We Are All One Banana Peel Away

It is hard to know what to do under the nasty circumstances we find ourselves in. On the one hand, the argument that we should just stand aside and let the economy crater is a brutal argument. Millions of people are already losing their homes, jobs, and health insurance, and things may get work. But that's the hard-core "let the market decide" approach that the House Republicans adopted the other day.

I'm convinced that it is possible, given the right circumstances, to use govt spending to stimulate a sour economy. But it's not at all clear to me whether Obama's stimulus is big enough, or whether any stimulus could be big enough, given each day's new revelations of the fiscal madness which our country's leaders have allowed to happen.

I'd like to see the whole kit and kaboddle kicked out of their offices and high paying jobs, stripped of all of their wealth and worldy goods. The fact that the Wall Street crowd went ahead and awarded themselves billions of dollars in bonuses after last year boggers the imagination. These people are incapable of learning even under the most extreme conditions.

The problem here is that almost the entire decision-making structure of our society, indeed of the entire world decision-making apparatus, is complicit in the economic disaster we now face. The bankers, the insurance companies, the financial advisors, the economic professors and the universities who employ them, the financial advisors, the accountants, every federal and state legislator, all of the elected executives at the federal and state level, the relevant cabinet officers.... There are hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated that they are completely unfit for public service, or for any kind of work at all, who ought to all be fired and sentenced to work, if they work at all, at minimum wage jobs for the rest of their miserable lives.

But it's not going to happen. That's the conventional wisdom. We're going to let all of these jerks stay in place, keep giving themselves bonuses, and never ever even offering an apology for having fucked up the world so completely.

The student of history must interrupt here: there are times when the conventional wisdom is wrong. Not because the people who create the conventional wisdom in order to protect their privileged positions in society decide that they've been mistaken. No, because the masses of people find it in themselves to defy CW and throw the bums out, nonviolently or violently.

It is axiomatic that "no one," that is no one in the ruling class, ever anticipates or predicts such uprising. How could they? The entire society is structured to prevent such things from happening, from the soft power of commercials and propaganda to the iron fist of the police and the military.

I have no more of a crystal ball about what's going to happen than you do. The Obama stimulus package may be enough to pull us out of the precipitous slide we're in now.

But if not, then we're entering territory we have been in before, most recently in the first years of the Depression, but about which our schools tell us little. I saw a film snippet the other day of the U.S. Army being unleashed on the "bonus marchers" who had come to Washington in 1932 looking for help. A young army officer named Eisenhower led the assault, which involved terrorizing the bonus marcher's encampment along DC's Anacostia River, and burning down or otherwise destroying the structures the marchers had built.

Are you feeling at all angry?

An excerpt from my new piece, inspired by the times, and absolutely on topic:

"It is in the interest of the American people that we implement economic policies that reward those who create jobs for Americans who sincerely want to work, in exchange for a living wage. Workers pay taxes, pay mortgages, support families, and pull their own weight. Given our free market system, every True Blue American Company can be thought of as providing an invaluable service – and hence is deserving of our gratitude, as best expressed in the form of transformative tax legislation. In contrast, multi-nationals and US-based 'Benedict Arnold' firms that place the interests of management and investors ahead of its American workforce must be seen as acting rationally, perhaps even sensibly, given our currrent flawed collective assumptions – but decidedly not in the best interests of the United States of America, and especially so at a moment when this entire economy is imploding before our eyes. They must be seen as the amoral actors they are, actors who can hardly be trusted with the awesome task of defending America's economic future.

"Finally, the ethical remedy to this emerging crisis strikes me as not one of enhanced personal virtue, as suggested by many conservatives – although rejection of get-rich-quick schemes, mindless prosperity consciousness, pie-in-the-sky aspirations, not to mention media lionization of the most ruthless and reckless among us, would certainly be a good thing. The appropriate ethical remedy in my mind requires the introduction of bold, game-changing economic policies that encourage collective virtue – namely, the creation and sustenance of secure, highly skilled, highly paid jobs right here in America. Americans have proved themselves willing to work as hard as any people on earth. We would never be content to become the lackeys of a would-be corporate or investor elite in the international oligarchic world that the neo-conservatives ultimately envisioned. We would almost certainly launch a second American Revolution before that came to pass – especially amidst the emerging tone of the times. So instead of standing by, and watching the nation we love descend into financial ruin, foreign dependence, social upheaval, and potentially even a second American Revolution, why not instead simply declare independence – but this time, economic independence?"

http://www.hpleft.com/020109.html

We are as one. Great thinking, DiAnne, Richard, and Matt.

