THE REAL SCHOOL CRISIS

             

The Southern Strategy was a conservative political strategy that began in the presidential campaign of Richard Nixon in nineteen sixty eight.  Put simply, it was a way to scare Southern white voters, many of whom were still angry about Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's  signing of the Civil Rights Voting Bill in nineteen sixty five, into voting for Republicans.  This was done by peppering Nixon's speeches with racially coded words like "war on crime", knowing full well who that war would be waged on. In this way, Nixon flipped the Southern states, which had been strongly Democratic for years, into Republican states.  While some Republicans claim that no such strategy was ever used, conservative commentator (and former Richard Nixon staff member) Pat Buchanan defended it in twenty thirteen by writing: "After Richard Nixon cobbled together his New Majority, the GOP carried 49 states in 1972 and 1984, 44 states in 1980 and 40 in 1988."  In other words, the Southern Strategy worked in Nixon's campaign, and versions of it helped Republicans win in later years.

The latest version of this strategy worked again last Tuesday when Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin won the governor's race in the state of Virginia.  While there were a number of factors in his victory (like Biden dipping popularity), one of the big ones was the relatively new issue of Critical Race Theory.  Building on the frustrations of public school parents who are weary of the pandemic and the fights over mask mandates in schools, the Republican party has seized on the issue of Critical Race Theory as a new thing to scare white voters with, to imply that poor little white children are being taught to hate themselves.  The fact that CRT is not being taught in k through twelve schools in Virginia (or any state) and that it was a term first used in law schools is irrelevant, it just sounds scary to white parents and gets them to vote for Republicans, (Youngkin repeated the words over and over in debates and interviews) which is all that matters.  In a way, it's the perfect boogieman for conservatives; Youngkin can say he will ban CRT from schools, and he isn't lying in that it isn't taught there anyway.  Such is the low nature of politics that our country has fallen.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that there is a crisis in our public schools that is not being addressed: wildly uneven funding.  The whole idea of public schooling in this country is based on the common sense notion that every child born here is given the opportunity of a quality education.  But our current public school funding system makes a mockery of that idea.  According to the funding for public schools website, about forty four percent of public school funding  comes from local property taxes, and not surprisingly, the wealthier the neighborhood, the higher the property taxes and the more money that goes to public schools.  Put simply, our current system results in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

And these differences in spending are often dramatic even within the same state.  In Mississippi for example, a school in Brookhaven spends about six thousand dollars per student a year, while  the neighboring Natchez spends about three thousand dollars more per student.  While this disparity has lasted for years, attempts to address it have been controversial (like school bussing, which lasted a few years in the seventies but is no longer used).  But whatever the remedy, it is a national disgrace that winds up hurting all of us. Poor children who go to schools like jails often wind up in real jails, something for which we all pay.  So, instead of being scared of the words Critical Race Theory, I wish voters were more concerned by another far more real educational problem: the school to prison pipeline.  Although there has been some movement away from our country's desire to fill our jails, America still has the highest prison population in the world.  Fulfilling the promise of our public school system and making them more equal is one way that we can even the playing field for the poor in this country.  Sadly, it will still be a problem long after conservative media has moved on from Critical Race Theory to some other way to scare white voters.

THE TROUBLE WITH TESLA

                                                                         

I drive a two thousand and eight Toyota Prius.  Over the years, I've been very happy with it, but it's about to reach the hundred and fifty thousand mile mark, so I'm starting to think about replacing it.  I know I don't want another Toyota, because they've been donating to Republican congresspeople who deny the twenty twenty election results and climate change (which is a real shame coming from the same company that popularized the fuel efficient hybrid engine).  So I would like to buy an electric car.  And these days, that usually means a Tesla.

Recently Tesla became a trillion dollar company after the Hertz car rental company agreed to buy thousands of them.  This is the crowning achievement of a company that seemed at first to only be catering to wealthy progressives who wanted to show the world that they care about climate change (and drive a flashy, attention getting car at the same time).  

Founded way back in two thousand and three, Tesla is the first auto company  to sell exclusively all electric vehicles.  One of the keys to the company's success was that it laid the groundwork so well: there are now over twenty five thousand Tesla charging stalls all across the US, Canada and Mexico.  Add to that the fact that each car comes equipped with onscreen maps showing the nearest charging center and information that tells the driver how far they can on their remaining battery energy, and you have an effective way to make sure that drivers don't get stranded.

