Little Rock      

I threw a stink bomb out in the room by asking people to discuss the similar populist appeals of the Tea Party and the Occupy movements.  I didn’t realize how close to home I had come.  It seems in Little Rock Occupy there has been a steady presence and enthusiastic presence of the Ron Paul wing of the Tea-people complete with their own “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, tents and paraphernalia.

After much conversation, book signing and buying, and so forth, Kathy Wells of the Greater Little Rock Coalition of Neighborhoods wanted to discuss and get some advice on how to deal with a project being promoted by Deltic Timber around the Lake Maumelle watershed.  This was interesting stuff because Lake Maumelle is the water source for much of the drinking water for Little Rock so anything out there has major impacts on everyone.  After 35 years or so this is the first time since the reorganizing and downsizing of the Pulaski County Quorum Court (the county government including Little Rock and North Little Rock) in the mid-1970’s (yes, ACORN was all in the middle of that!) that the now 15-member body has been forced to use the land use powers – and responsibilities! – it has over the unincorporated areas of the County.

A lot is at stake.  Deltic Timber has pushed a proposal to develop thousands of acres in the watershed that would allow subdivision and construction of about 9000 houses jolting the population up significantly in this west of the city.  The now infamous, billionaire Koch Brothers and their cats’ paw operation Americans for Prosperity has been agitating the Tea-people on the argument that the “only good land use controls are no land use controls.”  Some of the Quorum Court Justices of the Peace are scared to death of Tea Party organizing in their districts with elections on the horizon next year.  The long time County Judge Buddy Villines has been dealt a bad hand where he can take it or leave it, and leaving it seems to mean anarchy prevails out there, which would be bad for everyone.

Wells has a multi-pronged program including grandfathering in the use of existing residents and other well reasoned points that are supported by a wide range of environmentalists and the Occupy folks, who are willing to agitate around these issues to provide a stronger strike force.  Unfortunately, listening to the arguments back and forth, the votes just didn’t seemed to be there for any better than Deltic Timber has indicated they would agree to in the first place, which was better than nothing, though not a huge deal better.  Neil Sealy, veteran community organizer and director of Arkansas Community Organizations, the successor organization to ACORN in Arkansas, indicated that his conversations with some of the JP’s who were old ACORN members, told him that they might put forward some amendments, but didn’t see good prospects for them and felt they had to put all of their bets on passing anything they good.

This may be one time when the Great Recession and its devastating impact on housing finance and construction is a friend, especially to people in central Arkansas, who don’t want to drink pig spit and horse wallow and whatever runs off with it.  Taking the best bargain available could give them a chance to get the elections right and the issues aligned, and put some teeth along the gummy mouth of whatever passes for land use “controls” in Pulaski now, and still get it done before the Deltic boys can sell mess and get going on their dreams for more where best would be less.

These Deltic folks are hardly “good corporate citizens” and land stewards and has a long record of shameful behavior behind them on these issues, so they have to be brought in line.   Nonetheless it is fascinating in a place like Arkansas to see a future battleground building between the Occupiers and the Tea-people where not only “hearts and minds” are at stake, but so results in coming election.  Let the games begin!

Shreveport

If all of that didn’t confuse me enough, I found something almost identical in reading the Washington Independent which was trying to parse whether or not James O’Keefe, the inept ACORN scammer and lowlife Senator Landrieu wire tapper, was working for Andrew Breitbart and his biggovernment.com websites, but was “not” working for them.  Huh?  Which is only to say that he was a direct subcontractor (we’ll have to see how “independent”) and that Breitbart doesn’t want the bungling on his shoes, despite the fact that he has relished the indirect smear tactic and O’Keefe repeatedly.  It’s all too rich…when what goes around, comes around, and they still pretend to not get it.

Breitbart will throw O’Keefe under the bus.  Bank on that.  But, the tire tracks are all over him too and no amount of dancing will make that go away.  The kid gloves are on for sure, but no amount of ducking and weaving will keep these punches from falling.

James O’Keefe: Not Working for Big Government, But on the Payroll

By David Weigel 1/27/10 10:31 AM

Justin Elliot catches Andrew Breitbart giving a factual-but-tortured explanation of how Big Government was not responsible for James O’Keefe’s bungled phone plot against Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). The interviewer is Hugh Hewitt — for what it’s worth, a veteran of the Nixon administration who once ran the 37th president’s official library.

AB: So when [O'Keefe] puts a story out there, it’s on the Brietbart sites, the Big sites, that he can tell people what transpired. So…

HH: Do you pay him for that?

AB: Yes.

HH: And are you free to tell me how much you pay him?

