Dissent is *Still* Patriotic

The “debate” surrounding health care reform has caught almost everyone's attention. The vocal opponents of health care have been variously described as a “mob”, “un-American,” and even “brownshirts.” This isn't just anyone saying this, but it is (in order), arguably the leading progressive columnist (Krugman), the #1 and #2 Democratic leaders in the House, and a U.S. Congressperson. The hostility and animosity expressed during these demonstratiosn including firearms being brought to events or Sarah Palin saying that a “death panel” would euthanize her son because he has Down's Syndrome (before, gallantly calling for civility) is becoming downright scary, including the actual death threats against sitting members of Congress. But, to have the kind of people calling out opponents of health care as un-American or comparing them to fascists is downright wrong.

Although I disagree with the tactics used by those who oppose health care reform, Andrew got me thinking about what it means to denounce them. Very thoughtfully, he reminded me that the sort of “deliberative debate” that I would prefer

imply a particular kind of deliberative democratic subject:

- One who is calm, considered, rational, and deliberative. This worries me because it implies that emotion is an illegitimate way of engaging in politics. That, in turn, privileges particular kinds of people, and kinds of discourses, as a matter of form.

He is right to point out that many people, often those who I care about greatly and support, use these tactics. I have been to labor protests where the rules of civility were thrown out the window because civility favored management. Disruption hit the financial bottom line and forced the managers, who were hiding behind this cloak of civility, to take notice. There is, I suppose, nothing wrong with these protests as a tactic and, certainly nothing un-American or fascist about them (leaving any violence—real or implied—aside). Americans have a right to redress their grievances to their government; nothing ever said that the government had to like the way that citizens chose to carry out this redress.

This reminded me of a really influential passage in the book Urban Fortunes by John Logan and Harvey Molotch. The book describes the process of urban land development, providing an interesting synthesis between traditional neo-classical and human ecological models of urban growth and Marxian models of economic growth. One of their main points throughout the book is that:

The traditional academic literature on the topic tends to equate “community organization” with progressive social forces generally and to see all such groups as analytically equivalent because they are from the “grass roots” and help “empower” local people.

They go on to point out that many local organizations (their interest is in understanding the forces guiding urban development) are indeed not progressive. One can look back in history to local community forces that were, indeed, not so progressive such as the northern white block clubs that tried to maintain the starkly segregated residential color line.

I have seen the argument that there is a difference because these protests are “astroturffed”, insta-activism bought by the insurance lobby. Although it seems to be funded by the insurance lobby, I also have a hard time believing that all of these activists are bought off. I also don't think, as Paul Krugman suggests, that “the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the ‘birther’ movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship.” Granted, many of the birthers are probably among the crowds, but to say that this is all about Obama's race or that the tactics are somehow un-American denies the reality that there is a substantial opposition to health care reform. I don't think that it is the result of deep-seated hatred (though, for some, this is undoubtedly the case), but is likely a fear and mistrust of the government that has a real basis in reality.

The answer to this is not to disparage and insult those who are protesting, to question their patriotism (remember the “Dissent is Patriotic” bumper stickers). It is to organize an opposition, including some who might simply be confused or nervous about changes and have real concerns about government-run programs. I'm not tilting at windmills; I don't believe that one will ever convince most of the people shouting at town halls and I think that it would be futile to do so. But there are lots of people, I would guess, who are hearing some of their concerns echoed by the vocal protesters and who see that people—fellow citizens—really care about opposing this bill. Without effective organizing to counter-act this movement and inoculation against the opposition's talking points health reform is unlikely to succeed. Reformers have the advantage is that there are many in the reform movement, including the President himself, who have learned how to build an effective organizing base from which to enact reform. If this truly is an astroturf campaign, then real organizing (with time) should be able to overcome it. I just hope that he remembers that is how he got to have the meteoric rise from a state senator to President in less than a decade and that he calls some of those advisors up to help rather than those he keeps finding from inside the Beltway.

The Unconscionable Math of Insurance Fraud by Insurance Companies

E. and I were driving home from a family function last week and caught the end of the This American Life episode on "fine print." Among the stories was a heart-wrenching tale about the problem of rescission, which is basically where insurance companies take premiums for years and, right when you need an expensive procedure, drop your insurance because you "lied" on your application. This really affects people who get their insurance on the private market. During the episode (described in more detail by James Kwak at Baseline Scenario), the health insurance companies being grilled during congressional testimony argued that rescission affects about 0.5% of their clients.

