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Friday, November 11, 2016
What would you prefer, election reform or collapse?
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/republicans-and-white-working-class
I took a lot of political science classes as my electives of choice and what I really remember concluding most from that period was that democracy works best in an expanding economy -- when there's more pie for all every year, the division of the pie is less likely to promote warfare.
But for 8 years now, the US has been mainlining what would, historically, have been jet fuel in economic terms, and it has only served to bring us off the mat and get us shambling slowly towards a "recovery" that basically means servicing the machines that could take over even more of what used to be called "work."
That evidence -- that even with the historical constraints on economic growth obliterated, there is no real growth to be had -- makes it undeniable that growth is over, because the natural world is no longer a bountiful storehouse of easily accessed natural capital.
We have consumed and polluted and wasted to the point that now all our economic voodoo tricks don't reanimate the lifeless economy, they simply heat it up in that one spot but only for as long as the stimulus is applied directly. It's really hard to stimulate a corpse.
And so, instead of an expanding pie, giving each group a bit more each year, even if not as much as others -- making it possible to avoid warfare over the relative sizes of the slices -- we are now in the era of the permanently contracting pie (economy), and it's not clear that democracies survive this state very well.
One thing that is now even more clear, we must have election reform or we are likely to have an even rougher go of it, as in conflicts that will make the post-Yugoslavia Balkan states seem tranquil.
Our archaic 18th C. "vote for one only" system ("first past the post," winner take all) is as zero-sum as it gets, and even in the best of times it encourages the group conflict we must learn to avoid. If we don't adopt better voting systems (instant runoff voting for single-winner races, full representation systems for legislative bodies) rapidly, the risks of metaphorical conflict becoming actual conflict and social collapse increase dramatically. In an expanding economy, "wait till next year" is much more possible because there is a fundamental optimism that the years ahead will be better, so why fight?
But in a relentlessly contracting economy, the dominant groups can lock out the others -- instead of all sharing in the pain, the winners can get more while the losers get lots less, AND those divisions can result in permanent lockout, as the so-called "meritocracy" converts the privileged dominant groups to an aristocracy of health and access to education and resources that creates the hard caste structure recognizable in feudal societies throughout history.
Dealing with economic contraction is hard and requires compromise and good will --- but winner-take-all election systems apply belt sanders to tender places instead of soothing ointments.
Full representation election methods preserve majority rule but also do more -- they make sure that minorities have a real rather than figurative seat at the table, so that every citizen can say that they are represented (that they helped elect someone) and have someone who cares about their concerns in power.
Because of winner-take-all methods, the US is about to shift wildly in its national policies. This is purely as an artifact of using zero-sum winner-take-all election rules that take a tiny overall shift in voting and magnify it to a wildly inflated result that has the effect of giving more than half of American voters no voice whatsoever in national policy. That is a recipe for revolution.
I took a lot of political science classes as my electives of choice and what I really remember concluding most from that period was that democracy works best in an expanding economy -- when there's more pie for all every year, the division of the pie is less likely to promote warfare.
But for 8 years now, the US has been mainlining what would, historically, have been jet fuel in economic terms, and it has only served to bring us off the mat and get us shambling slowly towards a "recovery" that basically means servicing the machines that could take over even more of what used to be called "work."
That evidence -- that even with the historical constraints on economic growth obliterated, there is no real growth to be had -- makes it undeniable that growth is over, because the natural world is no longer a bountiful storehouse of easily accessed natural capital.
We have consumed and polluted and wasted to the point that now all our economic voodoo tricks don't reanimate the lifeless economy, they simply heat it up in that one spot but only for as long as the stimulus is applied directly. It's really hard to stimulate a corpse.
And so, instead of an expanding pie, giving each group a bit more each year, even if not as much as others -- making it possible to avoid warfare over the relative sizes of the slices -- we are now in the era of the permanently contracting pie (economy), and it's not clear that democracies survive this state very well.
One thing that is now even more clear, we must have election reform or we are likely to have an even rougher go of it, as in conflicts that will make the post-Yugoslavia Balkan states seem tranquil.
Our archaic 18th C. "vote for one only" system ("first past the post," winner take all) is as zero-sum as it gets, and even in the best of times it encourages the group conflict we must learn to avoid. If we don't adopt better voting systems (instant runoff voting for single-winner races, full representation systems for legislative bodies) rapidly, the risks of metaphorical conflict becoming actual conflict and social collapse increase dramatically. In an expanding economy, "wait till next year" is much more possible because there is a fundamental optimism that the years ahead will be better, so why fight?
