Politics of Fear – Page 40 – The Wrongologist

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 7, 2014

Still thinking about the string of police cases, their very similar nature and outcomes. It isn’t a secret that America has a broad, diverse population and a terrible past trying to deal with our diversity.

Our past isn’t going away. Our diverse population isn’t going away either. It’s who we are. We occasionally celebrate it, boasting that we are a melting pot. But, we might be more accurately described as a smorgasbord, not a one pot dinner. That means you can avoid the pickled herring if you don’t like it.

But it’s always rude to ridicule people who like pickled herring. And many of us have moved way beyond rude to outright hostile, and the whole buffet table could be pulled down right in front of our eyes.

The food fight is already in progress, except it has real casualties. We are many kinds of American, and this is our home. Can we find a way to keep it?

It is all about your perspective:

More perspective:

Other perspectives:

Media explains how to spin the unspinable:

Some kids’ Xmas lists are out of reach:

Friday Music Break – December 5, 2014

Thinking today about the fact that the New York grand jury did not indict NYPD’s Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the July 17 chokehold death of Eric Garner, who died gasping “I can’t breathe” while in the custody of police outside a Staten Island convenience store. Here, from the indispensable MuckRock, is a screen shot from NYPD’s use of force policy:

You can read the entire policy at MuckRock.

So today’s question is: Are we having the oft-promised national conversation? Is there a fundamental contempt for the law among the people empowered to enforce it? And have we gone beyond just needing a discussion? We already have policies which should have prevented what happened to Amadou Diallo from happening to Michael Brown or to Eric Garner.

Police officers kill too many black people, and then too often, face little or no accountability, particularly when there’s no video to show America what went down.

To help you meditate over the weekend, here is Randy Newman’s “Jolly Coppers on Parade”. His music is a counterpoint to the images. Call it irony, call it disrespect by demonstrators or by the police, call it whatever you need. Obviously not all cops are like the ones we’re seeing in this video, but we all know they are out there:

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke Wednesday onto the media about the matter, talking about his 16 year old biracial son Dante: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

This is profoundly personal to me…I was at the White House the other day, and the president of the United States turned to me, and he met Dante a few months ago, and he [the president] said, ‘I know you see this crisis through a very personal lens.’ And I said to him, I did.

De Blasio went on to note that he and his wife, Chirlane McCray, who is black, “have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face.” More from de Blasio:

Because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face. A good young man, law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him—as families have all over this city for decades—in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

This has been going on for centuries, folks. Throwing both hands up in the air signals either “Don’t shoot” or simply despair for changing the way things are.
It’s impossible to tell the difference anymore.

See you on Sunday.

Ferguson Points to Our Real Problem

This is not a column about Ferguson, except by extension. In August, after Ferguson, the images of cops climbing out of armored vehicles with military-grade weapons caused some in both Houses of Congress to push for change in the program. Lawmakers vowed changes to the 1033 Pentagon program that provides military-grade equipment to local police. The Obama administration called for a policy review of the 1033 program, but on Monday, they backed away from substantive changes to the program.

There was a White House meeting on Monday to address the issues raised by military-style policing and Ferguson. Yet, the evidence shows that the meeting has changed nothing. This was The Guardian’s Monday headline:

Obama resists demands to curtail police militarization calling instead for improved officer training

Mr. Obama did call for a $263m, three-year spending which, if approved by Congress, could lead to the purchase of 50,000 lapel-mounted cameras to record police officers on the job.

Sounds good, but there are 765,000 state & local law enforcement officers in America, so you better hope that you are stopped by one of the 6.3% of local police officers that will have a federally-funded camera three years from now. Oh, and hope that the digital file of your brush with the law hasn’t been accidentally erased.

The Institute for Public Accuracy made comments from Peter Kraska available. Kraska is considered a leading expert on police militarization. He said yesterday: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

From my meeting at the White House, frankly, they — like most political players — were interested in a quick fix. They want to hear that by somehow tweaking the 1033 program (which transfers equipment from the Pentagon to local law enforcement) that they can have an impact. That program is important symbolically, but there’s an entire for-profit police militarization industry that wouldn’t be affected.

