For the second time in the last 25 years, we middle class and poor citizens have felt the pain of failed Republican economic policy and philosophy.
Let's look at the facts. We cannot afford to allow this to happen again.
Wielding the scare tactics of "tax increases" and social issues to assert the philosophy that unregulated markets not only feed individual greed but somehow benefit everyone, the Republican Party has forsaken the economic conservatism that was historically a hallmark of this party and become adept at getting voters to vote against our own pocketbooks.
"Reaganomics"--or "voodoo economics," as they became known when the economy crashed in 1987--convinced the American public that our economy could sustain tax cuts for corporations, Big Oil (Reagan removed Jimmy Carter's solar panels from the White House in 1980) and the wealthy while increasing military spending and not investing in the domestic infrastructure that makes us strong and competitive: education, health care, alternative energy, science and technology research, etc. These policies first failed in 1987, with the largest single-day losses in the history of the U.S. economy and untold job losses.
During the 1990s, Bill Clinton struggled to build bipartisan consensus and was able to restore widening prosperity and innovation to the American economy through the creation of a fair and balanced tax program; cuts in wasteful spending; and investments in domestic infrastructure. Our nation entered the 21st century with a budget surplus and at an innovative peak.
How did we allow the last eight years to happen? September 11 scared us, and we have allowed the Republican Party to leverage this fear for the advancement of a politics and philosophy which benefit the few at the expense of the many. Never has this been more apparent than in today's economic crises. How could anyone, even a registered Republican, vote for the Republican Party this year, in the face of such widespread evidence of the failure of these economic policies and philosophies?
"The economy" and "the market" do not have lives independent from policy--although Republicans attempt to have us believe this is so. It is time to hold those responsible for the current mess accountable for their actions: series of policies and decisions which hurt and damage the American middle class.
This election offers us as middle class and poor voters a clear choice between a candidate who will offer meaningful change and a candidate who will offer more of the same. Barack Obama has clearly proposed the types of economic policies which will rebuild our nation, while John McCain has offered nothing. For the sake of each of us and for us as a nation in a global economy, let's pay attention to the facts and make the right choice this time.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Second Line Parade: A Culture of Philanthropy
This Sunday, as part of our 8th annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival with its special, expanded focus on New Orleans, we are hosting a traditional "second line" parade through downtown Stonington, along our working waterfront.
New Orleans' "second lines"--the dancers and celebrants who followed the mourners and brass bands in traditional New Orleans' funeral parades--are themselves the creatures of an important and unique part of New Orleans' culture: the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs.
These neighborhood clubs are one of the engines that, pre-Katrina, gave New Orleans a uniquely African and community-based culture. As new development and regulations threaten their second line parades and other traditions, these organizations--and the unique jazz culture they support--are under siege.
The African tribal customs that landed in New Orleans as both a slave port and an important place where slaves could win their freedom (in what is today Congo Square) rested on the belief that a productive tribal member was a valued part of the tribe. In times of need or death, that member's family was taken care of. Because everything that tribal member did was for the care and benefit, not just of an individual family, but of the entire tribe. If a member killed an antelope, he or she would divide up the carcass so each tribal member could share. Members shared in the building of huts, or the digging of shallow rock shelters, rituals, and the defense of the tribe and more.
In New Orleans in the late 18th century, these social customs evolved among freed slaves into the first of the social aid and pleasure clubs, created to provide burial, funeral, and even crafts training services for the African-American community. The clubs are based on the principle originally taught in Africa: of coming together, especially in times of need, for the collective good.
Here in coastal New England, we have churches and secular organizations--the Rebekahs, the Odd Fellows, the Masons, etc.--who take on many of the same functions. When someone is lost in a fishing accident, or injured in a car accident, we host bean suppers and post collection jars at the cash registers of local businesses.
New Orleans' social aid and pleasure clubs, and the musicians of the brass bands at the heart of their second line parades, are now at the forefront of trying to sustain traditional New Orleans' culture post-Katrina. In many ways for coastal Mainers, too, it is time to dig deep into our cultural traditions for the strength needed to collectively sustain communities whose unique legacies are under seige by money and development.