AB: I’ll… perhaps at another date, but he’s paid a fair salary.

HH: Is he… so he is an employee?

AB: I’m not sure that’s technically the thing, but yes, he’s paid for his life rights. And he’s, you know, he’s still… we reserve the right to say yes or no to any of the stories that he puts up on our site as we do to any other contributor who comes to the site.

HH: Will it be a mischaracterization to say he was working for you when he went about this?

AB: Well, I mean, no. He was not involved in anything that was related to Big Government, or Breitbart.com.

HH: And I think that’s the key thing. Lots of people work for lots of corporations, and do dumb and sometimes illegal things that are not within the scope of their employment. And this was not within the scope of his employment.

AB: Yes, absolutely. That is absolutely the case.

From the outset, Breitbart and Big Government editor-in-chief Mike Flynn have said that O’Keefe was acting on his own, and that they had no knowledge whatsoever of what he was planning in New Orleans. No one has proven them wrong. But Big Government, like many conservative news sites, has run repeated stories linking unions to ACORN based on minor financial ties — or less.

A Jan. 6 story at Big Government accused ACORN and “big labor” of being in cahoots because “ACORN files labor organization financial reports for SEIU 880 and SEIU 100 with the U.S. Department of Labor.” A Jan. 5 story made the case against National Labor Relations Board nominee Craig Becker because he was endorsed by ACORN founder Wade Rathke. A December 2009 story about Health Care for America Now accused the organization of being a front group for ACORN because ACORN members were listed as state contacts. “In short,” argued reporter Larry O’Connor, “HCAN is ACORN.” It’s hard to imagine that if this story was flipped — if someone on the ACORN payroll was busted spying on a senator — Big Government would give ACORN a free pass.

I give Breitbart and Flynn the benefit of the doubt on this story. But if the standards and scrutiny that Big Government applies to left-wing groups are flipped back on the Website, it’s going to be tough to argue that it’s not at all connected to O’Keefe’s potential crime. Again, I’m not stating an equivalence between this situation and the ACORN scandals. I’m just saying that if O’Keefe was paid by Big Government, this story isn’t going away.

New Orleans

Looks like some folks are merely trying to cash in on the movement, because I  can guarantee you from my experience with the grass roots tea-people in Memphis and Springfield, they are angry and alienated and looking for a political home, but they are sure not folks who would be willing or able to write a full board check for $549, plus transport and house themselves in Nashville.   Even the dates should have made me suspicious of a Thursday through Saturday affair rather than a weekend only convention. Whoever was organizing this mess wasn’t thinking about the little people in the base who are fueling this outburst with their passion.

Looking under the hood, it seems now that many, if not most, of the real grassroots tea people are in an uproar and pulling out of any connection with what presumably would be their “own” convention.  Part of it is the Super Bowl level ticket price of course.  Part of it also seems some real upset that the queen of the ball, Sarah Palin, is reportedly receiving $100,000 to keynote the affair.  What’s up with that?  This sister is obviously completely out of politics.  I can’t believe that she wouldn’t have been willing to speak to a real Tea Party convention for car fare, and of course in her case, maybe a suit of new clothes or something.  If tea people are not her base, then she doesn’t have a base at all.  This is the problem with populist outrages that don’t have set principles.  There’s no one to shoo away the fast buck artists trying to exploit the movement.  I would bet within days – if not hours – Palin will be saying that she’s donating her fee back to the movement or waiving the $100K or whatever.  She can’t want this to stick on her shoe while she continues to act like she’s one of the regular folks.

The other problem is that this nascent populist movement seems to have been pretty much already hijacked by the Republicans who seem desperate to convert tea people into their storm troopers for coming electoral battles.  The usual 3^rd party debates are happening, but without any integrity.  The Republican strategists and party apologists, including wild eyed elected officials, desperately want the tea people not to figure out how much power they might have in building an independent platform on a state-by-state level (look at the Working Families Party in New York for example).  The Republicans want to convince them that they would be spoilers, but one party’s view of spoilers is another party’s view of power brokers.

All this anger has to go somewhere, but it’s pretty clear that this fascinating and important phenomena is now splintering and as a fledgling movement is most likely to die in the pains of birth.

This anger will go somewhere.  If the right can only see dollar signs from this passion, maybe the left can finally start thinking about where this anger finds common ground on issues of jobs, trade, banks, Wall Street,and more.  At the grassroots there’s a fertile field worth walking carefully and plowing well.

