Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Bailout Showing Signs of Success

The banking bailout last fall was designed to prevent another great depression. The idea of saving financial institutions, who through greed and right - wing deregulation of the banking industry brought the nation and the world to the verge of the greatest economic meltdown in history, was not a pleasant one for those of us who supported the bailout.   Solving the Financial Crisis. A Modest Proposal September 23, 2008

Now we get word that As Big Banks Repay Bailout Money, U.S. Sees a Profit The New York Times reports:

Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.

That is not to say we are out of the woods:

But all the profits taxpayers have won could still be wiped out by two deeply troubled institutions. Both Citigroup and Bank of America are still holding mortgages and other loans that were once worth billions of dollars but whose revised values are uncertain. If they prove “toxic” because they cannot attract buyers, they could leave large holes in the banks’ balance sheets.

It was a difficult call. Let the banks go under and watch millions of innocent people financially destroyed, homes lost, businesses in ruin, bills piling up. Or bail out institutions run by the culprits, set rules that control their behavior and profitability, and reinstate reasonable regulations for the financial services industry that minimize the chance that this will never happen again.

The critics were loud and shrill, and downright nasty. They wanted failure. It may still come but for now credit goes to the Democrats, a few Republicans, and President-elect Obama dragging President Bush along for the ride who were willing to make tough decisions. 

Remember the anti Pelosi hissy-fit?

Republicans Blaming Pelosi: They Sure Showed Her and Millions of Americans

Down in the  twenty-fourth paragraph, long after the carnage and mayhem were reported came this:

Republicans blamed Pelosi's scathing speech near the close of the debate — which assailed Bush's economic policies and a "right-wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no discipline, no regulation" of financial markets — for the defeat. It was not much different from her usual tough words against the president and his party.

Hating The Damn Yankees and Other Thoughful Observations

It is not a good year for baseball as the New York Yankees enter the final month of the season cruising. The Bronx Bombers have a commanding lead in the American League East, crushing Sox of all colors, and sporting the best record in  major league baseball. 

September brings us no tight divisional races, unless by some miracle the sub-500 Twins catch the dismal Detroit Tigers or the Colorado Rockies miraculously pass the Los Angeles (nee Brooklyn) Dodgers.

In fact it is unlikely that the playoff picture will change at all between now and when the first snows fall when the playoffs begin.

The 2009 season was dismal. The White Sox, Cubs, and Brewers collectively are two games under .500 and not likely to improve.

The highlight of Milwaukee's season, as of this afternoon, is a 20 game home wining streak against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The year was marred by the lack of professional pitching, which also can be said about the Cubs.

Of course, no team is going to ever make it to the World Series with Alfonso Soriano's loafing in left field while this so-called "lead-off hitter with power" goes an entire month, at the height of the season, without a four-bagger.

Nothing need be said about my Chicago White Sox other than Ozzie Guillen is the most over-rated manager in baseball and should have been fired long ago. The White Sox won the World Series despite Guillen, not because of him.

Remembering Another Kennedy

Ted Kennedy had the intellect and the heart to change this country and the world for the better.

Perhaps it was his missteps early in his career, perhaps it was the tragic assassinations of his brothers, perhaps it was the comfort he enjoyed both from his family wealth and the political base of Massachusetts that led to the extraordinarily productive last thirty years in the United States Senate.

Whatever the reason, he was one of the few politicians who demonstrated the will to make real change happen.

There are many good politicians, with solid values, but they do not have the will to occasionally offend, to state the obvious, and to work hard with both friend and foe to make a difference.

Once he put the idea of a presidency behind him, Ted Kennedy became an eloquent spokesman and effective legislator who did no less than inspire two more generations.

Frankly, I never expected to see the day when a Kennedy brother would die a natural death. The world was destined to change as Bobby Kennedy made his way to the White House in 1968, only to deprive us of another Kennedy who wanted to make a difference.

Ted Kennedy's death brings sadness as we think of him and his siblings, but his life serves as a reminder, that people change, they can improve, and they can make a difference.

Happy Birthday Warner Park Community Recreation Center: The Building and an Idea

As Samara Kalk Derby reports in The Capital TImes, The community center the city built: Warner Park center turns 10

The center brings people in from all over the north side, from the well-heeled neighborhoods of Brentwood and Mendota Hills to the poorer neighborhoods that include Vera Court and Kennedy Heights, says former Ald. Dorothy Borchardt, an early supporter of the center. It also attracts seniors from all over the area, she says.

From the beginning, the community center was more a concept than a building. The programming represents the Northside determining what was needed to strengthen the area, serve the residents, and in many instances to just have plain ordinary fun.

There is nothing wrong with fun. So we can call it the pursuit of happiness.

