January 11, 2012 by mike.

We need transcendent, transformative politics in this country and the world, but the mainstream paradigm remains a struggle between established power bases - one, a social democrat model as epitomized in Scandinavian models and the other, a Thatcher/Reagan model of social darwinism wearing a mantle of trickle down, supply-side economics.  There is no question that I prefer the social democrat model, but I think neither model is particularly well-suited to the challenges that the planet is cranking up to deal with a species that is out of control. 

Greece’s experiment with austerity politics in a time of economic stagnation proves once again that pulling more money out of a economic system that has a crashing demand side will cause the economic system to slip to a lower state.  It doesn’t seem to matter if all of the most photogenic politicians that money can buy are spouting platitudes about “growing the economy” by reducing debt, austerity politics just don’t turn stagnating economies around.  You do austerity politics in good economic times, you do keynsian economics in economic downturns if you want somewhat stable economies.  You also need a stable and consistent tax policy that generates the revenue needed for public services.  You don’t flatten taxes in boom times because you will need the accumulated revenue when the boom times go…  well…  boom!

Boom and bust.  Bubble economies.  These cycles should not be a big surprise to anyone who has studied economic cycles.

Transformative politics?   Does that mean democrats?   uhh…   no…   I don’t think those folks misunderstand who is footing the bill for their elections.   Do you think Goldman Sachs money is showing up in the Obama re-election till because they think Obama’s ideas are great?   Well, maybe.    GS has done pretty well since Obama became president.

No, I am thinking about really transformative economics and politics.

Real utopias.  I like the sound of that .

Envisioning Real Utopias from West Coast Poverty Center on Vimeo.

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January 6, 2012 by mike.

Senator Fraser, Representative Hunt and Representative Reykdal all spoke on January 3rd about the “big achievement” of the recent Special Session that was able to cut 480 million dollars to reduce the budget deficit, about 25% of the amount that it is assumed will need to be cut. There was some sense of dread about the next step - the process of cutting another 1.5 billion from the State budget - that is going to be front and center in the Regular Session that starts on January 8th.  And there should be some dread about that.

This group of legislators does seem to have gotten and absorbed the message that this next round of cuts will contribute to the death of some folks in the most needy, most disabled segments of the State population and they appeared to be rightfully horrified about moving from legislative death of a thousand cuts to an actual headcount of citizens who will need to be buried in the coming biennium as a result of legislative action.

Senator Fraser spoke to the citizens who assembled (I counted about 40 persons, but folks were coming and going, so it might have been as many as 60 folks over the two hour meet-up) and stated that the next session is going to be about choosing between funding education or health and welfare services. That may be true, but I would sure like to see Ms. Fraser (a wonderful person btw) absorb George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of Elephants message and focus on the battle for revenue generation or the progressive agenda that can be moved forward (Washington Investment Trust anyone?) independent of the budget brawl.

That’s what we should be talking about: the budget brawl.  Make no mistake, Eyman and his lackeys in the legislature are brawlers who are focused on the long game.  They are not wringing their hands when they fail on an agenda, they are back to writing initiatives and planning the next round of their fight to drown state government like a baby in the bathtub.

I encourage you to click on the link above and read the Norquist quotes if you want to understand the sensitivity of the Norquist/Eyman troops that we face.  Senator Fraser, keep your eye on the prize, the goals, values, and the opportunities that exist each and every moment in our personal and private lives.  You will feel better, you will govern better if you will stop thinking about the other side’s agenda and start thinking and talking our progressive agenda.  Everything develops from that.  Try not thinking of elephants.   Let’s think/talk about the Washington Investment Trust.  Let’s talk about the constitutional requirement to adequately fund education, let’s talk about the personal, moral commitment to create a society where a poor, disabled person can rely on the community, on State government to provide subsistence levels of support.  Keep your eye on the prize.

We are sending up a team of folks who are thinking “don’t strike out.”  Come on.  This is not rocket science.  We understand that the struggle is difficult, but the folks who represent progressive public policy have to show up and show a little grit.

Representative Hunt took a couple of minutes to describe the three budgets that actually exist in State government.  There is an operational budget - the budget for services, salaries for State employees, etc.  There is a capital budget - the budget for buildings, schools, etc. - that can raise revenue from bonds.  And there is the transportation budget that is funded from gas taxes primarily.  The struggle is over the operational budget.  This may be self-evident to state policy wonks, legislators and citizen activists, but is less well-understood by the citizenry, so I guess it makes sense for Mr. Hunt to go over that and to have it repeated.

