Urban Agenda -- 21st Century Political Renewal

The City at Stake: Secession, Reform, and the Battle for Los Angeles

2007-08-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Urban@h-net.msu.edu (August 2007)

Raphael Sonenshein. The City at Stake: Secession, Reform, and the Battle for Los Angeles. Updated edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press,2006. xxi + 306 pp. Maps, tables, notes, bibliography, afterword, index. $57.50 (cloth), ISBN 0-691-11590-7; $23.95 (paper), ISBN 0-691-12603-8.

Reviewed for H-Urban by Laura Barraclough, Department of Liberal Studies, Antioch University

Los Angeles: The Next Chapter in Sonenshein's Tour de Force of Los Angeles Politics

Historically, in cities dominated by machine politics like Boston and New York, urban elites used reform to effectively disenfranchise immigrant and minority voters. Yet in this comprehensive, compelling, and meticulously researched study, Sonenshein argues that reform does not inherently belong to either conservatives or liberals, but "rather is a contested value of great importance" (p. 262). His primary goal in this masterful study of charter reform in Los Angeles is to recover a concern with institutional structure among political scientists and to re-conceptualize reform as a potentially powerful tool for progressive politics.

The author suggests that understandings of reform as an elitist tool are rooted in regional bias and limited scholarly attention to urban politics in the U.S. West and Southwest. In cities like Los Angeles, characterized by nonpartisan elections, low levels of political organization, and the dispersal of government authority, reform has been far more influential "not just as the province of the 'good government' crowd, but as the game itself"(p. 15). Under such conditions, the battle is not between reformers and party machines, but between competing visions of reform, such as the quest for business-like efficiency versus the struggle for minority representation. Western and southwestern cities thus provide excellent places in which to analyze how civic visions and coalitions are built and sustained in spite--or perhaps because of--these conditions.

The text is composed of nineteen short chapters, organized into six sections that trace the origins, process, and results of charter reform. Chapter 3 merits particular attention as one of the few chapters that could stand alone, perhaps for use in an undergraduate course. It shows how years ofcharter amendments created a confusing, contradictory institutional structure and built general consensus on the need for systematic and comprehensive reform--specifically, an enhanced role for the mayor, greater control of elected officials over departments and commissions, and increased democratic participation for ordinary citizens.

The convergence of two forces--the election of Mayor Richard Riordan and the threat of San Fernando Valley secession--made charter reform viable for the first time in decades. In 1997, the Los Angeles City Council agreed to appoint a commission to draft a new city charter, but insisted that the council have right of review before the charter went before the voters. Incensed, Mayor Riordan financed a proposition to create an elected commission that could take its charter straight to the voters, which voters passed that same year. For two years, the commissions worked separately towards the same goal, and each was subject to powerful influences--the appointed commission to the city council, and the elected commission to the mayor and to organized labor. According to Sonenshein: "From the start, the two commissions were like competing siblings. Both had a mission that would have made more sense with only one commission, and each operated with an eye on the other" (pp. 105-106).

The author demonstrates that the leadership exhibited by the chairs of the two commissions was a major factor contributing to the ultimate success ofcharter reform. From the beginning, both chairs believed there had to be a single charter, and eventually decided to work together with the support of a joint conference committee to identify and make recommendations on all disagreements between the two commissions. Once united, the two commissions occupied the high ground of the charter reform debate, and the mayor and the city council were faced with the decision to either support the unified charter or appear opposed to popular reforms.

Voters approved the unified charter in June 1999 by a margin of 60 percent. The new charter expanded mayoral authority significantly, created a system of advisory neighborhood councils, and instituted area planning commissions. Two reforms that had once been on the table--a larger city council and administrative decentralization, such as a borough system--did not succeed. The new charter dissolved support for San Fernando Valley secession, which voters resoundingly rejected in 2002, and facilitated the resolution of the scandal involving the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department and the statewide recall of Governor Gray Davis in 2003.

The study raises a number of important questions for the study of coalition-building in diverse cities. Few are better equipped to venturea nswers to these questions than Sonenshein, whose earlier study of Mayor Tom Bradley's coalition of African American and white Jewish voters is canonical in the scholarly field of Los Angeles and urban politics. [1] Sonenshein shows that charter reform ultimately succeeded in Los Angeles despite the city's diversity, fragmentation, and low social capital. To explain this outcome, he develops a model of interracial coalitions that takes into account the importance of interests, ideology, and leadership.

Sonenshein posits that "reform constituencies" support reform coalitions because of their beliefs about government and civic life, and that this ideology, rather than narrowly defined self-interest, is crucial to institutional change. He argues that "[i]n reducing all political action to self-interest we risk missing something important about civic capacity and civic participation. To many ordinary people who are not political actors except as voters and observers, what is right and wrong in government is quite important" (p. 264). Jewish voters on the west side of Los Angeles overwhelmingly supported the new charter, even though they generally felt well served by city government. He suggests that Latino immigrants may similarly provide the ideological as well as practical impetus for reform, which was partly confirmed by the 2005 election of Antonio Villaraigosa, the city's first Latino mayor in over 150 years, which Sonenshein considers in the afterword of the 2006 edition.

The City at Stake is full of useful charts, tables, and maps, as well as an exceptional appendix that summarizes the new charter's provisions. Sonenshein's bibliography is likewise a valuable reference. The book is appropriate for graduate-level courses in urban politics or public policy and would be of interest to a popular audience with specialized interests in urban and public affairs. Because of its exhaustive and sometimes overwhelming level of detail, the book would not be a good choice for most undergraduates or non-specialists. The book's discussion of the San Fernando Valley secession movement, though adequate, is presented here primarily as an impetus for charter reform; researchers interested in an in-depth study may be disappointed. Similarly, though Sonenshein raises interesting questions about civic participation among Latino immigrants, he ventures only superficial answers that are best supplemented by other recent studies.[2]

By far the most interesting and unique aspect of this book derives from Sonenshein's role as executive director of the appointed charter commission. He had access to the key players in Los Angeles politics, whose interviews form the backbone to this book. The study is peppered with Sonenshein's candid interpretations of the people and events that influenced the outcomes of charter reform, secession, and municipal elections. The following excerpt is typical: "I have often thought since then that finding the high ground was the key to making charter reform succeed, but I had never really felt the high ground until that nineteen to zero vote. We had done the right thing, and in so doing had restored the faith of the people in the room, and also outside it, that Los Angeles government could be reformed" (p. 166). Sonenshein's observations enable the reader to enter the often inaccessible world of city politics through a privileged and trusted insider's eye.

Written in an accessible, engaging style, the study feels more like a memoir or political autobiography than a scholarly monograph. Together with his earlier study, The City at Stake is the definitive study of urban politics in LosAngeles.

Notes[1]. Raphael Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

[2]. Robert Gottlieb, Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, and Peter Dreier, The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City (Berkeley, Calif.:University of California Press, 2005).

DCGuide to Accessing Elected and Appointed Officials

2007-06-07T05:59:00.001-07:00

From Susie Cambria of DC Action for Children via e-mail:

DC Action for Children recently updated its “Guide to Accessing Elected and Appointed Officials” and it is available on-line. This is a great tool – it has all the information about elected officials and executive branch agencies all in one place. If you would like a hard copy, call 234-9404 or e-mail dcaction@dckids. org with your name and address.

Capacity building training in Maryland

2007-06-07T04:18:00.001-07:00

From an e-list:

Democracy for Maryland, a statewide progressive political non-profit, is sponsoring a training workshop and social mixer on Saturday, June 16th. For those inerested in gaining a voice in local and state political affairs, give some serious thought to attending, as the speakers, program and networking opportunities are excellent.

Event: Progressive Training Workshop and Networking Mixer
Date/Time: Saturday, June 16, 2:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: Rockville Crowne Plaza Hotel

Purpose: Hands-on training for those interested in working on legislative initiatives in the MD General Assembly, or other projects that involve message framing and development, citizen lobbying and volunteer organizing. Produced by: Democracy for Maryland

Agenda:

Module 1: Cindy Boersma, Legislative Director, MD-ACLU, Interactive session focused on strategies and techniques for successful citizen lobbying in Annapolis.

Module 2: State Senator Jamie Raskin, Citizen-lobbying from a legislator's perspective.
In addition, Sen. Raskin, also a professor of Constitutional Law, will discuss specific initiatives to expand meaningful citizen participation in our democratic institutions.

Module 3: Dr. Jeffrey Feldman, Author. Discussion on the use of 'framing' in message development.
Dr. Feldman will also conduct a book-signing for his latest work, Framing the Debate: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (And Win Elections).

Networking Mixer: 5:00 - 6:00 pm
Enjoy selected beers and wine from our hosted bar while you 'talk shop' with fellow activists and speakers. To obtain tickets for this event in advance, go to the event website. Seating is limited and expected to sell out.
------------------
This is the kind of stuff progressives need to be doing in DC. I think people have the bar thing down, but not the efforts for focused capacity building advocacy and building a progressive urban political agenda within the city.

Proportional voting suggestions in a column by Neal Peirce

2007-01-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

Peirce suggests:

1. Proportional voting for representatives.
2. "Three seat" legislative districts.
3. Direct election of the president (dumping the Electoral College).
4. A single six-year term for the President.

FORD’S BIPARTISANSHIP: HOW TO KEEP IT ALIVE?
By Neal Peirce
Washington Post Writers Syndicate

Can we make it last -- the wave of good feeling, bipartisanship, shared patriotism -- that infused President Ford’s funeral?

For a while, perhaps. One may hope that the ascendant Capitol Hill Democrats will grant the vanquished Republicans some of the minority party rights that dimmed in recent years. Partisans of every stripe may remember, at least for a while, Gerald Ford’s good-humored steadiness, his pragmatic and moderate voice.

But is there any way to diminish the forces that so easily demean our public dialogue -- bitter special interest politics, the corrupting influence of campaign cash, the demonizing of opponents, the lure of attack ads?

Across grassroots America, there are some hints of hope. In Minneapolis, Minn., and Oakland, Calif., in Davis, Calif., and Pierce County, Wash., voters last November approved “instant runoff” or “proportional representation” election measures.

Under instant runoff, voters make their first, second and third choice among candidates for an office. As opposed to “winner take all,” where the leading candidate, even with less than a majority, gets elected, instant runoff allows immediate recounts of voters’ second (or third) choices until there’s a majority count. Because voters’ backup choices are potentially important, narrowly partisan campaigns become bad politics.

Closely allied is the system of proportional voting where several officials get selected from a field in a single district or city. Steven Hill of “FairVote” and others are now recommending three-seat legislative districts both for legislatures and congressional seats.
------
Maryland does this now. I'm not sure if the way that politics works there is any different.
------
Illinois used the proportional system to pull a heavily divided state together after the Civil War and until 1980. Voters could cast all their three votes for one candidate, or distribute them as they chose. Result: any candidate who got over 25 percent was likely to win. Republican areas usually had a few Democratic legislators, and vice-versa, making legislative partisanship less acute, bipartisan coalitions commonplace.

In the spirit of Gerald Ford, couldn’t we experiment much more broadly with such alternative systems -- American democracy updated to represent our many voices, races, economic groups, in a 21st century world? The opportunities should be rich, the time ripe, for our 50 state legislatures and local governments to experiment freely and broadly in this field.

Ford, it’s worth noting, was a vigorous, life-long supporter of electoral reform. As minority leader of the U.S. House, he voted for the historic Voting Rights Act in 1965. After the ill-starred 2000 election, he joined with former President Jimmy Carter to co-chair a national commission on electoral reform, laying the groundwork for the 2002 Help America Vote Act. Ford and Carter also recommended making Election Day a national holiday and restoring full voting rights to ex-felons.

For decades, Ford supported abolishing the electoral college and giving the people the right to vote directly for president. Both the American Bar Association and Gallup Polls, he noted on the House floor in 1969, supported a direct vote. “If we do not” adopt a direct vote amendment, said Ford, “it is my honest opinion that the people will be let down.”

