Racing In The Street

"Can't seem to get my mind off of you
Back here at home there's nothin' to do
Now that I'm away
I wish I'd stayed

Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away"

Vacation
Go-Go's
(Valentine/Caffey/Wiedlin)
 


 



 
   

Local newspaper columnist Dick Case has devoted several columns on the need to consolidate the city of Syracuse government with the larger Onondaga County government. One of the ironies of this situation is that Mr. Case, an excellent writer, also devotes several columns a month on the forgotten history of our region--people, towns, architecture, traditions. I guess he wants something else to write about that has disappeared--the city of Syracuse.

According to the 2000 Census, about 35% of the city's residents are non-white and 25% of the city has an income below the federal poverty line. The county is roughly 95% white with a poverty rate of less than 10%. (Since the city is wholly subsumed inside the county, even a lousy mathematician like myself can figure out that the suburbs and rural areas of the county have few poor people and even fewer people of color.) Here's a non-census statistic that I believe in, but can't prove--100% of the people living outside the city can't stand the city and its residents.

They'll go to the Carrier Dome and the Carousel Center, but only because there's good parking and not much chance of running into black people. That's why white folks left the city to begin with--they didn't want their kids going to school with black kids. Of course there are some exceptions, but they're getting harder to find.

How do I know this? I'm white and I grew up in the suburbs. White folks say racist things that stun me on a regular basis. Most educated whites are sophisticated enough to know that you shouldn't express openly bigoted remarks, but in all-white groups they sometimes slip up. African-Americans should remember that just because whites aren't saying nasty, racist things, that doesn't mean they aren't thinking them.

In Mr. Case's March 14th column he stated: "Some people think the moment's right for Syracuse and Onondaga County to move quickly toward merger of government services, consolidation of city and county, modernization - whatever we want to call the critter."

Not me. A consolidated government will be the municipal equivalent of a hostile takeover in the business world. Merge and purge. The loss of the city of Syracuse will result in:

A Midland Ave. raw sewage treatment plant--no questions asked, no dissent tolerated.

A vacant, rotting shell of a Hotel Syracuse standing near an ugly, vapid concrete Motel 6-like county convention hotel. (Continuing the County's devotion to Soviet Realism-style architecture. Was the designer of the new courthouse on drugs?)

Elimination of DPW trash pick-up and the imposition of private hauler trash fees. (This will give poor city residents the chance to join their suburban neighbors illegally dumping trash on city vacant lots.)

A County Legislature vote to ban any merger of city and county schools (as well as any revenue-sharing.)

No city residency requirement for government employees, completing the flight of families with good-paying jobs to the suburbs.


What would I like to call the critter? ROADKILL. Save Our City!

Ronald Reagan’s presidency capitalized on Hollywood-style symbolism to disguise the impact of its real life policies. The response to his death illustrates how successfully this public relations approach to governance has taken over American politics. All the interviews and the lovely prose attesting to Mr. Reagan’s charm and personality is certainly heartfelt, but judging how a public official has performed requires a more objective and detailed study.

I opposed most of Mr. Reagan’s policies when he was alive and I certainly continue to believe that his presidency was a disaster. But how can I argue against those who say that Mr. Reagan made America proud again? What does that mean? History is important. The American people are owed a higher level of discourse than that found on Entertainment Tonight.

To kick off that debate, please find a list of Reagan policies that I believe were wrong at the time and some of which are still having a negative effect on our country:

1) Military and economic support of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

2) Military and economic support of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan .

3) Selling arms to Iran .

4) Diverting proceeds of Iranian arms sales to fund terrorists in Nicaragua.

5) Turning a blind eye to death squads in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

6) Support for the apartheid regime In South Africa.

7) Busting the air traffic controller union and threatening the safety of air passengers.

8) Reaganomics: record budget deficits, double digit unemployment.

9) The deregulation and collapse of the Savings & Loan industry.

10) Honoring Nazi war dead at Bitburg Cemetery in Germany.

11) Reagan didn't publicly mention the burgeoning AIDS epidemic for the first 6 years of his 8 years in office.

12) Speech announcing his 1980 candidacy for President given in Philadelphia, Mississippi--where 3 civil rights workers were murdered by racist Klanners in 1964. His speech defended "State's Rights"--code for Jim Crow segregation.

