Atrocities: Municipal, State, and Zionist

The City Council of Santa Cruz, California is going to spend $200,000 to decorate, embellish, create a planned turnabout in an important touristy location. I am not sure we need a turnabout at all. It confuses Americans. If we need one, I don’t know why it has to have artistic qualities as judged by the philistines on the city council. The location itself is quite beautiful. Is the council determined to compete with Mother Nature? I guess there is no economic crisis after all. (The council is dominated by leftists.)

To make things worse, the commission goes to an artist from Rhode Island, clear across the continent. The local paper, an objective ally of the council, does not say how the awardee was selected. Santa Cruz has thousands of artists. Sometimes, it seems that everyone who is not a therapist, an acupuncturist, a herbalist, or a teacher is an artist. Some residents combine two or more of the above avocations, as you might expect. The fiscal irresponsibility has reached the point where I am going to say “no” to any expenditure, I don’t care how justified the cause would seem to me if I understood it. I don’t want to know. It’s “No.” In the current context, this expenditure is an obscenity and a small atrocity.

I listened to the debate yesterday between the two California candidates for the beleaguered office of governor of this failing state. I am going to vote for Meg Whitman, of course, the former CEO of E-Bay. The main reason is that she is not Jerry Brown, a charlatan I have known all my adult life and a proven failure at every political office he has tried. He has tried most of them, incidentally, including Governor, twice, in the late seventies and early eighties.

It’s not that I am passionate about Whitman. She sounds like somebody’s mom. Mostly, she does not go far enough. Mildly challenged by Tom Brokaw during the debate about how to fix the State of California’s broken financial situation, she responds the usual way: Chase down fraud and waste. Given the financial condition of the state, that’s a kind of intellectual atrocity although a small one, I would agree.

As I have said before on this blog, that’s not good enough. Every politician promises to solve every fiscal problem by reducing fraud and waste. Whatever can be done has probably been done in this respect. What’s left is not worth doing or not sufficient to make a difference. Or else, it cannot be done. I wanted the Republican candidate to say:

Those are tough times for everyone. We have to reduce expenditures everywhere, no exception, We will have to cut all services, yes including fire and police. And of course, we will have to reduce educational expenditures since education eats more than half of the state budget.

As a start, as a way of limbering up for things to come. Whitman could call for across- the-board cuts of 5%, everywhere, no exception. Think about it: How many of you could not reduce their expenditures by 5% without suffering much? Think of turning off the lights, denying yourself that cookie that’s not good for you anyway, drinking (tap) water with dinner once a week, switching from double latte (that did not exist for your parents anyway). And some of you ladies: How about foregoing this absurdly expensive pair of shoes you were probably going to crumble for. (Sorry for the stereotype but there is a reason they exist at all.)

After such a cut, we would be in a better mental frame of mind to begin real cutting. Here is a mental experiment: How badly off do you think we would be if 1/3 of all state employees not directly engaged with the public were laid off suddenly? Think of the instantaneous savings.

As for the next-to-near future, it’s simple: Any politician who does not announce big spending cuts clearly and loudly is going to raise taxes and further discourage economic growth. Thus, Whitman may be a political stepping stone to a more radical retrenchment. Or, she may surprise me and do what’s right and brave. One thing is sure: Brown will not.

The most astounding news for today come from the French Le Figaro, a reasonably good centrist newspaper. It put up an article on-line about Israel’s contingency plans in the unlikely case there is a peace treaty with the Palestinian authority. As you might guess, the Israeli civil authorities expect that some Jewish West Bank settlers will riot on the news that they have to move. And, of course, Hamas will try a coup to seize the West Bank from the Palestinian Authority because Hamas wants war with Israel, not peace. (It’s in the Hamas Charter, linked to this blog.)

The real news, is that Israel also anticipates massive riots from its Arab citizens in case of a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority. It’s easy to guess that such a accord would lead to an exchange of territories. Israel would insist on retaining large segments of the West Bank it has annexed, for practical purposes, currently occupied by hundreds of thousands of Jews. In return, it would agree to give the PA probably a thin corridor linking the West Bank to Gaza. That would not be enough, however. Israel would also cede some of its current territory, squarely within the borders of Israel proper for fifty years. Areas heavily populated by Arabs would be natural candidates for a cession as such an operation would minimize the displacement of Jewish citizens.

