Scott Martelle

A new poll this morning from Newsweek/The Daily Beast confirms what most of us have already known – the moribund economy has left many Americans angry at the world, and it's affecting everything from personal relationships to sleep patterns (I’ve seen 4 a.m. myself more times than I care to count). But it also reveals a deep crevasse between how Americans live, and how Washington responds.

Overall, 50 percent of the poll’s respondents thought President Obama has no significant plan to balance the budget, and 58 percent said the Republicans are equally stymied, and just trying to blame it all on Obama (presumably for crass political reasons). In other words, most Americans think our political leadership has no idea how to fix this. But more than two out of three believed raising taxes on the wealthiest is a step in the right direction. That isn’t going to happen here in this democracy of ours, mind you, but the will of the masses is there.

The poll also found that nearly one in three Americans said their financial straits left them feeling angry (I would have thought higher), and about half said they felt nervous. “Could the anger fueling the Arab Spring soon bring club-wielding protesters to America?” asked political strategist Douglas Schoen, who wrote the piece. Not likely, for a variety of reasons. And it’s an irresponsible line to toss out there, sounding more like a bogus Wolf Blitzer teaser before a CNN commercial break than a reasoned reading of the situation.

And that kind of breathless speculation erodes what otherwise were some pretty significant findings, because we are becoming more and more angry. And we are, as often happens in our history, turning our anger against each other while political figures use it to push agendas. For instance, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, in the GOP half of the Saturday morning political cartoons (the weekly addresses by the president and someone from the other half of the two-party tango), argued that unions were at fault for the lack of job growth.

Please. It’s a transparently false position, and the kind of red herring discourse that should fuel even more anger. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2010 union membership nationwide was at 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent the previous year. And that is buoyed by unions representing public employees. The rate for private sector workers – the realm Alexander was addressing – was 6.9 percent, hardly the kind of power that would preclude an entrepreneur from opening or expanding a business.

Despite those anemic numbers, Alexander argued that union strength forces capitalists to create jobs overseas. Wrong. Federal policies that have enriched corporations by letting them fire U.S. workers and replace them with labor in lower-wage countries are what has driven jobs overseas, and killed the American middle class. If the unions had the kind of strength that people like Alexander say they fear it does, this would never have happened. It’s not unions that are sending jobs overseas, it is corporate executives and federal lawmakers who put corporate wealth ahead of community health.

So let’s make sure during these dark days that we direct our anger at the right folks, and not each other. The other day a friend on Facebook, whose daughter was rejected for much-needed financial aid for college, responded with a race-based post (she’s white) about people of color getting more government support than white people. In her moment of frustration she vented, in effect, sideways, rather than throwing her anger on the people who created the conditions: Elected leaders and the corporate powers that have excessive influence on how they vote.

Which brings me to this absurd theme coursing through parts of the electorate that because “my private sector job doesn’t give me the benefits that government workers get” that the government workers should be forced to give up theirs. No. The answer is that the private sector employers should restore those benefits. To bring government employees’ wages and benefits down to the level of the private sector continues this bizarre erosion of the caliber of American life. We won’t rebuild the middle class by pushing more workers further down the economic ladder. We rebuild the middle class by raising those from the lower economic levels up the ladder. And, dare I argue, drag some of the wealthy down a few rungs.

But it takes political will to do that. And, even with a former community organizer in the White House, there’s not much will in Washington to make life better for the poor, the working class, the middle class or average American neighborhoods, now ravaged by a housing crisis that was created by lack of oversight over the greed-mongers on Wall Street. And so we seethe. But do we act?

No. We watch “American Idol.” And maybe think think about Steve Earle's "America v. 6.0":

Four score and a hundred and fifty years ago
Our forefathers made us equal as long as we can pay
Yeah, well maybe that wasn't exactly what they was thinkin'
Version six-point-oh of the American way
But hey we can just build a great wall around the country club
To keep the riff-raff out until the slump is through
Yeah, I realize that ain't exactly democratic, but it's either them or us and
And it's the best we can do.

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Sixty years ago this coming Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions in the Dennis v. U.S. case, which is the focus of my latest book. The Los Angeles Times was kind enough to print an op-ed I wrote on the subject (or will be kind; it's available online now and is to be printed in Monday's paper).

The case was one of the major stories of the year (1949), though it has faded into obscurity, overwhelmed in our consensus memory by the Hollywood 10, McCarthyism, Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs. Yet the Dennis case was the most troubling of all those events. For a time, the U.S. government in effect outlawed a specific political belief, undercutting what it is that we tell ourselves sets our democracy apart. This story displays exactly how fragile these basic civil liberties are.

The piece summarizes the case, and then concludes:

"Sixty years later, it might be hard to build up much sympathy for a dozen communists at the peak of the Cold War. But in this era of Patriot Act-permitted warrantless searches, surreptitious surveys of library and bookstores users' records, and extralegal rendition of terrorism suspects to secret interrogation sites, we would be wise to recognize that the rights we deny others out of fear, we eventually deny ourselves."

I encourage you to head over to the article and read it, and invite your comments there or here.

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Two neighborhoods in southern California are about lose what can best be described as community cultural centers -- their neighborhood bookstores. In Pacific Palisades yesterday, Village Books announced that after several years of struggling, it would close. This morning, Laguna Beach's Latitude 33, which had been looking for a buyer, announced it's gone by the end of summer.

Independent bookstores have been fighting for survival for a number of years, first challenged by the emergence of chains like Border's (now in bankruptcy) and Barnes & Noble, and now by the convenience and prices of online outlets like Amazon (which bear lower relative overhead than brick-and-mortar stores). Add in a few years of record-setting recession, and survival becomes even more perilous.

This is a shame on a lot of levels. For the reading public, independent bookstores are community centers. It's where we meet up - on purpose or providentially - with others who share our interest, with new practitioners of a craft we love, and with unanticipated ideas.

When you go to Amazon to find a book, almost invariably you get just what you're looking for because you went to the web site with a title, or author, in mind. You find that item, click a few times and are done.

When you go to a bookstore, you find the book as well, but you also have serendipitous encounters with other books and writers, encounters that you miss by buying from your living room. Yes, it's faster, and you save money (lord knows I've done my share of the damage by doing just that). But you also miss that chance encounter with the new. It's like reading a newspaper online versus in print, where every page turn brings you something unexpected, instead of a curated set of headlines and links on a home page.

As a result, our lives, and our engagement with the world around us, slowly become more insular. We get challenged less, so believe in what we believe with more fervor. Something akin to intellectual torpor sets in as we keep returning to the same shelves in the marketplace of ideas. And we, as a society, are worse off for it, another stroke of damage from his secular religion of ours, the quest for a bargain.
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A few weeks ago, when President Obama announced that U.S. special forces had found and killed Osama Bin Laden, he did it from behind a podium in the White House on life TV. After the television camera was turned off, and under a long-established practice, the media handlers ushered in news photographers and Obama returned to the podium and pretended to give the statement again, so the still photographers could make the image. They were barred from the live speech over fears that the clicking from the cameras would be picked up by the president's microphone

In other words, the photos that ran in most newspapers around the country were a fraud, and few noted that fact in the cutline.

Journalism has enough problems with credibility without adding to it with such absurdities as pretending a staged photo op is a live picture. Oddly, it was the White House that decided to suspend the practice, not the photographers assigned to the beat.

But the Washington Post's Paul Farhi reports this morning that the photographers have worked out a new protocol. They'll be "pooling" such events in the future, which means one photographer will be allowed to shoot it, and will share the pictures with his or her colleagues, with no restrictions on their use.

A reasonable solution, and one that should have been obvious back when they all agreed to play this little charade. Now if they can only do something about the White House Correspondents Association dinner.


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An item popped up on the Romenesko journalism blog the other day about Mitch Albom, the author and Detroit Free Press columnist, getting into an on-air radio spat with Frank Beckmann, a local radio talk show host. The issue was ethics - it seems Albom, who also dabbles in screenwriting, has been advocating that Michigan keep a tax break for production companies that film in Michigan. One of the beneficiaries is a project he's working on.

Beckmann had a problem with Albom's ethics. Nothing new, I thought. Many of you know I was deeply involved in the Detroit newspaper strike, during which Albom scabbed, crossing his own union's picket line to return to work. He mentioned going out on strike in July 1995 in the early going of his best-selling Tuesdays with Morrie, which he seems to have begun while most of the rest of us were pounding the picket line. And near as I can tell (I couldn't get through the book, which struck me as a Hallmark card with chapters), he didn't mention later in the book that he eventually scabbed. Not everyone sees crossing a picket line as an ethical failure, which helps explain the plight of the American working class today. But I do, as do my labor-conscious friends.

Fast forward to 2003, and the release of Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The Free Press commissioned a review, which Albom reportedly saw after it was filed, "had some type of hissy fit" over the reviewer's slamming of the book, and the negative review got spiked. I think most people would have a problem with the ethics in that one.

Two years later, the Free Press published a column by Albom about two NBA players attending a Final Four basketball game to cheer on Michigan State University, their alma mater. Problem was, the players never got there - Albom wrote the column ahead of time, but filed it as though it had happened. In short, he made stuff up, a cardinal sin in journalism (as Albom himself pointed out during the Jayson Blair affair, Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute reminded us).

And now he's actively engaged in a political process over tax breaks for an industry in which he has a vested interest. Which has me thinking on this Saturday morning, why is he still in journalism? How many ethical lines does a journalist have to cross before he is benched? And, more broadly, why are newspaper editors surprised about the public's cynicism about our profession, when they turn a blind eye to such lapses of judgement?

Although I guess we should be thankful Albom's not doing something more problematic, like inviting sources to special nights of insider entertainment while rubbing elbows with top political figures in Washington. Read More 

The first of several anticipated investigative reports into last year's disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, in which 29 miners were killed, came out today, and, not surprisingly, it laid the blame for the killing explosion at the feet of mine operator Massey Energy.

I've written about that tragedy before, and it's significant that the state investigative panel in part shares my take on it. From the conclusion:

Ultimately, the responsibility for the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine lies with the management of Massey Energy. The company broke faith with its workers by frequently and knowingly violating the law and blatantly disregarding known safety practices while creating a public perception that its operations exceeded industry safety standards.

The story of Upper Big Branch is a cautionary tale of hubris. A company that was a towering presence in the Appalachian coalfields operated its mines in a profoundly reckless manner, and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk-taking. The April 5, 2010, explosion was not something that happened out of the blue, an event that could not have been anticipated or prevented. It was, to the contrary, a completely predictable result for a company that ignored basic safety standards and put too much faith in its own mythology.

The report also points out that there are many similar post-disaster reports from past tragedies gathering dust on regulators' shelves. Yet the conditions persist. The new report offers some recommendations, but the one that rings the loudest is to criminalize corporate behavior when workers are damaged by blatant disregard for laws and regulations. Maybe if corporate executives begin serving jail terms instead of foisting fines off on their shareholders, fewer lives would be lost to greed.

That isn't likely to happen, though, given the power of corporate cash in Washington. It is the relentless sense of corporate hubris that is most chilling here. And not just in buying the political process. The operators of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform had faith in their technology. The operators of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station misplaced their faith in their technology, too. Massey went them all one better with a blatant disregard for the safety of its workers, a throwback to practices of a century ago, but that is about the only regard in which their hubris differs from those of their corporate peers.

Technology has done wonderful things for the quality of life around the world. But it has also, when misused or imbued with a near-religious sense of faith, been the cause of great calamity. From Bhopal to Upper Big Branch, the persistent undercurrent has been an appalling disregard for human safety. It's almost enough to make a Luddite out of you. Or, at the least, a harsh critic of a culture that exalts wealth over health, and corporate profits over personal safety.

What the hell kind of society have we let ourselves become? Read More 

In the end, it turns out, the budget showdown last week was about wolves. At least that's the conclusion we can draw by the sleazy attachment of a rider on the budget resolution that, according to environmentalists, marks the first time Congress has directly intervened in determining what animals are on the Endangered Species list.

With moves like this - and the attack on Planned Parenthood, and NPR - it's no wonder the American body politic holds elected officials in such low disdain. If you're going to debate a budget, debate a budget. If you're going to challenge programs, challenge programs. Don't mix the two and pervert the political process by holding one issue hostage to advance the other.

You can be excused for missing the issue here, since it was done quietly - and we should always distrust quiet political maneuvers. The recent budget bill hammered out by Congress included a last-minute rider by Sen. Jon Tester (R-Montana) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) that drops "endangered species" status for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies.

I'm not going to get into the merits/demerits of the size of the wolf packs in the Rockies because that's not the issue here (and I readily admit I'm no expert). The issue is the congressional predilection - by both parties - to attach unrelated riders to significant bills like the budget to pass items that otherwise would not make it through the legislative process. This is not deliberative, and consensus, politics, it is the hijacking of the common good by the few. And in this case, the few are political actors doing an end run around the decisions that should be made by expert environmentalists. So Tester and Simpson have not only perverted the legislative process, they have forced non-scientific views into what should be a scientific process.

This is sleazy, and anti-democratic. The process of legislating, and governing, is broken. And it has been broken by the people whose responsibility is to fix it. In the end, what we get is more fuel for cynicism about our governmental processes. And, in this case, a bunch of dead wolves. Read More 

The California State Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would allow agriculture workers in California - whose working conditions are as grueling as they come - to organize into a union if a majority of the workers at a site fill out membership cards that are certified by state labor officials. The process would replace one that requires the filing of a petition, and then a workplace referendum, which union organizers say has left the workers open to intimidation by managers, from threats of dismissal to warnings that their names would be passed to immigration officials.

Without diving into the the minefield of immigration policy, this is a good move for workers, no matter their legal status. Even illegal immigrants are entitled to working conditions that do not imperil their lives. As the story points out, 15 workers have died in the fields in the last six years despite state regulations requiring shade, water and other defenses against the oppressive summer heat in places like Imperial County and the Central Valley. A robust union - in this case, another set of watchdog eyes - would save lives.

The Legislature has passed similar bills in the past, followed by the Assembly, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has refused to sign them. With Jerry Brown as governor, chances are better that the legislation will become law (he hasn't tipped his hand yet).

Given the 1920s mood in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere, where anti-union politicians are trying to destroy the last vestiges of the collective bargaining system that helped create the American middle class, the move by the California Senate is welcome. It's a disgusting turn that political leaders are using the battered private sector as a weapon against public sector workers. Instead of fighting to bring public-sector wages, benefits and job protections down to the abased level of private sector jobs, political leaders should be fighting to elevate the quality of life of all.

With luck, the move here in California could be the next step, after the Wisconsin protests, in a broad national pushback against those who would drive more American workers into a downward economic spiral.

And the move by the legislature reminds me of one of the first stories I wrote for the Los Angeles Times back in April 1997, after spending a day working in a strawberry field. The top of the story is below. The full story can be found here.

This time of day, this time of year, Saddleback Mountain begins the dawn in close, hovering, then slowly draws back as darkness seeps out of the sky. For a few moments, the peak seems to glow, back lit in the soft morning haze as the sun rises for its daily assault.

And it is an assault, a relentless battering of energy that takes rather than gives, leaving you drained and parched, weak and dizzy.

Strawberry pickers know that. So they prepare for it as they gather just after 6 a.m. to begin work in a Western Marketing Co. field off Alton Parkway and Jeffrey Road.

The wardrobe is a trick of the trade, knowledge gained in many instances through years of experience. Some of the workers wear hats. Some wear bandannas. A few wear a combination of both, red and blue kerchiefs tied around baseball caps. And loose, long-sleeved shirts that guard against the chill now and the sun later on.

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I teach an introductory journalism course to college students here in Southern California, and one of the tenets I drill into them during our examination of ethics is that just because you have a legal right to do something doesn't mean you have a moral right to do it. It's a lesson conservative political agitators in Wisconsin and Michigan ought to learn.

Over the past week or so conservatives have filed Freedom of Information Act requests on public university professors seeking emails that mention the Wisconsin labor showdown. There are laws precluding use of public property for political purposes, a sound policy aimed at separating politics from governance (it keeps government workers from using government supplies and property to engage in poltiical activities). But the intent here is purely opportunistic, with anti-labor Republicans seeking to conjure up a "gotcha" moment for university professors sympathetic to labor issues.

The gambit began with requests for emails from the University of Wisconsin-Madison account of highly respected history professor William Cronon. It has moved onto the labor history professors at three public Michigan universities, according to Talking Point Memo, which first reported the Michigan requests (one was received by my longtime friend, M.L. Liebler who teaches at Wayne State University):

An employee at the think tank requesting the emails tells TPM they're part of an investigation into what labor studies professors at state schools in Michigan are saying about the situation in Madison, Wisc., the epicenter of the clashes between unions and Republican-run state governments across the Midwest.

One professor subject to the FOIA described it as anti-union advocates "going after folks they don't agree with."

I'm a firm believer in the Freedom of Information Act, and in open government/open records. But there is also a crushing need for academics to do their work without fear of reprisals. Such protections, including tenure, aim to keep politics -- think the McCarthy era, in which academics, professionals and others were hounded from their occupations by braying condemnations of their political beliefs -- from poisoning academic pursuits. These FOIA requests are nothing more than fishing expeditions that serve no public good, and, in fact, are a detriment because of the chilling effect on academic freedom.

These anti-labor anglers have a legal right to seek the information because these professors are public employees. Pro-labor people have an equal right to ferret out emails by business, economic and political professors, university administrators and others, to see if they, too, have weighed in on the assault on labor from the other side of the argument.

But to do so crosses a moral line. This isn't an act of public enlightenment. It is an act of intimidation. And it should be denounced from the left, right and center. Assuming, of course, that we are indeed a better nation than this. And that we have, indeed, learned from our own ugly past.
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