Tuesday, December 30, 2003
The view from the cheap seats. On Monday, the editorial page of the News-Press was apparently in one of those foul holiday moods that people do experience from time to time. (albeit not usually in so public of a forum) In an otherwise mostly reasonable call for better regional cooperation, they managed to throw a few punches Assemblymember Jackson's way.
The comment about her opening a satellite office in Ventura is too ridiculous to bother with; that's the standard issue, silly but omnipresent "Santa Barbara is the center of the universe" worldview that everyone who has lived here longer than a day has run into. Forcing Ventura County constituents to get on the 101 every time they have business with the state doesn't seem like much of a solution, regional or otherwise.
The charge that she hasn't worked towards solving the 101 problem is equally absurd, and more serious. She and her staff have been working on the problem for years and had countless meetings with Caltrans, Metrolink, Amtrak and the armada of community groups that are working towards a solution. This is the hard work of making a complicated project like what the 101 needs happen, and it has gone essentially unreported in the pages of the News-Press. The tragedy here isn't Assemblymember Jackson's approach to this problem; it's that term limits (and an irrationally tax averse, transportation budget raiding governor) will prevent her from finishing the job.
The process of democracy maybe doesn't quite fit with the immediacy and drama that newspapers (and TV news, for that matter) require. Page after page of coverage devoted to the Michael Jackson case surely sells more papers than coverage of the slow processes of democracy. But those processes are happening regardless, and to editorialize as if they weren't is a denial of the facts.
Monday, December 22, 2003
Conundrum of the day: If capturing Saddam Hussein really is making us safer, why is Tom Ridge saying things like "the threat is perhaps greater now than since Sept. 11th" and bumping up the terror threat level to orange?
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Budget bloodpressure alert. If your doctor has cautioned you to avoid stressful situations, you might want to give the News-Press a miss this morning. (or at least just stick to the stuff about Jacko) Governor Schwarzenegger's crass election ploy, cutting the vehicle license fee reinstatement and massively increasing the structural deficit in the state budget, is (big suprise!) starting to wreak havoc on local services. Governor Schwarzenegger and President Bush: you two are total wusses when it comes to budgets. Real men and real women don't increase structural deficits.
The Sacramento Bee's Pete Schrag has done some consistently great editorial work on this mess. His column this morning, regarding the pleasing sounds of hooey includes a reference to some recent research about the effect of all these tax cuts - a paper called Homer gets a tax cut. I have a strong urge to xerox about a hundred of these and hand them out to my conservative relatives over the holidays. At least check out the cartoon at the top.
In the first column by Mr. Schrag linked above, he states that the Governor has threatened to come to people's districts. I truly and sincerely hope he comes to visit us here in Santa Barabara. I have a couple of things I'd like to say to that guy.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Public beta launch today! At last Thursday's meeting of the county Central Committee, the proposed plan for this blog was approved. Later today, I'll be sending out an announcement to local politically inclined email lists. If you got that email and that's why you're here, welcome! You can let us know what you think via email, or even better, by the "comments" links below each post.
To celebrate, here are some song lyrics that were submitted by local Democratic lifetime service award winner Henry Kramer. He's submitted a number of posts on serious topics as well. They'll be going up over the next week or two, but this one's the most appropriate to today's occasion. He writes that these are to be sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey":
The Deregulation Blues
By Henry Kramer
(In commemoration of the Deregulation of the Electric Utilities in California)
Deregulation of Edison And PG&E has cost Many billions already And more will be lost Juice deregulation Is real bad news It's deregulation That gives us the blues. The fat cats who screwed us Saying we'd save on our bill And now that they've got us They've come in for the kill They talk of free markets That are rigged all the way Only thing with the markets Is that you and I pay The company's front man In the gray flannel suit Has got you bamboozled Tatooed, stewed and screwed We begged: "CIC Bush Cap oil costs at FERC." "Can't" sat on his tush And FERC on his perk. Let's get out from under Strike out and break free Vote all Democratic Restore liberty
Monday, December 15, 2003
First of all, congratulations to our troops for capturing Saddam Hussein yesterday. The America people were misled into this war and this sure does't fix that problem, but good news is still good news.
Back on the home front, the editor of the Nation has a piece running called What Economic Recovery? that nicely sums up what the economy really looks like from this end:
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Isn't it interesting that a few small percentage points here and there--third- quarter GDP showed an annual growth rate of 8.2 percent and monthly unemployment dropped from 6.1 percent to 6 percent--produces such euphoria about the country's economic upturn?