But, in a truly amazing post, Taunter explains how conditional probability can explain why this 0.5% can sound so small but amount to an unconscionable fraud on the part of insurance agencies. Using the Monty Hall Problem (and, implicitly, Bayesian reasoning), he explains why the insurance executives essentially bank on rescinding one in two claimants for those in need of service! He points out that you have a three times better chance to survive a game of Russian Roulette. It is an amazing lesson in conditional probability and Bayes Theorem that could be an incredible teaching moment.

Until the patients needs an expensive procedure, patients are paying their premiums into the coffers of the insurance company and the pockets of their executives. The expensive procedures, of course, are why people need insurance. The insurance companies, though, get to keep all those years of premiums for all of those years even though they don't follow through on their commitment to pay out, getting rich off those years and years of premiums. The procedure goes something like this: take money from a group of people and promise them a return in the future, use the money to pay off claims of others (minus a heavy for the service), and when it comes time to pay out, renege. Taunter points out that this seems vaguely Madoffian.

The justification of this procedure is that, without it, insurance prices would rise for everyone in the system and that people should be punished for fraud. Of course, many of these people did not commit any sort of fraud and instead got confused by the leagalese and convoluted medical language which were intentionally designed to get people to slip up. It is probably true that insurance premiums would probably go up, but it doesn't really matter if people aren't getting a service that they pay for (in other contexts, that's called stealing). But, it is also an argument for why the "free market" does not always know best and why health care reform is so important. I hope that in the coming days and weeks, the Obama administration and Congress get their footing and actually start to stand up for reform.

Must See Movie - Trouble the Water

Tonight, E. and I saw the film Trouble the Water. I can honestly say that it was one of the most moving movie experiences that I have ever had - with only Hotel Rwanda coming even close.

The movie is a documentary that follows a husband and wife couple during and after Hurricane Katrina. The couple had a video camera that they used to film their neighborhood (the 9^th Ward) before, during, and after the hurricane. The directors meet up with the couple two weeks after the hurricane and follow them for the next several weeks. The directors weave the raw footage from the couple with their professional footage along with news clips and press conferences to tell the story of Katrina as it was experienced by this couple. The movie does an incredible job linking the experience of this couple with the larger social structures that serve to exacerbate the problems experienced by the victims.

I cannot believe the strength of Kimberly Rivers Rodgers, a.k.a. Black Kold Madina, and husband Scott is truly amazing. I would like to think that in a similar situation, I would show the compassion and concern for fellow human beings that the two of them did. But, looking deep down in my heart, I know that just plain isn't true. In the worst of times, they rose to the challenge and quite literally saved lives in the process. Only then to watch them suffer the injustices wrought by a failed government and structural constraints that made it virtually impossible for them to build a new life outside of New Orleans. Again, I would say more,

I don't want to say too much about the specifics of the film, but instead encourage everyone to see it, but I worry that it will ruin the power of the movie. It made me sad to watch the suffering and it made me angry watching our government's complete disregard for that suffering; more than anything, however, it made me feel an incredible sense of compassion for others. Unfortunately, it is only playing in a couple of venues for short runs, so it is not exactly accessible. But, I think that the success of the film and, thus, the opportunity for more viewings in more cities is going to be based on the success where it is currently running. I would strongly recommend everyone to go see it.

Speaking of the Katrina Disaster

Adding onto the moral crimes following the Katrina Disaster that I mentioned yesterday, today MSNBC is running this story describing how $600 million in HUD funds earmarked for community development in Gulfport, Mississippi are being diverted to fund the expansion of the public port there —including the increased development of casinos. The lobbyist-governor Haley Barbour has justified this diversion by highlighting the number of high-paying jobs that it is going to bring to the region. I'm not convinced and, apparently the citizens of the area are not, either:

That misses the point that plenty of homeowners who didn't qualify for that program and many non-homeowners still need help, say Steps Coalition members. “There’s no other explanation except that the state doesn’t think the lower income storm victims are as important a priority as the port," said Reilly Morse, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice, part of the coalition.

The whole thing is worth a read.

What's Not Asked is as Important as What Is

Global warming is certainly not the only issue being neglected by the major media outlets; however, I found this video particularly well-done pointing out how little of a focus it has actually received (h/t Bry):

Speaking of issues that have been neglected, wobblie has a great dispatch of his experience in New Orleans and the lack of political coverage about its reconstruction. What has amazed me, although being a sociologist it probably shouldn't, is the lack of connection that anyone sees from New Orleans to anything else in the country. Wob's picture of the lower Ninth Ward impressed me because of its familiarity. Not to New Orleans, mind you, but to Detroit. When I went out block-listing for the Detroit Area Study, I was amazed at the absolute abandonment of the city. We literally had addresses to be listed that were next to holes in the ground that used to be a basement with a house on top of it. No house, no families, just a masonry hole and foundation where a house once stood. Entire blocks were wiped out with a combination of overgrowth, vacant houses with anti-arson signs (to prevent Devil's Night fires) and holes. The conditions didn't look that dissimilar from New Orleans, other than the fact that there was snow and there were a few property lots still dotted with non-vacant houses.

