Subject: Politics
From one perspective, the recent expansion of the Michigan’s 1990 Emergency Financial Management Act is just the latest salvo in a right-wing-led war against the rights of workers to organize.
The expansion will allow financial managers appointed to oversee bankrupt municipalities and school districts the rights to invalidate union contracts, dismiss elected officials, and dissolve municipal boundaries.
It sounds like extreme stuff. And it is. In the current political climate and when it would be carried out by governor appointees with little to no democratic oversight, the implications are really worrying. Looking at the behavior of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and the assertions from many Tea Party Republicans about their disregard for the democratic process or collective bargaining rights, not to mention corporate tax breaks being passed at the same time, it is an understatement to say that it is hard to feel at all confident that the actions of Michigan’s emergency managers would actually be in the best interests of struggling cities—especially when those struggling cities are often Democratic strongholds.
That said, many of these cities are in serious, long-term distress, and they have been since well before the current financial crisis, even though that has pushed many to or over the edge. And actual fiscal collapse is also harmful to residents and workers. more
First it was the Office of Urban Policy. Then, at the time of its launch in 2009, it quietly turned into the Office of Urban Affairs: a small, but interesting name change. Its director, Adolfo Carrion, the former Bronx borough…
Brad Lander, a not-for-profit director, affordable housing builder, city planner, and community organizer told the Brownstoner about why he chose to run for New York City Council. “I’ve worked with hundreds of residents, activists, and advocates with tremendous commitment, street…
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It’s labor-day weekend so let’s think about unions, Republicans and politics. Unions are a potent reality check as well as a counterforce to the power of big business. Most union members don’t fall for free market propaganda and the myths…
We mourn the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy today not only for his definitive role in a significant slice of Americana, but also for his role a true progressive leader. He was flawed, for sure, but his conviction for causes…
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In the Spring 2009 issue of Shelterforce, now available to view online at www.shelterforce.org, Nandinee K. Kutty, an author and economist who works in housing and urban policy worries that despite the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan and Making Home Affordable, housing discrimination will continue to plague the market, as will the myth that the housing crisis resulted from extending homeownership and home mortgage credit to historically underserved groups.
Kutty argues that “Fair lending is the law,” and “it’s not option or something we practice only when it’s convenient for banks,” and that “we are where we are because of decades of discrimination.”
While those in the Rooflines sphere are likely to agree with her, the story’s overall takeaway is an important one to repeat over and over again because there are myriad external forces working to distract the country with false explanations for the economic meltdown. Kutty refers to the “myth” that lending to so-called irresponsible borrowers caused the crisis and worries that this myth will only make the suddenly-frugal banks tighten their purse strings even more, making loans they’re only “comfortable with,“thus resulting in even more discrimination. more
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Jack Kemp will be remembered for his many roles in public life — as the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, as U.S. Congressman (from Buffalo, NY), the HUD Secretary (under President George H. Bush), the Vice Presidential Candidate (running with…
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While Senate Democrats and Republicans were looking to compromise on what is now a trimmed-down, $780 billion stimulus package, it looks like some key progressive measures have been, well, compromised. $2.25 billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds — money that…
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It took me a couple of days after the extraordinary evening of President-elect Obama’s victory on November 4 for the impact to really sink in. The election was an unprecedented opportunity on so many levels, and made me realize that…
At the risk of sounding cliché, hope was in the air as thick as the smell of grilling bacon and the steam from oatmeal and grits in a small diner on Chicago’s west side crowded with customers watching the inauguration festivities on a small T.V.
Luke Bowman, a 36-year-old cook, was bubbling with excitement, shouting out Obama’s name and stepping up to the T.V. between each flip of a pancake or egg thrown on the grill.
“White people better watch out!” he cried, but not in a divisive way, rather in a warm and light-hearted tone that included the joint’s few white customers in the joke.
“I’m not white, I’m Italian,” shot back one of them.
What Bowman meant was he felt the decades of slavery, oppression and marginalization suffered by black people in the U.S. will quickly start to melt away thanks to Obama’s move into the White House and the fact that so many Americans of all races had voted for him. more
So much of this country’s history has been watched on television — lunar landing, Beatles on Sullivan, Dwight Clark’s “The Catch” from Joe Montana in the 1982 NFC Championship Game (had to throw that in) — that I didn’t feel…
As Obama prepared his economic recovery plan, he read Jonathan Alter’s The Defining Moment, (Simon and Shuster, 2006) about FDR’s rise to the presidency and his first 100 days. Although Alter’s engrossing and readable book was not intended to give advice to the incoming president, it is very helpful for understanding Obama’s upcoming challenges and his approach to change.
Alter’s historical account brings to mind some uncanny similarities between Obama and Roosevelt’s rise to the presidency. Roosevelt had to overcome a devastating disability — polio. Obama had to overcome the disadvantage of racial and ethnic discrimination. Alter shows how Roosevelt’s agonizing triumph over polio led him to bond with fellow sufferers and helped him discover “traits that would prove instrumental to the presidency” — a good-natured easy friendliness and an empathy for the oppressed. Obama has developed a similar openness and compassion gained through a searching self-discovery as he grew up in two different worlds as well as the frustrating efforts he faced when he organized the poor in Chicago. Like Roosevelt, Obama exudes a hard-to-understand confidence, only partly explained by their mothers who raised them to be self-confident. And of course, when Roosevelt took office, the Depression had hit, banks were shut down, the stock market had crashed and unemployment was soaring. Obama is taking office in the worst economic crisis the nation has faces since the Depression. more
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Obama’s election. For those under 30, it was a landslide. Despite the news that Obama is considering the neoliberal Larry Summers for Treasury Secretary and former Senator Sam Nunn is aiding the transition process at the Pentagon, I am overjoyed…
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We anticipated this, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that an Obama administration will contain a Department of Urban Policy. According to a Washington Post blog, plans are in the works to establish an urban policy department “in order to better…
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Election Day’s over, we’ve already blown past “Yes We Can!” to “Yes We Did!”
Now we’re on to watching President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team and his potential appointees.
But can we please indulge one last fond backward glance to his victorious campaign?
The McCain-Palin camp dished up plenty of trash talk, but the gibe that really came back to bite ‘em in the butt: Sarah Palin’s snotty “community organizer” remark about Obama at the GOP convention.
You remember it: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” Palin sneered to warm applause from the virtually all-white crowd, half of whose net worth topped a half-million dollars, according to a CBS Evening News report. more
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Barack Obama is going to need all his organizing skills to be an effective leader. As I write in an article in the Huffington Post, Shifting Gears: Transforming Obama’s Campaign Into a Movement for Change, to achieve a progressive agenda,…
It was as if all of Chicago had one big ear-splitting grin Tuesday night. Even hours before polls had closed, people went about their business — including voting in record numbers — as if walking on air, thrilled at the…
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My first email of the first day after the election of Barack Obama as president came from Serbia. Its sender is a longtime colleague, a Serbian journalist I met right before the U.S. air war in her country in 1999.…
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama was asked a question about his increasing taxes for those making more than a quarter million a year. In his impromptu exchange with the now famous “Joe the Plumber,” Obama used the phrase: “when…
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When I was a newspaper reporter in New Jersey, one of my beats was Princeton University, and I’m always reminded of what is always referred to as the school’s “unofficial motto”: “In the Nation’s Service and in the Service of…
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National Housing Institute