Springfield

Some group prior to my visit to Springfield had posted on a listserv connected to the Tea Party people that they wanted to recruit protestors for my talk in Springfield and Amherst.  The notice was forwarded and it made the case that they needed to be well dressed and restrained so that they could communicate with students and keep them from being brainwashed by whatever points I might make.  No matter, I thought.  Before the speech I went a couple of miles away and met with Caroline Murray, the director of ADP – the Alliance to Develop Power – in her offices so that I could check-in on the progress of community organizing in Springfield and adjoining counties.  Upon returning to campus I was handed emails that outlined their “security” plans and their media plans.  It seemed that Fox was going to cover the speech and the “protest” planned by what they called 9/12 or Glenn Beck people.  Huh?

Seems 9/12 refers to 9 principles and 12 values articulated by Glenn Beck and some kind of organization has developed to embrace and promote these things.  Who knew?  Welcome to America, 2009!

Walking over to Marsh Hall there was a buzz of excitement as we hit the door to turn on the lights.  Seems that they had already moved a bunch of protestors off the campus and over to the public street running through Springfield College.  By the count of one of the professors (Rick Parr thanks and the pictures were taken by him as well), there were about 30 anti-Wade demonstrators and 6 or so pro-Wade demonstrators.  Whoa!

The room filled up amazingly to almost the full 250 capacity.  There were people from local community organizations:  ARISE, Springfield ACORN, and ADP.  There were 9/12ers sitting in the front row in motorcycle vests as well as some others sprinkled about the hall.  There were students galore and a number of older faculty and retired types.

I was introduced and as I walked to the lectern, the first of the Beckers jumped up from his seat to protest my speaking and rant about ACORN and its evil and prostitution and whatnot.  Department chair, Herb Zette, walked up to him and ushered him out.  Meanwhile Caroline Murray had jumped up and shouted for the guy to get down.  The ACORN people started yelling.  Then a second person jumped up from another part of the room, and Dr. Zettl was on him like white on rice.  By this point people on that side of the room were chanting, “The People United, Shall Never be Defeated!”  Bedlam!  By the 3^rd person I was bored with the 9/12 tactics and the strategy of containment, and simply held the mike and said I would be glad to take the guy’s question in the Q&A period, so hold your horses.  We were definitely giving the crowd all of the excitement for a Monday night that they could conceivably handle!

The questions on all sides were interesting.

My friend who had delayed his rage spoke eloquently as a working man worried about his two teenagers and their ability to find jobs and whether or not President Obama and people like me were changing the country.  But, there was a way to respond about jobs and what we were doing.

One of the final questions by the 9/12 folks was from a woman in the front row who was accompanied by her daughter.  She spoke in a low voice movingly about having been on welfare when she was divorced and how difficult it was.  She talked about having worked her way off of the aid, and thanked the government for the help, but then she also though she was the exception, and that there were lots of people coming on welfare and staying forever.  I listened to her carefully.  This was a woman conflicted.  She didn’t like welfare of course, but knew it was there when she needed it, but saw her circumstances as deserving and exceptional, rather than typical and mundane.  She didn’t want to believe the fact that the welfare rolls had steadily been reduced under TANF until the current economic crises.  She was no hater.  She was a woman that I had signed up as an ACORN member in a hundred neighborhoods…she reminded me of the great Elena Hanggi around her kitchen table in Little Rock or Barbara Rivera in the North End of Springfield, whose story I told last at Springfield as well.

There is anger, but mainly there is a lost, hurt sense of alienation and estrangement.  I was listening and learning, and perhaps others were as well.  These exchanges are at the heart of the current American dialogue

Many were groping to understand.  One man wanted desperately to blame the Community Reinvestment Act for the housing problems and didn’t want to believe that the default rate had ever been lower on such loan portfolios.  Another professor asked out loud why the anger was so misdirected and how in the world Wall Street was escaping the wrath and change was not coming.  A former leader from Springfield ACORN tried to understand how the hard work they had done and their victories, big and small, in the neighborhoods were being demonized and shunned in these current times, and what would happen now.

I posed the hard question:  like ACORN or not, what will fill the gap and take its place as a voice for low and moderate income people?  Who will register those voters?  Who will provide those services?  Who will speak their truths to power?  There were of course no answers, but the questions weighed heavy on the crowd.

Sometimes it’s the little things.  For Professor Dan Russell, the organizer of the event, a student came up to him and said that this was the best thing that had happened to him in four years at Springfield College.  For me it was a man who came at me on a beeline after my speech and without giving me his name, extended his hand in a firm handshake and said, “you converted me.”  He said that he had come in convinced one way, but he had moved the other.  I said I was moved by that, but what had made the difference.  His answer:  “the passion of your conviction.”

We all learned a lot at Springfield College last night.

