A mile wide, and an inch deep
The city council election has some sub-drama going on about who is actually liberal. That this is even a question belies the shaky status of what qualifies as liberal or progressive around here.
My SRJC history professor, Marty Bennett, says that the bulk of Bay Area liberals are a mile wide and in inch deep. I pretty much agree. In this essay, I will explore why. California and the Bay Area are supposed to be the most liberal places in the country. But if it’s so liberal, why aren’t we way ahead on climate mitigation and social equity? We’re not.
In fact, for social equity, California is among the worst in the country. What we have here is a liberal façade. Wealthy liberals trickle some money back to non-profits, and talk a good green game, but never fundamentally change an illiberal status quo that leaves the working class exploited and abused. Sonoma is known to be more conservative than the rest of the county, and therefore candidates can’t afford to appear too liberal because that may cut into a usually slim margin that council members win by. Yet many vocal Sonomans are apparently liberal. What’s up here?
Currently it is unknown what percent of Sonoma voters may have shifted to a more conservative stance, as a result of immigration of wealthy new Silicon Valley home buyers. The more money you have, apparently, the more conservative you get. Many folks are having a hard time predicting who will win the council election because of these recent demographic shifts. Detailed handicapping of the race is now a favorite topic of parlor conversation. The nature of Bay Area and California liberals has been explored before, by Ben Boyce, in a well written Sun column. Richard Walker, UC Berkeley economic geographer, also explains some of the contradictions of Bay Area liberalism. I’ve come to the same general conclusion: the essential contradiction of Bay Area liberals is that they can’t afford to be truly liberal because they are keeping too much of an eye on protecting their own bottom lines. They don’t want to change unjust economic conditions because that would hurt their bank accounts and property values. They turn into “taxpayers” rather than citizens.
Taxpayers’ fears have gutted state income and help for the little guy with Prop 13. And prevented progressively tiered water rates with Prop 218. Taxpayers are all about their own bottom lines, not any wider responsibility or social good. Citizens have a wider purview. In Sonoma, wealthy property owners who posture as put-upon taxpayers are in an obviously Scrooge-like class.A combo of selfish liberal bottom line watching and concomitant environmental protection has ended up with an emergent property of disenfranchising the working class. Working class, “workforce”? This is now essentially the “middle class. ”
No one who makes Area Median Income, or AMI, can afford much here. With zoning to protect green spaces and local character, and Silicon Valley money all around, land values have skyrocketed, creating displacement and more segregation of the AMI class. Liberals are supposed to be for the little guy, not just be green and call it good. Bay Area and Sonoma liberals are a mile wide and inch deep because they have been content to hang the AMI class out to dry.Center right and right wing folks here are free to say what they really think: who cares? Middle class renters, who cares? Tough shit for them if they haven’t got up early enough in the morning to save $700,000 for a house while making the prevalent non-living wage.
I’m surprised to see Sonomans who seem fairly liberal otherwise end up with the who cares, taxpayer cohort. But this illustrates my point about Bay Area liberals.To draw some finer local lines, there is tension between vested residential property interests and luxury tourism boosters; these two “liberal” forces are not equal and in fact are at odds in a battle of elite interests for control of the town. On one hand, residential property owners are selfish and concerned about their own bottom lines, property values, and taxes as a number one consideration. These folks are then critical of tourism boosters, who are also concerned about their bottom lines.
This struggle of elites takes place as a high-minded, abstract analysis of issues, that masks the real underlying interests. The real interests? It all gets down to money, assets, who controls the flavor of Sonoma, and how any policy affects the respective cohorts’ pocketbooks. For liberals with a conscience, the naked truth of selfishness is too much to admit, it blows the liberal cover. This is why property owners’ true interests are not disclosed and disguised under abstract and environmental terms. To make local conflict into a matter of ideas and policy debates rather than class, is a kind of subterfuge that blinds us to the underlying interests at stake.
First I figured out that that liberal philanthropy and local non-profits were content to preserve an unjust status quo. Now I have figured out that liberal residential property owners have their own illiberal bargain as well. Neither disclose their hidden interests, and go to great efforts to state issues in a masked way. Class antagonisms are hidden by framing camouflage. In the end, residential property interests are essentially the same as that of the elite developer competitors: to sequester and control Sonoma for their own benefit. What we have here is a case of intimate enemies, people who hate each other precisely because they are so similar. Pro or con hotels is the litmus test. The AMI cohort, or class-based liberals, might want a job at a hotel. The offer of Darius Anderson to have a union shop at the proposed Napa Street hotel was a brilliant stroke of divisive politics because it drove a wedge between the interests of the actual working class and residential property owners, while making the wealthy developers seem to be the good guys. The fact is, neither really care about AMI interests because those interests run counter to both.
