Rogue Columnist

Moronistan

I've been reading too much lately about Stalin and Hitler. Nobody, least of all Marx, thought communism could succeed in such a backward country as Russia. Lenin woke up too late to Stalin's menace (not that Leninism didn't inevitably lead to mass murder), and Trotsky sulked in his tent while the Man of Steel took over. And how could the civilization that gave us Bach, Beethoven, Goethe and Mann also have voted in, and widely supported, the deranged former corporal who would shed so much blood? We look back and say, "Of, course!"

I think about all this as President Hoover, apparently under pressure from a serial failed businessman with a bad comb-over, released the long-form of his birth certificate, hoping to stop the birther "silliness." It won't. Nearly half of the members of the Party of Lincoln don't believe the president was born in the United States. Does anyone think this would have traction, much less enough to cause the president to sully the dignity of his office by addressing it, if his name were Barry O'Bama and he were white? But with any Democrat in the highest office, it would be something. When George W. Bush won the 2000 election under highly questionable circumstances, Al Gore was a class act and most Democrats went along with a radical Bush agenda despite the close division of the electorate. But with Republicans, the very idea of a Democrat as president is illegitimate, any progressive or liberal idea is accursed. Here's a Tweet from Arizona state Sen. Jack Harper, R.-Surprise: "If Jon's socialistic friends gets our guns, will they turn 2 communism 2 redistribute the wealth? #UnitedNations" No, he's wasn't kidding.

The nation that indeed brought a "new order of the ages," built the transcontinental railroad, landed men on the moon and made countless contributions to the arts and sciences now can't do anything but hope for a new housing boom and cheap gas. Our exceptionalism has devolved into ignorance, hate, denial, swindles and madness. We have made a retrograde move into television-addled peasantry, into self-inflicted serfdom. Many Americans believe things every bit as absurd, and dangerous, as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For them, "the stab in the back" of 1918 is illegal immigrants, taxes and people of color having babies. Who knows where this will lead? Only 25,000 Bolsheviks carried off a revolution in a nation of about 160 million. Is all we're lacking the right scheming Georgian or failed painter to take us to full darkness? Will those surviving will look back and say, "Of course"?

Four for Phoenix

In the field for Phoenix mayor, Wes Gullett must show he is more than a Republican political operative with ties to Fife Symington and John McCain, two of the more odious statewide officeholders in Arizona history. Peggy Neely seems to be the candidate of the sprawl developers and considers "standing tall against billboards" an issue of supreme importance. That leaves only two candidates worthy of serious attention: Claude Mattox and Greg Stanton.

Mattox represents Maryvale and much of west Phoenix on City Council. He has shown himself to be a man of integrity, someone who grew in office, and has represented a largely Hispanic, largely poor district well, while also understanding the importance of the Convention Center, ASU Downtown, the biosciences campus, Sheraton and light rail. He's approachable, honest and plays a mean guitar. His rugged face, like something out of a Western, and (when I knew him) sometimes casual-to-sloppy dress causes people to underestimate his intelligence and tactical skill as a politician. He claims an interesting mix of supporters, including Peggy Bilsten (who should have been mayor); Jerry Colangelo (does he care anymore since he's become a west-side sprawl developer?); Matt Salmon (?!?) and former mayor Paul Johnson. The downside? As one person close to city politics put it: "Nice guy, but where's the vision?" Indeed, the issues he's pushing are hardly inspiring: Strong neighborhoods (what does that mean, especially in a city with few real neighborhoods?); safety, and "quality schools" (out of the mayor's control). His bio also lists him as a vice president of something called National Western Vistas Real Estate, whose Web site I can't find, and could Phoenix move beyond real estate, please? Still, Phoenix could do far worse than Mattox. (Update: A reader corrects me, with the Web site here and the BBB file).

Greg Stanton is another candidate who risks being underestimated. Too polished. Too smooth. Too Mister Perfect looks. More than a touch of ambition. Very unlike Mayor Phil Gordon but still another lawyer. But beneath this and the councilman-like talk about "neighborhoods" and "safety," Stanton has an incisive intellect and a sharp understanding that, as he puts it, Phoenix is "a city at a crossroads." More than his rivals, he understands the need to make the transition into quality growth and sustainability. After representing the mostly Republican district (he's a Democrat) that includes Ahwatukee, North Central, Arcadia and Biltmore for nine years on City Council, he went to work as a deputy attorney general for Terry Goddard. Stanton was on the right side in voting against zoning east Camelback for more skyscrapers and in opposing the disastrous sprawl monster, CityNorth. Stanton would be the best choice.