We also have to review the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant program which provides far more to local police than does the DOD. DHS grants are lucrative enough that many defense contractors are now turning their attention to police agencies — and some new companies focus solely on selling military-grade weaponry to police agencies who get those grants.

That means we’re now building a new industry whose sole function is to militarize domestic police departments. Which means it won’t be long before we see pro-militarization lobbying and pressure groups with lots of (mostly taxpayer) money to spend to fight just the reforms the Obama administration and some in Congress say are necessary.

Say hello to the military/police/industrial complex.

And why have we entered a time of “shoot first” in our cities? It must be because our police feel that their lives are more in danger than ever. Sorry, that isn’t supported by the facts: The number of law enforcement officers killed as a result of criminal acts:

2004: 57
2009: 48
2012: 49
2013: 27

So, if there are 765k in local law enforcement that equates to a 2013 death rate from criminals of 3 per hundred thousand per year. Also, 2013 incidents are equal to the lowest level since 1887. Yet, nationwide, America’s police kill roughly one person a day:

The Economist, August 2014

And evidence exists that this number is dramatically understated. The FB page, Killed by Police says the number of deaths at the hands of police as reported to them since their launch in May 2013, is 1450. In 1994, Congress instructed the DOJ to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers” and “publish an annual summary”. They have yet to do that. There are over 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the country, yet fewer than 900 report their shootings to the FBI.

Radley Balko in The WaPo concludes that militarization of police and their use of military-style force to suppress protests are bad mistakes. He quotes the Salt Lake City chief of police, Chris Burbank:

I just don’t like the riot gear…Some say not using it exposes my officers to a little bit more risk. That could be, but risk is part of the job. I’m just convinced that when we don riot gear, it says ‘throw rocks and bottles at us.’ It invites confrontation. Two-way communication and cooperation are what’s important. If one side overreacts, then it all falls apart.

We have bulked up America’s police. With DOD’s assistance, they developed units trained and equipped in military-style tactics. They demonstrate a consistent picture of organizations evolving from community-based law enforcement to security services whose primarily focus is maintaining public order. They see protests by minority or politically dissident elements as inherently illegitimate and potentially violent. The police can pretty much do whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want. And it’s gonna be your fault.

Order, not justice is the new goal of our police, a significant shift in emphasis. As such, displays of overwhelming force are considered a logical way to prevent organized protests from happening. If demonstrations occur in spite of police presence, then massive use of force is a logical way to quell its impact and prevent its re-occurrence.

Many things demonstrate the evolution in America of police from “Protect and Serve” to a quasi-military force. This creates an emotional distance from the communities they patrol. We see this most clearly in their casual use of force, often disproportionate to the situation, and with a near-total lack of accountability.

That is an ugly symptom of our Republic’s weakness. The crushing of the Occupy Movement’s camps and the militarized response to the Ferguson protests are the natural outcome of our new policing.

When the country was founded, there were no organized police departments, and there wouldn’t be for about 50 years. Public order was maintained through private means, in worst cases by calling up the militia. The Founders were quite wary of standing armies and the threat they could pose to liberty, but they concluded (reluctantly) that the country needed an army for national defense.

They feared the idea of troops patrolling city streets — a justified fear colored by the antagonism between British troops and residents of Boston in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

The Founders couldn’t have envisioned police as they exist today. It is probably safe to say they’d be appalled at the idea of police, dressed and armed like soldiers, breaking into private homes in the middle of the night, as happens on drug busts on most nights in America. Using militarized police to roust demonstrators would likely be appalling to them as well.

Let’s close with Radley Balko:

We got here by way of a number of political decisions and policies passed over 40 years. There was never a single law or policy that militarized our police departments — so there was never really a public debate over whether this was a good or bad thing.

It’s time to have that debate.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 30, 2014

Thought for today: “We are what we repeatedly do.” Aristotle

And some things, we repeatedly do over and over. Take Ferguson, possibly becoming a new Selma. Or take our bad economy, or take Afghanistan.

