The Occupy Wall Street campaign is faltering, despite considerable public sympathy for the social issues which the protesters seek to publicize.
The pickets and other demonstrators focused on a seam of popular discontent at economic inequality in the United States, the difficulty people face in obtaining work, and the failure of wages to keep up with rising costs. The effects of the Great Recession, specifically people losing their jobs, their mortgaged homes and large portions of their 401(k)s, have left millions of Americans unhappy with their own economic situation and their prospects for the future.
Although there is widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama, the public holds Congress in even lower regard. Last month, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll, Congress registered a 9% approval rating, the worst in the legislative body's history since Americans were first surveyed on the subject in 1977. Although the President may have erred in reaching too far and, paradoxically, retreating too often, the Congressional followers of Rule 9-J, "Just Say No", have offered the American people next to nothing.
One improvement in civic discourse comes from the spread of C-Span and other programs dealing with public issues. We know more about our public officials than we did years ago. We can discern with they really mean, both from their choice of cliches and from their body language. When one strips the gibberish and the platitudes from the remarks of the lawmakers and the witnesses who testify before them, one can get a sense of what is actually going on in the minds of the players.
It is true that they speak in code; that is a convention of public discourse. If many of our representatives said in public what they actually believe, their careers would be terminated. We see how many entertainers, performers or talking hosts have lost their jobs because of words and phrases which are politically incorrect, or capable of offending any group of people, whether racial, religious, ideological or gender-linked. It was said to have started with Uncle Don back in the 1920's on WOR. In reality, this never happened, but it has been so widely told over the years that it has become part of our popular culture.
Speech can be offensive, and the characterization of a group because of the behavior of a small number of its members places an unwholesome and possibly dangerous strain on the fabric of a heterogeneous society. We now attempt to deal with this situation by defining certain abusive words as "hate speech" and penalizing the speaker.
As always, the responsible approach in marginal cases is to seek balance, with freedom exercised with responsibility. At my law school graduation, a quotation was read that I learned was coined by a professor in the 1930's and has been recited annually since that time. "You are ready to aid in the shaping and application of those wise restraints that make men free."
By substituting 'people' for the possibly suspect noun 'men', the sentence gains at least another century of useful life, unless another euphemism comes into fashion.
The unhappiness expressed by the demonstrators, pickets and campers at Zuccotti Park is by no means confined to one city, state, or region. It partly stems from the belief that government is too far removed from the people, or at least far from the people who are complaining. It is partly a reaction to the resentment expressed against the poor, the disabled and others who may receive public assistance or public (except military) employment. The distaste for public programs may (or may not) have some roots in ethnic or class antipathy.
Occupy Wall Street offers no particular solutions to the issues it raises. Making public services free or more easily available will increase the $15 trillion national debt and promote economic instability. Rich people have far more mobility than the poor, and can more easily move to tax havens. It is not uncommon, however to hear groups complaining but without practical solutions to the problems they address. Sometimes futility raises the intensity of the complaint.
We will watch closely as this grievance spreads or withers, along with the oncoming Presidential campaign. Our thought is that the race will be decided by the public judgments of millions of individuals, which will to some extent be intuitive and individually may be irrational, as to which candidate is a better person and which one will do a better job. Television brings the candidates closer to the people, and assuming that the candidates are roughly equivalent in ability and resources to deceive the public, something close to the truth may emerge from the welter of claims and denials. E pluribus unum, out of many one.
What happened on Wall Street is simply that people got tired of the act. Every Broadway show opens and closes; almost all politicians, as well as empires, rise and then decline. What begins as new and striking becomes familiar and eventually tiresome. This is particularly true when the participants are not particularly knowledgeable about what they are doing.
We predict that there will be other disturbances in the pre-election period, and that there will be an attempt to unify the left on a program, just as the Tea Party movement has to some extent organized the right. Time will tell which group gains strength, but one thing that any political movement needs is an agenda, which has not yet emerged from the left, while the right simply offers negativity.
Someone will be sworn in as President on Sunday, January 20, 2013. We hope the person will be able. You have probably never heard of him, but you should add Gary Johnson, the Republican former two-term governor of New Mexico, as a long-shot who should be considered, if these decisions were made on the merits rather than on media attention or scandal.
If Gary Johnson gets anywhere in 2012, remember that you read it first here.
Showing posts with label Tea Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tea Party. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Air Rights - To Die For?
400 Geese Killed
In Prospect Park
Was It Necessary?