But in a relentlessly contracting economy, the dominant groups can lock out the others -- instead of all sharing in the pain, the winners can get more while the losers get lots less, AND those divisions can result in permanent lockout, as the so-called "meritocracy" converts the privileged dominant groups to an aristocracy of health and access to education and resources that creates the hard caste structure recognizable in feudal societies throughout history.
Dealing with economic contraction is hard and requires compromise and good will --- but winner-take-all election systems apply belt sanders to tender places instead of soothing ointments.
Full representation election methods preserve majority rule but also do more -- they make sure that minorities have a real rather than figurative seat at the table, so that every citizen can say that they are represented (that they helped elect someone) and have someone who cares about their concerns in power.
Because of winner-take-all methods, the US is about to shift wildly in its national policies. This is purely as an artifact of using zero-sum winner-take-all election rules that take a tiny overall shift in voting and magnify it to a wildly inflated result that has the effect of giving more than half of American voters no voice whatsoever in national policy. That is a recipe for revolution.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Who is James Comey?
Spread the word:
James Comey is Gavrilo Princip -- a zealot-nobody who with a single rash and illegal act forcibly altered the course of history and sparked the calamity that caused the deaths of tens of millions and destruction on a scale the world had not before then known.
If Comey's assassination attempt on HRC works, instead of "The Guns of August," then, -- if there are future historians -- they can write about "The Nukes of November" when the world was slowly drawn into a catastrophic maelstrom by adherence to pre-assassination alliances and understandings.
James Comey is Gavrilo Princip -- a zealot-nobody who with a single rash and illegal act forcibly altered the course of history and sparked the calamity that caused the deaths of tens of millions and destruction on a scale the world had not before then known.
If Comey's assassination attempt on HRC works, instead of "The Guns of August," then, -- if there are future historians -- they can write about "The Nukes of November" when the world was slowly drawn into a catastrophic maelstrom by adherence to pre-assassination alliances and understandings.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Happier Thoughts
Something nice for a change -- the annual "Empty Bowls" fundraiser for Marion-Polk Food Share, a great opportunity for you to get local artisan gifts for everyone on your, at amazing prices (because those talented artisans donate all their work), with all proceeds going to fight hunger in Salem and surroundings.
As always, the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving at Willamette Art Center on the Silverton Road entrance to the State Fairgrounds.
As always, the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving at Willamette Art Center on the Silverton Road entrance to the State Fairgrounds.
Why Salem should VOTE NO on the Police Facility Bond (23-399)
Some years ago, the humor magazine National Lampoon had a memorable cover that exposed once and for all the guilt-trip method of marketing:
The companies seeking to make huge profits from building a gigantically oversized and overpriced new police facility seem to have taken their lessons from National Lampoon, running a bond campaign that boils down to "Build us a Taj Mahal police palace or the Boys in Blue get it right in the head, and you are probably being murdered right now because you called and we were all dead because you're so cheap."
The bottom line is that this campaign only reveals the cynicism and greed of the developers and contractors, because they've been perfectly happy to see the Salem PD sit in the basement of City Hall for years now after it has been known that we face a real risk of a gigantic earthquake offshore that could be so severe as to rank among the biggest quakes in recorded history (9+).
The "Salem Can Do Better" campaign is right. If the police are at risk -- and everyone agrees they are, and that we need a new police facility -- then so is everyone else who works at or uses the current City Hall facilities, so we cannot afford a police facility that breaks the bank.
So pretending to care about police safety while really just money-grubbing for a porky overbuilt project that is about twice the size as needed (for tens of millions of dollars more than required) is the height of cynicism.
What the police chief should do -- whether this bond fails or succeeds -- is tell the City Manager that the city needs to do some emergency leasing of vacant commercial structures pronto because the Chief is going to direct all officers not to enter the current facility in 2017 except to empty it out.
In other words, the police should refuse to remain where they are while the voters hash it out with the pork-seeking lobby trying to push through a supersized facility (150,000 square feet - roughly double what Salem needs). And then follow through.
After all, it's an emergency. And so, once this iteration of the bond is defeated, we can do it again in six months. And we should keep doing it, as many times as needed, again and again, until the city comes up with a plan that provides the money to take care of ALL the city facilities in the current City Hall complex, including the main library.
Besides -- a single huge police facility is the worst strategic move possible. In the event of a massive quake, we would regret putting all our eggs in that one huge basket. What Salem needs is multi-purpose facilities north, south, center, and west, with the main HQ functions in the center, but precinct facilities north, south and west. These can provide community meeting rooms for neighborhood groups, branch libraries, and social service satellite centers, with police integrated into them (you know, community policing).
