| Progressive Calendar 01.06.06 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001 tc.umn.edu)
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| Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 02:20:45 -0800 (PST) | |
P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 01.06.06
1. Ffunch lunch bunch 1.06 11:30am
2. Counter recruit 1.06 12noon
3. Jack Pine collective 1.06 12:30pm
4. Palestine vigil 1.06 4:15pm
5. Bioneers/DVD 1.06 7pm
6. Protocols/Zion/film 1.06 7:15pm
7. Palestine/photos 1.06 8pm
8. IRV workshop 1.07 9:30am
9. GreenParty StP 1.07 12noon
10. Northtown vigil 1.07 1pm
11. SmokeFree SatNite 1.07 9pm
12. John Pilger - The quiet death of freedom
13. Lakshmi Chaudhry - Greg LeRoy/The great American jobs scam
14. Norkus-Crampton - Development & Gary Schiff
15. ed - inside the outside (poem)
--------1 of 15--------
From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Ffunch lunch 1.06 11:30am
Meet the FFUNCH BUNCH!
11:30am-1pm
First Friday Lunch (FFUNCH) for Greens/progressives.
Informal political talk and hanging out.
Day By Day Cafe 477 W 7th Av St Paul.
Meet in the private room (holds 12+).
Day By Day is non-smoking; has soups, salads, sandwiches, and dangerous
apple pie; is close to downtown St Paul & on major bus lines
--------2 of 15--------
From: sarah standefer <scsrn [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Counter recruit 1.06 12noon
Counter Recruitment Demonstration
Our Children Are Not Cannon Fodder
Fridays NOON-1
Recruiting Office at the U of M
At Washington and Oak St. next to Chipolte
for info call Barb Mishler 612-871-7871
--------3 of 15--------
From: The Jack Pine Collective <info [at] thejackpine.org>
Subject: Jack Pine collective 1.06 12:30pm
Hey. Many of you reading this have already heard of the Jack Pine
Collective. For those of you who haven't, check us out at:
www.thejackpine.org. Basically, we're a collective formed with the
intention of opening a collectively run, intergenerational free space
committed to popular education, anti-oppression, and the fight for
justice, liberation, and autonomy. We seek to foster self-expression,
self-representation and radical activism by providing a family-friendly
space for skill sharing, events, meetings and art.
As of mid-December, we are happy to say that we have been granted
non-profit status, which is a huge step in enabling us to actually open
and maintain a space.
At the same time, we are experiencing a lot of burnout due to small
numbers and a heavy workload, and really need the energy of new collective
members to carry this project forward. So if you've been excitedly
watching our development from afar, or even if this is the first time
you've heard the name "Jack Pine," now's the perfect time to get in on the
fun!
Our next meeting will be Friday, January 6th, at 12:30pm, at 4134 Park
Ave. S., in Minneapolis. All are welcome, and someone will be there to
entertain your kids. For more info or if you need transportation, e-mail
us: info (at) thejackpine.org, or call 651.645.7216.
--------4 of 15--------
From: peace 2u <tkanous [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Palestine vigil 1.06 4:15pm
Every Friday
Vigil to End the Occupation of Palestine
4:15-5:15pm
Summit & Snelling, St. Paul
There are now millions of Palestinians who are refugees due to Israel's
refusal to recognize their right under international law to return to
their own homes since 1948.
-------5 of 15-------
From: Rebecca Cramer <biego001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Bioneers/DVD 1.06 7pm
Jan 6 Fri, 7pm. 3148 29th Ave S, Minneapolis) House party. DVD of a
"plenary" lecture that was given by Bill McKibben at the 2005 Bioneers
conference, and meet local Bioneers who are bringing the 2006 conference
to Minneapolis via satellite. Never heard of the Bioneers? It's a
visionary approach to environmental justice - and more. FFI Rebecca
Cramer, biego001 [at] umn.edu, or 612-724-8864. Rebecca Cramer
--------6 of 15--------
From: Adam Sekuler <adam [at] mnfilmarts.org>
Subject: Protocols/Zion/film 1.06 7:15pm
Protocols of Zion
Jan 6-Jan 13
At 7:15/9:15 also at 3:15/5:15 Sat. & Sun.
AT THE BELL AUDITORIUM
Marc Levin, director of the 1998 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, Slam,
now brings us an explosive look at resurgent anti-Semitism in the wake of
9/11. The film draws its inspiration from an encounter he had in a NY taxi
not long after 9/11, in which his driver, an Egyptian immigrant, made the
startling claim that the Jews had been warned not to go to work at the
World Trade Center on the day of the attack. He then said that "it's all
written in the book," referring to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a
notorious forgery created over 100 years ago, purporting to be the Jews'
master plan to rule the world. Long ago discredited as a fake, the book
was a crucial influence on Hitler, and Levin uses its renewed popularity
and sudden availability via such outlets as Amazon and Wal-Mart as his
departure point. His personal odyssey into a world of religious
intolerance and ethnic bigotry waged, ironically, in the name of God,
makes for an extraordinary documentary.
