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Detroit

[ 101 ] November 13, 2012 | Erik Loomis

So I am getting more than a bit sick and tired of poorly contextualized ruminations on the ruin landscape of Detroit. Some of this art and writing is interesting enough on its own. Marc Binelli’s piece for instance is alright and does sort of get at some of the deeper problems challenging Detroit. But looking at Detroit as the end of the world ignores the biggest reason why Detroit has reached this state. Deindustrialization of course plays a major role. But equally important, especially in Detroit, is continued residential segregation. If we isolate Detroit as the physical boundaries of that city alone, without paying much attention to the metro area, then we can create these apocalyptic constructions. But there is a tremendous amount of money in the suburbs around Detroit. What we are seeing is not the end of the world. It’s the logical consequence of white supremacy combined with corporate race-to-the-bottom policies.

Here’s another way to look at the problem:

This is a residential map of Detroit, with dots pointing to the racial makeup of neighborhoods. Guess which dots represent black and white? Bet you can’t tell!!! Yellow are Latinos. Not surprisingly, the boundary between black and white in the Detroit metro area corresponds closely to the Detroit city limits. We need to be talking about metro areas when thinking about cities, not just the central city isolated from the context of what is going on a mere few miles away.

In other words, anyone writing or filming anything about Detroit should be forced to read Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis first. This John Patrick Leary essay in Guernica is also pretty fantastic.

Also, here’s the site with lots of those cool city segregation maps.

Overrated

[ 42 ] November 12, 2012 | Erik Loomis

The other day, Scott mentioned the absurd yet pervasive idea that Karl Rove is a political supergenius. Particularly bizarre to me is the idea that he played an important role in moving Texas from the Democrats to the Republicans. See this Washington Post piece:

Rove’s reputation for seeing the Next Big Thing in politics goes back to the late 1970s, when he arrived in Texas to set up a direct-mail operation. At the time, Republicans held only one statewide elected office; when he left in 2001, Republicans were in all 29 of them — and most of those officials had at one time or another been Rove’s clients.’

Yeah, wow, hard to see how Texas would have switched to the Republicans if it wasn’t for Rove’s direct-mail operation. Certainly the Republicans redefining themselves as the party of the white man after 1964 had nothing to do with it at all….

A Food System Designed For Shareholder Profit

[ 17 ] November 12, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Tom Philpott’s essay on how the pork industry serves as an economic negative to the Iowa communities in which factory farms are concentrated is quite interesting.

In short, since 1982, the number of hog farms in Iowa has declined rapidly while production has skyrocketed. This means more pigs concentrated into huge farms. Those megafarms not only force pigs to live terrible lives but are also massive environmental hazards in places people don’t want to work or live unless they lack the sense of smell. This has happened because the Big Four meatpackers have consolidated control of the hog markets and have forced small farmers out of business in the name of efficiency. One might think that the counties with megafarms would have benefited economically, but this isn’t true. Today, hog-centric counties in Iowa have slightly lower per capita income rates than non-hog counties, a quite different picture from 30 years ago. That’s partially because the corporations have pushed down real wages for meatpacking workers.

Our internalized rhetoric of market efficiency (which even most progressives subscribe to without thinking) means that we think that this consolidation (even with its unfortunate side effects) is obviously worth it because it means lower food prices. But Philpott shows that corporations have little incentive to pass on lower prices to consumers while they have tons of incentive to pass on costs when food prices go up. So essentially, consolidation in the Iowa hog industry has led to more money in the pockets of corporate shareholders at the cost of everyone else involved. Just like the rest of the American economy since the 1970s.

Taken For Granted

[ 19 ] November 12, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Josh Eidelson has an interesting interview with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka about the aftermath of the election. Labor did pretty well in the election, outside of the failed Michigan referendum to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution. The question is whether it will mean anything in the long run. Will Obama take labor seriously in his second term? In my mind, there’s a difference between thinking about labor as a constituency and centering it in the administration. Will the Secretary of Labor be at the table for all discussions of economic issues, including taxes, debt ceilings, entitlements, and broad economic policy? Hilda Solis certainly was not brought into the inner sanctum of economic policy in Obama’s first term.

Of course, relying on politicians isn’t a winning strategy for organized labor. Organizing has to be the engine that drives a better future for American labor. This is still a contentious issue within the AFL-CIO, with some internationals doing a great job and others doing a terrible job.

