Washington

Not that anyone is sure what it means and what might be possible, but people are voting with their feet and there is a strong heartbeat and both of those change the game and demand to be taken seriously.  The other thing that seems inarguable is that newly minted Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has pulled a tactical “Gingrich” and tried to play his hand so far past his base that it’s just a matter of time before the pendulum swings back and pops him hard.  The 18-1 Republicans only evisceration of collective bargaining rights for public employees was too transparent, too roughshod, and just way too far over the top for the good people of Wisconsin.  This was a kind of hardball politics played in a New York or a Louisiana or some other uncultured backwater, but not in the world of the nice Midwest for god’s sake!  These are people that have worn cheese on their heads for cry eye!

Organizers are amazed at the polling results being seen from their own numbers as well as more public reports like those in the New York Times for collective bargaining (though not especially for unions unfortunately).  The numbers are moving overwhelmingly in support of collective bargaining from the public, which is also shocking since with 1 of 8 covered by agreements in the United States so few people anymore have the faintest clue what the heck collective bargaining might be.  Hearing about it for the first time in many cases thanks to the good people of Wisconsin, their gut response seems to be, “Hey, that doesn’t sound so bad?”  Which is only a short distance away from “You betcha, let me have some of that,” and that should really worry the Republicans and the right.

This was the Gingrich fallacy when he and the Republicans got outmaneuvered by President Clinton in the budget standoff from which they never recovered.  In a fuzzy world folks were all for the messaging that the “guvament” was wasting their money, but then when the spigot gets shutoff and the lights are turned off and folks are forced to reckon with the fact that parks are closed, social security offices don’t open, VA hospitals can’t accept them now, and the hundreds of other ways they interact with government, it’s a different story and payback is hell.

Wisconsin and Governor Walker are teaching the same lessons about collective bargaining and reminding people that their neighbor who is a teacher, city worker, or whatever is in a slap down not about money, but basic rights, like talking to the boss about your job, which is one way to define “collective bargaining,” and then it’s gone too damn far.

Walker is not alone either.  In a rarity the New York Times sent a truth seeking missile at Governor Christie where it looked at what he says public workers, unions, and teachers versus the facts along with an accompanying chart that pretty much ticked off point by point of the old “liar, liar, you’re pants are on fire!”

Add to that the crash and burn of another Republican presidential candidate wannabe, Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, being pulled down hard by an ethics scandal when he is preaching one sermon and living life another way by fronting for corporate contributions flooding into his wife’s foundation ostensibly for educational tools while 70% of the corporations are being regulated and doing business with the state, and, oh my, is their mud on his shoes and egg all over his face.  Not that he has even recognized there’s a problem except with the fussbudgets at the New York Times who first broke the story, which is now being trumpeted loudly all over Louisiana.  For all of their Biblical references, they probably overlooked the story about removing the “beam” from their own eyes, before they worry about the “mote” or speck in their neighbor’s eyes.

As long as the Republicans are still so committed to self-destructing, maybe there’s hope for a progressive future in spite of our recent lackluster efforts and losses.

New Orleans

All of these memories came back to me reading a piece a couple of days ago in the Wall Street Journal called, “Besieged in the Bayou:  Shrimpers Fight Back,” by Jeff Opdyke that focused on the problems in the industry because of imported shrimp from Indonesia, Thailand, Ecuador, and elsewhere, as well as potentially price fixing and bad handling procedures by processors that have spoiled the market.  Sadly a lot of the same problems existed for shrimpers back then.  A lot of the shrimpers then thought that they couldn’t do well because of overfishing and the fact that there were too many boats on the water and too many captains willing – or forced – to settle for prices that sucked any margin out of the shrimp.

Opdyke notes that since 1989 the number of shrimpers has plummeted to a quarter of what it was (16500 to 4700), which is a huge difference.  Unfortunately, the shrimp are only getting about $1.00 a pound at the dock, which is shockingly low.  The level of imports is now dwarfing what comes of the boats.  Opdyke reports in 2008 Louisiana moved 90 million pounds of shrimp worth only $135 million, while imports in 2007 were at 1.6 million pounds and that was double the imports of 10 years ago.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) is writing letters to beg for help from the federal government, but in the meantime the state doesn’t seem to be inspecting the processors and others whose practices are taking beautiful shrimp off the docks and running the downstream market with chemicals and fast dealing.  I read today Jindal is off fundraising again in other states.  This would seem worth a minute if he can spare it.

The other problem not mentioned is Katrina.  A lot of shrimpers and fishers lost their boats in the storm.  In fact some of the early crews working on houses with our rebuilding program in New Orleans were Vietnamese fishing families who had lost boats worth more than $100,000 but were having problems with FEMA, insurance, and everything else and being pushed off the water by the storm and government inaction.  Now more than 4 years since Katrina it was only recently that FEMA made an announcement on a partial program to begin clearing some of the waterways of the boats sunk by the storm.  That’s no way to support working boatmen whose living is on the water.

Even in New Orleans hardly 75 minutes from the water, the price at the store for a pound of Louisiana shrimp (and that’s all my partner buys!) is $3.57.  The shrimper is getting a buck and god knows where the $2.57 is leaking out along the way.

And, even in New Orleans we can look at the packaging of shrimp in our local store (a Louisiana grocery chain) and see the imported shrimp from China with a picture of the state of Louisiana on the outside and the claim that it’s Louisiana Gulf shrimp.

If they are doing the hard job on water, why can’t people do the right thing the rest of the way, once we’re walking on land?