As indeed the people were let down in 2000, when the archaic electoral college vote system awarded the presidency to the presidential candidate who trailed his opponent by 539,893 votes in the nationwide count.

There’s another reform we might consider in these times: a single six-year term for president. President Lyndon Johnson’s former press secretary, George Reedy, put me onto the idea some years ago. And while I can’t find any evidence that Gerald Ford supported it, proponents over the years have included the first and greatest Chief Justice, John Marshall, not to mention President Andrew Jackson and statesmen ranging from Henry Clay and Thomas Hart Benton to Everett Dirksen, Mike Mansfield and George Aiken.

Why a six-year term? The incredible challenges of today’s presidency are so great that a Chief Executive should be running for the history books -- not another term.

Nothing can or should take politics out of the presidency: political persuasion is key to gaining national consensus, compelling congressional action, forging global alliances.

But a six-year term should be sufficient to each president to make his (or her) singular contributions. And limiting that person to one term would relieve us of the unseemly spectacle of presidents using and misusing their immense powers to muscle obscene amounts of campaign dollars out of self-interested contributors, or even descending into the depths of Watergate-style abuse.

Think of it this way. With a direct vote for president in 2000, we’d almost surely not be bogged down in the disastrously ill-advised Iraq war. And with a single six-year presidential term, we’d be preparing for the inauguration of a brand new president two weeks from now.

Conservatives' Vision of an America without Cities

2007-01-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

is an article from Public Eye, based on a review of the book Welcome to the Homeland: A Journey to the Heart of America's Conservative Rural Rebellion by Brian Mann.

Ironically, this is the same argument that fueled the Garden Cities and other suburban development movements--the view of the city (somewhat justifiably) as a cesspool, teeming with immigrants (read: people different from me), loose morals, crime, dirty, noisy, and dangerous.

It's a bit more complicated than that. And the story captures the nuances.

The story references a story from the Stranger, which I reprinted in the Urban Agenda blog, "THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO by The Editors of The Stranger."

It is a screed written after the November 2004 election. But look what happened in November 2006. I wouldn't claim that a Democratic or more humane mandate was set--after all, if George Allen wasn't a doofus during the campaign, there's a good chance he would have won and the Senate wouldn't have a Democratic majority (maybe Lieberman would have jumped to the Republicans besides).

But despite this blog entry that discusses the suburban majority in Congress, "The suburbs are now the majority in the House of Representatives" also from Urban Agenda, the November election results have demonstrated to urban dwellers that we can't be so smug and dismissive of the suburbs, that in many respects, we are comrades in arms.

Like trying to make the connection between historic preservation and the demonstrated interest in the home (even though many people, particularly those of the property rights persuasion, see preservation rules as a hindrance), we cityfolk need to make better links with our rediscovered friends in the suburb.

(As I mentioned in a long meeting on Sunday, the suburbs are populated with many people that still have strong ties to the city, maybe one or two generations back, but they are still around--though dying off--and reachable. See this blog entry from 2005, "Interesting City attitude-Suburban attitude survey in Metro Detroit," which discusses a Detroit News survey with the same finding.)

I mean, who would have guessed Charles County Maryland would have gone Democrat? (See "Elections Sharpen Region's Profile," subtitled "Democrats Look to Annapolis, Washington," and "Breaking Away from Neighbors," both from the Washington Post.)

Index Keywords: civic-engagement; urban-revitalization

How ordinary, organized citizens can seize political power

2006-10-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

(reprinted from Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space)
----------------------------------------------------
Today's Chicago Sun-Times has an op-ed by Mike Gecan, of the national staff of the Industrial Areas Foundation,* the community organizing entity created by Saul Alinsky, about how:

...[D]irect citizen organizing and dramatic public action is steadily losing ground to other political approaches. What authors Ben Ginsberg and Martin Shefter called Politics by Other Means rules the roost these days. That politics includes legislative investigations, judicial proceedings and media revelations. We would add a fourth form -- celebrities adopting causes -- to the list. ...

The problem is that the general public has only one real role in each of these events: the role of spectator. We watch the U.S. attorney. We follow the trials. We line up to get a glimpse of a star. The message to citizens is that the action is somewhere else: in the smoke-filled room; in the whispered phone call of a fixer; in the cubicles of the federal prosecutor; in the studios of the stars. Not on your block. Not in your neighborhood or subdivision. Not in your workplace.

So, the more traditional politics falls short, the more ''politics by other means'' will fill the vacuum. The more ''politics by other means'' fills the vacuum, the more disconnected and passive the public becomes. How to get out of this cycle? The first way is for organized citizens to continue to analyze the issues that affect their lives and to make that analysis public. ...

The second way is to keep doing what the 1,500 leaders of United Power will be doing today: gathering in a public setting, doing public business, pressing candidates for public commitments. No winks. No nods. No back-room anything. And the third way is to continue to exercise the democratic muscle of voting. Without these three habits -- analysis, public engagement and electoral participation -- it won't matter what the prosecutors and movie stars do. The center of our democratic life will continue to shrink. And the politics of the future will bear little resemblance to the world invented by our Founding Fathers and protected from extinction by the greatest president of all, Abraham Lincoln.

He's a man who modeled the kind of politics you'll find in the auditorium at Trinity High School in River Forest Sunday afternoon. And he's the person who knew what the goal of political life could be and should be: ''to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.''

What Gecan calls the three habits of "analysis, public engagement, and electoral participation" are foundational principles of the approach espoused by this blog.

See "Study: Housing costs force moves" from the Chicago Tribune about the study mentioned above.

(Note that the DC Fiscal Policy Institute has been pretty successful garnering similar ink in the Washington Post, see "Separation Between Rich, Poor Widening in D.C., Study Finds," although I would aver that it appears as if the Washington Post and other area newspapers report less on press conferences and similar activities, by either national advocacy groups or local advocacy groups. When I first came to the city, and worked for a consumer advocacy group, we could count on newspapers and local television coverage of our various press conferences. This is less the case today.)

* In DC, the very effective Washington Interfaith Network is an IAF affiliate.

Index Keywords: civic-engagement

Equity in the City

2006-09-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

PICT0065.JPG
Originally uploaded by Daquella manera.

(Mexico City)

PICT0018.JPG

2006-09-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

PICT0018.JPG
Originally uploaded by Daquella manera.

Rocky Anderson, a possible pro-urban presidential candidate?

2006-09-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

This blog entry appeared originally in Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space.

The Pro-urban Presidential Candidate? Rocky Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City, Progressive speech "here today as truth tellers"
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

Rob Snyder sent this along, a speech by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson about the U.S. role in Iraq and the current leadership by the President of the United States and his Administration. It was given yesterday.

I have a companion blog, Urban Agenda, that is supposed to be dedicated to creating a progressive urban agenda and a campaign to run a candidate in the presidential primaries on a pro-urban political platform.

It's been hard to find good candidates. Mayor Riley of Charleston is a bit old; John Norquist, ex-mayor of Milwaukee, has some baggage. But both are pro-city. Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City came to my notice from a blogreader.

This speech today is quite interesting. "Tell us the truth...." A pretty compelling speech. I'd take him over many other candidates!

Video of the Speech.

Text of the Speech.

Also see this article from the Salt Lake City Deseret News, "Thousands gather in Salt Lake City to protest, praise Bush."

The protest was held in conjunction with the American Legion's annual meeting held in the city. (Given the strong Republican nature of the State of Utah, this is quite interesting...)

Interesting that this speech merits one paragraph in an article in today's Washington Post, Bush Takes His Case to Veterans, subtitled "War in Iraq Depicted as One Against Radical Islamic Terrorism."

It turns out that yesterday's Baltimore Sun had a longer story with a photo, that ran on page A2 (although I didn't read the paper til this morning...). It's from the LA Times, "Mayor leads anti-war protest ahead of Bush's visit to Utah: Republicans launch ad campaign denouncing Salt Lake City official." From the article:

The Utah Republican Party sponsored radio advertisements around the state denouncing the mayor and those advocating what the party calls "cut-and-run" tactics in Iraq. The mayor's office hired three temporary workers to answer the more than 1,600 calls it received over two days. Anderson's spokesman said the Republican radio campaign stirred up not just opposition, but also new demonstrations of support for the mayor's anti-Bush views.

The city's position as a Democratic island in a very Republican state notwithstanding, the controversy underscores the extreme sensitivity surrounding the war - not just in more typically liberal communities but in a state where the National Guard has contributed heavily to the force in Iraq, and one that gave Bush 71 percent of its vote two years ago.

No mention, it appears, in the New York Times.

Anderson gave a strong speech. Not mealy-mouthed at all. From the speech:

"We are here today because of our values. We love our country. We cherish the freedoms and liberties of our country. And we don't call those who speak out against our nations leaders, unpatriotic or unamerican or appeasers of fascists as we heard from our incompetent Secretary of Defense yesterday. We have good wholesome, family values."

Thousands of protestors march down State Street to the Utah federal building during an anti-President Bush rally Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006, in Salt Lake City. They presented the offices of senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, and Rep. Rob Bishop, all R-Utah, with a symbolic indictment of President Bush and Congress for the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)

Index Keywords: national-progressive-urban-political-agenda

Washington DC Lets Crime Panic Shape Crime Policy

2006-07-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

I have a few issues with the recent emergency crime bill passed by the DC City Council. A recent upsurge in killings (which has since subsided, relatively speaking, to our traditional rate of mayhem, but not likely as a result of the bill, as none of its provisions appear to have taken effect as I type).

According to Councilperson Evan's newsletter, the specifics of the crime bill are as follows:

The emergency legislation, which passed 12-1, authorizes the Mayor to:

* Change juvenile curfew hours (established by the Juvenile Curfew Act of 1995) from 12:00 am to 10:00 pm;
* Use $12.9 million from the Contingency Reserve Fund to cover overtime costs to deploy 300 additional officers (see below for complete expenditure list); and
* Install 23 closed circuit TV (CCTV) cameras.

(snip)

The $12.9 million expenditure from the Contingency Reserve Fund, requested by the Mayor, will fund the following projects:

$8 million - to fund MPD overtime costs for the deployment of 300 additional officers for a period of six weeks;
$2.3 million - to install CCTV cameras;
$2 million - to fund overtime costs in other agencies to support and fund government operations associated with graffiti, abandoned vehicles, streetlights and blighted buildings;
$380,000 - to expand Partnership for Success to serve 100 additional youth;
$75,000 - to support girl/gang crew mediation and peace building initiatives;
$70,000 - to support expansion of recreation and street outreach in Police Service Area (PSA) 104 in Ward 6; and
$50,000 - to support and fund the Gang Intervention Partnership (GIP) in PSA 302 in Ward 1.

$2.3 million to install 23 cameras? That's $100,000 a camera. Does it really cost that much to install (not purchase) a camera? Even if that cost covers the installation of the rumored 300 cameras that are allegedly coming down the pike, that's still 8,000/camera. But nothing in Evans' breakdown of the bill indicates that the money is for anything other than the initial 23 cameras. I actually wrote Councilperson Evans to suggest that it would be a more judicious use of city resources to train reforming (incarcerated, paroled or otherwise supervised) youth to install the cameras, so they can acquire a job skill while the work is done, most likely at a cost cheaper than $100,000 a camera. He replied "That's a good point". I spoke with youth activist Ron Moten of the Peaceoholics organization and he thought it was more than a good point, he said it was something the entire Council should rally around (and expressed interest in holding a press conference to draw attention to the suggestion). $50,000 for gang intervention is a paltry investment in the future of the most at-risk youth in our city. If we're willing to pay a private contractor to install cameras at $100,000 per installation, we could at least invest half a million into gang intervention (especially since youth in gangs are more likely to have violent interaction than any other group in the city).

Then, there's the issue of the curfew.