Now, pay attention because you may have missed the irony: The people who would be affected are Palestinians by any definition. You can bet there has not been any immigration into Israel of Arabic-speaking Muslims or Christians. Anyone currently living within the 1949 borders of Israel who is a native speaker of Arabic and not Jewish is a Palestinian. So, Israel is predicting that Palestinian Muslims (with a sprinkling of Palestinian Christians) will riot to avoid having to live under the rule of Palestinian Muslims. If that is not the final verdict on comparative humanity and civilization, what is?

If the preparations for the riots are all Israeli propaganda, it’s masterful propaganda. I don’t think so because, in the past, when right-wing Israeli politicians spoke of expelling Arabs with Israeli citizenship, there were loud protests immediately. And by the way, the Israeli government’s recent trial balloon about an oath of loyalty is probably related. Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed that all Israeli citizens should swear an oath to Israel “as a Jewish state.” Such an oath would enrage the surprisingly large number of Orthodox Jewish Israeli citizens who insist that Israel has not right to exist (for scriptural reasons), it’s true. It would also serve the purpose of sorting the goats from the sheep among Arab citizens. Interesting; worth following.

Of course, I am expecting comments about the feared Israeli Arabs’ riots from several quarters. I can’t wait to hear what the Arab Leagues has to say about this problem. And I am looking forward to the expressions of commiseration of countless, Western, “humanitarian” anti-Zionist organizations. They may have to deal with yet another Zionist atrocity: The merciless clubbing by the brutal Israeli police of Arab demonstrators demanding to be left within the reach of Zionist atrocities.

I am not holding my breath about comments. As I keep telling you: Pay attention to what does not happen. It says a lot about reality.

You may have noticed I don’t blog much about the Obama administration anymore. I think it would be unsporting. It’s a rout, economic, political and moral. The President now looks pathetic. I might cover him again if I find anything at all he has done right. I don’t mean right by my lights only. I mean anything he has accomplished according to any constituency.

Santa Cruz Vandals, Drums, and Left-Wing Authoritarianism

I live in wonderful times in a wonderful place. Important history is re-playing itself before my eyes. This a sequel to my recent previous blogs (“ Freedom Fighters…,” and, “The Leftist Municipality….”

The story has to do with the fact that a few fast-moving people dressed in black caused about $100,000 worth of damage in six or seven storefronts withing three blocks of each other. ( The damage cost estimate comes from the local paper. I cannot verify it.) That was in Santa Cruz, California.

The vandals came out of a demonstration of a few hundred young people with no particular agenda, except the usual vague left-wing slogans and a few more about the new Arizona law on illegal immigration . (See my posting on that too: “Illegal Immigration…,” “The Arizona Immigration Law…,” and, “Immigration: More on Conservative….”) It was supposed to be a “May Day” celebration, but May Day is the first of May and the demonstration was on the second. Well, nobody is perfect and this is a beach town.

I did not learn much from the videos on YouTube except that one demonstrator was wearing a tie. There seems to be a consensus that the window breakers were few and well prepared and that they had kept their intentions secret. I believe there were fewer than ten actively involved in the vandalism.

There were no police present at the scene for a long time. I pointed out in previous postings: 1 That the police had other priorities, and, 2 That it was not surprising that they did, given the nature of the city government. Here is more, more blatant evidence. Again, this is contemporary political history in a small capsule.

Every Wednesday, there is Farmers’ Market downtown Santa Cruz. (I am burning with desire to write on this too,but, one thing at a time, I suppose.) The market is held on a large parking lot. For several months, or years, I don’t know because I was not paying attention, drummers have met on the edge of the market. The drummers’ circle is spontaneous, unorganized. More or less the same people meet at about 1 or 2 PM just because it’s Wednesday, each bringing his own kind of hand-drum. Sometimes, the numbers reach fifty. Counting the spectators, that’s a lot of people having a good time, for free. What comes out is not Bach but , it’s pleasant enough to my ears. It puts a spring in my step. And, of course, I am charmed by the spectacle of a band without a band leader, without a conductor, without a maestro.

