There But For Fortune: An American Family
Those millions (!) of you who are regular readers of this blog know that faithful commenter Rosedog is — in real life"” the accomplished journalist and author Celeste Fremon.
Time to toot her horn a bit and provide you, the reader, with some good"¦reading.
Celeste has just finished writing and publishing in the L.A. Weekly the last installment of an extraordinary seven-part year long series on one American family — Luis and Frances Aguilar of East Los Angeles.
Not only does the series make an enthralling read, it also tells us two compelling stories at once. The story of the Aguilars. And the story of what some intrepid reporting can accomplish.
Celeste's assignment a year ago, which I had a minor role, was to find a local L.A. family that was living on the edge and then chronicle their lives throughout the year 2004.
Choosing the Aguilars as her subjects, Celeste had make a daunting decision. Here was a latino family headed by a guy who had just been paroled out of prison for gang-related felonies and was now going to try to make it on the outside. This was hardly the warm and fuzzy fallen middle-class sort of family that is the usual fodder for newspaper series on economic hardship.
Selling the Aguilars as a sympathetic case was arduous. Among the skeptical were some of Celeste's editors, including yours truly. But Celeste stayed on the case, and working with L.A. Weekly News Editor Alan Mittelstaedt, and backed by editor-in-chief Laurie Ochoa, wound up producing a truly stunning real-time series. This is a vivid portrayal of a family at the bottom of the social heap that has to overcome not only the obvious external obstacles but also their own shortcomings, misjudgements and foibles.
Over the course of the last year, Luis was charged with new crimes and spent more time in jail before the charges were dropped. Celeste's investigative reporting on the matter helped clear him and expose police over-zealousness. During the same period, the Aguilars lost their children to county authorities"”and"¦ well, I won't give away anymore.
My suggestion is you print out the seven installments listed below (along with Celeste's companion essay on the lessons learned from this year-long venture), that you staple them all together, and that you treat yourself to one fabulous read. Here is the power of what one reporter can do on his or her own — with few resources other than insight, compassion and a sense of justice.
A Reporter's Analysis: The Lessons Learned
The photos in this piece were taken by the talented Anne Fishbein who also shot the pictures for my book on Las Vegas.
Enjoy the reading. And, Rosedog, good luck on selling this as a book.
December 31st, 2004 at 6:18 am
“Lock ‘em up and throw away the key. Three strikes and yer out. Just put ‘em away.”
Easy conclusions, but not only are they inhumane conclusions in many cases, they don’t make good business sense either. Looked at from a strictly economic point of view, this vindictiveness is extremely expensive, and it’s not worth it.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040812.html
It’s not like I’m never been a crime victim myself. I’m mugged liberal, but still a liberal. I lived in fear, rage and despair for over a year when a man who had been convicted of attempted murder for assaulting a woman who later became my girlfriend was reported to have jumped parole. He was nowhere to be found by the police - but was occasionally sighted by this girlfriend of mine. Yeah, OK, you’ll hear me say it: Lock him up. Throw away the key.
But what about all those people doing long prison terms for drug offenses and relatively minor crimes? We pay for their long incarcerations, and society pays again when some of these people become hardened criminals. And, as Celeste’s story shows, law enforcement agencies add yet another unneeded expense, by going seriously overboard in pursuit of some suspects, and with repercussions for young children that threaten to perpetuate the cycle. There has to be a better way.
December 31st, 2004 at 9:18 am
thanks for posting this series…I don’t see the LA Weekly and would have missed it.
December 31st, 2004 at 9:39 am
I’m glad you mentioned Rosedog aka Celeste Fremon. I always look for and enjoy her comments on your blog. Needless to say, I live for your blog. Here’s to another year! I’ll be lurking.
December 31st, 2004 at 2:07 pm
“This is a vivid portrayal of a family at the bottom of the social heap that has to overcome not only the obvious external obstacles but also their own shortcomings, misjudgements and foibles.”
Well, yes, every individual from each social class has to overcome foibles and misjudgements. The difference of course is when a foible or misjudgement is made by one of immense incomprehensible amounts of material means, they have the luxury of not having to pay dearly for such mistakes. Look at our president or his children or his nieces and nephews, brothers,…
December 31st, 2004 at 2:24 pm
Thanks for the tip, Marc. I copied and pasted it and exported it as a PDF file. An impressive piece of work, Rosedog, er . . . Celeste. Look forward to reading it.
