Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 22, 2011

12

LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 22, 2011

GREG Welborn

HOWARD Hays As I See It

OCCUPY WALL STREET AND 
THE TEA PARTY


“There’s something 
happening here

What it is ain’t exactly 
clear” 

Buffalo Springfield - 
1967 

“They’re complaining 
that Wall Street wrecked 
the economy three years 
ago and nobody’s held 
responsible for that. Not 
a single person’s been 
indicted or convicted for destroying twenty 
percent of our national net worth accumulated 
over two centuries. They’re upset about the 
fact that Wall Street has iron control over the 
economic policies of this country, and that one 
party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street, 
and the other party caters to them as well . . . 

“ . . . people who think that we should not 
have 24 million people in this country who can’t 
find a full time job, that we should not have 50 
million people in this country who can’t see a 
doctor when they’re sick, that we shouldn’t have 
47 million people in this country who need 
government help to feed themselves, and we 
shouldn’t have 15 million families who owe more 
on their mortgage than the value of their home 
. . . “

 Former Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) - 2011

“Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number -

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you -

Ye are many - they are few.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1819

Having already been dinged with significant 
airline cancellation fees, I decided to attend 
to some date-uncertain business in Seattle by 
driving up the coast.

I tuned in to local talk-radio along the way, so 
from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz, San Francisco 
to Medford, Portland to Seattle, I heard local 
versions of that “something happening here”. 
The coverage extended to some 600 “Occupy 
Wall Street” protests throughout the country, 
and some 900 throughout the world - London 
and Barcelona, Athens and Tokyo. There were 
the tens of thousands in Times Square, and that 
solitary woman with her two dogs in Alaska 
holding the sign, “Occupy the Tundra”.

Observers of a half-century of protests 
commented on having crossed a “barrier”; with 
participants remaining, and growing past a two-
week news cycle: this one was not going away. 
They spoke of pundits on Sunday talk-shows 
who didn’t “get it”; who, without some celebrity 
spokesperson or party bigwig to focus on, were 
reduced to baseless speculation and Heritage 
Foundation talking points.

My sister and I encountered participants in 
downtown Seattle. I couldn’t help reverting to 
my identity of forty years ago, so raised my fist 
and declared, “Right on!” I then became the 
old guy offering unsolicited recollections of my 
youth, and explained how our anti-Vietnam War 
protests transformed once we rejected the “hard-
hats vs. hippies” narrative and began carrying 
the American flag, arguing our country’s actions 
violated the sacred principles upon which our 
nation was founded.

One of the ladies we spoke with offered in 
rebuttal that such displays of “nationalism” 
wouldn’t be appropriate, since this is truly an 
international phenomena. I understood her 
point; those supporting further concentration 
of wealth in the oligarchy no longer bother with 
evocations of “patriotism” or “American values”. 
Inconvenient notions such as love of country 
and reverence towards the aspirations of our 
founders have vanished from the discourse.

Accusations of “class warfare” are incompatible 
with the concept of “We the People”.

A decade ago, people asked why our invasion 
of Iraq didn’t bring out the massive protests of 
the Vietnam era. The premise of the question 
was wrong; tens of thousands did in fact hit the 
streets in Los Angeles, New York, Washington 
D.C. and throughout the land. Like the old 
conundrum about whether a tree falling in the 
forest makes a sound if nobody’s around to 
hear, the corporate media reasoned they could 
pretend events didn’t happen by simply ignoring 
them. 

Fifty years ago, by contrast, news organizations 
felt a responsibility to deliver the news. Recently, 
thousands protesting the destruction of public-
sector unions couldn’t get the coverage of 
a handful of tea-baggers shouting down a 
congressman addressing healthcare reform.

They tried the same hope-it-just-goes-away 
approach with Occupy Wall Street, that is until 
video circulated of women, encircled by orange 
plastic barriers, attacked with pepper spray by 
the NYPD. Then there was the former Marine 
sergeant scolding the cops, “It doesn’t make you 
tough to hurt these people! There is no honor 
in that.” Hundreds in Manhattan became 
hundreds of thousands throughout the world, 
and it could no longer be ignored.

Some have traced origins back to the 
demonstrations in Madison, Wisconsin early this 
year, or to the “Arab Spring”. (Leading Egyptian 
activist Ahmer Ahmed flew to Washington to 
lend support) . Other voices evoked struggles of 
generations past.

At the dedication ceremony for the monument 
to her father, Rev. Bernice King reflected, “I hear 
my father saying what we are seeing now all 
across the streets of America and the world is a 
freedom explosion.”