This month, Americans got some news the media spun as good: The US unemployment rate fell to the lowest level since late 2007. The 5.8% unemployment rate has been seen as proof of economic recovery. But, the jobs created were mostly part-time work, often at low pay. Yes, these jobs provided employment, but did little to improve the overall economy.

As a result, an increasing number of Americans – 800,000 more than last year – have taken a second or third job, according to the BLS. This is Americans taking jobs they don’t really want, unable to pay their bills despite work, and relying on food banks and welfare to make up the difference.

And the problem is growing. In October, about 7 million Americans had part-time jobs but wanted to work full-time. Over 2.1 million Americans rely on two part-time jobs to see them through. Another 4 million have one full-time job and one part-time job, a number that increased by 444,000 since last year.

These workers earn minimum or near-minimum wage, bringing home less than $1,000 a month. In 2013, 468,000 retail workers earned minimum wage or lower. According to Pew Research Center, 1.4 million cashiers – the most common part-time job – earn less than $10.10 an hour. Part-time Walmart workers often bring home between $200 to $400 every two weeks. This is a weak contribution to our economy. These workers, despite being employed, end up relying on government assistance in the form of food stamps and housing subsidies. And when the food stamps run out, they turn to their communities and the local food banks. So, there were Black Friday demonstrations atWalmart stores all across America, and some cities had this response:

Part of your taxpayer dollars are paying Wal-Mart employees the money that the Walton’s refuse to pay them. This isn’t complicated. If you have a job at Wal-Mart and you still need Medicaid, food stamps and subsidized housing, then you aren’t just getting shafted by the Walton’s. You’re also being paid your missing wages by the federal government. Another piece of your tax dollars supported military-style protection at Walmart as a partial response to the Black Friday demonstrations.

As Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do. Americans aren’t deadbeats. The Walton’s are the deadbeats.

Black Friday means something radically different to the homeless:

New normal on Thanksgiving:

Life in the Billionaire’s bubble:

Who gets the benefit of the doubt?

No need to attack America:

Today, Limousine Liberals are Neoliberals

Commenting on Monday’s post, blog commenter Terry McKenna closed with:

…we abandoned the worker for the limousine liberal.

You can read Terry’s blog here. Let’s pick up on his thought. “Limousine liberal” is a reference to the wealthy (including celebrities) who try to persuade others to their political and societal points of view. Critics assert that their wealth and status means they are out of touch with the American middle and lower middle classes they purport to support. Interestingly, its first use was in 1969, when a Democrat referred to Republican Mayor John V. Lindsay in his reelection campaign.

While Terry’s point is true, the “liberals” we need to be afraid of are the neoliberals.

“Neoliberalism” is a set of economic ideas that have become widespread since Ronald Regan. The term used rarely used in the US, but you can clearly see the effects of neoliberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. Neoliberalism is not “liberalism” or “liberals”.

“Liberalism” can refer to political, economic, or religious ideas. In the US, political liberalism has largely been a strategy to diminish the impact of potential social conflict that could arise from racial inequality, economic insecurity and lack of political power. It is described to the poor and to working people as a set of progressive values, compared to conservative values.

“Neo” means we are talking about a new form of economic liberalism. The liberal school of economics was based on Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, written in 1776. Smith advocated the abolition of government intervention in economic matters. No restrictions on manufacturing, no barriers to commerce, no tariffs. He said free trade was the best way for a nation’s economy to develop. Such ideas were “liberal” in the sense of no controls. This liberalism encouraged “free” enterprise,” “free” competition — which meant, free for the capitalists to make profits however they wished, using whatever means necessary.

In the 1930’s John Maynard Keynes’s theory challenged economic liberalism as the best policy for growing nations. He said that full employment was necessary for growth, and it could be achieved if governments and central banks intervened when necessary to do what they could to increase employment.

Keynes’s theories had considerable influence on FDR’s New Deal −The belief that government should advance the common good became widely accepted. But, over the last 30 years, the global corporate elite has revived economic liberalism as neoliberalism. That’s why it is “neo” or new. With the rapid globalization of our economy, we see neoliberalism flourishing on a global scale.