December 31st, 2004 at 2:24 pm
Stellar work, Rosedog. Congratulations.
December 31st, 2004 at 3:04 pm
This is a story that will stick with me for a long time, much as the tale of train hopping El Salvadorian Enrique’s trip to see his mom in the U.S. has (a series that ran in the LA Times nearly three years ago). Always admired Boyle’s efforts; like to see, someday, an expansion of the story on John Pedroza; maybe seeing him as a voice of reason vs. enduring LAPD gangsterism is a wild overstatement on my part; I just don’t know. Thank you, Rosedog.
January 1st, 2005 at 12:06 pm
A CAUTIONARY NOTE: If you intend to download these stories for printing later, don’t use Marc’s links. I did that and when I opened them up a day later found that I had saved marcCooper.com pages with marc’s orginal post instead of the story segments. It’s because the web “frame” isn’t the orginal LA Weekly stories. I did this via Firefox, so it could be idiosyncratic BUT you can go to the current LA Weekly and back-link via a sidebar, story by story.
January 1st, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Marc, thanks many times over for your great generosity in posting this.
And thanks to the various commenters. (Geeze, Michael. That’s a scary story. It’s that kind of person whom we’d all want to see locked up.)
Jim H. I appreciate your idea about expanding upon Pedroza, the good cop. It’s clear to me that I need to do far, far more on Rudy Chavez who is the sort of Javert character in the story. In the series, he’s awfully 2 dimensional, mostly due to the limitations of space and time. But frankly I never thought of expanding on Pedroza. It’s an excellent notion. He’s a decent guy, but—very conflicted, I sense, although he’s never said so. I’ve heard via the grapevine that he may not have been promoted on the last go round because he’s not enough of a hard ass, and doesn’t have a record of making a lot of arrests. Yet he genuinely practices community policing—which everyone holds up as the gold standard, at least in theory. But in practice it appears that another ethic may be the one that’s still rewarded. Lately I see him trying to be a lot tougher, yet he wears it badly, like a poorly fitting suit.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I’m going to make use of it.
January 1st, 2005 at 8:32 pm
I regularly read the Weekly and I have really enjoyed this series. Good work Rosedog.
The series is a great example of what journalism should be.
Hopefully the Weekly will continue to publish solid journalism and not shift towards culture.
LA needs more of this.
January 2nd, 2005 at 9:49 am
I’m planning to download and read in the next week or so — but the conclusion is very important, and the best (movie) Daredevil line:
Nobody is innocent.
But the small guilts don’t deserve the big punishments, usually. On the other hand, being nice to bad and good people, and supporting bad people in being bad to neighbors, is not good to the neighbors.
Rosedog (Celeste) — great job. Any thoughts of doing a little more following the local community there? Who was complaining to the cops before, who has changed their minds about Luis, who hasn’t?
Also, any questions for the rich liberals in LA — why aren’t any hiring ex-cons?
Finally, the whole drug war is so negative. I don’t like drugs, but don’t like the drug war either.
Happy New Year.
January 3rd, 2005 at 10:32 am
Great piece. I was particularly interested in your coverage of DFCS. Currently, there are financial incentives for DFCS to take children away from parents. And lots of money is spent on foster children once they are removed from their homes. In certain instances, those kids would be better served by directing those dollars toward the birth family and not into the foster system. Call it a parental rehibilitation program.
Thanks again. I’ll look forward to your next project.
January 4th, 2005 at 7:53 am
I haven’t had time to read any of this because of family commitments; however, I would like to comment on one thing–the title of this posting, which is “There But For Fortune: An American Family.”
Too often the left describes people who are poor as “unfortunate” and the people who support themsevles as “fortunate.” Generally, one’s condition is usually a result of life choices–not luck. If you make good choices, then you can be well off. If you make bad ones, then you can end up in jail. It comes down to personal responsibility and personal choices to determine where most stand in life.
This view doesn’t make me less compassionate, but it does address a real problem that others want to deny.
January 4th, 2005 at 10:03 am
“Generally, one’s condition is usually a result of life choices–not luck. If you make good choices, then you can be well off. If you make bad ones, then you can end up in jail.”