Former Polish President Lech Walesa, whose 
Solidarity movement challenged the Soviet 
empire, observed, “The thousands of people 
gathered near Wall Street are worried about the 
fate of their future, the fate of their country. This 
is something I understand.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) 
argues we must rely on the wealthy to address 
income disparity. The Bush tax cuts for the upper 
1% have cost over $700 billion (and counting). 
GOP front-runner Herman Cain proposes a “9-
9-9” tax plan that, according to Citizens for Tax 
Justice, would result in an additional $210,000 
tax cut for the upper 1%, and an average $2,000 
tax hike for the bottom 60%. Senate Republicans 
vow to filibuster President Obama’s plan to 
create 2 million new jobs (and cut taxes for small 
businesses). 

The National Journal reports 59% of Americans 
support the Occupy Wall Street movement, with 
68% backing a surtax on millionaires.

 I raised my fist and declared, “Right on!” 
Then I added, “Power to the People!” It was a 
phrase heard often forty years ago, but never has 
it seemed more apt. 

President Obama recently compared the 
Occupy Wall Street crowd with the Tea Party. 
In doing so, he meant to lend some of the Tea 
Parties growing credibility to the unbelievably 
naïve and incoherent Occupy Wall Street Crowd. 
Interestingly enough, both groups do share a 
common legitimate gripe, but that’s all they 
share. Beyond their joint frustration with the 
problems we face, they are as different as right 
and wrong.

The frustration is one we can all share. A 
relatively strong economy crashed, seemingly 
over night, the unemployment rate is at least 
9% (more if you include those who’ve stopped 
looking for work), the great, transformative 
leader doesn’t seem to have a clue about how to 
fix the economy, and massive deficit spending 
appears to have burdened this generation and 
the next. Where the OCWers attribute blame, 
however, is where they part company with the 
Tea Party and where they show their hopeless 
naivety.

The OCWers have put their faith in a very 
false narrative which is meant to deflect blame 
away from those who really brought the system 
down. This fable, which has gained so much 
traction through media repetition, is that greedy 
private financial interests (banks) forced people 
to borrow money they shouldn’t have and then 
crashed the system when repayment became 
problematic. The truth is lies elsewhere.

Beginning in the early 1990s, the federal 
government directed Fannie Mae and Freddie 
Mac to make sure that a certain percentage of 
loans were made to people below the median 
income level in order to help make housing 
“affordable”. At first they required 30%, but 
this was later raised to 50% and then further in 
2007 to 55%. Following on that regulated banks 
were directed to make a certain number of loans 
to people who were below 80% of the median 
income level. By 2008, one half of all mortgages 
were subprime – in other words, weak. The 
government had required that loans be made 
to people who couldn’t be reasonably expected 
to pay them back. The financial institutions 
in the private sector simply complied with this 
requirement.

When the bubble burst in mid-2008, the 
government played favorites by saving one 
institution and not another, and passed rules 
which severely handicapped the remaining 
banks’ capital base. Banks reacted as naturally 
to this as you and I would, by hoarding cash to 
make sure their balance sheets would be “strong 
enough”. As a result, lending between banks 
and to otherwise credit-worthy corporations and 
individuals dried up. Without credit, companies 
started scaling back. Unemployment rose, and 
tax revenues fell.

The transformative president’s response was to 
begin a campaign of publicly castigating banks, 
Wall Street, and millionaires, and to impose a 
greater burden on them by his repeated calls 
for more taxes and regulation. You and I, and 
most Americans, have reacted just as naturally to 
this as the banks, Wall 
Street and millionaires 
have. We’ve all begun 
to reduce our debt 
loads, store up cash, 
and postpone major 
purchases. To blame 
Wall Street, banks and 
millionaires for the natural response we’ve all 
taken is the height of hypocrisy, but it does serve 
to advance a political agenda.

The OCWers are being used. Encouraging 
them, as this president and many in the 
Democratic Party are doing, deflects the 
righteous anger and blame away from the political 
Dons who created this problem. First among 
equals here are Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, 
the primary architects of all those devastating 
regulations. The fact that they were then given 
the job of writing the new law which is supposed 
to fix the problem they created simply epitomizes 
the arrogance and corruption in Washington.

There is one other group of culprits who so 
far is escaping blame: those who run and teach 
in our “great” universities. With some notable 
exceptions, the vast majority of professors and 
administrators have developed a system which 
delivers a substandard education at a wildly 
inflated price. Our young people were told they 
had to get a college degree before pursuing a job, 
but that college degree is too often in subject 
areas which are totally irrelevant to the working 
world. The cost for getting that degree has risen 
at a multiple of the general inflation rate, and 
most grads now come out with a mountain load 
of debt. Again, I’d be angry too if I followed 
directions which resulted in a poor education, 
lots of debt and no job. I’d be livid when I also 
realized that the federal government had decided 
to bail out the politically connected but leave me 
to suffer under the full burden of my debt.