It is depressing situation when there were calls to "never forget" the catastrophe and a brief moment to mobilize around issues of poverty and racial inequality in this country. Maybe getting the mainstream media outlets to cover these issues in the presidential race could be a project for The Point (h/t: Brayden) ?

Another Reason to Hate Wal-Mart

The company that is the bane of most small retailers', employees', social justice advocates' and anti-globalization activists' existences has given them all another reason to hate them. Wal-Mart has decided to go after the legal settlement money of employees who were catastrophically injured in an accident. The terms of the health care coverage plan offered by Wal-Mart (and many other employers) demand that any settlement money for medical expenses be given to the medical insurance company. To not do so, they argue, is double-dipping and getting the same money twice.

I see several problems with this. Often settlements do not cover the complete cost of medical services, meaning the family is forced to find money from elsewhere. Also, any award given in settlement is only net of the legal expenses that it requires to recover that award. Essentially, then, what Wal-Mart is doing is outsourcing it's legal costs to recoup the money for its own insurance claims. The insurance provider can receive up to 100% of the settlement award after legal expenses meaning that the former employee (who, now, has no health insurance because they are no longer an employee because of said accident) is left with nothing after paying for attorneys and insurance companies.

And, to stick their thumb in the eyes of this poor couple going through this, Wal-Mart is now suing not only for the money received in the settlement award, but get this, they are also suing for the legal expenses incurred by their company to try and get this money from the couple! Nevermind that they paid nothing to aid in the legal claim to win the settlement.

I hope that, if there is a Hell--especially the fire-and-brimstone one favored by the Waltons--that there is a special ring of it reserved for their family.

Intel's Racism

Speaking of the need to organize new progressive campaigns, look at this ad released by Intel. Although I am late to the news, I thought that it was important to pass along because I know that I had not seen it. Who in their right mind even thought that this would be a good ad to send out? Nevermind that, who is the person that even thought of this design to begin with? Of course, Intel Corporation apologized for the ad:

The intent behind our ad campaign "Multiply Computing Performance and Maximize the Power of Your Employees" was to convey the performance capabilities of our processors through a number of visual metaphors. Unfortunately, while we have used a visual of sprinters in the past appropriately, this ad of using African-American sprinters did not deliver our intended message and in fact proved to be culturally insensitive and insulting.

(...)

We are sincerely sorry and have identified specific steps covering heightened cultural sensitivity, our review and approval process, and just using more common sense to ensure that this does not happen again.

On the one hand, this is an excellent example of how structural racism works. I do not believe that any executive from Intel actually intended the message of slave ships to come across in this ad (if for no other reason than it would jeopardize their company image). But, lets think of the steps required for this to make it into publications. First, the creative idea had to be generated. Second, that idea had to be approved as a viable line for production. Third, the prototypes and mock-ups would have to be approved. Fourth, production would occur. Fifth, the distribution arm would have to find publications to place the ad. Sixth, they would have to actually distribute the ad^[1]. The fact that, in this process, there were not enough people who who would look at this ad and realize the problems with the kind of "hidden" racism that invades our everyday lives. When we talk about racism, we think of Bull Connor's dog and hoses, but things like this show an equally problematic form of racism.

On the other hand, I question that assessment of negligent, albeit really stupid, people who fail to realize how this ad comes across because of this. Intel is footing the bill for a citizen-initiated proposal in California to eliminate class action suits regarding civil rights issues. Let's look at the last line of that apology again:

We are sincerely sorry and have identified specific steps covering heightened cultural sensitivity, our review and approval process, and just using more common sense to ensure that this does not happen again.

Looks like they are not doing well so far...

If you would like to help get the ballot initiative pulled in California (or at least get Intel to stop paying for it), I will be including a link in the sidebar to the Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights on the sidebar or you can click here.

