Latest news in New York Times this week is that wages are going to go down and that "Banks Are Likely to Hold Tight to Bailout Money" of $200 billion that Secretary of Treasury gave them. The newspapers says that the banks will not lend the money out as Paulson and the administration hoped.
So let's see what people did in the 1st years of the Great Depression when Secretary of the Treasury Mellon was yelling liquidate the banks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate the workers and unemployment climbed to 25% by 1932
People organized Unemployment Councils from 1930-32 that demanded unemployment (there was none at the time) and food from the local governments. In the hunger marchers which culminated on International Unemployment day on March 6, 1930, the marchers in many cities demanded unemployment relief, and they wanted to "work for wages." The Communist Party and its allied organizations were the main organizers of the Unemployment Councils which stopped evictions and asked city governments for relief--food and small change.
By 1931 hunger marchers in 12 state capitals demanded relief and unemployment insurance. A national hunger march on December 7, 1931, was timed to coincide with the opening of Congress. The December 7 march demanded unemployment insurance and a social insurance system to cover maternity care, illness, accidents, and old age. Local demonstrations and conferences select 1,670 delegates who converged on Washington from four separate columns. The marchers were never allowed to speak to Congress or the president, but their mass meetings brought these issues to be discussed nationally.
In the March 7, 1932, at Ford Hunger March Three thousand marched from Detroit to the Ford employment office in the suburb of Dearborn, a company town where Ford's main complex was located. Most were auto workers and their families. Police gassed the marchers when they were entering Dearborn. Then some marchers threw stones. When the marchers arrive at Ford, the police fired at them, killing five. The cops blamed the Communists and had a witch hunt with raids against left-wing organization, but the Ford hunger marchers held a huge funeral march of 30,0000--the unemployment movement in the Detroit area then grew even stronger.
Also World War I veterans organized the bonus march across the country of 43,000 veterans and their families asking for a bonus they said they had been promised for their war service in spring of 1932. The Bonus marchers arrived in Washington D.C. on June 17, 1932 where they had an encampment. Hoover got hysterical and asked General McArthur to clear out the bonus marchers, so he had has troops shoot at them, killing two.
By 1933 radical farmers were protesting throughout the Midwest. In February 1933, thousands of farmers marched on the new capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska, demanding a moratorium on all farm foreclosures. The Legislature halted foreclosure sales for two years, but the legislators allowed district judges to decide how long a foreclosure could be postponed or to order the proceedings to go forward anyway. In the first test case ended the judge said the sale to go forward. Farmers and their newspapers demanded higher farm prices, cancellation on payment of feed and seed loans, a moratorium on mortgages and reduced taxes.
The marchers' demands then were adopted by FDR and the Democratic Party and by the 2nd half of the 1930s passed as legislation: unemployment insurance; state relief in food and small amounts of money; disability insurance; social security for the elderly; the W.P.A. and C.C.C. programs that hired the unemployed for jobs; the T.V.A. program to help impoverished farmers in the Tennessee Valley; agricultural subsidies to help farmers. At the end of World War II in 1944 Congress finally responded to the demands of the veterans in the Bonus March by enacting the G.I.Bill of Rights legislation giving education benefits so World War II veterans could get a free college education and low-interest G.I. home mortgages.
So the 99% of the U.S. people who have been against Paulson's idiotic bailouts and Bush's inept economic policies should like the protesters in the 1930-1931 publicly through marches, demonstrations, conferences articulate a set of demands; 1) extend unemployment insurance; 2) have FANNIE MAE and Freddie Mac give new low-interest mortgages to stop forecloses; 3.) allow judges in bankruptcy courts to lower the amount owed in mortgages; 4.) have a government-sponsored green energy program hiring unemployed modeled after the W.P.A. and C.C.C. 5.) have a government program to rebuild roads, bridges etc. hiring unemployed; 6.) single payer national health insurance.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Comparing 1929 and 2008
So how is this 2008 economic crises like 1929? The economist John Maynard Keynes said the 1929 meltdown was because income of Americans and Western Europeans was too low to buy the goods and services.During the 1920s government policies favored the rich and attacked the wages of farmers and workers.
Right now the same problem is occurring: the income of Americans is too low to buy goods and services. Former labor secretary Reich said, "Americans have lived beyond their means because their means have declined. It is necessary that their means be restored." Many Americans turned to credit cards and subprime mortgages because they lacked money. Juan Cole says , ’’The average wage of the average worker is lower now than in 1973 and has been lower or flat for the past 35 years. That's the condition of the 300 million or so Americans.” Cole says 300 million have stagnant wages while we have 3 million Superrich who take home 20% of the national income, owning some 45 percent of the privately held wealth in the US.” The Regan-Clinton-Bush neoliberal economic policies have smashed the middle class and working class enriching the 3 million superrich just like the 1920s.
Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon who was a firm believer in cutting taxes, especially on the rich. In the 1920s Mellon kept on advocating and getting tax cuts for the very rich. The rich put their money saved into the bank as they already had far more than they needed.—this excess savings of the rich and unequal income distribution in the 1920s with a small Superirch and a larger struggling masses helped trigger the Great Depression. Bush like Mellon was all about cutting taxes on the superich. Also McCain’s economic plan is all about cutting taxes—that helped cause the Great Depression. He sounds like the reincarnation of Hoover and his Secretary of the Treasury Mellon.
Secretary of the Treasury Mellon in 1930s had a theory of not bailing out banks, but letting the strong banks survive and the weak banks go bankrupt. Go bankrupt they did, so by 1932 there was panic and runs on the bank until late 1932 when FDR was elected and the banking economy completely collapsed. Ben Barncke, the current head of the Federal Reserve Bank, is supposedly a student of the Great Depression, and is critical of Mellon's not trying to save the faiiling banks of 1930-32. The only problem of Bernacke's analysis is that unemployment steadily rose in the time period while wages fell. What as really driving the economny down was falling wages as Americans bought less and less.
Americans by 100 to 1 were against Paulson’s toxic $700 bailout. First, Congresspeople listened to us, rejecting the bailout but then Wall Street and Chamber of Commerce pressure was applied, so Congress reversed itself, approving the bailout. Then stock markets crashed around the world. It seems that Americans consuming on credit cards were the driving force between global economic expansion, particularly in Asia, buying all those goods from China, Japan, Korean, etc etc. So last month when Americans reigned in our spending, those economies in Asian felt pain. Paulson's bailouts do nothing to help Americans get more money from wages so we can buy more goods and services.
Last Friday financier George Sorros on Bill Moyer’s TV show on PBS told the truth about Paulson’s bailout for the first time on mainstream corporate media: Paulson’s bailout is designed to help bank stockholders. By the way, Paulson owns $650 million stock in Goldman Sacks investment bank so Paulson is helping himself and his cronies. Everything Paulson has done is to bailout out bank stockholders, the people who caused the financial crises by demanding ever increasing profits from the banks and who benefited from ever increasing profts from the banks.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Los Angeles artists have Onyx reunion
Tomorrow, Saturday Oct. 11 poet S.A. Griffin is organizing 10-year reunion for the Onyx
Left- Atomic Sherpas
an artists' cafe that was LA Weekly says 'about the closet thing to '20s-era Paris this town has
ever seen." Yes, I was there from the beginning--it was true. In a tiny
cafe in Silverlake we had poets, painters, rock' musicians, avant garde musicians,
art students--it was a great artists cafe. Run by Fumiko Robinson and John Leech,
it was our home away for home ,our communal artists living room. I read poetry
at the first Onyx art event upstairs which went on for hours.
I will read tomorrow at 2pm followed by leading L.A. poet Holly Prado and 11 more hours. The party will go on until 1 am.
Poet/writer S.A. Griffin brings us The 10-Year Onyx Reunion. Griffin calls it "an old-fashioned Onyx hoedown" with music from Atomic Sherpas, Charmkin Rebellion, Bill Markus, Michael Whitmore and Ron Hershewe bands, poetry by Steve Abee, Rafael F.J. Alvarado, Holly Prado and Blakeslee Stevens. Tribal Café, 1651 W. Temple St., L.A.; Sat., Oct. 11, noon-1 p.m.; free. (213) 483-4458. Pictured: Atomic Sherpas.
....
Left- Atomic Sherpasan artists' cafe that was LA Weekly says 'about the closet thing to '20s-era Paris this town has
ever seen." Yes, I was there from the beginning--it was true. In a tiny
cafe in Silverlake we had poets, painters, rock' musicians, avant garde musicians,
art students--it was a great artists cafe. Run by Fumiko Robinson and John Leech,
it was our home away for home ,our communal artists living room. I read poetry
at the first Onyx art event upstairs which went on for hours.
I will read tomorrow at 2pm followed by leading L.A. poet Holly Prado and 11 more hours. The party will go on until 1 am.
Poet/writer S.A. Griffin brings us The 10-Year Onyx Reunion. Griffin calls it "an old-fashioned Onyx hoedown" with music from Atomic Sherpas, Charmkin Rebellion, Bill Markus, Michael Whitmore and Ron Hershewe bands, poetry by Steve Abee, Rafael F.J. Alvarado, Holly Prado and Blakeslee Stevens. Tribal Café, 1651 W. Temple St., L.A.; Sat., Oct. 11, noon-1 p.m.; free. (213) 483-4458. Pictured: Atomic Sherpas.
....
Monday, October 06, 2008
Tent Cities and Sara Palin
In the U.S. for the last three decades we've had 1920s football/frat house culture as well as 1920s Wall Street bubble/fraud/greed. Well, the party's over today and the stock market is crashing in the U.S. and Europe.
Actually, I've thought the people like Bush and Paulson who go around saying that Congress must pass the bailout or the sky will fall have been first creating fears and then manipulating fears to pass their terrible bailout. Some good things have been happening. The globe in the last few weeks has people using less oil--a good thing as it lessens global warming. The people who created the bubble and frauds in Wall Street have begun to be exposed. People in the United States have been spending less and saving more--a good thing. But now we have to deal with our many problems starting with tent cities growing up across the nation. These people need to be put in homes.
I'm not underestimating our economic problems--the economy lost 760,000 jobs this year including losing 159,000 jobs in September. People move to Reno to try to find casino jobs but no jobs so wind up in tents. They move to California for jobs but no jobs. New York Times reported Friday people in Nebraska are beginning to abandon children as they did in the Depression. We have tent cities going up outside Los Angeles and Reno and other places.
We have a leadership crises where leaders of both parties have been pushing hard for a terrible $700 billion bailout. We have a mass media which focuses on trivia such as Sara Palin's wink rather than she did a dreadful job on the debate last Thursday. When asked what Palin would do about the mortgage crises, she ignored the question. Her recipe for improving the economy is a tax cut as she repeated during the debate a tax cut creates jobs. That's total idiocy, particularly in a month where 159,000 jobs were lost. We've had eight years of Bush tax cuts and lost millions of jobs. Tax cuts do not create jobs. Palin flunked on the debate. Palin should get the Herbert Hoover award for the dumbest comment made about the economic crises. It's time the mass media stopped being so incredibly stupid in how they write about her.