Here is my contribution to the discussion (arts-centric!)

I’ve been reading through a lot of hopeful pieces and proposals for a new way of being on the planet and in a global economy. Many of these mention the arts as a critical component of the healing and development process in the post-Bush world. There are, in many of these written pieces, somewhat romantic notions about the WPA and the CETA programs of the 1930s and the late 1970s. While the positive yields from those programs are significant, there are also some cautionary tales from both.

The various projects of the WPA did a wonderful job of identifying new talent and fostered some projects that inspire us today. But the example of the Federal Dance Project is worth recalling and heeding.

To give you a very quick overview (for more detail, please see Stepping Left: Dance and Politics in New York City, 1928-1942, by Ellen Graff, Duke U. Press, 1997), the Federal Dance Project came out of the demands of (mostly) female modern dance leaders, who were incensed that dancers had been excluded from all of the workers’ benefits and projects prior to the initiation of the Federal Theatre. Dance was to be included under the Federal Theatre Project. But, the dancers, most of them socialists, wanted their own union and their own project, separate from the theatre project. Hallie Flanagan acquiesced, but put a man, Don Oscar de Becque, in charge. de Becque had a ballet background but his modern dance credentials were not impressive, and the obvious choices for leadership: Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Helen Tamiris were passed over.

The Federal Dance Project fell apart over the struggles around decision-making, artistic standards, and funding. The lessons we need to remember today include:

1. Who decides what good dance/arts practices are?
Rigid hierarchies, appointed autocrats, and a lack of self-determination on the part of artists will destroy any well-intentioned efforts.

2. What do local communities actually need from local artists? Perhaps the needs are not so much for entertainment, or even for challenging works to be presented, but for fostering creative thinking and community participation.

3. What role do the arts truly play in economic recovery? Americans for the Arts estimate that the arts:
“…generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, support 5.7 million jobs, and return nearly $30 billion in government revenue every year—proving that the arts are an economic driver in their communities that support jobs and generate government revenue. Every $1 billion in spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations – and their audiences – results in almost 70,000 full-time-equivalent jobs.” http://americansforthearts.org

But the arts organizations cannot leverage the economy without adequate investment up front. Artists create communities from slums, but cannot hire staff or provide free classes for students. They cannot make work without some basic infrastructure.

The Federal Dance Project provided full employment for dancers; something few dancers enjoy these days. But the price of full employment should be neither the tyranny of poor leadership nor the privileging of mainstream artists over inventive engaged and prepared community organizers, preferably with infrastructure and resources to draw upon.

The CETA program of the Carter Administration became an engine for hiring artists to do community-based work, and for arts organizations to hire and train community members to provide infrastructure and support staff. Some CETA employees developed into first rate artists, and community programs became successful nonprofits. (Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange, the Baltimore Theatre Project, and others became strong arts organizations out of CETA funding).

In the case of Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange, the three staff people who were hired under CETA provided enough infrastructure to launch Lerman’s work and her organization. The organization took risks and hired and trained young dancers, giving them administrative as well as artistic skills.

But whereas the WPA was perhaps too limited in its outreach, CETA lacked standards and accountability, creating a situation in which de-funding was all too easy. The Reagan administration deemed such programs “special interests” and the communities they flourished in were left at the far end of the trickle-down pipeline. CETA became seen as a “pork” project of those leftwing big spending liberals, and the entry point for organizations and young artists was closed.

Thirty years later, the arts organizations CETA supported are not much bigger than they were back then, but they are much smarter. Those that survived did so through private support, grants, and projects, and they are as efficient as a simple well-oiled machine.

The lessons learned from CETA include the following:

1. Assess success, make evaluations educational for the funders as well as for the organization itself. Be clear about goals, outcomes and definitions of success.
2. Train arts workers to do creative and administrative work and to teach effectively. Everyone is an arts “leader” and a community organizer.
3. Build in support for training unskilled young people in being effective and inventive artists efficient workers, and caring educators.

In creating an Artists Corps, such insights and lessons need to be applied. I would propose: A well thought out program of summer training for young artists to go into communities and work with at risk youth, partnering with older, perhaps semi-retired artists, co-creating new forms and performances that address community issues and empower new voices. I recommend drawing on those who have managed to flourish in such arenas as designers and teachers of such a training program. As Liz Lerman says, “We artists are shovel-ready; we have been for years.”

Imagine: a program of national service in which college graduates are prepared to go into rural and urban areas and teach, create, produce, and evaluate artistic projects that benefit the entire community. Imagine: a program of international exchanges and residencies in which artists spend time in each others countries, learning about each others cultural beliefs and practices and building cooperative ventures that both preserve and extend those beliefs and practices. Imagine: a world in which the arts are a vehicle for individual voices and collective responsibility; in which personal expression becomes shared conversation and the shared conversations become the produced stories, and everyone’s in the show. Imagine.

