It's easy to return from vacation because the Arizona Laff Riot writes my best material for me. Case in point: A Page One story in the Information Center headlined, "Does Arizona have an image problem?"
When some future Gibbon writes about the decline and fall of American civilization -- which you're getting to live through -- he or she will find ample material in the treasure paid out to management consultants. One of their favorite tricks is to distract productive employees with drivel over "image" and "branding." This works to the advantage of entrenched management and culture because it avoids dealing with real problems that are substantive, not image. And so it is, especially, with the Grand Canyon State.
The Information Center editors apparently gave the reporter the task of blaming the state's recent high-profile troubles on "the spotlight cast by cable-news pundits, newspaper editorials and blogs - including censure from a world-renowned travel writer" and "the flow of bad publicity." The real danger posed by an assault-rifle wielding man at an appearance by the president -- danger in itself, and the menace it unleashes in the minds of the already unhinged lunatic fringe -- was merely a "stunt." Phoenix's lethal achievement as America's people-smuggling and kidnapping capital, as well as a major distribution center for drugs to the U.S. and guns to Mexico -- all airy misperceptions.
I feel so sorry for the poor bastard who was forced to write this chamber of commerce banana split. The irony is that journalists and newspapers are always tarred as generating "bad publicity," no matter the reality of what they report. How sad that a newspaper Information Center would buy into this destructive canard.
The reality is that Phoenix and Arizona richly deserve their growing reputation as a place of danger, intolerance, right-wing thuggishness, ignorance, backwardness, freakish behavior, cruelty, environmental disaster and human exploitation. The gunman and his pastor praying for the president's death is only the latest installment. Arizona routinely ranks last or near last on nearly every objective survey of social well-being. The Kookocracy thinks guns in bars is a good thing. Is it any wonder such a place would breed the Baseline Killer and Serial Shooter? A quick spin through Rogue's Continuing Crisis or Kookocracy Watch will show just how substantive the state's troubles are.
The story claims crime has dipped slightly without any context, such as the economic depression and its effects on the smuggling trade that fed the now decomposing construction industry, how Phoenix compares on a per-capita basis against its peers or even the reliability of the reporting as city budgets are decimated. The reporter makes a detour into the usual boosters saying what a great story the state has to tell. About school funding? How many are below the poverty line and lack health care in a state with one of the highest ratios of income inequality and poorest economies? About the maniacs in their suburban mega-churches who preach hate and fear to ignorant congregants? How about that pollution? Or looming water crisis?
The reality is far more ruinous than this recent "image" blip.
Of course focusing on image and blaming the media allow leaders to avoid fixing real problems, deflect accountability and conveniently perpetuate the status quo. "See," the sun-lobotomized denizens can say, "the newspaper Information Center says everything's fine."
At one point, Phoenix City Councilman Michael Nowakowski, fretting over lost convention business, says, "We're an urban city, and there are individuals trying to hold on to the old ways of the Wild West."
Actually, not quite. The further Phoenix travels from the real West and its "old ways," the worse these problems have become. It is a place that has become a magnet for a self-selecting population of fools, grifters and sociopaths from elsewhere, especially the Midwest. It is "resort culture," where people check in and out, but never really feel ties to a community. It is walls and cars. It's where anything is allowed because it's not "home." States such as Minnesota and Iowa should thank Arizona for taking these people off their hands. All this has been made worse by the size of the metropolitan area, decades of policy malpractice, a low-wage exploitation economy and the state Republican Party's transformation into a branch office of a national enterprise driven by cagey corporate interests who can play on the minds of the easily led.
Only real Arizonans will mourn this evolution, and of these the ones who didn't get rich off the growth machine. All this makes the 19th century gunfights -- in truth, a small part of the Old West -- and the mafiosos of 20th century Arizona seem like paragons of civic virtue.
The Arizona Republic becomes more and more reminiscent of Pravda as time goes on, with critical details omitted at the behest of editors responding to political and business interests, and readers left to read between the lines and guess at the meaning of what is implied but left unsaid.
A prime example is a recent story titled "DPS Boosts Patrols to Stop Drugs at Source"
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/08/30/20090830dpsunit0831.html
Well, quite aside from the hopelessly naive language of the headline itself, the story contains the following intriguing but unexplained text:
"More drugs are seized along the Arizona border than any other stretch of the international border in the United States, but the state's highway system and easy access to other major markets still makes Arizona an inviting thoroughfare for drug runners."