The Bell Auditorium is the nationšs only dedicated year-round non-fiction
film screen and is located at 10 Church Street SE in Minneapolis inside
the Bell Museum of Natural History. More information can be found at
www.mnfilmarts.org/bell or by calling 612.331.7563
--------7 of 15--------
From: margaret <hope4peace22000 [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Palestine/photos 1.06 8pm
welcome to palestine:
A photographic glimpse into life under the Israeli occupation of Palestine
through the lens of a Jewish American.
Photography by K. flo Razowsky
Opening:
January 6, 8:00pm
Art of This Gallery
3222 Bloomington Ave S, Minneapolis
www.artofthis.net
Viewing Hours January 11th through January 29th
Wednesday 12-6pm
Friday 12-4pm
Saturday 1-6pm
Sunday 1-6pm
flo Razowsky has spent 17 months since August 2002 living and working in
the West Bank, Occupied Palestine. Her work consists of documentary
photography and writing, and volunteering as a core member of the
International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM is a Palestinian led
movement focused on non-violent resistance to the Israeli military
occupation of Palestine.
"welcome to palestine" is a show of Ms. Razowsky's photography from August
2002 until June 2005. These images offer a hint into the reality of daily
life under military occupation and the determination of a people to resist
annihilation. the imagery included in "welcome to palestine" also
presents a view of Palestinians as a people and culture, independent of
the mainstream conception of Palestinians defined solely as victims of
terrorists.
For more information: ismtwincities [at] riseup.net
--------8 of 15--------
From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: IRV workshop 1.07 9:30am
earn How to Speak Fluent IRV
A Better Ballot Campaign Workshop
FairVote Minnesota is conducting a workshop to prepare speakers to present
at Better Ballot Campaign events and share with people how Instant Runoff
Voting (IRV) can improve elections and help make every vote count.
(Better Ballot Campaign is the new name of the Minneapolis Instant Runoff
Voting Charter Amendment Campaign)
News about the Better Ballot Campaign is spreading quickly and we can't
keep up with the growing demand for speakers to present at activities and
events. We need campaign volunteers to present at house parties,
political party meetings, community meetings, tabling and petition signing
events, and organizations that want to join the growing Better Ballot
Campaign coalition.
Join the campaign and learn how to communicate effectively:
* Why Instant Runoff Voting is better than our current voting system
* How Instant Runoff Voting works
* Where it's being used and how it improves the quality of elections
* Responses to the key questions voters have about Instant Runoff Voting
* The strategies of the Better Ballot Campaign to put the Instant Runoff
Voting charter amendment on the ballot in 2006
* How to recruit volunteers to become involved in the campaign
Date: Saturday, January 7, 2006
Time: 9:30-11:30am
Place: Hennepin History Museum
2303 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis
Register by sending an email to MplsCharter [at] FairVoteMN.org.
If you can't make this session, but are interested in learning more about
the Better Ballot Campaign or becoming a presenter, please send us an e-mail
and we will follow up.
Please call campaign organizer, Jeanne Massey, at 612-850-6897 if you have
any questions.
--------9 of 15--------
From: ed
Subject: GreenParty StP 1.07 12noon
All people interested in finding out more about the Green Party of St. Paul
are invited to:
Our monthly meeting
First Saturday of every month
Mississippi Market, 2nd floor
Corner of Selby/Dale in St. Paul
noon until 2 pm
<http://www.gpsp.org>
--------10 of 15--------
From: Lennie <major18 [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Northtown vigil 1.07 1pm
The Mounds View peace vigil group has changed its weekly time and place.
We will now be peace vigiling EVERY SATURDAY from 1-2pm at the at the
southeast corner of the intersection of Co. Hwy 10 and University Ave NE
in Blaine, which is the northwest most corner of the Northtown Mall area.
This is a MUCH better location.
We'll have extra signs. Communities situated near the Northtown Mall
include: Blaine, Mounds View, New Brighton, Roseville, Shoreview, Arden
Hills, Spring Lake Park, Fridley, and Coon Rapids.
For further information, email major18 [at] comcast.net or call Lennie at
763-717-9168
--------11 of 15--------
From: Jeanne Weigum <jw [at] ansrmn.org>
Subject: SmokeFree SatNite 1.07 9pm
You are invited to the Hat Trick Lounge on Saturday January 7th for Saint
Paul's 4th SmokeFree Saturday Night. The featured bands are the Ditch
Lillies playing "Old Time Music and Clogging" and the Summit Stunt Pilots
with "members of the Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs". The Hat Trick
Lounge is located at 134 East 55h Street. Music is at 9 PM. $5 cover. 21
plus NO SMOKING.
This is the Saturday before the St. Paul council votes on the tobacco
ordinance so it is an opportunity for people to show their support for
smoke-free venues.
If you are young enough (or old enough) to stay up past 9:00, please stop
by the Top Hat AND forward this announcement to your friends.
---
From: Bob Spaulding <r_spaulding [at] yahoo.com>
The Hat Trick is one of those little neighborhood bars (but downtown)
that has been around forever. It has a terrific owner, Mike Fish, who
has been very generous in his support of the downtown district council
and community over the years...
--------12 of 15--------
The Quiet Death Of Freedom
By John Pilger
ZNet Commentary
January 06, 2006
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-01/06pilger.cfm
On Christmas Eve, I dropped in on Brian Haw, whose hunched, pacing figure
was just visible through the freezing fog. For four and a half years,
Brian has camped in Parliament Square with a graphic display of
photographs that show the terror and suffering imposed on Iraqi children
by British policies. The effectiveness of his action was demonstrated last
April when the Blair government banned any expression of opposition within
a kilometre of Parliament. The High Court subsequently ruled that, because
his presence preceded the ban, Brian was an exception.
