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.
Monday, May 26, 2014
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.
Monday, October 14, 2013
WHOSE DAY? COLUMBUS DAY? DAY OF THE RACE? DAY OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES?
Summary: Every year at Columbus Day, we get our knickers in a knot. Should we embrace a white liberal guilt posture of anguished handwringing and so-called political correctness, or should we fall back on the triumphalist Eurocentric narrative so many of learned in school? The day long ago set aside to commemorate the first coming of Columbus to the New World has become an ongoing controversy. Whose day is it? Do we celebrate the exploring spirit or do we mourn for our First Peoples? Does the celebration of the one preclude sober reflection about the fate of the other? Columbus day is, and will always remain, a paradox.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Cathedral City, October 14, 2013– Today Columbus Day, as officially observed. Saturday the 12th was traditional Columbus Day.
There is an ironic New Yorker Columbus Day cartoon of some notoriety depicting two American Indians standing in the underbrush by the shore of a Caribbean island. From three high-castled ships anchored offshore, boats are rowing toward the beach. In the lead boat, an explorer (presumably Columbus) stands, holding a flag. The caption of the cartoon has one Indian saying to the other something like “now might be a good time to review our immigration policies.”
The cartoon strikes us as funny because we know the history of the 500-plus years since Columbus’ arrival in the New World triggered the greatest völkerwanderung -a vast migration of peoples- in the recorded history of the world. Since then, millions of immigrants from all over the world have made their way to the Americas, and the history of their interaction with those who came before has been checkered at best.
Yet, in the last analysis, we all are descendants of immigrants from elsewhere, even Indians. If my white ancestors came here as part of the Atlantic migrations, my Indian ancestors arrived here tens, perhaps scores, of thousands of years ago, presumably across the Bering land bridge from Asia, and are still ultimately immigrants. The term “Native American” is thus something of a misnomer, a fact Canada recognizes by designating her Indians and Eskimos as “First Peoples.”
Still, by the time the first Europeans reached America -whenever that may have been, but certainly well before Columbus- the Indians of the Americas had established a lengthy tenure of occupation. The Americas were not -as generations of schoolchildren were once taught- an empty wilderness, but a landmass populated by a mass of humanity more diverse by far than Europe itself. By 1492, the social development of the Americas ranged from primitive hunter-gathering groups to complex state societies ranging from the mound-builder descendants of North America to the Aztecs of México, to the South American empire its Inca inhabitants called Tahuantinsuyu, the Four Quarters of the World.
Within two centuries, all of this had gone. The westward migration triggered by Columbus’ voyages had grown from trickle to flood. Wave after wave of migration, particularly to the settlement colonies of British North America, coupled with superior weapons technology, superior agricultural and industrial technology, and the spread of European diseases -trivial childhood ailments to whites, fatal to unexposed Indians- tipped the balance decisively in favor of the pale invaders from across the water.
Thus the history, and thus the deeply conflicted emotions that swirl around any October 12 observance. Is it Columbus Day? Is it Dia de La Raza/Day of the Race? Is it Indigenous Peoples Day? Whatever one calls it, October 12 can be relied upon to pit the Sons of Italy celebrating one of their own against Native American groups calling attention to what has been called “half-a-millennium of resistance.” As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, in that no-man’s-land to which moderates and truth-seekers -and indeed, most of us- are exiled. Do we celebrate the human achievement of the explorers and the immigrants, or do we weep for our Indian ancestors? Do we call attention to the evils the explorers so often brought in their wake, or do we celebrate the achievements of our First Forebears?
The answer is: all of the above. We cannot reverse the pragmatic sanction of history; the völkerwanderung that brought my European forebears to the Americans is as irreversible as that which brought my Indian ancestors to this place. The peoples have mixed too much to separate them; the rate of intermarriage among the Cherokee, for example, is close to 100 percent. Now is no longer an opportune time for the Indians in the underbrush of the New Yorker cartoon to discuss immigration policy. The invaders cannot be marched back onto their Naos and caravels and Mayflowers, their Susan Constants, their Godspeeds and their Discoverys and packed back whence they came; their bones and the bones of their children have also become part of this land.
