Fixing Our Cities

Over the past several days, my blog and my attention have been dominated by the mess in Baltimore. Like everyone else, I have watched events unfold there with a combination of sadness and anger. But mostly, I have been overcome by a sense of hopelessness, the idea that the problems in our cities are simply beyond remedy. My son, after reading one of my blogs, made this statement: “OK, so liberal policies haven’t worked. What’s YOUR plan?” His question has hung in the air ever since. It is one thing to point out the clear failures of others, another thing entirely to offer up a reasonable alternative. I have thought of little else since.

What follows is the result of all of this introspection. I must state up front that I’m no social planner, I have no particular training in urban studies and certainly, I am no politician. So, I have no idea whether the solutions I’m about to offer would actually work. My ideas aren’t immune to that worst nightmare of all central planners, the law of unintended consequences. Still, these are a start, if for no other reason than to provide me with a sense that our problems might in fact have a workable solution.

I should probably point out that most of the problems of the inner city have their origins in the erosion of the family, an unintended consequence of a whole host of policies which had loftier intentions. Despite the fact that most of America's big cities have been run almost exclusively by the Democratic Party for the past 40 years, I will endeavor to discuss these problems without assigning blame because frankly, at this point it doesn’t matter whose fault it all is. It just needs to be fixed! The question then becomes, are there policies that could be brought to bear that would encourage the re-establishment of the family structure, and are there policies that we could eliminate that discourage intact families from staying so?

So, without further delay, here’s what I would do if I were King to attempt to fix our cities.

1    1.     End the War on Drugs.

By any measure, the War on Drugs has been a colossal failure. We have spent a fortune, made criminals out of two generations of mostly black men and accomplished no significant public good. This war has been fought almost entirely in the inner city and the vast majority of those in jail for drug crimes are black. This despite the fact that white suburbanites have prodigious appetites for everything from pot to heroin, and without white customers willing and able to pay, the drug business would be in serious trouble. One has to ask the question, what societal good is accomplished by arresting a twenty year old for smoking a couple of joints and saddling him with a criminal record and jail time? Are his prospects of finding gainful, lawful employment helped or hurt by his time being locked up with a thousand other hardened criminals? And before you start lecturing me about how horrible a problem drug addiction is for society, check yourself. There’s no chance in hell that pot smoking is more injurious to society at large than alcohol abuse. How many people get killed by people driving while high compared to driving while drunk? How many pot smokers get all hyped up on cannabis and then go home and beat their wives?

I’m not a drug user and I would strongly discourage anyone I know and love from becoming one, but the only thing the War on Drugs has accomplished is removing millions of black men from their homes, and from their neighborhoods, creating the very fatherless homes that conservatives lament.

2.  Replace welfare with a jobs program.

Yes, yes, I know what all of you House of Cards fans are thinking, “He stole that idea from Frank Underwood!” No, not exactly. Well, maybe…a little. First of all, what I’m about to propose will sound strange coming from someone as Libertarian as I am, I know. Secondly, I am very aware that the government has shown itself to be pathetically inept at “creating jobs” so I concede that this idea has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. But, hear me out.

FDR’s famous New Deal did not bring this country out of the Great Depression; that would have been World War II and the beneficial impact of placing the entire nation’s industrial output on a war footing. However, the jobs that the government did create accomplished something quite profound. They transformed, in the public imagination, the notion that they were not on the public doll…something for Americans of all races in the 1930’s would have been anathema. Instead, men like my grandfather, who worked on the Civilian Conservation Corps that built the Skyline Drive, were able to hold onto their pride as working men. When they cashed their government paychecks it was for services rendered, and that allowed them to be in full possession of their dignity.

By contrast, the checks that keep most inner cities barely viable are in exchange for nothing. In fact, the more dysfunctional your life becomes the bigger the check. Accordingly, I propose putting every able-bodied welfare recipient to work as a requirement of receiving government assistance. If we are committed to spending money on welfare, why not allow its recipients to earn it. What kind of jobs would these be? Frankly, I don’t know. But you can’t tell me that a nation that put a man on the freaking moon can’t get the smartest people from business and government together and figure this thing out. How about cleaning up the streets, block by block? How about replacing burnt out empty lots with gardens, not ones planted by a bunch of do-gooder college kids, but by the people who live next door?