Sam Hunt also reminded us that WA State has been given a 10th Federal legislative district because of population growth.  Our state government budget has been shrinking as our population has been rising.  These two trends are out of synch.  Population equals demand for State services and the budget is inexorably linked to the demand for state services.  It doesn’t matter if you are thinking about public education, Department of Revenue, or folks behind the counter when you need a driver’s license, population equals demand for State services and that requires money.  Instead we are looking at State government receiving a 40 year low in tax revenue as a percentage of GDP.

I am out of time and energy for this discussion this morning, but I want to come back and tell you about the budget proposal that Rep. Reykdal described to the group.   It was the brightest moment in the discussion for me.  I have saved it for last.  I will be back to tell you about that very soon.  It is time for the dog to wag the tail folks.  I have had enough of the other approach. I hope we all have had enough of that.  It is time to talk about what we have to do to maintain the kind of society that we value.  Let’s talk about our values, our goals.  Let’s commit to passing progressive legislation and establishing progressive public policy.

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January 4, 2012 by mike.

I attended a meeting with the Thurston County legislators on Jan 3rd.  The three legislators are not firebrands, but as a group, representing a community, they (Reykdal, Hunt, Fraser) are probably about as liberal a group as any one community could send to Olympia to develop Washington State public policy, but there is the problem: they don’t seem to see how they can really develop public policy at the legislature. The meeting was organized and facilitated by Molly Gibbs, friend and organizer in the Move to Amend organization.  Molly’s energy is a local treasure.

This is my second meeting with this legislative group.  We (a bunch of leftist activists of various stripes) met with them (minus Reykdal for that meeting) in November 2011 to discuss the Special Session. It was clear in that meeting that Senator Karen Fraser and Representative Sam Hunt are really fine people, with all of the right intentions, but without any of the street-brawler tools or impulses that are required to enact public policy in Olympia today.  I did what I could in the November meeting and again yesterday to move this group off of their “poor me, poor us” frame of reference and to motivate them to enact progressive public policy, but frankly, I don’t know if these folks can imagine throwing down the gauntlet and taking the fight to the other side.

There is an amazing amount of assumed futility, assumed defeat in the democratic party that assembles in the legislature.  The road kill caucus is one thing, pseudo democrats that are as offensive in their true political views as road kill is in flattened flesh.   But the more progressive democrats are roadkill of a different sort.  They are reasonable, law-abiding folks who represent us by continuous compromise and surrender to an ideologically driven right wing political machine that has few discernible principles beyond an anti-tax, free market capitalism fused with the certainty of born-again economic revelation.  Jesus in the Big Top. Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Capitalists.

Representative Sam Hunt opened with comments about how the current situation “feels like the middle of a hangover.”  Sam (hair of the dog, bite him back please) said he came away from the Special Session with a feeling of how grim things are.  He also mentioned that not one person (citizen) came to the special session and advocated for an “all cut” budget.  All of the folks who turned out and got Sam’s ear were talking about the need to avoid an all cut budget.  But Rep Hunt and the democrats are feeling completely handcuffed by I-1053 that requires a 2/3 majority vote to raise taxes.  And early rulings on 1053 that were mentioned yesterday have determined that closing loopholes is raising taxes, so even closing tax loopholes to generate revenue is believed to be off the table by the democratic caucus.

Rep Hunt has not been sitting on his hands with regard to challenging I-1053.  He has signed on to the Court challenge to that initiative and the challenge is currently in the Seattle Courts and moving toward a motion for summary judgment to find that tax policy/revenue generation is the purview of the Legislature and that 1053 is an unconstitutional encroachment on that legislative responsibility (if I understand the basis for the challenge adequately).  That is fine, but the time frame on the court decision and the eventual path to the WA Supreme Court suggests that this question will be settled for the 2013 Legislative Session and for now, the Democrats appear to be playing true to form and are declining to event attempt to govern and legislate on the basis that I-1053 is flawed.  You have to give these folks points for their reasonableness and their willingness to follow the rules.  But keep in mind that the other side is not feeling so constrained.

It’s easiest to make the point regarding the other side in terms of national policy, so I will go there.  If rules are in effect and constrain the democrats until such time as a Court strikes them down, you have to compare that with the exuberant willingness of the national republican party to enact legislation that allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens who are suspected of being terrorists.  (terrorist is poorly defined and may include folks who demand gluten-free bread at a local eatery, so it’s pretty broad.)  It seems like there are some constraints on this kind of thing in the bill of rights, in common law going back to the Magna Carta that grant us the right of habeas corpus and due process, but the red staters are not feeling constrained by these old pieces of paper as the craft and pass legislation that creates their brave new world.  It’s fine to know that legislation such as the Patriot Act and the more recent National Defense Act are constitutionally invalid, but that knowledge serves us poorly as these unconstitutional policies spring into effect.  We will have a lively teach-in at a FEMA detention center on the constitutional flaws of indefinite detention if opportunity arises, but I have to wonder if that is the right venue for that discussion?