A few weeks ago, the city police began interfering with the drummers’ circle, trying to disperse it and then, moving it to another location. The police intervened again yesterday. That’s only three days after the riot to which they did not attend (because they were too short-handed, they said.) The police allege that “businesses” are complaining about the noise. I count nine businesses within easy hearing distance. Even if half of them complain, that’s only eight or ten people maximum. And, yes, you are right to ask: Some joints change hands during the performance. Yet, this is Santa Cruz where joints also change hands when a dentist, an optometrist, and an insurance broker have dinner together.

Why should a handful of shopkeepers’ displeasure take precedence over the pleasure of fifty drummers, the pleasure of hundreds of spectators, of my pleasure?

Of course, I think I know the answer because I am versed in political history. When fighting their adversaries, leftists often manage to appear united, to others, and even to themselves. Whenever the Left captures anything, however, a country (Russia, China), a city (numerous municipalities in France and even more in Italy), or a stamp club, the same schism appears. There are leftists who dislike all established order and there are leftists who hate that established order only. The tragic false marriage of the two kinds soon dissolves because the second hates disorder. They are little second-grade school teachers at heart. They want the Principal to put an end to the mess, and quickly.

The authoritarians always win in the end because the lovers of liberty, the libertarians of the Left, the anarchists ( same thing) forget to file on time to run for office, because they lead dissipated lives, because they enjoy themselves too much to run or, if elected, to govern. The second category of leftists are totalitarian at heart and that’s the main reason they are leftists at all. They are the ones running Santa Cruz, together with a congeries of weak-kneed, vague-minded liberals.

In Russia, the small, Bolshevik (Communist Party) liquidated or imprisoned its anarchist allies as soon as the fight against the counter-revolution gave it a little breathing space. (Reading assignment: Victor Serge. Memoirs of a Revolutionary.) The Communists in Spain fought on two fronts, one against the Franquists (Fascists), one against the very numerous Spanish anarchist movement, their ally. They lost the former war but won the latter because of their superior organization, their ruthlessness, and Soviet money. (Reading assignment: Georges Orwell. Homage to Catalonia.)

The miniature Stalinists in the Santa Cruz city council belong to the same family, and they have the same instincts. They don’t devote scarce police resources to controlling an episode of vandalism because they are betting, in my opinion correctly, that it’s a one-time occurrence. The drummers, on the other hand, get under their skin because they might be here forever if you don’t repress them. And, who knows, they might begin drumming on Mondays, and even on Thursdays. And then, where would we be? The drummers constitute an intolerable permanent threat to orderliness, to neatness.

Now, I am reasonable. I am not predicting that the city council will start executing drummers with a bullet in the head in the basement of City Hall, Cheka-style. (Cheka= the early Soviet secret police, ancestor of the KGB.) It seems probable though that some leftists bureaucrats are fantasizing about it.

Pot Shops and the Evils of Government

It seems to me that few people dare entertain the thought that government is inherently bad, that it’s bad even when it’s honest and well-intentioned. That was pretty much what the founders of this republic thought but the idea is almost lost. Even when ordinary people think of bad, oppressive government, they usually have the distant federal government in mind. But it’s too far, precisely, too large, it has too many tentacles. Perhaps it’s easier to understand the moral issue if you consider something smaller and closer. The city of Santa Cruz in California (population about 50,000) just gave us a clear example of well-intentioned government action with predictably bad consequences. It’s small and it’s innocent. Repeat: innocent.

The city council just decreed that there could be only two medicinal marijuana shops in the city. Two consequences.

1 The council has created by decision a quasi-monopoly. Absent such restrictions, there might have been one hundred pot shops at first. After a short time, the number would have dwindled to a small number, possibly only two. But the winners would have been those offering the best combination of price and quality. The latter, understood widely to include possibly diversity of products and quality of service, an essential ingredient in serving presumably sick buyers.