Do we want to spend $8 million on police overtime and then essentially overburden police with the task of rounding up every youth who is caught on the streets after 10pm? While I agree in principle that people under 16 should probably be indoors by 10, I think it is a massive waste of police resources to have officers be responsible for detaining errant youth until they can be picked up by their parent or guardian. I would much rather have police resources dedicated to crime prevention and rapid response to serious crimes. If we did a statistical study of crimes committed after 10pm, I seriously doubt that residents under 16 make up a significant share of the offenders. There are a core group of offenders committing the vast majority of criminal acts in the city and criminalizing youth who violate the good sense principle of getting home before 10 won't put much of a dent in the activity of that core group. The vast majority of youth hanging out at this hour are probably wandering aimlessly or hanging out without purpose, but only a relative handful pose a serious threat to our citizenry. While this curfew may help the police sweep the streets of juveniles who are engaged in criminal activity, the police resources that would have to be expended to detain every person under 16 out past 10pm (especially in summer when daylight lasts late into the evening) is simply wasteful.

Let's discuss cameras.

Most importantly, social science indicates that cameras have no demonstrated effect on reducing crime (the linked study is a metastudy analyzing 22 individual studies on the use of closed circuit TV (cameras) and crime prevention, the five North Americans studies covered indicate that cameras have no effect on crime whatsoever). $23 million to install cameras that social science has proven have no effect on crime? That's poor urban policy.

These findings back up my personal view that hardened criminals will not be deterred by cameras. Cameras in liquor stores, banks, and other businesses have done little deter armed robberies or burglaries, much as red light cameras have done little to reduce red light running (otherwise, they would not be such an effective source of revenue...and even if one gathered evidence showing a marginal drop in red light running in camera-observed intersections, it is doubtful that red light running in non-observed intersections is affected). Additionally, police (and even citizen groups that aid them) lack the resources to monitor the cameras around the clock. Cameras cannot replace witness testimony in court. What good will the videotaping of a crime do from a law enforcement perspective if the taping is inadmissable? How will the presence of cameras deter crime in public spaces when the presence of cameras in businesses has not deterred crime on private premises?

I believe that Councilperson Fenty was right when he said the measures in the emergency crime bill "are not ways to stop crime". The question becomes, what measures would be more effective? The answer, I believe, would require extensive study of available social science and careful analysis of best practices used in other jurisdictions. Of course, such study would take time. And with a Democratic primary a few weeks away, time is a luxury at least twelve representatives on the City Council did not feel they had. Hopefully, Fenty will take his "no" vote a step further and work towards crafting a more effective crime policy.

Quote of the day

2006-07-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

USA Weekend, the newspaper magazine Sunday supplement, has a piece about the recent film "Syriana," an interview with Joseph Romm, executive director of the Center for Energy & Climate Solutions and a former acting assistant secretary at the Department of Energy during Clinton's presidency. He is a top expert on clean energy technologies and author of a forthcoming book about global warming. From the article, An energy expert's evaluation: Weighing Hollywood's "Syriana" against the world's true balance of power":

Scene 27: The BBQ -- Holiday tells an oil exec, "We're looking for the illusion of due diligence, Mr. Pope. Two criminal acts successfully prosecuted -- it gives us that illusion."

"I love this line. Much of what passes for government policy today is nothing more than theater designed to create the illusion that the nation's problems are being addressed."

Political comment

2006-07-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

DSCI0001
Originally uploaded by PhilWolff.

(This theater is in California.)

REFORMING AMERICAN POLITICS: A TIMELY ‘ONE STOP’ GUIDE

2006-07-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

Is this Sunday's column (forthcoming) by Neal Peirce. Neal writes about state and local politics. While his column is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, lamentably the Post does not run his column. Back columns are available through a link via the Citistates website. From the column:

American democracy, once the wonder of the world, is working about as well as the levees around New Orleans -- “degenerated into a partisan brew of spin, scandal, name-calling, money chasing and pandering.”

That’s the charge of reform advocate Steven Hill, and who’s to doubt his indictment? Elections are marred by suspicious voting equipment. TV blanks out most serious campaign debate. Congressional and state legislative elections are increasingly less-competitive as “red” and “blue” voters cluster in their own partisan enclaves. The presidential election system focuses all attention on a tiny band of swing states -- and can easily make the popular vote loser the winner. Citizens increasingly wonder: why bother to vote at all?

What’s to be done?. In his new book, “10 Steps to Repair American Democracy,” Hill abjures piecemeal reform and instead provides a “‘one-stop shopping guide’ to what’s broken about American democracy and how Americans can help fix it.” From Hill’s list of 10, I’d pick five indispensable first steps:

-- Secure the vote. Butterfly ballots and hanging chads in Florida in 2000, thousands of low-income voters effectively excluded from polls in Ohio in 2004 -- the scandals are well known. A comprehensive Caltech-MIT study found a stunning 6 percent of ballots cast nationwide in 2000 weren’t counted because of faulty voting machines, poorly designed ballots, or foul-ups with absentee ballots. Private voting machine companies have been shown to have egregious partisan ties. ...

-- His next proposal: expand voter participation by a “right to vote” constitutional amendment, universal registration (everyone 18 and over automatically registered to vote, as most modern democracies do), and prohibiting voter intimidation.

-- Reclaiming the airwaves comes next -- obliging broadcasters (licensed to use public frequencies) to provide ample free media time for candidates, more political news and balanced coverage. Hill also urges a more robust public broadcast sector (TV and radio) to counterbalance our increasingly powerful (and monopolistic) corporate media.

[Note that I write about the Growth Machine a lot in my other blog, Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space. There is a lot of equivalent work done on media and monopoly. Robert McChesney writes a lot about this, as do others.]

-- To minimize the overbearing role of money in elections, he suggests public financing of all campaigns at local, state and federal levels, and at least trying to limit donations and set spending caps on candidates.

-- There’s one more reform on Hill’s list I’d call absolutely essential: direct popular election of the president. Sticking with the founding fathers’ jerry-rigged electoral college system makes zero 21st century sense.

Hill then has three reforms I’d call intriguing next steps, experiments we ought to try.

-- runoff voting, now being used in San Francisco’s mayoral elections, Utah Republican primaries and other places. Voters list their preferences - #1, #2, etc. If no candidate gets a majority of the #1 choices, immediate recounts include voters’ second (or even third) choices. The lowest vote-getter is eliminated on each count, until there’s a majority. The method has big pluses: diminished campaign mudslinging, incentives for higher voter turnout, and less impact by spoiler candidates (like Ralph Nader in 2000).

-- Hill would also scrap -- especially for legislative races -- the “winner-take-all” election system that so often leaves political minorities and our many racial and ethnic groups unrepresented. His model: Illinois’ success, from 1870 to 1980, with three-seat state House districts. Voters could cast all their three votes for one candidate, or distribute them as they chose. Result: any candidate who got over 25 percent was likely to win. More mavericks, willing to buck their party’s leadership, got elected. Bipartisan coalitions were commonplace.

-- Now Hill suggests three-seat districts, not just for legislatures, but congressional seats too, a big break for “blues” in “red” areas and “reds” in blue areas, plus election of more Latino and black representatives.

Americans, he suggest, need to shake off the anti-government ideas born in the Reagan era, and begin to embrace government as a positive good providing it’s run efficiently to meet real needs -- from hurricane relief to universal health care protection.

Hill includes two ideas I’d call impractical outliers -- reforming the Senate to give heavily populated states more seats, and the Supreme Court by shifting confirmation power from the Senate to the House, limiting Justices to 15-to-18-year terms, and requiring they retire at 70 or 75 years.

Hearing this spate of ideas, some may grouse: Why change the ground rules? Didn’t our Founding Fathers know best? Yet in his introduction to Hill’s book, Henrick Hertzberg of the New Yorker has it right. Reinvigorating the republic is a way to keep faith. “The question isn’t: What way back then, did Jefferson (and Madison and Hamilton) do? The question is: What would they do now?”

What do you think? Is Raju right?

2006-07-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

Judge Parker comic strip, 7/12/2006.

The suburban agenda moves forward, where's the urban agenda?

2006-07-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

(This blog entry was first published in Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space).

I've always been a little embarassed being seen reading the Washington Times, given its hard right credentials and ownership by the Unification Church. Their political orientation significantly shapes the front section, and especially their op-ed section and editorial page. But the paper is well-designed, and scrappy in its coverage of local issues in the Business and Metropolitan sections, and the Sports section is good, with some excellent columnists. And local columnists Adrienne Washington and Tom Knott are decent too. I like that they have a big op-ed section, even though I almost never read it, because the politics of the writers are so much different than mine. (Actually it's somewhat the same when reading the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Very conservative editorial and op-ed page, but with the benefit of a fair number of wacky letters to the editor.)

So I missed this piece from two months ago, by Rep. Mark Kirk, "A Suburban Agenda". (Also see "GOP agenda eyes suburban appeal" from the Washington Times and this syndicated column by Morton Kondracke, "GOP ‘Suburban Agenda’ gains traction on Hill.")

A suburban agenda in Congress? Where's the urban agenda in Congress? Right now if you do a google search for "urban agenda" and "Congress" the number one hit is my Urban Agenda blog. Not good...

The suburban agenda is designed to better connect Republicans to suburban voters and the issues they care about. Many of the issues, if you ask me, aren't what federal legislators ought to be focused on, but that's my opinion.

Last summer, Congressional Quarterly reported that effective with the 2000 Census, the majority of districts in the U.S. House of Representatives are suburban. See this blog entry, "The suburbs are now the majority in the House of Representatives," from Urban Agenda.

From the article:

Congress must solve problems that people care about most. We need to win the war on terror and solve our immigration problems. But if we stop there, Congress will fall short of its potential to improve the lives of the American people.

The customary divisions between Democrats and Republicans often reflect a divide betweenurban and rural communities. In the last election, Republicans commanded rural votes while Democrats dominated the urban vote. Their votes represented a standard vision of American politics that is completely out of date. Today, most Americans do not live in urban or rural communities -- they live in suburban communities. ...

In short, the Suburban Agenda reflects a dozen policy initiatives including:
• School Safety Acquiring Faculty Excellence Act (introduced by Rep. Jon Porter, Nevada Republican), which will allow school boards to screen criminal records of applicants for coach and teacher positions to make sure out-of-state pedophiles or felons are not put in charge of classrooms.
• The 401 Kids Family Savings Accounts (introduced by Rep. Clay Shaw, Florida Republican), which will build on the success of 401(k) plans by establishing tax-deferred savings for kids from birth to pay for education or the purchase of a first home.
• The Health Information Technology Promotion Act (introduced by Rep. Nancy Johnson, Connecticut Republican), which will build on the Veterans Administration's success by accelerating the deployment of fully electronic medical records to improve care and reduce errors.
• The Deleting Online Predators Act (introduced by Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania Republican), which will protect children from online predators, especially the more than 10 million American kids whose data appear on social networkingsites such as MySpace.com.
• The Open Space and Farmland Preservation Act (introduced by Rep. Jim Gerlach, Pennsylvania Republican), which will establish grant programs to protect more suburban green and open space.
• The Gang Elimination Act of 2006 (introduced by Rep. Dave Reichert, Washington Republican), which will set federal policy to combat drug gangs now fighting suburban police departments.
_______
As much as I am politically disaffected when it comes to national issues, there's no question that the Urban Agenda needs to be developed and moved forward to the national political agenda.

Index Keywords: urban-agenda

Progressive City Leaders, Progressive Urban Politics and Policies

2006-07-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

This blog entry is reprinted from Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space. The intent of this blog, Urban Agenda, is to build a campaign to run a presidential candidate, at least in the primaries, running an urban-centric, progressive issue campaign.

Urban Agenda has always been intended to be a group blog. But the people initially targeted to contribute have blogs and lives of their own... so it's never really gotten off the ground, and I in turn directed my blogging energies toward Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space.

Maybe the original idea for this blog is a little limiting, focusing on running a progressive urban-focused presidential candidate. Maybe the focus should be on building progressive urban politics at the city level. Too many of our cities are desperate, but the politics and policies pursued are no different, haven't changed in response to the real change in the political climate, the waning interest in city issues, at the federal level.

