Blue Mass Group

What’s the Downside of Demanding Wage Transparency?

April 20, 2018 By johntmay 6 Comments

When I think of wage transparency and the number of social issues it will help improve, I wonder why wage transparency is not discussed in Democratic circles and more importantly, part of the party platform. From equal pay for women, narrowing the wealth gap, lifting minority wages, and even a healthier more productive work environment, wage transparency works. Sweden shows that wage transparency works. The salaries of all our elected officials are public as are the salaries negotiated by professional sports players and entertainers. I work for a company that employs about sixty thousand people and the wage scale for just about everyone is there for all to see. I know there is this taboo about such things, but I think it’s time to fight for wage transparency.

How to implement it is another issue, but we could start with a tax code that is favorable to companies that provide wage transparency.

Quick hits

April 18, 2018 By Charley on the MTA 2 Comments

Too long to tweet, but real writing hurts my brain …

Do check out the website of Tram Nguyen, the young Legal Aid attorney who is taking on Republican Jim Lyons in the 18th Essex House district. I know that this district (mostly Andover) is a click or two more conservative than most, but Lyons is a gun-loving, immigrant-bashing Tea Partier. He defeated Barbara L’Italien in 2010, so it’s not out of the question that it could be represented by a progressive again.
[Apropos of nothing, did you know that a couple of years ago, Lyons won a judgment against his neighbors, who were harassing his family in some pretty bizarre ways? I did not know this. People are weird, man.]
Our friends at 350Mass are still looking for folks to pester their reps (State Reps, mostly) about S.2302, the transformative energy bill by Sens. Pacheco and Eldridge. Thomas Golden (Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy) is now leading your typical House slow-roll and break-apart. It shouldn’t be like this. I know I’m a broken record on this — if you haven’t already, 350Mass is asking you to call both your own rep (find out whom here, switchboard is 617-722-2000) and the Speaker at 617-722-2500. Signup and call scripts are here.
I think, upon reflection, that it would be a mistake to regard the criminal justice reform bill something other than a success for progressive, decent, compassionate governance. That being said, mandatory minimums are still dumb, and our legal system should deal with people in ways sensitive to both mental age and mental health.
If we were to have a questionnaire for State Rep/Senator primary candidates, what would it include? For me it would include statements on MBTA (and other transit) funding; clean energy (3% RPS, transport emissions); climate readiness; school foundation funding; health care costs. What else? What would you want to know about?

White spaces persist in Boston

April 17, 2018 By Charley on the MTA 46 Comments

The recent arrests at a Starbucks in Philadelphia as examples of a troubling notion that is near-invisible to most white folks, even as we participate: That many (if not most) public spaces are self-evidently white – and socially “policed” as such.

“When the anonymous black person enters the white space, others there immediately try to make sense of him or her—to figure out “who that is,” or to gain a sense of the nature of the person’s business and whether they need to be concerned.” – Elijah Anderson, “The White Space” https://t.co/i3F7gg6cNC

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) April 13, 2018

You don’t have to be ideologically or casually racist to participate in this; doubtless people who are appalled by blatant hatred participate in this kind of social policing all the time. I doubt the Philly Starbucks manager thought of himself as racist. It’s not necessarily ideological; prejudices burrow deep to the amygdala, and remain invisible to those who continue to harbor them. This stuff is hard, and stubborn: Just “being right” doesn’t necessarily count for much.

Renée Graham notes with fatigue (emphasis mine):

For black people, this video has been viral forever. This is what we live with every damn day.

This isn’t a Starbucks problem. It could have been a fast food restaurant, a mall — or a street in Cambridge. Last Friday police responded to a report of a naked man on Massachusetts Avenue. A video shows Selorm Ohene, a black 21-year-old Harvard student, being struck several times after he was already pinned to the ground by three Cambridge police officers and an MBTA transit cop. Cambridge Mayor Marc C. McGovern called the incident “disturbing.”

Everything black people do is weighted by irrational white fear. It’s mentally exhausting to always be on guard, even during mundane moments like waiting in a coffee shop – or asking for directions.

Boston has made itself a “white space”, not just by blatant racism in policing, home lending, schooling, and the like; but in this more subtle but suffocating way of policing “white spaces”. And these supposed subconscious “micro-aggressions” can turn, under stress, into mega-aggressions, even leading to wrongful use of police power.

This is nothing new:

“Personally, I’ve never seen much difference between the South and the North,” comedian Dick Gregory wrote in a 1971 issue of Ebony. “Down South white folks don’t care how close I get as long as I don’t get too big. Up North white folks don’t care how big I get as long as I don’t get too close.”

Well, what if we didn’t care about how close?

My fellow white folk in MA: Let’s invert our internal conversation here. Can we tell ourselves a new, more positive story? Can we envision something more aligned with our stated values? Can we accommodate making an easier time for our black friends, neighbors, and colleagues? Doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it?

Black people belong.

Black people belong in the coffee shop. In your restaurant. In your store.
Black people belong in “your” neighborhood; on the sidewalk; in their cars; in a cab; on the T.
Black people belong in your schools, in your classroom, at your gym, at the library.
Black people belong, dressed nicely, or shabbily, or meh. They belong in short hair, long hair, dreadlocks, or whatever. And they don’t require your approval.
Black people belong at Fenway Park, at the Strand, at the MFA, at Symphony Hall, at the Middle East.
Black people belong, in Milton or Mattapan; Brockton or Boxborough; Roxbury or … West Roxbury. In “nice” neighborhoods. They belong on your street. In your apartment complex. As your roommate.
Black people belong at Harvard, and Bunker Hill. They belong at Tufts, Wellesley, and UMass. As your high school valedictorian. As not-valedictorian. They don’t have to be exceptional to deserve your respect.
Black people belong in your family; in your church; in your circle of friends.
Black people belong in your office; as your employee; co-worker; as your boss; in the corner office.
Black people belong, as your doctor or lawyer; as your loan officer; as your contractor; as your handyman.
Black people belong in your political party (and the other one); in City Hall; on the school board; in the Oval Office.

It’s not a special thing to ask; it’s the privilege of being not special, not particular. Of being anonymous in public. Of being normal.

Can we do this?

Boston Strong on Patriots Day

April 17, 2018 By Charley on the MTA Leave a Comment

A couple of recent experiences, from which I have tried to gain some inspiration in these dark days:

Rising at really quite-too-early, I went with the family to the Battle of Lexington re-enactment this morning. For all concerned — traffic cops, re-enactors, audience — it took a bit of extra dedication to endure a cold and biting rain.

But the re-enactors and their audience always exhibit a palpable reverence for their subject, in this case a story of adversity and sacrifice. The Battle of Lexington was a rout of the colonists: The British Regulars mowed a few of them down, and continued on to Concord. Eight colonists were killed in Lexington.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I think events like this are an antidote to uncritical, rah-rah views of our own history. We lost, and some gave their lives, never to know the outcome of the wider conflict. We don’t know the future. The wages of goodness are not assured. Our ancestors’ society had grievous moral shortcomings, as does ours; the aspiration of a just democracy has never been fulfilled in our republic. And yet everyone who gets up early on Monday morning around April 19 recognizes a bit of the sacrifice that was necessary to get even what we have.

…

Before Friday night’s Red Sox game there was a tribute to several of the survivors of the Marathon bombing of 2013. I am generally stoic at such tributes, but this is fairly personal for many of us, even if we weren’t directly affected by the bombings. “This is our —-ing city”, after all.

But we express our values by what is said, and by what is left unsaid. The presentation emphasized the charitable activities of the respective survivors — supporting the Martin Richard Foundation, eg. — and what meaning they could get out of their recovery from a despicably cruel act. The families of those killed all honor their loved ones with acts of kindness and charity. I couldn’t detect a shred of vengefulness or bitterness in the Red Sox’s presentation — even though that would be understandable for those who have endured such physical and emotional pain in the last five years.

But largely, they refuse to let that define them. They define themselves by charity, mutual care, love, and peace — what we might call decency.

That is Boston Strong.

Hedgefund Money Is Not Good for the Democratic Party

April 15, 2018 By joeltpatterson 31 Comments

Though Donald Trump has been a gift that keeps on giving to millionaires and billionaires, the Globe has an article on how billionaire Seth Klarman is now giving money to Democrats. Klarman’s reasoning is…

“The Republicans in Congress have failed to hold the president accountable and have abandoned their historic beliefs and values,” Klarman said in a prepared statement to the Globe, opening up for the first time about the reasons behind his change in political giving. “For the good of the country, the Democrats must take back one or both houses of Congress.”

