Noblesse Oblige

It's not quite the techno-feudal state we're headed toward just yet but it is beginning to take on some of those characteristics. 

If there’s anything that substantiates the allegation that the United States is a failed state, it is Bill Pulte’s Twitter mentions. To read them is to grasp the cruelty and irrationality of American capitalism.

For five full decades, the nation has undergone a systematic, large-scale upward redistribution of wealth. Meanwhile, for reasons ranging from public relations to personal gratification and absolution, the rich are occasionally obliged to engage in a little charity, which is acceptable to them so long as it is in the amount and to the beneficiary of their choosing. Public records reveal that Bill Pulte donates exclusively to Republican candidates — a bleeding heart in the streets, a fiscal conservative in the sheets.

Disquieting in ordinary times, the spectacle of Twitter philanthropy is bone-chilling during the COVID-19 crisis, when an uneven and insufficient government economic response has left tens of millions of people high and dry.

Informational purposes

Yes, there is another election date coming up December 5.  There are runoffs in a couple of the judicial races from November, a very important District Attorney race, a Public Service Commissioner, and several school board seats on the ballot along with one constitutional amendment and a few ballot propositions that may be of some interest. 

Early voting is already under way this week!  And it's a little more convoluted than normal this time because of the holiday.  Here is the schedule. 

Early voting is Nov. 20-28 from 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. (excluding Sunday, Nov. 22, Thursday, Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving) and Friday, Nov. 27 (Acadian Day); early voting is advanced one day because of the holidays)​

You can't go Thursday or Friday.  The good news is if you do end up waiting until December 5, then that will give you time to do some reading beforehand.   The extensively researched  DSA New Orleans and Antigravity Magazine voter guides have are available now and should prove to be a big help.  You probably won't end up following all of their recommendations. In fact, they rarely make those.  Quoting the AG guide here.

Our most consistent position through all the years? That no aspiring politician has earned our endorsement. We review candidates with the mentality that we ought to elect the people that grassroots movements might successfully push and pressure, to lessen suffering among those most likely to suffer. In other words, we vote for who we most want as our opponents.

And DSA's slightly different approach here.  

The New Orleans DSA has not endorsed any candidates in this election. We are a member-run and funded organization, and our endorsements are material investments of resources. In this guide, we describe candidates openly, wearing our politics on our sleeve. It may be clear which candidate our guide prefers, but we've tried to give you more than just a name to copy down

Still, whether you're voting against one terrible candidate or for one you want to keep kicking around,  you're probably not going to fine any more thorough examinations of your choices than you will in those documents.  So study up and happy voting.  

After that , of course we will have solved all the politics and you won't have to worry about any of this stuff ever again. 

Orrrr.. on the other hand...

The reformer's dance

Here is Jason Williams today the city budget hearings rejecting calls to defund police. 

City Council members were generally complimentary of the department, and did not signal that there would be any major changes to the proposed budget. 

City Council President Jason Williams — who is also running for Orleans Parish District Attorney, casting himself as a progressive criminal justice reformer —  addressed the calls to defund the police at one point, but he questioned whether or not there were ways to change public perception of police, rather than exploring the idea of cutting the department’s budget further. 

“Given the changing of culture, people crying out for defund the police, people protesting the departments — whether or not there has been a particular egregious situation in their communities or not — across the board there has certainly been a different perception of police officers and law enforcement,” Williams said. “What are we doing now, or what can the council do to start addressing that perceived lack of trust or actual lack of trust, to redefine the NOPD?”

Here is reform candidate Jason Williams suggesting that we put more cops in the schools, while also suggesting that everyone's "older brothers and siblings" are all in jail, maybe?

Williams suggested focusing recruitment efforts toward people who might not normally think to go into law enforcement, and outreach programs in elementary schools to change young people’s perception of the police.

“I would encourage you to figure out a way to get in front of elementary school kids before they have older brothers and siblings helping to frame their narrative about what police mean, and what police do in their community,” Williams said.

Here also is reform candidate Jason Williams helping us get a lid on NOPD's use of intrusive and unconstitutional surveillance technology by.... helping NOPD write a policy that lets them use intrusive and unconstitutional surveillance technology.  

Jones told The Lens that the NOPD only used facial recognition for “violent cases,” but that “documentation of frequency of use of Facial Recognition is not currently available.” Asked whether there was any written policy or procedure regarding the technology, Jones responded by saying that NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson “is currently working with Councilman [Jason] Williams on a policy as to when facial recognition tools should be used.”

Everyone agrees. Of the two candidates remaining for District Attorney, Jason is definitely the more inclined to speak out on behalf of reforming the criminal punishment system. So, you know, as the saying goes, with reformers like these, who needs anti-reformers?  

Well, it turns out, a lot of people think we do. 

Cannizzaro hasn’t endorsed in the race to replace him, but Williams made him a centerpiece of his attacks on Landrum on Thursday, calling her a “surrogate” chosen when the current DA realized he couldn’t win re-election. Cannizzaro did not qualify for the race.

Williams also sought to use against Landrum her stack of endorsements, a list that includes five of Williams’ six colleagues on the council and the BOLD political organization. “You shouldn't have to go through (Councilman) Jay Banks or the BOLD political organization to get to the next DA,” Williams said.

Landrum said Williams had sought the same endorsements she won, and she rejected the idea that Cannizzaro would have any hold over her.

Landrum has wrapped them all up, basically.  It's been something to see.  Not too long ago, Jason Williams, coming off of two overwhelming victories in citywide council races, seemed like he was on a fast track to unseating Cannizzaro, or possibly becoming the next mayor. But now it looks like the whole establishment is lining up against him. The only significant voice we're still waiting to hear from, in fact, is third place primary finisher Arthur Hunter's.  What does Arthur want? Well it sounds like he wants to watch the candidates dance between both sides of the reform question. 