^{[1]And, the publications and others who actually approved of this ad in their distribution also deserve public outcry and swift punishment as well...they are getting off easy.}

Hallow Victory

From Inside Higher Ed:

An Ohio appeals court has rejected a suit challenging Miami University’s policy of offering domestic partner benefits to employees. The decision, which upheld a lower court’s ruling, was not based on whether such benefits are legal or conflict with the state’s ban on gay marriage, as the suit charged. Rather, the appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that under Ohio law, the conservative lawmaker who sued lacked the standing to do so — either as a taxpayer or as a tuition-paying parent. The court ruled that taxpayers do not have a general right to challenge any decision by a public entity. As for the tuition-paying parent argument, the court noted that tuition funds are not used to pay for the benefits, and that any parent who disagrees with a university’s policies is free to stop paying tuition. The decision and briefs are available on the Web site of Lambda Legal, a gay-rights organization that fought to defend the benefits.

While I am elated that the Ohio courts upheld the Miami University policy not to discriminate, I find it a shockingly hallow victory. Rather than saying that the law is wrong, violates the Fourteenth Amendment or some other kind of substantive challenge to the law, it is upheld by the fact that taxpayers don't have standing.

I didn't expect any court to actually do this (save for maybe the perfect combination of judges on the Ninth Circuit). Unlike activist judges, these judges actually respect the rule of law and things like precedents. What worries me, however, is that people are going to look at the headline for the ruling ("Ohio Win for Partner Benefits" in this case) and think that there was some broad sweeping win for LGBT rights. There wasn't. And, if anyone actually does have standing and sues, then the results could be disasterous.

I just don't see progressive change happening through court decisions. People seem to fetishize Brown v. Board of Ed and Roe v. Wade as major turning points in winning rights for people of color and women. But I think that's exactly the issue: they were turning points in the campaign. The work that went into those campaigns is what ultimately made them successful, not the decisions themselves. It seems to me that the lessons we learn in school seem to whitewash the true nature of social change (e.g., Rosa Parks sat because she was tired -- no, she was organized to participate in civil disobedience). Courts are social products and judges are members of society; if they see the world around them changing, then their decisions are influenced by what are considered standards in society. Without the kinds of sustained campaigns that these victories were built on (for instance the first March on Washington was proposed during WWII), the courts might not have made those decisions.

While this decision is definitely a victory, it is not the kind that I will be gleefully celebrating.

Consumer Cities

Part of the reason that I got interested in studying gentrification is its importance in shaping American (and, as I am finding out world) cities. It is a fascinating location of a whole bunch of fundamental theoretical debates. And I don't mean "theoretical" in the sense of academically removed ivory tower stuff, but real fundamental debates about the underlying social issues facing American society. Gentrification, and the debates surrounding gentrification, narrow in on fundamental questions about the role of public financing for housing, jobs, education but also issues surrounding the environment, diversity and the role of public and private institutions in the development of new political ideas.

But, there are times when I find it uncanny how well timed things are. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I was discussing Lance Freeman's book in the context of the paper that I was am writing when the next day the AYR published a review of it. But, today I found something that is probably even more directly relevant. From the Creative Class Group (Richard Florida's consultancy business), there was a link to this article in the International Herald Tribune. It is discussing the role of demand-driven location decisions in the economic development of cities and how cities can cater to those demands. There was one particular part that caught my attention, however:

The number of these "consumer immigrants" - those moving back to the city seeking a better quality of life - is relatively small compared with the hundreds of thousands of poorer economic migrants who traditionally head to the inner city.

But the "consumer immigrants" have a special significance because they are rich. They are the wealthy, educated, creative types that Bloomberg wants to engage with in his PlaNYC, his initiative to ensure that the extra million souls he predicts will arrive by 2030 do not produce an unlivable crush in Manhattan.

He is pushing for a congestion charge to cut traffic and pollution, plans an all-hybrid taxi fleet, wants to plant one million new trees, and would like to make sure that every New Yorker lives within a 10-minute walk of a park. These are all innovations that the upper-middle classes increasingly take for granted.

In his reinvention of New York as a greener city, Bloomberg may have drawn comfort from the cover story of New York magazine this week. It showed that, despite the city's grime and noise, New Yorkers are among the healthiest in the country.

Interestingly, this is precisely the conversation that I am responding to in the paper that I am currently writing (vainly, it seems — though seeing this gives me hope that the issue is important). There are several critiques that I have of this and I outline them below.

First, it is true that the number of "consumer immigrants" is vastly outnumbered by the number of "economic migrants" nation-wide. But, the thrust of this argument assumes that assumes that the "poorer economic migrants" are not simultaneously consumers or may desire nice places to live^[1]. And, wouldn't the economic payoff of those vastly numerically more numerous migrants be, overall, a greater economic boom to the city if it captured that demand?