Of course these make-work jobs are temporary. But make-work jobs are infinitely better than no job. To provide more permanent, sustainable employment, we will need to consider….

3.  Repealing NAFTA.

Back in the 1990’s I was a vocal supporter of the free trade movement. Nafta was a bi-partisan policy that was initially pushed by Republicans but ultimately passed by Bill Clinton. I thought at the time that the benefits of free trade would far outweigh the negatives. On the positive side, I thought that we would all benefit from lower prices on practically everything, and I was right. Witness the rise of giant retailers like Walmart and Costco who sell us adorable clothes for toddlers at  everyday low low prices. But, I challenge you to go into your closet right now and see if you can find any garment that was made in this country. Chances are, you won’t, because we no longer have a textile industry, especially in the State of Virginia, the southside of which used to be filled with textile plants churning out everything from jeans to overcoats. Who used to work in those plants? Generally speaking, whites and blacks with high school educations or lower who despite their limitations could get a factory job and manage to enter the middle class. Where do they work now? Many of them don’t. But, not to worry, they get welfare and food stamps so, it’s all good. No…it is not!!

We manufacture nothing in this country anymore which may be fine for many people since that adorable Osh Kosh By Gosh jumper is on sale for $3.99, but for large segments of what used to be called the Middle Class, it matters greatly. It turns out that the noble idiot, Ross Perot, was right when he described that giant sucking sound as the sound of American jobs for the working classes heading down to Mexico!

Yes, many jobs that were shipped overseas have been replaced with other jobs in industries that were unheard of in the 1990’s and that’s all wonderful. But if you eliminate the jobs that working people relied upon and replace them with jobs that require a Master’s Degree in computer science, that’s not going to help Bubba and Leroy provide for their families. When we tell welfare recipients in Baltimore to “get a job,” where exactly do we suggest they go to look? Nepal? Because that’s where those adorable toddler jumpers are being sewn together by 12 year old girls working 17 hour days so we can have money left over for our pedicures.

And yes, I know that one of the reasons American workers aren’t as competitive as those elsewhere in many cases are the result of ridiculously generous and inflexible union contracts. But again, somewhere out there, there has got to be someone who can come up with some sensible compromises that can begin to bring manufacturing jobs back to America.

4.  Demilitarize Policing

No one appreciates the job that policemen do more than I do. These men and women work long hours doing a demanding job for embarrassingly low pay. The vast majority of them do their jobs well. But something has gone terribly wrong with policing tactics when video keeps surfacing showing three cops using violent force apprehending a citizen guilty of nothing more than selling loose cigarettes. The rules of engagement that encourage such extreme force have to be revisited. Our cops look more like members of some elite SWAT team than cops. Now, I know that Mayberry was a fictional place and that Sherriff Andy Taylor was a character in a television show, but who among us doesn’t long to be protected by a cop with the wisdom and grace of Andy Taylor, he of the empty gun holster. 

Yes, times have changed. Today’s criminals are meaner, and better armed than ever. Still, it’s hard to see the benefit of armored personnel carriers, tanks and strike forces loaded down with automatic rifles roaming the streets and think to yourself, “Aww…to protect and defend.” What jumps quicker to mind is, “Aww…to invade and destroy.” Something is wrong when hardly a week goes by without some cell phone video hitting the Drudge Report showing some officer somewhere beating the crap out of some unarmed kid…or worse. It makes a cynical person wonder how often this type of stuff went on before cell phone cameras became ubiquitous.

My advice? Dial it back about ten notches with the Dirty Harry routine. Start demonstrating some restraint and go back to reserving the rough stuff for guys who are committing actual violent crimes, not the poor slob who has a blown out back up light.

Ok, that’s my short list. It’s not perfect, some of it may not work. I have not addressed many other big problem areas like education, but it's a start.  And at least my son can't say I haven't offered an alternative besides the status quo.