Former city council member, and still very active community member Dorothy Borchardt is too kind:

Borchardt says the center wouldn't have happened had it not been for former Mayor Paul Soglin. Before leaving the mayor's office to make an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1996, Soglin made good on a promise he made to Borchardt when she was first elected to the council, Borchardt says...

..."He said, 'Let me think about it.' I knew that if he didn't do it, it probably wouldn't happen," she says, adding that he found a way to get it built primarily with federal block grant money so there was less pressure on city taxpayers. The use of these federal funds also meant the center didn't have construction debt, Borchardt adds.

The city was a resource in terms of making the center happen. Most of the planning and development came from the Northside Planning Council.

Another pair of neighborhood activists and public officials probably said it well:

It is far cheaper to prevent problems by strengthening individuals and families through activities that link people and neighborhoods together than to rely on costly police and social services to deal with problems caused by the breakdown of families and communities," wrote Rusk, now a Dane County Board supervisor, and Van Rooy, a former City Council member. "We believe that this center can be an invaluable resource and focal point for community-building endeavors."

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America - The Generational Batttle for Gay Justice

When the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America voted to allow gay clergy, a new chapter was written in the battle to bring justice to all Americans.

Conservatives react after Lutherans lift gay ban

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Even though the Rev. Mark Chavez believes the leaders of his church made a decision in direct contradiction of the Bible by lifting a ban on sexually active, monogamous gays and lesbians as clergy, he said he's staying with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

"I'm not leaving," Chavez said Friday night, promising an effort to keep the church from moving even further toward what he sees as an embrace of behavior condemned by Scripture...

...The change to gay clergy policy passed with the support of 68 percent of about 1,000 delegates at the ELCA's national assembly. It makes the group, with about 4.7 million members in the U.S., one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported in 2006 that there was growing support for equal rights for gay Americans. The surveys showed a widening generational gap on the issue.

As younger Americans, more tolerant, fairer, and more knowedgable, command greater influence in national and state affairs, the tide will turn, eventually the laws will change, and the constitutional amendments adopted in states like Wisconsin will be repealed.

The question is, why did this generation become the one to become more demanding that gays receive equal treatment under the law?

My small, and uniformed opinion is the gay community itself and the decision by so many after Stonewall to come out. Unlike my generation and those older, our children grew up with openly gay classmates, openly gay co-workers, and openly gay teammates. That is good: it breaks down biases and sterotypes.

What is sad is that so many parents and grandparents will not heed the good advice of their children and reject opinions based on ignorance or a flawed biblical interpretation, or both.

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Mercury Marine and IAMAW - The Other Shoe(s) Drops

Unless there is an unlikely last minute switch, Mercury Marine is out of Wisconsin, as the script was written at corporate headquarters earlier this year.

Lost in all of the discussion about the contract vote by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) Local 1947 is one occasionally reported fact, but never explained, namely that there was a contract in place that runs through 2012.

When I sat down to write, I first looked at what was already published and discovered, not surprisingly, that Steve Jagler, executive director at the Milwaukee Biztimes.com had nailed it.

The real story behind Mercury Marine's labor collapse:

...The first thing to understand is the history that brought the Mercury Fond du Lac contract dispute to this point.The company signed a contract extension through 2012 for the workers in Fond du Lac only last year.

"Now, they turn around and say, 'We need a complete rewrite, from cover to cover, of the contract THEY negotiated. It's union busting," said Mike King of the IAMAW...

... "suicide offer."

"Mercury Marine never intended for this offer to be accepted," said IAMAW Midwest territory vice president Philip Gruber. "Despite progress on every major issue and a commitment by the IAM to continue bargaining, the company balked in the final hours and added terms and conditions that assured members would reject the offer … Mercury Marine has been threatening these workers and this community for weeks. Some companies may hint at dire consequences as a bargaining tactic, but rarely do we see such extortion in plain view. It's unethical, it's un-American and I respect any worker who stands up and refuses to be bullied." (emphasis added)

Mercury Marine made a decision to leave Wisconsin for cheaper labor in Oklahoma. In order to make sure that they received the minimum criticism, once they know they were gone it was easy to pin the blame on labor unions.

After all, there is already a well manged effort to define Wisconsin's business climate unfavorably because of the presence of organized labor.

Like so many others, they will learn that a well trained, union work force may be more costly, but it saves money in the long run with higher quality and the added benefit of having a higher standard of living in the community.

Now the other shoe will drop.

There are so many shoes to drop. The most obvious is to blame Governor Doyle, the legislature, and government officials in Fond du Lac.

The one that should provide the most interesting sport, is the less obvious - the attacks on Jagler as being a traitor to his class. Expect the charge to be led by guys named Belling and Sykes.

Madison's Meadowood: Time to Act

The announcement last week that a group of Meadowood residents are organizing to set community standards,  Southwest Side residents asked to back a 'residents bill of rights'  provides the opportunity for meaningful change in a great Madison neighborhood, presents a real challenge to city officials, and can serve as a model for future progress:

A group of Southwest Side residents, in conjunction with a public affairs organization, is promoting a new social contract for residents in the area intended to address a recent increase in crime and other quality-of-life concerns.

