Amazon, NYC, subsidies and YOUR town: "Tightening the parameters whereby cities can give out subsidies is a way to nudge us closer to that reality."

My social media feed was interesting last week. So many of you were angry: why would anyone NOT feed public money to a colossal monopolistic entity and fail to WELCOME its arrival to further squelch competition, fluff the oligarchs and concentrate amassed capital even further?

Me, for one. Sayeth a writer at The Nation:

The absurdities of the Amazon deal, which enraged New Yorkers and motivated them to fight back, are globalized absurdities present in every factory, every office, every farm, and every export-processing zone across the planet in which people are treated like cattle, offered by their governments to Amazon and other world-striding corporations as a cheap resource to be exploited. This outward-looking, supranational view is already implicit in New York’s anti-Amazon movement, which, much to the company’s displeasure, broadened its perspective to encompass Amazon’s general attitude toward unionization, corporate welfare, and immigration policy. In other words, the movement’s was a holistic critique: rejecting Amazon’s values for a wholly different idea of the kind of world we want.

Meanwhile Strong Towns shrinks the analysis to the micro, i.e. communities like ours and what we're willing to give away in the name of "economic development." There are other ways, though they're not always effective in building the personality cults of big fish in small ponds.

What Local Government Should Do in the Wake of Amazon's HQ2, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

 ... How Baseball Resembles Economic Development
Last week Amazon announced that they were pulling out of the deal they had made with a handful of power-brokers in New York to build a new headquarters there. The traditional practice of negotiating these bad deals in private and then forcing them through the various approval processes based on sheer momentum is undermined by today’s populist mood. For those aspiring to political power, there is less to be gained by going along and being a good soldier. We live in interesting times.

I also don’t think it is lost on Amazon executives—or those of other major tech companies—that prior populist movements in the United States coincided with massive levels of wealth inequality and eventually led to the breakup of anti-competitive monopolies. Our grandchildren may study Amazon’s HQ2 shakedown as a turning point in the Gilded Tech Age.

I admit that I was confused about New York offering so much subsidy to Amazon. By my sense of how economic development works, if there was any city in North America that did not have to bribe a business to love them, it would be New York City, a highly-skilled workforce replete with tech workers with all the cosmopolitan amenities to attract the best workers in the world. New York has done all the up-front work; why not just sit back and let the deals come to them? It’s what they did with Google, which just announced a $1 billion expansion and 7,000 new jobs (without any subsidy).

Nowadays incremental local ecosystem improvements don't seem to be the strategy calculated to get you re-elected.

My hope is that cities would ultimately evolve to be like MLB teams: they would start to see that their resources would be better committed to growing their own talent within, to incrementally improving their own economic ecosystem instead of paying for free agents to pretend you’re their favorite team. It’s not happening, and I’m doubtful that it will, for reasons that MLB teams sometimes struggle with.

I love this idea of a citizen advisory group purposefully purged of usual suspects.

Establishing Ground Rules for Business Incentives
For state governments looking to strengthen their cities, I’m on record already as saying I would dramatically expand the municipal toolbox, but I’d limit the city’s annual debt service to 10% of locally-generated revenue. It’s a mechanism to prevent short-term thinking from blowing them up. I’d add to that some provisions on tax subsidies that allowed cities to be competitive, but limited how deep they could go. Something like:

• Set the maximum length of any deal to something less than seven years to keep current leadership from imperiling future leadership,
• Set the maximum annual dollar amount of any deal to something less than 2% of the city’s locally-generated revenue to keep any mistakes from damaging the system, and
• Set the maximum amount of a rebate to 50% of the amount of revenue generated from the deal, so that the new business has skin in the game.

If every city had to live by these rules—which would function, essentially, like a salary cap—it would limit the capacity of businesses to play local governments off against each other, at least within a state. I’m aware it would also limit how much smaller cities could give away to compete with larger cities—something many would call unfair. But I’ve worked and lived in small cities all my life; what they need most of all is enterprises scaled to them, not something vastly disproportionate that is only preying on their weakness.

Ultimately, what we all want is for the right business to be matched with the right city for the right reasons. Tightening the parameters whereby cities can give out subsidies is a way to nudge us closer to that reality.

And for populist advocates on the left and right who dislike these kind of deals, here’s how to be more effective. First, I recommend you educate yourselves on how these tax subsidies actually work. I’ve heard many advocates out there undermine their own credibility by suggesting things like, “We can use this money saved on schools and solar panels.” In fact, you didn’t save anything, you just didn’t collect any of the money you would have given away in subsidy. These kinds of corporate incentives come out of future taxes the company would otherwise owe, not from money that’s available up front.)

Then, I think you should advocate for two things in your community:

First, your city should have a set of values for when giving out tax subsidy is a good fit and what kinds of things would disqualify an applicant. Having such a document in advance, something that can be discussed community-wide, will counter the blindness that passion can create during decision-making.

Second, I’d recommend a broadly representative advisory group to study tax subsidy deals and make an independent recommendation before the deal gets to the city council. Some prominent business people that aren’t in the get-rich-quick game—more like an established banker than a real estate agent—along with someone from the school system, neighborhood groups, maybe a member of the clergy…. Just not the regulars. This group should be trained on how tax subsidy deals work. When a package is put together, they should be empowered to review it and report, not to the city council, but to the community at large, prior to any vote. The staff supporting them should not be the same staff that put together the deal.

