This 2003 Quoflection is still pertinent for reflecting on our politics and values:

Can we set aside our national, cultural and intraspecies biases? Let us imagine we are Glipsloks from the planet Urduz (though a bit hairy, we consider ourselves beautiful). Using instantaneous googolplex processing, we quickly decipher all communications on Earth.

Our mission today is to educate our galactic neighbors. Please share your thoughts regarding the following proposed communication.

Residents of Earth,

To gain understanding, we Glipsloks are observing your planet. Your ways are puzzling to us. We notice you have 800 million people on your planet who suffer from malnutrition. You allow 100,000 children to die every week from starvation. You say you value justice. But we perceive much selfishness and apathy.

Our survey indicates more than 30 nations are currently waging war. This infliction of misery is confusing. You say you value human life. Yet you are oblivious to the suffering you impose upon multitudes of your fellow humans.

Your linguistic logic is bewildering. Many of your governments declare they are seeking peace—even while conducting a war. We Glipsloks do not understand. Until we heard such reasoning, we had no concept of duplicity.

You have video and audio capabilities that could inform you of misfortune throughout your world. Yet you focus your vision and care upon those like you. We Glipsloks value compassion for all. We see no benefit in choosing ignorance or prejudice.

We observe the leaders of one wealthy nation using advanced weapons to invade and occupy an ancient civilization. They say their purpose is to eliminate the other government’s advanced weapons. Yet they are unable to locate such weapons—while they maintain vastly superior stockpiles of such weapons of mass destruction. This double standard is perplexing.

Some leaders proclaim their love of liberty while advocating laws which severely restrict the freedoms of their citizens. They use these laws to arrest and detain many innocent people. The irony is these injustices are initiated by those managing the Department of Justice.

These leaders also appeal to patriotism, asserting that those who disagree with them do not love their country. Yet their country was founded on the principle that people are free to disagree. We Glipsloks do not understand such treachery.

We are also mystified by religious prejudice. Some leaders reject theocracy—if established by another country—but approve of a “Christian nation.” These leaders say they are motivated by faith while the basis for their actions is fear. How can this be?

They also speak of the evil of the other nation’s president. We see that he has indeed committed numerous atrocities. But don’t those who initiate war realize they cannot conquer evil with more evil? This produces a cycle of evil. We Glipsloks understand that only goodness overcomes evil.

Many leaders trust weapons whose power is puny. True, these weapons can take control of another nation. However, perpetrating violence for short-term advantage creates more problems than it solves. Your saying is true: “The pen is mightier than the sword.” We Glipsloks understand that genuine power is the result of speaking the truth in love.

We must ask you earthlings: Do you not value Peace? Love? Faith? Do you not regard Wisdom? Compassion? Goodness? Do you not cherish Humanity? Justice? Truth? You claim to honor these values. Yet your actions do not reflect them.

Nevertheless, we Glipsloks have hope for your planet. We see a leader among you who taught and embodied these values. He was willing to die, not kill, so you might find life. His risen spirit will guide you—if you follow him.

*     *     *     *     *

My fellow Glipsloks: How would you encourage our neighbors to reflect upon the disparity between their values and their actions?

Last year, after the General Assembly stole away the power of cities and towns in Rhode Island to set their own minimum wages, Providence City Councillor John Igliozzi told a packed room of disappointed hotel workers that the city was not prohibited from imposing higher minimum wage standards via tax stabilization agreements (TSAs), which are contracts between cities and private industry, and cannot be interfered with by the General Assembly.

Igliozzi said then that all future TSAs should include strong minimum wage requirements and many other worker protections and rights.

Igliozzi is the chair of the Providence City Council Finance Committee, so one would expect that he would follow up on this proposal, but so far, nothing like this has been incorporated into the new TSAs being cooked up in City Hall and expected to be voted on this week.

When Jesse Strecker, executive director of RI Jobs with Justice, testified before the Finance Committee of the Providence City Council, he presented a short list of proposals to ensure that whatever TSAs were adopted would truly benefit not just the investors and owners of billion dollar corporations but also the working people and families of Providence.

Strecker’s list included the following:

1. Provide good, career track jobs for Providence residents most in need by utilizing apprenticeship programs and community workforce agreements, hiring at least 50% of their workforce from the most economically distressed communities of Providence, with a substantial portion of that workforce made up of people facing barriers to employment such as being a single parent or homeless, or having a criminal record, offering job training programs so local residents are equipped with the skills necessary to perform the available jobs and hiring responsible contractors who do not break employment and civil rights law;

2. Pay workers a living wage of at least $15 per hour, provide health benefits and 12 paid sick days per year, and practice fair scheduling: offering full time work to existing employees before hiring new part time employees, letting workers know their schedule two weeks in advance, and providing one hour’s pay for every day that workers are forced to be ‘on call’;

3. For commercial projects, create a certain number of permanent, full-time jobs, or for housing developments, ensure that 20% of all units are sold or rented at the HUD defined affordable level. Or, contribute at an equivalent level to a “Community Benefits Fund,” overseen and directed by community members providing funding to create affordable housing, rehabilitate abandoned properties, or finance other community projects such as brown field remediation; and

4. Present projected job creation numbers before approval of the project, and provide monthly reporting on hiring, wages and benefits paid, and other critical pieces of information, to an enforcement officer, overseen by a Tax Incentive Review Board comprised of members of the public and appointees of the city council and mayor, to make sure companies are complying with their agreements, and be subject to subsidy recapture if they do not follow through.

Mayor Jorge Elorza submitted an amendment mandating that under the new TSAs, “projects over $10 million will be eligible for a 15-year tax stabilization agreement that will see no taxes in the first year, base land tax only in years 2-4, a 5% property tax in year 5 and then a gradual annual increase for the remainder of the term.”

In return, the “agreements include women and minority business enterprise incentives as well as apprenticeship requirements for construction and use of the City’s First Source requirements to encourage employment for Providence residents.”

But that short paragraph above contains few of the proposals suggested by Strecker.

Supporting the Jobs with Justice proposals are just about every community group and workers’ rights organization in Providence, including RI Building and Construction Trades Council, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), UNITE HERE Local 217, IUPAT Local 195 DC 11, District 1199 SEIU New England, RI Progressive Democrats of America, Teamsters Local 251, Fuerza Laboral / Power of Workers, Environmental Justice League of RI, RI Carpenters Local 94, Restaurant Opportunities Center RI (ROC United), Mount Hope Neighborhood Association, American Friends Service Committee, Occupy Providence, Olneyville Neighborhood Association (ONA), Fossil Free RI, Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM), Prosperity for RI, and the Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School Prison Health Interest Group.

We all know that our state faces many challenges. In most cases, good and honest leadership and visions have been unthinkable, especially in these challenging times. Like many others, I am aware of those critical issues and challenges, and I am deeply concerned about what lies ahead for our creative capital and state. However, I stood by and with you through the fight in the past elections, and I still believe and stand with you as you take office.

I have no doubt in mind that you’re ready to transform our city and state by changing it from within.

As you take your respective seats in offices and roll your sleeves, keep in mind that I and thousands of other concerned Rhode Islanders are watching you– particularly those of us who walked tirelessly under scorching summer sun and bitter cold winter. We burnt our fuel and carelessly increased our cars odometers by traveling to every corner of the city and state. We knocked on strangers’ doors despite the dangers and untold and unexpected humiliations that came with it. Above all, we put our own lives on hold, believing it’s worthy. We were ready to tell your stories and share your visions with the rest of the city and state. We believed in you and still do.

Like many others, I am watching you. I am watching you because I care about you and our state. I am watching you because I still believe in One Providence and One Rhode Island, where a mother on the Southside of Providence sends her teenage boy to the nearby corner store without any fear that he might not return home safely. If you do not do what you made us believe and get swallowed by the chronic illness of “cultural and insider politics,” don’t be surprised to read my articles in the papers. Don’t be surprised to see me hitting every medium, criticizing the person you might become. Don’t be surprised to see a movement against your failures. Don’t be surprised when an ardent supporter and a friend becomes a fierce critic.

As your good friend, I am watching you with eagle eyes. Beware and be yourself! Lead with open heart, open mind and integrity!

Your caring friend,

Komlan A. Soe

“Seth introduces ‘Insider Politics’ and ‘Mismanagement’, two consummate practitioners of the old politics that is ruining Rhode Island,” said campaign manager Evan England in an email. Here they are:

England didn’t exactly answer when I asked him if “Insider Politics” and “Mismanagement” were meant to be represent his primary opponent Frank Caprio.

“The characters represent the old politics that have brought Rhode Island the highest unemployment in the country,” England wrote. “Seth’s frustration with insider politics and mismanagement – a position many Rhode Islanders share – has been a consistent theme of his campaign.”

The commercials will be airing on TV as Rhode Islanders learn more about Frank’s brother David Caprio resigning as chairman of the state Democratic Party after an NBC10 Parker Gavigan scoop. Gavigan reported that David Caprio assumed the contracts for three state beach concession stands after the winning bidder, Cranston Rep. Peter Palumbo, dropped out and went to work for Caprio. The state police are investigating, reported Gavigan.

In the email from the Magaziner camp, England writes, “It’s time to kick ‘Insider Politics’ and ‘Mismanagement’ out and elect new leaders who will give Rhode Island a fresh start at creating jobs.”

But Gordon Fox in no way, shape or form represented the progressive – or even the liberal – wing of the Democratic Party and I also sincerely hope his political demise leads to less conservative leadership in the state legislature.

This would not be the case if Nick Mattiello is the next speaker of the house. He’d be the fourth-consecutive conservative Democrat to lead the House and was put in place to inherit the gavel from Fox by speaker-turned-lobbyist Bill Murphy.

Progressives would much prefer Pawtucket’s Paddy O’Neill replace Gordon Fox as the most powerful politician in the Ocean State. O’Neill is more liberal, he’s more open-minded, he’s more liked and he’s more respected. And perhaps most importantly, he isn’t connected to the current leadership team that has effectively been in place since John Harwood made a deal with Republicans to become the speaker.

Mattiello, a Cranston lawmaker, is one of the more conservative members of the House, a legislative chamber dominated by fiscal conservatives and social moderates whose party affiliation often belies their political leanings. Philosophically speaking, Mattiello seems no more or less liberal than his GOP counterpart Brian Newberry, and Newberry has surely been more open-minded to progressive ideas than Mattiello.

Often conservatives (and even sometimes liberals!) will rail against “70 years of Democrats in control” in the state legislature. But it’s hard to argue that the Gordon Fox era hasn’t been defined by conservative policy. During his tenure as speaker and majority leader before that, he backed tax cuts to the rich, financial cuts to struggling cities and programs for the developmentally disabled as well as nearly across the board austerity except when it came to corporate interests and Curt Schilling. Nationally, Fox is known as the openly gay legislator who pushed for civil unions before same sex marriage and/or as the Democrat who sponsored a Voter ID bill.

But progressive ideology aside, I think it’s high time Rhode Islanders demand a change to the leadership team in the House of Representatives.

Any and all Rhode Island political insiders will happily proclaim the speaker of the House to be “the most powerful person” in the Ocean State. But ever since self-proclaimed conservative Democrat John Harwood captured the speaker’s gavel by striking a deal with Republicans, the most powerful position in state politics has been awarded based more on loyalty than ability.

As Scott MacKay of RINPR reported yesterday, “Longtime Speaker John Harwood seamlessly passed the leadership to William Murphy, D- West Warwick. Harwood and Murphy later had a falling out, but it occurred only after the speaker’s gavel had changed hands without a battle royal. Then in 2010, when Murphy thought it was time to leave, the transfer of power to Fox was greased.”

Indeed, MacKay says Mattiello was set up to inherit the speaker’s gavel from Fox when Murphy handed it off to him. “The only thing that some House observers noticed that Murphy made taking Mattiello as  majority leader a condition of support for Fox,” he wrote. “Fox may be a bit rueful about that arrangement after yesterday’s events.”

Fox may well be rueful. But Murphy, now a lobbyist who represents the NRA and payday lenders, probably is not.

Neither may be Frank Anzeveno, who has served as chief of staff to the speaker since Harwood, and he would likely retain this job if Mattiello gets his way. Anzeveno infamously has a small placard on his State House desk that reads, “No better friend, no worse enemy.” And more than anything I just think the next speaker of the house would do well to be a little less Machiavellian.

The problem with politics is that it necessarily has to make an emotional appeal out of rational arguments. And that’s not to castigate that, that’s simply reality. You can trot out facts, figures, well-reasoned logic, and a thousand points of data; but without that gut punch, you can’t win. Anger, or fear, are often the most effective.

Combine that with righteousness and you have a heady mixture. A politician must always be righteous, right up until the moment they must be penitent; but that only happens when some undeniable wrongdoing has been brought to light. There is no room for mulling things over, for admitting mistakes while you’re still assailable. The nature of politics (to some extent driven by media) treats measured consideration as weakness.

In the Iliad, my favorite character is always Odysseus. Odysseus is the character who collects all his thoughts and then gives an answer when questioned. This is in stark contrast to his fellow leaders Agamemnon and Achilles, who are constantly feuding. We have a surplus of Agamemnons and Achilleses, but precious few Odysseuses.

In contemporary Rhode Island politics, there is precious little space for nuance. Thus as we race for the governor’s office, we ask who has The Plan for reinvigorating our economy? Do we expect four budgets to somehow turn back the tide in this extended downturn? Or to erase our manufacturing collapse? The Governor is not some sort of ambivalent god who can protect our economy when we demand it. For that matter, neither is the General Assembly

We’re too focused on get-rich-quick schemes; and when we’re not proposing those, we’re claiming something that takes a lot of work can be done easily. We want to have all the positive indicators of other places; low employment, low crime, healthy people, clean and responsive government; but we don’t want to put in the time and money it takes to build those things. We want it cheap, and preferably we want to do it with as little change as possible.

Rhode Island’s pundits, like myself, are perhaps the worst. In the Sanskrit word it comes from, it’s supposed to mean “learned.” But I think of us as like the people in Plato’s Cave; watching shadows dancing upon the wall and proclaiming our interpretations as reality. But the pronouncements I read daily from opinionated people of all stripes rarely match the place I grew up in. A place of diversity and yet a true melting pot in the old sense; a single culture forged from many others. A place of decrepit and failing brick and concrete; yet with sinews of marble and cobblestone. I think of Rhode Islanders who have grimly read and heard of our doom for half a century or so, and wonder what they must think. Is there relief from it all? Or do we just grimace, ignore it, and keep going?

But when we cast everyone into heroes and villains, we must always be the hero striving to keep the villain from damning us all. That’s a terrible thing in politics. There aren’t fairy tales where the villain and hero reached a reasonable compromise and all parties walked away feeling decent about what they got. It’s easier, far easier, to think of the other person as evil. But the desire to do evil is rarely in anyone. Most of us are far more invested in our own righteousness.

There are a lot of would-be heroes out there now, heading towards the campaign season. Some of them are would-be Jeremiahs, convinced they’re speaking The Truth to the masses who just refuse to listen. Others are without a doubt egoists, who just want to be seen and accumulate as much power and influence as possible. Some might be over-inflated, convinced they have a ton of influence without really having much of anything. They’ll plot out plans and platforms, explain why they’re the force of good and their opponents are fighting to make us fail. And eventually one of them will get elected, and then eventually the economy will turn around, and they’ll declare victory without having done too much.

I often have heard it said that native Rhode Islanders are the most pessimistic about our state. But I find that hard to believe. If they truly are, then they must be mad for insisting on remaining here. The economy’s poor, and the weather sucks. I don’t think a bunch of outsiders who have decided to rest up here for awhile are going to save our state for us. It’s going to be the people who remain here through hurricanes and blizzards, economic downturns and mass layoffs and pension cuts.

What makes a Rhode Islander to me? A Rhode Islander can spend all day castigating the state and still love it deeply as they go to sleep. It doesn’t matter why they love it, it’s that they do. That’s what counts.

Though House Speaker Gordon Fox came out conciliatory for the unfriendliness of last session, renegade South Kingstown Rep. Spencer Dickinson started 2014 by promptly resigning from his post on the House Small Business Committee and distributing a scathing letter addressed to the speaker.

“I made my final decision to resign from the small business committee after I got home Tuesday evening,” Dickinson told me in an email. “I had been thinking about it for months, but Fox’s opening remarks pushed me over. He really had treated a lot of people badly at the end of last session.  I felt he essentially stood up and handed himself a free pass.  He printed his own Get Out Of Jail card. It doesn’t work that way.”

Dickinson said the Small Business Committee does little meaningful work and exists primarily for banishing rogue caucus members. In his letter he called it the “Committee that Never Meets.”

House spokesman Larry Berman said the committee met six times last year and “critical issues such as regulatory reform, unemployment insurance, the promotion of products manufactured in Rhode Island, and assistance for our state’s farms and for young entrepreneurs, were all discussed.”

Dickinson missed two of the six meetings, and Berman pointed out that none of the nine bills he submitted were related to his committee assignment.

Nonetheless, Dickinson was strident in his letter:

 I will continue to serve my constituents the best way that I can, by telling the truth and doing a day’s work. I will work with others to develop new solutions. I will propose legislation and advocate for it. But I will not dignify the process of punishment and retribution, for myself, or for others.

Sam Howard wrote a great piece about the Dickinson/Fox feud in Sept. 2012. At the time, Dickinson accused Fox of trying to redistrict him out of office.

The nation-wide conservative push for this legislation is a politically-motivated attack on universal suffrage and a threat to American democracy. Like poll taxes and literacy tests these laws belong in history books on the Jim Crow South, certainly not in 21^st Century Rhode Island. Unfortunately, House Democratic Party leadership seems to be throwing universal suffrage under the bus for their own electoral advantage against progressive candidates, whose lower-income and minority supporters are less likely to have accepted IDs.

When Gordon Fox was running for reelection last year, he said that voter ID was the biggest complaint he heard from the constituents in his diverse East Side district. So he pledged to do something about it, promising to sponsor new legislation to “include a ‘sunset provision’ in the law.” Last session, that campaign promise went unfulfilled.

But Attorney General Eric Holder’s suit against North Carolina has brought voter ID back into the progressive crosshairs, and the grumbling on Hope Street has begun to grow louder. This year, Gordon may find that his constituents aren’t so easily outfoxed.

It’s well established: voter ID laws effectively disenfranchise many black, latino, female, queer, young, old, disabled, and poor voters who are otherwise eligible but disproportionately lack the right kind of ID. Further, the only “evidence” to justify these laws are anecdotes told by politicians, which are not supported by real evidence. That’s why the laws have been labeled “voter suppression” and likened to the disenfranchisement tactics of Segregation. And it’s no accident that these laws have been the pet project of the tea party and reactionary Republicans across the country in recent years; the disenfranchised groups all tend to vote left. Don Yelton, a Republican Party precinct captain in North Carolina, openly admitted this in a recent interview on the Daily Show. Voter suppression is a political game – and the biggest loser in this game is the ideal of popular government.

Embarrassingly, Rhode Island was the only state in which Democratic Party politicians passed this sort of voter suppression law, and it has made us into a right-wing talking point. When Fox passed this law, he even rejected a personal appeal from the chairwoman of the national Democratic Party.

Worse, against popular pressure and his very own campaign promises, earlier this year Fox actually succeeded in revising the law to make it harsher!

The Rhode Island Progressive Democrats of America (RIPDA) collected more than 1,800 signatures on a petition for the repeal of the Voter ID law. According to RIPDA’s Sam Bell, after collecting these signatures they met with one of the Speaker’s legal advisors, who arranged a meeting with Fox for January of this year. This was a “promise he refused to honor,” Bell regrets. When the repeal bill came up, RIPDA, the NAACP, the ACLU and other pro-voting groups put together a strong testimony at the hearings.

In spite of this overwhelming support for a full repeal of the draconian law, Fox offered what initially seemed to be a compromise bill far to the right of the sunset he had pledged to introduce: the law would be frozen in its 2012 form, and the even more onerous requirements scheduled to come on line in 2014 would be dropped. As Bell recounts, “although we [the pro-repeal groups] were severely disappointed, we felt it was best to support this holding action.”

This, it turned out, was a tragic mistake. In a cowardly political maneuver, House leadership decided to keep the amended version of the bill secret until the minute before it would be voted on, leaving the members of the Judiciary Committee and the public no time to read the actual text. And with good reason: the revised bill included a provision that sharply tightened voting restrictions. With the revisions, not only would fewer forms of ID be accepted than in 2012—fewer forms of ID would be accepted than under the original law’s much tighter 2014 limits! Such a draconian bill would never have passed if the democratic process had been respected, so Fox and his friends resorted to trickery.

In a display of brazen dishonesty, leadership portrayed the amended bill as just a “freeze” of the current law. This story seemed plausible. Several committee members were visibly furious about how weak this leadership-described “freeze” compromise was. “This sucks!” exclaimed Representative Joe Almeida. But the leadership neglected to inform the Judiciary Committee about the part that clearly “sucked” much more: the provision they’d snuck in to dramatically increase voting restrictions. Thanks to the leadership’s deception, even strong opponents of voter ID on the Judiciary Committee ended up inadvertently voting for this assault on our basic democratic rights.

What makes the voter suppression law so valuable to Gordon Fox that he’s willing to lie to defend it?

In most states, Republican politicians support voter ID measures in order to disenfranchise their Democratic opponents’ voting base. The same partisan politics clearly aren’t at work here in deep-Blue Rhode Island, but perhaps a similar motive is behind the law nonetheless.

Consider this: in the upcoming Democratic Party primary campaign for governor, the conservative party establishment is expected to get behind state Treasurer Gina Raimondo, whose voting base will be heavily rich and white – demographics likely to have driver’s licenses. Raimondo’s chief opponent may be Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. With many of his black, latino and low-income supporters turned away at the polls, Taveras would be skating on a broken ankle. A strict voter ID law is a serious advantage for Raimondo and other establishment Democratic Party candidates, and a serious disadvantage to progressive, insurgent challengers. The upcoming gubernatorial race is just one example of the benefits of voter suppression for conservative incumbents; these candidates will have a much easier time getting re-elected if they disenfranchise large blocs of their progressive challengers’ voting base. Fox and his friends – at the expense of universal suffrage – are playing a Republican political game in a Blue State: they are refusing to play fair.

But the Speaker can’t outfox his constituents this time. If Gordon Fox wants to serve the interests of his racially diverse, progressive constituents, he needs to fulfill his campaign promise of sponsoring a sunset to this odious law. And to prove that he and the Party leadership aren’t playing a vicious game of disenfranchisement for political advantage, the sunset will need to be a fast one: the law must be fully and permanently repealed before the next election cycle.

If the Speaker has a change of heart and pledges to support the repeal of the voter ID law at the beginning of the upcoming session, the progressive will gladly work with him to restore voting rights in the Ocean State. But if he hesitates, he’ll find himself up against a coalition much larger, much more militant, and much more pissed off than last time.

Voter ID is the greatest threat to the right to vote in this state in over a hundred years. Rhode Islanders historically haven’t taken very kindly to being taxed without being represented. Gordon Fox would do well to remember that.

In an announcement that quickly made national news and immediately reshaped the 2014 gubernatorial campaign, Lincoln Chafee said today that he won’t run for re-election.

Chafee’s announcement sets up a likely Democratic primary between Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and General Treasurer Gina Raimondo. The news was a relief to many progressives, who feared that liberals Chafee and Taveras would cancel each other out, giving Raimondo a clearer path to victory. A primary between Taveras and Raimondo would seem to me to be a good opportunity for Rhode Island to see the clear difference between progressive and conservative Democrats.

After the announcement, Matt Jerzyk, tweeted, “!….!!….!!!”

Chafee began his political career as a Republican and was elected as an independent in 2010, when he prevailed in a three-way race in which fourth-place finisher Ken Block siphoned away votes from the more conservative candidates. Earlier this year, he became a Democrat.

Chafee has had a spotty relationship with the progressive community since becoming governor. He is seen as a champion of the marriage equality movement but a foe to ending homelessness. He lost the confidence of organized labor for supporting pension cuts but he gained respect among civil libertarians, environmentalists and peace activists who have appreciated his principled efforts to defend their causes. Many feel that he was well-intentioned as governor but out of touch with working class Rhode Islanders, while some lauded his efforts to help financially-struggling cities. His relationship with the conservative community in Rhode Island was much more clear: they didn’t like him and were very vocal about it.

Linc Chafee stammers and stutters when he speaks and he holds the most high-profile state-based position in an industry that places a huge reward on fast talking. But if you ever talk to him for more than a soundbite, he’s a a tremendously thoughtful and bright guy.

Here are some of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of Chafee over our years of working together … and here’s to many more!!

]]> http://www.rifuture.org/lincoln-chafee-will-be-leaving-the-building/feed/ 9