I came away from the meeting yesterday thinking that we are sending boy scouts to a street fight for public policy.  I don’t think our folks are as prepared as they need to be to adequately represent us against the other side.  We have some work to do to get our folks whipped into shape.  If we cannot get our representatives energized for the fight, we need to ask them to step down and get out of the way.

Hope to get back to this tomorrow with Wag the Dog, Part II.  It’s probably going to take me two or three days to give an adequate recap of the January 3rd meeting and to give my take on what needs to be done.

Will see if I can get back to that tomorrow morning.  Regular session opens on January 9th.

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November 26, 2011 by mike.

Posted in Music, Financial Crimes, Friends and Heroes, Eco Criminals, News, Small Foot Print, Connect the Dots, Politics, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

November 26, 2011 by mike.

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October 3, 2011 by mike.

The City of Olympia responded to my request last month that they include public bathrooms in the Artesian Well improvement and reported they don’t have the funds to include public bathrooms at the Artesian Well.  That’s fine for now.  But the national and state economy are putting more people on the streets every day and public bathrooms seem like the least we can do for folks and let it not be said that we did not do the least we could do, right?

Last week, I sent a message to the City Council asking them to open the bathrooms at City Hall 24/7 to improve the lot of people living on the street and to reduce the public blight of sidewalks, alleys, doorways, etc, being used as after-hour toilet facilities.  I did not get a response last week, so I am renewing my request today.   I suggest that those of us who support public bathrooms 24/7 let our voices be heard.  I think there is a City Council meeting on Tuesday at 7 pm at City Hall.

Here is my email to the City Council:

Dear Sirs and Madams:

I did not receive a response to my earlier email, so I am sending it again.  I hope you will consider this proposal.  I believe that a lot of the groups that work with the houseless population in Olympia are eager to work with the City to resolve any concerns that the City might have regarding public bathrooms.  The bathrooms need to be in areas that are routinely patrolled by police or security officers and they need to be seen as a private/public partnership to improve the downtown area.

I look forward to hearing from you regarding this proposal.

Sincerely,

Mike Coday

On 09/23/2011 09:02 AM, Mike Coday wrote:

Dear Sirs and Madams:

Could the City make arrangements to have the public bathrooms at City Hall open on a 24 hour basis?  We have already paid the construction cost, there is pretty good security in that building and there is daily maintenance of the bathrooms.  We really need to increase access to public bathrooms in downtown Olympia.  This is a win-win situation.  We could “clean up” downtown Olympia in a meaningful way by making sure that visitors and residents of downtown Olympia can find a bathroom when they need one. 

Thank you for considering this request.

Sincerely,

 Mike Coday

Want to add your voice?

Doug Mah <dmah@ci.olympia.wa.us>

Craig Ottavelli <cottavel@ci.olympia.wa.us>

Stephen Buxbaum <sbuxbaum@ci.olympia.wa.us>

Karen Rogers <krogers@ci.olympia.wa.us>

Jeannine Roe <jroe@ci.olympia.wa.us>

Rhenda Iris Strub <rstrub@ci.olympia.wa.us>

Steve Langer <slanger@ci.olympia.wa.us>

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September 23, 2011 by mike.

Dear Sirs and Madams:

Could the City make arrangements to have the public bathrooms at City Hall open on a 24 hour basis?  We have already paid the construction cost, there is pretty good security in that building and there is daily maintenance of the bathrooms.  We really need to increase access to public bathrooms in downtown Olympia.  This is a win-slanger@ci.olympia.wa.uswin situation.  We could “clean up” downtown Olympia in a meaningful way by making sure that visitors and residents of downtown Olympia can find a bathroom when they need one.

Thank you for considering this request.

On 09/19/2011 08:27 AM, Danelle MacEwen wrote:

 

Mr. Coday:

 

Thank you for your suggestion and comments.  Unfortunately this is not something that can be done as part of the immediate improvements to the artesian well area due to budget constraints.  Please let me know if you have any other questions regarding the improvements at the well scheduled for this fall.