Subsidies aren’t going away, but the failure of this Amazon deal—on multiple levels—should prompt us all to re-examine ways to improve our own local approach.

Charlie Pierce ravages Anonymous: "May I just say, for the record, to hell with this person."

Getty Images, via Esquire.

The space I inhabit is a remote contrarian corner to the left of the aisle, and too many of my compatriots closer to center are cheering the anonymous op-ed piece in the New York Times far too much.

For one thing, there's this paragraph.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

Charles P. Pierce helpfully translates this 1%-speak.

The monster has fulfilled its purpose: poisoned water, more of the nation's wealth catapulted upwards, and a massive new Navy in case Yamamoto comes back from the dead. Now you all have to help us kill it.

Speaking personally, apart from all other partisan considerations, I've no more patience with this misuse of anonymity as I did during Prof. Erika's excesses of olden local times. Indeed, there are cases when "whistle-blower" exceptions can be made.

This is not one of them, and as usual, Pierce nails it squarely.

Just Shut Up and Quit (Esquire)

Nobody elected the Anonymous Heroes executing a de facto coup against Donald Trump's presidency*.

May I just say, for the record, to hell with this person, whoever it is ...

... Enough of this stuff. Stand up in the light of day and tell your stories. All of them, right from the beginning. Admit that what you're confronting now is the end result of 40 years of conservative politics and all the government-is-the-problem malfeasance you've been imbibing since you were wingnuts in swaddling. The fire's licking at your ankles at last. Come out of the cupboards, you boys and girls. None of you are heroes.

The resistance is unwelcome on newspaperman Morris' porch.

Graphic credit.

Chris Morris has no idea why Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on the bus to a white man, or why the Stonewall riot occurred, or why the Ludlow Massacre took place.

But wait -- how can I know these things?

In fact, I'm unfairly judging the author from afar, characterizing his annoyance with "the resistance" as the typical response of an older white guy just like me, who woke up on third base and thought he hit a triple.

Fact is, I can't really make these assumptions unless the two of us have a chat, or I send him an e-mail.

Which reminds me.

Maybe -- just maybe -- the professional journalist should ask someone who has a "resist" bumper sticker on his or her car, and who professes allegiance to the "resistance" as currently defined, exactly what the terms means to them before going off half-cocked about the damage to his sense of old white male propriety.

Then again, the vast majority of the newspaper's columnists are old, straight, white males.

Diversity yet, Mr. Bill?

Ever?

MORRIS: Swap resist with peace, by Chris Morris (Tom May Land)

Resist!

I’ve heard that word used a lot in the past 16 months. But the other day, while in traffic, it took me back to another decade of unrest.

Congratulations to Cafe 157 for emulating "Strawless in Seattle." Who's next?

Question: But what about when I'm driving?
Answer: You should be driving.

Kudos to Cafe 157 (157 E. Main, downtown New Albany).

This is something other establishments should get behind, although I'll never be able to forget the three criticisms that greeted NABC's million-dollar investment downtown at Bank Street Brewhouse in 2009:

Gasp -- no Diet Coke!
Gasp -- only crappy local wine!
Gasp -- NO SODA STRAWS!

Uh oh ... time for a rant.

It's like this whole notion of "resistance." Donald Trump is the by-product of a broken economic system, and as consumers, we buttress the system each and every day. To resist, we'll need to give something up -- to take something away from economic elites and capital accumulation.

Like plastic soda straws? Could be. It's an environmental issue, but also good practice in bringing principled weight to bear.

Tell you what. I'll be drinking adult beverages straight from the glass -- can you wake me when the "resistance" gets serious?

A Citywide Takeover by Lonely Whale

Leading Seattle businesses and cultural icons committed to incorporating marine degradable alternatives to single-use plastic straws resulting in the radical reduction of plastic straw consumption in Seattle. In September alone, 2.3 million single-use plastic straws were permanently removed from the city. On launch of Strawless In Seattle, the Mayor of Seattle announced that in July, 2018 Seattle will become the largest metropolitan city to ban the single-use plastic straw.

The first campaign of its kind, Strawless In Seattle supports Strawless Ocean's global initiative to remove 500 million plastic straws from the U.S. waste stream in 2017.

The roots of inequality: “The CEO of Goldman Sachs said ‘Why are you attacking us? We are Democrats’.”

And when the mayor of New Albany and fellow Democrats propose demolishing 500 units of affordable housing without a credible plan to house those displaced, that's something we need to talk about, too, because an undemocratic fixation with "quality of life" only as it pertains to luxury developments is a problem, isn't it?

Bernie Sanders: Russia and Stormy Daniels distract us from real problem of inequality, by Amana Fontanella-Khan and Lauren Gambino (The Guardian)

More than a million viewers watch online as Sanders joins likes of Michael Moore and Elizabeth Warren to talk poverty

Enough about Russia and Stormy Daniels, the leaders of the progressive movement want to talk about growing income inequality in the US.

