Tuesday, August 11, 2020
The Execution of Elephants and Americans
LEE CAMP
August 10, 2020
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/10/lee-camp-the-executions-of-elephants-and-americans/
The first person to receive the electric chair in America was not a person.
It was an elephant named Topsy, and honestly, I believe he was falsely convicted. But we’ll get back to that in a moment.
With a quarter million Americans either killed or seriously maimed by Covid-19 and a U.S. drone bomb being dropped overseas roughly every 12 minutes, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department recently thought to themselves, “You know what we need in this country? More killing. There aren’t enough murders going on.” I guess I can’t blame their logic. If you’re headed for hell anyway, why not make it worth it? Swing for the fences.
So in the quest for more deaths, the federal government recently carried out their first official execution in close to 20 years. (That number of course does not include the thousands of innocent men, women and children they obliterate overseas every year.) But they couldn’t partake in their execution fun-time without the tacit approval of the Supreme Court. SCOTUS as it’s called cleared the way for the execution by declining to hear a case.
Lethal Injection
This first execution in 17 years was performed by lethal injection because hanging has a bad rep these days. It feels too Wild West, though it is carbon neutral. And electrocution has been on the outs because I imagine the environmentalists were furious the electricity was coming from coal power plants. (Don’t quote me on that.)
I mean, if you’re going to turn a guy into a shish kabob, don’t use dirty energy to do it, okay? Maybe he could pedal a bike that powers his own murder. That’s eco-friendly. Or how about death by wind turbine? I’m sure if you got a guy close enough to one of those things, the blades would knock his head clean off. That would be completely environmentally sustainable and fun for the whole family.
Quick tangent: The electric chair owes its existence to Thomas Edison being an asshole. Edison funded the creation of the first e-chair in order to crush his business rival, George Westinghouse. The famed inventor refused to take Nikola Tesla’s advice that alternating current was the way of the future.
As Business Insider reported, “Edison decided that there was only one thing to do: to prove that Westinghouse’s [alternating current] generators were more dangerous than Edison’s direct current. In order to prove his claim, Edison held public executions — oftentimes in front of reporters — of animals such as dogs and horses.”
Esteemed Inventor
At one such event in Coney Island, N.Y., he zapped and killed an adult circus elephant named Topsy. (To this day many believe Topsy was framed.) So, if you’re a teenager and you kill a squirrel, they call you a Satanist and send you to juvie. But Edison deep-fried a fucking elephant and he’s an esteemed inventor??
Edison also sought to prove his wonderful new toy worked on a human. Convicted murderer William Kemmler was the lucky contestant for this particular episode of “What’s That Burning Smell?!” After they sent a few thousand volts through him, Arthur Southwick, the creator of the electric chair — which Edison helped fund — spoke to the crowd.
“…just as Southwick announced: ‘This is the culmination of ten years’ work and study. We live in a higher civilization today,’ everyone noticed that Kemmler was still alive.”
As the poor man groaned in pain, Southwick thought, “Oh Shit! We didn’t cook him long enough!” They proceeded to electrocute him for many more minutes until his head started smoking.
Welcome to higher civilization. …Please ignore the stench of burning hair.
Anyway, we basically don’t use the electric chair anymore. Now we use the highly civilized lethal injection. There’s only one problem. We can’t get our hands on the drugs to murder people because the EU banned export of the lethal-injection drugs we need. The countries that manufacture the drugs don’t want them used for our barbaric Medieval experiments in human indecency.
Keep Trying
But the Trump administration will not be deterred. Certainly not. When it comes to bailing out average Americans struggling during a pandemic, Trump gives up pretty easy. But when it comes to killing people, his motto is “If at first they can still breathe, try try again!”
So these recent federal executions mark, as Reuters reported, “the culmination of a three-year campaign to line up a secret supply chain to make and test lethal injection drugs.”
A secret three-year campaign.
To obtain the murder drugs you need.
Because every nation is trying to stop you.
Isn’t it a strong sign you’re an alcoholic when your friends start hiding the alcohol from you? Well, what is it when your friends are hiding the murder cocktails from you? “Hey, buddy, don’t you think you’ve killed enough people this week? Yes, I know you can stop anytime you want. Of course. But why don’t you just take a break? See how one night feels without killing someone, you know?”