On this Sunday, July 27, at noon we'll have a chance to join forces--the Lobster Crackers' Social Aid & Pleasure Club, lead by New Orleans' Own Hot 8 Brass Band--and parade down Main Street and out onto the commerical fish pier, experiencing the rich tradition, power and celebration of a second line parade.
New Orleans' "second lines"--the dancers and celebrants who followed the mourners and brass bands in traditional New Orleans' funeral parades--are themselves the creatures of an important and unique part of New Orleans' culture: the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs.
These neighborhood clubs are one of the engines that, pre-Katrina, gave New Orleans a uniquely African and community-based culture. As new development and regulations threaten their second line parades and other traditions, these organizations--and the unique jazz culture they support--are under siege.
The African tribal customs that landed in New Orleans as both a slave port and an important place where slaves could win their freedom (in what is today Congo Square) rested on the belief that a productive tribal member was a valued part of the tribe. In times of need or death, that member's family was taken care of. Because everything that tribal member did was for the care and benefit, not just of an individual family, but of the entire tribe. If a member killed an antelope, he or she would divide up the carcass so each tribal member could share. Members shared in the building of huts, or the digging of shallow rock shelters, rituals, and the defense of the tribe and more.
In New Orleans in the late 18th century, these social customs evolved among freed slaves into the first of the social aid and pleasure clubs, created to provide burial, funeral, and even crafts training services for the African-American community. The clubs are based on the principle originally taught in Africa: of coming together, especially in times of need, for the collective good.
Here in coastal New England, we have churches and secular organizations--the Rebekahs, the Odd Fellows, the Masons, etc.--who take on many of the same functions. When someone is lost in a fishing accident, or injured in a car accident, we host bean suppers and post collection jars at the cash registers of local businesses.
New Orleans' social aid and pleasure clubs, and the musicians of the brass bands at the heart of their second line parades, are now at the forefront of trying to sustain traditional New Orleans' culture post-Katrina. In many ways for coastal Mainers, too, it is time to dig deep into our cultural traditions for the strength needed to collectively sustain communities whose unique legacies are under seige by money and development.
On this Sunday, July 27, at noon we'll have a chance to join forces--the Lobster Crackers' Social Aid & Pleasure Club, lead by New Orleans' Own Hot 8 Brass Band--and parade down Main Street and out onto the commerical fish pier, experiencing the rich tradition, power and celebration of a second line parade.
Art, Entertainment, and Outrage
All during this bright and shiny summer of recession and war, careening toward presidential conventions, I've been wondering: where is the outrage?Then I saw the new Pixar/Disney, G rated animated film WALL-E.
And there was the outrage, packaged into a little trash compacting robot on a planet ruined by overconsuming humans and displayed for the eyes of the world, and especially children, to see.
Well done, Andrew Stanton (WALL-E's animator)--even if on national radio you did for some reason believe you had to maintain a division between art and politics, and deny any deeper motivations for your story crafting.
It's about time our kids--and us along with them--understand it is perfectly OK, indeed the RIGHT THING, to feel uncomfortable with the world around us: to be disturbed and, yes, outraged. After all, we've got a president and government that have driven our economy into ruin via policies that support and promote overconsumption--whether of oil or of bonus checks. These decisions are so defiant in their blatant self-servingness that I'm still not sure why we aren't all marching on Washington, D.C., and burning something every day.
I guess it is because, well, we are all too comfortable. And our entertainment system is geared, for the most part, to keep us that way. So that when we have a choice, in a community theater company, to choose between producing "Carousel," with its dark story of male-female relations, and something that simply makes us happy--we'll choose the latter. I can't tell you the number of times people have tried to dissaude us from producing a piece of theater or booking a film because, "It just isn't HAPPY." Yep. Right.
But not WALL-E. We had one smart and sensitive seven year old in the audience dissolve into tears and run from the theater the night we opened it. The vision it paints of our future is indeed grim, and that's a picture we don't want to look at. Because to really sit with the discomfort this movie--which, as 20th century Holocaust philosopher Hannah Arendt perceptively wrote mid-century, is more culture than entertainment--creates means we need to get off our theater seats and really make some change.
