Here is how it has played out.

The Council tentatively approved the move of a popular gymnastics business to a part of town zoned as an automobile only retail area. This “auto lane” is designed to make it possible for people shopping for a car to have a “one stop shopping” experience to compare different brands in one location. Though not an “auto mall” (common around here) it plays the same role on a somewhat smaller scale. The Council wrestled mightily with this decision because if it allows a conditional use permit to the gymnastics group it will lose future revenue from auto sales in this zone.

It turns out that revenue loss could be significant for the city. Auto sales are the single largest source of sales revenue for the city and while a number of sites there sit empty, the city fully expects them to be filled in the years ahead providing much needed revenue for our Northern CA town. (Which, like other CA towns, is starved for revenue due to Prop 13 (and other measures)).

The irony is bitter.

Our small town fancies itself (with reason) as the “bicycling capital of the US” and has the goal that 25% of all trips in town will be by bicycle by the end of this year. Further, it has set a more ambitious goal that by 2050 fully half of all trips in town will be by non-automobile sources. Despite these goals the Council found itself in the difficult position of having to promote auto sales to achieve revenue targets needed to keep critical city services funded. Of course our local citizens are not the only ones buying cars in these establishments, but our simultaneous commitment to lowering our carbon footprint by moving away from car use while promoting auto sales is paradoxical to say the least. Some might be less kind and call it hypocritical.

And so in Act 1 of our local play we find the automobile playing a key role in our lives. Indeed, it is playing a central role because it is driving basic decisions about how we will generate revenue for our town.

A local blogger picked up on the story (for other reasons) but the comments on his blog morphed into a full blown discussion on alternative sources of revenue. Which brings us to Act 2. In this act the Mayor is quoted as saying that if we lose auto revenue due to decisions like this one (which he voted against) we may be forced to find it from other sources such as “big box” retail.

Now our city hates big box retail. Well, kind of. We don’t want it in our town but we are willing and able to drive between 10 and 40 miles to access it elsewhere. More precisely, we want–and all our planning documents call for–a compact, “traditional”, small downtown with other retail options designed to meet basic needs in neighborhood shopping centers around town. A good goal. But, this model is not providing what we say we need in this town (shopping wise).

The discussion on the blog, while civil, delved into various issues concerning large retailers and, specifically, the issue of how they provide better selection and prices (as well as the revenues we need). Without any dispute, several contributors noted that they would buy local up to a certain price point but beyond that would drive to nearby towns to find better prices at the big boxes there. And with those comments the character of the automobile returns to stage.

Here there is no conversation about how the automobile has shaped our city, how it has rendered our model (compact downtown plus neighborhood shopping centers) unworkable, or how it has enabled a behavior that leaves us bereft of retail options (even for some “basic” needs like clothes). No one is analyzing how the “freedom” to hop in the car and go elsewhere has led to the reality that no small business person will open a retail shop that must compete with big boxes. We are left with speciality shops and lots of restaurants but little variety in terms of basic goods.

The car has bled our downtown. Other cities, also short on revenue, have chosen a different path, accepting sprawl and chewing up large chunks of prime (and I mean it) farmland to create vast shopping surfaces and even vaster parking lots needed to store the cars that nimbly move us from door to door. The car has liberated all of us from our quaint, prosperous, walkable, bikeable downtowns so we can shop the extended plains of goods and obtain the quality and quantity (and price!) we so deeply desire.

Thus, the automobile ambles across the stage in Act 2 while hardly anyone notices what it has done and how the very problems we name have been exacerbated by its central place in our lives.

But the discussion continued on the blog because several (mostly downtown) business owners kept dragging the conversation back to the goals we have set: the desire for a compact downtown with solid retail supported by neighborhood shopping centers. They were correct to do so in my view because these ARE our goals and it is critically important to figure out whether we are moving in the direction of achieving them or not.

However in the course of the conversation (and this moves us inevitably to Act 3) we come to understand a sad reality. Though no one said it exactly like this let me provide the logic of what was being said:

Let us assume that by some magic we were able to attract a variety of small, successful retailers (and other small businesses–service and other) to our downtown. Then we would have what we want. If we can, we should. If we can we should talk about how to get there.

This, really is what the downtown business people were arguing: let’s talk about how to attract more business downtown.

But now reality bites: If we actually achieve that then we will have (indeed already (!) have) the problem of lack of parking for cars. And, yes, with that the car makes its final appearance in our little play. To achieve a thriving downtown we need more people living, working, shopping and playing there but… we will also need to find a way to house all their cars. Once again, the automobile appears, not as a part of the solution but as a problem to be solved.

