The Most Important Blog... Ever

One of the most overlooked aspects of the Enron scandal has been the continued failure of the ideology of privatization. Since the rise of Reaganomics, conservative planners have sought to privatize just about everything that the government provides for its citizens, everything from schools to prisons to electricity, even water.

Enron is perhaps the most visible example of the mistaken ideology which holds that private, for-profit business can provide public services for absolutely everything better than government can. After opening California's electric grid to private business, the results were not lower rates and better service, but rather skyrocketing rates and rolling blackouts. In dramatic fashion, California discovered what happens when public accountability is replaced with unbridled private profit motive.

The LA Times ran a feature story over the weekend about the failure of for-profit water companies servicing California communities. Since privatization of water services, Californians have been dealing with unsafe drinking water and outrageous rate hikes of more than 1,000% (yes, one thousand percent).

Most Californians are well aware of the debate over voucher programs and charter schools. S chool maintenance, transportation, and school food services have been outsourced to for-profit companies in yet another example of privatization's growing reach. The for-profits suggest that the free market can provide education better than public schools. Of course, in free markets, there are necessarily winners and losers. And in California, we cannot leave any child in a failing school.

As we move ahead, progress requires looking long and hard at people who tell us that privatization is a panacea for all the problems with public services. When the Republicans tried to privatize Social Security, the nation spoke out and cried foul. This was the beginning of the end for the privatizers. While public providers of services can have problems, they pale in comparison to the problems caused by Enron and their for-profit ilk. A better solution involves taking policy makers to task and getting real, publically accountable solutions. Privatization cannot always be the best way to acheive our dreams.

UPDATE: 6/1 2:47PM
This just in. Even the government's effort to collect taxes is undergoing some privatization -- IRS recordkeeping has just gone to the lowest bidder.

From the Courage Campaign.

The results of a 26 year long study about the expansion of the Earth's deserts were published today in the journal Science. The study, which analyzed satellite photography from 1979 through 2005, shows that the flow of the jet streams has changed in the last few decades, resulting in larger "warm pools" on the surface of the Earth. In short, deserts are growing larger and approaching major cities. Areas that have suffered from drought will likely continue to see drought in the foreseeable future, the study predicts.

Fortunately, according to FOX News, all this is debatable.

No need to be inconvenienced by reports like this, FOX analysts said last weekend in their special "Global Warming: The Debate Continues," because the theory of climate change is just that, a theory.

While Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth (now playing at select theatres) seeks to inconvenience us with truth, I'm happy that FOX news continues to peddle convenient falsehoods. Although Science reported in December 2004 that there is sweeping, near-unanimous agreement from scientists all over the world that climate change is both real and a result of human activity, it sure would be nice to just stick to the "debate."

Back in the real world, though, it's not an inconvenience to take action to curb the tide of climate change. That's why one of our Dreams here at the Courage Campaign is to protect California's environmental heritage. Join us.

From The Courage Campaign.

Blue skies and warm sun are finally back in Santa Barbara. Yesterday and today have just been stunningly beautiful, so you’d think that everyone here at UC Santa Barbara would be all for going outside and soaking up the sun. Sadly, much of the central campus has been taken over by enormous doctored photos of aborted fetuses coupled with threatening slogans about “genocide.”

Yes, national anti-abortion group Justice For All has made a stop in town just in time to dampen our glorious southern California weather. Their presence, of course, sparked counter protests and a silent march. The group and its towering posters are still in place today, doing their best to fear-monger, guilt-trip, and intimidate people into joining them on their hateful crusade.

UCSB student Devon Claire-Flannery wrote an incisive opinion article about the controversy in today’s Daily Nexus. She notes that Justice For All could have done much better in working to make abortions safe and rare. They could have held a rally for better access to contraception to highlight how the Food and Drug Administration has done all it can to block access to emergency contraceptives, a policy that increases the number of unintended pregnancies. Justice For All could have started a grassroots campaign to ensure that all Americans obtain realistic sex education instead of ineffective “abstinence only” education as preferred by the President. The anti-abortion organization could have engaged in aggressive marketing for adequate, universal health care for all Americans – something that would surely make abortion both rarer and safer.

