makers of the new Massachusetts economy, and of its politics : SEIU 1199 service workers (top) and (bottom) tech-ies partying at District hall in Boston’s Innovation District

—- — —-

Given the widespread incompetence in Governor Patrick’s state administration, this year’s Governor election may well be decided by the competence issue. But the boston Globe editorial of yesterday had it right ; after the new Governor fixes the errors and puts a new hands-on management in place — as well as upgrading its technology — what kind of a state will he or she seek ? What kind of an economy ?

There are two economic movements now taking shape in Massachusetts : low wage workers are organizing for much higher pay, and technology enterprise is demanding ever more highly skilled entry level minds. Small start-ups are driving technology’s advance and changing the culture of upper-income work as well, from institutional bureaucracy to ad-hoc experimentalism. Union organizers, at the same time, are coalescing the many workers who hold service jobs remarkably alike regardless of which enterprise they look after.

To put these two movements in syncresis, every enterprise needs tidying. Hotel rooms, office cleaners, fast food and restaurant work, transportation duties of many kinds; shipment of goods; food service, teaching, police and fire, nursing home care, server farm maintenance : you name it, innovation and enterprise all need tidying. Almost all tidying work cannot be short-cut; it is time intensive physical work and thus very appropriate for collective bargaining.

The two worlds of work need not be opponents. neither can do without the other. So far it is not clear which political party will become the voice of which, or either. Most service worker activism now takes place within the Democratic party, yet the Massachusetts Democratic party is not a “labor party” — at least not yet. as for the world of small start-up innovation, it often seems to be a small, urban, socially progressive gloss on the Democratic party’s bias toward labor, yet much of the innovation world belongs culturally to Massachusetts’s unique GOP, technological, individualistic — and socially progressive.

The two movements synchronize in the marketplace, because wage-paid service workers are customers for technology’s products and enterprise’s offerings. Indeed, wage workers are by far the majority of our economy’s customers. The task facing the next Governor, I assert, is to maintain the economic viability of all such customers and even to improve it.

That should be the overriding priority for whoever becomes our new Governor.

So the question is, how best to accomplish this ? To all our major Goverbor c andidates would suggest the following agenda :

1.support WageAction’s drive to secure a $ 15.00 an hour wage for organized srvice workers. a $ 15.00 an hour worker can support him or herself and family and even spend discretionary income on innovative products and services.

2.follow Boston school superintendent John McDonough’s lead in giving public school principals hiring and firing autonomy, and grant them sufficient curriculum flexibility to downplay — or stick to — mandated testing if they think ot will improve student performance. Do not increase the number of charter schools, but use them as originally intended, as laboratories for forging best practices and classroom innovation. lengthen the school day and add arts to the curriculum. establish skills academies as an alternative to a one-size-fits-all college system.

3.use some of our state’s local aid funds to encourage the siting of technology start-ups in cities beyond the Route 495 belt.

4.welcome immigrants of whatever status and incorporate them into the culture, without differentiation, even as they already spend into the economy.

5.Apply to transportation and infrastructure improvements the tax dollar savings won by WageAction alleviating the public assistance burden previously needed by low wage workers.

6.Simplify the permitting process and regulatory burden that now faces start-ups and small businesses. For example, why should it cost $ 275.00 to file corporation papers and $ 500.0 to register an LLC ?

7.Enforce state law chapter 40B and 40R in all communities, to develop and welcome affordable housing, so badly needed. Why should land costs force builders to build McMansions that sell for $ 600,000 in the Boston area and $ 350,000 elsewhere ? And why should builders of apartment complexes only serve the luxury market, when what is badly needed is housing for the $ 30,000 to $ 60,000 a year earner, who are much, much more numerous than those who earn six-figure salaries ?

8.Close state prisons and prison hospitals such as Bridgewater and Shirley, where abuse of inmates is the rule; require all employees thereof to reapply for their jobs and enforce an entirely new culture vo co-operation and rigorous adherence to codes of conduct. Set a goal of cutting the state’s incarcerated population by fifty (50) percent by 2018.

These reforms, even if only partly accomplished, will give the new Goverrlor plenty to do and his or her followers plenty to strive for, all of it to improvement of life in the next phase of Massachusetts’s bolc experiment in social and economic justice.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

 

^ winning the “north Side of Boston” : Karyn Polito speaks (top) and (bottom) Charlie baker hears John Capone read the (impressive) list of political activists hosting a significant event at Ecco restaurant in East Boston

—- —- —-

Campaigns are won by the votes of voters, and voters live where they live. Geography matters; the candidate who can build up a huge home area base has a leg up on those candidates who don’t.

In this year’s Governor campaign, it’s been pretty obvious for a while that Charlie Baker is making the North Shore his “home base.” He speaks of it in just those terms, and at a large meet and greet at East Boston’s Ecco restaurant last night he made it a point to extol his love for what he called “the North Side of Boston,’ making sure that everyone knew that he includes “Eastie” in that geography.

How successfully has Baker established primacy as “North Side of Boston candidate ? Very successful;. just in the past month of filed campaign reports, he lists hundreds of donor contributions from Swampscott, Marblehead, Salem, Peabody, Danvers, and Beverly — 37 from Swampscott alone. Granted that Essex County isn’t everything — maybe twelve percent of the entire state — but it’s a significant area for a GOP candidate to win handsomely, because the candidate who wins it usually wins the entire state.

Right next door to the “North Side of Boston’ sits Boston itself. Our state’s capital city (plus Chelsea) totals another twelve percent of the state’s vote. Boston’s a key part of the usual Democratic vote majority; even good GOP candidates usually now lose the City 70 to 30, or worse. Baker cannot let that happen, and he is campaigning the City relentlessly as a result. The effort has not gone unrewarded; Baker has drawn significant segments of at least political Boston to his side. Many key names were on hand at Ecco Restaurant last night to cheer on Baker and his running mate Karyn Polito. (Polito is of Sicilian ancestry and has campaigned intensely in the Italian-ancestry neighborhoods pof Boston and nearby. More on this topic later.)

Baker’s Boston campaign takes shape in his donor filings. Here’s a breakdown, by zip code, of the number and amounts of his donors this past month :

02108 (Beacon Hill) : one —- 250.00
02109 (Financial District) 4 —– 1,490
02110 (Waterfront) 12 ——- 2,500
02111 (Leather District) 2 —- 250.00
02210 (Seaport District) 3 —- 750.00
02113 and 02114 (North & West Ends) 3 —- 185.00
02115 (Kenmore Square) 0 —— 0
02116 (Back Bay & South Ehd) 7 —– 2,600
02118 (South End) 6 —— 1,850
02119 (Roxbury) 4 ——- 1,250
02120 (Mission Hll) 0 —— 0
02121 (Blue HIll Avenue) 1 ——- 100.00
02122 (Central. Dorchester) 5 —– 2,000
02124 (Southern Dorchester) 11 —- 1,050
02125 (Savin Hill, Uphams Corner & Jones Hill) 6 —– 1,200
02126 (Mattapan) 0 —— 0
02127 (South Boston) 15 —– 3,475
02128 (East Boston) 3 —– 400.00
02129 (Charlestown) 6 —– 950.00
02130 (Jamaica Plain) 6 —– 850.00
02131 (Roslindale) 7 — 600.00
02132 (West Roxbury ) 9 —– 1,310
02134 (Allston) one —- 500.00
02135 (Brighton) 2 —- 125.00
02136 (Hyde Park) 7 —– 1,120
02150 (Chelsea) 6 —– 1,750

Total ; 29,965.00

Surprising here is the lack of big oney from Beacon Hill and the large donation list from Dorchester. Posibly baker raised his beacon Hill money early on. As for the Dorchester sums, much o it comes from the Viet namese community ( nine individual donations); but a big chunk of it cpomes from a Union leader (Patrick walsh of the laborers) and 1,000 of it from Feeney Brothers contracting. This 1,500 sure has the look of Marty Walsh supporter money.

Nonetheless, there is much work for baker to do in Boston. Of the $ 308,657.01 that he reported raising in the one-month period that I have detailed, only about 9.5 percent of it came from Boston and Chelsea. As I see it, he needs to raise at least fifteen percnt of his money from Boston — probably more than that — if he’s to command a winning vote on November 5th. Boston is the ciommercial and political capital of our state. How can a candidate win if he can’t command a larger than average portion of the Hub’s campiagn donations ? Note also that I found only one significant Boston political name — Roxbury contractor Arthur Hurley — among Baker’s last month’s in-City contributors.

Last night’s Ecco fiundraiser surely will help. It also hslps that Karyn Polito, his running mate, has raised her own big bucks ; Baker announced at Ecco that her total donations have topped one million bucks. Baker will n eed every penny of it.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

UPDATE : As I prepated to post this column, word of the Boston Globe’s new poll lcame to me. It shows Baker now actually leadiong Martha Coakley, 38 to 37 as well as extending his lead over Steve Grossman : 37 to 33. I will analyze the poll rersults in my next cvolumn.

NOTE : Baker’s concentration on italian-name areas of boston and adjoining cities — in cludeing many on the North Shore — isn’t merely “hometown-ism.” Baker made bhis political name servong thed late Paul Cellucci ‘s governor administratyion. dellucci, who died two years ago of ALDS, was a beloved figure among italian-name voters, and baker’s connedctoon to him is well remembered and respected by Ce;llicci followers. All campaign long, thkis connection has boosted baker’s vote; it waas the driving f9rce of last night’s meet at Ecco. How could it not be there is no italin namd candidate on the Democratic side — none for any statewide office at all — and Massachusetts’s Italian-name voters have always shown the,selves well aware of, and ready to act upon, their political heritage.

^ a race that activists and politcal insiders care about moves to the top in a year when non-activist, non-insider voters don’t seem to care at all : Suffolk Register of Probate candidates (top) Marty Keogh and (bottom) Felix D. Arroyo

—- — —

 

Everybody I talk to tells me that hardly anyone out there cares about this year’s Massachusetts election. I see it too. At candidate Forums there’s more strawberries in the food bowls on offer than people in the audience.

Even Governor Forums come up short. The largest that i have attended — and i’ve covered two dozen at least — were State Representative Jay Kaufman’s Forum in Lexington, way back in January, and the SEIU 1199 Forum at its South Boston hedquarters in May. Those Forums drew several hundred people — activists all, however, hardly an “ordinary voter” in the rooms. As for the other Forums, 100 people in the hall might be too generous an estimate.