 

Thanks,
Danelle

Danelle MacEwen

City of Olympia Public Works

601 Fourth Avenue E.

P.O. Box 1967

Olympia, WA 98507-1967

Office: (360) 753-8211

E-Mail: dmacewen@ci.olympia.wa.us

 

From: Mike Coday [mailto:mike@smallblueplanet.org]
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2011 1:13 PM
To: Danelle MacEwen; publicworks; Karen Rogers
Subject: Improvements to the Artesian Well - public bathrooms!

 

I suggest that the City consider addition of public bathroom to be open 7 days per week, 24 hours per day in the vicinity of the Artesian Well to improve the beauty and convenience of the downtown area.  This would be a great location for public bathroom.  It is in close proximity to City Hall and the Police Station, so maintenance and security of the bathroom would be easier in that location than it might be in several other locations in the downtown area.

The increase in numbers of people living on the streets and woods in Olympia have created increased demand for public bathrooms.  I believe the City should address this problem with a compassionate solution and expand public bathroom access in the downtown area.

Thank you,

Mike Coday

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September 22, 2011 by mike.

What better place than Olympia to gather if the Washington State economy has put you on the street?  Come to Olympia to assemble and petition for redress of grievance.   Come and sit on the streets of Olympia as a demonstration and act of free speech.  Come to Olympia and greet the legislators and the policy makers who will have to step over you, or walk around you, as they move around in their daily lives.  The City of Olympia is criminalizing poverty in the downtown area, but the First Amendment comes in…    uh…  First!  We have the right to sit, recline, sing, grieve, and beg for good public policy in Washington State.  Come to Olympia.

If you get hassled by the Olympia Police Department for exercising your free speech rights, email the particulars:  Where, when, police officer name to olympiacopwatch@gmail.com and we will challenge the City and the Police Department to justify the violation of your first amendment rights.

I know that some folks get scared when they have to be close to houseless people.  I encourage those folks to come down to the Artesian Well during daylight and introduce themselves to the people who move through that setting.  There are lots of tattoos, piercings, and a fair amount of cursing, but there is also a lot of openness, music, support, and community. There are scary, dangerous folks everywhere, on the street, in the burbs, in the police force, but most of the folks everywhere are just human being like you and me.  Make the effort to connect and see what happens.  Stop thinking, “there but for the grace of God, go I” and start thinking “there by the grace of God, go I.” Really attempt to connect with the folks and see what happens.  If they ask you or tell you to leave them alone, leave them alone.  It ain’t rocket science.

I have no problem with an ordinance against aggressive panhandling.  I am politely asked to share what I have in my pocket on regularly and I share what I can.  When I say, hey, wish I could, but I am short, I almost always get an “ok, thanks” type of response.  I don’t want to be harassed when I say no, and it doesn’t happen to me. I suspect it doesn’t happen because I really engage with the people asking, I look them in the eye when I tell them I am short.  I don’t avoid the folks.  I treat them with respect and they respond in kind.

Although I am not keen on the whole idea of prohibition (I have some libertarian impulses) I think I am supportive of a ban on fortified wines in downtown.  I hope for a day when there alcohol, drug consumption and possession are not a crime and when the money saved from the “war on drugs” is redirected to substance abuse treatment on request, fully funded. I guarantee you that this approach to dealing with drugs will be more cost-effective and humane.

Come to Olympia.  I will see you in the streets.

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September 21, 2011 by mike.

if you’re talking about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out…

I share John Lennon’s ambivalence about the revolution, but I think there are revolutions coming.  Maybe a revolution doesn’t have to include the choreography and armament to take the Bastille?

How about a revolution in agriculture?  We watched a video about colony collapse disorder last night: Vanishing of the Bees.   Well done, sobering, broad review of the situation for our pollination partners.  I used to keep bees.  Most beekeepers develop a pretty strong connection to their hives, to the collective being that is a beehive.  The beekeepers in this movie certainly showed that connection.  I don’t want to give the story away, so I will just say that I think the filmmakers are correct to identify bees as “canaries in the coal mine.”  I think we need a revolution in the way we approach agriculture and food.   Global food.  What should it look like?

Also thinking about our global economic system.  Tikkun has a piece by Leonardo Boff on the Crisis of Capitalism.  This is an interesting read.  I do have a sense that the current global economic crisis is qualitatively different from previous downturns.  We face some pretty staggering demands from the natural world.  We now live in a world of more extreme weather and the likelihood is that the trend to more extreme weather is just getting started, so the solution is a really major retooling of the world economy where sustainability rather than profit is the goal. Stabilizing the environment is going to require more than a game of three card monte based on cap and trade.  The shell game has always been entertaining, but the game is fixed and the outcome is about fleecing the mark.   (if you look around and you can’t spot the mark, you are the mark).  Here’s a little taste of that Boff piece:

I believe the present crisis of capitalism is more than cyclical and structural. It is terminal. Are we seeing the end of the genius of capitalism, of always being able to adapt to any circumstance? I am aware that only few other people maintain this thesis. Two things, however, bring me to this conclusion.

