Three Interesting Videos: Two by Mark Fiore and one by ClassWar Films

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Mark Fiore videos

Declaration of Thingamajig

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CorporateLand

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From Information Clearinghouse:

Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine


Transcript
Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine

Nightmare and insanity are akin: mysterious and involuntary states that skew and distort objective reality. One wakens from nightmare; from insanity there is no awakening.

Whether Americans live in the one state or the other is the paramount question of this era.

For two hundred years Americans have been indoctrinated with a mythology created, imposed and sustained by a manipulating cabal: the financial elite that built its absolute control on the muscle and blood, good will, ignorance and credulity, of its citizenry.

America began with the invasion of a populated continent and the genocide of its native people. Once solidly established, it grafted enslavement of another race onto that base.

With those two pillars of state firmly in place it declared itself an independent nation in a document that nobly proclaimed the equality of all mankind.

In that act of monumental hypocrisy America’s myth had its beginning.
* * *
A Constitution was written that came to be regarded as American Holy Writ. Its central purposes were to defend private property and suppress mass democracy. It has fulfilled both those mandates beyond the wildest dreams of its creators.

Once the existing oligarchy was secure in law and native people largely exterminated, the ruling class increased its wealth and power fantastically in the 19th century, using the government as its enabler, exploiting to the limit the device of chartered corporations.

With its phenomenal money power, the financial elite began to use the military to expand its sway beyond the continent. Regions, territories, islands, and whole countries were annexed, invaded, and possessed outright, their peoples crushed, suppressed, and ruled.

Because ordinary Americans, like any people, need to believe that whatever the ruling elite undertakes in their nation’s name must be essentially benevolent, noble in purpose and justified in fact, the myth had to be radically modified for imperial expansion.

The foundational story was that Americans had come to a howling wilderness teeming with godless savages and, through invincible strength of character and purity of purpose, had tamed the land and honorably earned the right to possess their bountiful home.

In the era of extra-territorial expansion that version was polished to justify and ennoble imperialism. The new corollary was that America could not ignore colonialist brutality but was obliged, by the Manifest Destiny that led us to civilize our own continent, to carry our mission into barbaric darkness wherever tyranny created abuse and suffering.

A national myth that absolutely binds the loyalty of a people to its government must be a subtle and powerful elixir that elevates and aggrandizes that people’s self-regard. National policy will then appear to be an extension of its superior citizenry’s inchoate will, and the basis for a justified arrogance toward the lesser world.

The simple, powerful myth of America’s altruistic and heroic benevolence, shaped and maintained by the financial/political power elite, infused Americans with a deep and outrageously hubristic sense of racial superiority that, mobilized behind various imperial enterprises, has given all such adventures the character of a quasi-religious crusade. In this way insatiable imperialism acquires the apparent moral perfection of a syllogism.
* * *
With WWII, the world was reconfigured. American Capitalism emerged supreme from the horror that had virtually wrecked its capitalist partners. The Soviet Union, though, having absorbed by far the greatest devastation from Nazi Germany, had astonishingly risen above its ruin to become the leading challenger to America as a world power.

This challenge was not competitive, it was systemic: Soviet Communism was a direct threat to American hegemony in that it categorically refuted the philosophical basis of Predatory Capitalism. Grounded in Marx and Lenin, it attacked Capitalism’s inherent evils, monstrous inequities and flagrant injustices that, exacerbated by speculation, exploitation and fraud, would destroy it. And it promoted world revolution to that end.

This face-off of giants in the Cold War necessitated further refinement of the American myth. Now, instead of simply intervening in situations where despotism or tyranny required America to forcefully implant our just and ethical democracy, America had to become the shield and bulwark of the sacred capitalist system in which “free enterprise” was magically and increasingly identified with democracy and equally to be defended.

This version prevailed through many surrogate confrontations around the globe in the era of Mutually Assured Destruction and survived even the debacle of Vietnam, lasting until the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the propaganda stream became ever more intense and pervasive. On radio and television Americans were subjected to an unrelenting barrage of hyper-patriotism in which American moral superiority was a given, and America’s self-touted courage, generosity and decency were its unchallengeable proofs.

The implosion of the Soviet Union left America, in its own terminology, the “Sole Superpower in a Unipolar World”. This, however, did not result in diminution of the myth. The practical effect of having no doomsday enemy--China couldn’t plausibly be cast in that role then--was to supercharge it by increasing its element of pure, hubristic ego. America was no longer just called upon to defend the “Free World” from monstrous heresy; it was now, by virtue of its universally acknowledged, beatific “exceptionalism”, required to oversee and police it in the interests, and for the benefit, of lesser nations.
* * *
“Power corrupts”, said Lord Mahan, “and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

When the only rival and counterweight to American power disintegrated there was a sense within the American power elite that the opportunity existed, for the first time in history, for one country to absolutely dominate and effectively control the entire world.

This consensus was expressed in a policy statement composed by a cadre of major right-wing political players representing massive corporate capitalist interests called the Project for a New American Century. This triumphalist manifesto laid out a plan for absolute American access and control of essential resources and raw materials worldwide, to be guaranteed by the military which would enforce Full Spectrum Dominance.

The American Myth, which had seemed to have lost momentum and its animating principle in the totally unexpected so-called Cold War “victory”, was now re-energized with a less defensive and reactive essence, and given the glowing radiance and patina of a true and, for the first time, self-professed and articulated, imperial mission.

The attack on the Towers, an unimaginable provocation, was the trigger mechanism for the explosive launch of the effort to impose that imperial model in practice on the world.
* * *
It has been without question the most spectacular failure in the history of American misadventure. After a decade marked by the waste of trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of American lives, the stunning bankruptcy of our internally burglarized nation, and a consequent recession more fundamentally damaging than the Great One, Imperial America has nothing to show for the botched folly of its arrogant overreach but unequivocal disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, with no end of madness in sight.

