The Nike Industrial Complex

originally published on Crosscut.com on December 18, 2009

For decades the door-hinge give of a cedar bench at the Blue Moon Tavern (whence I scribble) was required drinking space for Northwest imbibers, just as Rainier Club membership was a sine qua non for Seattle’s business class.

The latest touchstone, at least for University of Washington honchos, is membership on the corporate board of Nike. For the second time in as many weeks, a UW higher-up, in this case a regent nominee, is tied to the Beaverton, Oregon corporation.

Before shuttling off to Copenhagen last Friday, Gov. Gregoire nominated Orin Smith, the venerable former Starbucks CEO, as a member of the university’s Board of Regents. Smith has served on the Nike board since 2004. UW Provost Phyllis Wise, the university’s chief academic officer, was appointed a Nike director on November 19 and will receive an annual compensation of between $132,000 and $217,000 (For a full list of future UW regents and administrators, please click here ).

As Nick Perry of the Seattle Times reported, Wise’s appointment has kindled blowback from faculty, students, and state legislators.

Phil Knight’s invisible hand made visible? The Trilateral Commission writ small?

Supporters of the provost, who is well regarded among Nike-appointment supporters and critics alike, seem flummoxed by the intensity of the backlash. After all, university administrators have accepted corporate directorships at least since the era of former UW President William Gerberding (Safeco). Current UW President Mark Emmert, for example, serves on the boards of both Weyerhaeuser and Expeditors International.

Much of the controversy, however, revolves around a very specific corporation at an especially sensitive time.

Critics note that Nike has a record of strong-arming universities that associate with the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), most famously in 2000 when Phil Knight announced he would suspend all future giving to the University of Oregon, including a $30 million pledge to expand Autzen Stadium. Subsequently, the U of O (surprise)! dropped its WRC membership.

In addition, Huskies have been in the vanguard of anti-sweatshop activism for years. The university is only one of a handful of higher-ed institutions affiliated with both the WRC and the Fair Labor Association. (The latter was established during the Clinton Administration in response to the sweatshop controversy surrounding Kathie Lee Gifford’s Wal-Mart clothing line.)

Wise’s appointment comes just weeks before a budget-from-hell legislative session and at an awkward juncture for the UW: On December 3, members of the University of Washington’s Advisory Committee on Trademarks and Licensing voted to put Nike on notice for disregarding the university’s code of conduct. Charges include Nike’s multiple failures to abide by mandated disclosure standards as well as its refusal to pay severance to workers at two Honduran factories.

The university’s next steps, including remediation for the conduct violations and possible contract termination, are in the hands of President Emmert. (The Nike contract is valued at between $35-39 million over ten years.)

Smith’s appointment to the Board of Regents may neutralize the primary argument for Wise’s Nike directorship, namely that the Provost will give voice to campus concerns and agitate for improved corporate behavior.

No need now. We have Regent-designate Orin Smith for that.

December 18, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , , ,

Nike put on notice

originally published on Crosscut.com on December 8, 2009

William Gates Sr., the longtime University of Washington regent, said at a meeting of Crosscut writers Tuesday afternoon that he was not consulted about the recent appointment of UW Provost Phyllis Wise to Nike’s corporate board.

At the same time, Gates said that he saw a benefit to the provost’s appointment. “There’s value to Phyllis having a spot like that,” Gates said. It was a sentiment echoed by UW President Mark Emmert, who said in an interview with Seattle Weekly’s Nina Shapiro that he was “very supportive” of Wise’s directorship and that as a Nike board member Wise would be well positioned to advocate for “appropriate behavior.”

As first reported by the Seattle Times, Wise will be paid between $132,000 and $217,000 a year as a Nike director in addition to her annual university salary of $535,000.

In Victorian parlance, Wise’s appointment might be construed as “ill-timed.”

After deliberating for two hours last Thursday, members of the University of Washington’s Advisory Committee on Trademarks and Licensing voted to put Nike on notice for disregarding the University’s code of conduct. Specific charges include Nike’s multiple failures to abide by mandated disclosure standards as well as its refusal to pay severance to workers at two Honduran factories (a violation of Honduran law).

