How about “Small Business Saturday”

Nov. 26, 2011

Support from National Trust for Historic Preservation

Message relayed here in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., by Community Forklift among others:

How about participating in Small Business Saturday?

Community Forklift warehouse

Big-box stores and big-chain retailers look eagerly to ‘black Friday’—the day after Thanksgiving, which used to be the biggest shopping day of the year, putting stores into the black in accounting terms. In 2011, Black Friday is November 26. The annual shopping spree is much touted, as we know, in mass media. As with the running of the bulls at Pamplona or the possibility of fatal accident at the Indy 500, particularly avid coverage goes to any trampling of Wal-Mart [customers] in the pre-dawn stampede at door opening.

Menu of options

For the second year in a row, a shift in focus is suggested. This is not the annual Grinch-before-Christmas invocation to abjure shopping entirely. Nor is it the annual plea to focus on charity, religion or other worthy causes rather than on consumerism. For Small Business Friday, the objective is more limited–to channel consumerism away from the big and multi-national, toward the small and local. Many grass-roots entities are calling on consumers to use their traditional day-after-Thanksgiving shopping to support local small businesses and non-profits rather than national chains. The same spirit prompted Bank Transfer Day, Saturday Nov. 5, 2011, when thousands of bank customers voted with their feet, to transfer funds from some of the biggest banks to local community banks and credit unions. Shoppers can similarly vote with their feet the day after Turkey Day.

Small Business Saturday

For the netroots, this modest proposal has a web site, a Facebook page, and considerable local online support. It is drawing support from non-profits, from organizations including Women in Public Policy and from other initiatives. American Express, which helped launch the move, has thrown support its way in the form of coupons and special offers as well as publicity. Needless to say, the move, which has attracted significant favorable media coverage, also has its fans among small businesses.

Yard at CF

Side note:

Here in metro D.C., the construction-salvage nonprofit Community Forklift offers construction materials, antiques and plumbing/electrical equipment at reasonable below-market prices. Reclaiming the materials and other items for resale produces several simultaneous benefits. Construction material that would otherwise go into landfill goes to good use, saving the landfills. Objects and materials unneeded by the owner go to charity, boosting the donor’s charity write-offs. Affordable objects and materials provide a lower-priced alternative for construction workers and other consumers stuck in the chains. Budget-friendly, eco-friendly, charity-friendly.

Granite remnants

Owners of older houses can particularly benefit. One of the guys at CF–Keith–works in granite, at least on small granite projects. I got a plank of nice granite for about $9, and hired RoxProdux to smooth the edges to make it a shelf for one of my radiators. The granite improves the look of the radiator, the home office has another much-needed shelf, and the top of the radiator is useful aside from being a perch for the cat. A radiator shelf also increases the efficiency of the radiator.

This would be one example of those small businesses we hear about. For somewhat larger projects, the counter at CF also has a binder of local contractors recommended by customers, though without warranty from CF. Grass-roots only.

Small version of the Big Lie: ‘Voters got the ‘Dean scream’ “unedited”‘

The setting:

Sunday-morning television, and the GOP presidential race is the topic on CBS’ Face the Nation.

Host Bob Schieffer asks a GOP panel to assess the impact of a video clip of Rick Perry speaking in New Hampshire.

The clips have gone viral on YouTube, of course.

Rick Perry in New Hampshire

Tabling for now any questions about whether Perry was on something, and if so, what–

GOPer Ed Gillespie utters a blatantly untruthful statement, that the so-called ‘Dean scream’ was seen by voters “unfiltered” and “unedited.”

Mild words given what we typically hear from the GOP campaign trail, but 100 percent untrue. 180-degrees the reverse of accurate. Exactly the opposite of accuracy.

I know people who worked for Gov. Howard Dean in Vermont. The so-called ‘Dean scream’, played repeatedly on continuous feed on CNN–and since apologized for by CNN–was sound-edited.

Dean at rally

Dean was speaking over crowd noise. He was in a room full of cheering supporters. He went around the room, naming states by name. This mini-account comes from eyewitness observers–as he went around the room, calling out the names of each state, Dean pointed to each state name, held up on signs by enthusiastic supporters. IT WAS A CAMPAIGN RALLY.

DEAN WAS YELLING OVER CROWD NOISE.

In the video footage, the crowd noise was toned down, presumably to make Dean’s remarks audible to the television audience. When Dean gave a yell at the conclusion of his campaign-rally shout-out, the crowd noise was edited down. Many of the people in the room at the time, as I have been told, could not even hear the ‘scream’.

Predictably, panelists and other interviewees this morning are defending Gov. Rick Perry with a manufactured talking point: The video clips of Perry speaking have been “heavily edited,” as Ken Blackwell put it. Liz Cheney called it “a mash-up.” Then on comes Ed Gillespie, as mentioned, and contrasts the Perry video to that supposedly raw footage of Howard Dean.

A small media mischaracterization, but one embedded in cement at this point. Dean himself good-naturedly does not bother to mention the crowd noise in the room when he alludes to the ‘scream’. Tiny as it is, however, the missing fact–that crowd noise was downplayed in the CNN footage is key.  And the set-in-concrete mischaracterization illustrates only too well the taint of legitimate news outlets by the GOP/rightwing noise machine.

Accuracy should be the watchword, even for a small event well and safely in the past.

Note:

For anyone curious, the full 25-minute Rick Perry speech is also available online. Here it is on YouTube.

Also here.

And here.

The full speech seems thus far to have fallen short of explaining Perry’s performance. Perhaps that’s why the Perry campaign has not posted the full, unexpurgated, unfiltered and unedited video on Rick Perry’s web site.

It might also be noted that Liz Cheney was looking if anything even more unhappy over discussion of Herman Cain than she was over discussion of Rick Perry. Probably a sign of the times.

They’re still trying to break the middle class—even with a national election approaching

Update and round-up: The project to break the middle class continues.

Boehner: tax hikes are 'off the table'

But first, the good news:

+Last week, the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) issued a report showing that pension plans provide better for retirement than do 401(k)s. The report, A Better Bang for New York City’s Buck, compares New York City’s defined benefit pension plans to the defined contribution 401(k)-type individual account. Unsurprisingly, talented and qualified pension planners deliver a better return, and at 40 percent lower cost, than does a mélange of Wall Street traders.