Something I keep forgetting to blog about is that a couple weeks ago, the World Urban Forum was held in Vancouver, British Columbia. Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post wrote about it. Maybe they didn't even send a reporter? The Toronto Star ran a number of good articles about the Forum, such as this column by Christopher Hume, "A local problem on a global scale." Interestingly, while the U.S. is now officially more suburban than urban, the world is becoming increasingly urban, with population of the cities skyrocketing.

Also in the Star, Where is Toronto at forum on cities? (and we could ask the same question of U.S. cities) and "How universities can help Canada's troubled cities: Schools have wealth of knowledge, power, prestige."
__________

Somehow I missed this blog comment in response to an entry about Norman Mineta, based on a Neal Peirce column ("That's right: 23 lanes of traffic") about Mineta's pro-car turn as Secretary of Transportation. Here's what rg wrote:

Pierce writes rally good stuff -- much better than many regular Post columnists. I don't understand why the Post doesn't run his column. I think perhaps it signals their complete and utter lack of interest in urban issues.

To me, Norm Mineta personifies a tragic generation of urban leaders that sold out our cities to the car. Although he is somewhat redeemed by his being one of the authors of ISTEA, his tenure as DOT Secretary means that he will always be remembered as the point man in the Bush Administration's war on intercity passenger rail and urban rail transit. Our cities need fewer mayors like Norm Mineta and more like Rocky Anderson.

I hate to admit that I didn't know who Rocky Anderson is, so I looked him up. He's the Mayor of Salt Lake City, and he's a Democrat in a solidly Republican state, and he's not a member of the Mormon Church.

One of the cites in the piece on Mayor Anderson is to an article from The Nation, about "Progressive City Leaders," which makes for interesting reading, with short profiles on 8 councilmembers-mayors from across the country.

Not necessarily a progressive, but for change, is Cory Booker, the new mayor of Newark, New Jersey. I was really troubled to read a Post article about him earlier in the week, "Urban Legend," subtitled "How Cory Booker Became Newark's Mayor: By Being Almost Too Good to Be True" and to see how he attributed "spiritualism" read religion to change. From the article:

It really changed my perceptions about power," says Booker, who is wearing a blue oxford shirt and a yellow tie and speaking, as he always does, like a man in a rush. "It's not about the office that you hold or the money in your bank account. Real power never stems from agencies. It stems from spiritual power."

I think it stems from what I call "civic heart," what Erik Erikson called "generativity," and out of what Amitai Etzioni calls "communitarianism." My "faith" is that people care about others, and society and the quality of life for themselves, their families, their neighbors, their community, and their country. I think we need to save ourselves, not look to God or others to do it for us.

Another nice piece from The Nation is Urban Archipelago, about how "a growing number of progressives are taking their stand at the municipal level." From the article:

"Local governments are the only place where progressive ideas can get any traction--where big ideas are being tried," says Madison, Wisconsin, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, 46, a former chief of staff in a State Senate office and an environmental leader who was elected in 2003. "Cities are where you can break through the big money, the media spin--everything that is wrong with our politics--and capture the public's imagination."

Unfortunately, he says, traditional organizations of local officials have been slow to catch the wave of municipal resistance to the nation's conservative moment. "I went to my first US Conference of Mayors meeting after I got elected, and I was horrified. The corporate influence was pervasive," Cieslewicz says, recalling a dinner where toy trucks featuring the Waste Management, Inc. logo served as party favors. "Here we were, with education, transportation and housing programs that are essential for cities facing cuts, and I just didn't see the sense of urgency."

I guess we'll have to take that on for the next round of elections in DC. Except for sitting Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who is opposed by a strongly pro-business candidate. This anti-Phil candidate is funded by business interests, but running a populist campaign. It reminds me of seemingly pro-recycling but anti-deposit/bottle bill campaigns funded by industry with names like "Citizens for Recycling Choice"). I think it's fair to say that we don't have much going in the way of a "progressive agenda" in DC City Politics.

Another interesting take on this issue is the five-part series from the e-magazine Black Commentator, "Wanted: A Plan for Cities to Save Themselves." The first two pieces focus on the role of Black Labor, the third on Urban Power, the fourth on how the Wal-Mart issue is aiding organizing within the cities, and the fifth is on the creation of a new democratic urban movement.

Call out quotes from the Black Commentator.

Index Keywords: progessive-urban-agenda

What can be learned from Britain?

2005-11-27T06:47:00.000-08:00

From this article, "This time, Brown is not the enemy of reform," from the Daily Telegraph:

There are few more astute students of the Conservative Party, its history and its trajectory than Gordon Brown. Brooding over what might lie ahead - and the likelihood that he will be facing David Cameron over the despatch box in the foreseeable future - the Chancellor has been much influenced by The Roads to Modernity, a recent exploration of the Enlightenment by the distinguished American thinker, Gertrude Himmelfarb.

In her book, Himmelfarb seeks to reclaim the Enlightenment from the French, and identifies a moderate, civilised British variant of that intellectual movement, visible in the "social affections" that bind this country together, the "moral sense" of Lord Shaftesbury, and the notion of capitalism with a social conscience explored by Adam Smith.

Reading this book and digesting its analysis of inherited British values has bolstered Mr Brown's conviction that the Tories face a fundamental problem in what he regards as their destructive plan to "marketise" and privatise the public services. That is not, he thinks, the British way....

The Chancellor argues that the Tory modernisers have completely misunderstood the 1997 Labour landslide as essentially a PR coup, and have failed to acknowledge the many years of painful policy repositioning - much of it carried out by one G Brown - that preceded electoral victory.
__________
Certainly the Democrats really need to understand how Labour vanquished what appeared to be the new permanent dominance of the Conservatives. I know that part of "Cool Brittania" was the diminuation of the role of the labor unions in the party.

But I have to believe that the kinds of issues that appeal to "universal-ethical-humanists" not necessarily bound by religion have a broader appeal.

The suburbs are now the majority in the House of Representatives

2005-08-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

www.polidata.org

From "A Line in the Suburban Sand," by GREGORY L. GIROUX of CQ Weekly as published in Governing Online

Suburbia is the most important place in American politics. That was true in the two presidential elections held so far in this decade, a pair of extraordinarily close contests that George W. Bush won, in the end, because he did a little better in the suburbs of a few battleground states.

But a Congressional Quarterly assessment of the demographics of all 435 congressional districts shows the pivotal role of the suburban voter extends much more deeply into the nation’s electoral fabric — and that, in fact, two different camps of suburban voters are forming, with their politics moving in opposite directions.

For the first time ever, most House districts have a suburban majority. The congressional reapportionment and districting that occurred in the first half of this decade, combined with the population shifts during the 1990s that were reflected in the census of five years ago, mean that there are now 220 districts (51 percent) in which most people are residents of a suburb.
______
The complete report is 28 pages in the June 27th, 2005 issue of Congressional Quarterly. Fortunately, most major libraries receive this publication. CQ is selling the 28 page document as a pdf for $99.

www.territorymapper.com

Preserve America adds urban component

2005-07-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

Communities may apply for special designation as a Preserve America Community, which recognizes communities that:

protect and celebrate their heritage;

use their historic assets for economic development and community revitalization; and

encourage people to experience and appreciate local historic resources through education and heritage tourism programs.

Benefits of designation include:

White House recognition;

certificate of recognition;

Preserve America Community road sign;

authorization to use the Preserve America logo on signs, flags, banners, and promotional materials;

listing in a Web-based Preserve America Community directory;

inclusion in national and regional press releases;

official notification of designation to State tourism offices and visitor bureaus; and

enhanced community visibility and pride.

Four application and designation cycles occur each year. The 2005 application deadlines are March 1, June 1, September 1, and December 1.

Because larger metropolitan areas tend to have distinct historic neighborhoods that are essentially communities within larger urban areas, the Preserve America Community program was expanded July 26, 2005, to include the new Preserve America Community Neighborhood program.

In this program, neighborhoods in metropolitan areas with populations greater than 200,000 persons are eligible for this special designation. For more information on the new Preserve America Community Neighborhood program, read the press release or download the application and guidance (in PDF).

Community Restoration and Revitalization Act, HR3159

2005-07-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Cleveland Arcade. Restoration architects: Jonathan Sandvik and Associates. Photo courtesty of http://www.clevelandskyscrapers.com/cleveland/arcade.html. This project utilized Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credits.

From Heather MacIntosh, President of Preservation Action--

What's Happening Now: An inside view of preservation policies and politics in our nation's capitol

On the (Re-reintroduced) Community Restoration and Revitalization Act

Concerned about sprawl and the health of American cities? Then you should join Preservation Action in supporting the Community Restoration and Revitalization Act, HR3159, particularly a new provision strongly supported by Representative Phil English (R-PA) the bill's new sponsor within the majority party. Although the reintroduced bill received great support from preservationists during Lobby Day, the new provision is a significant improvement worthy of special attention and significant grassroots support.

The provision broadens the tax credit's use to condominium developments and in so doing, provides new support for the revitalization of urban neighborhoods nationwide. The bill's provision removes a recapture clause -- requiring the payback of tax credits upon conversion of a tax credit property into a condo development. This clause has significantly limited the credit's use. To provide some perspective on the value of the provision, Preservation Action polled some of our members who are developers, preservationists, and are actively concerned with the quality of life in urban areas. This is what they said:

In Seattle: "I like the condo provision as it's not limited to residential use only . The (condo) provision could be a of great benefit to the preservation of historic structures in the inner city by extending these buildings' lives through different uses driven by current market conditions rather than forcing demolition because of functional obsolescence. It could also provide an opportunity for much needed workforce housing within the urban core. This might be exactly what the Pioneer Square (Old Seattle) neighborhood needs (the neighborhood has lagged behind the economic development of the rest of the city), but as of now, this opportunity is not available to building owners."

-- Kevin Daniels, President, Nitze Stagen & Company, (developers of Seattle's Union Station and the Starbucks Center Building, Starbucks' global headquarters) also on the Board of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation

In Chicago: "In office markets such as Chicago, historic structures with class B and C office space are increasingly in peril. Further, conversion of these buildings to residential rental buildings is unrealistic because of the softness in that market. By removing the 5 year holding period before a Tax Credit project can be converted to condominium the Historic Tax Credit becomes tailored for the realities of today’s real estate market and stands out as a very powerful tool for downtown redevelopment, preservation of important historic resources and an outstanding economic development tool for our cities."

-- Will Tippens, LR Realty (developers of historic and contemporary buildings) based in Chicago and also on the Board of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois

In Oklahoma City: "Oklahoma City would be acutely affected. Oklahoma City has experienced a dramatic upswing in downtown/"midtown" redevelopment, but housing is lagging. There is credible market information as of 2002 showing an existing demand for at least 6000 market rate owner-occupied residential units in the OKC downtown area. I personally know of several potential historic rehab projects that can't go forward because of the condo convert recapture. If the recapture was eliminated, I'm sure you'd see a dramatic uptick in office and residential rehab downtown. I can only imagine that redevelopment of this type winds up benefiting everyone by decreasing infrastructure costs associated with sprawl and reenergizing tax bases, among other things."

-- Jim Rogers, Avondale Investments, a tax credit and asset management consulting company in Oklahoma City and is on the Board of Red Earth Community Development Enterprise.

Let members of the House Ways and Means Committee know you care, and what the provision might do for your community.

Be sure to visit Preservation Action's evolving website for regular updates, insights, and background on this and other preservation issues now being considered by Congress. And if there's something you want to know that's not on the site, just let us know.

We Hold these truths to be self-evident

2005-07-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Burning the flag--literally or figuratively--does it really matter "how" you do it? Shouldn't it be a matter of "what you're doing" to destroy democracy?

A man burns a U.S. flag in Copenhagen, Denmark to protest the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush Tuesday July 5, 2005. About 200 demonstrators, mostly black-clad youth, marched Tuesday in downtown Copenhagen to protest a brief visit by Bush on his way to the G-8 summit in Scotland. (AP Photo/John McConnico).