The first is the following: the crisis is terminal because we all, but in particular capitalism, have exceeded the limits of the Earth. We have occupied and depredated the whole planet, destroying her subtle equilibrium and exhausting her goods and services, to the point that she alone can no longer replenish all that has been removed…

The second reason is linked to the humanitarian crisis that capitalism is creating.

Before, it was limited to the peripheral countries. Now it is global, and it has reached the central countries. The economic question cannot be resolved by dismantling society. The victims, connected by new venues of communication, resist, revolt and threaten the present order. Ever more people, especially the young, reject the perverse capitalist political economic logic: the dictatorship of finance that, through the market, subjugates the States to its interests, and the profitability of speculative capital, that circulates from one stock market to another, reaping profits without producing anything at all, except more money for the stockholders.

So our gaze in the US of A is currently fixed on the three card monte game that is the national election cycle.  Here we go, keep the cards rotating, let the media cover the “debates” and comment on who won and who lost, like a winner could be found in this crowd (Huntsman?  What is he doing in the GOP?) The media talking heads perform like they have one lonely brain cell in their pretty little heads, they stay away from any significant, in-depth questions, or if they ask a good question, they watch as somebody pulls the string so the candidate can recite a talking  point that may or may not have anything to do with the question or the underlying and significant issue.

Just think about how bad it is when the country is having trouble deciding whether Obama is a better choice than a candidate like Perry or Bachman.  Yikes!  Obama has made some disastrous choices, starting with his choice of Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner and he’s turned out to be sort of an Eisenhower Republican, though maybe some of us were hoping to get a democrat in the WH or even a Rockefeller Republican.  Can’t get there from here.

Imagine this country electing an FDR type democrat?  That would be a revolution (and would probably spark one as well).

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September 15, 2011 by mike.

Signed a petition this morning online through PDA to ask the super committee to save a trillion dollars by fixing Medicare Part D.  The change requested would allow the Feds to negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma instead of the current model.   I haven’t studied this hard, but you don’t have to study much to know that the ability to negotiate prices is a good idea.  It’s kind of free market stuff, isn’t it?  Doesn’t the right love the power of the free market?  Let’s see how far this thing goes.  Senator Kyl has jumped off talking about savings from attacking Medicare fraud, but the CBO guy told him point blank, this approach does not address the deficit and tax changes needed. 

I also responded to a request from the FCNL - Friends (quakers) Committee on National Legislation and sent the following letter to my Senator, Patty Murray:

I live in Chehalis, Wa and have been pleased to have you as my Senator.

In my lifetime I have watched the tax table leveled and it has had disastrous effects on the US economy and US politics. The well-to-do, the middle class, and the poor continue to pay their fair share. The “haves” and “have mores” as George Bush called them have had their tax burden greatly relieved and now we face a budget deficit that is a pretext for cutting essential government services that are important to the majority of Americans, but mean little or nothing to the have mores.

In addition to the tax structure tilted to the rich, there is a question of war profiteering and the failure to raise taxes to pay when this country goes to war as it has done too quickly in this century.

The Pentagon budget has doubled in the last 10 years–without even counting what our country has spent on the two wars. It now amounts to more than half of the money Congress appropriates to federal programs each year.

But the main problem is falling revenues and that related directly to the tax hatred and demagogery. A steep tax structure promotes investment in infrastructure, jobs and factories instead of second, third, and fourth homes for the captains of industry.

You are in a very difficult position. It seems you are the only woman on the Super Committee and perhaps this country’s needs more matriotism and less patriotism to turn it around. I send my thoughts to you with the prayer that you will stand larger than a single person on this committee and that you may turn the country in a new direction from your position.

Be strong, be well. Do wonderful things.

Sincerely,

I don’t have much time for this email activism, but I took a minute this morning.  I am generally more directly involved in political action.  I spend more time making signs and materials and engaging in political action than I do sending signing online petitions pleading for change in public policy.  But I took a couple of minutes for this stuff this morning, mainly because FCNL asked me to take a minute.

The Friends, the Quakers, were the folks who ran the underground railroad moving enslaved humans to freedom when slavery was legal in part of our country.  They probably wrote letters and signed petitions as well, but some of the friends of that era believed action was required.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.  Will we stand?  Do we stand for anything?

Which side are you on, boys and girls?

Be strong, be well, DO wonderful things.

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