adrian_turtle | Entries tagged with politics

Could somebody please translate the latest dog whistle for me?

I don't know if "parental rights" is code for stuff like:
*We support anti-vaxxers! If you want your kid to go to school without being vaccinated, the school should respect that.
*We support anti-maskers! If you want your kid to go to school without a mask, the school should respect that.
*We support gender essentialists! If your kid is queer or trans and you don't like it, schools or libraries should not help the kid find information or support you'd disapprove of.
*Where the government is run by liberals, some parents want the right to restrict their kids' access to medical care and information (especially about sex, gender, and religion).

Or if it's code for:
*When queer or trans kids have the support of their families, we don't want laws or school policies to block that.
*If your family practices a minority religion, we don't want your kid to get pressured away from religious or cultural practices. (Like being made to cut their hair to do sports.)
*Where the government is run by reactionaries, some parents want the right to expand their kids' access to medical care and information

I saw a recolored US flag this morning, and could not figure out what it meant. In these parlous times, when the "thin blue line" flag has so many variations, all offensive, my first suspicion was that it was something like that. That suspicion is strong enough that I'm not posting the picture to twitter or FB, lest I be thought to endorse it. (And I'm not posting it here, even among friends who know the difference between "WTF does this mean?" and "I endorse this symbol," because I don't know how to link to a picture on my phone.)

The stripes are red and black, and the stars are black on a green field. ("Green field" is useless for searching, because all kinds of flags fly over the kind of field with grass in it.) Unlike the African pride flag, there are no green stripes. Is it for patriotic anarchist environmentalists?

I live in Arlington, Massachusetts. I'll risk disclosing that, despite the security risks of telling the internet where I am, because there are more than 40,000 of us here. (Besides, a fair few of you who read my DW know my street address because I gave it to you.) We're having a local election tomorrow, and things are getting weird. Or maybe I'm just confused.

This town is what New York used to call a "streetcar suburb." The subway ends right outside one edge of town, and highways pick up along others. At the end of the 20th century, when I started paying attention, homes were relatively* inexpensive and the place was painfully white. There were a few restaurants (no bars. Repeat with loudspeaker: No Bars! The liquor stores just beyond each border rejoice.) A few little shops, some supermarkets, and a lot of houses. All that has been changing. The town issued a few liquor licenses, because they are so very profitable. The town has been gradually getting a bit more racially diverse, over the same years that I have been growing more aware of systemic racism and less patient with such gradual change. Meanwhile, homes have been getting a LOT more expensive. I stay in my apartment because the ceiling only leaks a little, and the stair railings usually stay in place, and such a useful bus stop is so nearby, and the rent is so much lower than the town's market rate. Little shops closed when their landlords doubled or tripled their rent, and so storefronts stayed empty for years.

We're having a local election tomorrow. Oh good! I want there to be more affordable housing. I want more mixed-use buildings. I don't want so many empty storefronts. I can vote for Town Meeting (which anyone outside New England would call a city council *eyeroll*) and Select Board (which allocates money for stuff) and the Arlington Housing Authority (which runs public housing.) At least it's obvious what the "School Committee" is supposed to be doing, even if you're not from here. Er...maybe it's not obvious to me what the school committee is supposed to be doing, because I don't have a kid in public school and have not been paying close attention. But maybe they could do something about that thing where Black students get in serious trouble more often than white ones for similar behavior? Or even acknowledge that racial disparities in achievement are important, even when everyone graduates? But I digress from housing.

