Month: April 2008

I like E.J. Dionne. But I think his perspective on the Clinton campaign points out the difference between the new progressives and the older more mainline Democrats.

For all Democrats, the worst thing that has happened since January is the tarnishing of the Clinton brand.

Dionne goes on to detail the well known offenses of the Clinton campaign that have so offended many Democrats that ‘when the word “Clinton” crosses their lips, many Democrats sound like Ken Starr, Bob Barr and the late Henry Hyde.’ And he concludes:

“Chill out” is good advice. Hillary Clinton has every right to keep fighting. But her campaign has suffered from a ricochet effect. Attacks aimed at her opponent and efforts to exaggerate her experience have weakened rather than strengthened her claim to the nomination.

This is obviously a problem for Hillary Clinton herself, but it is also very bad for a Democratic Party that cannot afford to see the entire Clinton legacy discredited.

To my way of thinking, the health and future of the Democratic Party (and, therefore, the nation) actually depends on the Clinton legacy being discredited and their brand tarnished. It’s nice, and valuable, for a party to have a president in the somewhat recent past that they can point to as a positive example. For the Republicans, the cult of Ronald Reagan is more than an example; it is a recruitment strength and an ideological rallying cry. But Ronald Reagan didn’t get impeached. Ronald Reagan didn’t preside over huge congressional losses for his party. Ronald Reagan’s presidency was validated by the election of his vice-president as a successor, not rejected in favor of a chimpanzee.

But more to the point, Obama keeps saying that he wants ‘to change the mindset that got us into the war’ in Iraq. A prerequisite for that, is that Democrats revise their opinion of Clinton’s foreign policy. The Clintons spent the 1990’s feeding us trumped up intelligence about the dangers of Saddam Hussein as a way to maintain domestic and international support for the sanctions, for an aborted coup attempt in 1996, for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, and for the bombing of Iraq at various points throughout the decade. The Bushies then took that falsified intelligence and used it to justify the invasion and five-year occupation of Iraq. “Even the Clinton administration thought he had WMD.”

Domestic affairs are a more mixed bag. Clinton did cut through some ossified liberal dogma, but the overall effect of his New Democrat policies was to complete the destruction of the party in the South, badly weaken the party in the Plains states and Interior West, and freeze the Democratic momentum in the suburbs. The Clinton presidency was partly successful because of a booming economy and relative peace, but we should never forget that he squandered the peace dividend and kept the country on a permanent war-budget footing.

Much has also been written about how the Clintons ran the party as an organization. State parties atrophied, the grassroots were marginalized, and funding became dependent on corporate money. We’ve seen these same failings contribute mightily to the downfall of Hillary’s campaign.

The Democrats should never look back to the Clinton presidency as a positive example. Mostly, the Clinton presidency is a cautionary tale about what not to do.

That’s not to suggest that Bill Clinton did nothing right. He did many things right, including hiring competent and ethical people to run the federal bureaucracy. The Clintons should not be demonized, but their brand deserves some tarnish, and we can definitely afford to discredit their legacy…going forward.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing

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On reaching the Americas the slaver ship crews prepared the Africans for sale. They washed, shaved and rubbed them with palm oil to disguise sores and wounds caused by conditions on board. The captains usually sold their captives directly to planters or specialized wholesalers by auction. Families who had managed to stay together were now often broken up. Bonds formed during the voyage were also broken.

Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves (destined for island or South American plantations) were likely to be put through this ordeal. The slaves were tortured for the purpose of “breaking” them (like the practice of breaking horses) and conditioning them to their new lot in life. Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps.

Immediately owners and their overseers sought to obliterate the identities of their newly acquired slaves, to break their wills and sever any bonds with the past. They forced Africans to adapt to new working and living conditions, to learn a new language and adopt new customs. They called this process ‘seasoning’ and it could last two or three years.

For Africans, weakened by the trauma of the voyage, the brutality of this process was overwhelming. Many died or committed suicide. Others resisted and were punished. The rest found ways of appearing to conform which still preserved their dignity.

Most of the Africans brought into North America prior to 1740 came by way of the West Indies. The most valuable slaves were those born in the Americas–known as Creole slaves, and the least valuable were those directly from Africa. Traders tried to present the enslaved African as being as much like a Creole slave as possible in look and behavior. The process began with the sale itself. Although no standard applied for everywhere in the Americas, the most experienced slavers usually cleaned up the Africans by shaving all the hair from their bodies, washing them with water, and oiling them down with palm oil. The about-to-be-sold slave was also fed often but in small amounts for a few days prior to the sale, trained not to resist having all parts of their bodies examined–especially their reproductive organs, and sometimes allotted a little rum to liven their spirits. In the West Indies, traders might put those slaves destined for the American South into sugar plantation work gangs for a few weeks labor to break them in to the routine. After 1740, when the demand for slave labor was highest, most enslaved people sold into the American South came directly from Africa, and they had to be seasoned by their American owners.