It’s no better in the spirited Attorney General race. Maura Healey draws forty to sixty peo;ple to her meet and greets; Warren Tolman works the room at many candidates’ events, shaking maybe eighty hands if he’s lucky. Tolman last night was the star of a meet and greet at Boston City Councillor Tim McCarthy’s house; my source (I was elsewhere, at a Charlie Baker event) says that the house was packed full. That sounds like the sme number — sixty — that seems a ceiling in this i,mpportant contest.

A few state legislature races seem to have aroused the attention of so,me average voters. Both Susannah Whipps Lee, running in the 2n d Franklin District, and Mike Valanzola, seeking election to the Worcester-Hampshire-Hampden-Middlsex state senate seat left open by Stephen Brewer’s retirement, draw more than 100 people to their events. The 12th Essex state representative race between Democrats Jim Moutsoulas and Beverly Griffin Dunne and GOP incumbent Leah Cole, attarcts decent crowds to this or that. I also see a fair burst of acvtivity in Lynn, where Charlie Gallo, Brendan Crighton, nmd Katerina Panagiotakis Koudanis ares clashing to represent the 11th Essex District. Once in a wbhile I even ee some activity in Winchester and Stoneham, where caroline Colarusso (R) and Mike Bettencourt (D) seek to succeed Democrat jason Lewis, newly elected tio theState Senate.

One race that has definitely aroused a few non-political citizens is the the expensive contest in the 6th Congressional disttrict, between John Tierney, Rich Tisei, Seth Moulton, and two less knowns, has aroused many voters to do something about it. But the 6th Congress race involves national issues, n ot massachusetts local matters. You’d expect, you’d even hope, that voters would care a lot about who voice their concerns in the Congress

It does not seem, however, that many ordinary voters care at all who their new governor, attorney general, treasurer, or secretary of state will be; nor do many of the state legiuslative contests look alarmingly stormy. Tempests in teapots seems more like it other than the few cases I have excepted.

Indeed, the one local Boston race that is drawing substantial interest — that for Register of Probate — illusttrates this year’s political dynamic with high irony. two of the five candidates in it, Felix D. Arroyo and Marty Keogh, draw substatial numners of people to thrir events; Arroyo has Mayor Walsh’s support, and Keogh has that of many attorneys who practice law in specialties for which disputes get heard in Probate Coiurt.

I attended a Keogh event three nights ago that welcomed at least 120 people, filling an entire restaurant. Back in May, a similar Arroyo event accomplished the same.

It says much about this year’s election that a race for an ofice hardly any ordinary voter knows anything about outguns contests for legsialtive and statewide offices that matter a lot. Or that should matter.

Activists and the “political community’ care a lot, however, about offices like Register of Probate. This year, as always, the activists are active, the politicals are politicking. In a year when almost no ordinary voters are doing anything except texting summer boat excursions, boasting beach bikinis, and facebooking their kids’ summer camp photos, the activists and political.s dominate. Which is how they like it.

Will things go this way even as November’s election day rolls around ? Some smart alecks are predicting thaty only half the state’s voters will vote in November. That woiuld be an historic low, an embarrassment for a state in which tiurnouts of 70 pervent and more have been the norm.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

^ Devil Number One : the mad “Khalifa” al-Baghdadi

^ Devil Number Two : Bashir Assad, who was once merely an optometrist

—- —- —-

The video of journalist James Foley’s slaughter was a dare. Of course it was. The men of ISIS presumably are not stupid. They knew that posting the killing of Foley would anger many of us and stiffen our President’s resolve.

It was not a question of scaring us off. We were already in. Our air power had saved the Kurds, rescued the Yazidis, and helped Kurdish and Iraq soldiers retake the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s biggest.

So, no : the video was not shown to keep us out. It was shown to draw us further in. The question is, why ? And what will be the consequences if we do go further in ?

I’m pretty sure that these questions have been discussed by the President and his advisors probably from the very minute the horrifying video first was seen. I also think that the decision has already been made : we are going further kin. we are going to come after ISIS in Raqqa province in northeast Syria, their lair, their safe haven, where reportedly their armaments are arsenaled and where almost certainly their commandants meet.

And if indeed the decision has already been made, I am hoping that it was made while to the world we are broadcasting only that we’re thinking about it. Otherwise, ISIS will do a sidestep.

But the question remains : why did ISIS want to draw us in ? You would think that, their offensive toward Kurdistan’s capital city, Erbil, having been broken, and the Mosul Dam taken, with many Sunni tribes on the point of rebellilon, ISIS would be retreating, not blustering.

That isn’t the way ISIS can do things. The “Khaliphate,” as it calls itself, has lived by bluster and by scaring people. It cannot retreat. it cannot look vulnerable. What stronger way to prove that the crocodile’s jaws still snap than to snap at the Great csatan itslef, America ?

TYhios wa tonic indeed to the suddenly wounded cadres of ISIS. Challenge the Big One, America, do come get us, the video said to its real naudience — its own fighters. Every fighter in ISIS wants, ultimately, to hurt America. Killing unarmed Christians and Yazidis is, sort of, the easy pie. Not much glory in it, indeed, frustration that all that blood and curdle lone hears from ISIS tweets gets wasted on bystanders and petty obstacles. And what ISIS zealot wants to be hit hard by Kuddish troops for the sake only of kidnapping villagers and raping apoststates ? Surely, ISIS fighters must be thinking, we didn’t join jihad, risking death, for actions so sideways.

