Notes from the Left Coast

Drummond Pike’s Blog

In the rain, running through DC
VP sirens-blaring events of past years
Only rarely echo along Mass Ave,

Then, right around the Finnish, then the Belgian, Embassy,
across the Connecticut Ave sky bridge,
veering into the Embassy conclave covering
the escarpment above the Rock Creek,

So, Joe has replaced Cheney,
And….
what does it mean?

fewer sirens,
less torture.

My Country, ’tis of thee….

A week ago, I attended the Global Progressive Forum, organized by Poul Ryup Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Denmark and held in the Parliamentary hall of the European Union – an amazing space for such an event. It is called the Hemicycle and is a large oval space surrounded by 3 floors of “sky booths” containing the translators who were borrowed from the EU for the purposes of this two-day session. For an American, at least of my generation, it is with some embarrassment that I watched many of the representatives from various African, South American, Asian, and European countries in a facile way move between languages depending on who their audience happened to be. Me, I was consigned to grabbing the earphones whenever the speakers departed from English. (I’m happy to say that both of my children have avoided the mono-linguistic shortcomings of their father…)

A second, equally simple, observation at the GPF was the comfort that virtually the entire rest of the planet has with the idea of socialism and, perhaps more to the point, social democratic systems where the state plays a far more important role ensuring the social welfare of all its citizens and workers. America’s often outright hostility and deep skepticism of the role of government – not to mention the idea that government can be as well run an enterprise as any private organization of similar scale – has confused me for years. After all, my parents generation benefitted from the astonishingly successful governmental intervention in both the domestic economy and in international relations with more success than any other period in modern history. Government was the answer to the Depression and to the rise of fascism across the globe. No private enterprise could have achieved either outcome, much less had the foresight that was the Marshall Plan and the reconstruction of Japan and Korea. Yes, and the same generation was on duty when Vietnam happened and the Cold War flourished, but as a whole, there were an awful lot of good things about that era, and one has to think we may well be headed into a similar time. Lord knows, there are as many compelling challenges on the table.

May we live in interesting times.

The Global Progressive Forum is a bit like the Take Back America conference has been over recent years in the US – a collection of activists, elected officials, and academics who all share a concern for how to move things back in a more progressive direction.  Europe, as many are aware, has been on a march to the right. Of course, everything is relative. The right in this context means a more conservative interpretation of European style social democracy.  By contrast to the US, Merkel’s and Sarkozy’s conservatism is downright leftist. Rush Limbaugh would choke just trying to say the word when describing Europe’s version of a safety net. He’d probably call it ‘communist’ or something which isn’t terribly far from the truth, again in contrast to the US experience.

One of the most interesting things to emerge from this two-day gathering held in the chambers of the European Parliament, has been the repeated raising of concerns about tax havens and the role they have played in the melt-down. This isn’t well understood in the US, but the movement of capital and income through tax-haven subsidiaries was a contributing factor in low accountability, but also in avoidance of tax. As everyone is desperate for revenue, there is some possibility that taking on this beast will become a signal call from many for how future reforms need to be structured.

One speaker noted yesterday that if one has to rely, as is currently the case, on agreements between two countries to manage tax reporting and reciprocity, the number of countries in the world would require some 18,000 agreements. Not likely.  However, a truly international regime – like the WTO, for example – could be put in place, perhaps required for participation in WTO or some such. A fascinating idea.

One other surprise, speaking of the WTO, has been that the Secretary General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, is an honored member of this community and will be speaking tomorrow. Who knew he was one of these socialist leaning Europeans? It does make one wonder if we have got this all right – our American blanket critique of trade which we typically see as benefitting corporate interests over poor people. What appears to be more the case is that we just haven’t got it right yet. True, corporate interests have got a great deal of what they want out of trade deals, but the same mechanisms can be used for much more positive social impacts, if we just have the will.

It is an interesting contrast from the American experience to travel in Europe.

They have this thing called “mass transit” which most of us in the US associate with behemoth SUV’s – very large mass transporting us from our sprawled suburban homes to the mall or school or the office park where we work. And every time we need a carton of milk, it’s back into that huge gas guzzler and back on the road to the convenience store down the road. Now, of course it is true that many eastern cities (NY, Washington, Boston, Philly) all have aging subway systems that are well used. But for most of us, transit is us sitting at the driver’s wheel, frustrated at the slow moving mass of cars ahead and behind us.

Night before last, I flew to London, cleared customs in 20 minutes, caught an express train to downtown (it left 6 minutes after I got to the platform), and 20 minutes later I was at Paddington Station. Then it was a 15 minute ride on the “tube” to , a 40 minute wait for the Eurostar Train – a highspeed, quiet, comfortable ride for less than 2 hours to Brussels via the Channel where I arrived in downtown maybe 10 minutes from my hotel. The thing that I couldn’t get over was that it was all so EASY.

As we stumble our way toward decisions on what to do with the stimulus investments we are about to make in the US, investing in transit seems like such a sensible thing to do. We are so unbelievably behind most parts of the world, but we also have the opportunity to design a system that can truly meet future needs.

California will soon begin work on a high-speed train network to connect the northern, southern, and central metropolitan areas. Let’s add in a really robust Bus Rapid Transit system (which can be shovel ready very quickly), create metropolitan planning and management districts, and all the other elements we need to create a robust, green, and smart road to the future.

Also of interest:
TreeHugger.org  articles on High Speed Trains