Paul Krugman's column in yesterday's New York Times is about Karl Rove and says:

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

To me, the point is that truth and facts don't seem to matter at all levels of the polity, from the smallest neighborhood meeting, all the way up to the White House.

The decline almost across the board in the United States for belief and respect for small d "democracy" is quite troubling and doesn't bode well for our future as a nation.

For more resources on "deepening democracy" and "empowered participation" check out www.archonfung.net

Bush and Party Chief Court Black Voters at 2 Forums

2005-07-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse - Getty ImagesPresident Bush returned a flier Thusday after signing it as he greeted participants at the Indiana Black Expo in Indianapolis. The president spoke to business leaders in a push to get more blacks to vote for Republicans.

New York Times

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

INDIANAPOLIS, July 14 - In a coordinated effort to reach black voters, President Bush heralded higher test scores among minorities on Thursday while his party's chairman, in an even more explicit overture, apologized for past Republican efforts to exploit racial friction.
Mr. Bush spoke to business leaders at the Indiana Black Expo here, after declining an invitation to appear at the national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for the fifth consecutive year because of what White House officials said was a scheduling conflict. "We're making big differences in the lives of African-Americans," the president told leaders at the expo.

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, spoke at the N.A.A.C.P.'s convention in Milwaukee. In his most extensive comments yet on the subject of race, Mr. Mehlman apologized for the so-called Southern strategy that his party employed nearly a half-century ago, when Republicans used the hostility of the civil rights era to pit Southern conservatives against blacks.

"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," he said. "I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

Mr. Mehlman, who has been energetically courting black voters since taking over as chairman of the party earlier this year, also argued that blacks should demand more from politicians and not automatically deliver their votes to the Democrats.

"If my party benefited from racial polarization in the past, it is the Democratic Party that benefits from it today," he said. "I know it is not in my interest as chairman of the Republican Party for close to 90 percent of African-Americans to vote for the Democrat every election. But more important, it's not in the interest of African-Americans for 90 percent to vote for the Democrat every election."

Mr. Bush tried to chip away at black support for Democrats in the 2000 election and again in 2004, enlisting backing from black religious leaders and emphasizing issues like same-sex marriage that are considered popular among minority voting blocs. Although Mr. Bush won only 11 percent of the black vote nationwide in 2004, hardly denting support for his Democratic rival, strategists in both parties agreed that he made progress in states like Ohio.

There has been significant tension between Mr. Bush and black voters, beginning with his first campaign for president, when the N.A.A.C.P. ran negative advertisements about him and blacks in Florida argued that they were disenfranchised during the voting process. In the 2004 election cycle, the Internal Revenue Service began investigating the group's leader, Julian Bond, to see whether his criticism of the president violated laws requiring tax-exempt groups to remain nonpartisan.

Mr. Bush has already been given a public invitation to attend next year's N.A.A.C.P. convention, giving him ample opportunity to avoid the scheduling conflict that administration officials said interfered this year. But the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Thursday, "I think it's way too early to look at next year's schedule."

Mr. McClellan said the president wholeheartedly embraced all aspects of Mr. Mehlman's message. In his speech, Mr. Bush said that through home ownership, improved education standards, small-business operations and greater integration of religion-based initiatives in civic life, blacks were seeing improvements in their lives.

The president's appearance took place in the Seventh Congressional District, one of the most heavily minority areas of the state and one that is more Democratic than much of the rest of Indiana. Representative Julia Carson, a black Democrat who represents the district, joined Mr. Bush on Air Force One for the trip.

Democrats in need of new ideas (David Broder)

2005-07-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

Democrats In Need Of Stances
By David S. Broder
Sunday, July 10, 2005; Page B07

The Democracy Corps -- run by three veteran political consultants, James Carville, Robert Shrum and Stan Greenberg -- offered a mixture of good and bad news for the Democratic Party last week. In essence, their interpretation of their own latest polling data is that the Republicans are ripe for the taking -- but the vagueness of the Democratic alternative is limiting the prospects for a major comeback. Although they do not make the point, their findings illuminate the most striking failure of the Democratic National Committee under the chairmanship of Howard Dean -- the reluctance to create the kind of policy arm that has rescued the party from similar doldrums past.

What the Democracy Corps trio reported is that each of their last three monthly surveys has found that likely voters, by 55 percent to 41 percent, say they hope to see the country move in a significantly different direction from the one President Bush has set. The survey indicates that the principal reasons for voters' disillusionment -- these numbers are far worse than a year ago -- are concern about the Iraq war, worries about pensions and Social Security, anxiety about jobs and incomes, and the cost of health care.

All these offer tempting targets for a Democratic campaign. "But for all that," the Democracy Corps memo says, "Democrats are at risk of making only modest gains in 2006. . . . The president's deep troubles have produced no rise in positive sentiment about the Democrats." To achieve their potential, the memo concludes, "they must pose sharp choices -- ones that define the Democrats, not just the Republicans."

And this is where Dean and the DNC come in -- or disappear. Because his failed campaign in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries left him with a reputation for shooting from the lip, Dean promised, when seeking the party chairmanship last winter, to focus on grass-roots organizing and leave the policymaking to the Democratic leaders in Congress. That has not stopped him from frequently zinging Republicans. He has offered a series of inflammatory comments about the GOP that fire up the Democratic faithful but make some other party leaders cringe.

What he has not done is attempt to fill the policy vacuum that the Democracy Corps poll decried. He has left it to the two minority leaders, Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), either not realizing or not
acknowledging the inherent limitations under which they work.

Because Republicans control the congressional agenda, the Democratic leaders cannot bring forward their own initiatives with any hope of success. The best they can do is block GOP efforts or criticize their policies. But that strategy simply strengthens Republican accusations of negativism. The tactic of not offering an alternative on a subject as vital as Social Security -- which makes sense in the legislative context -- does nothing to enhance the Democrats' reputation with the public.

When I interviewed Dean recently, he readily acknowledged that "people think they know what the Republicans stand for, and they can't say that about the Democrats." But he said he has his staff collecting ideas from Democratic officeholders, activists and contributors about the party's agenda, and he hopes at the DNC's September meeting in Phoenix to find agreement on "three or four broad things we all have in common," then use them in his speeches and on the Web. But when it comes to specific policies, he said, "we will follow the lead of Pelosi and Reid."

There's a better model available, should Dean have the courage to follow it. In the late 1950s, after Adlai Stevenson had lost to President Eisenhower for the second time, DNC Chairman Paul Butler created the Democratic Advisory Council as a policy voice for the party. Its membership included a number of governors, major figures from past Democratic administrations, party leaders and a few members of Congress willing to ignore the objections of the two Texans who then ran Congress, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson, both of whom distrusted Butler's motives.

But while Johnson and Rayburn worked within the constraints of the existing division of power, just as Reid and Pelosi must do now, the Democratic Advisory Council began to lay out the long-term Democratic agenda. It could not be passed in that Congress, but it became the substance behind John Kennedy's "New Frontier" campaign slogan of 1960 and of the policy initiatives that fully blossomed in "the Great Society" legislation that Johnson sponsored as president.

Once again, the Democrats need a vehicle for speaking to the country about the changes they would bring if entrusted with governing. They can find that vehicle in their archives.

Learning from the UK: The New Economics Foundation Election Manifesto

2005-04-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

Today, the Guardian reports that Prime Minister Tony Blair set a date of May 5th, 2005 for the next election in the UK. (Keep up with the election in the UK by frequently checking this site.)

Michael Howard, foreground, and Tony Blair, background.

I find the UK's "regeneration" (in the U.S. we call it revitalization) activities to be quite interesting, and the work of the Home Office, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, the various government agencies, and the Parliament and its various oversight committees (especially the oversight committee over the Deputy Prime Minister), and various organizations across the country to be incredibly useful resources.

England's New Economics Foundation does similar work (and more) to the New Rules Project in the U.S. NEF's Election Manifesto is yet another thing we can learn from:

20 ways to connect politicians with people and the planet

What should people demand from politicians they encounter during the general election? nef marks the launch of the campaign with 20 Proposals to question candidates about. They set out immediate steps an incoming government can take to reconnect economics with the needs of people and planet.

They are not the last word on what needs doing, but we recommend you ask any candidates you run across whether they will commit to these - and then tell us what they say:

1. COMMIT to new national 'well-being' accounts showing people's levels of happiness, sense of meaning and purpose, curiosity about life, and levels of trust and social well-being.

2. FORCE the World Bank and IMF to conform to the democratic standards and openness taken for granted at the national level, and to be consistent with their major shareholders' rhetoric on democracy and good governance.

3. GIVE veto powers to local communities over 'clone' retail chains and superstores, as they have in the USA.

4. ENHANCE local high streets, and prevent the spread of Clone Towns, by giving rate relief to locally-owned shops that contribute more to the fabric of the local community.

5. ENCOURAGE planning authorities to use Section 106 agreements to insist that at least 25 per cent of units in new retail developments be reserved for locally-owned stores.

6. REWARD companies that make a significant positive impact on their neighbourhood - for example, by sourcing local goods and services or employing locally - with an Enterprise and Regeneration Tax Credit.

7. MAKE sure that all public procurement decisions for deprived areas are subjected to the LM3 measure of how much money stays locally, so that public money contributes to job and wealth creation for local people.

8. INSIST that at least 50 per cent of food procured by local authorities and health trusts, for schools and hospitals, is fresh and sourced locally.

9. TACKLE monopolies by forcing corporate de-mergers, and acting to protect competition once any corporate dominates more than eight per cent of the national or any regional retail market (the official Office of Fair Trading limit at which the abuse of power occurs in retail markets).

10. GIVE company directors a specific duty of care for both communities and the environment - here and abroad - and a set of mandatory social, environmental and economic performance indicators for companies to report on.

11. CANCEL poor countries' unrepayable debts and introduce global taxes on air travel, natural resource extraction and international currency transactions to finance poverty reduction and protecting the environment.

12. CREATE a reliable new 'people's pension' sector that invests in local housing, health and education projects and reconnects local savings to vital local infrastructure.

13. DESIGNATE at least five per cent of land in regeneration areas as community land trusts, to underpin affordable housing, local shops and services, so that the benefits of local efforts remain in the area and do not get creamed off by developers..

14. REQUIRE all public agencies - from health centres to schools - to put in place systems, like time banks, that measure and reward clients as equal partners with professionals in the delivery of services.

15. CREATE a proper national conversation in the run-up to key decisions - like the referendum on the EU constitution - using deliberative methods like Democs and the People's Cafe'.

16. INSTITUTE a national maximum wage of 1 million pounds a year to reduce the greed of corporate fat cats and to complement the minimum wage.

17. LAUNCH trade sanctions against rich countries that subsidise their economies by failing to act on climate change, and who free-ride on nations that implementing the Kyoto Protocol - and put 'contraction and convergence' at the heart of the UK proposal for a global framework to stop climate change.

18. FREE projects, programmes and institutions from pointless performance targets set by central administrators, and require all government agencies to be focussed on the individual needs of their clients in the community.

19. ENCOURAGE new kinds of money, including a new currency for London, to meet local needs - supplemented by a new regular source of public money, issued debt-free and interest-free by the Bank of England, to invest in public capital projects.

20. PREVENT 'red-lining' - the practice where banks refuse to lend to poor neighbourhoods - by requiring them to reveal how much they are lending where.

Have your say... Let us know how the politicians that you questioned reacted by emailing us at nefmanifesto@neweconomics.org. Who were there and what did they have to say? Were they prepared to be connected to people and the planet? A selection of the responses will be published in the next edition of the nef e-letter.

Click here to see an up to date list of nef's publications

Click here to find out more about how you can help nef to build a new economy that works for people and the planet

Mike Turner, Republican from Dayton, a Congressman to watch

2005-03-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

(I heard Congressman Turner speak at a small conference of the Preservation Development Initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He said the right things. And, as a former Mayor of Dayton Ohio, he actually has experience on city issues. I am not saying we should get him to run for President. I think the "Urban Agenda" is a democratic agenda, but still, this is interesting. See this article about Dayton's Rehab-a-Rama, which was one of Mayor Turner's initiatives.)