Thus the timing of the video : it was not done when ISIS looked invincible, its fighters unstoppable. it was posted when they had been quite firmly stopped.

That was its meaning and its purpose. It was aimed fiorst at its own fighters, then at us.

And so we are faced with going hard after a wounded beast, going into its laur. And that would be easy, except that the politics of it are not easy at all. Because ISIS is the strongest of the rebel forces which have been battling Bashir Assad’s nearly as brutal regime for three years now. America has stayed out of the Syrian civil war for very good reason : there really are no good guys in it and no telling which of its many militias will prevail.

Going after ISIS in Raqqa province means helping Basir Assad a lot. It won;t be our policy — it can’t be — and yet killing ISIS will definitely have that consequence. Killing ISIS almost guarantees that Assad will win his civil war, because none of the other rebel groups has anything like the fighting power that ISIS has had.

And this — what does it portend that our going after ISIS helps Assad — is, likely, the actual topic of those discussions the President and his advisors are having.

What DOES it portend ? first, it means that Assad will have to join the fight all-in. So far he has avoided a finish fight with ISIS, preferring to pick off the smaller, less powerful rebel arnies. Today it is reported that his air force is attacking ISIS-held positions in raqqa with new fiuror. Obviously he gets the message.

Second, helping Assad means bringing the major Sunni powers, Saudi Arabia and Egypt aboard and also Jordan and Qatar, because a prevalent Assad is a victory for Iran, his major ally.

All this is being discussed, and the discussions reportedly already include the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Qataris and King Abdullah of Jordan.

The decision to seek a finish fight with ISIS in Syria is thus a huge one, reshuffling almost all of the arrangements made throughout the Middle East these past five years. assuring Assad’s triumph — which will almost certainly be the result of defeating ISIS — means accepting the survival of man who, until ISIs arose, had become a byword for brutal cruelty ” torturing, raping, killing multiple thousands of his own citizens. This is a hard pill to swallow.

We have swallowed such a pill beore. In World War II, we allied with the eually brutal Stalin and his Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany. In war, you have to make choices distasteful because you have to do it.

The consequences will be enormous for probably decades to come. For the Middle East, this battle looks as epic as World War II was for Europe. Once again, America is in it, up to our pates. i do think the decision has already been made. I hate to sanction anything that helps Bashir Assad; but right now I don’t see that the Middle East has any choice, nor do we.

—- Mike freedberg / Here and Sphere

^ Devil Number One : the mad “Khalifa” al-Baghdadi

^ Devil Number Two : Bashir Assad, who was once merely an optometrist

—- —- —-

The video of journalist James Foley’s slaughter was a dare. Of course it was. The men of ISIS presumably are not stupid. They knew that posting the killing of Foley would anger many of us and stiffen our President’s resolve.

It was not a question of scaring us off. We were already in. Our air power had saved the Kurds, rescued the Yazidis, and helped Kurdish and Iraq soldiers retake the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s biggest.

So, no : the video was not shown to keep us out. It was shown to draw us further in. The question is, why ? And what will be the consequences if we do go further in ?

I’m pretty sure that these questions have been discussed by the President and his advisors probably from the very minute the horrifying video first was seen. I also think that the decision has already been made : we are going further kin. we are going to come after ISIS in Raqqa province in northeast Syria, their lair, their safe haven, where reportedly their armaments are arsenaled and where almost certainly their commandants meet.

And if indeed the decision has already been made, I am hoping that it was made while to the world we are broadcasting only that we’re thinking about it. Otherwise, ISIS will do a sidestep.

But the question remains : why did ISIS want to draw us in ? You would think that, their offensive toward Kurdistan’s capital city, Erbil, having been broken, and the Mosul Dam taken, with many Sunni tribes on the point of rebellilon, ISIS would be retreating, not blustering.

That isn’t the way ISIS can do things. The “Khaliphate,” as it calls itself, has lived by bluster and by scaring people. It cannot retreat. it cannot look vulnerable. What stronger way to prove that the crocodile’s jaws still snap than to snap at the Great csatan itslef, America ?

TYhios wa tonic indeed to the suddenly wounded cadres of ISIS. Challenge the Big One, America, do come get us, the video said to its real naudience — its own fighters. Every fighter in ISIS wants, ultimately, to hurt America. Killing unarmed Christians and Yazidis is, sort of, the easy pie. Not much glory in it, indeed, frustration that all that blood and curdle lone hears from ISIS tweets gets wasted on bystanders and petty obstacles. And what ISIS zealot wants to be hit hard by Kuddish troops for the sake only of kidnapping villagers and raping apoststates ? Surely, ISIS fighters must be thinking, we didn’t join jihad, risking death, for actions so sideways.

Thus the timing of the video : it was not done when ISIS looked invincible, its fighters unstoppable. it was posted when they had been quite firmly stopped.

That was its meaning and its purpose. It was aimed fiorst at its own fighters, then at us.

And so we are faced with going hard after a wounded beast, going into its laur. And that would be easy, except that the politics of it are not easy at all. Because ISIS is the strongest of the rebel forces which have been battling Bashir Assad’s nearly as brutal regime for three years now. America has stayed out of the Syrian civil war for very good reason : there really are no good guys in it and no telling which of its many militias will prevail.

