The Kids Are OK

(Illustration by David Gothard / For The Times / May 18, 2012)

Neal Gabler had a rather odd opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times this weekend. It was accompanied by the illustration which heads this post, which sorta kinda gives a clue to Gabler's thesis.

Barack Obama wanted to be a transformational president, and as we head into the general election, he may have gotten his wish — just not the way he or his supporters might have thought.

Obama seems to have transformed the cohort of 18- to 29-year-olds, a whopping 66% of whom preferred him over John McCain, from passionate voters who thought Obama really did offer change they could believe in, into people feeling, in the words of veteran political analyst Charlie Cook, "disappointment and disillusionment." ...

Disillusionment with partisan politics is certainly nothing new. Obama's fall from grace, however, may look like a bigger belly flop because his young supporters saw him standing so much higher than typical politicians. Yet by dashing their hopes, Obama may actually have accomplished something so remarkable that it could turn out to be his legacy: He has redirected young people's energies away from conventional electoral politics and into a different, grass-roots kind of activism. Call it DIY politics.

He cites the Occupy movement as the first example of Do It Yourself politics, and to some extent I would agree. He also points out that the shift involved is more one of consciousness than anything else.

Movements have vectors; they head in a direction. The Occupiers don't have a coherent program or clearly identified leaders or a political dimension even in the way, say, the tea party does. OWS is more just a festival of grievance populated by those (mostly young people) who find no place for themselves in the system, which made the metaphor of their "occupying" the seat of American economic power ironic.

All of this is perhaps best defined as a consciousness — a way of thinking about change rather than a schema for it. That's one reason the Occupiers could collect so many disparate elements. OWS has spoken to a mounting sense among the disaffected that nothing quite works in America and that you can't really fight politics with politics anymore. In fact, you have to forget about traditional institutions, power and systems entirely. Americans typically don't think this way. [Emphasis added.]

I agree for the most part that OWS has been so successful because it has changed the framing of the issue and the language used to express it. In fact, it's a movement that is as much consciousness raising as a shift in consciousness. However, I sense a little condescension in Gabler's suggestion that the Occupiers are staging a "festival of grievance" and are asserting that it's impossible to "fight politics with politics anymore." I think it just as likely that the consciousness raising will be used within the political arena, if not necessarily within the traditional two-party system.

His argument becomes even weaker when he produces his second bit of evidence for the transformation of today's youth by President Obama, the increase in volunteerism in such programs as AmeriCorps and Teach For America:

The DIY impulse seems to start with the most basic politics of all: individual agency. If it takes hold it will be from the bottom up, translating a way of thinking into a way of doing. Already you can see DIY politics in action, not just in young people camping outside City Hall but in their joining service organizations and NGOs where they can do good and seemingly apolitical — or at least extra-governmental — work. They don't abide endless debate and tit-for-tat strategies that result in gridlock. ...

There is a scathing irony in the fact that some attribute the rise in civic commitment to an "Obama effect," by which they mean Obama has kindled this idealism the way President Kennedy inspired young people to join the Peace Corps. (Of course, many more attribute it to the economy and the lack of jobs for recent grads.) Unfortunately, none of these surveys investigates reasons for increased volunteerism, but the data suggest another possible Obama effect: that he has driven them out of politics and into service.

Many longtime politicos find that outcome troubling. They fret that if young people abandon the system, the system will abandon the public good. Of course, to many of the young, it is the system that has abandoned them. If the polls are accurate, most of them will still vote for Obama but with less enthusiasm than in 2008 and with fewer illusions about what he will accomplish. Instead, they will assume the social burden themselves, opting out of organized politics to "do it themselves" with a politics of one that adds up to millions of ones.

He blithely writes off the lack of jobs for new graduates as a reason for increased volunteerism, and I think he is wrong to do so. I am not suggesting that young people are volunteering more just to pad their resumes. I think it is just as likely that they are doing so to engage in something worthwhile while they search for an opportunity and to keep body and soul together, neither of which is a bad thing. I also think that to the extent that Candidate Obama raised expectations and hopes and then President Obama dashed them, the reaction is far more impressive than one would have expected.