It was, by any measure, a watershed moment for labor-rights enforcement. As Matt Reed, a member of the UW’s Student Labor Action Project said Tuesday, “This refocuses the narrative, that we don’t do business with corporations that exploit labor.”

The committee’s decision comes on the heels of the UW’s recent action against Russell Athletic as well as student pressure to provide severance for the laid-off workers of the Estofel Apparel Factory in Guatemala City.

On his blog today, state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, a member of the House Higher Education Committee, wrote:

I do believe that Provost Wise, the university’ꀙs chief academic officer, must set a positive example by either rejecting the appearance of a conflict of interest (no matter how slight) or by donating at least 90 percent of her directorship fees to scholarships at the University of Washington. That would still leave her with earning an additional $20,000 a year &mdash 50 percent of the annual earning of a state legislator — for attending five meetings. There can be little question that she is earning these dollars because of her public position and her public role affiliated with the University of Washington. The public should receive compensation, too.

We are facing the most severe economic crisis in generations. Higher education is on the front line of those cuts, and the coming months of the legislative session will be brutally painful for those of us who have to make those decisions. This move by the provost, while made sincerely and with only the best of intentions, is not helpful in our larger efforts to convince our colleagues that our institutions of higher education need more support, and local control, not less. She is in the middle of perfect storm of perception. During normal times, perhaps this would not be an issue, but we don’ꀙt live in normal times. And the fact is the public simply cannot understand why a public servant should benefit so handsomely from an appointment to a private board.

Presupposing that Emmert accepts the advisory committee’s recommendations, the burden will be on Nike to come up with a timely and enforceable remediation plan. If not, Nike will (no pun intended) get the UW boot.

December 8, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , , ,

Gun crazy

originally published on Crosscut.com on November 30, 2009

Gun violence is a hallmark of the American West. It’s as if bloodletting by firearm is hard-wired, as natural as breathing.

Sunday’s execution-style murders of four Lakewood police officers at the Forza coffee shop in unincorporated Pierce County echoed the horror of the Oct. 31 slaying of Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton. How do we make sense of the senseless? As Elie Wiesel wrote years ago, “Words, they die on our lips.”

A tragedy this grave and unspeakable will spur recrimination. Should Washington state extend sentences for all violent offenders? The answer may be existential. Human nature is base and inscrutable. We’re as likely to mitigate violence as remedy the seven deadly sins.

For Western lawmakers, gun control is the third rail. Still. Even liberal icons such as Idaho’s late, great Frank Church knew better than to savage the National Rifle Association. A couple years ago, I referred to this as the Northwest thread in the political fabric — Big Government Libertarianism. West Coast politicians harmonize the value of New Deal-era government intervention with the Northwestern value of libertarian hands-off-ness.

These same lawmakers, however, would be horrified by the mad injustice that unfolded in a Lakewood coffee shop on Sunday.

The debate over gun violence brings out the worst in us. Years ago historian Richard Hofstadter referred to the “Paranoid Style in American Politics.” As Hofstadter understated in 1964, “American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.” (For years I presupposed the gun debate hinged on the West’s urban-rural divide. It doesn’t quite factor, however, in light of the scholarship of Stanford’s Richard White and others who’ve documented the West’s primarily urban character).

The latest nudge at gun control is Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’s proposed gun ban in city parks and community centers. The mayor has a point. Could there be a compelling reason to pack heat at a neighborhood park? Roaming packs of berserking 5-year-olds? Revenge upon that Czech immigrant who tries to castle twice at chess?

The Nickels initiative triggered a response from Snohomish County Councilmember John Koster who will, according to the Everett Herald, propose an ordinance to lift the firearm ban in Shohomish County parks. “The code is in conflict with state law,” Koster is quoted as saying.

Nickels and Koster are principled public servants. They’re also strategic thinkers, and the current battle serves as a proxy war for gun rights.

Legally speaking, Councilman Koster is likely right and Mayor Nickels is likely wrong. A gun ban contravenes state law. An extended legal fight won’t benefit anyone except, perhaps, the attorneys involved.

All the while, both lawmakers owe the public a “yes, and” pledge: Yes, I’ll pursue this gun-control question AND I propose the following: For example, develop programs in restorative justice to help young offenders make personal amends; enhance neighborhood watch programs; increase access to crime data; no parole for violent convicts; hire more street cops; and invest in gang-crime prevention programs with proven outcomes. The list, of course, goes on.