All the Tesla models have a sharp, sleek design, and the ability to go from zero to sixty in mere seconds seems to excite a lot of macho car owners (not me so much). Plus, it not only saves money on gas, it also has fewer moving parts than a normal car, so there's less to have to replace.  Yes, the Tesla has made electric cars cool and has built up an often rabid fan following while doing it.  

If that's the case, why would someone like me considering buying a different brand of electric car?  Two words: Elon Musk.  While not one of the Tesla company's founders, Musk was a primary share holder and he  took over as CEO in two thousand and eight.  He is also  currently the world's richest man.  As the company's figurehead and primary spokesman, Musk had said and done some things over the years that I find objectionable.  While I don't mind his ego or showmanship (those are to be expected) there are other things about him that are troubling.  His behavior as a boss has been described as unstable and sociopathic by former workers who said that he engaged in "wild firing rampages."  In twenty eighteen he tweeted out a claim about the Tesla company that was considered false by the Security and Exchange Commission, which wound up fining him twenty million dollars for it.  That same year, Musk tried to help out the rescue of Thai schoolboys stuck in a flooded cave by building a small submarine.  When the children were saved without it,  he angrily tweeted out that one of the rescuers was a "pedo guy", although he later apologized.  

When the pandemic hit, he claimed that the danger of it was overblown, promoted chloroquine as a cure for Covid, and tweeted in March of twenty twenty  that "Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April."  He was also mad about having to temporarily shut down his factories during lockdown.

And he seems determined to promote the so called "Full Self-Driving Capability" in the Tesla cars, even though this self driving mode still requires the driver to pay attention.  Not surprisingly, some Tesla owners have tried just letting their car drive itself, and have even gotten out of the driver's seat while the car is going.  This has lead to some high profile accidents; so many, in fact, that the government is currently investigating the company.  Which hasn't stopped Musk from still offering the feature, along with inflated claims of its effectiveness that, according to the New York Times, the company's own engineers disagree with.  You would think having a successful company that produces only electric cars would be enough, but Musk also wants to start a self driving revolution, even if that means using the American public as "beta testers".

And being the richest man in the world hasn't tamped down Musk's greed; he recently tweeted out "Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you" in regards to a proposed wealth tax.  Is there anything more pathetic than a man worth hundreds of billions of dollars complaining about having to pay a reasonable tax rate?  How about if that same  man also once took billions of dollars in government subsidies.  Yes, that's right, over the years Tesla and Musk's other companies have received billions of tax dollars.  It's entirely possible that Tesla would never have survived the recession of two thousand and nine without the low interest loans it got from the Department of Energy. You'd think that a guy who knew that wouldn't begrudge paying a fair tax rate on his hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth.  But that's Elon Musk for you.  He's the single best argument against buying a Tesla, no matter how good they are as cars. 

ASHLAND OREGON: A TOWN IN CRISIS

 Located just a few miles from the border with California, Ashland Oregon is a lovely little town of around twenty thousand people.  With beautiful mountainous views and nearby state parks, it's a great place to visit.  Although the city has a college, its main attraction is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the oldest Shakespeare festival in America.  Founded in nineteen thirty four, it has thrived over the years, expanding from just one outdoor theater to two more indoor ones.  With an average of four hundred thousand people visiting each year, the festival is the driver for the town's economy, with hotels, stores, cafes and restaurants lining the streets outside the theaters.  Warm summer nights are usually very lively in the town, with tourists milling around the crowded sidewalks near the theaters while live music plays.  

I have been going to the festival for over twenty years, and I have seen some wonderful productions there, not only of Shakespeare plays, but of many others too. (They started performing non Shakespeare plays back in nineteen sixty). In recent years  the festival has  even started  embracing new plays by young authors, along with performing many of Shakespeare's lesser known plays and the results are often striking.  Despite the high quality of shows the festival has provided over the years, I think the future of the festival, and the town of Ashland itself, is in doubt.