I had considered adding my comments to the blog, raising the issue of how problematic cars are in all aspects of this narrative. I could have suggested that we did NOT need to have a conversation about retail choices at all, but rather a conversation about cars and their unhealthy hold on our lives. I could have talked about how they have conditioned, constrained, bound, directed and otherwise forced us to act in ways that are, clearly, not in our collective interest. However, I was pretty sure that if I did that my comments would be met with silence. I may as well question the value of air, water or food. Trust me, I have had these kinds of discussions and I know the truth. The truth is that we view cars as a basic necessity of life.

Cars are out captors. They hold us hostage but are careful to bring us a daily ration of thin gruel called “the freedom of the open road.” They feed a basic need and we defend their indispensability even as they enslave and chain us. But we do more than defend our captor… much more. We love our captor and it is no platonic love this. Eros lurks here.

We caress their faux leather seats (individually heated!). We fondle their dials that allow us to plug in and stay connected as we hurtle down the highway seeking the American dream. We bathe them ritually, stroke their controls, and incessantly gush (like shameless teenagers tasting first love) about the computer-like control panels that allow us to judge the costly (in blood and money) fuel we are consuming so we can “change the way we drive to be more fuel efficient.”

But there is more. Like the protagonist in Charles Williams Descent into Hell, we create our cars in our own image and then yearn to possess them as both projections of our essential selves and as objects to which we can give our love. Have I gone overboard? Not a chance.

Spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon watching commercials while a football (or basketball or baseball) game plays quietly in the background. Observe how the advertisements appeal to our identity (the hard worker, the responsible dad, the enviro-conscious mom), our needs (safety is job number one), our sense of who we would like to be (the party crowd, the autonomous thrill seeker, the lady killer). Either the people spending tens of millions of dollars making and buying advertising time for these ads are completely crazy (indeed open to lawsuits for defrauding shareholders) or they understand perfectly the efficacy of what they are doing.

And finally, after nearly a century of improvements to these oh-so-stimulating love toys, we are told that we must buy them (and then trash them and buy them again, and again and again–karmically cycling through endless lives of servitude without release) because it is critical to our national economic security, and therefore our patriotic duty.

My friends… I give you the automobile. Jailer and master, we believe in its power to liberate even as it helps destroy all that we value.

definition: the act of opening a car door and striking a passing bicycle rider

Example: After parking, the motorist failed to scan the street before opening his car door and doored a bicycle rider who was passing his car.

While the above definition cannot be found in any dictionary that I am aware of, it is a term that is known by and and instills great fear in any urban bicyclist.  Exact statistics on the number of doorings that occur locally or nationally are not available because they either go unreported or are reported simply as bike/car accidents (or just bike accidents).  The following is the recounting of a dooring that occurred locally as told by “J”–a resident of our town who was doored.

Interviewer (I): Walk me through when it happened, where it happened and then we can get into the details of how it happened.

J: I was talking to my girlfriend on the sidewalk and I had just told her that I loved her and “see you later” and I started down the street and someone who had been sitting there for quite a while all of a sudden opened up their door.

I: And where was it and when was it?

J: It was in April of 2011 and it was in broad daylight.

I: So the car that opened the door was parked by the side of the road.

J: Uh huh…

I: Was there a sidewalk that the car was parked?

J: Yes, it was parked in front of a house that’s got a pretty good sized width sidewalk.

I: Was there a marked bike lane there?

J: Two traffic lanes but no marked bicycle lane.

I: Talk to me about where you were riding in relation to the car of the door that hit you and why you were riding in that position–that space.

J: There was traffic to the left of me and I was riding along and I had already passed the bumper of the car when the door started to open in front of me.  So, there was no chance or time to react except for to put my hand up and catch the door.

I: So walk through that. So when the door opened what happened?

J: I caught the car door and got a compound fracture in my right forefinger.  I slowed myself down.  The bicycle got catapulted into the middle of the street and I continued over top of the door and then went down on the asphalt and got a broken humerus, exploded my elbow and bumped my head…

As I put my hand out to catch the door all of a sudden it just stopped… and it gave me a laceration of my liver and when I hit the pavement I got a compound fracture of my humerus, exploded my elbow and cracked a tooth… The laceration of the liver occurred when the door stopped swinging…

I: When you say the bike got catapulted out what do you mean by that?

J: It knocked the bicycle out of the path that it was traveling and catapulted it into the street.

I: Then what happened?

J: I tried to stand up, noticed the broken arm and put pressure on my head because I thought my skull was cracked. And the compound fracture on my forefinger was squirting and I thought I wasn’t gonna make it. Ninety percent of all head injury cases are fatal.

I: It turns out you did not have a serious head injury.  The blood off you head was from your finger.

J: I had a serious concussion.

I: Did the police come? Did the ambulance come?  Who came?

J: The fire department showed up and transported me to the hospital.

