Thursday, July 28, 2022

Content with less, healthcare dept.

 

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Why are Americans Content with Less?

(c) by Mark Dempsey

After a family member returned from Korea, he marveled at the Koreans' public realm. They have wonderful parks, concerts and art exhibits, all free, and low-cost, effective, usable bus and train transit. He asked me why Americans are content with their comparatively meager public amenities. The following is my answer to the question "Why do Americans have low expectations about their public spaces and places?" 

Besides the observation that Koreans remember what it's like to be poor (and so provide amenities to all that the poor can enjoy), the simple answer is the population is content with less because of American's exposure to pervasive propaganda. The narrative by which Americans guide their lives is carefully shaped by the media dominated by a wealthy oligarchy. Modest expectations are part of that narrative, and no one must mention the wealthy committed crimes to get or stay ahead.

Consistent with this narrative, the Obama administration prosecuted none of the the war crimes of Bush/Cheney. In fact, Obama promoted those who supervised torture and prosecuted whistleblowers. 
 
The Obama regime was similarly sympathetic to big Wall Street criminals in the largest political and financial scandal in US history: the subprime/derivatives meltdown (now called the "Global Financial Crisis" or "GFC"). Instead of prosecutions, the administration settled for fines that amounted to dimes on the dollar of the banksters' loot, paid without even an admission of guilt--which makes civil cases from those injured harder to prosecute, too.

As someone who spent nearly a decade on a Sacramento County planning committee, pervasive systemic resistance to popular projects is true even in local politics. As currently configured, our system of local governance presents many daunting obstacles to anyone foolish enough to want to participate, or just call "bullshit" on these schemes that drain public coffers, but provides ample rewards to the speculators.

Generally, we're told to ignore systemic problems and concentrate on individual responsibility. Said Margaret Thatcher "there is no such thing as society, only individuals and people..." something roughly equivalent to saying "You have no body, only cells, and organs." No intelligent public policy is possible if you're told to just ignore the possibility that the public realm guided by such policy exists.

Incidentally, if you wonder how Ms. Thatcher became popular at all, it's because she privatized the UK's counsel (public) housing, letting occupants purchase their homes at a steep discount. This bribe given the public was enormously popular, but resulted in the housing shortages and unaffordability the UK experiences now. Meanwhile, childhood poverty tripled, and what remained of Britain's manufacturing exited to cheaper labor locations overseas after Thatcher was through with her modification of the system of government programs.

To clarify what systemic problems look like, imagine I throw nine bones out my back door, then release ten dogs to retrieve a bone. No matter how responsible, well-trained, etc. those dogs are, one's going to come up short. Individual dogs have no impact on this problem. 
 
All the big problems--climate, unemployment, crime, health care, immigration, poverty, homelessness, etc. are largely systemic. We don't have a shortage of resources to address them either. For example, I've read that for half of what the US sent Ukraine in weapons the US could cure its homelessness epidemic. I've also read that the number of vacant homes in San Francisco is five times its homeless population.

Meanwhile, the lies and propaganda keep the public distracted. As Will Rogers said, "If it weren't for lies, there wouldn't be any politics." If you want to bypass the propaganda, the only way I know to do it is with blogs (like this one). You can collect and monitor blogs with RSS feed readers (I use theoldreader.com).

The whole Ukraine narrative is perhaps the most recent example of these distortions. You might remember a Tweet another family member forwarded saying 13 Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island said "f_ck you" to the Russians asking them to surrender, so the Russians killed them. That was a lie...even the Ukrainians admitted that.* The truth is the first casualty of war.
 
In recent history, even supposedly reliable sources like the NY Times lied us into the Iraq invasion. Now, mainstream press editorials say Putin invaded, completely unprovoked. (Here's the actual story)

Anyway, besides making the public fearful and compliant, not to mention willing to be a constant source of military-industrial funds, "labor discipline" is a motive for keeping the public realm impoverished, and poverty persecuted.  The labor discipline message is "You had better take whatever crappy job is on offer, or you'll suffer the indignities of poverty, perhaps even homelessness or starvation, and if you're extra ornery, we'll put you in a cage." Locally, 60-80% of the prisoners in Sacramento's County jail are not convicted of anything except being unable to afford bail. Nationally, the U.S. incarcerates at five times the world per-capita average.
 
Poor people get the public realm, and an impoverished public realm makes for harsher labor discipline. In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves. It's all sticks, precious few carrots. 
 
This is also the motivation for the attacks on social safety nets (again, no shortage of resources). Incidentally, there's good evidence that better welfare leads to lower crime, but somehow all that money and then some goes to cops.

So...it's depressing, but emotion may not be the best response. For example, now you can write to congress to ask them not to continue to send weapons to Ukraine here.
 
This trend stems from a campaign whose beginning might be 1971, when Lewis Powell wrote his famous memo for Republicans, strategizing how to gain power. Some excerpts:
  • Convince Americans that taxes aren’t “the cost of a civil society” but, instead, a “burden” that they were unfairly bearing. Once Republicans were elected on that tax-cut platform, they’d massively cut the taxes of the morbidly rich while throwing a small bone to the average person.
  • Convince Americans that regulations that protect consumers and the environment are also “burdens” from an out-of-control “nanny state,” even though such regulations save lives and benefit Americans far more than they cost.
  • Convince Americans that unions aren’t “democracy in the workplace” that protect workers’ rights but, instead, an elaborate scam to raid workers’ paychecks to the benefit of “corrupt union bosses.”
Until we wake up from this sleepwalking nightmare, we'll get more of the same, or worse and a further diminished public realm.