Instead, we are going to end up with the first two applicants. That’s if the decision-making process is honest. Those two may be the worst possible or they may just be mediocre. The city’s decision is another factor, a small factor to be sure, of local high cost of living and a low level of satisfaction. Multiply this decision by 10 million and you have the Soviet Union’s economy. (Reminder: The Soviet Union did not just deny freedom, it denied a decent standard of living and the dignity that comes with not having to scramble for oranges.)

2 An artificial limit on enterprise is an invitation to corruption. Each license to operate is made artificially valuable. If you apply, you will be tempted to increase your chances by greasing the right palm. Not casting aspersions. I am not saying it’s going to happen in Santa Cruz. I am stating however, that it would be less likely to happen if there were no numerical limitations shops, any shops. The more opportunities for corruption you create, the more actual corruption there will be, other things being equal. Most government actions and all regulations generate corruption opportunities. That’s true when everyone involved in formulating them is 100% honest.

Now, go back mentally to the federal government level and think of the mischief in the current health care bill.

Look for my posting on innocent government evil on this blog.

A Real Town Meeting in the People’s Green Republic of Santa Cruz.

Tuesday night, I took in, in person, two and a half hours of town hall meeting with the same congressman, Sam Farr, in my own town of Santa Cruz, this time. Now, it’s important to understand that Santa Cruz is, overall, a seventies throwback, left-liberal to communist anti-American. To give you an idea, on my long street, downtown, there are only three American flags, two of which belong to me. When I make conservative noises in public, in spite of my considerable expressive talents, people think I am kidding.

I went to the meeting with my wife, under my own power. The only prompt I got is that one local radio station gave the time and place of the meeting on the air. It did so several times. It’s seen as a conservative station. (Full disclosure: I have a talk-show program on that station, KSCO 1080 AM, every Sunday 11AM-1PM.) Rush Limbaugh did not send me. The local Republican Party was pathetically absent in every respect. If there was any conservative or right-wing organization present, it escaped my attention and I was looking for one. There were no right-wing thugs in sight, with the possible exception of myself, and especially, my wife, Krishna. My wife is in very good shape indeed but, she is slight of built. She has never really divulged her age too me but her hair is all white. The only humans she has ever physically threatened were our children, when they were teen-agers, and me, of course. I can’t tell you why she threatened my because I don’t like to brag.

I insist on the unorganized nature of the event in a spirit of helpfulness. The main problem most Democrats, including Congressman Farr and including the President face, is that they cannot conceive of a genuine grass-root movement of revulsion. George Beck, the Fox News-appointed liberal, of all things, said on television that he does not believe that the opposition to Obamacare is “spontaneous.” He is not a dumb man. He is associated in some fashion with George Washington University. I have heard him before and never caught him even in a white lie. Those people can’t conceive of spontaneous political action because it seldom happens on their side. Instead, they rely on tax-subsidized ACORN, and on a variety of radical front organizations.

The Obama supporters seemed only a little more organized than the opponents. They had better signs and many seemed to know each other. They occupied most of the first three rows but I suspect there was no ploy involved. I could have sat in the second row if I had wanted to. One woman standing at the door was handing out three-page leaflets in support. She was careful to say she was not representing anything, that the document only expressed her own views. She tried to scrutinize my face before handing me a leaflet, no doubt to figure which side I am on. I gave her a big marble smile providing no information at all. I had also been careful to dress in a non-revelatory way. I don’t mean revelatory of my enviable physique, but of my political leanings. I was attempting stealth, the better to observe.

Naturally, I didn’t wear my brown shirt and I left my swastika at home. I did it to confuse Nancy Pelosi , a woman who becomes easily confused, it’s true.

The woman’s brochure had a lot of facts and it seemed carefully referenced. However, a number of the websites to which she referred the reader were clearly partisan. Overall, her argumentation was coherent. Yet it stood zero chance of persuading anyone not already in support of Obamacare. She made no effort to address the abundantly expressed concerns of opponents. (More on this later.) I think she was trying, ineffectually, to hand out ammunition to the weaklings on her side before the meeting. There were a variety of signs in the audience, fewer than fifty in all. The anti (conservative) signs were all hand-made. The pro signs were a mixture of hand-made and carefully printed slogans.