At a live-streamed town hall event on Monday night, Senator Bernie Sanders once again circumvented cable news to host a 90-minute panel discussion on poverty, the decline of the middle class and the consolidation of corporate power.

He was joined in Washington by Senator Elizabeth Warren, director Michael Moore and economist Darrick Hamilton while roughly 1.7 million viewers tuned in to watch online, according to Sanders’ office.

Speaking to the Guardian before the event, Sanders said: “We have to fight Trump every day. But we have to not lose our vision as to where we want to go as a country. We can talk about the disastrous role Russia has played in trying to undermine American democracy. That is enormously important. But we also have to talk about the fact that we have the highest rate of child poverty in any major economy of the world.”

"Planned Parenthood Videos Explain Abortion Process."

1. Because the opening paragraph is expository writing at its finest.

2. Because the Confidentials as a family support Planned Parenthood, which is of far more importance as a whole than any separate part.

3. Because it's fine by me if Teen Vogue becomes the voice of the Resistance even as Democrats can't seem to locate a guiding principle.

Planned Parenthood Videos Explain Abortion Process, by Brittney McNamara (Teen Vogue)

Planned Parenthood explains in two videos.

With more and more restrictions on legal abortion being made law, it's important that we know all the facts. That way, instead of talking about abortion in hypotheticals or scenarios, we can talk factually, about what's really going on. To do that, we not only have to know what you can and can't do regarding abortion, we also have to know what actually happens when you get an abortion. Abortion is a safe, common and legal medical procedure. Planned Parenthood made it even easier to get educated on what abortion actually is with two recent videos, outlining the two different kinds of abortions you can get.

"We are not each other’s enemies and we had better learn to be good allies or we will collapse."

Valuable weekend reading.

FUN WITH SHRAPNEL: What unifies white, black, brown, by Erica Rucker (LEO)

... Trump has filled his gold-lined cabinet with ultra rich friends, and their push to keep us divided while filling their coffers will continue. If we are paying attention, poor whites, middle-class whites and marginalized groups have much in common, which should tell us something very important: We are not each other’s enemies and we had better learn to be good allies or we will collapse. We’re being sucked dry by the same snakes.

A Muse-accented three-pack: On civil war, Europeans resisting Trump and Americans resisting Trump.

At The Nation, a discussion about the prospects for Civil War.

Are We on the Verge of Another Civil War? by Richard Kreitner

A decade ago, when David Armitage began working on his new book, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas, published this week by Knopf, he had no idea how relevant the subject would become. These days, it’s hard to avoid concluding that American society is tearing itself apart. Several observations and arguments in the book can be harrowing to read—that the nations mostly likely to devolve into civil wars are those that have suffered such conflicts before; that civil wars are most likely when the government is divided against itself; that politics is civil war by other means. Civil Wars ranges over more than two millennia of history, law, and philosophy, but it feels as urgent as the latest shock, as fresh as tomorrow’s news.

Maybe we'll get lucky and be quarantined by an international coalition.

Europe Must Defend Itself Against a Dangerous President, A DER SPIEGEL Editorial By Klaus Brinkbäumer

There are times in life that really do count. Times when a person's character is revealed, when the important is separated from the unimportant. Soon decisions are taken that will determine the further path a person takes. With some, this can be tragic, and the moment comes too soon in their youth at a time when they aren't mature enough yet to foresee all the potential consequences. They make the decisions cheerfully and they lead to either luck or bad luck. But countries and governments are seldom as innocent when it comes to their decisions.

Finally, delving more specifically into the nuts and bolts of resistance.

Your Guide to the Sprawling New Anti-Trump Resistance Movement, by Joshus Holland (The Nation)

An explosion of new activism offers a ray of hope in these dark political times.

The election of Donald Trump was a catastrophe for progressive America, but the damage may be mitigated over the long term by a remarkable surge of energy on the left in response to his election. As many as 5.2 million people participated in hastily-organized Women’s Marches across the country, senators’ phones have reportedly been jammed with calls protesting Trump’s Cabinet nominees and other early moves, and according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post, more than one in three Democrats say they plan to become “more involved in the political process in the next year” as a result of the election. That’s true of 40 percent of Democratic women, and almost half of self-identified liberal Democrats.

The widely held view that Trump is an illegitimate president who’s poised to enact an agenda combining the worst of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “granny-starving” fiscal conservatism with White House consigliere Steve Bannon’s ethno-nationalism has fueled the formation of dozens of new grassroots resistance groups. Some were launched by seasoned political operatives, others by people who hadn’t engaged in activism in the past. Some were germinated during chats on long bus rides to the Women’s March. Not all of them will succeed—some false starts are a given—but like any collection of innovative start-ups, it only takes a few successes to change the landscape.

Here’s an overview of some of the new efforts launched since November 9. It’s by no means comprehensive, but we started with a list of 75 new groups and whittled them down to some of the most interesting or promising. They’re not presented in any kind of ranked order. Our hope is that knowing how others are standing up to Trump will inspire more readers to get involved.

All organizing is local: How to throw sand in the gears of Trumpism.

When Republican lawmakers already are proposing to outlaw free speech by banning public protests that interfere with the convenient operation of automobiles, it's merely more proof that the loony bins have been emptied and the occupants have been elected to State Senate.