Day after day, night after night, season upon season, he remains a beacon,
illuminating the great crime of Iraq and the cowardice of the House of
Commons. As we talked, two women brought him a Christmas meal and mulled
wine. They thanked him, shook his hand and hurried on. He had never seen
them before. "That's typical of the public," he said. A man in a
pin-striped suit and tie emerged from the fog, carrying a small wreath. "I
intend to place this at the Cenotaph and read out the names of the dead in
Iraq," he said to Brian, who cautioned him: "You'll spend the night in
cells, mate." We watched him stride off and lay his wreath. His head
bowed, he appeared to be whispering. Thirty years ago, I watched
dissidents do something similar outside the walls of the Kremlin. As night
had covered him, he was lucky. On 7 December, Maya Evans, a vegan chef
aged 25, was convicted of breaching the new Serious Organised Crime and
Police Act by reading aloud at the Cenotaph the names of 97 British
soldiers killed in Iraq. So serious was her crime that it required 14
policemen in two vans to arrest her. She was fined and given a criminal
record for the rest of her life. Freedom is dying.
Eighty-year-old John Catt served with the RAF in the Second World War.
Last September, he was stopped by police in Brighton for wearing an "offe!
nsive" T-shirt, which suggested that Bush and Blair be tried for war
crimes. He was arrested under the Terrorism Act and handcuffed, with his
arms held behind his back. The official record of the arrest says the
"purpose" of searching him was "terrorism" and the "grounds for
intervention" were "carrying placard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info"
(sic). He is awaiting trial.
Such cases compare with others that remain secret and beyond any form of
justice: those of the foreign nationals held at Belmarsh prison, who have
never been charged, let alone put on trial. They are held "on suspicion".
Some of the "evidence" against them, whatever it is, the Blair government
has now admitted, could have been extracted under torture at Guantanamo
and Abu G! hraib. They are political prisoners in all but name. They face
the prospect of being spirited out of the country into the arms of a
regime which may torture them to death. Their isolated families, including
children, are quietly going mad. And for what? From 11 September 2001 to
30 September 2005, a total of 895 people were arrested in Britain under
the Terrorism Act. Only 23 have been convicted of offences covered by the
Act. As for real terrorists, the identity of two of the 7 July bombers,
including the suspected mastermind, was known to MI5, and nothing was
done. And Blair wants to give them more power. Having helped to devastate
Iraq, he is now killing freedom in his own country.
Consider parallel events in the United States. Last October, an American
surgeon, loved by his patients, was punished with 22 years in prison for
founding a charity, Help the Needy, which helped children in Iraq stricken
by an economic and humanitarian blockade imposed by America and Britain.
In raising money for infants dying from diarrhoea, Dr Rafil Dhafir broke a
siege which, according to Unicef, had caused the deaths of half a million
under the age of five. The then Attorney-General of the United States,
John Ashcroft, called Dr Dhafir, a Muslim, a "terrorist", a description
mocked by even the judge in his politically-motivated, travesty of a
trial.
The Dhafir case is not extraordinary. In the same month, three US Circuit
Court judges ruled in favour of the Bush regime's "right" to imprison an
American citizen "indefinitely" without charging him with a crime. This
was the case of Joseph Padilla, a petty criminal who allegedly visited
Pakistan before he was arrested at Chicago airport three and a half years
ago. He was never charged and no evidence has ever been presented against
him. Now mired in legal complexity, the case puts George W Bush above the
law and outlaws the Bill of Rights. Indeed, on 14 November, the US Senate
effectively voted to ban habeas corpus by passing an amendment that
overturned a Supreme Court ruling allowing Guantanamo prisoners access to
a federal court. Thus, the touchstone of America's most celebrated freedom
was scrapped. Without habeas corpus, a government can simply lock away its
opponents and implement a dictatorship.
A related, insidious tyranny is being imposed across the world. For all
his troubles in Iraq, Bush has carried out the recommendations of a
Messianic conspiracy theory called the "Project for a New American
Century". Written by his ideological sponsors shortly before he came to
power, it foresaw his administration as a military dictatorship behind a
democratic facade: "the cavalry on a new American frontier" guided by a
blend of paranoia and megalomania. More than 700 American bases are now
placed strategically in compliant countries, notably at the gateways to
the sources of fossil fuels and encircling the Middle East and Central
Asia. "Pre-emptive" aggression is policy, including the use of nuclear
weapons. The chemical warfare industry has been reinvigorated. Missile
treaties have been torn up. Space has been militarised. Global warming has
been embraced. The powers of the president have never been greater. The
judicial system has been subverted, along with civil liberties. The former
senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who once prepared the White House daily
briefing, told me that the authors of the PNAC and those now occupying
positions of executive power used to be known in Washington as "the
crazies". He said, "We should now be very worried about fascism". In his
epic acceptance of the Nobel Prize in Literature on 7 December, Harold
Pinter spoke of "a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed". He asked
why "the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless
suppression of independent thought" of Stalinist Russia was well known in
the west while American state crimes were merely "superficially recorded,
let alone documented, let alone acknowledged".
