Jindal did not explicitly take a side on the debt deal or offer a specific policy solution, but he seemed to give the tea party Republicans a nod when he said, "I've learned in politics that it pays to be stubborn and stick to your guns," even though "nothing will make you more popular with the editorialists and intelligentsia than compromise."
The governor, himself a former congressman, told an approving audience that Washington "could learn a lesson" from the states, where he said, "We balance our budgets. We make the hard choices." He mocked "smart guys who say the solution to our debt is more debt."
Jindal did not mention that 49 state constitutions, including Louisiana's, require balanced budgets, giving legislatures and governors no choice. The governor also did not acknowledge that he and his fellow governors have used hundreds of billions of dollars in federal stimulus spending, signed by Obama, to balance state budgets in recent years, averting extensive public employee layoffs and suspension of services. In the process, Jindal at least once has angered the most conservative Louisiana lawmakers by compromising with the more liberal Senate to avert steeper cuts, even with the federal aid.
Kudos to Times-Picayune reporter Bill Barrow, by the way, for immediately pointing out the glaring hypocrisy present in Jindal's statements. I might have spent too much time fixated on the mindbending paradox image of our "whiz kid" governor "mocking" the "smart guys."
Less remarked upon by this story is the organization hosting Jindal's remarks. Jindal was speaking to the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) conference at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street. ALEC is a several decades old nonprofit which brings together corporate lobbyists and state legislators from around the country to draft "model legislation" fit to address various conservative causes. It's basically where your rightish leaning state lawmakers go each year to receive their annual marching orders. And so, given the increasing dominance of state politics by more and more extreme "Tea Party" type Republicans, the ALEC agenda is a good place to go for a read on what's coming down the pipe on your local legislative docket over the next year.
For example, this past year's resistance movements that have made headlines in Ohio and Wisconsin are largely a reaction to anti-labor initiatives based on ALEC model legislation. Thanks, in part, to those profile-raising conflicts and also to an 800 "model bill" leak recently exposed by the Center for Media and Democracy, more and more people are watching ALEC lately. Before their arrival this week, The Daily Kingfish, referring to them perhaps in too limited a term as a "Tea Party conference", highlighted the fact that Louisiana taxpayers are contributing approximately $50,000 to cover their legislators' costs for attending this year. Pro Publica has produced a concise and highly useful "Guide to Understanding ALEC’s Influence on Your State Laws" including a searchable database that matches the campaign contributions of ALEC affiliated corporate entities to member legislators. This is a tool anyone who covers politics can use to do basically paint-by-numbers research on who is operating the levers of power. Again we have to recognize Times-Picayune reporter Bill Barrow for demonstrating just how easy this is to talk about on Thursday.
In Louisiana, Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, roughly followed an ALEC model for a bill to declare the Obama health plan void in Louisiana. Rep. Tony Ligi, R-Metairie, did the same for a bill to force into open session labor negotiations with public employee unions. Several ALEC models have emerged on the education front, including new tax breaks for private school tuition payments.
Of far more ambiguous use, however, is the nascent cottage industry in mobilizing "activist" groups to march in the streets in "protest" of what is basically a lobbying event, albeit a shameful and corrupt lobbying event partially supported by taxpayers. Unfortunately, this past Friday afternoon, the few of us who happened to be tooling around downtown New Orleans were treated to just such a spectacle.
Organized by Cincinnati based political operative and Karl Rove look alike Adam Stant, a group of mostly out-of-state hippie dippie types gathered in front of the Boggs building on Poydras street to hand one another literature, wear goofy outfits, and listen to the obligatory acoustic guitar folk singer guy who always shows up at these things.
While the crowd numbered in the mid-tens, I counted at least four bucket-drums, three megaphones, one feather hat, one inflatable dolphin, about 10 bicycles and one dog. Oh and copious angry signage.
Basically all the accoutrements of embarrassing hippie bullshit were present and accounted for.
And then there were the speeches. This is where the real problem with events like this manifests itself. While I don't doubt that many who organize or participate in protest marches do so because they have a genuine interest in drawing attention to whatever they're out railing against, they're almost always outnumbered or overshadowed by people who prioritize drawing attention to themselves over anything else. And it's the attention whores who invariably end up neutralizing the entire exercise either through their personal misunderstanding of the crucial issue or their intentional decision to inject all sorts of irrelevant crap that diverts the purpose of the gathering.
For example here are two videos I found from the pre-march gathering. In this first video we see a young woman marveling at the diversity of persons who rode to New Orleans with her in a van for a couple of minutes. Afterward, LA AFLCIO President Robert "Tiger" Hammond is introduced and actually speaks about something relevant.
Hammond is talking about the ALEC anti-union agenda in Wisconsin getting ready to be rolled back by an organized and focused political effort. This is particularly inspiring to labor activists which is why Hammond as well as representatives of AFSCME, IBEW, and the International Seafarers Union were all present on Friday. They're hoping to build on the momentum of Wisconsin to create.. something, anything that can counter the overwhelming power of an increasingly radicalized conservative lobby. If there's any "on-the-ground" organizational goal to be seen in an anti-ALEC rally like this, surely this is it.
But then some idiot gets up and leads the crowd in a "Guilty" cheer for the completely unrelated to any of this Danziger verdict and we're right back off into La La land.