Going after ISIS in Raqqa province means helping Basir Assad a lot. It won;t be our policy — it can’t be — and yet killing ISIS will definitely have that consequence. Killing ISIS almost guarantees that Assad will win his civil war, because none of the other rebel groups has anything like the fighting power that ISIS has had.

And this — what does it portend that our going after ISIS helps Assad — is, likely, the actual topic of those discussions the President and his advisors are having.

What DOES it portend ? first, it means that Assad will have to join the fight all-in. So far he has avoided a finish fight with ISIS, preferring to pick off the smaller, less powerful rebel arnies. Today it is reported that his air force is attacking ISIS-held positions in raqqa with new fiuror. Obviously he gets the message.

Second, helping Assad means bringing the major Sunni powers, Saudi Arabia and Egypt aboard and also Jordan and Qatar, because a prevalent Assad is a victory for Iran, his major ally.

All this is being discussed, and the discussions reportedly already include the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Qataris and King Abdullah of Jordan.

The decision to seek a finish fight with ISIS in Syria is thus a huge one, reshuffling almost all of the arrangements made throughout the Middle East these past five years. assuring Assad’s triumph — which will almost certainly be the result of defeating ISIS — means accepting the survival of man who, until ISIs arose, had become a byword for brutal cruelty ” torturing, raping, killing multiple thousands of his own citizens. This is a hard pill to swallow.

We have swallowed such a pill beore. In World War II, we allied with the eually brutal Stalin and his Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany. In war, you have to make choices distasteful because you have to do it.

The consequences will be enormous for probably decades to come. For the Middle East, this battle looks as epic as World War II was for Europe. Once again, America is in it, up to our pates. i do think the decision has already been made. I hate to sanction anything that helps Bashir Assad; but right now I don’t see that the Middle East has any choice, nor do we.

—- Mike freedberg / Here and Sphere

^ dominating Dimock : former Governor Mike Dukakis

—- —- —-

Having former Governor Mike Dukakis moderate its Governor Forum was probably not the Dimock Street Health Center’s wisest decision. The obvious affection displayed by most of the Forum’s attendees toward Dukakis did little to enhance the seven actual candidates on its stage.

Nor did Dukakis’s own performance save the day. Gracious as was the now grey-haired elder to his admirers — chatting with them from the podium — his banter took up much of the Forum’s time and dissipated its seriousness. During the Forum questions themselves, the “Duke” frequently interrupted candidates’ answers; when not interrupting, he often complained that his questions weren’t being answered. He even injected an agenda of his own : the “Duke” made clear that he is very, very much not a friend of big health care institutions and what he called “:the system.”

From all this, one who did not know better might easily have concluded that Dukakis was the candidate, the actual candidates more or less his focus group.

Clearly seven would-be governors cannot match Dukakis’s two terms as actual governor, not to mention a stint as Democratic nominee for President — a 1988 campaign that he mentioned in his opening remarks, further downgrading the impact of Don Berwick, Martha Coakley, and Steve Grossman, not to mention Republican underdog Mark Fisher and all three of the non-party candidates whose names will be on the November ballot.

^ questions were taken from attendees too

Still, the event was a candidate Forum, and many questions were asked of the seven. So how did they do ?

Independent candidate Scott Lively won some sympathy by citing, at the outset, his successful rise from drug addiction but utterly lost that sympathy by calling Obamacare “socialized medicine.” the audience booed him loudly. Lively extolled the success of the non-profit health organization he belongs to but had no answer for what he would do if he incurred a $ 90,000 two week stay at MGH, nor did he express the slightest awareness that being Governor is not about being Scott Lively but about serving six million people of vastly varying economic and social situation.

Another non-party candidate, Evan falchuk, asked several rhetorical questions along the lines of ‘why can’t we do better” on may health care related topics but offered few policy points that might actually get the state to “better.” He seemed to agree with Don Berwick’s single payer initiative, and he probably supports greater funding for community health ceters like Dimock; but his support came in the shape of a suggestion, not a commitment.

The third non-party candidate, Jeff McCormack, emphasized that health care in Massachusetts needs co-ordination between patient, provider, and doctor, a co-ordination which, so he said, the state doesn’t have and which lack costs us hundreds of millions of dollars in misspent money and duplication of effort. The point may well be true; but mcCormack did not suggest administrative steps that would create that co-ordination.

Mark Fisher touts his Tea party affiliation, leading one to expect anger; but on the Dimock stage he was genial and gentle, often humorous, a soft-spoken man who did his best to find some good in our state’s universal health care. Fisher even expressed a liking for parts of Obamacare — it took Steve Grossman, of all people, to say that we should have gotten a waiver : to which remark fisher responded, :there’s a place for you in my administration.” Nonetheless, Fisher insisted that competition is the key to reducing the costs of Massachusetts health care.

two very different men : Mark Fisher and Steve Grossman

All of these men sounded more like private citizens than like candidates. None, even McCormack, seemed to step outside their own personal life experience and to grasp that Governor is an office responsible to millions of people and dozens of policy initiatives. None mentioned legislation or the legislature. It was thus left to the three Democrats on stage (Charlie Baker did not attend) to do so. To a varying degree, they did that.

two equally different : Don Berwick and Martha Coakley

Don Berwick had the easiest task. He is a doctor himself with a life career in medicine and its administration, and at health care Forums his mastery of the field is evident in every phrase, sentence, paragraph. As health care consumes 42 percent of massachusetts;s entire state budget, Berwick’s concentration on it is not narrow : it’s almost the whole thing, and at the Dimock Forum he delivered several pieces of a whole ; single payer system to reduce costs and simplify delivery of health care; payment processing reform by digitizing the entire process; and investment of the millions of dollars saved into community hlth organizations like Dimock itself. He was cheered loudly and often, and no candidate was eager to controvert him.