As we await Ron Grooms' inevitable vote in favor of gutting the Constitution, but not before he asks One Southern Indiana for permission, here are two articles from The Nation.

First, what you'll have to be doing quite apart from posting resistance memes on Facebook.

Throw Sand in the Gears of Everything, by Frances Fox Piven

When it comes to stopping Trump, petitions aren’t going to do it.

Chanting crowds are the familiar insignia of movements. And I think movement politics may even make resistance to a Trump regime possible. But while the great movements of American history were the crucial determinant of our most important democratic reforms—from the basic electoral elements of representative democracy, to Emancipation, to labor rights, to women’s and LGBTQ rights—none of these movements achieved their successes simply through the gathering of people to show their commitment. People gathered, of course, but what makes movements a force—when they are a force—is the deployment of a distinctive power that arises from the ability of angry and indignant people to at times defy the rules that usually ensure their cooperation and quiescence. Movements can mobilize people to refuse, to disobey, in effect to strike. In other words, people in motion, in movements, can throw sand in the gears of the institutions that depend on their cooperation. It therefore follows that movements need numbers, but they also need a strategy that maps the impact of their defiance and the ensuing disruptions on the authority of decision-makers.

Piven observes that "political leaders in big cities are beginning to provide just that sort of electoral resonance and encouragement," and while noting that New Albany is a small city without a coherent leader in a county that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, there is at least a possibility that cities can be incubators for the resistance.

We may even be able to do some of it here, but if so, it will come without either political or community pillar support -- and on occasion, you might be forced to miss an IU basketball game. Sorry about that.

Cities Have the Power to Finally Bridge MLK’s ‘Two Americas’, by Ras J. Baraka and Ryan P. Haygood (The Nation)

The solutions to the enduring problem of economic inequality will have to come from the ground up in our cities, not from Washington, DC, down

Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., looked to our city, Newark, New Jersey, and other urban communities and explained that the country consisted of “two Americas,” divided by race.

... At this critical juncture in our nation’s history, on the eve of the presidential inauguration after one of the most divisive and racially charged presidential campaigns in history, our cities hold incredible promise to advance an agenda that unites us, and to incubate progressive solutions to finally bridging the two Americas.

To do this, we must ensure that every person has access to economic opportunity through employment that pays a true living wage. This is the most direct way to confront poverty in our nation, and to bridge our class and race divides.

The solutions to the enduring problem of economic inequality will have to come from the ground up in our cities, not from Washington, DC, down.

ON THE AVENUES: I can only handle one resistance at a time, please.

ON THE AVENUES: I can only handle one resistance at a time, please.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

In polite New Albanian society, of the sort currently extinct, one must be eternally cognizant of protocol, so kindly excuse this brief thank you note.

---

Dear Friend,

Thanks for your invitation to join the anti-Trump opposition movement, as advertised daily by your posts on social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.

Your feelings are very much appreciated, although I must remind you that my personal antipathy to The Donald, and my disgust with just about everything he stands for, extends all the way back to the year 1988, if not earlier. I’m very proud of my credentials in this respect.

I respectfully note that while there are ample reasons to be disturbed by Trump and Trumpism, there are just as many doubts to be harbored about the presumed movement against him, which is characterized by some as “resistance,” though relying solely on an inchoate Democratic Party for leadership, augmented by frequent derogatory memes on Facebook, might prove in the end to be (shall we say) inadequate and perhaps even feeble as it pertains to direct action.

For this reason, seeing as the “resistance” to Trumpism as currently constituted (or not) is under an explicit obligation to identify itself, what it stands for and why, I eagerly await clarity about these parameters. Let me see what you’ve got, and then we can talk.

Until then, I’ll continue protesting the ongoing Gahanization of New Albany, which is the threatening kakistocracy closest to my front door. I’m older now, so please, one resistance at a time -- and get off my porch.

Your humble servant,

R

---

You never know who you’ll bump into deep in the heart of Luxury-R-Us, Jeff Gahan’s selectively scrubbed and branded downtown Nawbany, soon to be rid of affordable housing because Gahan cannot grasp who actually works in those State Street fast food joints he belchingly frequents.

It was a weird, rainy January day, and the Green Mouse was elegantly ensconced at a picnic table by City Square, under the ritzy big top, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Something was bothering me, and if anyone might know the answer, it was him, so I asked.

“Say, have you seen any Democrats around lately?”

His expression was pained. After furtive glances in both directions, he growled.

“Democrats? You mean around here, out on the street, in full view? In New Albany?

“Yes.”

“You’re not from here, are you? That’s crazy talk. They barely show their faces when life’s normal.”

Together we watched as a Kentuckian ran the red light at Bank and Market. I persisted.

“But seriously, shouldn’t there be a local Democrat visible somewhere right about now? You know, a battlefield promotion -- someone to step forward and lead the troops after the platoon leaders all got mowed down by the Trump tsunami?”

The Green Mouse suddenly dissolved into mirth. He was laughing so hard that I feared for the health of the municipal-issue picnic table.

“A local Democrat do that, right here in New Albany? I never took you for a drug user.”

“It’s theoretically possible, isn’t it?”

