Summary: The right wing rush to convert the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl into some kind of “scandal” represents an example of American rape culture at its worst. Of course, Americans, who used to stand up for their own who were held in foreign captivity, now eagerly take up the cause of the captor, not the captive. Watching the right wing whip its base into a lynch mob mentality over the circumstances of Sgt. Bergdahl’s recovery and whether Bergdahl was “worthy” of being repatriated has been embarrassing on many levels. This whole episode has spoken very ill of our national character, and his demonstrated once again not only the contemptible cravenness of the Republican Party, but also the cowardice of the Democratic Party. Watching this whole tawdry melodrama unfold makes one embarrassed to be an American and equally embarrassed to be a Democrat.
There has been of late a nasty shift in the way Americans view their fellow Americans who fall into the custody of foreign actors or states which bear this country ill will. Our foreign policy has been infected by an unhealthy dose of American rape culture, in which blaming the victim has become the default posture of American conservatives.
Time was that if an American was held captive in a foreign country, other Americans would rally to his or her support.
Not anymore.
In July, 2009, three Americans, Joshua Fattal, Sarah Shourd, and Shane Bauer, who had been hiking in Kurdistan, ventured too close to the Iranian border and were grabbed by Iranian border guards who had crossed into Iraqi territory.
The three were held in Iranian custody, Shourd for the next 14 months, and the other two for more than two years.
During the time of their captivity, American conservatives rallied, not to their side, but the side of the Iranians. The three were subjected, while still in captivity, to a barrage of nasty, often highly personal, criticism and finger-pointing of such intensity as to rise the level of defamation.
More recently, Andrew Tahmooressi, a former Marine, was arrested on gun charges in Tijuana, Baja California, after he inadvertently crossed the border with a gun on his person, violating Mexico’s rather strict, if laughably unenforced, gun laws. Instead of rallying to the support of this incarcerated American, American conservatives rallied to his captors, subjecting him to all manner of hateful criticism and abuse, though he remains incarcerated.
But the worst example of how “blame the victim” rape culture has infected our foreign policy has to be the case of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl, who was held prisoner for roughly five years by the Afghan Taliban. While Bergdahl was in Taliban hands, Republicans and conservatives alike gleefully belabored the White House, accusing President Obama of being inexcusably remiss in securing Sgt. Bergdahl’s release. Had Sgt. Bergdahl died or been killed while in Taliban hands, Republicans and conservatives alike would have gone into full meltdown/attack mode over the issue. There would, no doubt, have been hysterical, hyperventilating calls for Obama’s impeachment.
But Bowe Bergdahl remains inconveniently alive, as much as the Republican Party and the American right would much rather have seen him dead, if for no other reason than as a convenient stick to beat the Obama Administration with.
And so now, in a display of political cravenness and cynicism almost unparalleled in the history of the Republic, the Republican Party and its minions on the right, including the serial liars at Fox “News,” have engaged in a spectacular volte-face on Sgt. Bergdahl’s release, putting forward a three-pronged offensive against the ex-prisoner.
First, they squawk, the president allegedly violated the law by not giving Congress prior notice of negotiations for a prisoner exchange, notwithstanding that Congress had been made aware of the pendency of such negotiations almost 2 years since.
Second, they complain that somehow we “paid too much” to get Bergdahl back. Where was their outrage when Israel released 1,027 Palestinian militants to secure the return of Gilad Shalit? Many of the Palestinian militants sprung to recover Shalit were and remain far more dangerous than the five washed-up Taliban operators we released from Guantánamo —released, mind you, not back to Afghanistan, but into the custody of the government of Qatar.
Third, as is now typical of the American right, Republican and conservative strategists launched an all-out attack on Sgt. Bergdahl himself, alleging that he is a “deserter,” a “traitor,” and someone who was, to all intents and purposes, unworthy of repatriation. Moreover, not content with smearing Bowe Bergdahl himself, the right wing scream machine has now sought to employ a typically North Korean, Kim Jong-Un tactic of attacking the entire Bergdahl family.
And such lynch mob tactics seem to be working. Democrats, once again displaying all the spine God gave an axolotl, have managed to show their usual cowardice in the face of an all-out conservative media campaign directed against both Barack Obama and Bowe Bergdahl. Democrats have been consciously and purposely distancing themselves from the President and the quondam prisoner of war, with prominent Democratic legislators racing to criticize the president for not having kowtowed to Congress. That Democrats will always go into a crouch and wet or crap themselves every time Republicans say “boo” is no surprise. That Democrats would behave so cravenly on an issue so freighted with moral significance is contemptible. What the fuck is the matter with my party?
Of course, if my party has managed to live down to its reputation for wetting itself and floating away on its own fear pee every time Republicans say “boo,” the Republicans have managed to live down to their own reputation for relentless, nihilistic political Maoism. Mao Zedong used to exhort his followers that “[they] should oppose everything the enemy supports and support everything the enemy opposes,” and that they should “always put politics in command.” To a Republican Party that has adopted in their fullest form the mindsets of Francisco Franco’s Falangist outlook, Democrats and reasonable Americans are a collective enemy to be destroyed by any means necessary. Republicans would have applauded when the Franquistas herded more than 900 Spanish loyalists into the bullring in Badajoz in 1936 and machine-gunned all of them to death.
In Bowe Bergdahl’s hometown of Hailey, Idaho, plans to welcome him home had to be shelved after the town fathers and mothers were besieged with angry phone calls and emails, including death threats. Rather than put up with the mouth-foaming vigilantism of a mob whipped to frenzy by conservative operatives in slick suits, Hailey took the line of least resistance. Of course, if conservatives were worried about real traitors from Hailey, they ought to remember that it was also the hometown of whack job poet Ezra Pound, whose aid and comfort to Bonito Mussolini’s Italy earned him an indictment for treason following the Second World War.
But Bowe Bergdahl is no Ezra Pound. While all manner of allegations have been whipped up against him, largely at the urging and conjuring of the Republican Party and the conservative scream machine, nothing has been adjudicated, no competent evidentiary facts have been developed, and any case against Bowe Bergdahl at this point remains far thinner than was ever the case of United States brought against Ezra Pound.
Yet, the rush to blame the victim has become so much a part of the poisonous discourse of American society that any speculation about its etiology necessarily leads us right back to an examination of America’s rape culture. In rape culture, the rapist is never responsible. The rapist is always led on by the victim, who, if female, enticed the rapist by either dressing immodestly, or behaving seductively, or just existing.
Rape victims are routinely characterized on the right and in social networking as “sluts,” “whores,” “skanks,” “tramps,” or any of a series of other shaming monikers. We saw rape culture on its fullest display when Rush Limbaugh spent two full days of his program slut shaming Sandra Fluke for having had the temerity to openly discuss her need for birth control medications to control ovarian cysts. As usual, Limbaugh could not be bothered to get his facts straight before launching into his disgustingly misogynistic attack.
As usual, the “Bergdahl is a traitor” crowd cannot be bothered to get their facts straight before launching into an attack that is embarrassing to all right-thinking Americans. To speak of Bergdahl’s traducers as a lynch mob is metaphorically, if not necessarily literally (yet) accurate. What we see is rape culture in action. Because Bergdahl is not dead, and thus his metaphorical bloody shirt cannot be waived before the Republican base to whip up another frenzy of hatred against an African-American president they cannot stand, then Bergdahl must be punished for his transgression of still being alive. What better way to score political points off a President whose race is objectionable to the right than by crapping in the punch bowl of the relief Bowe Bergdahl and his family must feel that he is out of Taliban hands?
There is enough cravenness on both sides the political aisle to justify damning both political parties to hell. The Republicans have been exponents of everything we profess to dislike about rape culture, blaming the victim, attacking the victim’s family, and attacking the institutions put in place to help the victim. The Democrats deserve a universe of contempt because, with the heroic exceptions of Barack Obama and Harry Reid, most of them have soiled themselves before Republican bullying and sullied themselves in their dishonorable haste to cover their own asses.
There have been very few times in my life when I have been embarrassed to be an American and embarrassed to be a Democrat. This is one of those times.
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PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, California. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of the Democratic Party of which he is a member and County-level official, largely because the Party lacks the hardihood to stand up unconditionally and say that no American should be left behind to languish in the captivity of barbarians.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Sunday, June 1, 2014
CAMPAIGN LAWLESSNESS IN CATHEDRAL CITY
Summary: In a state well-known for having some of the nation’s toughest campaign finance disclosure laws, some locals in Cathedral City seem to believe that those laws do not apply to them. Organized (largely Tea Partisan) opposition to Cathedral City’s Measure B sales tax reauthorization seems to revolve around three residents, former one-term Palm Springs Councilman Tuck Broich, his wife Alice, and local gadfly/disturber-of-the-peace Jens Mueller. When called on their blithe disregard for campaign finance disclosure, the “No on B” troika pushed aggressively back, contending that they are in some way not bound by the law, a position often taken by outgoing Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa, whose willingness to play fast and loose with campaign finance disclosure laws has gotten her heavily sanctioned by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission. If Cathedral City has become something of a “Wild West” in terms of almost routine violations of campaign finance disclosure laws, it is because DeRosa has set the tone therefor.
California is justly well-known for having some of the toughest campaign finance disclosure laws in the country. If you want to run a state or local political campaign anywhere in the Golden State, you had better be prepared to disclose the identities of those who are bankrolling your effort.
Apparently, though, there are some people in Cathedral City who believe that the rules just do not apply to them. Among them is outgoing lame-duck mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa, who recently got slapped with a fairly hefty fine by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) after getting caught engaging in some fairly severe campaign finance lawbreaking.
Of course, DeRosa, who cannot be said to be a classy individual, tried very hard to shunt the blame for her criminality onto the late city clerk Patricia Dale Hammers, whose own corrupt and unneutral conduct might well have earned her criminal prosecution and potential jail time had she not died. Nonetheless, DeRosa has a long history of playing fast and loose with the law and with the truth, and no particular embarrassment about allowing her campaigns to be substantially underwritten by local developers. But at least DeRosa is on the way out; we may hope that under a new mayor and council Cathedral City will enjoy a restoration of correct and honorable government.
But no matter how correct or honorable the government may be, any government must have the fiscal resources to be able to carry out its core functions. Here in Cathedral city, there are a number of vocal local residents who do not seem to agree with this proposition. They has been vehement in their opposition to Measure B, a reauthorization of a 1% local sales tax. To hear these opponents of Measure B tell it, the reauthorization of the sales tax is the most awful thing conceivable, and would push the city into a cesspit of “corruption.”
Still, one does not need to get into a debate over the merits of Measure B to be somewhat concerned about the way in which opponents of Measure B have fallen into the DeRosa trap of playing fast and loose with California’s campaign finance disclosure laws. Example; most of the “No on B” signs that have been popping up like weeds around the city do not contain the required disclosure of the name of the entity or committee that has paid for the signs. There is no committee identification and no FPPC identification number on the materials that had been disseminated in opposition to Measure B.
When our local Gannett newspaper disclosed these matters in an article in yesterday’s newspaper, certain opponents of Measure B were quick to attempt to push back. The nonconforming signs, for example, were printed by two local Tea Partisan activists, Alice and Tuck Broich. Now I happen to know the Broichs personally, and on a personal level they seem like perfectly nice people, even if I reprehend their politics to the nth degree. But Tuck, a sometime one-term councilman from Palm Springs, having run at least one victorious political campaign, ought to know better. Instead, Tuck seems to have taken the position that somehow the law does not apply to him. This is a position he needs to reconsider, given that there has been an uptick in both public integrity and campaign finance prosecutions in California. An FPPC that was willing to slap thousands of dollars in fines on Kathleen Joan DeRosa may feel no compunction about going after Alice and Tuck Broich, and the Commission would be within its rights to do so.
But there are more than Broichs in the troika of vocal opponents of Measure B. Among the loudest and most strident of the “No on B” contingent has been perennial gadfly and disturber-of-the-peace Jens Mueller, a naturalized immigrant from Germany with rather disturbing views about Adolf Hitler. Mueller, who runs a Facebook page called “Citizens against Corruption,” has gone on record praising the Nazi dictator for destroying the German labor union movement in 1933, declaring “[Hitler] had one good idea, then.” Mueller, who twice ran unsuccessfully for city Council, has a reputation for being loud and disruptive at council meetings, and for trafficking in claims concerning our city’s fiscal condition that can be, and have been, easily and repeatedly disproved.
The Broichs and Mueller seem to represent the core of what is essentially Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B. Indeed, the troika’s opposition does seem to be grounded in an anti-tax, “starve the beast” view of government, a nihilistic formulation first propounded by anti–tax extremist Grover Norquist, who has expressed a desire to reduce the size of government to the point where the government can be “drowned in a bathtub.” Such an ideology apparently fits Jens Mueller to a T. Mueller, when running for office, described himself as the “anti-tax, anti-union, anti-pension” candidate. It should not come as surprise that Mr. Mueller never, in either of his campaigns, was able to articulate what he was for, but could only rage against what he opposed. Indeed, Mueller has made noises about wanting to run for mayor this fall, opening himself up to legitimate questions about the extent to which he possesses the moral character or municipal loyalty to hold any political office whatsoever. If, as is expected, sitting councilmember Stan Henry seeks the mayoralty, it is anticipated that Mueller would be trounced.
Unfortunately, the anti-tax Tea Partisans who has been leading the opposition to Measure B seem to have been able to convince some residents of our Cathedral City Cove to jump on the “No on B” bandwagon, wherein some of these gullible residents have uncritically adopted much of the rhetoric we have become accustomed to hearing from people like Paul Ryan, Grover Norquist, and the Republican National Committee.
To repeat, I do not propose to argue the merits of Measure B or the extent to which the debate over measure B may be starting to take on a partisan tone. What does trouble me, however, are two separate yet not dissimilar trends with respect to the battle over B. The first is the apparent “screw you, I’ve got mine” viewpoint that seems to have animated other organized oppositions to prior revenue measures in our city’s history.
The other, somewhat related issue is the apparent belief in some quarters in our community that it really is possible to get something for nothing; if you just keep cutting, the services will keep coming. Our own history in Cathedral City teaches us that this is not the case. At a certain point, it simply becomes impossible to afford all of the Cadillac goodies that a population may want but is only willing to pay Hyundai prices for.
But, what is most troublesome about the Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B is the extent to which it has bought in to a philosophy of lawlessness espoused time and time again by our outgoing mayor. To a certain extent, DeRosa needs to take the blame for the lawless behavior of the “no on B” contingent. Over the ten winters she has been mayor, DeRosa has set a tone for borderline behavior and for playing fast and loose with California’s campaign disclosure laws. On DeRosa’s watch, Cathedral City has become something of a “Wild West” with respect to campaign finance disclosure.
It is debatable whether the Broichs and Mueller would have imagined themselves immune to California’s campaign disclosure laws if they had not taken their cue from Kathleen Joan DeRosa. Her departure cannot come soon enough, and we may hope in the meantime that the public will reject the lascivious and unlawful oglings of the “No on B” disturbers of the peace.
California is justly well-known for having some of the toughest campaign finance disclosure laws in the country. If you want to run a state or local political campaign anywhere in the Golden State, you had better be prepared to disclose the identities of those who are bankrolling your effort.
Apparently, though, there are some people in Cathedral City who believe that the rules just do not apply to them. Among them is outgoing lame-duck mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa, who recently got slapped with a fairly hefty fine by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) after getting caught engaging in some fairly severe campaign finance lawbreaking.
Of course, DeRosa, who cannot be said to be a classy individual, tried very hard to shunt the blame for her criminality onto the late city clerk Patricia Dale Hammers, whose own corrupt and unneutral conduct might well have earned her criminal prosecution and potential jail time had she not died. Nonetheless, DeRosa has a long history of playing fast and loose with the law and with the truth, and no particular embarrassment about allowing her campaigns to be substantially underwritten by local developers. But at least DeRosa is on the way out; we may hope that under a new mayor and council Cathedral City will enjoy a restoration of correct and honorable government.
But no matter how correct or honorable the government may be, any government must have the fiscal resources to be able to carry out its core functions. Here in Cathedral city, there are a number of vocal local residents who do not seem to agree with this proposition. They has been vehement in their opposition to Measure B, a reauthorization of a 1% local sales tax. To hear these opponents of Measure B tell it, the reauthorization of the sales tax is the most awful thing conceivable, and would push the city into a cesspit of “corruption.”
Still, one does not need to get into a debate over the merits of Measure B to be somewhat concerned about the way in which opponents of Measure B have fallen into the DeRosa trap of playing fast and loose with California’s campaign finance disclosure laws. Example; most of the “No on B” signs that have been popping up like weeds around the city do not contain the required disclosure of the name of the entity or committee that has paid for the signs. There is no committee identification and no FPPC identification number on the materials that had been disseminated in opposition to Measure B.
When our local Gannett newspaper disclosed these matters in an article in yesterday’s newspaper, certain opponents of Measure B were quick to attempt to push back. The nonconforming signs, for example, were printed by two local Tea Partisan activists, Alice and Tuck Broich. Now I happen to know the Broichs personally, and on a personal level they seem like perfectly nice people, even if I reprehend their politics to the nth degree. But Tuck, a sometime one-term councilman from Palm Springs, having run at least one victorious political campaign, ought to know better. Instead, Tuck seems to have taken the position that somehow the law does not apply to him. This is a position he needs to reconsider, given that there has been an uptick in both public integrity and campaign finance prosecutions in California. An FPPC that was willing to slap thousands of dollars in fines on Kathleen Joan DeRosa may feel no compunction about going after Alice and Tuck Broich, and the Commission would be within its rights to do so.
But there are more than Broichs in the troika of vocal opponents of Measure B. Among the loudest and most strident of the “No on B” contingent has been perennial gadfly and disturber-of-the-peace Jens Mueller, a naturalized immigrant from Germany with rather disturbing views about Adolf Hitler. Mueller, who runs a Facebook page called “Citizens against Corruption,” has gone on record praising the Nazi dictator for destroying the German labor union movement in 1933, declaring “[Hitler] had one good idea, then.” Mueller, who twice ran unsuccessfully for city Council, has a reputation for being loud and disruptive at council meetings, and for trafficking in claims concerning our city’s fiscal condition that can be, and have been, easily and repeatedly disproved.
The Broichs and Mueller seem to represent the core of what is essentially Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B. Indeed, the troika’s opposition does seem to be grounded in an anti-tax, “starve the beast” view of government, a nihilistic formulation first propounded by anti–tax extremist Grover Norquist, who has expressed a desire to reduce the size of government to the point where the government can be “drowned in a bathtub.” Such an ideology apparently fits Jens Mueller to a T. Mueller, when running for office, described himself as the “anti-tax, anti-union, anti-pension” candidate. It should not come as surprise that Mr. Mueller never, in either of his campaigns, was able to articulate what he was for, but could only rage against what he opposed. Indeed, Mueller has made noises about wanting to run for mayor this fall, opening himself up to legitimate questions about the extent to which he possesses the moral character or municipal loyalty to hold any political office whatsoever. If, as is expected, sitting councilmember Stan Henry seeks the mayoralty, it is anticipated that Mueller would be trounced.
Unfortunately, the anti-tax Tea Partisans who has been leading the opposition to Measure B seem to have been able to convince some residents of our Cathedral City Cove to jump on the “No on B” bandwagon, wherein some of these gullible residents have uncritically adopted much of the rhetoric we have become accustomed to hearing from people like Paul Ryan, Grover Norquist, and the Republican National Committee.
To repeat, I do not propose to argue the merits of Measure B or the extent to which the debate over measure B may be starting to take on a partisan tone. What does trouble me, however, are two separate yet not dissimilar trends with respect to the battle over B. The first is the apparent “screw you, I’ve got mine” viewpoint that seems to have animated other organized oppositions to prior revenue measures in our city’s history.
The other, somewhat related issue is the apparent belief in some quarters in our community that it really is possible to get something for nothing; if you just keep cutting, the services will keep coming. Our own history in Cathedral City teaches us that this is not the case. At a certain point, it simply becomes impossible to afford all of the Cadillac goodies that a population may want but is only willing to pay Hyundai prices for.
But, what is most troublesome about the Tea Partisan opposition to Measure B is the extent to which it has bought in to a philosophy of lawlessness espoused time and time again by our outgoing mayor. To a certain extent, DeRosa needs to take the blame for the lawless behavior of the “no on B” contingent. Over the ten winters she has been mayor, DeRosa has set a tone for borderline behavior and for playing fast and loose with California’s campaign disclosure laws. On DeRosa’s watch, Cathedral City has become something of a “Wild West” with respect to campaign finance disclosure.
It is debatable whether the Broichs and Mueller would have imagined themselves immune to California’s campaign disclosure laws if they had not taken their cue from Kathleen Joan DeRosa. Her departure cannot come soon enough, and we may hope in the meantime that the public will reject the lascivious and unlawful oglings of the “No on B” disturbers of the peace.
-xxx-
Monday, May 26, 2014
BENDING OUR AMERICAN ARC TOWARD JUSTICE, REDUX
SUMMARY: Memorial Day began after the Civil War as a commemoration of those who had fallen in America’s greatest struggle for social justice. Though we have engrafted additional layers of meaning onto Memorial Day, that original subtext is still very much at the heart of our commemoration of those who have died in this country’s service. If we are to do right by those who have laid the costliest of sacrifice on the altar of freedom, we must ensure that the arc of America’s moral universe continues to bend toward justice and toward a more perfect and inclusive Union, and those who have borne the burden of battle are not treated as a disposable commodity (and left to take their own lives at a frightening rate) by a society that has become as habituated to endless war as the residents of some of our inner cities have become habituated to gang violence.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Of all the various holidays that festoon our American calendar, two specifically force us to confront the reality of war and sacrifice. Veterans Day (or Armistice Day as it is still called in some quarters) should rightly turn our minds toward those who have fought in our wars, facing foreign shot, foreign shell, and foreign steel on our behalf. Veterans Day is a time to think about the moral and social debt we owe to those who have gone to war and returned.
By contrast, Memorial Day is a time to commemorate those who have fallen in this country’s service. It is time to give thanks for their service, but also a time to think carefully and critically about larger questions of war, peace, and the limbo in which societies often find themselves between the two, as we have found ourselves since the end of World War II.
On Memorial Day, I find myself ineluctably drawn back to words spoken more than half a century ago at West Point by Douglas MacArthur as he accepted the Sylvanus Thayer award. Addressing the Corps of Cadets, MacArthur spoke of hearing in his dreams “the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
For most of us now living, America has been at war or involved in military operations for more years than she has been at peace. The soundtrack of the greater part of our lives has been “that strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
Now Memorial Day began among African-American freedmen in Charleston, South Carolina as Decoration Day, a commemoration of the Union’s Civil War dead. Though the passage of nearly a century and a half has led to considerable accretions of symbolism and meaning onto Memorial Day, it began, and remains still, a commemoration of the greatest struggle for social justice in American history.
For if the Civil War began as merely a fight to preserve the Union, it ineluctably evolved into a far larger moral confrontation as Americans realized that the Union could not be saved except by overthrowing once and for all the Peculiar Institution of chattel slavery. If the Union were to be saved, it could have no more truck with the proposition that it is ever permissible for one human being to own another.
Since then, the arc of our moral universe, however long, has bent, however slowly, toward justice. Starting with the abolition of slavery itself, America has engaged, over and over again, in a series of often agonizing internal struggles over who and who is not a part of our American body politic.
It has taken more than a century to rid ourselves of the grosser inequities and iniquities of the Peculiar Institution. Even now, with an African-American president in the White House, racial insecurities continue to bedevil our political discourse.
It has taken more than a century to accept the basic proposition that women ought to be entitled to all of the badges and incidents of first-class citizenship. Women’s suffrage means little if women can legitimately discriminated against in hiring and compensation or be denied access to basic reproductive autonomy or contraception.
We are still involved today in a great struggle over whether America’s queerfolk should even be allowed to exist, let alone enjoy first-class citizenship as out people in the Commonwealth.
Yet, the arc continues to bend toward justice; it continues to bend toward a more perfect Union and a more inclusive Commonwealth, even if some in our society find themselves apoplectic at such a prospect. But a society that cannot find room for people of color, for women, for the queer, and for all who are in some way Other, is a society that has yet to do right by those whose final resting places are to be found in our national cemeteries, who in this country’s service laid down what Abraham Lincoln so movingly called “so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.” We must make it right, especially for those whose sacrifice winds up being long deferred, whose fatal forfeit comes up for payment long after the battle is over.
Still, making it right has to involve more than trite, anodyne, talismanic invocations of “thank you for your service.” Every time I hear such an expression, I think I want to scream. “Thank you for your service” is emotional kitsch; it sounds like something we might say to a doorman or a skycap, while proffering some sort of miniscule gratuity. “Thank you for your service” reflects a dangerous societal view of our service members as being in some way a disposable commodity. Perhaps the sheer length of our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has deadened us to the reality of war. We have forgotten General Sherman’s warning that “war is hell... its glory is all moonshine.”
Indeed, our tendency to treat those who have borne the battle as disposable commodities in a grimly reductionist economic analysis may be at least partly responsible for the epidemic of suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. A 2010 study by the Department of Veterans Affairs, released last year, indicated that veterans were taking their own lives at the staggering rate of 22 a day. Such a number ought to shock us. For these are the casualties of the invisible wounds of war, the emotional wounds that kill slowly. If we were to consider death by suicide as combat related, the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead would easily double. Yet what can we say to the returning veteran who comes home feeling an anguish so deep no tears will come, a pain so overwhelming that there are no words to describe it?