Two people are running for one position on the Arlington Housing Authority. There are long waiting lists for apartments in housing projects and for subsidies (that recipients use to help pay landlords.) So many people need help there simply isn't enough to go around and the tangled mess of state regulations would be a real problem even if the local authority were run as well as possible. Is the local authority being run as well as possible? I doubt it. Is the challenger running for the office this spring likely to do better? THAT is the question.
The incumbent has been in this position for years. He's raised lots of money to supplement the state funds. He has an MBA and a day job in management. He set up partnerships with the police, with senior services and meals on wheels. 90% of tenants are satisfied with the job he's doing. Isn't that great?
I'd think so, but the challenger has dealt with the AHA from the other side (when she needed housing assistance, herself, and when she was assisting others over the last ten years.) She said residents and people needing help are treated without dignity or humanity, and the process is insufficiently transparent, which I don't doubt for a moment. She blamed systemic racism, and the local FB group promptly exploded with "How dare you call this admirable public servant a racist!" She complained about residents being afraid of retaliation if they spoke up about problems, which makes me think differently about the incumbent's 90% approval. Local advocacy group "Arlington Fights Racism" endorses her***. Isn't that great?

Then****, the challenger is accused of sharing an address with her campaign manager. Nobody mentions the scandalous possibility that she might be living with a woman she is not married to (because this is 2021 and this town is dead to propriety.) Nobody mentions that she might be renting a spare bedroom and bathroom in the basement, though the zoning board does not want to authorize that kind of arrangement. People are really outraged, because this is apparently evidence that she lives in Malden and her entire campaign is fraudulent.

Next, the campaign manager yelled at an AHA member over the phone and at home. (Not the one running for re-election. A different AHA member. The one who accused the challenger and her campaign manager of sharing an address.) "How dare you disclose that private information!" and "Your organization is as corrupt as the Mafia" may or may not be harassment, technically. The campaign is not making itself look good, much as I am uncomfortable with tone arguments as a general thing. The campaign manager was one of the leaders of AFR, and several candidates they had endorsed told the organization "Get off my side!"

Does anybody know more about this?
Comments screened unless you ask me to unscreen.

*relatively. Nothing anywhere near Boston is inexpensive.

**Campaigning tends to be very big on "I've lived in Arlington all my life," or "I've lived in Arlington for 30 years and have 3 children in Arlington schools," or "I've lived in Arlington all my life, and my parents and grandparents lived in Arlington." Clearly, voices for change.

***I like the idea of Arlington Fighting Racism, but have not made it to any meetings. I have heard them accused of being "too divisive" and "radical" and "they cause racism, themselves." Are they actually doing something objectionable, or are they just pissing off the same people who dislike Black Lives Matter and antifa? I have not made it to any meetings.

****I mean, now. After I would have mailed my ballot, if I were voting by mail.

I was returning from my constitutional Saturday, and saw a group of people lined up along Mass Ave, holding up signs every 6 feet or so: "Black Lives Matter," "No Justice No Peace," "I Can't Breathe," "Hate Has No Home Here." I ran up to my apartment to make a sign, have a drink, and put on a mask that wasn't soaked with sweat, then went back to take up the slack in the line.

This was nowhere near the Black Lives Matter event in downtown Boston. As some of you know, I am afraid to go where there are likely to be police lights much less police violence. And of course now even taking the T is frightening. My neighborhood is closer to Lexington Battle Green than to the Boston Common, and this whole thing felt very quiet and peaceful and just saturated with white privilege. I'm not sure if it was any more meaningful than re-tweeting helpless outrage. But I did go back. And I'll be going back again.

The plan, insofar as there is a plan, is for people to stand there with signs for an hour every day. Cars going by have responded very positively. More than 2/3 of people passing waved or honked or gave us a thumbs-up. (Including most of the bus drivers.) Some rolled their windows down and cheered. I only saw one actively negative response. Even the police officers gave us tightly civil nods when they drove past.

There were several times I was a little scared. A surprising number of drivers pulled out signs to wave out their windows, to show their agreement. I had no idea so many people just happened to carry "black lives matter" and "I can't breathe" signs around in their back seats. It's great that they do! But FFS, people, keep your hands on the wheel!

And there was that one guy. He wasn't scary, but he was confusing. He might have just been passing by on his way home from a cosplay event, and not paying any particular attention to us. (Do I want to know what kind of cosplay?) He was wearing a tricorne hat and carrying the flag of Imperial Japan. If he had been wearing an old-fashioned navy uniform, or some outfit that looked vaguely steam-punkish, it would have had a different effect than wearing that hat with cargo shorts and hiking boots.* I would also have seen it differently if he had been holding the flag up and waving it, instead of carrying it down around his knees.

*I cling to the idea that if I don't make fun of other people's fashion choices, nobody will make fun of my own, so I can wear cargo shorts for as long as I can squeeze cell phones into the pockets.

*Does anybody even remember Burma Shave anymore?

George H.W. Bush is dead. You may have heard.

( Speaking ill of the dead )

As many of you know, I live in Massachusetts, which has had a patchwork of nearly-universal health insurance coverage for several years now. We have religious exemptions to our health insurance requirements, but it's not nearly as infuriating as the type being discussed in national politics these days.

The Massachusetts plan tries to get as many people as possible into insurance plans, considering different reasons for doing without insurance:
1) health insurance plans won't sell to them
2) they have access, but can't afford the premiums
3) they have access and money, but want to save their money because they don't expect to need health care this year
4) they object to seeing doctors, on general principle

So there are rules for the health insurance plans to address problem 1, that they have to make their plans available to everybody, and can't raise the premiums too much. And rules for businesses, that they have to make group plans available to their employees. And subsidies to help low-income (and moderate-income) people with premiums. It's a reasonable attempt to address problem 2. In an attempt to get the 3rd group to pay premiums (whether they get insurance and health care or not), you're supposed to pay a tax penalty if you opt out of buying health insurance for reasons other than low income or religious conviction. The penalty money goes to support the subsidies.

The 4th group doesn't involve all that many people, but they're symbolically important. I don't know what religions have such strong objections to all medical care that the devout consider it wrong to have health insurance. (Maybe Christian Science?)

My Massachusetts tax form asks:
Are you claiming an exemption from the requirement to purchase health insurance based on your sincerely held religious beliefs?
If you are claiming a religious exemption in line 8a, did you receive medical health care during the 2011 tax year?

It was a religious exemption for individuals wanting to avoid buying health insurance. When did "religious exemption," in the context of health insurance, start to be about employers or insurers wanting to limit coverage? I feel like the jargon changed under my feet, and I didn't even notice it had changed until I sat down to do my taxes.

~~Once upon a time~~ In the winter of 1993, my brother came from Michigan to go to grad school in western Massachusetts. My mother wanted to use the last shreds of my father's employee discount plan (my father had been a Ford employee for decades, until his death a few years earlier), to help him get a car. Nobody, including my brother, was crazy about the idea of him driving an unfamiliar car from Ann Arbor to Amherst. In January. When all his Michigan friends had already started school. So he and my mother went to a Ford dealer in Michigan and ordered a car to be delivered to a dealer near my home in Troy, NY. He could fly into Albany, have a few days visiting with me and my husband, pick up the car, make sure it was ok, and only have about 100 miles to drive to Amherst. There was enough slack in the schedule for him to wait out a few days of bad weather. And if the car wasn't ready, we could drive him to Amherst and make other arrangements in a few weeks, after he was more settled.

As you may recall, back in the winter of 1993, the media was paying a lot of attention to the question of whether gays should serve in the US military. (I'm talking about the extremely heated disputes that were supposed to be resolved by the "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy. Though that turned out not to work very well, either as policy (HR or PR) or as a way to make the dispute go away.) I'm sure you know how a hot topic in the media tends to saturate public space, especially public spaces that have radio or TV on in the background. Like the waiting areas in airports and hospitals. And car dealerships.

