An area being developed on Las Cruces' north end. (Photo by Nick Voges)

We can all agree that “dust ordinance” is a silly name; that aside, don’t believe the hype. This ordinance isn’t “overly restrictive” or “punitive.” Protecting Las Crucens’ health and property is exactly the type of thing the city council should be working on.

We can all agree that it’s a silly name for an ordinance; especially since the “Wind Erosion Control Ordinance,” or the “dust” ordinance, as it is popularly called, would do so much to protect the health and the homes of many Las Crucens.

Unfortunately, as a result of the bad naming, coupled with the focused efforts of a few narrow business interests, the ordinance invites misinformed comments like this one from a Las Cruces marketing assistant, as quoted in a recent article by Steve Ramirez in the Las Cruces Sun News: “If you’re going to live in Las Cruces, or move here from somewhere else when you retire, it’s a no-brainer that you’re going to live in the desert, where there’s wind and dust a lot of the time. Yeah, it can get pretty nasty…”

Of course there’ll be dust in the desert, right? Any ordinances to eliminate dust from the desert surely exemplify government over-reach, right?

Nick Voges and his son Alton

That’s exactly the conclusion that, as quoted in the same article, Las Cruces Association of Realtors CEO Isaac Chavez reaches: “It would behoove the city council to stop passing overly restrictive, punitive ordinances that are making it harder and harder for the average Las Cruces family to afford a home of their own.”

But Mr. Chavez is wrong. This ordinance is not really about dust — it’s about protecting homeowners.

Protecting homeowners

Our friends, for example, live in a development off Porter and I-70 in Las Cruces. They bought a house there — their first home — about five years ago. It’s a charming house, cozy and practical, as a first home should be. When their house was built it was one of the first homes in the subdivision. During their first winter there they planned which flowers and trees they’d plant in their front yard to augment the landscaping that came with the house. Then the spring winds came. Everyone in New Mexico knows about our winds, but the Las Cruces varietal can be especially blustery.

One afternoon I stopped by their house to drop something off. My friend was out raking his front yard, trying desperately to get the dirt out of his gravel landscaping. Because theirs was one of the first houses in the subdivision, and the construction of new housing had slowed, their home was surrounded by block after block of empty, clear-cut lots. And so the spring wind dumped mounds of unsettled dirt onto the only thing out there: their landscaped front yard.

My friend is stalwart and stoic but you can only rake dirt out of your rocks so many times before you lose heart. These days, now that the dirt has covered over everything, they joke that their front yard is xeriscaped. Again, they’re not the type to complain, but they’ve lost thousands of dollars of value in their home. And it could have all been avoided if the developers had been good neighbors.

What should have been done?

The proposed revision to the ordinance outlines a number of precautions that responsible developers should take to protect homeowners who have built homes in their subdivisions. From the ordinance: “Dust and blowing dirt and sand shall be kept to a minimum by good practices such as using an approved dust suppressant or soil stabilizer, paving, covering, landscaping, continuous wetting, controlling access and speeds, or other acceptable means.”

Everyone knows that there will always be dust in the desert, but we also know that there are ways to make blowing dust, and its effect on the health and homes of the people who live here, better or worse. Here’s how the New Mexico Environmental Department puts it:

“While windblown dust naturally occurs in undisturbed areas throughout the west, it becomes much more common where the natural soils have been disturbed by anthropogenic activities. Natural soils have a tendency to form a mineral and organic crust that is resistant to erosion. Human activities can remove or break this crust, allowing dust to escape much more easily.”

This ordinance makes sure that developers take simple steps that protect the homeowners who have built homes in their subdivisions.

Health and Safety

The cost to homeowners isn’t the only problem that the ordinance addresses. According to this fact sheet, valley fever, which appears to be on the rise, is primarily caused by aspirating unsettled dust: “When the soil is disturbed by either the wind, construction, digging or driving on unpaved roads, the spores of the valley fever fungus are released into the air. Once in the air, the spores are inhaled as dust, and they begin growing and multiplying in your lungs.”

Valley fever is especially dangerous to vulnerable populations like infants and the elderly. Furthermore, since the big patches of unsettled dirt that carry valley fever now exist right next to more populated areas, more people are exposed to the dust that carries the valley fever fungus. The amount of dust in the air, and the chances that you’ll get valley fever, are greatly increased by the way that some developers now clear cut wide swathes of land. This could be mitigated if these developers would follow the simple protocols proposed by the ordinance to protect the health of all Las Crucens.

Not really about dust

Which leads us to the larger implicit question that Chavez raises: What is the proper role for our public institutions? To my mind, ordinances like this one, which came about because people’s health and homes are being ruined by the irresponsible actions of a few developers, are an example of how our public institutions can fulfill a key mission: promoting the common good. Everyone suffers when people are sick, and home values plummet as a result of a few bad actors. It’s essential that our public institutions institute and enforce the rules that protect citizens. Articles like Mr. Ramirez’s, by failing to report the full story about the ordinance and highlighting the comments of Isaac Chavez, only confuse the real aim of the ordinance.

In the end, although this ordinance concerns dust, it is actually about protecting homeowners and their investments, and the health and well-being of Las Crucens. Don’t believe Mr. Chavez’s hype; this ordinance isn’t, as he puts it, “overly restrictive” or “punitive.” Protecting Las Crucens’ health and property is exactly the type of thing the city council should be working on.

Nick Voges is the columnist behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

A scene from a recent Occupy march at New Mexico State University (Courtesy photo)

I appreciate the meaningful ways that the Occupy movement has moved the national conversation in a direction that can now include not only retrenchment and austerity but also basic fairness and opportunity for everyone. But they need our help.

While trying to juggle my infant son’s 4:30 a.m. feedings, keep up with the classes I take and teach, and fulfill my professional obligations, I simply don’t have the capacity to join the Occupy Las Cruces movement as they camp out in front of the Thomas Branigan Library in Las Cruces.

And — let’s be honest — I’m less willing as I get older to give up my warm home and cozy bed to endure cold nights sleeping on park grass. Either way, I’m glad that members of the Occupy Las Cruces group — and other Occupy groups around the country — are willing to endure this hardship on my behalf.

Nick Voges

But what’s OWS all about?

As I see it, the Occupy movement is concerned about a lot of things: income inequality, corporate greed, failing institutions, high unemployment and lack of opportunity, corporations run amok, free trade policies, globalization, environmental degradation, endangered personal freedoms — I could continue, but you get the picture. Most importantly, however, the Occupy groups around the country are about voicing concern over where the country is headed in general.

In that way, they very much represent the mainstream of U.S. public thought, according to a recent Pew Research Center finding. Like the TEA Party before them, the 99 percent movement has provided a full-throated, impossible-to-ignore outcry that speaks to the concerns of many Americans, including myself. To me, the most important thing that Occupy Las Cruces is doing is nominating and making real the sense — shared by many — that something is wrong with our country.

Not very precise, is it?

I don’t agree with many commentators that this is a weakness. Part of the strength of the 99 percent movement is the inchoate nature of their frustrations. After all, there’s plenty wrong with the country; what’s the point for Occupiers to argue about what exactly is wrong? Making everyone agree seems like a quick way of sapping the energy of any broad-reaching movement. It’s enough for the Occupy groups to keep saying over and over again: There’s something wrong here; there’s something wrong here.

Can they be effective?

Many people, including on this site, have argued that the Occupy movements will not be effective if they don’t develop a formal platform and begin to align themselves with like-minded organizations (conservative donors, after all, were key to helping the TEA Party movement gain national prominence). The only problem with this argument is that they’ve already been effective. As Dan Buecke from Bloomberg Business weekly points out, Google trend analyses that examine how often particular keywords are typed into their search engine show that Occupiers have greatly impacted the national conversation.