1929

The NIRS statement identifies savings from three sources:

• “Superior investment returns. The pooled nature of assets in a defined benefit plan result in higher investment returns, partly based on the lower fees that stem from economies of scale, but also because the assets are professionally—not individually—managed. The City plans’ enhanced investment returns save from 21 percent to 22 percent, according to the report.
• “Better management of longevity risk. Because pensions pool the longevity risks of a large number of individuals and can determine and plan for mortality on an actuarial basis, New York City’s defined benefit plans save between 10 percent and 13 percent compared to a typical defined contribution plan.
• “Portfolio diversification. Unlike defined contribution plans, pension assets can be invested for optimal returns. Individuals using 401(k)s, by comparison, are advised to rebalance their investments, downshifting into less risky and lower-returning assets as they age. This ability to maintain portfolio diversity in the City’s defined benefit plans saves from 4 percent to 5 percent.”

Note: We do not read much good news about pension funds in our corporate media outlets. Pension funds tend not to be well covered, let alone favorably covered—somewhat ironically, considering that strong pensions would relieve much of the burden on Social Security that we hear so much about. (Good retirement health benefits would similarly lighten the load on Medicare.) The public gets little in-depth reporting on the assaults on pension funds, state-by-state or larger. Indeed, little is being reported on the extensive damage done to pension funds by the subprime mortgage-derivatives debacle.

Socializing the risk

But moving on to other good news—

+The GOP effort to keep Senate Bill 5 (SB 5) in Ohio is flagging. The bill sharply restricts collective bargaining by public sector employees in Ohio, including firefighters and teachers. As of now, opinion polling shows the legislation unpopular across the board and under siege.

Protesting Ohio SB 5

Among groups working effectively against the legislation is the Ohio AFL-CIO. (btw HuffPost is also advertising itself as working collaboratively against the bill, parading a labor-friendly stance presumably to sweeten itself after stiffing labor, i.e. writers, in the AOL deal. Arianna Huffington’s office has yet to respond to my questions about the sale of HuffPost to AOL, the transaction that netted Huffington herself a few hundred million and her contributing bloggers nothing for the millions in value they created for the web site.)

The perception that SB 5 is in trouble is shared by our friends on the right. This missive,arrived last week from Matt Kibbe of the rightwing lobbying group ‘FreedomWorks’:

“Two weeks from today, Ohio voters will cast a critical referendum on the policies of the Obama administration.

Ballot Issue 2 is a referendum on Governor Kasich’s landmark legislation limiting the monopoly bargaining powers of public sector unions. The unions are trying to repeal the critical legislation, which protects Ohio taxpayers from the union bosses’ budget-busting demands. A “YES” vote defends taxpayers and curbs union power.

Ballot Issue 3–the Healthcare Freedom Amendment–amends the Ohio Constitution to block the “individual mandate” of Obamacare. This would strike a HUGE BLOW to Obama’s disastrous government takeover of health care with important national ramifications. A “YES” vote on Issue 3 supports individual freedom and rejects Obamacare.

FreedomWorks has been supporting these issues on the ground with a massive campaign e ducate the public and mobilize support for these critical Ballot Issues. . .

In the two remaining weeks before the Tuesday, November 8th vote, FreedomWorks will continue to distribute materials across Ohio to maximize support for Issues 2 and 3. But it’s a tall order.

Research and polling show that it will take massive turnout (upwards of 85%, even) in certain core communities to succeed in this effort. That’s why we have a massive final push planned–including more yard signs, door-hangers, neighborhood canvasses, and phone calls–but we can only execute this plan if we have the necessary resources. . .

If the unions and leftists are able to defeat these limited government measures in Ohio, their issue campaigns will sweep across the nation. Fiscally conservative legislation will fall like dominoes.”

[emphasis added]

You heard it here first.

In other good news—

+As everybody not living under a rock has heard, Bank of America deferred to public opinion this week and rolled back its proposed monthly $5 debit card fee. After three years of Wall-Street-funded propaganda criticizing ordinary people for not budgeting properly in advance of the subprime debacle, in other words, BofA was going to nick customers who tried to pay for purchases in cash.* This move was too much even for a longsuffering public. Bank of America suffered a richly deserved public-relations black eye in the process, especially when over 300,000 people signed Molly Katchpole’s change.org petition against the debit fee.

+Helpfully taking other big banks over the side with it, BofA indirectly galvanized support for community banks and credit unions. Bank Transfer Day occurs this Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011. Bank Transfer Day is basically a long-overdue and modest move to redress large-scale abuses by the finance sector, a grass-roots effort drawing wide popular support and participation.

BofA

+Speaking of long overdue–finally realizing that a GOP-dominated Congress is not going to move on improving matters for the general public, the White House is employing both the bully pulpit and executive action to get some tasks done. While one could argue cogently that this strategy should have been applied earlier, every step taken is better than necessary measures delayed even further.

+The immediate consequence—and this is what most impresses our bully-mentality political commentators–is that Obama’s standing immediately rose in public opinion polls. If only Blue Dogs around the country, and especially in Virginia, could read these tea leaves ahead of next Tuesday’s (March 8) off-year elections.

+The Occupy Wall Street movement has succeeded in inspiring local Occupy movements across the U.S. and around the globe. Thus a genuinely grass-roots movement is drawing widespread public recognition, celebrity support and considerable media attention. (There is also live coverage via the Internet.) Donated supplies flow in daily. Organized labor is also throwing its support behind the non-partisan Occupy movement. Occupy DC is linked here.

And last but not least—

While some people might not consider this good news, the damage to the social safety net being contemplated by the so-called ‘Super Committee’ is likewise arousing white-hot fury.

The problem: The Super Committee has let it be known that Social Security and Medicare are ‘on the table’. (A telling phrase: legislators with genuine depth would understand that the social safety net is not a bargaining chip.)

Further problem: In rightwing corpo-speak, ‘on the table’ means only cuts to benefits. It does not mean, for example, removing the income cap on contributions to Social Security and Medicare. This last omission demonstrates conclusively that cutting costs is not the desideratum. The desideratum, driven by the funded right and insufficiently defended against by some Dems, is weakening the social safety net.

The good news: Every sector of the public informed about the proposals opposes them.

Opposition is being effectively mounted by, among others, organized labor and seniors.

Howard Dean of Democracy for America puts it best:

“I’m going to get straight to the point. If the so-called Super Committee votes to increase the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67, it will completely erase all the gains we made in providing healthcare to every American under President Obama.
Medicare is the only universal healthcare program that exists in the United States of America. No one who supports moving back the age of eligibility can possibly be considered an advocate for universal health insurance.
In fact, if that happens, the legacy of the Democrats for the past four years will have been to do far more harm to the healthcare system than good.
By raising the age of eligibility from 65 to 67, hard working Americans who are in their 50’s or 60’s, and cannot afford insurance under the current system will have to wait two additional years before Medicare kicks in. They would be forced to stay in the private healthcare system–if they can afford it.
I personally know people who are on crutches this year because they cannot afford the hip replacement they need until they turn 65 a year from now.
It also means that you’ll have more people putting off care for an extended period of time and entering the system as more expensive Medicare recipients. This could actually increase overall spending on Medicare–eliminating much or all of the “savings” the Super Committee may imagine they can achieve with these cuts.
This is bad policy and we have to stop it. I will personally not support any candidate for any office that attempts to cut back Medicare in this way. Democracy for America is preparing right now to run aggressive campaigns, including hard-hitting TV ads, against anyone–Republican or Democrat–who supports increasing the age of Medicare eligibility.”

Link to contribute to the DFA campaign here.

To reiterate—the current attacks on pensions, on pension funds (even), and on Medicare and Social Security are all part of the same big picture. A well-funded sector has bought over virtually all Republicans in Congress and in major statewide offices across the country, including in Virginia.

We read and hear in political commentary that their aim is to defeat President Obama. True enough, but defeating one man, the president, is not the whole picture. Their aim is to break the middle class. They are doing what they have been paid to do—paid not by their true employers, the public they are elected to serve, but by the lobbying sector behind the scenes, their future employers. This is not gridlock. It is not excess partisanship. It is not dysfunctional government. It is a concerted if sometimes loosely synchronized effort to undermine the greatest good for the greatest number.

*Our friends on the right are doing a lot of that kind of thing lately. Most of the immigrants they are vilifying tend to pay cash.

To be continued

U.S. plant closings in September, October

Former plant in Texas

Another 114 American plants closed or announced closings, this month and last. In September 2011, 56 plants closed. This month so far, it’s another 58.

Lockouts used to be frowned upon

The rate of closings is typical for recent years. The sectors in which plants closed are the usual ones. Metal products lead off, with 29 plants closing Sept.-Oct. Pulp and paper products follow with 18 plants closing in the same period. Food products follow in third place with 13.

The states losing manufacturing plants also follow a pattern typical for the past few years. Several states have made the list every time in Sept.-Oct., in Jon Clark’s Plant Closing News, which gathers and compiles this useful information—Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Several states are making the list most of the time this fall, including California, Illinois, Washington.

Walker in Wisconsin

Causes for the closings vary somewhat.

• Among the companies closing plants, there were 25 bankruptcies in September 2011 and 28 bankruptcies in October. Many were in either metal products or printing.
• A number of the closings are moves to consolidate. Monterey Gourmet Foods, one of the world’s largest tofu producers, is closing its Washington State plant and relocating some employees to its other facilities in California. Signature Offset is closing its printing facility in Florida to consolidate its operations in two Mississippi locations. (Florida and Tennessee in particular tend to lose facilities right and left in consolidations.) Atrium Patio Doors is closing its plant in Greenville, Texas, and relocating manufacture to its facilities in Iowa.
• Some of the closings are companies moving facilities or jobs to Mexico or elsewhere abroad. Alpha Technology in Howell, Mich., is closing and moving manufacturing operations to Mexico. Baldwin Hardware in Reading, Pa., is now a division of Stanley, Black & Decker, which is moving manufacturing to Mexico.

Incentives to do harm

Contrary to what might seem likely, most of the plants are not closing in blue states losing their factories to profit-friendly red states. GOP governors might suggest directly or via Fox News that their states are ‘job-creating’. The Republican governor of Tennessee, to do him justice, actually seems to be trying to attract companies to his state. But statistically there are more plants closing in Rick Scott’s Florida, Scott Walker’s Wisconsin, and Bill Haslam’s Tennessee than in any blue state except possibly New York. With state population factored in, the preponderance of factory jobs lost in red states goes up.

Rick Scott

‘Right-to-work’ states have not fared particularly well in these hard times, either. Despite the fear tactics and intensive lobbying that cram ‘right-to-work’ laws through state legislatures, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia have all had further plant closings in September and October. The recent closings come on top of others in 2011 including summer. The month of June alone saw three plant closings in Florida, two in Alabama, four in Texas, one in Mississippi, four in Ohio, etc. The flip side of the same coin is that companies do not seem to be relocating en masse from progressive states to the most regressive ones, as has been feared.

A quick inference to be drawn from the numbers is that whack-job rhetoric is not a short cut to enticing industry into your state. Chris Christie, Kasich, and Walker among other governors have abysmal records on stimulating employment. Scorched-earth labor policy does not guarantee prosperity even in the short term; nor does offering extensive tax advantages and other deal-sweeteners to every company that calls. There is also a broader, long-range concern. Stiff the public, and working people, at your own peril: Companies that lay off too extensively, in the effort to get lean and mean, end up cutting into their own customer base.

Such observations are common sense.

Some of what is going on in Georgia, however, is mystifying. One of the companies cutting employees this month is biotech firm Dendreon. Plant Closing News announced Oct. 1 that Dendreon is cutting 117 employees at its plant in Union City, Ga. What makes this strange is that Dendreon just opened the cancer treatment plant recently, and it got FDA approval in the first half of 2011. The large (155,000sf) facility is located near the huge Atlanta airport. The company web site announces that “Dendreon is building out manufacturing facilities in Atlanta, Georgia and Orange County, California, and both are expected to provide additional capacity in mid-2011.”

Dendreon in Atlanta wins FDA approval

Access to health care comes up in GOP debate

For one brief, shining moment . . .

Romney, Perry in Vegas

It was just a flicker. During Tuesday night’s debate among GOP presidential candidates, Texas governor Rick Perry mentioned the concept of access to health care.

Perry touts health care in Texas

Perry even used the word “access.” From the transcript, CNN’s Anderson Cooper moderating:

“COOPER: Governor Perry, in the last debate, Governor Romney pointed out that Texas has one of the highest rates of uninsured children in the country, over one million kids. You did not get an opportunity to respond to that. What do you say? How do you explain that?

PERRY: Well, we’ve got one of the finest health care systems in the world in Texas. As a matter of fact, the Houston, Texas, Medical Center, there’s more doctors and nurses that go to work there every morning than any other place in America. But the idea that you can’t have access to health care, some of the finest health care in the world–”

For just an instant, it looked as though we might be getting somewhere. Mentioning “access to health care” in a Republican debate is near-revolutionary.

But there’s more. Perry here explicitly distinguishes between “access to health care” and the “uninsured.”

Health insurance whistleblower Wendell Potter, Michael Moore

Set aside the obvious, the typical, Dickensian GOP line, the underlying Herman-Cain-like tenet that if people die from lack of health care, it is only their own fault. Set aside that this kind of lead-in is usually followed by prevarication. Set aside even the valid observation that the medical world involves a high amount of charity. The reminder, however unintended, is that being uninsured does not necessarily mean that people cannot get health care, that sometimes access to health care is not prevented by lack of health insurance.

Regardless of whether he meant to slip into it or not, Gov. Rick Perry raised one of the fundamental issues in U.S. health care—the fact that health care is one thing, health insurance is another.

Could it be that some well-oiled donors forgo the expense of insurance policies for themselves, knowing that they can pay out of pocket for most health care they will need? Could it be that the Perry contingent in the financial sector knows (full well) that much so-called health ‘insurance’ is for suckers?

Given how the GOP is gunning for the unpopular individual mandate in ‘Obamacare’, it looks that way.

Right or left? T-shirt says it all

In any case, Perry swiftly interrupted his own train of thought here:

“–but we have a 1,200-mile border with Mexico, and the fact is we have a huge number of illegals that are coming into this country.

And they’re coming into this country because the federal government has failed to secure that border. But they’re coming here because there is a magnet. And the magnet is called jobs. And those people that hire illegals ought to be penalized.”

One hesitates to be a mind reader. But Perry is a practiced politician. The swift shift to “illegals” looks like a quick move away from dangerous ground.

Perry then used the “illegals” tack to wheel on Mitt Romney:

“And Mitt, you lose all of your standing, from my perspective, because you hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year. And the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: Governor Romney?”

And the rest is history. Not, however, one of our proudest moments. Dependably, a well-lacquered Republican crowd hee-hawed at the worst.

[The exchange above in full, from transcript:]

“COOPER: Governor Perry, in the last debate, Governor Romney pointed out that Texas has one of the highest rates of uninsured children in the country, over one million kids. You did not get an opportunity to respond to that. What do you say? How do you explain that?

PERRY: Well, we’ve got one of the finest health care systems in the world in Texas. As a matter of fact, the Houston, Texas, Medical Center, there’s more doctors and nurses that go to work there every morning than any other place in America. But the idea that you can’t have access to health care, some of the finest health care in the world–but we have a 1,200-mile border with Mexico, and the fact is we have a huge number of illegals that are coming into this country.

And they’re coming into this country because the federal government has failed to secure that border. But they’re coming here because there is a magnet. And the magnet is called jobs. And those people that hire illegals ought to be penalized.

And Mitt, you lose all of your standing, from my perspective, because you hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year. And the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: Governor Romney?

ROMNEY: Rick, I don’t think I’ve ever hired an illegal in my life. And so I’m afraid–I’m looking forward to finding your facts on that, because that just doesn’t —

PERRY: Well, I’ll tell you what the facts are.

ROMNEY: Rick, again–Rick, I’m speaking.

PERRY: You had the–your newspaper–the newspaper —

ROMNEY: I’m speaking. I’m speaking. I’m speaking.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: You get 30 seconds. This is the way the rules work here, is that I get 60 seconds and then you get 30 second to respond. Right?

Anderson?

PERRY: And they want to hear you say that you knew you had illegals working at your–

ROMNEY: Would you please wait? Are you just going to keep talking?

PERRY: Yes, sir.

ROMNEY: Would you let me finish with what I have to say?”

Note: The audience booed Perry when he repeated his attacks on Romney’s hiring “illegals.” Perry was particularly silly to try that one. Look at the venue. Does this hair-sprayed crowd look like a roomful of gardening DIYers who hoe, till, plant and irrigate their own grounds? This is Vegas, baby.

Even Romney, regarded as more stiff than quick on his feet, put that one away.

“(BOOING)

ROMNEY: Look, Rick–

COOPER: I thought Republicans follow the rules.

ROMNEY: This has been a tough couple of debates for Rick, and I understand that. And so you’re going to get testy.

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: But let’s let–I’ll tell you what, let me take my time, and then you can take your time. All right?

PERRY: Great. Have at it.”

Romney earlier pointed out with relative decency that many people are little able to vet the papers of contractors in construction and landscaping.

It is heartbreaking that at this juncture Romney attacked Perry on his biggest vulnerability among hard-core GOPers—Perry’s most decent single moment, when he supported and argued for allowing the children of undocumented immigrants to go to school in the U.S.*

Have heart, got trouble

“ROMNEY: All right.

My time is this, which is I have in my state–when I was governor, I took the action of empowering our state police to enforce immigration laws. When you were governor, you said, I don’t want to build a fence. You put in place a magnet.

You talked about magnets. You put in place a magnet to draw illegals into the state, which was giving $100,000 of tuition credit to illegals that come into this country, and then you have states–the big states of illegal immigrants are California and Florida. Over the last 10 years, they’ve had no increase in illegal immigration.

Texas has had 60 percent increase in illegal immigrants in Texas. If there’s someone who has a record as governor with regards to illegal immigration that doesn’t stand up to muster, it’s you, not me.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Perry, you have 30 seconds.

PERRY: You stood here in front of the American people and did not tell the truth that you had illegals working on your property. And the newspaper came to you and brought it to your attention, and you still, a year later, had those individuals working for you.

The idea that you can sit here and talk about any of us having an immigration issue is beyond me. I’ve got a strong policy. I’ve always been against amnesty. You, on the other hand, were for amnesty.

COOPER: I’ve got 30 seconds, then we’ve got move on to another immigration question.

ROMNEY: OK.

You wrote an op-ed in the newspaper saying you were open to amnesty. That’s number one.

Number two, we hired a lawn company to mow our lawn, and they had illegal immigrants that were working there. And when that was pointed out to us, we let them go. And we went to them and said–

PERRY: A year later?

ROMNEY: You have a problem with allowing someone to finish speaking. And I suggest that if you want to become president of the United States, you have got to let both people speak. So first, let me speak.

(APPLAUSE)”

Actually, the magnet is survival. If the party were willing to support strategies to benefit Mexico and Latin America–instead of benefiting exploitation, the NRA, the drug cartels and the traffic of weapons south and drugs north–the magnet would be less.

On another topic—

Michele Bachmann attacks Cain's '9-9-9' tax plan

Here is part of the exchange, from transcript, on Cain’s ‘9-9-9’ tax plan:

“COOPER: Governor Perry, in your state, you have a 6.25 percent sales tax. Would taxpayers pay more under the 9-9-9 plan?

PERRY: No.”

Perry slipped up here, too. He surely meant “yes.” Surely he would prefer to remind the audience that Texas would pay an additional 9 percent in federal sales tax, under Cain’s plan. In fact, he went on to make that point:

“Herman, I love you, brother, but let me tell you something, you don’t need to have a big analysis to figure this thing out. Go to New Hampshire, where they don’t have a sales tax, and you’re fixing to give them one.

They’re not interested in 9-9-9. What they’re interested in is flatter and fairer. At the end of the week, I’m going to be laying out a plan that clearly–I’ll bump plans with you, brother, and we’ll see who has the best idea about how you get this country working again.

And one of the ways, right here in Nevada you’ve got 8-plus percent. You want nine cents on top of that, and nine cents on a new home–or 9 percent on a new home, 9 percent on your Social Security, 9 percent more?

I don’t think so, Herman. It’s not going to fly.

COOPER: Mr. Cain, 30 seconds.

(APPLAUSE)

CAIN: This is an example of mixing apples and oranges. The state tax is an apple. We are replacing the current tax code with oranges. So it’s not correct to mix apples and oranges.

Secondly, it is not a value-added tax. If you take most of the products–take a loaf of bread. It does have five taxes in it right now. What the 9 percent does is that we take out those five invisible taxes and replace it with one visible 9 percent.

So you’re absolutely wrong. It’s not a value-added tax.”

For the record, ‘flat tax’ is one of the more accurate Orwellianisms. How does a tax get ‘flat’? Simple. You raise the amount paid at the bottom. You lower the amount paid at the top. You squash the middle class like a bug in the middle, flat as a tortilla, roadkill—pick your metaphor–somewhat like flat-lining.

You thus wind up with the most regressive of all taxes. If the tax is on products—a sales tax—you take the most overwhelmingly from people who have to spend their income to live. If the tax is on income—an income tax—you take the most proportionately from people who can least afford to pay any. But of the candidates on stage, only Ron Paul firmly criticized regressive taxation.

It is truly remarkable that even that fiscal lunacy is not enough, not wormy enough, not grasping enough, for these people. Here from the transcript is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on taxes:

“Second, I favor very narrow, focused tax cuts such as zero capital gains, 100 percent expensing, because I think, as Governor Romney said, jobs are the number one challenge of the next two or three years. Get something you can do very fast. Change on this scale takes years to think through if you’re going to do it right.”

So zero percent, i.e. zero, on capital gains. The person who bought a Chinese antique for six figures ten years ago, and now auctions it for seven figures, gets the entire profit tax-free.

So “100 percent expensing,” meaning corporations including multi-nationals get to write off the total cost of everything they pay to hire employees, everything they pay to build or maintain their buildings, everything they pay for supplies? Instead of just writing off most of the above as they do now? Gone, the concept of ‘profit’ as gross receipts minus costs. In the brave new world prefigured by Gingrich, there will be no costs—except for U.S. taxpayers who must underwrite everything.

These are the ‘deficit hawks’?

Note: Presumably the attacks on Cain will continue. According to the most recent poll, Cain is leading in South Carolina.  Needless to say, the venue of the GOP debate in Vegas was itself a stacked deck. The article linked includes solid information on one of the billionaires applauding Cain.

*The best moral moment of Rick Perry’s entire career, the high point of his entire public life, and I regret that I have not been able to write on it. So far, the GOP response to it has sickened me.

Government help for small business at the end of World War II

Buddy Roehmer

The current GOP-lobby-multinationals attack on ‘government’, root and branch–that would be our government they’re talking about–is as amnesic as it is uncivic-minded.

Roosevelt calls for a second Bill of Rights

When World War II ended, with a million U.S. troops home and needing to make a living, the U.S. government had a policy of helping both businesses and unions. The Roosevelt and Truman administrations strongly supported small business.

The titles tell the story:

• Establishing and operating a beauty shop /prepared by Edith E. Gordon, under the direction of H. B. McCoy, the Bureau of foreign and domestic commerce . . . in cooperation with members of the cosmetologists’ associations. Published Madison, Wis. : United States Armed Forces Institute [1945]
• Establishing and operating a book store . . . Sorel, Paul. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Govt. print. off. [1946]
• Establishing and operating a bookkeeping service . . . by Charles H. Sevin, under the direction of E. R. Hawkins. Washington, D.C. : Markting Division, Office of Domestic Commerce, Unites States Dept. of Commerce [1947]
• Establishing and operating a confectionery-tobacco store . . . by George F. Dudik. Washington, D.C. : Foodstuffs, Fats and Oils Section, Office of Domestic Commerce, United States Dept. of Commerce [1946]
• Establishing and operating a dry cleaning business. Trimble, Paul C. [Washington, War Dept., 1945]
• Establishing and operating a gift and art shop . . . by Arthur J. Peel ; written under the supervision of the Marketing division, Office of domestic commerce.
• Establishing and operating a grocery store, by Nelson A. Miller, Harvey W. Huegy, and associates: E. R. Hawkins, Charles H. Sevin . . . [and others] under the direction of Walter F. Crowder, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce . . . in co-operation with the National Association of Retail Grocers and members of the trade. Trade Review Committee: Mrs. R.M. Kiefer, National Association of Retail Grocers; Carl Dipman, the Progressive Grocer. [Madison, Wis.] United States Armed Forces Institute [1945]

Branches of the federal government (including the War Department) published dozens of books, drawing on thousands of accumulated wartime personnel hours of experience in everything from acquisition to distribution, to help homecoming service members who wanted to become entrepreneurs. There are some sixty “Establishing and operating . . .” guides on starting a business in hardware, heating and plumbing, jewelry, mail-order distribution, music, real estate, insurance brokerage, etc. All were published by government agencies except one title (possibly a copy-cat) from McGraw-Hill on establishing and operating a drug store.

Helping small businesses get started

There were more publications for small business. The U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce published books on small business finance, books on how a small business could obtain loans, on dealing with regulation, on dealing with a bank, on government financial aids to small business, on trade marks, on employee suggestions, etc.

All of this was part of a concerted action undertaken by the administration, which also encouraged supportive legislation in Congress: at least 187 bills were considered in the 1943-44 Congress on behalf of small business, according to a digest by Burt W. Roper (1946). Some Republicans in Congress supported boosting small business—partly because some of them had been in business themselves, as had Harry Truman, and partly because they preferred it to supporting labor unions—while others quietly opposed it. Incidentally, there had also been serious work on the impact of the war itself on small business.

Administration policy was of course guided by political instinct: the people of America in 1944 were looking forward to the end of the war. Patriotic Americans knew world war to be unnatural and obscene, a collapse of law and justice, the reverse of life and vitality. Americans viewed themselves as significantly different from Germans, or at least from Germans who grew up under the Third Reich and before, and were proud of it. That was partly why they were so supportive of the war against fascism. Thus in 1943 the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, was already publishing books such as Community action for post-war jobs & profits. In 1944 the GPO put out A sound plan for post-war roads and jobs, by Charles M. Upham, who also authored A study for the consideration of the American road builders’ association Committee on the postwar highway program in 1943, published by the American Road Builders Association.

Jogging the motivation to look ahead, populist presses and leftwing publishers were also putting out books, pamphlets and articles on post-war planning, of course, and on a vastly broader scale, every recruit and family knew that coming home at the end of World War II would not be the end of the story. They knew that after surviving, the next step would be making a living. They also remembered the Depression and did not want a repeat.

Postwar jobs approved

Fortunately for the United States, in 1943, 1944 and beyond the nation was not beset by a huge and hugely funded lobbying industry trying to define this awareness as somehow unnatural and wrong. Quiet efforts at union-busting continued, and top executives tried to be persuasive in Washington—and succeeded—but any large U.S. company that had openly tried to relocate offshore at that time, or that had tried to replace U.S. workers with overseas hirees in undeveloped nations, or that had tried to evade U.S. taxes by doing so, would have been pilloried.

More later

Civic Group Plans Jobs after War

–in 1944

Page ten of the Feb. 27, 1944, Dallas Morning News ran this article titled “Civic Group Plans Jobs After War.” “(First of a series of three articles to appear daily.)”

BY ROBERT M. HAYES, East Texas Bureau of The News.”

Quoted in full below:

“SHREVEPORT, La., Feb. 26.—

Some time this spring Pvt. Joe Doakes of Louisiana, now stationed in the battle zone, will receive a message from home that will pack more punch than a pinup girl and send his morale spiraling upward.

Signed by a group of big-shot business leaders, the letter will read something like this:

‘Dear Joe:  If you’ve been worrying about your prospects of getting a job after the war, just forget about it. We’ve been checking on the situation here at home and we’ve lined up a job that pays a good salary and will be open for when you return. Just keep in touch—‘”

The article continues,

            “Not only Joe but some 12,000 of his buddies will receive the same cheering assurance that support from the home front is not lagging. Military leaders say there could be no greater morale builder.

The promise of a job is no empty gesture. Louisiana civic groups have spent more than two years working out details of a postwar readjustment program. Their suggestions for solving the problems of peace are based on cold statistics and not theories.”

“Worker Needs Investigated.

“How do Louisianans know that a place on the pay roll will be reserved for Joe? Because they have gone to the employers themselves to determine how many jobs will be available. They have checked the buyers’ market to find out whether the postwar consumer demand will justify the payroll. They are determining, within reasonable limits, how many wartime transients will remain in Louisiana and how many will move on; how many radios, refrigerators, automobiles and washing machines will be needed when restrictions are lifted; how many discharged soldiers will return to the farms and how many newcomers may be expected in the industrial field.

“Louisiana’s postwar program, which is serving as a pattern for scores of cities and communities throughout the Southwest, is one of the best organized in the nation. It began to take shape within thirty days after Pearl Harbor and represents the combined efforts of the best brains in the state.

“The program is under the supervision of the postwar readjustment council of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce. The chairman is L. A. Maihles, publisher of the Shreveport Times. The selection utilizes the rich experience of leaders who have served their community during the black days of the depression as well as the lush era of wartime prosperity. Ed Burris, manager of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce and a native Texan, is council secretary.”

“Public Supports Campaign.

“After the newly appointed council had completed the framework of its organization, a vigorous campaign was launched to enlist the full support of the public. Residents of the Shreveport area not only were asked to give their time but to lend a voice in the arrangement of program details.

“The first move was to call a general meeting of interested citizens to discuss the over-all program. Then followed a series of ten conferences to discuss its various phases. And finally, there was a roundup meeting to gather up any loose ends.

“At first there was a tendency to regard the program as premature. Some questioned the wisdom of undertaking any project that might divert attention from the war effort.

“The Shreveport Chamber of Commerce dispelled these doubts, however, with an advertising broadside that was given wide circulation.

“’Plan today ere we fail tomorrow,’ was the caption of a folder announcing the series of conferences.

“’Our first responsibility is to win the war,’ it explained. ‘We must do our utmost at all times in that direction, but in the process of fighting the war we must lay our plans to minimize the shock of sudden peace.’

“Job Survey Undertaken.

“’The war probably will end very abruptly. To wait until then to plan the solution of postwar problems would be folly. By analyzing now the probable conditions that will follow the war and endeavoring to anticipate the problems which will then exist and plan their solution will aid materially in expediting the proper course of action.’

“After the course had been charted, the program became largely a matter of legwork. Surveys were undertaken with the co-operation of the OCD, the Louisiana State University and the State Department of Labor.

“The survey of prospective jobs for returning servicemen was started last week. A mailing list of Louisiana soldiers is being compiled. Louisiana leaders have spent two years of preparation to tell their fighting men not to worry about finding postwar employment. They are ready to back up their pledges.” [boldface emphasis added]

How times have changed. If our U.S. Chamber of Commerce today did this–rather than trying to reduce ‘government’ record-keeping and planning, opposing every move toward accountability and practicality for business, and destroying citizens’ confidence in both business and government–we would have a stronger country.

Not to over-idealize the past, but the program intelligently reported by Mr. Hayes here in 1944 uses the tactics we sorely need to use today:

• it looks ahead to the end of combat, anticipating problems and setting a positive goal;
• the goal itself is genuinely necessary and beneficial;
• the aim is to put combat veterans to work in jobs that contribute to the economy and the nation, and that pay well enough for the workers to survive and thrive;
• it calls for citizen input;
• it involves the federal government, the state government, and the nearest sizable university;
• it involves business people—management—in an effort to hire Americans rather than to lay them off (for the stock boost) or to export their jobs to other countries or to break unions or to offshore financial assets in island tax havens; and
• it involves an intelligent effort accurately to project the demand for goods and services as well as the need for jobs. They knew, back then, that the two went together.

In fact, reading between the lines it seems to be a given with these people that hiring U.S. servicemen and women was a good thing, not something to be avoided by every machination possible. They remember the Great Depression.

Sign says it all

How much of this is our U.S. Chamber of Commerce now doing, in other than token numbers, while it spends upwards of $50 million to defeat the president? Are business leaders like the Koch brothers doing this? Is the GOP in Congress—led by Rep. John Boehner, Sen. Mitch McConnell (outside his own state), and Rep. Eric Cantor—calling for any of this?

Cut anything--especially contributions from the loaded.

Are our highest-paid opinion makers—the group of corporate shills spearheaded by the likes of George F. Will, Charles Krauthammer, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh—today calling for full employment of returning combat veterans, finding out where the jobs are, and helping businesses be ready to hire in anticipation of a growing need?

Cartoonist on the pundit

This network is much more invested in supporting stories that the president of the United States is the Manchurian candidate, or pushing the line that war is a permanent state, or transmitting information on how to privatize or how to outsource or how to avoid providing benefits to employees.

Coming home

The end of the war

World War II in Europe ended so abruptly that hundreds of thousands of combat veterans came home to the U.S. within a few months, many of them so rapidly that they were re-shuffled, like my father, into demobilization units different from the units they had served in during the war. The demobilization at the end of WW2 dwarfs what this country faces on the return of combat veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Still, when demobilization comes, we will have challenges to face. It is reasonable to project, at a minimum,

• an increased strain on social services at all levels;
• an increase in domestic violence cases and related cases; and
• increased unemployment.

Sadly, in our time all challenges have to be met over the opposition of Republican officeholders and candidates, who are trying to destroy or dismantle every social program at all levels, whose corporate giveaways are designed to keep management fat and unemployment high, and whose ostensible budget-cutting keeps taxes regressive and starves equity at all levels of government including in the justice system. You don’t see GOPers supporting abuse counseling centers and suicide hotlines (except in their own districts, sometimes) or trying to get case backlogs reduced. They have undermined that kind of thing for decades, usually calling it either ‘communism’ or ‘higher taxes.’ They are also opposed to the ‘regulation’ that would keep a Veterans Administration in good working order, with appropriate transparency, accountability and effectiveness.

Note in the interest of full disclosure: I ran across the old, yellowing newspaper page from which this article is transcribed in some of my late father’s family papers, but it is very unlikely that his parents saved it for that article. My grandparents were only too familiar with the Great Depression, preceding Wall Street abuses, a series of anti-labor Republican administrations in the 1920s, and financiers’ opposition to every reform including the FDIC, and would have read the article with a watchful eye.

On the same page, however, the News published a National Geographic map of Australia, and my father had recently written home that he was in Australia. The newspaper thoughtfully provided for its readers a twelve-part series—WHERE ARE THE YANKS?—each with a National Geographic piece on the country where some local service members were posted. The one on Australia begins, “Australia, lonely continent dividing the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, closes matches the United States in area. A dominion of the British Commonwealth of Nations, its citizens are hardy and resourceful . . .”

The costs of World War II cannot be overestimated. More than one and a half million U.S. service members went off to war, and one quarter of them never came home. My grandparents were exceedingly lucky; they had three sons and a son-in-law in the war, and all returned. This single page of the Dallas Morning News reports three deaths from the war. Lt. William (Bill) Bishop of Bogota, Tex., was killed in action over Italy Jan. 22, 1944. Lt. Jimmie R. Shaeffer of Gainesville, Tex., was shot down in his B-17 “in the European war area” Feb. 2. WASP trainee Betty P. Stine, a native of Fort Worth, was killed in the crash of her plane at Blythe, Calif., Feb. 25.

The same page of the News also reported a civilian death, “Dr. Philo P. Morrison Succumbs to Injuries:

“Funeral services were pending Saturday for Dr. Philo Pinckney Morrison, 69, of Hallsvilled, father of Wilbur L. Morrison of Miamai, Fla., vice-president of Pan-American Airways, who died in a Shreveport hospital Friday night of injuries received in an automobile accident . . .

“Dr. Morrison, a retired physician, received head injuries when his car was forced off the highway by a Negro truck driver and overturned . . .”

It can be theorized that the war-theater deaths of local African-American service members did not  always make the News.

N.b.: Ken Burns’ documentary Prohibition, now on PBS, does a great job filling in some recent chapters of American history. Awesome.

Rick Perry at ‘Niggerhead’

Crossroads of history

Paint Creek, Texas

One of the first things you learn looking up tiny Paint Creek, Texas, Gov. Rick Perry’s home town, is that it survived the Great Depression largely because of the New Deal. Perry’s own Democratic forebears were partly responsible for naming the town after a nearby stream, one of several tributaries in the U.S. named Paint Creek. Soon after, in 1939, the Rural Electrification Association began supplying electricity, as to hundreds of other small towns.* Many of us whose grandparents and great-grandparents came from small towns in Texas and elsewhere have a family memory of that life-saving event, along with family memories of the newly instituted FDIC insurance that protected ordinary people’s wages and savings. Without the REA and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, countless more families like the Perrys would have become families like the Joads.

Haskell County, Tex., courthouse

This is not the picture that emerges from chronicles influenced by K Street. Take the article “Rick Perry’s Roots: A world of difference from Washington,” in what is called Real Clear Politics:

“PAINT CREEK, Texas–It’s not hard to understand why Rick Perry hates Washington after driving along the farm-to-market roads where he was raised. [DANGLING]

His roots are rural: He’s a farmer-rancher by trade, and his supporters say the reason he understands the plight of small business owners is because in his younger days he ran the family’s cotton farm. He rails against centralized government because he thinks it’s too far removed from the people it governs. It’s certainly plain to see that the trappings of Washington couldn’t be any farther away from the modesty of Paint Creek, where clouds of dust still blow behind the cars that travel from farm to farm, and signs other than those pointing out the names of roads are hard to come by; billboards and political displays are non-existent.”

Set aside for the moment that that Washington-hater Perry is trying his uttermost to get to Washington, and that he left Paint Branch behind decades ago. The essential topic in 2012 is policy. The “centralized” government against which Perry rails supported his town, his school, and his home, when the party he switched to would willingly have let them collapse, but there is no mention of that here. There is no mention of the anti-regulation lobbying that enables billboards to proliferate elsewhere, no mention of the climate-change denial that will magnify those clouds of dust exponentially, no mention of the unbridled GOP lobbying and corporate giving–hardly modest–that Rick Perry signed on with. Also, Perry is not a farmer-rancher by trade; he is a political officeholder by trade.

Perry in Austin, Tex., halls of power

Fortunately other reports provide a more balanced perspective on Gov. Perry  in his home town and county–which did not vote him into the governor’s office–including a good New York Times article on Paint Creek, Tex., and a good Fort Worth Star-Telegram article. Again, the important topic is policy. A solid understanding of Perry’s policy in his native state is an indicator for the future. The thumbnail is that he is another bought-and-sold good-ol’-boy; further detail so far is largely colorful embellishment–interesting for local color, superficial as to individual psychology, and unnecessary for understanding future domestic or foreign policy.

It is illuminating that the way Rick Perry is currently dealing with the topic of race, in connection with his family’s property, is by not dealing with it.

By now most political publications have reported that Perry’s hunting camp, where he brings supporters for a rural retreat, is named “Niggerhead.” The account in the Washington Post is as clear as any:

“Paint Creek, Tex.—In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance.

“Niggerhead,” it read.

Ranchers who once grazed cattle on the 1,070-acre parcel on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River called it by that name well before Perry and his father, Ray, began hunting there in the early 1980s. There is no definitive account of when the rock first appeared on the property. In an earlier time, the name on the rock was often given to mountains and creeks and rock outcroppings across the country. Over the years, civil rights groups and government agencies have had some success changing those and other racially offensive names that dotted the nation’s maps.”

“But the name of this particular parcel did not change for years after it became associated with Rick Perry, first as a private citizen, then as a state official and finally as Texas governor. Some locals still call it that. As recently as this summer, the slablike rock—lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint—remained by the gated entrance to the camp.”

First, the property name itself.

What I’m seeing, with the help of Google Books, is that the offensive term ‘niggerhead’ is not of great antiquity. In the 2012 elections, undoubtedly a vibe is already circulating somewhere among resentful, envious quasi-illiterate GOPers, that Perry is somehow unfairly being pressured to change a name hallowed/disinfected by the longevity of generations if not centuries. This kind of narrative tends to take hold among people who are supportive of littering and hostile toward clean air.

Let’s head this one off at the pass: This is no hallowed-ancestors narrative. The offensive term ‘niggerhead’ was actually not current in the eighteenth century, seems not to have existed before that, and in fact proliferated most only in the later nineteenth century.** In the late nineteenth century it was a name for an outcropping rock, boulder or stump, often one that interfered with navigation in a river or creek. This meaning is probably the likeliest source for the Perry parcel of land, a landmark origin of sorts associated with Paint Creek.

The upside is that the name, offensive in itself, does not directly refer to lynching or other bloodshed. In some contexts it more resembles exotic names such as Moor’s-head, Turk’s-head, etc., given to pastries and plants.

The downside is that it is unquestionably a term of ridicule, safely after the Civil War.

Here is the genuine narrative, condensed: The name ‘niggerhead’ gets more common in the U.S. in the 19^th century, much more in the later 19the century, and most of all toward the very end of the 19^th century. It becomes an alternate name for a number of different things and for entirely different types of things—

• mussels and clams;
• boulders;
• several kinds of rock including slate and hematite;
• roughly cut tobacco, as in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn;
• “a nodule of coral projecting above water” in the 1878 Sportsman’s Gazetteer;
• as of 1896 another name for Maryland’s state flower, the black-eyed Susan, which also has other names, one worse;
• a kind of cactus, the Hedgehog cactus or Echinocactus Wislizeni, also in 1893 called Turk’s-head;
• another name for echinacea, echinacea angustifolia (from the Greek word for hedgehog or sea urchin, echinos);
• a tree stump sticking out of water;
• stumps or protrusions in a swamp;
• by 1892 a kind of hoe;
• a term used in oil drilling;
• a kind of ore; and
• a kind of coal.

The Oxford English Dictionary adds a kind of fabric, also 19^th century, and the nautical sense of “a bollard or winch-head,” this last from 20^th century quotations. The term itself is found in fields including geology, botany, mining or quarrying, exploration and navigation, but of all the applications of the term from the 19^th century, only one is directly political—it was predictably a term of disparagement for anti-slavery whites, in the middle of the century, in places like Pennsylvania and Boston.

A bit nervous, are you, gentlemen? What other people would make of this little list I don’t know. What I’m seeing is  you don’t get random scattering around of a belittling name, applied indiscriminately to things trampled on or dug up, without some inner tremor going on somewhere.

Make of it what you will, even a quick check shows that the word was regarded as unsavory even in the 19^th century: One botanist refers to it as “a more vulgar name” for Echinacea, as early as 1892. A description of the condition of the Cumberland Road through the state of Indiana in the 1832 Congressional Record includes this passage:

“A considerable portion of the masonry, especially on the eastern division of the road, is built of detached masses of granite, or field stones, known in that section of the country by the name of “nigger heads” . . .”

Quotation marks, italics, and an account distanced from unappealing regionalism, in 1832? Signs of hope. Too bad his kind did not prevail in time to end slavery and prevent the Civil War.

Au contraire, somebody delivering a learned geological address made a joke from the common term, preserved for us in 1878 Transactions of the annual fair, Georgia State Agricultural Society:

“And another, in this particular kind of locality, which is indicated by a red line extending from Newnan down near or beyond Talbotton, down to the Muscogee railroad, which, as indicated here on the map, is a trap rock, a kind of volcanic rock, which was very hard originally, but decomposes when exposed to the air into a very rich red clay soil. Those of you who live in this vicinity, and in a line north and south, passing by Greenville down to Talbotton, will recognize this particular character of soil. It forms frequently large, round masses, which are sometimes called “nigger- heads,” very hard—even harder than nigger-heads. [Laughter.] . . .”

Laughter in the original.

In other words, they knew what they were doing.

By the way, there is scant connection of the word with Texas in print before 1890, although the state had a ‘Niggerhead Peak’.

1960, when the GOP could favor peace and prosperity

Speaking of nervousness, thus far the way Rick Perry is handling this detail of land ownership channels Richard Nixon in the larger matter of Martin Luther King’s jailing back in 1960. Students of history may recall that King was arrested a couple of times during the 1960 campaign. He was jailed in Georgia in October of that year—most awkwardly for Nixon, locked in a tight contest with John F. Kennedy. Nixon needed the votes of those remaining blacks who recalled the Republican Party as the party of Lincoln. (Mississippi was still sending rival GOP delegations to the national convention, as ever, during this time—the Lily Whites, and the Black-and-Tans, although the latter were never seated at the convention.) At the same time, of course, Nixon’s team was running the ‘Southern strategy’, openly using race privilege and animosity to appeal to the Dixiecrats. Nixon badly needed for King to emerge alive from the hands of the authorities, but he was unwilling to antagonize white southerners; instead, he quietly begged President Eisenhower to do something. Eisenhower, who lacked high regard for Nixon, did not intervene. John Kennedy’s brother Robert F. Kennedy telephoned the Georgia governor to appeal for King’s release, King was released, and the Kennedy-Johnson ticket reaped the political benefit in the presidential election.

Perry is in a version of the same bind today. If he unequivocally repudiates that place name, the bigots among his supporters and the Tea Party will treat him as having conceded something to African-Americans. If he does not, the Perry candidacy becomes less viable as a fig leaf for corporate establishment types.

*Vanessa J. Williams, “PAINT CREEK, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hrp79), accessed October 06, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

**The whole ‘N-word’ phenomenon is a construction more of Jim Crow than even of slavery. It came later as a tactic, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, disheartening for those of us who would have liked to relegate it to the Middle Ages. But that exceeds the scope of today’s blog.