Historically, progressives were seen as partisans for the people, eager to help the working and middle classes achieve upward mobility even at expense of the ultrarich. But in California, and much of the country, progressivism has morphed into a political movement that, more often than not, effectively squelches the aspirations of the majority, in large part to serve the interests of the wealthiest.
Primarily, this modern-day program of class warfare is carried out under the banner of green politics...Before we go on, let me note a few things: First, this author, Joel Kotkin, is an alleged urbanist who seems to hate city people: Some years ago he was predicting that sad, city-bound blue states would wither and die while the fecund, corn-fed red-staters would rise to rule.
He's still at it, though in a grumpier and more defensive tone, telling readers that everyone's running screaming from California because it's so horrible and green. The population's only rising a little, so soon you Left Coast hippies will be eating the dust of population gainers like Washington, D.C. -- whoops, we mean North Carolina -- um, still not quite the idea -- ah, yes, here we go: North Dakota, the new Republican paradise, thanks to fracking no long settled exclusively by people on the run from society/the law!
Yet in real life, Cali's political health is vastly improved under Jerry Brown. After the disastrous tenure of Rainier Wolfcastle, Brown engineered a budget surplus and the business interests are happy. He's also merrily passing liberal social policies and telling Republicans to go call a cop if they don't like it.
And it appears the state is with him: He not only gets decent approval numbers for himself -- currently he's at 49% -- he has also managed to get them for tax-hikes-to-pay-for-shit-we-need, which is something Republicans regularly tell us can't ever happen as long as there's one pauper to take food stamps away from instead.
Does Kotkin acknowledge this? Sort of:
Sadly, the opposition to these policies is very weak. The California Chamber of Commerce is a fading force and the state Republican Party has degenerated into a political rump. Business Democrats, tied to the traditional industrial and agricultural base, have become nearly extinct, as the social media oligarchs and other parts of the green gentry, along with the public employee lobby, increasingly dominate the party of the people.Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed! Inevitably comes the tear-stained, fist-shaking you'll-be-sorry story, of the sort we saw when Bill di Blasio won:
This may constitute an ideal green future — with lower emissions, population growth and family formation — for whose wealth and privilege allow them to place a bigger priority on nature than humanity. But it also means the effective end of the California dream that brought multitudes to our state, but who now may have to choose between permanent serfdom or leaving for less ideal, but more promising, pastures.You fools are throwing away a great opportunity to become North Dakota on the Pacific! Sure, the creative destruction that comes with fracking is having some unfortunate social effects in ND, but least they're not serfs! Enjoy your world-class culture, dining, and enslavement, San Francisco parasites!
Really, this kind of thing will make sense when Love Canal becomes a tourist attraction.
I think it's pretty generous to call Kotkin an urbanist; he's an outright suburbanist, dismissing cities like New York as being unworkably archaic and demanding we tear up train tracks and bike lanes to fit more cars.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia has become expensive not because we don't allow real estate developers to tear up green spaces to make housing, but because we did, for a long time, and still do. If Kotkin is going to look to the free market to adjust prices, he needs to understand the difference between elastic demand (for stuff we like, but don't need) and inelastic demand (staple foods, shelter, medical care). Building subdivisions full of micro-mansions does not bring housing prices down--when the real estate bubble burst, please note that homes were simply take off the market and left empty by banks and finance agencies.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the idea that dipshits chasing The Next Thing That Will Make Us All Rich won't be coming to California does give me a warm feeling.
Kotkin is right that nobody would ever want to live in California if it had a superior education system, an enlightened environmental policy, and an atmosphere that encouraged innovation and invention.[/snark]
ReplyDeleteI know these idiots wish the '60s had never happened, but you'd think he'd at least remember the tidal waves of people who moved to California precisely because of its forward-looking attitudes on all of these things. OTOH, he's probably assuming (correctly) that his readers don't remember any of that either.
Malibu? Malibu as a "green regime"? Malibu is NIMBY heaven, but not for reasons of environmentalism - they just want to keep the Coastal Commission riff-raff from impinging on their private golf courses.
ReplyDeleteNot just that - there's plenty of cheap housing and real estate to be had in California. The problem is that it's all in the form of shoddily constructed houses built in brand-new developments on the outer ring of terrible inland cities, with no amenities and a zillion miles from the jobs. Plenty of California Dream available at a reasonable price just outside of Barstow or San Bernadino or Fresno, complete with a right-of-center political culture. But for some mysterious reason, people flock like lemmings to pay $2200/mo for a studio apartment in Santa Monica or San Francisco. Huh.