The main ideas of neoliberalism include:

1. The Supremacy of the Market: Liberating private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA, or the coming Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Lower wages by de-unionizing workers. In all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. It’s St. Ronnie’s “supply-side” and “trickle-down” economics − but somehow the wealth never trickles down.
2. Cutting Non-Military Public Expenditures: Reducing the safety net for the poor, reducing expenditures on public education, social services and welfare. Disinvesting in infrastructure (roads, airports, ports, the Internet) in the name of reducing government’s role.
3. Deregulation: Reducing government’s role in regulation of anything that could diminish profits, including protecting the environment and job safety.
4. Privatization: Selling state-owned enterprises, the commons, and provision of some services to private investors. This could include prisons, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, and even fresh water. Although usually promoted in the name of greater efficiency, privatization has mainly had the effect of making the public pay more for its services, while concentrating more wealth in fewer hands.
5. Eliminating the Concept of “The Public Good”: The “public good” is usually an application of a collective ethical notion of “the greater good” in political decision-making. Eliminating it pressures the poorest people in a society to find their own solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security by themselves — then blaming them, if they fail, as “lazy.”

In the US, neoliberalism is working to:

• Weaken social service programs by reducing benefits
• Attack the rights of labor (including immigrant workers)
• Cut back taxes to “starve the beast” of government
• Weaken the political power of the poor and lower middle class

The Republican “Contract” with America in 1994 was pure neoliberalism. Its supporters were attempting to move their agenda by saying it would “get government off our backs.” It worked. From Reagan in the 1980’s through Obama today, the neoliberal agenda has been strengthened. Banks, Big Oil, and the top .01% call the shots.

Neoliberalism and its buddy riding shotgun, neo-conservatism, are designed to assist large, mostly American corporations to harvest the wealth of our nation and that of others, and hide it in tax havens. For the vast majority, neoliberalism has brought lesser financial security, more debt, more underemployment and a smaller voice in government.

So, its neoliberals, not liberals, in those limousines.

Monday Wake Up Call – November 17, 2014

Today’s Monday Wake Up is for the Democratic Party. Trevor LaFauci at The People’s View compared Democrats to a bad first date:

They’re like a bad first date: They know what they want to say, they know they have a lot going for them but when it comes time to talk about themselves they do it meekly and awkwardly, so much so that the other person just assumes this person doesn’t have a lot going for them.

What’s worse is the Democrats try hard not to suck at funds-raising. The Wrongologist’s in-box is crammed with pleas by Democrats for more money, even after the Tuesday That Shall Not Be Named disaster.

As Seth Godin says:

I Need You. Three magic words. They light up our brain, they grab our attention, and they initiate action. But they’re being corrupted by the ease of reach and the desire by some organizations to grow at all costs… Political fundraisers have turned this from an art to a science to an endless whine.

A loyal reader of the Wrongologist, David Price, replied to an email plea for more money from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, saying that more money wasn’t the answer for Democrats:

Running away from the progressive agenda may have seemed like smart politics, but it turned out to (1) make once attractive candidates look like phonies, (2) make our party seem apologetic for its accomplishments and ashamed of its ambitions, (3) demoralize those progressives who have traditionally identified the Democratic Party as the most effective vehicle for their hopes and (4) arguably have been bad politics after all, even in the shortest-run, most pragmatic, down-and-dirty sense.

What Have We Learned from 13 years of War?

“The Americans have all the clocks…but we have all the time” – Taliban Commander

On Veteran’s Day, the Wrongologist asked himself whether, after the last 13 years of war in the Middle East, conducted by four presidents, with the loss of many thousands of American lives, and the expenditure of trillions of dollars, what have we learned?

Maybe, not enough. So, here are three more credits in the Big Picture:

Syria became the 14th country in the Islamic world that US forces have invaded or occupied or bombed, and in which American soldiers have killed or been killed. And that’s just since 1980. Here’s the list:

Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-present), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-present), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-present), Pakistan (2004-present) and now, Syria.