***
More reading:

http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2008/12/the_newnew_deal.php

http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2009/01/the_new_new_dea.php

http://www.artspolicynow.com/artspolicynow/ NYC Arts Policy Recommendations

http://artsusa.org/pdf/information_services/recovery/0109_EconRecoveryAndTheArts.pdf Americans for the Arts Economic Recovery Proposals

Interesting!

I lived those recessions, and it was especially hard as a baby boomer! It was actually easier for me to just stay in school than to find a job. I was always able to get help because of my low income status, and, unbelievably, got 3 degrees for $1200 total!

Times were tough when I finished my BA so I got an MA. Jobs were scarce so we moved from the MN to WA and I actually got a CETA job (there was nothing here in my field either) and that allowed me to get WA residency, thus in-state tuition. That was waived anyway, as I got RA and TA positions in conjunction with my doctorate.

When I finished my doctorate, I was pregnant and we were in another recession! So I did a Post Doc, again which earned me money (though a pittance but livable) rather than costing me.

I never did use the doctorate or Post Doc, really, because I wasn't willing to move to a red state to hone my credentials (big schools won't hire people who are "green" - you need a publication and research track record.) I didn't know at the time that schools like UW have departments that are only 15% state-funded and the rest is dependent on grant writers! "Publish or perish" - so I had two publications and bailed.

Luckily I could do a Clinical Fellowship Year and then use my prior clinical training (the doctorate was in research not clinical) - there were no CFYs to be had locally. Finally I landed one and then got some hospital experience.

I was lucky enough to be in private practice during the height of the Dot Com boom and the Clinton years and before there was serious Medicare reform. I made as much as 60% more than I do now, but I felt no more affluent. I quickly got used to paying cash for a car, piano or laptop.

We bought a modest house but that was before that - even in 1987, we were able to buy a house at a period when I was unemployed (looking for CFY), my husband was underpaid (state worker) and we had no real credit history. We were offered an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (which we refused) and we were definitely high risk but at least in those days they 1) required a modest down payment ($3000 in our case), 2) payment of five years of mortgage default insurance, 3) borrowing of only 2-1/2 times a person's income (in our case only $70,000 was loaned to us and we bought a house for that which at one time was worth $450,000 but now probably $350,000 and no one around to buy.)

Sheer luck, persistance, the pluck that comes from poverty AND having been taught that credit it evil. I heard things like "It takes money to make money" and my first thought was "bullshit." I grew up age 4-26 in the upper midwest (Dakotas) and heard about nothing but the Depression. The first time I sent for a credit card it was done as a joke and we have never held a balance. Now we have one but use debit. We buy nothing on credit. Nothing.

I am really disgusted with Tom Daeschle. If they decide on him fine - he has a good service record and was helpful to Obama. Tax cheating sucks though, especially by someone of that stature (ditto for Geithner.)

A friend named Rick sized up the situation:

Comments on the "bailout", the "stimulus package" and what we must do.

There are several decades of events that contributed to our nation's - and to the global - economic malaise.

Shortly before Reagan was elected, think tank minions representing greedy profit takers began selling Americans on the notion that government was too big, and that we poor, suffering taxpayers needed tax relief. America bought the lie. Huge tax forgiveness schemes were enacted. Folks like us got a pittance, while the bastions of free market capitalism received huge tax rollbacks. (The pittance we received was offset by the "what one hand giveth, the other taketh away" maxim. Many federal block grants to states were eliminated, as were other federal-to-state funding programs. That left states and the people in those states on the hook to fund programs. That's one reason why property taxes and gas taxes have gone up. States have been forced to raise revenues to make up for what the federal government took away.) Proponents of the plot called it "trickle down economics". They said that by giving the already-rich greater tax breaks, capital would invest in factories and other businesses and jobs would be created. All that was true. What they didn't let us in on was the fact that the factories and jobs they talked about would be created in places like Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and Africa. Capital moved to nations that promised slave-wage labor, and minimal environmental standards. It moved to countries where workers who dared utter the words "labor union" would be "disappeared" or imprisoned and tortured, or at the very least banned from employment.

Then too, there was the dot-com boon. Silicon Valley led the way, but other, smaller Silicons began dotting the US map. Oh, times were great for the dot-comers. They got jobs with nice healthy incomes and lots of perks. They bought fancy homes and joined fancy country clubs. They drove fancy cars and sailed fancy boats. Their kids went to fancy schools. They rode high! They believed - just as blue collar Americans had once believed - that economic prosperity and security was at hand.