And real change is possibly even more difficult, more time consuming, to create than, well, real culture.
Leaving us all very uncomfortable indeed.
Monday, May 12, 2008
People Conservation
We’re all familiar with conservation: more people are trying to conserve energy and other natural resources; we work to conserve our fisheries and other wild species; we conserve land and the environment. Yet rarely do we apply the idea of conservation to people; and it’s critical to our island community that we do.
The appearance of Martha’s Vineyard-based small business entrepreneur and author John Abrams in our community this coming weekend (see schedule below) gives us a chance to really think about what people conservation means.
As John writes in his book, The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place, “A community consists of a place and those who have a relationship with that place: the land and the people.” The beauty and desirability of our island, like the Vineyard, is responsible for several crises that are causing significant loss to and out-migration of the people who are the backbone of what makes this community work. These crises include: unnaturally inflated property valuations, supported by second-home owner incomes not attainable in coastal Maine, and the inevitable results of inflated valuations: an increased property tax burden on year round property owners; a decrease in state subsidy to our public schools; and a corresponding lack of affordable housing.
These economic shifts, left to their own devices without appropriate community/governmental action over many years, in turn accelerate the transition of work and career opportunities from year round, independently owned small businesses to seasonal, service sector work.
People conservation—community-based actions to ensure that the people who belong on and love this island are able to afford to stay here—is critically needed on Deer Isle. Without year round residents with the education, good jobs, and desire to maintain the independent spirit of Deer Isle—it’s just another pretty place.
What these actions are need to be decided together, as a community. The creation of affordable housing; more diverse year-round jobs; and educational and creative lifestyle opportunities that maintain and attract young residents are all necessary. How are we and can we actively promote such initiatives, and others?
Want to be a part of the answers to this question? The Stonington Economic Development Committee, sponsors of John’s appearance on the island this weekend, invites you and hopes you will attend the community action planning session with John and others Saturday, May 17, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the second floor of the Stonington Town Hall. Let’s start talking, and acting on, people conservation.
John Abrams will appear Friday, May 16 at 7 p.m., in a free speech at the Reach Performing Arts Center; and Saturday, May 17 from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., in a community action planning session at Stonington Town Hall. His book is available at both the Stonington and Deer Isle public libraries, and will be for sale during his appearances.
The appearance of Martha’s Vineyard-based small business entrepreneur and author John Abrams in our community this coming weekend (see schedule below) gives us a chance to really think about what people conservation means.
As John writes in his book, The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place, “A community consists of a place and those who have a relationship with that place: the land and the people.” The beauty and desirability of our island, like the Vineyard, is responsible for several crises that are causing significant loss to and out-migration of the people who are the backbone of what makes this community work. These crises include: unnaturally inflated property valuations, supported by second-home owner incomes not attainable in coastal Maine, and the inevitable results of inflated valuations: an increased property tax burden on year round property owners; a decrease in state subsidy to our public schools; and a corresponding lack of affordable housing.
These economic shifts, left to their own devices without appropriate community/governmental action over many years, in turn accelerate the transition of work and career opportunities from year round, independently owned small businesses to seasonal, service sector work.
People conservation—community-based actions to ensure that the people who belong on and love this island are able to afford to stay here—is critically needed on Deer Isle. Without year round residents with the education, good jobs, and desire to maintain the independent spirit of Deer Isle—it’s just another pretty place.
What these actions are need to be decided together, as a community. The creation of affordable housing; more diverse year-round jobs; and educational and creative lifestyle opportunities that maintain and attract young residents are all necessary. How are we and can we actively promote such initiatives, and others?
Want to be a part of the answers to this question? The Stonington Economic Development Committee, sponsors of John’s appearance on the island this weekend, invites you and hopes you will attend the community action planning session with John and others Saturday, May 17, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the second floor of the Stonington Town Hall. Let’s start talking, and acting on, people conservation.
John Abrams will appear Friday, May 16 at 7 p.m., in a free speech at the Reach Performing Arts Center; and Saturday, May 17 from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., in a community action planning session at Stonington Town Hall. His book is available at both the Stonington and Deer Isle public libraries, and will be for sale during his appearances.
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