Furthermore, before the Occupy movements, the loudest voices in the debate about what was wrong with the country were TEA Party members. Now, despite initially being dismissed by the gatekeepers in both major U.S. political parties, the Occupiers have made certain that the national conversation about what’s wrong with this country not only includes TEA Party themes around debt and deficit reduction and shrinking government, but also addresses concerncs around income inequality, dwindling opportunity for American workers, and making sure that important government projects and services are protected and, in some cases, expanded.

The Occupiers, without the support of a political party or self-interested financiers like the Koch brothers, have changed the terms of the national conversation. That’s a pretty big deal.

Of course, this success doesn’t necessarily mean that the Occupy protests will successfully develop into a sustainable, long-term movement. But I’m not certain that is or even should be their goal. For now, under their current structure, the 99 percent don’t answer to national strategists and no one makes a buck off whether the movement succeeds or fails. The groups’ spontaneity and energy is part of what keeps the country paying attention. By adopting the structures and platforms of more traditional social movements, the Occupiers risk losing the very thing that makes them so compelling to so many: authenticity.

What can we do?

Say that you’re like me: You can’t occupy the park in front of Branigan Library, yet you want to show your support and gratitude to those who are willing to stand up and give voice to the fears and dissatisfactions you feel about the direction we’re heading. What can you do?

The first thing you can do is donate a little money to help pay the permit cost to stay in the park. You can do that by getting in touch with Jason Burke. His e-mail address is wldtrkey@gmail.com. You can also call him at (575) 915-2766.

The second thing to do is stop by and visit when you can. Talk with the folks down there. Listen to their concerns and share your own. My experience has been that we have many of the same values and concerns.

Again, as someone who wants to preserve — and improve — the opportunities that will be available to myself and my children, I appreciate the meaningful ways that the Occupy movement has moved the national conversation in a direction that can now include not only retrenchment and austerity but also basic fairness and opportunity for everyone. Keep it up, 99 percent-ers!

Nick Voges is the columnist behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

Photo by nathanmac87/flickr.com

Easy and careless cruelty

My best childhood friend told me he was gay when we were juniors in high school. It was after dark on a weekend and we were skulking around the University of New Mexico campus near the area everyone calls the duck pond. We acted like typical teenage boys, perfecting our use of filthy language and pretending to be older and cooler than we were.

He  had said earlier that he needed to tell me something but it was taking him a while to come to the point. He was a smoker and I have a memory of his cigarette glowing red in the darkness while I waited for him to spit out whatever was on his mind.

The truth is that we’d grown apart some during high school. We didn’t spend every waking moment together as we’d done when we were younger. I was promoted to varsity football as a freshman while he always played junior varsity; I had been asked to leave my house and was living in an unpredictable situation whereas his parents remained stably married; and I was helping my serious girlfriend (who is now my wife) cope with her mother’s battle with cancer while he was trying (unbeknownst to me) to negotiate his sexuality.

Still, my friend and I made a point of  keeping up with one another by getting together every now and then. This was one of those times.

Our parents taught at the same high school when we were children and we’d known one another since before we were in preschool. His father was a football coach and we’d hang out in the weight room watching the high school boys do their bench presses. They seemed unbelievably strong as they lifted the bars heavy with plates of weight off their chests. Over the years, eventually, as friends do, we shared many of our secrets. That night, after more than a decade of friendship, and much talking around what was really on his mind, my friend told me that he was gay.

When he came out, most people were not surprised. But I was. I figured he would have told me something like that as soon as he suspected it. But he didn’t tell me right away. In fact, I – his oldest friend – was one of the last people he told. This left me deeply saddened. I felt like I’d failed him. What did I care if he was attracted to men?

Nick Voges

“How long have you known?” I asked.

“Forever,” he replied.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked.

But even as I asked the question, I could easily recall the many times I’d said, with easy and careless cruelty, that something or someone was gay (or some more offensive version of the word). Of course, he had used that same language as well. We all did – our friends, our fathers, our coaches.

At that moment I was as deeply aware as I’ve ever been about the power of the words we use.  I was heartbroken – and remain so in some ways – that I’d been a stumbling block to my best friend during a key leg in his journey toward being the man he wanted to be. What kind of person – much less friend – does that? Not the kind that I wanted to be. I wanted to have been better than that.

To be accurate, I was not nearly the worst offender. But I willingly participated in a larger system of injurious talk (we also loved to call people retarded, lame, SPED – and the list just gets worse from there), mostly ignorant of how damaging these names could be to a person. It is shameful behavior that I deeply regret. I probably should have known better – but I didn’t.

That’s why I applaud the NBA’s recent “Think B4 You Speak” public service announcements.

Think B4 you speak

Perhaps even more than watching the Dallas Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers AND the Miami Heat on their way to winning the NBA championship this year, I appreciated the NBA addressing directly the prevalence of homophobic language in basketball, and sports in general.

It’s hard to forget the Tim Hardaway debacle from a few years ago, for example. And as recently as this year both Kobe Bryant and Joachim Noah invited intense public scrutiny upon themselves, and were dealt hefty fines from the league, for using anti-gay slurs during a basketball game.

Do I think that Kobe Bryant and Joachim Noah (or anyone who uses anti-gay slurs) hate gay people? I have no idea. I suspect most probably have gay friends (maybe even gay teammates or colleagues). Instead, I suspect they were just being – as many of us are – carelessly cruel. But that has to stop. Careless or not, cruelty is still cruelty.

Political correctness run amok?

In the “Think B4 You Speak” PSA, Phoenix Suns player Grant Hill says that “using gay to mean dumb or stupid (is) not cool… You’re better than that.” Still, some people I’ve talked to about the PSA think it’s just another example of political correctness run amok.

But I disagree.  As the recent spate of suicides resulting from bullying indicates, there’s nothing funny or harmless about anti-gay slurs. Besides, what’s so troubling or difficult about calling someone by the name they prefer? Is it so important that we be funny or cool or tough (or whatever) that we hinder the people around us from feeling safe in their communities? We’re better than that.

What can we do to make it better for one another?

I’ve written extensively abut this in a previous post, so I’ll only restate the key best practices for making gay people feel safe and welcome that emerged from the wide-reaching and comprehensive report entitled the 2010 State of Higher Education for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People.

• Develop inclusive policies. In other words, we need to explicitly welcome LGBTQQ people into our communities.

• Demonstrate institutional commitment. We should, in our workplaces and social groups, integrate LGBTQQ concerns into our practices. Here’s what the study says:

Even the simplest steps, such as creating inclusive wording on documents, creates brave space in which LGBTQQ individuals are free to be themselves. Due to the high rate of harassment/discrimination experienced by people who do not fit the socially constructed categories of sexual identity, gender identity, and gender expression, procedures that directly respond to acts of intolerance are especially needed.

•  Respond appropriately to anti-LGBTQQ incidents/bias. Don’t put up with it. Defend your friends and your loved ones. When you hear something hurtful, ask the speaker what they mean and why they feel the way they do. Let them know that you don’t agree and that you won’t participate. Prepare yourself now to do the right thing.

Is progress being made?

I think so. Just last month I joined many of my friends in celebrating the recent decision by the New York State Senate to make marriages gender neutral. This is a big step forward on one of the most important civil rights issues of our time, in one of the most important states in the United States.

And locally we’ve seen progress as well. For example, the Las Cruces City Council recently issued a proclamation naming June 2011 as Las Cruces Gay Pride Month. This is a good example of city leaders exhibiting the first two best practices listed above: developing inclusive policies and demonstrating institutional commitment to civil rights.