Second, the initiatives that Bloomberg is proposing are seen, in many ways, as very progressive causes. And, I would argue that they are in fact very progressive causes. The problem is that the solutions are not. They reflect, in a certain way, the return of a New York tradition: the Rockefeller Republican. The effect of congestion pricing is also going to mean that places like Home Depot, Costco, etc. are going to be able to write off the extra overhead costs, but the smaller business person who relies on delivery to Manhattan is going to face a signficant reduction of profits. I in principle I agree with the fact that we need to reduce the use of cars; however, the recent subway problems after the flood indicate that money might be better invested in the mass transit system. Same with the "greening" of the taxis: Bloomberg ain't payin' for it - he's making the taxi drivers do that.

Finally, and I think that this made me the most irate, it might be true that New Yorkers as a whole may be becoming more healthy. But, let me offer an alternative explanation beginning from the premise of this article that more rich people are moving to the city. More rich people are moving in. Rich people tend to have better health than poor people and rich neighborhoods have better health than poor communities (net of individual differences in income)^[2], therefore, it may simply be that the sick people are dying or being pushed out. The implied assumption in that statement is that all New Yorkers are healthier but, in fact, it may just be that New York residents are richer - which is the very point of this article.

There are reasonable debates to be had about whether the "consumer city" is good or bad public policy and I would be interested to hear what people think about these proposals. While the environmental effects and social mixing of diverse cities are important, we also have to think about policies that are fair to the service-workers and current residents that provide the cheap labor that makes the "consumer city" possible. Furthermore, we also have to see that the demands and needs of all city residents are met and not necessarily pander to the few rich "consumer immigrants" that might move to the city.

Ah, so much here -- so I am going to go finish this paper now and let you know what I find out about these issues...

Related:

• The "Tolerant" Creative Class
• The New Class Struggle
• Race & Redevelopment I: Gentrification

^[1] On another note of language, it is interesting how this argument might be able to recast the immigration debate — or if it will be used to recast the immigration debate.
^[2] A. Diez Roux, 2001. (For propriety's sake I should mention that I work on a project on which Ana is a co-PI)

Pack up the Bags Honey, We're Heading to the City!

In the NYT today, there is an article quoting a United Nations Population Fund report predicting an explosion in the population of cities in the coming two decades and that, world-wide, the number of people living in cities will be greater than the number of people not living in cities. Among the more interesting findings is that cities, as a whole, take up approximately 2.8% of the Earth's land surface, and the report goes on to say: "This means that about 3.3 billion people occupy an area less than half the size of Australia."

Expecting the report to be a carefully worded diplomatic document calling on nations to make sure that policies protect all interested parties...yada, yada, yada, I was shocked to find the policy initiatives advocated by the report. It sounded like I was reading a David Harvey article. It was an utter condemnation of the private land system and the problems that it can cause for the poor (I quote it at length to give sense of the tone):

The problem is not so much the shortage of land or the number of poor urbanites, but rather their restricted access to serviced land and housing because of distorted land markets.

Servicing already settled areas costs more than pro­viding serviced land on unoccupied sites. Yet public authorities, pleading insufficient funds, seem to find smaller investments in ex post facto programmes more appealing than well-planned proactive policies. Much could be done to improve the situation, for instance, by enacting special legislation for the provision of adequately serviced land for low-income groups. Cities could finance urban development by taxing increases in land value resulting either from public investment in local urban infrastructure or services, or from the redefinition of land uses towards more profitable ones, such as changes from rural to urban or from residential to commercial uses.

The urban poor tend to be treated as if they were passive in the production and consumption of land, yet they have some capacity to pay for land, despite their low and unstable incomes. Indeed, the poor already pay very high prices for the housing they find through the informal market. This capacity to pay could be better mobilized through formal regulation and provision of plots of land.

Scarcity of land or financial resources is thus not the only obstacle to the implementation of sustainable policies. In a sense, poor people have to be protected from the abusive practices of developers who capitalize on services provided by the local communities or by the public sector. Political will, as well as managerial and technical capacities, are needed to identify, capture and properly invest available resources—including the resources of poor people themselves—into more equitable urban development.

I didn't have a chance to read the whole report, but it does go on to talk about these changes and the both the impact on global warming and the impact from global warming in terms of sea-level rise and the vulnerability to natural disaster. Surprisingly, one of the topics that the report does not appear to confront is the fact that concentrating poverty into areas in cities without water and sanitation facilities can lead to the outbreak of things like Multi-Drug Resistant TB and other diseases that have the opportunity to do all kinds of damage to the population, even if you live in one of the gated communities surrounding a favela, barrio or ghetto.