Federal agents swooped down on Prospect Park last week, removing hundreds of Canada geese and gassing them. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the culling was necessary to protect air travelers. Others dispute that claim.
The best introduction to the story is an article by Isolde Raftery that began on pA1 of Tuesday’s Times and jumped to A22. The apt headline was "400 PARK GEESE DIE, FOR HUMAN FLIERS' SAKE". The story is really well written, and we suggest you click here to read it if you are interested. We appreciate the attention the Times gave to the subject.
A criticism of the story came from the New York City Audubon Society, whose position was described by the Times as "cautiously supportive of the mass euthanizing". In a later statement, the Audubon Society took issue with the Times' description of "NYC Audubon's position on culling resident Canada geese within the five boroughs." They now say:
"NYC Audubon believes that lethal control should be the last resort after all other methods for managing bird populations have been exhausted. The blanket approach of lethal control will not significantly reduce the risk birds pose to aviation safety. We maintain that City officials should reduce the amount of lush, green lawn space available throughout the city, which attracts geese. Without such measures, new geese will take up residence here and populations will quickly rebound to current levels. The City may also limit growth of the resident geese population through egg-addling or nest destruction.
"NYC Audubon also takes issue with the target population size identified by the Department of Agriculture, which calls for reducing the number of Canada geese in the city by 80 percent. This figure is not supported by sound scientific research. The recent cull at Prospect Park included nearly 100 percent of the geese in that area; essentially, this population was 'managed' into extinction. NYC Audubon strongly disagrees with that decision.
"When one species becomes so abundant that it has a negative impact on the habitat and resources of other native bird species - as may be the case with Canada geese - NYC Audubon, like most Audubon chapters, supports population management. But the option of lethal control should be a last resort, undertaken only when bird populations threaten the health, safety, and welfare of other wildlife and humans, and only after a rigorous environmental impact assessment has been done and full disclosure has been made to local citizens and other stakeholders."
Our view of the problem is that important issues have not been answered satisfactorily, and that we lack confidence in the process employed to reach specific decisions on the use of deadly force on animal families.
In fact, Canada geese are often a nuisance in many more ways than causing airplanes to crash, which is very rare. Their droppings litter golf courses and meadows. They eat shoots and small plants, depriving other species of nourishment. They are highly territorial, and hiss and bite when they believe they are intruded upon. Originally migratory birds flying long distances in the spring and fall, many have evolved into permanent residents of local open spaces. They hang around all year instead of flying south in the winter. They can overwhelm ducks, which are smaller waterfowl.
On the other hand, even unpleasant creatures do not deserve the Federal gas chamber to which they have been consigned, in some cases with a degree of arbitrariness. The government's declaration that geese must be killed if they are within seven miles of an airport, considering that Prospect Park is 6.5 miles from both LaGuardia and Kennedy, has the flavor of contrivance. Do the Feds mean to tell us that if the distance had been 7.2 miles, say, the geese and their goslings would have been spared?
The January 2009 collision with Captain Sullenberger's airplane was said to have been caused by migratory geese, not their cousins who amuse Brooklynites at Prospect Park. We think that in cases of capital punishment, the burden of proof is on the executioners. Of course, if human life is actually threatened by the geese, we side with our own species. But we are aware that government programs, once under way, are difficult to limit or restrain, unless there is a powerful lobby representing the other side. In this case, there is no economic interest in the survival of Canada geese, and there is no spokesgoose to represent them.
Another concern is the lack of public discussion on this issue. The searchlight has certainly not reached this government program. We do not recall any opportunity for local input, on either side. It is necessary to protect air travel, but where is the evidence that the indiscriminate slaughter of non-migratory geese is the best way to accomplish that goal? Perhaps the Feds do it because the non-migrants are easier to find and poison. You get better statistics that way.
Part of this outcry is an increasing lack of confidence in the authorities. One need not be a Tea Party ideologue to question the bureaucracy. It would be reassuring to see the science behind the kill. We have heard that the Interior Department originally declined to do the dirty work, so it was shifted to Agriculture, which had no qualms about the work. Perhaps there should be a Federal Bureau of Extermination to organize activities of this nature.
Another suggestion that has been made is that, if this program is to be continued, the geese should be fed to the poor, rather than dumped in a landfill, as was the case with the Prospect Park 400 (or 368, as we have been told). But the policy of providing free or low-cost food might lead to increasing the numbers of poor people, which is not on the Federal agenda.
In Prospect Park
Was It Necessary?
