Centrists

Krugman is worth reading, today. But, I find the best part of his column is the italicized sentence at the very end: David Brooks is off today.

An Abundance of Caution

Chris Christie, Governor of NJ, had trouble breathing earlier today:

“Out of an abundance of caution," the governor, who suffers from asthma, went to be checked out at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, the statement said. "In line with someone dealing with asthma, he is being given routine tests as a precautionary measure."

How many of the governor's constituents enjoy such abundance? CC not only gets an abundance of money, abundance of privilege, abundance of food, abundance of idiotic ideas, abundance of repugnant cruel thinking, abundance of Tea Party bird droppings, and abundance of press coverage, the Governor gets to have an abundance of caution. Praised be.

A Different Charlie

Last year, an Argentine cab driver gave me his definition of a third world country. "It is a place," he said, "Where you cannot plan six months ahead."

Sound familiar?

Plus c'est la meme chose

Here's Steinbeck:

She wore a ferocious smile and pushed her way through the milling people, holding a fistful of clippings high in her hand to keep them from being crushed. Since it was her left hand I looked particularly for a wedding ring, and saw that there was none. I slipped in behind her to get carried along by the wave, but the crush was dense, and I was given a warning, too, "Watch it, sailor. Everybody wants to hear."

Nellie was received with shouts of greeting. I don't know how many Cheerleaders there were. There was no fixed line between the Cheerleaders and the crowd behind them. What I could see was that a group was passing newspaper clippings back and forth and reading them aloud with little squeals of delight.

Now the crowd grew restless, as an audience does when the clock goes past curtain time. Men all around me looked at their watches. I looked at mine. It was three minutes to nine.

The show opened on time. Sounds of sirens. Motorcycle cops. Then two big black cars filled with big men in blond felt hats pulled up in front of the school. The crowd seemed to hold its breath. Four big marshals got out of each car and from somewhere in the automobiles they extracted the littlest Negro girl you ever saw, dressed in shining starchy white, with new shoes on her feet so little they were almost round. Her face and legs were very black against the white.

The big marshals stood her on the curb and a jangle of jeering shrieks went up from behind the barricades. The little girl did not look at the howling crowd but from the sides the whites of her eyes showed like those of a frightened fawn. The men turned her around like a doll, and then the strange procession moved up the broad walk toward the school, and the child was even more a mite because the men were so big. Then the girl made a curious hop, and I think I know what it was. I think in her whole life she had not gone ten steps without skipping, but now in the middle of her first skip the weight bore her down and her little round feet took measured, reluctant steps between the tall guards. Slowly, they climbed the steps and entered the school.

The papers had printed that the jibes and jeers were cruel and sometimes obscene, and so they were, but this was not the big show. The crowd was waiting for the white man who dared to bring his white child to school...

No newspaper had printed the words these women shouted. It was indicated that they were indelicate, some even said obscene. On television, the sound track was made to blur or had crowd noises cut in to cover. But now I heard the words, bestial and filthy and degenerate. In a long and unprotected life I have seen and heard the vomitings of demoniac humans before. Why then did these screams fill me with a shocked and sickened sorrow?

...Here was no principle good or bad, no direction. These blowsy women with their little hats and their clippings hungered for attention. They wanted to be admired. They simpered in happy, almost innocent triumph when they were applauded. Theirs was the demented cruelty of egocentric children, and somehow this made their insensate beastliness much more heartbreaking. These were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors playing to a crazy audience.

The full title of the book is, "Travels with Charley in Search of America." The event occurred in New Orleans in 1959 or 1960. It has taken me two sittings to copy Steinbeck's words because I cannot stop crying and cannot unclench my teeth.

I first read Travels thirty-five years ago. Some scenes -- including the one I copied and abridged for you -- have stayed with me. But, it was not until last night when I again opened the book did I recognize the power and prescience of these old words to define oh so clearly America's great divide. Steinbeck wrote the Tea Party: crazy actors playing to a crazy audience.

We shall overcome.

Plus ca change

Today, a three-way confluence of history and politics. I traced a link from Hullabaloo to this item from the Douglas County Oregon News-Review:

A small political gathering of about 18 liberal thinkers at River Forks Park Sunday afternoon erupted in conflict when about 35 members of the conservative tea party intruded upon the meeting, waving flags and holding signs accusing the rival group of being communists, Marxists and socialists.

The liberal group — organized by MoveOn.org — decided to leave the park and move its potluck to a nearby home. Members of the conservative group followed, parking at the entrance of a private lane leading to the home to continue their protest.

Roseburg Democrats Dean and Sara Byers said Monday they told tea party members who followed that they were not welcome to drive down the lane to their home.

The Byerses said they got out of their car to stop vehicles from entering the driveway and one tea party member almost ran them over.

Sara Byers said she was so shaken she called 911. She said a Douglas County deputy called about an hour and a half later and said he had been unable to respond because of other incidents. Byers said she was still considering filing a criminal complaint against members of the tea party for harassment.

A leader of the tea party group, Rich Raynor of Roseburg, disputed the liberal group's version of events.

“They are liars,” said Raynor, director of Douglas County Americans for Prosperity. “That is what communists do.”

Members of the smaller group said Monday they were intimidated by the tea partiers, whom they accused of violating their constitutional right to peacefully assembly.

Roseburg resident Lillen Fifield, 70, called the group's actions an “act of domestic terrorism” and said she was appalled that a peaceful gathering — mostly of women older than 65 — was interrupted.

“It is not OK to go around and intimidate and threaten people. That is not acceptable in a polite society,” Fifield said.

Conservative organizers defended their actions and said they will continue to protest similar gatherings.

“We were there to find out what they had to say and to bring a notice to the public that this kind of thing was going on. Quite honestly, if they have it again, then we are really going to make it well known,” Raynor said.

Raynor said the group believes MoveOn.org is a communist front and said he would not stand for America becoming a fascist nation.

Then, I glanced at the opening of a Calvin Trillin piece in this week's New Yorker. He describes an encounter at a meeting in Santa Fe with a woman who, when five-years-old, integrated a New Orleans public school. That was fifty years ago. Trillin covered the story for Time. He was on the “Seg Beat” as the civil rights movement gained momentum. In the New Yorker piece, Trillin describes standing among jeering protesters as they spewed hatred towards the young black children escorted into school by US marshals. “Black ape,” was one of the most memorable epithets.

The New Yorker article, in turn, triggered my memory of “Travels with Charlie.” Near the end of that book, Steinbeck describes watching a similar (the same?) scene. I think he was in New Orleans, but it could have been Little Rock. Steinbeck was fascinated by the women in the screaming mob. He noticed that most lacked wedding rings and were, he assumed, childless as well as unmarried. Their hatred and vile rants were all the more surprising because they had no direct role in the dispute.

There is a straight, unbroken, 50-year-long line from screaming southern segregationists to Oregon tea partiers. Nothing new. Just reblended ignorance, fear, anger, and stupidity. Who else could label MoveOn.org as communists and, at the same time, inveigh against fascism? What a bunch of losers.

The fire this time

Here in New Mexico, June was a hideous month of smoke and fire. The mountains -- mostly National Forest land -- burned. I could see from my back yard aerial tankers flying low over rugged terrain and through blinding smoke to drop fire-stopping slurry. Helicopters carrying vast water buckets flew circuits all day from lake to fire and back. Athletic fields at the edge of Santa Fe were tent cities housing firefighting crews brought in from other states.

I tried to imagine the response to wildfires in a Randian/Tea Party world. Surprise! What they call freedom becomes a country dominated by insurers and litigators. The Las Conchas fire – which is now the largest wildfire in New Mexico history – is a good example. The blaze started on a privately-owned ranch when a power line was pulled down by a falling tree. Fire spread quickly across public, private, and tribal land. In Randworld, of course, all of the involved land would be privately held and all firefighting privately paid. The ranch owners where the fire started would need insurance against damage to their own property plus coverage in case their fire spread to neighboring property. The bank holding the mortgage would also insist on coverage against fires due to uninsured neighbors. This would be similar to auto policies covering uninsured drivers. Insurance premiums would skyrocket in times of drought – meaning now – as fire risk increased. And, there, once again, is the big hole in Randite logic. Why would any private insurer risk catastrophic losses from large wildfires? Expect them, instead, to cancel existing policies outright or indirectly by demanding exorbitant premiums. Think of a cancer survivor trying to buy health insurance.

The Randite market may be wise, but it is not stable. Without insurance, property values plunge. Banks will call in mortgages. Land owners may abandon their holdings, but can not escape their responsibilities. Coping with fires – whether due to lightning, felled power lines, or carelessness – remains the land owner's responsibility. Neighbors, who likely also hold canceled insurance policies, can try to help put out the flames or can help pay professional firefighters. What if that's not enough? The Las Conchas fire went from start to 43,000 acres in half a day. Imagine a raging fire three times the size of Manhattan. It is now close to 150,000 acres. The firefighting costs tens of millions of dollars. Will the newly destitute sue the newly destitute? Will land owners turn over their mutually charred property to the bank or firefighting company? How many Mediterranean Avenues can anyone want?

Try a different scenario. Your privately-owned mountain paradise is parched by drought. Fires are demolishing thousands of acres of similar land near home and in adjacent states. You are like a rancher whose cattle are dying of thirst, or a farmer tending withered crops. You have been a conscientious steward of your property. You cleared tinder-dry underbrush from the forested areas. But, that's not enough. Living trees are so badly desiccated that fire can jump easily from crown to crown. In the Las Conchas fire, trees tops burned so fiercely that fist-sized burning embers were blown up to half a mile ahead of the fire line. Yes, you must destroy your land in order to save it. Cut down the trees and haul the logs away. (To where?) Cool mountain forest is transformed into rocky, sun-blanched high desert. The fire, if – or when – it comes, will rage around or over whatever remains. Breathe a sigh of relief. But, what happens when the rains come or winter's snow piles high? The water you craved in fire season is now the enemy. Nature serves up erosion, avalanches, and mudslides. Your fate – and bank account – are again entwined with your neighbors' after run-off from your property floods a neighbor's house, or barn, or buries their pick-up truck with sixteen tons of muck.

In the Randian United States, e plurbus unum is replaced with Go Fuck Yourself. Unrestricted selfishness generates endless bickering, threats, and counter-threats. Limited-imagination Randites believe that guns and more guns can maintain peace. They don't get it. The big problems will start when routine commerce operates without the guarantees now provided by government. Every Main Street transaction will needed to be hedged against the newest, ugliest economic catastrophe. If libertarian bozos complain now about lawyers getting in the way of everyday life, just wait until all buying and selling requires hold-harmless agreements, arbitration requirements, and specifications for a myriad of other contingencies. Insurance companies and litigators will inherit the earth.