We need to figure out what we have learned from all of this intervention in the Middle East. We need to total up what we have accomplished in the Middle East, and what a sustained war footing has cost us as a nation. Our veterans and the American people deserve an accounting.

On Tuesday, the NYT had an op-ed by Daniel Bolger, a retired General who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Bolger wants us to stop saying that the surge won the Iraq War:

The surge in Iraq did not “win” anything. It bought time. It allowed us to kill some more bad guys and feel better about ourselves. But in the end, shackled to a corrupt, sectarian government in Baghdad…the surge just forestalled today’s stalemate. Like a handful of aspirin gobbled by a fevered patient, the surge cooled the symptoms. But the underlying disease didn’t go away. The remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgents we battled for more than eight years simply re-emerged this year as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Please read Bolger’s book, “Why We Lost – A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars”. Its first paragraph:

I am a United Sates Army general, and I lost the Global War on Terrorism. It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous; step one is admitting you have a problem. Well, I have a problem. So do my peers. And thanks to our problem, now all of America has a problem, to wit: two lost campaigns and a war gone awry.

Americans have the problem, our politicians have the problem, and so do our generals. We think that we can: i) bring stability wherever it is needed, or ii) remake parts of the world in our image. Well, we can’t. And the world doesn’t want us to even try to do it. America has many fine attributes and things to be proud of, but there is a naïve and possibly purposefully ignorant side of the American psyche that gets us into trouble. It is the myth of American exceptionalism. It bleeds into our politics, our popular culture, and much of our military. You only need to look at Tuesday’s Concert for Valor to see how deeply we are infected by the Exceptionalism myth.

We need a debate. What are we doing in the Middle East? Andrew Bacevich, a professor and retired army colonel has said: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

You know, we live in a country where if you want to go bomb somebody, there’s remarkably little discussion about how much it might cost, even though the costs almost inevitably end up being orders of magnitude larger than anybody projected at the outcome. But when you have a discussion about whether or not we can assist people who are suffering, then suddenly we come very, you know, cost-conscious…

Has the Middle East become more or less stable? Has it become more democratic? Is there less anti-Americanism? The answer is “no” to all. So, it is time to recognize that US military intervention in the Middle East has failed us as a primary means of US policy.

Mr. Obama’s bet — the same bet made by each of his predecessors, going back to Carter — is that the application of US military power would solve the dilemma of the moment. All of them were wrong, and so is he. Without a real debate, when the 14th campaign runs its course, a 15th will be waiting.

One thing worthy of debate is whether we should return to a universal service based on a mandatory draft. Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery. That morphed into our all-volunteer armed forces. And thus, the ideal of the citizen/soldier was another casualty of the Vietnam War.

Non-professional soldiers would assure that we debate what we are doing militarily. It would engage the public in our foreign military strategy, unlike their current engagement with an all-professional military.

Will Congress ever agree to a commission to examine our grand strategy in the Middle East? Not without real civilian pressure. Who in their wildest imagination, after Vietnam, would have thought we would commit to a military strategy and a foreign policy that produced the debacle we now have in the Middle East?

Then again, how long will Sisyphus continue to roll that rock up War Mountain?

Monday Wake Up Call –November 10, 2014

OK, we just had our bi-annual vote to rearrange the deck chairs, and boy, people were angry. But what good will come of it is difficult to guess. This we do know: According to a CNN exit poll, 8 in 10 Americans disapprove of how Congress has been handling its job, while almost 6 in 10 are displeased with President Obama; 44% have a positive view of Democrats; 40% have a positive view of Republicans.

So, Americans elected the party they like the least to run the part of the government they trust the least.

There’s a lot of discussion of how and why Democrats did so badly, and much of it focuses on messaging. The litany of excuses is long: Democratic candidates were arrogant. The White House failed to transfer money, or stump effectively. The GOP caught up in the technology race, or the GOP recruited excellent, disciplined candidates.

Democrats ran on everything but?policy. Did the Democrats run the government well? Are the lives of voters better? Are Democrats as a political party credible when they say they’ll do something?

