Fear and Loathing in Algier’s Point
Posted: December 22, 2008 Filed under: Human Rights, New Orleans | Tags: Alger's Point White Vigillantes, Post Katrina Racism Comments Off on Fear and Loathing in Algier’s PointAlgier’s Point has a history of racism. It’s a small neighborhood and mostly white enclave located on the west bank of the Mississippi River in New Orleans. It started as the place in New Orleans where human beings were bought and sold. The Slave Market was placed far across the river from the main part of the city that was filled with folks of mixed race, free people of color, and the many assorted European transplants that made it home. Now it’s a quaint little neighborhood that has shown an ugly white face to the world.
You may remember hearing about the West Bank when the Sheriff of Gretna (another mostly white working class enclave) stopped many folks from crossing the Crescent City Connection in attempt to wall off the west bank from those fleeing the flooded city. There was a lawsuit that was recently dismissed and the event attracted attention from national media and civil rights leaders. The West Bank and its after-Katrina aftermath is once more at the epicenter of controversy. ‘The Nation’ broke a story last week that included this video-taped admissions from White vigilantes in Algiers Point. You can listen to them admit to shooting Black men on sight for just being in the neighborhood during Katrina.
One transplant from Chicago brags in only the way the truly stupid can:
“It was great! Like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, we shot it.”
(You can catch this jerk around the 5:40 mark).
Charges of racism have been bandied about this election so readily that I’ve frequently worried we’ll become immune to the real things when it happens. This weekend, I actually heard on commentator say that it was racist to even think about running any one against New York Governor Patterson in an upcoming election. Just about anyone who supported Hillary Clinton during the primary had the racist meme thrown at them. I was tired of the entire subject, frankly.
Watch this video. It’s the real deal and you’ll recognize it. It’s incredibly appalling and I hope the MSM airs the most offensive parts because there is an incredible level of hatefulness here that signifies racism at its worse. I know it when I see it.
NOTE: you can read more about this and make comments at the website of the New Orleans Times Picayune
When Inclusion is Really Exclusion
Posted: December 18, 2008 Filed under: A My Pet Goat Moment, Human Rights, No Obama, president teleprompter jesus, Team Obama | Tags: Gene Robinson prayer, Inauguration, Obama inauguration, Rick Warren prayer 11 Comments
When I heard that Rick Warren was invited by PE Obama to say a prayer at the inauguration, my first thought was that Obama’s pandering to the religious right was more than just electioneering. Obama seems intent on including them in his administration. To me, this bodes poorly for science, rational thought, and civil rights. I was hoping he might ask some one like Rev. Gene Robinson, an Episcopalian Bishop to give the prayer because it would demonstrate a true commitment to civil rights. Rev. Robinson is openly gay and his appointment has been an ongoing source of controversy.
I was pleased to read Jeffrey Feldman’s blog today to find there was some one else out there with similar feelings. I always find the Feldman’s analysis of how people looking for positions of power ‘frame’ cultural and political issues fascinating. Feldman believes that Obama is not leading on civil rights issues but ‘tinkering’ and points to previous democratic leaders who took bold stands on civil rights issues. I’m going to highlight his main points, but would suggest you go look at the entire essay.
Obama, Feldman believes, comes up short on the leadership scale.
Marriage equality for gays and lesbians is not just some “social issue” akin to school uniforms, warning labels on music or smoking in restaurants. It is the current epicenter of the civil rights movement in America.
… When Lincoln took office, the abolition of slavery was the epicenter. When Wilson took office, the women’s suffrage movement was the epicenter. When FDR took office, poverty was the epicenter. When Kennedy took office, segregation was the epicenter
Thinking about Obama’s presidency in terms of an ‘epicenter’ of civil rights changes how we think about Rick Warren speaking at the inauguration.
Rick Warren is not just a pastor opposed to gay rights. He is a highly political leader of a mega-church who has compared abortion to the Holocaust and opposed marriage reform in terms equivalent to the bigoted plaintiffs in Loving v. Virginia–the landmark 1967 civil rights case overturning anti-miscegenation marriage laws. In an era where gay rights are the epicenter, Rick Warren is a widely recognized voice arguing against those rights.
Translating Rick Warren into the terms of previous civil rights eras is the key to seeing why his role at Obama’s inauguration is so troubling. By comparison, if this were Lincoln’s inauguration, Rick Warren would have been the equivalent pro-slavery pastor giving the invocation. If this were Wilson’s inauguration, Rick Warren would have been the equivalent of an anti-women’s suffrage pastor saying a prayer. For FDR, he would have been the same as inviting a pastor opposed to rights for the poor. For Kennedy, he would have been the same as inviting a pastor who spoke out repeatedly about the dangers of desegregation.