If social equity was a priority, we wouldn’t be among the most unequal places in the country. Mile wide, inch deep. Profit-only motivated developers are not a benevolent species for the AMI class. But that does not automatically put the AMI cohort on the side of residential property owners either. This gestalt explains the falling out of local players over the Anderson hotel issue. And it starts to explain varying stances on the UGB issue as well. Practically speaking, boosters, developers, and residential property owners are all a kind of big fish, from which fall scraps that little worker fish can exist on. In an economic ecosystem model, this can work, if the little fish get enough to thrive and survive. But for the most part in Sonoma they don’t; the big fish have gotten huge and the little fish smaller and more vulnerable.They heyday in the US for little fish was when the big fish were not so huge, and when there were more scraps.
The upshot, both above-mentioned local elite cohorts are unsustainable because they both are content to leave out addressing how to change or address structural aspects of the social equity leg of the sustainability tripe bottom line. Local philanthropy and non-profits are light on social equity as is the “100% Sustainable” wine initiative. This underlines that these folks all think “liberal” and “sustainable” means basically environmental stuff and not an addressing of the fact that California is the most unequal state in the country. The sleight of hand for Bay Area liberals is to appear progressive, but to all ignore full cost accounting of the social equity leg of the triple bottom line. This is the crux of the mile wide, inch deep observation.
What we end up with for representatives are corporate Democrats who play the “I’m a Democrat” game, Dodd, Levine, Jim Wood, Newsome, and their big money “liberal” backers. These guys are not liberal, they’re blue dogs; it’s a charade. At the end of the day, the liberal combine here rips off the little guy just as much as does naked right wing exploitation. Like Ralph Nader said, “the only difference between Democrats and Republicans is how fast they get on their knees for big business.” The Costa-Hawkins repeal and Prop 10 are the litmus here: are you with the little guy or not? Do you come off with supply-side, voodoo economics or not? So let’s stop pretending, the AMI middle/ working class is getting screwed by Bay Area liberals. There is no “sustainable” future here, no incentive for lower classes to buy into any green salvation. This is Ecotopia, not Equaltopia. Green imperatives can’t just be another elite privilege. Without equity, AMI people might as well take the whole ship down; they are going down anyway. Why cooperate with actors who don’t care and who are content to support donors who rip you off?
If the 10% liberals have all the money and won’t share, real liberals just have to call BS on that; it’s not liberal, it’s a noblesse oblige combine. Basically, you can’t be a real liberal if you’ve got it made. Having it made puts you in the upper classes. Upper class status naturally gravitates to protecting upper class privilege. That’s when people start saying, “I’m socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” This is code for membership in a class that is no longer check to check. Fiscally responsible? Capeesh. You need to protect your horde, and the horde of the government that protects your horde. It gets to be a big Sonoma architecture of protectionism, with its own anti-immigrant policies that, through masked means and discourse, keep Sonoma as more and more exclusive. In rock and roll, it is the struggling musicians who are authentic; success is associated with having sold out. Sold out, you went for the money. Money as an end in itself is corrupt, the root of all evil; morals of harm and fairness get twisted around. This is what yuppies did, compared to the hippies who didn’t sell out counter culture ideals, who didn’t betray unions and the civil rights movement. The safe space left is to be wealthy and an environmentalist, eat grass fed beef, and drive a Prius. To be fair here, who wouldn’t be content to have more rather than less?
It’s human nature to want more and to horde it and defend it when you got it. If anything is corrupt, it is human nature itself, and the tendency to congregate into in-groups to defend selfish interests. And, environmental issues of climate change and species extinction are seriously real and shameful; these things need real attention. But the ability to act on this stuff shouldn’t be an elite privilege. A big part of the sustainability problem is maldistribution of wealth. AMI people have more pressing issues than to be environmentalists; AMI folks could be on the street but for one thing; they have way less room for cream.For real sustainability, the bottom of society needs to be brought up and the top taken down, this is what will reduce environmental impacts the most. Alpha American consumers and resource hoarders need to be reined in, and scraps off those big fish shared out to the little fish, and environmental impacts reduced all the way around by consuming less not more.
This actual truth was capitalized on by the Darth developer cohort here in town with an anonymous election mailer appealing to property owners’ selfish tendencies. How cynical can you get?The only reason I can say any of this is that I have no money. I’m freed, justified, and legitimized by actual poverty. I’ve got no horde to be fiscally conservative about. This all leads to that true liberalism is fundamentally a class issue. It’s not radical really, just calling a spade a spade.In City of Angels, the guy knew the only way to really feel it was to give up immortality and become vulnerably human.This is the difference between Marxism, socialism, Democratic socialists and capitalism. One pulls for the little guy, the other justifies and protects the rich. Trump is just an extreme example of the same kind of protectionism we see here in Sonoma, just a stronger flavor of the same thing. Culture wars just amplify underlying class-interest antagonisms.