The Northwest’s epidemic of gun violence demands more than grandstanding or symbolism. It can’t go unchallenged. What, then, will actually work and who, over the long term, will benefit?

November 30, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , , ,

A personal memory of Ted Kennedy

originally published on Crosscut.com on August 25, 2009

My father, like my father’s father and my father’s mother and all of my father’s Norse-American siblings (from the teenage Agnes, a victim of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, to a redoubtable elementary school teacher, Gertrude) is buried on a shoulder of land overlooking Interstate 5.

I didn’t expect it, my father’s death. I was a teenager, petulant and awkward. You see, my Dad waited a long, long time to get hitched. And he waited until he was well into his fifties to have children. He was a good soul, his nuptial-commitment-aversion notwithstanding. So, his death felt abrupt and horrifying to me. To any kid, I assume.

I spoke at my father’s funeral and afterwards I stood in a receiving line for several excruciating hours. It was 1983, an early summer afternoon in Everett. Three people touched my shoulder and were comforting: Pete Wilson, then a Republican Senator from California, Admiral H.G. Rickover, the legendary father of the nuclear Navy, and U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy. From that time onward, I rarely made a joke at Ted Kennedy’s expense (and God forgive me those few times that I did make a joke). He was a stand-up fellow, I told friends. He eulogized my Dad at Everett’s First Presbyterian Church.

Here’s a brief excerpt of what Ted Kennedy said about my Dad:

On that day Jack died, he was a friend who comforted me. On more days than I can count, I felt his happy clasp on my shoulder; I saw his crinkled smile; I enjoyed his counsel and his company.

I won’t expound on Ted Kennedy’s personal and political legacy. Many folks, much smarter than I, can and should debate away. Therefore, I will keep it simple: When I was a teenager, my father died unexpectedly. Edward Kennedy was kind to me. I’m grateful to him.

August 25, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , , ,

Everett: God’s gift to Seattle politics

originally published on Crosscut.com on August 11, 2009

Politics and humility aren’t always mutually exclusive. Consider, for example, a recent trifold mailer from Seattle Mayoral candidate, Joe Mallahan:

Joe was born and raised in Washington, the seventh of nine children in a working-class family where he was taught the value of hard work, integrity, and service to others.

Note the inspired ambiguity of “in Washington.” In fact, Mallahan is an Everett native, but he wisely ain’t a braggart. Why trumpet roots in the Athens of Puget Sound, Mallahan figures, and risk turning off rank-and-file Seattle voters?

Now that the Everett genie is out, however, it’s easy to conjure a JFK-style exchange between Mallahan and scornful Seattleites. “Mallahan, what do you know about Seattle’s gang problem?” voters will demand. “You grew up in an All-America City enlivened by cruising low-riders, the magisterial Scott Paper Mill, and 40 parks.”

Mallahan will, I imagine, stare back and reply in cool Everett-ese, “No one ever asked me where I learned the value of hard work, integrity, and service to others when I was at T Mobile protecting families from scratchy cell reception.”

To his credit, Mallahan soft pedals the enchantment of Everett life. I’m from Everett, Hometown Joe is saying, but that doesn’t make me a better person than you, at least not in God’s eyes.

How a candidate handles the so-called Everett card is a harbinger of his or her leadership style. An unassuming Mallahan will be level-headed and congenial. Actor Patrick Duffy, Cascade High School Class of 1967, played Bobby Ewing on TV’s Dallas and gave expression to this “Everett cool.”

It’s a thread that sews together Mallahan and Duffy and extends back to, yes, Teddy Roosevelt. Americans remember TR though the lens of San Juan Hill and his leadership preserving America’s wild lands. No one cared that Roosevelt was a snooty New Yorker with a Harvard degree. It’s deja vu all over again as voters judge Joe Mallahan by his real-time achievements, not by his privileged legacy as a son of Everett.