Who's Running Baltimore?

The burnt out remnants of CVS are still warm, and we have already heard the first call for more spending as the solution for crumbling cities in America. Everyone from Steny Hoyer to President Obama have attempted to lay the blame for Baltimore's troubles on the stinginess of Republicans.

There was Hoyer yesterday telling us that unless we wanted to see more riots in other cities, we were going to have to be willing to "invest if we're going to have the communities we want." Then the President intoned,  "there's a bunch of my agenda that would make a difference right now in that." He then called for more spending for early education, criminal justice reform and job training.

Despite this alleged "stinginess" of the Republican Party, we have somehow managed to wrack up 18 trillion dollars in debt, nearly 8 trillion of that while Obama has been President. One shudders to think of how high that number might be if Republicans were big spenders.

Luckily for the Democrat Party, the media will not hold them accountable for any of the disaster in Baltimore, despite the fact that this city has been under one party rule for over a generation. Every seat on city council is held by a Democrat. Every major leadership role in the police department is staffed by a loyal Democrat. Baltimore is the deepest of deep blue cities. For most of the past forty years, the Governor's mansion and the State Assembly have also belonged to the Democrat Party. It would seem that the results of such dominance have been less than stellar. And yet, we are being told that what plagues Baltimore, along with other Democrat-run cities in our country, is some slippery conspiracy of a non-existent star chamber of Republicans somewhere doing something. Ok.

More money is the answer. More spending will do the trick. We aren't "investing" enough on urban renewal projects. We are being too stingy with funding for job training and early education initiatives. Why, if we would only open up the federal checkbook and fund all these initiatives, cities from Detroit to Baltimore, from Atlanta to Oakland would soon blossom into San Diego's before our very eyes. If someone would just do something about income inequality, then black families in cities all across America would suddenly have two parents. If we would just stop shipping manufacturing jobs over-seas, then crime rates would plunge. If we could just summon the will to make unemployment compensation permanent while simultaneously doubling the minimum wage, jobs would stampede into the blighted communities of even the most distressed cities in America.

Here's an idea for a campaign slogan for Democrat politicians running unopposed for re-election in practically every big city in the country..." Elect me again. This time, I'll get it right."

Baltimore, Burning.

Yesterday, I played a round of golf at the Federal club. I sponsored a foursome for my friend's charity tournament. We successfully raised quite a bit of money for the First Tee program which benefits mostly disadvantaged kids in the inner city of Richmond. We heard a guy speak of the work they do mentoring at-risk kids, teaching them valuable life lessons. Then I get in my car to drive home and hear on the radio that Baltimore is in flames.

I listened to the reporters describe the scenes of destruction and violence. I hear the incompetent press conference given by Baltimore's mayor and wonder how someone so relentlessly, hopelessly naive could possibly have gotten elected. Then I got home, turned on the television and saw the police cars on fire, the triumphant young men parading their looted cans of Pringles and toilet paper for all to see. I saw lines of police in riot gear dodging rocks and bricks, boys and girls in hoodies having the time of their lives, caught up in the melee.

A CNN reporter informed me that this all was a reaction to the funeral of Freddie Gray, the young black man who recently had his neck broken inside a police van and died while in custody. Further, the Gray incident had simply been the catalyst for decades of heavy handed policing tactics employed by Baltimore's finest. 

I switch channels and hear a FOX reporter telling me that two rival street gangs, the Crips and the Bloods had recently made a deal to temporarily stop killing each other in order to strike a blow at Baltimore's policemen. There's a picture of them standing together with several bow-tied representatives of the Nation of Islam, giving their gang hand signs.

I switch over to MSNBC, for no particular reason, and see footage of dense clouds of smoke billowing from a burning CVS. A fire truck has arrived to put out the flames, but some guy is filmed slashing the hose. He apparently wants the store to burn to the ground.

I switch back to CNN. There's Elijah Cummings pleading with the rioters to stop. To the rest of us he laments, "This is not Baltimore!" Over on FOX Montel Williams says the same thing. "Just a couple hundred knuckleheads out of a city of 600,000 people."

