An Immense Possibility Moment

This blog, IMMENSE POSSIBILITIES, went on the shelf in 2010 while I ran for Jackson County Commissioner on a platform to localize the economy and make the community much more self-reliant for jobs, food and energy.  I won the silver medal in that race, which I chronicled in a blog called Campaign Notebook.  You might check it out if you wonder how IP principles apply to campaign politics (hint...it's not a smooth fit).

In the year since my last IP posting, this much has steadily clearer: in the realm of economics, the communities that make immense possibilities come to life will be those that find ways to  unhitch from the wagon of corporate globalism and become more self-reliant.  My own community of the Rogue Valley is in the midst of a teachable moment.  Medford's largest and most historic private employer, Harry & David, appears to be on the brink of bankruptcy in its 100th year, in part because most profit has been going to service its leveraged buy-out by a Wall Street "Equity Investment" firm in 2004.  This puts about 1500 full-time and 6000 seasonal jobs in deep jeopardy, a catastrophic potential hit in an already-beleaguered  county of 200,000 people.  Local leaders are passing ceremonial resolutions of concern which, along with about eight bucks, will buy you a small bag of Harry & David's Moose Munch.   But this is exactly the kind of moment that opens the way for an immense possibility, which was the point of my Mail Tribune opinion column this morning.

Tell me what you think.  And welcome back to IP.

A Tale of (at least) two Ashlands

Does every town have an establishment that plays by the rules and outsiders that would like to share some of the establishment's goodies? Ashland does, and this comes into focus every year at budget time, Two nonprofits -- the Visitors and Convention Bureau and the Shakespeare Festival -- get most of the public dollars targeted for economic development and culture (which are close to one and the same in Ashland), and outsiders wonder how to break in. Those getting the dollars aren't usually impressed and insist, with some good evidence, that they're successfully doing the job of creating economic activity, and (especially in these tight budget times) changing direction doesn't make any sense. What has fired me up for change is meeting bright younger folks who want to launch various enterprises, most food- and farm-related, but need some technical and financial help to get going. And they're just not Chamber types.
         So I've waded into the fray in Ashland. Here's how it looks to me.

"The" answer? Maybe not, but it comes closer than anything else

I'm taking every opportunity I can find to plug public campaign financing, and making up opportuntities when I can't find them.  There is no magic bullet for what ails politics, but public financing comes far closer than anything else.  It's much closer to the root problem than is term limits, and much sturdier against legal challenge than limits on campaign contributions and advertising.

That last point was made abundantly clear by the Supreme Court in their January 21 decision.  Yes, the Supremes just opened the gate for more corporate and union money in politics, much more, and no, I am not making this up.  There are probably more rounds left in this fight, but I'm not seeing any through-path with a happy ending.  The only good thing about this decision is the way it might redirect attention to the strategy that can work: public financing.  I even think the Supremes did us at least one favor, and here is my exquisite reasoning.

Yes. polls say we don't want public financing.  (I always remember the claim of Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader and a Crown Prince of corporate contributions:  Americans have "already voted" against public financing by over 90%, he says, because fewer than 10% of us check the box on our tax returns to contribute $3 to the presidential election fund). Here's something else polls say: support for public financing grows rapidly as people learn more about  its workings.

SO I SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS about the organization that's gathering the resources and support for public financing.  Please check out what they're doing.  If they -- we -- fail, grim times will  get grimmer.

The 2 types of people in the world: those who see 2 kinds of people in the world and those who don't

I blog on Blue Oregon,  a Huffington Post meets the Democratic Party of Oregon kind of site.  You can burn a lot of time there if your mind twists in a certain direction.

Last night a reponse to one of my posts lit up a bulb for me.   Or re-lit it, really.  It reminded me that the conflict that makes politics and progress so hard really isn't about Republican v Democrat or Right v Left.  It goes deeper than that.  It's really about...well, read here so I don't  repeat myself.   What do you think?

It's not about "Can't We All Get Along?"

Oregon's trying to pull itself part way out of its big financial hole with Ballot Measures 66 and 67, which marginally increase taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. As I write we're about 24 hours away from knowing whether or not Oregonians will buy in.

So many feelings and issues have been stirred by this campaign. One of them -- deep anger and resentment at banks, credit card companies and Wall Street -- has been strategically mined by those who want these measures passed. That happens to be my side in this fight, but the cost of this button-pushing ad strategy gives me pause. After an earlier column complaining about  this "Yes" campaign spot

I heard from some folks who wanted to throw up after reading my "Can't We All Get Along?" plea.  I know exactly what they're talking about.  I feel the nausea.  But believing they missed the point, I took another swing with this column.
  If this stirs a reactions, I'd like to hear it at www.immensepossibilities.blogspot.com

This is nothing but a good idea

Taking a break from intense, earnest attempts to ask the Big Questions, this post is just about a good idea.  A simple idea.  Most good ones are.

Tired as they are of the word "sustainability," people I know wants to move towards it.  How, though?  With obstacles so big, with a starting point than can be so discouraging, how do we actually build a sustainable world?

By doing stuff.  Simple, thoughtful stuff.  Enjoyable stuff that shows us, in front of each other, that we actually make a difference.  That gives us an appetite for more.  Stuff like this.

It's not a new idea.  Here's a good NY Times feature on it. Has anyone had personal experience?

[If this is the first post you're receiving by email, welcome.  To add a comment (and that's kind of the point) or see the blog directly, just go here.  More later]

What backward glances will please you on 12/31/10?

I get that New Years' columns are a little passe, and that "Resolutions" are about as hip-and-now as Guy Lombardo playing the New Year's ball down the pole in Times Square. However arbitrary, the calendar re-fresh is a strong invitation to look at what we're doing, and whether what we're doing will is likely to take us where we want to go. I like this way of putting the question: on December 31, 2010, what will you appreciate about what you did this year?

Here is how I answered. It was worth the effort. However uncool New Years is or isn't.

It's not just Inside Baseball

Jackson County says it's leaving the Association of Oregon Counties. That's never happened before, and the AOC goes back to 1906. They say it's because the Association isn't tough enough protecting county interests against cities and school districts. But that's not the kind of help counties need.

This is a much bigger deal than it looks like. It's also an opportunity to shake some things up and, as I laid out here, to think bigger.

The war against "Class Warfare"

Tired of getting treated like an idiot at election time? Me, too. Mostly it happens with slogans and buzzwords designed purely to trigger you rather than help you think through an issue that needs some thought.

The current example that bugs me enough to deserve its own column is the casual lobbing of the term "Class Warfare," an insultingly manipulative way to bring down tax measures #66 and 67 on the January ballot in Oregon. The next time you hear somebody using the phrase in speech or print, I hope you'll stand up and be clear that it doesn't work with you.

Give it a rest?

There's a feud in Ashland over a decorated tree -- holiday tree, Christmas tree, gift tree -- again. In the struggles of past Decembers, I've held a pretty steady ACLU line: if an emblem of the season feels religious, or if some people feel excluded by it, it doesn't belong in school. Where there can be harm infusing a religious flavor into schools, there's really no harm keeping it out, is there?
As I get older I'm less sure about that. Alongside my ACLU impulses I'm noticing another question: Can we just give it a rest? Breathe a little? Here's how I see it.

A small event that's big. And fun.

This is what our 8th Annual Abundance Swap looked like last Sunday in Ashland. We invented it in the heat of the "Black Friday" buy-buy-buy frenzy in 2002. We're proud of it.

We're proud of the experience people have there -- here's this year's report -- and because of the larger context. We're amazed at how this simple little event moves people. It strikes home more than all our eloquent rants against corporate consumerism.

This idea is about as replicable as they come, which is why we put up a simple website with start-up suggestions. If you are done with the retail madness of the allegedly Holy Days, but still want to be part of a giving tradition, you might want to check this out. Bring a few friends together and and start your own Abundance Swap next year. It's easy. It's fun.

"If only WE were in charge..."

We don't trust practically anything government touches anymore. Left, right, center, we don't see ourselves represented in the decisions government makes or the process they use to make them.

What if some significant decisions were put in the hands of well-informed citizens--call them 'everyday,' 'average,' 'common'-- people with no axe to grind and no self-interest beyond what every one of us has in good government and good community. Could they come up with better decisions, or at least decisions we could trust more? The Citizen Initiative Review process is a way to find out, and here's why I think it matters.

Where's the beef?

In Portland last week I watched Al Gore endorse Bill Bradbury to be Oregon's next governor. (Disclosure: I count Bill as longtime friend, and served as his Chief of Staff when he presided over the Oregon Senate in 1993).