And as bleak as things are right now, the one thing that does keep me hopeful are these young people and what they are doing for whatever reason. I suspect Mr. Gabler and I share that feeling.

Not Quite Right

(Editorial cartoon by Ted Rall and published 4/15/12 by the Sacramento Bee. Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

Ted Rall's cartoon accompanied this editorial in the Bee on the pepper spraying incident at UC-Davis. Frankly, I think Rall got it more right than editorialist did. I generally agree with the paper, but not this time.

Protests on college and university campuses – including civil disobedience, disruption and, sometimes, violence – are not uncommon. In the current confluence of student and faculty concerns about the direction of the public higher education – and nationwide protests about inequality and economic change – wise university administrators prepare appropriately.

They reach out to students and faculty. They set clear guidelines for time, manner and place of protests. They prepare for demonstrations – including training and planning for students affairs staff and campus police. They meet with protesters to attempt to defuse situations. They prepare for the unexpected – what if a crowd gets out of control?

The editorial has it right, up to this point. The problem is that there were no "wise administrators," no guidelines to govern both the student protesters and the campus police. UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi did none of these things. And the Bee thinks she needs to change how she runs things. Keep that in mind.

The first action item has to be the Police Department. Police Chief Annette Spicuzza clearly has no authority over her subordinates, does not adequately express police concerns to administrators, does not attend key police operations briefings and has not established standards and protocols Californians should expect in a professional campus police department. The department needs a new chief. Katehi should say so, and get a search going.

Katehi also needs to take a hard look at her leadership team.

OK, so not only should Officer Pike lose his job, so should his boss, Police Chief Annette Spicuzza. But that apparently is as far as the Bee is willing to go, even after it details the failures by the school administrative leaders all the way up to the top. Katehi and her immediate subordinates get a mulligan, a do-over, even though nothing before the incident and nothing since the incident gives any evidence that the most basic issue, the First Amendment, has any meaning to the administrators.

I don't see any incentive for the UC-Davis administration or any other college administration to change under this scenario. In fact, this probably is the best example of what's wrong in this country and why the students sat down in that area of the campus to begin with: if you're rich enough or powerful enough, you can do whatever you want to whomever you want.

And people wonder just what the Occupy movement is all about.

Why I Have Bruises On My Forehead

Six months after the fact, an independent investigation of the circumstances of the pepper spraying of student protesters at UC-Davis has finally been released (sorta-kinda, to comply with state law with respect to state employees): the conclusion is that the leadership of UC-Davis and its police department were woefully misguided in its handling of the situation right from the start.

Well, duh!

From the Sacramento Bee:

But despite weeks of discussion as protests turned violent at some other UC campuses and California cities, UC Davis administrators were woefully unprepared to manage the demonstrations when tents went up on the quad in November.

Instead, they responded with such a lack of communication and decision-making that it represented "systemic and repeated failures" by university leaders.

Well, yes. But, the question is whether that was just woeful ignorance or willful intention. It's clear that cities and other municipalities were in contact with DHS on how to deal with Occupy protesters and that guidelines were issued. Those guidelines somehow failed to consider First Amendment Rights.

Well, duh!

So, who do we look to for this egregious behavior? Just Officer Pike, whose picture and balletic and cavalier pepper spraying was captured on cell phones?

Again, from the Sacramento Bee:

The independent assessment of events leading up to the infamous Nov. 18 pepper-spraying incident at the University of California, Davis, provides a devastating indictment of the leadership of Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and key vice chancellors – and of the operations of the campus Police Department.

In our reading, Katehi showed either extreme naiveté or incompetence in weighing a response to protesters camping in the Quad. The report of the task force, led by former California Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso, revealed a deeply flawed structure for decisionmaking. Little or no consideration of alternatives. Failing to record and adequately communicate key decisions, so that ambiguity and uncertainty ruled.

You think maybe?