New Orleans

Since no one much seems to be looking at this severe outbreak of McCarthyism, I’m going to paste in Nadler’s press release and let him speak for himself:

I like the fact that Congressman Nadler is looking for a way to kill this bill in conference where calmer voices with more concern for the Constitution and its protections of all of our rights, even our rights to take unpopular stands, might prevail.

He may feel lonely, but he’s not by himself in wondering how this could happen.  A blog site from Florida on politics (www.postonpolitics.com) added another lone voice that I couldn’t miss:

“A bill of attainder, forbidden in Article I, Section IX of the constitution, is a legislative act that imposes punishment on a specific person or group without a trial or hearing. But there’s legal precendent allowing a law that singles out an entity if “the law under challenge, viewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens imposed, reasonably can be said to further nonpunitive legislative purposes.”

UCLA law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh offers this discussion of the matter and concludes: “My rereading of the precedents leads me to confidently and unambiguously say, ‘I don’t know.’ “

The clamoring herd of sheep in Congress driven only by politics and their mood of the moment…hey, am I wrong, weren’t conservatives always the ones saying they wanted to “protect the Constitution”…is doing their wild thing, but here’s a list of Congressmen and Senators who stood up for the Constitution and therefore became ACORN’s defenders in this tar and feathering exercise.

ACORN’s defenders in the Congressional House of Representatives

Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc.
Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.
Robert Brady D-Pa.
Corrine Brown, D-Fla.
G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.
Mike Capuano, D-Mass.
Andre Carson, D-Ind.
Kathy Castor, D-Fla.
Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.
James Clyburn, D-S.C.
Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y.
Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
Danny Davis, D-Ill.
Diane DeGette, D-Colo.
Bill Delahunt, D-Mass.
Mike Doyle, D-Pa.
Donna Edwards, D-Md.
Keith Ellison, D-Minn.
Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.
Chaka Fattah, D-Pa.
Bob Filner, D-Calif.
Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio
Al Green, D-Tex.
Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.
Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.
Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii
Rush Holt, D-N.J.
Mike Honda, D-Calif.
Jesse Jackson, Jr. D-Ill.
Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Tex.
Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Tex.
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich.
Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio
Rick Larsen, D-Wash.
Barbara Lee, D-Calif.
John Lewis, D-Ga.
Stephen Lynch, D-Mass.
Markey, D-Mass.
Betty McCollum, D-Minn.
McDermott, D-Wash.
McGovern, D-Mass.
Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.
Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va.
Gwen Moore, D-Wisc.
Jim Moran, D-Va.
Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
Richard Neal, D-Mass.
John Olver, D-Mass.
Frank Pallone, D-N.J.
Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.
Donald Payne, D-N.J.
Jared Polis, D-Colo.
David Price, D-N.C.
Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.
Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y.
Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif.
Bobby Rush, D-Ill.
Linda Sánchez, D-Calif.
Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.
David Scott D-Ga.
Bobby Scott, D-Va.
Jose Serrano, D-N.Y.
Brad Sherman, D-Calif.
Albio Sires, D-N.J.
Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.
Pete Stark, D-Calif.
Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y.
Niki Tsongas, D-Mass.
Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y.
Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
Diane Watson, D-Calif.
Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
Robert Wexler, D-Fla.
Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.

ACORN Defenders in the United States Senate

Roland Burris from Illinois;

Robert Casey Jr. from Pennsylvania

Richard Durbin from Illinois

Kirsten Gillibrand from New York

Patrick Leahy from Vermont

Bernie Sanders from Vermont

Whitehouse from Rhode Island.

Daniel Akaka from Hawaii

Jeff Bingamen from New Mexico

Diane Feinstein from California

Tom Harkin from Iowa

Washington

This whine was about a $9 billion dollar expenditure over the next 10 years was about the extension the child care credit and some needed tinkering with the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for lower income working families.  In these days of trillion dollar bank giveaways, it almost seems miserly to hear anyone resent that working families at the bottom of the ladder managed to get a small taste of the stimulus package.

The child care credit will now extend to families earning $3000 per year where it was previously available to no family making less than $12000 per year.  Since such families have no real tax bill, the great thing about this credit, which no doubt is producing the scowls here, is that the credit is a direct income transfer to the poor family.  In other words here a tax credit is not just another perk or giveaway to the rich that was the Bush specialty, but something putting real money in the hands of the poor and actually a poverty reduction strategy.

Who says there’s no good news in the papers these days?  Depending on which paper you read, you can either get tips on my wardrobe, which has never set a fashion standard, or inadvertently be reminded that at least 1% of the $850 billion stimulus bill included a real bonus for working families at the bottom of the labor market.  No contest!