Their message was based on a group of poll-tested ideas that they thought would appeal to mainstream voters. But, the message, “vote for us, we’re not right-wing fanatics” didn’t cause the majority of us to turn out for the election. In fact, turn out was the lowest it had been in 40 years.

Liberal ballot propositions won in various parts of the country last Tuesday, from marijuana products (like https://www.cheapbudcanada.com/marijuana-products/vape-pens/fatboyz-disposable-thc-vape-pen/, for instance) to the minimum wage. Democrats didn’t. That should tell the Democratic Party something. Liberal policies can resonate with the public. It would be nice if there was a party which could embody and fight for those ideas.

So what would be a winning message? The economy. There’s infrastructure work to be done. The private sector could hire people to do it with government money. There are hungry people who need to be fed, and homeless people to be housed. And, ending our adventures in the Middle East would improve our lives.

“Vote for us, we bring peace, prosperity, and weed” – that slogan just might get you somewhere.

Keeping with the spirit of a new politics, here is your wake-up tune of the day. It is “Uprising” by Muse, released in 2009. So get upright and rock out:

Sample lyrics:
Rise up and take the power back
It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that their time’s coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend
(so come on)

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Here is your breakfast buffet of linkage:
Connecticut’s Democratic Governor was reelected, running as a progressive: It was close, but Dan Molloy won bigger this time against the same conservative opponent.

A case for treating health care and hospitals as utilities: Conservatives have won the battle to eliminate much of the government control in quasi-monopolistic markets like telecom and electric power. You be the judge about whether you are better off with de-regulation of those industries. Health care is a de facto monopoly, should it be treated as a utility?

Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website in the world, with 22.5 million contributors and 736 million edits in English. It’s as if the entire population of Australia (23.6 million) each contributed 30 times. 36 people run Wikipedia. Who are they?

Transparent solar panels could make solar power more competitive. CSEM, a Swiss technology company, have developed solar panels that you can see through and have no visible connections, which gives architects a lot of room to incorporate solar power into the walls of buildings without having to give up any aesthetic goals.

How often should you get dental x-rays? Dentists differ.

Many people believe that medical malpractice reform is the key to cutting cost from the health care system. But evidence shows that belief could be mistaken. However, if you have been affected by medical negligence, you’ll want to consider your options. Some people contact the hospital directly to complain about the medical professional who failed to take suitable care of them. A better alternative to this idea is actually to contact a personal injury lincoln ne service, or a lawyer more local to you. Seeking legal assistance can help you to strengthen your claim against the staff member in question.

The US currently has 30 declared presidential states of emergency. The University of Michigan explains why this is a bad idea. The National Emergencies Act requires the Congress to vote every six months on whether a declared national emergency should continue, Congress has done this only once in the nearly 40-year history of the Act.

Protect us from the media: CNBC’s “Squawk Box” anchor (Joe Kernan) shows complete ignorance of Ireland while talking to Martin Shanahan, head of the Irish Industrial Development Authority. Then he insists he is correct:
CNBC: You have pounds anyway don’t you still?
Shanahan: We have Euros.
CNBC: You have Euros in Ireland?
Shanahan: Yes. We have euros, which is eh…
CNBC: Why do you have euros in Ireland?
Shanahan: A strong recovery….
CNBC: Why do you use euros in Ireland?
Shanahan: Why wouldn’t we have euros in Ireland?
CNBC: Huh. I’d use the pound.
Shanahan: We use euro.
CNBC: What about Scotland? I was using Scottish eh…
Shanahan: They use Sterling.
CNBC: They use Sterling?
Shanahan: They use Sterling. But we use euro.
CNBC: What? Why would you do that?

And some of you use CNBC for investment advice!

Here is your thought for the week. It is from George Orwell:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to the long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemisms, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable…

What Should We Do with Extra Firefighters?

A little known fact is that over the past 40 years, the number of fires in the US have dropped dramatically. Consider this chart from Vox, based on data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA):

The number of fires responded to by municipal fire departments in 2013, about 1.2 million, is roughly a third of the 3.3 million responses in 1977. Note that these numbers don’t include wildfires, which aren’t dealt with by local fire departments and as Vox reports, keep getting worse.