Apparently, the administration has been working on this secret protocol since 2017, and it’s designed to obscure who supplies and tests the drugs — but many of the sources have now been uncovered. As the Reuters investigation noted, “In some cases, even the companies involved in testing the deadly pentobarbital said they didn’t know its intended purpose. … All three firms told Reuters the Justice Department did not hire them directly, saying they were contracted by a compounding pharmacy …”
Here’s a hint you might be on the wrong side of history — when your government officials have to pretend to be someone else when contracting with chemical companies that make killer cocktails because if those companies found out the purpose of the drugs, they would refuse to work with you on moral grounds.
Second tangent: Despite refusing to create killer chemicals, making U.S. bombs that kill innocent people overseas is not something companies hide from. No, they take pride in it – as seen in this fawning CNN segment touring the Raytheon facility that makes Tomahawk missiles.
Heartwarming Story
One of the companies testing Trump’s new murder cocktail is called DynaLabs. And the co-founder, Michael Pruett, would like you to know that your government testing murder-chemicals is truthfully a heartwarming story. He said quote, “I’d rather know, if someone I knew was being put to death with lethal injection, that the injection was tested by a qualified laboratory.”
Yes, if a friend of mine were being murdered, I’d like to know the chemicals were really top notch. I want my buddy to enjoy the Grey Goose of death. Spare no expense if you’re killing my pals! Kinda like if I were watching my best mate strangled to death, I would want it to be strong professional hands — you know, like an auto mechanic or a drummer of a moderately successful rock band. (They wouldn’t have to play stadiums, but they should have a Twitter account with over 10,000 followers.)
Here are a few other fun facts before we close the book on this horror show: Careful estimates by the National Academy of Sciences find that over 4 percent of those executed are completely innocent. A much larger number are severely mentally ill. So really America has simply created a reliable procedure for executing mentally disabled people. That’s lovely. Maybe we should add a verse about that to the National Anthem.
And then there’s the racist aspects of capital punishment. The No. 1 determinant of whether someone is sentenced to the death penalty is race of the victim — meaning killing a white person is a much bigger deal in our society than killing a black person.
Anyway, in the interest of avoiding a 32-page column, I won’t go through all the other reasons the death penalty remains an idiotic, barbaric, flawed, pointless waste of human life. …But on the plus side, at least the elephants now understand who’s boss.
If Trump Wins Russia Did It, If Biden Wins It Was China & Iran
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/10/us-intelligence-if-trump-wins-russia-did-it-if-biden-wins-it-was-china-iran/
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
Back in April I said “China’s gonna be so surprised when it finds out it interfered in the November election.”
Now three months ahead of schedule China is already getting its surprise, alongside fellow unabsorbed governments Iran and Russia.
Mass media throughout the Western world are uncritically passing along a press release from the U.S. intelligence community, because that’s what passes for journalism in a world where God is dead and everything is stupid.
The press release, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and authored by National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director William Evanina, claims that Russia wants Donald Trump to win re-election in November and is pushing to advance than goal, while China and Iran are doing the same with Joe Biden.
China
“We assess that China prefers that President Trump – whom Beijing sees as unpredictable – does not win reelection,” the press release reads. “China has been expanding its influence efforts ahead of November 2020 to shape the policy environment in the United States, pressure political figures it views as opposed to China’s interests, and deflect and counter criticism of China.”
Russia
“We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment,’” the press release claims. “Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television.”
Iran
“We assess that Iran seeks to undermine U.S. democratic institutions, President Trump, and to divide the country in advance of the 2020 elections,” says the press release. “Iran’s efforts along these lines probably will focus on on-line influence, such as spreading disinformation on social media and recirculating anti-U.S. content. Tehran’s motivation to conduct such activities is, in part, driven by a perception that President Trump’s reelection would result in a continuation of U.S. pressure on Iran in an effort to foment regime change.”
What this completely unsubstantiated narrative means, of course, is that no matter who wins in November America’s opaque government agencies will have already primed the nation for more dangerous escalations against countries which have resisted being absorbed into the blob of the U.S.-centralized empire. If Trump wins we can expect his administration to continue its escalations against Russia in retaliation for its 2020 “election interference,” and if Biden wins we can expect his cabinet of Obama administration holdovers to ramp up escalations against China in the same way while Joe mumbles to himself off to the side as his brain turns to chowder.