That very claim is easily refuted by looking at the result of bad decisions by the President in his lifetime and those of his kin, immediate and distant numbering in the dozens.
January 4th, 2005 at 11:56 am
steve, if I invested $100,000 in a high risk venture and lost, then that would be a bad decision on my part. If Bill Gates invested $100,000 in that same venture, then it would not necessarily be a bad decision for him. The difference is that Gates knew that there would be adequate resources behind him. If Bush did make bad decisions along the line, at least he knew how far he could push them or when to stop.
However, again, I don’t want to minimize the terrible circumstances of some people or my concern for them. The best way to overcome a bad situation is to admit and address the real problem rather than blaming others or luck.
January 4th, 2005 at 1:50 pm
“If Bush did make bad decisions along the line, at least he knew how far he could push them or when to stop.”
Is it me or is Woody the ultimate relativist?
January 4th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
Again thanks so much for the comments. I know that reading any of this puppy is a not a quickie endeavor.
Tom, about: “Also, any questions for the rich liberals in LA — why aren’t any hiring ex-cons?” Boy am I with you on that. This is where I get the angriest at my liberal pals. It’s fine to be supportive in theory, as long as none of it gets near MY house. (In fairness, I also know a lot of folks—both liberal and conservative—who’ve taken the extra step and hired an ex-con or a former gang member—with the understanding that sometimes, in the beginning this may mean that you may have to be a mentor, as well as an employer. And when those folks do it, they almost inevitably talk about how much THEY’ve gotten out of the experience of helping somebody—even though it made them nervous at first.)
Mavis, I’d love to hear more about your experiences/knowledge of DCFS. The mediator on the Aguilar’s case told me much the same thing, that the Foster Care lobby has become very, very strong and that while, on paper, the emphasis is for family reunification, there’s another whole political wind blowing that is counter to that. I’m going to look into it further—as the experience I had on this case was….really disturbing. (Although some of it I’m, as yet, unable write about since I’m bound by a gag order.)
Woody, selfishly I hope you do read it—even though I know it’s really long. I’d particularly be interested in your take—since you do tend to be more conservative than I am. Same for Tom. So I’d be interested if your views change at all—or not—after reading the series. I’d find your views instructive—since I don’t want to just preach to the choir.
January 4th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Also, Tom…in the book (that I hope to do) I intend to go much further into issues of the community. (I went into them a bit more in the other chapters.) There were basically three groups. One was made up of the average disgruntled semi-middle class community members—who understandably wanted a safe neighborhood, and felt Frances and Luis were a negative presence. But once the homeboys stopped hanging out at the Aguilars, this group pretty much chilled out.
The second group represented the preponderance of the neighborhood’s families who generally tend to be much less judgmental—mainly because in so many of LA’s poorer communities, nearly everyone has a family member or extended family member who’s run into trouble with the law at some time or another—most often with regard to gangs.
The last group was the Neighborhood Watch Committee. Every urban neighborhood I know of in LA has some version of this group. But this particular gaggle of folks was a Neighborhood Watch on steroids. They functioned, quite literally as a secret society. No other community members could attend their meetings—unless specifically invited. And the meeting places were always secret, and always changed. They were quite the piece of work. (Naturally they hated me, and refused to meet with me despite months of trying.) Anyway, thanks for the comment and the question.
January 4th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
Rosedog, you’d like a book called “Ain’t No Makin It”.
January 4th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
Thanks, Steve. Wasn’t familiar with it. But I just now checked it out on Amazon and ordered it.
January 5th, 2005 at 7:09 am
rosedog wrote: “Woody,…I hope you do read it…. …interested in your take.”
I will and I’ll let you know. Lately, I’ve been dealing with siblings over putting a parent in a retirement home–a huge problem for us, but small compared to what others may face.
-
steve wrote: “Is it me or is Woody the ultimate relativist?”
steve, it’s you. In my world things are more black and white than grey. Basically, I was saying that people shouldn’t make choices to where they bite off more than they can chew. That’s not relative. It’s just that Bush can chew off more than others with his financial resources.
January 5th, 2005 at 8:03 am
“That’s not relative. It’s just that Bush can chew off more than others with his financial resources.”
Right, so in other words, if Bush makes a bad decision, drinks like a fish, runs companies into the ground, whores around,…no biggie. Ditto most of his family. But if a poor person makes such a mistake, for shame, for shame.