Steve Grossman usually expresses amazing mastery of every issue, but he could not match Berwick’s knowledge of health care, and it showed. grossman’s answers were less precise than hi s usual and less knowing than Berwick’s. He also often sounded like Mitt Romney : talking about small businesses being “job creators’; and promising to cut their health care costs. On two points he scored bigger than Berwick : first, he suggested freezing construction of prisons and using the money saved for community health organizations; and second, he proposed that for all medical school graduates, the state would wipe out their student debt if they would commit to serving five years in primary care medicine. Grossman was cheered loudly both times.

Martha Coakley almost always sounds flexibly resasonable without being palpably precise, but Steve grossman attcaked her support, as our state’s attorney geberal, for the Partne4rs Health care merger (and Dukakis piled on, expressing his distaste for a system already too big ber omg even bigger). Grossman’s attack left Coakley no choice but to fight back, and she did so, outlining in lawyerly fashion the bses for her advocacy of the partne4rs metger : the largest reason being its potential cost savings. Though Coakley garnered far lesss applause from the Dimock audiece than eityher of her Democratic competitors, her rebiuttal was greeted well enough.

Grossman makes a big mistake attcking Coakley on matters lrgal, all of which she knows authoritatively as attorney general. Charlie Baker should pay close attention and resolve to avoid Grossman’s recklessness. That day is coming. the democratic primary takes place in 19 days.

—- Mike freedberg / Here and Sphere

from west of Pittsfield into Franklin County, then into the full northern length of Middlesex County : map of the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline route through 27 Massachusetts communities.

—- —- —-

27 towns along Massachusetts’s northern border have been asked to host a new natural gas transmission pipeline proposed by Kinder Morgan partners, one of America’s biggest gas pipeline companies. Opinion is divided, passionate on the “no” side, less so on the “yes’ side.

My own view is that the proposed pipeline brings many benefits that may not, however, outweigh the downsides of building it. Not yet, anyway.

Opponents cite the environmental damage that could result from gas leaks and from the pipeline’s transporting of “fracked” gas. Opponents also point out that there is already a substantial amount of natural gas lost in existing pipeline leaks. It’s a good point, one raised by some of this year’s candidates for Governor and detailed in a Boston Globe headline story a few ,months ago.

So what is “fracked” about ? Answer : “Fracking” is a recently developed process by which gas is extracted from shale deposits. A website, what-is-fracking.com, has this to say about the process :

“Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth. Fracking makes it possible to produce natural gas extraction in shale plays that were once unreachable with conventional technologies. Recent advancements in drilling technology have led to new man-made hydraulic fractures in shale plays that were once not available for exploration. In fact, three dimensional imaging helps scientists determine the precise locations for drilling.

“Horizontal drilling (along with traditional vertical drilling) allows for the injection of highly pressurized fracking fluids into the shale area. This creates new channels within the rock from which natural gas is extracted at higher than traditional rates. This drilling process can take up to a month, while the drilling teams delve more than a mile into the Earth’s surface. After which, the well is cased with cement to ensure groundwater protection, and the shale is hydraulically fractured with water and other fracking fluids.”

Opposition to the use of “fracking” arouses those who consider earth;s natural environment fragile and damage to it irreparable or remedied only at great cost and over much time. These concerns probably have sound bases even if overstated. Yet our society needs natural gas energy — clean and much less costly than oil.

Setting aside the “fracking” opposition, there remain several objections to the proposed pipeline, which will transit the communities shown in the ,map posted at the top of this editorial. You should refer to it as you read further.

Firstly, Kinder Morgan at its website has this to say about its pipeline proposal :

http://www.kindermorgan.com/business/gas_pipelines/east/neenergydirect/

The firm goes on to say that the proposed pipeline will decrease gas prices by making the supply of gas much larger even as demand for natural gas increases substantially.

I strongly support wise moves to help people, businesses, and cities switch their energy needs from oil or coal to natural gas. Deciding whether or not to give my okay to the proposed pipeline depends, however, on answers to the following questions ;

1.There already is a Kinder Morgan gas pipeline spanning the southern tier of our state — it’s right there on the map that I posted above, paralleling, more or less, Highway 20. Why cannot this already existing pipeline be expanded ?

2.Shouldn’t building anew pipeline wait until Kinder Morgan, other pipeline firms, and cities have repaired most of the many gas leaks already in the system ? Much gas is being lost, gas that is already being pipelined to us.

3.How can kinder Morgan secure easements from all the landowners whose properties its pipeline will traverse without the total price of these easements overwhelming potential price savings ?

4.Why has not even one of the 27 communities to be traversed by the pipeline supported it ? Surely public support for such a huge and intrusive project needs be there if the project is to succeed.