COMMENTARY from the Dayton Daily News, Wednesday March 23, 2005

Martin Gottlieb: Turner gets boosts from friends
Bush plan on cities goes to his subcommittee (registration required to access article on newspaper website)

By Martin Gottlieb
Dayton Daily News

Mike Turner's Republican friends in Congress have made a new committee for him — again.

This is the second consecutive Congress in which that has happened. Last time, it wasn't an official committee of Congress, but a "working group" of Republicans called "Saving America's Cities." House Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed to Turner's proposal, which was for a vehicle to focus on urban issues from a Republican perspective.

The idea was to address a political problem the party has in the cities, to show concern for urban issues and to help Turner deliver on the "urban Republican" label he had embraced for himself.
Of course, it doesn't take any great sacrifice on the part of the speaker to agree to a "working group." Still, the party leadership had been trying to cut back on the number of such groups, which had proliferated on the watch of Speaker Newt Gingrich.

This year, the new creation is an actual committee of Congress, complete with Democrats and legislative power. It's a subcommittee, to be precise, of the Government Reform Committee, which has a fuzzy jurisdiction having to do essentially with how government is structured, as opposed, say, to how it is funded.

The full committee chairman and Turner's benefactor is Rep. Tom Davis, a relatively moderate Republican from the Virginia suburbs of Washington. He is the mild-mannered fellow who became known to some television viewers last week when he chaired the hearing looking into steroid use in baseball.

His name first surfaced in Miami Valley politics in 2002, when he was in charge of the national effort to elect more Republicans to the House. Turner was making his first race for Congress. Davis took the unusual step of placing the national party on one candidate's side in a primary. He favored Turner over Roy Brown, saying Turner was obviously the more electable in November.
This blessing from the party undercut Brown's charge that Turner was insufficiently conservative, taking some of the steam out of Brown's campaign. Brown retaliated by denouncing Davis as "left-leaning."

This year Davis has created a subcommittee on "federalism and the census." Its description, from a release by the subcommittee, makes clear that it is made for Turner. It even lists "brownfield cleanup and redevelopment," a pet Turner cause, as part of the jurisdiction. Generally, the subcommittee is all about how the feds relate to the cities. Perfect for a congressman who is a former mayor of a typical city.

Republican ranks in Congress are not exactly full of such people. Turner is playing his former-mayor card to the max.

The subcommittee isn't as important as it sounds, because it isn't much involved in the budgetary process. But juicy things can end up there. Take President George W. Bush's proposal to consolidate 18 urban aid programs into one, dramatically shrink the total budget, and move them all into the Commerce Department. The reorganizational aspects of that would go through the subcommittee.

Indeed, Turner has already held hearings. He took testimony from administration people and from opponents of the plan who were representing national organizations of mayors and other local officials.

Turner opposes the plan, which, under some circumstances, might put him in a difficult spot. After all, he has no interest in developing a reputation in Republican circles as a rebel. And he is already committed to opposing the president's big thrust of the year: carving private accounts out of Social Security.

As things have turned out, however, so many people in Congress — Republicans as a well as Democrats — oppose the administration plan that the spotlight will not particularly be on Turner, unless, as he hopes, he can be the one to work out some sort of compromise.
Davis, as chairman of the full committee, had an essentially free hand to create the subcommittee. Doing so took the party just a little farther along the path Hastert took in blessing the "working group."

In the big picture, these are minor developments, not necessarily suggesting any more than that one junior congressman has some well-placed friends. Major policy will still be set at much higher levels. The Bush consolidation proposal shows that not much has changed in the Republican Party's approach to cities.

Still, it's a start, perhaps even in more ways than one.

Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News. He may be reached at 225-2288 or by e-mail at mgottlieb@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Geo-Greening by Example

2005-03-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

(Sustainable energy use is a pro-urban issue. Note: I don't know enough to agree or disagree on his statement about nuclear power. After the experience with Enron and the often induced electricity shortages out west, not to mention the power blackout in the Northeast due to an antiquated infrastructure, it's hard to think that the average utility company will be a good steward of such installations.)

By Thomas Friedman, New York Times

How will future historians explain it? How will they possibly explain why President George W. Bush decided to ignore the energy crisis staring us in the face and chose instead to spend all his electoral capital on a futile effort to undo the New Deal, by partially privatizing Social Security? We are, quite simply, witnessing one of the greatest examples of misplaced priorities in the history of the U.S. presidency.

"Ah, Friedman, but you overstate the case." No, I understate it. Look at the opportunities our country is missing - and the risks we are assuming - by having a president and vice president who refuse to lift a finger to put together a "geo-green" strategy that would marry geopolitics, energy policy and environmentalism.

By doing nothing to lower U.S. oil consumption, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world. That is, we are financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars and we are financing the jihadists - and the Saudi, Sudanese and Iranian mosques and charities that support them - through our gasoline purchases. The oil boom is also entrenching the autocrats in Russia and Venezuela, which is becoming Castro's Cuba with oil. By doing nothing to reduce U.S. oil consumption we are also setting up a global competition with China for energy resources, including right on our doorstep in Canada and Venezuela. Don't kid yourself: China's foreign policy today is very simple - holding on to Taiwan and looking for oil.

Finally, by doing nothing to reduce U.S. oil consumption we are only hastening the climate change crisis, and the Bush officials who scoff at the science around this should hang their heads in shame. And it is only going to get worse the longer we do nothing. Wired magazine did an excellent piece in its April issue about hybrid cars, which get 40 to 50 miles to the gallon with very low emissions. One paragraph jumped out at me: "Right now, there are about 800 million cars in active use. By 2050, as cars become ubiquitous in China and India, it'll be 3.25 billion. That increase represents ... an almost unimaginable threat to our environment. Quadruple the cars means quadruple the carbon dioxide emissions - unless cleaner, less gas-hungry vehicles become the norm."

All the elements of what I like to call a geo-green strategy are known:

We need a gasoline tax that would keep pump prices fixed at $4 a gallon, even if crude oil prices go down. At $4 a gallon (premium gasoline averages about $6 a gallon in Europe), we could change the car-buying habits of a large segment of the U.S. public, which would make it profitable for the car companies to convert more of their fleets to hybrid or ethanol engines, which over time could sharply reduce our oil consumption.

We need to start building nuclear power plants again. The new nuclear technology is safer and cleaner than ever. "The risks of climate change by continuing to rely on hydrocarbons are much greater than the risks of nuclear power," said Peter Schwartz, chairman of Global Business Network, a leading energy and strategy consulting firm. "Climate change is real and it poses a civilizational threat that [could] transform the carrying capacity of the entire planet."
And we need some kind of carbon tax that would move more industries from coal to wind, hydro and solar power, or other, cleaner fuels. The revenue from these taxes would go to pay down the deficit and the reduction in oil imports would help to strengthen the dollar and defuse competition for energy with China.

It's smart geopolitics. It's smart fiscal policy. It is smart climate policy. Most of all - it's smart politics! Even evangelicals are speaking out about our need to protect God's green earth. "The Republican Party is much greener than George Bush or Dick Cheney," remarked Mr. Schwartz. "There is now a near convergence of support on the environmental issue. Look at how popular [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, a green Republican, is becoming because of what he has done on the environment in California."

Imagine if George Bush declared that he was getting rid of his limousine for an armor-plated Ford Escape hybrid, adopting a geo-green strategy and building an alliance of neocons, evangelicals and greens to sustain it. His popularity at home - and abroad - would soar. The country is dying to be led on this. Instead, he prefers to squander his personal energy trying to take apart the New Deal and throwing red meat to right-to-life fanatics. What a waste of a presidency. How will future historians explain it?

Business Sees Gain In GOP Takeover

2005-03-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

"Fortune 500 companies that invested millions of dollars in electing Republicans are emerging as the earliest beneficiaries of a government controlled by President Bush and the largest GOP House and Senate majority in a half century.

MBNA Corp., the credit card behemoth and fifth-largest contributor to Bush's two presidential campaigns, is among those on the verge of prevailing in an eight-year fight to curtail personal bankruptcies. Exxon Mobil Corp. and others are close to winning the right to drill for oil in Alaska's wildlife refuge, which they have tried to pass for better than a decade. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., another big contributor to Bush and the GOP, and other big companies recently won long-sought protections from class-action lawsuits.

Republicans have pursued such issues for much of the past decade, asserting that free market policies are the smartest way to grow the economy. But now it appears they finally have the legislative muscle to push some of their agenda through Congress and onto the desk of a president eager to sign pro-business measures into law. The chief reason is Bush's victory in 2004 and GOP gains in Congress, especially in the Senate, where much of corporate America's agenda has bogged down in recent years, according to Republicans and Democrats.

'These are not real high-profile, sexy issues like the war or Social Security, but these are issues that have huge economic consequences,' said Charles R. Black Jr., a GOP lobbyist and one of the president's top fundraisers. 'And there is more to come on that score.'

Bush and his congressional allies are looking to pass legal protections for drug companies, doctors, gun manufacturers and asbestos makers, as well as tax breaks for all companies and energy-related assistance sought by the oil and gas industry."

For more go to this article from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3796-2005Mar26.html

THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO by The Editors of The Stranger

2005-03-28T18:10:00.000-08:00

From The Stranger, November 11-17, 2004

It's the Cities, Stupid.

There are two maps on this page.

This one should be familiar. It's one of those red-state/blue-state maps that have been tormenting Democrats, liberals, and progressives since November of 2000. Over the 36 days that George W. Bush and Al Gore fought for the White House in Florida, "red" and "blue" became metaphors for America's divided electorate. Red vs. Blue--Democrat vs. Republican; liberal vs. conservative; pro-life vs. pro-choice; gun-huggers vs. gun-haters; gay-huggers vs. gay-haters.

The red-state/blue-state map opposite shows the results of 2004's presidential election--red states won by George W. Bush, blue states won by John F. Kerry. But the red-state/blue-state map is misleading. If a Republican presidential candidate takes 50 percent of the vote plus 1 vote in any given state, the whole state is colored red (even worse, a mere plurality of voters can turn a state red when third parties are involved). The same goes for the Democratic candidate--corral the most votes, and the whole state is colored blue. But painting an entire state one color or the other creates a false impression, an impression that we believe is hampering the Democratic Party's efforts to pull itself out of its tailspin.

Take a look at the second map on the opposite page. This map shows a county-by-county red/blue breakdown, and it provides a clearer picture of the bind the Democrats finds themselves in. The majority of the blue states--Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware--are, geographically speaking, not blue states. They are blue cities.

Look at our famously blue West Coast. But for the cities--Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego--the West Coast would be a deep, dark red. The same is true for other nominally blue states. Illinois is almost entirely red--Chicago turns the state blue. Michigan is almost entirely red--Detroit, Lansing, Kalamazoo turn it blue. And on and on. What tips these states into the blue column? Their urban areas do, their big, populous counties.

It's time for the Democrats to face reality: They are the party of urban America. If the cities elected our president, if urban voters determined the outcome, John F. Kerry would have won by a landslide. Urban voters are the Democratic base.

THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO

It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map. Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country. And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers. Red Virginia prohibits any contract between same-sex couples. Compassionate? Texas allows the death penalty to be applied to teenaged criminals and has historically executed the mentally retarded. (When the Supreme Court ruled executions of the mentally retarded unconstitutional in 2002, Texas officials, including Governor Rick Perry, responded by claiming that the state had no mentally retarded inmates on death row--a claim the state was able to make because it does not test inmates for mental retardation.) Dumb? The Sierra Club has reported that Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee squander over half of their federal transportation money on building new roads rather than public transit.

If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities. An overwhelming majority of the American popuation chooses to live in cities. And John Kerry won every city with a population above 500,000. He took half the cities with populations between 50,000 and 500,000. The future success of liberalism is tied to winning the cities. An urbanist agenda may not be a recipe for winning the next presidential election--but it may win the Democrats the presidential election in 2012 and create a new Democratic majority.