Go down easy

Gonna come a time when we all gonna hafta ante up. Ante up and kick in like men. LIKE MEN! — John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) in the movie Glory.

It may not matter that the polls are against Paul Ryan in his attempt to replace Medicare with meager vouchers. He and the Republicans in Congress are setting the terms of the debate: Roll back the Great Society. Roll back the New Deal. Weaken and eliminate the foundations of the social compact. President Hoover is a weak tribune for such a battle. What "middle ground" will he find in his journey of compromise and community organizing in the far right of center, aided by the guidance of his tax-dodging economic mandarin Jeffrey Immelt? It's astounding that any of this is even happening. Yet it is.

Want to deal with the debt and deficit? Stop the wars. Pull out of most of those 150 countries where we have a military presence. Stop the corporate welfare, especially subsidizing fossil fuel extraction. Raise taxes on individuals. Go after the tax evasion of the big corporations. Tax the gambling on Wall Street. Invest in productivity-enhancing and job-creating infrastructure, universities, research and public education. If  big business wants to get cute and threaten to leave, or hold a capital strike, fine. Play like the Chinese: Want entry to America's market (which is still the largest and richest in the world)? Play by our rules or else. Even that wouldn't be necessary if we returned to the checks and balances of healthy American capitalism. Anyway, do all this before you talk about putting your Grover Norquist drowning hands on my Social Security and Medicare (which, by the way, are not entitlements).

None of that's going to happen, for reasons we've discussed many times on this blog, including this recent post. So the question before us is, what next? What happens when the GOP gets control of the Congress and White House in 2012 or 2016 and is able to implement the Randian vision already in play in places such as New Jersey and Wisconsin?

Culture of corruption

In the history of Arizona corruption, the Fiesta Bowl affair seems like small ball. There was the bribe-fest AzScam, which rocked the Legislature in the early 1990s, part of a once-a-generation such skeleton to be kicked out of the closet on 17th Avenue. Around the same time, Phoenix was an epicenter of the savings-and-loan scandal. Don't forget all that slithered out from under rocks kicked over after the assassination of Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles in 1976. He wasn't the first or last to die as a result of Arizona's dark deeds, some leading to the most powerful men in the state before the trail was quickly erased. Bolles was a master of probing the massive land frauds that saturated Arizona, often with Mafia involvement. The Phoenix Police Department's organized-crime unit claimed many scalps, including that of a city manager, until it got too close to big power for comfort and was defanged. Old-timers remember the circa 1960 Arizona Savings collapse and scandal, which again led to the corridors of power. More recently, right-wing darling Rick Renzi lost his U.S. House seat after becoming embroiled in allegations of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering extortion and insurance fraud — the Bush administration fired the U.S. Attorney in Phoenix for pursuing the investigation of one of Tom DeLay's boyz.

Compared with this, some goodies for John Junker, the once lionized and now forced-out-and-shunned Fiesta Bowl boss, along with allegedly funnelling bowl money to politicians, etc., seems almost petty crime. A charge of $1,241 for a visit to a "high-end Phoenix strip club"? Junker's 50th birthday party at Pebble Beach, $33,188? This was just another day at the office, or bar, back in the day of real Phoenix scandal. That's why I can't stop wondering whether it is the tip of a desert iceberg, something beyond the high dudgeon of Sports Illustrated as something confined to policing the BCS. The question is whether the Arizona Republic, in particular, will let some fine reporters continue to follow this slimy string and pull out some others.

Corruption is supposed to go along with gritty eastern cities, Democratic pols greasing the palms of mobbed up union bosses, waterfronts and Rust Belt decay. But don't be fooled by your new house on a clean street in Anthem. The underworld runs deep here, right into your very street. No place is clean, of course. It's rather like the news stories that tell of the lurid exurban multiple homicide with the mandatory "things like this don't happen here" quote (when sub- and exurbia are actually quite prone to them). The question is why Phoenix remains such a mecca for hustles, dirty dealings and wrongdoing that reaches the top?