I: And what about the police?  Did the police come and interview you about the event?  Did you talk to the police?

J: Yea, but the police told the people in the car that as far as they were concerned I rode my bike up the stairs and rode down and crashed into their car.  That I crashed into their car.  They didn’t even file a police report just an incident report. They should have done a traffic report bicycle versus car but they just wrote it up as an incident–just me just falling off my bicycle.

I: So as far as you know the driver of the car was never charged with anything.

J: No.

I: How long were you in the hospital?

J: Several weeks.

I: Are currently having any therapy related to the injuries?

J: Yea, umm, my elbow has plates and screws and I am supposed to have physical therapy for a year for the elbow and the finger.

I: Do you still ride your bike?

J: Yea

I: Do you find yourself riding it any differently now as a result of what happened there?

J: No.  There’s nothing… If it happened again it would probably be the same scenario because when there’s traffic to the left of you you have to get a little close to the car sometimes.

Note: There is quite a bit to learn from this incident in terms of how one might avoid such situations, what car drivers could do differently, how such incidents are reported and, most strikingly, the danger it represents.  If “J’s” experience is any indication, the number of “doorings” may be underreported.  Even if they are not, they do occur and their effects can be devastating.

Follow this link to watch a video of a “dooring” caught live on camera.  CAUTION: while brief, the video is quite disturbing: http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2011/09/22/dooring-caught-on-dashcam/

“Mr. Rearden,” said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, “if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier he world bore down on his shoulders – what would you tell him to do?”

“I… don’t know. What… could he do? What would you tell him?”

“To shrug.”

(From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, 1957–over 7,000,000 copies sold to date)

It is hard to believe that my mom has been gone these seven years.  Mourning in the time immediately following her death was muted by the fact that mom had “left” us many years before, the victim of that poorly understood, mind stealing affliction she always referred to as “that Alzheimer’s.” Over time, and to my great surprise, my mourning has deepened and stretched to the point that I feel her loss spread over large swaths of my life.  As I try to understand why I come back again and again to the reality that not only do I miss mom’s smile, her gentle ways or her hospitality, but I miss (we all miss) the kind of person she was.  I have a gnawing suspicion that mom’s kind is an endangered species, but that no one is counting the loss.  I fear that one day we will wake up and realize her species has disappeared altogether.

Let me try to explain…

Rick Perlstein argued (fairly convincingly to me at least) that we all live in “Nixonland” now but in recent months I have become convinced that where we all really live is “Randland” (as in Ayn Rand).  Others have pointed out the influence of Ayn Rand in our current political discourse (just one example here) and I will not repeat their arguments.

I started thinking about her influence when I heard Ron Paul talk about how critical her writings were to him.  I became more intrigued when I read John Boehner’s speech to the Economic Club of Washington in September 2011 in which he said:

Private-sector job creators of all sizes have been pummeled by decisions made in Washington.

They’ve been slammed by uncertainty from the constant threat of new taxes, out-of-control spending, and unnecessary regulation from a government that is always micromanaging, meddling, and manipulating.

They’ve been hurt by a government that offers short-term gimmicks rather than fundamental reforms that will encourage long-term economic growth.

They’ve been hampered by a government that offers confusion to entrepreneurs and job creators when there needs to be clarity.

They’ve been undercut by a government that favors crony capitalism and businesses deemed ‘too big to fail,’ over the small banks and small businesses that make our economy go.

They’ve been antagonized by a government that favors bureaucrats over market-based solutions.

They’ve been demoralized by a government that causes despair when we need it to provide reassurance and inspire confidence…

Job creators in America are essentially on strike.

This, in sum, is the story at the heart of Atlas Shrugged.

And when Mitt Romney made these comments in a speech in New Bedford, NH in December of 2011, I realized that Rand, and the arguments she made through Atlas Shrugged, had, indeed, gone mainstream:

Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes.

In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing-the government.

The truth is that everyone may get the same rewards, but virtually everyone will be worse off.

According to Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, the reason Atlas Shrugged has been so popular among businessmen:

If you have read Atlas Shrugged and entered the universe of Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, and John Galt, you can understand why the novel has inspired so many in this way. Atlas Shrugged portrays great businessmen as heroic, productive thinkers, and it venerates capitalism as the only social system that leaves such minds free to create and produce the material values on which all of our lives depend. It gives philosophic and esthetic expression to the uniquely American spirit of individualism, of self-reliance, of entrepreneurship, of free markets. (emphasis mine)

Yes, Rand is not only popular, but nearly 20 years after her death and over 50 years after the publication of Atlas Shrugged her ideas are part of our daily lives–gaining even greater credibility in this election year in which Republican politicians tussle for the right to bear the banner promoting ever smaller government. Rand said this about her views on capitalism and the state in 1962:

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

My purpose here is not to critique this view in detail and I don’t want readers to assume that my antidote to the current political/economic situation is greater central government engagement. My point is, again, simply that Rand’s views are very much in the mainstream discourse of our age.  It matters little that the kind of laissez-faire capitalism she extolled exists only in Econ101 textbooks (and perhaps in some parallel universe in which asymetric information, non-competitive markets and externalities don’t cause the failure of “free markets”), the mantra of her acolytes contains elements of all she wrote in the above.

But… I have strayed too far.  This post is not about Rand (really!) but about my mom.

Rand’s heros–the Atlases that held up the world and, in their anger and bitterness decided to “shrug”–exist in the real world as much as laissez-faire capitalism does.  They are cardboard cutout humans–created by Rand–who capture the vainest parts of our hearts. But they are not real. They are not Atlas. Our lives do not depend on them.

To find Atlas we need to take a trip (as I have) to the northern deserts of Mauritania, where a village chief and his wife expend their assets and lives to save their town, which is disappearing in the sand while their children shrivel and fade to the ravages of malnutrition and diarrhea.

To find Atlas we need to travel to Nepal where a group of women take on powerful interests to stop the trafficking of their daughters (ah yes, there IS a largely unregulated market for little girls too).

To find Atlas we must go to the high plains stretching from Afghanistan into Uzbekistan where mothers hold communities together in the face of war lords who conscript their sons–forcing the moms to pull their names written on slips of paper from a jar; a cruel game of warlord roulette.

To find Atlas we must tread the path of the Palestinian school teacher in Lebanon who built a school in a Beirut camp only to see his children shot by militia in front of his eyes–children who he buried with others in a hole they dug in the floor of a local mosque as the battles raged outside.

To find Atlas we must tiptoe into the kitchen of my childhood home where my mom wiped the tears of a single mom, listened to the stories of the chronically depressed colleague, carried dinner to an ailing neighbor, hugged the neighborhood bully–telling him he was loved.  And I could go on an on…

Rand, with her promotion of a social autism, disdained ones such as these, believing that they were “moochers” who encouraged “looters”.

But my mom, all the others I have mentioned, and literally millions more men and women around the world who uphold their communities in the face of tremendous odds… They are Atlas. And unlike the spoiled and pampered heroes of Randland–who walk on the backs of people like my mom, proclaim their autonomy, and boast of the success they have created on the sole basis of their hard work–they NEVER shrug. For if they did (and they can’t and they won’t) we would see a shaken world.

I miss you mom.  We need you in these days… You are Atlas.

I have spent most of my adult life believing I could “do it”–whatever “it” might be.  One of the great deceptions of privilege is that we believe we can do what needs to be done in order to _____________ (fill in the blank: have a good life, resolve conflict, save children’s lives, have a successful career, heal brokenness, etc.).

Saying “I can’t” is a betrayal of our birth right.

Saying “I can’t” is an admission of failure.

Saying “I can’t” means one has given up.

At least, that’s how it feels looking down the years from where I sit at 50+.  And those feelings lead to a smoldering anger or a kind of depression as the weight of the impossible presses down.  I am convinced that this is the root of the so-called “mid-life crisis”:  waking up to the reality that it is not mine to “do”, even if I think I can (must).

Thinking about my grandson’s willingness to say “I can’t” reminds me that, while that is true, it is also true that I love him anyway. Not for what he does (says) or doesn’t do (say) but for who he is.  He can “be” a little boy and he is really good at that.  And in the “being” he does some pretty amazing things. He brings smiles and laughter and a sense of life full of possibility.  Those are possible for him in just being. They are good things.

Can a two and half year old be my role model?  In this he can and is. There is much I can’t do and the sooner I get around to ceasing to try, the healthier it will be for a lot of people, myself included.  But I can still “be” and, taking my grandson as an example, there is great value in that.

Despite this, at the public meeting held to focus on design of the “new” street, about a quarter of those in attendance came only to continue to voice their opposition.  Not only did they waste the time of participants and the project consultants who came to discuss how to make the street a shared space for all modes of transportation, they also betrayed an inability to take a long view on what is needed to make our city healthier and safer. Their implicit long view is that tomorrow’s transportation will be a lot like today’s–dominated by cars typically containing only one person and contributing half or more of the pollutants that pollute our air contributing to asthma in our children and a variety of other respiratory problems (references available upon request). I am NOT talking about greenhouse gasses here but of course our cars emit them too. (Interestingly, while most of the enlightened and oh-so-progressive citizens of our community would never call themselves “climate change deniers”, functionally, that is exactly what they are.)