Yet, my optimism is tempered when people like President Obama say that his views regarding the civil rights of any American citizens must “evolve.” Pretty disappointing. Clearly there is still work to do.

We’re better than that

I wish this NBA PSA had been around when I was young and talking in a way that was a stumbling block to my best friend’s happiness. Not just for him, but for me, too. It’s certainly possible that I would have just laughed the PSA off, dismissing it so that I wouldn’t have to change my bad behavior, or confront bad behavior when I saw it from my friends. Still, I would have had to think about the meaning and effect of the words I used, and to live with my decision to be consciously cruel rather than merely carelessly so. I’d have to decide whether or not to be better.

This is the decision we all face everyday in a million tiny moments: Will we stand up for what we believe in? Will we stand up for one another? Will we help our friends and neighbors find happiness? Will we be better?

Good work, NBA – and go Mavs!

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

Photo by christine zenino/flickr.com

It’s been quite a month for conspiracies.

The so-called Birther conspiracy took a serious hit among the larger public after President Obama released his long-form birth certificate on April 27.  According to a recent Washington Post poll, most people – other than 14 percent of the most hardcore conservatives – have given up this nonsense.

Still, the hystericals over at World Net Daily, the leading purveyor of Birther propaganda, are out already with a story claiming the birth certificate is a forgery. So far the media and Americans (who can be sure about the order these things happen in?) have been ignoring the story.

Locally, the media has not been so disciplined about Jim Harbison’s outlandish U.N. Agenda 21 conspiracy charges. For example, on April 28 the Las Cruces Sun-News ran a front page story that I’m sorry to say offered wider exposure to his claims. The Sun-News is just the latest example of media outlets mistaking the claims that people are making for actual news.

We’ve seen this before, of course, with Sarah Palin’s death panel claims, and the ugly “swift-boat” rumors about then-presidential candidate John Kerry’s military service. The Sun-News needs to be more careful. They hurt their own credibility when they report on conspiracy theories like Harbison’s as though they are based on more than just insinuation and fear.

Furthermore, when they place those claims on the front page, they aren’t reporting the news – they are making it. I hope they’ll be more responsible in the future.

And finally, with the killing of Osama Bin Laden, a new conspiracy has been spawned: whether special operations forces actually got him. As reported by the watchdog group Media Matters, Wall Street Journal Columnist Peggy Noonan is all too eager to blame President Obama’s decorum, rather than conspiracy theory fanatics, for the flourishing of this conspiracy theory. Here’s what she says, as quoted by Media Matters:

“People believe nothing. They think everything is spin and lies. The minute a government says A is true, half the people on Earth know A is a lie. And when people believe nothing, as we know, they will believe anything. We faked the moon landing, there was a second gunman in Dallas, the World Trade Center was blown up in a U.S.-Zionist conspiracy, Hitler grew old in Argentina.

“There will always be people who believe conspiracy theories, and with the Internet there will be more. They are impervious to evidence. But people who care about the truth need to be armed with evidence to refute them.”

However, as Media Matters points out, most people do believe that Bin Laden was killed - to the tune of 90 percent of Americans, according to a recent Gallup poll. Here’s what Media Matters says about those who don’t believe:

“The skeptics Noonan describes are the ones camped out in the right-wing fever swamp and the ones whose common sense has been so clouded by hatred for the president that they’re forced to cling to any illogical claim about him. That’s who Noonan’s describing, but she pretends that’s how mainstream America thinks today. (i.e. The darn Internet!).”

The way Noonan (and U.S. Representative Ron Paul on the Diane Rehm show, and many of the guests on recent Fox News shows) frame this discussion creates the false sense that many people are worried that he might not be dead, which creates news and fuels conspiracy theories.

It’s irresponsible.

But why do people fall for conspiracies?

Much interesting research has been done on this topic. According to a recent New York Times article, UC-Davis history professor Kathryn Olmstead argues that the attacks on President Obama are “essentially about race.” I think racism is an important component, but I think that there is a larger force at play.

Agency anxiety

According to conspiracy scholar Timothy Melley, in his book Agency Panic and the Culture of Conspiracy:

“…the recent surge in conspiracy narratives… cannot be explained as a response to some particular political issue, social organization, or historical event, such as Watergate, or the Kennedy assassination, or even the Cold War… It stems largely from a sense of diminished human agency, a feeling that individuals cannot effet meaningful social action.”

Melley argues that this reduced sense of one’s capacity to have an impact on the world results in what he calls agency anxiety. People suffering from agency anxiety are especially susceptible to the conspiracy theories purveyed by “conspiracy entrepreneurs” (as conspiracy scholar Professor Goldberg calls the mostly men who either concoct or propagate conspiracies).

Conspiracy entrepreneurs – ranging from Glenn Beck to Las Cruces’ own Jim Harbison – offer a simplified map of the world where all the pieces fit just so. It little matters that the picture that is revealed when all the pieces are put together is logically hard to accept.

As Charles Stewart in his insightful article, “The Master Conspiracy of the John Birch Society: From Communism to New World Order,” which shows how the John Birch Society intentionally pivoted their propaganda away from communism conspiracies to New World Order conspiracies like U.N. Agenda 21, says:  “There are no accidents, no coincidences, no stupid acts or decisions. In an abstract and complex world, there are no ambiguities, no mysteries, no loose ends.”

For people who are overwhelmed by an increasingly complex world, and who are feeling less in control of their lives, conspiracy theories like Harbison’s U.N. Agenda 21 offer a simple system that helps them make sense – even if it’s only really nonsense – out of the world.

Conservatives and conspiracies

From the John Birch Society to the Birthers to U.N. Agenda 21, it seems like conservatives are more prone to buying into these conspiracy theories than other political groups. A recent study by Ryoto Kanai at University College London that examined how liberals’ and conservatives’ brains differ offers some tantalizing hints about this phenomenon. Here’s how a newspaper article about the study (which is not available for free online yet) summarized the findings:

“Researchers found that those holding conservative views tend to have larger amygdale, the almond-shaped organ in the center of the brain that’s linked to fear, anxiety and emotion; and a smaller-than-average anterior cingulate, a region of the brain linked to sorting through conflicting information and maintaining a more optimistic outlook.

“The opposite was true for subjects identified as liberal.

“Many psychological reports published over the years have also shown conservatives to be more sensitive to threats in the face of uncertainty, while liberals tend to be more open to new experiences.”

The emerging evidence – and listening to Glenn Beck’s radio show – indicate that conservatives might have brains built for being afraid, which would increase their agency anxiety, and thus their tendency to fall for conspiracy theories.

The impossible refutation

Brain differences between conservatives and liberals aside, the problem with many conspiracies is that they rely on such vague theories and general language – Harbison’s U.N. Agenda 21 is a prime example of this – that they are often impossible to directly refute, especially among those who would prefer to believe them. As conspiracy scholars Sunstein and Vermeule point out:

“A central feature of conspiracy theories is that they are extremely resistant to correction, certainly through direct denials or counterspeech by government officials; apparently contrary evidence can usually be shown to be a product of the conspiracy itself. Conspiracy theories often display the characteristic features of a ‘degenerating research program’ in which contrary evidence is explained away by adding epicycles and resisting falsification of key tenets.”

Since anyone who disputes a conspiracy is seen to be in on it, conspiracies are extremely durable, which only underscores how irresponsible it is for news outlets like the Las Cruces Sun-News to report on them as though they were factual. They should leave this sort of “reporting” to websites like NewsNM.com, which tries to hide its conservative ideology behind threadbare claims to being a legitimate news organization.

The real work ahead

I have such little patience for these conspiracies because they play on our anxieties in such a way that makes it more difficult for us to solve the big problems we face. By pitting small groups of us against one another,  it is harder for us to work together.