A silence has reigned. Across the world, the extinction and suffering of
countless human beings can be attributed to rampant American power, "but
you wouldn't know it," said Pinter. "It never happened. Nothing ever
happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't
matter. It was of no interest." To its credit, the Guardian in London
published every word of Pinter's warning. To its shame, though
unsurprising, the state television broadcaster ignored it. All that
Newsnight flatulence about the arts, all that recycled preening for the
cameras at Booker prize-giving events, yet the BBC could not make room for
Britain's greatest living dramatist, so honoured, to tell the truth.
For the BBC, it simply never happened, just as the killing of half a
million children by America's medieval siege of Iraq during the 1990s
never happened, just as the Dhafir and Padilla trials and the Senate vote,
banning freedom, never happened. The political prisoners of Belmarsh
barely exist; and a big, brave posse of Metropolitan police never swept
away Maya Evans as she publicly grieved for British soldiers killed in the
cause of nothing, except rotten power.
Bereft of irony, but with a snigger, the BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce
introduced, as news, a Christmas propaganda film about Bush's dogs. That
happened. Now imagine Bruce reading the following: "Here is delayed news,
just in. From 1945 to 2005, the United States attempted to overthrow 50
governments, many of them democracies, and to crush 30 popular movements
fighting tyrannical regimes. In the process, 25 countries were bombed,
causing the loss of several million lives and the despair of millions
more." (Thanks to William Blum's Rogue State, Common Courage Press, 2005).
The icon of horror of Saddam Hussein's rule is a 1988 film of petrified
bodies in the Kurdish town of Halabja, killed in a chemical weapons
attack. The attack has been referred to a great deal by Bush and Blair and
the film shown a great deal by the BBC. At the time, as I know from
personal experience, the Foreign Office tried to cover up the crime at
Halabja. The Americans tried to blame it on Iran.
Even in an age of images, there are no images of the chemical weapons
attack on Fallujah in November 2004. This allowed the Americans to deny it
until they were caught out recently by investigators using the internet.
For the BBC, American atrocities simply do not happen. In 1999, while
filming in Washington and Iraq, I learned the true scale of bombing in
what the Americans and British then called Iraq's "no fly zones". During
the 18 months to 14 January, 1999, US aircraft flew 24,000 combat missions
over Iraq; almost every mission was bombing or strafing. "We're down to
the last outhouse," a US official protested. "There are still some things
left [to bomb], but not many." That was six years ago. In recent months,
the air assault on Iraq has multiplied; the effect on the ground cannot be
imagined. For the BBC it has not happened.
The black farce extends to those pseudo-humanitarians in the media and
elsewhere, who themselves have never seen the effects of cluster bombs and
air-burst shells, yet continue to invoke the crimes of Saddam to justify
the the nightmare in Iraq and to protect a quisling prime minister who has
sold out his country and made the world more dangerous.
Curiously, some of them insist on describing themselves as "liberals" and
"left of centre", even "anti-fascists". They want some respectability, I
suppose. This is understandable, given that the league table of carnage of
Saddam Hussein was overtaken long ago by that of their hero in Downing
Street, who will next support an attack on Iran.
This cannot change until we, in the west, look in the mirror and confront
the true aims and narcissism of the power applied in our name: its
extremes and terrorism. The traditional double-standard no longer works;
there are now millions like Brian Haw, Maya Evans, John Catt and the man
in the pin-striped suit, with his wreath. Looking in the mirror means
understanding that a violent and undemocratic order is being imposed by
those whose actions are little different from the actions of fascists. The
difference used to be distance. Now they are bringing it home.
(Italics) John Pilger's new book, Freedom Next Time, will be published in
June by Bantam Press
--------13 of 15--------
From: AlterNet, Jul. 27, 2005
INTERVIEW WITH GREG LEROY, AUTHOR OF THE GREAT AMERICAN JOBS SCAM
By Lakshmi Chaudhry
We increasingly live in a Wal-Mart America, where the hours are long,
wages low, and benefits non-existent. Where have all the good jobs gone?
The debate over jobs has for the most part been obscured by partisan
rhetoric, corporate spin and media hype. Screaming headlines about
outsourcing jostle those of corporate fraud. But in the end we're none the
wiser about how to create a better future for ourselves and our children.
Greg LeRoy's new book, " The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax
Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation offers at least part of the answer in
exposing a system that subsidizes corporate greed at the expense of the
taxpayer. Today, states, counties, and cities cannibalize their own
communities in the name of "attracting business," which entails competing
with one another to waste vast amounts of precious taxpayer dollars in the
form of corporate subsidies. As LeRoy demonstrates in his book, these
subsidies are not just "unfair" but also entirely useless. Companies
routinely pocket the money - all $50 billion of it each year - without
delivering either the promised jobs or tax revenues.
LeRoy spoke to AlterNet from his office in Washington DC.
Lakshmi: So what is the "great American job scam"?
Greg LeRoy: It's an intentionally rigged system that enables companies to
get huge tax breaks and other taxpayer subsidies by promising good jobs
and higher tax revenues - and then allowing them to fail to deliver and
suffer no meaningful consequences.
