Pitchfork Time

It is an astounding thing to me as I sit here in this period of history and realise that people in the United States are going to sit passively by and let us all be impoverished. Yet I ask myself what really is one to do? Some commentators think we the people should be hammering down doors demanding our money back from the banksters who held the government hostage. Take one as respectable as Alice Schroeder of Bloomberg's Financial Service, quoted in Mandelman's Monthly Museletter:

The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.” Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology.

No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.

And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”

Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and — oh yes — the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”

The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses.

And yet I ask myself, how exactly does one go about fomenting a revolution on the streets? Call me bourgeois but I have no idea exactly how to do that...Should i mount the Bonneville and ride to Wall Street and wave a red flag demanding the return of our cash and power to the people? Who exactly do these banksters think is going to come after them and engage in a running street battle with them? Is New York in 2010 about ready to resemble St Petersburg in 1917?

It is a curious thing to me how Americans have taken their lumps and failed to stand up and be the least bit annoyed in public with modern leadership. We find ourselves deprived of representative government by the interference of big business, we live daily with policies designed to loot our treasury and deprive us of jobs, health care and homes. we have no sense of security, no sense of our established place in the order of things, and yet we sit passively by and allow our country to be looted. How odd it is. I wonder what people alive today will tell future generations when they ask why our generation failed to act? In the 1960s we Baby Boomers acted in unison in opposition to the direct threat of the draft and war in Vietnam, but today we sit idly by and watch that heritage get looted without so much as a hiss of anger. I feel like I have an inkling of how ordinary people in Germany in the 1930s found themselves allowing the Nazis to take over their country. I guess it just kind of happened...you know? (Silent embarrassment ensues).

Stock Island Mangroves

It was another of those pre-frontal days when Up North people look to the skies and anticipate snow, while down here at twenty four degrees north latitude we get hazy skies, humidity and a strong feeling that a summer thunderstorm might be in our future. So I took the dog for a walk. The wind was blowing steadily from the south and the temperature was just above 80 degrees and I dithered wondering where to take Cheyenne on my way in to Key West to meet my wife. There is a road, closed with a gate, on Stock Island that I have never explored. Today was the day to break new ground.That the area is littered with trash is just one extra benefit and a crude swastika stenciled on the barricade just adds flavor to the scene. Cheyenne liked the trash and ignored the political statements. Walking down the street I noticed one of those inexplicable head benders that Stock Island specializes in. How do two streets cross? Beats me but the blocked off street is part of 5th.There is another spot on Stock Island, land of no urban planning, where two avenues meet but we'll discuss that ineptitude another day. In this case Cheyenne and I set off down the empty roadway. Between the mangroves to the west I could see, in the distance, the condominiums lining South Roosevelt, just south of Flagler Avenue. The expanse of water is called Cow Key Channel. Stock Island got it's name from the fact that in the 18th century they kept cattle here to feed the urban Key West population. Nowadays they keep the workers here to satisfy the labor needs of the Big City. Many workers choose cheap housing afloat and park their transport in the mangroves:We also came across a roadside shrine in this unlikely spot. How Armando contrived to get into a fatal road traffic crash here is not explained:For those of a more temporal nature there was an actual car seat folded neatly and dumped in violation of the "No Littering" sign.
A solitary cyclist passed by with a brief nod in response to my "Buenas." In my defense he looked like a tired Cuban fisherman with his cap pulled down and his forearms as leathery and tanned as parchment.Then this dog appeared from behind and followed us nervously. It had a bone in its jaws and it eyed Cheyenne and I as though we were likely to steal his prize possession. I was seized by an urge to bundle him up, put him in my pocket and treat him to a first world life, but he had a collar and an obvious destination in mind. he sidled past like a dog used to being stoned by strangers and disappeared. Stock Island is the land of the poor and the downhearted and doesn't have much milk of human kindness left over for animals and others lower down the food chain.My Cuban fisherman was a middle aged white man, a character from a Steinbeck novel, living in a tent, sitting in a chair resting from his day's labor, spare clothes hanging neatly on a line to dry, his life container in a small cube of nylon. Welcome to the wealthiest, freest country in the world. If you live like this it is your moral failing that got you here, and don't you forget it. I slid by, thanking my lucky stars for my job at the police department. I could not bring myself to photograph him in his exhausted poverty so I snuck a photo of his home.The mangroves at the end of the paved street branched off and we did the same, finding ourselves in a wilderness of mud and mangroves. And trash. Always the trash.