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Happy Birthday to Alexandra! It was a small ceremony yesterday at Assemblymember Jackson's office, as the staff took a break from attending thousands of meetings and dealing with mountains of casework. But the mostly organic cake was unbelievably delicious...
(full disclosure: I provided strategic baking and frosting advice in the creation of the pictured desert) Staff superstar Alexandra turned 23. We probably won't cover every single birthday of every staff person in every office in the county here on the SBDemsBlog, but offers of free cake are always taken seriously.
Friday, December 12, 2003
David Brooks is a smart guy. I've flipped through but not read his book Bobos in Paradise, but even from just getting that far I could tell it was right on. But I was disappointed with the lameness of his latest attack on Dean. You can read it in the New York Times (free registration required), but it also ran on the op-ed page of our News-Press.
He doesn't even bother to get his facts straight. He complains that Dean has somehow flipflopped on free trade, and claims that he's not running on his record in Vermont. Dean's position on trade since he was governor is that it's good for both our economy as well as other countries and we should continue to participate in NAFTA & the WTO, but that we need to start including protections for the environment and for labor, and to start reforming those organizations to be more democratic. What's wrong (or "anti-free trade"?) about creating vibrant middle classes in other countries?
I have no idea where Brooks got the idea that Dean's not running on his record - he's mentioned it it in practically every speech that I've heard. So much so that I feel like I know it off the top of my head: Child abuse cut by 43% over his tenure as Governor. Health insurance provided for 91% of the state. A balanced budget & two tax cuts. Etc etc.
I'm really curious as to where the Republican echo chamber thinks they're going to get traction on this guy. Nothing they've tried so far is working.
Saturday, December 06, 2003
A little bit of good news on the budget front this morning, finally. Schwarznegger's reckless and irresponsible $15B credit card plan has been shut down by the Assembly, along with the equally ill-advised, draconian and totally unreasonable spending cap that his office proposed. My favorite quote from today's coverage comes from Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Sherman Oaks, "When you are bleeding you apply a tourniquet, not a noose." The cap was smacked down good and hard by the Senate, 34 to zeeeroh.
Here's the inside word on this, which didn't show up in any of the stories I read: the spending cap was written in a way that would've allowed the Governor's office total control over the budget if an "economic emergency" was declared. In other words, it was nothing more than a power grab, and not a particularly nuanced one at that. At least the right thing happened. One other thing is that this vote was just over a procedural deadline, so this $15B creditzilla problem is not over yet.
Friday, December 05, 2003
A question that is mu. This is going to drive me completely nuts, I think. It seems like whenever a pollster goes out to talk to some Democrats, they have no choice but to ask them at least one question regarding whether they'd rather stand up for their principles or win. Based on these latest Zogby results from South Carolina I guess people are starting to realize what a bunch of tripe this is:
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Two-thirds of respondents (65%) say it is more important to nominate a candidate who stands up for what he or she believes, while 29% would opt for a candidate who can defeat President George W. Bush in November 2004.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
McClintock penny wise but pound foolish? This morning, Tom McClintock chimes in on the budget debate. It was on the News-Press editorial page, but here's a direct link to it, from his State Senate website. Here it is in a nutshell:
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If the current rate of state spending were reduced 13.4 percent on Jan. 1 and frozen through Mr. Schwarzenegger's first budget, the state would be back in the black, free and clear of external debt, and able to start the governor's second year in 2005 with a clean slate...
The alternative is to borrow the difference at heavy rates of interest over the next generation.
In the simplified economic universe that conservative ideology operates in, taxes have some sort of distortedly huge disincentive effect on people and either the best or the only way to generate growth is to cut them. Here in reality, things aren't quite that simple: true, sustainable economic growth comes from the long-term investments that we as a society make in people. Think of the education and community programs that result in people becoming productive members of society rather than criminals, for example.
And in the new economy, education is particularly crucial. It really is the only engine of long-term growth now, and although he declines to offer suggestions, one can only presume that cuts in education would have to be included. I believe that there is a distinctly moral dimension to not cutting education that transcends economics, but since Mr. McClintock tends to see the state budget purely in terms of a balance sheet, it's pretty clear that this isn't a solution on those terms, either.
Schwarzenegger in over his head? There's so much bad news about Schwarzenegger coming out that it's hard to sort through it all. This is an interesting quote from an article in today's LA Times, though:
- Schwarzenegger spoke Tuesday from a stage with a Macy's department store behind him and, in front of him, a statue of a cowboy using a whip on a horse. [hrunh? -da] He asked voters to give him a political weapon for the holidays: their time.