---

*From Wikipedia:

Ukrainian government sources initially stated that 13 border guards, representing the entirety of the Ukrainian military presence on the island, were killed after refusing to surrender.[28][29] Zelenskyy announced that the border guards would be posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine.[16]

Russian defense media presented an alternative version of events, claiming that 82 Ukrainian soldiers had been taken prisoner after surrendering voluntarily,[19] and had been taken to Sevastopol.[30] Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that the prisoners had been signing pledges promising not to continue military action against Russia, and would be released soon.[31]

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine later announced that the guards might instead have been captured,[32] based on the Russian reports that they were being held as prisoners of war.[33] On 26 February 2022 it issued a statement saying that they believed "that all Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island may be alive".[34] On 28 February 2022, the Ukrainian Navy posted on its Facebook page that all the border guards of the island were alive and detained by the Russian Navy.[35][36]

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Monday, July 11, 2022

Environmentalists Can Build Nicer, More Valuable Cities Than The Sprawl We Build Now

(c) by Mark Dempsey

A recent discussion with an environmentalist friend reminded me that the current system formulating the public policy guiding city design is designed to fail, and works as designed. Cities are very profitable to build, but always not for the public. 

I've said this before (in 1993), and Jane Jacobs, author of The Life and Death of the Great American City agrees: "The pseudoscience of planning seems almost neurotic in its determination to imitate empiric failure and ignore empiric success. [Sprawl planners] are all in the same stage of elaborately learned superstition as medical science was...when physicians put their faith in bloodletting."

A recent Sacramento Bee report lamented people "stubbornly persisting" in buying gas, even at inflated prices. However, after decades of building a city requiring every significant trip be in an auto, one can hardly be surprised that people stubbornly persist in going to the grocery store, work, or school the only way possible--in a car.

Sprawl also sabotages any alternative to driving. Often no sidewalk connects the bus or tram stop to the neighborhood, and the neighborhood is not compact, so not enough customers for transit or neighborhood commerce are within a walk, even if they could walk to the stop. Disconnected sidewalks are common in sprawl.

In sprawl, autos dominate streets, too. The quarter-circle at corners (the "curb radius") is gigantic, ensuring pedestrians have a long way to go when they cross at the street corner, and cars don't have to slow down to take the turn. It's dangerous to be a pedestrian.

Sprawl also requires everyone of driving age own a car--one of the most regressive "taxes" in existence. Sprawl builds the walk out of neighborhoods, and the lack of exercise shows up in record rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. 

In sprawl, people too young or too old to drive are out of luck. Little Johnny often can't even walk to the park, and rather than aging in place, grandma has to go to that lovely "warehouse" (retirement home) to make a whole new set of neighbors' acquaintance.

What would good planning look like?

Pedestrian-friendly streets--Traditional neighborhoods have streets with set-back sidewalks, even on-street parking to shield pedestrians from fast-flowing traffic. The curb radius is small enough that cars have to slow down to turn. Lighting is on 10' - 14' poles (sprawl's are much taller) and would be easy on the eyes. Take a walk after dark in sprawl if you want to see light appropriate for police interrogation.

Mixed-Income Neighborhoods--This means multifamily and single-family residences coexist. It also provides affordable housing and reminds the rich and poor that they live not behind locked gates, but in society together. Compact neighborhoods also provide enough customers for transit or neighborhood commerce and infrastructure that's half as expensive to maintain.

Mixed-Use Neighborhoods--Mixing uses--residences, commerce, offices, even light industry--means that pedestrians can walk to useful destinations. It also means transit can provide multiple destinations for those who want to shop or work. This can occur at very low densities (as around McKinley Park in Sacramento), or even in a metropolis--Union Square in San Francisco has multi-story residences, offices, and commerce in one compact area.

You may hear builders are simply supplying what people want in sprawl, but if that were true, then buyers would pay more to live there. Exactly the opposite is true. People pay premiums to live in pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Per square foot, the most valuable real estate in the region is around McKinley Park. 

Unsurprisingly, people drive less in those "traditional" neighborhoods. Reductions in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) average half of what one might expect in sprawl. People could actually, as they do in San Francisco, have no car!

The good news is that the State of California has mandated pedestrian-friendly ("Complete") streets, and reductions of VMT be part of any new development's design. The bad news, according to my environmentalist friend, is that developers are saying they comply with these requirements when they clearly do not. It may take a lawsuit to wake them up.... We'll see.

--

Mark Dempsey sat on a Sacramento County Planning Advisory Council for nearly a decade.

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There is an alternative....

 

















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Monday, July 4, 2022

The U.S. Health System: Live hard, die young and leave a beautiful corpse (Sorry, Hell's Angels)

 



Meanwhile...

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America: Then and now

 

Then: Cheerful and lively



Now: Death warmed over

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