What is so infuriating is that the Faculty Senate ultimately backed down in its confidence vote on Chancellor Katehi, even though the ultimate responsibility was hers. She failed to make clear to the campus police chief just what would be required and what would be tolerated. Her excuse that she feared sexual misconduct by the protesters is both laughable and insulting. She had her orders from somewhere else.

Once again, the owners have succeeded. Nothing to see here: move along, move along.

OK, Watertiger, move over. I need your desk again.

A Different America

(Click on the image to enlarge and then come back.)

David Horsey's latest column is titled "Donald Trump and Mitt Romney live in a different America," and he makes his point both in the cartoon and the post accompanying it.

Mitt Romney is not heartless, he's merely clueless when it comes to understanding the precarious position of the poor or even the beleaguered middle class. He’s never been there and, unlike the wealthy Bobby Kennedy, he has never shown much interest in finding out what it’s like.

The poor need more than a thin safety net and they need more than the false dream of a job somewhere down the line when the tax breaks of the rich trickle down to their level. They need a president intensely engaged in breaking the cycle of poverty, poor education, fractured families and criminal activity that has created a permanent American underclass.

While Horsey makes the point that the current president doesn't exactly fit the bill either, at least Obama doesn't go around freely making amazingly tone-deaf statements on the issue. Still, we do have two Americas: one for the 1% and the other for the rest of us. Citizens United certainly is adding to that divide, although the events of the last year do give me at least a little hope.

The OWS movement has given us the vocabulary to talk about the divide and has energized not only the young people who are doing much of the heavy lifting, but also older people from the entire economic range who are tired of having no representation. It may be winter, but Occupy! is still showing up, and shows no signs of disappearing.

Even before, OWS, however, there was Wisconsin. Thousands showed up in a literal blizzard to protest Governor Walker's blatant union busting and safety net shredding in that state. Recently, over a million voters signed petitions to recall Walker and that election is coming up. Taking the lead of Wisconsin, voters in Ohio voted to repeal similar legislation pushed by their governor.

But elected officials haven't been the only targets. Thousands of Bank of America customers, outraged by the addition of yet another bank charge, pulled their money out and put it into credit unions or community banks. People angered by the blatant attempt by entertainment industry to curtail file sharing and the right wing's attempt to set up a mechanism for closing down the internet when it became convenient bombarded their senators with petitions, emails, faxes, and telephone calls. The Senate backed off and canceled the vote on PIPA.

And this past week, the Komen Foundation faced the wrath of decent people who were outraged by its clumsy attempt to defund Planned Parenthood's program of breast exams and mammogram referrals as a way to finally close down the one place poor women could count on for reproductive health services. Once again, the powerful were humbled by the sheer numbers of people who weren't having any of that crap.

We're still a long way from a just America, but it does appear that large numbers of people are waking up to the fact that they do have power, a great deal of it and that when they mobilize that power with their neighbors they can make an astounding difference. We could actually have an American Spring.

I am still only cautiously optimistic, but that is something. And for that I am grateful.

It Is To Laugh, Part 2

Last week I noted the outsourcing of justice by the Los Angeles City Attorney's office with respect to those Occupy L.A. protesters arrested for occupying the City Hall lawn. This week, the City Attorney has shown more creativity. That office is considering filing a suit against Occupy L.A. to recover the costs of protesters' exercise of their First Amendment rights.

From an editorial in the Los Angeles Times:

With the Occupy L.A. encampment dismantled, the city is left with the task of refurbishing the battered grounds of City Hall and tallying up the costs of the occupation. Officials estimate the city spent $1.7 million in overtime for police enforcement. Graffiti must be removed from three monuments. And it could cost $400,000 to repair the irrigation system and replace the lawn (if the city upgrades to desertscaping). These are not insignificant figures, but suing the Occupy L.A. protesters to foot the bill — an option, according to City Atty. Carmen Trutanich — is wrong.

Of course it's wrong, especially since the City Council and the mayor's office both supported the protesters and welcomed them to stay as long as they'd like at City Hall. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich apparently has other ideas, apparently believing that will end the protests against a disconnect between government and 99% of its citizens. Irony is not dead.

