The Flaw of Local Liberalism

North Oakland progressive Valerie W. posted to a neighborhood email list trying to salvage the tenure of mayor Jean Quan in the face of the movement to recall her from office. Valerie concluded with a progressive's anecdote about pension reform:

While conservatives keep advocating austerity, we have seen that it has not been the way to prosperity. "Pension reform" in the form of 401K plans are not a secure future for the vast majority of people, and we are in a race to the bottom for standard of living for the 99 percent. My late next door neighbor, a decades-long employee of the phone company, saw his retirement converted to a 401K, and then watched it lose 60 percent of its value. A lifetime of hard work up ladders installing phone lines ended in financial insecurity – while he tried to continue to help out other struggling family members. The conservative voices are demanding that like the proverbial crabs in a bucket, we pull down those with some security until the 99 percent are all insecure about our future, instead of organizing to demand a secure future for all. I keep hoping we will find our better selves. (OPD email list, Nov. 21, 2011)

Valerie, you are right, 401K retirement plans are ripoffs. They make us throw our wages into Wall Street's rigged gambling pit. This country is rich enough that everyone who works for several decades should have a secure retirement, which means a defined benefit plan and/or vastly increased Social Security. Of course, you would never propose a parcel tax to fund it.

But local liberalism is unreal. Instead of remaking the national economy, it is about taxing middle-income and lower-middle income people to endow a parasitic complex of social programs. The managers of the complex hide behind narratives of the poor. About seven years ago county supervisor Keith Carson admitted that the violence prevention and other programs here are a wasteful crowd of duplicative, uncoordinated, unsupervised, and cost-ineffective agencies. Nothing happened. The social program complex has not reduced the population of "at-risk" people, homeless, or criminals.

City staffing shifted, too. A smaller percentage of employees maintain parks and run libraries, and there are fewer police patrolling the streets and investigating crimes. The payroll has diverted to a larger percentage of managers, their overpaid lackeys, and staff who shuffle paper among themselves and back and forth to other governments, more staff who hold meetings with each other. Inequality of salaries has increased; the ridiculous package given city to administrator Deanna Santana is only a blatant example.

For twenty years the social program complex and the unproductive, top-heavy part of City staff swelled. They found their politician in Jean Quan. As recently as last Spring, mayor Quan bragged at a city council meeting that she had passed fourteen tax measures during her time on the school board and the city council. She was pushing for number fifteen, which she finally put on a mail-in ballot as Measure I. A week ago the voters defeated it by a stunning 62 to 38 percent.

The people of Oakland – progressive, conservative, and independent – refuse to pay more money for this perversion of city government. The people of Oakland want basic safety and municipal services in the neighborhoods. They no longer acquiesce while mayor Quan feeds the parasites.

Local liberals have a choice. They can sink with Quan, a self-absorbed careerist who spouts buzz words but knows nothing of progressive principles, or they can work like hell to remold local liberalism into something viable. That is the only way they can have some effect after the recall of mayor Jean Quan.