For Democrats, it's the cities, stupid--not the rural areas, not the prickly, hateful "heartland," but the sane, sensible cities--including the cities trapped in the heartland. Pandering to rural voters is a waste of time. Again, look at the second map. Look at the urban blue spots in red states like Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico--there's almost as much blue in those states as there is in Washington, Oregon, and California. And the challenge for the Democrats is not just to organize in the blue areas but to grow them. And to do that, Democrats need to pursue policies that encourage urban growth (mass transit, affordable housing, city services), and Democrats need to openly and aggressively champion urban values. By focusing on the cities the Dems can create a tribal identity to combat the white, Christian, rural, and suburban identity that the Republicans have cornered. And it's sitting right there, on every electoral map, staring them in the face: The cities.

The urbanites. Howard Dean had it wrong when he tried to woo the "Pickup Truck with Confederate Flag" vote. In fact, while Kerry won urban areas by a whopping 60 percent--that actually represents a 15 percent drop in urban support from 2000 when Gore won the election. The lesson? Democrats have got to tend to their urban base and grow it.

In cities all over America, distressed liberals are talking about fleeing to Canada or, better yet, seceding from the Union. We can't literally secede and, let's admit it, we don't really want to live in Canada. It's too cold up there and in our heart-of-hearts we hate hockey. We can secede emotionally, however, by turning our backs on the heartland. We can focus on our issues, our urban issues, and promote our shared urban values. We can create a new identity politics, one that transcends class, race, sexual orientation, and religion, one that unites people living in cities with each other and with other urbanites in other cities. The Republicans have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City (Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be. Let them have the shitholes, the Oklahomas, Wyomings, and Alabamas. We'll take Manhattan.

EMBRACING URBAN SELF-INTEREST

To all those who live in cities--to all those depressed Kerry supporters out there--we say take heart. Clearly we can't control national politics right now--we can barely get a hearing. We can, however, stay engaged in our cities, and make our voices heard in the urban areas we dominate, and make each and every one, to quote Ronald Reagan (and John Winthrop, the 17th-century Puritan Reagan was parroting), "a city on a hill." This is not a retreat; it is a long-term strategy for the Democratic Party to cater to and build on its base.

To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns, and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Fuck off. Your issues are no longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas. Instead we will work toward winning health care one blue state at a time.

When it comes to the environment, our new policy is this: Let the heartland live with the consequences of handing the national government to the rape-and-pillage party. The only time urbanists should concern themselves with the environment is when we are impacted--directly, not spiritually (the depressing awareness that there is no unspoiled wilderness out there doesn't count). Air pollution, for instance: We should be aggressive. If coal is to be burned, it has to be burned as cleanly as possible so as not to foul the air we all have to breathe. But if West Virginia wants to elect politicians who allow mining companies to lop off the tops off mountains and dump the waste into valleys and streams, thus causing floods that destroy the homes of the yokels who vote for those politicians, it no longer matters to us. Fuck the mountains in West Virginia--send us the power generated by cleanly burned coal, you rubes, and be sure to wear lifejackets to bed.

Wal-Mart is a rapacious corporation that pays sub-poverty-level wages, offers health benefits to its employees that are so expensive few can afford them, and destroys small towns and rural jobs. Liberals in big cities who have never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart spend a lot of time worrying about the impact Wal-Mart is having on the heartland. No more. We will do what we can to keep Wal-Mart out of our cities and, if at all possible, out of our states. We will pass laws mandating a living wage for full-time work, upping the minimum wage for part-time work, and requiring large corporations to either offer health benefits or pay into state- or city-run funds to provide health care for uninsured workers. That will reform Wal-Mart in our blue cities and states or, better yet, keep Wal-Mart out entirely. And when we see something on the front page of the national section of the New York Times about the damage Wal-Mart is doing to the heartland, we will turn the page. Wal-Mart is not an urban issue.

Neither is gun control. Our new position: We'll fight to keep guns off the streets of our cities, but the more guns lying around out there in the heartland, the better. Most cities have strong gun-control laws--laws that are, of course, undermined by the fact that our cities aren't walled. Yet. But why should liberals in cities fund organizations that attempt, to take one example, to get trigger locks onto the handguns of NRA members out there in red states? If red-state dads aren't concerned enough about their own children to put trigger locks on their own guns, it's not our problem. If a kid in a red state finds his daddy's handgun and blows his head off, we'll feel terrible (we're like that), but we'll try to look on the bright side: At least he won't grow up to vote like his dad.

We won't demand that the federal government impose reasonable fuel-efficiency standards on all cars sold in the United States. We will, however, strive to pass state laws, as California has done, imposing fuel-efficiency standards on cars sold in our states.

We officially no longer give a shit when family farms fail. Fewer family farms equal fewer rural voters. We will, however, continue to support small faggy organic farms, as we are willing to pay more for free-range chicken and beef from non-cannibal cows.

We won't concern ourselves if red states restrict choice. We'll just make sure that abortion remains safe and legal in the cities where we live, and the states we control, and when your daughter or sister or mother dies in a botched abortion, we'll try not to feel too awful about it.
In short, we're through with you people. We're going to demand that the Democrats focus on building their party in the cities while at the same time advancing a smart urban-growth agenda that builds the cities themselves. The more attractive we make the cities--politically, aesthetically, socially--the more residents and voters cities will attract, gradually increasing the electoral clout of liberals and progressives. For Democrats, party building and city building is the same thing. We will strive to turn red states blue one city at a time.

From here on out, we're glad red-state rubes live in areas where guns are more powerful and more plentiful, cars are larger and faster, and people are fatter and slower and dumber. This is not a recipe for repopulating the Great Plains. And when you look for ways to revive your failing towns and dying rural counties, don't even think about tourism. Who wants to go to small-town America now? You people scare us. We'll island-hop from now on, thank you, spending our time and our money in blue cities. If an urbanite is dying to have a country experience, rural Vermont is lovely. Maple syrup, rolling hills, fly-fishing--everything you could want. Country bumpkins in red rural areas who depend on tourists from urban areas but vote Republican can forget our money.

You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York, Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again, we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and every one--a shining city on a hill. You can have your shitholes.

URBAN VISION

The first president Bush had a problem with the "vision thing," and he lost. Democrats had a problem with vision thing in 2004, and they lost. But they don't have to continue having this problem.

Above any other advantage, the new urban identity politics solves "the vision thing" for the Democratic Party. No longer are we a fractured aggregation of special interests or a spineless hydra of contingent alliances--we are a united front, with a clear, compelling image and an articulated system of values. Up until now, the Republicans have been winning the image war. When you think of "America," you imagine a single-family dwelling with a flag in the front yard and acres of corn waving in the background. It's an angry red fantasy. But propaganda is flexible, and audiences are pliant. Urban politics opens up a whole new visual vocabulary to be exploited by TV advertising, and it's a vocabulary rich in emotional content, particularly after September 11. This is the era of cityscapes, rapid transit, and crowds of people. Political advertising can no longer pander to nostalgia about the yeoman countryside--we must embrace our urban future.

With all the talk of the growth of exurbs and the hand-wringing over facile demographic categories like "security moms," you may be under the impression that an urban politics wouldn't speak to many people. But according to the 2000 Census, 226 million people reside inside metropolitan areas--a number that positively dwarfs the 55 million people who live outside metro areas. The 85 million people who live in strictly defined central city limits also outnumber those rural relics. When the number of city-dwellers in the United States is quadruple the number of rural people, we can put simple democratic majorities to work for our ideals.

Even people who don't live in cities look to urban centers for a certain image of America. The nation identified with New York City in such a visceral way on September 11 not just because Americans died there--Americans died in a Pennsylvania field and in Northern Virginia too--but because the New York skyline is a stirring image of American prosperity and achievement. It symbolizes the motivation and spirit of the American people, the wealth of our nation, the thrum of diverse cultures, and inexhaustible cultural creativity. Cities inspire us; they speak to our hopes and our passions. Small towns diminish us; they speak of lost history and downscaled dreams. The Democratic Party should compete on our own turf, change the terms of the debate, and give the American people heroes to believe in--as well as enemies to revile.

Conservatives have vilified liberals for decades, and the new urban identity politics gives the Democratic Party its own partisan villains. The truth is that rural states--the same red states that vote reflexively Republican in national elections--are welfare states. While red-state voters like to complain about "tax-and-spend liberals," red states are hopelessly dependent on the largess of the federal government to prop up their dwindling rural population. Red states like North Dakota, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Arkansas top the list of federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid. And who's paying the most? Blue states. Cities--and states dominated by their cities. Welfare states, in contrast, demand federal money to fund wasteful roads to nowhere. Welfare states guzzle barrel upon barrel of oil so their rural residents can sputter along on ribbons of asphalt.

Take a state like Wyoming, the arid, under-populated home of our glowering vice president Dick Cheney. Wyoming receives the second-highest amount of federal aid in the nation per capita (Alaska, another red state, is number one), and it ranks second lowest in federal taxes paid (behind only South Dakota). Overall, the federal government spent about $2,413 per capita in Wyoming for the fiscal year 2002 (the last year for which data is available), compared with almost exactly half that amount, or $1,205 per capita, for Washington State. This ridiculous disparity extends even to Homeland Security funds, which ought to be targeted toward the most vulnerable areas--coastlines, big city landmarks, porous borders. But landlocked Wyoming, with exactly zero important strategic targets, merits $38.31 per capita in Homeland Security funds. New York state residents get a measly $5.47. An urban agenda would argue for kicking Wyoming off the federal dole. States should pay their own way, not come to cities begging for handouts.

A refusal to subsidize rural waste will inform other policy decisions as well. Farm subsidies, for example, are obsolete and they cause needless friction in international trade agreements. The agricultural complex in the United States is so concentrated that very few voters have a personal stake in the continued existence of farm subsidies. Rural voters aren't going to switch party affiliations no matter what we do, so let's jettison their issues when they fail to serve our core interests. Ethanol, a corn-derived alcohol, is another great example. Scientific consensus says that corn will never be a viable source for alternative fuel, since the very production of ethanol requires so much fossil fuel and the payoff is paltry. Ethanol is vanity research; the new urban politics should stand for real solutions.

In the same way, we need to claim legislation like the Clean Air Act as our own. It is urban residents, not rural residents, who suffer when air quality is poor, and coal mines in rural states cannot dictate what size airborne particulates we should be willing to breathe. Asthma is a growing problem across the nation, but it is particularly acute among African American and Latino children growing up in the inner cities--the death rate from asthma complications is three times as high for minority children as it is for whites. This is unacceptable, and it's just one example of an issue urban residents can and should rally behind.

Democrats are now emphatically the minority party. This doesn't mean we give up; it means we take a page from the Republican playbook, refining and relentlessly pushing a vision of our own. We must rededicate ourselves to the urban core.

URBAN INDEPENDENCE

The anti-urban vote does more than just overwhelm city voters in presidential elections. It also overruns city priorities on local policy debates. We should go our own way. After all, when a city like Seattle's fate is tied to that of a state like Washington, the city's interests are routinely routed. In 1993, for example, Washington voters limited state budget increases, hobbling education and transportation funding. The measure, which passed statewide by a 51 to 49 margin, tanked in Seattle, 46 to 54. A 1997 gay rights measure, meanwhile, suffered the converse fate, losing statewide while winning here. And Tim Eyman's two tax-slashing initiatives won in rural and suburban areas but went down in flames inside city limits.

Laws limiting taxes have a disproportionate impact on cities, which rely on local levies to pay for basic social and human services like domestic-violence programs, low-income housing, and tenant advocacy. If you're wondering why the city is suffering draconian budget cuts--$24 million this year, $20 million in 2005--you can thank rural voters who seem unable to grasp a basic Christian tenet; greed is bad, sharing is good.