Why the threat of a law suit? Well, it's a tool frequently used by the city:

The protesters did sue first, notes William Carter, Trutanich's chief deputy. In three lawsuits, groups representing the occupiers alleged civil rights violations before they were evicted, asking the courts for an injunction against eviction and for costs associated with their suits as well as any other relief deemed appropriate. Any time the city is sued, its attorneys consider countersuing, according to Carter.

How ... adult. "They started it!"

Once again, the editorial board has gotten it right (something I have to admit is happening more frequently):

... the City Council should drop any thought of trying to get its money back. That's one cost a city must bear for being open to all.

Yes.

It Is To Laugh

Now here's an interesting twist on the concept that "freedom isn't free":

Many Occupy L.A. protesters arrested during demonstrations in recent months are being offered a unique chance to avoid court trials: pay $355 to a private company for a lesson in free speech.

Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Atty. William Carter said the city won't press charges against protesters who complete the educational program offered by American Justice Associates. ...

...prosecuting the remaining protesters arrested on lesser charges would unduly burden the city attorney's office, said Trutanich's chief legal advisor, Curt Livesay. The office has seen its budget cut 25% in recent years. [Emphasis added]

Irony is not dead.

Asking the anti-corporate-greed protesters to pay a private corporation for a lesson on First Amendment rights rather than risk additional jail time for exercising those rights in a peaceful manner is clear evidence that the City Attorney just doesn't get it.

The claim that his office can't afford to prosecute all of those cases because of budgetary problems due to the failure of corporations and their wealthy leaders to pay their fair share of taxes is clear evidence that the City Attorney just doesn't get it.

Lewis Carroll would be so proud.

The Orderly Raid: Some Initial Thoughts

After a couple of days' grace, the Los Angeles Police Department moved in and evicted the Occupy LA protesters from City Hall grounds. By all early accounts in the Los Angeles Times, the behavior of LAPD was sensible, orderly, and restrained: no baton swinging, no pepper spraying. Arrests were made, listed only as "dozens" at this point (4:00 AM PDT), but the camp was cleared.

Multiple initial accounts can be found here.

Much of the Occupy L.A. campsite was in shambles early Wednesday morning, with tents uprooted and strewn all over.

Most of the crowd either left or was arrested at about 2:10 a.m., but about three dozen occupiers remained on City Hall's south lawn, seated on the ground with their arms locked together in a giant circle.

Los Angeles Police Department officers pulled out the remaining occupiers one by one by their legs and arms, putting them into plastic handcuffs. Nearly all of the protesters went limp and had to be carried out.

The scene is a far cry from other cities' actions, and certainly a world away from LAPD's behavior at a 2007 immigration rally in which clubs were swung, violent arrests made, and even journalists beaten during the disruption. LAPD has certainly learned the wisdom of restraint in actions such as these, and for that I am grateful.

But, now what?

Will the Occupy LA protesters return to the scene, try to clean up the mess and pitch new tents? Several have filed a federal law suit seeking to enjoin the city from removing the camp after nearly two months of allowing, even welcoming, the protests. It will be a while before even a preliminary injunction issues, if one does. In the mean time, I suspect that the campers will return, or at least try to. And the clearing of the grounds will be a nightly exercise.

If they do return, will there be a further groundswell of support, with more digging in for the long haul? Can the protesters increase their numbers, even in the face of more arrests with the potential of the LAPD reverting to the use of violence? I certainly hope so.

This may be the time that the movement expands its tool box. That federal suit, while potentially a loser, does indicate that at least some of the protesters are willing to use other nonviolent avenues to press their case. The trick will be to avoid getting trapped in the very system which has proven to be so utterly corrupt, to avoid being co-opted by the suits urging them to enter the arena and to work from the inside. We've seen how well that works for the 99%.

This is going to be a very interesting several weeks and months. It's also going to be a very important one.

Nailing It In One

Rebecca Solnit has written the most perceptive analysis of the Occupy movement I have come across yet. She does so by using the surprising but illuminating metaphor of battered-wife syndrome without denigrating the movement or trivializing the syndrome.