[Link to the full report]

Labor, labor, labor: Article from the NYT about the Importance of Unions

I have been posting a lot about labor in the past couple of days, mostly having to do with the fact that the EFCA was up for a vote yesterday and the labor world has been abuzz. But, I will post at least one more because here is a must-read article from the NYT (via LabourStart) on EFCA vote yesterday. My favorite part was:

But if they don’t change the size of the economic pie, they do influence how it’s divvied up. All else equal, a union worker makes about 15 percent more per hour than a nonunion worker and also gets better benefits. So while there are many reasons inequality has increased over the last three decades — like technology and global trade — the decline of unions is certainly one of them.

David Leonhardt concludes that something needs to be done to crack down on anti-union tactics employed by corporations and that, while eliminating secret ballots might not be the best tactic, unionization is important to reduce the rampant inequality in our nation. As they say, well worth reading the whole article.

Best Campaign Slogan. Ever.

Yesterday, I joined E. and members of UNITE HERE in the NY Pride parade. We received much applause and thumbs-up as we went down the street under signs that said, "SleepWithTheRightPeople.org" I swear, that has to be the best campaign sign, ever. Sleep With The Right People is a partnership between the LBGT community (including Pride at Work) and UNITE HERE, including the Hotel Workers Rising campaign (which also has a great slogan: Lifting one another above the poverty line).

It was a very interesting event that was both uplifting and sad. It was great to see how much support there is for things as basic as recognizing partnerships or for TBLG couples to be able to adopt children; but it is also sad recognizing how little will there is, politically, for such systematic change. The moment of silence an hour into the parade was a stark reminder of the reality of our current world. Calling attention to the discrimination against TBLG folks is, I guess, the first step in making sure that moment of silence becomes increasingly less of a contemporary and more of a historical issue.

Absolutely Astounding

These pictures by photographer Chris Jordan are amazing... I am only going to copy one series here, but the whole thing is well worth a look.

Cell Phones, 2007
60x100"

Depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.

Partial zoom:

Detail at actual size:

Check out the rest of them!

WWJD?

This week, Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH 17), is taking the "Food Stamp Challenge". Basically, he is trying to live on the $21.00 a day that a person receives in food stamps. After the first day, he writes:

So far today I have eaten a quarter container of cottage cheese, one and a half peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and had one cup of coffee. It still amazes me that so many Americans live like this every day. I already notice a difference in my energy level. After only a day on this diet, I’m tired and hungry, but I’m looking forward to talking to people about my experience, and making people aware of the millions across the country who deal with this every day.

To all of those crazies and not-so-crazies who think that the only thing that poor people need to do is "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" does not know anything about what it is like to go hungry on a day-to-day basis. First, there is the simple bad luck. hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has an excellent post on many of the issues raised on Tim Ryan's blog. At one point, Tim Ryan lost the peanut butter and jelly that he was supposed to eat for that week's meals because it was taken by TSA officers at the airport (or, as hilzoy points out, "there are lots of ways for a jar of peanut butter to come to grief. Your kid can eat it when you're not looking. Your grocery bag can break, leaving it shattered on the sidewalk. Similarly, the rats and roaches can get into your corn meal, or your wheat bread.").

But, what I like is that Tim Ryan is also pointing out the structural inequalities that cause much of this hunger:

As several people have mentioned it the comments, a problem faced many across the country, especially the inner-city poor, are the lack of low-cost food stores in an easily accessible area. These people can’t afford to drive to a Wal-Mart in the suburbs for the bargains; they aren’t members of the warehouse club stores. If you are constrained to where you can walk or take public transportation, then you can only shop at the places in your neighborhood, and you are forced to pay whatever they charge. That is EXACTLY what I was doing. I had the option to head out to Costco or Shoppers and decided instead to replicate as close as possible the REAL experience of someone who can't afford a car and is constrained by public transportation. As you'll see when I publish the video blog I'm working on, we took the Metro out to the store.

This being something that I study in my academic life (the unequal distribution of resources in neighborhoods), I will let you guess which areas are traditionally underserved by grocery stores and farmers markets (hint -- in urban areas, think of areas that are not white and not wealthy). Hilzoy also points out other things that make it even more difficult: 1) Tim Ryan had a staff to help him learn to live on $21.00 a day; 2) He wasn't a single parent trying to care for children as he was doing this (and, therefore, needing to pay for extra fares on the subway or find childcare), 3) he was able to spend an hour-and-a-half in the store looking for the food that he could buy for $21.00, 4) he was doing this while living in D.C. and therefore had access to public transportation (as opposed to say, Pheonix).