Actually, I've thought the people like Bush and Paulson who go around saying that Congress must pass the bailout or the sky will fall have been first creating fears and then manipulating fears to pass their terrible bailout. Some good things have been happening. The globe in the last few weeks has people using less oil--a good thing as it lessens global warming. The people who created the bubble and frauds in Wall Street have begun to be exposed. People in the United States have been spending less and saving more--a good thing. But now we have to deal with our many problems starting with tent cities growing up across the nation. These people need to be put in homes.
I'm not underestimating our economic problems--the economy lost 760,000 jobs this year including losing 159,000 jobs in September. People move to Reno to try to find casino jobs but no jobs so wind up in tents. They move to California for jobs but no jobs. New York Times reported Friday people in Nebraska are beginning to abandon children as they did in the Depression. We have tent cities going up outside Los Angeles and Reno and other places.
We have a leadership crises where leaders of both parties have been pushing hard for a terrible $700 billion bailout. We have a mass media which focuses on trivia such as Sara Palin's wink rather than she did a dreadful job on the debate last Thursday. When asked what Palin would do about the mortgage crises, she ignored the question. Her recipe for improving the economy is a tax cut as she repeated during the debate a tax cut creates jobs. That's total idiocy, particularly in a month where 159,000 jobs were lost. We've had eight years of Bush tax cuts and lost millions of jobs. Tax cuts do not create jobs. Palin flunked on the debate. Palin should get the Herbert Hoover award for the dumbest comment made about the economic crises. It's time the mass media stopped being so incredibly stupid in how they write about her.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
200 economists against the bailout
Last week 200 economists from leading American universities issued the following letter against the wreched bailout:
(This letter was sent to Congress on Wed Sept 24 2008 regarding the Treasury plan as outlined on that date. It does not reflect all signatories views on subesquent plans or modifications of the bill)
To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:
As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:
1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.
2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.
3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.
For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.
For the whole list of names of the economists, go to the link
http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/mortgage_protest.htm
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Fire Paulson Fire Cox
The reason Bush should fire Paulson is he and his investment bank buddies created the financial mess.
The federal government admitted it in the New York Times story "S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaw Fueled Collapse." The Security and Exchange Commission (the SEC) was passed during FDR's presidency to regulate Wall Street and was supposed to save the country from out-of-control greed, speculation and manipulations of the 1929 stock market crash. The SEC was supposed to regulate Wall Street, but following the Reaganomics voodoo economics of the last 3 decades. they didn't regulate. Instead Bush II appoints Christopher Cox to chair the SEC, but Cox like Bush and like McCain is a long-time foe of regulation. It's just like letting the fox guard the hen house. In 2004 the SEC, not interested in any real regulation of investment banks, instituted a "voluntary supervision program for Wall Street's largest investment banks" and now Mr. Cox admits his voluntary program "had contributed to the global financial crises, and he abruptly shut the program down" (New York Times, 9/27/08).
Mr. Cox said his voluntary program was "fundamentally flawed the from the beginning" because investments banking companies could join or withdraw from the program at will. Besides, the SEC in a just released report said that it didn't failed to monitor Bear Stearns before it collapsed.
The 5 big investor banks lobbied for the voluntary commission, and who was head of Goldman Sacks at the time? Mr Paulson, now head of the Treasury Department. So Mr. Paulson helps set up the voluntary commission at the SEC that helps crash Wall Street. The SEC gave into the lobbying of the 5 investment banks including Mr. Paulson at Goldman Sacks.
But there's more. The 5 investment banks wanted SEC as their umbrella regulator "because that let them avoid regulation of their fast-growing European operations by the European Union." So this voluntary commission was set up to avoid regulation by European Union. Now Mr. Cox admits that the SEC's regulation was non-existent and was put into place at the request of the investment banks who had collapsed or been sold.
Mr. Paulson is one of the people most responsible fore creating this Wall Street financial crises. He should be fired. Mr. Cox also by his negligence helped the crises develop. He should be fired.
The federal government admitted it in the New York Times story "S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaw Fueled Collapse." The Security and Exchange Commission (the SEC) was passed during FDR's presidency to regulate Wall Street and was supposed to save the country from out-of-control greed, speculation and manipulations of the 1929 stock market crash. The SEC was supposed to regulate Wall Street, but following the Reaganomics voodoo economics of the last 3 decades. they didn't regulate. Instead Bush II appoints Christopher Cox to chair the SEC, but Cox like Bush and like McCain is a long-time foe of regulation. It's just like letting the fox guard the hen house. In 2004 the SEC, not interested in any real regulation of investment banks, instituted a "voluntary supervision program for Wall Street's largest investment banks" and now Mr. Cox admits his voluntary program "had contributed to the global financial crises, and he abruptly shut the program down" (New York Times, 9/27/08).
Mr. Cox said his voluntary program was "fundamentally flawed the from the beginning" because investments banking companies could join or withdraw from the program at will. Besides, the SEC in a just released report said that it didn't failed to monitor Bear Stearns before it collapsed.
The 5 big investor banks lobbied for the voluntary commission, and who was head of Goldman Sacks at the time? Mr Paulson, now head of the Treasury Department. So Mr. Paulson helps set up the voluntary commission at the SEC that helps crash Wall Street. The SEC gave into the lobbying of the 5 investment banks including Mr. Paulson at Goldman Sacks.
But there's more. The 5 investment banks wanted SEC as their umbrella regulator "because that let them avoid regulation of their fast-growing European operations by the European Union." So this voluntary commission was set up to avoid regulation by European Union. Now Mr. Cox admits that the SEC's regulation was non-existent and was put into place at the request of the investment banks who had collapsed or been sold.
Mr. Paulson is one of the people most responsible fore creating this Wall Street financial crises. He should be fired. Mr. Cox also by his negligence helped the crises develop. He should be fired.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Wall Street Bail Out Is a Mistake
Last week I was interested in the Wall Street crisis for many reasons, one being that my
auto insurance agency was 21st Century owned by AIG. I was wondering if I had an auto insurance if AIG went bankrupt, but then it the federal government promised to bail it out, so I still have auto insurance.
Who to blame for the crises? Most people in mainstream media such as PBS blame Allan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve bank, for not regulating the investment banks such as Lehman Brothers who were making wild loans on subprime mortgages. LA Times had an article today saying Europeans blame the financial crises on deregulation, Alan Greenspan, and greed. The left-wing Counterpunch goes further saying blaming the crises on neoliberalism, the ideology that free markets with little or no government regulation should dominate our economy. Neoliberalism has dominated U.S. economy since President Regan. Therefore blame Milton Freedman, the great guru of neoliberalism, and all his quack followers; also blame President Regan and his bunch of neoliberals followers including Bush I and Bush II. They repeated endlessly that deregulation wasn't necessary and markets should prevail.
We also should blame U.S. Senator Phil Graham who sponsored a legislation passed in the late 1990s that deregulated banks and investment houses, ending the Glass/Stegal Act that in the 1930s regulated banks and investment houses. Graham is now a major fundraiser and adviser for McCain who also solidly supported deregulation his decades in the Senate. We should blame Clinton and his Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin for pushing to pass Graham's disastrous piece of legislation that deregulated the banks.
Most everybody agrees that government needs to step in but Bush's stepping in so far has been a disaster. Bush has refused to help out distressed homeowners by giving them low-interest loans. Neoliberals have also kept down wages for 30 years, so wages have stagnated. Bush II's mismanagement has cost the country 600,000 lost jobs this year.
Now Bush's plans would worsen the economic crises. The New York Times said the government could spend money on rebuilding the country's broken infrastructure or doing a bail out of Wall Street. Bush II wants to spend $700 billion bailing out Wall Street--this same Bush II who said the country couldn't afford to spend paltry millions to expand Healthy Families giving health insurance to poor children.
The major problem with Bush II's proposal is that he wants the government to take over bad mortgages from banks to stabilize the financial system until the economy improves and people can buy homes a gain. Given lost jobs, stagnating wages, and difficult-to-get high-interest mortgages, who is going to buy houses in the next few years? Very very few.
I know one young couple with a year-old baby in a one-room apartment in Los Angeles and another young couple planning to have a baby in their one-room apartment in San Francisco. Neither can afford to buy houses in their cities. Bush II's plans will do nothing to improve anybody's income but instead cause average taxpayers taxes to go up to pay for the bail out which might amount to trillion dollars. Bush II's bailout plan is a recipe for one very very very very long recession.
2001 economics Novel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz says the first thing this country has to do to recover economically is end the Iraq War which has now cost $3 trillion dollars. The economist argues that to get out of a recession what the federal government needs is to stimulate the economy but it doesn't have the funds if it wastes its funds on the Iraq War. He argues that the longer the Iraq War lasts, the longer the recession lasts. Also, I'd add close all these unnecessary bases that the U.S. has around the world.
Reducing military spending overseas would free the money to give a real stimulus package like FDR's New Deal. A new government in Washington would rebuild infrastructure as FDR did through such projects as the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s (CCC). The CCC not only built bridges, roads, post offices, and high schools which we still use today but also gave jobs to the unemployed. When you give jobs to the unemployed, then they immediately spend their wages, stimulating the economy. Further, a new administration could expand unemployment and food stamps. When you give jobs to the unemployed or more unemployment or food stamps, then the people immediately spend their wages or unemployment checks, stimulating the economy.
Further, FDR supported unionizing of blue collar workers, enabled them to eventually increase wages to join the middle class. The president & federal legislature can change its anti-union stances as well as get rid of anti-union legislation. With rise in unionization, wages will rise as they did in the 1940s and 1950s. With more people have jobs and higher wages, then people will have the income to buy homes so the housing market will naturally improve.
Instead of federal bailout of banks and investment houses who took on bad mortgage debt, the federal government should have a policy of switching high interest mortgages to lower, fixed rate 30 year mortgage, helping people to stay in their homes. The federal government after World War II gave low-interest housing loans to veterans, allowing thousands to buy homes for the first times in their lives. Low-interest 30-year mortgages would help stabilize markets and housing prices. Further, because investors speculated on housing prices causing them to go up astronomically, working people and middle class couldn't afford to buy houses in many urban areas such as Los Angeles. The fall of housing prices will make houses more affordable--that is a good thing.
Obama and the Democrats in Congress support some of these things. The Democrats in Congress want some housing relief for distressed homeowners included in the bailout package but the housing relief should be in a different bill. Also, Obama has promised to included money to rebuild infrastructure in his new administration. The rest of the |New Deal package--including removing anti-union legislation--people will have to struggle for. McCain sounds clueless. His major economic adviser is Phil Graham who got us into this mass. McCain's election will mean economic disaster for this country.
Let's get this very straight. FDR's New Deal, while not prefect, did help get millions out of dire poverty into jobs. The federal post-World War II packages of veterans benefits for education and low-coast housing loans helped more millions. We know what has worked in our economy. We know the neoliberalism has given us the present recession and Wall Street disaster. We need to junk the failed polices of neoliberalism. Government programs have worked in the past. We need to resurrect them.
auto insurance agency was 21st Century owned by AIG. I was wondering if I had an auto insurance if AIG went bankrupt, but then it the federal government promised to bail it out, so I still have auto insurance.