Sounds like the stuff of ideology designed to reproduce such a structure of inequality for eternity.
Even slaves didn’t accept such a state of mind, forget wage-workers in capitalism. Not since the Great Depression at least.
January 5th, 2005 at 8:20 am
steve wrote: “…, so in other words, if Bush makes a bad decision…no biggie.
No. I wasn’t making moral or business judgements. It’s just a simple statement that people get into trouble by going beyond their means to recover…sort of like young people do with credit card debt. Bush avoided such trouble by being smart enough to stop when he had to…and, he turned his life around.
January 5th, 2005 at 9:27 am
Well, yes, but you miss the point then, which is crucial. Whether or not Bush turned his life around would have had no impact on his material capacity to reproduce the lifestyle of opulence. For him or any other of his class to lecture people about behavior is farce at best. And the belief that poor people are poor by virtue of bad decisions is only true within the context of massive constraints that the likes of a Bush never will have to face. The game is rigged.
January 5th, 2005 at 11:07 am
You go to war with the army you have (on both sides) and you go into life’s battles with the genes and oportunities you have. Life isn’t rigged–it’s what it is and you make the best of it. Also, I haven’t seen Bush lecturing the poor, but rather he tries to help them. (School vouchers, for example, to give them better educational opportunities.) steve, the fight between communism and free enterprise ended a long time ago, and communism lost because it is a flawed system. Even those people who claim to be for the working class, whether Stalin or the Democrats, really do anything to help them except talk. Gotta go.
January 5th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
End of Latino-labor era?
In last week’s Dissonance column in LA Weekly, Marc Cooper lambasted the County Federation of Labor’s endorsement of Jim Hahn over longtime labor activist Antonio Villaraigosa in the mayor’s race. It was “cold, hard lack of principle and guts” that eff…
January 5th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
“You go to war with the army you have (on both sides) and you go into life’s battles with the genes and oportunities you have. Life isn’t rigged–it’s what it is and you make the best of it.”
Thankfully American workers didn’t think like that when the Great Depression occurred or when they came back from World War 2 or else they’d be a whole lot more in rough shape now.
“Life isn’t rigged–it’s what it is and you make the best of it. Also, I haven’t seen Bush lecturing the poor, but rather he tries to help them.”
So all that stuff from both sides of the aisle about morals, drugs, sex,…is just the product of my imagination? Bush and his helpers from the Dems don’t help with 3 strikes you’re out, drug laws that would make Dracon blush, NLRB picks who reject workers’ organization attempts, 0 in the way of minimum wage increases,…Such things only provide employers with larger pools of cheaper labor, disciplined and afraid to demand better wages, benefits,…Things that aren’t a concern to Bush since he doesn’t have to worry about matters like food, housing, health care for his children.
“Even those people who claim to be for the working class, whether Stalin or the Democrats, really do anything to help them except talk.”
So you’re saying people like Marc’s daughter, an SEIU organizer, are wasting their time?
January 5th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
Here’s my off-the-top-of-the-head take on unions.
My family has been on both sides of the labor issue–from being a union officer to negotiating against John L. Lewis personally in a miners strike. I’ve listened and watched both sides to form what I consider pretty well-founded ideas about them.
I’ve watched unions go from being concerned about safety, which they did well in the early years, to doing everything to drain companies until nothing was left. Along the way, the Democrats learned that they could buy votes by passing legislation that would help the unions become powerful and ultimately kill the returns for business investors–who create jobs. Unions became a tool of communists during the cold war in an effort to hurt our economy–not help workers.
We lost our lead in auto production when outrageous wages and benefits in Detroit led to better and cheaper cars from overseas. Eastern Airlines went bust when the pilots demanded more wages than were possible to pay. The steel industry in this country declined because of unions, and the unions extracted undeliverable promises of future benefits from companies leaving the retirees empty-handed. The pendulum swung too far and ran off untold unskilled jobs in this country. Then, the mob got involved (e.g., Hoffa and friends) and money started flowing to the union officers and crime projects and not to the workers. At least the unions didn’t starve their workers like Stalin did, but they did cause them to lose a lot of jobs.
Yeah, I think that there is a lot of false talk from the left about helping the workers, because their policies, laws, and actions end up helping the politicians and union chiefs more than the people who pay the dues. Just because Marc’s daughter is involved in unions (and, I’m sure that she’s a very lovely person) doesn’t change the history of those organizations.