LC And this is a system that costs the American tax payers $50 billion a
year?
GL Right, that's the estimated total spending by states and cities.
LC One of the points you make in the book is that it is very hard to get
this data, right? There is no disclosure, with these corporate deals being
negotiated behind closed doors. So the very heart of your argument - that
corporations don't deliver on the increased tax revenues, increased jobs,
etc that they promise in return for these tax breaks - is obscured by this
lack of disclosure.
GL People who develop these estimates at the state level are dealing with
broad aggregate numbers. It would tell you nothing about any specific
company, whether it did or did not create jobs, did or did not generate
tax revenue. In most states, we are completely in the dark.
Having said that, 12 states now have some form of annual company- specific
disclosure. We're very excited because just recently Illinois, just began
reporting data. There are four states now that disclose some of their data
on the web and we think Illinois is the best.
LC Whose interest does this secrecy serve? It obviously serves the
interest of the corporations, but it's surprising that state governments
have not pushed for more disclosure.
GL It obviously serves lots of peoples' self-interest to hide what's going
on: the companies who get the big tax breaks and don't want people to look
carefully at the outcomes; the politicians who often frankly know this is
bad public policy and don't want to own up to it. Often the effects of
these tax breaks play out over many years. So you have one governor hand
off budget potholes to the next governor and so on. So there's lots of
buck-passing going on. There's lots of self-interest in these things
being hidden.
LC One of the most striking things in your book is this ridiculously
lopsided power relationship between public officials and corporations. The
politicians are almost like members of a harem vying for the king's
attention, or in this case, a company's favor.
A lot of the scams that you describe - as in extorting these huge
subsidies without delivering any kind of return - comes from the fact that
different states are competing with each other to land a corporate deal.
Have we always had this war among the states, almost a kind of mutual and
assured destruction?
GL That's really the nub issue. It's the power dynamic both among states
and companies and among suburbs and companies - because this harem/king
dynamic, as you put it, plays out at the regional level as well as at the
multi-state level.
No, it was not always like this, and I tried to sketch the major kind of
milestones along the way where I think the dams really broke. There's the
birth of a site location consulting industry we got with Fantus, and its
growth in the '50s and '60s is part of the story. The secretive consulting
industry hides in the shadows and specializes in playing states and cities
against each other on behalf of the companies it represents. By the '70s,
we had done this thousands of times.
Then there's the rise of the whole business climatology industry as
exemplified by the studies - especially in the '70s and early '80s by the
Grant Thornton Firm for the state manufacturers associations - which
offered this highly politicized interpretation of jobs and tax data. These
studies basically said to the North and to the Midwest: "You've got to be
more like the South. We will judge you based on how willing you are to
give up your tax base and help us suppress wages."
Another big watershed moment was the arrival of the Japanese transplants -
the auto assembly plants that started arriving early- and mid-'80s.
Despite the fact that the Japanese automakers had to set up these plants
because they were fighting off protectionist legislation in the U.S.
Congress, they still got eight- and nine- figure subsidy packages by
playing states against each other - and all with the assistance, frankly,
of the American site location consulting industry.
So I think all those are big watershed moments that kept upping the ante.
So today the average state has 30 different ways it gives away money in
the name of jobs. It does a very bad job of accounting for outcomes and
monitoring cost effectiveness. And the debate in most state legislatures
is not about fixing this problem or reducing subsidies but over enacting
even more handouts.
LC Along the way though there's also been a huge ideological
transformation of American culture, beginning with the Reagan era. And
according to this rightwing, pro-corporate worldview, attracting business
is an unadulterated good. As in anything you do bring a corporation into
your city, district, state, or your country, is an absolute good. How much
has the broader political transformation been a part of making this kind
of corporate extortion easier and more legitimate?
GL I think you are exactly right. The broader rise of conservatism goes
hand-in-glove with this give-away subsidy problem. Frankly, I've seen very
little scholarship looking at the sort of political economy of job
subsidies. It's a woefully understudied subject. Anecdotally, I've heard
people many times suggest that the way governors allocate their economic
development dollars amounts to political engineering.
They use these dollars to cut ribbons with mayors and county executives of
their own party; use the programs for partisan benefit; grow new jobs in
areas that are more favorable to them politically. I've never seen that
studied systematically - so there are a couple of great dissertations
waiting for somebody to write here.
LC Right at the outset, in the introduction, you write: "At the core of
this scandal are corrupted definitions of 'competition' that obscure cause
and effect." What do you mean by that?
GL The corporations have transformed the definition of competing for
economic development - so it's now defined as which state or which suburb
will give away the most money to a company.
But here's the reality: because state and local taxes are such a small,
small cost factor to the average company - less than 1 percent for the
average company after they deduct them on their federal income taxes -
these taxes don't determine where companies expand or locate. If a company
were to pay attention to 0.8 percent of its cost structure and ignore the
other 99.2 percent, that company would not be around very long.
So what's really going on in this rigged system is that companies are
getting paid to do exactly what they would have otherwise done. All the
while that governments are posing as competitors, it's really a false
competition, a rigged competition.
LC Let me clarify that. So what you're saying that a company's decision on
where to locate its operations actually has nothing to do with these tax
subsidies. And therefore, if they decided to set up shop in Location A,
they would have done it anyway, irrespective of whether they received
handouts or not.