“Right. It’s also theoretically possible that this gorgeous monument to shifting consumer dollars toward farmers residing far outside the city limits was built with no campaign finance kickbacks. It’s theoretically possible that Breakwind will accept a Section 8 voucher. It’s theoretically possible that Gahan’s human, and not a hologram.”

Well, I'm nothing if not stubborn.

“Okay, but shouldn’t someone be formulating the political game plan for coping with the Mighty Trumpolini?

“Duh -- of course someone should, but first you need to stop asking these stupid questions, as though you’ve forgotten who and where we are. Most of the Democrats in New Albany voted for Trump. The ones who didn’t are sitting obediently, like always, waiting for the Boy Wonder to tell them when to use the toilet.”

“But why would they do that? Adam Dickey’s lost more seats than any Democratic chairman in history.”

The Green Mouse nodded sagely.

“Funny as hell, isn’t it? Fact is, he’s out there with the rest of the chickens, their torsos rocking the gavotte while their severed heads are stacked like cordwood over by the storm water drain. He’s waiting for the Indiana Democrats to tell HIM what to do, and the Indiana Democrats are busy slicing their wrists and falling out of windows – first floor windows, but give ‘em an A for multiculturalism, seeing as defenestration’s not really a Hoosier concept.”

“I don’t understand.”

The Green Mouse’s butt landed in his empty coffee cup.

“They don’t, either. Local Democrats are exactly like that stupid meme, repeating the same action over and over, hoping it might turn out differently next time. Me, I’m flummoxed that Gahan hasn’t annexed the party outright – just call it the Anchor Party, and then he can get on with putting framed photos of himself on every mantle in every house, and also up by the flat screen at all the bars, just like back in the USSR. Boy, those were the days.”

A Tiger Truck rolled past. I spat, and the Green Mouse smiled.

“I almost forgot the latest gossip about our favorite greasy party chairman. Seems our kid wants to take on Ed Clere for House in 2018.”

“Huh? Adam the back-alley gray eminence, actually running in an election with real humans voting?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s like a surgeon operating on himself in the smoldering ruins of a train wreck, with no booze for anesthesia. Dickey had better hope his hands are steadier standing for office than they are driving the bus for others.”

“Could he really beat Clere?”

The Green Mouse just chuckled.

"Maybe he'll run against the ghost of Grooms instead. Then we’ll finally reach peak entertainment, a redevelopment commission Hamlet for the flood plain.”

We watched as David Duggins skulked into Quills for his daily latte.

“Shouldn’t he be at a Motel 6 somewhere in Sellersburg with his favorite inflatable TIF doll?”

---

A rant has been building, and I might as well let it out, so just know this.

If you intend to “resist” Trumpism by doubling down on behalf of the Democratic Party as it currently exists and operates on a daily basis right here in the real world, as opposed to Disney World, then you’re in for yet another apocalyptic shock, because the party requires gutting down to the foundations, and probably beyond.

Speaking personally, I don’t care. Both major parties can go to hell, and the Democrats might as well go first. If the Democratic Party disappears, perhaps something better can be built in its place. How can it be worse?

Our gutless right-wing local version of pretend-Democrats is on life support, and the chairman’s delusional cluelessness seems to have become institutionalized. The humane thing to do would be to euthanize the party, and start all over again.

It’s also time to consider a point that almost none of us are prepared for, including me. This is the element of risk sustained by the resistance during the course of the opposition.

Or, if you will, an occupation.

If you’ve studied history at all, you know that when the going gets tough, the majority usually remains seated atop its collective hands. Meanwhile, the minority resolving to openly act finds that standing up for what they believe requires some skin in the game.

It’s risky, and isn't always pretty, either. Demonstrators are beaten and jailed. Dissidents are harassed and lose their jobs. Neo-Nazis attack people in the street, and Soviets ship them off to the gulag. It’s precisely the sort of retaliation that blacks, union members and Native American pipeline opponents experience as a matter of course, although whites like me tend to think that we’re exempted – because “law.”

Yeah, right.

I’m guessing that precious few Americans have a clue about how painful this “resistance” might become. We’ve taken for granted inalienable rights and freedoms, and when these pipe dreams actually have existed outside our idealized and addled imaginations (again, mostly white), they have been gained through direct action -- agitation, peaceful protest, civil disobedience and at times, regrettably, bloody violence.

That’s history, plain and simple, and a better appreciation of history would at least be helpful, although you may or may not discover the most relevant bits on your iPhone.

Finally, it won’t be enough for the left-of-center resistance to be solely predicated on identity politics and social justice issues of the precise sort that Mayor Gahan routinely and insincerely barters to local Democrats who are sufficiently gullible to accept toothless Potemkin human rights lean-tos in exchange for looking the other way as Gahan’s increasingly self-serving and megalomaniacal “luxury” expenditures exit the rails.

Up and down the line, Democrats have fiddled past the carnage of neoliberal economic orthodoxy for far too long, and it helped bring us to this lamentably idiocratic juncture. Understand that what’s coming over the horizon is very much about economics, too. Capitalism didn’t “win,” and all those –ism frictions have never left us, although we may have left them.