Who to blame for the crises? Most people in mainstream media such as PBS blame Allan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve bank, for not regulating the investment banks such as Lehman Brothers who were making wild loans on subprime mortgages. LA Times had an article today saying Europeans blame the financial crises on deregulation, Alan Greenspan, and greed. The left-wing Counterpunch goes further saying blaming the crises on neoliberalism, the ideology that free markets with little or no government regulation should dominate our economy. Neoliberalism has dominated U.S. economy since President Regan. Therefore blame Milton Freedman, the great guru of neoliberalism, and all his quack followers; also blame President Regan and his bunch of neoliberals followers including Bush I and Bush II. They repeated endlessly that deregulation wasn't necessary and markets should prevail.
We also should blame U.S. Senator Phil Graham who sponsored a legislation passed in the late 1990s that deregulated banks and investment houses, ending the Glass/Stegal Act that in the 1930s regulated banks and investment houses. Graham is now a major fundraiser and adviser for McCain who also solidly supported deregulation his decades in the Senate. We should blame Clinton and his Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin for pushing to pass Graham's disastrous piece of legislation that deregulated the banks.
Most everybody agrees that government needs to step in but Bush's stepping in so far has been a disaster. Bush has refused to help out distressed homeowners by giving them low-interest loans. Neoliberals have also kept down wages for 30 years, so wages have stagnated. Bush II's mismanagement has cost the country 600,000 lost jobs this year.
Now Bush's plans would worsen the economic crises. The New York Times said the government could spend money on rebuilding the country's broken infrastructure or doing a bail out of Wall Street. Bush II wants to spend $700 billion bailing out Wall Street--this same Bush II who said the country couldn't afford to spend paltry millions to expand Healthy Families giving health insurance to poor children.
The major problem with Bush II's proposal is that he wants the government to take over bad mortgages from banks to stabilize the financial system until the economy improves and people can buy homes a gain. Given lost jobs, stagnating wages, and difficult-to-get high-interest mortgages, who is going to buy houses in the next few years? Very very few.
I know one young couple with a year-old baby in a one-room apartment in Los Angeles and another young couple planning to have a baby in their one-room apartment in San Francisco. Neither can afford to buy houses in their cities. Bush II's plans will do nothing to improve anybody's income but instead cause average taxpayers taxes to go up to pay for the bail out which might amount to trillion dollars. Bush II's bailout plan is a recipe for one very very very very long recession.
2001 economics Novel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz says the first thing this country has to do to recover economically is end the Iraq War which has now cost $3 trillion dollars. The economist argues that to get out of a recession what the federal government needs is to stimulate the economy but it doesn't have the funds if it wastes its funds on the Iraq War. He argues that the longer the Iraq War lasts, the longer the recession lasts. Also, I'd add close all these unnecessary bases that the U.S. has around the world.
Reducing military spending overseas would free the money to give a real stimulus package like FDR's New Deal. A new government in Washington would rebuild infrastructure as FDR did through such projects as the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s (CCC). The CCC not only built bridges, roads, post offices, and high schools which we still use today but also gave jobs to the unemployed. When you give jobs to the unemployed, then they immediately spend their wages, stimulating the economy. Further, a new administration could expand unemployment and food stamps. When you give jobs to the unemployed or more unemployment or food stamps, then the people immediately spend their wages or unemployment checks, stimulating the economy.
Further, FDR supported unionizing of blue collar workers, enabled them to eventually increase wages to join the middle class. The president & federal legislature can change its anti-union stances as well as get rid of anti-union legislation. With rise in unionization, wages will rise as they did in the 1940s and 1950s. With more people have jobs and higher wages, then people will have the income to buy homes so the housing market will naturally improve.
Instead of federal bailout of banks and investment houses who took on bad mortgage debt, the federal government should have a policy of switching high interest mortgages to lower, fixed rate 30 year mortgage, helping people to stay in their homes. The federal government after World War II gave low-interest housing loans to veterans, allowing thousands to buy homes for the first times in their lives. Low-interest 30-year mortgages would help stabilize markets and housing prices. Further, because investors speculated on housing prices causing them to go up astronomically, working people and middle class couldn't afford to buy houses in many urban areas such as Los Angeles. The fall of housing prices will make houses more affordable--that is a good thing.
Obama and the Democrats in Congress support some of these things. The Democrats in Congress want some housing relief for distressed homeowners included in the bailout package but the housing relief should be in a different bill. Also, Obama has promised to included money to rebuild infrastructure in his new administration. The rest of the |New Deal package--including removing anti-union legislation--people will have to struggle for. McCain sounds clueless. His major economic adviser is Phil Graham who got us into this mass. McCain's election will mean economic disaster for this country.
Let's get this very straight. FDR's New Deal, while not prefect, did help get millions out of dire poverty into jobs. The federal post-World War II packages of veterans benefits for education and low-coast housing loans helped more millions. We know what has worked in our economy. We know the neoliberalism has given us the present recession and Wall Street disaster. We need to junk the failed polices of neoliberalism. Government programs have worked in the past. We need to resurrect them.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sara Palin as Bush III
Sara Palin is really just Bush the Third.
The McCain/Palin ticket would give us more Bush policies in spades.
First, Palin like Bush is the candidate from Big Oil. Palin like Bush doesn't believe
in global warming. A few days ago she moderated her position and said that human activity can contribute to global warming a little. Palin like Bush wants as the crowd cheered at the Repbulican National Convention to "drill, drill, drill." Palin like Bush doesn't believe in renewable energy and hasn't funded any in Alaska.
Yes, Palin as governor of Alaska increased taxes from the oil industry but her husband has worked for oil giant British Petroleum for eighteen years on the north slope in Alaska. Palin thinks her big accomplishment is having the Alaska fund a natural gas pipeline which will pipe gas to Alberta to treat tar oil--an environmental disaster waiting to happen. As a governor in Alaska she lets oil companies dump thousands of gallons of toxic wastes in prime fisheries. McCain/Palin would continue Bush's policies of letting oil giants dominate energy in the United States, letting gas prices soar, wreak environmental havoc and letting oil companies have obscene profits. Voting for McCain/Palin is like voting for a hike in the price of gas.
Palin like McCain has presented herself as having no taxes but cutting spending. As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she cut funds for a new library, wouldn 't fund a new park the city needed, and wouldn't fund a sewage treatment plant Wasilla desperately needed. She did fund $15 million for a sports complex on land that the city didn't own, spurring a lawsuit which is still in the the courts. As mayor she lowered taxes on corporations but raised sales taxes which falls on working people. After she was mayor, the working people of Wasilla paid higher taxes for everything they bought but still lacked the library, the park, and the sewage treatment plant. She was a lousy mayor. As governor of Alaska, she had surplus of government money but wouldn't spend it on improving Alaska's terrible schools nor on domestic violence programs.
She attacked Obama for being a community organizer in her speech at the Republican National Convention. She obviously thinks its idiotic to give up a high paying job to go to work trying to improve a local communities. In fact, as governor of Alaska she had policies that were designed to never improve any local communities. She does, however, believe in spending a lot of state funds on proving polar bears are not endangered species. Ensuring that polar bears die out seems to be high on her priority list as Alaskan governor. Bush also has gone after the endangered species act, trying to end it. Palin like Bush work hard at making policies that wipe out animal species. Palin has been a lousy governor of Alaska.
Palin would give us more of Bush's foreign policy.
Palin like Bush II knows very little about foreign policy and Palin like Bush II before he was elected has hardly been out of the United States. The Republicans said she went to Canada, Mexico, and visited the troops in Iraq. Then the Republicans corrected themselves. No, she didn't visit troops in Iraq but merely went to Kuwait. Oh well.
Bush has now gotten into two wars--Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has the tremendous incompetency to be losing to the Taliban in Afghanistan. McCain has promised us 100 years of war in Iraq while Palin when asked about Georgia/Russia said she would support War with Russia over Georgia. McCain/Palin are warmongers who refused to recognize how Bush's wars have bankrupted the U.S. economy and who promise to bankrupt it even faster.
Let's take her speech at the Republican National Convention attack Obama for thinking it important to read prisoners their rights. Palin thinks prisoners should have no rights. In other words like Bush she is pro-torture. She clearly hasn't thought much about the issue, because the armed service leadership is always against torture knowing if we torture people, then other people will hate us and torture our soldiers. Just like Bush has isolated the U.S. around the world, Palin's ideas that prisoners in the U.S. need rights would make this country look like brutal torturers.
The speech Palin said at the Republican National Convention, according to the New Yorker, was written by a Bush speechwriter and then refitted for Palin. Palin is a puppet repeating the words of her Republican handlers. The Republicans have threatened the press that if they ask tough questions of Palin, they would loose access. What are her Republican handlers afraid of? Are they afraid she would divert from the script they make her carefully memorize?
When people look at Palin and McCain, see 8 more years of polices destroying small towns by denying them needed sewage plants, destroying rural economies such as fisheries in Alaska she is letting oil companies pollute with toxic waste, and destroying communities in the city. Palin and McCain promise us indept handling of the U.S. economy and more wars to bankrupt the country.
Finally, many scientists think global warming causes increased intensity of hurricanes. Scientists predicted that millions would have to flee low-lieing areas to escape floods caused by global warming. That's exactly what's happening in the last month with hurricanes like Hurricane Ike right now. The Republicans have put in place policies that cause global warming. As long as they continue to be puppets of the oil industry and continue to fight for polices like use of oil and coal which increases global warming, they may shed tears for envirnomental refugees. They may give speeches about helping environmental refugees. But their policies for decades had caused the environmental refugees. There's an old saying that it's don't talk the talk but walk the walk. Palin walks the walk of Big Oil
The McCain/Palin ticket would give us more Bush policies in spades.
First, Palin like Bush is the candidate from Big Oil. Palin like Bush doesn't believe
in global warming. A few days ago she moderated her position and said that human activity can contribute to global warming a little. Palin like Bush wants as the crowd cheered at the Repbulican National Convention to "drill, drill, drill." Palin like Bush doesn't believe in renewable energy and hasn't funded any in Alaska.
Yes, Palin as governor of Alaska increased taxes from the oil industry but her husband has worked for oil giant British Petroleum for eighteen years on the north slope in Alaska. Palin thinks her big accomplishment is having the Alaska fund a natural gas pipeline which will pipe gas to Alberta to treat tar oil--an environmental disaster waiting to happen. As a governor in Alaska she lets oil companies dump thousands of gallons of toxic wastes in prime fisheries. McCain/Palin would continue Bush's policies of letting oil giants dominate energy in the United States, letting gas prices soar, wreak environmental havoc and letting oil companies have obscene profits. Voting for McCain/Palin is like voting for a hike in the price of gas.