In other words, for those who idolize Horatio Alger stories, I am not sure that they would understand that, even with the meager help that poor people are afforded, discriminatory policies prevent them from having access to food in the first place, even if they do have access it's not enough to provide strength enough to pull on one's own bootstraps and finally, the safety net is so threadbare that it can't provide against simple bad luck.

Even for all of this, hilzoy leaves out one important factor that is not discussed. Most poor people don't have access to a supermarkt, grocery store, green grocer or fruit stand; however, what they do have access to is convenience stores. In those convenience stores, there are hundreds -- actually, probably thousands -- of different types of processed corn. Combos, pretzels, Fritos, doughnuts, soda pop, "fruit" juices, etc. all contain some kind of processed corn. Why? Because our government subsidizes the production of corn like it was as vital to living as water. At the same time, the prices of healthy fruits and vegetables are too high for a family to be able to afford on $21.00/week/person

I guess the question becomes, what can be done? If the problem is partly that there is not enough money to live on in a week, then that solution seems pretty straightforward - increase the allowance per week. But, if the problem is unequal access to food stores and quality produce, then the answer becomes more tricky. One could offer incentives to invest those types of stores in poor areas - but those incentives are generally tax breaks which come at the cost of defunding many of the programs that are designed to benefit the very people who need the food stores in the first place. Alternatively, a city could "redevelop" areas and provide the kinds of investment that make it profitable for grocery stores to invest - but that would probably come at the cost of pushing current residents out of the city. One option that I think could be successful in not only providing food, but also investment opportunities for current residents is microfinance loans to help people get their own businesses started.

The way that microfinance loans work is there is usually a collective of people [in orginial incarnations, it was only available for women - this was explained in one acadmic talk as the result that men would "simply drink the money away"] who receive small loans individually. They are able to use these loans to build a business that will provide them with the opportunity to make money and pay back the loans, which then becomes capital for the next person in the collective to invest. The idea is that people rely on each other to pay back loans to build a community. The intuition behind this has also been used to explain why immigrant communities have thrived in this country - small investors (convenience store, laundromat, handymen, fruit and vegetable market owners help each other out with loans).

I have to admit, I was a little very dubious of this idea when I first heard it. I mean, it seemed like another avenue through which the "unfallible free-market would prevail" arguments that is part of the larger neoliberal formulation of the 21st century. But, after reading more about it and thinking through what it would mean in precisely situations like this, it seems like a good idea. I mean, it can't take too much to help a small businessperson set up a viable business plan with a small (probably less than $20,000, for which it is surprisingly hard to obtain a loan -- hear Sudhir Venkatesh talk about in conjunction with his new book, Living Underground: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor on Fresh Air), especially if we eliminate some of the subsidies for corn production given to huge agribusiness firms that are causing many of the health problems to begin with! Maybe its a stretch, but I hope to see Congressman Ryan do something about the structural factors since he has identified them as being a problem.

Another Labor Notes Article

Also in Labor Notes this month is an article by Tiffany Ten Eyck about the affiliation of Worker's Centers with National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON).

This affiliation brings up an interesting point that refers to something that I have been thinking about since Dave posted this entry. In his question, "Can a strike be won, if the work is done?" he brings up an interesting point which is how workers must we rely on outside agitators and not solely on the militancy of an organized workforce.

What I have been thinking is the extent to which it may be possible to couple community organizing with labor organizing to develop a really powerful and relatively permanent coalition of organized people working on their own behalf. Taking on workplace issues when many service-sector workers also face issues regarging healthcare, tenant's rights violations, child care and schooling issues doesn't necessarily speak to all of the situation of workers in their daily lives.

Then, the less preferable option Dave mentions -- relying on outside agitators to win labor campaigns -- can really become the more preferable option: workers can be militantly organized around all issues that affect them in their lives. Then, one does not have to rely on "outside" agitators because those agitators become the families, friends and neighbors of the workers. It seems, then, like developing the link between worker's centers and traditional labor organizing is a way to strengthen both the labor movement and the progressive movement in this country.

I am interested in what others think...

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

I found this L.A. Times article (via this Mother Jones blog) about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's charitable work being negated by the Foundation's investment in companies that undermine their goal of eradicating disease in Africa.