And since the US population has increased by 44% during that same period, this is a pretty remarkable trend. It seems that most of the improvement can be attributed to things we would expect: stricter fire codes, fireproof building materials, cars that catch on fire less often, and installation of protective devices like smoke alarms.

Yet, during the same period, the number of firefighters has increased:

Paid firefighters have increased by roughly 48%, from about 230k in 1986 to about 340k in 2012, in line with the population growth. The number of volunteer firefighters has remained the same. We now have more firefighters fighting fewer fires. So, what are all these firefighters doing?

Firefighters now respond to many more medical calls per year than actual fires. In fact, the chart below shows that fires and false alarms held steady or declined, while medical calls grew from 5 million to about 22 million by 2012. There is also a slightly better chance that the fire engine is responding to a false alarm than to a fire:

The decline in fires has put firefighters in a curious position. What should they be doing to justify their (in most cases) growing budgets? Vox quotes Libertarian economist Alex Tabarrock of George Mason University:

Firefighters face what I’ve called the ‘March of Dimes’ problem. After polio was cured, the March of Dimes looked around and said ‘what do we do now?’ Firefighters have been facing the same problem.

Now, there is little in city life that is more reassuring than walking past the neighborhood fire house. It reminds us that there are people in our employ who are ready to strap on equipment and head into danger to help out one of our neighbors. But it wasn’t always that way:

The Wrongologist may be one of the last persons who remembers when homeowners paid a fee to a for-profit fire department to protect your property. That was in Brooklyn, NY in the early 1950’s. The fire company placed a medallion on the homes of their “clients”, and didn’t protect any homes without medallions. There was no public FD service in that neighborhood until the late 1950’s.

The Boston Globe reports that the Boston FD accounts for 7.5% of the city’s total budget, while NYC spends $1.72 billion on its FD. It is difficult to tell people that fewer firefighters will keep them just as safe, and the political fall-out for any mayor who tries to dramatically reduce firefighter head count would almost certainly be gruesome. Talk about poking the bear.

But what is the highest and best use for idle firefighters? Could cities work to slowly transfer firefighters to EMT, Park Rangers, Inspection Services or other city jobs? What about the pay differences? There are always efficiencies to be gained in public jobs. It seems sensible to start reducing staffing levels and adjust the number of fire stations, given the occurrence of fires.

Efficiencies might be found by using better processes, such as integrating the dispatch services operated by EMT and Fire, or by using different tools. For example, if cities want to use firefighters as extra paramedics, maybe sending smaller trucks or motorcycles equipped with oxygen for cardiac situations, might be workable. The motorcycle would likely get on site sooner, and the crackerbox EMT truck could follow behind for transportation of a patient to hospital. There would always be some extra portly people who can’t be carried down 5 flights of stairs by 2-3 people, so they would have to wait for reinforcements. But there should be no need to dispatch a fire truck just to be sure more lifting power is available if needed.

Natalie Simpson, a SUNY Buffalo professor who studies the history of emergency response, says that because of the nature of the demands we put on fire departments, we can’t really shrink their ranks, and there are problems with putting them in different vehicles too:

If you say, ‘there’s very few fires, so we don’t need as many firefighters or fire engines,’ a fire is still eventually going to break out…And without the same response resources, you’re going to have the same number of very few fires, but some of them are going to become catastrophic.

Her view is that we need to have a surge capability to respond in any given area to make sure that the few fires that do occur can be put out quickly. We can model those issues as we ALWAYS do in the private sector, to determine optimal staffing and equipment for the required level of response.

No one should be saying that firefighters aren’t heroes, or that they didn’t show amazing teamwork and bravery when on the scene of a fire. But all that bravery should not by itself, justify inefficient numbers. Every dollar we can save is a dollar that can be better used elsewhere.

Vote Today, if Only for Yourself

Today is Election Day, and it seems even the Main Stream Media circus has limited interest.

And if you look to the left, we finally have a proven case of voter fraud. Its certain that this little Havanese didn’t vote using its own ID.