The invasion has been a success. Generations of interpenetration have produced a people that like mythic Coyote -the culture hero of many tribes- is one of shape-shifters. Millions of Americans carry the blood of both sides in their veins; millions of us are at once both the invading European and the resistant Indian. In a time of shape-shifting and mixing, Columbus Day, like Coyote, must be a shape-shifter. It must be an occasion for celebrating the nobility of the exploring spirit, but also for reflection on the duties we all owe to one another as common human inhabitants of the place we all call home.
As progressives, we must particularly be attuned on Columbus Day and every day to what our communities are telling us. We are a coalition -a movement- composed of communities and tribes and lineages of every sort and condition. We march with labor, but also support the right of Indians to be accounted as first class citizens of the commonwealth. We confess many faiths, and none at all. We acknowledge the right of many Americans of faith to oppose marriage equality within the context of their own churches, but we also insist that America’s queerfolk be treated as first class citizens, too. We embrace inclusiveness, knowing that ours is the harder choice and the nobler path, one from which the fearful of change turn away.
Columbus Day has become a paradox, laden with so many layers to deconstruct the debate will continue long after those currently engaged in it have passed out of this world. It is part of our larger American paradox, in which, as Babylon 5 writer J. Michael Straczynski once observed, "The past tempts us, the present confuses us, [and] the future frightens us...." Whose day is Columbus Day? It is our day, on which, perhaps more than on any other holiday, we need to reflect on who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is a pale, European-looking, attorney. He lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served two terms on the City Council, for which he is running again. Thanks to an Act of Congress only a lawyer could love, and the fact that he lives on Indian leased land, his government considers him an Indian living on a Res. Go figure. The views herein are his own, not those of any jurisdiction, agency, entity, club, or other organization, and are not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
This post is a revision of an earlier post published at this time last year. Since knickers are still in knots, it remains timely.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Cathedral City, October 14, 2013– Today Columbus Day, as officially observed. Saturday the 12th was traditional Columbus Day.
There is an ironic New Yorker Columbus Day cartoon of some notoriety depicting two American Indians standing in the underbrush by the shore of a Caribbean island. From three high-castled ships anchored offshore, boats are rowing toward the beach. In the lead boat, an explorer (presumably Columbus) stands, holding a flag. The caption of the cartoon has one Indian saying to the other something like “now might be a good time to review our immigration policies.”
The cartoon strikes us as funny because we know the history of the 500-plus years since Columbus’ arrival in the New World triggered the greatest völkerwanderung -a vast migration of peoples- in the recorded history of the world. Since then, millions of immigrants from all over the world have made their way to the Americas, and the history of their interaction with those who came before has been checkered at best.
Yet, in the last analysis, we all are descendants of immigrants from elsewhere, even Indians. If my white ancestors came here as part of the Atlantic migrations, my Indian ancestors arrived here tens, perhaps scores, of thousands of years ago, presumably across the Bering land bridge from Asia, and are still ultimately immigrants. The term “Native American” is thus something of a misnomer, a fact Canada recognizes by designating her Indians and Eskimos as “First Peoples.”
Still, by the time the first Europeans reached America -whenever that may have been, but certainly well before Columbus- the Indians of the Americas had established a lengthy tenure of occupation. The Americas were not -as generations of schoolchildren were once taught- an empty wilderness, but a landmass populated by a mass of humanity more diverse by far than Europe itself. By 1492, the social development of the Americas ranged from primitive hunter-gathering groups to complex state societies ranging from the mound-builder descendants of North America to the Aztecs of México, to the South American empire its Inca inhabitants called Tahuantinsuyu, the Four Quarters of the World.
Within two centuries, all of this had gone. The westward migration triggered by Columbus’ voyages had grown from trickle to flood. Wave after wave of migration, particularly to the settlement colonies of British North America, coupled with superior weapons technology, superior agricultural and industrial technology, and the spread of European diseases -trivial childhood ailments to whites, fatal to unexposed Indians- tipped the balance decisively in favor of the pale invaders from across the water.