It was, in many respects, a delightful spot. A short tramp, perhaps five minutes, brought us to the waterfront and a splendid view south across the Straits of Florida. The cooling breeze was absolutely lovely.I speculated wildly about the raffish leopard print cloth on the end of the dock but could come up with no sensible reason for its presence, and left it to the more vividly endowed to create an improbable story line to explain it's presence. Leopard spots on fabric seem so....decadent. Cheyenne got busy but happily the supply of dead fish seems to be evaporating so she just got to look and not eat.

There was a mattress ready to receive me had I been overcome with exhaustion, or accompanied by those eager women that seem to hover around some people like flies around...well, never mind. Cheyenne and I were alone:We thought we were until a dog started barking and a woman tried to shush it. It was I suspected the little brown fellow who was home and ready to defend his turf. We retreated as I was unwilling to disturb the peace and not keen to get into conversation with a mangrove dweller. It would just be depressing.The path followed a narrow limestone ridge between water covered mangrove roots:

And then we were back out on the paved road where we met the tent man's other half striding down, a lunch box banging on her hip. She greeted us cheerily and petted Cheyenne who is a whore and will take the kindness of strangers anywhere, anytime. She strode off bellowing for the man, possibly named Jay or Hey I couldn't tell.The thing about these mangroves is that even people with jobs can find it hard to find a home even supposing they wanted to. Rents are astronomical, and to move into a $1,000 modest one bedroom would set you back three grand with all the deposits and stuff. And this is not fancy housing in "the Avenues" as the streets between 5th and 12th Avenue are known on Stock Island. As crazy as it may sound decent, newer homes in this crowded neighborhood were selling for more than $400,000 during the boom years. Even now I'll bet a decent home this close to Key West would command a quarter million, be it ever so small. A rent free tent may not be so bad.Junk piled up is a fact of life even in this little shrine in a front yard.And sneakers out to dry on a fence could just as easily be drying on a mangrove branch.

For me, I'd rather not live this close to my neighbors, but perhaps I am just a snob. It does one good to take a walk and re-dimension one's expectations sometimes.

The President's Turn

I greatly enjoyed a three page article on the subject of President Obama and his inability toget anything done, a subject that has caused me endless frustration. Someone called David Michael Green, a professor at Hofstra University, New York has published a superb discussion of the failures of the excessively polite President. The entire article can be found at OpenEdNews.com, at this link:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Just-Gimme-Some-Truth-by-David-Michael-Gree-100206-128.html

Here is an excerpt that tickled my funny bone. Having read it I feel less alone:

Much as I hesitate to say it, the changes in the Obama White House this last week are slightly encouraging. It's even possible that they've recognized what a suicide mission they've been on this last year and have taken some baby steps in the only direction available to them for survival, let alone any sort of redemption. Obama doesn't strike me as constitutionally able to throw a punch at an adversary. It's just not in his character. But this week, at least, he flicked a couple of spitballs. For this White House, that's progress.

In any case, there was much that was telling about the event. First, that this semi-hostile dialogue which many have compared to the British weekly tradition of Prime Minister's Question Time transpired at all was a somewhat profound development. Of course, that statement says far more about the pathetic nature of the American political system than it does about Obama or the cavemen from the Valley of the Right who questioned him. It's also enormously telling that the GOP resisted until the last moment allowing the cameras to roll during the question and answer period they really didn't want to go there. Think about that. You had a single meek politician going up against two hundred rabid bullies, and which side wanted to make sure the public didn't see the engagement? Did Republicans know something in advance that made them fearful of public exposure, even when going up against President Neville O'Bambi?

Perhaps it was the same thing that caused FOCS (Frighten Old Children Silly) "News" to cut away from the broadcast in the middle of it, despite the food-fight event being the very epitome of what television loves to show in politics. Uh-oh. Not only was Obama occasionally holding Republican feet to the fire, but he was even doing it without a Teleprompter! Evidently, the sight of the nice, genteel, reasonable black man helping a bunch of white sharks make themselves look like the stupid liars they are was all too much for Mr. Ailes and company. Seeing this was causing smoke to pour out of the ears of robo-regressives all across America, their circuits frying all at once. Cut to American Idol reruns, boys! Fast!

