As of this writing, French President Francois Hollande is concluding a state visit to Algeria to discuss trade and stuff. On the second and final day of the trip Hollande spoke before the Algerian parliament. This was a tense moment, coming with widespread speculation - and some criticism, most pointedly from Algerian political figures - that Hollande would issue nothing like an official apology on France's behalf. This was mainly due to political pressures at home, from French conservatives and Algerian loyalists alike. Oh, and to avoid giving any traction to legal arguments for compensation or reparation.
When the moment came, Hollande did the best version of the post-colonial safety dance I've ever seen. The safety dance (not this one) is my name for what states do as they try to triangulate between sensibly addressing the consequences of their former atrocities and avoiding the still-buzzing trip wires of unreconstructed supremacist politics. We've seen this for years in the US in relation to, well, any number of things, really, but most clearly in relation to Indian policy and chattel slavery. The US finally got around to apologizing for both of these things (see this and this), sort of, but only after many years of equivocation and hesitation. France is early on in this process with Algeria, and given how early it is, What Hollande actually said turned out to be pretty good, relative to how these things can go. What he said: "I'm not here to repent or apologize, but to tell the truth." What is this truth? As DW translated it, that "For 132 years, Algeria was subjected to a brutal and unfair system: colonization." And that it is important to "acknowledge the suffering [colonialism] caused." Then there was a bunch of talk about partnerships for the future, and looking forward rather than backward, and so on. Which is, as I say, about trade and stuff.
Hollande, Sarkozy, and Chirac are the only French presidents to visit autonomous Algeria, and neither of the others came as close to apologizing as the current office-holder. It's a weird dance, splitting hairs between, on the one hand, "acknowledging" that one represents an entity that caused unfair suffering and, on the other hand, apologizing. (Or, better, between apologizing and acknowledging that someone 'was subjected to' suffering that 'a system' caused. Mistakes were made, suffering was caused....) A moral psychologist - that is, a student of the field called 'moral psychology,' not an ethical practitioner of the science of psychology - would make some hay with this. I just want to acknowledge it.
I recently read a fascinating piece in Forbes about an NGO in Haiti. The author of the piece is Willy Foote, the founder of "an agricultural lender" called Root Capital. The point of the piece is to celebrate the work of the expiring Clinton-Bush Fund by explaining some of the fine things that Root has done with Fund resources, and to explain the challenges that make the business environment in Haiti unlike any other environment in the world.
So on the way to doing this work Mr Foote writes the following:
We have worked in 30 African, Latin American and Caribbean countries since 2000 and we’re bringing all that learning and innovation to address the challenges of building agricultural businesses that generate long-term social, economic and environmental sustainability in rural Haiti. It has been hard, truth to tell. The business challenges concentrated in that one small, impoverished nation are formidable—from weak government systems, to severe environmental degradation (less than 1.5 percent of land is forested in Haiti) to limited education and poor health status.
Consequently, most groups in Haiti, regardless of their business experience, need some form of financial management training intervention in order to grow and thrive.
This is important work, to be sure, and Mr. Foote points us to some important considerations. But that 'consequently' worries me. In order to accept financial management training as the solution to the problems that he mentions, one has to make at least one big assumption, and leave a lot of questions unasked. (OK, so this is less a non sequitur than an argument with suppressed premises. But it feels like a non sequitur.)
These are the names of the victims of the
Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. I believe
these are the names we should remember, not their murderer. CHARLOTTE BACON, 6 DANIEL BARDEN, 7 RACHEL DAVINO, 29 OLIVIA ENGEL, 6 JOSEPHINE GAY, 7 ANA G. MARQUEZ-GREENE, 6 DYLAN HOCKLEY, 6 DAWN HOCHSPRUNG, 47 MADELEINE F. HSU, 6
CATHERINE V. HUBBARD, 6
CHASE KOWALSKI, 7
JESSE LEWIS, 6
JAMES MATTIOLI, 6
GRACE MCDONNELL, 7
ANNE MARIE MURPHY, 52
EMILIE PARKER, 6
JACK PINTO, 6
NOAH POZNER, 6
CAROLINE PREVIDI, 6
JESSICA REKOS, 6
AVIELLE RICHMAN, 6
LAUREN ROUSSEAU, 30
MARY SHERLACH, 56
VICTORIA SOTO, 27
BENJAMIN WHEELER, 6
ALLISON N. WYATT, 6
Predictably, tennis player Caroline Wozniacki's 'impersonation' of Serena Williams continues to stir controversy. I gestured yesterday at the thought that this is a tempest in a teapot, but didn't develop the thought. Since people keep finding new ways to insist that this is yet another example of anti-black racism (and other bad things), I should think about this some more. Especially since my intuitions pull me in the other direction.
I've followed this thinking wherever it has led me, which I'm sorry to say is into prose very much like what one would find in an academic journal article. So I'll apologize for that in advance, and make a concession that I learned from watching '300': this will not be quick, and (I fear) you will not enjoy it. (Also, there will be no pictures.)
Some quick thoughts for the day. First on guns, then on white media and black hair, and then on why Caroline Wozniacki is not a racist (as far as I know).