Thus the history, and thus the deeply conflicted emotions that swirl around any October 12 observance. Is it Columbus Day? Is it Dia de La Raza/Day of the Race? Is it Indigenous Peoples Day? Whatever one calls it, October 12 can be relied upon to pit the Sons of Italy celebrating one of their own against Native American groups calling attention to what has been called “half-a-millennium of resistance.” As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, in that no-man’s-land to which moderates and truth-seekers -and indeed, most of us- are exiled. Do we celebrate the human achievement of the explorers and the immigrants, or do we weep for our Indian ancestors? Do we call attention to the evils the explorers so often brought in their wake, or do we celebrate the achievements of our First Forebears?
The answer is: all of the above. We cannot reverse the pragmatic sanction of history; the völkerwanderung that brought my European forebears to the Americans is as irreversible as that which brought my Indian ancestors to this place. The peoples have mixed too much to separate them; the rate of intermarriage among the Cherokee, for example, is close to 100 percent. Now is no longer an opportune time for the Indians in the underbrush of the New Yorker cartoon to discuss immigration policy. The invaders cannot be marched back onto their Naos and caravels and Mayflowers, their Susan Constants, their Godspeeds and their Discoverys and packed back whence they came; their bones and the bones of their children have also become part of this land.
The invasion has been a success. Generations of interpenetration have produced a people that like mythic Coyote -the culture hero of many tribes- is one of shape-shifters. Millions of Americans carry the blood of both sides in their veins; millions of us are at once both the invading European and the resistant Indian. In a time of shape-shifting and mixing, Columbus Day, like Coyote, must be a shape-shifter. It must be an occasion for celebrating the nobility of the exploring spirit, but also for reflection on the duties we all owe to one another as common human inhabitants of the place we all call home.
As progressives, we must particularly be attuned on Columbus Day and every day to what our communities are telling us. We are a coalition -a movement- composed of communities and tribes and lineages of every sort and condition. We march with labor, but also support the right of Indians to be accounted as first class citizens of the commonwealth. We confess many faiths, and none at all. We acknowledge the right of many Americans of faith to oppose marriage equality within the context of their own churches, but we also insist that America’s queerfolk be treated as first class citizens, too. We embrace inclusiveness, knowing that ours is the harder choice and the nobler path, one from which the fearful of change turn away.
Columbus Day has become a paradox, laden with so many layers to deconstruct the debate will continue long after those currently engaged in it have passed out of this world. It is part of our larger American paradox, in which, as Babylon 5 writer J. Michael Straczynski once observed, "The past tempts us, the present confuses us, [and] the future frightens us...." Whose day is Columbus Day? It is our day, on which, perhaps more than on any other holiday, we need to reflect on who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is a pale, European-looking, attorney. He lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served two terms on the City Council, for which he is running again. Thanks to an Act of Congress only a lawyer could love, and the fact that he lives on Indian leased land, his government considers him an Indian living on a Res. Go figure. The views herein are his own, not those of any jurisdiction, agency, entity, club, or other organization, and are not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
This post is a revision of an earlier post published at this time last year. Since knickers are still in knots, it remains timely.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
NO SQUISHES NEEDED The Astonishingly Jejune Performance of Congressman Raul Ruiz
Summary: Once regarded as spineless, willing to cave, and prepared to be washed away on their own fear pee every time a Republican said “boo!”, Democrats on Capitol Hill seem to have rediscovered their backbones in the confrontation over Obamacare and the government shutdown. Yet, newly emboldened Democrats need to cherish a famously cranky and unpredictable base, working to ensure that Democrats don’t just sit out the midterm elections of 2014. Democrats at every level need to put Democratic partisanship in command and have the courage of our convictions. Fortunately, Republicans are doing a very good job of once again scaring the bejeesus out of uncommitted and Democratic-leaning voters. However, there are still too many Democratic squishes (pace Ted Cruz) who seem naïvely willing to damage their party and betray their constituents by attempting to “reach across the aisle.” Here in California 36th congressional district, our Democratic Congressman, Raul Ruiz, was one of only nine Democrats to vote in support of Republican sponsored amendment to delay the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. Right now, many of his constituents feel as betrayed by him as a wife would who finds that her husband has been whoring around with other men on the down low. Dr. Ruiz needs to come clean and get right with his base, lest he find himself facing a primary challenger from his left in 2014. We didn’t vote to send a squish to Washington.