A large portion of the history of American progress is based on our ability to overcome fears and prejudices, and to come up with pragmatic solutions. Conspiracy theories like the Birthers and U.N. Agenda 21 only distract us from the real work ahead of us.

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

The Organ Mountains (Photo by Heath Haussamen)

A recent e-mail distributed by the Las Cruces TEA Party raised the call to “Save Our City,” as though Las Cruces teeters on the brink of moral and financial collapse.

My personal experience directly contradicts this. In the last few weeks, I’ve hiked the Pine Tree trail on the backside of the Organs; eaten breakfast with my wife on the lovely patio at La Iguana’s as friends walked by, stopping to chat as they enjoyed the farmer’s market; pushed our new blue recycling bin, full of recyclables, out to the curb; and won (and lost) several tennis matches — despite the blustery spring winds — at the well-maintained tennis courts at Lyon’s park.

This is the short list of good things. So, I wonder what the TEA party thinks we need to save our city from?

What they say

This Las Cruces TEA party group (there are two in town since, rumor has it, they couldn’t get along) has formed a Save Our City coalition because “the Las Cruces City Council is completely controlled by a group of Progressive Democrats that are owned and operated by an organization called the Progressive Voter Alliance.” The Save Our City coalition’s stated goal is “removing the Progressives and their toxic doctrines.”

But I still am not sure what exactly the problem is. As a matter of fact, it’s not just me who thinks things are going good here in Las Cruces. According to both local and national experts, Las Cruces is doing quite well.

Our economy is strong

In an economy like this, many people suffer, and that’s been true in Las Cruces as well. Still, most of us have fared better than other people in neighboring cities and states. For example — for the second year in a row — the Milken Institute, a national, nonpartisan economic think tank, named Las Cruces one of the top 10 performing small cities in the nation, based on job growth, wages and salaries, GDP growth, and other measures.

And local economist Chris Erickson agrees. In a recent Las Cruces Bulletin article, Erickson, citing a report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, points out that Las Cruces has outperformed both Albuquerque and Santa Fe over the last decade. As he says in the article, “However you slice it, the gains are impressive.” You can get more information — including cool powerpoint graphs — that quanitifes how Las Cruces has weathered the recession by watching this Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce forum.

Crime is down

A March 5 Las Cruces Sun-News article by Ashley Meeks outlines how crime has dropped significantly in the last two years:

“Between 2009 and 2010, violent crime went down11 percent in Las Cruces and 68 percent of those crimes were solved, compared with a nationwide reduction of 5 percent with 47 percent of such crimes solved. A second classification of crime – which includes assaults, credit card fraud, bad checks, vandalism, drunken driving, runaways and trespassing – went down 6 percent, with 23 percent of such crimes solved, compared with a nationwide reduction of 4 percent with only 18 percent solved.”

Traditionally, people get upset when the economy is bad or crime is bad. But the Las Cruces economy is holding steady in tough times and crime rates are dropping, so that’s not what is upsetting the Las Cruces TEA Party.

Planning, sustainability and social justice

If their beef isn’t about the economy or crime, it must be something else.

A former city council candidate, Jim Harbison, in a video on the Las Cruces TEA party homepage, says his primary complaint is that the city’s advocacy for better planning and more efficient delivery of city services, an emphasis on sustainable best practices, and valuing social justice, by increasing access to opportunity, choices, and freedom for all city residents, rather than just the special interests, is all part of a global plot to destroy private property. Here’s how he puts it:

“Sustainablists have imposed ‘green’ positions in their business policies and government officials at all levels are merging the power of the economy with the force of government in public/private partnerships at the local, state and federal levels. Its real objective is to redistribute American manufacturing, wealth, and jobs out of our borders and to lock away American natural resources.”

He claims that the people who believe in sustainability, public/private partnerships, and social justice are part of a global conspiracy to ruin America.

But I hold these values and am not a part of that conspiracy, so it’s hard for me to take that claim very seriously.

For those of us who don’t have an ideological opposition to all government, Mr. Harbison’s global conspiracy theory is baffling. It’s worth listening to how some of the Las Cruces city councilors — especially Councilor Thomas — responded to Mr. Harbison’s concerns when he expressed them at the April 4 City Council meeting, during public participation (the discussion begins at about 49 minutes in this video).

Why I’m a progressive

Finally, the Las Cruces TEA Party’s stated mission in their “Save Our City” e-mail is to remove the “progressives and their toxic doctrines.” I certainly don’t speak for all progressives, but here are some of the things that I stand for:

• America’s success is built on (and depends on) our ability to work together to solve our problems. See here for more details.
• All humans — regardless of race, creed, sex, gender, sexual orientation — are entitled to, as the Declaration of Independence states, the protection of their basic human rights, which at least include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• We the people have formed together and, as the Preamble to the Constitution states, empowered our government “to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

I’m not sure what is so toxic about these beliefs. They are rooted in our founding documents and our shared experience. They are inclusive and intended to maximize freedom and opportunity.

In their “Save Our City” e-mail, the Las Cruces TEA Party claims to stand for patriotism and civic responsibility. Those are my values also. As a patriot, I believe in fulfilling my duties to my country and my children by working hard, volunteering in my community, paying my fair share of taxes, and investing in the future.

Furthermore, as a part of my civic responsibility, I am duty-bound to do what I can to ensure that every American, no matter their race, class, sex, gender, sexual orientation or creed, has the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of this country. That is the promise of America.

I have little confidence that this will be especially convincing to the Las Cruces TEA Party members. But I hope they will modulate their tone and think about what they are saying a little bit more. Wild accusations get us nowhere and only further the distance between the people who disagree. Although Las Cruces has done well, we have big problems as a state and country. We might all be better served if we quit with the name-calling and hyperbole, and started working together respectfully.

In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for the spring winds to subside, and enjoying breakfast at La Iguana’s with my family and friends. You should too. Make sure to say “Hello” if you see me.

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

Photo by Beverly & Pack/flickr.com

A few days ago I ran into my fellow columnist Dr. Swickard at Toucan Market in Las Cruces. We had a pleasant conversation — baskets of produce and gluten-free cake mix in hand — during which he relayed the story that he tells in his most recent post about not getting his insulin needles.

He also was kind enough to invite me to visit his morning radio show, which I declined because my thoughts are best explored when I get to revise rather than when I’m forced to improvise.

With this conversation fresh in my head, I read his recent claim that government is “destroying the country” because, in the most literal reading of his column, his pharmacist refused to give him insulin needles.

According to his column, Dr. Swickard argues that, for the past half century or so, Americans have been turning to government to solve all of their problems. The latest emanation of this degradation of personal responsibilities has been the most recent health care reforms, which are the reason that the pharmacist refused to give him his needles.

Since I’m concerned that diabetics cannot get the needles they need to apply their insulin treatments, I called the Walgreen’s pharmacy on El Paseo in Las Cruces to ask in what cases I wouldn’t be sold insulin needles. I took notes while we talked. Here’s how it went:

“Can I buy needles for insulin?” I asked.

“It’s up to the pharmacist on duty at the time; otherwise, you need a prescription,” the pharmacist’s assistant said.

“So I need a separate prescription for my needles?” I asked.

“Umm, technically,” she said. “Usually they’ll just sell them to you.”

“Is this a new protocol?” I asked. “Needing a prescription for needles?”

“No,” she said. “Most pharmacists will just sell them to you.”

I don’t know about Dr. Swickard’s particular situation, but it sounds like, in most cases, the government is not interfering with diabetics getting their needles. Rather, a few pharmacists insist on a prescription for the needles, which may not be such a bad idea.

Furthermore, it sounds like the pharmacist was not applying a new rule that had anything to do with the recent health care reforms.

