High Altitude Politics

Common sense and jogging

2011-08-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's just me. That's what I think whenever I think about the binary of common sense and weirdness. As the Marxist revolutionary Antonio Gramsci once pointed out, common sense itself operates as a form of class control and a site of class struggle.

The very sense of common sense, and its corollary weirdness or strangeness, work as socially and historically contingent concepts. A recent story really brings them home -- Republican candidate Rick Perry's penchant to carry a fire arm while jogging. As this Slate story notes:

Reporters asked newly announced presidential candidate Rick Perry on Monday whether he carries a gun while campaigning. Perry refused to answer, but he does seem to carry guns in unexpected places. He shot a coyote while jogging in 2010, for example. What's the safest way to carry a gun while running?

After talking about practical ways to carry a fire arm while jogging, the story justifies carrying a gun while jogging:

While Perry shot the coyote in defense of his puppy, animals attack runners with some regularity. Mountain lions, wolves, and grizzly bears have all killed joggers. Last year, a kangaroo attacked an Australian runner. The current barefoot running fad raises special risks: In 2010, a copperhead snake bit the foot of a North Carolina man who was running across the state to protest cuts to social services funding. (Rick Perry says he carries his gun to combat snakes.)

Most gun-and-run enthusiasts in Internet chat rooms, however, seem more concerned about attacks by humans than by wild animals. The Explainer is unaware of any statistical analysis of attacks against runners, but sexual assaults and other crimes against female runners appear to be depressingly common. In 2010 alone, female runners suffered attacks in Malibu, San Diego, Galveston, Winnipeg, Seattle, and McAllen, Texas. Some of the most infamous attacks on women have been perpetrated against runners, including the 1989 Central Park jogger case and the murder of Chandra Levy in Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Park.

Of particular interest to me is this second paragraph. For me, it implies how identity may structure common sense. As a jogger I have never come under physical threat by an attacker, nor have I thought such things were likely. Jogging, for me, is a very peaceful activity. If it were not a peaceful activity, or at least if I perceived that it might not be peaceful, then I might have a very different reaction to carrying guns while jogging.

This poses three problems. First, do other sources, schemas, and sites of reason come into play that I have not considered? Within this blog post, the reasoning subject appears fairly homological and monological. The female subject gets reduced to possible, experienced, and imagined violence; as Donna Haraway pointed out some time ago, that reduces women to an effect of a discourse, stealing their agency. It seems that there might be other experiences and ways of thinking that might come into play in structuring whether women think of toting guns while jogging as weird. Second, it seems somewhat problematic to create this female speaking subject. In this sense, there might be multiple notions of weirdness and common sense from a female perspective. Furthermore, the very notion of people in what is considered female bodies might start from another perspective that frames common sense (such as liberalism, Marxism, libertarianism). To be a women and expected to frame an answer from a women's perspective, in this sense, amounts to a problematic notion, as it is patronizing and objectifying. Third, what right does someone have to represent someone outside their own subject position? Can people be allowed to speak without having their ideas dictated to them?

Of course, this does not get me out of, or even start to answer, the fundamental set of questions that run throughout this post:

Is carrying a gun while you jog a weird thing?
What makes it so (not) weird?
What does it say about our own social location, society, and social processes that we find it (not) weird?

At this point, I lack any easy answers. I only seem to be moving in circles.

Public(izing) GMOs, (De)constructing Binaries

2011-04-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

RBJ Walker once said that answers come cheaply, but question cost considerably more. It takes a lot of effort to craft questions in dialogical and constructive ways (in ways that advance ideas and lay bare assumptions and create critical reflection without engaging in personal polemics). A few weeks ago, Dr. Geeta Chowdhry gave a presentation on her sabbatical research in India. In Walker’s mode of inquiry, I hope to go for broke.

Chowdhry’s examines how politics over GMOs and BTs fall increasingly into hybrid judicial spaces. The judiciary, as an arm of the government, increasingly has become a civil society actor, and various groups are using it as such, to check government power (Suman Sahai, Vandana Shiva, Aruna Rodriguez). Beyond the judiciary, there has been unprecedented public meetings around the country about government responses to GMOs with massive protests outside and four-hour meetings inside, creating in some sense a deliberative space. In both sites, actors have struggled over what public deliberation has meant (what counts as argumentation, what public space means, who gets to speak, what form of address the speech should take) and a unitary nationalism has been increasingly collapsed into science (making a critique on science a critique on nationalism, and reproducing a monolithic national culture).

This raises several questions:

What are the boundaries of this public sphere or these counterpublics around GMOs and BTs? Is this a nascent public sphere or a continuing counterpublic (drawing from previous efforts at contentious politics)? If this is a counterpublic, what is the public sphere in India (is it simply a synonym for civil society or something more)?
What demarcates this speech community (counterpublic/public sphere) from other more geographically broad ones (antiglobalization, human rights, etc.)? Is such a demarcation analytical, political, empirical – or all three?
What repertoires are these practices in India drawing upon? Is this a reiteration/appropriation of subcommandante Marcos and the Landless People’s Movement in Brazil?
How are metaphors being used to connect spaces analytically, rhetorically?
How is this hybridity connected to the struggle of bodies within India and globally?
How are anticapitalist and procapitalist ideologies (from Indian and Western traditions) mapped onto these hybrid spaces?
Other than the location of the judiciary, who else is engaging in hybridity? Where are and how is demarcation struggling against ambivalence?
Is ambivalence being coopted into a multicultural liberalism that negates coercion? Or will it be in the future?
Is the assertion of hybridity, in this case, recreating binaries dominant within the public sphere literature – at what cost?

I hold some provisional answers from my theoretical positions, but I want to remain ambivalent in answers, structured in questions.

Youth and the Two Futures of Arizona

2011-03-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

By Joel Olson

As spring heats into summer in the desert, two Arizonas fight for supremacy. One, lodged in power in the Arizona State Capitol, drafts anti-immigrant and “fiscally responsible” bills with glee. It is old, it is white, it is dour and narrow. The other protests these bills from outside the capitol walls. It is young, it is largely brown, it is hopeful but it is angry, and it aims to clash with the old Arizona. On Thursday it earned its first victory.

On Wednesday, one hundred youth from six weeks old to drinking age marched on the Capitol to protest a rash of anti-immigrant bills that, if passed, would have made Arizona’s notorious SB 1070 look like an act of charity. These five bills challenged the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship and would have required every member of official society—from nurses to teachers to school secretaries to doctors to employers—to check a person’s immigration status before healing or educating or hiring them.

The youngest walked in front, dressed up in costumes that represented what they want to be when they grow up. High school and college students followed them. And so the next generation of doctors, baseball players, construction workers, and firefighters descended on the capitol. They chanted “Our Freedom! Our Future!” and sang the civil rights standard, “This Little Light of Mine.” One 30-foot banner had hundreds of kids’ handprints on it along with written messages to the legislature. Another, carried by middle school students, read “Russell Pearce: Why Do You Hate AZ Youth?”

When they arrived at the capitol they sang, “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” This classic Sunday school song has probably never been sung with such bite, for in singing to the legislature that Jesus loves the children of the world, they suggested that many Arizona legislators don’t. The chants and songs—which could be heard from inside the capitol building—had to prick the hearts of the “Christian conservatives” debating at that very moment how many millions to cut from the public schools and children’s health care.

The Arizona state legislature is firmly controlled by Republicans who represent white working and middle class constituents, including small businessmen and retirees, from suburbs and small towns like Mesa, Gilbert, Fountain Hills, Snowflake, and Lake Havasu City. These white nativist cranks are determined to scapegoat immigrants for the state’s deep fiscal crisis (Arizona is about $3.8 billion in the red) despite the fact that every reputable study shows that immigrants—documented or not—are a net gain to a state’s economy.

Herein lies the secret of Arizona’s nutty nativism: it is the outer shell of an intensive effort by elites to “reduce government” through deep cuts in public education, Medicaid, welfare, and the universities—while actually expanding the power of the state through border militarization and turning police officers, teachers, principals, nurses, and doctors into immigration agents.

Like the anti-union legislation in Wisconsin, anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona is the front line of a conservative attack on the welfare state. The plan: First, blame the recession on “illegals” and public school teachers—but not Wall Street barons. Second, use the fiscal crisis in state budgets to justify deep cuts in public services as a “necessary measure.” Third, tell the public, “Everyone must make sacrifices.” Fourth, (and in direct contradiction to #3), cut business taxes deeply in order to “spur investment.” Fifth, use the predictable loss of tax revenue to justify more extensive cuts in public services, which justifies further tax breaks for the rich, which… well, you see the pattern. In other countries this process would be led by the World Bank and would be called “structural adjustment.” Here it comes from whites of modest means at Tea Party rallies underwritten by the Koch brothers. The whole thing looks particularly absurd in Arizona because our politicians are more obnoxious than elsewhere, but it’s a nationwide affliction.

But this working class nightmare is being challenged by Arizona’s youth, who have a very different vision of the future. Of the three great populist responses to the Great Recession so far (the Tea Party and Wisconsin being the other two), the immigrant rights movement most suggests a new world. The Tea Party, of course, suggests not the future but the past, with its laissez-faire policies turned into populist slogans through white resentment. The massive demonstrations in defense of public sector workers in Wisconsin have been among the most inspiring in the U.S. in a decade, but it is hard to tell whether Wisconsin signals the birth of a new movement or is the last gasp of the old. Its energized defense of the working class and its occasional militancy inspire fresh hope, but its defense of a long-declining union movement and its overwhelming whiteness make it seem like a struggle from an earlier era.

By contrast, the movement against nativism feels new. Though it began before the recession, with major nationwide demonstrations in May 2006, since 2008 it has had to dig in for the long haul in response to a rash of anti-immigrant bills from Arizona to Georgia. And in doing so, it has not followed the typical paths of movement building by the left. Completely absent at Wednesday’s youth march, for example, were unions, civil rights organizations, and representatives from nonprofits. This protest was entirely from the grassroots, and young people were in the vanguard.

Undocumented parents—who have risked everything for a better life for their families by coming to the U.S.—are understandably hesitant to enter the political fray, although many do. But their children, many of them U.S. citizens and most of them fairly Americanized, are ready to fight. They fear losing their parents and other relatives to ICE raids—many already have. They are determined to not let it happen again. One middle school student at the protest, who has already had two uncles deported, defiantly told to the crowd through the bullhorn, “I don’t want to lose more of my family than I already have.”

Their documented friends are ready to fight, too. In Arizona, if you go to a public school, chances are you have undocumented classmates. As a result, many young people here, including whites, have friends who are undocumented. Empathy for their situation cuts across race and class among these youth. In one speech, a third-grader said, “My friends are endangered and threatened and I don’t want them to go to Mexico and live on the streets.”

So it’s not surprising that youth are taking the lead in the struggle against the nativist teabaggers. High school students throughout Phoenix walked out last week to protest the anti-immigrant bills, many of them marching many miles from their schools to the state capitol. Thousands walked out last spring in the fight against SB 1070, too. And that’s why they marched on the Capitol on Wednesday.

Immediately after the march hit the local news, grouches in the blogosphere complained that the kids were being “used” by grownups in the immigrant rights movement, and that they should be studying or playing rather than being “exposed” to politics at this young age. As if young folks don’t know what’s happening to them! As if they can’t engage in politics and do their homework and watch cartoons, too! (They are a multi-tasking generation, after all.) Such criticism pretends to express concern for children, but they are really just further attempts to patronize and depoliticize young folks, and keep them from shaping their own future.

And then, the youth of Arizona tasted their first victory. The very next day after the march, the legislature fiercely debated all five bills, and all five of them went down in defeat! The Republicans who joined Democrats in voting against them said they were moved by arguments from corporate Arizona that these bills were “bad for business” and a “distraction” to the budget crisis. But kids know they were heard, too. Insiders at the Capitol tell me that the place was abuzz with the youth protest, and that it had them worried: if they are already protesting now, before the bill goes to the governor for her signature, what will they do in the next few weeks? The aura of ungovernability hung in the air. Further, the media has started to discuss how anti-immigrant laws are affecting Arizona’s youth and how nativist legislation is connected to budget cuts. Many are starting to openly wonder how such bills and laws will affect Arizona’s future. They act like they have come up with these questions on their own, but kids know better.

This is only one battle in the fight for Arizona. The nativists, led by Senate President Russell Pearce, will counterattack soon. But the other Arizona, the Arizona that exists in the eyes of its youth, will be ready for that, too.

Arizona’s young folks know how nativism affects their future. And they are not standing for it. While the state legislature seeks to hurl Arizona into a laissez-faire dystopia where brown people are neither seen nor heard, Arizona’s youth are struggling for a new future, one in which they and their families are free to live, to love, and to work wherever they please. This is their state. As a six-year-old told a reporter at the march, “We are here to fight for freedom.”

Are US Universities Censoring Speech?

2011-02-18T21:42:00.000-08:00

In a video, Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) claimed that US colleges and universities are willfully suppressing freedom of speech on campuses.¹ He states that 71% of such institutions do so. However, he gives no examples of such occurrences.