On the other hand, as Eidelson points out, there’s a lot more Obama could do right now:

Meanwhile, there’s plenty the Obama administration could do – and so far hasn’t – without Congress. With an executive order, the president could change federal contracting to exclude more union-busting companies. With regulations, his Labor Department could restrict the use of dangerous equipment by teenagers working on factory farms, or extend basic overtime protections to domestic workers.

Trumka called for swift action on a long-delayed OSHA regulation regarding silica dust. Asked how quickly it should move, Trumka answered, “Last year.” As for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks currently underway, Trumka said, “They have to make sure they negotiate a deal that actually helps in-sourcing rather than promotes outsourcing. That’s a position that he stood for throughout this election, and I feel confident that he will follow through on that.”

Given the unlikelihood of Employee Free Choice Act passing, what labor needs to demand from Obama is real change on the executive level as laid out above. Everyone interested in labor will be watching to see if Obama pays labor off for its vital help in his reelection campaign.

Veterans’ Day

[ 10 ] November 11, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Here’s Tom Russell providing something a bit more meaningful than the cheap patriotism we usually see on this day (and have seen all day from the NFL).

Arizona

[ 13 ] November 11, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Arizona is a national joke. Say what you will about whatever southern state you don’t like, Arizona matches them all for extremism, hate, and corruption. Have to give it credit though. Arizona Republicans’ plans to steal the election was more sophisticated than other states. Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell I’m sure are proud.

At least the state had some responsibility for this I guess:

Roth

[ 67 ] November 9, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Philip Roth, the greatest American writer of his era, claims to have retired.

In the end, this might be a good thing, assuming he really retires. While his 90s and early 2000s resurgence was brilliant, his last novels were, uh, not very good. I had a couple of hours to kill in a library this summer and so I grabbed The Humbling off the shelves. To say the least, it was the worst Roth I’ve ever read. I mean, it’s one thing to be a misogynist in a brilliant novel. But in a bad novel, the misogyny is just unacceptable. That doesn’t take anyway from his 10-15 very good to amazing books. But maybe it is time.

A Casablanca Sequel?

[ 100 ] November 8, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Alyssa Rosenberg leads us to discussions of a Casablanca sequel:

The New York Post is reporting that there’s some momentum behind a decades-old script treatment for a follow-up by one of the original movie’s screenwriters, Howard Koch, which would have focused on the son Ilsa ends up having after finding herself pregnant from her encounter with Rick in Casablanca. The sequel would cast older actors as the original stars, and would bring in the son as an adult character having adventures in the Middle East, a la Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

OK fine Republicans. You win. We surrender. You can have the presidency. For that matter, the Yankees retroactively win the 2012 World Series. Just don’t make this movie!

America’s Embarrassing Voting System

[ 33 ] November 8, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Exhibit A: Florida

Exhibit B: Ohio

A Coal CEO’s Prayer

[ 41 ] November 8, 2012 | Erik Loomis

My new favorite post-election reaction goes to Robert E. Murray, CEO of Murray Energy. He sent this prayer to America out to his workers, followed by his view of the nation’s future:

Dear Lord:

The American people have made their choice. They have decided that America must change its course, away from the principals of our Founders. And, away from the idea of individual freedom and individual responsibility. Away from capitalism, economic responsibility, and personal acceptance.

We are a Country in favor of redistribution, national weakness and reduced standard of living and lower and lower levels of personal freedom.

My regret, Lord, is that our young people, including those in my own family, never will know what America was like or might have been. They will pay the price in their reduced standard of living and, most especially, reduced freedom.

The takers outvoted the producers. In response to this, I have turned to my Bible and in II Peter, Chapter 1, verses 4-9 it says, “To faith we are to add goodness; to goodness, knowledge; to knowledge, self control; to self control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, kindness; to brotherly kindness, love.”

Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build. We ask for your guidance in this drastic time with the drastic decisions that will be made to have any hope of our survival as an American business enterprise.

Amen.

—

Mr. Murray’s Outline of America’s Future:

What I foresee in America, by Robert E. Murray:

- Drastically reduced economic activity

- Reduced electric power consumption

- Even more drastically reduced coal markets with even worse coal pricing

- Total destruction of the coal industry by 2030

- Enactment of 12 regulations pending from the Obama Administration from the U.S. EPA alone

- Per Sen. James Inhofe, three (3) regulations – greenhouse gas, utility MACT and coal ash – will cost America $600 billion alone

- Likely a carbon tax will be forced to subsidize the government and “receivers” (Obama supporters) in the total destruction of the coal industry, again, the latter as early as 2030