In each of these cases, for the President-elect to invite the a voice known for arguing against progress–and to do so in the name of political peacemaking, as Barack Obama has done with Rick Warren–would have revealed a tinkerer on civil rights, not a leader.
Feldman raises just one faucet of leadership where Obama fails. Obama’s cabinet appointments are being ‘framed’ as pragmatic. Obama has said he wants to be surrounded by folks that are not idealogues, but folks that will get things done. I guess I have to raise the question of how important is getting a bureaucracy to work when the overall goals are based on functionality and not vision. This is where I think Feldman sees the gay rights as symptomatic of Obama’s lack of leadership skills. As President, Obama should be doing more than just making history based on appearances. If Obama is ‘symbolic’ of civil rights gains, then what does it say to choose Warren, some one who assaults the civil rights of both women and GLBT Americans?
I feel compelled to add my voice to those asking Obama to disinvite Warren. What would it say if Obama, instead, asked Rev Robinson to contribute this prayer instead? Wouldn’t the inclusion of Rev. Gene Robinson make a compelling statement towards the future of civil rights in this country? Wouldn’t this be a strong statement given that the President Elect’s supporters contributed so heavily to the defeat of Prop 8 in California? This would be a sign of leadership and not just a going along with what worked to get Obama elected.
Chapter 3: In which Kat joins the Pigou Club
Posted: December 17, 2008 Filed under: Environmental Protection, president teleprompter jesus, U.S. Economy | Tags: energy policy, Oil Tax, Pigou Tax on Energy, steven Chu 5 Comments
This thread is going to speak to solving several major problems we have in our Economy in a way that is not going to be highly popular with folks outside the Pigou Club. If you slept during or avoided your microeconomics course, or blocked the bad memories the minute you finished the course, you undoubtedly are asking yourself wtf is the Pigou Club? If you do remember who Pigou is and what he suggested, you’re asking yourself, why would any economist suggest raising taxes on anything during a major recession? Well, get ready to discuss using a tax to shape social behavior because that’s what Pigou suggested and that’s what we now do on things like alcohol and cigarettes.
Arthur Cecil Pigou was a Brit economist who was part of the Cambridge school that also produced John Maynard Keynes. Pigou’s major work was in an area that we call welfare economics. You can read more about him if you’d like but this is from Wikipedia and gives you the major idea.
Pigou’s major work, Wealth and Welfare (1912, 1920), brought welfare economics into the scope of economic analysis. In particular, Pigou is responsible for the distinction between private and social marginal products and costs. He originated the idea that governments can, via a mixture of taxes and subsidies, correct such perceived market failures — or “internalize the externalities“. Pigovian taxes, taxes used to correct negative externalities, are named in his honor.
So what do the members of Greg Mankiw’s Pigou Club want to tax? Well, the answer is that now is the perfect time for a federal tax on gasoline and other petroleum products. It appears that the incoming energy secretary, Steven Chu, is also a member of the Pigou Club. Another Obama appointee, Lawrence Summers also supports the idea. Here is a description of Chu’s idea from the WSJ.
In a sign of one major internal difference, Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September.
But Mr. Obama has dismissed the idea of boosting the federal gasoline tax, a move energy experts say could be the single most effective step to promote alternative energies and temper demand.
That last sentence is the important argument is signficant. A Pigou tax on gasoline, heating oil, and other petroleum products would, in fact, be extremely effective in promoting alternative energies, decreasing dependence on foreign sources of the products, and giving us more leverage in the world with countries we have to endure just because they have oil. Check out today’s Market Watch and the new threat from OPEC. Threats from OPEC are nothing new, we’ve been dealing with them since the 1970s, but ineffectively, because they can negatively impact our economyand the way we deal with certain oil exporting countries with terrorist tendencies. We also know they loosen up the supply and let prices drop anytime we threaten energy independence which causes auto companies and stupid americans who love big vehicles to buy them.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has decided to cut its oil output by 2.2 million barrels a day from current output, or 4.2 million barrels a day from September levels, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Wednesday.