I do, however, think he is correct. However, I think he forgets to take into account the role of the state in this. Here I plan to show some ways in which the state influences what higher education institutions do.

Take for instance speech that can be constituted as “sexual harrassment,” or hateful or discriminatory speech or threats. An example of discriminatory speech would be speech targeted against those who are minorities in a society—such as gays and lesbians, or Sikhs, Jews and Muslims. Speech or actions can also be considered “threats” and may be criminally prosecutable. Universities that do not address matters of harrassment and discrimination break the law. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits such kinds of speech.² Even if universities might enforce these laws to cover themselves from lawsuits, such cases of punishing “hate” speech end up protecting those in society who would otherwise be bullied or harrassed by others.

There can be debates over whether “hate” speech is always tempered by norms and rules on campuses. Certainly there is no agreement over what defines “hate speech” either. What if it is aimed towards a political party, politician, institution, group or person? Can a university bar say a KKK grand wizard from speaking on campus? A university might not knowingly invite groups who open up such controversy and potential for lawsuits, but they do often allow many to get by. What most universities end up doing is allowing people to speak, as well as, others to protest, in accordance with the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Indeed, a more direct curtailment of free speech comes from the government. While the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of speech under the First Amendment, the Executive Office has often cracked down on political activism. The Bush Administration introduced the Patriot Act, that allowed law enforcement to collect information on US citizens. Soon, the FBI was collecting information on US students in this manner, and perhaps even on faculty and staff, such as on books borrowed from university libraries.³ Some colleges and universities did not allow this, however.⁴ So, indeed universities and colleges do exercise discretion over such matters.

One clear violation might be the way some institutions hand over private student documents, such as health, employment histories and academic records of students to the state, if pressed to do so by law enforcement agencies. They do so openly for foreign students, who are without prosecution considered potential security threats to the US.

How this affects free speech in the end is unknown, also. With all the surveillance, some students probably self-censure to avoid the spotlight. On the flipside, some polls show very low interest in politics from students.

Footnotes:

1Lukianoff, Greg. URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEyZE42nDZU

2NAU. See http://training.newmedialearning.com/psh/narizonau/refresh/120.shtml

3ACLU. March 16, 2006. “ACLU letter to the Senate expressing strong opposition to the “Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006,” Authorizing Warrantless Surveillance by the National Security Agency.” See http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-letter-senate-expressing-strong-opposition-%E2%80%9Cterrorist-surveillance-act-2006%E2%80%9D- See also ACLU. Sept. 10, 2010. “FBI Improperly Spied on Activists, Says Justice Department Inspector General.” URL: http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security/fbi-improperly-spied-activists-says-justice-department-inspector-gener . Also see “ACLU Calls on University of Washington to Curb Campus Surveillance.” URL: http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/aclu-calls-university-washington-curb-campus-surveillance

4ACLU. Sept. 23, 2003. “San Rafael, CA Library Privacy Statement.” See URL: http://www.aclu.org/national-security/san-rafael-ca-library-privacy-statement

Corruption and Class Struggle: What It’s Like to Live in Arizona Right Now

2011-01-12T10:37:00.000-08:00

by Joel Olson

With the passage of the notorious anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 last spring, the outlawing of ethnic studies as of January 1, the gutting of the school and university systems, the collapsed housing market, the high unemployment rates, and now the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, you might be wondering what it’s like to live in Arizona right about now.

It ain’t easy.

But it helps to put Giffords’s shooting in historical perspective, which is defined by two things in Arizona: corruption and class struggle. And ironically, this perspective gives me hope about the radically democratic future of my home state.

Arizona’s economy was founded on the “Five C’s:” copper, cotton, cattle, citrus, and climate (tourism). These C’s were controlled by big mining and agricultural interests and real estate developers. Corruption was commonplace as they manipulated the political system for their benefit. A group of these capitalists, called the Phoenix 40, controlled state politics until the 1970s, when the political establishment opened up some. But even after their rule, the state capitol has always been a place to lie, bribe, and scam your way to what you want. If the names Don Bowles, Evan Mecham, AZ scam, Fife Symington, or the Keating 5 (which included Senator John McCain) mean anything to you, then you know that corruption is as plentiful as the parking here. And I haven’t even mentioned Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio or State Senator Russell Pearce, the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum of racist nativism.*

SB 1070 and Giffords’s shooting, in other words, are but the latest of a storied history of corrupt cowboy capitalism.

Such tomfoolery is part of the class struggle in the Grand Canyon State. Three classes matter in Arizona: elites, the white middle class, and the working class. The elites come mainly from the agriculture/mining, tourism, and construction/real estate sectors (with an emerging tech sector). They are the masters of the corruption I described. But in a system of majority rule, elites need a junior partner to dominate. This is where the white middle class steps in.

The white middle class is the engine of suburban development here. The new housing developments, strip malls, and big box stores that pop up almost daily (until the recession, at least) are built for and fueled by this class. Many in this class run small businesses related to the main sectors of the economy, such as ranching, construction, landscaping, and pool maintenance. Many are retirees who used to manage businesses in other states. This small business atmosphere contributes to the libertarian, Barry Goldwater-style political culture of the state.

For years, this relationship has been mutually beneficial. While legal segregation never took deep root in this state (most of Arizona’s explosive growth took place after Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954), unofficial practices have kept many neighborhoods and schools comfortably white for decades, and the best jobs have been traditionally denied to Chicanos and Natives. (With a Black population of just three percent, the racially “out” groups in this state have historically been Chicanos, Mexicans, and indigenous peoples.) Politicians have successfully tied these practices to the laissez-faire economic policies of the elites, giving whites the sense that their success is due strictly to their own work ethic rather than being facilitated by white privilege. As a result, many white middle and working class Arizonans identify with the success—and conservative politics—of the elites.

This collusion has created an anything-goes capitalism mixed with a suburban consciousness. Call my state the Wild West or suburban hell—they’re both accurate to a large degree.

But the partnership has been fraying in the last two decades. Pressures to diversify corporations, universities, and governments have led elites to support various multicultural initiatives, which middle class whites resent. (Arizona voters in November voted to outlaw affirmative action by a wide margin.) The state’s Latino population has outpaced white growth, and the state is now nearly one-third Latino. Areas that were once comfortably white now have Spanish-language business signs. More and more schoolchildren have brown faces—even in the “good” schools. Cars roll down formerly white streets bumping music whose percussion comes from a tuba.

Further, middle class whites increasingly see elites in collusion with the Brown working classes rather than them. They have reasons for believing this. Agriculture, construction, and tourism all depend on a highly exploitable, low-paid working class, which makes migrant labor desirable. Undocumented labor makes up 27% of all construction workers, 60% of agricultural workers, 25% of restaurants workers, and 51% of all landscaping workers in Arizona. This sets small business interests—who usually can’t take advantage of such labor—into a tizzy. It sets off many other middle and working class whites as well, who feel that “they” are stealing “our” jobs. This is the political power behind SB 1070—a law that Arizona’s elites largely oppose.

The frayed alliance between these two classes has created the political mess this state is in today. It is the story behind SB 1070, HB2281 (the anti-ethnic studies law), the elimination of affirmative action, the attack on the public education system, the attack on public workers for enjoying “Cadillac” pension plans, and Giffords’s shooting. The alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, is not only of the white middle/working class, his addled mind is a gross exaggeration of its contradictions and confusions. Of course Loughner is probably crazy, but his mental health—and even his ideology—are not the point. What matters is that the conflict over this frayed class alliance—and all the political vitriol it has generated by Tea Partiers and others—pointed his illness toward Gabrielle Giffords.

In the face of this mess, it is the working class—largely Brown, largely poor, largely poorly educated, largely ignored—that represents the best hope to build a new Arizona within the corrupted shell of the old. Exploited by the elite, despised by many whites, and largely shut out of the political system, this class has had to make its own way through the state’s crazy political landscape.

With a weak Democratic Party, a labor movement crippled by “right to work” laws, a small civil rights contingent, few political nonprofits, and almost no organized left, Arizona’s working class is turning to grassroots democracy, operating outside the “official” political channels and fearlessly making political demands that challenge the pillars of laissez-faire capitalism itself. This path they are carving is quite possibly a model for working class struggles throughout the nation.

Take the grassroots fight against SB 1070, for example. The Tierra y Libertad Organization in Tucson has been a leader in opposing SB 1070. But it is also creating a new model of democracy. Declining to become a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, they raise funds through the community, which they use support their struggle for the self-determination of its base communities. In Phoenix, Puente has organized the major immigrant rights demonstrations in Arizona, but they are also organizing neighborhood meetings throughout the Valley of the Sun. In Phoenix and Flagstaff, the Repeal Coalition (I’m a member of this group) demands that all persons in a global economy be free to live, love, and work wherever they please, and they demand that ordinary people have a full say in those affairs that affect their daily lives. The undocumented workers, moms, and college students who make up the group don’t seem to worry that these demands are deeply radical and disrupt the very functioning of Arizona politics as it currently operates. These groups work with others, such as Border Action Network, No More Deaths, and Arizona Interfaith, that are organized in a traditional nonprofit format but nevertheless encourage face-to-face democracy and are courageously fighting 1070 and myriad other evils.

These working-class struggles suggest a new Arizona. They suggest a world in which working people decide the fate of the community, not the rich. They suggest a world in which democracy rather than white privilege decides how to allocate resources. They suggest a world in which borders are tools of the bosses rather than walls that “defend sovereignty” or “prevent terrorism.”

This class will not win for a while. The elites and the white middle classes are yet too powerful. This coming year, Arizona politicians will gut the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, defund public education until it barely operates, and do many more stupid things. But as elites and the white middle class continue to bicker, the Arizona working class continues to learn lessons, develop leadership, practice grassroots democracy, and make demands that seem “unreasonable” today but might tomorrow become as obvious as the multiplication table.

Corruption, elite domination, and white favoritism are the most important factors in understanding Arizona’s strange political history, including this latest episode. But class struggle against it is key to understanding why the nation’s strangest state may soon be in the vanguard of struggles for real freedom. Those involved in such struggles stand like saguaros in this beautiful state, even as the snakes and scorpions scurry about us.

Joel Olson has lived in Arizona for over 25 years. He teaches political theory in the PIA department at NAU.

* For the uninitiated or un-Arizonan: Don Bowles was an Arizona Republic reporter who was murdered by a car bomb in 1976 while investigating connections between Arizona elites and the Mafia. Evan Mecham was a racist governor (he was a John Birch Society supporter) from 1987-1988 who was impeached for obstruction of justice and misuse of government funds. The Keating 5 were five U.S. Senators, including Arizona Senators John McCain and Dennis DeConcini, who were accused of corruption in 1989 for illegally intervening on behalf of Charles Keating, whose Lincoln Savings and Loan bank collapsed, causing thousands to lose their life savings. “AZ scam” was a bribery and money laundering scandal that several state legislators were convicted of in 1991. Fife Symington, the governor of Arizona from 1991-1996, was impeached and indicted for 23 counts of fraud and extortion.

Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update

2010-10-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1761/cell-phones-and-election-polls-2010-midterm-elections

Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update

October 13, 2010

The latest estimates of telephone coverage by the National Center for Health Statistics found that a quarter of U.S. households have only a cell phone and cannot be reached by a landline telephone. Cell-only adults are demographically and politically different from those who live in landline households; as a result, election polls that rely only on landline samples may be biased. Although some survey organizations now include cell phones in their samples, many -- including virtually all of the automated polls -- do not include interviews with people on their cell phones. (For more on the impact of the growing cell-only population on survey research, see "Assessing the Cell Phone Challenge," May 20, 2010).
It is possible to estimate the size of this potential bias. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducts surveys with samples of landline and cell phones, which allow for comparisons of findings from combined landline and cell interviews with those only from landline interviews. Data from Pew Research Center polling this year suggest that the bias is as large, and potentially even larger, than it was in 2008 (See "Calling Cell Phones in '08 Pre-Election Polls," Dec. 18, 2008).
In three of four election polls conducted since the spring of this year, estimates from the landline samples alone produced slightly more support for Republican candidates and less support for Democratic candidates, resulting in differences of four to six points in the margin. One poll showed no difference between the landline and combined samples.
In the Pew Research Center's latest poll, conducted Aug. 25 to Sept. 6 among 2,816 registered voters, including 786 reached by cell phone, 44% said that if the election were held today that they would vote for the Republican candidate for Congress in their district or leaned Republican, while 47% would vote for the Democratic candidate or leaned Democratic. Among the landline respondents, 46% preferred the GOP candidate and 45% the Democratic candidate, a four-point shift in the margin. In this survey, both estimates would have shown a close race between Republicans and Democrats.
Limiting the analysis in the survey to those considered most likely to vote in this year's elections, a similar bias is evident. The combined landline and cell estimate produced a seven-point Republican advantage: 50% supported the GOP candidate for Congress in their district while 43% backed the Democratic candidate. The Republican lead would have been 12 points if only the landline sample had been interviewed, a significant difference from the combined sample of five points in the margin.
Significant differences also were seen in March and June of this year. In those surveys, Republicans and Democrats were tied among registered voters in the combined sample of landline and cell phone interviews; in both surveys Republicans had a six-point lead among landline respondents. In the survey conducted July 21-Aug. 5, there was no difference in the estimates produced by the combined sample and the landline sample alone.
After the Nov. 2 elections, the Pew Research Center will release a comprehensive analysis of the cell phone issue, which will include the Center's final pre-election survey.