I am not saying that public support needs be overwhelming. I fully understand that today most people don’t want change; they like things as they are because they are used to what is and do not trust that which might become. Once upon a time, people did trust the might-become world. today a great many Americans no longer have that faith.

Kinder Morgan needs to address these questions. It needs to win public confidence ,most of all. Given that, the other questions become easier to resolve. I look forward to seeing Kinder Morgan people take the time, even years of time, to gain that trust. By doing so they will be importing more good stuff into Massachusetts than just natural gas. Trust is the basis of everything progressive.

Note : the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline is NOT the “northern Pass” pipeline that has drawn even more opposition. That pipeline brings Quebec Hydro-electric power into New Hampshire and through the full length of New Hampshire’s spine. Northern Pass has its own set of problems, some very different from those presented by the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Many of these are spelled out in articles at New England business Journal provided to me by activist Joel Woo.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

distributing food aid to refugee Yazidis : activists in Erbil, capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region

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Some Kurds whose tweets and posts I have read on;ine since the huge battle against ISIS began want independence for their homeland. It is easy to feel solidarity with that demand. By their courage and resolve, and by the inclusivenss they show to all peoples who now live in the Kurdish regions, the men and women of Kurdish iraq and Syria have earned the world’s respect, support, and friendship. Indpendence seems the least that we can now encourage.

It would be a huge mistake. Not morally, but politically. My view is that the Kurdish regions of iraq and Syria gain immeasurably by being part of these larger nations. Here’s why :

1.the Kurdish lands do not confine to Iraq and Syria. By far the largest part of them lies within Turkey, which has already shown its utter refusal to grant the Kurds of Turkey any measure of autonomy. An independent Iraqi-Syrian kurdistan would become an irresistible attraction to the Kurds of Turkey, one that Turkey would almost certainly oppose with force.

2.Some Kurds also live in Iran. The Iranian authorities are allowing their Kurds to go to Iraq and fight ISIS, and for very good reason, as ISIS threatens Iranian influence in iraq itself. In no way, however, should Kurds imagine that iran would feel riendly toward an indepencent Kurdistan almost certain to draw to itself the parts of Iran in which Kurds dominate.

3.By itself, the Kurdish homeland sits encircled by major nations and powerful. It has no outlet to any sea; its oil pipelines pass through the powers that surround it. Kurdish trade depends utterly on the friendship of at least some of its powerful neighbors : the United states, Britain, and Europe can communicate directly with the Kurdish lands by air, but all air routes to Kurdistan overfly its powerful neighbors. They need not allow these overflights.

Instead of seeking the probably unattainable and the likely impermissible, Kurdish patriots should realize that right now, with the situation as it is, kurdistan has all the moral authority it need, all the powerful friends it could ever draw, and all the support from its neighbors that it can ever arrogate. Moreover, every responsible nation wants a united Iraq to succeed. A free and propserous, stronly defended Kurdish region is the bedrock upon which a united Iraq must be built.

Iraqis know this too; thus the Kurdish part of Iraq has the support of every Iraqi political leader who wants Iraq to succeed.

The Kurdish lands of Syria face a situation somewhat different. It’s not yet clear what kind of a Syria will emrerge from the pres ent civil war; and in nay case, the Kurds of Syria are a small population living at the far eastern edge of that nation. The Kurdish lands of Syria can join with the Kurdish region of Iraq — in some sort of loose trading union, maybe — withoiut gravely upsetting anyone’s power politics. Significant, too, in gthis regard is that the lands between kurdiush iraq and the Kurds of Syria are home to that region;s most endangered minoerities : Yazidis, Turkmen, Chaldean Christians. A loose but workable union between these two Kurdish areas would surely give some absolutely needed protection to those minority peoples.

The battle against ISIS continues. Almost certainly the days of ISIS in Iraq’s north are numbered. While ISIs lasts, the Kurds will be ascendant with vital allies. the difficulty will come when ISIS is defeated and no longer a threat to Kurdish lands. Then wise politcal heads will have to convince Kurdish patriots that being a vital part of ther larger picture is the strongest and smartest Kurdish policy.

—- Mike Freedberrg / Here and Sphere

needs them and many more like them : Charlie Baker meets with leaders of Local 26 Hospitality Workers 

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The Boston Globe’s ongoing poll of the Massachusetts Governor race reports now that 44 percent of Democratic candidate Steve Grossman’;s voters prefer Charlie Baker if Grossman does not win the Democratic nomination. And that only 32 percent of Grossman voters prefer Coakley if she is the Democratic winner.

Grossman currently polls at about 21 percent of Democratic voters. 44 percent of that equals about 9.6 percent. Charlie Baker needs a lot more support than that from registered Democrats,. Let’s look at the numbers to see why ;

In Massachusetts, 52 percent of voters have no party affiliation. 12 percent are Republican. 36 percent are Democrats.

assuming that Baker wins almost all the 12 percent who are republican, and adding the 62 percent of “no party’ voters who the poll says support him, Baker can tally 44 percent of the vote. To win, he must add 7 of the 36 percent who are Democrats. That’s 20 percent of Democrats. The 9.5 percent who say they prefer Baker fall far short.

Adding 9.5 of the 36 percent who identify as Democrats gives Baker a total of 47 percent. Not nearly good enough. That’s a six point loss, almost as bad as Scott brown’s eight point loss to Elizabeth Warren in 2012.

