One BIG Reason Pres. Obama's Approach may be TOO LITTLE TOO LATE for the MI Economy

Michigan Indefinitely Delays Over 200 Road & Bridge Projects

Lansing Associated Press writer KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN today posted a report, which NPR picked up, that underlines the reasons we may still be on the path to a second great depression.

And unless President Obama and Congress develop a quick and aggressive response to this economic reality in Michigan and many other states, he will be following the path of Herbert Hoover rather than F.D. Roosevelt.

According to Hoffman's report:

Michigan transportation officials have voted to delay more than 200 road and bridge projects previously planned for the next five years because the state is running low on money.

And, according to Hoffman, "Michigan could go from spending roughly $1.4 billion on roads this year with the help of federal stimulus money to less than $600 million three out of the next four years."

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the additional economic decline and job loss in store for many states like Michigan in the coming years, unless something is done immediately to prevent states from heading down this path toward delaying and canceling major infrastructure projects, which must be the base of any economic recovery.

Unless President Obama and Congress support a major new economic stimulus package directed at helping the States to avoid massive additional job loss across Michigan and many other states as the result of cancellation of infrastructure projects like these in Michigan, the success Obama had in slowing job losses in 2009 (although we're still losing jobs each month) will quickly reverse, and we'll be sliding backwards again. And this time the Democrats won't simply be able to blame the Republicans, since when this downward spiral begins, it will be as much a result of insufficient and weak Democratic policy response, as due to Republican obstructionism.

The fact that even last night in his State of the Union speech President Obama continued to appeal to a hope that the Republican party would come around to support a "common sense" bipartisan strategy to help the country rise out of its crisis, would seem to indicate that he and his advisors have barely begun to reckon with the banality of evil that has been driving the Republican strategy for more than eight years now.

And if Obama and his advisors think they can confront and reverse this nihilistic and destructive Republican political force by appeals to common sense, they have apparently not even begun to think seriously about the lessons the struggles of the civil rights movement and the work of Dr. Martin Luther King have to teach us.

President Obama said in his speech that he was not naive. Unfortunately, based on the lack of a clear strategy and focus for supporting a strong economic/jobs recovery in his speech, I'm not convinced he is right about himself or his administration.

Based on the speech last night, the Obama administration continues to pursue an extremely naive political strategy, which sacrifices the power of popular progressive mobilization that could carry it forward, to a weak political strategy that keeps him hostage to the Republicans.

The continuing insistence on appealing to a Republican Party that has shown it is primarily invested in the destruction of the Obama Presidency at all costs, and that it has little concern for common sense or the good of the country, is bizarre and tragic from a President who should know better. After all, if the Republican Party had any concern for the country's welfare and the welfare of people, it would never have landed us in this economic mess in the first place!

The great slide into the first great Depression of the 1930s occurred largely because under President Hoover the Federal Government failed to help states avoid exactly the kinds of severe cut-backs states are now facing, and instead tried to focus on traditional business incentives to stimulate the economy.

Unless President Obama's administration and Congress wake up to the hard lessons of the previous great depression, and quickly, we will find ourselves repeating the mistakes of the past, and of President Hoover, who like Obama was a good man with good intentions who wanted to help his country, and even had a great resume of past experience for doing so.

But when it comes to the hard reality of capitalist economic cycles, good intentions that are not backed up with necessary and informed policy action, are utterly meaningless. And if we end up in another great depression, history will not remember Obama's good intentions. It will record and remember his failure to listen to the lessons of history, and to act on the advice of historically-informed economists like Paul Krugman, who should be put in charge of running Obama's economic team (though I suspect he may not want such a thankless job)....

See Krugman's recent blog post on the stupidity of the approach suggested by Obama's speech last night, which according to Krugman (and I agree) completely failed to change the narrative that has put the Republicans in charge of the rhetorical battle over both policy and politics in 2010.

I love Krugman because he pulls no punches, while his critiques also go to the core of what is wrong with the entire framework of both the Republican and Democratic approaches to policy in this crisis.

And unless politicians in charge of policy strategy begin to listen to Krugman and other economists like him, the consequences of all the premature 2009 talk of having avoided another great depression, which merely continues the delusional detachment from reality of the Bush era, will soon be coming home to roost.

The illusion-creating stock market "recovery" will be forced to meet the reality of continuing job loss, as our whole economy turns around for its "second dip." And this time, since we're starting at 10% unemployment (which hides a much larger unemployment rate that is structural and not even being counted--in cities like Detroit, for example, the real unemployment rate is around 30%, even higher than national rate in depths of the 1930s depression), we'll be entering depression era territory pretty quickly--thanks to the feckless policies of both political parties.

*****
Update: From the Detroit News--

Metro Detroit projects placed on hold include reconstruction of I-96 from Middle Belt to Telegraph and Newburgh to Middle Belt; reconstruction of Fort from Sibley to Goddard; widening of Telegraph from Vreeland to West Road; and resurfacing of major portions of I-94 in Macomb County. It would also mean not replacing 27 bridges.