I’m sure that you might find something in the above with which to disagree.
January 5th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
“I’ve watched unions go from being concerned about safety, which they did well in the early years, to doing everything to drain companies until nothing was left”
Huh? They signed agreements with companies to not even go near the big issue items and name a single corporate CEO that went hungry because of unions. Unions made their biggest gains when companies were making their biggest profits in American history. What would you have had workers do, sit around and hope for a raise? And on safety issues, employers much preferred unions push for wage increases and not leverage for greater control over production, the only real way to make safety reforms.
“We lost our lead in auto production when outrageous wages and benefits in Detroit led to better and cheaper cars from overseas.”
Not true in the least, the Japanese and Germans paid their workers better and gave them better benefits, longer vacations. We lost out to the Japanese because corporate boards didn’t agressively pursue the R&D stragegies necessary to stay competitive. Can’t peg that one on the workers I’m afraid.
“The steel industry in this country declined because of unions, and the unions extracted undeliverable promises of future benefits from companies leaving the retirees empty-handed.”
Actually more or less the same story as the auto industry.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020715&s=wypijewski
“Yeah, I think that there is a lot of false talk from the left about helping the workers, because their policies, laws, and actions end up helping the politicians and union chiefs more than the people who pay the dues.”
Wrong again, the Left (I think you think of the liberals as opposed to the left, presuming they are one and the same) advocates more militant unions that actually can exert control and fight for workers’ rights, much like the CIO in the 30’s or the SEIU today.
January 5th, 2005 at 11:06 pm
Woody… After 14 years of working in the inner city, I’ve come to see that there isn’t an even playing field. Some people really start out carrying much greater burdens than the rest of us. No kidding. And I don’t just mean poverty. I mean colossal family dysfunction—meaning abuse and neglect—in addition to poverty and marginalization. Certainly there are exceptional folks who have a hellish childhood and somehow manage to make a success of themselves without ever really stumbling in a big way. (I just had dinner with such a person tonight.) But they are, as I said, exceptional. The despair, the wounds, the abuse, the neglect dealt with by so many of the folks I’ve observed… blows my mind again and again.
The fact that as many of these people succeed in making it out of the gang milieu into a decent adulthood is, to me, nothing less than heroic. And amazingly more do than not. I’ve been priviledged to witness a whole lot of miracle stories. But, in my experience those kind of “miracles” occur in slow motion, four steps forward, three and a half back, and they don’t happen in a vacuum. They require help from some caring adult, an employer….someone. Rarely does anyone do it alone.
“There But for Fortune†isn’t my title. Marc kindly and creatively applied it. But I quite like it—(and may heist it)—because I’ve met so many people in the poorest areas of LA, like Luis Aguilar, the father in the series, who are loaded with natural gifts and a really lousy upbringing. And I always find myself wondering what could they have been had they been born into a family with just one decent parent.
I think and hope that Luis and his wife and kids will make it. But I don’t think they would have made it without help. I’ll be interested to know what you think, once you’ve read the series. Because I do think Luis’ story is emblematic of that of many others.
(I’m still a bit cold ridden and jacked up on evil over-the-counter cold medicine, so I hope the above makes sense.)
January 6th, 2005 at 12:23 am
Woody.. it was my title. And Im not wholly unsympathetic to your arguments. I actually DO think that people are ultimately responsible as individuals for what they TRY to make of their lives. But whatever your opinion of the Aguilars, their children face distinctly different challenges than kids born into…well.. more fortunate circumstances… if for no other reason than the behavior of their parents.
January 6th, 2005 at 8:06 am
rosedog wrote: “…there isn’t an even playing field….” Marc wrote: “their children face distinctly different challenges… …if for no other reason than the behavior of their parents.
I really don’t know that we’re in disagreement about that situation, but we may be on how it is handled.
Of course, I will read the article and it may change my views. However, I see the left rarely solving problems of the poor, because they think that passing laws and spending money is all we need. Good intentions don’t always create good results.
If that were true, then Pres. Johnson’s War on Poverty would have ended poverty forever. As an example of a good idea gone bad, one “help” program (I think Aid for Dependent Children) cut the benefits if the father lived with the family–so, out you go! ..and, out goes the influence and support of the father that a child could use.