Already branded in Africa with the traders mark, they might be branded again with the mark of the new owner. They also would receive new names–usually Christian ones, or names from Classical Rome and Greece–such as Jupiter or Plato, or African-sounding names–like Quack (which was derived from the African word Quaco, meaning a male born on Wednesday) or Squash (which probably came from the word Quashee, meaning a female born on Sunday). Usually older slaves would be put in charge of the seasoning process, teaching the newly purchased enslaved African how to work in gangs, how to conduct themselves, and how to adapt what they knew in Africa to the new environment of slavery.

The following is a transcript from a slave named Olaudah Equiano in 1789. This is part of the Hanover Historical Text Project

We were not many days in the merchant’s custody before we were sold after their usual manner, which is this: On a signal given (as the beat of a drum), the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers serve not a little to increase the apprehensions of the terrified Africans, who may well be supposed to consider them as the ministers of that destruction to which they think themselves devoted. In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again. I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over, in the men’s apartment, there were several brothers, who, in the sale, were sold in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion to see and hear their cries at parting.

O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn from our country and friends to toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from their kindred, still to be parted from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling their sufferings and sorrows? Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is a new refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.

Disclaimer:

When I went to school, we were never taught Black History. We never learned about the Black leaders, the long, agonizing history that brought most Blacks to America. Those atrocities were glossed over in favor of mindlessly boring topics like the X Y Z Affair.

This series of cartoons will review Black history as told from a Black mother to an interracial child. This series will be ugly, course, horrific and truthful. I will mostly abandon the commentary for an article on Black history.

This series is not about Obama or Hillary. I want to you to try to imagine how Black families tell their children of the atrocities their ancestors, all of them, suffered because of the color of their skin. Try to imagine how Black families counsel their children when someone calls them “nigger” for the first time. Can you imagine the bone crushing emotion that must well up? Can you imagine the agony, frustration and anger?

Can you imagine being the Black preacher who tries to paint a picture of a just God every Sunday? Especially in a country that claims where the notion of racism is a thing of the past, the job is difficult.

These strips may at times be entertaining and sometimes they may not – mostly not.

I don’t want you to laugh so hard you cry, I want you to cry so hard you do something about it.

This just in from AFP:

April 1, 2008 Washington, D. C. Senator Clinton is set to suspend her campaign tomorrow morning, according to senior campaign advisers.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, two prominent campaign officials stated today that Senator Clinton, after consultations with officials at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other party leaders, has agreed to suspend her campaign in exchange for an agreement to seat both the Michigan and Florida delegations, whose primaries were held in violation of party rules.

Senator Clinton has made it a point to state recently her strong desire to seat these delegations, both of which awarded her the lion’s share of the delegates at stake. Senator Obama’s campaign has consistently maintained that it agrees with the sanctions imposed by the DNC which stripped both Michigan and Florida of their delegates.

It is believed that Clinton’s proposal to suspend her campaign was accepted by Senator Obama’s campaign late last night, according to a sources at the DNC, who spoke on condition that their identities not be disclosed, as they were not authorized to discuss the matter on the record. No one contacted within Senator Obama’s campaign would comment with regard to whether he had agreed to such a proposal from the Clinton camp. […]

“She really had no viable option at this point in light of her funding problems,” said one her chief advisers. “This allows her to preserve her viability as a candidate and to claim that she won a victory by getting the Michigan and Florida delegations seated.”

Although Senator Clinton will attend no further campaign events or fundraisers, and will shut down all campaign operations, including television advertising, in the remaining primary states, she will continue to remain on the ballot in each of those states. […]

In addition, “The suspension of her campaign is not binding on any of her supporters not officially associated with the campaign, who may continue to speak on her behalf, or carry on other activities in support of her candidacy, should they wish to do so,” said another Clinton advisor.

It is also not clear at this point whether her husband, former President Bill Clinton, or her daughter, Chelsea, has agreed to withdraw from making any further public appearances on her behalf.

If true, this is quite a significant development. Obviously Clinton’s funding issues were more precarious than anyone had previously reported. Definitely good news for Democrats today, however. Unless Clinton’s surrogates continue their negative campaign against Obama with her tacit agreement, this should wrap up the nomination for Obama. And I can’t see him agreeing to any deal to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations unless he had assurances that such would be the case.