Housing prices soared to inflated heights! The number of credit cards people acquired were indicators of economic - and social - importance! There was also a growing mindset by the less-affluent that in order to keep up with the Jonses, households would need two incomes. And oh boy, did capital like that! Rather than paying a single wage earner what he or she was worth, they pay each worker two-thirds of what they are worth. They get two workers for the price of one and one-third!

Accompanying the diabolical scheme on the part of capital was a Newspeak campaign that succeeded in redefining the word "liberal". And sadly, (with the help of massive amounts of brainwashing courtesy of the media) working class folks fell for that hokum. It wasn't long before being a liberal was seen as something unpatriotic, bordering on the seditious. Rather than defending the compassionate liberal agendas of FDR, JFK, and LBJ, spineless Democrats fled from the word "liberal". They began advocating policies that theretofore had been repugnant to New Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society principles.

Now even dot com jobs have moved offshore. Alas, the bubble has burst. Oops, let's rephrase that. The bubble has burst for those of us who were never even considered as candidates for admission into the bastions of free market capitalism.

Make no mistake about it. After this [current] economic crisis has blown over, the wealthy will still be wealthy. It will be people from the other 90% of us in America who suffered, who lost jobs, homes, health care, pensions, hopes and dreams. The filthy-rich and filthy-powerful will remain filthy-rich and filthy-powerful. And they will have been aided by what at times appeared to be two wings of a one-party system of government.

The Wall Street bailout? How's this for yet another poke in the eye. Main Street Americans have tiny individual investments in the stock market. The big players are those who have access to the economic resources that allow them to play big. If you were "lucky" enough to have $50,000 in stocks, or perhaps $250,000 in a 401k in 2004, you may now be down to $30,000 and $150,000 respectively. People are having to delay retirement because their retirement nest-eggs have "dwindled" or been purloined, take your pick.

When, however, we add a few zeroes to the above amounts, i.e. $50,000,000 and $250,000,000 and then subtract 40%, we discover that those who were fortunate enough to have amassed such great investment wealth are still wealthy. They have not and will not suffer. But here's the real poke. Many investors are neither citizens nor residents of the USA. Yet part of the generous "contributions" that our tax dollars have bestowed on Wall Street financiers will wind up in the bank vaults of rich potentates in Saudi Arabia and venture-capitalists in Beijing!

We need to face facts. The bailout is a done deal. No amount of complaining will reverse that. We may see some adjustments in executive compensation, or more stringent oversight and accountability regulations to give it an air of "palatability", but it's a done deal.

Here is something that is still in the mix. It is the stimulus package. It isn't perfect. While I generally abhor the phrase, "don't sacrifice the good in pursuit of the perfect", the stimulus package is an exception. It is needed! It is needed so that those of us who actually worry about jobs, medical care, housing, etc. will have access to a portion of the first installment of relief that is so sorely needed. And unlike Wall Street, we're not asking for handouts. We're willing to work for what we get. Rather than a hand out, we want a helping had reminiscent of New Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society programs.

We've been battered into accepting the claim that the global economy requires sacrifices on our part. The "our" are folks like you and me. Free trade fiascos, deregulation, and the gutting of responsible tariffs have all hurt who? Not the wealthy! It is we - you and me - who have suffered, and who will suffer unless we're put back to work at living wage jobs with essential benefits.

We'll need to deal with NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA, and all the other lousy trade agreements in the days to come, but first America has to go back to work.

We'll need to understand "Reaganomics" for what is was - the ushering in of the most massive redistribution of wealth in our nation's history. And "wealth" went from our pocket books into the bank accounts of the already wealthy. We must challenge the myth that neoliberal/neoconservative ideologues have foisted on us by telling us that Reaganomics was good for our nation. Reganomics savaged working families! Its refined new-age agenda has been even more damaging. (In the 90's, 1% of the population owned 18% of all the wealth. Today it owns 40%!)

We must demand that Congress passes a jobs-producing, burden-lightening stimulus package immediately, and then another and another if necessary.

The shouts of "big government is bad" and "let the free market find its own way" must be drowned out by the rest of us. First of all, the biggest beneficiary of "big government" is private capital, and capitalists. Capital for much of what is produced, and much of what flows to commerce, often comes from our national treasury via bid or no-bid contracts awarded to private contractors. And, of course, they siphon off plenty of profit along the way. (Halliburton, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Bechtol, railroads, ad nauseam.)