Keep in Mind
There is never a legitimate reason to believe any unproven claim made by unaccountable spook agencies about U.S.-targeted governments, but even if everything in this press release were true it’s an incredibly stupid thing to care about. The influence that Russia, China or Iran could exert over public opinion in the United States is a tiny fraction of that which is exerted by the unaccountable U.S. billionaire media every single day, which already has its own factions pushing for Biden over Trump and Trump over Biden. Adding some foreign social media operations into the mix would change literally nothing.
Secondly, as the press release itself acknowledges, the U.S. is openly pushing regime change in Iran. It is already engaging in various acts of economic warfare against all three of the named governments, and it openly interfered in Russia’s elections in the nineties to a far greater extent than anything it has even accused Russia of doing. The U.S. government’s own data shows that it is the very worst election meddler in the world by an extremely wide margin, which would make it a perfectly legitimate target for election interference by any nation on earth.
Lastly, the dumbest thing about believing foreign nations are interfering in American democracy is believing America has any democracy to interfere with. The integrity of U.S. elections ranks dead last among all Western democracies, public opinion is constantly manipulated by the media-owning plutocratic class which has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo which keeps them rich and powerful, and it’s a two-headed one party system where both corporate-owned parties advance the same Establishment agendas.
Press Release Power
Imagine believing that foreign leaders are looking at the dumpster fire that is the United States and thinking “I know how we can hurt them! We’ll sow division by saying mean things about their presidential candidates on social media!”
It’s the dumbest thing in the world. Yet all the Establishment narrative managers are jumping on this intelligence community press release as a real thing that we should all be excited about.
All this hand-wringing and arm-waving about foreign interference on social media comes as social media itself makes policy changes to ensure that only Western governments are allowed to conduct propaganda on its platforms, with Twitter instituting a new policy of labeling accounts from unabsorbed governments as “state-affiliated media” while placing no labels or restrictions on any accounts with extensive Western government ties.
The overall message in all this is that only Western government agencies and oligarchs may conduct propaganda on those who live in the U.S.-centralized empire. It should enrage us all that these unaccountable abusers feel so entitled to insert their rapey fingers in our minds and manipulate how we think, act and vote that they get all chest-thumpy about the idea of anyone else getting a word in edgewise. They do this because they understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and there is no amount of evil they won’t do to ensure that they continue to control the world.
The reason sociopaths are able to insert themselves so easily into positions of power and influence in human civilization is because highly manipulative people with no empathy quickly learn that society is dominated by narrative, while the rest of us do not understand this. This must change before we will be able to create a healthy world.
The US Labor Movement Needs More of the UE’s “Them and Us” Unionism
The United Electrical Workers was one of America’s mightiest unions. Many leaders were leftists who challenged corporate power, so UE was decimated by McCarthyism. The union survived and UE's model of militant, democratic unionism can revive labor.
August 10, 2020 Jeff Schuhrke JACOBIN
https://portside.org/2020-08-10/us-labor-movement-needs-more-ues-them-and-us-unionism
The anti-communist fervor and McCarthyist repression that swept the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s drastically changed the course of labor history. These years witnessed the destruction of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) — the dynamic union movement that adopted militant shop floor tactics and a class-conscious vision to rapidly organize millions of previously unorganized workers in the 1930s.
Surrendering to Cold War red-baiting, CIO leaders orchestrated the raiding and expulsion of eleven national unions — not because these unions were corrupt or failing to win good contracts for their members, but because they were either led by Communists or deemed too tolerant toward the Left.
The first target was the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE), which was then the third-largest union in the CIO. Founded in 1936 by a few dozen industrial workers and leftist organizers in their twenties and early thirties, UE embodied the spirit of rank-and-file, class-struggle unionism that originally allowed the CIO to pose an unprecedented challenge to the power of capital.
UE’s formal ouster at the 1949 CIO convention, and the others that soon followed, cost the CIO its most dedicated and visionary unionists. Rendered a shell of its former self, the CIO became virtually indistinguishable from the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL), with which it merged in 1955.