The pandemic has obviously hit Ashland hard, with the Shakespeare festival all but cancelled for over a year except for some online shows.  But the pandemic will eventually subside. Unfortunately, there is something else affecting the town that is not going to subside: climate change.  In the last few years, increased heat and drought conditions have led to forest fires all over the state of Oregon.  Sometimes these fires threaten the town itself (as one did in 2020), but even when they don't, they lead to smoke from the fires pouring into the city.  At times the smoke is so bad that health regulators recommend that people should avoid going outside entirely.  Not surprisingly, these conditions can wreak havoc on the festival, especially in the open air theater, which is the largest of the three.  Even in the days before covid, the festival had to cancel precious shows due to the poor air quality.   And shows being cancelled means less people visiting the town.  To make matters even worse, the fire season happens during the Summer, which is also the height of tourist season.

Now, the festival has been trying to adjust, with some outdoor shows being moved into different venues, and there's even been some talk of putting some kind of retractable dome over the open air theater.  But, these just seem like stopgap ideas that don't deal with the real problem ahead.  Even if they can still perform the shows, people are not going to want to travel to a town that's sometimes surrounded by fires and that has poor air quality.  You can't blame tourists for staying home when your town is inside a so called "heat dome", as Ashland was earlier this year.  And when the tourists stop coming, the economy of the whole town will suffer.  I hate to say this, but in a few years this charming, seemingly vibrant city could become a ghost town.

In many ways, the sad story of Ashland is one that is being echoed in many small towns all over the world.  Climate change has gone from something that naysayers could dismiss into a horrifying reality, with millions of people facing drought, fires, floods and other natural disasters on a scale unseen in human history.  It's a tragedy that will make future generations wonder why we did so little to stop it.

"NEVER BEEN MORE DIVIDED"

                             

It has become fashionable in the media to say that America has never been more divided, or at least, not so divided since the Civil War.  Some have even ominously said that they can see our political divide leading to another Civil War arising in our country sometime soon.  While it is certainly hard to argue with the truth that red states and  blue states want very different things for this country, and often seem to live in different worlds (much less a country), to me the idea that America could ever again wind up in a violent conflict between different states seems outlandish.

The important thing to remember about the American Civil War is that the Southern states were all united in their desire to leave America and form the Confederacy.  While there has been some rumblings about states succeeding recently (Texas leaders flirted with it during the Obama presidency, and California leaders during Trump's) the idea that eleven states would join together to leave the country all at once like the Confederate states did back in eighteen sixty is crazy.  There is no way of knowing just how to even begin that process in our modern world.  And forming a whole new country in this day and age would be a massive undertaking that would displace millions of people.  I just don't see that happening.  Also, it should be pointed out that the Southern red states that might want to split off from the rest of the country would flounder without the federal government dollars that flow to their states every year.  While Southern politicians can score political points when they rail against California, losing the shared revenue that comes from a state that has the fifth biggest economy in the world would be devastating to them, and they know that.

What happened on January sixth is a good example of what I'm talking about; yes, it was a disgrace, but it was also utterly ineffectual as any kind of power grab.  It (thankfully) resulted in only a handful of deaths and injuries, and did nothing to change the election.  It was hardly the start of any kind of civil war, it was just a bunch of fools committing foolish acts of vandalism.

If you really want to see a country divided, look at what went on in the nineteen sixties as the Civil Rights movement and the anti war movement often ripped this country apart.  Here are just a few examples: the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. sparked riots all across the country, lasting days and resulting in forty three deaths, thousands of injuries and tens of thousands of arrests.  The assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy just as he was likely to win the Democratic nomination for president, was  another shocking blow to the nation.  In Chicago, the Democratic convention saw pro and anti war delegates in shouting fights on the convention floor while outside thousands of anti war protestors were subjected to a heavy handed police force that resulted in days of rioting and thousands of injuries and arrests.  The election of Richard Nixon saw him successfully use the so called "Southern Strategy" of racially coded words exploiting the divisions in our country.  The amazing thing about all the events I just listed is that they all happened in a single year!  Yes, nineteen sixty eight saw more violent, divisive events happen in this country than Trump, for all the strong feelings he's inspired,  brought out in the four years of his presidency.

And nineteen sixty eight was just one year from that era when the country seemed mired in violence and chaos.  Earlier years saw big riots in places like Watts, while later years saw the rise of The Weathermen, a left wing anti war terrorist group that carried out bombing attacks against government buildings.  And somehow, despite all the craziness of those times, with Southern states openly defying the federal government's desegregation and voter's rights laws while the younger and older generations fought (both verbally and physically) over the Viet Nam war, the country was not torn apart.  It held together, just as it will continue to now.

So yes, saying that America is on the verge of all out civil war is an easy way  for newscasters and pundits to scare viewers and get them to keep watching, but it will never happen.  Oh sure, I'm as scared as anybody that some Trump supporters might try to get violent again, but it couldn't rise to the level of sparking a war.  America will continue to muddle along, with deep political divides but little actual physical political violence, just like we always have since the end of the Civil War. 

COMPROMISE, PLEASE!

 

Are the Democrats stuck?  Mired in limbo?  Will Biden become a failed president before his first year is over?  Anyone following the media in the past week has heard these questions asked several times.  Because our competitive news networks deliver political news in a way much like sports broadcasting (focusing on who's up and who's down), you'd think the entire party was going to be destroyed sometime soon.

The reality of the situation is this: there are two bills working their way through congress, one's a bipartisan infrastructure plan that will cost a trillion dollars, and the other is  a spending plan that will cost three and half trillion dollars.  Progressive congress members want both bills passed, and are willing to hold up voting for the smaller one if it looks like the larger one won't pass.  But the larger bill is being held up in the Senate (where the Democrats need every vote) by two moderate Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.  Manchin has said that he thinks the spending bill is too big, and Sinema's motives are oddly mysterious.  A vote in the House of Representatives over the infrastructure bill was cancelled last week when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi realized that she did not have the votes.   

One of the annoying things about the way that the media has covered this is that they talk about the three and half trillion dollar plan without mentioning that that spending will take place over a period of ten years.  This would put the annual spending at about three hundred and fifty billion a year, which is less than half of what we will inevitably spend on defense.  In other words, it's not the budget busting proposal that it sounds like.  It's also important to remember that the various provisions of the spending bill are popular in polls: national daycare, paid family leave, expanding medicare to include vision and dental, dealing with climate change.  It's not only progressives who want these things, they  are popular with Democrats, independents and some Republicans. A July poll USA Today poll put the infrastructure plan at sixty three percent positive and the spending bill at fifty two percent. (In contrast, the twenty seventeen tax cut passed by the Donald Trump administration had only a forty percent rating).

The future of both bills are in doubt, and it's sad to think that this may be the last chance to really deal with climate change, given that the Republican party will very likely retake congress in twenty twenty two.  The hope is that the progressives will give in (like we always seem to have to) and agree to lower the spending in the second bill so that both bills will pass.  The fight going on here reminds me of the similar battle that raged in congress during the passage of the Affordable Care Act; and while that bill was also watered down by Democratic moderates, its passage was still a good thing.  I'm thinking that we'll get the same result here, seeing as how not passing either bill would be such a blow to the party.  While it's upsetting that we have a process in which popular bills can be blocked by just two members of the senate, that's the system we have.  Not losing the good while fighting for the perfect seems to be the sad cry of the progressive in this country these days, and here it is once again.  And once again, congress should do the right thing, which means pleasing Manchin and Sinema by cutting the spending down until they're willing to vote for it, so that both bills pass.  Compromise is necessary.

PARTISAN HACKS

Recently the Supreme Court made a definite step in the direction of overturning the nineteen seventy three Roe Vs Wade decision when they allowed a law banning abortions after six weeks in Texas to stand.  Considering that most women do not even know that they are pregnant within six weeks of  pregnancy means that this is essentially a ban on abortions completely in the state of Texas.  The oddness of the law allows private citizens to enforce the ban, who can then collect bounties on anyone who aids a woman who gets an abortion after that six week period.  And in a particularly cruel twist, there is no exception for women who have been raped.

While this is upsetting to people like me who do not want Roe Vs Wade overturned (and we are still in the majority in this country), I can't say that I was surprised by it.  I knew way back in twenty sixteen right after Trump won that this day was coming.  As much as I disagree with them, you have to kind of hand it to the anti abortion people on the right, who have spent decades of singleminded devotion to this issue, working hard to elect Republican presidents who will put conservative judges on the court.  

Now to add insult to injury, one of the judges who voted  to uphold that law, Amy Coney Barrett, recently gave a speech defending the court, saying that they are not "partisan hacks", and that “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”  This is patently absurd.  One of the things that makes this so laughable is that she made these remarks after being introduced by Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the man who brazenly shoved her confirmation through the senate after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just weeks before the presidential election.  And who had done the complete opposite years earlier when he blocked then President Barack Obama from filling a vacancy ten months before the election.  If Barrett really holds herself as something other than a partisan hack, she should have turned the appointment down, seeing it for what it was: a blatantly hypocritical and  partisan power grab by the Republican party, who know that their racist voter suppression laws (among others) will be upheld by a sympathetic court. 

The notion that the Supreme Court is beyond politics, even as the appointments are an inherently political process, is plain silly.  Oh sure, they can windily pontificate about "judicial philosophies" and precedents and such, but at the end of the day Republican appointed judges are expected to rule in favor of conservative causes, and vice versa for the Democrats.  And the outside political world can definitely effect rulings, which is not always a bad thing, since the legalization of gay marriage was clearly made because a changing world has come to see same sex marriage as something that should be legal.  

So, with Roe more than likely to be directly overturned sometime soon, what are progressives to do?  Sadly, there isn't much.  While there has been some talk of appointing more judges (which is called packing the court), that would be the kind of  bold and unprecedented move that Joe Biden wants no part of.  So, the only real recourse is for progressives to do what conservatives have done so well and focus on the Supreme Court (and lower courts) working hard to get out like minded voters and pushing abortion rights as an important issue.  Yes, this is a bitter pill to swallow given that Trump's three(!) Supreme Court choices will probably be ruling on our laws for decades to come, but that's the system we are stuck with. Political hack or not, Barrett isn't going anywhere.

AMERICA THE STUPID?

 Calling someone who disagrees with you politically "stupid" is an easy trap to fall in for both sides of the political fence.  As a progressive, I try to choose my words carefully, realizing that lapsing into childish name calling doesn't change any minds or do any good.  After all, there are smart people on both sides.

And yet, what is happening in red state America right now appears to be, well, downright stupid.  In the past few months, four different right wing talk show hosts who ridiculed vaccines have died from Covid-19.  While I feel sad for their friends and family, it is hard to mourn someone who so clearly had a way to avoid death and openly, proudly, chose to ignore it.  And the fact that all of these men had a media influence that they used to promote dangerous lies about vaccinations, which has surely led to the loss of other lives, makes them even less sympathetic.  And yes, stupid.

And the stupidity continues: right now in red states there has been a rash of people taking the drug Ivermectin in a misguided belief that it can effectively defeat the covid virus.  There is not one study that shows  this to be the case, but because the drug has been mentioned positively by right wing Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, their followers  have started taking the drug, which is normally used for deworming horses.  It's gotten so bad that the drug has run out in some places, with prescriptions numbering in the thousands and calls to poison control centers from people who have taken the drug skyrocketing.  There's a word for people who reject a vaccination that is the product of months of intensive research and testing, and which has been fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration, to instead take a  horse dewormer because their science denying heroes have recommended it.  That word is stupid.

And then there's the school board meetings.  Somehow, the common sense precaution of having children who are too young to get vaccinated wear masks at school has become a political issue.  Board meetings to discuss the matter have often degenerated into screaming matches and death threats.  As someone who has worn a mask quite a bit in the past year myself, I can't possibly see how something as simple as a cloth face covering has become an object of such anger.  I've never seen anyone get angry about  restaurants that enforces a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy.  Because that would be stupid.  

The American stupid response to the pandemic is utterly depressing when contrasted with the rest of the world: the official statistics show that in raw numbers the US leads the world in Covid cases by millions, and in deaths by tens of thousands.  Even when adjusted to a per capita basis, the country does poorly.  Even worse, our rate of fully vaccinated people lags behind nearly every other first world country, and the number of people getting vaccinated daily has lately been stuck at only around a million, a far cry from the over three million per day rate that occurred back in April.  And according to a July Forbes poll, around forty percent of Republicans plan to never get vaccinated, needlessly prolonging the pandemic because they are too stubborn to do the right thing to protect themselves and others around them.  Stubborn and stupid.  

This is certainly not the first time that conservatives in this country have believed in a stupid thing: during the presidency of Barack Obama, large numbers of Republicans doubted his birthplace.  A majority of Republicans currently believe that Donald Trump won the twenty twenty election.  But these beliefs are mostly harmless ones that are more about a desired belief than a strongly held one.  Vaccine denial is entirely different and deadly.  As America weathers our fourth wave of the virus, with hospitals overflowing and death counts rising, it's hard not to get angry at the proudly unvaccinated people that are still spreading the virus.  The proudly unvaccinated and stupid.