In our area, I see too many black families without fathers at home. That isn’t the child’s fault and it does put him behind others in competing in life. However, we could do more to encourage stronger families and end policies that create broken homes.
Then, we need to educate people to quit blaming others and make the most with what you have. I think that is critical. Right now, there is hatred and envy stirred up that is non-productive.
(Of course, if encouraging winning behavior was handled by the left, they might send Tony Robbins motivational tapes to the ghettos and claim victory over poverty again.)
You know…sadly, nothing is going to change. The poor have always been with us and they always will. There will be people with grand ideas to change things and those grand ideas will never succeed. This is beyond groups and governments, but maybe a spiritual revival and change in attitudes is around the corner. I hope so.
January 6th, 2005 at 9:29 am
“If that were true, then Pres. Johnson’s War on Poverty would have ended poverty forever. As an example of a good idea gone bad, one “help” program (I think Aid for Dependent Children) cut the benefits if the father lived with the family–so, out you go! ..and, out goes the influence and support of the father that a child could use.”
As Martin Luther King famously put it, there was no war on poverty, it got diverted the war on the vietnamese. However, to see how entirely wrong you are, just look at the differences in rates of poverty among the elderly before and after the implementation of social security became law. And if the left has done nothing good for the poor, how else do you explain the number of great depressions since the 1930’s (0) without reference to the left’s role in pressuring for regulation of capitalism?
And the nonsense about fathers is the same kind of explanations that used to be made for explaining why large numbers of Poles, Italians, Irish…at one time in history were disproportionately experiencing poverty [and of course Blacks during the worst periods of Jim Crow]. To believe Woody’s understanding of capitalism, if all these ‘irresponsible’ fathers and mothers suddenly found the work ethic [say, by working 75 hours a week instead of 65 hours a week], that poverty could be resolved and wages and benefits would just magically improve along the way.
“However, we could do more to encourage stronger families and end policies that create broken homes.”
Unless you’re George Bush or John Kerry, Bill Clinton…then whatever family problems and bizzare or criminal forms of behavior that arise don’t really matter. Can you imagine if the workers in America thought like Woody did? My God, they’d still be stuck selling apples and begging for work.
January 6th, 2005 at 9:58 am
“In our area, I see too many black families without fathers at home. That isn’t the child’s fault and it does put him behind others in competing in life. However, we could do more to encourage stronger families and end policies that create broken homes. ..”
No argument there. We absolutely need a social safety net, but our welfare system really sucks. The one thing almost all the gang members I’ve known have in common is the lack of a father in the household (or an alcoholic or abusive father)…
I think you’re right, Woody, our views of the situation aren’t that different. While I don’t for a minute think that government’s the answer to all this, I think there’s some stuff government can do. For example, I’ve heard person after person who grew up in the inner city tell me that things really changed after a lot of the youth centers and after school programs of the Johnson years closed down. Government can put money into schools, and into various youth programs to give kids help and alternatives. It can also give private enterprise tax incentives to hire people with barriers to employment….(meaning felony convictions et al).
Also it’s cheaper to put money into reentry programs that give people a little bit of help when they get out of prison so that they have a shot at succeeding, rather than putting ten times that money into housing them when they predictably reoffend. We need prisons to become adult education centers and mental health clinics not just temples of punishment, so that people are paroled into the community in slightly better shape, not far worse shape than when they went in (as it is now)—since 95 percent of those presently incarcerated WILL eventually be returned to our communities. Isn’t it in everyone’s best interest to give them a little bit of help with the transition?
None of this will solve all the problems. But there are things that can help. And most of all, I think that if, as a society, we acted as if all our children belong to all of us—and matter to all of us—we’d be better off. By the same token, I truly believe that if the Luis Aguilars of the world are able to make a success of themselves, we all benefit. Again, I don’t mean that’s just government’s job. With kids (and adults, for that matter), mentoring programs help. Jobs are essential. Mental health professionals need to start regularly donating some pro bono time the way lawyers often do. (Mental health is the elephant in the middle of the room when it comes to gang intervention/recovery and prisoner reentry.) And, although I don’t think faith-based organizations should be given preferential treatment when money is given out, I for one, was in favor of the change that allowed them to be given grants and government funds to do this kind of work, because the best of them are extremely effective as they provide a sense of family and community, hope, meaning and caring, that is an essential part of recovery from a difficult past.
Anyway…. I could natter on about this forever. So I’ll stop now. ; - )
January 6th, 2005 at 10:41 am
“For example, I’ve heard person after person who grew up in the inner city tell me that things really changed after a lot of the youth centers and after school programs of the Johnson years closed down. Government can put money into schools, and into various youth programs to give kids help and alternatives. It can also give private enterprise tax incentives to hire people with barriers to employment….(meaning felony convictions et al).”
That was exactly the position of Martin Luther King, who rightly pointed out that there never was a war on poverty and that its funding got diverted to the war against vietnam.
The causal linkage between poverty and fatherlessness or family problems is also pretty weak, since if there were a high correlation one would expect major disasters economically for Bush, Clinton, Gingrich,…as a result of their families’ moral failings. Au contraire…eh? And one need only look at other capitalist countries that are advanced and don’t see high causative correlations between poverty and fatherlessness, family failings…if we’re to scientifically talk about such matters of poverty in lieu of superstitious speculations.
January 6th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
rosedog, I think that if you and I worked together on this, we could come up with solutions that both address the problems you raise and address the cost effectiveness that I want. Just think, by coming up with practical solutions, two people could eliminate one big government building on Constitution Avenue that’s full of bureaucrats who do little except make their jobs bigger, and we’d probably get to the root of helping people.
steve, I never know where to even start with your replies and I really don’t know where you get all of your information. Government regulations haven’t kept us out of depressions. Government regulations hinder business expansion and add unneeded paperwork, whose cost could better be used to increase productions and our standard of living. Minimum wage laws are a joke, because after you raise the bottom level, then you have to raise all the other levels above that resulting in everyone staying status quo and having more inflation and higher taxes. The bottom line is that you want a re-distribution of the wealth and I think that people should keep what more of what they earn. Your way never, never works.
January 6th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
“Government regulations haven’t kept us out of depressions.”
Really? FDIC did nothing to help people when banks go broke? Social Security? Regulation of stock markets to prevent the kind of speculative fraudulent behavior that brought on the Great Depression, etc. etc. The huge bailouts of corporations that would otherwise have really brought down the house. You must be kidding if you think capitalism could survive without such stuff. No serious economist thinks so. And most of them lean right btw.
“Government regulations hinder business expansion and add unneeded paperwork, whose cost could better be used to increase productions and our standard of living.”
Really? That’s not what we saw during the early years of the Great Depression. Not even close, laissez faire only made things worse for American workers at that point. Doug Henwood’s “Wall Street” would disabuse you of laissez faire ideology.
“Minimum wage laws are a joke, because after you raise the bottom level, then you have to raise all the other levels above that resulting in everyone staying status quo and having more inflation and higher taxes. ”
Ah yes, minimum wage is terrible, but CEOs perks, options, salary hikes throught the roof,…no problem. Seems fair to me. And, scientifically speaking, how does it help workers as a group, skilled or not, to have a large body of workers willing to work for the lowest possible wage to put food on the table? How does that increase the bargaining power of workers?
“The bottom line is that you want a re-distribution of the wealth and I think that people should keep what more of what they earn.”
Well, sure, then stop giving all those tax breaks to the wealthiest few, you’ve got no argument from me there.
“Your way never, never works.”
Really? It pulled millions of workers out of the industrial working class and got them into schools, subsidized mortgages, professional job opportunities, subsidized roads to suburbs, etc. etc.
You talk like someone who hasn’t lived a day under American capitalism.
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January 6th, 2005 at 2:19 pm
steve, we’re getting a little off track, plus I know that you’ll never accept anything that goes against what you think is the truth.
Let me just give you a few points:
**Bank and Monetary Protection: Federal Reserve System (this is private, not government)
**Social Security: Unfunded retirement program that would put trustees in jail if a private system.
**Corporate Bailouts: Against them (exp. Chrysler) as I am against government bailouts (exp. New York City)
**Serious Economist: Milton Friedman. Gotta love that guy.
**Great Depression: Not ended by government spending or, really, even WWII. Ran the cycle.
**Minimum Wage: Ineffective policy but good politics to cater to stupid people.
**Executive Salaries: Don’t pay more than they’re worth. Stockholders have a say. If Eisner can increase stock value ten times, then he’s worth every penney paid to him.