My husband drove my brother to the car dealer, to get the car. (They went when I was in class, because they both knew how much I like driving around and dealing with cars.) So I heard about this after they came home. While the salesman was sorting out the paperwork, the TV in the waiting area showed some kind of hearing or commentary, talking about how gays had been in the military in the past and done a good job, only disclosing their orientation years later. And the salesman started talking about how he knew there hadn't been any obscenity obscenity [homosexuals] obscenity on his ship, when he was in the Navy, because all the decent guys would have cut off their obscenity obscenities and thrown them over the side. Another salesman, who had just driven the car over from an outlying lot, came in and joined the conversation, agreeing that his unit in Vietnam would have mutilated and killed any among them they suspected of being inadequately heterosexual. Obviously, any proper soldiers would, and that's why it was crazy to talk about letting those obscenities enlist.

I'm not just pointing out that the car salesmen thought that way, or that they didn't hesitate to say such things out loud in public (presumably while sober), while getting no encouragement from their audience. I think it's noteworthy that salesmen didn't hesitate to talk that way in front of customers. Not even when the customers are two young men who walk in together, and don't hint at a positive response.

I don't think it would happen now. The territory of debate has shifted too much. It was a little later in 1993 when I first started hearing about same-sex marriage as a political issue. There was a court case in Hawaii which seemed to inspire more "defense of marriage" resistance than all the domestic partnership contracts and commitment ceremonies in the country. At the time, I thought it was all a distraction from more important priorities. I thought the gay-bashing we needed to fight was mostly stuff that got people fired or evicted, or beaten up on the street. I worried that focus on marriage rights would make other rights seem trivial, or just invisible. (Last year, or perhaps the year before, I saw something along those lines on LJ, posted by somebody I regard as sensible, kind, and moderately liberal. She didn't see why gay rights would matter to somebody who did not have, or seek, a partner they wanted to marry. It's sad but not surprising to hear that from liberal college students, who I don't expect to have much perspective. But this woman was old enough to *remember* the 1980s and '90s.) I didn't realize how much the marriage controversy would force the debate from "is it ok to tolerate gays at social fringes?" to "is it ok to exclude gays from mainstream respectability?" Just talking about the latter question changes the answer to the former. There is still a lot of heated opposition to gay rights, but it's been years since I heard anybody actually advocating anti-gay hate crime. Most people speaking against same-sex marriage, or adoption rights, or the right to serve in the military, try to explain they don't dislike homosexuals a bit and don't want to hurt them. My point is not about their personal sincerity, but about what they think is socially acceptable to say in public.

Last week, I was listening to radio accounts of the murder in a BART station at the beginning of the year, and some of the protests afterward. You probably saw something about it, before it cycled out of the news.

Later in the day, I was reading to Whitebird (almost 5), at her request. She interrupted to ask me, "What's trembled?"

I said, "It means he was shaking, like this," with a little demonstration.

"Why?"

I explained, "he was scared because the king made that whole parade stop, and the king is staring right at him." I tried to stare at her like a teacher customarily stares at a child doing something wrong, with some loss of impact because she was about halfway on my lap. "Bartholomew was scared because he didn't know what the king was going to do to him."

She looked a little puzzled, and asked, "Was he scared the king would want to make him take off his hat?"

"I don't think that would scare him at the beginning of the story, sweetheart. Bartholomew Cubbins took his hat off when he saw the king coming down the street. Do you see it there in his hands?"

WB: "Oh. He doesn't know about the others?" I shook my head, and she went on. "So why is he scared?"

"Bartholomew was scared because the king is the most powerful person in all the land, and he was afraid nobody could make the king stop if he tried to do something bad or scary. And that's why Bartholomew trembled."

I spent a few days thinking about how remarkable it was to read about Bartholomew's inexplicable hats right after hearing radio reports about abuse of power on BART. Isn't it strange how the danger seems different, depending on how much of the story a person knows? (I'm more aware than I used to be that the standard media reports are often distorted, but I still don't know how distorted.) Only it's not strange, and there's nothing new about it at all. Seuss wrote The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins in 1938, and I'd be shocked if he hadn't been listening to distorted, incomplete, radio reports of power being abused far away.