The US labor movement has never recovered, with union density consistently in decline since the mid-1950s and economic inequality steadily on the rise — and progressive, democratic, militant unionism all but erased.
But UE is still here. Seventy years after being kicked to the curb by anti-communist labor officials, the independent union — now with about 35,000 members from a variety of industries — continues to adhere to its founding principles of militant class-struggle, rank-and-file democracy, and worker-to-worker solidarity.
As a living example of what unionism looked like before McCarthyism poisoned the CIO, UE’s history and philosophy offer an insight into what the US labor movement could have been in the second half of the twentieth century — and what it could be today. The union is at once a reminder of a bygone, heroic era of labor history, and a prototype of the kind of movement workers can organize in the twenty-first century.
Them and Us
In a new booklet, which is a must-read for anyone serious about building working-class power, UE straightforwardly spells out the key elements of its model of “Them and Us” unionism.
In light of socialism’s growing popularity, Bernie Sanders’s two presidential runs, and movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, “we can talk about the economic system plainly in a way that unions really have not been able to since the late 1930s and early 1940s,” says UE general president Carl Rosen.
He says that the pamphlet is meant to inspire a new generation of working-class activists, both within and outside UE. It is particularly timely as non-union essential workers organize to protect themselves amid the coronavirus pandemic — illustrated by the recently formed Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), a joint project of UE and the Democratic Socialists of America.
“We would hope the booklet inspires a conversation among some of the best folks in the labor movement, and also among our allies, about the power of class-struggle unionism and why we need to be looking at it again as a way to deal with the problems we confront,” Rosen says.
UE has always had a clear-eyed understanding of how capitalism functions. The union argues that workers are not underpaid or overworked simply because some employers misbehave now and then. Instead, the exploitation of labor is a permanent feature of the dominant economic system, which divides society into a tiny class of those who live by owning (which UE calls “them”) and a much larger class of those who live by working (which UE says is “us”).
Without centering the fundamental conflict between “them and us,” UE contends, no strategy to reinvigorate organized labor, no matter how clever or innovative, will ever be truly effective.
Rank-and-File Control
This explicit class consciousness is enshrined in the UE constitution, which calls on workers to rely first and foremost on their own collective power — not only to bargain and enforce contracts at individual workplaces, but to advance the interests of the entire working class by fighting in the wider political arena.
To foster genuine union democracy and prevent leadership from getting out of touch, UE’s constitution mandates that the union’s top elected officers receive salaries no higher than that of the best paid rank-and-file members.
Instead of relying solely on paid, professional staff organizers, UE is driven by a robust system of stewards — rank-and-file members who receive the necessary training to negotiate contracts, pursue grievances, and organize job actions on their own. Strong steward systems are the antithesis of entrenched union bureaucracies that cut backroom deals with employers.
UE’s dedication to militant rank-and-file struggle can be seen through its many dramatic confrontations with employers over the years. Some of these include a 102-day strike at General Electric in 1969–70, which resulted in historic concessions from the company’s intransigent management; the 2008 occupation of Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors factory, which led to laid-off workers getting a $1.75 million settlement and the eventual reopening of the plant as a cooperative; and last year’s nine-day strike in the freezing cold of Erie, Pennsylvania, which resulted in manufacturing workers winning a first contract with Wabtec, the company that recently took over GE Transportation.
“When the workers realize that the few folks in the boardrooms are messing with our livelihoods, that’s when the rage sets in,” explains Bryan Pietzrak, a steward with UE Local 506 who participated in last year’s Wabtec strike.
Pietzrak adds that the union skillfully tapped into that anger by enlisting Wabtec workers to fight back. “Once that rage turns into solidarity, the company is screwed,” he says.
As for political engagement, UE’s approach is different from most other unions in that it maintains independence from both major parties, only backing specific candidates who champion the working class — evident in the union’s longtime support for Bernie Sanders. Further, UE doesn’t have a political action fund doling out huge campaign donations; instead, the union utilizes the power of its membership to get out the vote and put pressure on lawmakers.
Solidarity
In addition to aggressive struggle and union democracy, another core UE principle is unity among all workers. As the union’s constitution makes clear, UE’s founders were dedicated to organizing workers “regardless of craft, age, sex, nationality, race, creed or political beliefs” — an inclusive attitude that was still considered radical in 1936, when it was common practice for unions to limit membership to “skilled” white men.