Well, what is it, exactly, about the state's highway system which makes Arizona an inviting thoroughfare for drug runners? The reader simply isn't told. Those who are highly persistent may find clues elsewhere, as in this Department of Justice report from May, 2007:
" Arizona is the only state along the Southwest Border that does not have U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) checkpoints. As a result, traffickers often exploit Arizona roadways when transporting illicit drugs to and through the state." (see End Note #3)
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs22/22934/transpor.htm#text4
And this, from a July, 2005, General Accounting Office report, fleshing it out still further:
"A third type of checkpoint operates in the Tucson, Ariz., sector, where the Patrol has been legislatively prohibited from funding construction of checkpoints since fiscal year 1999. This restriction has prevented checkpoint construction. The Patrol also began closing or relocating checkpoints in the sector every 7 days at the instruction of congressional staff...Three of six checkpoints in the sector had to close for 7/14 days, as safety considerations made it too hazardous to relocate them.
"...The result of these legislative restrictions in the Tucson sector has been that the Border Patrol operates what we refer to as nonpermanent checkpoints that are hybrids of permanent and tactical but that lack the logistical, communication, and other capabilities provided by the physical infrastructure of permanent checkpoints or the flexibility of tactical checkpoints. In the Tucson sector, according to Border Patrol officials, the lack of permanent infrastructure, in combination with the mandated relocation on a regular basis, results in closure at 3 of 6 sector checkpoints because of an inability to find an alternate location that meets safety requirements for adequate shoulder areas and advance notice to vehicles that they are approaching a checkpoint."
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05435.html
That's right, checkpoints are closed part of the time because of legislative restrictions. Do you suppose that MIGHT embolden drug smugglers, or that they might be prepared to take advantage of these suspensions in operation?
And finally, getting to the nub of it, and the local political connections which prevent the Arizona Republic from speaking frankly with its readers, comes this item from an AUSTIN newspaper:
"According to the GAO report, in the period between 1993 and 2000, the illegal activity in the Tucson sector increased seven-fold, while apprehensions in the eight other Southwest sectors combined declined 28 percent.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the smugglers simply shifted their crossing point to the Tucson sector, the one sector, interestingly, that does not have a permanent Border Patrol checkpoint like the one I passed through in Sarita. In fact, at the urging of Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Arizona), Congress has prohibited the construction of Border Patrol checkpoints in the Tucson sector since fiscal year 1999. That's right, the one sector with such a Congressional prohibition is the same one that has experienced a seven-fold increase in illegal crossings."
"The Border Patrol had requested a new checkpoint on Interstate 19, north of Nogales. But Congressman Kolbe's constituents complained it would disrupt traffic and lead to increased numbers of illegal aliens crossing through residential areas, so Kolbe was successful at quashing the $1 million project..."
http://www.examiner.com/x-19241-Austin-Libertarian-Examiner~y2009m8d4-Border-Patrol-checkpoints-cameras-and-government-spending-run-amok
So, in essence, because Congressman Kolbe and like-minded Republicans don't want to inconvenience vocal business owners and large private landholders funding their campaigns, national security vis a vis narcotics smuggling has been thrown to the wind in Arizona. But you won't read that in the Arizona Republic.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 02, 2009 at 10:13 AM
You have more insight into Phoenix in one of your blog entries than a reader can find in an entire day's AZ Republic.
The latest mind numbing pablum being pushed in the Information Center are "Good News!" sections being done in zones. Glendale's Good News! is the failed development at Westgate.
Even though this recession has proven the failure of the growth and development at any cost economic model, the Republic continues to shill for the Real Estate Industrial Complex. Go figure.
Posted by: PhxEditor | September 02, 2009 at 10:13 AM
A blurb on Phoenix's wanna be "partner":
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html
Sound familiar?
Posted by: eclecticdog | September 03, 2009 at 03:44 PM
I need to make a correction to my earlier comment:
From 1999 to 2007 permanent checkpoints were legislatively prohibited in Arizona because of language in the annual appropriations bill inserted by Arizona's Rep. Kolbe. The requirement was dropped from the FY 2007 Homeland Security appropriations bill. The Tucson sector, however, still has NO permanent checkpoints, though one has been proposed on I-19 between Tucson and Nogales.
There are, however, two permanent checkpoints in the Yuma Sector. These are the only permanent U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints in Arizona, and obviously cannot interdict drug traffic coming into Arizona from Mexico, nor that traveling into most other parts of the U.S. from Arizona.
The Government Accountability Office just released a NEW report on Border Patrol checkpoints: see the map (figure 3) on page 17, and compare the dearth of Arizona permanent checkpoints with those in neighboring southwestern states (Texas, New Mexico, California). This is due to political interference by Arizona politicians, as earlier noted.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09824.pdf
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | September 04, 2009 at 03:22 PM