Just out of the money was former Judge Arthur Hunter, with 28%. He has yet to endorse, but in a statement Friday he called on the contenders to prove they would “focus on violent crime while restoring public trust in the DA’s office.”

But dancing is what the so-called "reform" candidate Jason Williams has been doing all year. And look where that has gotten him. I wonder if he will recognize that.

Whoa, settle down, Bill, you won

This is from a few weeks ago but I'm still thinking about it for some reason. Bill Cassidy says here that a half-hearted Joe Biden proposal to slowly replace fossil fuels over time will only happen, "over my dead body."  Seems a little bit much.  He's even embarrassing the oil lobbyists now. 

Tyler Gray, the president and CEO of Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, expressed less concern than Cassidy with Biden’s comments.

“We don’t have to choose between reducing emissions and meeting energy needs. We can do both,” Gray said in a statement. “We are proud of the grit, innovation, and progress we’ve made so that Americans no longer have to choose between environmental progress and access to affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy and we aren’t going anywhere.”

Interesting that Gray is more or less saying the Biden rhetoric verbatim. I wonder who he expected to win the Presidency. 

Of course when the window of discourse is only wide enough to allow for a "debate" between burning the world up as fast as possible vs. kind of pretending we are trying not to while it burns anyway, I guess people like Gray are playing with house money.  And since both Cassidy and Biden are going back to D.C. next year, it's going to stay that way.

Eta is enough

Louisiana's inclusion in Hurricane Eta's "cone of uncertainty" marks the eighth (Eta-ghth?) time we've been there this year.  It's been quite a ride, folks.

Plenty more where that came from

 Somebody wrote that five years ago. Or something to that effect

Again, Irvin Mayfield, himself, isn't the actual problem. He is a symptom of the problem, though.  The problem is the post-Katrina ascendance of neoliberal "volunteer entrepreneurism" in rebuilding the "ultimate libertarian city" prescribed by Glassman. The club members who've worked so hard to bring the Glassman vision to life are hard-pressed to admit it, though.

Instead they're quick to offer up scapegoats from among their own number whenever one of them fails too stupidly or publicly.  Ray Nagin himself is the prime example here. Meffert is another.  Mayfield is only the latest. There will be more eventually.

And when, eventually, there are more, we will wash our hands of those individuals as well and go on pretending everything is fine.

Misrule of the Lords

It's only November but already the matter of Carnival 2021 has fallen into chaos. The city has apparently outsourced its authority to make the major decisions to the individual eminences in charge of the parading krewes.

Clark Brennan, captain of the Krewe of Bacchus, says the mega-parade “definitely plans to roll down St. Charles Avenue” on Feb. 14, if the city gives the green light to Carnival parades in 2021.

“We have a theme, freshly painted floats as well as throws and costumes in production,” he wrote in a statement Thursday morning.

Brennan emphasized the krewe’s preparedness ahead of a meeting of the Mayor’s Mardi Gras Advisory Council, scheduled to take place on Thursday afternoon.

And why wouldn't it be this way?  If this year has proven anything to anyone it's that everything in this country is completely ungovernable.  COVID cases are spiking all over the world but the odds are your city or state is pressing on with plans to "reopen" schools and businesses. The election result points toward a divided government next year so don't expect there to be a plan out of Washington that would help us do anything differently.  As a result, municipal governments are going bankrupt. The elected leaders of those municipalities, whose job it had been to distribute favors and revenues their offices allow them to access as patronage to their backers among the social and business elite, suddenly find themselves with a lot less to give away. 

In a better world, this would signal a shift toward a more populist style of politics focused on protecting the working poor.  But our political system is utterly broken so what we have instead is a situation where we're still trying to pay off the elites by dismantling what remains of the social contract and selling off the parts. More tax breaks. More PILOTs, more "business incentive" plans. They're even inviting the oligarchs in to run the bribery operation themselves. It's a "major paradigm shift." 

It's why, despite the mayor's celebrated posing over maintaining stricter COVID guidelines here than in the rest of the state, Gayle Benson still gets to do whatever she wants. And it's why, despite our beloved "Teedy's" tough talk all year about maybe having to cancel Mardi Gras, in fact these decisions will all be left up to Clark Brennan and Jimmy Reiss and the rest of the council of aristocrats. 

Cantrell emphasized her proposals were meant only to inspire brainstorming, not as a template. The differences, she said, "are not going to come from me; they're going to come from you." 

And so Carnival policy is going to be treated the way everything else is under our elitist junta. Because the decisions will not be made by an ostensible representative of the people, their concerns will not have priority.  Instead, what we will get is a Mardi Gras for and by the "business leaders" in charge. You, for the most part, are not invited. 

Smaller walking parades would also be required to follow safety guidelines, she said.

Dr. Takeisha Davis, a member of the council and a rider with the Krewe of Femme Fatale, brought safety recommendations from a council subcommittee. The panel recommended that parade goers be required to wear masks and to stay with their group six feet from other groups. It also recommended that tents and other structures be prohibited on parade routes, that drinking be discouraged and that kegs be banned — all efforts to prevent crowds from gathering.

So the things we know we can expect to see at Carnival 2021 include some version of the Bacchus Parade, a socially distanced Rex Ball imbued with elements of hygiene theater, whatever else they can turn into a controlled, isolated event.  On the other hand, the real heart of Carnival, the thing where regular people walk around in the streets greeting their neighbors with snacks and cocktails, that's probably going to get you a fine.