Why? Because Obama was actually making these lying thugs own, even slightly, the consequences of their destructive deceits. Here he was with the Republicans at their retreat, for example: "There was an interesting headline in CNN today: "Americans disapprove of stimulus, but like every policy in it.' And there was a poll that showed that if you broke it down into its component parts, 80 percent approved of the tax cuts, 80 percent approved of the infrastructure, 80 percent approved of the assistance to the unemployed. Well, that's what the Recovery Act was. And let's face it, some of you have been at the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities." Similarly, the next day he was tweaking seven Republicans who actually walked away from their own proposal for a bipartisan debt-cutting commission, just because the socialist president had subsequently agreed with them on the idea.

The Kumbaya Kid is considerably more gentle about whacking these Joe McCarthy protégés than I would be. I'd like to see a lot more Harry Truman out of him, and a lot less Harry Reid. A lot more Betty Friedan, and a lot less Betty Crocker. Just the same, the Massachusetts election may go down as an inflection point in this presidency, the moment at which the White House figured out that standing by silently and watching yourself get your ass kicked by dress-up cowboy cowards unarmed with anything but lies and bullying tactics turns out to be, amazingly enough, something of a strategic error in national politics.

But what I find so astonishing about moments like this is how revealing they are of simple truths that somehow manage to get lost, particularly in the ranks of the Democratic Party. To begin with, Barack Obama has been hard at work for a year now, crashing an enormously promising presidency that just happens to also have his name attached to it, and the way forward has always seemed to me so transparently clear. Regressives in Congress (some from his own party), representing parasitical special interests, are sucking the blood from the American polity, even as the corpse begins to stiffen in rigor mortis. Maybe I'm just a sucker for that old fashioned democracy gospel, but I still believe that many times good policy can also be good politics. How much greater public fury at banks and other corporate predators does there need to be before the president realizes that actually taking on the malefactors of great wealth in this society also happens to be the best thing that could happen to him politically? How many times does he have to lose public support because of the astounding fabrications people are promulgating about him before he decides to stop playing nice and call the liars liars?

After seeing the president in action this week, the obnoxiously abrasive pundit Chris Matthews opined that Republicans should fear Barack Obama's learning curve. That one gave me a real chuckle. As far as I can see, no one in America has more to fear from Obama's learning curve than the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who is currently slated to be very much on the housing market in January of 2013. Indeed, the single thing most utterly astonishing to me about the Obama presidency is how such a politically astute candidate could turn out to be such an absolutely lame, slow-to-get-it, president.

There are plenty more thought provoking essays at his own site which I have labelled Regressive Antidote in my own weblist.

Oddities

A man riding down from Solares Hill towards the cemetery on a Honda Metropolitan. Quintessential Key West,you might say, and notice the pronounced slope from the island's highest point, estimated at around 16 feet (5 meters) above sea level. I was out walking aimlessly around the middle part of town, around William and Margaret Streets, on a hazy sunny afternoon last Thursday. A developer is planning on turning the four million dollar historic Harris School on Southard Street into something new. For now it sits forlorn amidst it's empty parking lot awaiting the costly face lift:In a recent post Pefley in Seattle identified a classic car he photographed. I have no idea what this is on William Street. It looks like it would be more at home 90 miles south in Havana.
I think this next sad object under a mouldy tarp is a Corvair. Maybe not:The red blob in the middle of the fence says "No Trespassing" though how you are supposed to trespass a fence that tall I have no idea, not being a pole vaulter.

Living life in North Carolina seems to involve enjoying life in Key West as well. Good job, kayak bicycle and spend money chaps.I was prompted to take a picture of the interior when I noticed the multiplicity of wires and mounting brackets and general electronic crap. Living life indeed!Better living through electrons. This next one cracked me up after I double checked what I was seeing through the cemetery fence.The bronze colored plaque celebrates the dead person's service in the Civil War fighting in the rebellion against the Union and someone has seen fit to mark the spot with a Union Flag. That is really missing the point with delicious irony. In the next picture I saw riepe's over sized dog celebrated in a bumper sticker. Of course I had to take the picture whereupon I spotted the burger joint sticker as well.For my take on the In-N-Out phenomenon here is a link to an essay I wrote about my last visit to that particular burger chain in California's Central Valley:

http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2007/09/in-and-out.html

For the sentimental types I include a photo of an orchard blooming in February:No cat is safe that we care for, none, to paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan's Three Little Maids in Mikado:An international incident was narrowly averted by pre-emptive use of the extend-a-leash. I looked around when I saw the scribble on the street sign painted on a power pole:Indeed the city seems to have forgotten to label Carsten's Lane as one way from William to Margaret. The penciled notation might help. It happened that I started noticing tin roofs, like this delightful antique rusting gently under the southern sun and salt:

