Rant: The Jobs!! Part II

Yesterday I had a blogsplosion. I erupted at the idiots in both parties and the media who claimed that the deficit was oh so very important. And who, at the same time, said that jobs, well they’re going to pivot to jobs (what a reptilian metaphor) someday once the flashing, beeping red-alert about the so-called national deficit emergency (NDE) has been extinguished. And who would slay this debt dragon? The legislation set up its own blue ribbon collection (BRC) of very well dressed, very nicely coifed people, all of whom flunked Econ. Deck chairs, meet the Titanic. And if the BRC fail? Ah. Then the NDE will be “solved” automatically on the backs and on the kitchen tables and hospital beds of the poorest Americans. This stick (is it really some else’s carrot?) assures that the BRC will work and negotiate and compromise and fix the NDE. What a pathetic, cynical joke. Repeating it is enough to make me explode (again). What kind of moron thought of this?

Today, after I calmed down a little bit (thank you PBR), I watched philosophically as the Stock Market fell 519.98 points to 10,719.79, reflecting my view, and the assessment of investors that the US economy was not in very good hands and that NDE wasn’t the big problem du jour. Nope. Nor was Europe the big problem de hoy. No. The big problem, the obvious, enormous, peanut breathed problem filling the entire room is that the economy is contracting, and Congress and the President are clearly taking steps to make it, wait for it, contract even faster. I suspect that Warren Buffet’s AAAAAAA rating of the US economy might need some serious revision. Maybe the President’s Economic Advisers should be given a D in macroeconomics. I also suspect that investors (many of whom passed Econ 101) know that the light at the end of this particular tunnel is really the looming double dip depression freight train highballing this way at full throttle. In fact, they probably know that the train is accelerating and is now way ahead of schedule for the next station stop because it’s not the NDE that’s the problem, it’s the lack of jobs. They know that there are no jobs. And they know that the Government is moving to contract the economy so that there will be even fewer jobs. And they know that persistent, long term unemployment is going to become a continued fact of life impoverishing the United States. Why? Because nobody in Government is moving to do what? To create jobs. They’re on a fool’s errand about NDE, something that is almost totally irrelevant. I hear my voice rising, I can tell that frogs and toads are again going to start leaping out of my mouth and that I’m going to make even great use of the 12-letter M curse. I know. I know. This is, after all, a “family blog.” Let me just repeat my point clearly and unemotionally and slowly: it’s jobs that are needed and the Government is taking steps that contract the economy and actually make there be fewer jobs.

I don’t want to obscure this next point by again dramatically setting my hair on fire and screaming curses and spinning my head all the way around as I did yesterday. No. I want to try to remain calm. Controlled. Analytical. Credible, if you will. While the commentators and bipartisan politicians are explaining how the BRC will fix the NDE, maybe you’ve noticed that there’s an important question that’s not being asked of them. That question is this:

“Let’s leave out the fuzzy math and talk about the concepts for a second. Assuming that the NDE is “fixed” by dramatic reductions in Government spending (or increased revenue or both), leading to a contraction in the size of Government, how exactly will fixing the NDE lead to more jobs? Can you explain to me how that will happen?”

Nothing said in response to this question will make any sense. I guarantee it. Why? Because ending the NDE will not create jobs. Not a single one. It will contract the economy and the result will be even fewer jobs. You think 9.2% official unemployment is high? Hah. You ain’t seen nothing yet. If the Government were trying to set a world record for unemployment stats, these policies are the very ones they should continue to follow.

I know. I know. It’s so dismal. It’s so depressing. There’s no hope here, no change. It’s a disaster. Don’t you feel like Chicken Little? There’s nothing that can be done. Wrong. There is something.

The President and the Congress have to pivot (their word, not mine) and say in words or substance,

“This isn’t working. We’re not doing what we need to do to grow the economy and to create jobs. And now we’re going to do it, even though we were embarked on a different course before now.”

Are they going to say that this week? Not likely. But that’s not the end of this either. Maybe you and I should be going all out to demand that they pass a real jobs bill, one with a real stimulus, one that will really bring jobs back. Maybe this is something worth fighting about. I think it is.

Rant: No, A Beer Won't Fix Anything

In advance, I ask your pardon for a rant I am unable or unwilling to suppress. Today's White House Beer Summit On Race Relations And Police Practices has enraged me. Police Sergeant Crowley of the Cambridge PD didn't deserve an invitation for beer at the White House, he needed an appointment for a deposition in a federal civil rights case in which he and his superiors were the named defendants. But according to the Trad Media^TM, all of Crowly's vengefulness, his making an illegal arrest, his making a stupid, unjustifiable illegal arrest, his serving up a racist/classist illegal arrest of a person in his own home is now behind us. We're past all of the ugliness of his conduct. It has now been chilled (unless you have to live with brutality and oppression on a daily basis) with some beer. And pretzels. This I hasten to point out might solve Police Sgt. Crowley's immediate problem, including departmental discipline and federal civil rights action for damages, but it doesn't solve my problem. Or the country's. And I don't think it solves Prof. Gates's problem. It certainly doesn't solve the US's police problem. Not one bit.

So instead of an extremely heated, long overdue, loud and tenacious national argument about police exceptionalism, an argument that's been overdue in this country for decades, we have a tepid discussion of the symbolism of the kinds of beer consumed at the White House. Personally, I think we'd be a lot better off with the actual argument. An actual confrontation with the pervasive evil evidenced Professor Gates's arrest.

A brief bit of context, if you will. The reason why evidence seized by cops in illegal searches is suppressed in this country, is that numerous judicial slaps on the wrist over decades didn't make policeman follow the Constitutional Fourth Amendment law of search and seizure. So the Supreme Court had to introduce the suppression rule. Basically, if the constable blunders (or intentionally ignores the constitution and laws of the US) the illegally seized evidence is suppressed and the accused goes free. Has this rule, now in effect of almost 50 years, deterred the police from making illegal searches and seizures? No it has not. They do so with amazing frequency. This law has resulted only in numerous court decisions watering down the rule, handwringing that the accused should hnot be freed. It has not made police toe the line. It has made them surly. It has made the rogue cops. And the police clamor to be able to break the law with impunity has, to no one's surprise, cowered the courts. The courts would rather expand the cops' rights to break the law than require them to follow it. It's a legitimate question whether anything can make the police toe the line.

And what about Miranda warnings? The reason why Miranda warnings were required was that cops were extorting confessions from people they had taken into custody and their tactical manuals, explaining how this should be done, appalled even the US Supreme Court. Again, numerous judicial slaps on the wrist over decades didn't stop police from using coercive interrogation methods to extract involuntary confessions, so the Court required Miranda warnings to be given before there could be a custodial interrogation. Has this stopped police from coercing confessions? No it has not. This rule too has spawned numerous court decisions watering down the rule and judicial handwringing. It has not stopped police from coercing involuntary confessions. Now some states require that all interrogations be videotaped so that police might stop producing unreliable and false confessions of crimes. Will that work? Or will police find a way to subvert that rule also? I'm skeptical. What are police thinking when they coerce false confessions. What they are thinking is that they are doing God's work and that those of us who are not "on the job" don't know about the battle that goes on on the streets between good (the cops) and evil (those they arrest and interrogate).

Are these circumstances that prompt us to have a beer? I think not.

You can read in today's press that a lawyer in DC was arrested last night for shouting that he hated the police. Police evidently heard him express his opinion. This lack of "respect," the word used in the article, which as far as I can tell was a Constitutional exercise of free speech, was a reason for calling him a homophobic slur and arresting him for the bogus charge of disorderly conduct. Has the affaire de Gates made any difference to the DC cops who arrested him for lack of respect? Evidently not. Has it made any difference to any cops? Doubtful.

Can we fix this by having a beer? I doubt it.

There have been more than 135 exonerations of people who were on death row since the resumption of the death penalty in the US. The next exoneration, the next one that will be announced, is on its way, so there is right now somebody sitting on death row in a prison who doesn't belong there because s/he is innocent, completely and utterly innocent of the crime for which s/he was convicted and sentenced to death. And how did this innocent person in all probability get convicted and sent to death row? Chances are good it involves shoddy or intentionally improper police work. Can we estimate how many innocent people of the more than 2 million presently incarcerated in the US are actually innocent? No, we cannot. But we do know that when exonerations occur they come from involuntary, false confessions, jail house snitch testimony, and faulty or suggestive identification procedures. In two words, they come from police practices. The police are using the system to put innocent people in prison and perhaps to death. And this happens with regularity. It's far too common.

Can we eliminate the long term incarceration and potential execution of innocent people by having a beer? Not a chance. Can we address this issue? No.

Some may want to talk about how Obama's drinking a Bud Light means something, and how drinking Red Stripe means something, and how drinking a bland Coors product means something. That shows wonderful gifts in discerning the claimed political symbolism of today's tete a tete. That enrages me. Why? Because I'd like the see 1/100th of the same attention and analytical skills applied to correcting the obvious and pervasive police abuse in this country. I'd like to see it applied to correcting the racial disparities and wealth disparities among prisoners. I'd like to see it applied to making the criminal justice system fair.

Obama was right. The Gates affair provided a teachable moment. Too bad that the Trad Media^TM couldn't figure out what needed to be taught. Too bad that the President cowered before the long, blue line, when he should have confronted the real issues. Too bad that I'm writing this rant and that the moment for beginning to deal honestly with the police is now again relegated to the background. It's a topic for discussion in jails and prisons. Some beer hasn't solved the problem, but it's relegated it to obscurity. Until the next illegal, unconstitutional arrest of a celebrity.

You The People

In Ireland, I am informed, they have some venerable traditions about drinking. When you go to a party, you bring two bottles: one for tonight, and one for the host at a later time. You uncork the one for tonight and throw away the cork. That way the bottle will have to be consumed tonight.

And so we celebrate the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. Let's drink the entire bottle. Let's deal with the hangover. And then, let's go back to work.

Join me with Advil below.

I cried when Barack Obama was elected. In many ways, it was the culmination of work I had done as a community organizer and as a civil rights lawyer for the past 40 years .

If you had told me 40 years ago, when I was an organizer in Alabama, sleeping with a loaded .38 under my pillow, that in 2008 the Democratic Party would nominate an African American and that he would be elected president, I would have explained to you that you were delusional and f*cking crazy. I might have thought that you were a visionary, an idealist, someone I dearly loved, but I would have thought you were completely crazy. I would have explained to you how dangerous Alabama was, that you had to watch your back, and I would have explained the psychic and symbolic qualities of having a .38. You couldn't hit anything at a distance, but the muzzle flash was enormous. It was solely a defensive weapon. It would scare anyone away.

40 years ago at Thanksgiving 1968, a friend of mine, who was then living in New Jersey, told me that she was worried about me being an organizer in Alabama. She gave me a switchblade to protect myself. I told her I had no clue how to use it, and that if I had to cut somebody, I doubt I'd be able to do that without maiming myself as well. She smiled and said it would be a good idea for me to practice. I did practice.

In 1977 I appeared in Circuit Court in Tupelo, Mississippi, as a lawyer trying to get a client out of the Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield. The judge made it clear that he didn't appreciate having a communist (maybe he had a big "C") like me in his court. I cried later because my client needed to be released, but he wouldn't be. He would continue in confinement for no reason I could fathom.

In 1984 I was the lawyer for a man on death row. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed his conviction and sent him home. I was thrilled. Then I saw that one judge had dissented. His argument was that the law of evidence should be changed in this very case so that my client could be killed. I read the decision and I wept. I was infuriated. I couldn't understand such a lack of regard for human life.

I could go on and on about with these stories. If this were a saloon and you were buying I would. I could go on all night.

I can provide you with 40+ years of anecdotal evidence, stories, incidents, remarks. I could elaborate on these and exaggerate them. I could itemize my scars, my injuries, my failures, my disappointments, my mistakes. I could explain to you how my first marriage died in pathetic, heartbreaking failure because of threats, crank phone calls, the movement, stress, pressure. I could trot out all of my hurts. I could catalog them. But I won't. Suffice it to say, I cried when Barack Obama was elected.

And now what?

You made Barack Obama president. You led him to the White House. You raised the money, you distributed the literature, you knocked on the doors, you got out the vote, you wrote the essays, you made the arguments, you discussed and analyzed the policies, you hooted and hollered and cried and screamed, you pulled the levers, you watched the returns. You led him to the White House. You won this election.

And then we all cried. But it wasn't the end. Not at all. It was just the very beginning. He is only what you have made him. He was who you had faith in. He was who you trusted. He was who you elected. It was just the beginning of us telling him what we wanted, what we needed, what was right, what was wrong, what was fair, what was oppressive, what was unnecessary, what was required. It was the beginning of participatory democracy. It was the beginning of we the people saying what should be done and what shouldn't.

Can we enjoy the victory for a few days? Can we enjoy the end of the reign of terror? Sure. Can we savor the end of an administration that would terrorize us into giving up our rights? Can we bask in the glow of taking back our country? Sure. Can we smile at the lame duck congress and the retarded duck executive? Yes. And then? And then? And then?

Folks. We made Barack Obama in our image, and we're not done. We need to lead the country. We need Barack Obama to follow our lead. We need to define what should be done. We need to be present. And active. And speaking. And demanding. And explaining. We made him. That means we need to continue to inspire him. That means we need to continue to speak and argue and debate and think and express.

This is democracy. This is what it looks like. Our leader follows us. Our leader follows the people. He listens to what we say. He responds to what we demand. He enacts what we tell him to enact.

Folks. It is bottom up, not top down. He is president, but he responds to us. Not to lobbyists. Not to arms merchants. Not to failed bankers. Not to those who are really "special interests." To us. To you. To me. To the people. He is our president, and he is responsible to us. We made him president, we gave money, we made calls, we knocked on doors. This is not, this cannot be US business as usual. He is there to listen to us.

I will wipe my tears now. Because I know what's ahead. And that is that we have to lead and continue to inspire the nation. We have to make it clear what should happen. We have to be the people who dictated what should be done, what should happen. It's not the lobbyists. It's not the industrialists. It's not the union leaders.

Folks. It is us. You and me. The People of the United States of America. We need to step up and assume our place as the voice of the United States. We need to speak. And our elected leader needs to respond.