…OPEC faces a world where oil prices are set by factors outside of the traditional supply and demand. Currency and interest rate moves, as well as jitters tied to the global economic crisis, have pushed oil prices down precipitously of late.Analysts at Pritchard Capital Partners noted that the lowered production target is expected to take effect on Jan. 1, with actual cuts coming mostly from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait
A message from PEER
Posted: December 15, 2008 Filed under: A My Pet Goat Moment, Action Memo, Environmental Protection, No Obama, president teleprompter jesus, Team Obama, U.S. Economy | Tags: bad obama appointments, Lisa Jackson, obama bad for the EPA, Obama EPA appointment is bad for environment and public, PEER 1 Comment
As a public employee, I found myself frequently in the position of watching higher-ups do things that were not ethical, responsible or mindful of the public welfare. I have less problems with that now that I work for a University as a prof endowed with intellectual freedom. Other agency employees don’t have that same protection. I have worked for ‘other’ agencies. There was also very little I could do about it. One of the groups I support is PEER. This is a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. It was formed, in part, because of the incredible suppression of scientific evidence that has occurred recently to further business interests.
I’d like to bring this latest action memo to your attention as I think you’ll agree, it’s an interesting one.
As word of President-elect Obama’s environmental team was being authoritatively leaked around town, one name jumped out at us – Lisa Jackson, until recently head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, was tapped to head EPA.
Anguished DEP employees (and a few who had resigned in disgust) urged us to put the word out about Jackson, including her –
- Failure to tell parents or workers at the Kiddie Kollege day-care center for three months about mercury contamination in the former thermometer factory it was located in (kid you not);
- Efforts that set water quality standards so low that aquatic life in the state’s rivers and lakes would be poisoned – and that was according to the Bush administration, which also had to intervene to rescue New Jersey’s crippled Superfund program; and
- Suppression of science, politicized decision-making, and an embrace of secrecy (even invoking “executive privilege” to shield her meeting calendars from public view).
In short, her former staff at DEP would be the last to nominate her for promotion. The stories from DEP workers are eerily reminiscent of what we have been hearing from dispirited EPA staff during the Bush years.
As one might imagine, our note of dissent on the Jackson pick is being drowned out by a chorus of happy talk. We will be urging the Senate and anyone else who seriously want to evaluate Ms. Jackson’s record to talk to the parents of the Kiddie Kollege toddlers.
As one might imagine, I have a feeling that in the coming years, more than ever, PEER will be called upon to tell inconvenient truths.
The Economic Downlook: Retro Numbers
Posted: December 15, 2008 Filed under: Equity Markets, U.S. Economy | Tags: Economic Outlook, economy 1 CommentI’ve actually been avoiding writing about the economic news these days because frankly I don’t want to harsh your mellow this holiday season. The Fed’s Open Market Committee is meeting the next few days and Dr. Bernanke’s study about Monetary Policy at the Zero Bound is likely to be on the agenda. We’re so close to zero interest rates in the credit markets, traditional monetary policy is basically off their table. You’re going to hear words like liquidity trap (where the interest rates are so low that every one prefers to sit on cash and banks really don’t want to lend at that rate). You’ll also hear about ‘quantitative easing’. This is where the Fed uses it’s own balance sheet and it’s own assets to try to prop up the economy. These are all moves tried by Japan in the 1990s during its lost decade. We’re still debating their efficacy and the results look mixed. The Fed can look around its tool box all that it wants but it’s doubtful to find a stash of viagra. If you want a medical metaphor, the Fed is basically using untested methodology–like those tests of procedures they only let participants into if they’re terminal. The Fed’s on the side lines. We’re going to have to rely on stimulus from the folks in Congress and the incoming/outgoing adminstrations now. (Greater Ethos help us!)
I’ve been looking over the recent numbers (yes MyIQ2xu, i’m throwing those fried chicken entrails again) and what’s really got me in a quandry is the number of times I see leading indicator numbers
that are only comparable to Hoover’s time. In my three decades of economic study, I have NEVER had to harken back to Hoover’s time as anything more than a history lesson. We seem to be hitting records on the downside that are puzzling even the brightest economist and believe me, I’m not among those. However, I’ll try to give you a feel for some of the major indicators and why the global economy appears to be in for a long period of distress.
The Fed is likely to cut interest rates to 50 year lows some time in the next two days. As I said, no one is expecting that to do much good but it will act as a signal that the Fed continues to follow serious expansionary policy to boost the economy. It has a lot of leeway now because the recent inflation numbers are astounding. Economists are expecting Thursday’s inflation rates to be the lowest since 1938 on the upside (1.4%) and the lowest since 1933 on the downside of the forecasts. Estimates by some economists have the U.S. economy experiencing its first negative year over year inflation since the 1950s. This news is a mixed bag. Basically if you’re a consumer, everything you want is about to become very cheap. The problem is with the next set of numbers. How many folks will be in the position to buy them?
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