Minneapolis television news anchor creates documentary saying that Minneapolis is a shithole

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "What to make of ‘A Precarious State,’ the new film that sees Minneapolis through a dark lens." Rick Kupchela produced it, paid for it to be broadcast on local television--it's on YouTube too--in advance of Minneapolis' mayor election.

Billed as a public education campaign, the film, “A Precarious State,” has drawn some 300,000 views on YouTube and aired statewide on ABC affiliates last week as a paid advertisement.

Asked if it was released to influence city elections, Kupchella, in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune, said it wasn’t, but he also said it was necessary to release the film while it was still relevant.

The film doesn’t interview or mention Mayor Jacob Frey, who’s battling several challengers for a third term, but a woman who appeared in the documentary told the Star Tribune she agreed to be in it after she was told it would portray Frey in a positive light.

Kupchella won’t say who paid for the film, though he did tell the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead that it was produced with the help of “business and community leaders.” He said donors weren’t eager to come forward publicly in today’s supercharged political climate. “I think it’s a very important story that we uncovered here,” he said in an interview.

He says state school results are poor, city crime is out of control, that the city is socialist--like Seattle some Democrat Socialist of America members sit elected to City Council and this year the mayoral campaign features another ("Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh is a democratic socialist. Here’s what that means," MST).  DSA representatives are in the State Legislature and on St. Paul's City Council as well.

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Interestingly, American Prospect has an article, "The ad campaign for capitalism," about the national business community's campaign in the 1970s to save capitalism.

And Rolling Stone on billionaires wanting to control politics, "The Right’s Secret Plan to Help Billionaires Buy Elections."

And it turns out Trump's proposed university compact ("Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT," Bloomberg, "Inside the Trump Administration’s Assault on Higher Education," New Yorker) was provided in draft form by a trustee of the Wharton Business School at Penn ("The Billionaire Behind Trump’s Deal for Universities," New York Times).  Note that even if a college president is against signing, a conservative board might force the university to agree ("‘One-sided deal’: College presidents see Trump offer rife with peril," Politico).

Speaking of socialists ("America's Socialist Experiment," TwinCities PBS), Professor Joshua Freeman argues that the ostensibly Fiorello LaGuardia, NYC's mayor during the Depression, had a socialist agenda ("How Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Transformed New York City," Jacobin).

Using the coronavirus public health restrictions as a way to renew a Tea Party-like conservative anti-government movement

1.  Republicans constantly fighting community organizing of the poor.  A few days ago, the World Channel (which shows documentaries among other programming, and is broadcast on HDTV subchannels of PBS stations, although not in the DC area) rebroadcast an episode of the documentary series Independent Lens about the fall of ACORN, the community organizing group with affiliates in many states focused on a poor people's agenda, including voter registration, fighting foreclosures, etc.

-- "ACORN and the Firestorm," Independent Lens, PBS
-- "Filmmaker Q&A"

Republicans had been aiming at ACORN for years because they didn't like their voter registration efforts.  Going after ACORN was a form of "voter suppression."

The organization dissolved after a somewhat faked set of videos were released by alt right journalist James O'Keefe, alleging the group was willing to help a pimp get a housing loan to set up a brothel.

But at the same time, ACORN had  management issues because of the "distributed" nature of its organization, and was already in internal turmoil because of embezzlement by one of the organization's founders, which had been covered up by another of the organization's founders and they were brothers.

The organization collapsed.  Although many of the affiliates reorganized and incorporated under other names, with the loss of a nationally-focused infrastructure.

Years ago, I got into an argument with John Atlas, author of a book about the organization--he's featured in the film--and father of one of the producers.

I said "ACORN knew they had a target on their back.  So they needed to be squeaky clean.  And the embezzlement, which was covered up by the founder, would have probably sealed their doom anyway."

He scoffed, blaming that on constant Republican/conservative opposition, but I thought that was too facile.

2.  The Tea Party as an organized response of conservatives to the Democratic Party.  Plenty has been written about this, including many books.  A article by Harvard researchers published in the political science journal Perspective on Politics, "The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism," was the kernel of one of those books.

In short, business interests backed up by conservative media interests fomented the Tea Party as an attack on President Obama and the Democratic Party.

Tea-party protesters in Denver, April 15, 2009.
PHOTO: ANDY CROSS/THE DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES.

I always thought it was ironic that Tea Party activists stated they acted because "the government is taking over the economy through the Federal bailout/stimulus" in response to the Great Financial Crisis.  The government being equal to "socialism."

Ironically, from the standpoint of Marxist theory, it wasn't socialism and government takeover at all, but yet another example of the response to a "Capitalist Crisis" where business is bailed out by government ("THE GLOBAL CAPITALIST CRISIS: Whose Crisis, Who Profits?," International Review of Modern Sociology 38:2 Autumn 2012).

What's happening is business takes over government.  Not the other way around.

(During the GFC, many corporations walked away from commercial mortgages, with little real consequence, while individual homeowners were told that to renege on their commitments was a moral failure.)

As a result, the bailout was shaped to favor business interests--most, not all, of the corporations benefiting didn't have that many restrictions on what they did.  Bailing out of the banks did not require a whole lot of help to individual house owners who lost out to foreclosure.

And the Tea Party has been a force for fierce anti-government policy and rhetoric ("The Tea Party Succeeded, but Not at Policy," Wall Street Journal; "5 years later, here's how the tea party changed politics," CNN; "The Tea Party Didn’t Get What It Wanted, but It Did Unleash the Politics of Anger," New York Times).

Of course it didn't change "politics" in terms of policies favoring business, because business interests organized the creation of the Tea Party, to serve business interests.

Editorial cartoon by Dave Granlund featuring Fox News personalities who have advocated against stay at home orders.

3.  Protests against coronavirus restrictions in Maryland, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Ohio, California, etc. as the next iteration of the Tea Party anti-government backlash.  A few days ago, fomented in part by President Trump ("Trump Encourages Protest Against Governors Who Have Imposed Virus Restrictions," NYT), other re-election campaign interests, Fox News ("Protests against stay-at-home orders during coronavirus") and other conservative media organizations, there have been protests in various state capitals over the impact on the economy from business shutdowns ("Michigan's protests are a bellwether of an increasingly dangerous partisan divide," CNN; "Coronavirus Outbreak Eases in New York as U.S. Protesters Push Against Restrictions," WSJ; "What's Driving The Right-Wing Protesters Fighting The Quarantine," NYT).

Protestors in Huntington Beach, Calif. protest state closures on April 17. Photo: Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

It's not like these protests are big.  Nothing like the Women's Marches after the election of Trump and since, which brought tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people out to protests.

At least judging by this Axios roundup of photos of demonstrators at these protests.

Most of the protesters in Annapolis, Maryland didn't even get out of their cars ("Streets of Annapolis filled with cars in protest against Maryland coronavirus restrictions," Annapolis Capital-Gazette).

A message from a ReOpen Maryland supporter is seen on the back of a truck around Church Circle in Annapolis on Saturday, April 18. ReOpen Maryland is protesting the mandated closure of businesses due the coronavirus pandemic. (Brian Krista/Baltimore Sun Media Group)

Still, as the energy of the Tea Party opposition has faded--look at the success of the election of a Democratic Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin despite all the roadblocks put in the way of this by the Republican-controlled legislature (itself in power because of extreme gerrymandering).

I can't help but believe these protests are merely the next generation iteration of anti-government pro-conservative party identity building as a way to build momentum for the November election, in the face of the disastrous "management" of the coronavirus response by the Trump Administration.

In short, this isn't an "ad hoc" grassroots response by "concerned citizens."

It's fomented by  media and business interests that in general, don't care too much about the interests of "the people."

Some of the conservative calls for "opening the economy" have been couched in concern for the unemployed and the likelihood of "deaths of despair."

I read a comment on a Washington Post article making the point that it wasn't like these interests cared about such deaths before ("Farmer suicide deaths alarm rural communities in the Midwest," South Bend Tribune).

Conclusion: "The politics of anger" need to be constantly stoked in order to maintain rabid opposition to Democratic policies that in normal circumstances, help the protesters.

By making it out that recipients of help are both "the other" and "undeserving" the politics of anger are heightened.

From the New Yorker article "Arlie Russell Hochschild’s View of Small-Town Decay and Support for Trump":

Hochschild noticed that Tea Party enthusiasts and traditional conservatives gave her accounts of American society that boiled down to a single “deep story.” This story was that America, which was once characterized by hard work, was now characterized by cheating; the image that Hochschild chose was that of people cutting in line. For Hochschild’s subjects, the line-cutters were African-Americans, promoted by affirmative action, she writes, but also “women, immigrants, refugees, public-sector workers—where will it end? Your money is running through a liberal sympathy sieve you don’t control or agree with.” President Obama, in this vision, was the man controlling the line, waving the line-cutters ahead—“their president, not your president.” Hochschild shared this analogy in e-mails to the plumbers and insurance brokers she had met. “I live your analogy,” one wrote back. “It’s my story,” another said. A third wrote, “You’ve read my mind.”

A Trump Unity sign on a trailer is shown parked at the [coronavirus restrictions] protest in front of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing. Paul Sancya/AP

Not that President Trump reads, but maybe he should look at the Utah Leads Together Plan response to the pandemic

Trump ("Trump says he wants the country 'opened up and just raring to go by Easter,' despite health experts' warnings," CNN), Texan Lt. Governor Patrick ("Texas' lieutenant governor suggests grandparents are willing to die for US economy," USA Today) and others don't seem to have much of a plan in terms of their response to the coronavirus.

There has been a lot of coverage about how governors and mayors are far ahead of the federal government in terms of response.  It appears that Utah needs to be on the list, as its just released plan for dealing with the coronavirus, Utah Leads Together, seems to be significantly ahead of President Trump and state officials like Dan Patrick.  From the document:

The Utah Leads Together plan is based on the premise that every Utahn plays a role in Utah’s health and economic recovery. We lead together. To be successful Utahns must take three major actions:

1. Rigorously follow public health guidelines and measure transmission rates
2. Stay engaged with the economy
3. Assist those in need

It's a framework organized in three phases:

1. Urgent
2. Stabilization
3. Recovery

Thinking about the pandemic in these terms makes response much more graspable.

My "net assessment" of the US response to covid19

In the Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius ("Where would the U.S. stand in a post-pandemic assessment?") discusses the "Net Assessment" process created by the Department of Defense to assess the comparative likelihood of the US and the USSR to survive nuclear war.

He opines about a net assessment comparing the response of China and the US to the coronavirus.

Here's my not particularly detailed response:

China has an authoritarian government that withheld information, endangering their citizens. But they did respond, eventually.  And their scientists communicated about the situation and the virus in scientific circles early, giving a leg up to creating tests and more quickly understanding the nature of the disease.

Photo: Rex Features.

Neoliberalism: the emphasis on the market at the expense of government.  Since the era of Thatcher and Reagan, neoliberalism has resulted in the denigration and defunding of government in the US ("Neoliberalism's 'trade not aid' approach to development ignored past lessons: Neoliberal development policy was radical and abstract, but its uncompromising approach proved dangerous in the real world" and ">Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems," Guardian). From the first article:

At the heart of the new right project was a particular constellation of ideas and policies known as neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is often used today as shorthand for any idea that is pro-market and anti-government intervention, but it is actually more specific than this. Above all, it is the harnessing of such policies to support the interests of big business, transnational corporations and finance. It seeks not so much a free market, therefore, as a market free for powerful interests.

From the second article:

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

Extreme Republican ideology.  With the rise in extreme Republican ideology--dating to Newt Gingrich's Speakership if not before ("How Newt Gingrich Destroyed American Politics," The Atlantic), and the most recent Presidential election, the US has a viciously incompetent federal government that failed to maintain public health monitoring and surveillance systems, and through continued incompetence spreads misinformation through the President, even though somewhat crippled federal agencies are reacting, although local and state agencies are more in the lead because of the vacuum of leadership and competence.

Public health and health care is not an integrated system.  The US has adopted an approach generally and specifically in terms of health care to governance and funding that de-emphasizes the importance of surveillance and stocking slack resources to be able to respond to pandemics in a timely fashion.