Contrast the Mallahan style with the North Everett hauteur of Dow Constantine, a leading candidate for King County Executive. Constantine, who didn’t even grow up in Everett, effuses about his “ancestral home.” His mother, a schoolteacher, moved to West Seattle because it reminded her of Everett, he said. To magnify his elite status, Constantine noted that his great uncle, George Wilson, played halfback on Enoch Bagshaw’s mythical 1920 national high school championship team. Constantine’s grandfather, Abe Wilson, also played for Bagshaw and followed the coach to Husky football glory.

That’s right, Constantine is insufferable, an unabashed flack for the Everett Chamber.

“Everett is the undiscovered city in our region,” Constantine said. “I believe it has a great future. It’s a great town.”

As a result of his Everett heritage, Constantine should make a stellar King County Executive. But he’ll govern with sharp elbows, this one.

In a recent email interview, Joe Mallahan finally came to terms with his murky past, acknowledging that he was hiding his Everett light under a mailer. It was a cathartic experience for Everett’s next Seattle mayor.

Jackson: You’re the only Seattle mayoral candidate who was born and raised in Everett, and you’re also the only candidate rated “Outstanding” by the Municipal League. Is there causality or coincidence to these two statements?

Mallahan: Everett has long been the incubator of great leaders, and once you have been a newspaper boy for the Everett Herald, your resume is pretty much golden. Scoop Jackson liked to claim he was a Herald carrier in his youth, but I’m guessing he had a route in hoity toity North Everett. I, on the other hand, had the most coveted route in town: the Mobile Country Club on SE 85th Street — 250 mobile homes tucked nicely into less than one quarter square mile. I used to run that route after cross-country practice at Cascade High School. I could deliver 150 papers in 20 minutes.

Jackson: You abandoned your hometown, the City of Smokestacks, soon after graduating from high school. How long have you been plagued by feelings of shame or did you simply elect to repress all memories of your formative years?

Mallahan: They’re not smoke stacks, they’re steam stacks, stupid.

Jackson: In the 1980s, Seattle made a splash with its sister-city agreements, hooking up with every radical and outre city in the world (think of it as the Hippie years). Would you be willing to make Everett a Seattle “Sister City” complete with reciprocal junkets, cultural exchanges, and general goodwill?

Mallahan: I think a sister city program with Everett would be a good way to heal some of the wounds. Relations have been rather strained since the Teddy Bears incident at the Everett Event Center in the fall of 2007. Everett Silvertips fans have never forgiven the Seattle fans since then. That was the game where every fan was given a Silvertip Teddy Bear, and was instructed to throw them on the ice after Everett scored a goal so they could be donated to the Everett Police Department. Alas, the Thunderbirds beat the Silvertips 3-0, and bears were tossed only when Seattle scored. I’m still ashamed of the multiple Teddy Bear beheadings I witnessed that night. Deep, deep wounds. As Seattle’s mayor, I will deliver a teddy bear to Mayor Stephanson as an olive branch, and a symbol of the high regard Seattle holds for its neighbor to the north.

Jackson: True or False: Scandinavian Lutherans made and enforced the laws of Everett only to have the Irish Catholics upend and violate all that was lawful, decent, and true.

Mallahan: I guess you never read the book, How the Irish Saved Everett Civilization. The Ruckers will always have their hill, and they will always supply the athletic uniforms for thousands of Everett youth every year, but it’s Pat Sullivan and the Irish Soccer Club that put Everett on the world sports map. As for pro soccer stars from Everett, a lot of people forget that Sean Henderson was actually O’Henderson before his family passed through Ellis Island.

Jackson: An Everett litmus test. Please define the following: A choker, a gypsy drum, and a rootwad.

Mallahan: Rootwads were the deadheads you had to dodge when water skiing Steamboat Slough. The real question is what’s a Peavey? If you haven’t handled a Peavey, then you’re not a real Sounder.

November predictions are ill advised, but here goes: Mallahan and Constantine win. They both have certain, well, natural advantages.

August 11, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , ,

What was Shawna Forde thinking?

originally published on Crosscut.com on June 15, 2009

There are times when the arc of Greek tragedy morphs into horror. On Friday the saga of Shawna Forde, 41, birddogged and recounted by the Everett Herald, abruptly turned into a perverted cross between Euripides and the Coen brothers. On May 30, authorities allege, Forde, along with fellow Everett-ite and Minuteman American Defense honcho Jason “Gunny” Bush, and another man, Albert Gaxiola, committed a home invasion in rural Arizona that left a nine-year old child and her father dead.

