. Among other things, "affordable housing" developments are running into financial trouble because housing is getting too affordable, even in places like Boston where the bubble made housing unaffordable not long ago. In other places, the unaffordable units are now cheaper than the affordable units.
Some Good News: One House State Budget Bills
|Not much changed on Day One. Our state government continues to hand out benefits to already-privileged insiders in good years while making promises to everyone else, and then holding those deals harmless while sacrificing everyone else when the economy turns down. The problems with the budget process, and the results, are for the most part pretty much as I described them here when I ran as a candidate against the state legislature. But at least one thing has changed for the better in Albany. Perhaps today is a good day to point it out.
The 2008 to 2013 MTA Capital Plan: Is There A Way Out?
|People who have worked the system to get, shall we say, very good deals for themselves have left us with a potentially diminished future. They have done so by taking away future revenues, and shifting past costs forward, all in order to live in way they feel entitled to with the diminished effort they felt like making. And not just through the MTA. In a way, the region’s transportation system never recovered from the deferred maintenance of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. At first, through the work and sacrifices of many people, the transit system, police and other services partially recovered from the years of high taxes with essentially nothing in return. But then subsequent generations merely substituted a greater financial hole, through debts and public employee pension enrichments unmatched by adequate contributions, for a reduced level of physical deterioration. Meanwhile, a third bond issue has been passed for the Second Avenue Subway, and yet the proposed capital plan does not even have the money to finish three stations. If the state legislature wanted to do the right thing, is there still a way out? I think there is, although the MTA and legislature are unlikely to approve it.
The Democrat’s Presidential Primary Is Exposing Mainstream Media’s Selfish Agenda (and Barack won Texas; not Hillary)
|For sometime now the Billary Clinton campaign has been complaining that mainstream media has been unfair to Hillary Clinton. But is this true? Lots of supporters from both the Clinton and Obama camps, have (at various points of this marathon) attacked the media treatment of their candidate; the Clintonistas in particular have gone to great lengths in trying to drive this point across. Comedians and comedy shows have lampooned their very complaints. And yet all mainstream media is doing is nothing short of pursuing their unaltruistic everyday agenda of: sensationalism and controversy-creation. It is not only about providing information for public dissemination and action; it is also about profits.
This Doesn’t Sound Good
|The whole national political scene is not my interest, unless it involves public policies I care about, but someone forwarded this to me and I thought some of you might be interested.
"Welcome to the 'Re-create 68' website, your virtual activists' Convergence Center for the Denver Democratic National Convention of 2008. This website was created for all the grassroots people who are tired of being sold out by the Democratic Party."
"R-68 agrees with the proposition, POTESTAS IN POPULO, "all power comes from the people." What stands between the people and power are the party machines. The parties were devised as a means to represent the people. Today they represent nobody, not even party members, but only party bureaucracy. The people have been left without appropriate institutions for their representation. We intend to create those institutes!"
Congestion Pricing: My Non-Public Hearing Testimony
|Streetsblog reports that our overlords in the New York State Assembly will be having a public hearing on congestion pricing, and it will be taking place right around the corner from the place I work. The last time they did so, I decided to show them up by riding a bicycle part way to work and comparing my trip mode to theirs here. My neophyte bike commute had some problems, but I found that I really, really had fun doing it. Enough fun that I did some research, made some adjustments, and observed how and where others locked up their bikes. Beginning a month after that first hearing, I have been biking the nine miles to and from work three or four times a week. It’s the most exercise I have gotten since college, or maybe high school, and it costs me little if any extra time out of my day. What had seemed impractical now seems to be the most practical thing I have done in years, and I wish I had done it 20 years (and 40 pounds) ago. One might say that this is the only good thing the New York State Legislature ever did for me. I’ll write more about some changes in my thinking as a result later, but for now I’ll put yet another two cents in on congestion pricing, and I’ll do it here because the “public hearing” is by invitation only and surprisingly I didn’t get an invitation.