ReplyDeleteWe were just outside of Barstow when the low mortgage rate kicked in.
ReplyDeleteHe was taken off or fired from the LA Times, the same LA Times that still runs the Cheetos-stained ramblings of the Pasty Doughboy every week. That's how out of the mainstream he is, too wingnutty for the LAT.
ReplyDeletePrimarily, this modern-day program of class warfare is carried out under the banner of green politics...
ReplyDeleteYeah, the poor want those higher asthma and cancer rates!
This may constitute an ideal green future — with lower emissions, population growth and family formation — for whose wealth and privilege allow them to place a bigger priority on nature than humanity.
ReplyDeleteI have never understood the view that humans are not a part of the natural world. Last time I checked, I was an animal, and thus subject to poisons and pathogens.
And die you shall!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing this in Nichol Williamson's voice.
There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of a breathable air binge.
ReplyDeletePieces like this are really why I'm calling for Wingnut Welfare Reform. It's for their own good. It's just bizarre that someone can write — and mean: But in California, and much of the country, progressivism has morphed into a political movement that, more often than not, effectively squelches the aspirations of the majority, in large part to serve the interests of the wealthiest.
ReplyDeleteIt's objectively wrong. I mean, yes, Obama is clearly comfortable with the plutocracy, but in no way is progressivism "squelching" the majority, it IS the majority. It even won a few million more votes in the House than the GOP. It has done the near-impossible in California, capturing a super-majority in the Legislature, which, of course, puts "the social media oligarchs and other parts of the green gentry, along with the public employee lobby, increasingly dominate the party of the people." in an awkward position. I mean the "party of the people" is speaking loud and clear in California -- and the people fucking hate Republicans.
Respiration is theft!
ReplyDeleteParticularly damaging are steps to impose mandates for renewable energy that have made electricity prices in California among the highest in the nation
ReplyDeleteSo he's trying to pin the debacle of deregulation and subsequent market manipulation on solar power and green energy initiatives. Uh huh.
Similarly, high energy prices may not be much of a problem for the affluent gentry most heavily concentrated along the coast, where a temperate climate reduces the need for air-conditioning. In contrast, most working- and middle-class Californians who live further inland, where summers can often be extremely hot, and often dread their monthly energy bills.
Strange that an entire column devoted to describing energy usage which differ by regional climate (duh) as "CLASS WARFARE!" would fail to mention this signature piece of legislation which is less than four weeks old:
The governor Monday signed AB 327 by Assemblyman Henry T. Perea (D-Fresno), authorizing the state Public Utilities Commission to come up with a new formula aimed at lowering electric bills for people living in hot hinterlands, such as the Inland Empire, Central Valley and high desert, while raising them for those in the more moderate coastal climes.
Not only does this law subsidize the energy bills for residents of hotter climes, it lifts the caps on solar net metering so that the afflicted peasants who've been shunted to the Central Valley by millions of pushy movie directors and gay art gallery owners can now sell as much electricity back to the utilities as they want. Either Mr. Fake Populist isn't very familiar with actual energy policy in CA or he is being willfully obtuse and ignoring legislation conceived of, passed, and signed by Democrats that seeks to achieve the very goals he has in mind.
"This may constitute an ideal green future — with lower emissions,
ReplyDeletepopulation growth and family formation — for whose wealth and privilege
allow them to place a bigger priority on nature than humanity. But it
also means the effective end of the California dream that brought
multitudes to our state, but who now may have to choose between
permanent serfdom or leaving for less ideal, but more promising,
pastures."
This no doubt explains why the recent Beach Boys 50th anniversary tour was such a box office failure. :-)
progressivism has morphed into a political movement that, more often
ReplyDeletethan not, effectively squelches the aspirations of the majority, in
large part to serve the interests of the wealthiest
Thank God environmental degradation never affects poor folks.
The lack of safety regulations governing that plant mean you're FREE.
ReplyDeleteGod dammit, I was in a pretty good mood until you reminded me that Camille Paglia exists.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the idea that dipshits chasing The Next Thing That Will Make Us All Rich won't be coming to California does give me a warm feeling.