The Secret Sponsors

2010-10-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

October 2, 2010

The Secret Sponsors

By MIKE McINTIRE

IT was the wisecracking baby who caught my attention.

Sitting on a living room carpet and addressing the camera in a dubbed voice that growls like a Vegas bookie, he tells viewers, “Gramps is sad — Obama cut $455 billion from his Medicare.” He warns of dire consequences from the health insurance overhaul if voters do not take action in November.
“I don’t know what smells worse,” the little guy huffs, “my diaper or this new bill.”

A sign-off informs the television audience that this high-minded piece of issue advocacy was paid for by the “Coalition to Protect Seniors.”

Hmmm.

Who are the members of the coalition? Where do they get their money? And why are they spending hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking candidates for Congress around the country?
Obvious questions, and yet they are difficult to answer, given the increased use of tax-exempt organizations as vehicles for campaign spending.

Nonprofits can raise unlimited amounts, and spend a good percentage of that on political activities. But they are generally not required to publicly disclose their donors, making them appealing to moneyed interests who prefer to stay in the shadows.

A recent report by Public Citizen found that in the 2004 elections, 98 percent of outside groups disclosed the names of donors who paid for their political ads; this time around, only 32 percent have done so. The report suggested that groups were taking advantage of a loosening of disclosure requirements and loopholes. Meanwhile, the amount of money spent by these groups skyrocketed to more than $100 million as of last week, more than twice that of the midterms four years ago.
Corporations and unions can now spend freely in elections, under a recent Supreme Court ruling, but they still must disclose their activities. That’s why an intermediary that is not required to disclose its donors is attractive to politically active businesses that might want to conceal their activity.
“Corporations are reluctant to be associated with specific ad campaigns,” said Paul Ryan, an election law expert at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “I expect more money to go to intermediary groups.”

Reporters are paid to try to get around these barriers, and we have resources at our disposal that the average person does not. I’ll get on a plane if necessary to go confront someone, meet a source or check out an address. News organizations subscribe to public records databases, and go to court to try to force disclosure of important information.

To see just how hard it is to crack the secrecy that shrouds the vaguely named groups bombarding the airwaves, I went looking for one that seemed typical of the trend. The Coalition to Protect Seniors, with its attention-grabbing ads and middle-of-the-pack spending — about $400,000 as of last week — fit the bill.

I also decided to limit myself to the tools that an average voter might have: the Internet and a telephone.

My first stop was the coalition’s Web site, which featured an image of two glum-looking old people and lots of facts and figures asserting that the elderly are at risk from “Obamacare.” There was no phone number. No names of anyone involved with it. An address listed there turned out to belong to a Mail Boxes Etc. store in Wilmington, Del.

Clicking on the “contact us” tab, I sent off an e-mail to the coalition, with all the confidence of tossing a bottled note into the ocean. (I never heard back.)

I called a few political consultants, both Republicans and Democrats. All right, I’ll admit your average voter does not have numbers for Washington political operatives programmed into their cellphones, but I needed to start somewhere. As it happened, none of them knew anything about this group.
“Is that the one with the talking baby?” one of them said.

I went a little deeper. A check of incorporation filings showed that the coalition was formed as a nonprofit in June, around the same time its Web site went up. It listed a registered service agent — someone who accepts legal papers on a company’s behalf — as its official address; a hosting service held its Internet domain name, further masking its actual location and the people behind it.
No in-depth news stories had been done about it. A search for lawsuits, tax filings, liens, property records — any sort of public document I could think of — yielded nothing.

Maybe the spending reports it files with the Federal Election Commission would provide a clue. As with other so-called independent groups that support or oppose candidates, the coalition must disclose its expenditures, although it does not need to reveal the sources of its cash.

The filings showed that it had been busy running TV ads and sending out mailers opposing candidates who supported the health care bill. It reported spending $108,000 in the first few weeks of September to campaign against eight Democrats, including Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader; Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado; and Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Like its Web site, the coalition’s F.E.C. filings also gave its address as Delaware, where many corporations are registered in name only because of the state’s business-friendly tax and disclosure laws.

The address on the coalition’s filings was a suite in a large office building in Wilmington that seemed to be shared by an array of other businesses involved in the health care, financial services and energy industries. Calls to several of them turned up none that acknowledged knowing anything about the coalition.

One last clue emerged from the filings. They showed that much of its money had gone to a Florida consulting firm, the Fenwick Group, a two-person outfit whose Web site listed other clients that included health care and technology companies.

I called the phone number for Fenwick. A man answered.
“K & M Insurance,” he said.
“I’m looking to speak to somebody with the Fenwick Group,” I said.
“Oh, that would be Jay.”

I was sent to the voice mailbox of someone named Jay Handline. I hung up without leaving a message and pondered this latest development.

Why, I wondered, did the number for the coalition’s campaign consultant ring at an insurance company? Looking at K M’s Web site, I saw that it is a broker for seven large health insurance providers, including Aetna, Blue Cross, Humana and United Healthcare.

Mr. Handline, it turns out, also serves as the chief marketing officer of Convergence Health, a health care technology company. That is, when he is not running Dance Trance, a dance fitness studio where he is known as a “nationally acclaimed jazz funk fusion choreographer,” according to its Web site.
“People of all ages are welcome to come and groove to the thumpin’ music!” it says.

I tried the Fenwick number again, and this time Mr. Handline picked up. He said he was not a member of the coalition and only placed its television ads, adding that he got the job through someone in the health care field for whom he had done similar work in the past. He would not name the person
“But they’re not a member of the coalition either,” he said.
So who are the members?
“I really can’t give you any details.”

He took down my number and said he would see if anyone in the coalition wanted to talk about it. No one did.

I suppose I could keep nosing around by traveling to Delaware, or better yet, Florida (I haven’t grooved to the music in a long time). It may yet come to that.

At any rate, it is clearly going to take a lot more work to see through an organization that is about as transparent as a dirty diaper.

2010-09-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

September 27, 2010

As Laws Shift, Voters Cast Ballots Weeks Before the Polls Close

By JEFF ZELENY

CINCINNATI — At least one-third of all ballots across the country this year will be cast before Election Day, party officials said, reflecting a steady rise in early voting that is profoundly influencing how political campaigns are conducted in many parts of the country.

Democrats, who have been quicker to take advantage of the technique in the last two election cycles, say that a voting window of 30 days could allow them to win votes from people who might not otherwise cast a ballot and help level an enthusiasm gap that threatens their Congressional majority. Republicans concede being slower to adjust to the changes, but said they have stepped up their efforts in what they hope will be a strong year for the party.

“You can lose an election before Election Day,” said Jason Mauk, executive director of the Ohio Republican Party, which is intensifying its emphasis on early voting for the first time. “It’s in our best interest to try and bank as many soft votes as we can.”

The calendar may still say September, but people can begin casting their ballots on Tuesday in Ohio. Voting is already under way in Georgia, Iowa and four other states, with Arizona, California and Illinois set to start in the next two weeks.

Never mind that October is filled to the brim with televised debates, advertising pitches and eager anticipation from candidates waiting to see if they win the endorsement of their local newspaper’s editorial page. These old political rituals take place after millions of voters have already selected their candidates.

A patchwork of early-voting laws has emerged in counties and states across the country over the last two decades, but much of the expansion has taken place in the last four years. This is the first midterm election where each party has altered its tactics to adjust to the new realities of voting, according to strategists in both parties, resulting in a campaign where everything from advertising to yard signs comes earlier.

“There is now much more consideration to making sure you have your opponent fully defined before ballots go out in October,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist in California, who is advising Meg Whitman’s campaign for governor. “It would not be unusual to consider dropping that big negative on an opponent in the first week of October to try to have a big impact.”

In California, residents are able to indicate a permanent vote-by-mail request, which means a ballot will automatically arrive in the mail four weeks before an election. The lists are available to campaigns, which Mr. Stutzman said has significantly increased the get-out-the-vote effort for absentee voters.

While people in New York must have an excuse to vote before Election Day, which is why only 5 percent cast absentee ballots in the presidential race two years ago, most states no longer have that restriction. Voting alternatives range from a pure mail-in ballot in Oregon to a three-week period of balloting in Florida, Texas and Nevada.

Early voting has hardly driven all eligible citizens to vote. Turnout has increased only slightly since 2005 when many states began making voting more convenient. But it has made it far easier for campaigns to find voters who would be likely to be supportive if they could get them to the polling place. And with 70 percent of Americans now able to take advantage of no-excuse early and absentee voting, the trend is permanent.

“It’s not going to represent a seismic shift in the number of people voting,” said Dan Tokaji, an Ohio State University law professor who studies early voting and election law. “The convenience of voting is a factor, but it’s not the major reason that people don’t show up to vote.”

Here in Ohio, an election period that now stretches over 35 days is one of the few things lifting the spirits of Democrats. Two years ago, the party overwhelmed Republicans in early voting. John McCain received more votes on Election Day, but Barack Obama carried the state, because many Democrats and independents voted early.

“We have more than 30 days to find our supporters, get them out to vote and win this election,” Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, a Democrat, told a crowd at a weekend rally, where he rolled up in a bus with an early-voting message emblazoned on the side. “Are we going to do it?”

A group of Republican voters filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court in Cincinnati challenging the practice of a few Ohio counties — Democratic-leaning ones — that provide postage-paid envelopes for absentee ballots. Voters in most counties across the state have to provide their own stamp, a disparity they argue created unequal access to vote.

One of the biggest elements of the Democratic Party’s effort to persuade first-time voters from the last presidential race to vote in the midterm election comes through early voting. Organizing for America, the party’s network of Obama supporters, is focusing much of its effort on important Congressional races in states that allow early voting.

In Florida, where ballots began arriving in mailboxes last week, a liberal group called Progress Florida sent an appeal Monday urging people to “Vote in your pajamas.”

The Democratic strategy is being amplified by President Obama, whose travel schedule over the next three weeks closely tracks the dates when early voting begins. Unlike the 2008 campaign, aides said that this year’s early-voting effort was largely devoted to hard-core Democrats, excluding independent voters who might not be supportive of the party’s message.

In Ohio, Mr. Obama is set to arrive next month for an early-voting rally on the campus of the Ohio State University, where he will encourage students to cast their early ballots for Democrats. Party officials here hope the effort is something of a second act for the 2008 campaign, when early voting helped give several candidates an edge.

This year, Republicans said they were not ceding the strategy, but party officials dismissed the suggestion that a midterm election would give Democrats the same advantage of a presidential election. “It defies the logic of low-propensity voting,” said Mr. Mauk, the state party’s executive director.

A crucial test will come here in Cincinnati, where Mr. Obama became the first Democratic president to carry Hamilton County in 44 years. The Board of Elections office on Broadway Avenue has expanded service until 9 p.m. on some days, and until noon on Saturdays.

“Now, is there any reason not to vote?” Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state asked a cheering crowd at a rally here as she offered detailed instructions how to cast early ballots. “Folks can’t say they don’t have enough time to get to the polls.”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Miracles, Democracy, and the Fight Against SB 1070

2010-07-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

By Joel Olson

One by one we go around the room. We state our name and why we are here at this meeting, seeking the repeal of SB 1070 and other anti-immigrant laws. “I want to keep my family together.” “I believe in human dignity.” “I’m afraid my family will be broken up.” “I believe in freedom for all people.” “I want a resolution to this problem.” “I want a new world.”

This is what my Wednesday nights have been like since the passage of SB 1070 in April: for three hours I sit in a hot, sweaty room at the local Catholic church in Flagstaff, Arizona, with anywhere from 25 to 50 adults plus a gaggle of little kids. It’s a meeting of the Repeal Coalition, an all-volunteer, grassroots organization that is struggling for the repeal of all anti-immigrant laws in Arizona. Three-quarters or more of the participants are Latino. About that many are undocumented or related to someone who is. Women outnumber men, and they participate more. The discussion is noisy and animated, and mostly in Spanish, with people doing the best they can to translate into English or vice-versa. Often just the gist gets translated. (Someone says a joke in Spanish and three-quarters of the room erupts in laughter and the rest of us smile sheepishly, then someone says a joke in English and it goes the other way.) But somehow we feel like part of the same group. The kids in the adjacent room tear through the paper and crayons and cheap toys until someone pops in a video. By 8:30 p.m., exhausted, we clap it out, clean up, socialize, and take care of the little things we couldn’t get to in the formal meeting. Then we all go home, do the work we volunteered to do, and come back fighting the next Wednesday.

This is what democracy looks like.

In Arizona right now, this is the lull before the storm. SB 1070 is scheduled to become law on July 29. If you don’t know, SB 1070 is the notorious anti-immigrant law that makes it a state crime to be undocumented, requires everyone in the state to carry ID (“Your papers, please!”), makes it a crime to give an undocumented person a ride in your car or a meal in your home, and practically mandates racial profiling.