Martin O'Malley, former Maryland Governor and nascent Democrat Presidential candidate issues a statement talking about how he mourns the city he loves and longs for the day when all can come together to begin the healing process. Hillary Clinton tweets out a warning to her supporters not to miss their chance to get free campaign bumper stickers.

This morning I read of the ubiquitous Al Sharpton and his plan for yet another march, this one from Baltimore to Washington to protest the root causes of all this mayhem. No justice, no peace, or some such thing. Ok. Looks like we are in for a long, hot summer.

I watch and listen, and come away with nothing. I don't even know how to respond to what I see and hear. It all seems so hopeless. I'm basically a law and order type of person, one who believes that without some sort of basic respect for the law and private property, chaos is what happens. But I also believe something is dreadfully wrong with policing in this country. While the vast majority of cops are good guys doing a terribly difficult job, there have been enough bad apples to suggest that we have a serious problem with excessive force, racism or...something. Too often the victims of this unwarranted aggression are black, and with every new revelation, the tensions become more dangerous. There will be more Baltimore's. We will watch young blacks destroying their own communities, gleefully watching the few businesses stupid enough to locate in the inner city, burning to the ground. And what will replace them? Will CVS be willing to rebuild a store in such a place? If they don't, will they be accused of racism? Will the feckless mayor of Baltimore appear before a House committee soon pleading for tax-payer funds to rebuild the city that her hands off policy helped destroy? 

You can count on it.

Brian Williams vs Hillary Clinton

A couple of days ago, I was enjoying a surprisingly good bowl of she-crab soup at a popular Short Pump sports bar, when the proprietor, a good friend of mine, sat down beside me and asked me a serious question. This alone is noteworthy since guys in sports bars don't often ask each other questions weightier than, " Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays?" But my friend was dead serious and for reasons that escape me thought I would know the answer to this earnest question:

" So, how come Brian Williams loses everything for making up a story about taking enemy fire in Iraq, but Hillary Clinton does the exact same thing about being under sniper fire at some airport in Bosnia and she gets a pass?"

I stumbled through some explanation about bias in the media and what not, but my answer didn't even satisfy me, let alone my friend. Since then I've had time to think about it a little more and feel better prepared to attempt an answer.

The reason Brian Williams has entered the witness protection program somewhere in South Dakota and Hillary Clinton is still running for President is because to the media, Brian Williams is...the competition. For real journalists, the ones who actually have a degree, and ordinary facial features, Brian Williams is everything they love to hate...an empty-headed news reader with great hair and a boyish grin who couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag, yet makes millions of dollars a year. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has neither great hair or a warm smile, but she is the living breathing hope of every progressive journalist from New York to Los Angeles, which means...98% of working journalists. Sure, they may be concerned by her ham-fisted manor, her slimy associations and business dealings, and they are probably embarrassed by her thin list of actual accomplishments, but, they are so heavily invested in her at this point, they're probably willing to follow her straight to hell rather than run the risk of a President Walker.

So, unless pictures surface of Mrs. Clinton in a compromising position with a farm animal, the wagons will be permanently circled around the first female President. Now that I think about it, even THAT wouldn't bother James Carville, who can always be depended upon to spin any bad Clinton news...

"Naw, now come on! Y'all city folks just don't understand Arkansas ways. Hillary and that horse were close, that's all. The poor thing had just lost her foal and needed a little consolin'...just some bad lighting in that picture. I guarandamn-tee ya this was George Bush's doin!"

Of course, it's entirely possible that I am wrong about Hillary's inevitability. Maybe the grand poobahs of the Democrat party decide that they've had enough of her and Bill. Maybe Democrat voters will leave her at the alter again for some new fresher face. But I doubt it. If she gets the nomination, she will be our next President. When that happens, the Democratic Party and the American people will be totally without excuse for whatever follows. 

Checking My Privilege

Back when I was in college( right after electricity, just before indoor plumbing ), the big thing on everyone's  mind was the existential battle going on between Communism and Democracy, represented by the Cold War standoff between us and the Soviet Union. Maybe it was the nuclear arsenals and all the saber rattling, but it seemed that no matter what class you were in, eventually the subject would come up. Existential conflicts will do that to you, I suppose. Sure, there were other issues, the Iran hostage crisis, for example, and gas lines. But basically, all the intellectual heavy lifting was being done in the arena of international politics.

Well, thanks to having had two kids finish grad school, I have been introduced to a brand new concept, which thanks to the fall of the Berlin Wall, has risen to the top of the heap in academia...privilege, specifically my need as a white man to check mine. I am not schooled in the finer points of this issue, but from what I am able to pick up on social media, I will attempt an explanation. I welcome anyone reading this who is in their middle twenties, to correct me if I get this wrong.

Apparently, society runs along within a patriarchal construct, whereby white men enjoy tremendous advantages in practically every area of life, even and especially when they aren't aware of this advantage. It permeates all aspects of human interaction, and the only way to overcome it is to first, be aware of this privilege, and second, to check it. By "check it" I assume this would take the form of some sort of self-censoring, self denial mechanism whereby we white men, upon sensing that we are about to become the beneficiary of some huge unfair advantage that our whiteness affords, suddenly correct our behavior in a way that places us at the back of the line, behind people of every other color, and women...lots of women. I thought, in my ignorant privilege, that this was what affirmative action
was all about. But, AA is just the legal arm of the issue, while the "check your privilege" concept is
more like a hearts and minds sort of thing. The list of things that I enjoy privilege in is rather long and includes, but I'm sure is not limited to:

1. White privilege.

2. Male privilege.

3. Wealth privilege.

4. Heterosexual privilege.

5. Able-bodied privilege.

6. Educated privilege.

That's a lot of privilege. And to think that when I was born in 1958 I spent my first year living in a trailer park in south side Richmond. But, I suppose the fact that I have managed to overcome those humble beginnings serves as proof of just how powerful those privileges are. The fact that the
majority of those who lived in that trailer park in 1958 are statistically still there does not in any way call into question the power of privilege, rather they serve as an indictment of the unfairness inherent in a life that is ruled by the class struggle. My escape from the trailer park only proves that I benefitted from:

7. Competitive privilege.....the unfair advantage that many white males have gained by participation in team sports at a young age.

Of course, to fully buy-in to this privilege thing, I would need to devalue most of what I've accomplished so far in my life, since it was all so ill-gotten and undeserved. It would also require a reorientation of my thinking about what brings success in life. Instead of relentless hard work and sacrifice being the source of good fortune, I would have to believe that the guarantor of prosperity was the random accident of my birth as a white, able-bodied, heterosexual male. If I do this, I will become a guilt-ridden, self-loathing, emasculated wuss....which from much of what I have read seems to be the whole idea.

I better check my:

8. Sarcasm privilege.

It's All My Mother's Fault

"I think being in charge of 112 hormonal humans each day at work has awoke a Dunnevant Family take-charge brazenness that's lain dormant within me for most of my life. I smiled and nodded understandingly through plenty of nonsense and inconvenience as a younger woman, but my tolerance for incompetence has worn thin. Today, after being told that my car would stay in the repair shop for yet another day, I heard myself declare in no uncertain terms and without missing a beat that the lag time on this repair was unacceptable, that my husband and I were very disappointed in the poor customer service, and that we expected better. My tone made ME nervous. I mean, I came close to issuing him a lunch detention. The man stuttered and stammered for a while and then miraculously found a way to finish the repair before closing time tonight.

Lately, when I hear myself speaking, I feel simultaneously impressed by my assertiveness and humbled by my lack of patience and grace. Whichever way the cookie crumbles, I blame/credit the shenanigans of my 112 middle schoolers...and the Dunnevants."

                                                                                                   

When I read my daughter's Facebook status from yesterday, I had my own "simultaneously impressed and humbled" moment. I had such high hopes for Kaitlin. I thought that maybe, just maybe she was going to turn out to be the nice one. I mean, Linda and Bill have Christina so it is possible. But no...two years of middle school has unleashed that old familiar family tradition in my sweet, beautiful Kaitlin. I blame my mother. It's all her fault. Let me explain.