I estimated there were 500 people at the beginning of the meeting plus 200 in an overflow space. 700 is a large number in Santa Cruz for anything other than a movie. (There might be as many people at a religious service. I wouldn’t know. ) The main venue, in a church, was half-full an hour before the announced beginning of the meeting. It was packed when the Congressman arrived, pretty much on time.

He was introduced by one of the pastors, a woman with politically signaletic short hair. Then, the Mayor of Santa Cruz briefly took over. She is a leftie, of course, but rather well-liked by all. I felt that we were in mildly inimical territory. The Congressman is a jovial man with a sense of humor. He is also brave and hard-working.

Representative Farr began in Santa Cruz with the same rehearsed speech he had given the night before in Monterey. I felt he was on the wrong track from the beginning: not helpful to his side, the pro-Obamacare side, and startlingly incapable of addressing the views of the people opposed to Obama care.

Then people, about one hundred of them, lined up to deliver their two minute- speech and/or question. There is not much reason to repeat any of the audience’s addresses but I want to report on the tenor of the meeting. Only about 4/5 got to the mike. The queuing process was orderly and fair.

There was no intimidation on either side. There were catcalls and loud boos, from conservatives mostly. One, who was sitting next to me, was very loud indeed. I believe though not one sound was an attempt to drown out the Congressman, as we see regularly on college campuses, for example. It never even came close to that. There were also many rather effeminate hisses coming from pro partisans and directed at conservative speakers.

Conservatives, the con camp, and liberal/progressives, the pro Obamacare crowd, differ significantly both in appearance and in the content of their speech. Liberals are more flashy and they look better overall. The only speaker with a hat (a white straw hat) over his long hair, gave a little pro-Obamacare address and concluded that the overall solution to any health care crisis was to legalize and tax marijuana. (Disclosure: I agree that it’s a good idea. I don’t think it would make a dent, nationally.) Conservatives dress in a less interesting manner. Many are energetic sharp-spoken middle-aged women. The young among them tend to dress simply and soberly. More of the conservatives are seniors than are on the other side. This is interesting because you would assume Medicare beneficiaries did not have much of a dog in that fight. There were two black men in the audience. One did not get to speak; the other gave one of the best, most coherent anti-Obamacare arguments.

As usual, what did not happen matters most. Contrary to stupid, lazy press reports, the meeting did not look at all like a battle between well-dressed conservatives on the one side and the hard-working poor in work boots on the other side. Although Santa Cruz County is probably one third Hispanic, with Hispanics doing most of the ill-paid work, I observed no Hispanic presence at all. There were several large, white-on-white families I would classify, with my unusual sociological acumen, as “Oakies” here (“hillbillies” elsewhere in America). They were obviously there to a protest against Obama care. The town hall meeting in Santa Cruz was a solidly middle-class affair. All the people present could have mixed, matched, and possibly mated, at a neighborhood barbecue.

The spectacle rejoiced my heart because it was in the very best tradition of American democracy in action. Yet, I think the meeting was useless for its announced purpose. The two sides spent two hours speaking past each other. I don’t attribute the responsibility for this equally to both sides. (The truth is never in the middle.) The Congressman and supporters of Obamacare came wholly unprepared to address either the economic arguments of their opponents, nor even less, their constitutional concerns. The conservatives gave better speeches because they actually gave speeches while the liberals wasted a lot of time whining, as usual.

Striking ignorance of basic facts was evident on both sides. Ignorance has multiple causes. Mistrust is one of them. Congress could dissipate 90% of the mistrust on the conservative side with a single sentence: Members of Congress will have exactly the same access to health care as every other American.