And, as synchronicity would have it, our city is also struggling mightily to come to terms with the need to provide ourselves with a more sustainable water supply, and one that does not damage the flora and fauna downstream. Again, opponents of a VERY costly project to assure compliance with water discharge laws while securing a more sustainable water supply fail to take a realistic long view.  In this case the self-deception is not about human health and safety–as is the case for the “road diet”–but about how much we pay for our water now and whether or not what we pay reflects the true cost of mining, treating, delivering, retreating and discharging that water.

Our elected officials find themselves in a difficult situation.  If they speak the truth about our need to change how we transport ourselves around town or about how much we really need to pay for the scarce resource that water is (and always has been here in Northern CA), they will be pilloried from all sides.  The small government folks (I will not call them conservatives because they are NOT) will slam them for creating a nanny state in our town of 65,000 (especially on issues that would limit or change in any way their ability to hop in their cars and drive anywhere, any time, as fast as they like).  The so-called progressives (I will not call them liberal OR progressive because they are NEITHER) will slam them for hurting the poor of our community with out of sight water bills.  These folks will stay mostly quiet on the car issue but keep driving anyway, secure in the knowledge that they are doing their part by driving the latest hybrid.

And so, and this might sound too harsh, our leaders pander to the “future deniers” (I think that is what I will call them.  After all, they deny the future by basically decreeing it MUST merely reflect the past–and the relatively recent past at that). Though some of our leaders clearly know better they can’t help but allow themselves to be brought into line by the future deniers.  Sad.

As a result of this state of affairs I have decided I am launching my campaign for City Council and I make the following promises.  The day I fail to fulfill them I will resign.  No tricks. No caveats. Copy and keep this blog, it will be your evidence against my failure to fulfill my promises.

1. I promise to raise the issue of our need to reduce car travel at every city council meeting.

2. I promise to promote projects that will make it harder and costlier to drive.  Among other things, I will work to make all parking on city streets “paid” parking by instituting metered parking in the downtown and require permits on all cars parked on city streets (each paying household will receive extra “temporary” parking permits for out of town guests).

3. I promise to make enforcement of parking laws a top priority of the police department.

4. I promise to seek passage of an ordinance banning drop off of kids by parents within a three block radius of each school (with ADA exceptions).

5. I promise to work with local state representatives to pass a state law giving local jurisdictions full control over speed limits they can post on their streets.  Once the bill passes I will push for 15 MPH speed limits on all neighborhood and feeder streets and 25 MPH limits on all arterials.

6. I will work on an ordinance to forbid any student in the city from driving themselves to school within the city limits.

7. I will work to immediately raise water rates by a factor of 5.  Realizing that the elasticities of demand for water are very low, I will seek to introduce extremely painful rate hikes to force residents to reduce consumption of this scarce resource.

8. I will appoint a panel of local residents to develop a process for reviewing requests from poorer citizens for relief from these draconian rate increases. The panel will then apply the process to hear cases 5 days per week for one year and will have the power to rule on individual cases on a first come first served basis. If a resident wants relief s/he will have to ask for it and provide financial evidence of need.

9.  I will seek an ordinance to forbid watering of lawns and move to replace grass in public spaces with indigenous plants and drought resistant trees and bushes.

These are my promises (for now).  I am going to develop a whole bunch more and would invite anyone who reads this to add their own for my consideration.  They are all going to be extremely painful.  They are all going to help make us healthier.

Make no mistake, I am not writing the foregoing with my tongue in my cheek.  I am not engaging in sarcasm.  I am asking for your support to make your life costlier and harder (in the short run).  This is going to hurt for a little while but once the pain fades (a bit) we will be more fit and better prepared to walk into a future that will force even the hardest core “future deniers” to admit they were wrong in equating the future with the past.

Vote for me!  You’re gonna regret it (for a while).

How’s that for a campaign slogan?  But just think, if you vote for me and I win you will not experience any “buyer’s remorse”.

But do we really know what happened beyond what our eyes and ears reveal? And what should we do about it? Is it too late to ask these questions?

Beyond the warnings, the chants, the spraying, the crying, the inevitable accusations, condemnations, denials, apologies, calls for resignations and appointment of commissions to investigate it all lies the reality of what happened to everyone involved. What happened is that something broke—or something already cracked finally gave way, or something fragile was finally shattered. The “something” that broke was relationships. Relationships that sustain a community and nurture it to enable its members to do things that none of them (none of us), individually, could do alone.

We talk a great deal about “community” but simultaneously seem unable to define what it takes to build it; uncertain what to do when it breaks down; ill equipped to rebuild it when it lies shattered at our feet. And so we stand around the broken relationships of that day and we avert our eyes, raise our voices and demand relief—from someone, from somewhere—relief that will soothe our brokenness and make the pain and uncertainty go away.

If what really happened on that day is that relationships were broken (and yes, laws may have been broken—I am not saying they were not) then what should we do about it?

In our world justice has come to mean a few things that are pretty clear to all of us.  When we all understand something then none of us really question it or the premises on which it rests.  This is the case here, I believe. To us, justice means 1) discovering if laws were broken; 2) finding who is responsible if they were; 3) trying the accused according to norms that assume innocence until guilt is proven; 4) punishing the guilty if the guilt is demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt.

More deeply, however, justice has come to mean that those found guilty should be removed from among us (Resign! Fire him/her!). And while we are learning that we can’t do this forever—building more jails and putting more people in them seems to solve little while its costs are enormous (and not just financially so)—we are so deeply committed to this way of thinking about justice that we cannot imagine viable alternatives. “Someone must pay!” has come to mean “Someone must leave!”

But perhaps more importantly than these points is how we define the “victim” in our current justice system.  As it currently stands, in criminal cases it is the state, not the actual victim of a crime, who is the victim. The offender’s offence is against the state and the state determines both the guilt and the punishment. In this world the true victim plays a bit role—serving the needs of the offended state as a witness or silent bystander to whom the state points as part of the revealing of evidence. Our system shunts the victim aside with vague promises of “closure” if/when a guilty verdict is announced.

It is important to keep these realities in mind as we return to Davis and revisit what really happened on that sad day. The victims were a group of students who by most people’s reckoning had violence perpetrated against them by the campus police force with the tacit or explicit support of their superiors.

[Some may object that I am proclaiming guilt before due process has taken its course but I think I am on safe ground because one of the “superiors” in question—the University Chancellor—apologized publicly after the event saying she felt “horrible for what happened.”  I know, I know, that was not an admission of guilt that would stand up in any court. But let us be honest and not hide behind process here.  Let us acknowledge that in that very human act of apologizing the Chancellor admitted that wrongs were done.  True, the wrongs were not named and the whole thing was stated in very general terms, but you and I know what was going on here.  Further, I am not suggesting that victims were engaging in legal behavior—I am not exonerating them of wrongdoing.  I am merely saying excessive force was used in an injurious way.  That, I would argue, was wrong even if no court of law says so.]

But in addition to those who bore the brunt of the force, the victims also include the entire community which now finds itself riven by doubt about the role of an entity that it had, heretofore, assumed was in place to protect it.  Please do not mistake my meaning here: I am not appealing to some sloppy sense that “we are all victims.”  Rather, I am acknowledging that when a very public act of violence is committed against members of our community—whether we agree with them or their lifestyles or their choices—that violence affects all of us.  In this way we, along with all those involved become part of a broken thing—the broken relationships that cause us pain, outrage and doubts about whether we can ever make this broken thing whole.

The question we must ask is whether the assumptions and practices of our extant justice system will serve the needs of a broken community; of the victims who have physically healed from the violence but bear its scars; of offenders who also have needs along with responsibilities; of the students, employees and leaders of UC Davis and citizens of our city who struggle to know what to do now given a new and more troubling understanding of the fragility of order in our small town.

It will do us no good for the state to determine that it is the victim and must try the offenders away from us and deal with them in its way. We need a justice system that has the potential to bring the victims and the offenders together so that

1) The victims can tell their story, be honest about their anger, their hurt and how they feel wronged;

2) The offenders can acknowledge the wrongs they have committed;

3) The two can agree on a plan for how the offenders can make things right;

4) The relationships that lie in tatters can be restored.

We need restorative justice: justice that seeks to reestablish relationship by assuring that the wrongs that occurred are named and corrected. This can only happen if we all commit to a process of listening, of discovery and learning. Does the state have a role in this at all?  I believe it does. A creative Attorney General or District Attorney with the help of a wise judge could encourage the parties to seek the help of a professional victim/offender conference facilitator (I will not say “mediator” because that assumes two groups with equal standing, that is not the case here).  The state can agree to abide by the decisions that the parties come to and step in only if the two cannot reach a mutual agreement.

Restorative justice will allow victims to get information they need—most importantly perhaps answers to the questions: “How and why did the police respond this way? Why did they hurt us?”

Restorative justice demands accountability of the offenders. In this case that would be the police officers who used force, the police chief who was negligent or actively promoted the use of force, the Vice Chancellor who (tacitly or explicitly) supported or was willfully ignorant of what the police planned, and the Chancellor who ordered their removal and was, again either willfully ignorant or in support of the actions taken.

Restorative justice will allow the community to grow in its sense of community and be empowered to engage more actively in healing and restoration in the future.

In the end, restorative justice says that offences are a violation of relationships, that these violations create obligations and that the central obligation is to right the wrongs committed. May we find a way through the brokenness brought on by this event so we can develop the tools to truly build community at our university and in our city.