I went in part looking to hear about the transition to green jobs, because both of these guys have the brains and experience to drill deeper than pleasant platitudes, down to the bedrock of economic reality. I didn't hear depth, and with hindsight understand why: this was a launching event to rev up core supporters, not a policy summit on the new economy. And it served its purpose.

But it's time to put more meat on the bones of Green Jobs, and on the larger assertion that what's good for the environment is good for the economy. There's a critical mass of people who want to believe that, but the combination of the scariness of change and propaganda from the fossil-fuel establishment has too many of them stuck. In this week's column I'm suggesting that we're not doing much good as cheerleaders for abstract claims about economic conversion; let's push candidates to glean the best data from the Apollo Project and other sources, and turn on some voters not already in the choir.

You know that overused definition of "insanity"?

OK, with everything else going on, this one's not exactly on the front burner. But one thing I'd like to know from the Guv candidates is how many chips they're ready to spend to reverse the 1990s initiative measure that commits every dime of gas tax and auto registration money to highway construction, or closely-related expenditures.

If that weren't the law, we might not be on the verge of throwing another hundred million highway dollars at the Sisyphean task of unclogging Highway 62, the major road thrusting north out of Medford towards Crater Lake and Bend. This particular rathole has swallowed more ODOT cash over the years than I can remember. Yet as I write these words 62 resembles a long linear parking lot for more hours of the day than ever. I don't think a thoughtful argument can be made that this new slug of cash will make a difference for more than a very few years. Even local county commissioners are reluctant to accept this particular check, and in the world of cash-strapped local government, that's just weird. Weird enough to deserve its own column.

We're going to hear plenty from 2010 candidates about Oregon's great and glorious Green heritage, and how it's the key to a future worthy of our kids. Working to repealing the car-worshiping mandate on transportation spending would be a good way to show they mean it.

After the election

Last week voters in my town renewed Oregon's only tax on prepared meals and beverages, established 15 years ago to fund major sewage treatment upgrades and an open space program to establish neighborhood parks and trails. We fought over it back then and fought about it again this time.

On Tuesday we re-upped for the tax by a 59-41% margin. Does that end the conversation? It usually does. But what if instead the two sides came together and got creative about dealing with the concerns that divided them during the election? Would that make us a stronger, more resilient community? That's what I asked in this week's column.

Free speech doesn't mean much if you're scared to use it

There's a court battle going on in Washington State over whether your name should be public information if you sign a petition to put a measure on the ballot. The measure that brought this up would reverse a state law that expanded the rights of same-sex partners, and petitioners claimed that gay rights activists are so hostile that they might scare some people away from signing. A lower court judge agreed and said keeping the petition signatures private was a reasonable way to prevent this "chilling effect" on political expression.

You can get caught up in the surface-level arguments in this case. But set those aside and reflect for a moment. Are we really accepting the fact that intimidating people for expressing their opinion is part of our political culture? Why?

This week's column calls for something different. In these times it might sound naive. But where do we end up if we take political intimidation as a fact of modern life?

So how does Kumbaya work for you?

The columns I wrote last week and this week about talking with folks we've taken to be political bad guys has generated more heartburn on the Blue Oregon blog than I expected. Maybe that was naive. Some folks responding think the whole case I'm trying to sell is naive.

You?

The critics have a point...

It could be that the sharpest political wedge that divides Oregonians, and keeps us from finding much more potent agreement than we do, is compensation of public employees. There's plenty to say on this subject. Part of what I want to say in this week's column, triggered by recent news that fund managers in the Treasurer's office are getting big bonuses, is that folks unhappy with some aspects of government salaries have a better point than we progressives like to admit. Ignoring that point just deepens the wedge.

Your comments most welcome...

I am not making this up

A B-level news story this week, really just a sidebar to the First-Monday-in-October ritual that launches the Supreme Court's annual session, brought me to my mental knees. It was more than enough to deserve a column this week.

There's a way of thinking in this country that's easy to overlook when you live in a progressive bubble, and that says a lot about why it's so damn hard to move forward.

Your thoughts?

Confidence in WHAT?

They call it the Consumer Confidence Index, and it is a very, very big deal. In a world where media-manipulated perception becomes reality (and modern financial markets qualify) our collective opinion of whether the economy is good or bad makes the economy good or bad...until our opinion changes.

This is nuts. It becomes more clearly nuts when you ponder a couple of questions, beginning with "Confidence in what?" That was the nub of this week's column.

If you see something I don't here, bring it on....