Palin like McCain has presented herself as having no taxes but cutting spending. As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she cut funds for a new library, wouldn 't fund a new park the city needed, and wouldn't fund a sewage treatment plant Wasilla desperately needed. She did fund $15 million for a sports complex on land that the city didn't own, spurring a lawsuit which is still in the the courts. As mayor she lowered taxes on corporations but raised sales taxes which falls on working people. After she was mayor, the working people of Wasilla paid higher taxes for everything they bought but still lacked the library, the park, and the sewage treatment plant. She was a lousy mayor. As governor of Alaska, she had surplus of government money but wouldn't spend it on improving Alaska's terrible schools nor on domestic violence programs.
She attacked Obama for being a community organizer in her speech at the Republican National Convention. She obviously thinks its idiotic to give up a high paying job to go to work trying to improve a local communities. In fact, as governor of Alaska she had policies that were designed to never improve any local communities. She does, however, believe in spending a lot of state funds on proving polar bears are not endangered species. Ensuring that polar bears die out seems to be high on her priority list as Alaskan governor. Bush also has gone after the endangered species act, trying to end it. Palin like Bush work hard at making policies that wipe out animal species. Palin has been a lousy governor of Alaska.
Palin would give us more of Bush's foreign policy.
Palin like Bush II knows very little about foreign policy and Palin like Bush II before he was elected has hardly been out of the United States. The Republicans said she went to Canada, Mexico, and visited the troops in Iraq. Then the Republicans corrected themselves. No, she didn't visit troops in Iraq but merely went to Kuwait. Oh well.
Bush has now gotten into two wars--Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has the tremendous incompetency to be losing to the Taliban in Afghanistan. McCain has promised us 100 years of war in Iraq while Palin when asked about Georgia/Russia said she would support War with Russia over Georgia. McCain/Palin are warmongers who refused to recognize how Bush's wars have bankrupted the U.S. economy and who promise to bankrupt it even faster.
Let's take her speech at the Republican National Convention attack Obama for thinking it important to read prisoners their rights. Palin thinks prisoners should have no rights. In other words like Bush she is pro-torture. She clearly hasn't thought much about the issue, because the armed service leadership is always against torture knowing if we torture people, then other people will hate us and torture our soldiers. Just like Bush has isolated the U.S. around the world, Palin's ideas that prisoners in the U.S. need rights would make this country look like brutal torturers.
The speech Palin said at the Republican National Convention, according to the New Yorker, was written by a Bush speechwriter and then refitted for Palin. Palin is a puppet repeating the words of her Republican handlers. The Republicans have threatened the press that if they ask tough questions of Palin, they would loose access. What are her Republican handlers afraid of? Are they afraid she would divert from the script they make her carefully memorize?
When people look at Palin and McCain, see 8 more years of polices destroying small towns by denying them needed sewage plants, destroying rural economies such as fisheries in Alaska she is letting oil companies pollute with toxic waste, and destroying communities in the city. Palin and McCain promise us indept handling of the U.S. economy and more wars to bankrupt the country.
Finally, many scientists think global warming causes increased intensity of hurricanes. Scientists predicted that millions would have to flee low-lieing areas to escape floods caused by global warming. That's exactly what's happening in the last month with hurricanes like Hurricane Ike right now. The Republicans have put in place policies that cause global warming. As long as they continue to be puppets of the oil industry and continue to fight for polices like use of oil and coal which increases global warming, they may shed tears for envirnomental refugees. They may give speeches about helping environmental refugees. But their policies for decades had caused the environmental refugees. There's an old saying that it's don't talk the talk but walk the walk. Palin walks the walk of Big Oil
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Short eco-tour of Los Angeles
Siel of Green Los Angeles Girl asked what to tell a ecological Finish visitor who had one Sunday evening and one Monday morning in Los Angeles. So below is my answer.
Dear Finnish Visitor to Los Angeles,
Let's pretend you are staying in Hollywood.
For a Sunday evening, I'd buy an all-day metro pass. Take either the Metro Rapid 704 bus or Metro 4 bus down Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to the beach and get off at the final stop. If you are in Hollywood, Santa Monica Boulevard is usually a short walk. Then I'd walk the palisades, walk down to the beach, say hello to the ocean, go back up, walk around 3rd Street Promenade and downtown Santa Monica. By the way, if you want to hop off the bus at Beverly Drive in the heart of Beverly Hills and walk two blocks south to Wilshire Boulevard and back north to Santa Monica Boulevard you will see the heart of Beverly Hill's shopping district.
For Monday morning, I'd get an all-day metro pass, and take the Red line subway to Union Station, get off and tour the station. Then I'd walk across the street, walk through Olvera Street and look at the zanja madre ditch/fountain right in front of the Avila Adobe and walk through the Avila Adobe.The city started as a small farming town irrigated my zanjas or irrigation ditches where water was brought down the the Los Angeles River just north of here to the fields circling Olvera city.
Then I'd walk across the street and walk around La Placita Church, Los Angele's oldest church. Then I'd walk south to La Placita, the little plaza and hub of the city. All the city's celebrations and political rallies for the first 100 years were held here. There's a fine Chinese-American museum just south of the plaza telling Chinese history of Los Angeles as this area was the city's first Chinatown.
If there's time, walk about 4 blocks south to Little Tokyo and walk through the plaza there between the Japanese-American museum and the Democracy museum.
Of course, there are many fine restaurants along the way in Santa Monica, Union Station, Olvera Street, and Little Tokyo. But at least the visitor gets to see both the city's historical beginnings in Olvera Street, the mighty Pacific and one beach city, and even perhaps a glimpse of Little Tokyo, the historical home of Japanese-Americans in the city.
Dear Finnish Visitor to Los Angeles,
Let's pretend you are staying in Hollywood.
For a Sunday evening, I'd buy an all-day metro pass. Take either the Metro Rapid 704 bus or Metro 4 bus down Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to the beach and get off at the final stop. If you are in Hollywood, Santa Monica Boulevard is usually a short walk. Then I'd walk the palisades, walk down to the beach, say hello to the ocean, go back up, walk around 3rd Street Promenade and downtown Santa Monica. By the way, if you want to hop off the bus at Beverly Drive in the heart of Beverly Hills and walk two blocks south to Wilshire Boulevard and back north to Santa Monica Boulevard you will see the heart of Beverly Hill's shopping district.
For Monday morning, I'd get an all-day metro pass, and take the Red line subway to Union Station, get off and tour the station. Then I'd walk across the street, walk through Olvera Street and look at the zanja madre ditch/fountain right in front of the Avila Adobe and walk through the Avila Adobe.The city started as a small farming town irrigated my zanjas or irrigation ditches where water was brought down the the Los Angeles River just north of here to the fields circling Olvera city.
Then I'd walk across the street and walk around La Placita Church, Los Angele's oldest church. Then I'd walk south to La Placita, the little plaza and hub of the city. All the city's celebrations and political rallies for the first 100 years were held here. There's a fine Chinese-American museum just south of the plaza telling Chinese history of Los Angeles as this area was the city's first Chinatown.
If there's time, walk about 4 blocks south to Little Tokyo and walk through the plaza there between the Japanese-American museum and the Democracy museum.
Of course, there are many fine restaurants along the way in Santa Monica, Union Station, Olvera Street, and Little Tokyo. But at least the visitor gets to see both the city's historical beginnings in Olvera Street, the mighty Pacific and one beach city, and even perhaps a glimpse of Little Tokyo, the historical home of Japanese-Americans in the city.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Next Week, S.F. Labor Book Fair
Next July 19, 2008, I'll be reading poetry at the San Francisco Labor Book Fair. The poets will
read 3:30-5:00. The Book Fair is part of San Francisco Labor Festival: 50 events held from July 5 to 31 in San Francisco and the East Bay on labor including films, videos, talks, theater, concerts, panels, walks of historical labor sites.
read 3:30-5:00. The Book Fair is part of San Francisco Labor Festival: 50 events held from July 5 to 31 in San Francisco and the East Bay on labor including films, videos, talks, theater, concerts, panels, walks of historical labor sites.
LABOR BOOKFAIR
1st Annual LaborFest BookFair & Poetry Reading
July 19 (Saturday) 2008
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts - 2868 Mission St.,SF
Schedule
Main Gallery (Book Presentations)
9:30 AM-10:45 AM
Fernando Gapasin on: Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice.
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/11121.php
11:00 AM-12:15 PM
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on: Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico.
http://www.counterpunch.org/dunbar09222007.html
1:15 PM – 2:30 PM
Lauren Coodley on: Putting Labor into California History
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/academic/product/0,3110,0131884107,00.html
Theater 12:00 PM-1:30PM
Lincoln Cushing Presentation and Slide Show on: Art/Works - American Labor Graphic.
http://www.docspopuli.org/ArtWorks.html
1:45 PM-3:15 PM
Bryan D. Palmer on: James P. Cannon and the Origins Of the American Revolutionary Left.
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/83cyh3wc9780252031090.html
3:30 PM-5:00 PM
LaborFest Poetry Reading
With Jenifer Rae Vernon, Julia Stein, Alice Rogoff, Matthew Diaz, Benjamin Balthaser, James Tracy, and others.
Small Gallery
9:30 AM-12:00 Noon
The LaborFest Writers Workshop will conduct writing exercises inspired by the American Life Histories of the WPA Federal Writers’ Project’s Folklore Project. Main themes will be on the industrial and occupational lore of working class people and families. We will explore the customs, cultures, and regional traditions of our diverse backgrounds.
12:30 PM 1:45 PM
Dan Berman on: Death On The Job and the State Of Health And Safety.
http://labornet.org/cgi-bin/ib/cgi-bin/ib.cgi?action=read&id=159
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
Suzanne Gordon on: Safety In Numbers, Nurse-to-Patient Ratios and the Future of Health Care
http://www.suzannegordon.com
Suzanne Gordon; John Buchanan; Tanya Bretherton
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Paul D. Blanc, MD on: How Everyday Products Make People Sick
Toxins at Home and in the Workplace
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10650.php
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Saving Energry: One Danish Island Does it!
There's a great article in the July 7 and 14 New York titled "The Island in the Wind" by Elizabeth Kolbert about the Dutch island of Samso, where over a decade the 4300 people living changed how they used energy so by 2005 Samso was "producing from renewable sources more energy than it was using."
The people at Samso are conservative farmers mostly--not wealthy, not idealistic, not adventurous. First, the Danish government had a contest to choose one community to sponsor for a renewable energy project. After an engineer along with Samso's mayor drew up a plan to wean the island off fossil fuel, the island won the contest. The Danish federal government funded one person, Soren Hermansen, to be the project's first employee. For years Hermansen worked alone to convince these conservative farmers to rethink how they used energy in discussions and "he brought free beer along to the discussions." More and more people got involved.
People in Samso erected eleven big turbines on land and a dozen micro-wind turbines. The land-based wind turbines produce enough electricity for all 4,300 people on the island. They also erected 10 offshore wind-turbines, and one offshore wind turbine provides electricity for 2,000 homes. So the 10 offshore turbines "were erected to compensate for Samso's continuing use of fossil fields in its cars, trucks, and ferries." The offshore turbines feed electricity back into the energy grid as well as provide the "energy equivalent of all gasoline and diesel oil consumed on the island." So Samso produces more energy than it consumes.