I can't remember the article I read, but it made the point that "the US doesn't have a health care system, it has various disconnected marketplaces."

Rural areas have been particularly hard hit ("The Quiet Crisis Of Rural Hospital Closures, Kaiser Health) and because rural Republican states have declined to expand health care access to the poor.

But plenty of urban hospitals have closed ("Hahnemann University Hospital Closure: What Philly Is Losing," Philadelphia Magazine; "St. Vincent Medical Center closes after a century, shocking community," KCRW/NPR)sometimes because they are owned by for profit firms, or because the cost of uncompensated care is high and threatens the financial health of university parents.

These 2019 entries include links to past entries concerning health care matters in the DC area:

-- "Another example of a failure to do public capital planning in DC: Council votes to stop funding United Medical Center
-- "Community health improvement planning"

This has resulted in a continued reduction in the number of available hospital beds and usually a decline in the number of ICU beds as well.  Per capita numbers for the US lag countries with national health systems.

More recent efforts to tie public welfare health coverage and food assistance to employment, making it more difficult for immigrants to get citizenship status if they've received public benefits increase the likelihood of poor health outcomes.  Not to mention the difficulties of applying for benefits--most states haven't adopted best practice computerized systems, and have closed offices where people normally apply, etc.

Difficulty of responding extranormally when circumstances warrant.  Plus the bureaucratic nature of agencies tends to make it difficult to respond in innovative ways let alone with alacrity in extranormal situations (e.g., compare South Korea or Taiwan's response to that of the US, and the testing creation and approval process; cf. the debacle concerning expanding the Seattle Flu Study to test for coronavirus, etc.).

Need for a national health care system.  How the US health care system is set up disincentivizes people to get "wellness" care because of copayments, missed work and loss of income, lack of sick leave, etc.

Ideally, a net assessment would be like Britain's health services assessment during WW2 ("Want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness: are Beveridge’s five evils back?," Guardian) because in moving people from cities to the country, they realized that the country was underresourced in terms of health care systems and that people weren't very healthy.

That resulted in the creation of Britain's National Health Service in 1948.

(How health care is delivered in the US needs to be reorganized, in three tranches for normal care: (1) wellness care; (2) management of chronic disease; and (3) catastrophic care; alongside a more robust public health system.)

Globalization and the precariousness of work.  The problem with globalization isn't necessary globalization, that is the economic and social interconnectedness, although this can be simultaneously strengthening and weakening--but because it was paired with the adoption of neoliberal principles and the simultaneous disruption to and elimination of a social safety net.

The loss of the safety net has heightened effects because of the change of the nature of work and the organization of the economy away from large employers, who traditionally provided health insurance (and pensions) in the US system.

Globalization made work more competitive, led to the migration of large scale industry to countries with cheaper labor, putting many people out of work, especially in center cities where manufacturing had been concentrated.

Replacing labor with capital.  Plus alongside globalization you have an increased focus on capital and mechanization, the simultaneous upskilling of jobs while also eliminating or outsourcing jobs whenever possible.

For example, an auto plant probably has 25% or fewer workers than it did 30 years ago.  In Flint, which had a peak GM employment of over 80,000 people (+ the multiplier effect of 3.0 add on jobs at suppliers), today there are fewer than 9,000 GM jobs.

Although some of that is because GM spun off its part manufacturing into separate firms including Delphi--still the overall number of jobs has been reduced by more than 50%).

More recently, IT, telecommunications and software has led to the elimination of jobs (such as in human resources, accounting, etc.).

People out of work, low wages, and limited social safety provisions are vulnerable.  This creates a fragmented society and economy that is economically and socially vulnerable to exogeneous shocks--climate change; financialization; pandemic; etc.

Books on the housing market

I happened upon the most recent issue, Winter 2019,  of Democratic Left, the publication of the Democratic Socialists of America, and its books page focused on interrogations of capital in the housing market.  Capital City has been on my list of books to read for awhile...

(An out of print planning history classic along the same vein is Planning the Capitalist City.)