Earlier today, I remarked to friends that there’s nothing like a room filled with annoyed citizens to produce remarkable levels of concentration on the part of local elected officials. Everything changes when humans act together, in concert, as opposed to separately, isolated from each other. I'm a cynic, but I haven't abandoned hope.

Resistance?

I’m trying my best here in Anchor Flats. If there is any time left over, I’ll help you with Trump.

Deal?

---

Recent columns:

January 5: ON THE AVENUES: Gahan's stadium arcadium kicks off a new year with hilarity, pathos and own goals.

December 29: ON THE AVENUES: The 45 46 Most Popular NA Confidential Stories of 2016.

December 22: ON THE AVENUES: For New Albany’s Person of the Year, the timeless words of Mother Jones: “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”

December 15: ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2016).

"Quite simply, progressives must discover progress."

Woe is us -- what are we to do when we keep repeating the same act and it keeps turning out the same way?

Here's how: Just stop it. Vary the routine. Come up with a new plan.

The Floyd County Democratic Party has kicked off the New Year with the same old Disney song and dance, so it doesn't look like the tried and true is going to be of any assistance.

Isn't it time to trade in that battered hulk for something new and progressive? Here are two articles from The Guardian that make the case.

Trump and Brexit left progressives aghast – they should be emboldened, by Jeff Sparrow

As a movement dedicated to social transformation, the left must reclaim the idea of progress from the reactionaries and demagogues

 ... Unfortunately, so much of what passes for activism now centres on an individualised moralism, less about changing the world than about making yourself feel (or perhaps sound) good while all about you everything remains exactly the same.

In 1959, Raymond Williams described the seemingly insurmountable gulf between the progressive intellectuals of his day and the great bulk of the population. “Nothing,” he wrote, “has done more to sour the democratic idea among its natural supporters, and to drive them back into angry self-exile, than the plain, overwhelming cultural issues: the apparent division of our culture into, on the one hand, a remote and self-gracious sophistication, on the other hand, a doped mass.”

Since, then, of course, that division has only widened ...

 ... How then will we respond? The temptation will be, once again, to defend liberal values by reinforcing the institutions of liberalism. But that’s not going to work. Quite simply, progressives must discover progress. Rather than buttressing a moribund status quo, the left needs to place itself on the side of change. That’s how we win – by reclaiming the notion of a better future from the reactionaries and demagogues.

And ...

Themes of 2016: Progressive parties have to address the people’s anger, by Michael Sandel

The election of Donald Trump and the triumph of Brexit – the two political earthquakes of 2016 – resulted from the failure of elites to grasp the discontent in democracies around the world. The populist revolt marked the rejection of a technocratic approach to politics incapable of understanding the resentments of voters who feel the economy and the culture have left them behind.

Some denounce populism as little more than a racist, xenophobic reaction against immigrants and multiculturalism. Others view it as a protest against the job losses brought about by global trade and new technologies. But to see only the bigotry in populist protest, or to view that protest only in economic terms, misses the fact that the upheavals of 2016 stemmed from the establishment’s inability to address – or even adequately recognise – genuine grievances ...

... Before they can hope to win back public support, progressive parties must rethink their mission and purpose. To do so, they should learn from the populist protest that has displaced them, not by emulating its xenophobia and strident nationalism, but by taking seriously the legitimate grievances with which these sentiments are entangled. And that means recognising that the grievances are about social esteem, not just wages and jobs.

Resisting? "What is there to learn, for our next four years, from a struggle rooted in native leadership and native rights, which also fought to protect the environment on behalf of all Americans?"

I'd seriously advise you to forget about 2016. The year 2017 is going to be very demanding. You might wish to prepare for it. Keeping this sentence in mind might be more useful than an encyclopedic knowledge of Disney fetishism: "Progress isn’t an entitlement, like a train we simply choose to board, but something to be fought for."

Want to Know How to Build a Progressive Movement Under Trump? Look to Standing Rock, by Audrea Lim (The Nation)

Fighting against white supremacy and neoliberalism takes organizing—and lots of it.

... Justice and victory aren’t mutually exclusive. The problem with much of the “race vs. class” debate is that it either fixates on “winning back” the roughly 25.5 percent of Americans who voted for Trump, or supposes that a single line of rhetoric can mobilize every subset of the working class. But ignoring racial disparities won’t make them disappear. That will only happen when they are eliminated through social and political change.

Whatever the limitations of grassroots struggles like Standing Rock—it is focused around a single task, for one—these are the movements that have been mobilizing masses, building a base and holding the line against white supremacy and neoliberalism. We should build on their work, and support others waging similar, invisible fights (like the White Earth Reservation’s battle against the Line 3 pipeline). We should also create space for those communities to thrive by organizing against white supremacy—and the neoliberal policies undergirding it—in the heartland of America.

“We’ll continue to stand up,” said Allard on the phone, somewhat resigned. This was a reminder that progress isn’t an entitlement, like a train we simply choose to board, but something to be fought for.

"How do liberals halt the march of the right? Stand our ground and toughen up."

The author writes primarily from the British perspective, but the gist of it remains intact, and echoes Michael Moore's points about available tools and a willingness to act.

Opposed to what's coming down? Great, but you may find it necessary to stop whining and actually do something.