I’ll agree with Klarman that Democrats must take back both houses of Congress. But neither Sen. McConnell nor Speaker Paul Ryan have abandoned historic values of the Republicans–they have consistently used their power to redistribute wealth to the few at the top (like Klarman, Trump, Sen. Corker) which is EXACTLY what Republicans like Nixon, Reagan, and Bushes did. Trump has disrespected U.S. agreements with other nations just like Bush did with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. So let’s not forget what Republicans really stand for has never been in the interests of the majority. Now some might argue that to take back the House and Senate, in the short term, it’s better that Democrats get Klarman’s money than Republicans do.

But in the long term, Klarman’s donations and influence will weaken the Democratic Party. Klarman’s business practices (buying debt with shell corporations) have harmed the people of Puerto Rico, where 200 plus schools have been closed, reducing the number of children who can get a decent lunch in addition to a free education. Because the Democratic Party welcomes people of all backgrounds (not so the other side), the people of Puerto Rico are important voters in our coalition whose well-being and rights Democrats must protect. If Democrats take Klarman’s money, it casts a shadow on our commitment to our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico.

Moreover, Klarman used $3 million of dark money to fund Question 2 in 2016, which would have harmed the public schools of Massachusetts. Question 2’s funding implications would have led to more public schools closing, and wealthy people like Klarman (and the Walton Family Foundation with its Wal-Mart money) still push this agenda. This agenda is bad for Americans and the Democratic party. The scholar Sally Nuamah studied how Chicago (under Mayor Rahm–who is not a good Democrat) closed schools in African American neighborhoods. She found that…

support among the African American community for the Democratic Party, specifically in areas where closures occurred, it decreased support in a really substantial way. People initially participate… they initially participate, and then they stop participating.

In the election following the closures, which is 2015, people came out, but then you don’t see them come to the local elections after the general elections. [emphasis added]

Because public schools are civic institutions that provide a center to communities in addition to merely imparting knowledge, closing public schools decreased the participation of the voters there. This is a bad, regrettable outcome. As historian Jack Schneider has commented:

when you are closing a neighborhood school down are you

giving people a negative interaction with a public institution, but you are also then disempowering them in some way.

You are failing to bring them into the fold, and in so doing you are ensuring that an

unrepresentative form of government continues, which just makes it even more likely

that future policy decisions will be made that do not align with community interests.

You can see this feeding back on itself over time, where people don’t feel attached to

public institutions and public life, are less represented, and as a consequence, end up being less attached to public institutions and public life.

Democrats have to protect public education (K-12 and college) and expand early education if we want to keep up the voter participation we need to win, to stave off the damage Republicans will do.

We call ourselves the Democratic Party for a reason: our mission is to represent the people, not the powerful few. If Democrats start to rely on money from Klarman and let just one person’s opinion outweigh the interests of millions of non-rich voters, we will stray from principle, and leave our voters and our country worse off. It happened in Chicago, and it can happen here.

“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” – Louis Brandeis

Climate change and MA: The worst is yet to come.

April 13, 2018 By Charley on the MTA 15 Comments

The Gulf Stream is slowing down — faster than predicted.

New research provides strong evidence that one of the long-predicted worst-case impacts of climate change — a severe slow-down of the Gulf Stream system — has already started.

The system, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), brings warmer water northward while pumping cooler water southward.

…The impacts of such a slowdown include much faster sea level rise — and much warmer sea surface temperatures — for much of the U.S. East Coast. Both of those effects are already being observed and together they make devastating storm surges of the kind we saw with Superstorm Sandy far more likely.

All of which really makes one wish that we didn’t have to beg our political leaders to do the reasonable thing, which is to a.) prepare for significant sea-level rise and weather extremes; and b.) get off fossil fuels with the greatest of haste.

Instead, our Speaker has sat on climate readiness legislation not once; not twice; but five times. And our Speaker insists on slow-rolling climate and energy legislation, even as the Senate has handed him (S.2302) a “hero opportunity” on a silver platter. Our Governor keeps trying to reach into our pocketbooks to provide the natural gas industry with somewhere from $3.3B to $6.6B so that we can afford “affordable, reliable” (and very polluting) gas.

In Massachusetts we need to counteract the malevolence of the Trump administration on climate issues at every possible turn. And our political establishment — with the exception of our exceptional Attorney General — is still failing.

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