Or this old style tin roof in much better shape: I love these particular Key West roof styles:
This church tower on Fleming reminds me of the Missionary church tower they invented for the movie Vertigo, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He set part of the movie in the mission church at San Juan Bautista in Central California but the church does not actually have a tower so they made one up for the movie. Had Hitchcock lived here instead of in Santa Cruz County he could have used this Congregational Church tower to show Jimmy Stewart losing his mind over another blonde:

And talking about pencilled scribbles I spotted this phone number written down as though by some dork who hadn't heard of pen and paper. What a weird way to disfigure a gateway.This next oddity must have a proper botanical name but it put me in mind of things more biological than botanical.And then I came across this conveyance, a vestige of a proud 20th century corporation, now said to be headed towards ownership by the Russian mob. Or not because GM is currently owned by the US government who is embarrassed by news that the Dutch buyers of the Saab brand are backed by the Mafiya.It happens that people call 9-1-1 and we need to get what we call "descriptors" of the people involved in whatever thing is being reported. All too often callers say "white shirt and brown shorts" or "black shirt, tan shorts" or something like that. "The Key West uniform" I think to myself as I dutifully note down the clothing details. they are supposed to help in case the people move away and officers are out looking for them.

Sometimes we get the word that someone is wearing plaid shorts for a change. A comely young woman in this case. The two other uniform toting people are men.

But the uniform is pretty much the uniform, though locals tend to eschew name brands and visitors manage to look spiffy at the same time. For readers who reside in 1990's style suburban boredom these two pictures:These and other assorted stairways lead not to heaven (usually) but to small cramped inefficient apartments that cost as much to rent as whole blocks of Detroit or Cleveland cost to buy. You would be horrified. Which leads one to ponder what exactly this means:Old Skool Orin has made a point of Portland's efforts to keep the city weird. Key West does that with one hand tied behind it's collective back. Keeping the attitude down to a low hum is a lot harder. I like the live and let live philosophy so I try not to support change for change's sake when an issue comes up.

Then it was time to park the dog and head off to the movies. Cheyenne is actually welcome at the Tropic Cinema on Eaton but I am going to wait till summer comes and the theater isn't as crowded and she will be more used to being out in public with me. Life on the back seat of the Nissan Maxima isn't so bad.On my way down Eaton Street I started to see motorcycles. This is one of the major arteries into Old Town and new arrivals line up around here to take advantage of the guest houses close to Duval Street. This people appeared to be from Manitoba. One would like to think they rode the whole way.In Key west the utility of a small motor scooter cannot be overstated:

Try doing this with a dressed cruiser:Putting multiple vehicles in one parking space is legal in Key West, but if the meter runs out all vehicles in the spot get a ticket. There is tons of free motorcycle parking so you'd think people would use it. I had the great joy of encountering Tony at the corner of Duval and Eaton. We discussed the Bible verse about judging not, lest ye be judged which led us down a dark dead end of disagreement. A young woman walked by and shouted "You give Christians a bad name!" to which Tony replied with a venomous comment that involved an asshole. I told him I was shocked and he looked at me with contempt.Of course the anonymous woman is right, Tony just makes public what Christians don't want to say out loud. They hate fags. Bummer, but what shocks me is how many fags want to belong to a club that views them as sinners. People are just incomprehensible to me; if you need to believe in the unbelievable become a Druid, a group of tree worshippers who I don't think care about sexual orientation. Here's another preposterous sign seen as I walked back to the car from having seen and enjoyed A Single Man, ironically enough a superb story well told about a fag! I suppose that makes me a fag enabler, or something.A tumble down house still on offer for a price that seems to ignore quite happily the realty of the US real estate market. Perhaps unreality is another fine Key West quality.

Eaton Street at seven o'clock at night and warm as a summer's day. Ah, Key West.