Thanks to my fancy new iMac and its fancy new iTunes application, I know exactly what I'm listening to these days. My “Top 20”:

1 "Atomic Power" Uncle Tupelo
2 "There’s Always Someone Cooler..." Ben Folds
3 "Stetson Kennedy" Billy Bragg & Wilco
4 "Marry Me" Drive By Truckers
5 "Jailhouse" Sublime
6 "Teen Angst" Cracker
7 "England, Half English" Billy Bragg
8 "Wallace" Drive By Truckers
9 "Forty" John Eddie
10 "Heart Shaped World" Chris Isaak
11 "Lonesome Day" Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
12 "Can’t Sink This Town" Freedy Johnston
13 "As Long As It Matters" Gin Blossoms
14 "Vive La Vida" Santana
15 "Searchin’" Lynyrd Skynyrd
16 "Love Delicatessen" Presidents of the USA
17 "King Of New Orleans" Better Than Ezra
18 "Is This Love?" Bob Marley & The Wailers
19 "Club Song" Too Hectic
20 "I Love Her She Loves Me" NRBQ

What does this snapshot of my current listening tell us? Since these songs are all ones I’ve burned off my CD’s onto my computer, the genres run heavily toward current favorites--not much of the hard rock that’s on my old LP’s that my wife exiled to the basement. More pop and alt.country these days. Where’s all the blues and reggae that once were all the rage? Where's Elvis Costello and Little Feat?

I think the key to unlocking this mystery is the song “Forty” by John Eddie. Any song with a chorus “I guess I’m fucking forty” strikes a chord with all us 40-somethings. Rock’n’roll is more often heard on our new iMacs than at some late night club or concert arena. I saw John Eddie (then the leader of the up and coming Jersey band The Front Street Runners) as a sophomore in college (1980). He rocked as hard as my then and current (and always) favorite--Bruce Springsteen. His new album trades the Shore sound for an alt.country feel and a great look at growing older and wondering about the hand you’ve been dealt.

I’m still a sucker for political songs. I always change the names when I sing along to the Billy Bragg/Wilco song "Stetson Kennedy" that uses lyrics written by Woody Guthrie--creating the perfect 2004 protest song:

I done spent my last three cents
Mailing my letter to the president
I didn't make a show, I didn't make a dent
So I'm swinging over to this independent gent
Stetson Kennedy (Ralph Nader)

Writing his name in
I cain't win out to save my soul
Long as Smathers-Dupont(Bush-Cheney) has got me in the hole
Them war profit boys are squawking and balking
That's what's got me out here walking and talking
Knocking on doors and windows
Wake up and run down election morning
And scribble in Stetson Kennedy (Ralph Nader)

I ain't the worlds best writer nor the worlds best speller
But when I believe in something I'm the loudest yeller
If we fix it so's you can't make money on a war
We'll all forget what we're killing folks for
We'll find us a peace job equal and free
Dump Smathers-Dupont (Bush-Cheney) in a salty sea
Well, this makes Stetson Kennedy (Ralph Nader) the man for me

Words: Woody Guthrie 1950 (phil 2004)
Music: Billy Bragg 1997

This list wouldn’t be complete without a plug for my favorite new band--Drive By Truckers. The southern rock of my youth with a new attitude. The album Southern Rock Opera is nothing less than the history of the new South as seen through the prism of Lyrnyrd Skynyrd and their fans. Decoration Day is even darker, delving further back into the region’s history. It also has my favorite DBT song-- “Marry Me.” I dare anyone to not crank up the volume when this song comes on. If there was any justice in the world “Marry Me” would have been all over rock’n’roll radio--but then that’s a whole other 40-something complaint.

In the words of Patterson Hood from DBT “Rock’n’roll means well/but it can’t help tellin’ young boys lies.”

This blog is an attempt to record my thoughts as I go about my job--fomenting revolution in the city of my birth. I am a community organizer, attempting to build a powerful organization of everyday citizens that want to change their world. Somedays I feel like I'm getting somewhere, other days I feel like I should have stayed in bed.

What is it that community organizers do? I've written about that before. We can't end drug addiction, turn irresponsible parents into Ozzie & Harriet or force people to confront the racism that has caused my tribe (whites) to flee for the hills (or, at least the suburbs.) We aren't going to foment a revolution of values, morals or culture.

Organizers are going to show people how to grab the levers of participatory democracy and yank them until they get a stop sign on their corner, the garbage cleaned out of the vacant lot across the street or more cops walking the beat in their neighborhood. It's not a revolution, but it's a start.

My blog will also showcase my freewheeling, cynical, smart-ass side as well. I may be trying to foment revolution, but I'm a Marxist/Lennonist revolutionary: Groucho and John. Bruce Springsteen plays my inauguration. Monty Python will be my cabinet members. I love to hate and hate to love the writing of P.J. O'Rourke. High culture abounds--the film festival founded by my friends at work is named "Smoochyfest" after that cinema classic "Death To Smoochy."

My blog will also brag about my beautiful wife, who is doing a similar kind of organizing with persons with disabilities. I would refer to us as Syracuse's power activist couple, but it sounds too much like bragging about the tallest building in North Dakota. I will also gush about my three beautiful, smart and lovely doggies--Sammy, Molly & Archie. (Molly is daddy's girl!)

1/3 revolutionary; 1/3 smart ass; 1/3 homebody--welcome to my world.