The turbines were financed three ways. The European grants gave money. Cooperatives of Danes buying shares at $360/share also paid for the turbines. And private investors put up money for turbines making 8% on their investments. Farmer Tranberg on Samso took out a $1 million while the Danish government promised him above market price for his power. Now his windmill has paid off, and he's making enough money to retire, but he still farms because he likes it. People in Samso are now making money off their turbines.
Also Samso has three plants which burn biomass to make heat for buildings: in one plant they burn bales of straw; a 2nd also burns straw; a third burns wood chips. The straw used in the two plants comes from wheat stalks the farmers used to burn in their fields. A few farmers also use canola oil to run cars and tractors, but their program using electric cars failed. The people also removed their furnaces, replacing them with heat pumps. They're now working on finding ways to run their cars without gasoline.
What Samso shows is that one very modest federal program spending a tiny amount of money started moblizing of an entire community. One can't sit back and let "the experts" decide our energy future. At Samso they financed the program partially through cooperatives in which people of modest means could invest. The investors are getting excellent returns of 8% on investments. The people of Samso lacked fancy educations but did have common sense. They didn't sacrifice their way of life when they changed their methods of using energy. Instead they became a world famous showcase of how simple technology we have now can reduce our energy bill to 0. People from around the world now come to Samso to study how they did it.
The people at Samso are conservative farmers mostly--not wealthy, not idealistic, not adventurous. First, the Danish government had a contest to choose one community to sponsor for a renewable energy project. After an engineer along with Samso's mayor drew up a plan to wean the island off fossil fuel, the island won the contest. The Danish federal government funded one person, Soren Hermansen, to be the project's first employee. For years Hermansen worked alone to convince these conservative farmers to rethink how they used energy in discussions and "he brought free beer along to the discussions." More and more people got involved.
People in Samso erected eleven big turbines on land and a dozen micro-wind turbines. The land-based wind turbines produce enough electricity for all 4,300 people on the island. They also erected 10 offshore wind-turbines, and one offshore wind turbine provides electricity for 2,000 homes. So the 10 offshore turbines "were erected to compensate for Samso's continuing use of fossil fields in its cars, trucks, and ferries." The offshore turbines feed electricity back into the energy grid as well as provide the "energy equivalent of all gasoline and diesel oil consumed on the island." So Samso produces more energy than it consumes.
The turbines were financed three ways. The European grants gave money. Cooperatives of Danes buying shares at $360/share also paid for the turbines. And private investors put up money for turbines making 8% on their investments. Farmer Tranberg on Samso took out a $1 million while the Danish government promised him above market price for his power. Now his windmill has paid off, and he's making enough money to retire, but he still farms because he likes it. People in Samso are now making money off their turbines.
Also Samso has three plants which burn biomass to make heat for buildings: in one plant they burn bales of straw; a 2nd also burns straw; a third burns wood chips. The straw used in the two plants comes from wheat stalks the farmers used to burn in their fields. A few farmers also use canola oil to run cars and tractors, but their program using electric cars failed. The people also removed their furnaces, replacing them with heat pumps. They're now working on finding ways to run their cars without gasoline.
What Samso shows is that one very modest federal program spending a tiny amount of money started moblizing of an entire community. One can't sit back and let "the experts" decide our energy future. At Samso they financed the program partially through cooperatives in which people of modest means could invest. The investors are getting excellent returns of 8% on investments. The people of Samso lacked fancy educations but did have common sense. They didn't sacrifice their way of life when they changed their methods of using energy. Instead they became a world famous showcase of how simple technology we have now can reduce our energy bill to 0. People from around the world now come to Samso to study how they did it.
Friday, July 04, 2008
A poem for July 4th
Here's a poem from my new manuscript "The War Years,"
Ben Franklin Nods in San Francisco
in the huge hurricane for war that swept across our country.
Still after the U.S. tanks glided into Baghdad in April and
the President declared victory standing on an aircraft carrier,
we six poets gathered on the grass in Washington Park next
to the statue of Ben Franklin in North Beach, attempted
to light our peace candles, saw the wind blew them all out;
still we relit the candles as we spoke, Quaker-style,
how still we stood against the war; I swear I saw
Ben Franklin that old protestor from Quaker Philadelphia nod
approval as all six of us busily began to relight
all our candles; I swear that Lincoln sitting in his
Memorial stood up for a moment to salute us in San Francisco,
swear that Washington in Mt. Rushmore turned his face
westward toward us in praise, they all wanted
their old republic back just as we did in Washington Park
despite all the harsh winds of war we relit and
relit our candles again until all six blazed forth.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
A Raft Across the Pacific
Earlier this blog reviewed Marcus Eriksen's book My River Home, a book how Erikensen made a raft out of soda pop bottles and then took it down the whole way of the Mississippi from its source in Minnesota to the Gulf Coast. I heard Marcus speak April 15 at the Santa Monica College Reading Series and then had lunch with him, members of the English Department, Erikesen's fiancee Anna Cummins; her father Paul Cummins, founder of Crossroads and New Roads Schools; members of the English Department; and students. Marcus was fascinating,
and at lunch he told us about his plans to cross the Pacific in a raft he made.
Now he has made another bigger raft out of 15,000 "junked" plastic bottles called the Junk. He and fellow crew member Joel Paschal left Hermosa Beach on "Junk" (the raft's name) on June 1, 2008 heading across 3,000 miles of open ocean for Hawaii. The purpose of the trip is to call attention to the huge amount of plastics in the north Pacific which is killing large parts of ocean fish and birds. Plastics occupy thousands of miles of the Pacific in an area called the Pacific Gyre and when fish or birds eat bits of plastics, they die.
The raft is now three days past Guadalupe Island (at 1-2 knots per hour) off Baja California and headed into the open Pacific Ocean. They should reach Hawaii in the next one to two months. They are posting ship's journal entries, photographs, and their current position via satellite link on the blog.
Anna Cummin's is keeping a blog documenting Marcus's and Paschal's journey across the Pacific:
In the next month we can all tune in to see how the Junk is faring with the Pacific and all the
plastic waste in the Pacific. So check out Anna's blog and rethink how you use plastics.
and at lunch he told us about his plans to cross the Pacific in a raft he made.
Now he has made another bigger raft out of 15,000 "junked" plastic bottles called the Junk. He and fellow crew member Joel Paschal left Hermosa Beach on "Junk" (the raft's name) on June 1, 2008 heading across 3,000 miles of open ocean for Hawaii. The purpose of the trip is to call attention to the huge amount of plastics in the north Pacific which is killing large parts of ocean fish and birds. Plastics occupy thousands of miles of the Pacific in an area called the Pacific Gyre and when fish or birds eat bits of plastics, they die.
The raft is now three days past Guadalupe Island (at 1-2 knots per hour) off Baja California and headed into the open Pacific Ocean. They should reach Hawaii in the next one to two months. They are posting ship's journal entries, photographs, and their current position via satellite link on the blog.
Anna Cummin's is keeping a blog documenting Marcus's and Paschal's journey across the Pacific:
http://junkraft.blogspot.com/
In the next month we can all tune in to see how the Junk is faring with the Pacific and all the
plastic waste in the Pacific. So check out Anna's blog and rethink how you use plastics.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Changing the Cirriculum
I'm all for changing and innovating the curriculum . My objection to charter schools is that they are a poor way to make needed changes in curriculum because that is not their aim.
I've participated in different efforts to change the curriculum for thirty years. During the 1960s and 1970s there were waves of attempts to change the curriculum in public schools. Most people are aware of the development of African-American studies, women's studies, and Chicano studies classes in these period but that was only part of the changes attempted.
W hen I did student teaching through California State University Los Angeles, I student taught at Lincoln High School, a public school within Los Angeles Unified. The master teacher had two student teachers team teach in each class and encouraged us to try new methods in our 11th grade American history class. We showed our Mexican-American class slides of Mayan, Toltec and Aztec civilizations. We used discovery method and had a text which was a compilation of documents from the 17th century on. We broke up our students in small groups and asked them if they were Pilgrims leaving England for America, what would they bring on their ships? After they worked on this problem for a class, we then showed them the list of items brought from the book. At that same there were a wave of new curricular materials produced including books, slides, and films.
My second semester of student teaching, I was at Pasadena High School teaching high school students an Introduction to Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology class --an entirely new class. Since I had a background in sociology, psychology, and history, I was given this class. I had use of the excellent film library from Pasadena City College, and remember showing a film on the Bushman in South Africa for the anthropology segment. I much enjoyed teaching this innovative class.
Another innovative program in the 1970s was Poets-in-the-Schools which brought live poets into the public schools to teach creative writing and then at the end of the program produced a small booklet of student work. I thought this an excellent program. By the 1980s one program was beginning to send poets to teach creative writing in the juvenile halls. I taught creative writing to female students at a country work camp. I give my students short stories and p0ems to read--they were really fine critics making good comments about the stories--and then taught them how to write poems and short stories.
Another way that reform was done is California Writing Projects at UCLA and UC Berkeley and eighteen other sites around the state. For thirty years public school teachers go to the university states taking summer and year-long institutes where "every site of the California Writing Project conducts an annual invitational institute where" experienced teachers of writing demonstrate exemplary classroom practices, study research, and write extensively."
Now Poets-in-the Schools has been established in the public schools for 30 years, and young students who started writing there then go on to become adult poets. Many seniors in high school take classes such as psychology, sociology, or anthropology. And multi-cultural text books and teaching methods in public schools have been mainstreamed for decades now. The California Writing Project has a thirty-year history.
What we did was start small-scale projects in public schools or small scale project like the Writing Projects at the universities. I'm not saying very attempt at curriculum reform was a whopping success. Some were and some weren't. But as the small-scale programs prove their successes, they are enlarged to other students in other public schools. But all the efforts were within the public system to give improvements to that system.
I've participated in different efforts to change the curriculum for thirty years. During the 1960s and 1970s there were waves of attempts to change the curriculum in public schools. Most people are aware of the development of African-American studies, women's studies, and Chicano studies classes in these period but that was only part of the changes attempted.
W hen I did student teaching through California State University Los Angeles, I student taught at Lincoln High School, a public school within Los Angeles Unified. The master teacher had two student teachers team teach in each class and encouraged us to try new methods in our 11th grade American history class. We showed our Mexican-American class slides of Mayan, Toltec and Aztec civilizations. We used discovery method and had a text which was a compilation of documents from the 17th century on. We broke up our students in small groups and asked them if they were Pilgrims leaving England for America, what would they bring on their ships? After they worked on this problem for a class, we then showed them the list of items brought from the book. At that same there were a wave of new curricular materials produced including books, slides, and films.
My second semester of student teaching, I was at Pasadena High School teaching high school students an Introduction to Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology class --an entirely new class. Since I had a background in sociology, psychology, and history, I was given this class. I had use of the excellent film library from Pasadena City College, and remember showing a film on the Bushman in South Africa for the anthropology segment. I much enjoyed teaching this innovative class.