Yesterday's disaster in Portland has me thinking about gun control. There is some evidence, considerable evidence, apparently, that there is a strong negative correlation between rates of gun ownership and crime rates - and, more interestingly, between gun ownership and murder rates. Crudely: more guns = fewer crimes and murders, apparently. More guns = more gun crimes, to be sure, but fewer crimes overall. (That last link goes to the inestimable Fareed Zakaria's blog, but his problem was stealing facts, not making them up, so I don't mind.) This is intuitively plausible in a way, as gun control opponents know. One common argument: a mugger is less likely to step to you if you're more likely to be strapped. I get all that. But...
What has been fairly sweet to watch, much sweeter than that the deeply insufferable hack Joe Scarborough (MSNBC), is CNN's anchor Soledad O'Brien's regular habit of getting in some conservative ass. This week's example is Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Racist, AL). Sessions, formerly a Reagan judicial nominee for the Federal bench (dream deferred because of his habit of making racist comments to Black people) has revived his political life as a living breathing example of Southern stereotypical ignorance (the guy's middle names is Beauregard-no really). O'Brien manages to hoist him on his own cruel petard. Sessions ( a very fiscally serious man) thinks it is reasonable to cut 11bn from the budget of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP aka food stamps) in order to reign in the deficit but wouldn't think to ask rich people to pay more taxes. Well O'Brien doesn't play the "hear no evil game" and raises some facts.
First Sessions' choice to expand the program under the Bush II regime (two votes in support 2002, 2008), second the fact that 20% of his constituents receive support, third 67% of his constituents qualify for aid, fourth I would bet money that he would get the vapors at the thought of cutting the military budget and fifth he would prefer (as O'Brien ably points out) to take food from the tables of hungry children than ask rich people to pay more all qualify this asshole as an according to Hoyle definition of a greedy, twisted, evil, shit stain of a human being. But the Y'all Need to Be Ashamed of Yourselves Award goes to the people that think he is worthy of being anywhere near the power to make decisions about the lives of anybody in the state of Alabama. For the people that vote for this man to piss on the poor, suck up to the rich and who keep returning this m*****f***** to office? Y'all Need to Be Ashamed!
As a local official in challenging economic times, economic development is the word of the day and the recruitment of businesses to ones town to set up job, start to hire and pay income and property taxes is at the top of every municipality's "to do" list. How ever what doesn't get discussed is the price paid by municipalities and states as they offer incentives to attract businesses both large and small. Fortunately, (hopefully) Pulitzer prize winning journalist to be, Louise Story
states, counties and cities are giving up more than $80 billion each
year
to companies. The beneficiaries come from virtually every corner of
the corporate world, encompassing oil and coal conglomerates,
technology and entertainment companies, banks and big-box retail chains.
This money comes out of the public coffers and is meant to boister the economic foundations of these communities by creating jobs. However, this "economic development" comes at a steep price.
The Times analysis shows that Texas awards more incentives, over $19
billion a year, than any other state. Alaska, West Virginia and Nebraska
give up the most per resident.
For many communities, the payouts add up to a substantial chunk of their
overall spending, the analysis found. Oklahoma and West Virginia give
up amounts equal to about one-third of their budgets, and Maine
allocates nearly a fifth.
In a sense the relationship between municipalities and corporations takes on a distinctly
asymmetrical character. No longer the mythical equal partnership between the public and private sectors, the outsized power of corporate bodies versus the at times vulnerable and plaintive nature of public bodies dominates the public will for its self interest. In these negotiations, it is like David vs. Goliath but without the support of a caring deity.
A portrait arises of mayors and governors who are desperate to create
jobs, outmatched by multinational corporations and short on tools to
fact-check what companies tell them. Many of the officials said they
feared that companies would move jobs overseas if they did not get
subsidies in the United States.
The tragedy of this circumstance is the real need and desire for municipal bodies to create, attract and keep jobs for its citizens, which in turn, bolster their tax bases in order to provide the revenue which the public bodies can then use to create the circumstances/conditions in which people choose to live. The irony of course, is that these incentives, tax breaks, and other mechanisms are doing the job the private sector is (as described by conservative thinkers) supposed to be doing. Representative bodies in essence become the job creators, through legal bribery and payoffs while the private sector gets a leg up through public support for ultimately private ends. Corporate entitlements for all!
They dictate their terms, and we’re not really in a position to
question their deal terms,” Sarah Eckhardt, a commissioner in Travis
County, Tex., said of companies she has dealt with recently, including
Apple and Hewlett-Packard. “We don’t have the sophistication or the
resources to negotiate with a company that has the wherewithal the size
of a country. We are just no match in negotiating with that.
The struggle to pull out of the near collapse of the US economy has its short term and necessary goals but if long term economic stability and real social development are to take place, than what must be considered is the reigning in of the gargantuan nature of corporate power over public bodies. The effect of a corporation's presence or absence on a city, county or state's ability to govern effectively on behalf of its citizens, underscores the growing weakness of governmental bodies as extensions of popular will, in a societyfounded on the primacy of the popular will in governance. But then again some argue this society is founded upon the primacy of private property as the primary element in ones participation in governance. The resolution of that quandary as it pertains to corporate and governmental relations, will explicate the past and define the future of this nation.
Update: In Michigan, we are seeing the extreme example ofmunicipal submission to corporations as the state which is the living heart of the power that was once organized labour is on the verge of passing a "Right to Work" law. Tax breaks, incentives, loans and grants are no longer enough for Vulture Capitalists, now we must return to the direct depressing of labour itself.