An impartial observer would have to say that the hypnotic hold of the American Myth on the loyalty of the people has led only to disgrace and disaster, and set a direct course to inevitable imperial decline and ruin. That would be inarguable on any rational basis, but it entirely mistakes the motive for, and the purpose of, the myth. The American Myth was never intended to serve the interests either of our country or of our people: it was created solely to buttress, shield, and exalt the ruling financial class. It has done that with astonishing and unbroken success that staggers the imagination from our earliest days.

The massive looting of Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan war funding to enrich the Corporate Tyranny—for that is what it has become—is on an unique scale of its own, without anything remotely comparable to its flagrant obscenity in the whole long history of war.

Neither the Pentagon nor any branch of the U.S. government can give any accounting whatever of the many billions of tax-generated dollars that have vanished, evaporated. There is no doubt but that beyond the outrageously inflated, no-bid contracts handed to giant corporate favorites with their preposterous guaranteed profits, much of the money was simply stolen in bulk by, through, or in spite of the military, and distributed among thieves and accomplices, some of it on huge pallets… for convenience, presumably.
* * *
While this wholesale robbery was going on under the oversight of the military abroad, the Corporate Tyranny had evolved a whole set of impenetrably complex devices for the generation of money without any economically productive source or result at home.

The sole driving force and purpose of Capitalism is the realization of profit. According to that calculus, reducing production costs increases profit margin. This leads to the obvious conclusion that as production costs near zero, profit is maximized.

There is no provision for social good in Capitalist theory. Corporations, created to optimize business opportunity through efficient specialization, were originally required to operate for public benefit but that provision was quickly finessed and forgotten.

American law courts have always favored corporate concentrations of wealth since they, like the Congress, exist to serve the moneyed interests. The American Myth was created to provide cover for the financial oligarchy to exploit the country and the citizenry, and the judiciary has consistently cooperated in ruling for corporations against the people.

Indeed, without ever considering the question in law, the Supreme Court long ago endowed corporations with “personhood”, that is with all rights of human beings under our Constitution. The way this travesty occurred--the slipshod by-product of an obliquely related case--shows that the court preferred to incorporate this perversion of the plain intent of the 14th amendment as an unexamined assumption rather than risk an eventual test which would unquestionably have created violent public outrage.
Given the collusion of Congress and the courts in securing legal invulnerability for the Corporate Tyranny and the principle that the only duty of corporations is maximization of profit, it was not surprising that megabanks, huge brokerage houses, giant insurance conglomerates, gilded hedge funds and the credit agencies pretending to certify their work, all engaged in massive and systemic fraud and deception for just that purpose. The result was the crash of ’08, the recession, and the stunning and unprecedented rescue and bailout of the biggest banks, investment houses, and insurance and credit conglomerates with taxpayer dollars. So much for the hallowed Invisible Hand of the Free Market…
* * *
The last decades have seen two related megatrends in American geopolitical mechanics, both with dire effects on the power of the American Myth. First, what belief the world at large had in it has been shattered by a catastrophic series of imbecile and irretrievable military failures and disasters, which has caused erosion of its efficacy at home. Second, in response to this, the State has made increasingly crude efforts to boost the Myth’s waning power by the imposition of totalitarian methods of surveillance, intimidation and coercion on the American people to a degree unprecedented in scope and scale.

The whole clanking, medieval apparatus of Homeland Security that has sprouted like an enormous poison fungus since 9/11 with its brutal police state mindset; the odious Patriot Act with its flagrant subversions of the Bill of Rights; the endless, fantasy-based terror-peddling of the prostitute corporate media with its clowns and harpies churning irrational fear and anger in the uninformed: all this grim, repressive endeavor is a concerted attempt to distract Americans from the real causes of their injury, abuse, and oppression.

And yet, even with the American Myth now totally and irreparably blown full of holes and exposed demonstrably for the tissue of lies, deceptions and frauds that it has always been, it somehow keeps its phenomenal hold on the great mass of the American people. The tragic reality is that, for the majority, their own identities have been so deeply and thoroughly infused with the myth that to disbelieve it is to disbelieve in themselves.
* * *
So the American Myth is dead, and yet it lives on in its deadness, horribly masking our crapshot economy, our bankrupt debtors prison of a society, our Ghost Dance charade of kabuki democracy, while typhoons of impending social, economic and ecological disaster build their enormous, lightning-charged thunderheads above the dark future before us.

And what is it that the dead Myth still imperfectly obscures for Americans? What is outside and beyond the opaque wall of faltering, failing dishonesty and deception? What is the horror that the shoddy, tattered Myth has so long and so effectively concealed?

It is the world that has suffered unrelieved exploitation by the violence of our imperialist mania. It is the many wrecked and pillaged economies financially looted by our imposed predatory capitalist austerity regimes. It is the teeming hundreds of millions of starved, deprived and dying children sacrificed to Wall Street commodities gaming. It is the multitudes of humble, innocent, ignorant people, barely surviving in absolutist and dictatorial regimes propped up in their barbaric cruelty by our military while our banks siphon off the profits left after arming their brutal police and armies and bribing their ruling Kings, Sheikhs or Generals. It is the millions of dead and maimed in the raped populations of simple tribal people whom our indiscriminately murderous juggernaut has left in its bloody wake in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It is the appalling legacy of hate and repulsion, disdain and fear, that America has earned with its appalling hegemonist villainy in every corner of the world.

And at home, what is it we Americans have been so complicit in hiding from ourselves in our devotion to the perverse legend that has come to inhabit our souls like a succubus?

It is the millions of us with no work and no hope in middle age whose jobs and homes have been devoured by the heartless fraud machine of Wall Street. It is the trashed and demolished weedlots of our major cities eroding in crumbling, fire-gutted ruin. It is the many towns and cities with industries shut down and factories deserted or dismantled and shipped overseas. It is our decaying, disintegrating public schools, our bankrupt states and counties, our overtaxed, antiquated public transportation systems, our obsolete, dissolving infrastructure, our bloated, irrational prisons complex, our punishing and inadequate health care disaster, and over it all, the repressive mechanism of our police state, armed and empowered, ready for use against the American people themselves.
* * *
This is where we are. The great question now is whether we as a nation can awaken from this long historic nightmare and face the terrifying and exhilarating prospect of living in the full light of reality without the false props and dishonest constructs of a hoodwinked, herded and dishonored people or, whether we have internalized the falsity and disease to such an extent that it has become an organic, overmastering form of insanity?

In 1846, Henry David Thoreau, offended to his soul by the injustice of the American government’s invasion of Mexico, protested it and went to jail for his convictions. Later, in his essay On Civil Disobedience, he said this:

“If injustice is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”

To attempt to break the hold of the American Myth will be a titanic, daunting challenge. To even begin to openly rebel against the might of the National Security State will require the courage to face much more than official disapproval and denunciation. Imperial America will not respond to even the most peaceful and orderly protest with anything less than hard police repression and the level of punishment will rise in relation to the scope and seriousness of the action undertaken.

Small protests will have no effect and will be meaningless. Organized mass events, when they occur, will draw the whole fiercely and brutally motivated National Security State apparatus down upon themselves. Americans, excepting those of our underclass who have felt it, have no experience with violent police or military repression. Those who commit peaceful civil disobedience, a first and innocent tactic of serious protest, will swiftly find out to their cost how it works. In a National Security State that has excised and eradicated all defensive laws and regulations intended to prevent abuse of the public, whatever the State does is legal. To such a pass have we in America come as a result of our long historic indoctrination in serving our financial elite, our Ruling Class.

To achieve any redemption for Americans, to make possible any more just, humane and life-honoring society, will require complete abandonment of the system of Predatory Capitalism. If offers no prospect of reform or improvement and we have all been witness to the idiocy of the so-called “democratic process” in action for generations now.

America is nearing the greatest crisis point in its history and the terrific cataclysm, when it happens, will determine the future our country is to have. If we cannot, in dominating numbers, rise to reject the heartless, mindless, soulless machine of Imperial Predatory Capitalism, we will be condemned to a fascistic command and control horror in which human beings are mere possessions of the State, units of production or service, and then perhaps not even that, as excess population in that brave, new world nay be eliminated.

That end is not inevitable. We are not lost. We are not even defeated because to this moment we have not engaged. We have not honored our responsibility as human beings. We have not risen to defend our humanity. We have let ourselves be ruled.

All around the world the thunder of vast and immeasurable discontent can be heard and felt. In Egypt and Spain, Jordan and Greece, Iraq and Sudan, Afghanistan and Ireland, Latin America, the Far East and Africa, the legitimate anger of humanity is expressing itself against the dead and killing hand of Predatory Capitalism and its agencies of violence. And here, in America, so long trapped and encapsulated, frozen like a fly in amber in a false religion of state idolatry, the anger is deep, widespread, and growing.

It is up to those who know and care to lead. As Thomas Paine said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Nothing is guaranteed us. That can’t matter. We cannot be concerned with odds or outcomes. We cannot let the Machine of Injustice grind on. We must oppose it with all the moral force we own. We must act with quiet courage to confront a vicious tyrannical system that is destroying the earth, its life, and its people. We must put our lives on the line to oppose it.

The Nightmare Machine of rapacious exploitation has overthrown humanity’s decency and reason and its bloody inhuman treason flourishes over us. This must be ended.

Let your life be a friction now to stop the Machine.

See also - The Century of the Self - How politicians and business learned to create and manipulate mass-consumer society.

As the Republican Presidential candidates focus on each other's numerous faults, America focuses on tax injustice

[Edited 1/25/12]
As most of the Republican candidates turn their inherently mean, greedy, and compassionless natures against each other during the debates, in what has become a free-for-all circus of incompetence, demonization of poor people, and back-biting, they have managed to bring the issue of tax fairness into America's living rooms. Mitt Romney has become the poster boy for how fabulously wealthy people can end up paying a lower tax rate than ordinary working people. Mitt Romney, who even though he tells us he does his own laundry, does have an estimated wealth of $190 to $250 million, and paid only about 13.9% in taxes, i.e. $3 million, on $21.7 million of unearned income in 2010. (Unearned--they got that adjective right, because the easier the work, the more you make) At least he pays more than nothing, as is the case with many corporations. His tax rate for the 2011 tax year is estimated to come in around 15.4%. The reason offered for why his rate is so low is due to the fact that most of his income is from investments (long-term capital gains), which are taxed at a 15% rate. The average person pays above 15%, some much more, when payroll taxes for medicare and Social Security are included. Newt Gingrich says he paid almost $1 million, or about 30%, on his 2010 income of roughly $3.1 million. Perhaps it is worth noting that in 1961, an individual making $200,000 or over, and a couple making $400,000 or over had a tax rate of 91%, which, even when adjusted for inflation ($200,000 in 1961=$1,504,608.70 in 2011), would still include both Romney and Gingrich.

The long-term capital gains tax rate is currently as low as it has been for at least the last 50 years. Until the George W. Bush administration, when it was lowered to 15%, it has ranged from a high around 40% to a low of 20%, and for most of the years before W, it was at, or most often above, 25%.

It is difficult however, for Newtie to criticize Romney or even to capitalize on what many people see as inherent unfairness in the tax code, because Gingrich has a 15% flat tax plan, which he now calls the Mitt Romney flat tax, and which would eliminate taxes on capital gains entirely, while cutting his own taxes in half. Then Newt will be able to keep $2.6million instead of a paltry $2.1 million on a $3.1 million income derived from influence peddling and speech making, and Mitt would pay almost nothing as a corporate raider/restructurer. Under Newtie's plan, the corporate rate would fall from its current 35% to only 12.5%, lower that the individual's flat 15%, and both corporations and the rich would reap large tax savings, while tax revenues tumble into the abyss. Fabulous ideas? Are we going to saddle the resurgence of the American Dream on the backs of the vast majority who are already seeing their share of the dream continuously shrink towards desperation? I read tonight that Obama said in his SOTU that he wants a tax plan where people making a $million or more pay at least a 30% rate, which is definitely a move in the right direction.

Romney responds to any criticism of capitalist inequality or thoughts of increasing the low tax load of the rich as "the politics of envy" and "class warfare," as if there couldn't possibly be an objective, fact based, critical analysis and thoughtful evaluation of tax fairness and our growing inequalities in wealth and opportunity between the rich, the middle class, and the poor. No, he and his class would have us believe that it's not the politics of fairness and justice, it's only "envy." He, and many Republican leaders, would have us believe that "class warfare" isn't by the rich on the poor, and isn't about the growing inequality and the increasing wealth and power of the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, but that somehow, in the face of the facts, the poor are waging war against the rich! If he thinks that listening to poor and middle class people criticizing and protesting against outrageous inequality, in a peaceful, democratic fashion is warfare, then what would he call a situation where the poor actually decided to stand up and fight?

Partly in the hope of avoiding that eventuality, some folks are turning their skills to documentary film making so as to clearly explain the situation to Americans, in the hope that once armed with the facts, they will be able to bring change through the ballot box, even in the face of the Citizen's United ruling which grants corporations and unions unlimited campaign spending.

Below are two video variations on the same theme: We're Not Broke (We're just not taxing the rich and corporations enough, like we used to when all Americans mattered!) These are followed up by an informative Democracy Now! article on the Sundance Film Festival documentary "We're Not Broke," and a blog article by Robert Reich on the effects of globalization and "a Government Overwhelmed by Corporate money."
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We're Not Broke (Documentary at Sundance Film Festival)

From Synopsis in Sundance Film Festival Film Guide:

"With the United States in the grip of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression and an unprecedented budget deficit, the conclusion that our country is broke seems unquestionable. At least that's what politicians and pundits want ordinary citizens to believe as they call for massive spending cuts.

Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce's searing exposé reveals that, strangely absent from this rhetoric, is the infuriating fact that multibillion-dollar corporations are based in the U.S., make money from American consumers, and often even receive lucrative contracts from the government, yet pay nothing in U.S. income taxes. By exploiting tax-law loopholes and spending millions on lobbyists to pressure politicians to protect their interests, corporations pocket billions while the less-connected middle class disappears, and the poor get poorer. . . . ."

Watch a short clip on Prescreen:
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Democracy Now!
As Romney Releases Tax Returns, Fmr Senate Investigator Says: We’ve Got To Start Taxing Corporations

During the GOP primary, Mitt Romney has come under fierce attack for parking millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven. We speak with Tax Justice Network USA chair Jack Blum, a former top congressional investigator of financial crimes, who says tax evasion could seriously cripple the already struggling economy. Blum appears in "We’re Not Broke," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film examines widespread corporate tax evasion in the United States and the increasing role of offshore tax havens. "Has [Romney] cheated? No," Blum says. "What he’s done is take full advantage of a system that has been structured the way it is because of political influence and a tremendous amount of lobbying money on Capitol Hill... We must not only rewrite the Internal Revenue Code, but we must get a fair contribution from the very wealthy and from corporations, and that is the only way to balance the budget."

[Link added] [Read rush transcript]
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We're Not Broke, Just Twisted: Extreme Wealth Inequality in America


Go To inequality.org
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The State of Our Disunion: A Globalizing Private Sector, A Government Overwhelmed by Corporate Money

Robert Reich

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012

. . . .
An Apple executive says “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” He might have added “and showing a big enough profits to continually increase our share price.”
. . . .
What they want in America is lower corporate taxes, less regulation, and fewer unionized workers. But none of these will bring good jobs to America. These steps may lower the costs of production here, but global companies can always find even lower costs abroad.
. . . .
Put simply, American workers are hobbled by deteriorating schools, unaffordable college tuitions, decaying infrastructure, and declining basic R&D. All of this is putting us on a glide path toward even lousier jobs and lower wages.

Get it? The strategic responsibility for making Americans more globally competitive can’t be centered in the private sector because the private sector is rapidly going global, and it’s designed to make profits rather than good jobs. The core responsibility has to be in government because government is supposed to be looking out for the public, and investing in public schools, colleges, infrastructure, and basic R&D.

But here’s the political problem. American firms have huge clout in Washington. They maintain legions of lobbyists and are pouring boatloads of money into political campaigns. After the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, there’s no limit.

Who represents the American workforce? Organized labor represents fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers and has all it can do to protect a dwindling number of unionized jobs.

Republicans like it this way, and for three decades have been trying to convince average working Americans government is their enemy. Yet corporate America isn’t their friend. Without bold government action on behalf of our workforce, good American jobs will continue to disappear.

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Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, and his most recent book, Aftershock. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes. He is also Common Cause's board chairman.

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See also:

Income inequality: Theme of 2012
By Marshall McComb
LTE, Baker City Herald
Baker City, Oregon

. . . .
But the inequality issue is not going away. Despite Republicans’ avoidance of this issue or their decrying it as “class warfare,” most of us realize that we have become a society more unequal than at any time since the 1920s. Automation, globalization, union-busting, and legalized financial abuse have drained middle-class purchasing power and stymied upward mobility. Health care and public education are in critical decline. Most of us have been left behind, while Romney and his cohorts pursue a never-ending quest for more money ... and the political power to cut their taxes even further. . . . .

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Iris Dement Wasteland Of The Free

Leading By Example and Maxwell Lake

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HOMO HYPOCRITICUS

Leading By Example: IF WE ARE EXPECTED TO COMPLY WITH ORDINANCES, WHY HAVEN’T SOME OF OUR CITY OFFICIALS ALREADY DONE SO?

In the last blog I started a new section with the heading of Homo Hypocriticus. For many years, I have noticed that humans (Homo sapiens), myself included, have a tendency to be hypocrites to one degree or another. So the intention of the new section is to point out examples of what myself or others consider hypocritical and usually unjust behavior by government or others.

In This Article:
Background on New Nuisance and Sidewalk Ordinance Issues
August 14th Council Meeting
Sampling of Properties belonging to Councilors or government officials

My Street in Baker City, Oregon. We don’t have sidewalks and we are fine with that.

Background

Recently, there has been a flurry of articles, an editorial, and one letter in the local papers related to a new initiative by the City Council and City staff to begin enforcing local nuisance and safety ordinances. These include those dealing with sidewalk maintenance, and most of these ordinances have been ignored for years, if not decades. The initiative, announced by City Manager Steve Brocato on August 1st, and reported in local papers, said the city “will get more aggressive in enforcing ordinances that prohibit “nuisances” on their property,” including “weeds, trash and dilapidated vehicles.” (Herald/Jacoby/8-2-07) City Manager Steve Brocato asked residents to turn themselves in as violators by calling the City’s planning director, Evan MacKenzie, by Aug. 31, and the city would work with them. (Ibid.) The Record-Courier reported similarly about “voluntary compliance” on August 9th and said that “A nuisance property is characterized by large amounts of materials not necessary or typical for residential use and not kept within an enclosed structure.” (I thought Baker City was the "Premier Rural Experience.") They also reported that those not approaching the City by August 31 would be subject to fines of $500.00 for each violation they find and an additional $500.00 for each day that the violation is allowed to continue. According to the Record-Courier, “After the grace period, the City will start aggressively pursuing enforcement of nuisance properties.”

Let me say out front that short of real, as opposed to imagined, safety issues and crime problems, including dogs running loose, I generally don’t care what people do with their property. I don’t care if your sidewalk is crumbling or whether you have one or not. I don’t want one and can’t afford one. I moved to the area on the west side of the tracks because it provided opportunities, as well as room, for animals, firewood processing, vehicles, gardens, etc. My house is old and I’m not in to trimming hedges, but the roof is new and the place is fine for me. I could see the condition of properties in my neighborhood and decided I could live with that and, in fact, that it fit in with the way I wanted to live. What other people consider visual nuisances just doesn’t offend me that much. Too me, the way we live in much of Baker City is related to the rural experience that our City is suppose to cherish. If someone is obsessive/compulsive about order and tidiness, then they need to go somewhere else, like north Elm Street, the subdivisions around the golf course, or Portland.

In the past, the policy on ordinance enforcement was to respond to complaints only. For example, the council minutes for Sept. 26, 2006 say “The Police Department normally enforces the [abandoned vehicles] ordinance only in response to complaints from members of the public.” Then in May or June, allegedly due to police overtime issues related to training time, the City decided to hire a new police officer and part-time evidence room clerk. Turns out that the new officer and clerk will enable the community service officer to “look for violations as well” on a full time basis (Herald/Jacoby/8-2-07). The problem I have with this approach is the abruptness of the change from little or no enforcement to what may be “aggressive” enforcement in such an abrupt manner and without any period of public input and discussion.

On August 3, 2007, the Herald printed a letter (the Herald doesn’t print all the letters sent to them even when they comply with all their nit-picky requirements, just the ones they arbitrarily choose to print) from a newbie to Eastern Oregon claiming that “Baker City is the dirtiest town I have ever lived in.” The gentleman had spent 20 years immersed in the spit-and–polish of the US Navy, and perhaps his mother never let him play in the dirt, so now he wants us to change our ways and “clean up Baker City.” It seems that when people come to a new place to live that they always want to make it like the place they came from. Change is fine if is based in actual safety or sustainability issues, but I don’t think people ought to be able to impose their subjective tastes on others. He suggested that “You folks as civic leaders need to get in your cars or better yet, go for a walk and just look around,” but even many of the “civic leaders” pushing this campaign are not from Baker City originally. They are for the most part pretty well off too. Several of our Councilors have rental and other property investments in town. Almost all are business people hoping to attract additional business to Baker City. (Dare I say we are run by a business cabal?) They, like a lot of new people who hale from more urban areas, may have a problem with our “dirty little secret.” The class and economic dimensions of this issue are deliberately obscured and ignored, but they are right under the surface

The Herald followed up with an editorial on August 8th reminding us that we have “blemishes,” and applauding the fact that “Brocato intends to change that.” (Given the light punishment meted out by the City to an actual criminal City employee, I guess the Herald was happy to see him go after somebody.) They decry a situation where residents might have to live next to people who have “water that harbors disease-spreading mosquitoes.” Uh huh. I’ve been waiting for over a year for the Herald to suggest a change in county irrigating practices to lessen our exposure to the dangers of mosquitoes spreading deadly West Nile virus, most of whom come from irrigated fields and sloughs, and not the tires and bird baths in your back yards, but City residents who are subject to the winged onslaught don’t seem to be able to match the political power of ranchers and farmers. Instead of seeing a change in irrigation practices, residents just get to help pay for combating the disease bearing mosquitoes the ranchers and farmers help create. A human life or two now and again isn’t too much to pay to maintain the status quo for agriculture. Besides, we have bigger problems to fight, like that inoperable vehicle in your back yard or your buckled sidewalk.

Finally, on August 13, the day prior to the last City Council meeting, the Herald ran an article entitled “City’s next step: the sidewalks” describing how the City has decided to start enforcing the old sidewalk ordinance which requires homeowners adjacent to dilapidated sidewalks to fix them. A City employee is said to have brought the attention of the City staff to a badly buckled sidewalk on Balm Street. In our "Tree City," many sidewalks become lifted and damaged by tree roots. Some thought that we had gotten used to it. What a convenient coincidence that a City employee brought a bad sidewalk to the attention of the City just when City Attorney Fine was preparing to present his new sidewalk ordinance! Given that there are many instances of buckled and dilapidated sidewalks in town, given the ominous title to the article of “City’s next step,” (Yikes, what is this Council going to do to us next?), and given my knowledge of other inconsistent enforcement, I decided to go to last Tuesday night's Council meeting.

Mayor, Jeff “You’re Out Of Order” Petry,
Checking to see if he had washed behind his ears.

After they blew off Steve Culley’s request to get on the agenda to discuss a $5000 donation in defense of immigration reform, and after another citizen asked for special dispensation for Gentry Ford’s continuing violations of an ordinance, apparently regarding their parking vehicles on the sidewalk, I spoke to the Council about my concerns. (The citizen’s participation section of the meeting is normally given short shrift by the Herald, and this meeting was no exception.)

I told them I had concerns that their recent ordinance enforcement endeavors (crackdown) had the potential to become a class war on the poor as many people in town, who may be in violation, are low-income residents and may lack the resources to respond to the City’s demands. I mean, what with all the publicity and the full-time enforcement officer, they are only going to encourage the Nuisance Nazis, often the well off, to proceed with their vendettas against people who live differently than themselves. It will be like it always has. People make a choice to move to a place where things are not as they like and then they unleash their barrage of complaints. They didn’t have to move in next to a poor person, but they did, and now they want the city to do something about their newly acquired nuisance neighbor. They didn’t have to move into “the dirtiest town,” but they did, and now they are going to help us become decent, civilized human beings by making us live like them. They don’t know that one person’s nuisance is another person’s treasure. They have never been poor, or they don't remember, and they don’t have the experience or imagination to develop the necessary empathy. They are a threat to the poor and others who want to live and let live.

I told the City Council that the Herald’s “next step” headline suggested that there is a plan broader than that which has thus far been discussed publicly and that the citizens of Baker City had a right to know what it is and to have input (early input I would think). Ultimately, it came out that City Attorney David Fine has plans to submit over 12 “modernized” or new ordinances to the City Council in the coming months, so hang onto your hat.

One positive note was that Councilor Bev Calder also believed that the City needed to take a less punitive approach with “fewer sticks and more carrots.”

Finally I asked the City Council to take responsibility for what is happening to us. Many of us had thought that the new City Council would be different, but it now looks like the kinder, gentler new boss, is the same as the old boss, except perhaps worse. Perhaps we need to shorten the terms of Councilors to two years so that we can limit the damage done if they go off on an authoritarian tangent.

Speaking of responsibility, I noted that transferring Council’s traditional responsibility to staff, as happened later in the meeting, had the effect of actually diffusing responsibility and making no one accountable to the public. Later during discussion of the public contracting rules, Councilor Calder worried that the transfer of the Council’s traditional responsibility to staff would leave them with little to do at meetings and could lead to less transparency in local government. I agree.

Finally, discussion turned to the Balm Street sidewalk issue and the new sidewalk ordinance.

One important fact that came to light is that no one could recall the last time they received a complaint about sidewalks. That might have put a damper on all the hoopla about a sidewalk problem, but thankfully the City employee came forward with a complaint to get the ball rolling.

The individual who was being required to fix their sidewalk by the City stated that she felt she was being “made an example of” and “singled out” because the whole street has many areas of dilapidated sidewalks. It seemed like Sam Bass agreed as he noted there were numerous instances of dilapidated sidewalks in town. He said there is a 4-inch drop in the sidewalk right next to the subject property. Further down in this blog will be examples of instances where City officials themselves could have been the example used for broken sidewalks but it might have been too messy to point out their deficiencies. Better pick on people in the low-income section of town. The whole situation is perfect for the powerful to abuse, through selective prosecution, those they dislike or disagree with.

Among other things, Calder thought they the City needs to take a holistic approach to the problem and revisit the whole policy question regarding sidewalks. She thought proceeding with this complaint and with the new sidewalk ordinance being presented by City Attorney Fine was like “putting the cart before the horse.”

Councilor Bryan noted that Boise has a fund which provides up to 25% of the cost for repairing broken-down sidewalks and he was amenable to discussing alternatives, including Baker City allowing residents to remove crumbling sidewalks if they wished. Given that Attorney Fine and others, including myself, see sidewalks, where they exist, as a public asset, perhaps we could agree to have the city help fund all or part of sidewalk repair and maintenance.

Interestingly, given the condition of sidewalks at one of his properties, Steve Brocato said that “if somebody trips . . . we got an issue” and that the new ordinance would “give us … authority to proceed on this before somebody gets hurt.” The Herald reported that he said it is the City's responsibility to make sure dangerous sidewalks get fixed if they are aware of them (paraphrasing Herald/Jacoby/8-15-07).

Councilor Schumacher said that there are more places without sidewalks than with sidewalks. He thought that the “way our whole city looks as far as sidewalks” is “atrocious.” He didn’t think that it was fair that some had to fix sidewalks and others don’t have to put one in. “We have a city-wide problem and we need to say we need sidewalks on all developed streets in the City limits of Baker. I think it is unfair to make someone maintain a sidewalk that they put the expense to put in without saying look, you don’t have a sidewalk, he needs to get one put in. I think that you gotta be fair both ways and there are a lot of places that we should have sidewalks in this town and it’s not right that people go down a sidewalk and then have to walk out in the middle of the street because there is no sidewalk.” Hear that Commissioner Warner? (Commissioner Warner has a curb but no sidewalk.) Please note that Mr. Schumacher’s plan would not require him to install sidewalks at his property on Carter Street or at his property on Vista Heights Drive. He already has one, such as it is, at Crown Courtyard.

Well, I’m not a “civic leader,” but I decided to take the advice of the crusading new resident who just retired here and “just look around” a bit to see how bad our nuisance and sidewalk situation has become. Before starting my survey, I went to the Assessor’s property search page at http://www.bakercounty.org/Assessor/Assessor_Search.html and looked up some of the property addresses of those on the Council and a few of the City staff. I was really surprised at what I saw when I visited some of their properties.

I didn’t visit Gail Duman’s house because she is in a new development with new curbs and sidewalks, and she doesn’t have other properties here except her store on Main, where the sidewalks are kept up. Neither did I look for Sam Bass because I couldn’t be sure where he lived given the records available and I simply don’t have time to locate his home. I think he lives over on my side of town and probably doesn’t have sidewalks but I don’t have a lot to base that guess on.

After passing a well kept rental (?) of Dennis Dorrah’s on 13th Street, I drove on to a home owned by Terry Schumacher at 2790 Carter Street. Someone else is living there. This is what I found:

2790 Carter Street

Note that the street is gravel and that there are no sidewalks or curbs, so I guess Mr. Schumacher doesn’t think they are that important. I counted 12 or so vehicles in various stages of repair in addition to assorted trailers, boats and the like. Any nuisance violations here? As owner of the house, Mr. Schumacher is ultimately responsible for the condition of the property. Where has he been? Contrast this house with a home (just below) he owns on Vista Heights Drive.

Schumacher’s Vista Heights Drive Home

This picture above is of the rough curb cut (and edges to trip on around fire hydrant) on the corner adjacent to Mr. Schumacher’s “Crown Courtyard" bed and breakfast. Is this curb cut convenient for wheel chairs? Could you trip on the walk or edges around the hydrant?

Another home I visited was a rental owned by City Manager Steve Brocato at 1805 3rd. Street.

Steve Brocato's 3rd Street Rental
Sidewalk to left of house is buckled in places

Buckled Sidewalk at City Managers 3rd Street Rental

The displacement measured 6 inches from the bottom of one section to the top of the other or 4 inches from top to top. This is comparable to the buckled sidewalk on Balm Street that the city decided needed to be repaired. There are other problems with this sidewalk as well (pictures on request).

Another area of buckled sidewalks is in one of my favorite blocks: the 1700 block of 4th Street. The trees cause the problem but thats how big, beautiful old trees get along with sidewalks. A city employee passed right by when I was taking the photos but didn’t stop to investigate.

1700 Block of 4th Street

With these problems so close to City Hall, you have to wonder why they reported the problem on Balm Street.

Another problem might be the vacant house and deteriorating sidewalk owned by Councilor Dennis Dorrah on the S.W. corner of 3rd and Campbell.

Empty House on 3rd Street Belonging to Councilor Dorrah

According to the neighbor, this home has been vacant for over 8 years. Note dead lawn and junk on the porch. Another Dorrah’s property at 1116 Resort is well taken care of and has a curb but no sidewalk. Is there a sidewalk in Mr. Dorrah’s future? His property on 13th is also well taken care of and has a gravel street with no curb or sidewalk.

Sidewalk Problems at Dorrah House on 3rd St.

Below is the well kept home of Commissioner Warner. Note the curb, but no sidewalk. If Councilor Shumacher has his way, there will be a sidewalk in Commissioner Warner’s future as well.

Warner Home

Both Baker Garage and Gentry Ford routinely block all or a portion of the sidewalk and parkway at their businesses (Below). Why is this allowed if it is a violation of City ordinance?

Baker Garage: New Cars on Washington Street

The sidewalk below is adjacent to a rental that the Assessor’s office says is owned by District Attorney Matt Shirtcliff at 2845 2nd Street.

Sidewalk that Matt Shirtcliff is responsible for maintaining at 2845 2nd Street

Some Businesses also don’t do such a great job maintaining their sidewalks. The picture below is behind the Geiser Grand Hotel on Resort Street. There are other examples nearby. Oh, and is a dumptster and garbage on the public sidewalk LESS offensive that an inoperable vehicle tucked away on someone’s private property?

Geiser Grand Sidewalk

Mayor Petry, a broker and developer, owns the single family hotel at the end of the long drive in the picture below. No curbs or sidewalks for him to worry about as far as I can see.

Mayor Petry's Home and Drive

Below is the crumbling but serviceable sidewalk at a home owned by Andrew Bryan at 2250 4th Street. Although he voted to accept the first reading of the new sidewalk ordinance, at least Mr. Bryan seems comfortable with addressing the problem through various avenues and rethinking policy rather than simply strict enforcement.

Andrew Bryan’s Sidewalk

And finally, below are pictures of an old unoccupied church/rehab facility at 1620 Valley Street which is owned by Beverly Calder. The two lower front windows are broken, with the glass exposed, and there is an open window on the left side where the plywood is not secured in a way to prevent entry. Is this building an attractive nuisance and do you find its state of disrepair pleasing? I noted a lot of children in the neighborhood, including next door and across the street.

Councilor Calder's Empty Church/Rehab Facility

I personally don't have a problem with most of the situations described above. What is troubling is to see the City begin enforcement proceedings with one of the ordinances they have announced they intend to enforce at the same time that they themselves don't seem to be taking various ordinances seriously enough to apply them to their own situations or to businesses that appear to violate them.

The problem of inconsistency also rears its ugly head in other areas of enforcement. For example, the city received a complaint from someone in the vicinity of the new development on Elm Street that a weeping willow on Grove Street was blocking vision to the north as vehicles approached an intersection from the east. The willow didn’t extend into the street mind you, it just blocked vision up the street as one approached and people would have to slow down, as at any blind intersection. On the basis of this one person’s complaint, he landowner was sent a threatening letter by the City telling the owner to cut the branches so that people could see up the street as they approached. Placing a stop sign at the intersection apparently didn't occur to the City. The cutting was done, and the second time required more or less ruining the aesthetics of the tree. See picture below.

Grove Street Willow
Note lower branches, especially on street side, are whacked off

Compare this situation with the visibility on 1st Street in the downtown historic district where the City has allowed diagonal parking to be instituted. (Below) The vehicles extend far into the street and there is more traffic here than up on Grove.

1st Street Parking Obstructs Vision

Which is worse? To cross 1st Street you have to very carefull edge the nose of the vehicle out into the center of the street all the while hoping that no one is coming down that lane above 15 or so MPH. Why does the City encourage a dangerous obstruction of vision downtown while requiring a residential landowner to alleviate a much less serious situation by mangling a tree that doesn't extend out into the street?

As I wrote previously, I don’t have a problem with the way different groups of people choose to live, but after finishing the tour of properties, the big question in my mind is why is the City coming after us if they haven’t even addressed the problems in their own back yards? Why go out to Balm Street when you could just use the City Manager’s rental as an example? Why criminalize the lifestyles of the poor and low income people? People look for consistency in the application of the law and they deserve equal protection. Lets get that right before we go off persecuting people in what often seems to be an arbitrary and class-based manner.
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Maxwell Lake

Maxwell Lake

A lot of people come this area to be close to the Elkhorns and the Eagle Caps, myself included. Little did I know that while you could get to a lake around 7,000 feet with little effort in the Elkhorns, getting there in the Eagle Caps was a whole different matter. Many of the hikes to alpine and sub-alpine lakes in the latter range requires not just that you be in shape (or have a horse), but that you spend a day or three or more backpacking in the wilderness.

Well, I can't tell you how gratified I was to discover two weeks ago that you can hike to one of those beautiful lakes in a few hours and return to your camp or car on the same day. That lake is Maxwell Lake, which sits almost 2500 feet above the trailhead on the Lostine River in Wallowa County.

You can reach the trailhead or the Shady Campground by traveling the Lostine River Road south from the town of Lostine for about 16 miles. The trailhead is on the left and the campground is by the river on the right. The lake is approximately 3.8 miles from the trailhead. The trail is moderate initially because you are going up a steep slope along a series of switchbacks. About two thirds or three fourths of the way up the mountain the trail becomes rougher, deeper, and unfortunately, quite a bit steeper. I took my time and took short breaks or stopped to photograph things at fairly regular intervals, but still did it in 3.5 hours. Experienced hikers who are in good shape could probably do it in 2.5 to 3 hours with no problem. When you arrive at the lake you will be at about 7,750 feet.

My hike was on August 7, but I would recommend mid-July or so for more wildflowers. June if you want the early bloomers. Along the way, the trail alternates between dense forest and open meadows, all on steep slopes, with one stream at the beginning and a few streamlets thereafter. I saw some of the late blooming flowers, deer, Clark’s nutcrackers, chipping sparrows, juncos, other unidentified birds, chipmunks and ground squirrels--not much out of the ordinary really. It was extremely dry so there was no shortage of dust along the way, but the lake was beautiful.

I must finish this blog soon so I will quickly show you just a few of the things I saw. The asters have had their names changed recently, so if you have to know the most recent scientific name, you can look it up ( http://plants.usda.gov/ ). Ok, Ok, I'll give both names.

At the lower elevations especially (around 6500 to 7000 feet) you can find a common aster called Aster foliaceus var. foliaceus (Symphotrichium foliaceum) that is not hairy or glandular, has pink ray flowers, leafy-like involucres, and clasping leaves.

Aster foliaceus

Usually at higher elevations you will encounter Aster integrifolius (Eurbia integrifolia). It differs from the former primarily by having some glandular stems and peduncles with a purplish pink flower. It is usually not as tall either.

Aster integrifolius

Up over 7,o00 feet you will find Hypericum formosun var. nortoniae, or western St. John's wort. A European species of St. John's wort is used to treat depression.

Hypericum formosum var nortoniae

Also at around this elevation you begin to encounter a sure sign of the coming end to summer, Gentiana calycosa, or explorer's gentian. It will be with you all the way to the lake's shore.

Gentiana calycosa

Lastly, among the other flowers you will find, such as Wallowa Indian paintbrush, is a very special member of the Saxifrage family called Parnassia fimbriata, or fringed grass of parnassus.

Parnassia fimbriata

When ever you are able to do this hike, early spring, late fall and winter excepted, and even though it can be physically draining, I am sure that you will not regret or forget it. Be sure to wear boots and appropriate clothing, take some food and water, and stop often to smell the wild flowers and take in the views.

Maxwell Lake