The lesson is simple for urban residents: Seattle shouldn't cast its lot with the rest of the state. Rural and suburban voters have shown again and again that they aren't willing to fund urban infrastructure. Throughout Washington State, transportation taxes like 2002's Referendum 51 have tanked, while anti-transit measures like Tim Eyman's I-776 have passed overwhelmingly. While that might seem like grim news for cities like Seattle, there's a silver lining: When cities set their own transportation priorities, truly urban systems (like the monorail) get funded and built, while the suburban mega-highways that lard initiatives like R-51 go unfunded. We don't use suburban roads. We can let the suburbs figure out a way to pay for them.

Cities have the clout, and the imperative, to give people alternatives to driving solo, and to punish those who insist on clogging our city streets. In Seattle, we've done exactly that. We've built bike lanes, expanded the bus system, and banned new park-and-rides inside city limits. We've funded a South Seattle-to-downtown light rail system. And we've overwhelmingly supported the monorail, an inner-city mass-transit system that's paid for by one of the most progressive taxes available: an excise tax on the value of cars in the city. Want to buy a Hummer? Fine. But you're gonna pay for it--and help fund public transit. If you want to rely on environmentally friendly public transit, though, we'll make it affordable and easy to use. That's a truly urban value.

Transit like the monorail, in turn, promotes density in outlying areas (like Ballard and West Seattle), which leads to the creation of housing that's affordable to everyone--not just the proverbial penthouse-dwelling downtown urban elite. Cities like Seattle can further encourage dense urban housing by adopting policies that encourage developers to build dense low-income housing. And we've done it: Last year, Mayor Greg Nickels unveiled a new push to increase density outside downtown by increasing building heights and providing incentives to developers who build inner-city housing.

The more housing that is built in cities, the more people can afford to live there. And the more cities pass laws that make it easier to live in cities--laws like Washington State's inflation-indexed minimum wage, which passed overwhelmingly in Seattle--the more cities will attract the kind of culturally and economically diverse populations that make them attractive places to work and live. And, as counterintuitive as it may seem to composting, recycling self-righteous suburbanites, living in dense urban areas is actually better for the environment. The population of New York City is larger than that of 39 states. But because dense apartment housing is more energy efficient, New York City uses less energy than any state. Conversely, suburban living--with its cars, highways, and single-family houses flanked by pesticide-soaked lawns--saps energy and devastates the ecosystem.

Cities' freedom to go their own way extends, of course, beyond mere infrastructure. Urban dwellers are cultural libertarians--we don't just tolerate a diversity of lifestyles and attitudes, we embrace it. Seattle, for example, has over 1000 churches, mosques, and synagogues. From San Francisco to Ann Arbor to Seattle, cities have been the vanguard.

Drug reform is a prime example. Eight states have passed medical marijuana initiatives; none could have done so without the pro-pot clout of cities. Last year, Seattle voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 75, which effectively decriminalizes marijuana possession by making it cops' lowest law enforcement priority. And just this month, Ann Arbor passed a law legalizing medical marijuana, the second city in Michigan to do so. There are countless other examples. But the bottom line is this: Cities, not the outlying suburbs, are leading the way on drug reform. And where cities go, the nation will inevitably follow.

Gay rights, another national issue, took a beating this November, as 11 states passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. But locally, Seattle has ensured that gays and lesbians enjoy the full protection of the law. Not only are Seattle city employees and employees of firms that contract with the city entitled to domestic partnership benefits, earlier this year, Mayor Nickels announced that the city would honor gay marriages from other progressive jurisdictions, such as Portland and San Francisco.

But there's still more to do that the Feds and the State are loath to deliver: Subsidized childcare; safe injection sites; expanding the monorail through the rest of the city; discouraging excessive auto use by taxing mileage (to pay for more public transit); and providing family planning for low-income families. An aggressive new urbanist movement will go its own way, making the cities, not the states, the true laboratories of democracy.

URBAN STATES

In November 1960, a black 6-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges entered the newly desegregated William Frantz Public School in New Orleans. In reaction to her admission, white parents withdrew their kids from Ruby's class and she completed the first grade alone, with instruction from one teacher and support from a child psychiatrist. Ruby's walk to class on the first day of school inspired Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With. In this painting (one of Rockwell's best, as far as we are concerned), a very black Ruby Bridges is escorted to school by four big white U.S. marshals. The image is powerful because it represents the federal government as an institution and enforcer of reason. The white bigots of New Orleans can complain, bitch, and threaten the lives of black boys and girls all they want, but in the end the federal government steps in to ensure that the rights of every American are protected.

This image of the federal government is now in a coma. The lawmaking bodies that are clustered in Washington, D.C. (the Senate, the House, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, the White House), no longer form the enlightened center from which reason and justice emanate. During the civil rights era, the federal government could claim to at least aspire to this transcendental order (the Great Society, the War on Poverty, the Voting Rights Act of 1965), but not today. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Washington, D.C., has exerted a force that is not progressive (as epitomized by Rockwell's painting) but oppressive. This is not an exaggeration. For example, the sole reason why the state of California--or more accurately, the cities of California through the agency of the state--turned to its own citizens to establish funding for stem cell research is because the federal government, in the form of the reelected Bush administration, holds a profoundly backward position on the matter.

Under Bush, the federal government spent almost nothing ($25 million) this year on stem cell research, a policy that's entirely informed by the bizarre belief in a God who has a white beard, lives in heaven, and hates the idea of stem cell research. The reality is this: There are over 100 million Americans (most of them Christian) whose lives would be improved or saved by therapies and treatments that could be developed through stem cell research. The federal government, however, holds the opinion that God should not be deprived of worship from the souls that are supposedly housed in the miniscule cells of five-day-old embryos. Realizing this is just plain stupid (or country, an archaic synonym for stupid that should be revived in our post-2004 election world), California's citizens--its urban citizens--passed Proposition 71, which would allocate for research nearly $300 million a year over the next 10 years. This figure, $300 million, is three times larger even than what John Kerry proposed, and promises to bring the benefits of this new science to all Americans before the close of this decade. Clearly the federal government is no longer the enforcer of reason, the cities are, we urbanites are.

Proposition 71 is just the beginning of a new, muscular urban politics. More and more decisions involving health, education, transportation, and law must be wrested away from our theocratic federal government by large humanistic cities. The federal government may give us its prayers but it will never give us even the most basic health care coverage. The State of Hawaii has what the rest of America doesn't have--universal health care coverage. Why can't other states do the same? Or, more to the point, why can't big cities compel the states they're located in to do the same? Again, it is not the State of Washington that is blue, it is the concentrated population of Seattle that is deep blue; and because Seattle is so damn big it has the power to dictate the politics of its generally hostile state. So, this is not about state rights--indeed, the counties in California that passed Proposition 71 by 60 percent or more were all urban (San Francisco with the highest percentage in the whole state, 71). It's about urban rights, about empowering the bastions of reason and rationality in a nation that is increasingly unreasonable and irrational. As a resident of the city, you should be proud to be an urbanite.

URBAN VALUES

It's no secret what the urban population is against--the Bush administration and its red armies have done us the favor of making it a cinch to identify: We oppose their sub-moronic, "faith-based" approach to life, and, as stated above, we hereby relinquish our liberal tendency to sympathize with their lack of, say, livable working conditions, a family wage, and a national health care program. We no longer have to concern ourselves with the survival of the family farm, nor do we have to concern ourselves with saving fragile suburban economies from collapse. They're against us; we're against them. This is a war.

But if liberals and progressives want to reach out past our urban bases, it might be helpful to identify some essential convictions, thereby allowing us to perhaps compete on "values." Identifying and articulating our core convictions, as opposed to compromising and downplaying them in search of some kind of non-urban appeal, might actually attract voters in exurbs and rural areas who understand the importance of cities to the national economy. But even if it doesn't, ours is a superior way of life. Wherever people choose to live in this country, they should want to live as we do.

So how do we live and what are we for? Look around you, urbanite, at the multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, and tribes that are smashed together in every urban center (yes, even Seattle): We're for that. We're for pluralism of thought, race, and identity. We're for a freedom of religion that includes the freedom from religion--not as some crazy aberration, but as an equally valid approach to life. We are for the right to choose one's own sexual and recreational behavior, to control one's own body and what one puts inside it. We are for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The people who just elected George W. Bush to a second term are frankly against every single idea outlined above.

Unlike the people who flee from cities in search of a life free from disagreement and dark skin, we are for contentiousness, discourse, and the heightened understanding of life that grows from having to accommodate opposing viewpoints. We're for opposition. And just to be clear: The non-urban argument, the red state position, isn't oppositional, it's negational--they are in active denial of the existence of other places, other people, other ideas. It's reactionary utopianism, and it is a clear and present danger; urbanists should be upfront and unapologetic about our contempt for their politics and their negational values. Republicans have succeeded in making the word "liberal"--which literally means "free from bigotry... favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded"--into an epithet. Urbanists should proclaim their liberalism from the highest rooftop (we have higher rooftops than they do); it's the only way we survive. And in our next breath, we should condemn their politics, exposing their conservatism as the anti-Americanism that it is, striving to make "conservative" into an epithet.

Let's see, what else are we for? How about education? Cities are beehives of intellectual energy; students and teachers are everywhere you look, studying, teaching, thinking. In Seattle, you can barely throw a rock without hitting a college. It's time to start celebrating that, because if the reds have their way, advanced degrees will one day be awarded based on the number of Bible verses a person can recite from memory. In the city, people ask you what you're reading. Outside the city, they ask you why you're reading. You do the math--and you'll have to, because non-urbanists can hardly even count their own children at this point. For too long now, we've caved to the non-urban wisdom that decries universities as bastions of elitism and snobbery. Guess what: That's why we should embrace them. Outside of the city, elitism and snobbery are code words for literacy and complexity. And when the oil dries up, we're not going to be turning to priests for answers--we'll be calling the scientists. And speaking of science: SCIENCE! That's another thing we're for. And reason. And history. All those things that non-urbanists have replaced with their idiotic faith. We're for those.

As part of our pro-reason platform, we're for paying taxes--taxes, after all, support the urban infrastructure on which we all rely, and as such, are a necessary part of the social contract we sign every day. We are for density, and because we're for density, we're for programs that support it, like mass transit. If you ignore the selfish whimperings of the Kirkland contingent, it's not too hard to envision a time when the only vehicles allowed on the streets of Seattle are buses, trams, and shuttles. Utopian? Wrong: reality-based. It's a better, smarter way to live, and the urbanist is always in favor of that. People who commute to the city for their livelihood and then attack urban areas and people in the voting booth are the worst kind of hypocrites. Commuters, we neither want nor need you. We welcome, however, new residents, new urbanites, the continual influx of people from other places who come here to stay (are you listening, liberal residents of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming?). These transplants help create the density we find so attractive, and they provide the plurality that makes cities thrive.
A city belongs to everyone in it, and expands to contain whoever desires to join its ranks. People migrate to cities and open independent businesses or work at established ones. They import cultural influences, thus enriching the urban arts and nightlife, which in turn enrich everything. Most importantly, they bring the indisputable fact of their own bodies and minds. We wait in line with them at QFC, we stand shoulder to shoulder with them at the bar, we cram ourselves next to them on the bus. We share our psychic and physical space, however limited it might be, because others share it with us. It's not a question of tolerance, nor even of personal freedom; it's a matter of recognizing the fundamental interdependence of all citizens--not just the ones who belong to the same church. Non-urbanites have chosen to burn the declaration of interdependence, opting instead for tyranny, isolationism, and "faith." They can have them.

These, of course, are broad strokes. We all know that not everyone who lives in the suburbs is a raving neo-Christian idiot. The raving neo-Christian idiots are winning, however, so we need to take the fight to them. In this case, the fight is largely spiritual; it consists of embracing the reality that urban life and urban values are the only sustainable response to the modern age of holy war, environmental degradation, and global conflict. More important, it consists of rejecting the impulse to apologize for living in a society that prizes values like liberalism, pluralism, education, and facts. It's time for the Democratic Party to stop pandering to bovine, non-urban America. You don't apologize for being right--especially when you're at war.