Think of civil society and the state as joined in a marriage of necessity. You already know who the wife is, the one who is supposed to love, cherish and obey: that's civil society. Think of the state as the domineering husband who expects to have a monopoly on power, on violence, on planning and policymaking.

Of course, he long ago abandoned his actual wedding vows. He left home a long time ago to have a sordid affair with the Fortune 500, but he still has the firm conviction that we should remain faithful — or else. The post-9/11 era was when we began to feel the consequences of all this, and the 2008 economic meltdown brought it all home to roost.

Think of Occupy Wall Street, of all the occupations around the country, as the signal that the wife, Ms. Civil Society, has finally acknowledged that those vows no longer bind her either. ...

Still, Ms. Civil Society is not asking for any favors: She is setting out on her own, to make policy on a small scale through the model of the general assembly and on a larger scale by withdrawing deference from the institutions of power. (In one symbolic act of divorce, nearly three-quarters of a million Americans reportedly have moved their money from big banks to credit unions since Occupy Wall Street began.) The philandering husband doesn't think the once-cowed wife has the right to do any of this, and he's been striking back. Literally. [Emphasis added]

That striking back has taken several forms, from rousting encampments and destroying the campers' property, to arresting those in the near vicinity (including journalists) to the use of riot gear, including batons and pepper spray. And still the movement continues, picking up steam and support from previously unallied by-standers.

The movement, while deeply political, is not interested in politics, at least not politics-as-usual. It has eschewed both parties and politicians of all stripes, which only enrages the "philandering husband" further, leading to further escalations, as witnessed by the horrific behavior by the UC-Davis campus police. The result is even more sympathy for the movement, swelling the ranks even further. And it's beginning to cost the "philandering husband."

In the meantime, the domestic-violence-prone domineering state is squandering a fortune on the extravagance of police brutality and wrongful arrests. New York City — recall those pepper-sprayed captive young women, that legal observer with a police scooter parked on top of him, and all the rest — you're going to have a giant bill due in court. Oakland, you paid out more than $2 million for the behavior of the police at a nonviolent protest after the invasion of Iraq — did you learn nothing from it?

Apparently not, at least not yet.

But we are coming close to a tipping point, one like those seen in Egypt and Syria. I hope we don't have to go all the way to open civil war, the shooting kind, but that depends on the husband.

Like I said, the most perceptive analysis I've seen yet.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm taking today off from any direct blogging, but that doesn't mean you can take the day off as well. When you have a moment free of family obligations, cooking, or eating, I urge you to go visit Ronni Bennett's blog to read her thoughts on a "Special 2011 Thanksgiving". She's said it better than I could.

Enjoy the day, my friends!

A Welcome Failure

The Supercommittee failed to do its job: it was unable to reach an agreement on trimming the budget deficit within the time allotted. What a freaking shame.

I am not at all unhappy by the results. First of all, this extra-constitutional construct was a questionable idea to begin with. If Congress as a whole couldn't come up with a deal, what made it think the panel of twelve members of Congress, meeting in secret, was going to be able to do so? Even with the penalty of automatic cuts should the committee fail to reach an agreement, there were no guarantees because the Republicans wanted no such agreement. That much was clear right from the start.

Truth Out focused on the Republican intransigence and buttressed its analysis with a telling time line on negotiations between the parties, both in Congress and with the White House:

The notion that both sides share in the blame is an easy line for commentators to repeat, but it isn’t true. Time and time again, the only thing preventing an agreement on long-term deficit reduction has been the Republicans’ absolute refusal to consider any tax increases on high-income households as part of the solution. Michael Linden and I created a timeline of major events in the past six months of deficit talks... [Emphasis added]

What follows this paragraph is the time line which stretches back to February and is very revealing. I'm not going to paste it all here. Click on the link and read it, however, because it is so very clear about what was going on. Every time the Democrats went to the Republicans with a plan which included tax increases of any kind, they were rebuffed. What is so startling is that the Democrats kept coming back with "sweeteners" to the deal, including putting Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, and each time they were rebuffed again. That's not negotiation, that's extortion. The Democrats never did get it. Fortunately time ran out before the Democrats could give the entire government away as part of the deal.