It was a ferocious crime with an overlay of hate (the family was Mexican), but an apparent motive as old as Eve: the cardinal sin of greed. One more “God no!” layer was added Monday when the Herald‘s Scott North reported that Forde’s compatriot, Jason Bush, has also now been charged with the murder of an Hispanic man in Eastern Washington a dozen years ago.

For months the Herald has ably tracked Forde’s cascading bad luck, legerdemain, and conspiracy. Her ex-husband was mysteriously shot in December of 2008, and Forde herself was allegedly raped and beaten the subsequent week. In January of this year, Forde suffered a bullet wound to her arm. Was she the target of pro-immigrant forces incensed by her border-watch activism? What emerged instead was a clouded picture that appeared part X Files and part paranoid drivel.

Forde’s straight line from the banality of a lost soul to the evil of American terrorist now seems preordained. She was the unstable leader of an Everett-based nativist fringe group, Minutemen American Defense. A classic misfit and troubled kid searching for a higher calling, she became a hate cliche, emblematic of the mass-movement absolutists described by Eric Hoffer in his 1951 masterpiece, The True Believer.

Hoffer observed how nationalists, Communists, and extremists of all stripes are curiously interchangeable. True believers feel oppressed and gravitate to movements that portend a new day in the stark clarity of pure beliefs.

Shawna Forde and her American Minutemen Defense aren’t an historic blip to be dismissed as outliers that evolved in a vacuum. Time “streams,” as Richard Neustadt and Ernest May have argued. Tease up the thread of Shawna Forde and the long seam of nativist bigotry begins to unravel, much of it here in the Northwest. There were the Aryan Nations, the Militia movement of the 1990s, the anti-Indian-fishing forces, the John Birch Society, executive order 9066 to intern Japanese Americans during WWII, the Fascist Silver Shirts active on Whidbey Island, the KKK, the American Protective Association, and anti-Chinese pogroms to name a few. They all stood on the shoulders of the Know Nothing movement of the 1840s and those perennial forces that scapegoat and deal in xenophobia.

The leaders of these groups wrote a kind of lesser-angels’ catechism that indoctrinated the credulous and the vulnerable. As Hoffer wrote years ago, “It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.”

One of the best books written about any community, Norman H. Clark’s Mill Town, documents some of the history of Everett’s nativist elements. John W. Frame, a progressive news editor and politico in the 1890s, tried to fight the bigoted American Protective Association (APA) which extended its tendrils into both political parties and the populist movement. Clark writes:

When Frame first settled in Everett, the APA had already applied pressures to have the federal government close a Catholic school which had for years served Indian families at Tulalip. The APA controlled the city school board and was making the most of the confusion in county and municipal politics…”Apaism,” as Frame called it, easily infected every dispute or debate. Frame was infuriated by the political behavior of many recent immigrants from Norway, Sweden, Germany, and England — some of them unable to speak English — who had swallowed “Apaism” and were incanting “American for Americans” against the local Catholics, most of whom were native born.

It all sadly rings true. My own Norse grandparents bolted from Everett’s First Lutheran Church in the early 1900’s because they feared it had grown “too damn much like the Catholics.” (Someone at church must have brought in a poinsettia or, worse, smiled at them.)

Everett, like most Western towns, is chiaroscuro, weaving together the forces of light and dark. The 1916 Everett Massacre marked the culmination of the city’s radicalism and class conflict as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) battled a sadistic county Sheriff, Donald McRae.

On Friday the PBS program NOW cited a Department of Homeland Security report predicting an uptick of right-wing domestic violence. The Forde story now falls together with the shooting of abortion doctor George Tiller and the murder of security guard Stephen Johns by white supremacist James von Brunn at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It’s easy to bemoan Shawna Forde’s self-styled end. It would be better, however, to conjure something remedial and creative to anticipate the Northwest’s future Fordes. Everett-ites, for example, might use the peace-park conversion of the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho, as a template. We could pool our money, purchase Forde’s house, and turn it into a center for tolerance training or dispute resolution. Perhaps it could house the Snohomish County Human Rights Commission — presupposing that the county council passes the enabling human rights ordinance.