So, thank you Senator Clinton for finally seeing the handwriting on the wall. Of course, I have to wonder if some secret arrangement has also been reached regarding a possible Cabinet appointment in any Obama administration or even a place on the ticket. We’ll just have to wait and see, but I suspect she will be getting something else in exchange for her stepping down at this time. What that might be is anybody’s guess.

According to the Guardian the people of Zimbabwe are getting jobbed (again):

A crisis meeting of Robert Mugabe’s security cabinet decided to block the opposition from taking power after what appears to have been a comprehensive victory in Zimbabwe’s elections but was divided between using a military takeover to annul the vote and falsifying the results.

Diplomatic and Zimbabwean sources who heard first-hand accounts of the Joint Operations Command meeting of senior military and intelligence officers and top party officials on Sunday night said Mugabe favoured immediately declaring himself president again but was persuaded to use the country’s electoral commission to keep the opposition from power.

The commission began releasing a trickle of results yesterday, more than 36 hours after the polls closed, but the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said it believed the count was being manipulated.

I feel for all the democrats of Zimbabwe. I hope they somehow prevail and are allowed to take the power they’ve earned at the ballot box.

As the financial crisis wears on, we’re seeing more and more evidence that the problems are far larger and more widespread than people want to admit.  These April Fools have of course only been fooling themselves.  Of course there were going to be more write-offs, more losses, more companies coming perilously close to the edge, more job cuts, more problems across the board.  You were, well, a fool not to believe that.

Swiss banking giant UBS has announced an $11.8 billion dollar loss and $19 billion in more subprime write-offs.

UBS AG, battered by the biggest writedowns from the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market, reported a 12 billion-franc ($11.9 billion) first-quarter loss and said Chairman Marcel Ospel will step down.

The bank will seek 15 billion francs in a rights offer to replenish capital, on top of 13 billion francs already raised from investors in Singapore and the Middle East. UBS will write down $19 billion on debt securities, bringing the total to almost $38 billion since the third quarter of 2007. Zurich-based UBS also said today it will cut jobs at the investment bank.

Ospel, 58, who helped form the world’s largest money manager a decade ago, will be replaced by general counsel Peter Kurer. Deutsche Bank AG reported $3.9 billion of writedowns and said today that markets are “significantly more challenging.” UBS rose as much as 10 percent in Swiss trading on optimism the country’s biggest bank will recover from its subprime losses.

That’s some optimism.  A bank has lost $38 billion dollars in the last six months, the Chairman of the Board is stepping down and the stock goes up?  That’s not normal behavior, that’s wishful thinking in action.  Seems pretty foolish to me.  Deutsche Bank’s nearly $4 billion write-off there seems much better by comparison, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile here in the states, news is that you were fooling yourself if you believed Hammerin’ Hank Paulson’s “major overhaul” of the financial regulation system was an actual fix, or that it will pass muster.  Both the Democrats and the financial industry hate it, so of course nothing will get done…Paulson himself says the plan will take years to implement.

Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary, conceded on Monday it could take “many years” to overhaul US financial regulation as congressional critics took aim at his new plan to revamp a system dating back to the Great Depression.

The Bush administration issued its blueprint for regulatory reform following criticism that the fragmented system of US financial oversight contributed to the meltdown in the US subprime mortgage business and the resulting global market turmoil.

But the plan – which envisions expanding the reach of the Federal Reserve to prevent future crises while reducing the role of some other regulators – would “require a great deal of discussion and many years to complete”, Mr Paulson said.

He added that the administration’s recommendations “should not and will not be implemented until after the present market difficulties are past”.

Many of the proposals outlined on Monday would require legislation. In a sign of the difficulties the Bush administration may face in Congress, Chris Dodd, Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the Treasury plan had “serious flaws”.

He said it “fails to realise that the Fed helped create this crisis by ignoring the red flags as far back as five years ago. It does not make sense to give a bigger shovel to the very people who helped dig us into this hole”.

The Treasury has been working on the proposal since March 2007 to bolster US capital markets amid intensifying overseas competition. Originally, its deliberations focused on whether lighter regulation could increase US competitiveness. However, the credit crisis exposed important gaps in the ability of US regulators to supervise financial activity.

If there were still any lingering optimists out there, the fact this plan’s been cooking since March 2007 — long before the subprime crisis reared its ugly head — is a dead giveaway it’s another Bush plan to weaken as much oversight and enforcement of that oversight as possible.  Make no mistake, that’s Hank Paulson’s big legacy…even more financial deregulation.  Once a Bush crony, always a Bush crony.

But it’s a bit foolish to assume that was Bush’s only card to play this election year with the GOP’s prospects so frightfully dim.  News is that Bush will indeed propose Federal dollars for homeowner refinancing.

