I don’t think we should be in the business of moving backward
Still Life with Birds and Fruit, Giovanna Garzoni. c. 1650
I had a really cool opportunity this week to co-author an article for the fancy French publication Analyse Opinion Critique (AOC) with political scientist Edouard Morena of University of London Institute in Paris. He was invited by the magazine to write something about Bloomberg’s presidential run in the lead up to Super Tuesday, and he read this recent issue of Crisis Palace (24: Drag anchor), and thought elements of it paired well with a thesis he had in mind.
I’m a big fan of Edouard’s work, and have interviewed him in the past and I cite his book The Price of Climate Action all the time so was excited to collaborate. His research interests include climate politics, philanthropy, and social movements so we have a lot of overlap, and I find it’s always good to collaborate with someone smarter than you because it makes you look smarter by association.
The publication is in French, so if you speak French (I do not), you can just hustle your bilingual self right on over to AOC and enjoy (it’s free but you have to register). If you don’t speak French, Google translate on Chrome does a pretty good job you should be able to get the overall idea. But for Crisis Palace readers, I also pulled a few passages that I particularly like and that sum up the argument rather well. Google and Edouard helped me translate it here you go:
Bloomberg is on a mission. Beyond the conquest of the White House, it is, perhaps above all, about saving “philanthrocapitalism,” the idea that the pursuit of individual profit and the well-being of society are mutually reinforcing. Faced with the double threat of Trump / Sanders, it is about upholding the idea that entrepreneurs/billionaires/philanthropists are looking out for you, and, given their personal and professional experience, their extraordinary “business acumen,” their ambition, and their “strategic” mindset, they are best placed to solve the great social, democratic, and environmental challenges of our time.
…
Bloomberg’s commitment to climate action and cities is particularly revealing of this. Internationally, and following Trump’s decision to exit the Agreement, he has built up an image of “savior” of the Paris Agreement. Beyond Trump and the Paris Agreement, he is more broadly establishing himself as defender of what Steven Bernstein calls the “compromise of liberal environmentalism,” the dominant normative compromise in international governance, according to which environmental protection and a liberal economic order are mutually reinforcing. Historically, it is an approach to environmental problems that pays lip service to social justice issues, favors a “gradualist” or incremental and compromise approach, and is not always attuned to the urgency of the situation.
…
It is Bloomberg’s worldview that is currently at stake in the Democratic campaign. Whether it be activists who protest at climate conferences such as GCAS, or the rise of the democratic socialist wing within the Democratic Party, a growing number of people no longer accept the idea that billionaire philanthropists are best placed to address the great challenges of our time. On the climate front, Bloomberg’s pro-market and non-interventionist approach is being overshadowed by a young generation of activists—notably the Sunrise Movement—who are carrying out an ambitious low-carbon transition project focused on social justice and the redistribution of wealth: the Green New Deal.
Supported by Sanders and championed by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a rising figure on the left wing of the party, the Green New Deal is based on an unprecedented mobilization of the federal government in favor of climate action, notably through major investments in infrastructure, housing and energy. The Green New Deal is the opposite of the Bloomberg project.
There’s also a pretty good dunk in there about how Bernie’s slogan is Not me. Us. but Bloomberg’s could be Me. Not them. It’s obviously become somewhat dated since Bloomberg dropped out this week, but I think the point that this election (and current Democratic politics overall) has put the Bloomberg worldview on trial still holds, even with the election coming down to Biden and Sanders (and Tulsi Gabbard lol).
Raze and rebuild redux
Speaking of the election, kind of a dark week here in Boston. Warren withdrew after taking third place in Massachusetts, which is just so maddening. Lots of takes on that out there but she was one of the best presidential candidates the party has ever had and basically didn’t stand a chance because she’s a woman. And if you are like whoa come on now, please consider that women make up only 23% of the US House and 26% of the Senate and it is the year fucking 2020.
By the way, there was one of those perennial debates on Twitter about whether journalists should vote, and you will not be surprised to find out that I think the idea that they should not to be quite cockamamie. I think we should vote, say who we voted for, and also say why. Anyway, I already voted for Warren and I’m not a big Bernie fan but I hope Sanders can upset Joe Biden because I don’t think Democrats should be in the business of moving backward and I really don’t think anyone can predict what will happen in the general.
Other depressing stuff, remember that creative affordable housing project the city wanted to build on top of a city-owned parking lot in my neighborhood? I wrote about it back in 8: Raze and rebuild and you can go back and read it if you want I would probably consider it “one of the good ones.” Well there was a second meeting, this time the city did a big open house with all these discussion stations, which went a lot better but still not awesome, and anyway, they just announced they are not going to pursue the project. Basically a mob of angry people led by the local business community chased a bunch of new affordable housing out of Roslindale, a neighborhood that constantly pats itself on the back about how diverse and inclusive it is.
Some fun points from the memo announcing they were abandoning the plan:
- Only 12% of Roslindale’s housing stock is income-restricted, compared to city average of 19%.
- More than half of renters in Roslindale are cost-burdened, meaning they pay 30% or more of their income on rent.
- “Issues of race and class surfaced during the course of the engagement and feedback process. As several community members expressed, the longstanding impact of structural racism, decreasing access to opportunity and financial security, as well as opposition to the development of affordable housing, perpetuate many of our city’s inequities.”
In short, the city was like, hey we aren’t going to do this thing that would have been a lot better than a bunch more high priced condos because you basically want to marry your stupid parking lot, but at some point you are going to have to help this racist, overpriced city get its shit together. Those are my words, not theirs, I hope that’s clear.
On this topic, there is a much bigger battle over a developer planning to turn a defunct racing track called Suffolk Downs into what I believe is the single largest development project in the history of the city, to essentially create a new neighborhood from whole cloth. Housing justice advocates are understandably very concerned, and are pointing to the Seaport neighborhood as reason to worry. That had me revisiting this Globe investigation about the development of the Seaport, a brand new, almost entirely white, wealthy neighborhood built on the backs of taxpayers (who are lots of different races as you may be aware).
How white? This white: Lenders have issued only three residential mortgages to black buyers in the Seaport’s main census tracts, out of 660 in the past decade. The population is 3 percent black and 89 percent white with a median household income of nearly $133,000, the highest of any Boston ZIP code, according to recent US census estimates.
Boston proper is 52% white and 25% Black fyi. The development and construction of the Seaport also involved no black-owned businesses and zero to few people of color even in leadership roles at companies receiving contracts.
One other thing about Boston’s affordable housing policy, it requires 13% of new units to be income-restricted if the project is a certain size, but get this, developers can even punt the affordable units offsite or even just donate to a city fund for affordable housing instead, a cool trick some Seaport developers took advantage of.
That history might shed some light on why community groups are fighting the Suffolk Downs project and are not content to give developers the benefit of the doubt. And also, combined with that little Roslindale story, it’s clear that YIMBY vs NIMBY is not a particularly useful distinction in housing policy.
Links
- Largest source of increased emissions in the last decade is the power sector. Second largest: SUVs. SUVs burn more carbon, kill more people, and are more popular than ever! (the fat shaming metaphor in this article is stupid, sorry)
- Alec Raeshawn-Smith died at 26 after he couldn’t afford his insulin. His mother found his last receipt for $1,300 in supplies, cancelled because he couldn’t pay. Stories like his are “a potent argument for an overhaul of the system toward Medicare for All.”
- A dirty secret: most writers have money coming from somewhere else. And people lie about it all the time. It’s true for freelance journalists too, as very few pay the bills with that work alone. More than half of my income usually comes from copy editing and consulting.
- How Hank Azaria realized Apu was hurtful, and decided he could no longer voice the character.
- “Fetishized taste is the pivotal metaphor for moral underdevelopment in High Fidelity, the way that the monsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are metaphors for the agonies of adolescence.”
- Do you have the bandwidth to drill down on this?
- Reduced emissions are not a “silver lining” of a global outbreak of illness and saying so is a form of eco-fascism.
Watching
Lodge 49 is kind of a sad show to recommend because it only ran two seasons and looks to be canceled for good at this point, but I just watched the first season and it is really something special to behold. It’s so weird that when watching, I found myself mentally scrolling through other similar shows to try to figure out exactly what this thing is. While it isn’t really the same as any of them, one fond comparison that comes to mind is Six Feet Under because they both kind of make me feel the same way, which is good. Also, I only watched this because my friend Swedlund forced me to so credit to him.
This should give you absolutely no sense of what this show is like.
I also watched Justice League, which I don’t even know why I do these things to myself seriously not cool.
I Endorse
This is a new section I decided to steal from Ann Friedman and use as a catchall for purchases I want to recommend like that one backpack from the other day, but also other things that I just think are good things.
In this edition I would like to recommend another newsletter, Starlight & Strategy, by friend and amazing poet and activist Tamiko Beyer. Here’s a snippet from a recent one:
Getting back to Audre Lorde’s quote about the master’s tools. I believe this quote is often invoked, and often out of context, in a way that I think limits our imagination and shuts down possibility for radical change. And I don’t think that was her intention. (Here’s the essay in full if you haven’t read it yet or need a refresher. Or better yet, go get yourself a copy of Sister Outsider by Lorde, which includes this essay.)
I understand her essay to mean that the master’s tools, wielded in the way that the master wielded it, using the logic of the master, will never lead to true liberation. But I think Lorde would agree with DiFranco that any tool can be a weapon.
Yeah you want to see where that’s going am I right? Subscribe here.
Listening
A lot of the music I listen to day to day is actually kind of weird stuff because I usually work from home with music on but that music has to be wordless and have certain I don’t know qualities. Lately I can’t stop listening to this UK producer Mark Barrott who has this kind of sparkly tropical sound. I like this song but this whole record Sketches From An Island 2 is good.
PS I found it through this other newsletter that sends you two hours of nice music to listen to while working, every work day.
Well this was going to be a short one but I got all riled up about Boston housing so anyway I hope you found my rage to your liking. What else, what else. First batch of pickles is done and I’m sad to report, they didn’t turn out great. The carrots are actually quite good but the cucumbers got really mushy. So I guess what I’m saying is I’m going to hold off on any contests for free pickles until I get these fuckers right. There’s a bunch of tricks you can do to stop them from getting mushy but honestly I might just move on to other vegetables and various cabbage-based products.
Pickling does take some trial and error before you get good at it, but the good news is that each failed attempt produces a large quantity of product. I guess in that sense, pickling is a lot like writing newsletters, ouch self burn, just kidding self.
If you get a bad batch of metaphorical pickles in your life, don’t feel bad, just take some notes on where things went wrong maybe too much vinegar or not enough salt and try again you just gotta dill with it.
Tate
PS Have you shared Crisis Palace lately? If you know someone who would like it you can forward it, post to social media, or even print it out on paper and hand it to someone, with the subscribe url written down neatly.