It is interesting how the article points out the importance of intellectual property laws to Microsoft and the Gates Foundation's unwillingness to compromise those laws and advocate for access to generic medicines which could be the single most cost-effective way to aid in the AIDS epidemic. While I believe that the work of the Gates Foundation is, overall, admirable, it is deeply troubling that the poor suffer, essentially, at their own expense.

I also find the reporting in the L.A. Times refreshingly honest about the hypocrisy that undermines the very success of these projects while the Gates Foundation benefits from all of the great media coverage afforded to it. It may be worth targeting Bill Gates, in USAS-style to get the Gates Foundation to uphold some sort of ethical investment provisions...

[BTW, I found the derivation of the term "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul" - it is more interesting than I thought...]

Changing the world...

Over the break, I had the opportunity to do something that I hardly ever do: I read a book that was not related to my academic studies! And, I was very lucky that it was one of the best books that I have ever read. The book is called Moutains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. It is about the pursuit of Paul Farmer, an M.D./Ph.D. medical anthropoligist/infectious disease specialist who started the organization, Partners in Health as a community-based health organization to give a "preferential option to the poor." This book, written by the journalist Tracy Kidder, is absolutely amazing - both in the way it was written and in the story of Dr. Farmer and what he and his colleagues have been able to accomplish.

Quite possibly the most amazing piece of this book is the demonstration that a few people, who are absolutely dedicated to a goal can accomplish that goal no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem. And, the way to accomplish that goal is to never give up the seemingly impossible ideal behind the goal while looking at the very concrete steps for building a plan to accomplish it.

Farmer's first public health accomplishment was the development on the central plain of Haiti a community health infrastructure, named Zanmi Lasante (Creole for "Partners in Health") that was able to bring real medical treatment to the extremely poor country of Haiti. In order to affect change, he realized that it needed to connect with the everday lived experience of the Haitians. Therefore, his community health program established a whole network of community health providers that are in communities, know the people who they are treating and bring back information about the conditions of those who are sick. Accordingly, Farmer advocated that the sick in Haiti be provided with a modest stipend in order to pay for living expenses while participating in treatment. After being criticized for this decision, Farmer points out that infectious diseases tend to spread because of incomplete treatments; however, if a patient cannot provide for his or her family while on treatment, then it is impossible to ask that person to give up work to take the time to complete treatment. In other words, the treatment is always grounded in the lived experience of the infirm and the poor.

What is extraordinary about Farmer is that he also recognizes that the financial resources for the solutions are grounded in the lived experience of the healthy and the wealthy. While being very critical of wealthy nations and wealthy people (a brief look at Farmer's CV will show that his articles have been less than flattering of leaders of "developed" nations), he also finds a way to connect to their lived experience.

Among the amazing things accomplished by Partners in Health is the treatment of Multidrug Resistant (MDR) tuberculosis beginning in Peru and expanding worldwide. Farmer, and his colleague, Dr. Jim Kim, were able to accomplish this by recognizing the need to become partners with members of the World Health Organization and to respect the worldview of the members while insisting they were wrong. In the same way that Farmer developed a community of members in Haiti (and, subsequently--with help from colleages--in Rwanda, Peru, Russia, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, and Lesotho) by actively listening and responding to the specific concerns of their patients, they developed a community of WHO professionals by not scoffing at their concerns but by directly confronting them. Rather than shout, "YOU ARE WRONG" and refusing to work with the WHO members because of differences in principles, he engaged the vocal concerns surrounding the costs and "efficiency" of treating MDR-TB in poor populations. In other words, he organized the privileged and the wealthy.

While it is often times not as fun, and much more frustrating, it is also a necessary component of the work that many activists are commited to. Instead of turning our noses and finding people morally reprehensible for not understanding the importance of a struggle, we must engage them if they will let us. As difficult as it is, it is one of the only things that will permit us to succeed. This doesn't mean making a deal with the devil, but it does mean trying to empathize with where the privileged are at now and move them to where we want them to be in the future. Indeed, in a later article, published in Notre Dame Magazine (the whole article is well worth the read as well), Farmer spells out this necessity:

The view of many of my academic colleagues seems to be that good scholarship and activism don't mix. The view of many of my human-rights colleagues seems to be that social and economic rights -- those violated by poverty and disease -- are "pie in the sky." They say they're having a hard enough time getting civil and political rights respected. And the view of many in both sectors seemed to be that the victims themselves should be "empowered" to start their own social movements. Yet those gathered in central Haiti had already started their own social movement. The "missing movement" needs to take place among the privileged, and on the grounds of empathy and solidarity.

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I am sure that I will have much more to write on the topic in the future, but the short story is: read this book.