Phoenix 101: 'The Valley'

Growing up in the Phoenix of the 1960s, "the Valley" was a benign term. It either meant the Valley of the Sun, the touristy moniker of the booster class, or the Salt River Valley, where Phoenix was geographically centered. The city was large and powerful, both economically and politically. The suburbs were small and inconsequential, most just still farm towns or railroad sidings.

Indeed, old Phoenix, central and south Scottsdale, Tempe and old Mesa sit in a real valley. The ancient Salt River Valley dips between the South Mountains (or, on old maps, the Salt River Mountains) and the Phoenix mountains, such as Shaw Butte, North Mountain, Piestewa Peak and Camelback. One could once see this on spectacular display coming north on Interstate 10 as it crossed Baseline Road, or from Baseline and the Japanese Gardens. For much of the early decades of settlement, this posed major flood-control problems. Rains cascaded off the mountains in search of home in the meandering, fickle Salt River. Nineteenth Avenue would become a river flowing down to the capitol before construction of Cave Creek Dam. At flood stage, Indian Bend Wash cut Scottsdale in half well into the 1980s. That same river, carrying rich deposits of soil from upsteam, created one of the world's great alluvial valleys here, custom made for farming that sustained two civilizations.  So whether for tourists or as a geographical reality, "the Valley" was a widely used shorthand, harmless and endearing, often the sign of a native. It was part of the name of the most powerful bank. But there was no doubting this was Phoenix, or, as some called it, Greater Phoenix.

When I returned, the old connotations had changed. "The Valley" was widely used as the proper name of metropolitan Phoenix. This was abetted by the media, including the most influential, The Arizona Republic (the old Phoenix Gazette having been closed; too bad, imagine if it were an online newspaper with an entirely different tone and coverage focus than the big ship). This same media often didn't know where downtown Phoenix was — so many times I heard a radio or television report of some news "downtown," at, say, 24th Street and Camelback Road. I suppose it was a combination of ignorance and an effort at new-style marketing. Hence, we don't have the Phoenix Cardinals or Phoenix Diamondbacks, as most cities do, but "Arizona," which sounds like a college team. And it was an attempt to pander to suburbs that had grown to elephantine population sizes.

Inflection points

It is no secret that a faction of the Republican Party has always dreamed of rolling back the part of the New Deal that survived FDR's eventual reconciliation with big business, as well as laying waste to LBJ's Great Society. When America had two mass parties, each with real liberals, moderates and conservatives, this was not the program of Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford or George H.W. Bush. It was not even the aspiration of Ronald Reagan, who went to his dotage holding Franklin Roosevelt as his hero. But now it is in change. It sets the parameters of the debate. America is headed into truly uncharted territory and it's not going to be pretty. Last week's cowardly deal on the part of President Hoover to keep the government open is just the start. We have hit multiple inflection points that make this unavoidable. Put another way, the chickens are coming home to roost, and they're lethal.

Revenues: Thirty years of tax cutting has snowballed into disaster. Combined with two wars that have lasted longer than World War II, military deployments in more than 150 nations, corporate welfare and the cost of the Great Recession, voodoo economics has left America with a substantial deficit and debt. Tax cuts have not delivered on their promise of job creation or widespread prosperity. Quite the opposite. But the American mentality now is that taxes can only be cut. In fact, at every level of government taxes are too low. The United States has the lowest taxes among advanced nations, and in this survey only Mexico and Chile are lower, nations that are hardly analogous to America or role models. Contrary to the widespread propaganda, the deficit and debt are not an immediate emergency. Yet they are serious enough to attract attention, and become useful ammo for demagogues on the right who peddle the notion that we face disaster because of spending on poor gay union people of color seeking foreign-aid abortion earmarks. That the solemn obligations of Social Security and Medicare are the root cause. Our supposedly liberal/socialist/Islamofascist president has bought into the right-wing narrative: America has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. In reality, low tax rates are most to blame. They have finally been reduced, at every level of government, to crisis-inducing levels.