Doing right by those who have borne the battle must involve more than trite forms of words. If Dostoyevsky was right to observe that we can judge a society by entering its prisons, we may equally judge a society by the extent of its compassion toward those who fight its wars. By that measure, we are still falling short. We have become inured to the idea of a constant state of military hostilities, and we have built around our civilian souls a Chinese wall by which we may hope to insulate ourselves from those equally ongoing realities of war, injury, and death.
Yet the more strongly we build that Chinese wall, the more we harden ourselves and wall ourselves off from the capacity for compassion and empathy. Sadly, many of us appear to have become as hardened and indifferent to the sufferings of our servicemembers as residents of high crime inner-city neighborhoods become habituated to gang violence. Our wars are bereaving us of some important part of our humanity, if only we knew exactly of what we were being bereft.
On this Memorial Day, as we recall the sacrifice of those who fell for us, we should remember two things. First, let us remember that America is always at her greatest when she seeks purposefully after justice. Second, let us remember that from the earliest days of our history, those who have died for America have been of every sort and condition of human being.
Male and female they have died for us.
Old and young they have died for us.
Straight and queer they have died for us.
From every creed and confession they have died for us.
From every tongue and nation they have died for us.
From every race and region they have died for us.
And in the equality of their resting place, we have only one word for them: American.
Requiescant omnes in pace, et lux aeternam luceat super omnes. Amen.
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PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served for two terms as a member of the city council. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any entity or organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, legal advice, though effective Monday, white shoes may be worn without risk of committing a fashion felony. This post is an adapted republication of one published at Memorial Day, 2012.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Of all the various holidays that festoon our American calendar, two specifically force us to confront the reality of war and sacrifice. Veterans Day (or Armistice Day as it is still called in some quarters) should rightly turn our minds toward those who have fought in our wars, facing foreign shot, foreign shell, and foreign steel on our behalf. Veterans Day is a time to think about the moral and social debt we owe to those who have gone to war and returned.
By contrast, Memorial Day is a time to commemorate those who have fallen in this country’s service. It is time to give thanks for their service, but also a time to think carefully and critically about larger questions of war, peace, and the limbo in which societies often find themselves between the two, as we have found ourselves since the end of World War II.
On Memorial Day, I find myself ineluctably drawn back to words spoken more than half a century ago at West Point by Douglas MacArthur as he accepted the Sylvanus Thayer award. Addressing the Corps of Cadets, MacArthur spoke of hearing in his dreams “the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
For most of us now living, America has been at war or involved in military operations for more years than she has been at peace. The soundtrack of the greater part of our lives has been “that strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”
Now Memorial Day began among African-American freedmen in Charleston, South Carolina as Decoration Day, a commemoration of the Union’s Civil War dead. Though the passage of nearly a century and a half has led to considerable accretions of symbolism and meaning onto Memorial Day, it began, and remains still, a commemoration of the greatest struggle for social justice in American history.
For if the Civil War began as merely a fight to preserve the Union, it ineluctably evolved into a far larger moral confrontation as Americans realized that the Union could not be saved except by overthrowing once and for all the Peculiar Institution of chattel slavery. If the Union were to be saved, it could have no more truck with the proposition that it is ever permissible for one human being to own another.
Since then, the arc of our moral universe, however long, has bent, however slowly, toward justice. Starting with the abolition of slavery itself, America has engaged, over and over again, in a series of often agonizing internal struggles over who and who is not a part of our American body politic.
It has taken more than a century to rid ourselves of the grosser inequities and iniquities of the Peculiar Institution. Even now, with an African-American president in the White House, racial insecurities continue to bedevil our political discourse.
It has taken more than a century to accept the basic proposition that women ought to be entitled to all of the badges and incidents of first-class citizenship. Women’s suffrage means little if women can legitimately discriminated against in hiring and compensation or be denied access to basic reproductive autonomy or contraception.
We are still involved today in a great struggle over whether America’s queerfolk should even be allowed to exist, let alone enjoy first-class citizenship as out people in the Commonwealth.
Yet, the arc continues to bend toward justice; it continues to bend toward a more perfect Union and a more inclusive Commonwealth, even if some in our society find themselves apoplectic at such a prospect. But a society that cannot find room for people of color, for women, for the queer, and for all who are in some way Other, is a society that has yet to do right by those whose final resting places are to be found in our national cemeteries, who in this country’s service laid down what Abraham Lincoln so movingly called “so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.” We must make it right, especially for those whose sacrifice winds up being long deferred, whose fatal forfeit comes up for payment long after the battle is over.
Still, making it right has to involve more than trite, anodyne, talismanic invocations of “thank you for your service.” Every time I hear such an expression, I think I want to scream. “Thank you for your service” is emotional kitsch; it sounds like something we might say to a doorman or a skycap, while proffering some sort of miniscule gratuity. “Thank you for your service” reflects a dangerous societal view of our service members as being in some way a disposable commodity. Perhaps the sheer length of our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has deadened us to the reality of war. We have forgotten General Sherman’s warning that “war is hell... its glory is all moonshine.”
Indeed, our tendency to treat those who have borne the battle as disposable commodities in a grimly reductionist economic analysis may be at least partly responsible for the epidemic of suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. A 2010 study by the Department of Veterans Affairs, released last year, indicated that veterans were taking their own lives at the staggering rate of 22 a day. Such a number ought to shock us. For these are the casualties of the invisible wounds of war, the emotional wounds that kill slowly. If we were to consider death by suicide as combat related, the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead would easily double. Yet what can we say to the returning veteran who comes home feeling an anguish so deep no tears will come, a pain so overwhelming that there are no words to describe it?
Doing right by those who have borne the battle must involve more than trite forms of words. If Dostoyevsky was right to observe that we can judge a society by entering its prisons, we may equally judge a society by the extent of its compassion toward those who fight its wars. By that measure, we are still falling short. We have become inured to the idea of a constant state of military hostilities, and we have built around our civilian souls a Chinese wall by which we may hope to insulate ourselves from those equally ongoing realities of war, injury, and death.
Yet the more strongly we build that Chinese wall, the more we harden ourselves and wall ourselves off from the capacity for compassion and empathy. Sadly, many of us appear to have become as hardened and indifferent to the sufferings of our servicemembers as residents of high crime inner-city neighborhoods become habituated to gang violence. Our wars are bereaving us of some important part of our humanity, if only we knew exactly of what we were being bereft.
On this Memorial Day, as we recall the sacrifice of those who fell for us, we should remember two things. First, let us remember that America is always at her greatest when she seeks purposefully after justice. Second, let us remember that from the earliest days of our history, those who have died for America have been of every sort and condition of human being.
Male and female they have died for us.
Old and young they have died for us.
Straight and queer they have died for us.
From every creed and confession they have died for us.
From every tongue and nation they have died for us.
From every race and region they have died for us.
And in the equality of their resting place, we have only one word for them: American.
Requiescant omnes in pace, et lux aeternam luceat super omnes. Amen.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served for two terms as a member of the city council. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of any entity or organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, legal advice, though effective Monday, white shoes may be worn without risk of committing a fashion felony. This post is an adapted republication of one published at Memorial Day, 2012.
Monday, April 21, 2014
LITTLE SNAPPERS: GIVING “GAUCHE” A BAD NAME AND OTHER AGITA INDUCING THINGS.
Summary: after being away for a while, I return with a brief post consisting of “Little Snappers,” short observations on the often absurd realities of our city.
Outgoing lame-duck mayor Kathleen DeRosa managed this week to give “gauche” a bad name.
When California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) fined DeRosa $2500 for a series of lengthy and systematic violations of California’s tough campaign finance and reporting laws, DeRosa responded to it with a fairly typical pattern of lies and deceit. First, she denied the existence of an FPPC investigation in a Facebook posting which readers found if not offensive, certainly risible. Then, in our local newspaper, DeRosa blamed all her problems on now-deceased city clerk Patricia Hammers.
Oh, poor me, DeRosa whines, I’m just an innocent victim of my bad city clerk, on whose bad advice I relied. (Of course the fact that Ms. Hammers acted in one of the most cynically unneutral fashions imaginable, complete violation of her obligations as the city’s chief election officer, was never properly investigated, largely because death intervened.) While it is not inconceivable that Ms. Hammers’s tenure of office might not have survived a reelection bid this fall, throwing her under the metaphorical bus when she has no ability to defend herself strikes one as over the top, even for so craven a political operator as DeRosa.
Perhaps I should rethink: DeRosa’s behavior isn’t just gauche, it’s sinister.
In greater Los Angeles, two veteran politicians find themselves in trouble for violating California’s law requiring a politician to live in the constituency he represents. Both Democratic state Sen. Rod Wright and L.A. city Council member Richard Alarcon have found themselves under indictment for not actually living in the constituencies they serve. Now, some in Cathedral City have expressed disbelief that an elected public official should be required to reside bona fide in the community. Yet, under California law, it’s always been thus.