- All coal companies are performing drastically worse than their CEOs and Boards want to report, and this is understandable with their concerns for their stock prices and refinancing

- Most public companies will not be able to continue to emphasize any positive that they have, while avoiding the negatives in their statements and opinions

- The markets will soon take this ability away from these public CEOs and Directors

- Of course, private companies will abandon this business

- We must prepare for this today, and we cannot bleed cash waiting for our competitors to be eliminated

- We must totally go into a survival mode and generate all the cash that we can from whatever we still have left that can help us

- We must tear down all structures in Murray Energy and reassemble them

- While putting Murray Energy into a survival mode, I will be fighting allegations from radical Obama supporters that you know are blatantly false and were inspired only to shut down our opposition to them on behalf of our employees, your area, and our country

- We must be passionate and austere in all that we do.

Murray Energy Corp.

Robert E. Murray

Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

I believe the Good Lord is also telling us all to pull our money from the banks and invest in gold, no?

I’ve also heard that the supernatural sometimes speaks to miners and their families too, with someone different messages.

……The Lord God Jehovah has spoken in the comments and she’s not super thrilled with Murray:

Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build.

If you mean the decision to break safety laws, a decision that led to nine of my children dying needlessly, well, Bob, I would not be counting on my forgiveness. See, Bob, I have you a book, that you claim to have read. And Bob, I talk a lot in it about protecting the poor and weak. And I have a good deal to say in that book about what I have planned for those who fuck over the poor and weak. And Bob, I don’t normally swear, except for when I’m angry. And what you did makes me very, very angry, Bob.

Now kindly shut the fuck up, before I get smitey.

In More Great News for the Republicans

[ 26 ] November 7, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Barack Obama won Cuban-Americans in Florida, 49-47.

Victory

[ 200 ] November 7, 2012 | Erik Loomis

What a night.

I’ll have a full post about this later today, but the success of the marriage equality ballot measures in Maryland, Washington, and Maine and the rejection of the anti-gay measure in Minnesota means that historians may look upon this election as a historical milestone as significant as the election of the first African-American to the presidency 4 years ago. On top of that, you have Obama’s reelection, the significant move of the Senate to the left, a host of interesting ballot measures, and the rejection of white supremacy by the American populace. All very interesting.

Let’s get to some specifics and good links. First, in case you haven’t read enough summaries of why all this matters, Michael Cohen has a real nice piece up at the Guardian.

Amanda Marcotte writes that the nation rejected the Republican War on Women. And indeed she’s right. I’ll only add that it was much more than that. The Republicans declared war not only on women but also on people of color as well as the queer community. Voters rejected that agenda. Women not only elected Obama but they elected each other to lead the rejuvenated Democratic Party. Tammy Baldwin. Elizabeth Warren. Mazie Hirono. Heidi Heitkamp. Tammy Duckworth. These are exciting politicians to go along with Amy Klouchbar, Debbie Stabenow and other impressive women taking leadership roles in the progressive wing of the party.

But again, it’s not just women rallying to defend themselves. Dave Zirin reminds us that Sergio Romo’s awesome World Series parade shirt pretty much sums up much of the Latino community’s response to the Republican War on Brown People. Republicans attack on voting rights seems to have motivated the African-American community even more than they already were. Obama absolutely crushed Romney among Asians. And the young, also victims of Republican voting rights restrictions and barriers on college campuses, again supported the president. I was very pleased that Obama made a point in his speech last night that it was wrong that people have to wait so long to vote and that we needed to do something about that. Of course, voting is generally state-controlled, but national leadership for voting standards could really help. Finally, for the first time in history, the Democratic Party’s House delegation is not majority white male. It’s about time.

The Senate also moved significantly to the left. Republicans moved 2 seats to the right. Crazy Ted Cruz replaced Kay Bailey Hutchison and Deb Fischer won Ben Nelson’s seat. Every other seat that changed hands moved left. Some of these are obvious–Elizabeth Warren beating Scott Brown for instance. But Tammy Baldwin is well to the left of Herb Kohl. Tim Kaine is kind of lame but he’s better than Jim Webb. Joe Donnelly is definitely not my kind of Democrat but he’s to the left of Dick Lugar. Heidi Heitkamp is to the left of Kent Conrad. Martin Heinrich will be to the left of Jeff Bingaman. Chris Murphy is to the left of Joe Lieberman. Mazie Hirono keeps Akaka’s seat very liberal. Angus King is to the left of Olympia Snowe. Etc. DW-Nominate scores for the 112th Congress shows Conrad as 29th most liberal senator, Bingaman 34th, Kohl 37th, Lieberman 46th, Webb 50th. Their replacements will probably be better down the line.