The Bush administration is finalizing a plan to rescue thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure by helping them refinance into more affordable loans, the Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition.

The proposal is aimed at assisting borrowers who owe their banks more than their homes are worth due to declining home prices, the Post reported, citing unnamed government officials.

If enacted, it would mark the first time the White House has committed federal dollars to help the most hard-pressed borrowers.

Under the plan, the Federal Housing Administration would encourage lenders to forgive a portion of these loans and issue new, smaller loans in exchange for the backing of the U.S. government, the Post said.

But of course you were fooling yourself if you thought the Bush plan would be anything else other than a bailout of Wall Street in disguise.  You forgive these bad loans, we pay you for it with government cash.  Same old Bush.

These are the responses of our government leaders right now, nine more months of silly, almost worthless plans that make no effort at solving any of the actual problems, but sure will give the financial industry a warm fuzzy feeling.  Those are the GOP constituents, not the taxpayer or the common man.

Don’t be fooled.  The worst is yet to come.

Be prepared.

     As someone who lives in a neighborhood going through gentrification I am often at odds with my belief that poor people need to be integrated into mixed income neighborhoods and the fact that many poor people trash the neighborhoods they live in. We must develop a method of removing poor people from the isolation of ghetto existence, while at the same time protecting the values of the properties we relocate them to. Unfortunately because of personal decisions, lifestyles, and circumstances many of our poorer citizens have lost either the desire or the ability to respect their environments. Many will say that this is due to our treatment of poor people and I would not disagree with this, but this does not help in creating situations that will allow them to escape the dangers of ghetto life.
     Developers in some cities are trying to incorporate the same public housing tenants that once lived in the neighborhoods back into them after development through vouchers, subsidies, and grants. Sometimes when poverty is multi-generational many self defeating habits may be developed, habits which make it difficult to understand the responsibilities of ownership. I recommend that as part of the voucher and subsidy process we require recipients to attend seminars that detail the responsibilities of the members in an ownership society. No one is inherently born knowing how to be responsible, we learn these things from our parents and our environments. The reason many poor people are not more responsible is not because they are inherently lazy or trifling, but because no one has taught them any better.

The redevelopment of the Arthur Capper and Carrollsburg projects, where Ms. Jackson lived, is the first in the country to promise replacement of all low-income units within the same neighborhood, said Michael Kelly, director of the city Housing Authority.

“Mr. Kelly is undertaking a great experiment to see if he can turn around distressed neighborhoods and keep the original residents there to benefit,” said Sue Popkin, a housing expert at the Urban Institute. “It’s a gamble. We don’t know how to take a terrible neighborhood and make it nice while keeping the same people there.” NY Times

     In Washington DC, they are trying to integrate the former residents back into a neighborhood that has been redeveloped, they are also trying to do similar things in Atlanta. While this is a risky undertaking it is one that I think must be attempted and allowed to succeed. So many other cities provide the former residents with vouchers to leave their old neighborhoods. The problem with this approach is that only certain landlords will accept the vouchers, these are usually slumlords who want to fill up crappy residences. This only relocates the former residents into scattered pockets of poverty throughout the city, once again surrounding them with other poor residents and bad schools. It is a difficult situation trying to incorporate former residents into the newer developments.

     I know in my city they have tried to renovate older apartments into more mixed income residences in lower income neighborhoods. The problem is that placing a mansion next to the projects does not improve the projects or the neighborhood. It is hard to get higher income people to move into a neighborhood with drug dealers on the corners and violence in the streets. We have to develop a method of improving the neighborhoods and renovating them while still being able to integrate the former residents. In DC, they have created committees comprising of residents, city officials, and developers in an effort to create ground rules for integrating the former residents back into the neighborhoods. I think it is important to allow the residents an opportunity to take part in the decision making, if given the opportunity I believe they do not want the blight, drug dealing, and violence in their neighborhoods either.

A committee of residents, officials and neighbors decided that any returnees with a serious criminal conviction within three years of the move-in date, and anyone with seriously bad credit, would be excluded. They will keep their current vouchers or public units, officials promise. NY Times

     Integrating these former residents will not be easy, but it is something as a society we must continue to do. If we do not then we are sentencing many of our fellow citizens to a life of hopelessness and strife. It is a thin line we walk trying to balance the opportunities of incorporating these former residents with the genuine concerns of the new residents for safety, property values, and peace. I know for me this is a challenge that though I struggle with it, it is one that I must undertake. We are all better off in my opinion when we are living, working, and learning in a diverse environment. Not only do we help those who are struggling, but we also help ourselves to be better.

Many of us believe that wrongs aren’t wrong if it’s done by nice people like ourselves.  – Author Unknown

The Disputed Truth