ReplyDeleteSaid dipshits appeared to be converging in droves on Arizona prior to the real estate bubble burst, chasing those large swaths of land that they could turn into exurban hellholes. I remember reading a sob story in the NYT about a dude who invested heavily in the Arizona real estate grab and was now sitting on a bunch of land that nobody wanted, and feeling a marked lack of sympathy.
What are those kind of folk up to these days?
The problem is that it's all in the form of shoddily constructed houses
ReplyDeletebuilt in brand-new developments on the outer ring of terrible inland
cities, with no amenities and a zillion miles from the jobs
I used to work in a downtown(ish) Atlanta office. Many of my coworkers bought houses way the fuck out in the suburbs (because urban Atlanta is full of neg-ahem, unsavory characters, donchaknow) and then spent every day whining about their 90-minute-one-way commute. My sympathy level: negative ten.
He's trying so hard to do class consciousness, but all he can muster is patent absurdities like, "Yeah well, clean air is great and all, for those who can afford to breathe it."
ReplyDeleteAnd what good is good health, anyway, iff'n y'all don't have a job down at the refinery.
ReplyDeleteAn git yore filthy beaner hands off'n that chain saw!!11
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, that's a big part of the Old Perfesser's routine - gleefully citing stories about people being driven out of NYC because of the crushingly high cost of living as proof that New York is dying before our eyes, without quite figuring out that NYC has skyrocketing costs of living because so many people WANT to live there and are willing to pay $2000/mo to live in an unheated half-closet.
ReplyDeleteWhat, you don't want to move to the stunning metropolis that is Knoxville, Tennessee? Heh indoodily!
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that Gov Brown OK'd fracking in CA. Why? I think he's running for president in '16.
ReplyDeleteDon'tcha love how the men who would eradicate the middle class are always warning us that it's their opponents who will reduce us to "serfdom"?
ReplyDeleteWhen air literally becomes a private holding that you have to pay to breathe, he'll be all for it.
ReplyDeleteStill gasping for breath. Tell it to me again. A wingnut typist is WARNING us about some Democrat leading us into "permanent serfdom?"
ReplyDeletePardon my internal record scratching noise, but wasn't this idea the central campaign promise, i.e., the new shining city on the hill, circa Romney/Ryan 2012?
I voted for de Blasio but to hell with mitigating obscene inequality or creating affordable housing or any of that. Now I just want him to push whatever color policies it takes to get vast numbers of right-wing Republicans and libertarian dweebs to move to a Dakota, any Dakota. I won't even mind the clean air and other green stuff if it gets them leave en masse. Kotkin did, right?
ReplyDeleteI read that as "My sympathy level: negative TAN."
ReplyDeleteI think to him "Green" policies are "greens" policies--i.e. some kind of gated community for the wealthiest where absurdities like clean and green cleansers take the place of carbolic acid or we are encouraged to use rags instead of paper goods. Instead of overall regulations and policies that make it possible for more people to live safely and healthily in smaller spaces with wider natural/shared spaces.
ReplyDelete"Lower...family formation?" Green-ness takes the blame for the crushing burden imposed on young people by a cratered economy?
ReplyDeleteIt's always on their minds.
ReplyDeleteBut it also means the effective end of the California dream that brought
ReplyDeletemultitudes to our state, but who now may have to choose between
permanent serfdom or leaving for less ideal, but more promising,
pastures.
history, how does that work?
You know we're goin' to Serf City, gonna have some fun...
ReplyDeleteHey! We've got more than enough right-wingers here in South Dakota already. Can't we create a floating libertarian paradise instead, and set them all adrift on it?
ReplyDeleteTranslation: "Al Gore is a fat hypocrite, because I said so."
ReplyDeleteFwoar. Two years in Knoxville was more than enough*. I went back once 16 years later...and absolutely nothing had improved.
ReplyDelete* I do live in one of the less posh inland suburbs are others are dissing. But in a half hour, I am in Napa Valley. So, it is fine. :) Plus, the weather even inland still beats glorious North Dakota!
Nah. What he is talking about is the dipshits who are solving such epic FirstWorld problems as the terrible chore of pulling a credit card out of one's wallet. Our new industrialists now are making a "fortune" by allowing people to vaguely wave a cell phone towards the cashier. Another software mogul was eagerly solving the horrific crisis created when one calls a telephone and has to listen to rings! Well they can now listen to snippets of music! San Francisco is now FULL of theese moderne day Andrew Carnegies solving true epic problems!
ReplyDelete