Federal agents swooped down on Prospect Park last week, removing hundreds of Canada geese and gassing them. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the culling was necessary to protect air travelers. Others dispute that claim.
The best introduction to the story is an article by Isolde Raftery that began on pA1 of Tuesday’s Times and jumped to A22. The apt headline was "400 PARK GEESE DIE, FOR HUMAN FLIERS' SAKE". The story is really well written, and we suggest you click here to read it if you are interested. We appreciate the attention the Times gave to the subject.
A criticism of the story came from the New York City Audubon Society, whose position was described by the Times as "cautiously supportive of the mass euthanizing". In a later statement, the Audubon Society took issue with the Times' description of "NYC Audubon's position on culling resident Canada geese within the five boroughs." They now say:
"NYC Audubon believes that lethal control should be the last resort after all other methods for managing bird populations have been exhausted. The blanket approach of lethal control will not significantly reduce the risk birds pose to aviation safety. We maintain that City officials should reduce the amount of lush, green lawn space available throughout the city, which attracts geese. Without such measures, new geese will take up residence here and populations will quickly rebound to current levels. The City may also limit growth of the resident geese population through egg-addling or nest destruction.
"NYC Audubon also takes issue with the target population size identified by the Department of Agriculture, which calls for reducing the number of Canada geese in the city by 80 percent. This figure is not supported by sound scientific research. The recent cull at Prospect Park included nearly 100 percent of the geese in that area; essentially, this population was 'managed' into extinction. NYC Audubon strongly disagrees with that decision.
"When one species becomes so abundant that it has a negative impact on the habitat and resources of other native bird species - as may be the case with Canada geese - NYC Audubon, like most Audubon chapters, supports population management. But the option of lethal control should be a last resort, undertaken only when bird populations threaten the health, safety, and welfare of other wildlife and humans, and only after a rigorous environmental impact assessment has been done and full disclosure has been made to local citizens and other stakeholders."
Our view of the problem is that important issues have not been answered satisfactorily, and that we lack confidence in the process employed to reach specific decisions on the use of deadly force on animal families.
In fact, Canada geese are often a nuisance in many more ways than causing airplanes to crash, which is very rare. Their droppings litter golf courses and meadows. They eat shoots and small plants, depriving other species of nourishment. They are highly territorial, and hiss and bite when they believe they are intruded upon. Originally migratory birds flying long distances in the spring and fall, many have evolved into permanent residents of local open spaces. They hang around all year instead of flying south in the winter. They can overwhelm ducks, which are smaller waterfowl.
On the other hand, even unpleasant creatures do not deserve the Federal gas chamber to which they have been consigned, in some cases with a degree of arbitrariness. The government's declaration that geese must be killed if they are within seven miles of an airport, considering that Prospect Park is 6.5 miles from both LaGuardia and Kennedy, has the flavor of contrivance. Do the Feds mean to tell us that if the distance had been 7.2 miles, say, the geese and their goslings would have been spared?
The January 2009 collision with Captain Sullenberger's airplane was said to have been caused by migratory geese, not their cousins who amuse Brooklynites at Prospect Park. We think that in cases of capital punishment, the burden of proof is on the executioners. Of course, if human life is actually threatened by the geese, we side with our own species. But we are aware that government programs, once under way, are difficult to limit or restrain, unless there is a powerful lobby representing the other side. In this case, there is no economic interest in the survival of Canada geese, and there is no spokesgoose to represent them.
Another concern is the lack of public discussion on this issue. The searchlight has certainly not reached this government program. We do not recall any opportunity for local input, on either side. It is necessary to protect air travel, but where is the evidence that the indiscriminate slaughter of non-migratory geese is the best way to accomplish that goal? Perhaps the Feds do it because the non-migrants are easier to find and poison. You get better statistics that way.
Part of this outcry is an increasing lack of confidence in the authorities. One need not be a Tea Party ideologue to question the bureaucracy. It would be reassuring to see the science behind the kill. We have heard that the Interior Department originally declined to do the dirty work, so it was shifted to Agriculture, which had no qualms about the work. Perhaps there should be a Federal Bureau of Extermination to organize activities of this nature.
Another suggestion that has been made is that, if this program is to be continued, the geese should be fed to the poor, rather than dumped in a landfill, as was the case with the Prospect Park 400 (or 368, as we have been told). But the policy of providing free or low-cost food might lead to increasing the numbers of poor people, which is not on the Federal agenda.
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