I can understand why Dr. Swickard might make the correlation between his situation and the passage of the health care reform, especially considering all of the talk from Beck and Palin types about death panels and rationed care. We are primed to look for such things. Still, as my composition students and I discuss often, there’s a big difference between correlation and causality.

But this isn’t really about insulin needles

This is about the proper role for government in our society. Dr. Swickard’s column suggests that government has only been destructive to American prosperity. I just don’t think the facts bear that out.

A few examples of how our lives have been improved by pooling our resources through government action:

• Thanks to basic government research, Americans are living better and longer than ever before. Because we the people — through the pooled resources that we call the government — invest in research colleges, nonprofit organizations like the March of Dimes and research hospitals, we’ve been able to support the discovery of vaccines for diseases like polio and improve the quality of life for people who are suffering from other diseases like AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and — yes — even diabetes.
• Government investment in basic science has led to many innovations that both improve our quality of life and also are the building blocks for entrepreneurs and businesses. An obvious example is government investment in the computer chip, which led to the personal computer. Also, government development of the Internet has been an undeniable boon to not only entrepreneurship and consumer choice but to the spread of democracy itself, as we’ve seen the impact of social media in Egypt and elsewhere.
• Government investment in basic infrastructure like the interstate highway system has not only allowed for businesses to transport and receive goods from all over the country and our neighbors to the north and south, but has also allowed for people who can afford it to move from town to town and back again safely, freely and easily.
• Government investment in emerging industries has spurred innovation in the United States. Starting with the transition from lighting the streets with whale blubber to investing in the pipelines to move petroleum, the government has provided a useful helping hand for industries that benefit everyone.
• Government acts as a stabilizing force for our financial markets and a safeguard for individual investors through protections like those provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
• Governmental regulatory boards like the Environmental Protection Agency secure our rights to breathe clean air and drink safe water. The Food and Drug Administration screens everything from prescription drugs to toys to make sure that the things we buy don’t kill us.
• Our military has been the driving force behind some of the most meaningful efforts in history to secure freedom, such as World War II.
• Our firefighters and police allow for a degree of public safety enjoyed by few other countries. There can be little doubt that this is a boon to commerce and entrepreneurship, not to mention liberty.
• Government has fulfilled its constitutional mandate to continue to “secure the blessings of Liberty” to all Americans by securing rights — from voting to freedom of speech, religion, and peaceable assembly — for all people, regardless of gender or ethnicity. On this point, as in all of the above, our record has been imperfect, and much work remains to be done.

The above list is merely representative (not exhaustive) of what we have accomplished through the government. To me, it is hard to defend the position that government has been largely destructive to the success of our American experiment.

A more perfect union

According to the preamble of the Constitution, the people of the United States have empowered the government to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” To me this indicates that the founders intended that the government would play a large role in building a more perfect union.

I agree with Dr. Swickard that “cradle-to-grave” government is not a viable solution for our problems. But, it’s equally inaccurate to say that government is at the root of all our problems.

I propose that we move our discussions beyond assuming that government contributes nothing — it’s just not factual. Let’s not forget that some of our earliest national debts accumulated because the federal government took over the debts that our states incurred during the Revolutionary War. The price of a free society has long been borne by government.

Instead, we need to discuss how to optimize and administer a government that is charged by the founders — and empowered by the people — with securing justice, domestic tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty.

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

A sign from a tea party rally in Albuquerque in 2009. (Photo by nmfbihop/flickr.com)

Whether Jared Lee Loughner targeted Congresswoman Giffords after listening to extreme right wing or extreme left wing rhetoric seems beside the point — the truth is that, like all of us, he’s likely been exposed to a full helping of both.

And although we may find that one fanatic group or the other bears a lion’s share of the blame for this particular tragedy, there’s enough incendiary talk burning up our public dialogue that any one (or combination) of them could be responsible.

A more useful thing might be to consider how the ways that we talk about our disagreements not only hinder meaningful problem solving but also, in the worst cases, facilitate violence.

Discursive entrenchment

Rhetorician Elizabeth Ervin uses the term discursive entrenchment to describe when:

“participants in a debate intellectually and rhetorically dig in their heels, refusing to consider alternative positions and thus aggravating existing tensions.”

We can find many examples of discursive entrenchment in our society.

For example, consider many of the comments following articles on this site where commentators talk past each other, insisting on seemingly willful misunderstandings of opposing points of view, and resorting to name calling rather than civil discussion. Interactions like these promote discursive entrenchment and, as Ervin argues, are capable of “aggravating existing tensions.”

We’ve seen this sort of rhetorical brinksmanship playing itself out in the public sphere, with conservatives calling President Obama a socialist, or, even stranger, someone who displays “Kenyan, anti-colonial” behavior. In turn, President Obama recently accused Republicans of being “hostage-takers” when they didn’t act as he wanted them too. It’s easy to see how this sort of talk, from both sides, exemplifies discursive entrenchment and moves the country further from solutions rather than closer.

Both parties have dug in their heels, both refuse to consider alternate viewpoints, and both are aggravating existing tensions.

Sacred Rhetoric

Political scholar Morgan Marietta uses the term sacred rhetoric to describe rhetoric that is:

“unconflicted, extreme, and strident, taking positions that ignore compromise or negotiation, upholding the inviolability of a favored set of values while dismissing others.”

President George W. Bush used sacred rhetoric when he argued after the 9/11 attacks that “you’re either with us or against us.” In this case, President Bush brooked no room for discussion or deliberation among “us.” Talk like this limited the scope of how we might have addressed the 9/11 attacks, effectively moving the public dialogue past deliberation to passionate engagement (or alienation, in some cases).

Sacred rhetoric is contrasted with what Marietta calls consequentialism, a rhetorical mode where discussion centers around how the activity or policy in question would impact the public welfare. A consequentialist discussion of 9/11, for example, would debate the practical effects and real world consequences of various military and diplomatic options rather than proselytize about the morality of them, as both sides (and I too) have done.

Marietta’s research indicates that our brains process sacred rhetoric differently than consequentialist rhetoric.

Here are her findings:

• Exposure to sacred rhetoric (as opposed to consequentialist rhetoric) decreases deliberation and increases what she calls “absolutist reasoning.” In other words, people who hear sacred rhetoric think less carefully about that facts about the issue at hand and rely more on the norms and values of their friends and families to guide their actions.
• Sacred rhetoric “encourages political intensity and engagement.” It’s little surprise to learn that invoking deeply-held values and convictions gets people fired up and engaged in the issue (although not, it’s important to note, intellectually engaged).

Marrieta’s findings highlight an awkward conundrum for public discourse: The use of sacred rhetoric decreases our tendency to deliberate carefully about policies, while at the same time it increases not only our involvement but also the intensity with which we engage the issue.

The question she raises — but leaves us to answer — is whether we’d prefer consequentualist rhetoric, which encourages deliberation at the expense of passionate participation, or whether we’d prefer sacred rhetoric, which encourages passionate participation at the expense of careful deliberation.

I prefer consequentialist rhetoric that — although a bit wonky and dry — encourages careful deliberation and serious discussion of the real-world consequences of our decisions. The other option looks too much like mob rule to me.

What can we do?

If you agree with me that using consequentialist rhetoric that increases our public deliberation is a better way to discuss public policy options, then the question becomes how we could encourage it. The fact that many of our most successful media outlets have become rich and powerful through their intentional use of sacred rhetoric complicates the matter. Sacred rhetoric engages people passionately. That’s good for ratings. But this is another dangerous example of our most powerful corporations privatizing profits while socializing their risks.