GL Exactly right. It's why believe that we need a different form of
competition that doesn't have to do with how much of your tax base you'll
give away. It should be about how good your public systems are - public
systems that are available to all employers. That is, how good is your
infrastructure? How good is your workforce development system? How good
are your public schools? How good is your quality of life, your cultural
amenities and your open spaces? It's not just about being "fair." Quite
frankly, that's the way a lot of employers, including the best employers,
determine where they want to invest.
So it's a really twisted dance that local officials often have to dance.
In one breath, they're talking about all these giveaways which allow
companies to dodge paying their fair share for these public goods that I
just talked about. On the other hand, they have to brag about how good
their public goods are because they know that's what really matters to a
lot of good employers.
LC And most of these companies are basically being rewarded for doing what
they are supposed to do anyway, which is, do business.
GL Exactly right. And they are getting rewarded in ways that don't really
affect their bottom line - actually, I'd argue, in ways that could hurt
their bottom line because it's going to undermine the quality of life, the
quality of the skills base, and the quality of the infrastructure.
LC One of the most interesting connections you make in the book is between
this kind of economic competition and sprawl. So when local governments
give huge incentives to retail stores like Wal-Mart, they're actually
creating unsustainable development.
Yes, absolutely. It's not just the terrible things Wal-Mart does to wages
and competition or the trade deficit. It's about cities being treated like
they are disposable; and open space being treated like its disposable; and
malls being treated like they are disposable.
Because many states allow job subsidies to go to retail companies like
Wal-Mart, etc., we've got suburbs that are cutting each other's throats.
They're robbing each other of shoppers in order to collect the incremental
payment on sales tax. So we have this gross over-building of retail space
in this country, far more than any of our major trading partners, far more
than we had twenty, thirty years ago. Wal-Mart, as the biggest retail
player, is the poster child for that trend.
It's terrible public policy because it moves lots of economic activity
away from places that need it, that are already developed, and that have
the infrastructure. It's an extremely inefficient and, as you put it,
unsustainable, both ecologically and from a tax point of view. We can't
keep thinning out and expecting the taxpayer to support ever more miles of
roads, ever more miles of sewer and water lines, ever more under-utilized
public schools.
It just doesn't work, and at some point things snap. So you see a number
of big cities - Detroit is a pretty good example, or Philadelphia -
struggling with their tax base. These regions are so gutted that they're
really struggling.
LC When it comes to jobs, a lot of the conversation in the media is
centered around outsourcing. You don't focus on that very much at all. Why
is that?
We have one: the case of Sykes Enterprise, the call center company that is
included in Chapter One. That story has not been pieced together
elsewhere, and we think it's one of the breaking news hooks of the book.
But you're right. We didn't focus a lot on outsourcing. Here's the reason.
It goes back to the disclosure problem. Certainly there are lists of
companies out there that outsource - some of them are the biggest IT,
engineering and manufacturing companies that we know about. The Fortune
100 so to speak. But because those companies are so huge, the quality of
disclosure about economic development subsidies that the companies have
gotten is fragmentary. It would be almost as bad as finding a needle in a
haystack to try and knit together the story of a particular job that used
to be in upstate New York and got a tax break and is now off-shore.
Linking those specific stories is virtually impossible in those cases
because of the poor quality of disclosure of subsidies.
And there are so many things going on with jobs that aren't moving
overseas. We wanted to focus on the fact that taxpayers are subsidizing
fast-food joint and poverty-wage big-box retail jobs and other kind of
low-end, dead-end service sector jobs - and all this at a time when some
of the best jobs in the country, like manufacturing jobs, are either being
automated out of existence, or going offshore or being lost because of bad
trade policies.
In manufacturing, for instance, we focus on this one particular kind of
tax break called "single sales factor" that a lot of state manufacturers
associations have been touting as kind of a panacea. But if you look at
the track record of the states that have adopted this huge tax break,
they're doing no better than the country as a whole.
The issue affecting manufacturing jobs generally is globalization. There
are a certain number of manufacturing jobs that are very unlikely to go
offshore because they are tied to markets here - printing things that are
time sensitive, business-sector related things and so on. Other things are
very likely to go offshore - things that are labor intensive, more
commoditized, and technologically less complicated. And we need to grapple
with those realities. We have to save what we can, acknowledge what we
can't save, and try to find good ways to employ people that are affected
by those events. But subsidizing Wal-Mart or fast food joints isn't the
answer to dislocated manufacturing workers.
LC Another interesting thing about the Sykes story is that these call
center jobs that the politicians paid so much to attract weren't even
worth having.
GL Yes, the call center jobs often do not pay very well, and often suffer
lots of erratic ups and downs in terms of layoffs and rehiring. So it's
really testimony to what a company can do when it tries to be a big fish
in a little pond. These call centers had impressive numbers of jobs. Some
of them had five hundred or more people working in them, and in pretty
small labor markets in rural areas where they were drawing a lot of
people. To me, it makes those stories all the more tragic because the
amount of subsidies that the localities gave was, for them a very huge sum
in many cases. And I'm sure it left a bitter taste in a lot of people's
mouths.