**Tax Breaks to Wealthy: Thank Pres. Reagan for ending 70% tax bracket which discouraged income production and investment. More money to investors is more money for jobs.
**Capitalism: Think this is bad? Go to Russia and China.
To bring this around to the topic…I bet that the Aguilars of East Los Angeles would rather be here than in a communist “workers paradise.”
THE END
January 6th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
“**Bank and Monetary Protection: Federal Reserve System (this is private, not government)–”
really? http://www.fdic.gov/
“**Social Security: Unfunded retirement program that would put trustees in jail if a private system.”
Well funded and without it you’d need a police officer on every street to prevent riots.
**Corporate Bailouts: Against them (exp. Chrysler) as I am against government bailouts (exp. New York City)
–Fine, but then ya’d better find a source for decent paying jobs and pension funds…unless you think small companies are gonna be the wave of the world economy’s future. wishful thinking.
“**Serious Economist: Milton Friedman. Gotta love that guy.”
Dean Baker makes him look childish. Ditto Doug Henwood or Michael Perleman.
“**Executive Salaries: Don’t pay more than they’re worth. Stockholders have a say. If Eisner can increase stock value ten times, then he’s worth every penney paid to him.”
But God forbid the workers ask for a raise or better benefits. Again, I’m glad workers didn’t sit around and ask you for advice on how to solve their wage/benefit/employment problem.
“**Minimum Wage: Ineffective policy but good politics to cater to stupid people.”
Cute rhetoric, but seriously Woody, can you point out a time in history where large bodies of low paid workers somehow make it easier for workers to negotiate for raises with their employers? Or are you a believer in Say’s law (!)
“**Tax Breaks to Wealthy: Thank Pres. Reagan for ending 70% tax bracket which discouraged income production and investment. More money to investors is more money for jobs.”
Real wages haven’t increased, although the rate of taxation for working people has increased. some lucky break. and actually you’re wrong about productivity, the best productivity rates have typically been under Democratic administrations…
“**Capitalism: Think this is bad? Go to Russia and China.”
The irony here is that China is doing far better economically than Russia. Can you guess why?
January 6th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
steve, you said FDIC and I said Federal Reserve, which is the system that makes our banks sound and avoids runs on the banks like at the start of the depression. The Fed is private, as indicated by this one random link out of many found.
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/3/powerfortress.htm
Social Security is not funded. The money you pay in now covers current payments to recipients. There is no fund or balance for your future and no account in your name. In fact, to make the U.S. deficit smaller, Congress lumped the social security funds into the general funds. Good luck with your future social security benefits that you think you have.
That’s all I’m going to do on this. I could refute all of your points with facts while you try to refute mine with bad information with which you have somehow been indoctrinated.
This could go on endlessly, so you can have the last word and, after I read it, I’ll have the last laugh. See you in a future topic!
January 6th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
“rosedog, I think that if you and I worked together on this, we could come up with solutions that both address the problems you raise and address the cost effectiveness that I want….”
I completely agree! (And I believe cost effectiveness is, in fact, key. This is where liberals and conservatives acting in good faith—rather than politically—can come together.) The annoying mystery is why no one has asked us to do this!!!!
(I’m going to resist the temptation to get between you and Steve on the other issues you’re discussing—although I do have one grand and glorious Great Depression tale—involving my grandfather, my father, my mother, true love, the Fort Peck Dam in northeastern Montana, 40,000 Depression-slammed men and women put back to work, a struggling folks singer named Woody Guthrie….The cover of the very first issue of Life magazine and….Well, you get the idea. But it’s clearly a story for another day.)
January 6th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
“The Fed is private, as indicated by this one random link out of many found.”
uhm, yes, and started by Congress, no? beholden to congress, president appoints board members…gimme a break.
“Good luck with your future social security benefits that you think you have.”
I suppose next you’re going to tell me there are WMDs in Iraq?
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/social_security_is_not_in_crisis.php
“I could refute all of your points with facts while you try to refute mine with bad information with which you have somehow been indoctrinated.”
No, actually I respond with facts and you get frustrated with that. You might wish we could go back to the pre-depressoin days when workers all blamed themselves for things like mass unemployment, cyclical depressions,…but that’s just wishful thinking.
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