Another innovative program in the 1970s was Poets-in-the-Schools which brought live poets into the public schools to teach creative writing and then at the end of the program produced a small booklet of student work. I thought this an excellent program. By the 1980s one program was beginning to send poets to teach creative writing in the juvenile halls. I taught creative writing to female students at a country work camp. I give my students short stories and p0ems to read--they were really fine critics making good comments about the stories--and then taught them how to write poems and short stories.
Another way that reform was done is California Writing Projects at UCLA and UC Berkeley and eighteen other sites around the state. For thirty years public school teachers go to the university states taking summer and year-long institutes where "every site of the California Writing Project conducts an annual invitational institute where" experienced teachers of writing demonstrate exemplary classroom practices, study research, and write extensively."
Now Poets-in-the Schools has been established in the public schools for 30 years, and young students who started writing there then go on to become adult poets. Many seniors in high school take classes such as psychology, sociology, or anthropology. And multi-cultural text books and teaching methods in public schools have been mainstreamed for decades now. The California Writing Project has a thirty-year history.
What we did was start small-scale projects in public schools or small scale project like the Writing Projects at the universities. I'm not saying very attempt at curriculum reform was a whopping success. Some were and some weren't. But as the small-scale programs prove their successes, they are enlarged to other students in other public schools. But all the efforts were within the public system to give improvements to that system.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
What's Wrong with Charter Schools?
I showed up to the Charter School and met my very small class of seven, and they weren’t 12th grade seniors but to my surprise 10th graders. They were very good in grammar but I was teaching not grammar but writing. At first their writing was with simplistic sentences and vocabulary, not like college freshman—but like 10th graders! Very bright 10th graders but still 10th graders. Naively I thought that if they and I worked hard, their writing would improve a lot. One student who was straight-A did improve but the others didn't.
Charter School should junk the “so-called” college English classes as they were inappropriate for the students. It wasn't the students fault nor the teachers' fault but administrators had made a mistake. The Charter School’s curriculum was much worse than my public school curriculum at Fairfax High School.
Friday, May 30, 2008
"Write to the City" Showcases The Next Wave of Los Angeles Writing
Last night I attended an amazing event, Write to the City, Los Angele's first Slam on Gentrification, held at Gallery 727, 727 So. Spring St. PM Press, an exciting press out of Oakland, Ca, along with Strategic Action for a Just Economy (SAJE), which fights to improve housing in the Figueroa Corridor just south of downtown, sponsored the reading. The event was aptly held on Spring Street, once the Wall Street of the West then abandoned mostly to homeless now being gentrified. Gilda Haas, Executive Director of SAJE, welcomed us, then introducing mc Gary Phillips, crime novelist of the Ivan Monk series.
The readers spoke of how the city of Raymond Chandler is being gentrified out of existence. The crime writing children of Chandler are speaking out along with organizers recounting true stories from the streets. Who has the right to live in the city now? There were three sets of readers andin each set writers read first followed by organizers. The reading was electrifying before a rapt audience crowded into the space.
Set I started with Larry Foundation, organizer in Southcentral Los Angeles and author of fiction books Angry Nights, Common Criminals, and his latest, Fish, Soap and Bonds, about three homeless in Los Angeles. Foundation's piece talked about a homeless man who slept in a dumpster near a downtown apartment building until gentrification came when he came to a tragic end in a trash compactor. Next Jervey Tervalon, author of the brilliant novel Understand This, read a section from the latest novel he's writing about a single mother struggling to survive with her baby. Crime writer Denise Hamilton followed with her vignette about a reporter trying to interview transvestite homeless camping out near the Los Angeles River.
Next Davin Corona, Director of Organizing at SAJE, told of a black paraplegic living in a downtown slum building whose health is attacked by the worsening conditions in his building until he is forced out, finally dieing on the streets. Last in Set I, Lydia Avila from East L.A. Community Corporation, told of how the taco trucks are under attack in East Los Angeles with police giving citations and one taco truck owner, stressed by the attack on her business, died from a heart attack. In this first set both writers and organizers showed how gentrification actually kills people as well as how hard it is just to survive now in the city.
Between sets DJ's played music a little too loudly as the crowd got drinks, bought books and milled around out on Spring Streets.
In Set II the readers gave an excellent historical context to current gentrification. Crime novelist Gar Anthony Haywood read his essay how gentrification doesn't just pull down buildings and drive out people but also destroys communities going back to his grand father's time. Poet Luis Rodriguez wowed the audience with his powerful rant telling how for decades working people's communities have been destroyed in East L.A. to build a hospital, freeways, a jail and have also been destroyed in Chavez Ravine to build Dodger Stadium--Rodriquez come off as one angry almost Biblical prophet.
Next Sara Paretsky, famous author of V. I. Warshawski crime novels, read a section from a Warshawski novel where her heroine, evicted from one neighborhood in Chicago, moves to a second only to watch that neighborhood get gentrified showing how the housing problem is nationwide. After Paretsky, Aqulina Soriano from Philipino Worker's Center first shared how old Philipinotown near downtown Los Angeles had workers' hotels which were destroyed and then sang her song about recovering people's history. Lastly, Leonardo Vilchis from Union de Veccinos told how in Boyle Heights the neighbors themselves, mostly women, in the housing project organized successfully to stop gang violence, but then the city destroyed the housing project, evicting 800 families, but Boyle Heights neighbors are again having their walks to make their neighborhood safe.
During the intermission I said hello to Robert Ward, author of the novel Red Baker and scriptwriter for such TV shows Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice, who read in Set III, and also said hello to one of my Santa Monica College students Gabriela.
Unfortunately, like Cinderella I had to disappear after Set II, and missed set III, but the event did showcase a powerful new wave of writers in Los Angeles along with the organizers working heroically to get jobs and decent housing for people in this city. Write to the City gave us the next wave of Los Angeles writing showing us what's going on now in the city. Phillip Marlowe's descendants are alive on the streets fighting for justice; these organizers and writers told the stories how what's its like now to be on the streets of the city.
The readers spoke of how the city of Raymond Chandler is being gentrified out of existence. The crime writing children of Chandler are speaking out along with organizers recounting true stories from the streets. Who has the right to live in the city now? There were three sets of readers andin each set writers read first followed by organizers. The reading was electrifying before a rapt audience crowded into the space.
Set I started with Larry Foundation, organizer in Southcentral Los Angeles and author of fiction books Angry Nights, Common Criminals, and his latest, Fish, Soap and Bonds, about three homeless in Los Angeles. Foundation's piece talked about a homeless man who slept in a dumpster near a downtown apartment building until gentrification came when he came to a tragic end in a trash compactor. Next Jervey Tervalon, author of the brilliant novel Understand This, read a section from the latest novel he's writing about a single mother struggling to survive with her baby. Crime writer Denise Hamilton followed with her vignette about a reporter trying to interview transvestite homeless camping out near the Los Angeles River.
Next Davin Corona, Director of Organizing at SAJE, told of a black paraplegic living in a downtown slum building whose health is attacked by the worsening conditions in his building until he is forced out, finally dieing on the streets. Last in Set I, Lydia Avila from East L.A. Community Corporation, told of how the taco trucks are under attack in East Los Angeles with police giving citations and one taco truck owner, stressed by the attack on her business, died from a heart attack. In this first set both writers and organizers showed how gentrification actually kills people as well as how hard it is just to survive now in the city.
Between sets DJ's played music a little too loudly as the crowd got drinks, bought books and milled around out on Spring Streets.
In Set II the readers gave an excellent historical context to current gentrification. Crime novelist Gar Anthony Haywood read his essay how gentrification doesn't just pull down buildings and drive out people but also destroys communities going back to his grand father's time. Poet Luis Rodriguez wowed the audience with his powerful rant telling how for decades working people's communities have been destroyed in East L.A. to build a hospital, freeways, a jail and have also been destroyed in Chavez Ravine to build Dodger Stadium--Rodriquez come off as one angry almost Biblical prophet.
Next Sara Paretsky, famous author of V. I. Warshawski crime novels, read a section from a Warshawski novel where her heroine, evicted from one neighborhood in Chicago, moves to a second only to watch that neighborhood get gentrified showing how the housing problem is nationwide. After Paretsky, Aqulina Soriano from Philipino Worker's Center first shared how old Philipinotown near downtown Los Angeles had workers' hotels which were destroyed and then sang her song about recovering people's history. Lastly, Leonardo Vilchis from Union de Veccinos told how in Boyle Heights the neighbors themselves, mostly women, in the housing project organized successfully to stop gang violence, but then the city destroyed the housing project, evicting 800 families, but Boyle Heights neighbors are again having their walks to make their neighborhood safe.
During the intermission I said hello to Robert Ward, author of the novel Red Baker and scriptwriter for such TV shows Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice, who read in Set III, and also said hello to one of my Santa Monica College students Gabriela.
Unfortunately, like Cinderella I had to disappear after Set II, and missed set III, but the event did showcase a powerful new wave of writers in Los Angeles along with the organizers working heroically to get jobs and decent housing for people in this city. Write to the City gave us the next wave of Los Angeles writing showing us what's going on now in the city. Phillip Marlowe's descendants are alive on the streets fighting for justice; these organizers and writers told the stories how what's its like now to be on the streets of the city.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Read Gilgamesh
I finished reading Herbert Mason's 1972 version of Gilgamesh and thought it not just the very best epic poem I've ever read but one of the best pieces of literature I've read in a long long time--and the poem is 6000 years old from Iraq and is the origins of world literature! It is about great friendship of the tyrant Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the death of the best friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh's search for immortality, and the taming of the tyrant Gilgamesh.
So why is Gilgamesh wonderful? The poem is the beginning of both Arabic and Western literature. The poet pulls us back into an ancient world where the Gilgamesh poet deals with totally modern topics: how to how to be civilized, how to live in cities, how not to be a tyrant ruler. The poem gives us a startling view into ancient Iraq which knew all about tyrants ruling the city as Gilgamesh in the poem's beginning is a tyrant:
The city is his possession, he struts
through it, arrogant, his head raised high,
trampling its citizens like a wild bull.
The epic is non-macho and non-Puritanical with great erotic poetry. Since the people of Uruk are suffering under Gilgamesh's tyranny, they pray to the Gods who fashion a second hero Enkidu to balance Gilgamesh and to give the city peace, so this poem is about taming the tyrant. In the beginning Enkidu is the wild man of the forest living with his animal friends the gazelle, antelope and deer. He's naked with hair covering his body. He's a Mesopotamian eco-warrior, freeing his animal friends from the human hunter's traps, but he's causing the hunter ruin--this poem is on the side of humans, on the side of the city. The hunter goes to Uruk, asks Gilgamesh for help, who tells him to go to the Temple of Ishtar, the love goddess (like Venus), and ask for help of the priestess Shamhat. He does so.
Shamhat in her way is the heroine. She lies naked near Eniku, using her love arts in great erotic poetry to seduce him and teach him about love and women. She teaches him human language, cuts his hair, gives him human clothing, leads him to a shepherd's hut where he eats human food for the first time, eating bread and drinking beer. There she cuts his hair and when "he rubbed/sweet oil into his skin, and became/fully human." the part-animal Enkidu becomes fully human. For the Gilgamesh poet, eroticism is part of being human.