Rather than pursue policies that would make abortion less necessary, Justice For All chose to frighten and belittle women everywhere. Thankfully, many brave UCSB students wearing shirts saying “Educate To End Hate” and holding signs reading “My Body, My Choice” silently stood around the giant photographs on campus to show that this hateful campaign will not change any minds. It just ruins what was otherwise a beautiful day.

(Cross-posted at Courage Campaign and Daily Kos)

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I attended a symposium put on by the New Racial Studies Project last week at UC Santa Barbara. The final event of the symposium was a roundtable discussion featuring some of our nation's most respected thinkers on race and ethnic relations in the United States, people like Kimberle' Williams Crenshaw, Howard Winant, Kaia Stern, and Tony Coleman. These scholars -- all charismatic and effective public speakers -- should be household names. Instead, the personalities leading the national discussion on race are people like Tony Snow, John Gibson, and Ward Connerly.

Part of the reason the national discussion is dominated by talking heads who have little understanding of race stems from how progressives go about their discussions amongst themselves. Events like the New Racial Studies symposium at UCSB often become trapped in lofty and ultimately largely irrelevant academic disputes.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when, early on in the roundtable discussion, the topic turned from heady academic debates to a very straightforward and highly relevant question: How can the voice of progress regain its position in the national debate on race?

To see how far to the right the dialogue on race has fallen, one need look no farther than the newly appointed White House spokesperson: Tony Snow. At his first live, televised press briefing, Mr. Snow used a racially charged term to describe an undesirable situation: "tar baby." Later in that same press conference, an adroit reporter pressed Snow on whether he wanted to add "hug the tar baby" into the English language. Snow defended his choice of words by appealing to history: "We could trace that back to American lore," he said, as though "American lore" were free of racism.

Then, FOX News commentator John Gibson urged his (presumably white) audience to "do your duty. Make more babies." Expressing horror at projections which show that in 25 years most Americans will be of Latin descent, Gibson reasoned that eugenic race breeding was our only hope. Gibson's comments represent the lowest ebb in the current national discussion about immigration and citizenship, a debate which is clearly riddled with racism.

In California, one of the most recent explicit debates around race came in response to former UC regent Ward Connerly's 2004 ballot initiative which would have forced California to keep almost no records about race or ethnicity at any level of state government. The ideology behind this proposal holds that we live in a "color blind" society. This "color blind" ideology would sweep under the rug any hope of gaining a full understanding of race's still-too-powerful role in the organization of our society. Thankfully, Californians recognized that glossing over the racial divide with "color blindness" would only make things worse.

But now, after California voters turned him down, Connerly has taken his battle for "color blindness" to my home state: Michigan. The "Civil Rights Initiative" would end affirmative action programs in Michigan and would be a major victory for Connerly, Gibson, and their ilk. Once again, the remarkable framing and branding ability of the right wing is on display: "Civil Rights Initiative" sounds like something I'd like to get behind, but it belongs in the same file as "Clear Skies Initiative."

The bottom line is that Connorly's "color blind" ideology and other regressive ideas are steadily gaining influence because of the powerful spokespeople behind them. As the race scholars at UCSB pointed out at that symposium last week, there is an glaring lack of progressive voices on race in the national debate. There remains a pressing need to recognize and appreciate difference, to build antiracist coalitions, to fight for policies that identify and end structural and institutional racism, and to provide diverse educational spaces which fight interpersonal racism and discrimination. Much of this work starts with getting the progressive voice back on the national scene.

(Cross-posted at Courage Campaign)

UPDATE: May 23, 2:00pm -- There's a remarkable debate on this post over at Daily Kos.