Anyone who knew my Dad would tell you that there never lived a kinder, more gentle soul. He was a true gentleman, possessed of endless patience, and when not in the pulpit, he was the very definition of tact. He managed to pass on these admirable traits to zero of his children. Why? Because my mother's genes were dominant. We all inherited her opinionated, forceful, aggressive, argumentative,(notice the great literary lengths to which I am going in order to avoid the word, "RUDE") nature. As such, there are a long list of occupations to which Dunnevants are ill-suited. For example:

DIPLOMAT

Ambassador From Kyrgyzstan: My country would like to object in the strongest way to the Imperialist Dogs of America who are attempting to plunder my country's natural resources in a capitalist conspiracy to...

Me: You smell.

POLITICIAN

Constituent: I've been out of work for two years and now they tell me my unemployment checks are going to be cut off! I want you to do something about this outrage.

Me: What do I look like, your mother?  Two years on the public doll is enough, you lazy slob.

A dear friend of mine said to me the other day, " Doug, some days I wish so much that I could be like you and just not care what anyone thought about me." This, I believe, is what is known as a back-handed compliment. And it's not entirely true. It's not that I don't care what people think of me, it's more like I don't care...very much. Whenever my buddies at work are at a restaurant together and there's a problem with service they all look at me and say, "Well? Aren't you gonna say something?" 

This is all my mother's fault. There's a reason why she was famous for the expression, "getting up in the pictures" although none of us is quite sure what it means exactly, we are quite sure it isn't a compliment. So when I read Kaitlin's status and imagined her getting all up in the pictures with that unfortunate mechanic, giving him the business, I was at once proud and disappointed. 

Maybe my grandchildren will be like Papa.

Stupid Stuff We Ask The Military To Do

There's a new commercial that runs on sports talk radio advertising the virtues of the United States Navy. In it a deep baritone voice lists the things that the Navy is busy doing this very minute, everything from keeping an eye on terrorists to patrolling the hostile waters off the coast of every trouble spot on the planet. And then this:

"...and building a school for disadvantaged kids in the third world."

Wait...what?

Ok, listen...I love schools. I love kids. Kids going to school is about the most wholesome, feel-good optic ever. But, we're talking about the U.S. Navy here. What in the name of Admiral Nimitz are a bunch of sailors doing building a school, uh, anywhere? You want to know why our defense budget consumes a half a trillion dollars a year? You won't have to look much farther than a platoon of ensigns throwing up a school in the Sudan. This is what happens when Statists like George Bush and Barack Obama decide that our military should get into the business of "nation building." This puts the creep into mission creep.

Throughout its long and storied history, the United States military has proven itself adept at a short list of things, namely, killing people and breaking things. Frankly, that's all I want them involved in, and rarely do I want them doing even that. Besides, no offense to the Sudanese, but I can think of a couple of places in America that could use a new school or two.

Speaking of things the U.S. Military has no business doing... In light of the recent tragedy in the Mediterranian where over 800 souls perished trying to escape the horrors of Libya, perhaps we should ask ourselves how our intervention in the Libyan Civil War has worked out. Remember back in 2011 when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told us about the horrible things going on in Libya, about what a horrible man Qaddafi was and that we just HAD to do something to protect innocent civilians? Yeah, well we helped the rebels depose of the autocratic man who had ruled that unruleable land for over forty years, declared victory, and split. Now the place is the very definition of chaos and is being run by an unholy alliance of cut-throats, people smugglers, psychopaths and ISIS shock troops parading Christians on its beaches where their grizzly executions are filmed for our viewing pleasure. Victory, indeed.

We can expect a whole lot more of this sort of thing because of the universally true adage about military adventures being the father of unintended consequences. Add Libya to the long and growing list of things that are none of our freaking business. Next year when you are trying to decide who to support for President, perhaps you should ask yourself, which one of these people will be least likely to want to ask the Marines to build a community center in Bangladesh.