Whatever the results, progressive ideas and politics will continue to decline because today’s Democrats have moved to the right from where they were 40 years ago.

Based on the content of the 2014 mid-terms, Democrats are seeking to “conserve” society as a 20th century education, an 18th century government, a neoliberal economic ideology, and contradictory policies in foreign affairs.

There is no energy in the mid-terms behind real reform, even well-protected Senators and Congresspersons are only willing to preserve watered-down versions of marriage rights for all, Social Security/Medicare, some semblance of a non-military expense category in the federal budget. And no one is for healthcare for all or addressing climate change. The Republicans mainly want to preserve wealth, protect large business and continue to go through the motions of appeasing their social conservative base and the gun lobby.

The tactics of both parties more or less “work”, if by that we mean to build long, lucrative political careers. There is no sense that any policy means much to America’s politicians who mostly speak in platitudes and rarely say what they mean.

They’ve fooled us for decades and “the people” seemingly never tire of the BS. The Republicans have a closing argument that the Rude Pundit paraphrases thusly:

The Republican National Committee is up with an ad that throws every scary thing in the world at you. “ISIS gaining ground. Terrorists committing mass murder. Ebola inside the US, Americans alarmed about national security,” says the ominous voice ominously. “What’s President Obama doing? Making plans to bring terrorists from Guantanamo to our country. Ignoring the Constitution, the Congress, and the American people. November 4th, Obama’s policies are on the ballot. Vote to keep terrorists off U.S. soil. Vote Republican.

The Democrats have no closing argument. The great tragedy of the Democrats is that they still believe politics is about competing sermons.

That is a nice fantasy, but that isn’t how politics works today. Any attempt by Democrats to engage in a policy struggle with Republicans that fails to understand how powerful people on the right use a multitude of sophisticated techniques that would make Machiavelli faint, is doomed to failure, and the proof of this is right in front of us today.

We live in the mess these people are making. We have to vote, organize, and persuade others to vote if we are to make safe, secure lives for ourselves and for our families.

Here is Tuesday linkage:

Election officials in 27 states have launched a program that threatens a huge purge of voters from the rolls. The Interstate Crosscheck program has generated a list of 7 million names that state officials say represent people who are not only registered, but have actually voted in two or more states in the same election. You be the judge.

On the campaign trail, an Ohio Republican Supreme Court Judge says: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Whatever the governor does, whatever your state representative, your state senator does, whatever they do, we are the ones that will decide whether it is constitutional; we decide whether it’s lawful. We decide what it means, and we decide how to implement it in a given case. So, forget all those other votes if you don’t keep the Ohio Supreme Court conservative.

The Small Business Majority, an organization of 30,000 small business owners, released the results of a September 2014 Internet survey of 900 small business owners that showed that 78% of their group believe we should change our current election system to one that allows for multiparty representation, a system that could lead to election of parties other than the Republicans and Democrats.

More lucky duckies living with their moms for free: A Pew Research analysis shows that the number of Americans living in multi-generational households has doubled since 1980. The figure spiked during the 2007-2009 recession and has moved even higher since then.

Signs of the times department: Washington’s Hirshhorn Museum has disbanded its docent program and replaced the largely retired staff with interns.

A follow-up to last week’s link about F-35, is this disturbing article that says the F-35 is a second-rate warplane. Consider the source, but the article quotes some recognized warplane experts.

Inequality Watch: Oxfam reports that the number of billionaires has doubled since the financial crisis. In fact, they say that the top 85 most wealthy saw their collective wealth increase by $668 million every day last year. That’s almost half a million dollars every minute.

Bradblog reports that the problems with Diebold voting machines have not gone away, at least not in Maryland, Texas, Illinois, and Tennessee.

The WaPo reports that US-backed Syria rebels have been routed by fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Half measures don’t work. Either we decide to go all-in with Assad, or let’s go home. His is the only force in the area capable of crushing ISIS. At the same time, we should remove the PKK and any other Kurdish forces from the terror list and supply them with the best weaponry. That is, if we really want to win.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Politics of Fear