To all this, however, the Occupy Wall Street 
crowd suggests the wrong solution – one that will 
exasperate the problem. Increasing the power 
of government will only distort our economy 
further. Giving more power to politicians will 
only force lobbyists to work harder to influence 
legislators to exempt their clients from the 
punishing burden. The real solution is to limit 
and decrease the power the government has to 
interfere in our private lives, to pick winners 
and losers, and to punish some while exempting 
others. 

Cleaning up the mess that is Washington is 
a cause we all can champion, so OCWers and 
Tea Partiers share a legitimate complaint. But 
details and truth matter. Giving more power to 
those who caused the problems is ludicrous. Tea 
Partiers are on the right side of this issue. The 
OCWers are just being used.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a 
freelance writer and has spoken to several civic 
and religious organizations on cultural and moral 
issues. He lives in Arcadia with his wife and 3 
children and is active in the community. He can 
be reached at gregwelborn@earthlink.net.


BUSINESS TODAY

The latest on Business News, Trends and Techniques

Letter to the Editor

At the October 11th Sierra 
Madre City Council Meeting, 
Councilmember Walsh blasted 
the General Plan Update 
Committee, specifically Chair 
Denise Delmar for wanting 
to hold secret meetings, for 
wanting to violate the Brown Act 
and for not being transparent 
in the Committee’s business. 
Walsh, in her rant also urged 
Councilmember MacGillivray 
to step down as liaison because 
MacGillivray perpetrated the 
notion that the General Plan 
was a document of the people 
rather than the responsibility of 
the City Council.

In her “Lookie here” moment, 
as she describes it in her written 
statement, Walsh said, “folks in 
the audience can continue to 
come to the microphone and 
repeat the plan is the people’s 
plan and not the City Council’s 
as you have many times, and 
you will continue to be wrong. 
And after tonight you will just 
look foolish.” 

Contrary to that assertion, 
the State of California’s 
General Plan Guidelines are 
very extensive as to the broad 
issues that are to be covered in a 
General Plan. Amongst them is 
Chapter 8: Public Participation 
which quite clearly demands a 
broad involvement of the public 
in the process. It is also made 
quite clear that the General 
Plan is not the product of a 
single governing body. i.e. a city 
council

It is the duty as an elected 
representative to listen to the 
citizens of Sierra Madre. It is 
also incumbent to be respectful 
and courteous to the public as 
they express their opinions. 
The disdain in calling the 
citizens foolish for expressing 
their opinions at a City 
Council Meeting or any public 
meeting is not only arrogant 
and disrespectful, but a slap 
in the face to all who wish to 
become involved in their City’s 
government. 

The accusations made of the 
GPUC of not being transparent 
and of wanting to conduct 
“secret meetings” is blatantly 
false. But, Lookie here - all 
meetings of the GPUC are open 
to the public. These meetings 
are advertised and posted. No 
action is taken by any group 
outside of the GPUC meetings. 
These meetings have input 
from committee members as 
well as the general public. A 
concerted effort has been made 
to encourage participation by 
all the public. General public 
members are encouraged to 
speak on items on the agenda 
and otherwise bring up items 
of their concern. This is 
indeed a people’s document 
in every sense of the word. 
This document is not the City 
Council’s document – the 
Council will read, discuss, 
and take additional input from 
the public at a public hearing 
after approval of the Planning 
Commission. Then and only 
then can the Council vote to 
approve.

When the GPUC was 
first appointed there was 
frustration on the parts of both 
the Committee and the City 
Staff because there were not 
enough hours or days available 
by staff to schedule regular 
meetings in which the staff 
could attend. Chair Delmar 
explored a way to meet without 
staff and without violating 
the Brown Act. Legal Council 
ruled against those options. 
However it was determined 
that sub-committees could 
be formed to study and make 
recommendations to the 
Committee as a whole. Their 
out-put is discussed thoroughly 
at a regular GPUC meeting. 
This has helped speed up the 
process immeasurably. 

The Committee was 
also concerned as how to 
adequately plan for community 
involvement including 
community meetings and not 
take valuable time away from 
working on the actual plan and 
without violating the Brown 
act. With the blessing of the 
Sierra Madre Legal Council, a 
citizen’s volunteer group (not 
committee) was formed to assist 
the Committee.