In other epics the hero goes off to battle dragons or conquer cities; yes, Gilgamesh and his best friend Enkidu do have great adventures where they vanquish Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven--the adventures passages are gripping, taking us into mysterious worlds. But this is not just a terrific adventure story because Gilgamesh is a tyrant forcing the adventure for the wrong reasons--because he wants to gain fame and because he thinks the young men of his city are Uruk are too soft. Gilgamesh manipulates the elders of Uruk into agreeing with the will--his actions calling up memories of all tyrants leading their cities into adventures and wars that end in ruin.
For the heroes winning battles only brings disaster. When Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Humbaba who is the guardian spirit of the Cedar Forest, they do wrong because they kill the spirit appointed by the Gods to guard the Cedar Forest. Humbaba did not harm them but they invaded his territory. Like good imperialists everywhere, the two chopped down the huge trees of the Cedar Forest to bring home the cedar trees as booty. Back in Uruk the goddess Ishtar falls in love of Gilgamesh. She tries to seduce him with promises of all the blessings she will bring him, but now Gilgamesh is so arrogant he rejects, scorns and insults Ishtar, listing how she injured all her other lovers.
Ishtar goes screaming to her father God Anu, gets him to put the Bull of Heaven on earth in punishment for Gilgamesh.Two hundred warriors die fighting the Bull until Enkidu kills it. As punishment the Gods have Enkidu die from illness, leaving Gilgamesh heartbroken. He tears out his hair, destroying his royal robes, going from the city "into the wilderness/with matted hair, in lion skin." Gilgamesh's adventures have left him lost alone with the most terrible loss. Now that Iraq war has gone on for five years losses are mounting, and this poem is about losing one's closest friend--Gilgamesh's laments after loss of his best friend are of stunning beauty. Gilgamesh gets not fame not glory from his adventures but utmost ruin for him.
Gilgamesh's loss of Enkidu is just the beginning of his learning how not to be arrogant but to be human. He roams the wilderness looking for Utnapishtim, who survived the flood and is immortal so he can bring Enkidu back from the dead. In his travels he meets the woman tavern keeper Shiduri who tells him he will never find eternal life: "Humans are born, they live, then they die; that is the word that the gods have decreed." Gilgamesh can't hear her. He rejects her good advice to enjoy such human pleasures as savoring food, having music and dance fill his house, loving his child and his wife--"that is the best way for a man to live." The women in these poems always give good advice about being human.
Gilgamesh does make it across the Waters of Death to met Utnapishtim, who tells him how the Gods enabled him to survive the flood. Gilgamesh never learns any secret of eternal life, returning empty handed to Uruk. But as he looked at Uruk, he no longer mourns his lost friend, but stands in awe of the great city and in awe of the great works human hands have done. He walks on the great walls of Uruk:
observed the land it enclosed: the palm trees, the gardens,
the orchards, the glorious palaces and temples, the shops
and marketplaces, the houses, the public squares.
Gilgamesh is now content with his great city, accepting his human lot to be a responsible ruler there, and now fully human. The poem introduces us to the arts of civilization in ancient Sumer which was the world's first civilization. The poem shows how macho men are humanized, a concept that is totally relevant today. We still need to go to Gilgamesh, to ancient Sumer, to learn the arts of civilization.
Mason's version was about 77 pp all in modern English--no archaic language at all. Then I got fascinated by Gilgamesh to get Stephen Mitchell's new version also in modern English published in 2004--Mitchell's version is a little longer, with material that wasn't in Mason--137 pp. Mitchell's long introduction is fine. I would recommend both versions, and both are in the Los Angeles Public Library. Oh, the earliest Gilgamesh texts are found on clay tables from 2100 bce, but around 1200 a poet-scholar priest named Sin-leqi-unninni in Babylon revised the old stories into what's is now called the Standard Version, and scholars use this version for their translations.
So why is Gilgamesh wonderful? The poem is the beginning of both Arabic and Western literature. The poet pulls us back into an ancient world where the Gilgamesh poet deals with totally modern topics: how to how to be civilized, how to live in cities, how not to be a tyrant ruler. The poem gives us a startling view into ancient Iraq which knew all about tyrants ruling the city as Gilgamesh in the poem's beginning is a tyrant:
The city is his possession, he struts
through it, arrogant, his head raised high,
trampling its citizens like a wild bull.
The epic is non-macho and non-Puritanical with great erotic poetry. Since the people of Uruk are suffering under Gilgamesh's tyranny, they pray to the Gods who fashion a second hero Enkidu to balance Gilgamesh and to give the city peace, so this poem is about taming the tyrant. In the beginning Enkidu is the wild man of the forest living with his animal friends the gazelle, antelope and deer. He's naked with hair covering his body. He's a Mesopotamian eco-warrior, freeing his animal friends from the human hunter's traps, but he's causing the hunter ruin--this poem is on the side of humans, on the side of the city. The hunter goes to Uruk, asks Gilgamesh for help, who tells him to go to the Temple of Ishtar, the love goddess (like Venus), and ask for help of the priestess Shamhat. He does so.
Shamhat in her way is the heroine. She lies naked near Eniku, using her love arts in great erotic poetry to seduce him and teach him about love and women. She teaches him human language, cuts his hair, gives him human clothing, leads him to a shepherd's hut where he eats human food for the first time, eating bread and drinking beer. There she cuts his hair and when "he rubbed/sweet oil into his skin, and became/fully human." the part-animal Enkidu becomes fully human. For the Gilgamesh poet, eroticism is part of being human.
In other epics the hero goes off to battle dragons or conquer cities; yes, Gilgamesh and his best friend Enkidu do have great adventures where they vanquish Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven--the adventures passages are gripping, taking us into mysterious worlds. But this is not just a terrific adventure story because Gilgamesh is a tyrant forcing the adventure for the wrong reasons--because he wants to gain fame and because he thinks the young men of his city are Uruk are too soft. Gilgamesh manipulates the elders of Uruk into agreeing with the will--his actions calling up memories of all tyrants leading their cities into adventures and wars that end in ruin.
For the heroes winning battles only brings disaster. When Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Humbaba who is the guardian spirit of the Cedar Forest, they do wrong because they kill the spirit appointed by the Gods to guard the Cedar Forest. Humbaba did not harm them but they invaded his territory. Like good imperialists everywhere, the two chopped down the huge trees of the Cedar Forest to bring home the cedar trees as booty. Back in Uruk the goddess Ishtar falls in love of Gilgamesh. She tries to seduce him with promises of all the blessings she will bring him, but now Gilgamesh is so arrogant he rejects, scorns and insults Ishtar, listing how she injured all her other lovers.
Ishtar goes screaming to her father God Anu, gets him to put the Bull of Heaven on earth in punishment for Gilgamesh.Two hundred warriors die fighting the Bull until Enkidu kills it. As punishment the Gods have Enkidu die from illness, leaving Gilgamesh heartbroken. He tears out his hair, destroying his royal robes, going from the city "into the wilderness/with matted hair, in lion skin." Gilgamesh's adventures have left him lost alone with the most terrible loss. Now that Iraq war has gone on for five years losses are mounting, and this poem is about losing one's closest friend--Gilgamesh's laments after loss of his best friend are of stunning beauty. Gilgamesh gets not fame not glory from his adventures but utmost ruin for him.
Gilgamesh's loss of Enkidu is just the beginning of his learning how not to be arrogant but to be human. He roams the wilderness looking for Utnapishtim, who survived the flood and is immortal so he can bring Enkidu back from the dead. In his travels he meets the woman tavern keeper Shiduri who tells him he will never find eternal life: "Humans are born, they live, then they die; that is the word that the gods have decreed." Gilgamesh can't hear her. He rejects her good advice to enjoy such human pleasures as savoring food, having music and dance fill his house, loving his child and his wife--"that is the best way for a man to live." The women in these poems always give good advice about being human.
Gilgamesh does make it across the Waters of Death to met Utnapishtim, who tells him how the Gods enabled him to survive the flood. Gilgamesh never learns any secret of eternal life, returning empty handed to Uruk. But as he looked at Uruk, he no longer mourns his lost friend, but stands in awe of the great city and in awe of the great works human hands have done. He walks on the great walls of Uruk:
observed the land it enclosed: the palm trees, the gardens,
the orchards, the glorious palaces and temples, the shops
and marketplaces, the houses, the public squares.
Gilgamesh is now content with his great city, accepting his human lot to be a responsible ruler there, and now fully human. The poem introduces us to the arts of civilization in ancient Sumer which was the world's first civilization. The poem shows how macho men are humanized, a concept that is totally relevant today. We still need to go to Gilgamesh, to ancient Sumer, to learn the arts of civilization.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
M. Daum wrote the stupidest op-ed in today's LA Times
A particularly stupid op-ed article appeared in 5-25-08 Los Angeles Times by one M. Daum who is tired of baby boomer reunions. Daum calls herself "a member of Generation X," a term which I always thought was a pop media cliche, and refers to Generation Y, yet another pop media cliche term. And do we have a pop media Generation Z yet? I hope not.
As a member of the '60s generation, I'm not what Daum calls "baby boomer," yet another pop media term used to sell goods. I haven't listened to classic rock for decades, and get rid of all those old albums about 15 years ago. To tell the truth, I never liked the Rolling Stones much anyway, thinking them hypocrites who could rock.
I did love roots American music featured at the Ash Grove in the 1960s, and missed the Ash Grove reunion a few months back at UCLA. But Daum is too much emeshed in pop media cliches to have bothered with the Ash Grove which showcased great American music--blues, bluegrass, Appalachian folk-- in the 1960s to a new generation. The only problem with the Ash Grove reunion is I missed it and it should have been better publicized. Ed Pearl, please have another reunion so I can go!
Daum kvetches about how her generation was "carving out its collective identity largely concerned with our role as the victims of any number of boomer-imposed crimes" like some right-wing Fox TV host. She lists "dwindling Social Security, fearsome divorce statistics, AIDS as the death rattle of the free-love party." Social security is not "dwindling" except in right-wing scare stories--it's a very successful program of the 1930s generation. She should put a lot of the blame for the soaring divorce tactics on her generation and stop sounding like the crybaby of the week.
As for AIDS, blaming that on "boomers" makes her sound like a right-wing revivalist. Her generation did its bit for spreading AIDS, so she should stop wringing her hands as if she were a virgin goody two shoes who came too late to the party. If she's serious about how she--or her ten friends--tried to make a collective identity as victims of non-existent boomer crimes, they are to be pitied as fools.
She doesn't like the movie "The Big Chill," but I didn't either. So what! She complains that most of her peers who have "crushing student debt and a prohibitively expensive housing market preclude solipsistic weekends in that kind of square footage" of a movie like "The Big Chill."
Blaming crushing student debt on baby boomers is incredibly ignorant. Actually, the military build-up in the 1980s Reagan presidency began a systematic defunding of higher education--both federal and state governments have defunded higher education--which has lasted for 27 years now! Blame Reagan Republicans! Blame all the Republicans and their ghastly military budgets and all the Democrats who go along with them! At least get your facts right.