LC So what is the solution? You list a series of prescriptions at the end
of the book. But what is the broader philosophy - paradigm change, if you
will - that is required here?
GL One theme we come back to a lot - especially when I train public
officials - is the idea of your own civic self-esteem or your own civic
self-image. If you internalize the demeaning, degrading stereotypes that
are peddled by the business climatologists and by the site location
consultants - if you think your community really is worthless - then
you've set yourself up to give away the store for a bad deal.
The idea is not to internalize those demeaning stereotypes. To believe
that your community has real assets - a good school system, a skilled
labor force, valuable business linkages that other companies would like to
link up to. When you've got some fundamentals that have real value for
companies, then you can drive a smarter bargain. Then you can ask for job
quality standards, for better wages and healthcare. You can put a clause
back in the contracts so that if the company fails to deliver, taxpayers
get their money back. And at the state level you can even demand
disclosure - as we now have in twelve states - so that taxpayers can see
every deal, every year, to measure the cost against the benefits.
I like to think that we're close to a tipping point on the disclosure
debate. With twelve states now on line and some of them putting their
information on the web, we think that disclosure of subsidies is going to
become as mainstream as things like the disclosure of toxic emissions
which has been federal law for a very long time as well under the Toxic
Right to Know Law. We think it's approaching that level of acceptance and
legitimacy.
None of the states that have adopted these rules have hurt their business
climate. None of them are losing deals or losing businesses as a result of
putting some sunshine on the process. I think they are making it easier
for local officials to keep the bottom-feeders out of the public trough,
so to speak. And I think they are making it easier for public officials to
save their money for skills and infrastructure and things that really
work.
LC And that actually creates better paying jobs in the future, right?
GL Skills and infrastructure have always been proven winners for creating
good jobs. But now more than ever, it's an acute issue because of the
looming baby boom generation retirements that will begin en masse - as
early as 2008 - and because of the decrepit condition of many parts of the
American infrastructure system, which have suffered because states and
cities have had such budget crunches for so many years.
So either we are going to let our infrastructure fall apart and hurt
everybody's productivity and we're going to ignore the massive loss of
skilled labor resulting when the baby boom hits the exit doors. Or, we're
going to massively redirect our money away from company giveaways into
things that benefit all employers. It's the only way to cope with this
very predictable train wreck.
Lakshmi Chaudhry is the former senior editor of AlterNet. Copyright 2005
Independent Media Institute
--------14 of 15--------
From: dave [at] colorstudy.com
From: lara norkus-crampton <lnorkus76 [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Development & Gary Schiff
While we have all been trying to enjoy the holidays, the city of
Minneapolis has been very busy. I have been working with an informal
network of citizens in the Uptown area. We have been attempting to make
sense of the flagrant disregard for zoning and planning that is feeding
the present development frenzy and threatening to destroy what is so
special about this much loved part of the city.
Please do not think that the precedent of approving development regardless
of the zoning, the existing character of the area, or the infrastructure
(like traffic) to support it will only affect the Uptown area. Five days
before Christmas, the Planning Commission attempted to approve a whole
slew of zoning code changes that would remove many types of development
from any sort of public oversight or review citing the burden on staff
time as one rationale. The changes are so extensive and lengthy, it is
hard to know what the full ramifications are without some sort of legal
interpretation--or at least a public hearing to explain them. It is only
because enough concerned citizens showed up and protested that the vote on
these has been postponed until mid-January. (Your neighborhood board
should have received information on this so contact them if interested.)
My point in bringing this up is that zoning is important. It sets a
standard or at least some limits on what can happen in your community.
As former Council President Ostrow stated during proceedings related to
this issue: Zoning is a social contract with the residents who have
literally bought into the existing scale and character of the area. This
social contract is being broken with alarming regularity in the Uptown
area. And, as we all know, if zoning is weakened in one part of the
city--it becomes weakened in the city at large.
As part of a Pedestrian Overlay District, the zoning for height in Uptown
is a maximum of 4 stories. Most buildings in Uptown don't even approach
this height. It is this "human scale" that makes Uptown such a unique
area and so popular with people from all over the metro. The success of
the area in terms of property values has been due, in part, to the balance
that has been struck between a vibrant commercial core, the surrounding
residential areas and the Chain of Lakes. So it was with shock that we
watched the Planning Commission (an appointed body) approve a 13 and 6
story Ackerberg Lagoon "mixed use" complex (commercial and condo's) on
the site of the Lagoon Theater and the adjacent parking lot next to the
Midtown Greenway. How could this happen?
There was a lot of talk about allowing the unprecedented scale of this
development for this "unique site" since since it had very little street
frontage and since it wasn't near any immediate residential housing
(shadowing, etc). But it was over 3 times the existing zoning for height.
Photographic representations (produced by the developers) made the complex
look fairly bizarre towering up behind the old historic two story Walker
Library. I was one of the people who appealed this decision to the full
City Council. It costs hundreds of dollars to do this and lots of time to
do research and write the appeal--especially since we didn't have
thousands to pay an attorney. But we didn't feel we could let something
this radical through without a fight.