This weekend — even as people like Glen Beck, Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh have become rich by calling their political opponents names — we all saw the real human cost of allowing the irresponsible use of sacred rhetoric. Ironically, the images and accounts of what has happened are delivered to us by many of the same media personalities who have profited (and continue to do so) from the sacred rhetoric that can lead to violence.

I understand that there will always be people like Jared Lee Loughner who are susceptible to extreme ideas and who are capable of violence. And I understand that sacred rhetoric is just another term to describe the practice of manipulating people with language, which has been with us since antiquity. In the western tradition, this long conversation started with Plato and the sophists and now includes pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Many smart, well-meaning people throughout history have wrestled with this same problem and come away with only a limp to show for their troubles.

Furthermore, we the people can’t ignore our own culpability in all this. We not only allow but celebrate the people who use the most extreme rhetoric. One of the challenges of writing these blogs is resisting the temptation to be provocative. This would surely attract a broader readership, but not really advance how we think about these important issues. I trust you all to tell me when I’ve failed to promote deliberation.

To be clear, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be passionate. However, all of us — both in our public and private roles — might endeavor to talk more rationally, and more carefully, about the issues we care about. Always attempting to discuss them in ways that encourage rather than quiet careful deliberation.

All of my specific ideas to fix the larger problems in our public discourse — like, for example, forming a regulatory board that assesses the toxicity of the rhetoric that travels across our public airwaves and the internet — seem naïve and politically impossible (and perhaps, in the case of the Internet, literally impossible). Besides, the line between free speech and toxic speech can seem pretty darn thin, depending on how we each feel about the person doing the talking.

At the local level, my students and I work together in our composition classroom to become more critical consumers and more ethical creators of the various forms of rhetoric. This is satisfying and important work but it’s a slow way to foster a healthy public debate. We learn to use Donald Davidson’s principle of charity, which requires that we not only assume that the people we disagree with are rational but also we consider the opposing argument in its strongest form, even building it up if need be.

This is not only a good exercise for developing critical thinking, it also helps us understand where those we disagree with are coming from. Rather than being merely an enemy whose ideas we must defeat, those we disagree with become fellow humans with real and legitimate motives,even if we do not, in the end, agree. Our understanding of the world becomes richer and more complex, rather than simplified and monochromatic.

While we look for bigger antidotes for what ails our toxic public dialogue, each of us can hold ourselves and those we can influence to a higher standard of public discourse than we have before. Accepting dangerous rhetoric has become too costly.

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

Photo by dpatricklewis/flickr.com

Over the last few decades the city of Littleton, Colo., has enjoyed the sort of economic success that many other communities can only dream of. According to the city’s economic intelligence specialist, Christine Hamilton-Pennell, Littleton’s economic development practices have resulted in the following growth:

• The number of jobs created in Littleton has doubled from 15,000 to around 30,000.
• Sales tax revenues tripled from $6.8 million to $19.6 million (Hamilton-Pennell notes that this increase occurred despite two major recessions and a population increase of only 30 percent).

Furthermore, the city offered no tax incentives or breaks to recruit these new businesses. Recently Christian Gibbons, Littleton’s director of business/industry affairs, conducted a conference call with Las Cruces community leaders, city staff, and representatives from local business groups like the Las Cruces Green Chamber of Commerce, the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance, and the Hispano Chamber of Commerce, among others, to discuss how they did it.

How did they do it?

Littleton’s economic prosperity is thanks to an economic development model that  Gibbons calls economic gardening. A cornerstone principle underlying economic gardening is that economic development efforts should focus on:

“…investing in local businesses rather than the traditional approach of luring businesses… from elsewhere by offering incentives and tax breaks.”

Economic gardening’s focus on investing in local entrepreneurs is derived from David Birch’s research while he was at MIT. Here’s what CBS Moneywatch says about the impact of Birch’s research:

“Small business is now widely regarded as the principal generator of net new employment in the United States. When first introduced fifteen years ago, the idea was revolutionary. Few economists or policy analysts gave smaller firms a passing thought. Large entities were presumed to be the primary, if not the sole, source of economic vitality and the only units worth examining. Yet, the newfound utility of small business took hold quickly not only because it fit America’s self-image, but because the empirical data supported it.”

Following are some of Birch’s key findings:

• An estimated two-thirds of net private sector jobs created in the last 25 years were created by small firms (a small business is defined as one that employs fewer than 500 employees).
• Small firms employ about half of the total private sector work force.
• Small businesses that employ from one to 18 employees create the most net new jobs relative to their share of total employment.

Furthermore, a more recent research study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City determined that “between 1990 and 2003, companies employing fewer than 20 employees accounted for 79.5 percent of the net new jobs in the US.”

It’s clear from the data that investing in small businesses and entrepreneurship can lead to significant job growth.

How economic development usually happens

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, economic development policymakers have traditionally focused on the following four activities:

• business recruitment
• retention
• expansion
• entrepreneurial development

Many communities are now turning their focus away from only recruiting big companies – it’s called smokestack chasing – to encouraging entrepreneurial development. There are a few reasons for this shift, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta:

• Investment in business recruitment has not consistently produced strong job growth or economic development.
• Policymakers are concerned that incentives are an ineffective way to attract businesses that might not be committed to the community for the long-term, and are likely to leave once the incentives expire.

With communities shifting to entrepreneurial development, policymakers and planners are looking for successful models like economic gardening.

How economic gardening works

Economic gardening nurtures entrepreneurship. By investing in smaller, high-growth  businesses – which Birch calls “gazelles” – economic gardening, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, “allows local communities to capitalize on their unique assets and to leverage their existing strengths for future growth.”

Following are the three “building blocks” that economic gardening programs use to nurture entrepreneurship:

• Information. According to their website:

“Over the years we have developed very sophisticated search capabilities using tools often only available to large corporations. We subscribe to a number of database services and CD-ROMS which provide us access to over 100,000 publications worldwide. We use these tools to develop marketing lists, competitive intelligence, industry trends, new product tracking, legislative research and to answer a number of other custom business questions.”

• Infrastructure. This includes not only physical infrastructure necessary for businesses to be successful but also quality of life infrastructure like parks, green spaces and community development. Economic gardening programs also focus on developing “intellectual infrastructure” through training and seminars. Here’s what they say about infrastructure:

“All of our infrastructure work is based on the idea that economic development and community development are two sides of the same coin. In the New Economy, where new wealth and jobs are being created by knowledge firms, creating a community that is attractive to entrepreneurs and the talent they hire is as important as natural resources and heavy rail were to Old Economy companies.”

• Connections. This involves not only connecting businesses to one another but also to trade associations, academic institutions and research and innovation.

The future of economic gardening in our community

I hope that, with the new leadership at the city, and empowered local business advocates like the Green Chamber, our economic development policymakers will look at ways to adapt the principles of economic gardening to fit Las Cruces. BALLE, a nationwide network of local businesses, contends that a strong local economy not only makes good economic sense but also helps a community celebrate and leverage its inherent strengths.

In Las Cruces, those strengths are things like our mild climate and the particular beauty of the Organ mountains; our unrivaled positioning on the globe to be a leader in renewable energy production; access to NMSU, a Carnegie foundation top research institution; and our unique mix of culture and tradition.

Furthermore, investing in our local entrepreneurs will create what sociologists call social capital, the formation of which, according to public policy expert Lewis Feldstein and Robert Putnam in their book Better Together, can improve schools, make people live longer, create broad prosperity, and – if that’s not enough – build prosperous local economies.

Congratulations to Littleton and the economic gardening folks for creating a model of economic success that invests in homegrown talent. Let’s hope that we in Las Cruces can figure out how to adapt their ideas to work for us.

Happy New Year!