For once, LA should be proud to be #4.

Los Angeles drivers were shocked to learn this week that they are, according to Autovantage, not the rudest people in the United States. Turns out, that honor belongs to the drivers in Miami. LA nabbed the fourth spot in the telephone survey, behind second-placed Phoenix, and the bronze medal winner of New York.

Sadly, fewer Californians read the even more shocking story about how we drive yesterday. A piece in the British daily The Observer by Paul Harris, declared that the car culture in the United States was, get this, intentionally developed by automobile companies!

Harris begins by retelling his experience renting a car in the States. When met the teller behind the counter, he was told that he could upgrade to a SUV for the same price as the compact car that he'd reserved. The teller was literally offended when Harris said "No, thank you," preferring the easier to park and cheaper to fuel compact car.

Harris then observes how central the automobile is to American life.

"...drive - and it will have to be a drive - through most major US cities today (and particularly LA) and you see a different world. Downtowns lie abandoned to office blocks, gridlock rules on city freeways that have destroyed old urban neighbourhoods and suburbia sprawls out across miles upon mile of territory that only a generation or two ago was rural farmland."

Whether the nation's rudest or not, drivers rule Los Angeles and most of the rest of California. As all of us struggle with higher gas prices, it's worth remembering what Paul Harris eloquently wrote this week, that the automobile industry very methodically built car culture into what we have today. And there is a better way. Well-designed, efficient, and convenient mass transit used to be the way of LA. And people were even more polite back then. Let's work to make LA and all of California #1 in polite, powerful mass transit.

Bush has seen a lot of sagging recently. His performance ratings are low, even though his wife denies it. Bush's vitality and vigor just aren't what they used to be, it seems.

On top of all this, Bush has seen a huge dip in his job approval ratings, as you've heard by now, one poll has his overall job approval rating at 29%. Key support among his conservative base is gone, so he's resorting to the tried and true viagra for boosting his numbers back up:

Kicking ass and taking names.

Bush announced a pointless new initiative to deploy the National Guard in unprecedented numbers along the US-Mexico border. Not only would this plan do very little to decrease undocumented immigration (most undocumented immigrants in the country today came in through the airport, not by sneaking across the border), but this plan would further deplete the already stretched National Guard. Many conservatives point to the number of guard boots (some 400,000 people serve in the Guard and only 6,000 would be posted to the border), but the more crucial depletion would be in equipment and recruitment. With much of the Guard already serving a ridiculous deployment to Iraq, and with hurricane season coming up, this is not the time to add a major new operation to the Guard's mission.

Bush's plan already has alarmed the Mexican government, which has stated that it might bring lawsuits and other diplomatic pressure to bear on the Bush Administration. So much for mending fences -- Bush has managed to piss off one of the few remaining friends the US has left in the world today.

There is no military solution to the immigration problem, but it sure sounds nice to the conservatives. With all this bluster about immigration, why talk about the NSA wiretapping scandals, or the Iraq debacle or the Duke Cunningham prostitution ring?

Bush might not be good at governing, but his Republican friends are spectacular at giving poll numbers a boost with a little military viagra.

(Version cross-posted at the Courage Campaign)

Folks, you are now reading the blog of a Master.

I just defended my MA Thesis this morning, which makes this blog even more important than before. You're welcome.

In other news, I've been way behind on blogging to prepare for the defense today, but after getting past tomorrow's hangover I'll be back on the blog express. Get ready.

And in still even more important news, I've been upgraded to a front page columnist over at the courageous Courage Campaign. Check my first post out over there.

... and still important.

It's been a crazy week at work, sorry for keeping you waiting. Coming up:

• What was all that May 1 stuff about?
• A response to the call for opinion sent out by Daraka,
• And a giant explanation of why the Red Wings aren't playing any more while the Pistons are cleaning up.
• Oh, and some discussion of the newly acute plight of the Palestinians.

And more! Wow!