So now what?

Well, the Republicans in Congress are now scrambling to undo the deal setting up the Supercommittee. The automatic cuts, mostly to the Pentagon, triggered by the failure are looming and it's an election year. Rather than admit that the failure was due to their intransigence, Republicans want a mulligan, one that the White House is unwilling to provide.

Several Republican lawmakers immediately jumped to the next step in the process, vowing to block the steep cuts in defense spending triggered by the failure.

"As every military and civilian defense official has stated, these cuts represent a threat to the national security interests of the United States and cannot be allowed to occur," said Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a joint statement.

Obama warned members of Congress that he won’t let them put off the automatic cuts without agreeing on a debt- and deficit-reduction plan.

"My message to them is simple," Obama said. "No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts.... There will be no easy off-ramps on this one." [Emphasis added]

That's a somewhat welcome display of spine, but it's rather late in the game and it keeps everything on the table, including cuts to social and domestic programs that benefit the 99%. A little more leadership and a little less posturing would have been more welcome, even in an election year.

I guess that means it's up to us. Copy and paste that time line mentioned above into an email or fax to your congress critter, or read it to them over the phone. Deluge those offices with your anger and disgust especially if the target is facing re-election. Drop by their local offices if you can for a friendly little chat and take all of your family and friends with you. Apply a little pressure the way the lobbyists have been doing all along. Occupy their time with your firm presence.

It's time.

Occupy Your Mind

Thanks to Hecate, whose blog you should visit regularly, I read a particularly elegant and relevant response to the horrific pepper spraying of UC Davis students by campus police. Written by Michael Chorost for Psychology Today, the essay not only analyzes the incident which has rocked the University of California system, it also establishes the credentials of the Occupy movement.

This event is powerfully symbolic. It is about contempt from those in power and the wanton use of force against the powerless.

We have seen similar things over and over again in the past few years. We have seen it in banks lobbying for public handouts and then denying relief to millions of exploited homeowners. We have seen it in tax breaks and bonuses for the rich while millions of Americans are out of work. We have seen it in church and university officers abusing children and then covering it up. We have seen it in the censorship of climate science performed in the public interest. We have seen it in the absurd declaration that corporations are "people" and entitled to spend billions of dollars to elect representatives that they will then own. We have seen it everywhere we turn.
...

If I had to sum up the attitude of America's governing classes in one word, I would say: contempt.

We are seeing the beginning of a worldwide movement to fight for dignity and intelligent, collective governance. It is remarkable, the parallels between what we see in Tunisia, in Cairo, in Rome, in Zucotti Park, in Oakland, California, and now at UC Davis. [Emphasis added]

Dr. Chorost even rebuts the demeaning critics of the Occupy movement who claim that they can't figure out just what the protesters want, that the movement lacks focus beyond sleeping out in public parks and college quads:

They want a fairer tax system. They want a sane energy policy that addresses climate change and searches for cleaner ways to power our civilization. They want a government that is not wholly owned by the rich. They want access to justice and education. They want a reasonable hope of getting and keeping a job that gives them a living wage and the ability to invest for the future.

They want a rational health care system that they can afford. They want government policy that is driven by thoughtful attention to rational research, not ideology. They want a transparent government that holds the powerful accountable. They want a government that understands the importance of investing now in human capital and infrastructure.

They want what 99% of the people want and what 1% of the people don't want us to have because it would cut into their wealth and power. These students and elders and workers are willing to march, and to sit in, and to use all of the non-violent tools at their disposal to accomplish those goals, knowing that the powers that be will using the traditional tools of violence to block them.

And in spite of, perhaps because of, those tools of violence the Occupy protesters are succeeding. They have changed the terms of the debate, they have challenged the press by providing their own coverage via cell phone cameras and the internet to the point that the traditional media is now providing more balanced and more complete coverage. Just as importantly, they have revealed the thuggery and mean-spiritedness of the powerful.

Dr. Chorost concludes his essay with a line that expresses some optimism:

I think we have just reached a turning point.

Good God, I hope so.