So, when rumors began swirling around our Valley that at least one local political elected official did not live in her constituency, ears began to perk. Not only are rumors swirling, but other rumors, of recall, or of referral to law enforcement for prosecution, also began to swirl. One local resident with some experience in the legal profession even suggested that local politicians who don’t live full-time and in good faith in their constituencies should be referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office for investigation for “honest services fraud.” At all events, it’s not unreasonable for constituents to expect that their politicians will live full-time in the constituencies they serve.
Outgoing lame-duck mayor Kathleen DeRosa managed this week to give “gauche” a bad name.
When California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) fined DeRosa $2500 for a series of lengthy and systematic violations of California’s tough campaign finance and reporting laws, DeRosa responded to it with a fairly typical pattern of lies and deceit. First, she denied the existence of an FPPC investigation in a Facebook posting which readers found if not offensive, certainly risible. Then, in our local newspaper, DeRosa blamed all her problems on now-deceased city clerk Patricia Hammers.
Oh, poor me, DeRosa whines, I’m just an innocent victim of my bad city clerk, on whose bad advice I relied. (Of course the fact that Ms. Hammers acted in one of the most cynically unneutral fashions imaginable, complete violation of her obligations as the city’s chief election officer, was never properly investigated, largely because death intervened.) While it is not inconceivable that Ms. Hammers’s tenure of office might not have survived a reelection bid this fall, throwing her under the metaphorical bus when she has no ability to defend herself strikes one as over the top, even for so craven a political operator as DeRosa.
Perhaps I should rethink: DeRosa’s behavior isn’t just gauche, it’s sinister.
In greater Los Angeles, two veteran politicians find themselves in trouble for violating California’s law requiring a politician to live in the constituency he represents. Both Democratic state Sen. Rod Wright and L.A. city Council member Richard Alarcon have found themselves under indictment for not actually living in the constituencies they serve. Now, some in Cathedral City have expressed disbelief that an elected public official should be required to reside bona fide in the community. Yet, under California law, it’s always been thus.
So, when rumors began swirling around our Valley that at least one local political elected official did not live in her constituency, ears began to perk. Not only are rumors swirling, but other rumors, of recall, or of referral to law enforcement for prosecution, also began to swirl. One local resident with some experience in the legal profession even suggested that local politicians who don’t live full-time and in good faith in their constituencies should be referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office for investigation for “honest services fraud.” At all events, it’s not unreasonable for constituents to expect that their politicians will live full-time in the constituencies they serve.
Friday, February 14, 2014
WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING
Summary: embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s announcement that she would not seek reelection after 10 bitter winters as mayor has called forth predictable reactions, most of them expressions of deep satisfaction that she is leaving. Of course, given her propensity for telling agreeable, face-saving lies, it’s not surprising that she would try to save face by framing her departure as some kind of Stalinist transfer of power to a hand-picked successor. In fact, her successor had already told her that the knives were out and that she stood a very strong chance of being trounced in the next election. The catalog of DeRosa sins is so lengthy and her legacy so toxic that if her putative challenger, former police chief Stan Henry, becomes mayor, he will have an enormous mess to clean up and significant challenges to face in order to restore some degree of public confidence after DeRosa’s disastrous tenure.
Embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s announcement that she would not seek reelection after 10 bitter winters as mayor has certainly set local social media alight. Reactions were predictable, ranging from my former Council colleague Greg Pettis’ tweet “ding dong” to handwringing comments from DeRosa sycophants whose social position in the community has largely been a function of their closeness to the incumbent.
DeRosa has attempted to characterize her decision to leave office as being some kind of orchestrated transfer of power to a hand-picked successor. The facts suggest otherwise.
Over the last two years, DeRosa’s support has been evaporating like water on a hot Coachella Valley summer day. In 2012, in an election whose legitimacy remains in doubt, DeRosa came within 13 votes of being knocked off by retired emergency dispatch supervisor Chip Yarborough. Though DeRosa had to help of a hand-picked third person spoiler candidate and the corrupt intervention of the late, unneutral city clerk to get her over the top, the narrowness of the margin between her and Mr. Yarborough gave clear indication that the bloom was definitely off DeRosa in her relationship with this constituency.
Indeed, scuttlebutt has it that, after spending years building up a cult of personality and a political network ready to enforce her views and enable often sociopathic behavior (and who can forget her telling local restauranteur Mark Carnevale to go fuck himself?), DeRosa went a bridge too far in 2012 by attempting to run a combined candidate slate of herself, former police chief Stan Henry, and former councilmember Bud England.
The electorate rightly saw DeRosa’s slate as an arrogant, overreaching, unbelievably cynical effort to pack the city Council and to ensure her permanent control for the foreseeable future, and was having none of it. By attempting to shoot the moon, DeRosa ensured the defeat of Mr. England, the weakest and least effective of her troika, and thus lost any hope of controlling the Council majority.
Moreover, sources close to city hall tell me that DeRosa’s claim that she made some kind of undertaking to Mr. Henry that she would not run is a bit of an agreeable, face-saving falsehood. In fact, my sources tell me that DeRosa had every intention of seeking another term, but that when confronted by Mr. Henry (with whom she had had a fairly acrimonious falling out), she had to do the political math and what she discovered was enough to cause her to pull out.
For, in truth, the ground had shifted under DeRosa since the 2012 election, where she had treated her narrow, potentially illegitimate, 13 vote margin as some kind of mandate. Some of her strongest supporters, including Cathedral City’s auto dealers, had defected, as it were, to Mr. Henry’s camp. Even some of DeRosa’s most reliable sycophants had swung round to back the quondam police chief.
Faced with such circumstances, and knowing that in any straight up confrontation between herself and Stan Henry, she would not only lose, but be trounced, DeRosa had no choice but to try to fabricate the most agreeable, face-saving narrative for her departure that she and her supporters could fabricate.
Nonetheless, DeRosa’s reputation for serial untruths is such that her latest effort comes across not merely as risible, but as an insult to the intelligence of Cathedral City voters and residents. Equally risible is her assertion that she is not a “career politician.” After 16 winters on the Council, 10 of them in the center chair, Kathleen Joan DeRosa is the quintessence of a small town, small-vision, small-soul career politician.
During the ten bitter winters of Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s mayoralty, Cathedral city has stagnated. Businesses have fled, new businesses which could have replaced those that departed have flirted with us, been gratuitously antagonized by a mayor who didn’t know when to keep her ill mannered, Brooklyn yap shut, and have gone elsewhere in the Valley where mayors and councils were more receptive to their overtures.
Mayor Henry, assuming he becomes mayor, will need, right off the bat, to try to repair the often toxic relationship that exists between City Hall and the business community. He will need to be more tactful and less confrontational than DeRosa, who once pridefully declared “I don’t build bridges; I burn them.”
And DeRosa’s reputation as a bridge burner certainly preceded her. So, too, has her reputation for laziness. As one major business after another pulled out of Cathedral City, DeRosa always declined to make the effort to encourage those businesses to stay. When Smart & Final announced its decision to pull out of Cathedral City nearly a decade ago, I asked DeRosa what plans she had to try to encourage Smart & Final, which had been our 55th largest source of sales tax increment, to remain. DeRosa looked at me with that nasty expression that she so often assumes and snapped at me that any effort to encourage Smart & Final to remain was “unrealistic.” In short, she didn’t want to undertake the effort or do the work. In fact, the only work DeRosa has been willing to do for this city has been that which could provide her with immediate credit and immediate political capital.
Finally, DeRosa’s insult to thousands of Christians in Cathedral city should not go unforgotten. During the run-up to the 2012 election, DeRosa declared that she could not support marriage equality because she was “a Catholic.” Yet, no sooner had marriage equality become a reality again in California, then she officiated at a same-gender wedding ceremony for two of her supporters, held in the city Council chambers (!), after she had solicited some form of online “ordination,” thus apostasizing from the faith she so ostentatiously claimed to follow. For more discussion on DeRosa’s unbelievably cynical political and municipal apostasy, please follow this link: http://cathedralcityobserved.blogspot.com/2013/07/municipal-apostasy-kathleen-derosa.html. Even more offensive was DeRosa’s smarmy announcement on our local broadcast media that she believed Mr. Henry to be some kind of “sign from God” that she could lay down her ego driven political career. What hubris!
His first challenge will be to convince Cathedral City residents that he is not merely a political clone of his predecessor, but that he can bring new vision and new direction to a city adrift. He will need to develop a very thick skin, and to understand that criticism from the constituency does not constitute an attack on his integrity or his manhood, and he will also need to learn not to impugn the integrity of those who exercise their First Amendment petition right of reasonable criticism. If he takes things personally, and if he attacks those who do not see eye to eye with him, he will very quickly begin to accumulate the same reservoir of ill will that DeRosa accumulated, and which ultimately will drive her from office.
Though Mr. Henry espouses both political and social conservatism, you will need to understand that three of his council colleagues are gay, and that roughly 40% of Cathedral City’s population are also LGBT and that more than half our residents are Latino, and Mr. Henry will need to do considerably better in outreach to our communidad latina than DeRosa, who despised and disdained Latinos, ever did. If Cathedral City’s substantial queer and Latino communities do not feel comfortable or accepted, the next mayoral election may not turn out quite to Mr. Henry’s liking or to that of councilmembers Vasquez, Pettis, and Toles. Stan needs to build bridges, not burn them.
Moreover, Mr. Henry will also need to delink himself from the city’s police department of which he was head for so many years. He will need to remember that Cathedral City is a municipal corporation with a Police Department, not a Police Department with a municipal corporation attached.
Stan will also need to reach out to our struggling business community. DeRosa was always happy to gratuitously cross swords with the business community. Whether it was Albertson’s in Mission Plaza, Smart & Final, Sam’s Club, Harbor Freight, or other potential business/development partners, DeRosa could always be counted upon to antagonize such partners and to scupper the deal. Thanks to her, the city wound up having to cough up nearly $1 million in fees and costs as a result of her insistence on initiating litigation with Tri-Millennium, one of our former development partners.
Moreover, DeRosa consistently put the interests of outside entities ahead of those the city. Cathedral City has fallen far behind other Valley cities in the realm of renewable energy because DeRosa was always far more interested in protecting her former employer, Southern California Edison, than she was in helping push a renewable energy agenda to help reduce Cathedral City’s Edison bills (to say nothing of this country’s dependence on foreign energy sources). Worse still, DeRosa, while mayor, served on the board of the Palm Desert Chamber Of Commerce, routinely putting Palm Desert’s interest ahead of those of Cathedral city.
If Stan Henry becomes mayor, he will need to put Cathedral City’s interest first and foremost, and to make a very public avowal that he will not put the interests of any other city or any private-sector employer ahead of those of Cathedral City.
Mr. Henry will also need to be transparent, accessible, and prepared to ditch Cathedral City’s existing culture of secrecy. On DeRosa’s watch, secrecy and stonewalling were the order of the day, and were abetted by the late and unlamented city clerk Patricia Hammers. Stan needs to be committed to openness and transparency.
I wish Stan luck. I’ve known him for many years, and at the risk of putting my gay card up for post-award review, I think he’s probably a straight up guy. As long as he makes a clean break with the DeRosa past, he may succeed, and I hope he does. Cathedral City deserves far better than the kind of sociopathic egotism DeRosa inflicted upon us. The catalog of her sins is lengthy; the legacy she leaves behind is toxic. We are, as it were, a ship in mid ocean with our decks on fire and ammunition in the hold. Stan Henry’s task, should he become mayor, will be to put out the fire before it reaches the ammunition.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City. He served two terms on the city Council, and makes no secret of his strong critique of the abysmal performance of the outgoing mayor. In the words of that outgoing incumbent, haters and supporters of the outgoing mayor who see fit to attack Mr. Marchand can go “fuck themselves.” This column is not intended, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
Embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s announcement that she would not seek reelection after 10 bitter winters as mayor has certainly set local social media alight. Reactions were predictable, ranging from my former Council colleague Greg Pettis’ tweet “ding dong” to handwringing comments from DeRosa sycophants whose social position in the community has largely been a function of their closeness to the incumbent.
Unplugging the Cult of Personality
One of the most interesting trends in the social media commentary about DeRosa’s announcement was the almost uniform derision and disdain expressed by commenters toward DeRosa’s efforts to craft a Stalinist departure narrative.
DeRosa has attempted to characterize her decision to leave office as being some kind of orchestrated transfer of power to a hand-picked successor. The facts suggest otherwise.
Over the last two years, DeRosa’s support has been evaporating like water on a hot Coachella Valley summer day. In 2012, in an election whose legitimacy remains in doubt, DeRosa came within 13 votes of being knocked off by retired emergency dispatch supervisor Chip Yarborough. Though DeRosa had to help of a hand-picked third person spoiler candidate and the corrupt intervention of the late, unneutral city clerk to get her over the top, the narrowness of the margin between her and Mr. Yarborough gave clear indication that the bloom was definitely off DeRosa in her relationship with this constituency.
Indeed, scuttlebutt has it that, after spending years building up a cult of personality and a political network ready to enforce her views and enable often sociopathic behavior (and who can forget her telling local restauranteur Mark Carnevale to go fuck himself?), DeRosa went a bridge too far in 2012 by attempting to run a combined candidate slate of herself, former police chief Stan Henry, and former councilmember Bud England.
The electorate rightly saw DeRosa’s slate as an arrogant, overreaching, unbelievably cynical effort to pack the city Council and to ensure her permanent control for the foreseeable future, and was having none of it. By attempting to shoot the moon, DeRosa ensured the defeat of Mr. England, the weakest and least effective of her troika, and thus lost any hope of controlling the Council majority.
Moreover, sources close to city hall tell me that DeRosa’s claim that she made some kind of undertaking to Mr. Henry that she would not run is a bit of an agreeable, face-saving falsehood. In fact, my sources tell me that DeRosa had every intention of seeking another term, but that when confronted by Mr. Henry (with whom she had had a fairly acrimonious falling out), she had to do the political math and what she discovered was enough to cause her to pull out.
For, in truth, the ground had shifted under DeRosa since the 2012 election, where she had treated her narrow, potentially illegitimate, 13 vote margin as some kind of mandate. Some of her strongest supporters, including Cathedral City’s auto dealers, had defected, as it were, to Mr. Henry’s camp. Even some of DeRosa’s most reliable sycophants had swung round to back the quondam police chief.
Faced with such circumstances, and knowing that in any straight up confrontation between herself and Stan Henry, she would not only lose, but be trounced, DeRosa had no choice but to try to fabricate the most agreeable, face-saving narrative for her departure that she and her supporters could fabricate.
Nonetheless, DeRosa’s reputation for serial untruths is such that her latest effort comes across not merely as risible, but as an insult to the intelligence of Cathedral City voters and residents. Equally risible is her assertion that she is not a “career politician.” After 16 winters on the Council, 10 of them in the center chair, Kathleen Joan DeRosa is the quintessence of a small town, small-vision, small-soul career politician.
During the ten bitter winters of Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s mayoralty, Cathedral city has stagnated. Businesses have fled, new businesses which could have replaced those that departed have flirted with us, been gratuitously antagonized by a mayor who didn’t know when to keep her ill mannered, Brooklyn yap shut, and have gone elsewhere in the Valley where mayors and councils were more receptive to their overtures.
Mayor Henry, assuming he becomes mayor, will need, right off the bat, to try to repair the often toxic relationship that exists between City Hall and the business community. He will need to be more tactful and less confrontational than DeRosa, who once pridefully declared “I don’t build bridges; I burn them.”
And DeRosa’s reputation as a bridge burner certainly preceded her. So, too, has her reputation for laziness. As one major business after another pulled out of Cathedral City, DeRosa always declined to make the effort to encourage those businesses to stay. When Smart & Final announced its decision to pull out of Cathedral City nearly a decade ago, I asked DeRosa what plans she had to try to encourage Smart & Final, which had been our 55th largest source of sales tax increment, to remain. DeRosa looked at me with that nasty expression that she so often assumes and snapped at me that any effort to encourage Smart & Final to remain was “unrealistic.” In short, she didn’t want to undertake the effort or do the work. In fact, the only work DeRosa has been willing to do for this city has been that which could provide her with immediate credit and immediate political capital.
Finally, DeRosa’s insult to thousands of Christians in Cathedral city should not go unforgotten. During the run-up to the 2012 election, DeRosa declared that she could not support marriage equality because she was “a Catholic.” Yet, no sooner had marriage equality become a reality again in California, then she officiated at a same-gender wedding ceremony for two of her supporters, held in the city Council chambers (!), after she had solicited some form of online “ordination,” thus apostasizing from the faith she so ostentatiously claimed to follow. For more discussion on DeRosa’s unbelievably cynical political and municipal apostasy, please follow this link: http://cathedralcityobserved.blogspot.com/2013/07/municipal-apostasy-kathleen-derosa.html. Even more offensive was DeRosa’s smarmy announcement on our local broadcast media that she believed Mr. Henry to be some kind of “sign from God” that she could lay down her ego driven political career. What hubris!
I Won’t have what She’s Having: Avoiding DeRosa’s Toxic Legacy
Of course, assuming that Stan Henry actually gets elected Mayor to succeed the career politician who claims to be voluntarily leaving that post after receiving some sort of sign from the Almighty, he will have a great deal of damage control in front of him.
His first challenge will be to convince Cathedral City residents that he is not merely a political clone of his predecessor, but that he can bring new vision and new direction to a city adrift. He will need to develop a very thick skin, and to understand that criticism from the constituency does not constitute an attack on his integrity or his manhood, and he will also need to learn not to impugn the integrity of those who exercise their First Amendment petition right of reasonable criticism. If he takes things personally, and if he attacks those who do not see eye to eye with him, he will very quickly begin to accumulate the same reservoir of ill will that DeRosa accumulated, and which ultimately will drive her from office.
Though Mr. Henry espouses both political and social conservatism, you will need to understand that three of his council colleagues are gay, and that roughly 40% of Cathedral City’s population are also LGBT and that more than half our residents are Latino, and Mr. Henry will need to do considerably better in outreach to our communidad latina than DeRosa, who despised and disdained Latinos, ever did. If Cathedral City’s substantial queer and Latino communities do not feel comfortable or accepted, the next mayoral election may not turn out quite to Mr. Henry’s liking or to that of councilmembers Vasquez, Pettis, and Toles. Stan needs to build bridges, not burn them.
Moreover, Mr. Henry will also need to delink himself from the city’s police department of which he was head for so many years. He will need to remember that Cathedral City is a municipal corporation with a Police Department, not a Police Department with a municipal corporation attached.
Stan will also need to reach out to our struggling business community. DeRosa was always happy to gratuitously cross swords with the business community. Whether it was Albertson’s in Mission Plaza, Smart & Final, Sam’s Club, Harbor Freight, or other potential business/development partners, DeRosa could always be counted upon to antagonize such partners and to scupper the deal. Thanks to her, the city wound up having to cough up nearly $1 million in fees and costs as a result of her insistence on initiating litigation with Tri-Millennium, one of our former development partners.
Moreover, DeRosa consistently put the interests of outside entities ahead of those the city. Cathedral City has fallen far behind other Valley cities in the realm of renewable energy because DeRosa was always far more interested in protecting her former employer, Southern California Edison, than she was in helping push a renewable energy agenda to help reduce Cathedral City’s Edison bills (to say nothing of this country’s dependence on foreign energy sources). Worse still, DeRosa, while mayor, served on the board of the Palm Desert Chamber Of Commerce, routinely putting Palm Desert’s interest ahead of those of Cathedral city.
If Stan Henry becomes mayor, he will need to put Cathedral City’s interest first and foremost, and to make a very public avowal that he will not put the interests of any other city or any private-sector employer ahead of those of Cathedral City.
Mr. Henry will also need to be transparent, accessible, and prepared to ditch Cathedral City’s existing culture of secrecy. On DeRosa’s watch, secrecy and stonewalling were the order of the day, and were abetted by the late and unlamented city clerk Patricia Hammers. Stan needs to be committed to openness and transparency.
I wish Stan luck. I’ve known him for many years, and at the risk of putting my gay card up for post-award review, I think he’s probably a straight up guy. As long as he makes a clean break with the DeRosa past, he may succeed, and I hope he does. Cathedral City deserves far better than the kind of sociopathic egotism DeRosa inflicted upon us. The catalog of her sins is lengthy; the legacy she leaves behind is toxic. We are, as it were, a ship in mid ocean with our decks on fire and ammunition in the hold. Stan Henry’s task, should he become mayor, will be to put out the fire before it reaches the ammunition.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City. He served two terms on the city Council, and makes no secret of his strong critique of the abysmal performance of the outgoing mayor. In the words of that outgoing incumbent, haters and supporters of the outgoing mayor who see fit to attack Mr. Marchand can go “fuck themselves.” This column is not intended, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
BAH, HUMBUG!
Summary: Christmas is a pain in the ass. Crises, snits, and quarrels, ridiculous culture war confrontations, fights over politics, and disappointment at the failure of unrealistic expectations for the season are often enough to cause many of us to growl “bah, humbug!” and to retreat from Christmas altogether. Our surly moods often express themselves in such things as retreating to our places of work, to try to get some work accomplished during the silent time when nobody else is around. Yet in the silence, we cannot avoid contemplating the subversion the Infant in the manger came to set in train. In a time and a society that demonizes the powerless and punishes the poor, we may yet acknowledge some incremental steps toward satisfying our duty of compassion toward the neighbors Christ our Savior called us to love as we love ourselves. The works of justice to which He called us are still incomplete; “substantial additional work” Bush v. Gore (2000) 531 U.S. 98, 110, is still needed, but on this Christmas, we may still, with full consciousness of the subversive nature thereof, dare to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. The Savior is nigh. O come let us adore Him.
By: Paul S. Marchand
It’s easy to hate Christmas.
It’s a pain in the ass.
Start with the canned Christmas music and the pre-Yuletide shopping season whose beginning advances ever further into the liturgical season of Pentecost, add to that all of the various other crises, snits, and quarrels that seem to erupt around this time of year, throw in a generous of the culture war bullshit that crops up right around this time (think Bill O’Reilly and his idiotic “War on Christmas” screeds, together with his whiny criticisms of the Roman Pontiff and the aggressively ignorant bigots of Duck Dynasty and their aggressively ignorant defenders), and finally layer on top of all of that the various expectations we all seem to entertain about what Christmas should be —-and our disappointment when those expectations are not met. All these things together are a recipe for a lousy holiday season. To riff on playwright Larry Kramer’s famous line, “I have seen the Christmas season and it shits.”
So, like a lot of people for whom late fall and winter are a time of torment, my response to the overload of saccharine inherent in this season is to growl a well considered “Bah, humbug!”, together with an off-color homage to Bette Midler’s character in The Rose: “fuck this shit.” It does not take a lot to understand my surliness of mood as we approach yet another American Christmas. Certainly, such a mood is hardly enhanced by nosy neighbors who want to know why I have put up no lights on my house. Such a mood is not enhanced by neighbors giving me stink eye after noticing that, rather than put up a Christmas tree, I make do with an Advent wreath (complete with three purple candles, a pink one for Gaudete, and a white one for the Incarnate Savior). Indeed, my mood usually gets so surly by Christmas Day that it’s become a personal shibboleth of mine to go into my office and get at least some work done.
Yet, in the lonely quiet of the office on Christmas day, far away from the importunings of co-workers, the ringing phones, the canned music, and the endless advertisements for products I neither need nor want, the silence lends itself to contemplation, and to a realization that, stripped of all the accretions of bullshit we have piled onto it, Christmas is a subversive time. We cannot avoid contemplating the subversion our Savior came into the world to set in train.
Alan Jones, sometime Dean of San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, once noted that "We live in an age in which everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven." Certainly, in a time of culture wars, Duck Dynasties, and aggressive, triumphalist ignorance, it is easy to fall back upon a judgmental posture that sees little redemption in anything. What would our culture war hardliners have said about a pregnant teenager traveling with an older man who is not the father of her unborn child? Would they have appreciated the weary dignity —– that weary dignity which is so often the lot of the poor among us —- with which this couple sought lodging on a cold night in late fall in an occupied territory? Or would they had seen this couple’s choice of a manger as a place to bed down in as nothing more than an example of freeloading by the undeserving poor?
What would our culture warriors think of the events described in the Lucan infancy narrative were they not possessed of the pre-knowledge that comes from that particular Gospel story having become, over 2000 years, one of the most special and precious possessions of the Western mind? I think the answer is simple. Mary and Joseph and their unborn child would have been described as freeloaders at best, welfare cheats at worst, and instead of being acknowledged as Our Lady the Queen of the Angels, Mary might well have been derided as nothing more than a welfare queen, living in the projects and sucking off the largess of society.
Indeed, applying such a narrative, many of the right-wing culture warriors who have made a fetish of insisting that Jesus was white might well have assumed the blackness of his unwed mother, sleeping rough in a manger and giving birth therein. For across 2000 years, we have yet to heed Jesus’ call, prefigured in the Hebrew Scriptures, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
And herein lies the subversion inherent in our celebration of the Incarnation of our Savior, the Word made flesh, come among us to dwell full of grace and truth and to draw us all to Himself. For indeed, the whole infancy narrative, the whole narrative of the suffering Savior Who offered Himself upon the bitter cross for our advantage, stands at fundamental variance with the way in which our world organizes itself.
In a society that regularly demonizes the poor and powerless, the very idea that the Savior of the world should have come into it as the child of a homeless, unwed mother is both subversive and confrontational. For the Infant Jesus did not come into the world to bring peace, but a sword. The Infant Jesus did not come into the world to comfort the comfortable, or to afflict the afflicted, but to remind us of God’s preferential option for Lazarus over Dives, of God’s awesome compassion for those unloved with none to love them.