Personally, I bailed out of upper class aspirations early in life, as a kid when I read books about Indians, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I said to myself, no way I can follow the white man’s path; when I got to Quaker Farm and Wilderness camps, with simple living and authentic 1960s counter culture counselors, it was so much better than bland suburban reality, that my path in life was forever changed by the ideals. It was clear to me which path had heart and which did not. And, I would never have had the space for my path without the modicum of middle class wealth my parents had. Pure poverty doesn’t allow for much other than survival. To my Dad, who grew up in extreme poverty and came through the Great Depression, and rode the tide of success of the Post WW2 economic boom, he never understood how I could bail on material comfort and security. My path was just plain stupid to him. “When are you going to grow up Fred?” What was all the Dr. Spock tabla rasa grooming and education for? Well, somebody has to play vanguard of the proletariat… Where I am now? Somewhere between class and cultural-idea analysis.
Sustainability is the frame that makes the most sense to me, it transcends liberal and conservative. The triple bottom line, TBL, and full cost accounting, makes too much sense to ignore. A true liberals’ natural policy leg is a tight focus on social equity, that’s what they bring to the sustainability table, and since California and the Bay Area are about last in equity nationally, it is right for true liberals to be exercised about the current economy as unsustainable. The economic leg is unbalanced and out of proportion, and the environmental leg is suffering, all from too much business as usual or BAU; BAU is based on outdated, exploitive economic and cultural concepts. Sustainability provides a rational framing of issues, ones that are traditionally broken down as simply liberal or conservative. To get to sustainable, all have to bring the interests of their different sheep into the same corral.
This collective corral is where the underlying competition of interests, between classes, and the ideas that animate culture, can potentially be reconciled, if we are not to sink the World Titanic in a classic human tragedy of selfishness. Sustainable means the TBL and full cost accounting have to be bought into as the correct framing, the true condensation point and center of gravity for collective policy. The onus is on reconciliation of integral component parts of the human experience, and on our responsibility as stewards to use our self consciousness for a clear, pragmatic overall good. This is why I am a little worried about Sustainable Sonoma, because if consensus is primary over the TBL, that may be a backdoor entry for more business as usual, of economic bottom line only actors to keep the AMI class down.
It will be hard to see good will from actors who have traditionally not cared about the little guy; maybe the best we can hope is that Sustainable Sonoma will frame it as in economic actors’ and residential property owners’ selfish interests to cooperate to create larger benefits or a sustainable system. Everyone who is of AMI status, and of the younger generations should be a true class liberal, because the US gravy train is over, the 1% royalty and 10% aristocracy have all the money, space, and resources. There’s nothing left to aspire to materially, as the above have taken all the marbles; there are few scraps left. What example in history shows us that the wealthy have ever voluntarily shared out their horde? They don’t. We’re in bad spot collectively, because we’ll never be sustainable without drastically reducing the greatest inequality and tribalism of all time. Bay Area liberals can’t be content with this, and also content with more parochial, taxpayer and wealth protectionism. For the civilizational collapse that is staring us straight in the face, Jared Diamond assures the wealthy they will have the privilege of dying last. Back to the town issues.
If a liberal Sonoma city council majority can’t be produced, that is a clear sign that the 10% aristocracy has taken over. Then we see where we are headed. More avoidance of the critical social equity issue; Sonoma as Carmel, workers all in the slave encampments on the fringes. At the end of the day, everyone aspires to have it made. The ground of being liberal is thin. Give someone a bunch of gravy, they soon become “socially liberal and fiscally conservative” and they won’t vote for anything that threatens their bottom line or privilege. All of a sudden, property values are an issue, and any taxation or high density development for AMI renters, well, that sharing of the booty could make you lose your property values… Selfishness starts to rise to the top.
Selfish is not liberal. Real liberals care about and vote for the pocketbook of the little guy. Real liberals find a way to sidestep the sustainably tragedy. They are not callous and uncaring about the plight of their fellow man. And, after all is said and done, AMI people make up the bulk of the Sonoma County population. It only makes sense for these people to vote for who will look out for their interests. Julie Combs stands out as a real future champion, hopefully she will win as supervisor on 2020, that’s another struggle to get three votes. We’ll see who Sonoma chooses. Any young people, and any people on the AMI spectrum should be voting for the liberal candidates. And any residential property owner, philanthroper or non-profit, or liberal tourism booster shouldn’t be scared to let a little more social equity in the door, it’s exactly what we all need. It’s worth a hit to an already fat pocketbook. Enough is enough. Time to get this ship headed in the right direction.
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