The facility’s name would be the one decision not requiring debate: The Brisenia Flores Center, in memory of a very innocent nine-year-old girl.

June 15, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , ,

Climate change comes to our National Parks

originally published on Crosscut.com

What does it mean for our national parks when magnum storms perennially wash out roads and curtail public access? At a small gathering at North Cascades National Park last week, sponsored by the National Parks Conservation Association, user groups, National Parks and Forest Service pashas noodled the fallout of the climate elephant. It was a postlude to three severe, 100-year storms, bunched together over the last dozen years, that have walloped Washington’s three national parks.

The political rub: America’s gems lose their polish when there’s no one to take in the shine.

The crux of the climate challenge is zero sum. Park boosters know that it’s unsustainable to wring $50 million for repairs from the feds every couple of years. Lawmakers triage these budgets, and such decisions will fundamentally remake how Northwesterners look at their national parks.

Continue reading →

June 5, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , ,

Banner week for hypochondriacs

originally published on Crosscut.com on April 30, 2009

On Monday, Governor Gregoire weighed in on the swine flu crisis. “There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the people of this state to panic,” Gregoire said, “but we all need to be vigilant.” The undertow from the Governor’s use of “vigilant” should trigger fear in the immuno-deficient hearts of hypochondriacs everywhere. It’s a sentiment best reduced to the favorite Czech saying of University of Washington professor Bruce Kochis: “Situation is hopeless but not serious.”

Fatalism, especially for hypochondriacs, is a self-preserving virtue. I had an Aunt Agnes who died in Everett from the Spanish Flu at the turn of the century. I had a Dad who contracted but survived small pox in the 1920s. It doesn’t require a tragedian to connect the apples of the poisoned tree and appreciate that I’m next.

Which brings me to my girlfriend who arrived at Sea Tac Airport at 11:36 PM Tuesday night from Mexico City. What’s a self-respecting hypochondriac to do?

Laurie has a robust immune system which is one of the reasons that I’m so attracted to her. By day she works for an international development organization that is not, contrary to appearances, a CIA front. She labors nonstop, takes frequent overseas trips, and occasionally shouts into her cell in bursts of fluent Spanish like a Latina version of Alden Pyle in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. (The Company, I’m confident, would not have sent her to Mexico City).

She is clearly more than a petri dish, or a throat culture, or a potential incubator of the swine flu. She is a human being. That’s why I’m so heartsick that the Mexican government didn’t detain her or throw her into quarantine for just a few days. On this side of the border, why not deposit her into a hermetically sealed bubble like the Apollo 11 astronauts? What’s good enough for Neil Armstrong should be good enough for a non-astronaut Idahoan. It seems pluralism and civil liberties trump epidemiological common sense.

Conscientious hypochondriacs have already bookmarked the CDC’s swine flu website. It’s instructive, includes various podcasts from in-the-know docs, and offers up several gems from the hypochondriac’s Bible, e.g., “Try to avoid close contact with sick people.” No-contact behavior dovetails with the broader notion of “social distancing” which sounds like code for “act like a Northwesterner.”

And so I arrived at SeaTac sans protective mask (read: John Wayne-style) to pick her up. She’d kept her mask on in Mexico City, she said, except to eat. “Why did you need to eat?” I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t muster the nerve.

Today Laurie has the sniffles. “Just like I always do after a long trip,” she says. To echo those sanguine Czechs, “Situation is hopeless but not serious.”

April 30, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , , ,

Blogging the Inaugural: Near-death becomes pure joy

originally published on Crosscut.com on January 21, 2009

I hit a standing-room mass at my Tenleytown metro station yesterday. It was 6:30 a.m. Imagine getting wedged into a box of bundled flesh with a stranger’s chin on your shoulder. Now imagine you’re a Scandinavian who fears to be touched. By the time I reached Farragut North, I panicked and elbowed my way out.

I walked the mile-and-a-half from the Farragut stop near the White House to Union Station. It’s burn cold here. Ice curls formed in my hair, yeti-like. The only relief was soaking in the street market in All-Things-Obama. It’s unfettered capitalism that locals here refer to as Obama’s first stimulus package: “We Did It!” posters, Obama calendars, paintings, t-shirts, scarfs, and ski caps. Every block a half-dozen hawkers. And every block thoughts of death by frost bite.