We know that no matter how high the standards of a community, if the residents do not fight to maintain those community values, they can succumb to crime and poverty. That a group of neighbors see this is encouraging.

But there are some problems. The leaders of this effort "are all white, and most of those who are helping organize the effort also are white," and "Another group, calling itself Families and Communities Unite, has begun a similar effort to tackle problems in the area and is led primarily by black residents."

Both efforts willl fail unless they are merged and combined. Both sides of a racial and economic divide must make a unified effort to do two things: make the area safe from thugs and simultaneously improve the real economic condition of all area residents.

Meadowood is not an affluent area - it never was and never will be. The modest owner-occupied homes are the residences of working people who generally do not have the time to engage in much of the philosophical discussions that pepper the Internet. They are undertaking a major effort that requires support.

City officials and other resources including religious organizations and many of the excellent non-profits that serve our community can play a valuable role as resources and facilitators in moving this discussion along and translating the aspirations into reality.

There will be some other challenges. The proposal that the neighborhood have a veto power over the location of Section 8 housing probably flies in the face of federal law. 

The underlying concern is a real one.

Every neighborhood and every community has a limited capacity to absorb low income housing. It is not the question of just the housing - it is a question of all the other support services that come with combating poverty, which paces demands on the public schools, transportation systems, job training resources, and health care providers.

For the past decade, Madison has focused on providing housing without making a commitment to the other services needed to make the housing commitment functional.

These issues must be addressed. The social compact cannot be limited to elements of behavior.

One more thought. It is troubling over the past few decades to see every document, legislative or otherwise, characterized as a 'bill of rights.'

This is not a bill of rights. As the introductory paragraph of the Wisconsin State Journal says, it is a social contract, or perhaps better yet, a social compact.

I have some issues and disagreements with part of this effort - some are minor, some are significant. It in incumbent upon all of us to contribute to making this effort work.

Jim Monroe, a minister at True Worshippers Community Church in Madison and one of the organizers of the families group, said people have a tendency to look at differences, rather than similarities.

“At some point you have to bypass it,” he said.

Monroe said he’ll attend the Wednesday meeting at Falk if he’s invited but said what’s really needed is a dialogue between his group and Severson’s. “They really need to have a few people from their group and a few people from our group meet,” he said.

That's the key.

Isthmus Annual Manual: Test Your Madison IQ. Oops

 This week's Isthmus includes the Annual Manual with the quiz on pages 10-11 and answers on page 106.

For one of the questions there is no correct option though four answers are offered.

Don't you just hate when that happens?

Otherwise the quiz and the annual are up to their usual high quality of useful information with insight and humor.

If I could find a link to the Annual Manual I'd post it.

Another Biased Poll - This Time from Scott Walker - He Cannot be Trusted

The political handlers for wasteful Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker announced the details of a poll they bought this past week. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the poll, not surprisingly, shows that the badly flawed Walker defeats all Democratic candidates, Poll shows Walker, Barrett are leading gubernatorial candidates in their parties  :

The poll was done this week for Walker's campaign by the Tarrance Group, a national polling firm for Republican candidates. The firm interviewed 800 likely primary election voters Tuesday and Wednesday. The results had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. (emphasis added)

For a poll to be meaningful, it must not only survey likely voters, but it must also have the proper demographics reflective of the voters who turn out on election day.

A poll of Waukesha County would produce different results from a poll of Milwaukee or Dane County. A poll that was of 98% white voters and excluded college students or Hispanics or Blacks, is of little value except to promote the candidacy of the beneficiary of such deceptive practices.

When it does come to time to cast real ballots the voters should not forget this deception from Scott Walker.

Given the reported outcomes of the various races, it is likely that the poll is heavily biased towards suburban Milwaukee County and surrounding collar counties.

 

The Problem With Newspapers

I still read the newspaper.

No matter how much news I get on line, I still read the newspaper. I may read several a day. I read the sports section and the news. I check the movie listings.

I love the newspaper but it is becoming harder to read. The problem is a physical one. It does not lay flat and more important, the physical changes make it harder to fold pages over.

Here is the problem. The newspaper is narrower, the paper is lighter. There are fewer pages to a section.

The problem with newspapers is the horizontal creases, all three of them.

All of this means that when the paper is folded for delivery, those horizontal creases are more enduringand difficult to flatten.

When I finish page one and now want to fold the page over, the horizontal crease along with the lighter, flimsier pages make it virtually impossible get a nice vertical crease at the spine.

As a result when I am done with the paper it looks like a few of the dogs and cats were wrestling with the pages and the paper is a physical mess so that no one else can read it.

The olden days:

 

Now days: