... I want to also share this obituary from the New York Times, paying tribute to a man who did much to preserve the historic parts of New York that we (and even I) sometimes take for granted.
It's humbling to me to think about the hard work that Mr. Taylor must have put in, in a pre-Internet age, to fight the battles that he fought to save historic structures. In the mid-1990s, with the help of some New Yorkers I met online, I launched Friends of the Biltmore, a non-profit organization designed to promote and perhaps operate Broadway's Biltmore Theater on 47th Street. The existence of the Web, the ability it gave me to organize people and make contacts with the media and with various arts-related constituencies and organizations in the city, make the task of saving the theater a lot easier than it would have been had I tried to do it in a world of analog contacts and physical meetings. Indeed, in my case, since I live in Baltimore, had it not been for the Internet it's doubtful that there would have been very much that I could do at the time to help save the theater.
The other lesson that I took from Mr. Taylor's obituary? A reminder that, for a preservationist, it's important to accept in advance that you will not win every battle, for a variety of reasons. Often, saving buildings is possible only by way of the kismet of various factors coming into place at the right time. But that's all the more reason to savor the victories--and all the more reason to be involved in the first place. After all, who's to say that you, or I, aren't meant to be one of the essential factors? If you care, get involved. You never know how important you may be until you make an effort to find out.
RIP, Mr. Taylor, and baruch dayan ha'emet. Thanks for doing your part to save the essential New York for all of us.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
What Does The Past Mean To Our Cities, And Our Young People?
As a dedicated historic preservationist, the only thing that makes me sadder than losing an important landmark is to read or see media pieces describing the loss, and/or similar losses, as inevitable, no big deal, or just another step on the inevitable march of human progress. If it surprises you that this perspective is still prevalent, even after we've lost so many important structures and places in the early part of this century, you probably don't read publications like the New York Post. For the most part, that's no great loss; it's a paper that has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several decades promoting, often in libelous ways, various right-wing causes and perspectives. Even so, it's s source of information about New York, a city whose people--and landmarks--are deeply important to me.
Which is why it hurts to read this piece by Steve Cuozzo. Not just because it catalogues a number of recent losses among Big Apple landmarks. Not even because it pretends to exhibit a studied level of indifference to these losses, under a you-can't-fight-the-future mantra. But, because in doing so, it is fundamentally dishonest about why this is happening in the first place.
Cuozzo's main purpose in this piece seems to be to dispel the idea that money is the motivation for destroying New York's physical history in favor of faceless, can't-tell-one-from-the-other super-skyscrapers. It's not about sheer greed, according to him; it's just humble real-estate investors living to serve the needs of the flood of young people coming into the city, who, if anything, prefer the glass behemoths of, say, the Hudson Yards, to low-rise townhouses and shops of yesteryear.
That might be plausible, if the young people could afford to live and work in those buildings. But they can't--many of them, in fact, can't even afford a mortgage on a house, which is why so many of them are still living with their parents. In fact, most of the high-rise residential structures built in midtown Manhattan are little more than investment properties owned by wealthy individuals from abroad, who view New York real estate simply as a safe place in which to park their money. In fact, many of these supposedly "luxe" buildings are unoccupied. There's no one in them to enjoy whatever luxury they provide. Nor are any of these non-tenants present to contribute to the economic life of the city in other ways: shopping, sightseeing, and so forth.
The truth is, and has been for years, is that young people have come to New York in droves even during its leanest periods (as I did, in the 70's) because of its unique role as the center of American culture--and not just to consume it, but to, in the words of Kander and Ebb, "be a part of it." And, when I use the word "culture" in this context, I'm not just talking about the arts and other media, but its physical landmarks, buildings and other public places that have played (and often continue to play) a major role in American life.
In fact, Cuozzo's article alludes to an example of how this process in continuing.
He mentions the shuttering of Lord & Taylor's Fifth Avenue store as an example of the acceleration of landmark departures. However, what he doesn't mention is the fact that, although the store itself has disappeared, the building itself is protected by landmark designation from the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission. Nor does he mention that the new occupant of the building is going to be WeWork, a company that provides flexible, short-term office space to young companies who find using such space to be more affordable, and otherwise more practical, than leasing real estate under more traditional terms.
So, if Cuozzo's thesis is true--if young people are hungry only for what's new and shiny--then what is a company like WeWork setting up shop in an old, nineteenth-century carriage-trade department store?
I'm not going to pretend that I've talked to the WeWork folks about why they did this. And I suspect that the Fifth Avenue location played a factor in its decision to take the space. But they clearly weren't deterred by the age or design of the building. And I have to believe that the building's status as a visual icon, a powerful symbol of commerce in the city, didn't hurt in the decision-making process.
But I also have to believe that the key consideration for WeWork was simply this: what type of space would young people want to work in? And I have to believe that they believed that they would rather be in a historic building like Lord & Taylor's old flagship than in whatever glass behemoth might be just around the corner.
And I would be the least surprised person to discover that, in fact, that was true.
After all, whenever young people have come in significant numbers to New York in the past half-century or so, they have always gravitated to historic neighborhoods and buildings. In the process, they've taken structures that the marketplace had effectively declared worthless, and turned them into financial magnets for real estate investors.
Think Greenwich Village in the 1960s. Or Soho and Tribeca in the 1970s. Or the Upper West Side in the 1980s and 1990s. Or Brooklyn--Brooklyn!--in the 21st century. When I lived in New York in the early 1980s, and with the notable exception of Park Slope, you couldn't get the city's real estate industry to touch Brooklyn with a ninety-foot pole. Today, Brooklyn, its historic brownstones and other structures, are the hottest part of the city's real estate market. Even long-lost historic theaters, such as the Kings and the Paramount, have come back.
Young people don't move out of America's faceless suburban tracts simply to move into faceless skyscrapers. They can't afford to. And they're not interested in any case. They want to be connected to something bigger than the next five minutes, contrary to what some media "experts" argue in self-serving efforts to pigeonhole them. The truth is that, by choosing landmarks over supposedly "luxe" buildings, they are actually making conservative choices in doing so. They are voting to connect themselves to America's past, and using it to build a future for themselves. They are also putting meat on the bones of their environmental rhetoric; as is commonly said in the preservation community, the greenest building in the world is the one that's already built.
And the truth is that even Cuozzo recognizes this. Here, in a later piece, he laments what he sees as the "fact" that New York will never produce another Andy Warhol, in part because he came of age in a New York where, thanks to the city's mid-20th-century economic decline and the "preservation by neglect" that the decline effectively encouraged, a lot of amazing and historically important real estate could be acquired and repurposed to continue writing new chapters in the city's and the nation's history.
The truth is that all five boroughs of New York City are rapidly running out of space that young people just starting out in life can afford to live in, work in, or use in any way for their purposes. And that's also the case in other cities throughout the country. The urban renewal of our past that was launched in the late 20th century may become a victim of its own success. And, as a consequence, the continued existence of existing landmarks may be threatened by pressures from investors and builders whose pocketbooks depend on the perpetuation of the new and shiny.
Affordability. Conservation of history. Economic growth. These are all elements of a successful city. We are rapidly reaching the point at which it seems impossible to have all of them in our major metropolises. In the case of New York, we may very well have reached that point. Perhaps the message from Cuozzo's conflicting pieces is that we are, definitely, already there.
Are there any answers? At this point, I can only say that I hope so. Somehow, we have to figure out how to continue moving toward the future without sacrificing what we can gain from the past. I don't think there are any easy answers. I'm not even positive that their are answers with which all of us can live. But I think that we have to try to find such answers, if we can. As young people have recognized, and continue to do so, the past is an important part of who we are. It's
important--in fact, I would say it's essential--not to try moving forward without it.
Which is why it hurts to read this piece by Steve Cuozzo. Not just because it catalogues a number of recent losses among Big Apple landmarks. Not even because it pretends to exhibit a studied level of indifference to these losses, under a you-can't-fight-the-future mantra. But, because in doing so, it is fundamentally dishonest about why this is happening in the first place.
Cuozzo's main purpose in this piece seems to be to dispel the idea that money is the motivation for destroying New York's physical history in favor of faceless, can't-tell-one-from-the-other super-skyscrapers. It's not about sheer greed, according to him; it's just humble real-estate investors living to serve the needs of the flood of young people coming into the city, who, if anything, prefer the glass behemoths of, say, the Hudson Yards, to low-rise townhouses and shops of yesteryear.
That might be plausible, if the young people could afford to live and work in those buildings. But they can't--many of them, in fact, can't even afford a mortgage on a house, which is why so many of them are still living with their parents. In fact, most of the high-rise residential structures built in midtown Manhattan are little more than investment properties owned by wealthy individuals from abroad, who view New York real estate simply as a safe place in which to park their money. In fact, many of these supposedly "luxe" buildings are unoccupied. There's no one in them to enjoy whatever luxury they provide. Nor are any of these non-tenants present to contribute to the economic life of the city in other ways: shopping, sightseeing, and so forth.
The truth is, and has been for years, is that young people have come to New York in droves even during its leanest periods (as I did, in the 70's) because of its unique role as the center of American culture--and not just to consume it, but to, in the words of Kander and Ebb, "be a part of it." And, when I use the word "culture" in this context, I'm not just talking about the arts and other media, but its physical landmarks, buildings and other public places that have played (and often continue to play) a major role in American life.
In fact, Cuozzo's article alludes to an example of how this process in continuing.
He mentions the shuttering of Lord & Taylor's Fifth Avenue store as an example of the acceleration of landmark departures. However, what he doesn't mention is the fact that, although the store itself has disappeared, the building itself is protected by landmark designation from the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission. Nor does he mention that the new occupant of the building is going to be WeWork, a company that provides flexible, short-term office space to young companies who find using such space to be more affordable, and otherwise more practical, than leasing real estate under more traditional terms.
So, if Cuozzo's thesis is true--if young people are hungry only for what's new and shiny--then what is a company like WeWork setting up shop in an old, nineteenth-century carriage-trade department store?
I'm not going to pretend that I've talked to the WeWork folks about why they did this. And I suspect that the Fifth Avenue location played a factor in its decision to take the space. But they clearly weren't deterred by the age or design of the building. And I have to believe that the building's status as a visual icon, a powerful symbol of commerce in the city, didn't hurt in the decision-making process.
But I also have to believe that the key consideration for WeWork was simply this: what type of space would young people want to work in? And I have to believe that they believed that they would rather be in a historic building like Lord & Taylor's old flagship than in whatever glass behemoth might be just around the corner.
And I would be the least surprised person to discover that, in fact, that was true.
After all, whenever young people have come in significant numbers to New York in the past half-century or so, they have always gravitated to historic neighborhoods and buildings. In the process, they've taken structures that the marketplace had effectively declared worthless, and turned them into financial magnets for real estate investors.
Think Greenwich Village in the 1960s. Or Soho and Tribeca in the 1970s. Or the Upper West Side in the 1980s and 1990s. Or Brooklyn--Brooklyn!--in the 21st century. When I lived in New York in the early 1980s, and with the notable exception of Park Slope, you couldn't get the city's real estate industry to touch Brooklyn with a ninety-foot pole. Today, Brooklyn, its historic brownstones and other structures, are the hottest part of the city's real estate market. Even long-lost historic theaters, such as the Kings and the Paramount, have come back.
Young people don't move out of America's faceless suburban tracts simply to move into faceless skyscrapers. They can't afford to. And they're not interested in any case. They want to be connected to something bigger than the next five minutes, contrary to what some media "experts" argue in self-serving efforts to pigeonhole them. The truth is that, by choosing landmarks over supposedly "luxe" buildings, they are actually making conservative choices in doing so. They are voting to connect themselves to America's past, and using it to build a future for themselves. They are also putting meat on the bones of their environmental rhetoric; as is commonly said in the preservation community, the greenest building in the world is the one that's already built.
And the truth is that even Cuozzo recognizes this. Here, in a later piece, he laments what he sees as the "fact" that New York will never produce another Andy Warhol, in part because he came of age in a New York where, thanks to the city's mid-20th-century economic decline and the "preservation by neglect" that the decline effectively encouraged, a lot of amazing and historically important real estate could be acquired and repurposed to continue writing new chapters in the city's and the nation's history.
The truth is that all five boroughs of New York City are rapidly running out of space that young people just starting out in life can afford to live in, work in, or use in any way for their purposes. And that's also the case in other cities throughout the country. The urban renewal of our past that was launched in the late 20th century may become a victim of its own success. And, as a consequence, the continued existence of existing landmarks may be threatened by pressures from investors and builders whose pocketbooks depend on the perpetuation of the new and shiny.
Affordability. Conservation of history. Economic growth. These are all elements of a successful city. We are rapidly reaching the point at which it seems impossible to have all of them in our major metropolises. In the case of New York, we may very well have reached that point. Perhaps the message from Cuozzo's conflicting pieces is that we are, definitely, already there.
Are there any answers? At this point, I can only say that I hope so. Somehow, we have to figure out how to continue moving toward the future without sacrificing what we can gain from the past. I don't think there are any easy answers. I'm not even positive that their are answers with which all of us can live. But I think that we have to try to find such answers, if we can. As young people have recognized, and continue to do so, the past is an important part of who we are. It's
important--in fact, I would say it's essential--not to try moving forward without it.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Shed No Tears For Amazon Or New York
When New York started to come apart at the seams in the 1970s, as crime ran rampant, city finances proved to be a proverbial house of cards, and corporations large and small (but especially large) fled the city for the relative stability of the suburbs, I worried obsessively about it. My parents had taken my sisters and me to the 1964-65 New York World's Fair; in fact, they took us twice. I can only tell you that, from my eight- or nine-year old perspective, I fell in love with the city, and have always felt that way ever since, through all of its ups and downs. And so, as I reached adulthood and went off to college, I would buy the New York Times every day (a habit I acquired from my father) and read about the Big Apple's triumphs and tribulations. I agonized over stories of departing businesses, and rejoiced at the occasional report about people and businesses defying the trend and coming in to New York.
So why should I feel so "meh" about the news that Amazon will not be bringing a "semi-headquarters," and the thousands of jobs that would allegedly come with it, to Long Island City in Queens, as it had committed to do some time ago?
A number of reasons.
To begin with, the economy not just of New York, but of the nation as a whole, is far more homogenized than it was back in the '70s and before then. Businesses, stores, newspapers, theaters--all of the things that make up an urban economy were unique to each city, and they would tend to stay in one location because, back then, there were economic and technological advantages to close physical proximity. But one of the sad consequences of the concentration of wealth over the past four decades is that a lot of these individualized enterprises could no longer depend upon purely local consumers to survive. At the same time, advances in technology, especially in communications and transportation, made the location of organizations far less important in planning their operations.
And thus, newspapers like the New York Times survived by becoming national newspapers, focusing less on the city and more on the rest of the national. Meanwhile, businesses were splitting up there operations and spreading them out to take advantage of lower costs in cheaper locations. Stores? They either became national stores, like Macy's, or they disappeared altogether (like Bonwit Teller and B. Altman) and were replaced with other formerly local and now national stores like Target or Nordstrom's. Theaters? Well, when was the last time you watched a movie or saw a play in one, instead of on your laptop or smartphone?
The physical and other segmenting of major corporations like Amazon, and the related ease by which such companies can helicopter in and out of an urban area, makes me truly wonder why any city, much less New York, would offer $3 billion in tax incentives to have them fly in for who really knows how long. What if, in a short span of time, Amazon found it convenient to helicopter all of some of the promised jobs to another location? What happens to the space they occupy, the local businesses that came to depend on them, the value of property in the area, and so forth?
The Amazons of the world don't care about those things. And it's insane for the New Yorks of the world to care about them. We are living in an age in which the virtues of city living are slowly being rediscovered, and people are moving back to them in significant numbers. In the process, they are making a statement about their own commitment and sense of loyalty to the urban life around them, and they are starting and patronizing businesses of their own. Why not take the $3 billion in tax breaks and given them to those people? Seems to me like they're more worth it. New York is creating new jobs and new opportunities without the Amazons of the world. Once, New York had over 100 Fortune 500 headquarters; today, it has no more than 50. But it still leads all other cities in this category, and the departures aren't stopping people from coming in.
And speaking of Fortune ...
Here's a little item from that magazine that suggests they really have no reason to rattle a tin cup in the faces of public officials. It suggests even further that this whole headquarters search was little more than an effort to find out who was the biggest municipal sucker of all--an effort that, as the Times reported, backfired on them.
Shed no tears for Amazon (and full disclosure: I shop on its Web site). It will do very well without New York and the promised subsidies. If it really needed to come there, it could easily afford to do so without them. New York should be putting that money into making life better for the new arrivals from other states and other countries, who are coming in asking for no help at all, but who could greatly and deservedly benefit from having it given to them, in the form of good schools, good transit, better police and fire protection, better trash collection, better access to capital for housing and business expansion, and so forth. Providing for those things are the true work of municipal and state government.
Amazon can helicopter to wherever it wants. It's best to just get out of its way.
So why should I feel so "meh" about the news that Amazon will not be bringing a "semi-headquarters," and the thousands of jobs that would allegedly come with it, to Long Island City in Queens, as it had committed to do some time ago?
A number of reasons.
To begin with, the economy not just of New York, but of the nation as a whole, is far more homogenized than it was back in the '70s and before then. Businesses, stores, newspapers, theaters--all of the things that make up an urban economy were unique to each city, and they would tend to stay in one location because, back then, there were economic and technological advantages to close physical proximity. But one of the sad consequences of the concentration of wealth over the past four decades is that a lot of these individualized enterprises could no longer depend upon purely local consumers to survive. At the same time, advances in technology, especially in communications and transportation, made the location of organizations far less important in planning their operations.
And thus, newspapers like the New York Times survived by becoming national newspapers, focusing less on the city and more on the rest of the national. Meanwhile, businesses were splitting up there operations and spreading them out to take advantage of lower costs in cheaper locations. Stores? They either became national stores, like Macy's, or they disappeared altogether (like Bonwit Teller and B. Altman) and were replaced with other formerly local and now national stores like Target or Nordstrom's. Theaters? Well, when was the last time you watched a movie or saw a play in one, instead of on your laptop or smartphone?
The physical and other segmenting of major corporations like Amazon, and the related ease by which such companies can helicopter in and out of an urban area, makes me truly wonder why any city, much less New York, would offer $3 billion in tax incentives to have them fly in for who really knows how long. What if, in a short span of time, Amazon found it convenient to helicopter all of some of the promised jobs to another location? What happens to the space they occupy, the local businesses that came to depend on them, the value of property in the area, and so forth?
The Amazons of the world don't care about those things. And it's insane for the New Yorks of the world to care about them. We are living in an age in which the virtues of city living are slowly being rediscovered, and people are moving back to them in significant numbers. In the process, they are making a statement about their own commitment and sense of loyalty to the urban life around them, and they are starting and patronizing businesses of their own. Why not take the $3 billion in tax breaks and given them to those people? Seems to me like they're more worth it. New York is creating new jobs and new opportunities without the Amazons of the world. Once, New York had over 100 Fortune 500 headquarters; today, it has no more than 50. But it still leads all other cities in this category, and the departures aren't stopping people from coming in.
And speaking of Fortune ...
Here's a little item from that magazine that suggests they really have no reason to rattle a tin cup in the faces of public officials. It suggests even further that this whole headquarters search was little more than an effort to find out who was the biggest municipal sucker of all--an effort that, as the Times reported, backfired on them.
Shed no tears for Amazon (and full disclosure: I shop on its Web site). It will do very well without New York and the promised subsidies. If it really needed to come there, it could easily afford to do so without them. New York should be putting that money into making life better for the new arrivals from other states and other countries, who are coming in asking for no help at all, but who could greatly and deservedly benefit from having it given to them, in the form of good schools, good transit, better police and fire protection, better trash collection, better access to capital for housing and business expansion, and so forth. Providing for those things are the true work of municipal and state government.
Amazon can helicopter to wherever it wants. It's best to just get out of its way.
Moving Forward From The Virginia Mess
I'm a few weeks late again in blogging, and there's quite a bit to catch up on. But I think I'll start with a story that was on everyone's minds a few weeks ago, and (as is par for the course in T****land) has been pushed aside by subsequent chaos. Unfortunately, it's far too important to let it get lost in the media sauce: the news that the white Governor and Attorney General of Virginia wore blackface in former parts of their lives, while the African-American Lieutenant Governor of the state is facing an investigation based on two accusations of sexual assault.
As per the SOP of legacy media and right-wing social media, this news became, and probably remains, grist for the "Dems-in-disarry" meme on which they are stuck when it comes to covering Democrats and progressives more generally. It's difficult, however, for me to see this as anything but a southern-specific, and especially a Virginia-specific, issue when it comes to the blackface episodes in Ralph Northam's and Mark Herring's lives. I mean, let's be realistic: does anyone believe that their are any Virginians in either party who could be professional qualified to take the place of Northam or Herring, and who has not worn blackface at some point in their lives? Can I just get a on that one, and move on?
I'll go so far as to say that this is perhaps the main reason why this story has faded to a significant degree in the MSM's coverage priorities. Again, this is Virginia, the state in which Northam's 2017 opponent, Ed Gillespie, spent the better part of the campaign dodging accusations that he was a bigot. And then, going back a few years or so, there was then-Senator George Allen, who thought it best to run for re-election by insulting one-sixth of the planet's entire population (and a significant portion of Virginia's population as well).
Perhaps the more significant reason that the story has faded from the electronic headlines is simply this: the "Dems" aren't in disarray over the Virginia situation. Even single Democrat who has publicly condemned all three men, and demanded their resignations. In doing so, their statements have made it clear that the behavior of which they are accused runs contrary not only to the values of the Democratic Party, but also to the ideals of public service. Yes, all three men deserve due process, but that is a right, while holding public office is a privilege.
And the ability of a public servant to act honestly and fully on behalf of the people he or she serves must never be called into serious question without consequences for that servant. This is especially true in the case of Justin Fairfax, the state's lieutenant governor. Blackface, for which there is never any justification, is an act of psychological violence, but sexual assault is an act of physical violence. If the first duty of a public servant is to promote safety (and I believe it is), then there can be no questions about a public servant's ability and willingness to do so.
In spite of these arguments and others, Northam, Fairfax, and Herring all seem to be intent on staying on the job, without regard of the potential for compromise to their status as public servants, or the larger damage that staying on may, eventually, do to the larger goals of the Democratic Party in 2020 and beyond. Maybe they have confidence in the Republican hypocrisy on issues of race and gender to not feel immediately threatened with removal from office. Maybe they genuinely believe that there is some value to trying to ride out the controversy and repair their damaged relationship with the people of the state. And maybe, just maybe, they feel safe where they are because they know that national Democrats can't do much more that call for their resignation.
Or is there?
What about members of Congress who display an open affinity for another country, to the point at which their loyalty to the Constitution of the United States might be called into serious question? Say, for example, the Russian Federation, or the Confederate States of America? Should they be allowed to serve in Congress, even if they meet the constitutional requirements of age, citizenship, and residency?
I mention those requirements because the Supreme Court, in the 1969 case of Powell v. McCormack, stated that a member of Congress could not be denied a seat so long as those requirements had been satisfied, and the election results as certified by the relevant state showed that the individual in question had won the election. This is why members of Congress, such as Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey (to cite a recent example) can stand trial for criminal charges without being forced to relinquish his seat in Congress. And this is why someone like Fairfax, despite the allegations of sexual assault, could not be barred from being seated in Congress.
But blackface, like the use of other antebellum symbols of the Confederacy and Southern culture (such as the Confederate battle flag) represents something even more significant than a violation of criminal law. It raises the question of national allegiance. It asks whether or not the users of those symbols are trying to resurrect the proverbial "Lost Cause." In fact, it ultimately begs the question of whether or not the user can, with a full and sincere heart, swear an oath of loyalty to a Constitution and a nation that fought and vanquished the nation associated with those symbols.
I think it's a fair question. And I think it's high time the Democrats acted upon it.
Which is why I'm calling on the Democratic leadership in both houses that, should they retain (in the case of the House) or acquire (in the case of the Senate) control, they should refuse to seat any elected member who has ever, in any way, been associated with the symbols and ideals of the Confederacy, with the provision that they may be seated if they renounce in writing the use or support of those symbols, and the knowledge that they may be expelled if evidence emerges that they have not been faithful to that renunciation.
No battle flags in their campaigns, or on the walls of their offices. No "off-color" racial jokes. No appeals to "heritage" (whatever that really means). Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Does this offend you? Does this seem like some kind of infringement of First Amendment rights?
Let me be clear. The First Amendment has no more passionate and absolute supporter than this blogger. There is a constitutional right to be a bigot. There is no constitutional right to be a traitor, or to support the interests of a vanquished nation while swearing an oath to uphold the laws of another one--specifically, the one that did the vanquishing. There is no such thing as "dual citizenship" in the Union and the Confederacy. You belong to one, or to the other. And since, as I wrote earlier, public service is a privilege and not a right, it's not at all unreasonable to demand loyalty to the government and the flag to which members of Congress swear a daily oath. (Yes, that's right; the Pledge of Allegiance argument works both ways).
We have a "President" who likes to go around saying that you can't have a nation without borders. Well, you can't have "one nation under G-d" with two flags. Make a choice. And if the Stars and Bars is your choice, well, at least we know where you stand. And we can act accordingly, not only with our votes, but also with our Congressional leadership withholding the privilege of serving a nation you do not fully support.
If the Northam-Fairfax-Herring mess in Virginia can do nothing else, it can help to clarify our national values, and the expression of those national values in our national government. Jesus said that no one can serve two masters. Let's see the Republicans, who would like to use the Virginian mess for their own purposes in the singleminded pursuit of power, make a choice.
And let's see if they get it right.
And withhold the privilege of public service if they fail to do so.
As per the SOP of legacy media and right-wing social media, this news became, and probably remains, grist for the "Dems-in-disarry" meme on which they are stuck when it comes to covering Democrats and progressives more generally. It's difficult, however, for me to see this as anything but a southern-specific, and especially a Virginia-specific, issue when it comes to the blackface episodes in Ralph Northam's and Mark Herring's lives. I mean, let's be realistic: does anyone believe that their are any Virginians in either party who could be professional qualified to take the place of Northam or Herring, and who has not worn blackface at some point in their lives? Can I just get a
I'll go so far as to say that this is perhaps the main reason why this story has faded to a significant degree in the MSM's coverage priorities. Again, this is Virginia, the state in which Northam's 2017 opponent, Ed Gillespie, spent the better part of the campaign dodging accusations that he was a bigot. And then, going back a few years or so, there was then-Senator George Allen, who thought it best to run for re-election by insulting one-sixth of the planet's entire population (and a significant portion of Virginia's population as well).
Perhaps the more significant reason that the story has faded from the electronic headlines is simply this: the "Dems" aren't in disarray over the Virginia situation. Even single Democrat who has publicly condemned all three men, and demanded their resignations. In doing so, their statements have made it clear that the behavior of which they are accused runs contrary not only to the values of the Democratic Party, but also to the ideals of public service. Yes, all three men deserve due process, but that is a right, while holding public office is a privilege.
And the ability of a public servant to act honestly and fully on behalf of the people he or she serves must never be called into serious question without consequences for that servant. This is especially true in the case of Justin Fairfax, the state's lieutenant governor. Blackface, for which there is never any justification, is an act of psychological violence, but sexual assault is an act of physical violence. If the first duty of a public servant is to promote safety (and I believe it is), then there can be no questions about a public servant's ability and willingness to do so.
In spite of these arguments and others, Northam, Fairfax, and Herring all seem to be intent on staying on the job, without regard of the potential for compromise to their status as public servants, or the larger damage that staying on may, eventually, do to the larger goals of the Democratic Party in 2020 and beyond. Maybe they have confidence in the Republican hypocrisy on issues of race and gender to not feel immediately threatened with removal from office. Maybe they genuinely believe that there is some value to trying to ride out the controversy and repair their damaged relationship with the people of the state. And maybe, just maybe, they feel safe where they are because they know that national Democrats can't do much more that call for their resignation.
Or is there?
What about members of Congress who display an open affinity for another country, to the point at which their loyalty to the Constitution of the United States might be called into serious question? Say, for example, the Russian Federation, or the Confederate States of America? Should they be allowed to serve in Congress, even if they meet the constitutional requirements of age, citizenship, and residency?
I mention those requirements because the Supreme Court, in the 1969 case of Powell v. McCormack, stated that a member of Congress could not be denied a seat so long as those requirements had been satisfied, and the election results as certified by the relevant state showed that the individual in question had won the election. This is why members of Congress, such as Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey (to cite a recent example) can stand trial for criminal charges without being forced to relinquish his seat in Congress. And this is why someone like Fairfax, despite the allegations of sexual assault, could not be barred from being seated in Congress.
But blackface, like the use of other antebellum symbols of the Confederacy and Southern culture (such as the Confederate battle flag) represents something even more significant than a violation of criminal law. It raises the question of national allegiance. It asks whether or not the users of those symbols are trying to resurrect the proverbial "Lost Cause." In fact, it ultimately begs the question of whether or not the user can, with a full and sincere heart, swear an oath of loyalty to a Constitution and a nation that fought and vanquished the nation associated with those symbols.
I think it's a fair question. And I think it's high time the Democrats acted upon it.
Which is why I'm calling on the Democratic leadership in both houses that, should they retain (in the case of the House) or acquire (in the case of the Senate) control, they should refuse to seat any elected member who has ever, in any way, been associated with the symbols and ideals of the Confederacy, with the provision that they may be seated if they renounce in writing the use or support of those symbols, and the knowledge that they may be expelled if evidence emerges that they have not been faithful to that renunciation.
No battle flags in their campaigns, or on the walls of their offices. No "off-color" racial jokes. No appeals to "heritage" (whatever that really means). Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Does this offend you? Does this seem like some kind of infringement of First Amendment rights?
Let me be clear. The First Amendment has no more passionate and absolute supporter than this blogger. There is a constitutional right to be a bigot. There is no constitutional right to be a traitor, or to support the interests of a vanquished nation while swearing an oath to uphold the laws of another one--specifically, the one that did the vanquishing. There is no such thing as "dual citizenship" in the Union and the Confederacy. You belong to one, or to the other. And since, as I wrote earlier, public service is a privilege and not a right, it's not at all unreasonable to demand loyalty to the government and the flag to which members of Congress swear a daily oath. (Yes, that's right; the Pledge of Allegiance argument works both ways).
We have a "President" who likes to go around saying that you can't have a nation without borders. Well, you can't have "one nation under G-d" with two flags. Make a choice. And if the Stars and Bars is your choice, well, at least we know where you stand. And we can act accordingly, not only with our votes, but also with our Congressional leadership withholding the privilege of serving a nation you do not fully support.
If the Northam-Fairfax-Herring mess in Virginia can do nothing else, it can help to clarify our national values, and the expression of those national values in our national government. Jesus said that no one can serve two masters. Let's see the Republicans, who would like to use the Virginian mess for their own purposes in the singleminded pursuit of power, make a choice.
And let's see if they get it right.
And withhold the privilege of public service if they fail to do so.
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