At Union Station, I met up with fellow Crosscut scribe, Adam Vogt. We were fortunate to land a pair of seated yellow-section tickets courtesy of Rep. Rick Larsen, who handed out tickets and hosted a constituent meet-and-greet Monday morning at his Cannon Building offices.

Now it was our turn to stand and wait for two and a half hours. No movement. We waited amid the shouting and pushing with no one offering direction except for a handful of alpha male and female ticket holders. One takeaway from an ecstatic rabble: ecstasy doesn’t track with chaos.

A couple times tensions erupted along the (post-racial) color line. We yellow-tickets ballooned and narrowed like a sick artery as the purple ticketers kept pushing through. We heaved forward in a swale shouting, “Darwin!” It was Lord of the Flies on ice.

Two hours in, I paid a scalper five dollars for a pair of eighty-cent hand warmers that I promptly stuck in my sneakers. Make no mistake: I would have paid $200 or (no offense Adam) handed over Adam’s ticket. It was grim, and our only inspiration was this moment in history, the thrill of the Inauguration. That, and watching a stoic Garrison Keillor who stood caplessly nearby.

At 10:45 a.m. our line began to move. At 11:25, just under the wire, we went through the security check, a column of metal detectors that looked strangely out of place on the park grass. Then, suddenly and without warning, we arrived in Oz. We were up close, seated in the center row. The masses on the mall behind looked like thermal waves on asphalt. It was, well, pure joy.

January 21, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , , ,

2008: Year of Hope, Year of Fear. Essay 10

originally published on Crosscut.com on January 1, 2009

In 1984 then-state Sen. Jim McDermott ran for Washington Governor on the APPLE agenda, with each APPLE letter spelling out a political goal. It was “L” promising “life with hope, without fear” that stirred a subconscious transposing. Didn’t McDermott mean “life with fear and with hope?” Doesn’t fear, properly channeled, give us meaning?

Both currents, as the overall headline for this series of year-end thoughts implies, defined 2008 just as they will define 2009. A couple of questions arise: 1) Will the Northwest, as a far-left-coast laboratory of democracy, have any influence on the national conversation? and 2) Will the economic crisis speak to our better angels and translate into a full-scale blitz for things such as National Service?

Washington’s progressive tradition still hangs like the scaffolding of a home remodel that’s never quite finished. We have public utility districts, a populist state constitution requiring voters to pick a public lands and insurance commissioner, port districts conceived to delegate control to citizens (ha!), and an initiative process borrowed from the Swiss and designed to smash concentrated interests.

All these instruments of accountability and direct democracy have corrupted over time because people are, well, people.

Suitably chastened, what then should we do? For starters, during the 2009 legislative session we should identify one or two specific issues which reveal some core values. For me it’s establishing a sensible rate cap and finally reining in the payday-lending industry that preys on military families and the working poor. Think of it as one of those if-they-can’t-do-it-now-they’ll-never-ever-have-the-backbone-to-do-it benchmarks. But remember: the payday-lending industry has deep pockets.

I also like Ted Van Dyk’s suggestion of dropping industry-specific giveaways as a way to address the budget deficit — an inspired idea that runs counter to the tyranny of interest-group politics. Alas, it probably won’t happen. So maybe before lawmakers monkey too much with budget sweeteners and other revenues, they should re-noodle the armature that carries the load, Washington’s regressive tax structure. Someone in Olympia needs to dust off Bill Gates Sr.’s 2002 “Tax Structure Study Report” and move on it.

True, that won’t happen either.

On the federal level, 2009 can be crystallized in one issue driven by the economic storm: National Service. In addition to military service, there will be a massive ramping up of AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps along with innovative initiatives such as a Green Service Corps, a Hospital Corps, and a National Park Service Corps. These programs will conflate the idealism of the Peace Corps with the hands-on, back-to-basics ethic of the WPA and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Here, finally, is where the Northwest can press the conversation. We’re leaders in National Service with a major contingent of AmeriCorps members working in classrooms, in community centers, and in our parks and national forests. We are, as folks are wont to say in this era of stimulus moola, “shovel ready.”

January 1, 2009 phjackson Leave a response , , ,