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

A food line from a sculpture at the FDR memorial in Washington, D.C. (Photo by woodleywonderworks/flickr.com)

With the Obama-Republican tax deal having passed the Senate and the House as well, I guess I’ve gotten the compromise I’ve been asking for.

To be honest, I’d thought I’d feel better about it.

What the deal does

In short, the tax deal gives both the Republicans and the Democrats the one thing they wanted most. For the Republicans, that one thing was extending the Bush Tax Cuts to everyone, especially protecting those making over $1 million a year in income. I emphasize the protection of those people making over $1 million a year in income because we saw Senate Republicans (and a few Democrats) vote against the opportunity to both reduce the deficit and maintain the Bush Tax Cuts for everyone but the very very rich.

Clearly, the most important thing for the Republicans – which they got with the current tax deal – is maintaining lowered tax rates for the richest 2 percent of Americans, rather than lowering the deficit or, for that matter, investing in infrastructure and education that will be the pathway to future prosperity.

On the other hand, the Democrats got the thing that they most wanted: extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. Here’s how the New York Times summarized the expansion:

“The bill would also keep jobless aid flowing to the long-term unemployed for 13 more months, maintaining extended limits, which now range from 60 weeks in states with less than 6 percent joblessness to 99 weeks in states where the unemployment rate is more than 8.5 percent. Benefits normally last for 26 weeks.”

While the Republicans insisted on legislation that didn’t jive with their deficit-reducing campaign promises, the Democrats stuck to their long-stated commitment to extending unemployment benefits.

At a time when there are six candidates for every open job, and we know that people receiving unemployment benefits immediately pump most if not all of that money back into an economy that is wallowing due to lack of consumer spending and confidence, extending unemployment benefits is not only the right thing to do for people struggling to get back to work, but also is a necessary boost for our economy - unlike extending the tax cuts for Americans making over $1 million, who have proven themselves unwilling to invest their money back into the economy either through spending or hiring.

Some stimulus

The upside for both parties is that this tax deal offered much-needed political coverage (thanks to right-wing misrepresentation of the success of the stimulus) to provide much-needed additional stimulus to an economy in which the private sector, despite having been bailed out by taxpayers, refuses to begin hiring again. Liberals who are optimistic about this tax deal point to the stimulatory effects of the deal. Here’s how Ezra Klein, economics blogger for the Washington post, describes it:

“So is this a good deal? It’s a lot better than I would’ve told you the White House was going to get if you’d asked me a week ago. There’s some new stimulus in the form of the payroll-tax cut and the expensing proposals. The older stimulus programs that are getting extended – notably the unemployment insurance and the tax credits – probably would’ve expired outside of this deal. The tax cuts for income over $250,000 are a bad way to spend $100 billion or so, and the estate tax deal is really noxious.”

The problem with stimulus in the form of tax incentives, especially to the wealthy, rather than direct government spending in jobs and infrastructure is that it provides, according to many economists, a less-effective boost to the economy. But, perhaps Klein is right that this is the best we could have hoped for.

What Americans think about the deal

According to a recent Pew Research Report, Americans from both parties show strong support for the tax deal:

“The agreement between President Obama and congressional Republicans to extend tax cuts and unemployment benefits is getting strong bipartisan support. Overall, 60% approve of the agreement while just 22% disapprove.”

These poll results confirm what Republicans like Dick Cheney have long-suspected: As long as you talk tough about the deficit and the size of government, Americans won’t be upset when you insist on measures that hardly anyone, not even Glenn Hubbard, the architect of the Bush Tax cuts, believe are good for our country’s long-term deficit problems.

So now what?

Let’s hold our noses and grant that this is the best deal that President Obama and the Republicans could come up with. Now what?

Corporations and the wealthy need to quit complaining about uncertainty about higher tax rates and start spending and hiring. The American people have endured more than their fair share of uncertainty when we used ours and our childrens’ tax dollars to bail out the failing financial system, which benefited the wealthy much more than average Americans. The lower and middle classes are likely to continue the long process of getting rid of their debts (deleveraging), so the rich now need to do their part to carry the economy – especially on the heels of this latest deal.

The people of the United States have done everything we can - perhaps too much – to reassure corporations and the wealthy that they can continue paying this near-historically low rate of the cost of living and doing business in America. Corporations and the rich had better start spending all that cash they are sitting on immediately through hiring and capital investment. Otherwise, having,  as we’ve done so often, privatized the profits and socialized the risks of the wealthiest Americans, the rich should abandon their pretenses of being either entrepreneurial or socially responsible, and admit that they will happily take advantage of their wealth and position to increase their wealth and position.

Furthermore, if the rich don’t re-invest their money in American jobs, they should be publicly shamed by Americans from all points of the political spectrum as unpatriotic, modern-day robber barons.

Class warfare?

Many conservatives claim that asking corporations and the wealthy to do their part is a form of class warfare. My simple response: They started it.

As I’ve argued before, many economists, like Edward Glaeser, contend that the rich have used their ability to lobby the powerful to bend the system to unfairly benefit them. In the words of NMSU professor Chris Erickson, they have:

“…manged to corrupt the system so that the benefits are flowing more to them than would be justified in a completely free market. One of the ways to balance so that we get an outcome that is more consistent with a free market is to tax the rich… I think a higher tax rate on the wealthy is justified in the current circumstances.”

In other words, if they want to think of this as class warfare, they should remember that the Pearl Harbor of this conflict happened when they used their money and influence to distort the system. For more details, check out this breakdown from The Fiscal Times:

“According to the IRS, the top 400 earners in the U.S. grossed a whopping $137 billion in 2007 (the latest data available). A household making $50,000 a year is taxed at 17.4 percent, assuming no write-offs. Yet the billionaires were only taxed an average rate of 16.7 percent, amounting to $22.9 billion.”

It’s shameful that the top 400 billionaires pay a lower rate of taxes than a household making $50,000 a year. I’d argue that if there is a class war underway, the rich started it by using there power and money to avoid paying their fair share. But that’s my simple response.

My somewhat more complicated response to whether this is class warfare: It’s not. Typifying public discussion about the costs of democracy and freedom, and how those costs should be allocated, as class warfare is merely a ploy to short-circuit meaningful discussion. We need to be able to discuss our problems reasonably.

But really. What now?

This tax deal proves that congressional Republicans have little credibility when they claim to be concerned about either the debt or long-term deficits. On the other side, President Obama has invested a lot of political capital in this deal, with the  hopes that it will encourage corporations to start hiring again. If they do not, Obama will be stuck with a deal that angers his base and doesn’t improve the economy. To that end, according to the Wall Street Journal, he’s gone on a “charm offensive” to do just that:

“The White House has been pursuing a charm offensive with the biggest U.S. employers in recent weeks, hoping to convince them to plow some of the $2 trillion in cash they are sitting on into expansion and hiring in the U.S.”

The debate about the Bush Tax cuts, and, in effect, our long-term deficit problem, will be continued when the cuts are scheduled to sunset again in 2012, just in time for the next presidential election. Perhaps President Obama is right that these concessions will provide the short-term stimulus that our economy needs, and we can address the Bush Tax cuts (and the long-term deficit problem) after more people are employed again. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, perhaps this imperfect deal will pave the path for future compromises that actually benefit the long-term well-being of America, rather than the narrow constituencies of our two-party system. I’d start with finding ways to address the troubling decline of inter-generational mobility that has bedeviled the working and middle classes in the last few decades.  This will provide access to prosperity for all Americans, not just the already wealthy. Again, only time will tell.

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.

Photo by Todd Huffman/flickr.com

During the 100-yard dash that was the last few weeks of the election, I didn’t have time to comment on National Public Radio’s controversial firing of Juan Williams. Although the news cycle has moved on to Brett Favre’s sextploits and Sarah Palin’s new Alaska travelogue, NPR’s firing of Juan Williams gives us an opportunity to think about what we value from our news sources.