By: Paul S Marchand
Democrats once had a reputation for spinelessness. Over the course of many years, the Democratic Party had come to be regarded as one that would shrink from confrontation with Republicans, one that would cave on major issues, leaving the Democratic base stranded out in the cold.
Those days, thankfully, appear to be over. I noted the other day the pleasantly surprised tone of an article in the Daily Kos on the fact that Congressional Democrats in both Houses were standing firm and not caving against the Republican temper tantrum and its consequent government shutdown. Indeed, it’s nice to know that the Party seems to recovering some backbone, and that Democrats are no longer willing to let themselves get washed away by their own fear pee every time Republican stamps his or her foot and yells “boo!”
Of course, the sudden recovery of spine by Congressional Democrats is no guarantee that the Democratic base, famously cranky and unpredictable, will rally to Democrats next year. To a certain extent, we Democrats may have to rely on our “friends” in the GOP to do some of the work of rallying our base for us. By sabotaging their own brand, Republicans may have the effect of scaring the bejeesus out of and driving uncommitted voters toward the Democracy and also of calling disillusioned, squishy Democrats home to their own Party.
In tandem with Republican efforts not merely to kick, but actually to dance on, the turd, Democrats must also re-proselytize their own voters, keeping before them the dismal catalog of bad GOP behavior. We Democrats dare not fall back into our fatal pattern of over-trusting our electorate. Too often, Democrats manifest a childlike, naïve belief that if we just give voters the raw data, those voters will spontaneously perform the appropriate analysis and reach the correct conclusion.
Of course, this is not the case. While I do not necessarily mean to suggest that the masses are asses, many low-information voters simply lack the intellectual infrastructure to be able to process those raw data and come to the conclusion we desire them to reach. Republicans, on the other hand, don’t feel the apparent compunction we do about spoon feeding their base the answers. In short, the institutional Party needs to cherish and handhold its voters far better that it has done. We can’t afford to make the mistake the Obama administration has made with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as “Obamacare.”
If we don’t do a better job marketing our message prior to the midterms of 2014, many Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters will succumb to the same kind of apathy that caused Democrats to stay home in droves during the disastrous midterm elections of 2010. Hopefully, however, the astonishing and welcome unity of the Democratic caucuses on Capitol Hill will serve as a model and an inspiration for local Democratic parties around the country as we prepare to muster our troops for what may well be one of the most consequential midterm elections in recent history. At this moment, Democrats, particularly Democrats in local party organizations, must put their partisanship in command. We dare not fall into the trap William Butler Yeats described in his classic poem “The Second Coming,” in which he lamented that
“[t]he best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
By putting partisanship in command, I mean that Democrats must give up certain behaviors they had considered comfortable. Democrats must, for example, discard the foolish, politically heretical idea that there is no practical difference between the parties. That’s what cost Al Gore the presidency of the United States in 2000, when foolish, arrogant, solipsistic Ralph Nader voters insisted, against all evidence, that Democrats and Republicans were “all alike.”
Furthermore, Democrats must neither engage in nor tolerate the uniquely American behavior of trying to blame both sides. Pari delicto (both parties are equally at fault) is not an option, it is a recipe for self-defeating self sabotage. The next time a Democrat hears the phrase “I blame both sides,” a loyal Democrat must quickly rise to the defense of the Party, and make sure the blame is cast where properly belongs, with the GOP.
Additionally, Democrats need to stand with the President. Yes, we all know that Barack Obama has not delivered the Utopia many of us wanted him to deliver, yesterday. Utopia will never be attained in a day, or even in the quadrennium granted a president by the Constitution. Anytime a Democrat complains that the President has not done enough, remind that wayward Democrat of what this President has in fact accomplished.
Finally, at a time when the party opposite has reduced governance to a form of grim and hateful trench warfare, in which no prisoners are taken and no quarter granted, in which a small group of willful and arrogant House members —along with Ted “Joe McCarthy’s bastard child” Cruz— have contrived, in the words of President Woodrow Wilson, “to make the United States appear weak and contemptible in the eyes of the world,” Democrats cannot afford the naïve and frivolous luxury of trying to “reach across the aisle.”
Unfortunately, some Democratic members of Congress have made the rookie mistake of playing directly into the Tea Party’s hands with such foolish posturing. A couple of days ago, the House voted on a Republican sponsored amendment to delay the implementation of the individual mandate on Obamacare for a year. Nine Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with a united Republican caucus to support the delay. These Democrats bolted from their caucus, and let the Party down very badly.
Tea Party bomb thrower Ted Cruz has a word for politicians who won’t stand with their caucus. That word is “squish.” It may with justice be applied to each of the nine Democratic squishes who crossed the aisle and voted with the Tea Party, impliedly supporting the GOP’s effort to sabotage Obamacare.
Sadly, one of those Democratic squishes was Congressman Raul Ruiz, of California’s 36th Congressional District. Ruiz has claimed in public that he was attempting to be conciliatory and “reach across the aisle.”
With the GOP willing to shut down the United States government in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to prevent the implementation of Obamacare, every vote on that issue becomes, in effect, a litmus test and a statement of conviction about the member’s position on the Affordable Care Act. If Congressman Ruiz secretly has reservations about the ACA, he certainly concealed them very effectively from the many thousands of Democrats who elected him to Congress last November, in part to defend the Affordable Care Act. If that is the case, then Raul Ruiz may well find himself a one term congressman; the base does not like to be played for fools.
On the other hand, if Congressman Ruiz was attempting to engage in some kind of naïvely hopeful “reaching across the aisle,” then he made a rookie mistake that verges on being unpardonable given the current political climate. To the extent that Congressman Ruiz allowed political naivety to push him into making such an elementary blunder, then it is clear that he can be played like a Stradivarius by the party opposite. We partisan Democrats can only hope that a spirited discussion between him and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will recall him from so foolish an error.
Because it may be that getting spanked by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer will be a lot more palatable to Congressman Ruiz than facing the possibility of a primary challenge by a stronger, more committed, more partisan Democrat in 2014.
The last thing Raul Ruiz needs right now is to gain a reputation, barely 9 months into his term, as an unreliable squish, as a DINO. Already, on comment threads and in discussions among Democrats throughout the district, a wave of anger against Congressman Ruiz has become palpable. If you are a first-term congressman, logic suggests you should try to conciliate your base. Right now, much of Congressman Ruiz’s base feels betrayed, and is nurturing the same kind of anger that a wife might feel whose husband has been whoring around with other men on the down low.
Dr. Ruiz’s base has the right to expect from him a certain level of commitment, and a certain level of loyalty to the Party of which he is a member. To borrow Ricky Ricardo’s line from I Love Lucy, “Raul, You got some 'splainin' to do!” And whatever explanation Congressman Ruiz proffers to his upset and angry base will need to be clear, convincing, credible, and repentant.
Years ago, a Democratic Congresswoman of my acquaintance compared bolting the caucus to an unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. I may be prepared, for the sake of my personal friendship with the Congressman, to consider the possibility of absolution, but absolution requires true repentance and the doing of appropriate penance. Whatever explanations Congressman Ruiz proffers to his base will need to be made not for pardon only, but for redemption, not for solace only, but for strength.
Right now, Dr. Ruiz is a very bad place. He has managed to alienate his friends while gaining no traction among his enemies. He should have known better, and this Democratic activist is hugely disappointed in the Congressman’s astonishingly jejune performance. I’m not sure I’m prepared to be let down the garden path again. Already, there is talk of finding a 2014 primary challenger from the left who won’t be an unreliable squish.
-xxx-
Paul S Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, California. He currently serves as a vice chair of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee, and is a constituent of Congressman Ruiz who voted for him in the 2012 election cycle. The views contained herein are Mr. Marchand’s own, and not necessarily those of the Central Committee, though they do appear to be congruent with the views of substantial number of Mr. Marchand’s fellow Democrats in the 36th Congressional District. They are not intended, and should not be construed as, any form of legal advice.