On July 29, if the police have “reasonable suspicion” that you are undocumented, you will be ripped from your family and thrown in jail.

On July 29, if you give a ride in your car or allow into your home a person you know is undocumented, you are “recklessly disregarding” that person’s legal status and can be arrested for “harboring” an “illegal alien.”

On July 29, if you get stopped by the cops and you don’t have identification on you, this will count as “reasonable suspicion” that you may be in the country illegally, and you are subject to arrest, no matter where you are from.

If this sounds to you like the makings of a police state, well, it does to me, too.

When Governor Jan Brewer signed 1070 into law at the end of April, Arizonans took to the streets in the tens of thousands. We organized protests, held community forums, and spoke out wherever we could: the state capitol, trailer parks in Phoenix, Flagstaff City Hall, the borders of the Tohono O’odham nation, neighborhoods in South Tucson.

After the crowds died down, the lawyers stepped in. To date at least six lawsuits have been filed that seek to prevent SB 1070 from going into effect, including one by the Obama administration.

Undocumented folks and their loved ones are holding their breath, praying that the lawsuits will succeed. But many of them aren’t putting all of their eggs in that basket. They know that ultimately, only grassroots action will defeat this evil law .

Which brings us to the meetings.

Americans generally don’t know how to run a meeting, or participate in one. We can vote, we can speechify, and we can scream at each other, but we rarely debate constructively and in a way that encourages the participation of all. Our political system simply isn’t set up for that. Instead, what typically happens is that the people vote once a year or so and the politicians do the work—with the help of lobbyists, bureaucrats, judges, and lawyers, lots of lawyers. It’s actually a really limited form of democracy, when you think about it.

But the meetings of the Repeal Coalition are entirely different. They are utterly ordinary, yet incredible. The great Marxist revolutionary C.L.R. James once wrote a pamphlet about direct democracy called “Every Cook Can Govern.” He would have been inspired to see these cooks, cleaners, servers, chamber maids, college students, linen service workers, teachers, maintenance workers, warehouse clerks, and cashiers practice democracy in Arizona. And the Coalition doesn’t just go through the motions of democracy like most American voters; we debate politics. We come together, discuss the right thing to do, develop strategy, make decisions, and carry them out. People (mostly) raise their hand to speak and (mostly) listen patiently to others. And we do all of this in two languages!

The political theorist Hannah Arendt claims that ordinary people directly participating in politics is literally a miracle. Miracles, she argues, are the spontaneous creation of something new. This, she argues, is precisely what people acting in the public sphere do: they create a new beginning, a new community, a new political possibility, something that has never existed before.

That’s what happens every Wednesday night in Phoenix and Flagstaff. At one recent meeting, for example, Flagstaff Repeal discusses the finer points of a resolution we’ve written that demands the repeal of all anti-immigrant legislation in the state of Arizona. The resolution, which we hope the city council will pass, calls for the city to proclaim itself a safe haven for all people, whether they have papers or not. We discuss and then approve the resolution unanimously, to great applause. We then move on to developing strategy for how to get the city council to pass it. From there we discuss the situation of some undocumented workers who have been unjustly treated and fired by the local Hampton Inn, and then to plans for a protest and march against SB 1070 in downtown Flagstaff for the coming Saturday. The facilitator (who is doubling as translator) gets us through the agenda so that we can end by 8:30. We all marvel at what a great job she did—and it was her first time. The meeting ends by “clapping it out,” or a slow, disorganized clap that increases in speed and synchronization, leading to a crescendo of group unity and power until it bursts into individual applause again, reminding us of how the individual and the collective are interdependent.

These meetings are inspiring, boring, disciplined, way off track, frustrating, empowering, intimidating, and awesome—often at the same time. Like I said, this is what democracy looks like.

The Repeal Coalition’s slogan is “Fight for the freedom to live, love, and work wherever you please.” But this slogan is meaningless without another: “All people deserve the right to have an equal say in those affairs that affect their daily lives.” Democracy is not voting for elites every four years while quietly fuming at the tyranny of your boss for 40 hours a week (more if you’re undocumented). It’s the ability of all people to have a say in those affairs that affect their daily life. At our meetings, we seek to live out this principle of radical democracy. It’s built into the very heart of the Repeal Coalition: the weekly meeting.

The Repeal Coalition has been meeting every week since March 2008. For the first few months there were between a dozen and 20 people. Sometimes there were four of us, staring at each other, wondering what the hell to do next. That was the case last January, for example. Thanks to an inside source, we knew the notorious bill that would soon be named SB 1070 was coming, even before it was made public. We talked about how we needed to build a movement to fight it. But there were just four of us. What the hell could we do?

And then in April the world discovered SB 1070, and we went from six people to 40 to 60 in two weeks (plus 20 kids—I spent several meetings doing childcare in the adjacent room, occasionally sticking my head in the meeting room to hear what was going on). The primary language went from English to Spanish. The college students, who were formerly a majority in the group, became outnumbered by servers and laundry workers.

Since then we’ve had at least 25 people at every meeting. We’re busy, but we’re nervous. July 29 approaches. People don’t know yet how they are going to keep their families together. They are scared to drive, so they aren’t even sure how they’ll get to work, how they’ll get their kids to school, how they’ll shop for groceries. Down in Phoenix, Sheriff Joe Arpaio calls July 29 the “magic day” when he can truly begin to sweep the streets clean of brown people.

Another political theorist, Carl Schmitt, argues that the real miracle in politics is what he calls “the exception.” This is when a ruler declares an “extreme emergency” and suspends the rule of law. SB 1070 isn’t quite a miracle in this respect, because it is the law, even if it does suspend liberty and decency. Regardless, July 29 is Arpaio’s miracle.

In the face of this, Repeal keeps meeting, planning, fighting, and conjuring our own miracle.

The question in Arizona right now, as July 29 approaches, is which miracle will win out, the miracle of grassroots democracy or the “miracle” of unrestrained state power; the miracle of a new Arizona, in which ordinary people—with “papers” or without—control the affairs that affect their daily lives, or of the old Arizona, in which nativist politicians and business interests determine how the rest of us live.

I’m not sure which Arizona will win. But I’m damn sure that I’m not going to leave it to the lawyers. I’ll see you at the next meeting.

Joel Olson is a member of the Repeal Coalition, which meets every Wednesday night. The Coalition can be reached at www.repealcoalition.org or repealcoalition@gmail.com.

Surveillance in Classrooms at NAU

2010-06-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

Just got an email from NAU administration that states that NAU will have detectors to track student IDs and thus attendance in classes. I find this highly disturbing. Not only does this have implications for privacy of students but also political implications. Will this be the only thing under surveillance? What happens to free speech on campus? Will social science faculty and students be tracked for the kind of speech they engage in? With Arizona's SB 1070 and the crackdown on Ethnic Studies departments in force NAU's new tracking device cannot be taken lightly. It must be protested at the highest level.

Previously, it was argued that tracking attendance would lead to more attendance rates and thus greater performance. The State is apparently to tie attendance rates to financial aid. While attendance rates might reflect good teachers, policing classrooms with detectors will not reflect the quality of teaching. It will reflect fear instead. A good university does not use policing techniques because it doesn't need to. Only an administration that has no idea how to stimulate teaching and learning would resort to such pathetic measures.

I don't think the administration has adequately argued the need for such invasive policies and if it had I can't imagine it would be accepted by the faculty or students at large. It would be good to have this new rule protested and removed. We can do without nonsense expenses also in such a tough economic climate.

Nativism & Fascism

2010-06-15T13:31:00.001-07:00

Here's a link to an article I wrote for the Imagine 2050 blog on anti-immigrant protests in Arizona and their significance:

http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2010/06/15/nativism-and-fascism-the-meaning-of-anti-immigrant-protests/

Interview on the Repeal Coalition

2010-06-04T00:08:00.000-07:00

Below is an interview on the Repeal Coalition that I did recently. It provides information on one group's grassroots strategy to change the immigration debate in Arizona.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/05/28/organizing-at-ground-zero

SB 1070: Battle at the Grassroots

2010-05-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

By Joel Olson

In the struggle over the notorious anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, anti-working class law SB 1070, a person might be tempted to see this as a conflict that plays out among the elites of Arizona politics: legislators, governors, sheriffs, newspaper editors, judges, lawyers, and nonprofits. This view would be understandable, but wrong. The real battle is at the grassroots.

On the one hand, there is a strong nativist movement afoot in Arizona that is overwhelmingly white, mostly over the age of fifty, and largely male. They fear that “illegals are invading” and causing all manner of mayhem, from home invasions to overcrowded emergency rooms to automated voices forcing them to “press 1 for English.” They are represented by the Tea Party and local politicians such as State Senator Russell Pearce. Their goal is to hound and harass all “illegal aliens” out of Arizona—and if they have to check the papers of every brown-skinned person in the state to do it, fine. “Attrition through enforcement,” Pearce calls it. That phrase is now written into Arizona law. At their demand, SB 1070 turns every cop in the state into an immigration officer, practically requires racial profiling, and denies the freedom of Arizonans to associate with whoever they please, documented or not. With the passage of 1070, nativists are confident that they control the territory.

But what happens when you hold a Tea Party and a bunch of “illegals” show up?

Facing down the nativist faction is a ragtag, underfinanced, increasingly fearless, and thoroughly working class movement that seeks to destroy SB 1070 and replace the Tea Party’s bogus call for “small government”—by the way, how is a government where every cop is empowered to check your papers “small”?—with a real call for freedom of movement and association. The hope for Arizona rests with this group that is fighting at the grassroots for the freedom to live, love, and work wherever you please.

One of the first battles between these two forces took place last Tuesday in the small mountain town of Flagstaff, Arizona (population 60,000). The Flagstaff City Council voted 7-0 to sue the state government to prevent SB 1070 from going into effect. (Earlier that day, Tucson’s city council voted 5-1 to do the same thing. Now other towns, such as Yuma and Naco, are also threatening to file an injunction.)

This decision from within the most nativist state in the nation came as a shock to many. True, Flagstaff has a reputation for being a liberal bubble, but the city council hardly has a stellar record of standing with people of color, as anyone from the Save the Peaks Coalition could tell you. The city council has been hostile to this indigenous-led effort to prevent the local ski resort from using Flagstaff sewage water to make artificial snow on a mountain that is sacred to thirteen tribes. (That’s right, they want you to ski on pee.)

Further, a poll taken just after SB 1070’s passage showed that seventy percent of Arizonans supported it. And when Rush Limbaugh heard that over 150 people came to the previous Flagstaff City Council meeting urging them to file an injunction, he told his listeners to besiege the Council with calls in support of 1070. Over the next few days, Flagstaff’s little city hall received a slew of racist voice mails and several death threats. Then the local Tea Party put out a call to pack the next meeting.

But they didn’t count on getting beat at their own game.

The Tea Party nationwide prides itself on being a grassroots organization feared by politicians. They probably thought that a good word from Limbaugh would help them bumrush city hall and put this whole injunction business to rest. But that was before they met the Repeal Coalition, a grassroots organization that seeks the repeal of all anti-immigrant laws in the state of Arizona and believes in the freedom of all people to live, love, and work wherever they please. (For more on the work of the Repeal Coalition, see my previous article, “New Arizona.”)

While Limbaugh blathered on, the Repeal Coalition held a mass meeting in the local Catholic church to put pressure on city hall. Sixty adults and twenty kids, most of them Latino, most of them undocumented or related to someone who is, came after work in their McCafe uniforms, bounced babies on their laps, and in a sweltering room for two and half hours, patiently developed a strategy—hashed out in Spanish and English—to keep the pressure on the city council. They planned a protest before the council meeting, and then to pack the meeting chamber itself. The Tea Party boasted it would do the same.

At 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday, people began trickling in to the chambers, while a crowd opposed to SB 1070 gathered on the street in front of city hall. Repeal members handed out scraps of paper to people as they filed in, suggesting that if they spoke before the council during the meeting they should demand that the council condemn SB 1070 and vote to file an injunction against it. By 5:30, over two hundred people were jammed into the council chambers. The room was stuffed so full the fire marshal had to shut the doors.

But only about thirty people were from the Tea Party. Opponents of 1070 had them outnumbered six to one. Plus there were a hundred people watching a live feed of the event in the lobby. Plus there were dozens of people who would not go into city hall because they were undocumented and feared police harassment, but fed messages to Repeal Coalition members, who conveyed them to the city council. Plus there were two hundred people outside still protesting—oh, and a lone Tea Partier holding a sign. (Yes, one person. Remind me, why are liberals so afraid of this group?)

With drums from the protest audible in the chamber, waves of people spoke out against 1070 and in favor of filing an injunction against it, while just five Tea Partiers spoke against the injunction. Each of the five went to great lengths to emphasize that they only opposed illegal immigration—but in the next breath they warned of “invasions” and a “virtual border that’s moving northward.” They weren’t racist for supporting SB 1070, they insisted—but then they talked about how “these people” commit crimes. Their logic was simple and crude: Undocumented = criminal = Mexican = all Latinos.

They knew they were out-organized, and they were furious. One elderly gentleman, who earlier had tried to get me kicked out of the council chamber for handing out our speaking suggestions, waved the scrap of paper in front of the council and accused the Repeal Coalition of telling people what to say. “Am I right about this?” he turned and asked the crowd. “No!” it roared back. He sat down and left the meeting shortly.

Many of those who spoke against 1070 deeply impressed the council and the crowd. One man openly admitted he was undocumented. A Latina whose family has lived in Flagstaff since the 1890s told the Tea Partiers, “You think this law won’t affect you? You’re right; it won’t—because you’re white. You bet it’s going to affect me and my family, and we’ve lived here for four generations!” A white guy in a tie mocked the racial profiling within the law by saying “I’m not a bigot, but I look like one, don’t I?” Roars of laughter.

In the most powerful testimony of the night, a woman from the Navajo Nation told the council how this law would inevitably harass and profile indigenous people. Angrily she said, “I never had to carry my C.D.I.B. [Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood] and now I do. You all [white people] are our guests in this land. And this is how we are repaid. I’m going to be stopped because of this law, and I’m from a First Nation.” She left the podium in tears, and to thunderous applause.

The Tea Partiers began filing out in defeat midway through the meeting. As they did, Latinos who were waiting outside filled their seats. By the time the council actually voted on the injunction, there wasn’t a tea bag in sight. The symbolism of a grassroots movement devoted to oppression being replaced, one by one, by another grassroots movement devoted to freedom, smelled as sweet as creosote after a desert rain.

Four and a half hours into the meeting, three things struck me. First, the legal struggle against 1070 is driven by the grassroots struggle. I realized this as one councilperson, Scott Overton, admitted that he wanted to wait to see what other cities were going to do first before approving an injunction, but “the community pushed hard.” He then proceeded to vote for it. Then, the most conservative member of the council (and a candidate for mayor in an election that’s just three weeks away) voted for the injunction, too—even though minutes earlier he had said he would abstain! From his rambling comments it was clear that he did not like the injunction and probably liked the spirit of SB 1070, but he didn’t have the guts to go against 200 people pressuring him to do the right thing.

Politicians and lawyers may be in front of the television cameras, but they are not in the lead in the battle against SB 1070. Rather, they are being pushed into action by a teeming movement of undocumented people, their loved ones, and their allies. To be sure, the city council’s decision required some courageous initiative by Councilwoman Coral Evans. But this issue is hot because people at the grassroots are hot, and politicians feel they have to do something. In figuring out what happens next in the struggle, then, the question is not, “Will the legal battle win?” but “Will the grassroots be able to push the legal struggle even further?”

Second, the Tea Party and their ilk can only be defeated by out-organizing them. Tea Partiers are wrong, but they’re not stupid. Their minds won’t be changed by showing them “the facts” about immigration, for ideology always trumps truth. Rather than dismissing them as ignorant, you have to beat them at the grassroots. In Flagstaff, a grassroots group led by working-class Latinos out-organized the mighty Tea Party. They left early, and at 10:00 p.m. we celebrated a unanimous decision. Even Rush Limbaugh couldn’t save them.

Third, this evil law can be defeated. Flagstaff is a sign. New polls show that support among Arizonans for the law has declined to just over fifty percent, with those numbers going down to forty-five percent of those under thirty-five. Enthusiasm for 1070 is dampening because the grassroots is firing up.

We can win this.

In 1963, Malcolm X wrote about a Black revolution coming from the grassroots, one in which Black people were determined to control their destiny rather than be controlled by whites. Similarly, a new movement is emerging from the grassroots in Arizona, one that rejects the weak tea of “liberty” proposed by nativist Tea Parties. This new Arizona demands a new kind of liberty called for by a global economy: the freedom to live, love, and work wherever one pleases, and the freedom of ordinary people to have a say in those affairs that affect their daily lives.

The day after our victory, a hundred high school and middle school (!) students walked out of school in protest against 1070 and marched to city hall. Repeal Coalition members met them there and exchanged phone numbers. That evening, another mass meeting organized by the Repeal Coalition voted to keep the pressure on with more protests and more resolutions for city hall to pass.

So what happens when you hold a tea party and a bunch of “illegals” show up? You can see the new Arizona in sight, and it’s as beautiful as a Sonoran sunset.

Joel Olson is a member of the Repeal Coalition. He has lived in Arizona for twenty-five years.

New Arizona

2010-04-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

New Arizona

By Joel Olson

In the midst of the Arizona state government passing the most outrageous anti-immigrant law since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, several happenings pass unnoticed by the national media. At a packed Flagstaff City Council meeting discussing the law, waves of people declare publicly that they are undocumented, practically daring law enforcement officers to arrest them. At the same meeting, a member of a radical immigrant rights group receives thunderous applause for demanding the repeal of all anti-immigrant laws and declaring the right of all people to “live, love, and work wherever they please.” Even the most conservative city councilman admits he liked the notion. Down in Phoenix, high school students spontaneously organize a school walkout through mass texting, without direction from the established immigration reform organizations. This infuriates the organizations because it pre-empts “their” planned protests. And then these same students chuck water bottles at cops when they arrest one of their own.

Welcome to the new Arizona.

Arizona has been dragged through the mud by the media and national opinion over the passage of SB 1070, a heinous anti-immigration law that massively expands police power in the state, basically mandating racial profiling and making it a crime to associate with undocumented people. Much of this derision is deserved. The law was crafted by one of the most nativist politicians in the country, State Senator Russell Pearce of Mesa, and signed by Governor Jan Brewer, who is running as far to the right as she can in order to win the coming Republican primary. The anti-immigrant sentiment is so strong in this state that even our “maverick” U.S. Senator, John McCain, endorsed the bill. McCain, who supported immigration reform when he ran for president in 2008, is also up for reelection this November.

Anti-immigrant sentiment is so widespread it could change the political landscape here—for the worse. The rumor is that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio—who began the nativist sensation in Arizona in 2006 with his roadblocks and sweeps for “illegals”—is going to run for governor against Brewer. Andrew Thomas, the Maricopa County Attorney who is otherwise known as Arpaio’s mini-me, recently quit his job in order to run for state attorney general. Pearce salivates at the thought of replacing Arpaio as County Sheriff. So if you think things are bad now, wait until November, when we could have Arpaio, Thomas, Hayworth, and Pearce running the state. It’s enough to make David Duke exhale a low whistle.

But the courageous actions of undocumented workers and high school students suggest that nativism will not rule the Grand Canyon State without a fight. And those from below just might win.

You can see the kernel of the new Arizona in the shell of the old in the Repeal Coalition, a grassroots, all-volunteer organization with chapters in Flagstaff and Phoenix. As one of its main organizers, Taryn Jordan, explains, the group was formed in 2008 to fight anti-immigrant legislation. “We knew something like this [SB 1070] was coming, and we’ve known it for a long time,” says Jordan. “Our goal in Repeal was to provide a new face of resistance to it.”

And it is new. Most immigrant rights groups here call for “comprehensive immigration reform,” a law that would create a long, arduous path to citizenship for only some undocumented people, while leaving many in legal limbo. The Repeal Coalition, however, argues for the repeal of all anti-immigrant laws. “We demand the repeal of all laws—federal, state, and local—that degrade and discriminate against undocumented individuals and that deny U.S. citizens their lawful rights,” their literature states. “We demand that all human beings—with papers or without—be guaranteed access to work, housing, health care, education, legal protection, and other public benefits, as well as the right to organize.”

Flagstaff Repeal Coalition organizer Ashley Cooper says that in the current anti-immigrant climate, repeal is the only relevant demand. “You can’t reform these laws; you can only repeal them,” she says. “And this gets to the heart of the issue. In a global economy, where goods and services move effortlessly across borders, humans deserve the same freedom. The only way to achieve that is to repeal existing laws, not create complicated and difficult paths to citizenship that only some people will be able to access.”

The group is finding an increasingly receptive audience for its message, especially among undocumented people and college and high school students.

Repeal’s approach to political organizing is also different from most immigration reform organizations. “Our goal is not to work for the people but to work with them,” explains Phoenix organizer Ceci Saenz. “We believe that the people should be leading this struggle—and that they already are leading it.” Repeal’s task, she explains, is to facilitate this leadership by bringing people together, encouraging them to “develop their militancy,” and to provide a political framework for their struggle, which is expressed by their slogan, “No more hate, harass, and blame: Freedom for all people to live, love, and work where you please!”

Flagstaff Repeal helped mobilize the undocumented workers who courageously spoke out at the City Council meeting, for example, and they are currently organizing pickets at a local hotel that has harassed and abused (and now fired) undocumented workers there. The weekend before, they organized three protests in a row, which drew 500 people in a town of 60,000. “It wasn’t even our idea,” explains Flagstaff Repeal Coalition organizer Katie Fahrenbruch. “We held a meeting just before 1070 was passed. When one of our volunteers asked folks what they wanted to do about [the law], the entire audience said ‘Protest!’” (In Spanish, of course.) “They couldn’t collectively agree on a day, so they said let’s do it for three days. So, we helped organize it in less than twenty-four hours’ notice.”

In Phoenix, the Coalition is organizing undocumented people, trailer park by trailer park, apartment complex by apartment complex. While thousands massed at the state Capitol the day after Governor Brewer signed SB 1070 into law, the Repeal Coalition was with a group of several hundred, led by undocumented women, who led a protest through the Latino neighborhoods they are organizing. Later that evening they called an emergency meeting, and within thirty minutes there were forty undocumented people meeting inside a garage in a trailer park, discussing strategy.

Many people have been talking about leaving the state since 1070 was passed, but this group did not. They talked about fighting. Something is new here.

All of this is being done by a group of just a handful of volunteers without non-profit status and with virtually no budget. Three Phoenix organizers live in a “Repeal” house, paid for by a small grant they obtained. They agree to work at least thirty hours a week for Repeal in exchange for free rent and utilities. “We don’t live large and it’s been stressful since 1070 was passed, but it’s worth it,” says Chris Griffin. He lives in the house and spends his days visiting jails, courthouses, and the homes of undocumented workers struggling against these laws.

This is the new Arizona. As conservative whites try to drive every “illegal” out of the state, and as immigration reform groups wait for Obama and Pelosi and Reid to put immigration reform on the agenda, folks in the Repeal Coalition are holding mass meetings of undocumented workers and are going to the hangouts of high school students, encouraging them to take their struggle to the next level. And as snipers line the roof of the State Capitol, they are smiling every time a water bottle whizzes past a cop who is now empowered to check their papers.

Welcome to the new Arizona.

Joel Olson works with the Repeal Coalition in Flagstaff. He has lived in Arizona for twenty-five years.

Radical Conservativism

2010-04-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

Note: I submit an occassional editorial to the online magazine The Americano and they are nice enough to post my thoughts on their website. However, they did not want to publish the article below. I thought I should post it somewhere anyways.

Radical Conservativism
By Stephen A. Nuño

David Frum was a fixture in conservative circles over the last ten years. He worked as a speech writer for George Bush and worked for the venerable American Enterprise Institute (AEI) over the last seven years where he wrote several books and several thousand essays supporting conservative candidates all across the United States. However, Frum became a proponent of “big tent” Republicanism where most of his calls have fallen on deaf ears. He was critical of the GOP strategy during the health care debate and when the health care bill was passed he was among the move vociferous among the Right to place the blame on the GOP’s all or nothing strategy. Frum was fired by AEI later that week.

Conservatives keep saying they are for intellectual diversity, apparently only when they are not. Perhaps it was naïve to think Frum’s criticisms wouldn’t go unattended by an organization that relies heavily on private donors for their survival. But the American Enterprise Institute claims to be an independent think tank, not an arm of the GOP’s mobilization efforts. One can be true to their philosophical underpinnings while maintaining intellectual objectivity for which you should be willing to accept results that contradict your assumptions. The only way to do this is to question yourself, but AEI will apparently only go so far in their pursuit of the truth.

Did Frum get sacked for his criticism of the GOP? He thinks so and AEI is not likely to admit they are towing GOP press releases as a matter of policy. You make the call.

It seems as though this could be a shot across the bow at Conservatives straying from the company line. So it was without surprise to see another waning Conservative, George Will, double down on some tried and true nativism to prop up his Conservative bona fides. Will has been criticized for speaking rationally on immigration reform and the war in Iraq. In 2006, Will wrote, “And conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society’s crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and learning English.” He went on to say that “faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status ‘amnesty’”

But the other day George Will did a reversal on his rationality, calling for a radical reinterpretation of the Constitution’s citizenship clause and ending the practice of “birthright” citizenship. He continued by saying that we should correct the misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, which he cites, “All person’s born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” How do you misinterpret “born or naturalized in the United States” to mean anything other than, well, being born or naturalized in the United States?

The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment is a reflection of English common law dating back more than four hundred years. The 14th Amendment itself is over one hundred years old, based on federal legislation that dates back further, and has always been interpreted to mean what we know it to mean today. Will relies on the academic work of a law professor in Texas, Lino Graglia, who has a long history of animosity towards civil rights issues, an issue that prompted President Reagan to withdraw Graglia from consideration for a seat on the Court of Appeals and whose work George Will relied on for his commentary on Brown v. Board of Education in a Washington Post article in 1994.

Graglia’s argument has been long addressed by scholars such as Harvard’s Gerald Neuman, who has studied and written about citizenship for decades. Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger testified in front of Congress in 1995 to address this issue when Republicans presented several bills to deny citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants. Following their sweeping victory in 1994, the GOP went right to work attacking the Latino community.

In his statement to Congress, Dellinger said, “My office grapples with many difficult and close issues of constitutional law. The lawfulness of this bill is not among them. This legislation is unquestionably unconstitutional”.

George Will purports to defend the “common sense” solution to our immigration problems by supporting what can only be changed through the process of amending the Constitution of the United States and overturning centuries of established tradition.

No doubt the Conservatives will be boasting about Will’s newfound appeal to radicalism. How bizarre that a Conservative who relishes the stability of our Constitution and its founding principles to all of a sudden decide we should reinterpret a clause which can only be interpreted one way at the same time claiming that the original interpretation was a misinterpretation only because his interpretation makes more sense to him now.

Is this what Conservatism is about; the rule of law must persevere, until like we don’t really want it to? Conservatives’ incessant whining about rigid interpretations of immigration law is fine when they want to deport twelve million Latinos, but when the Constitution is inconvenient we should just reinterpret it and pretend that the current interpretation was bullpucky all along?

The real common sense solution to the immigration problem is what Will promoted before there was a renewed premium on nativist populism, which is to integrate these folks into society so that we don’t create a permanent underclass of disaffected shadow-citizens whose only purpose is to work and pay federal taxes towards George Will’s social security and Medicare benefits all the while having to cower on their way to their job working without any of the common protections or safety nets we afford ordinary workers.

In his support of immigration reform, Will wrote, “Of the nation's illegal immigrants -- estimated to be at least 11 million, a cohort larger than the combined populations of 12 states -- 60 percent have been here at least five years. Most have roots in their communities. Their children born here are U.S. citizens… Facts, a conservative (John Adams) said, are stubborn things, and regarding immigration, true conservatives take their bearings from facts such as [these]…” Unless they don’t feel like it anymore I suppose.

Stephen A. Nuño, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He can be reached at Stephen.Nuno@nau.edu

Political Science and Values--Making Social Science Meaningful

2010-02-08T21:29:00.000-08:00

At the APSA conference in 2003, President of APSA, Robert Putnam, gave a rare speech calling political scientists to endorse public service, i.e to learn about what the people need. Politics is a mix of science and values, he claimed.

What an honest speech, I thought! But as others pointed out, social sciences since the '50s and '60s have been anything but scientific. Clearly, hidden are the discourses of liberal democracies, markets and individualism-- as something to be aspired. What is public choice theory without individuals and market-type efficiency? What is rational choice theory, for that matter?

Kenneth Prewitt (2005) expounds: American political science has been nothing more than a reflection of American values, policies and goals. But are these truly the foundations of human behavior, even in the US? Are people really motivated by only greed, profit and consumerism? What about the good of the community? Are we then living out the ideals of capitalism?

An APSA Task Force Report of 2004 states that income inequalities of Americans are on the rise. Between 1973-2000, the top quintile households saw a 61.6% rise in incomes, while the bottom quintile saw only a 10.3% rise. Statistics for the racial divide are alarming also. In 2000, the median White households income was 62% greater than that of Blacks, and wealth for median White households was 12 times that of Black households. More so, the pool of people with no net worth whatsoever was significant--1/4 of Whites, 1/2 of Hispanics and 2/3 Black households. At the same time, means of political participation for the poor have been minimal--unions have decimated, campaign contributions by blue-collar workers insignificant, and political representation by Capitol Hill minimal. The opposite is true for the top quintile.

Such a confluence of money and power! Should we then think that American social science today is nothing more than a reflection of power politics in DC?

Putnam's speech (2003) is priceless also because of what he thinks the great goal of political science should be-- that we must all come together to build global institutions to further America's foreign policy! I'm not surprised. One might ask, when was this project ever dead? Have we not witnessed this project of American imperialism before in the language of modernization theorists, in the discourses of liberal democracy or of religious fundamentalism?

In fact, it might be a good time to recognize the power politics in political science. As for public service, are we rising to that cause? I thought that what the world really wants is no longer to be dehumanized, treated like exotic subjects and children, and paid lip-service about inclusion into the various power houses of globalization.

At the end of the day, let's talk about public service, but let's also talk about making an honest day's wages. I don't want to make my living dehumanizing separatist movements in any part of the world. We have states doing that for us, anyway. In fact, if that is the bread and butter of social science, to be yesmen to the global elite, count me out. I know science from nonsense.

Adiós Lou Dobbs

2009-11-14T01:50:00.001-08:00

I can’t recall watching Lou Dobb’s show on CNN over the last few years, except for when segments were played on blogs that wished to underline his visceral turn against immigrants. Prior to this turn, the only times I watched him was when the remote would land on his show and I didn’t care enough to go another lap around the monotonous track of vapidity that characterizes modern television shows, with a few exceptions. He seemed harmless back then. He was just another econovangelist trying to come up with a schtick that would separate him from the crowd.

Unfortunately, the only hook that worked for him was the anti-immigrant meme. And during the immigration reform debates a few years ago, Dobbs found his calling. Since then Dobbs has taken up the mantle against illegal immigration, gaining in popularity and in demand for speeches he would give to nativist groups around the country.

Recessions are always times for extra concern among immigrants and the continued assault on the Hispanic community in areas like Maricopa County here in Arizona help to reinforce a system of intolerance aimed at the weakest members of our community. The choking sensation these people must feel as they step out into the world of job raids, pointless arrests, patrols following them because they "fit the profile", etc. as they seek greater opportunities for their children cannot be described as anything but violent. Even more so when their homes can be invaded at any time by armies of men donning military gear and weapons designed for terrorists, not families doing what they can each night to prepare for the challenges of the next day of work.

We have an immigration problem. Immigrants present problems for our society. True. But these problems are not existential. They are not even economic. The problem immigration presents is one of cost-sharing. Local communities bear the greatest cost of immigration by burdening public services, such as hospitals, schools and social services. In contrast to these acute costs are macroeconomic benefits to the labor market, federal revenue streams that reduce our debt and long-term human capital. The burdens are far more visual and they give rise to nativist sentiment among those with a pathological attachment to some sense of cultural purity; sheer ignorance. Lou Dobbs used the acute costs to stimulate his own personal economy by appealing to those basest emotions.

So after a campaign to pressure CNN into firing Lou Dobbs, he was finally let go. I am glad he is gone, and those who put the pressure on CNN should be proud of themselves, but Lou Dobbs is not the problem. He is the symptom of a greater issue facing this country. Lets not forget that CNN felt comfortable keeping a man on the air whose tongue slipped when talking about Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, calling her a “cotton picker”. He caught himself before he could finish, but it was clear what he was going to say. Dobbs will also most likely join Fox News, where he will join in the daily chorus of nativism and hyper-patriotism that engulfs their rendition of the news. As a friend of mine points out, Dobbs will now get to do this with the renewed vigor of a patriot gone martyr.

As a political scientist, it’s always nice to see community action have positive results. It is indeed a teachable moment in more ways than one. So bye for now Lou Dobbs, and I’m sure we will see you soon enough. I wish we could discuss these problems without the vitriol and with an understanding that we are talking about fellow humans looking to solve problems of their own and who have no less right to the promised land than we do. But somehow we just talk past each other, each side unwilling to give ground for fear that we may be seen as advancing to the rear. As Juan Gonzalez writes, we are not the enemy, the enemy is the wall of ignorance that stands between us.

Good work by Obama?

2009-10-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

As the great grandson of an immigrant from a group that until recently faced xenophobic backlashes and because of my recent life circumstances, I am somewhat nauseated by the political construction of the recent immigration debate. Immigrants frequently become dehumanicized, functioning as mere representations of their connection to a legal document.

As many other politicians, Barack Obama has utilized some of this recent xenophobia throughout his campaign and presidency. His advocacy utilizes a wider notion of security (more than armies that threaten the country) to be resolved by a more narrow security method (traditional ways of securing objects of the country) for the traditional security object (the country or nation). The actual White House policy suggests:

President Obama will remove incentives to enter the country illegally by preventing employers from hiring undocumented workers and enforcing the law.

The web site also tells us that he will fix the dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy and address the problem holistically within its economic context:

President Obama believes that our broken immigration system can only be fixed by putting politics aside and offering a complete solution that secures our border, enforces our laws, and reaffirms our heritage as a nation of immigrants. He believes our immigration policy should be driven by our best judgment of what is in the economic interest of the United States and what is in the best interest of the American worker. President Obama recognizes that an orderly, controlled border and an immigration system designed to meet our economic needs are important pillars of a healthy and robust economy.

Of course Obama remains extremely political in this instance. As Gramsci suggested some time ago, the very notion of common sense remains a political object, constructed by intra- and inter-class struggle. The notion of the immigration "problem" and the means of addressing it seem natural to many people: Too many people are not following the rules (immigrant and citizen) so we need more and better legal enforcement for the good of everyone. This problem, then, becomes a threat to our nation-state (our ability to regulate people flows across borders and remain cultural homogeneity) and way of life (standards of living brought down by an influx of labor), according to many people within the debate. While these formulations get articulated in slightly different ways and levels of urgency, their speakers make appeals to everyone's common sense, suggesting the problems and solutions are simply natural, thus limiting the scope of rhetoric and semantics.

Against common sense, let me suggest that labor remains the main problem, though not in the way one might think. People without legal work place protections and the ability to organize are threatening those with such protections. The solution should not be top down (enforce regulation of employment and punish employees and employers). The solution should be bottom up. It should enable employees. People who work in sweatshops, without workplace protections, or the ability to organize -- especially in the case of recent immigrants -- are not criminals, but victims.

Rather than dictate reality from the center like the Politburo, let's take a page from the rational choice handbook that suggests institutional design fosters individual behavior. Let's reform our labor institutions to allow greater and easier organizing by workers (and thus let workers take problems into their own hands). On the civil side let's support groups that are organizing workers in spite of the law (for a great example see http://www.ciw-online.org/). On a common sense level let's aide those undermining the hegemonic common sense.

It may be too early to tell, but Obama may be taking small steps on the issue of common sense (from Border Action Network:)

[The] Department of Homeland Security has canceled Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 287g Agreement, revoking his deputies’ authority to make immigration arrests in the field. Though Arpaio wanted to renew an agreement with DHS to allow both field arrests and immigration checks at his jails, a DHS official recently gave him a document allowing only jail checks.

It seems too early to tell if this is random act, something in contradiction to public policy, a preview to centralizing raids entirely in ICE, or something else. Our common sense will dictate where we stand on these interpretations.

The Emperor is Naked!

2009-10-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

It would seem that there is little to no respect for honesty on this planet. In an upset win, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, while human rights activists from China got sidelined yet again. The Nobel Foundation claimed that Obama won: "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/) But how different is Obama's foreign policy from that of the previous administration? I thought I'd do a quick comparison.

Early this year, Obama bowed to the Saudi king and kissed his hand. Bush held the king's hand. The US still has military bases there protecting an unpopular ruler--one of Bin Laden's main beef's with the US and reasons for 911.

Bush started the War in Iraq and gave free handouts to Halliburton and the like. Obama keeps promising he will pull out most US troops in Iraq by 2010, but is diverting war efforts to Afghanistan, where he hopes for a greater international presence. Obama says his war is against al-Qaeda, not the Taliban. Poor people in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province pay the price, irrespective.

Both protect the rich. In Michael Moore's documentary, Farenheit 911, Bush called the richest corporations his "base". Obama bailed out Wall Street.

Both lack credibility in the developing world. Bush promised $15 billion to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa, but nothing followed. Obama, in his visit to Africa this year, lectured its political leaders to "clean up" their act, but ignored all the ways the US aides and abets their "acts" and impoverishes those nations.

As far as human rights go, both are a joke. The policy on China is so much the same, one doesn't wonder why Muslim dissidents didn't win the Nobel Peace prize. North Korea and Iran, as well as Cuba, remain "problems." And it's US, USSR, Israel, and China that hold the world's stockpile of nuclear arsenal.

Granted, most of us who hoped he would win in 2008 didn't expect Obama to offer anything new, but to claim he's done something revolutionary and that too for "world peace" is like saying the emperor has new clothes! Clearly, the only difference is this--Bush's empire did not apologize for colonization. Obama wishes to rule by consent, or at least poses to. He's invited the Europeans back to the table, after all.

In fact, Obama's America is no less a threat to world peace as Bush's. Like a shameless self-seeking power it understands "money" and not human rights, let alone world peace. Over 300 US corporations still do business with Burma's oppressive military regime. What has Obama done about this?

Minutemen and Klansmen

2009-10-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

I recently reviewed The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan by Rory McVeigh (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) for the academic journal American Studies. The book is a little dry, but there were some notable lessons in it for understanding anti-immigration organizations today.

The Klan originated after the Civil War to restore white supremacy by terrorizing ex-slaves and antislavery whites during Reconstruction. This generation of the Klan ended when Reconstruction did in the 1870s. McVeigh’s book studies the second generation of the KKK, which started in 1915 (coinciding with the release of D.W. Griffith’s famous pro-Klan movie The Birth of a Nation) and exploded in growth from 1920-1924, with a membership of over four million people at its peak.

McVeigh argues that this version of the Klan emerged as a white Protestant response to the rise of large-scale manufacturing and retail, which squeezed small businesses and farms, diminished the political influence of the heartland, and strengthened the power of the cities—and the ethnic communities that lived in them. Klan organizers successfully mobilized White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) by playing on their fears of losing their economic, political, and social power as a result of these economic and political changes.

McVeigh argues that while the 1920s Klan was racist, its focus was not primarily on anti-Black terrorism like the Reconstruction-era KKK. Rather, the 1920s Klan was essentially an anti-immigration social movement. Most social movements, he notes, seek to win power and status for the powerless. But right-wing movements “act to preserve, restore, or expand rights and privileges of a relatively advantaged social group” (38). The 1920s Klan is an example of this. They used a populist rhetoric that attacked industrial elites above them for manipulating labor markets and the “rabble” below them (i.e. ethnic, Catholic working class communities) for flooding these markets and for being culturally alien. The top and bottom of American society, they charged, conspired to squeeze the virtuous, hard-working, upright, white Protestants in the middle.

The KKK argued that “true Americans” were losing ground to immigrants, that immigrants burdened public resources, and that they degraded American culture. The Klan mobilized anxious WASPs by presenting itself as a “one-hundred percent American” organization that promised to restore their status. The fears of these relatively privileged WASPs, combined with effective mobilization techniques by the Klan, led farmers and middle class white Protestants to join the KKK in droves.

These arguments—and many of the quotes McVeigh provides from Klan papers—could have come from the Minutemen today.

What this suggests is that the key to understanding today’s anti-immigration movement—as well as anti-Obama organizing such as the “tea parties”—is to see it as a “virtuous middle” movement. In other words, these are movements whose members see themselves as a virtuous middle—religious, moral, hardworking, patriotic and truly American—who face the threat of losing their relatively privileged social status. They fear that they are under attack by a bewildering global economy and unscrupulous corporations that are moving their jobs overseas. Even more, they feel they are being attacked by cultural elites—Harvard and Hollywood, the universities and pop culture—who undermine the moral values of this virtuous middle with moral relativism and sexual permissiveness. They also fear that they are under attack by the rabble below them—lazy people who live off public benefits paid for by the virtuous middle’s tax dollars (these folks are often secretly coded as black) and illegal aliens who are flooding the country, stealing jobs and degrading American culture (these folks are often coded as brown). The virtuous middle fears that cultural elites from above and the black and brown rabble from below are conspiring —now with the help of a black president!—to undermine their social status and by extension the moral, political, and economic foundations of America. The fall into Sodom is right behind.

This fearful “virtuous middle” (or the “silent majority,” to use Nixon’s term in the 1970s) is a commonplace in American history. Jacksonian Democrats used it in the 1830s to attack corporate elites and slaves (but not masters), populists used it in the 1890s to attack corporate elites and defend segregation, the Klan used it in the 1920s to attack economic elites and Catholics and immigrants, Nixon used it in the 1970s to attack cultural elites and Black and student protestors, and now the anti-immigrant right is using it today.

From the perspective of participants in the anti-immigration movement, this is an effective strategy that should be continued, for it has often worked in U.S. history. From the perspective of those who support immigrant rights, it seems to me that the task is to convince this middle that their true interests lie in a united front with the black and brown “rabble” below them against the capitalist elites above. That would be hard, but it would also make for interesting times.

Ann Kirkpatrick: The Election of a Lifetime

2009-09-28T00:28:00.000-07:00

Ann Kirkpatrick (Democrat) is currently serving as a first term Congresswoman from AZ-01. It’s a well-accepted truism that first term representatives often face difficult reelection campaigns. But after being reelected once, representatives tend to hold on to their seats. Incumbency rates in House elections during the 21^st century range from 94% to 98%, according to OpenSecrets.org.

The Federal Election Commission reports that as of June 30, 2009, Kirkpatrick had over $422,000 in cash on hand for her next campaign. This puts her head and shoulders and neck and torso above any challenger at this moment. Nonetheless, challengers are beginning to line up. The heavy hitters rumored to be eyeing the race on the Republican side are former Arizona state Senate Majority Leader Rusty Bowers and current state House member Bill Konopnicki. Bradley Beuchamp, former school teacher and lawyer, has a campaign website up and running, as does Paul Goser, Flagstaff dentist and former leader of the Flagstaff Citizens for Flouride Initiative. We have yet to see if any challengers will emerge from within the Democratic Party ranks.

This is a race to watch! The enormity of the district (greater than the size of Illinois or Pennsylvania) and the lack of a central media market make this a difficult district in which to run a campaign. The major question of this election is whether we’re looking at a repeat of 1994 when Republicans swept the mid-term elections and took momentum away from Democrats; or, are we looking at 2004 when Rick Renzi, first term representative from AZ-01, extended his 2002 win over a Democratic opponent by more than 50,000 additional votes and cemented his place in Congress for two more election cycles. If Kirkpatrick wins the 2010 race, she’ll represent AZ-01 for the next decade, at least.

We’ll track the exciting dynamics of this race and report them on High Altitude Politics throughout the election season.

UN Report on the Gaza Conflict: Gaza in Numbers

2009-09-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

The highly anticipated UN Report on the Gaza Conflict that lasted from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009 was just released this past week. As it goes with any study on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this report garnered attention and criticism on all sides. The Israeli government immediately rejected the findings of the report, and in Friday's New York Times, a U.S. State Department spokesman, Ian C. Kelley, was quoted as saying that “its [the UN reports] conclusions regarding Hamas’s deplorable conduct and its failure to comply with international humanitarian law during the conflict are more general and tentative" and that the report is generally unfair due to its emphasis on Israeli actions.

In light of the actual content of the UN report, I find this assertion absolutely astounding. First, the cost of this conflict in human lives is staggering: 1,387 (the low NGO estimate on Palestinian deaths) to 13 (four of which were deaths by Israeli friendly fire; provided by Israeli government). Additionally, the report discussed Israeli injuries and rates of post-traumatic stress disorder which it did not offer for the Palestinians (31-2). In the report's conclusions, both Israeli and Palestinian actions are condemned as war crimes and that both sides violated human rights (see 1733-1738; 1747; 1753). The report also explicitly deals with the crimes of Palestinian armed groups (Hamas, et al): "In relation to the firing of rockets and mortars into Southern Israel by Palestinian armed groups operating in the Gaza Strip, the Mission finds that the Palestinian armed groups fail to distinguish between military targets and the civilian population and civilian objects in Southern Israel... These actions would constitute war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity" (541). Personally, I find this a clear indictment against these groups.

The fact of the matter is that reports can condemn armed groups for not complying with international humanitarian law, however these groups are not signatories to the Geneva Convention. Perhaps signatories, like Israel, should be held to a higher standard in times of war. Can there ever be a 'fault for fault' analysis of a conflict? How can one injury on the Israeli side defend the death of one Palestinian? Before President Obama meets with Netanyahu and Abbas this week, I seriously hope that he and his staff rethink their definitions of 'unfair'.

If Not Here then Where?

2009-09-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of sympathy for the French attempting to preserve their culture in the face of global homogenization. Having traveled to Europe many times over the last 30 years the changes are startling. In a similar way I admire those trying to prevent the bastardization of the English language. Remember the guys in college that tried to impress by using the non-word “irreguardless”? Well those same folks are older now and they have taken over “literally”. Of course unlike “irreguardless” literally is a word – but most people that now find the word useful don’t seem to know what it originally meant and use it in a way that is contrary to its intended meaning (and when used as such is unnecessary most of the time). Particularly irritating when misused by broadcast journalists.

Indiana Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law

2009-09-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

Despite the ruling by the US Supreme Court that the Indiana Voter ID law was constitutional, an Indiana appellate court on Thursday struck down the state law requiring voters to show identification.

The ruling argues that the Indiana constitution's guarantee to equal protection is more expansive than the 14th Amendment. The court states that the Voter ID laws pose more stringent identification requirements on in-person voters than absentee voters, and if the intent was to reduce voter fraud, the law should be doing the exact opposite.

I agree with this reasoning, but this can be alleviated by simply imposing similar standards to absentee voters. As my co-authored paper concludes, the current law would impose an undue burden on racial minorities and other demographics, potentially having a negative impact on participation.

The political issue at hand, however, is that these laws are being passed in increasingly "purple" states, such as Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and Indiana, and Republican legislators are trying to stop the bleeding. Some argue this is why absentee voters are explicitly excluded from the more stringent voting requirements. Absentee voters may tend to vote more Republican since they are older, have higher levels of income and are not as mobile. It is obvious that increasing the cost of voting will reduce participation, but some of the research suggests that overall turnout may not be negatively impacted by these laws. This apparent paradox, however, could be explained by an increase in non-minority voters due to greater confidence in the integrity of the electoral system as a result of the Voter ID laws, even though fewer minority voters turn out to vote on election day.

So far the aggregate data supports this explanation for the paradox even though the individual level data disputes it. Perhaps this is a relic of the data, in that some of these states have relatively small minority populations. A small increase in non-minority participation would more than make up for significant drops in minority participation.

Obama and Government 2.0

2009-09-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports today on Barack Obama’s use of social media tools as a way of opening Washington politics to the influence of greater political participation ('Athens' on the Net)

Titled “Government 2.0,” citizens now have unprecedented access to information and a myriad number of forums available for registering their opinions, thoughts and ideas about governmental policy and performance.

I wrote about the President’s social media strategy in the 2008 presidential campaign and discussed Obama’s current application of lessons learned in a conference paper I presented this summer at the World Congress of Political Science (Solop, 2009)

What strikes me as most important in the discussion of this topic is not how new social media tools are now available to citizens to register their concerns. What I think is most important is how Obama is using these tools to actively organize citizens in support of his policy agenda. Obama is bringing us into an era of the perpetual campaign where mobilization occurs throughout the year, not just during election season.

Is this a new approach to democracy in the United States? Or, are we harkening back to how democracy used to look before everyone grew weary and cynical of politics? Will Obama be successful in his efforts to keep the public perpetually mobilized?

Keep an eye on the health care reform debate as the first major litmus test for gauging the success of this new approach.

Crap and Paid

2009-09-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Economists made their most important contribution to air pollution
policy about 30 years ago when they introduced the idea of "cap and
trade". Initially environmentalists opposed this idea in large part
because they preferred a strict application of a “standards and
enforcement” regulatory regime. Unfortunately standards and
enforcement works well in theory less so in practice -- largely because
of the politics involved in setting standards.

For the most part environmentalists have come to accept the utility of
using human greed as an instrument of policy. So cap and trade has
become acceptable. (Ironically the economists that study these things
now think the simple tax on pollution above a certain threshold
would be more effective and efficient.) Pollution trading systems work best
-- actually only work -- when there are offsets. So for example if I
want to sell you 2000 tons of carbon pollution rights I should have to
reduce my output by that amount but you should only be allowed say
1500 tons. Unfortunately offsets have often been ignored.

As of this writing it's looking as though any cap and trade system
approved by Congress will be full of giveaways to keep influential
polluters happy. Those that lament a bastardized cap and trade policy should
remember the Family Assistance Program (FAP) and what we almost had
when the Nixon administration attempted welfare reform. Basically FAP
was a negative income tax. As such it would've eliminated the welfare
bureaucracy and simply allowing transfers of income to those in need.
FAP had merit for a number of reasons but it died largely because
Republicans and Democrats couldn't agree on the initial payment
amounts. Had Democrats agreed to what was clearly draconian
supplementary income levels the program would've been put in place and
adjustments could have been made incrementally later. Had that
happened the poor would be much better off today.

Let's hope we don't make the same mistake with cap and trade. Anything
that changes the regulatory regime and puts in place a system that
will alternately reduce admissions should be supported. Once it is in
place we can tinker with the offsets and trading limitations another
day.

Metropolitan unemployment rates released

2009-09-01T23:47:00.001-07:00

2009-09-01_2329, originally uploaded by stephennuno.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the latest unemployment rates for each state and the 372 metropolitan areas. The table above lists the fifteen largest population states and their unemployment rate in June and July. Of the fifteen states, eight states had higher unemployment rates, three states had unemployment rates that did not change and four states had a decrease in their unemployment rate. Sadly, Arizona had the highest jump in unemployment of the top fifteen populous states, going from 8.9 to 9.5.

Note that the state and metro numbers lag a month behind the national numbers that will be released for August later this week. This may or may not be a precursor to a higher national unemployment rate for August. Its difficult to tell.

Average LSAT scores by major

2009-09-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of LSAT scores by major. Perhaps there is selection bias with the lower N test takers, which may incline towards higher scores. My guess is the variance for the higher N test takers will be much larger than the lower N test takers. There are also some curiosities with the majors declared, such as government v. political science v. international relations. Take from it what you will, I suppose.

The Sky is the Limit

2009-08-31T00:32:00.000-07:00

The Space Shuttle Discovery reached the International Space Station today. This flight is a particularly proud moment for Latinos because the Space Shuttle carries with it the story of a remarkable journey. Jose Hernandez was born the son of migrant farm workers from Michoacan, Mexico. Hernandez is not the first Hispanic to board the Space Shuttle, but his humble origins are an inspiration to all about the potential of the human spirit.

ex-Felons and Civil Rights

2009-08-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

A continuation of sorts on the right to keep and bear arms. Some believe ex-felons should have their right to vote restored. However, I am curious what these folks think of the restoration of all this person's rights, such as the right to keep and bear arms. A recent case in North Carolina has ruled that some ex-felons do have a right to keep and bear arms. I think if you are going to argue ex-felons have a right to vote, something I am certainly open to, I don't think you can justifiably argue that the same person cannot enjoy all his/her rights. If you're argument is that this person is too dangerous to be trusted to exercise this right, then maybe this person should be serving more time.

Competitive House Districts in 2010

2009-08-27T00:08:00.001-07:00

To add to Zachary's comment below regarding competitive districts, the GOP leadership recently announced a list of 70 house districts that they will be targeting for 2010. Ten of the districts on the list are located in the Southwest. Above is a graph of the targeted districts and how they voted for president in 2008.

Karan English Malaise

2009-08-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

Blog, rimes with fog, a component smog - pollution or obfuscation?

I think I would like to introduce a new phrase into our political lexicon – “Karan English Malaise” Political slang can be useful shorthand for describing phenomena. Most are familiar with ‘The Bradley Effect” (although most are ignorant of the fact a gun control measure on the California ballot has as much to do with a Deukmejian win as did latent racism). The “Karan English Malaise” (or KEM) would seem to be just as important in understanding political success or failure. KEM is caused when a politician doesn’t pay attention to his or her base – or takes said base for granted.

Some background. Democrats need to have a registration advantage of about 7 points to overcome the tendency of Republicans to get out and vote. Hence a district that is – say 52 Democratic and 38 percent Republican is actually a competitive district – the parties will fight over a district like that (in contrast a 50-50 district is generally solid Republican).

The congressional district that encompasses Flagstaff Arizona has always been competitive. In order for a Democrat to win all the stars need to be aligned correctly and the base of the party has to be motivated and work hard. Karan English, it is widely assumed by local observers, lost her bid for re-election in part because an important part of her base – environmentalists – did not get to work and get out the vote. This is KEM – not taking care of your base (specifically not taking care of the environmental vote in Northern Arizona Congressional elections – but if I put too fine a point on it KEM won’t catch on).

Ann Kirkpatrick voted against the House cap and trade bill. The Republicans are waiting for the chance to take back her district. KEM looks like it might be settling in.

Be careful what you wish for.

2009-08-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

Blog, rimes with fog a component smog - pollution or obfuscation?

Like most political scientists I have long been a proponent of public financing of political campaigns. Almost 20 years ago I wrote disparagingly about the practice of Arizona legislative candidates parading in from of lobbyists to be video taped and then later evaluated by said lobbyists to determine who would be blessed with their largess. The anointed could count on about 50K and a good shot at election - those not chooses had to look for other work.

Such a system struck me as borderline corrupt and at a minimum influence peddling and sinister. So when Arizona got public financing it was a cause for rejoicing.

Fast forward. As always party nominations are determined by the fringe elements of the parties (the people who religiously turn out for primaries). These happen to be the most liberal in the Democratic Party and the most conservative in the Republican Party. Since Arizona is mostly a Republican state - Democrats can get elected statewide but it is often because Republicans do something stupid - Republican primaries are very important in Arizona politics.

Public financing has meant that any wingnut (right or left) can get funding, run a viable compaign and win. It turns out that those corporate campaign money people of yesteryear were actually moderate compared to the wingnuts who can now use public funding to get elected. Corporate lobbyists may have had interests to peddle but they also had an interest in a well run state (with, for example, good schools).

When you add to the mix term limits.....well that is for another time.

Should firearms and rallies mix in Arizona?

2009-08-22T21:57:00.001-07:00

The recent political event in which Arizonans exercised their right to openly carry firearms, and to which my colleague Fred Solop reasonably commented on, has been the subject of much ire. First to be clear, the open carry laws quite expressly allow eligible citizens to openly carry their firearm at an event such as this one. However, whether or not it is a good idea to open carry at a political rally is another matter. Since firearms are expressly prohibited from being carried at a polling place on the day of an election, it seems for good reasons, it is perfectly reasonable to question the wisdom of openly carrying firearms at a political event in which there will be contentious debate. However, not necessarily because you distrust the citizen exercising their rights. In addition to being contentious, political events can be crowded. Openly carrying may be an invitation to someone commandeering another person's weapon. This need not be a pro or anti 2nd Amendment argument. The tactical advantage to open carrying in certain situations is itself debatable among firearms experts. I am not calling for a law to be passed to restrict open carry at such rallies, I only suggest it is wise to reconsider. This also does not preclude the right of permit holders to conceal carry a firearm. Those who feel unsafe at the sight of an open carry firearm should know that its very likely that people around them are carrying weapons concealed. There are almost 140,000 active permits in Arizona and Arizona has substantial reciprocity laws, meaning they honor conceal carry weapons permits from every other state. For those concerned about firearms at a political rally, the bigger worry in my mind is the inability to distinguish those folks carrying concealed weapons legally or not. This is a problem one cannot escape without outright outlawing weapons from being carried on any person, but then by definition only lawbreakers will remain unaffected by these types of laws.

For those students at Northern Arizona wondering if NAU allows open carry or concealed carry on campus, the answer appears to be 'no'. Oddly, it is legal to store a weapon on the campus of a k-12 school if it is locked in a car, but not at a university. The state authorizes the Arizona Board of Regents to establish the policies concerning safety, and possessing or storing a firearm is a violation of that policy. I am not an expert or lawyer on the gun laws in Arizona, so please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Doin' the Hard Work

2009-08-20T08:19:00.001-07:00

The shouters and screamers who have made their presence known in various debates these past few months remind me of one of my pet political peeves. Where are they when the "hard work" of politics needs to be done? Were they sitting in the hot sun at a voter registration table, trying to get their fellow residents to participate in the process of electing officials? Did they join the cadre of volunteers who rode buses to another state to try to get out the vote? How many of them made telephone calls on election day to remind their neighbors to get to the polls, or drove those without transportation to a local polling place? Did I see them working at the polling place for less than minimum wage, getting up before dawn and working til late at night to make sure the process worked efficiently? And most importantly, were they the ones who put their lives on hold to run for elected office, patiently listening to the uninformed at rallies and even in the supermarket.

The people I respect most are the ones who realize that the political process can be messy and ugly and difficult to understand, but they participate in it nevertheless. They recognize that it works only when they do the hard work. The easy part -- yelling and chanting old slogans -- is just that-- easy.

The Boundaries of Speech and Tolerance in the U.S.

2009-08-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

I've been quoted hundreds of times (maybe more) in media stories appearing throughout the U.S. and the world. Rarely do I hear from anyone who has actually read my comments and agrees or disagrees with what I have to say. Today has been different. I was quoted in the following AP story which began appearing in newspapers and on TV throughout the country this afternoon (including tomorrow's Washington Post) and the hostile reaction I'm receiving in my e-mail inbox is incredible.

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

By AMANDA LEE MYERS and TERRY TANG (AP) – 8 hours ago

PHOENIX — About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends."

Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

"It's a political statement," he told The Boston Globe. "If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights."

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

"When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance," Solop said. "It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication."

He said he's never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. "The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation," he said.

Phoenix was Obama's last stop on a four-day tour of western states, including Montana and Colorado.

The complete story is available at http://www.startribune.com/nation/53497382.html?page=1&c=y

Let me now quote from a sample of comments I've received this evening:

1) For the time being, Americans still have rights under the Constitution. That includes the right to bear arms. I wonder, did you express the same level of concern during the elections when heavily-armed Black Panther terrorirsts were harassing and intimidating White voters at the polling stations? Did that "create a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication"? Or do they get a pass because they are anti-White, left-wing terrorists? Why are you so threatened by a law abiding citizen exercising his Constitutionally protected rights? The police were armed, so were Obama's Praetorean Guard cadres. Why is it ok for them but not for every other American citizen? (sent by Obed Santos)

2) People like You make me sick !! Please let me educate you ! What the hell are you calling an assault weapon !! an AR-15 ?? No its a semi auto, or rapid fire weapon !! Whats an ASSULT WEAPON !!--- Is a rifle or pistol !! That fires FULL AUTO or 3 round BURST !! Its book worms, like you that have never did. a days hard work in your life !! But has lived in a sheltered world, scared of the dark, and drive around with your doors locked !! Its ok, democrats, dont live in realilty ! and have NO BALLS !! I wish all you democrats would pull, your heads out of Obama's ass ! and educate yourselfs, in being a Man and an American ! America was built on GOD-GUNS-GUTS, And tough Men, and women ! people that would'nt back down from a fight ! Do you own a gun? if so thats very sad, that you dont know enough, So please educate yourself ! My Family has fought for the right ! so we are free, to carry a gun, and live FREE !! Get out of your class room, go to the country and meet some hard working people,who love there guns !! and love the right to carry them !!

Does the irony escape these authors? I raise the issue of guns creating a chilling effect on discussion at political rallies and they respond in a hostile, threatening manner meant to silence my ability to comment on political conditions in America.

US Census releases turnout data for 2008

2009-07-27T13:45:00.001-07:00

Its a pleasure to contribute to the new blog. Thanks to Fred Solop for giving me some space to post my thoughts.

The US Census released their turnout data for the 2008 Presidential election. The press release reports:

About 131 million people reported voting in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, an increase of 5 million from 2004, according to a new table package released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The increase included about 2 million more black voters, 2 million more Hispanic voters and about 600,000 more Asian voters, while the number of non-Hispanic white voters remained statistically unchanged.

Younger voters were the only age group to show a significant increase over 2004, but the press release goes on to say that younger voters still had the lowest voting rate, at forty-nine percent. The age groups over the age of forty-five years voted at a rate of sixty-nine percent and higher.

I think this fits with the narrative of the 2008 election, with much of the media attention on Obama's campaign mobilizing new voters and African American voters. While Hispanics increased their raw numbers, their population also grew, so there was no significant increase in the rate of Hispanic voter turnout. I mentioned back in November that I had my doubts that Hispanics would turnout in high numbers for Obama.

Its nice to see an increase in young voters, but still this confirms the old political science truism that young people don't vote at the same rate as the older folks. Its no wonder they bear the heaviest burden of our budget woes, with cuts in education and the extraordinarily high budget deficits (currently estimated to be about 1.8 trillion dollars) that these young folks will ultimately have to foot the tab for. Not to mention that a universal health care system would shift a great amount of the burden from older folks (who use a lot of health care) to the younger non-voting taxpayers who don't use much health care.

Visiting Buenos Aires

2009-07-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Buenos Aires following attendance at the 21st World Congress of Political Science in Santiago, Chile (July 12-16, 2009). Buenos Aires is beautiful. It has such a European feel to it. Not sure why I came here in Winter though. I can only imagine how amazing this city is in summer.

A New Blog Comes to Town

2009-07-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

This is the first posting on the new High Altitude Politics blog. High Altitude Politics is a project sponsored by faculty and graduate students in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. Our department offers a doctoral degree in Political Science, two masters programs (MA, MPA), a graduate certificate program and we have responsibility for the Public Management emphasis of NAU's Masters of Administration Degree.

We hope you enjoy reading this blog and you follow us regularly.

High Altitude Politics

Common sense and jogging

Public(izing) GMOs, (De)constructing Binaries

Youth and the Two Futures of Arizona

Are US Universities Censoring Speech?

Corruption and Class Struggle: What It’s Like to Live in Arizona Right Now

Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1761/cell-phones-and-election-polls-2010-midterm-elections

Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update

The Secret Sponsors

The Secret Sponsors

By MIKE McINTIRE

As Laws Shift, Voters Cast Ballots Weeks Before the Polls Close

By JEFF ZELENY

Miracles, Democracy, and the Fight Against SB 1070

Surveillance in Classrooms at NAU

Nativism & Fascism

Interview on the Repeal Coalition

SB 1070: Battle at the Grassroots

New Arizona

Radical Conservativism

Political Science and Values--Making Social Science Meaningful

Adiós Lou Dobbs

Good work by Obama?

The Emperor is Naked!

Minutemen and Klansmen

Ann Kirkpatrick: The Election of a Lifetime

UN Report on the Gaza Conflict: Gaza in Numbers

If Not Here then Where?

Indiana Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law

Obama and Government 2.0

Crap and Paid

Metropolitan unemployment rates released

Average LSAT scores by major

The Sky is the Limit

ex-Felons and Civil Rights

Competitive House Districts in 2010

Karan English Malaise

Be careful what you wish for.

Should firearms and rallies mix in Arizona?

Doin' the Hard Work

The Boundaries of Speech and Tolerance in the U.S.

US Census releases turnout data for 2008

Visiting Buenos Aires

A New Blog Comes to Town

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1761/cell-phones-and-election-polls-2010-midterm-elections