But Baby, Obama Wants Me to Drive a Fiat X1/9

Of all the cars that I’ve owned, my favorite was a yellow and black 1975 Fiat X1/9.

Designed by Nuccio Bertone, the X1/9 was a two-seater, hardtop convertible with a mid 1489 cc. engine and a five-speed transmission.

It was beautifully styled and it handled like a dream.

It was tremendous fun driving this sleek little skateboard on the freeway.

The only real problem was the carburetor, which kept failing when it idled.

And you couldn’t get parts, except by scavenging the junkyards.

And the mechanics here in Southern California would just laugh if you asked them to fix it.

I learned to keep it going (most of the time) using a combination of toothpicks and rubber bands.

(Really).

Then my son was born.

My wife said:

The Fiat X1/9 is not a car for a parent.

There’s no room for a baby seat.

There’s no room for anything.

A sleek yellow skateboard racing down the freeway isn’t a very safe place for a child.

There are no air bags.

There isn’t much of anything between the driver and the road.

And Fiat’s reputation for unreliability doesn’t inspire the confidence that parents require.

You need a car that doesn’t require a toolkit of rubber bands and toothpicks.

So my Fiat X1/9 was abandoned for a safer, more sensible car, one that was appropriate for a “Baby On Board” sign.

My current car is a Chrysler PT Cruiser Turbo convertible.  All in all, a reliable but fun car with plenty of room for the kid, the dog, and the scout troop equipment.

But it isn’t half as much fun as the Fiat X1/9.

Over time, giving up the X1/9 came to symbolize my belated transition into adulthood and responsibility.

But now President Obama insists that my Chrysler must become a Fiat.

My son no longer needs to sit in a rear seat.

Is it time to talk to the wife about getting an X1/9 again?

Not just for me, of course.

But as a show of support for our president.

John Hope Franklin (1915-2009): Historian and Fighter for Social Justice

Academics and intellectuals  – and college professors in particular – are often thought of as living in an Ivory Tower – dispassionate, disconnected, and aloof from the everyday world.

And, for the most part, this reputation is deserved, especially in America, where we have often demanded a quiescence  that poses as objectivity from our academics and have little tradition of intellectuals who actively engage in the social and political struggles of their times.

But the Ivory Tower could not contain Dr. John Hope Franklin – historian, professor, and passionately engaged civil rights activist – who died yesterday at the age of 94.

Franklin achieved a long list of firsts in his career: the first African-American president of the American Historical Association; the first black department chairman at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke University; the first black chairman of the University of Chicago’s history department; and the first African-American to present a paper at the segregated Southern Historical Association, one of many groups that later elected him its president.

He was also a pioneer as a historian.  His first major work, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans,” published in 1947, began the long process of establishing black Americans as dynamic actors rather than as passive victims or mere objects of America’s long struggle for social justice.

It was a struggle that he witnessed, and participated in, throughout his life.

Armed white rioters with dead African American, Tulsa, 1921.

Franklin was born on January 2, 1915, in the post-Reconstruction and Klan-controlled South – in the all black town of Rentiesville, Oklahoma – where his family moved when his father, a lawyer, was not allowed to practice law in Louisiana.  He experienced first-hand the indignities, humiliations, and fears engendered by Jim Crow laws — and saw his father’s law office burned by white racists (and probably had friends and family members killed) in the vicious Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, when as many as 3,000 African Americans were murdered by a white mob who were engaged when a black man accidentally touched a white woman in an elevator. He was also denied admission to the University of Oklahoma solely because of his race.

By 1947, Franklin had a Ph.D in history from Harvard and had moved North with an appointment as a history professor at Howard University.  He could have concentrated all of his efforts on publishing his historical research and building his academic career.

But Franklin was not content to be an Ivory Tower academic.  Instead, Franklin joined forces with both Martin Luther King’s on-the-ground grassroots civil rights movement in the South and the NAACP’s legal battle in the federal courts for integration.  Franklin advised Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Team in the cases leading to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education and marched with Dr. King in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Dr. Franklin with President Clinton, 2005.

“As a student of history,” Franklin said, “I have attempted to explain it historically, but that explanation has not been all that satisfactory. That has left me no alternative but to use my knowledge of history, and whatever other knowledge and skills I have, to present the case for change in keeping with the express purpose of attaining the promised goals of equality for all peoples.”

When President Clinton awarded Franklin the Medal of Freedom in 1995, he said that he had never confused “his role as an advocate with his role as a scholar.”

More importantly, Franklin taught us that to do justice to the role of a scholar, the scholar must be also an advocate for justice.

Why the Republican Anti-Tax Movement Doesn’t Care About the Taxes that YOU Pay

I listened recently to Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, on the Los Angeles NPR radio program “Air Talk with Larry Mantle.”

The specific topic was the tax increase ballot measures, such as Proposition 1A, that were part of last month’s budget deal and are coming before California’s voters in a special election on May 19.

But Coupal wanted to talk about California’s taxes in general, and he made the claim that California’s taxes are the highest in the nation.

Wait a minute, I thought.

If Coupal is correct about Californians being so outrageously overtaxed — more than 30 years after the passage of Prop 13 – isn’t he admitting that both the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and its primary accomplishment – Prop 13 – have been dismal failures?

In fact, neither Coupal nor the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association really care about the amount of taxes that most Californians pay.

What they care about is the kind of taxes and who pays them.

And that’s far from the same thing as caring about taxes in general, or the taxes paid by the average Californian.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and Prop 13, was initially a project of Los Angeles’ biggest apartment landlords.  Jarvis himself was a lobbyist for the Los Angeles Apartment Owners Association – initially concentrating his efforts in attempting to destroy rent control — and ran the campaign for Prop 13 from the Apartment Owners Association’s office.

The goal of Jarvis and his allies was not primarily to limit the taxes paid by California’s homeowners – at least not those who actually live in the houses that they own – or to limit the taxes paid by middle class Californians.

Instead, the goal of Jarvis, the anti-tax Republicans – and of Prop 13 – was to limit the taxes paid by the largest and richest commercial landowners and landlords.

By that measure – and only by that measure — his work and the work of his successors such Jon Coupal — has been a tremendous success.

Of course, as a direct result of Prop 13’s cap on business and commercial property taxes – and its equal treatment of all property taxes regardless of the kind of property owned – the rest of our taxes have increased.

In particular, Californians have been pummeled by increasing regressive taxes, such as the sales tax, the gasoline tax, and the vehicle registration tax.

But the Republican anti-tax movement doesn’t care – and has never cared — about those kinds of taxes.

And by talking about taxes as though all taxes were the same and applied equally to everyone, the Republican anti-tax movement continues to protect the giant landlords whose taxes they’ve keep down and to bamboozle the middle class voters whose taxes continue to rise.

The next time you hear one of the anti-tax Republicans – or an avid John and Ken Show listener — strike a phony populist pose as they complain about California’s high taxes, ask them this:

How have the Republican anti-tax crusaders  limited taxes on the middle class or the average Californian?

Why do they make no distinction between taxes on owner-occupied property and taxes on business, commercial and landlord property?

Why do they insist on making no distinction between progressive taxes – which require the richest Californians to pay more – and regressive taxes – which require us all to pay the same?

When you don’t get an answer to these questions, ask yourself this one:

How stupid do they think we are?

Based on their success in protecting the landlords and the rich by foisting California’s tax burden on the middle class, I’d say they have good reasons to think we’re pretty damn stupid.

Staging the Genocide in Darfur

I am the founder and Artistic Director of Moving Target Theatre, which partners with humanitarian and progressive organizations to bring theatre that engages the social issues of our times directly to the community.

We have no space of our own.

Our “theatre” consists of community centers, churches, mosques, synagogues, union halls and schools – the places where people gather to discuss and organize action around the issues that affect their lives.

Our current production — in partnership with Orange County for Darfur — is the play In Darfur by Winter Miller.

In Darfur is a contemporary examination of the unfolding tragedy of Darfur. An idealistic New York Times reporter risks everything to force that paper to highlight the Darfur story. But the telling the truth about Darfur increases the danger for everyone involved, leaving the audience on the edge of their seats and on the edge of the abyss.

The next performance of In Darfur is this Saturday, March 21, at 7:00 pm at Christ Our Redeemer AME Church (in partnership with University Synagogue), 46 Maxwell St., Irvine, CA 92618.

The performance is free.

To reserve tickets, for more information, or to schedule a performance, call (949) 300-4100 or go to the website of Orange County for Darfur.

We hope to see you there.

UPDATE:

The performances of In Darfur at COR AME Church and St. Anselm’s Church were enormously successful.  Upcoming performances include the Tapestry Unitarian Universalist Church in Mission Viejo and Chapman University in Orange, California.  Please check  Orange County for Darfur or the facebook page of Moving Target Theatre for specific times, dates, and venues, or to inquire about bringing the production to your community.

Ruslan Janumyan and Joseph Byrd in Moving Target Theatre's "In Darfur."

Pat Payne and Lindsay Blackwell in Moving Target Theatre's "In Darfur."

The Charge of the Democrat Light Brigade: California Democrats Caught in Republican Tax Trap

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
– Alfred Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Like the Russians did to the British at Balaclava in Tennyson’s famous poem, California’s Republicans have set a deadly trap for Democrats that they won’t be able to escape.

When the state’s more than $40 billion shortfall and budget stalemate was resolved last month, it was on condition that several tax increase propositions — most notably Prop 1A — be placed before the voters.  Governor Schwarzenegger has set May 19, 2009, as the date that the voters will decide the fate of these propositions in a special election.

Schwarzenegger and the state Democratic leadership support these tax increase propositions.

The Republicans – who acquiesced in both the budget and its tax increases by permitting the minimum number of their party members to vote for the deal that ended the stalemate – are now likely to oppose them.

Joining the Republicans in urging that voters reject the tax increase propositions will be the state’s powerful and well-funded anti-tax organizations, including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.

As a result, the voters will see an intense, expensive, and high publicity campaign leading up to the May 19 special election that pits Democrats (and their union allies) arguing for higher taxes against Republicans (and their anti-tax allies) calling for no increase in taxes.

Once again, the Republicans will be the party saying no to taxes and the Democrats will be forced to be the party of tax increases.

To most voters, it will not matter that the budget deal was explicitly premised on the state getting the increased revenue from these taxes.

Nor will it matter to the Republicans that they tacitly agreed to these tax increases when they signed off on the state’s budget.

Instead, the Republicans will seize the opportunity of the special election to make amends to the state’s anti-tax forces – which are mad as hell at them for agreeing to the state budget – and to paint the Democrats – once again — as profligate spenders who want to tax Californians to death.

To make matters worse for the Democrats, the propositions that are going before the voters on May 19 are mostly hikes in regressive taxes and state fees – including increases in the state’s income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax and vehicle fees – that hit middle class pocketbooks hardest.

Again, it will not matter to voters that it was the Republicans who insisted that if the state’s revenue is increased, it be increased by the most regressive kinds of tax measures.

Nor is it likely to matter to voters that for decades the Republicans and the state’s anti-tax forces have forced the middle class to bear the brunt of the state’s revenue needs because of Prop 13’s constitutional command not to tax commercial or business property differently than owner-occupied homes, and the Republicans’ steadfast commitment to protecting the rich by opposing any form of progressive taxation.

The reason that these facts are unlikely to matter to voters is that the Democrats have done a terrible job of making these arguments in the past, and specifically failed to make these arguments during the heat of the most recent budget battle.

California’s Democrats should have taken their cue from the Obama campaign and insisted that the state’s already battered middle class be protected from any tax increase.

And like Obama, California’s Democrats should instead have called for balancing the state budget through higher taxes for the very rich who have benefited so disproportionately from both the Bush tax cuts and the financial deregulation that has led to our national economic crisis.

But it’s probably too late to do that now.

The tax trap is set.

And California’s Democrats are riding right into it.

Why I Love Conservative Talk Radio’s John and Ken Show

If you’re happy that Rush Limbaugh has been giving headaches to Republican leaders trying to find a popular political stance for their shrinking party, you’ll be thrilled to hear about the migraines that a conservative-libertarian talk radio duo named John and Ken are giving to the leadership of the Republican Party in California.

While Limbaugh helps the Democrats by shoving the Republican Party backwards toward an increasingly unpopular combination of militarism and social conservatism, at least his primary targets are Democrats.

Limbaugh wants Obama to fail, not the Republican Party.

In contrast, John and Ken almost never mention Democrats. Their primary target is the leadership and elected officials of the California Republican Party.

And while Limbaugh’s followers are the people whose marginal political power was proven in the last election to be insufficient to prevent the collapse of the Republican Party, the followers of John and Ken are people whose votes and enormous political clout are absolutely essential to California Republicans – the true believers of the California tax revolt.

But before we talk about John and Ken, we need a short history lesson:

Movements of highly motivated true believers are difficult to contain and control, and can become a mortal danger even to their putative leaders and one-time heroes.

During the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre was executed by the same mob that he had once incited and led in the Reign of Terror against his enemies.

In Communist China, Mao gave his official blessing to the radical Red Guard movement during the Cultural Revolution for the purpose of consolidating his control over the country’s universities and intellectuals. Within a short time, the Red Guards  had created chaos throughout China and threatened to destabilize Mao’s own regime.

In Iran, Abolhassan Banisadr incited and mobilized Islamic opposition to the Shah. Within a year after the Shah was overthrown, Bamisadr was himself deposed and threatened with death by these same Islamic militants.

Now California’s Republican Party leadership faces a similar fate at the hands of the anti-tax extremists who have long served as their own revolutionary guard and army of true believers.

When the tax revolt began in California in the 1970s, the state’s Republican Party leadership was opposed to a constitutional amendment that would limit the government’s ability to raise taxes.  They believed — correctly — that such an amendment would lead to enormous budget deficits.

But when Prop 13 was approved in 1978 by an overwhelming 65 percent of the voters, California’s Republican Party leaders – Governor Ronald Reagan above all — quickly hopped on the very top of the anti-tax bandwagon.  Ever since, hostility to taxes — in any form and under any and all conditions — has been an article of faith for California’s Republican Party.

The enduring political success of the California tax revolt has given enormous power to anti-tax extremists such as Grover Norquist and his organization, Americans for Tax Reform, as well as the organization of the late tax revolt hero, Howard Jarvis, The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.  Norquist and Jarvis became, in effect, the ideological leaders of the California Republican Party, and their organizations now serve as the party’s real battlefield force.  When Norquist insisted that Republican candidates swear to oppose any tax increase under any and all circumstances, every Republican member of the California legislature signed the Pledge.

It has been an alliance that has served the party well, particularly because these anti-tax organizations are so effectively run and because the identification of the California Republican Party with the tax revolt has motivated hundreds of thousands of grass roots anti-tax extremists to work tirelessly — walking precincts, making phone calls, addressing envelopes, and mobilizing home owners and community groups — on behalf of the Republican Party and to get out the vote for Republicans candidates.

Now all that is threatened by two guys named John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou with very loud microphones who are appalled at the tax increases included in the budget deal between Governor Schwarzenegger and the state legislature.

Their radio program — The John and Ken Show on Los Angeles’ conservative KFI AM-640 – is the most listened to local talk radio program in the United States.

And it has declared total war on the leadership of the California Republican Party, which it blames for the budget’s increases in taxes.

Since the budget deal, for four prime-time hours every day, John and Ken have relentlessly blasted California’s Republican leadership as traitors to the anti-tax movement and the people of California.

They’ve put pictures on their website of Schwarzenegger and the leaders of the California Republican Party with their heads on pikes, swords, and toilet plungers.

They’ve called for the recall of Schwarzenegger.

They’ve called for the recall of Republican legislators.

They’ve announced “Revolt, Recall and Repeal” rallies.

And they’ve taken away the leadership of California’s tax revolt from Republican Party allies Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform, and The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

They are about to destroy the California Republican Party.

Democrats should be thrilled.

UPDATE: See related posts:

Democrats Should Be Joining the Tea Parties

Why the Republican Anti-Tax Movement Doesn’t Care About the Taxes that YOU Pay

The Charge of the Democrat Light Brigade: California Democrats Caught in Republican Tax Trap

Prop 8: What’s Really at Stake for the California Supreme Court

In addition to the continuing validity of same sex marriage, the Prop 8 case before the California Supreme will decide an issue has not been directly address by the parties or the Court.

The primary legal issue at tomorrow’s hearing before the California Supreme Court on Prop 8 is the narrow and extremely arcane question whether Prop 8 is an amendment to the state constitution or a revision of the state constitution.

John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States

An amendment to the state constitution may be placed on the ballot by either a two-thirds vote in the state legislature or signatures equal to 8% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election.

In contrast, a revision of the state constitution requires both the approval of two-thirds of the legislature and a majority of voters.

In other words, while the voters in California have the right to amend their constitution by a simple majority vote through the use of ballot propositions, any revision of the constitution’s ‘underlying principles” requires a far more deliberate and complex process involving a two-thirds vote of the legislature followed by the submission of such proposed changes either directly to the voters or to a constitutional convention.

Prop 8 was never endorsed by two-thirds of the legislature.

Accordingly, if it is an amendment to the constitution, it is legally valid; if it is a revision of the constitution, then it is not.

There is little or no case law or commentary to help the Court decide whether Prop 8 is a (valid) amendment or an (invalid) revision.

The pro-Prop 8 lawyers will argue that the proposition changes only a small part of the constitution that applies only to a small group of people, and is therefore merely an amendment and hence valid.

The anti-Prop 8 lawyers will argue that because the proposition attempts to negate a fundamental right, it is a substantial revision of the entire constitution and hence invalid.

But appellate cases – and especially high profile and controversial appellate cases — are rarely decided on such narrow and arcane questions of law, even though lawyers and judges must pretend that they are.

Such cases are decided on the basis of the judges’ assessments of their consequences, and not merely the direct consequences to the litigants.

What’s really at stake in the Prop 8 case is the power and prestige of the California Supreme Court itself.

Prop 8 aims to overturn the California Supreme Court’s decision in The Marriage Cases (2008), where the Court held that “the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society,” and that “in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.”

If this decision of the California Supreme Court, based on what it described as a “fundamental constitutional right,” can be overturned by a simple majority of voters in a ballot proposition, then the purportedly “fundamental” state constitution carries no more weight than a simple statute — and arguably even less weight, since a statute requires either the approval of a majority of the legislature and the signature of the governor or a two-thirds vote of the legislature.

And since appellate judges see themselves first and foremost as guardians of the constitution, if the constitution is diminished, then the judges are correspondingly diminished as well.

In our national history, the United States Supreme Court had little prestige until Chief Justice John Marshall declared in Marbury v. Madison (1819) that the Court, as the ultimate interpreter of the constitution, had the power to invalidate legislation as contrary to the constitution as — in the words of Article VI — “the supreme Law of the Land.”  John Jay, the first Chief Justice, had resigned in 1795 and declined reappointment in 1800 because, in Jay’s words, the Court lacked “the energy, weight, and dignity which are essential to its affording due support to the national government.”

If the California Supreme Court fails to invalidate Prop 8, it will be declaring itself similarly to lack “the energy, weight, and dignity” that is essential for it to be a coequal branch of government.

UPDATE:

In a stunning, powerful, and courageous decision, the Iowa Supreme Court, citing the California Supreme Court’s decision in the Marriage Cases, holds that its state’s ban on same sex marriage violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.

Old Jews Telling Jokes

Jews have long been associated with comedy, and specifically with the form of comic storytelling called jokes.

There are a lot of theories about why people, and Jews in particular, tell jokes.

Henri Bergson believed that joke telling is a form of social control, in which the victim is made the target of humiliating laughter.

Mikhail Bakhtin thought that jokes and laughter are ways of overcoming the fear of death, transgressing social barriers and hierarchies, and celebrating the “lower body stratum” of human existence including both sexuality and defecation.

Freud thought that the popularity of joke telling among Jews is a form of self-criticism, as well as a way to criticize authority and the excessive requirements of the Jewish religion, and to purge aggressive feelings resulting from the suppression of sexuality.

Jokes seem to be the province of  people with a history of oppression. In the United States, the great comedians tend to be African-Americans, Irish, or Jews.

(It is apparently extremely difficult to be a funny WASP — although here I must acknowledge that John McCain excelled in the presidential campaign’s stand-up comedy competition.)

Theories aside, for whatever reason, Jews like to tell jokes.

Everyone knows of famous Jewish comedians – a quick list of classics would include Milton Berle, Woody Allen, Alan King, Lenny Bruce, Fannie Brice, Mel Brooks, Phil Silvers, George Burns, Joan Rivers, Jackie Mason, Carl Reiner, Jack Benny, Joey Bishop, and Groucho Marx – and a list of contemporaries would include Jerry Seinfeld, Sasha Baron Cohen, Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Richard Lewis, Sarah Silverman, and Sandra Bernhard.

But because joke telling has been so highly valued in Jewish culture, lots of ordinary Jews are good at it as well.

A new website called Old Jews Telling Jokes is a homage to non-professional Jewish joke tellers.

The old Jews telling the jokes aren’t professional comedians.  Instead, they’re doctors, lawyers, a lumberyard owner, a garment district worker, a wine salesman, a judge – and  also the website creator’s mother and father.

It’s very funny.

Sam Hoffman, a film director and writer, and the man who created Old Jews Telling Jokes, explains:

“My dad can tell a story. But he’d prefer to tell a joke.”

“Storytelling is a Jewish tradition.  You’ve probably seen Fiddler on the Roof.  Whenever they ask the Rabbi a question, he tugs thoughtfully on his beard and says  “let me tell you a story.” Then they sing.”

“Jokes are like stories, but shorter and funnier. Old jokes tend to have a stigma, but they only last if they’re good. Some of the best ones provide a window to the culture of a bygone era.  They can reveal the concerns of a generation or even the generation before.  Anxieties of coming to a new country, of prospering, of assimilating, of having families, of fearing and worrying about, well, everything. Humor was and is the ultimate anti-depressant.”

“My father gathered twenty of his friends to share their favorite jokes. We set three rules for the production: the joke-tellers were to be Jewish, at least sixty years of age and they were to tell their favorite joke – the one that always kills.”

The website promises “A new (old) joke every Tuesday and Thursday!”

Go laugh.