So, the question arises : where can Baker find the additional ten percent of Democrats without whom he cannot win ?

Don Berwick currently draws ten percent of the Democratic primary vote. Can Baker win any Berwick voters, much less all of them ? Berwick voters are very progressive minded, almost as ideologically passionate as Tea Party ideologues albeit in the opposite direction. I doubt that Baker can win more than two in ten of Berwick voters. Adding two of ten Berwick voters gets Baker to 47.8 percent. (I am talking just the two candidate vote. Independent Jeff McCormack draws votes too.) 47.8 percent is still a 3.5 percent loss — about 70,000 votes in all.

The remaining votes that baker needs if he is to win can therefore only come from martha Coakley. It’s sort of a law of politics that one candidate can take a maximum of about ten percent away from the other candidate, if all goes superbly in his campaign. But the other candidate can do the same. If Baker can get to 52.2 percent if all goes superbly, so can Coakley get to 56.9 percent if her campaign runs superbly.

One can count on Baker this time to run an excellent campaign. So far he’s done just that. Bold, urban, even progressive, and definitely in the Massachusetts reformer mode that our state has proven it likes a lot. But Coakley has ramped up her own once unready campaign skills too. She won’t be rolled over.

Nonetheless, the campaign that I have been covering pretty intensely now since January shows Coakley continues a vaguer presentation, a glib persona, and — Baker’s trump card, maybe — an insider’s view of the political world. Being a Beacon hill insider isn’t exactly high on most voters’ wish list these days. But how many of Coakley’s current supporters can be moved away by that sort of argument ?

The answer to that question will likely decide this election.

—- Mikr Freedberg / Here and Sphere

Huff Post headlines often overstate. Not this time though.

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All America has been shocked by the Baghdad-like scenes of police riot in the Missouri town of Ferguson. The shock is fully justified. Arrest and assault upon journalists, destruction of news crews; equipment. Military weaponry aimned at protesting citizens. Tear gas for everyone, Rubber bullets for clergy people. Elected officials pushed aside. Arrest of elected officials.

This was the Ferguson response to citizens protesting — often angrily, and why not ?– the shooting of an unarmed young Black man, Michael Brown, by a policeman whom the town refuses to identify. (breaking : the shooter has now been identified as one Darren Wilson.)

It is all so familiar to those of us who’ve lived long. I well recall the most shocking police riot of all, in Birmingham, Alabama 1963, as officers controlled by the infamous Sheriff Bull Connor, turned high power water hoses upon protesting Black citizens. The images of that criminal act — bodies slammed up against walls by the power of water — can never leave me.

I had thought — probably all of us had thought — that the days of Bull Connor’s America were long gone, ended forever by the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965.

i was wrong. We all were wrong.

Fact is, in miuch of America it’;s still a crime to be Black. From Trayvon martin, gunned down by a slef-appointed vigilante because we wa Black, to Jonathan Ferrell murdered by a policeman while seeking help after an auto accident, to Rachel Bledsoe, killed by a white homeowner whose door she knocked on in search of help, to the Pace University student shot by a Westchester County police,man a few years ago, being Black often means having to accept the possibility of being murdered, for no reason or any reason, by whoever has a gun, police officer or not.

These acts, vipolations of Titke 38 (Civil Rights Acts) all, are bad enough. Ferguson waas worse. There, an entire police department, acting on behalf of a city government — reportedly all of it Caucasian — took upon itself to treat the town’s 69 % Black citizenry as an enemy. But they forgot one thing : we live in an age of instant youtube and social media.

The whole nation saw it.

Governor Jay Nixon of Missoiuri took action — finally — by replacing the Ferguson police with state highway patrolmen and police from Black-majority St. louis. and President Obama called the Ferguson police out even as he ordered the Department of Justice to commence a full investigation of the shooting of unarmed Michael Brown. Thereby the town of Ferguson has returned to something like normal.

But we in America cannot return to full normality. Because we know, or must know, and must face, that in much of America, and for many police depoartments, it is a crime to be Black. This is true even in supposedly progressive New York City. Under the previous Mayor, city police harassed Black men especially, arrested them, and denied them basic rights after arrest. Reports in recent New York Times articles detail an institutional reign of terror inside the City’s notorious Rikers island prison.

Much attention is now focusing on what critics call “the militarization of police forces,’ as local police receive military-grade weapons disposed of by the Pentagon as authorized under 1997 Federal legislation. A Democratic congressman, Hank Johnson of Georgia, is now calling for repeal of that authorization. His legislatoon deserves a full hearing. Though soem police forces may well need military-grade weapons in order yo deal with drug gangs, their use should be very strictly limited and those limits strictly enforced.

That would help, but it will not solve the basic problem : to many police — and to those who enable them — it is a crime to be Black, and anyone who is Black — young Black men especially — need walk in fear everywhere they go.

This culture must be stopped. I call upon the Justice department to iuse its Title 38 enforcement powers to the fullest, to prosecute police officers who violate the civil rights of Black citizens and to make it clear to everyone that future violations will not be tolerated.

It is not — I repreat, NOT — a crime to be a citizen of any national origin, of any skin color, of any lifestyle. It is NOt a crime, it is one’s inalienable right to be that kind of citizen.

What happened in Ferguson, Missouri, must never happen in America again.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere