DEFEAT FASCISM

It's hard not to think that this time is the most troubling our country has, or will, experience. It probably is, since it portends total destruction, but America has had her ups and downs.

There was 1861 when the split could have become permanent. There was 1929 when the economic system could have collapsed indefinitely. There was 1941 when the forces of fascism could have prevailed.

Then there was 1968.

 I've been watching the Netflix series on the Vietnam War in segments. As a friend remarked, it was a long time ago, but it seems like yesterday. I wasn't in America that year. She had sent me somewhere else. Of course, to paraphrase the poet Rupert Brooke, for the soldier (or sailor in my case), there will always be some corner of a foreign field that is forever home. But I wasn't here.

At any rate, I remember that my comrades and I had this sinking feeling, on hearing the reports, that our country had gone batshit crazy.

It appeared never more so for me than the night, during a lonely midwatch at a bunker atop a mountain by the South China Sea, when I picked up a day-old copy of Stars and Stripes someone had discarded and learned that that the Paris Peace Talks had ended in failure. The reason? The then president of the then Republic of South Vietnam had withdrawn from the talks.

At the time, I discarded the paper and watched a helicopter spewing rounds at a distant mountain. Every fifth round or so was a tracer, so the effect was as if someone were pouring hot rivets from a bucket in the sky. Who knows the impact of those rounds?

Years later I learned why the talks stalled. Richard Nixon, then a presidential candidate did it. He maintained a secret channel to the South Vietnamese through Anna Chennault, widow of Claire Lee Chennault, leader of the Flying Tigers in China during World War II. Mrs. Chennault had become a prominent Republican fund-raiser and Washington hostess. Through her, he convinced the South Vietnamese ambassador to withdraw from the talks until after the 1968 election for his—Nixon's—advantage.

I think back about the men, from various countries, who died within my sight that night and it becomes clear.

Donald Trump is not the first one. 

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 EGOS AND EMPIRES

I helped win World War Two. I can help free the Cubans.

I’ll not be the first American president to lose a war.

I’ll not be brought down by a third-rate burglary.

I can pardon whomever I wish.

I’ll say who uses the tennis courts and when.

Go ahead and sell them the weapons. I can act my way out of anything.

I’ll raise taxes just a bit to straighten out his mess. Who can stop me?

Who will care in the long run? If it feels good, go for it.

I’ll get the man who tried to kill my daddy.

People will love me in a brown suit.

Let them drink bleach.

It’s mine, my precious.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Nine (Cont._3)

It was funny that they never questioned. I guess centuries of subjugation had prepared them for anything. Even losing their homes. Richard Nixon occupied the White House and the Urban Renewal Program was scheduled for extinction. Pine Bluff was to be one of the last recipients and we were preparing the plans.

Those plans included the demolition of a functioning African-American neighborhood, albeit one with definite signs of blight. Once demolished, the area would be rebuilt along the lines of a modern subdivision. This meant that the functioning system of lots and blocks would disappear. In its place would be an illogical pattern of cul-de-sacs and winding street patterns resembling a handful of spaghetti thrown on the floor , prohibiting any degree of social cohesion and logical traffic flow.

There were two teams of us, most hired as temporary "social cassocks" whose job it was to evaluate each house, and determined its fitness to survive. That was a cruel joke. None would survive. Things just didn't work that way. The old ways were out and new ones in.

The owners didn't complain about the intrusion. What would have been the use? This was 1971 and what were still often called "coloreds" were used to being held harmless from the planning of their lives. If any of them saw what might be coming, they didn't say. But, had they listened, they would have heard the "federal bulldozer" warming its engine.

Richard Nixon, for all his other problems of being on the wrong side of history, saved their neighborhood. He ended the program.

Jean's Addition in Pine Bluff still exists as a neighborhood, quite a beloved one, I was to find out much later. It has new problems now, serious problems, but the federal bulldozer is not one of them.

I was beginning to learn that my profession was one of great complexity. If you wanted to do right, you'd better first make sure you weren't doing wrong.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Seven (Cont._2)

On Mondays, I would arrive at the office ready to kick some serious ass, as they say. We were doing quite a bit of work for my home town, so I began taking trips there, first with Tom Hodges, then with Jim Vines. It wasn’t long, during one of those trips, that I learned an interesting fact.

The two of them had labored under the mistaken assumption that I was related to Charles Rush, the director of the city’s Urban Renewal Agency and for whom we were working. Yes, he’s the one who gave me their names and who recommended that I go to Little Rock and visit with them. I was actually related to another department head in the city, a cousin named Troy Harden, who had introduced me to Mr. Rush.

I never ascertained how much the mistaken idea of kinship contributed to my hiring. I often think about it though, when I hear people say—particularly of African-Americans—that “they should rely on hard work and initiative to get ahead, just like I did.”

Pine Bluff was scheduled for an urban renewal project. Urban renewal is another phenomenon that has gained a solid seat of honor in the Planning Hall of Infamy. As with many misguided efforts, it was conceived with the best of intentions. Government would cleanse blighted portions of a city and replace the blight with shining examples of commercial enterprise and affordable housing.

The evil serpent known as “The Law of Unintended Consequences” slithered on the scene like a vulture during a battle, and soon took over. The definition of “blighted neighborhood” soon became “any neighborhood occupied by the powerless and non-white.” Tenants who had lived in a functioning neighborhood for decades came home from work one day to find a note on their door giving them only days to vacate their building which was slated for demolition as a part of the revival of the area.

There were some productive results of the program. Mostly though, the results were best described in the 1964 book The Federal Bulldozer by Martin Anderson, and the later classic The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert Caro. Urban renewal gained the sobriquet,which lingers still, of "Urban Removal."

By 1971, most of the most destructive elements of the program had disappeared. The emphasis turned from demolition to rehabilitation and residents were compensated for relocation expenses which, unfortunately did not reflect the cost of leaving the neighborhood in which one’s grandparents had lived.

The saddest part, as I contemplate the history, is that, in many instances, these were the only neighborhoods in which the affected families had been allow to live.

I didn’t think of such things back then. Don’t ask me why. Systemic indoctrination is a powerful tool when applied at an early age.

The area of Pine Bluff scheduled for “renewal” comprised a portion of an area known as “Jean’s Addition.” It was, as I was to learn over the years, a beloved African-American neighborhood arrayed around the state’s only black college. Though neglected, it had persevered. It still does, having been saved from benign intrusion by the unlikeliest person, Richard Nixon. He ended the Urban Renewal Program, which was known as a “categorical grant,” and replaced it, and others, with “block grants,” which allowed cities to apply help to neighborhood on a case by case basis.

We were also performing some city-wide planning work for the city. This would lead to the most traumatic experience in my planning career. I shall attempt to summon the courage to recount it later, perhaps in the next chapter.

For the time being, though, I was, as they say, “On a roll.”

My beloved cousin Troy Harden,
to whom I owe my career.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Two (Cont._10)

It will always be known as the year I parted ways with the United States Navy, amicably and honorably, though the latter hardly mattered anymore. In fact, a personnel worker for Southwestern Bell in Pine Bluff had suggested that I omit mention of my military record from any application form I might submit to them. I told him to kiss my ass.

1970? Let’s see. The big news should have been, had we been paying attention, that Richard Nixon ordered the United States military to attack Cambodia, a sovereign nation that had committed no act of aggression against us. Some worried at the time that it might set a precedent that could lead to disasters in the future. Others claimed we were America, and we could do as we damned well pleased. I just knew that as long as there was a Canada, I wouldn’t be involved in such shenanigans again.

But, unfortunately, most people didn’t notice unprovoked wars or the civilians being incinerated by our bombers. The real news was that The Beatles disbanded. We all figured that it had been inevitable. Who could imagine a Rock and Roll band lasting into old-age?

But, we observed the first Earth Day that year and 100,000 people gathered in Washington to protest the Vietnam War. It seemed that the nation’s blood lust was beginning to wane. I joined a group called “Vietnam Veterans Against the War,” and began taking my place among Americans who favored romantic music over mortar rounds. We began seeking an alternative to making war. Hmm. Making baskets? Making doll dresses? Making bird cages? Oh well … we would think of something.

Since I was entering a field, urban planning, that relied on socio-economic factors, I took time to take note of a few. Let’s see:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 838 that year. Some thought that was getting dangerously high and recommended other investments. The inflation rate, after all, was 5.84 percent.

How about a new house? The average cost was $23,450.00. That seemed a fortune to me. Hell, the payments would be over $200 per month. Wow.

The average income that year was $9,400.00 I would enter the civilian world at about half that. Oh well.

Cost of a gallon of gas was 36 cents. Periodic “gas wars” would push that, in our vicinity, as low as 27 cents, proving that some wars were more fruitful than others. Yeah.

Despite the demise of The Beatles as a working band, music continued to be a major force. The largest ever rock festival held occurred on the Isle of Wight with 600,000 people attending. It featured some of the biggest names in music including Jimi Hendrix and The Who. Things were looking rosy from a musical standpoint. Who could have foreseen tragedies on the horizon, such as the recording of Riding Through the Desert on a Horse With No Name, or Having My Baby?

The Apollo 13 moon mission nearly ended in disaster. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty offered the view of a more peaceful future, going into effect after ratification by 43 nations.

The  Chicago Seven defendants were found guilty of intent to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. A Court of Appeals later overturned their convictions, despite the fact that they helped America elect Richard Nixon president. Americans seem to believe that all is fair in presidential elections.

Oh well, it was a hell of a year I was leaving. Wriggling their way into 1971 was a broad cross-section of babies ranging from Queen Latifah to Ted Cruz to Shemar Moore to Tina Fey and, oh, way over the sea, a beautiful baby who would later go by the immigrant name of Melania Trump.

A farmer's daughter from Lonoke, Arkansas was about to graduate from college in Conway.

Then there was me, all grown up, filled out and ready to kick some free-world ass.

The Year 1970 set my
course for the future.

Morning Thoughts: February 18, 2018

President’s Day. Lots of things on which to dwell. I’ve been around since FDR but only aware since Truman. Even as a child, I wondered why some people hated him so.

For example, there was the time our family attended a rodeo in my hometown. Remember those “fill-in” jokes where the clown and the announcer bounce lines back and forth? Try this one:

Mary had a little lamb.

Its face was almost human.

And every time she raised his tail,

She’d look at Harry Truman.

I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I remember that joke. There were others, like the postcard that pictured a man just knocked to the floor by a cowboy, the man saying “I said Truman was raising taxes. I didn’t say Truman was raised in Texas.”

Years later, I learned the source of much, if not most, of the hatred: fair housing and the integration of the military.

I don’t remember much about Eisenhower. He didn’t get to be a good president until sometime in the 1980s.

We viewed John Kennedy as a great president from the day he was elected. His star has dimmed a bit over the years but, hell, he just looked like a president.

It was easy for me to hate Lyndon Johnson. I blamed him for my having been sent to Vietnam. With more reading, (I’ve read all of Caro’s work so far, along with Dalleck, Doris Kearns Goodman, Arkansas’s own Richard Wood, plus others). I probably know more about him that I do any other president. He gets more complicated with each paragraph. He’s what I call an “Ansel Adams” figure. Like Adams’ photographs, Johnson’s image in history goes from pure white to pure black, with all tones in between. The result is a masterpiece of contrasting elements.

Richard Nixon would have been a good man had he not been such a despicable person. He left many legacies for us to untangle. We’ve accepted the bad ones and we are now dismantling the good ones.

Poor Gerald Ford got the “double-whammy” of history. The first was being typecast as dense and clumsy by Saturday Night Live, and the second was for pardoning “Tricky Dick.” I, for one, thought then, and still do, that he did the right thing. We had, as a nation, been through enough.

Jimmy Carter was, without a doubt, among the best human beings we’ve had in the White House. He walked into a partisan ambush, the first of many to come and he was an unlucky president, in my opinion. He didn’t handle it all well, particularly when his upcoming opponent seems to have been working behind the scenes to bring him down. I suspect JC, like U.S. Grant, had a hard time believing in the baseness of some people.

His opponent, Ronald Reagan was … what can you say? He may have been not only what the country wanted, but what it needed at the time. He was the crazy old uncle that tells funny stories at family reunions and then goes behind the barn and teaches the kids bawdy sea songs. Of all the conspiracies this country is supposed to have endured, his administration actually had one, called “Iran-Contra.” It unfolded in short order, and still stains our national conscious. He further proved, to our current dismay, that Americans don’t mind deficits and a huge national debt as long as they get what they want. He left his next-in-line an economy in tatters.

Thus, the Elder George Bush had to raise taxes to clean up the mess. America has never forgiven him.

Then there was Bill Clinton, the man from Arkansas. If he had only “kept it in his pants,” they might be carving his image on Mount Rushmore by now. He had the opposition party warning us of a coming economic catastrophe if the deficit and debt got too low. This I remember: if you couldn’t make money during the Clinton Administration, you’ll never make money. I’m financially comfortable today because of the peace and prosperity of those years.

What next? When the Supreme Court of the United States elects your president, you have to take what you get. I still imagine that a look of complete surprise comes across his face when the Junior George Bush learns that he was President of the United States for eight years. He was the first to establish what I call a “Salvation Date.” That’s when you have had a checkered past, but find the date of your last arrest and claim to have found salvation next day. Then the press can’t ask any questions about your life before that date. Its value in politics is that it allows religious fundamentalists to vote for scoundrels and say their god told them to.

Then America elected a man referred to around here as “our n****r president.” Among other things, he inherited a “credit card” balance that had paid for the cost of two wars off-budget. For eight years, members of his opposition party used political ads showing a photo of their opponent on one side and a photoshopped-darkened photo of Barrack Obama on the other with a few code words translating as “they are coming for your daughters.” His election shook the foundations of our country with such fury that entrapped racial rage spewed to the surface like a volcanic gas, soiling and staining the very heavens. Its noxious fumes are still settling upon us.

Those fumes helped get us where we are today.

Just my take on things. Ignore it if you don’t agree.

From this to "I'm the
Greatest" in one lifetime.
Remarkable.

Thoughts on a career: January 4, 2018

With my youthful demeanor and immature behavior, you’ll find this hard to believe, but on this day 46 years ago, I entered my profession. I had, somehow, landed a job with an urban planning consulting firm straight out of the military. Geez, I had hit the big time. Or so I thought.

The first planning commission I ever attended was in Hope, Arkansas, a fine community in Southwest Arkansas, the birthplace of President Bill Clinton. Last year, I attended a city board meeting in that very room. The furniture was arranged differently, but it was pretty much the same place. Tempus fugit and all that

Back in the day, planning commissioners all looked like me. That is to say they were all old fat white men. Lots of changes have occurred since that meeting in Hope. Along the line, African-American men and white women appeared on planning commissions, not in proportion to the local population, however. These days, African-American women and persons of Hispanic heritage are finding a place.

In one of those mental files I maintain under “interesting but I don’t know why,” I filed the fact that one saw African-American men appear first.

Those were interesting time. It was marking the end of the so-called “Great Society” era. That experience never achieved its lofty goals, to a large degree because too many important individuals and entities found that making war was either more profitable or more politically useful. I keep my thoughts about this in a file called “Tragedies.”

What the Great Society efforts did, in my observation, was to excite, like some charge applied to dormant electrons, a sense of social justice within a significant segment of the population. Leaders who staunchly declared there were no qualified minorities or women to fill upper-level jobs suddenly found some when they learned that the grant they sought required positive affirmative action.

Coupled with the monumentally heroic actions of people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Lewis, the governmental emphasis on elevating those who were poor in spirit and who mourned, began, albeit slowly—and against much resistance—to loosen the stranglehold of the Jim Crow era.

Looking at urban plans from that era, one is struck by a sense of optimism, naïve perhaps, that we could wage a war-like crusade against bitter poverty and despair. Moreover, some whose grandparents had been counted as three-fifths human were themselves in positions to achieve, perhaps in their lifetimes, full citizenship.

What we didn’t know was that any action can have an opposite reaction. This emphasis on redressing past inequalities raised the hopes of some and soothed the consciences of others. For some, however, such progress only pushed racial hatred belowground. Like a monster from a 1950s sci-fi movie, it rested in dark, subterranean caverns, waiting for a catalyst, perhaps of nuclear strength, to open a path to the surface.

There was no nuclear-like source, just upheavals, one on top on one another. On April 20, 1971, the United States Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.

All hell broke loose, accompanied by a great “whooshing” sound as white parents fled cities whose school districts contained a significant black population. Racal composition became a significant element, in some cases the most significant element, in an area’s population growth.

Then a politician coined the term “silent majority,” as a code name for many who would see America return to the 1940s and 1950s, when African-American veterans, many who had been wounded in the service of their country, were denied equal access to the GI Bill. The term resonated with many who had become successful because they did receive full citizenship, but only credited their own hard work.

Next, a presidential hopeful chose to announce his candidacy in the Mississippi City in which three civil rights workers had been murdered for trying to register black voters. Seeing this as a message, the monsters began to slither upward. Recently, the Current Occupant declined to denounce the monsters' worst foot-soldiers, loosening them upon us with increased fury and confidence.

I don’t have to recount what else happened. But I’ve seen it all. My vantage point is from the courthouse square, an area often marked by vacant buildings and concrete slabs where buildings once stood. Retail business owners can’t afford political influence such as the coal industry can exert. I fear that they will disappear, in small-town America, in my lifetime.

And urban plans? They aren’t designed these days, in many cases, for optimism but for something called “branding,” whatever the hell that means. Many are simply drawings of how neighborhoods should look, a result that tells us much more about the personal tastes of the “planners,” than it does about the needs of the people who live within the city, either by choice or the restrictions placed upon them by a present emphasis on greed and selfishness.

Oh, and Hope, Arkansas? It’s managed today by a woman largely considered be one of the best city managers our state has ever produced.

I file that under “well, I’ll swan.”

Needing our love

Sailing to Oblivion: June 8, 2017

“At first, they don’t ask you to do anything illegal. It’s just complicated and the average person wouldn’t understand. The press would twist it. Best keep it under wraps.”

We were jogging, a close friend, who happened to be a legal scholar, and I. We had been transfixed by the Watergate hearings and each of us had just finished reading John Dean’s book Blind Ambition, the story of how he ended up in prison for four months on account of his role in the Richard M. Nixon administration.

My running mate was explaining how someone, even a brilliant young attorney, could become enmeshed in an ethical quagmire such as the one that surrounded the Nixon White House.

“Next, they say,” my mentor continued, “you’ve stuck with us so far, and we need your help now. It’s not illegal, so don’t worry. We just wouldn’t want the press to find out about it.”

My ears perked up and I paid closer attention.

“Next, they tell you that they appreciate the help you’ve given them so far, you’ve been a good team player and all. They’d like you to do something that’s not illegal. They just want to avoid any messy litigation that could result in bad press while it’s being resolved. Better keep it amongst ourselves.”

We stopped for him to tie a shoe and I enjoyed the brief opportunity to see the morning sun beginning to illuminate the eastern façade of our state capitol, a stirring sight. We started up again and I urged him first to slow a bit and then continue with his cautionary advice.

“By then,” he said. “you’ve entered into dark world of questionable legality. They remind you how valuable you’ve been and how they could beat any charges in court. They just need your valuable help one more time. These are some important and powerful politicians you're working with. You’ve gone this far so don’t let them down now.”

We began to climb the hill on Markham Street on which faced the schools for the deaf and blind, Arkansas landmarks. I struggled to breath, but managed to listen as he continued with, it seemed, no effort.

“Finally,” he said, “they tell you that you’re as deep into this as they are and you all need to stick together. It is time to ‘circle the wagons,’ so to speak.” He stopped talking and pointed for us to veer right and head up Kavanaugh Boulevard,

As we passed one charming house after another, he continued. “When the hammer finally falls, and it always does, you find out too late that you are the only one burdened with a paper trail and nobody now even knows your name.”

It was a brisk fall morning. The air was clean and fresh. I had my future ahead of me and I was ready. I was young, trim, tanned, successful, physically fit, and considered by some—at least by my wife—as not too hard on the eyes, the kind of young man who brings top dollar at a cell block auction.

The next week I walked off a job paying the equivalent of $115,000 per year in today’s dollars, much more in most states. As it turned out, I probably didn’t have to, but to this day, as we prepare to view the June 8, 2017 version of the so called “Watergate Hearings,” I’m reminded of John Dean, the uphill run on that fall morning, and the path I chose. I don’t regret a thing.

Sometimes the path to the
finish line isn't a straight one.

Reconciliation: 25

Regulations derive from laws. I’m not sure a lot of us understand that. For example, regulations involving the protection of the air we breathe are designed to carry out or protect the provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. These were signed, respectively, by those famous flaming liberals Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush. As things are progressing, the current leader of their party is not likely to sign any such laws, but that is a story for another day.

The point is, if we deplore regulations, we should go back to the law that spawned them. In our current examples, they were laws designed to protect the air being used to keep humans, including the newborn, alive. If we don’t think that is a worthwhile goal, we simply need to elect politicians who feel the same way.

Oops. Belay my last.

So that is where my friends on the other side of the political spectrum and I must agree to disagree. I stood on the balcony of an apartment in Los Angeles in 1967 and felt my eyes burn to the point of producing tears. I could only wonder what my lungs were thinking. I like clean air. Sorry.

People calling themselves libertarians might say, well just move to a state where they regulate such things as air quality. I’m afraid they fail to understand, among many other things, that the forces of weather and climate neither recognize nor reflect state boundaries. We’re all sort of in this thing together.

So, I respect regulations while realizing that regulators can and do run amok from time to time. Fining a corporation for not painting, “Do not stand here” on the top of a stepladder seems, to me at least, to deny humankind some small measure of hope for improvement to the gene pool. I believe, along with my conservative friends, that regulations should, from time to time, be forced to fight for their lives, so to speak.

That having been said, what concerns me now is the number of mean-spirited laws being passed or proposed at the national level and state levels. These are not laws designed to protect any aspect of health, safety and welfare, but rather to make a statement that we don’t love—in what seems to me to be in direct contradiction to the words and life of The Galilean—everyone around us.

Further, these laws are neither policy-based nor evidence based. For example, some states are rushing to require drug testing for certain recipients of public financial assistant. Not farmers, corporations, churches, or home-mortgage holders, but food stamp recipients, the vast majority of whom are children.

Meanwhile, according to state data gathered by ThinkProgress, in the seven states with existing programs — Arizona, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah — statistics show that applicants actually test positive at a lower rate than the drug use of the general population. The national drug use rate is 9.4 percent. In these states, however, the rate of positive drug tests to total welfare applicants ranges from 0.002 percent to 8.3 percent, but all except one have a rate below 1 percent.

The fact is that some of the politicians we have elected lately find it nauseous that we, as a society, should assist “the least of those among us.” Go figure.

As regards drug testing, one recent proposal in particular makes me nauseated: a proposal to require the unemployed to submit to drug testing in order to receive benefits for which they are entitled. Yes, I mean unemployment benefits.

Friends, on November 11, 1970, I was honorably discharged from the United States Navy after four years of service. I had no idea when I might find employment because the draft-dodgers had all the good jobs. So, as a matter of precaution, I filed for unemployment. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, not because of any feelings of guilt, but because of the way they treated applicants.

It turns out that I found a job within a couple of weeks. It didn’t pay much to start but it launched me upon a successful career. At any rate, I never needed any unemployment benefits.

I can’t begin to tell you what I would have felt if I had needed unemployment assistance after serving my country for four years—one of which was in a war zone—and some knuckle-dragging, Bible-thumping, mean-spirited sonof …moron had suggested I be drug tested.

Okay, Okay, I’m all right now. I simply want folks to think about what it means to thank someone for their service. Actions do speak louder than words.