"I know it's a busy time right now, Christmastime, shopping time and all those things, but just give me those few minutes" and call, write or send e-mails to legislators, he pleaded.
I don't blame the Governor for trying to stick this debt to my generation - it's like our karmic payback for the abysmal voter turnout among 18-34 years olds. As a group we may not have taken much of an interest in politics, but politics certainly seems to be about to take an interest in us. But that still doesn't make this the right thing to do. Since this bond "solution" is apparently going to be on the ballot coming this March, at least we'll have a chance to get the word out about what a terrible idea it is.
And State Treasurer Phil Angelides has already started. You can check out all the gory details in this press release, but here's the bottom line:
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The total cost of the Governor’s proposal, if paid off over 15 years, would be $11.8 billion more
than the cost of the deficit bonds included as part of the enacted 2003-04 budget, and the
Governor’s proposal, if paid off over 30 years, would cost taxpayers $23.5 billion more.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Hello, and welcome to the weblog of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Central Committee. For those who are new to all this, a weblog is a journal, usually collaboratively authored, that is posted on the web in reverse chronological order and that allows for reader participation. We believe this to be the first weblog of any Democratic Party County Committee. Although lots of County Committees have nice websites, such as ours, none that we've been able to find have so far implemented a true weblog.
This page will be a coordinating and scheduling resource for local Democrats, but we'd like it to be much more than that as well. The Republicans have taken lately to claiming that they are the current "party of ideas." Unfortunately, most of their ideas are antiquated, overly simplistic and increase the amount of suffering and injustice in the world when they're implemented.
As unfortunate as this state of affairs is, their claims do point out something important: politics is, partially, a War of Ideas, and that is not a war that the left has been winning recently. The reasons for this are myriad but one aspect of it is our lack of media presence. The internet represents a new front in this battle. We still (desparately) need to step up our presence on the airwaves (both radio and TV), but efforts like this will lay the groundwork for that larger project.
But why attempt this aspect of the larger strategy via the Democratic Party? There are dozens of interesting and politically effective organizations here in this city and county. Some political writers have been suggesting that the parties themselves are antiquated, throwbacks to a form of democracy that we've moved past? Why bother with the party at all?
The parties may feel like throwbacks, but for a long time they were a critical part of the infrastructure that comprised our democracy. In Bill Greider's unfortunately prescient 1992 book, Who Will Tell The People, he argues that the parties are one aspect of the now-decayed "connective tissues of democracy" that must be revived for our society to function properly again.
This line of reasoning was echoed in a recent talk that Joe Trippi, presidential candidate Howard Dean's campaign manager, gave to a couple hundred Dean organizers in Los Angeles. He said that after September 11th, for a few weeks we lived in a different country, a country with a tangible sense of community. I think this feeling started to die off right around when Bush told us to get back to shopping. But a lot of the people who have gotten involved in politics recently have done so because of that brief taste we got, even though it occurred in the face of unspeakable tragedy. Regardless of which of the nine excellent candidates we choose in the upcoming primary, local party organizations can and should be part of rebuilding that country we so briefly experienced.
This weblog is going to be a mix of opinion and information. As we get things rolling we'll be soliciting contributions from any Santa Barbara Democrat, but for now I'll be the primary author, so here's where I'm coming from: I understand progressives' and liberals' current distaste for, and even anger at, the Democratic Party. I was a registered Green until just after the 2000 election, and I still greatly admire their values and ideology. But in this world, especially now, strategy matters too. But the reasons I've come to believe in the Democratic Party go far beyond just strategy: this organization offers the diversity, national reach, name recognition and a depth of experience that is unlike any other other. Add to this the fact that the Democrats are the only viable alternative to win in 2004. I strongly believe that if you're a progressive and you have political objectives, the Democratic Party is the way to make them happen.
When William F. Buckley, Jr. founded the conservative National Review in 1954, he declared their purpose to be to stand athwart history, yelling "Stop!" It is time for us to do the same thing, but this time give a cattle-call "heeeyah!" and yell, "It's long past time to get moving again!" Until we live in as close to a perfectly free and perfectly just world as our imaginations are capable of producing, trying to stop or roll back the great, liberal cause of humanity as implemented through civil society is morally suspicious. We will not be afraid to say so here.
The current adminstration in the White House and the Congress has the United States on a path towards a grim, militaristic, theocratic plantation economy of a future. It is time to fight back with our positive, abundant and peaceful vision: an economy that works for everyone and a foreign policy that will reflect our values and provide for true and lasting security. We hope you'll continue to join us here in this experiment in moving things in the right direction.