The disjunction between the two discourses became clear within the first half-hour. The pro camp argued for the human necessity of government-directed, and in some case of single-payer, health care, shored up by horror stories. Many liberal speakers only gave horror stories, often about their own needs and the injustice of their destiny. The old stereotype was confirmed to an astounding degree: Liberals think of Government as an infinitely wise milch cow with teats that never dry up. They resist discussing the cost of good things, of any good things. Many have a singular talent for irrelevancy: By the end of the meeting, there were catcalls offering “no war” as the best solution to the alleged health care crisis health. Liberals are overwhelmingly childish.

Liberals and progressives came ready to counter only the crudest conservative slogans, such as the accusation of “socialism.” They painted their opponents in primitive colors, again, like children. I think they only know slogans and their slogans are mostly boring.

Obamacare opponents included only a small number of anti-abortion speakers. There was no hysteria about government-ordered euthanasia though concerns were expressed about the possibility government rationing might lead there. Conservative arguments were comparatively sophisticated and free of heart-wrenching personal narratives. They focused on disbelief regarding the announced costs of Obamacare. (They were thus joining he Congressional Budget Office, currently directed by a Democrat), and on constitutionality. Libertarian sentiment dominated. The financial consequences of Obama care were the tying principle as you would expect from people worried about economics and equally from people who dislike government growth.

Congressman Farr – a man easy to like, as I said – inspired pity. He came equipped with simplistic bullet-points and was confronted by a barrage of sophisticated questions and arguments. I believe he did not honestly understand most of them. I think he is out of his depth defending health care reform Obama-style. In part it’s because he is ill-informed, superficial, and living in a liberal intellectual ghetto. In part it’s because he, his party, and the President, did not come close to expecting the strong opposition that emerged quickly. They seem to believe their own gross propaganda describing opponents of Obamacare as a handful of ignorant thugs paid by insurance companies and teleguided by Rush Limbaugh.

Missing in the congressman’s handling of his opposition:

The crucial distinction between health insurance and health care. (He pointed out repeatedly that obligatory health insurance would be just like obligatory car insurance. Of course, I am unlikely to have a car accident and I am a hundred per cent likely to become sick.)

A grasp on the real nature of the “40 million uninsured” he kept using a a final argument that should close the matter for good. (They are largely a myth, though the figure is real, in a superficial sense.)

Any mature comprehension at all of the constitutional and historical fears expressed by opponents of Obamacare. (Listening to him was like listening to a French politician who would not know who Thomas Jefferson was and who would have never read the Declaration of Independence.)

Practical, personal familiarity with conservative rank-and-file, with conservatives who are not politicians or figments of left-wing journalists imagination. (I suspect he would be astounded, in full disbelief, if I talked to him freely over a beer.)

Elementary comprehension of economic objections to Obamacare. (After the meeting, I would have bet he did not understand even the summary of the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the topic.)

The defining moment of the town meeting occurred when a conservative asked him a pointed but simple question about the projected final cost of the proposed national health program. Congressman Farr, always the honest man, replied:

“I don’t know.”

The local newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, gave a fair report of the event the next morning with a breath-takingly dishonest heading. Perhaps it was torn between fair and factual reporting and trying to align itself on the rest of the liberal press representation of such town meetings as being taking over by thugs.

For the record: I believe we need health care reform. This, for several reasons. Our costs are twice higher than those of the French and we don’t live as long. It’s intolerable that Americans should be forced to keep a job they hate because they cannot afford to lose the health care that’s tied to it. The propensity of insurance companies to turn down people with pre-existing conditions is a real problem so long as we are in an insurance regime.

I also think health insurance is a terrible idea. I place less confidence in our government to administer any complicated, national-level plan than I would in most West-European governments. I fear creeping, soft fascism, using nationalized health care as its main vehicle.

PS  Mr President: If you didn’t plant the alarming story about white extremist militia, don’t worry about them. They include only 37 middle-age guys spread over ten states. They have trouble finding their size in camouflage fatigues. They have to walk up hills in the forest because they smoke two packs a day.

Incidentally, tell your whiny Democrat Congressmen who complain about imaginary militias that its’ “supremacist,” no “supremist.”

Mr President: Worry instead about a massive tax revolt that will peacefully paralyze government. That’s the American way, didn’t you know?