The companies seeking to make huge profits from building a gigantically oversized and overpriced new police facility seem to have taken their lessons from National Lampoon, running a bond campaign that boils down to "Build us a Taj Mahal police palace or the Boys in Blue get it right in the head, and you are probably being murdered right now because you called and we were all dead because you're so cheap."
The bottom line is that this campaign only reveals the cynicism and greed of the developers and contractors, because they've been perfectly happy to see the Salem PD sit in the basement of City Hall for years now after it has been known that we face a real risk of a gigantic earthquake offshore that could be so severe as to rank among the biggest quakes in recorded history (9+).
The "Salem Can Do Better" campaign is right. If the police are at risk -- and everyone agrees they are, and that we need a new police facility -- then so is everyone else who works at or uses the current City Hall facilities, so we cannot afford a police facility that breaks the bank.
So pretending to care about police safety while really just money-grubbing for a porky overbuilt project that is about twice the size as needed (for tens of millions of dollars more than required) is the height of cynicism.
What the police chief should do -- whether this bond fails or succeeds -- is tell the City Manager that the city needs to do some emergency leasing of vacant commercial structures pronto because the Chief is going to direct all officers not to enter the current facility in 2017 except to empty it out.
In other words, the police should refuse to remain where they are while the voters hash it out with the pork-seeking lobby trying to push through a supersized facility (150,000 square feet - roughly double what Salem needs). And then follow through.
After all, it's an emergency. And so, once this iteration of the bond is defeated, we can do it again in six months. And we should keep doing it, as many times as needed, again and again, until the city comes up with a plan that provides the money to take care of ALL the city facilities in the current City Hall complex, including the main library.
Besides -- a single huge police facility is the worst strategic move possible. In the event of a massive quake, we would regret putting all our eggs in that one huge basket. What Salem needs is multi-purpose facilities north, south, center, and west, with the main HQ functions in the center, but precinct facilities north, south and west. These can provide community meeting rooms for neighborhood groups, branch libraries, and social service satellite centers, with police integrated into them (you know, community policing).
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Mark your Calendars: Nov. 13 @ Salem Cinema, 7 p.m.
Shattered :: a Reel Change event
Benefit for Center for Hope & Safety
Venue
Salem Cinema on Broadway, (The Majestic Auditorium) (Salem, OR)
Shattered: Journey into a silent Past.
Sunday, November 13th.
meet & greet at 6pm & documentary film at 7pm.
followed by Q&A with local legend Britta Franz.
Britta and Marianne Lion grew up in a Jewish family in my hometown Aachen. As a filmmaker I was interested in their fate because in 1937, when the two sisters were 9 and 12 years old they were forced to leave Germany and flee to the United States together with their parents. Their father, Curt Lion, owned a beautiful clothing store named Appelrath-Cüpper and sold it to my grandfather shortly before the flight. How did the transaction actually take place and were the two businessmen able to avoid the "Nazification" and all the taxes on Jewish property?
Together with Britta and Marianne, we researched letters, photographs and archives. We visited the store which still exists and found traces of their relatives who didn't succeed to escape the Nazis.
The siblings are two of hundreds of thousands of German Jews who lost their home country and many family members -- a widely silenced generation.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Name the Third Bridge Contest Over: It's the Donald J. Trump Bridge
On revising the Salem urban growth boundary so that the Bridgeasaurus Boondogglus (Third Bridge) can be added to the Salem Transportation System Plan:
This evening, you are taking a momentous action and such a momentous action really deserves a fitting memorial. So I ask that, if you approve this proposal, you should go the whole way and name the bridge now, so that this monstrously expensive waste of planning dollars will always carry the name of someone associated with the kind of sound good judgment and maturity that this project has exhibited from the start, Donald J. Trump.It's really exactly is the kind of classy project that should bear his name and it would be fitting indeed.The financing is pure fiction and will lead to massive losses, but not for the people pushing the project, only for the little people in the blast zone.It's the kind of project that can only be supported by people who are in total denial about the reality of climate change and who insist that climate change is a hoax by the Chinese to destroy American industry. If you vote to add this to the plan, you are endorsing that kind of thinking, in direct contravention to state policy goals.The demand modeling underlaying the project projections is as sound as The Donald's earnings projections on his bankrupt casinos. Just as The Donald flatly denies his own filmed quotes, the traffic projections in the draft EIS you are furthering are pure flat denials of reality.Citizens raising questions and concerns have been treated like a Hillary Clinton piñata at the GOP Convention.The repayment cost for the financed project is remarkably similar to the yuuuuuuuuge $916 million loss that helped The Donald shift his tax burden onto ordinary citizens, just as this bridge will do.And the backers of this pork project have acted throughout like The Donald backstage at a teen beauty contest, salivating and determined to just grab the prize with both hands.It really is The Donald to a tee.
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