So You Know--Working for City Council Candidate Evan Thies

I am currently working for Evan Thies in his campaign for New York's 33 District City Council seat in Brooklyn. The district covers Greenpoint, Williamsburg, DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, and Boerum Hill. If you want to get involved or support Evan Thies' campaign, let me know.

Visited the Lower 9th Ward

And it's still completely devastated. An entire neighborhood, in America, that has been forced to lie fallow for the last four years like a massive graveyard. The bodies might not be there any more, but the utter and complete destruction is obvious, nonetheless. Some of it may be grassy fields now, but the concrete foundations stand there still, like weird tombstones laid flat atop their graves. The hollow shells of houses, completely gutted and reduced to studs bear witness to a horrific catastrophe.

The disaster was caused by far too weak levees--government structures that failed not because of misinformation and bad judgment but sheer neglect from the people elected to look out for those things. It's a fair summary of the problems of the entire city. On each of the houses, the first responders to Hurricane Katrina drew "X"s, marking who had searched the place, when, and what they found. Many of the homes in the heart of the Lower 9th Ward weren't searched until September 19, 2005--more than three weeks after Hurricane Katrina. By that point, there was no one left to save.

Once Katrina hit, though, there's no reason the federal government could not have implemented a Marshall Plan for the Gulf Coast. No matter our current economic circumstances, America is a fairly wealthy nation. If George Bush or Barack Obama made rebuilding New Orleans a priority, we could afford to pay for it. Restoring a house is insurmountably expensive to a displaced family that lost everything. However, our government has money. For the price of just a few of the cheaper pork earmarks, hundreds of houses could be replaced. It's not about money--it's about determination, and we need to devote our resources to it.

Reminds me of Majdanek and Auschwitz. It looks incredibly similar, and evokes a similarly emotional response. Anyone who can see it and not react violently has no soul.

I'm in New Orleans

And it's scaring the shit out of me. I knew so much of it wasn't rebuilt, but we're at a school now, and you can still see the lesson plan on a chalk board from August 26, 2005--the Friday before Hurricane Katrina hit. On it, there's a message: "Have a safe weekend." So much of the building still has water damage, and some rooms even smell of mold. The school seems almost haunted. On the ground floor, the cafeteria still has the line posts in place...and almost nothing else.

If anything, it reminds me of Majdanek. The stains on the wall are a slightly different color (the result of water and peeling paint, instead of zyklon b), but it has the same feel of a horrible, haunted historic landmark that should not be forgotten.

Not Sure How to Vote on the Propositions?

Check out the Calitics endorsements. They are a great source for the progressive view on California issues.



You're welcome, Brian.

ICYMI: I'm in the Daily News

Just so you know, I'm in the Los Angeles Daily News discussing the excesses of ballot initiatives.

For Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, it's the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama that is driving him to the polls.

"This is my first election and I couldn't be more excited," said Spitzer-Rubenstein, 18, who also made calls for the Obama campaign in Los Angeles.

But, other than a couple of other items, he said he was unsure how to vote on all the ballot propositions.

"I know about (Proposition) 8, but a lot of the other ones are pretty confusing," he said. "There's no way anyone can really know about some of the issues that are on the ballot."

Check it out!

Article in the Spec and Stop Prop 8!

Hey Everyone!

I have an article in the Columbia Spectator about teachers' First Amendment Rights to wear campaign buttons.

Politics should be kept out of the classroom. Educators should maintain perfect neutrality on partisan issues and not disclose their political views. By never talking about their own beliefs, they will avoid prejudicing their students’ grades on the basis of the views expressed and indoctrinating them into a specific ideology. Wearing a button or putting up a sign contributes to shaping political views.

Read the rest of it here.

Also, if you think we same sex marriage isn't out to somehow destroy "traditional marriage" (I think Britney Spears already did that), put your money where your mouth is and stop Prop 8! We only have 12 days left, and every minute counts, so help defeat Prop 8.

There are Demons on Low Steps?

Apparently.

A group of Bhutanese monks came today to cleanse the Steps of Demonic Energy (and promote the Museum of Himalayan Art), and they did a ritual that I suppose killed all the demons and bad energy there.

I wonder, though. Won't the demons come back when the monks leave and people take their homework outside to do on the Steps, again?

*Pictures later*

September 11 IS a Day for Politics

Today, we're hearing plenty of talk about non-partisanship, how September 11 should be a day of national mourning, not a day of politics. In some ways, it's almost religious in nature--like the Sabbath, separating the profane, political from the sacred, non-partisan.

But it's a false division. Whether in religion or politics, life cannot be bifurcated except by arbitrary and misleading measures. We cannot simply commemorate the events of September 11, 2001 and call for national unity and service, as the ServiceNation forum tonight is meant to do, without involving politics (unless, of course, politics means solely the trivialities that the news media usually treats us to). The whole idea of community service and involvement is inseparably linked to political ideology. Libertarians, especially radical Ayn Rand libertarians, don't subscribe to the idea that we have a moral, if not legal, obligation to be involved citizens. And our belief in what type of service should be valued is especially political.

We, as liberal Democrats, place an enormous emphasis on civil service, whether in the Peace Corps overseas or in AmeriCorps at home. This comes in numerous forms, from Habitat to Humanity to education, from the importance of community organizers to the value of unions.

By contrast, in the context of service, Republicans are far more likely to place serving in the military or missionary work. As we've seen over the past week or two, Republicans don't feel nearly as positively about organizers.

These are ultimately political, for those values can clearly be traced into public policy, whether in Barack Obama's proposal to give tuition assistance to students who volunteer (PDF) or in George Bush's opaque governing style that prizes corporations over community groups. At tonight's forum, Obama and McCain should be asked what they value, and how they will translate that into policy. Those are both political and partisan, but are the crux of any debate on service, unless Barack Obama and John McCain are expected to spend their two hours on pablum about how everyone should volunteer at soup kitchens and hospitals.

However, the entire context for the event is entirely political. September 11th was not an event divorced from politics--it came about because of and resulted in political decisions, from George Bush shifting intelligence agencies from their Clinton-era focus on terrorism to Russia and China, and after 9-11, resulted in the invasion of Iraq. That's inarguably political, and the issue should be raised--who will keep America safer?

This isn't an argument we should be afraid of, for we should be able to win that issue. John McCain has never met a war he didn't like, whether it was Vietnam in the 60's or Iraq today. As our troops are dying in Iraq, both the media, the Obama campaign, and we bloggers ought to point out that it's not making us safer. Instead, even today, we need to point that out.

If we aren't willing to make note of that today, when it is perhaps most relevant, we don't deserve to take back the White House. It may be September 11th, but rather than be a day without politics, it should remind us why politics is so important.

Note: I will be liveblogging the event from Columbia University for the Columbia University College Democrats at http://blog.cudemocrats.com/. This diary represents my views alone, and not those of the Columbia University College Democrats.

ICYMI: Obama-McCain at Columbia

Just a note, Obama and McCain will be at Columbia today for a "forum" on national service. I'll be liveblogging it for the Columbia University College Democrats on their blog "The Lion and the Donkey".

The Atlantic Just Put Out a Series of Memos by the Clinton Campaign

You can see the memos here

The ones I'm most interested in are their estimates of California. And I'm disappointed to say that my 33rd District wasn't targeted. On the brighter side, we got nearly as many votes for Barack Obama as they predicted in total. Hillary Clinton's campaign estimated about 91,000 votes all told--we turned out 81,000 voters for Obama.