And let’s not forget the states. California finally showed a little bit of sanity, passing a tax hike to save the state’s schools. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana. The passage of gay marriage. The rejection of a lot of awful millionaire-funded craziness on ballot measures across the country. Not everything was perfect. Particularly sad was Michigan rejecting placing collective bargaining guarantees in the state constitution. But still, overall this was a positive night at the state level.

Importantly for progressives needing to learn some lessons about how change takes place in this country, many of these ballot measures show that grassroots organizing works. The gay rights movement and marijuana legalization are social movements creating unstoppable forces for change on the grassroots. They are organizing on the ground and then demanding and successfully creating social change. This is how you do it.

What happens next? The Republican knife fight for control of the party is going to be hilarious to watch. Reading Douthat crying big fat tears is a good start. Pass the popcorn! Republicans’ absurd gerrymanders (allow me to use this occasion to again remind progressives that local and state elections are just as important as the presidency and control over state legislatures is really really really important), especially in Pennsylvania where a majority of the state voted for Democratic House candidates and the congressional delegation is 13-5 Republican, means that they kept the House. So Republicans could continue their policy of extreme hostility. I do probably think this will happen. Congressional Republicans are going to be so furious that Obama is still president that I have trouble seeing much compromise at all from their backbenchers. On the other hand, that is a good ticket to irrelevancy. They’ve tried that for 4 years and it led to another electoral defeat.

The issue about to dominate the country is the upcoming “fiscal cliff.” Yglesias rightfully notes that we all need to chill out and come up with a different name for this. The cliff metaphor is another example of Republicans dominating the nation’s political language. There’s no disaster if nothing happens by December 31 because we can always pass something on January 1. Two additional points about this. I think every progressive is waiting to see what Obama is going to do for his much desired Grand Bargain. How much will he deal away on social programs and for what? At least right now, Obama and Reid seem to be ready to take a more aggressive stance than 2009. Let’s hope so. Second, we are going to find out real fast what the Republican strategy is. But they don’t have a lot of cards to play here. Will the few grownups take over here and agree to some tax hikes?

Finally, here’s a list of 5 things I think we can and should expect Obama and Congress to do in the next 2 years. This excludes things that I want to happen but won’t (Employee Free Choice Act, comprehensive climate change legislation) nor basic executive power stuff that Obama needs to be more aggressive on (nominating judges to fill vacant positions on the federal courts, land protection).

1. Filibuster reform. This obviously should not come from the president. But this is the most important thing the Senate can do. Angus King was elected on a platform of filibuster reform. We know that some of the younger senators like Jeff Merkley and Tom Udall wholly support this. Some of the old guard centrist Democrats like Lieberman who used the filibuster to increase their power are gone. Of course Joe Manchin and Max Baucus are still around. But I think some kind of filibuster reform is absolutely necessary for a functioning government. Lower it to 55 votes. Even 57 would be an improvement. Force filibustering senators to actually talk on the Senate floor. Eliminating individual holds on nominees is also necessary. Harry Reid needs to do this on the first day of the Senate, when the session’s rules are set.

2. Immigration reform. This is good politics and morally correct. Obama needs to make his top legislative priority passing comprehensive immigration reform. Force Republicans to either double down on their white supremacy or cave to survive. Latinos elected Obama and will elect Democrats in the future behind this and other legislation that will promote immigrant rights. Minorities made up 45% of the people who voted for President Obama. He needs to remember this.

3. Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Again, let’s force Republicans to either embrace homophobia or cave. The politics are more or less the same here as immigration reform (albeit a bit more risky in the short term). The overwhelming success of gay marriage last night means that the country is speeding toward this inevitability anyway. No Democrat can win the nomination in 2016 without embracing full equality. Let’s make it national policy and at least force a vote on it.

4. Pass legislation to limit the impact of Citizens United. One of the big stories from last night is that Citizens United seems to have made virtually no difference on the presidential or Senate races. It seems that people probably just tune out the political ads over time. I think this has a far greater effect on the state and local levels, where voters simply don’t pay as much attention or have as much knowledge. Plus it’s a horrible thing and turns off voters. I do think there will be some will to make this happen.

5. Tax the rich. This gets back to the Grand Bargain. Obama needs to make the rich pay their fair share. They hate him anyway so there’s very little political downside. Frame this as a battle against the rich and for the middle class.

Realistically, Obama isn’t going to get more than this done.

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