I've shortened the ten points to a bullet list. Be sure to click through and read the gritty details -- and please stop bitching about 2016. We need to be ready for 2017, campers.

How do liberals halt the march of the right? Stand our ground and toughen up, by Matthew d'Ancona (The Guardian)

To all you despondent liberals, Labour centrists, Tory modernisers, remainers, social justice warriors, social justice worriers, and everyone out there fretful about Brexit, depressed by Donald Trump, and scared of the alt-right, here is my festive message: get off the ground, you wusses. Put down your gingerbread lattes, and put up your dukes ...

 ... here are my 10 tips for liberals of all kinds hoping to stop the march of the right in 2017:

1. Defend your ground, aggressively
2. Colonise your opponents’ language
3. Lead, don’t follow
4. Heed grievances – but don’t appease
5. Stand up for immigration
6. Stand up for integration
7. Fight the next battle, not the last
8. Don’t make a fetish of “unity”
9. Challenge the public
10. Be patient

"The only way this will work is if everyone commits, right now, to doing something, anything, in the coming year."

Moore's words appeared at Facebook. There are two key points (in bold below) amid the verbiage.

1. Tools to resist are available.
2. You must do something with them.

It's fairly simple to me, and I'll be returning to the point very often. In the words of Matthew d'Ancona at The Guardian: Get off the ground, you wusses. Put down your gingerbread lattes, and put up your dukes.

---

A Wish for December 25th by Michael Moore

Tonight it's Christmas Eve, it's Hanukkah, it's a month before the words "Muslim registry" will find their way into an actual law, and it's just another night for the "nonbelievers" (the only group who's probably going to save us because they believe in science, facts and humanity - the last one in spite of itself).
Many of us are with friends and family tonight. Many are alone. We seek peace and kindness and compassion for all - but we are not blind (at least, for some, not any longer).

We know the wall of hate in front of us is going to seem insurmountable. It is not. It is built on falsehoods and ignorance and the instilling of fear -- and these tricks, history has shown us, while they cause much damage in the short term, are in the long run met with defeat. Just ask The South, the Germans or Roger Ailes.

There's no way to sugarcoat the true breadth of the tsunami that's about to hit us. Although we don't control a single branch of our disappearing democracy, we ARE the majority (by nearly three million votes!) and we have MANY tools available to us (mass protest, civil disobedience, lawsuits, social media, old media, and just plain showing up) that we can use to grind the gears of this madness to a near-halt.

I and others will keep you informed and you and I and all of us will lead the charge. I will continue to post things you can do where you live. The only way this will work is if everyone commits, right now, to doing something, anything, in the coming year. 

That can be our Christmas/Hanukkah/Muslim registry gift to each other - I'm in, you're in, we're all in. Everybody in the pool! Share your real presents with each other tonight, tomorrow and in the coming year - the gifts of decency, love, caring, listening, living with less, doing for others, raising your voice and using the car pool lane because you and your four friends are on your way to disrupt the building of that wall.

Enjoy this weekend, be good to yourself and remember that "Celebrity Apprentice" returns to NBC on January 2nd, 9pm Eastern and Pacific, 8pm Central (so you can maybe figure out how we all ended up in this shitshow in the first place).

And thank you baby Jesus -- sorry for how it's all turned out.

Michael Moore

Charlie Pierce: "I don't know what comes next. For now, it's family."

My thoughts are at the end ... down there ↓ but first, thoughts from one of my favorite scribes.

Even in Great Despair, There Is Hope, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

I don't know what comes next. For now, it's family.

It will do us all good, I think, to take a weekend off from the cares of a world that seems to be coming apart from its mind outwards. It will do us all good, I think, to take this particular holiday slowly as it comes around. Even the pagans needed some excuse to rejoice in the darkest time of the year, which is why Christians copped the notion in the first place, and this has been a year with more than its share of dark times, god knows. And there's no telling what's coming down out of the deep woods come the next turning of the calendar. But very likely it's something we've never seen before, or at least that's the way I'm betting.

I've highlighted one passage.

So, as long as we're all in this alien country in which all the landmarks are familiar, but not entirely so, and changed in some vague way at their foundations, it won't hurt us to sit down and catch our breath and realize that, in the end, we are all that we have, and to find, if not joy in that, at least some comfort. Coats against the cold, as the late Guy Clark would have said. I don't know what's coming next. (Truly, at this point, I don't even want to guess.) But there will be places to stand against it, if needs be. Those are the places in which we still can have faith in hope, and where we can see through the storm the golden light of one candle in one window. That should be enough for now.

Picking these places to stand will be the essence of your resistance. Think about them carefully. Although the e-universe exists to rush our thoughts, this is the time to step aside and consider choices carefully. My own resistance will be here, where I live.

But Charlie is right. Give it a rest this weekend. Ignore Trump's idiotic tweets and the death throes of Democrats in "opposition." Take care of business at home. Whether by blood, circumstance or choice, family is a fundamental building block. Indulge it.

Then, when the holiday season is over ...

Rucker on the resistance: Disrupt it, expose it ... go to the mattresses.

The author's central point: "When backed into a corner, not given what I am due, I go in with all the weaponry I have. For me, that means my words, my fingers, a keyboard and, sometimes, a real pen. I use the tools at my discretion. We all have tools."

