04 November 2009

McDonalds v. Burger King

posted by Ilyse Kazar

That's how "Reverend" Billy Talen, Green Party mayoral candidate here in NYC termed the contest of two career politicians to be our next mayor.

Billy raked in 0.8% of the vote. Considering he is a performance artist, activist and all-out, no holds barred critic of the power structure, I think it's great that 8 in 1,000 people voted for him!

The other "nice" thing about the mayoral vote was the 51%/46% split between Bloom-Borg and Thompson. Mayor mike is not as loved as he wanted to think. Especially considering the enormity of the differential in the money they each had to spend, Thompson's percentage is significant.

03 November 2009

Response to a comment: Trickle-Down Piss

posted by Ilyse Kazar

A good buddy on Facebook commented on my post about today's VA and NJ governor races:
I wonder if it really Obama - that has people voting R - versus just how bad the economy is. Think we may not be finished with bad economic news (commercial real estate) And Americans want instant fixes - without them paying for it

I think people realized full well how bad the economy already was, and sensed how bad it might get, when they voted in November '08. I think people were hot to see some very tangible things done that directly benefited them. I think people were absolutely ready, in fact, would have cheered from the sidelines, to see the robber barons go down hard.

I also think people understood that fixing Dubya's mess was gonna cost and would not be a free lunch.

When we were on the purported precipice of complete economic meltdown, the people would  have been sobered by the need to pump a trillion dollars of funny money into the system, that will cost us so much as we move forward. But if the money had gone as deferred loans directly to keep real people in their homes, thereby ...
  • saving whole neighborhoods from the sad loss in property values and crime and desolation that has resulted from foreclosures
  • staving off the costs that we have yet to even calculate in feeding free lunches and offering other services to homeless children and families
  • helped folks keep their jobs or find new ones quicker (it's nigh impossible to keep a job or walk into an interview like a positive fresh-faced prospective employee, when one is hungry and homeless)
  • kept mortgage payments (preferably re-financed ones) coming into the banks that were crying they were collapsing because of mortgage defaults
  • providing a way for the government to at least partially recoup our money when those homeowners get on their feet 
...  then folks could say, well, we can see the real benefits of this costly bailout in front of our eyes. They would have been sobered but not angered at so much money going down a stinking sink-hole while nothing changes in their towns and cities, nothing improves for their families.

Ditto if the money had been put directly into financing small businesses, to create or save jobs and help re-stimulate the Main Street economies.

I haven't noticed any revival of Main Street. I haven't seen the reversal of Reagan's trickle-down theories that have held sway in this country, to a huge extent, ever since 1980. The only thing I've seen is more piss trickling down on the little guy.

The Status-Quo Sucks (us back under)

posted by Ilyse Kazar

So, McDonnell takes VA and Christie takes NJ. This is just hunky dory. The Conservatives will now be spreading the meme that this is a rejection of Obama.

The distinction that will be lost: This is not a rejection of the Obama who promised to sock it to the special interests. This is a rejection of the glacial pace at which anything has been done along those lines.

If politics in Washington had ridden the tidal wave of sentiment re the little guy suffering at the hands of huge power blocks, if Washington had done a trickle-up bailout of homeowners instead of a fairly useless (to 99.999% of us) bailout of Wall Street, if Obama were pushing harder for the Dems to include a make-no-bones-about-it public option and if his administration had done a better job of selling it to the people, if stimulus money had gone directly to folks who needed to save or wished to start up small businesses, if Congress had immediately enacted some sort of real incentives to encourage Earth-friendly consumption and energy-user habits, if we had not only gone up against Coal but had the imagination to plan re-training, re-tooling and thereby a boost for the employment prospects of folks in areas where Coal has historically been the only employer ... this would not be happening.

I also blame this on all of us. We were all psyched during the election. There were leagues of us talking it up, knocking on doors, standing at tables, organizing and attending rallies.

Where is the march in Washington against escalation in Afghanistan?

Where are the dramatic news-worthy public events in support of universal health care, demanding real action against global warming?

Where are the demonstrations against the subsidies to factory farming mega-corporations?

I mean, shit, in my junior high school we staged a sit-in, complete with black arm bands, against the war in Nam. Where are you, people? In November 2008 we pulled levers, touched screens or punched chads. We poured out into the streets in a spontaneous celebration when the results came in. Then we sat back to watch and complain.

Maybe the election of more Christies and McDonnells is what we actually need. Maybe we simply have not reached that howling pain-point at which we will get up off our duffs. Maybe we needed this dangerous pivot, this wake-up call that if you don't push hard and keep pushing for Change, the Status Quo is whatchergonnagit.

We were going to take back America, remember?

02 November 2009

Quote of the day: Steve Lacy on Music

We don't determine music,
The music determines us;
We only follow it
To the end of our life:
Then it goes on without us.

Excerpt from 'Saxovision' by Steve Lacy