It was first heard by the Zoning and Planning Committee. The Greenway
Coalition was an enthusiastic supporter because the developers promised
amenities for the Greenway, such as a pedestrian bridge over the Greenway
leading to the complex and a future transit stop and they said they liked
tall skinny buildings better than wide ones. Despite this, the Committee
upheld our appeal and turned down the 13 story proposal as too radically
out of scale with the existing buildings in Uptown. The only person to
vote against our appeal was our own Council Member, Dan Niziolek, who had
been working closely with the Ackerberg Group despite wide spread concern
about inappropriate development by the citizens of his ward. Before the
meeting was adjourned, CM Gary Schiff said he thought 10 stories might be
a good "compromise". CM Niziolek seemed to like this idea.
We didn't see why 2.5 times the existing zoning for height was any more
appropriate than 3.
Next was a vote by the full city council. The city planning staff and
Mayor Rybak supported 6-8 stories max for the proposal. CM Gary Schiff
again proposed 10 stories. We asked for the scale to be brought down to
within the existing zoning (4 stories)--with maybe 6 stories in the center
of the site as a compromise to meet the council and community concerns
that 13 stories was just too tall and out of scale for Uptown. The
Greenway Coalition supported the original 13 story proposal. Mayor Rybak
said Uptown is not Downtown and wanted it lower. But 10 stories is what
we got (actually--we ended up with a 10, 8 and 6 story development when
all was said and done), with assurances that the uniqueness of this
proposal on such a unique site wouldn't be used as a precedent for
anywhere else in Uptown.
Since then, an initial proposal for one or two 9 to 11 story towers has
been presented by Greco Development for the Lake Lyndale area. At a
Greenway Charrett visioning session, (funded by the city and maybe the
county) we were informed by the hired facilitator that "10 stories was the
new annointed height for Uptown", when we asked why all the case studies
we were supposed to review for development along the Greenway were so
tall. Plans for a revamped Calhoun Square to fill two full city blocks
(between Hennepin and Fremont) have gone from a 4 story proposal
(submitted before Ackerberg Lagoon was approved) to a complex including a
city block wide 7 story proposal on Lake Street and an enhanced 5 story
parking ramp directly behind residential housing.
There were weeks of negotiations between the Calhoun Square developers and
the surrounding communities. They claimed they were getting pressure from
the neighborhoods to go down and from "the city" to go up. At the final
Planning Commission hearing, 5 days before Christmas, the community
members were told they would not be allowed to make any public statements.
Then the 7 story proposal was approved with little dissent or discussion.
The City Council representative on the Commission (who is also the Council
Zoning and Planning Committee Chair), CM Schiff, stated that with the
approval of the 10 stories on Lagoon and 7 stories at Calhoun Square that
they had now established Uptown as a new Mid-Rise District.
i Chairperson Judith Martin concurred that it had taken a lot of time but
was worth it "to get this result". The importance of this designation is
that there has been no change in the existing zoning--only an increased
willingness to completely disregard it. It is for this reason that the
adjacent CARAG neighborhood has appealed this decision to the full City
Council as a community. The hearing will be on January 19th, 9:30 AM at
317 City Hall.
If we had been allowed to speak, we would have said that proposals
adjacent to residential neighborhoods need to be designed with sensitivity
to the surrounding character and scale. As the Minneapolis Plan states:
Policy 9.15. Minneapolis will protect residential areas from the
negative impacts of non-residential uses by providing appropriate
transitions.
Policy 9.21. Minneapolis will preserve and enhance the quality of
living in residential neighborhoods, [and] regulate structures and
uses which may affect the character or desirability of residential
areas....
There is also a lot of talk about "Commercial or Transit Corridors" and a
belief that increasing height and density along these areas is always a
good thing. We would say that it depends on the context and what the
existing infrastructure can support. There are many more developments
approved for Uptown area than I have room to discuss here (lucky you).
Traffic is already at a stand still at times and the Ackerberg Lagoon
development alone will have 780 parking stalls to accomodate the new
residents and customers. Oh yeah--and the bus service was recently cut!
Here is what the Minneapolis Plan says about Corridors:
Policy 4.3. Minneapolis will support development in Commercial
Corridors where it enhances the street's character, improves its
ability to accommodate automobile traffic and foster pedestrian
movement, and expands the range of goods and services offered.
Implementation Steps:
-Ensure that commercial uses do not negatively impact nearby
residential areas. -Develop plans for the City's major Commercial
Corridors which articulate the desired character of the street.
What can I do?
By this time you must be asking yourself this question! At miminum,
please send two emails: One to your City Council Member and one to Mayor
Rybak (r.t.rybak [at] ci.minneapolis.mn.us) as soon as possible. You can find
your council member's name/address at:
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/. (Note: The districts changed
with the last election so your council member may have also changed.)
Please ask them to not allow anything over 4 or 5 stories for Calhoun
Square to preserve the character of Uptown, and to respect the existing
zoning and the surrounding residential neighborhoods. This unilateral
Mid-Rise District designation is unacceptable and undemocratic. If you
are available, come to the hearing on January 19th. They are always very
interesting and numbers count!
Thank you for your patience with the length of this email. There is a lot
going on and a lot at stake for all of us. It is Our City. We should
have a legitimate place at the table to decide what direction we want our
communities to go.
Please forward to any interested parties.
Sincerely, Lara Norkus-Crampton Uptown Resident
--------15 of 15--------
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