"Government" also includes, Medicare, fire and police departments, national parks, interstate highways, federal employees, the military, education, Social Security, etc. Do not be deceived. Private capital wants to further privatize our common resources. Hypocritically, it rails against "big government" while at the same time lining up for all the dole that "government" will toss its way.

Taxation is another area that needs looking at. Corporate tax breaks that in essence bankroll overseas production must end. Those benefiting from stock, bond and derivative transactions must pay more. Ending the cap on income from which Social Security deductions are made must happen.

Crazily, I hear some folks who are struggling to get by say things like, "gee, it doesn't seem fair to make a person with an income of $10 million pay Social Security deductions on that entire amount." Huh? Some poor guy teetering on the brink of economic disaster is worrying about Daddy Warbucks? What's more, 100% of the income of most working class families is subject to Social Security deductions. If deductions on 100% of our pay take place, then deductions on 100% of everyone else's income should likewise happen.

It would be disingenuous at best to suggest that while President Obama was out on the stump calling for health care for everyone, or jobs paying livable wages, or affordable housing, etc., what he really meant was "but only if you're lucky enough to be included in the trickle down."

We all know that that is not what he meant. We wouldn't have voted for him if that was what he was advocating. He was calling for a more egalitarian society.

Over the course of listening to his campaign speeches I believe his words signaled that he needed our help. When he talked about shared sacrifice he didn't mean that some of us would have to give up our jobs, or lose our homes, or go without medical treatment. It is my opinion that the sacrifice he is asking those of us who turn the wheels in America to make is to leave the comfortable cocoon of complacency. He is asking us to join him in the struggle to enact the kind of legislation that will return our nation to morality and greatness. He is not asking us for money or material possessions. He seeks and needs our time and energy - and commitment.

People voted for hope...and change! When people voted for change in health care they voted to fix our broken health care system. They didn't vote for a continuation of the incremental tinkering with health care that has plagued us for decades. They voted to fix it! And although they may not have a specific piece of legislation in mind, they want it fixed! The same with employment. Nobody voted for a job-creation program destined to keep some of us in everlasting poverty. They voted for jobs paying livable wage incomes for everyone! Affordable housing means affordable housing for all! Education means quality education for anyone who wants it! Economic justice leaves nobody out!

How do we get there?

I am a State Committeeman in the Washington State Democratic Party. I was elected by the Party in the county in which I live. I went down to the State Reorganization Meeting of the State Party in Olympia late last month.

I had occasion to talk separately with members of the Democratic National Committee. I asked them about the inauguration, and about all that took place during inauguration week.

And I asked them something else. I asked them if they had any worries going forward. Not so coincidently I believe, each in their own words said that their biggest fear was disillusionment setting in. They said that in 2008 more people 30 and under voted than people 60 and over. They said there is an excitement and energy for change all across America, and we must not squander it.

When I the asked what they thought would cause disillusionment, they answered, "if the more than a handful of spineless and weak-kneed Democrats in Congress who lack the guts to do anything more than make cosmetic alterations are allowed to derail Obama's call for change, disillusionment will follow. People will [rightfully] ask, 'what difference does it make which Party controls Congress if nothing more than the status quo wrapped in a new ribbon emerges'? If disillusionment sets in, the 2010 and 2012 elections could prove disastrous. Social and economic justice would be off the table into the foreseeable future. There is much more at stake than meets the eye, and not everyone in Congress gets it."

Wow! And this coming from members of the DNC!

Where do we fit in?

If emails, letters or phone calls prove ineffective in moving Congress to enact a stimulus package that will be good for working class America, and if our communications fail to convince Congress to enact real health care reform, or to effectively deal with a score of other pressing problems, we must let recalcitrant Members of Congress know that we will not accept their "NO's". (If we were to accept no to our entreaties, we'd be better off dressing up in sloth costumes. That way we'd at least have a tail to put between our legs as we slither away in retreat and defeat.)

No is not acceptable. Neither is "pragmatic compromise" wherein some funds for job-creation are slashed, while more tax breaks for corporate America are added to try to mollify the GOP. We must be willing to sacrifice our comfortable cocoons of complacency. We must be prepared to protest. We must be willing to march on Congressional offices in our districts and keep the pressure up until the more than a handful of frightened Congressional Democrats grow a spine!

It seems to me that if we are unwilling to do what is necessary to support our new President's initiatives, then our votes in November meant little. And if disillusionment ever sets in, working class men and women will be robbed of even more than what we've already had stolen from us. It's now or never!

Rich Austin

WSJ Op Ed projects 22% unemployment, 8-9 trillion debt
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/3/34921/58157/245/692334

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