Also, buried among the $200 billion in spending cuts recommended by President Obama’s deficit commission is the elimination of government funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides important monetary support for not only Sesame Street but also NPR. With its funding endangered, and its reputation again questioned by both liberals and conservatives, it’s an important time to consider Juan William’s firing, and the difference between NPR and Fox or MSNBC.

The Juan Williams firing

In spite of his sexual harassment problems and tendency for faux pas, I’ve always rooted for Juan Williams because he wrote the companion book to the 14-hour civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize, which had great influence on me when I watched it as a teenager. So, I was bummed to see that he’d gotten fired from NPR.

I’m further bummed that many right-wing commentators have used NPR’s firing of Juan Williams as an opportunity to question its objectivity, and renew their calls for stripping its government funding. Fred Barnes’ recent blog for the Weekly Standard is typical of their argument:

“I have no doubt that Juan’s comments about Muslims were merely a pretext (for his firing).  There had been prior run-ins between NPR and Juan over his appearances on Fox. But fire him over remarks that most Americans would identify with? I didn’t think the loathing of Fox would cause NPR to do something so ideologically driven, unprofessional, and bigoted… The motto is, Fox is fair and balanced. Mainstream media types sneer at this. Juan actually embodies it. He’s both fair and balanced. NPR is neither. “

I’ll deal with the question of whether NPR is fair and balanced later, but I want to address Barnes’ implicit argument that NPR fired Juan Williams because of what he said. I think this is a cynical mischaracterization of what likely happened. Here’s what NPR ombudswoman Alicia Shephard said in her article “NPR’s handling of Juan William’s firing was poorly handled:”

“This latest incident with Williams centers around a collision of values: NPR’s values emphasizing fact-based, objective journalism versus the tendency in some parts of the news media, notably Fox News, to promote only one side of the ideological spectrum.

“The issue also is whether someone on NPR’s payroll should be allowed to say something in one venue that NPR would not allow on its air. NPR’s ethics code says they cannot. Williams was doing the kind of stereotyping in a public platform that is dangerous to a democracy. It puts people in categories, as types – not as individuals with much in common despite their differences.

“Although NPR had handled the situation badly, the fact remains that NPR must uphold its journalistic standards.”

Many of us who’ve had to fire an employee know that it is a complicated  process. To protect the company from legal retaliation, it’s important that an accurate history of misconduct has been documented. An essential component of this documentation is proof that the employee has been informed what the company considers acceptable behavior, how his or her behavior has deviated from that policy and, most importantly, how he or she is expected to act from then on. It’s clear from Shephard’s article that NPR followed this sort of procedure with Juan Williams.

Despite how pundits like Barnes want to talk about Juan William’s firing, NPR was merely doing what every company has the right and obligation to do: ensure that their employees follow policy. This isn’t a matter of liberal bias or political correctness. It’s a matter of enforcing stated policy and procedures – something almost everyone can agree is a reasonable and ethical way to conduct business.

Could NPR have handled the firing better? Yes. Should Juan Williams have been fired for repeatedly not following company policy? Yes.

Barnes also complains, without evidence, that Juan William’s was fired for remarks that “most Americans would identify with.” I would contend that just because most Americans would agree with a statement doesn’t make it newsworthy. Still, as Shephard points out, discussion of tough issues is valuable, but only so long as it contributes to useful public discourse rather than reinforces differences and stereotypes.

The difference between NPR and Fox or MSNBC

Like many of you, I’m a news junkie. NPR is on at our house in the morning while we get ready for work. When I drive around during the day, I often listen to talk radio programs like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and our local show hosted by Michael Swickard and Jim Spence. When I’m at work or working out at the gym, I listen to podcasts of NPR’s On Point or the Diane Rehm show. When my wife and I are fixing dinner, we switch around between the PBS Newshour, Countdown and Hannity.

I look to each source for a different type of information. From Countdown, Rush and Hannity I expect partisan spin. From NPR, on the other hand, I expect objective reporting. Here’s a long (sorry!) excerpt from columnist James Fallow’s article about what separates NPR from many other news outlets:

“Isn’t NPR just the same thing (as Fox News), from a different political perspective? No, and the difference matters.

“NPR, whatever its failings, is one of the few current inheritors of the tradition of the ambitious, first-rate news organization… It has reporters at state houses and in war zones. At last count, it has something like 17 foreign bureaus and 16 domestic. In much of the country, especially away from the coasts, it’s a major source of local information and news. It claims that its total audience is some 27 million people a week; with all allowances for counting differences, it reaches a lot more people than Fox does. (Eg, a recent report put O’Reilly’s usual audience at around 3.3 million.) NPR is increasingly important in state-capital coverage, as small newspapers have weakened. Because it can carry on-scene interviews and “soundscapes,” it can convey an impression of realities from inside China, or Haiti, or Detroit, or Kabul in a way print stories cannot.

“In their current anti-NPR initiative, Fox and the Republicans would like to suggest that the main way NPR differs from Fox is that most NPR employees vote Democratic. That is a difference, but the real difference is what they are trying to do. NPR shows are built around gathering and analyzing the news, rather than using it as a springboard for opinions. And while of course the selection of stories and analysts is subjective and can show a bias, in a serious news organization the bias is something to be worked against rather than embraced.”

This closely matches my perspective on the issue. Rather than being concerned with building media personalities or winning short-term political victories – as so many cable news corporations seem to be – responsible news organizations build processes and policies into their practices that resist bias and strive towards objectivity. Then they enforce those policies. That’s what NPR did when it fired Juan Williams.

But it’s impossible to be objective!

Conservative columnist Mona Charen argued – on NPR, of all places – that what “infuriates conservatives is that they see no willingness on the part of NPR to recognize that they have a point of view.” She claims that no news source is free of bias and that, essentially, Fox News is preferred because it doesn’t pretend to be objective (although one wonders what their slogan “Fair and Balanced” is supposed to suggest).

Ultimately, I agree with Charen that it’s impossible for a news organization to be completely unbiased. However, I don’t agree that it’s not worth resisting bias. For example, many of us admire the objective reporting that we believe we get from this site. Still, do most of us believe that Mr. Haussamen doesn’t have an opinion about the stories he reports? I certainly don’t. But I appreciate that he has the training and discipline to bracket out his own bias and opinion so that we can get news that’s based in facts and mostly free of bias.

I also appreciate this about much of NPR’s reportage. To push them to be as ideologically driven as Fox News or MSNBC seems like a dangerous and cynical suggestion that would only further reduce the availability of credible information.

The effect on the public discourse

Furthermore, I’d argue that the way that people yell at one another on Fox News and MSNBC (as opposed to on NPR) contributes largely to the acrimonious timbre of public discourse. If we really are interested in getting the country back on track, we should be lauding any venue that is committed to rational discussion of the issues of the day. It’s hard to learn or solve problems by yelling at each other. I want to hear the best arguments – rationally articulated, and carefully challenged – from all sides so that I can understand the decisions before us.

For example, NPR’s program On Point frequently gathers the smartest people (not the media darlings) from either side of an issue and brings them into the studio to vigorously – but politely – discuss. For a great example, please listen to this hour long program where Congressman Paul Ryan discusses his “Roadmap for America’s Future.” Programs like this are concerned with informing its listeners rather than convincing them of a worldview.

It’s hard for me to understand how people who value careful consideration over ideological dogmatism would resent NPR’s consistently positive contributions to the public discourse. Rather than complaining about NPR enforcing company policy, perhaps we should demand that our other news sources – local and national – recommit to meaningful exploration of the important issues.

Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net.