Much more needs to be said about the offenders—the fact that they are people, that their lives, too, have been fundamentally altered by the choices they made. Much more also needs to be said about the role of the “institution”—UC Davis. While we point to the Chancellor and the police as the perpetrators of violence we must also consider how the institution of which they are a part conditions and constrains their ability to act (and react) to situations like the one in which we find ourselves.  More on these issues later, perhaps.

For more on restorative justice principles see: The Little Book of Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr.

As you know, I have stopped writing this blog (for now).  But I check in from time to time to refer to something I wrote previously. Today when I signed in the following was here.  I thought it was spam.  I suspected someone had hacked my posts.  But then I read it and it seemed familiar.  I do not know from where (from when) it comes but… here it is.

It’s Happening on County Road 99

I am riding out to the farm like I do, sun warming already.  The fields drift by.  Tomatoes, alfalfa, vines, melons, corn.  A slow moving vehicle approaches and the van (green, old) behind decides to pass it coming at me in a rush.  I always hate that.  Dangerous.  And I am thinking, “Why can’t he just wait? What is the hurry?”

And I see something has gone wrong (tire blown, spilled coffee?) and he is coming sideways.  At me.

Everything is now and I see it all: a face, solid metal, a broken bike, a carcass.  And then I see—down the road at the shrine where another passed on.  He is standing there.

And I draw near (I can’t find words in the tongue of my infancy—for now I am “older”—for what it is, but I move, I come nigh, I cross space/time… I draw near).  And I see him by the shrine (a cross, ribbons and the pictures of him).  And the brokenness is stripped away and I see that healing has come.  He nods and I know that all is well.  He knows me.

And I am wondering… “Am I a ghost?  An apparition sent to haunt the green van man?”  And now I see him in the hospital.  And now I see him at home, on crutches with broken parts.  And now I see him “whole” but only in body. And now I see him brittle and angry.  And now I see him, bottle in hand…

And I draw near.  And I see that he is haunted.  But not by me.  I am not a ghost.  His mind is twisted and black and as I draw near I see that he is haunted by the memory of a choice.  He is tortured by a decision.  He sees the body.  Not broken. Oh no, that body is not broken.  It is pulverized.  No bone remains.  The skin torn away.  The insides strewn about in an unordered way. The whole like a melted candle that has flowed across the table in reds and browns and grays. And he sees it and it breaks something that I am thinking is his mind.

And I draw near and it peels back (the mind?).  Again the words of my childhood (for now I am much older) fail.  There is a new language but crossing into the old is not possible.  So I say again: it peels back, it is stripped away, the curtains part… And I see, as I draw near, that within the brokenness, within the pain, within the black is a spark.  A life.

And I draw near and I see that healing is now and now and now for the green van man.  But now torture.  Now pain. Now release.  Now hope.

And I see her, and her and him.  And in a different way their minds too are black and broken and sad and they weep… now. And further beyond them I see others who pain but as I draw near I see it stripped away…

And I draw near and I see the same spark that lies beyond.  And as I draw near the darkness here is peeled away too.  And now, and now and now is healing and release.

I am on CR 99.  The fields of tomato and alfalfa and corn are diseased and stricken.  I am seeing them as they are—bearing their fruit in pain.  Diminished by the years of neglect.  They too are tortured and they are stricken bearing the curse of a thousand generations of rape and neglect.  And I see that the fields and the machine that is striking me down are joined to the wars and the bombings and that the children and mothers who are swept along by the torrent are at one with the destruction of the fields and the horrific speed of the green van.  And I am seeing that they are all part of a desire, a yearning, a drive to live without limits.

And I draw near to the fields, to the mountains beyond, to the battlefields and urban slaughterhouses and as I go further in and further in I see it strip away—the brokenness, the fatigue, the groaning.  In it all is a spark.  As I draw near I see that it the healing is now and now and now.

How else can I explain?  I am unprepared for this.  No imagination.  No story. Nothing I know.

I see the body that is and is no more and I am knowing that all is moving towards the great unwinding—the great stripping away of the darkness and decay. And I am on CR 99 where it all begins (for me at least).

And you are wondering now “Is he alone? Is he a ‘wanderer?’”

I am not permitted to tell all of it (I can only say “I am not permitted”, but I do not know why… It is not the time), but what I am able to say is “No, I am not alone.  She is here (“here” is hard to explain) and she remembers.  He is here and he smiles, free of the drink that steals it all.  She is here and wears a feather.  They are here hand in hand.”

There is more to tell… But the telling is for now, and now and now…  It is happening on County Road 99 and I am hoping you will come and see.  But sure you will not.  Sure that you cannot.

Best.
]]> http://robbdavis.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/silently-traveling-at-the-speed-of-bike/feed/ 3 robbdavis http://robbdavis.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/stephen-king-goes-to-cairo-3/ http://robbdavis.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/stephen-king-goes-to-cairo-3/#comments Sat, 05 Feb 2011 04:39:49 +0000 robbdavis http://robbdavis.wordpress.com/?p=801 ]]> Most people would not consider Stephen King to be a prominent social critic.  But after reading his latest set of short stories Full Dark, No Stars I am thinking that maybe we should reconsider.  In four brief vignettes King forces us (as always) to look into the deep recesses of our hearts and deal with… the tragic loss of the family farm, the horror of sexual violence (fueled by the ubiquitous marketing phenomenon?), and the general disregard for human life that lurks oh so close to all of us (sleeping in our beds with us?).

In the shortest piece of this collection “Fair Extension” King introduces us to Streeter and draws us into a lighthearted (for him) tale that seems to be the comic relief of this grim selection until it too reaches up and grabs us by the throat.  Streeter has advanced stage cancer but, on his way home along a lonely stretch of road one evening, he meets a man who holds out the promise of “extending” life.  We know where this is going don’t we?

Or do we? King adds two twists that take us in a direction that is, frankly, a far less comfortable place to go. Not so lighthearted after all.

Rather than demand Streeter’s soul in exchange, this fallen “demon”–clearly not the big bad guy–offers the “extension” in exchange for…hard cash.  Fifteen percent of Streeter’s earnings from now until… Deposited in a bank account in the Caymans.  This is strictly business.  Ahh… but there is a second twist and one that “twists” the knife even deeper into our own psyche (does it not “gentle reader” as SK likes to call us?).

To get his extension Streeter has to name a person he “hates”.  The price is now clear: this is a zero sum game; your gain is, well, someone else’s pain.  Will Streeter accept?  Read the story.

(This story immediately brought to mind a more horrific tale, the title of which I cannot remember, that I read many years ago.  In that one a genius discovers a way to travel to heaven.  He parleys his discovery into a great deal of money for himself–and a great deal of pain for others.  It turns out that every time someone travels to heaven a gaping chasm–centered right in the middle of the poorest, most destitute, part of his city–opens further, swallowing everything above it.  One person’s trip to heaven is another person’s trip to hell.  And make no mistake, a trip to heaven costs quite a bit–something like 15% percent of a person’s life earnings, shall we say?).

Nearly ten years ago our local paper ran a series of articles entitled “State of Denial.” In it, the author described how those of us who live in California build our homes, run our cars and, put food on our table on the backs of people who live far from us.  Our hunger for wood strips boreal forests; our thirst for gasoline despoils the Amazon, and our craving for fish empties the seas off South America.  We are committed to “preservation” of our space but not to “conservation” of resources in a broader sense.

In other words–we “extend” our luxury, for a cost to be sure (15%?), by robbing life from those who live far away.  But do we hate them (in the way Streeter hated the one whose sad fate would seal his deal)?  You would argue no… we do not hate them.  We have not made the deal that Streeter made. But what is hate if not the other side of the coin of obsessive love of self that drives the thoughts of others from our minds.  Is hate not a disregard–a dismissal–of the humanity of the other?

Historian Andrew Bacevich reminds us of the long history of this disregard:

In a 1948 State Department document, diplomat George F. Kennan offered this observation: “We have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population.”  The challenge facing American policymakers, he continued, was “to devise a pattern of relationships that will permit us to maintain this disparity.”  Here we have a description of American purposes that is far more candid than all of the rhetoric about promoting freedom and democracy, seeking world peace, or exercising global leadership.

And so we go to Cairo (or Baghdad, or Kabul, or Gaza City or Algiers, or… need I go on?) and we find that policy makers are “concerned” that a popular uprising there will destabilize world markets, will lead to disruption of oil flows or will lead to a less “friendly” regime in Egypt.  Israeli leaders condemn the US as naive for abandoning a leader who has brought stability to the Middle East.  And, as Glenn Greenwald notes, the US seems ready to support Mubarak’s chosen successor–Omar Suleiman–because he is a “stalwart ally”–having smoothed the way for extraordinary renditions that have made our lives so much safer in fortress America.

We are Streeter–we buy our prosperity with the wealth of our ancestors (itself acquired at the barrel of a gun and via the slaughter of innocents) and we seal the deal by naming that which we love (ourselves) and by extension that which we hate (the “other”–the Egyptian, the Iraqi, the Honduran, the Haitian).

I am pointing no fingers.  I own my role in the transaction.  All I can do now is seek out the demon with whom I made the wager and end the transaction–refuse to pay, renounce my “hatred”, and then live with the consequence that my “extension” will no longer be extended.

Am I ready?