UE was a trailblazer in winning nondiscrimination clauses in its contracts in the 1940s and 1950s, and was also the first US manufacturing union to elect a woman as a national officer in 1985.
In addressing globalization and free trade agreements, the union has refused to cast blame on foreign workers for “stealing” US jobs, instead directing the blame at corporate capital. UE has focused on building international solidarity with workers abroad, most notably through its nearly thirty-year partnership with the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo, Mexico’s independent labor federation.
“It’s not just about UE,” Rosen says of the solidarity-based unionism laid out in the booklet. He notes that other unions already put this into practice, including the Chicago Teachers Union, which has reinvented itself over the past decade in order to fight and win based on these principles; and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which, along with UE, is the last of the old leftist-led CIO unions that were expelled in 1949–50.
“This tradition ran through most of the CIO unions, and in fact accomplished much of what the labor movement achieved over the last 85 years,” he says. “It’s what is needed now to carry things forward and try to rebuild an effective fighting force for the working class.”
Rebuilding and revitalizing the US labor movement in the twenty-first century will require the same kind of vision and dedication from today’s leftists as inspired the young organizers and Communists who founded UE almost eighty-five years ago. If more workers were organized along UE’s model of “Them and Us” unionism, the working class would be in a much better position to remake the world.
The $11 Billion Question: Will Californians Raise Commercial Property Taxes?
The Proposition 15 ballot measure aims to hike commercial tax rates and potentially raise billions to support funding for schools and other public infrastructure.
August 10, 2020 Bobbi Murray CAPITAL & MAIN
https://portside.org/2020-08-10/11-billion-question-will-californians-raise-commercial-property-taxes
Pandemic or not, in less than four months Californians will face two monumental choices at the ballot box. One will help determine the presidency for the next four years; another could begin to repair 40 years of economic damage self-inflicted upon the state’s education system.
In June the Schools and Communities First campaign submitted some 1.7 million voter signatures required to place “The California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2020” on the November 2020 ballot.
See Other Stories in This Series
The initiative, Proposition 15, placed second on the state ballot, would create a split roll system by establishing a commercial assessment that looks at present land values. In the current system, both commercial and home properties are taxed at the same rates, but commercial properties’ taxes have barely gone up because they’re structured in such a way as to circumvent the kind of reassessments that residential properties cannot avoid. The ballot measure aims to hike commercial tax rates and potentially raise billions to support funding for schools and other public infrastructure. (Disclosure: Some of SCF’s leading backers are financial supporters of this website.)
A state analysis says a shift of most commercial and industrial properties to market value assessment would increase those properties’ annual taxes by $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion.
Supporters of SCF know that by putting Proposition 15 in play they are leaping feet first onto California’s third rail of state politics – the property tax system put in place in 1978 by Proposition 13. That measure passed in a landslide vote, rolled homeowner taxes back to 1975 levels and fixed the tax rate at a maximum of 2 percent a year. Prop. 13 has remained largely unaltered for more than 40 years and virtually untouchable in the minds of many California homeowner voters.
Reform advocates at the grassroots and in government argue that since it was put into place the tax structure has undercut funding for parks, schools and other public amenities; many who have navigated the arcane California tax political terrain for decades were part of crafting an initiative that won’t bring on the buzz saw from some of the largest business interests in the state.
Agricultural land taxes would remain largely untouched under Prop. 15 and commercial properties valued at under $3 million – the kind of places that rent to small businesses – would not be reassessed. Proponents had initially submitted a measure for the 2020 ballot that lumped small-fry commercial tracts in with the likes of multinational giants that evade tax adjustments under Prop. 13 rules. Partly in the interest of expanding the base of support they refiled for the 2020 elections with the small commercial property’s adjustment.
In 1985, seven years after Prop. 13’s passage, per-pupil spending in California dropped from fifth in the nation to 40th place.
November’s SCF referendum actually has little to do with what has made Prop. 13 sacrosanct for California homeowners. It doesn’t touch their property tax protections but is, rather, aimed at recalibrating the present commercial property tax system that Prop. 13 put in place – a structure, SCF proponents argue, that drains the state of as much as $11 billion annually.
Among the seismic shifts Prop. 13 caused in California’s revenue streams was the creation of a structure that allows big commercial properties to evade reassessment to higher tax rates even as land values go up.
According to a policy brief published in 2018 by the Make It Fair coalition, oil giant Chevron saves $100 million or more annually on its property taxes because its statewide properties, which include gas stations, oil fields and refineries, go unassessed or underassessed. The coalition’s brief was based on analysis by the University of Southern California’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE).
It’s far different for homeowners. While a typical buyer-to-seller home sale transaction triggers reassessment and the new residential property owners pay a tax that is adjusted to present market prices, commercial property can go years without taxes being reassessed.
That’s because of the many ways commercial and industrial properties can change hands (e.g., real estate investment trust transactions; private equity buyouts; corporate purchases of companies; publicly traded stock sales; bank mergers) in which no straightforward change of name appears on the deed your local county tax assessor would note.
In 2017 commercial property represented 29% of assessed tax value; residential properties represented 71%, says one study.
Furthermore, if commercial land sits idle for years with no construction or other changes on it to trigger tax reassessment to reflect current market value, the property tax rate stays the same.
In Los Angeles County, 57 percent of industrial and commercial properties haven’t been reassessed for two decades. Meanwhile, the county’s tax burden has shifted toward homeowners. In 2017 commercial property represented 29 percent of assessed tax value; residential properties represented 71 percent, according to PERE research.
In the Los Angeles County of 1975, the tax split between residential property taxpayers and nonresidential/commercial taxpayers was nearly 50/50, with homeowners paying slightly less. By 2009 the ratio had drastically shifted. Residential property taxpayers were paying around a 70 percent share, while commercial property owners’ share had correspondingly sunk to just 30 percent.
In 1978, residential taxpayers and commercial properties in Northern California’s Santa Clara County were neck and neck in tax contributions. By 2009 homeowner taxes were contributing 60 percent, commercial properties kicking in 35 percent.
A recent California Legislative Analyst Office assessment showed that, “Overall, $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion per year in new property taxes would go to local governments. Sixty percent would go to cities, counties, and special districts. The other 40 percent would go to schools and community colleges.” A February 2020 PERE analysis estimates that between $10.3 billion and $12.6 billion would become available to state coffers in the next two years if “commercial and industrial properties were assessed at market value.”
In Los Angeles County, 57% of industrial and commercial properties haven’t been reassessed for two decades.
Californians have been increasingly on the hook for more sales taxes and local fees to fill in the gaps as local governments scramble to fund schools and municipal services and amenities like park maintenance and road repair.
In 1985, per-pupil spending in California dropped from fifth in the nation to 40th place.
As the summer wears on, the fight is just heating up. Last week Politico reported that the pro-Prop. 15 campaign has spent $2.6 million, while its opponents have answered with $4.2 million. In one corner sits a coalition that includes the Service Employees International Union State Council, the California Teachers Association and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, along with a panoply of such civic and social justice organizations as the California League of Women Voters, the Advancement Project and the voter-mobilization operation California Calls.
These groups are opposed by the California Business Roundtable, which has vowed that “we will continue fighting to keep property tax rates predictable by protecting Prop. 13 and the certainty it provides California residents and businesses already struggling to make ends meet in our ongoing affordability crisis.” Major funding for the opposition comes from the California Business Roundtable, the California Taxpayers Association and BNSF Railroad, which owns vast tracts of land for their rights of way.
Other Prop. 15 opponents include the California Chamber of Commerce and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, named for the one-time Senate and Los Angeles mayoral candidate and California Apartment Owners Association lobbyist who was the face of Prop. 13 in the mid-1970s. He appeared regularly in the media decrying “the moochers and loafers” in government who squander property tax dollars.
Jarvis’ message tapped into the rising unease of 1970s homeowners—and resonates in today’s uncertain times. “If businesses lose their Prop. 13 protections, homeowners will be next,” says the website for Californians to Save Prop. 13. Also in the ring– of course: the present occupant of the White House.
Raphael Sonenshein, executive director at the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, thinks that California voters have been waiting for years to vote against Donald Trump, whom he calls “the largest noisemaker in the history of American elections” that will propel voters to cast a ballot. The $11 billion question, though, is will those voters also want to jump onto that third rail?
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