And that was the pattern throughout the duration of the rally. One or two speakers actually addressing the political problem ALEC poses and the opportunity to bring it to light were drowned out by a number of idiots railing against "neo-liberal capitalist oppression" or carping about the importance of organically grown vegetables or whatever bullshit they wanted to bring up. The ALEC meeting is a pretty secretive affair, but I'm pretty sure they were getting a great deal more accomplished that day than were the failed hippies and self-important activists in front of the Boggs building.
Oh and also there were "anarchists" present. A flock? herd? murder? gaggle? lemming? that's it.. a lemming of anarchists attended the rally and passed out flyers to everyone featuring a refreshing photo of people wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Here they are carrying their professionally produced black flags.
After the speechifying was finished, the rally then became a march from the federal building down Camp Street to the Marriott on Canal where the plan, as best as I could make out, was to make a few laps around the hotel before heading back to Poydras street for something the program called the, "washing of the feet of the oppressed." Many if not most of the demonstrators would never make it to the foot washing, however, as at least half of their number dropped out as soon as the anarchists dropped their first smoke bomb.
Confused and probably a little pissed, most of the local and adult contingent of the main protest bailed then and there. What remained of the group continued to march in laps around the long block taken up by the Marriott. Meanwhile the anarchists split off and massed on the sidewalk in front of the hotel's main entrance.
There they obstructed traffic and shouted idiotic slogans for the duration of the event.
I stood there and watched them for a while by now very much hoping to see some of that famous NOPD brutality the kids had worked so hard to deserve. But being outside of the 5th District on the very day the Danziger verdict was announced, I knew my chances of witnessing a satisfying resolution were greatly reduced.
What remained of the official march kept at it. I saw them make a few more rounds chanting the usual worn out protesty mantras about "The people united" and whatnot. As they came by shouting "This is what Democracy looks like" it occurred to me that they were probably right about that. Elites and lawmakers quietly dividing up the wealth of the nation in a hotel suite while clueless douchebags and idiot kids prattle on to no affect in the street is pretty much exactly what American democracy looks like in 2011.
Postscript Plug:
Is there a better way to do this? I honestly don't know. I doubt it but I'm probably not the person to answer that question. Some people who might take a decent stab at it will be appearing at this year's Rising Tide Conference, however. From the RT blog:
RT6: Social Media, Social Justice Panel
More and more people around the world use blogs and social network services. Their power to connect people and publish diverse voices raises questions about the possibility of using new media as organizing tools for social change. For example, blogs played a crucial role in organizing protests in Jena, Louisiana, in 2007. This panel will examine the intersection and interaction of social media with the struggle for a more just and humane society. Can tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogs, YouTube, et cetera, facilitate such work, and if so how? We’ve all heard about how social media fueled the revolution in Egypt, but what’s going on locally? Conversely, might social media actually impede the struggle for justice? Are we just “amusing ourselves to death”? Does new media present new opportunities, or do we face the same issues as ever?
Moderator: Bart Everson from Xavier University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.
Jordan Flaherty - Flaherty was the first journalist with a national audience to write about the case of the Jena Six, and his award-winning reporting from the Gulf Coast has been featured in a range of outlets from the New York Times to Al Jazeera to Argentina's Clarin newspaper. He has reported on protest movements in the Middle East and met with Egyptian bloggers after the revolution there. He is the author of Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six and has blogged at justiceroars.org.
Cherri Foytlin - Foytlin is an oil worker's wife, mother of six, Louisiana resident and journalist whose family has been deeply impacted by the BP Oil Disaster and consequential moratorium on deep water drilling. She co-founded Gulf Change, blogs for www.BridgeTheGulfProject.org, and walked to Washington D.C. from New Orleans (1,243 miles) to call for action to stop the BP oil disaster. She has been a constant voice, speaking out to the Obama Administration's Gulf Oil Spill Commission, and in countless forms of media. Cherri will continue her fight for the industries, people, culture and wildlife of south Louisiana and the Gulf Coast "until we are made whole again."
Jimmy Huck, Jr. - Huck is a professor at Tulane University in the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and functions as the Center’s Graduate Advisor. He sits on the Executive Committee of Tulane University’s Center for Public Service and is currently a Board member of Puentes New Orleans. His blog is “The Huck Upchuck” and he has been blogging since August of 2002. He has been involved in monitoring anti-illegal immigrant legislation in the Louisiana Legislature over the past three years and has traveled up to Baton Rouge on occasion to testify against such legislation. He has used his blog as well as other social media such as Facebook to mobilize grass-roots action regarding such legislation, and in the general promotion of social justice. His professional and intellectual interests include re-invigorating the idea of the academy as a proper vehicle for cultivating civic identity, educating for democracy, and transforming knowledge into social action.
Stephen Ostertag - Ostertag is a sociologist at Tulane University. His research and teaching are in the areas of news media, democracy and citizenship; and crime, incarceration and inequalities. He is currently researching the growing social organization of bloggers and its implications for the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and information. He also recently started a blog named PublicSphereNOLA. Stephen is originally from Connecticut, where he was a volunteer with the Hartford Independent Media Center.
Rising Tide is Saturday August 27 on the campus of Xavier University. Register at Risingtidenola.com
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