As for Daum complaining about the housing market, she shows ignorance of why its so expensive: private developers dominate the market nationwide, wanting the highest profits. The federal government only briefly in the 1930s-early 1950s built public housing, but the Red Scare stopped public housing in Los Angeles. If you want more affordable housing in this country, we need to fight for decent government regulation of mortgage market, low cost federal mortgages like the World War II veterans got, and subsidized public housing.
What I'm tired of is decades of foolish commentators like Daum who mouth the most lifeless most ignorant pop media cliches and the most flawed right-wing analyses. Now that we know that the cute right-wing analyses lead to a bankrupt U.S. government, the Daums of the world aren't cute but really really boring.
As a member of the '60s generation, I'm not what Daum calls "baby boomer," yet another pop media term used to sell goods. I haven't listened to classic rock for decades, and get rid of all those old albums about 15 years ago. To tell the truth, I never liked the Rolling Stones much anyway, thinking them hypocrites who could rock.
I did love roots American music featured at the Ash Grove in the 1960s, and missed the Ash Grove reunion a few months back at UCLA. But Daum is too much emeshed in pop media cliches to have bothered with the Ash Grove which showcased great American music--blues, bluegrass, Appalachian folk-- in the 1960s to a new generation. The only problem with the Ash Grove reunion is I missed it and it should have been better publicized. Ed Pearl, please have another reunion so I can go!
Daum kvetches about how her generation was "carving out its collective identity largely concerned with our role as the victims of any number of boomer-imposed crimes" like some right-wing Fox TV host. She lists "dwindling Social Security, fearsome divorce statistics, AIDS as the death rattle of the free-love party." Social security is not "dwindling" except in right-wing scare stories--it's a very successful program of the 1930s generation. She should put a lot of the blame for the soaring divorce tactics on her generation and stop sounding like the crybaby of the week.
As for AIDS, blaming that on "boomers" makes her sound like a right-wing revivalist. Her generation did its bit for spreading AIDS, so she should stop wringing her hands as if she were a virgin goody two shoes who came too late to the party. If she's serious about how she--or her ten friends--tried to make a collective identity as victims of non-existent boomer crimes, they are to be pitied as fools.
She doesn't like the movie "The Big Chill," but I didn't either. So what! She complains that most of her peers who have "crushing student debt and a prohibitively expensive housing market preclude solipsistic weekends in that kind of square footage" of a movie like "The Big Chill."
Blaming crushing student debt on baby boomers is incredibly ignorant. Actually, the military build-up in the 1980s Reagan presidency began a systematic defunding of higher education--both federal and state governments have defunded higher education--which has lasted for 27 years now! Blame Reagan Republicans! Blame all the Republicans and their ghastly military budgets and all the Democrats who go along with them! At least get your facts right.
As for Daum complaining about the housing market, she shows ignorance of why its so expensive: private developers dominate the market nationwide, wanting the highest profits. The federal government only briefly in the 1930s-early 1950s built public housing, but the Red Scare stopped public housing in Los Angeles. If you want more affordable housing in this country, we need to fight for decent government regulation of mortgage market, low cost federal mortgages like the World War II veterans got, and subsidized public housing.
What I'm tired of is decades of foolish commentators like Daum who mouth the most lifeless most ignorant pop media cliches and the most flawed right-wing analyses. Now that we know that the cute right-wing analyses lead to a bankrupt U.S. government, the Daums of the world aren't cute but really really boring.
LA Unified Abandons Locke High School Again
There's a particularly terrible editorial in Sunday, May 25, 2008, Los Angeles Times praising how Los Angeles Unified School District is abandoning Locke High School, a school with a lot of problems a poor area of Southcentral Los Angeles. The only thing the newspaper gets right is the school district has abandoned Locke High for decades, and does say that "several years ago, dedicated teaches drew up a plan to transform the school. Approved by the local district, it then disappeared within the central office."
While the central district neglects the school, some teachers show movies rather than teach while others "strive heroically to educate." Of course, given the district's horrific neglect, most students perform poorly on those really absurd mandated tests and many drop out before graduation.
Rather than do anything for Locke, the district has give it over to Green Dot, a private firm with exactly no experience in running a large high school of 2,600. After the school district signed the contract with Green Dot, the district worsened the situation at Locke by cutting the security force in half: "classroom fights became frequent, and teachers' calls for help went answered." I find that quite horrifying how the district in fact set up the conditions for increased fights by ignoring the needs of both students and teachers at Locke. Don't blame it on the students but the district. Don't blame it on the students but blame it on the Los Angeles Times, which ignored the situation for years. Don't blame it on the students but blame it on the people of Los Angeles who ignored the situation for years.
The editorial makes a long list of reforms that Green Dot wants to do, but the district if it had wanted could have done each and all of these reforms decades ago. What of the students bring big problems to the Dot-run school, they will be expelled. A public school system in a democracy should educated all the children not give life rafts to a few, abandoning the rest.
I started teaching for Los Angeles Delinquent and Abandoned kids program in the 1970s, tutoring teenager at Boys Republic Silverlake who had been arrested and put in a court placement, ran a small classroom for delinquent boys at Optimist Homes for Boys in Highland Park, and taught creative writing at Camp Scott, a country workcamp for teenager girls. My students were bright, willing to learn, did well in a small-class situation, never gave me any security problems. The girls in lock-up--Camp Scott was a jail--when given poems did excellent analysis, and wrote fine poems and stories. These kids had more problems 90% of those at Locke, and were teachable if the teacher really tried to teach. I also worked as a teaching assistant at Garfield High School teaching 16-years who read at the 1st grade level how to read better. For decades the central school district could have reached these teenagers and children but didn't.
The central school district by allowing charters to try to take care of its problems is increasing the abandonment of its students and teachers. The school district is admitting that they can't make any improvements in the abysmal performance of schools like Locke so is washing its hands of even trying. It's not, as the Times says, a "refreshing" development but a horrifying one.
While the central district neglects the school, some teachers show movies rather than teach while others "strive heroically to educate." Of course, given the district's horrific neglect, most students perform poorly on those really absurd mandated tests and many drop out before graduation.
Rather than do anything for Locke, the district has give it over to Green Dot, a private firm with exactly no experience in running a large high school of 2,600. After the school district signed the contract with Green Dot, the district worsened the situation at Locke by cutting the security force in half: "classroom fights became frequent, and teachers' calls for help went answered." I find that quite horrifying how the district in fact set up the conditions for increased fights by ignoring the needs of both students and teachers at Locke. Don't blame it on the students but the district. Don't blame it on the students but blame it on the Los Angeles Times, which ignored the situation for years. Don't blame it on the students but blame it on the people of Los Angeles who ignored the situation for years.
The editorial makes a long list of reforms that Green Dot wants to do, but the district if it had wanted could have done each and all of these reforms decades ago. What of the students bring big problems to the Dot-run school, they will be expelled. A public school system in a democracy should educated all the children not give life rafts to a few, abandoning the rest.
I started teaching for Los Angeles Delinquent and Abandoned kids program in the 1970s, tutoring teenager at Boys Republic Silverlake who had been arrested and put in a court placement, ran a small classroom for delinquent boys at Optimist Homes for Boys in Highland Park, and taught creative writing at Camp Scott, a country workcamp for teenager girls. My students were bright, willing to learn, did well in a small-class situation, never gave me any security problems. The girls in lock-up--Camp Scott was a jail--when given poems did excellent analysis, and wrote fine poems and stories. These kids had more problems 90% of those at Locke, and were teachable if the teacher really tried to teach. I also worked as a teaching assistant at Garfield High School teaching 16-years who read at the 1st grade level how to read better. For decades the central school district could have reached these teenagers and children but didn't.
The central school district by allowing charters to try to take care of its problems is increasing the abandonment of its students and teachers. The school district is admitting that they can't make any improvements in the abysmal performance of schools like Locke so is washing its hands of even trying. It's not, as the Times says, a "refreshing" development but a horrifying one.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
What I'm Reading: Gilgamesh
Right now I'm reading the epic Gilgamesh, verse narrative by Herbert Mason (1972). Gilgamesh is the world's first great epic hero from 3000 b.c. Iraq--before Homer, the Bible, Virgil.The beginning is wonderful:
Gilgamesh was king of Uruk
A city between the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers
in ancient Babylonia.
Enkidu was born in the Steppe
Where he grew up among animals.
Gilgamesh was called a god and a man;
Enkidu was an animal and man.
It is their story
of their becoming human together.
The epic is about the great friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu who go on adventures together where Enkidu dies, so it is about loss of one you love. Then Gilgamesh searches the world for immortality which he never finds, so he returns to his home city of Uruk, which really was in ancient Sumer, to be human. I love the last line: "of their becoming human together"--not half God, not part animal but human.
By the way, I've been researching the history of ancient Sumer, the world's first civilization which is between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Sumerians discovered agriculture irrigation, had the first agricultural surpluses, built the first cities, had the first writing which they inscribed on clay tablets, invented the first schools, invented mathematics, astronomy, medicine, had the first medical textbooks. So, of course, ancient Iraq would also have the world's first epic in Gilgamesh.
The world came to Sumer to learn the arts of civilization including epic poetry. Scholars from the British Society of Biblical Archeology rediscovered the epic on clay tables in the ruins of ancient Ninevah in Iraq. Gilgamesh Tablets inscribed with Gilgamesh have within the last 100 years been discovered not just in Nineveh (Iraq) but also in Megiddo (Palestine), Ugarit (Syria), and Boghazkoy (Turkey)--all over the Middle East.
As I get more into the epic, I'll post more about it.
Gilgamesh was king of Uruk
A city between the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers
in ancient Babylonia.
Enkidu was born in the Steppe
Where he grew up among animals.
Gilgamesh was called a god and a man;
Enkidu was an animal and man.
It is their story
of their becoming human together.
The epic is about the great friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu who go on adventures together where Enkidu dies, so it is about loss of one you love. Then Gilgamesh searches the world for immortality which he never finds, so he returns to his home city of Uruk, which really was in ancient Sumer, to be human. I love the last line: "of their becoming human together"--not half God, not part animal but human.
By the way, I've been researching the history of ancient Sumer, the world's first civilization which is between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Sumerians discovered agriculture irrigation, had the first agricultural surpluses, built the first cities, had the first writing which they inscribed on clay tablets, invented the first schools, invented mathematics, astronomy, medicine, had the first medical textbooks. So, of course, ancient Iraq would also have the world's first epic in Gilgamesh.
The world came to Sumer to learn the arts of civilization including epic poetry. Scholars from the British Society of Biblical Archeology rediscovered the epic on clay tables in the ruins of ancient Ninevah in Iraq. Gilgamesh Tablets inscribed with Gilgamesh have within the last 100 years been discovered not just in Nineveh (Iraq) but also in Megiddo (Palestine), Ugarit (Syria), and Boghazkoy (Turkey)--all over the Middle East.
As I get more into the epic, I'll post more about it.
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