Ignorance. The condition above would not be possible without the rise of broad illiteracy in citizenship, history, economics and critical thinking. It it no coincidence, as the commies used to say, that our troubles have worsened amid the widespread death of newspapers and a shallow, "good news" focus in too many of the survivors. Indeed, fewer Americans read newspapers or anything at all. Men are especially prone to not read and fewer men go to college. Even most college graduates lack grounding in the liberal arts. Despite the right-wing pose of defending Western Civ, we have a nation of grads from business and professional silos, including from the for-profit "college" flimflam, with no sense of the obligations of citizenship or American history. Thus, the issues we discuss on this blog are either unintelligible or "depressing." They know nothing of the delicate balances and pluralism that created the best of modern America. They wants to be entertained, to be told comforting fables and, as things head south, to be fed easy (even if the wrong) villains. Too many have thus been easy pickings for the corporate media and talk radio that promulgate and pass on right-wing propaganda. Like tax revenue, this situation has been deteriorating for years. We have finally hit the wall.

Four. More. Years.

So President Hoover wants another term. I ask, why? None of the major banksters has gone to jail. The too-big-to-fail banks are even bigger and back to risky business. Nearly 14 million are unemployed, millions more underemployed or have given up looking for work. A record number of Americans are on food stamps. We have not merely two wars but three. Gitmo is still open and corporate lawyer Eric Holder made a cowardly about-face from trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the criminal he is in New York. BP committed the worst environmental disaster in our history, but deepwater drilling is back. Income inequality is at record highs. I could go on, and will shortly.

Most progressives are either defending the president, still hoping he's "playing chess" and all will work out, or will hold their noses and support him for fear of a worse Republican alternative. Perhaps anticipating my antipathy, commenter Koreyel made a post a few weeks ago that deserves to be quoted at length:

You go into the future with the population you have and not the population you wish you had. Look at the population we have. We don't know much about anything. Do we? So much so, I've thought of starting a blog to capture every news item that begins  "half of all Americans don't know." Steve Allen saw it coming years ago. He gave it a name. He called it Dumbth. It's now here in the flesh and running for president in 2012. And you too can become a fan of it on Facebook.

Positive trend lines

One of my great former teachers posted on Facebook: "Coronado is closing at the end of this semester. Rumor has it that the Salt River Indian community plans to purchase it and turn it into a casino. The stadium will host concerts, and the gym will become a gourmet restaurant." I was pretty sure the Indian part was a jape, but the first sentence chilled me to the bone. He got me with an April Fool's joke — but given the conditions in Arizona, can you blame me for being taken in? Coronado has already been allowed to decline from one of America's best high schools to one stressed by a working poor student population. Meanwhile, a reader writes, "given your thorough knowledge of our situation down here what, if anything, do you see as positive trend lines or unique strengths for Phoenix metro and the state of Arizona?  I know you have written blog entries about the constructive things you would do if you 'were king of the forest,' but I am wondering more about some general comments about what you think are the long-term positives about living here? If any." In further correspondence, I asked him if he wanted me to leave out pie-in-the-sky stuff such as train service between Phoenix and Tucson. Yes. So I'll try to take up the challenge.

1. Climate. A significant number of people will put up with all manner of dystopia for hot weather and sunny days. No matter that the summers are hotter and last longer, that some years Phoenix suffers through nearly seven hot months (100 degrees on April 1st, no joke) — these folks like it. Thus, even though the migratory patterns that built modern Phoenix now face considerable question marks, the heat-seekers will still come. To the extent that population growth and a sizable population are positives, this trend can be counted on, until climate change and costly energy make the place largely unbearable. Even though the sweet season is shorter and shorter, it produces wonderful weather for tourists, snowbirds and part-year residents who aren't put off by extremist politics. This, too, will continue.

2. Sky Harbor. One of the nation's largest airports is a major economic engine, working symbiotically with the tourism industry. If it remains a hub for USAirways or a successor in a merger, as well as Southwest Airlines' busiest station (Southwest doesn't use hubs), this will keep PHX strong. With its own revenue stream and largely protected from the Kookocracy, the airport has the means to do some forward-looking projects such as the air train now under construction.

3. The affluent fringes. In my world, places such as Gilbert, Chandler, Goodyear, Glendale, Surprise and Peoria are mostly negatives. Still, they hold a growing number, probably even a majority, of the metropolitan area's residents with decent jobs or good retirement packages. They are still highly desirable to the sprawl building sector. They have well-funded schools, few poor minorities and new (car-based) infrastructure. And Chandler actually has an economy, with Intel. If this is your thing, these areas offer a very pleasant suburban lifestyle and will continue to hold up and grow. They will also continue to attract some capital investment even in a slow recovery. The potent LDS contingent will continue to add its wealth, cohesion and political clout, especially in the East Valley.