A meeting of this group of 
volunteers was first held in a 
private home, with attendant 
publicity appearing in the 
Mt. Views News and on the 
SierraMadreNews.Net, in 
addition to reminders at City 
Council Meetings and at the 
GPUC. This was not a secret 
meeting -- it was well publicized

Thirty-two people attended 
that meeting and participated 
in a lively, open discussion. 
That meeting was attended by 
a wide spectrum of citizens 
including then-Mayor Joe 
Mosca, Bill Coburn and citizens 
from all walks of Sierra Madre. 
Susan Henderson (publisher 
of the Mountain Views News) 
expressed her regrets but 
indicated she intended to be 
involved. Subsequent volunteer 
group meetings assisted the 
GPUC in planning their two 
Community Forums and these 
volunteers also assisted in 
widely disseminating literature, 
questionnaires, posters, flyers 
and yard signs. None of this 
could have been done by the 
nine member committee alone, 
nor could staff.

The hard work by each and 
every Committee Member, the 
volunteers and all of the citizens 
expressing their opinions 
through the questionnaires, 
meetings, forums and public 
hearings will make the General 
Plan Update a robust document 
that broadly represents all the 
interests of the community, 
indeed, a People’s Document, 
and we, the people, are not 
foolish nor are we wrong for our 
participation.

Pat Alcorn, Sierra Madre

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: WORKPLACE BULLIES

By La Quetta M. Shamblee, MBA

There seems to be news report most every 
week about a child being bullied at school 
somewhere. Fortunately, this top has gained 
more attention and school administrators 
across the country are finally starting to 
revisit their responsibility to make sure that 
bullies aren’t allowed to run rampant to 
intimidate and terrorize their peers. The 
growing sentiment is there should be a 
zero tolerance for this type of behavior in 
American schools. Unfortunately, similar 
behavior by adults in the workplace goes 
unchecked. Most often it is a boss, someone 
in a position of power or authority who feels 
empowered to act out in ways that would 
cause a child with the same behavior to be 
reprimanded.

During my undergraduate studies 
in business during the late 70’s, I was 
introduced to the “Theory X” and “Theory 
Y” approaches created by Douglas McGregor 
at the MIT Sloan School of Management in 
the 1960’s. They describe contrasting models 
of motivation for employees. Theory X 
assumes that employees are inherently lazy 
and will avoid work if they can, so managers 
closely supervise and control when and 
how employees complete their work. They 
routinely use threats and coercion to get 
employees to comply, which creates a work 
environment that is punitive, hostile and 
emotionally toxic. In contrast, Theory Y 
managers believe that employees will learn 
to seek out and accept responsibility and 
exercise self-control and self-direction in the 
successful completion of their work. They 
are more likely than Theory X managers to 
develop the climate of trust with employees 
needed for optimum human resource 
development.

Adult bullying in the workplace by 
persons in supervision or management 
clearly fall into the Theory X column and 
I have personal knowledge of examples too 
numerous to contain in this article. In recent 
weeks, one of my colleagues shared that one 
of the top executives at their company has 
a reputation for screaming at employees in 
meetings. I asked, “How do the employees 
deal with this?” Apparently, they do what 
the overwhelming majority of employees do 
– like passive sheep they simply tolerate it. 
Surprisingly, the level of professional status, 
education or compensation doesn’t change 
this type of collective, passive dynamic 
of employees working under Theory X 
conditions.

Another example involves an employer 
who terminated a newly-promoted manager 
because she was persistent in asking for the 
raise of less than $2 an hour that she had been 
promised, yet hadn’t received after several 
months in her new position. Of course, 
this sent a very clear message to everyone 
else that it’s probably best to simply “march 
to the beat of management” even when it’s 
unjust. Doing otherwise could mean losing 
your job. 

These examples don’t begin to scratch 
the surface of how routine, widespread and 
pervasive bad behavior is among “leaders” 
in the workplace. It seems to be getting 
even worse during the current economic 
downturn with layoffs and downsizings 
since so many are fearful of losing their 
jobs. Adults of working age spend the 
overwhelming majority of their waking 
hours at their place of employment, and 
too many workplaces have fallen victim to 
management and leadership practices that 
are routinely inconsiderate, disrespectful 
and demoralizing to staff. In the same 
manner that the issue of school bullies is 
finally being addressed, it’s time to start the 
conversation about what can be done to hold 
employers accountable for many parallel 
behaviors in the workplace.

We’d like to hear from you! 

 What’s on YOUR Mind?

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