Another Detroit is Possible, IF WE WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE IT

Detroiters are committed to building a vibrant, inclusive, equitable, participatory politics that is not beholden to the practices of exclusion and POWER-ELITISM of any kind (including class, race, and intellectual elitism). We especially reject the kind of politics that seeks to present itself as "another politics" that is IN THEORY a better politics, but that IN PRACTICE is simply another politics of exclusion being created by and for the privileged....

After my weekend experience (below) of trying to attend a meeting in Detroit about how "another politics is possible," and being told that if you had not been directly invited to the meeting, you could not participate in the discussion, I was reminded of all the ways the practice of narrowly exclusive in-group politics has frustrated the best intentions for creating a "new politics" in the past.

The basic principle of any truly democratic and inclusive politics is that its ideals need to be reflected in practice. If there is a major contradiction between ideals and practice, there is a major problem with the implementation of the vision of that politics.

We've seen this contradiction between ideal and practice result in disaster repeatedly in the political history in the past: in the founding of our own country on principles of equality that allowed slavery to be instituted in practice at the heart of our political constitution; and in the various examples of capitalist, socialist, or communist governments in the past, where stated principles of equality were overwhelmed by practices of exclusion, inequality, and violent repression.

Since there was nothing on the meeting announcement for "Another Politics is Possible" (see below) saying it was closed to all but the invited, I assumed it was an open meeting that would be dedicated to the discussion of HOW TO CREATE A MORE INCLUSIVE DEMOCRATIC POLITICS OF ORGANIZING THAT INVOLVES ALL PEOPLE EQUITABLY.

And since it was a meeting being held in Detroit, I also assumed that this meeting to discuss how another politics is possible would especially be open and inviting to Detroiters.

But unfortunately my assumptions proved to be naive. I arrived at the meeting place only to be told the meeting was not open, and was only for people--mostly from elsewhere in the country--who had already been discussing amongst themselves how another politics is possible for a year or so.

I was told these folks had decided to meet "intentionally" in Detroit to continue their private conversation. I appealed to several of the organizers, trying to suggest that perhaps, since they were meeting in Detroit, they might want to consider opening their meeting to the participation of a few people from Detroit who were committed not just to talking about another politics, but to working together with others in Detroit to make it happen.

But alas, the organizers were unmoved by such an argument, and "politely" told me I was not invited, and should therefore leave, which I did--with some relief and a bit of a laugh--as I realized that if this was the practical expression of "another politics" they were discussing, it was not worth investing any time in...

For me, this experience only further underlined how it's apparently become cool now for folks to fly in from elsewhere to meet in Detroit, and to talk about Detroit, & to be associated with Detroit, because its chic to be associated with the downtrodden and depressed, as we've seen with the new focus of Time magazine on the city--

But where are the Detroiters in these meetings and discussions, and why are they not being invited to participate in ways that can actually shape the discussion?

Ironically, this group had met on Friday night in Ann Arbor, and that part of their meeting was apparently open to the community in Ann Arbor, and to anyone who could afford to drive or fly in to Ann Arbor from elsewhere for a Friday night meeting. But for their weekend meetings on Saturday and Sunday in Detroit, members of Detroit communities were not invited to the discussion.

I'm always amazed at folks who like to think of themselves as planning for a new progressive or radical democratic politics, but who are so exclusive and confined in their discussions that you can't help but ask....

Isn't this the same old politics of exclusion and elitism?

And isn't it a bit indecent for a group that apparently sees itself as "progressive" and dedicated to creating a better politics for the future to hold an open public meeting in Ann Arbor on a Friday night, and then move to Detroit for meetings on Saturday and Sunday that are completely closed to anyone who might be interested in attending from Detroit?

Utterly amazing!

Emma Goldman's famous phrase was: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution":

As far as we're concerned, If Detroiters aren't invited to the discussion, we don't want anything to do with "another politics" that replicates patterns of class privilege and power from the past.

I've become very tired and disgusted with folks who like to pretend to be progressive and inclusive in theory, but who are in reality anything but that. We truly need to build another politics, and the building needs to begin with openness and inclusiveness and equity IN ACTION AND PRACTICE, not just in theory.

So our message to the organizers of this and any other discussions about creating "another politics" in Detroit or elsewhere is: Please be so good as to remember to invite Detroiters into the discussion, and to be as democratic and inclusive in practice as you think of yourselves as being in principle.

Detroiters are committed to building a vibrant, inclusive, equitable, participatory politics that is not beholden to the practices of exclusion and POWER-ELITISM of any kind (including class, race, and intellectual elitism). We especially reject the kind of politics that seeks to present itself as "another politics" that is IN THEORY a better politics, but that IN PRACTICE is simply another politics of exclusion being created by and for the privileged.

To THAT politics, wherever it comes from, and in whatever progressive or salvational guise it may present itself, we say, NO THANK YOU!

We Detroiters will invest our time in actually CREATING a new progressive and inclusively participatory politics of equity and social justice of, by, and for Detroiters. And then perhaps those who like to continually talk about "another politics" in their small exclusive groups, without doing anything to put it into practice, will realize they might not already know everything they need to know about how to make another politics possible....