Yes, we certainly do, and if you're serious about resisting, you'll learn which tools are yours.

Go to the mattresses, by Erica Rucker (LEO)

America is, as writer Sheldon Wolin calls it, an inverted totalitarian state. It suffers from the delusion of democracy, but that democracy works only for those at the top. What we knew as freedom has been bought and sold by the corporation, and we are enslaved in a medicated, techno-propaganda haze to believe we are free and that the threats are from outsiders. The outsiders see what we don’t. They don’t want to kill us: They want to kill the empire that keeps us fat, stupid and distracted. They don’t hate our way of life. They hate our corporate overlords who’ve used us up, made us believe their intentions are egalitarian and not economic and then moved on to invade their countries, pillaging their resources.

America has sold us a good line for too long.

Resisting, are you? That's nice. Now learn about Mary Harris "Mother" Jones.

I could be wrong about this, but posting memes on Facebook might fall a bit short of what's needed.

Mother Jones: The Woman, by Elliot J. Gorn (Mother Jones)

Upton Sinclair knew Mother Jones. The author of the best-selling exposé of the meatpacking industry, The Jungle, even made her a character in one of his novels, a lightly fictionalized work called The Coal War, which chronicled the bloody Colorado coal strike of 1913-14: "There broke out a storm of applause which swelled into a tumult as a little woman came forward on the platform. She was wrinkled and old, dressed in black, looking like somebody's grandmother; she was, in truth, the grandmother of hundreds of thousands of miners."

Stories, Sinclair wrote, were Mother Jones' weapons, stories "about strikes she had led and speeches she had made; about interviews with presidents and governors and captains of industry; about jails and convict camps." She berated the miners for their cowardice, telling them if they were afraid to fight, then she would continue on alone. "All over the country she had roamed," Sinclair concluded, "and wherever she went, the flame of protest had leaped up in the hearts of men; her story was a veritable Odyssey of revolt."

When Sinclair wrote these words, Mother Jones was one of the most famous women in America. Articles about her regularly appeared in magazines and newspapers, and for many working Americans, she had achieved legendary, even iconic, status. Yet the woman for whom Mother Jones magazine is named is scarcely known any longer. Some might recognize her name, know something about her activism on behalf of working people, or even recall her famous war cry: "Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living." But few remember much about Mother Jones, who battled corporate presidents and politicians, who went to jail repeatedly for organizing workers, and who converted tens of thousands of Americans to the labor movement and the left.

As I worked on a recent biography of Mother Jones, however, I came to appreciate her significance for our own times.

As for "Localism in the Age of Trump," get off your duff and build local alternatives.

It's a long piece and deserves to be read in full, but I've rendered a paragraph in bold (below).

These words will need to be repeated again and again, as they apply to each one of us currently expressing "opposition" on social media: Get off your duff and build local alternatives.

Localism in the Age of Trump, by Richard Heinberg (Common Dreams)

 ... That philosophical dispute may continue, but the context has shifted dramatically: the commanding new fact-on-the-ground is that the American electorate has for now sided with the anti-globalist argument, and we face the imminent presidency of Donald Trump as a result. Should localists declare victory? As we’re about to see, the situation is complicated and holds some opportunities along with plenty of perils ...

 ... Let’s be clear: Trump’s ascendancy probably represents not a victory for localism or even populism, but merely a co-option of legitimate popular frustrations by a corporatist huckster who intends to lead his merry band of cronies and sycophants in looting what’s left of America’s natural and cultural resources. This would be the antithesis of green localism. Indeed, we may see an activist federal government attempt to trample local efforts to protect the environment, workers’ rights, or anything else that gets in the way of authoritarian corporatism. Congress may train its gun sights on local ordinances to ban fracking and GMOs, and on firearm regulations in states with the temerity to stand up to the NRA. Trump’s message appeals as much to tribalism as to anti-globalization sentiments—and only to members of certain tribes ...

 ... Specifically for localists, there may be opportunities to collaborate on the revival of domestic manufacturing. However, if that happens on Trump’s terms, the lion’s share of benefits will likely go to business owners. Trump says he wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure for the country, and many localists would agree the nation needs an enormous investment in electric rail, public transportation, and renewable energy technologies if it is to mitigate climate change and the impacts of oil depletion. Yet the infrastructure Trump favors consists mostly of more fossil fuel-dependent highways and airport runways, which we already have way too much of, thank you very much; and he proposes to get that infrastructure built by giving tax breaks to corporations, whether they actually produce anything or not. Collaboration with authoritarian leaders always leads to moral quandaries, as Masha Gessen details in a recent thoughtful essay in New York Review of Books. But there may be few incentives to tempt localists to work with a Trump administration ...

 ... Another strategic response to the new leader would be resistance: block him from doing bad things, voice displeasure in creative and strategic ways, and pour metaphoric sand in the gears of the new administration ...

 ... As important as resistance efforts will be, pouring all our energy into opposition may be poor strategy. Just as important will be building local alternatives—cooperative institutions and enterprises, including community land trusts, city-owned public banks, credit unions, and publicly owned utilities investing in renewables. Such constructive efforts have, after all, always been the main work of committed localists ...