By: Paul S Marchand
Democrats once had a reputation for spinelessness. Over the course of many years, the Democratic Party had come to be regarded as one that would shrink from confrontation with Republicans, one that would cave on major issues, leaving the Democratic base stranded out in the cold.
Those days, thankfully, appear to be over. I noted the other day the pleasantly surprised tone of an article in the Daily Kos on the fact that Congressional Democrats in both Houses were standing firm and not caving against the Republican temper tantrum and its consequent government shutdown. Indeed, it’s nice to know that the Party seems to recovering some backbone, and that Democrats are no longer willing to let themselves get washed away by their own fear pee every time Republican stamps his or her foot and yells “boo!”
Of course, the sudden recovery of spine by Congressional Democrats is no guarantee that the Democratic base, famously cranky and unpredictable, will rally to Democrats next year. To a certain extent, we Democrats may have to rely on our “friends” in the GOP to do some of the work of rallying our base for us. By sabotaging their own brand, Republicans may have the effect of scaring the bejeesus out of and driving uncommitted voters toward the Democracy and also of calling disillusioned, squishy Democrats home to their own Party.
In tandem with Republican efforts not merely to kick, but actually to dance on, the turd, Democrats must also re-proselytize their own voters, keeping before them the dismal catalog of bad GOP behavior. We Democrats dare not fall back into our fatal pattern of over-trusting our electorate. Too often, Democrats manifest a childlike, naïve belief that if we just give voters the raw data, those voters will spontaneously perform the appropriate analysis and reach the correct conclusion.
Of course, this is not the case. While I do not necessarily mean to suggest that the masses are asses, many low-information voters simply lack the intellectual infrastructure to be able to process those raw data and come to the conclusion we desire them to reach. Republicans, on the other hand, don’t feel the apparent compunction we do about spoon feeding their base the answers. In short, the institutional Party needs to cherish and handhold its voters far better that it has done. We can’t afford to make the mistake the Obama administration has made with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as “Obamacare.”
If we don’t do a better job marketing our message prior to the midterms of 2014, many Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters will succumb to the same kind of apathy that caused Democrats to stay home in droves during the disastrous midterm elections of 2010. Hopefully, however, the astonishing and welcome unity of the Democratic caucuses on Capitol Hill will serve as a model and an inspiration for local Democratic parties around the country as we prepare to muster our troops for what may well be one of the most consequential midterm elections in recent history. At this moment, Democrats, particularly Democrats in local party organizations, must put their partisanship in command. We dare not fall into the trap William Butler Yeats described in his classic poem “The Second Coming,” in which he lamented that
“[t]he best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
By putting partisanship in command, I mean that Democrats must give up certain behaviors they had considered comfortable. Democrats must, for example, discard the foolish, politically heretical idea that there is no practical difference between the parties. That’s what cost Al Gore the presidency of the United States in 2000, when foolish, arrogant, solipsistic Ralph Nader voters insisted, against all evidence, that Democrats and Republicans were “all alike.”
Furthermore, Democrats must neither engage in nor tolerate the uniquely American behavior of trying to blame both sides. Pari delicto (both parties are equally at fault) is not an option, it is a recipe for self-defeating self sabotage. The next time a Democrat hears the phrase “I blame both sides,” a loyal Democrat must quickly rise to the defense of the Party, and make sure the blame is cast where properly belongs, with the GOP.
Additionally, Democrats need to stand with the President. Yes, we all know that Barack Obama has not delivered the Utopia many of us wanted him to deliver, yesterday. Utopia will never be attained in a day, or even in the quadrennium granted a president by the Constitution. Anytime a Democrat complains that the President has not done enough, remind that wayward Democrat of what this President has in fact accomplished.
Finally, at a time when the party opposite has reduced governance to a form of grim and hateful trench warfare, in which no prisoners are taken and no quarter granted, in which a small group of willful and arrogant House members —along with Ted “Joe McCarthy’s bastard child” Cruz— have contrived, in the words of President Woodrow Wilson, “to make the United States appear weak and contemptible in the eyes of the world,” Democrats cannot afford the naïve and frivolous luxury of trying to “reach across the aisle.”
Unfortunately, some Democratic members of Congress have made the rookie mistake of playing directly into the Tea Party’s hands with such foolish posturing. A couple of days ago, the House voted on a Republican sponsored amendment to delay the implementation of the individual mandate on Obamacare for a year. Nine Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with a united Republican caucus to support the delay. These Democrats bolted from their caucus, and let the Party down very badly.
Tea Party bomb thrower Ted Cruz has a word for politicians who won’t stand with their caucus. That word is “squish.” It may with justice be applied to each of the nine Democratic squishes who crossed the aisle and voted with the Tea Party, impliedly supporting the GOP’s effort to sabotage Obamacare.
Sadly, one of those Democratic squishes was Congressman Raul Ruiz, of California’s 36th Congressional District. Ruiz has claimed in public that he was attempting to be conciliatory and “reach across the aisle.”
With the GOP willing to shut down the United States government in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to prevent the implementation of Obamacare, every vote on that issue becomes, in effect, a litmus test and a statement of conviction about the member’s position on the Affordable Care Act. If Congressman Ruiz secretly has reservations about the ACA, he certainly concealed them very effectively from the many thousands of Democrats who elected him to Congress last November, in part to defend the Affordable Care Act. If that is the case, then Raul Ruiz may well find himself a one term congressman; the base does not like to be played for fools.
On the other hand, if Congressman Ruiz was attempting to engage in some kind of naïvely hopeful “reaching across the aisle,” then he made a rookie mistake that verges on being unpardonable given the current political climate. To the extent that Congressman Ruiz allowed political naivety to push him into making such an elementary blunder, then it is clear that he can be played like a Stradivarius by the party opposite. We partisan Democrats can only hope that a spirited discussion between him and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will recall him from so foolish an error.
Because it may be that getting spanked by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer will be a lot more palatable to Congressman Ruiz than facing the possibility of a primary challenge by a stronger, more committed, more partisan Democrat in 2014.
The last thing Raul Ruiz needs right now is to gain a reputation, barely 9 months into his term, as an unreliable squish, as a DINO. Already, on comment threads and in discussions among Democrats throughout the district, a wave of anger against Congressman Ruiz has become palpable. If you are a first-term congressman, logic suggests you should try to conciliate your base. Right now, much of Congressman Ruiz’s base feels betrayed, and is nurturing the same kind of anger that a wife might feel whose husband has been whoring around with other men on the down low.
Dr. Ruiz’s base has the right to expect from him a certain level of commitment, and a certain level of loyalty to the Party of which he is a member. To borrow Ricky Ricardo’s line from I Love Lucy, “Raul, You got some 'splainin' to do!” And whatever explanation Congressman Ruiz proffers to his upset and angry base will need to be clear, convincing, credible, and repentant.
Years ago, a Democratic Congresswoman of my acquaintance compared bolting the caucus to an unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. I may be prepared, for the sake of my personal friendship with the Congressman, to consider the possibility of absolution, but absolution requires true repentance and the doing of appropriate penance. Whatever explanations Congressman Ruiz proffers to his base will need to be made not for pardon only, but for redemption, not for solace only, but for strength.
Right now, Dr. Ruiz is a very bad place. He has managed to alienate his friends while gaining no traction among his enemies. He should have known better, and this Democratic activist is hugely disappointed in the Congressman’s astonishingly jejune performance. I’m not sure I’m prepared to be let down the garden path again. Already, there is talk of finding a 2014 primary challenger from the left who won’t be an unreliable squish.
-xxx-
Paul S Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, California. He currently serves as a vice chair of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee, and is a constituent of Congressman Ruiz who voted for him in the 2012 election cycle. The views contained herein are Mr. Marchand’s own, and not necessarily those of the Central Committee, though they do appear to be congruent with the views of substantial number of Mr. Marchand’s fellow Democrats in the 36th Congressional District. They are not intended, and should not be construed as, any form of legal advice.
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