The radical and subversive teachings Jesus brought to the world call us across 21 centuries to an ethic of justice, inclusion, compassion, and compunction. As we feel a sense of inchoate obligation toward the Infant in the manger, so that Infant calls us to feel that same sense of obligation toward our neighbors.
And indeed, in this year 2013 we may perhaps feel a sense of having in some incremental way done right by those to whom we have so often done wrong. Though the federal government has left more than a million lumps of coal in the stockings of unemployed Americans, 13 states have been moved to raise their minimum wage, to provide some degree of a better life for millions of the working poor. Though jurisdictions throughout the country have had to be chivvied, dragged, and ultimately sued, the corner appears to have been turned on marriage equality. A year ago just six states out of 50 permitted the marriage of Ruth and Naomi or of Jonathan and David; today 18 state jurisdictions, together with the nation’s capital, embrace marriage equality. The city of Phoenix, Arizona, mirabile dictu, has managed to house all of its chronically homeless veterans.
Yet, in the sacred silence of this time of Incarnation, we need to realize how much more remains undone, how distant we yet remain from the Kingdom of God. To borrow from the language of the egregious Bush v. Gore opinion, “substantial additional work” is needed. 531 U.S. 98 at 110.
In this sacred time, when we recall again that we are the people of a passionate God, Whose passionate love for us is passionately expressed in the Incarnation, Passion, death, and Resurrection of the Infant in the manger, it is for us, as Abraham Lincoln reminded the nation at Gettysburg, to be "dedicated to the great task remaining before us," of furthering toward toward completion unfinished work spoken of by the prophet Isaiah:
“to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” Isa. 61:1-2.
And to say “bah, humbug” to all the naysayers who believe on this Christmas that we can neither attain social justice nor proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
“Substantial additional work” is still needed. Let’s get about doing it.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
The Savior is nigh. O come let us adore Him.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms as a member of the city Council. The views contained herein are his own, and are not intended as, and should not be taken as, legal advice.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
LIPSTICK ON A PIG: Cathedral City Spin Master Kathleen Derosa Chronicles Our Municipal Decline.
Summary: Embattled Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s State Of the City address last Wednesday represented another effort put lipstick on a pig and spin the sad decline of the city during the nine winters we have been burdened with DeRosa as mayor. Her litany of marginal achievements reads like the prognosis reports of a terminal patient. She has managed single-handedly to sidetrack Cathedral City’s proposed annexation of Thousand Palms, while here in Cathedral City proper, our own desolate downtown has become a municipal embarrassment. DeRosa’s failure and incompetence have gone on long enough. It’s time to replace her with somebody who can get the job done.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Embattled and ineffective Cathedral city Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa put on her hubcap earrings and tried to put lipstick on a pig last Wednesday with her most recent “State of the City” address.
Hope was a prominent thread in her remarks. “Hopefully revenues will be coming in,” DeRosa is reported to have said, apparently in much the same tone as one who whistles past the graveyard. DeRosa is also reported to have claimed that “there are glimmers of hope all over the city.” Unfortunately for DeRosa, hope doesn’t pay the rent, and hope doesn’t excuse her lamentably poor performance in elective office.
Additionally, DeRosa touted a number of low-end businesses in progress in the city, as if these low-revenue-generating enterprises represented the city’s fiscal salvation. Like a woman grasping at any straw available, DeRosa then declared, contrary to the clear weight of the evidence, that “Cathedral City is ahead of the curve and ready for business.”
Ready for what?
DeRosa’s litany of marginal achievements reads like prognosis notes for a terminal patient. This is DeRosa’s eighth state of the city message, and in each one, despite her upbeat spin (oh hell, let’s tell the truth, shame the devil, and describe her remarks as the lies they are) each such message has, in effect, been a chronicling of municipal decline on her watch.
We shouldn’t be surprised that, during the nine winters of DeRosa’s maladministration of the city, Cathedral City has steadily lost ground compared to other Coachella Valley cities. DeRosa’s history of being able to “queer every deal” conceivable is well-known throughout the Valley, as is her unfortunate tendency to drive potential suitors away by antagonizing just about every imaginable prospective business partner that has ever come to the city.
We are hemorrhaging businesses; just as bad, we are hemorrhaging city staff who are critical service providers for constituents and businesses alike. Yet, DeRosa continues to fiddle while Cathedral City burns. If, three years ago, I could in good conscience support the proposed annexation of Thousand Palms, I can no longer do so; in the long run, it may be better if Thousand Palms remains unincorporated county territory, or incorporates as an independent city. I am not alone in this gathering momentum against annexation, even though I believe that, over time, bringing Cathedral City and Thousand Palms together could create potential synergies for growth.
How has what once looked like a good deal for both Cathedral City and Thousand Palms come to look like an incipient disaster?
I’m not certain how to fix the problem, but I do know where to fix the blame, and it must be fixed squarely on Kathleen Joan DeRosa.
After all, how can Cathedral City hope to get its act together to annex Thousand Palms if it cannot, after nearly 15 years, get its act together to develop its desolate downtown?
To drive through Cathedral City’s downtown is to feel deep embarrassment. On a recent windy afternoon I drove through downtown and watched as the dust devils danced across vacant lots that many of us had once believed would be the heart and core of a vibrant community. All I could see in the dancing dust devils were the remains of hopes and dreams shattered on the rock of the incumbent mayor’s absolute failure to do the job the voters continually elect her to do.
Let us hope (there’s that word again!) that an awakened population, aware of the dismal performance of this mayor, turns her out in next year’s election.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, and who deplores the decline of his city during the nine winters of the incumbent mayor. The views set forth herein are his own, and are not intended as legal advice.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Embattled and ineffective Cathedral city Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa put on her hubcap earrings and tried to put lipstick on a pig last Wednesday with her most recent “State of the City” address.
Hope was a prominent thread in her remarks. “Hopefully revenues will be coming in,” DeRosa is reported to have said, apparently in much the same tone as one who whistles past the graveyard. DeRosa is also reported to have claimed that “there are glimmers of hope all over the city.” Unfortunately for DeRosa, hope doesn’t pay the rent, and hope doesn’t excuse her lamentably poor performance in elective office.
Additionally, DeRosa touted a number of low-end businesses in progress in the city, as if these low-revenue-generating enterprises represented the city’s fiscal salvation. Like a woman grasping at any straw available, DeRosa then declared, contrary to the clear weight of the evidence, that “Cathedral City is ahead of the curve and ready for business.”
Ready for what?
DeRosa’s litany of marginal achievements reads like prognosis notes for a terminal patient. This is DeRosa’s eighth state of the city message, and in each one, despite her upbeat spin (oh hell, let’s tell the truth, shame the devil, and describe her remarks as the lies they are) each such message has, in effect, been a chronicling of municipal decline on her watch.
We shouldn’t be surprised that, during the nine winters of DeRosa’s maladministration of the city, Cathedral City has steadily lost ground compared to other Coachella Valley cities. DeRosa’s history of being able to “queer every deal” conceivable is well-known throughout the Valley, as is her unfortunate tendency to drive potential suitors away by antagonizing just about every imaginable prospective business partner that has ever come to the city.
We are hemorrhaging businesses; just as bad, we are hemorrhaging city staff who are critical service providers for constituents and businesses alike. Yet, DeRosa continues to fiddle while Cathedral City burns. If, three years ago, I could in good conscience support the proposed annexation of Thousand Palms, I can no longer do so; in the long run, it may be better if Thousand Palms remains unincorporated county territory, or incorporates as an independent city. I am not alone in this gathering momentum against annexation, even though I believe that, over time, bringing Cathedral City and Thousand Palms together could create potential synergies for growth.
How has what once looked like a good deal for both Cathedral City and Thousand Palms come to look like an incipient disaster?
I’m not certain how to fix the problem, but I do know where to fix the blame, and it must be fixed squarely on Kathleen Joan DeRosa.
After all, how can Cathedral City hope to get its act together to annex Thousand Palms if it cannot, after nearly 15 years, get its act together to develop its desolate downtown?
To drive through Cathedral City’s downtown is to feel deep embarrassment. On a recent windy afternoon I drove through downtown and watched as the dust devils danced across vacant lots that many of us had once believed would be the heart and core of a vibrant community. All I could see in the dancing dust devils were the remains of hopes and dreams shattered on the rock of the incumbent mayor’s absolute failure to do the job the voters continually elect her to do.
Let us hope (there’s that word again!) that an awakened population, aware of the dismal performance of this mayor, turns her out in next year’s election.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, and who deplores the decline of his city during the nine winters of the incumbent mayor. The views set forth herein are his own, and are not intended as legal advice.
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