In Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach tells the tale of a West Coast utopia that secedes from a nation consumed by capitalistic greed. According to Callenbach’s vision, Northern California joins Washington and Oregon in seceding from the United States, essentially writing off Los Angeles as a car-obsessed bubble of heathens. While maybe the car-obsessed thing hasn’t changed, the prevailing attitude of young Los Angelenos has...That reminds me: "It's Official: Clinton's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California."
Fast-forward to 2016, and much like the book prophesied, we have a state that is directly at odds with the rest of the nation....
If you take California out of the popular vote equation, then Trump wins the rest of the country by 1.4 million votes. And if California voted like every other Democratic state — where Clinton averaged 53.5% wins — Clinton and Trump end up in a virtual popular vote tie.
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222 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 222 of 222The leftist enclaves are actually rather small although I was shocked to see Orange County go for Hillary this time.
Mexicans and those with recent Mexican heritage. (Who, in part, probably live in Orange County in part because they can't afford to live in LA County.)
As an aside, having been living in California in the 1980s and now for the past year, plus visiting every few years what amazes me is how run down California has become.
Blogger Bob Ellison said...
Try making Nebraska a sovereign nation. That'd be a hoot!
Blogger Joe said...
The US Constitution came up with a system whereby states could be fairly autonomous.
This goes back to what I said at the beginning of this thread. There is a very deep and basic misunderstanding about what a "state" is. More particularly, what the word meant when the Constitution was being drafted.
Nebraska is already a sovereign nation under our constitution. It is not autonomous, as Joe, said. It is sovereign and has delegated some of its sovereign powers to the Federal Government. Nebraska is not a province, like Manitoba, under the control of a central government. The United States is an association or federation under the control of its member nations/states.
The United states was not formed by one country changing its government and name. At the end of the Revolutionary war, it was 13 independent and fully sovereign nations, countries, states or whatever you want to call them. Each with its own sovereign government and little of no formal relation with the others. Think France and Germany and the other European countries.
Recognizing common purpose, they came together, like France and Germany et al have done more recently, to delegate certain powers to a central federation. Govt if you like. The goal was to act in concert on matters of collective interest but leave each nation/state fully free to act as it saw fit in matters not of collective interest.
We've lost a lot of that in the past 100-150 years. Perhaps the War Between the States (which was not a "civil war" by any rational definition) was the turning point. Our sovereign nation states have become more like provinces in thrall to the central govt. Completely the opposite of what the Constitution intended.
In addition to the 13 colonies, we have other independent nations that have joined us as states. Texas and Hawaii are the two most prominent. Florida may be another. Also Vermont, sort of.
It is a tragedy that our states have lost their stateness (if that is a word) and sovereignty.
It is a tragedy the very word "state" has become so degraded that some countries, Brazil and Mexico leap to mind, call their provinces "states". They are not states by any stretch of the imagination. they are subordinate to central govt, not sovereign over it.
John Henry
Here's a thought: Perhaps we should start calling governors "Head of State"
Scott Walker, Wisconsin's head of state
Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
John Henry
Just to clarify, R&B said I was too hoity-toity (or something) to ride trains.
That is a lie and I had said exactly the opposite:
When trains get quicker than planes, as they already are in a very few destination pairs, I'll ride them. If stagecoaches are quicker, I'll take them.
She/he/it can't win an honest argument so she/he/it just lies.
One other comment on trains: R&B pointed out, correctly, that trains are more convenient than trains because they go downtown to downtown. That is a bug rather than a feature in many cases. It is only a feature if one wants to go downtown to downtown. Since I have only one client in a city (the Bronx) it would mostly be a bug for me.
If you don't like She/he/it, R&B, tell us what your preferred pronoun is.
Mine is "His Lordship, Sir John of the Zika" though I will also accept "he" without calling it a microaggression.
John Henry
Speaking of trains:
Luxury bus service downtown DC (Dupont Circle) to Downtown NY (Penn Station) is $23 and takes 2 hours 15 minutes. Not your typical Greyhound, either. Probably closer to Airline business class. https://www.washny.com/about.php
2 busses in the morning (9 & 10:30) 2 in the PM.
Amtrak regular coach service same day and time costs $49 and takes 2 hours 45 minutes.
So, more than twice as expensive and 30 minutes longer to take the express train.
Perhaps I will stick with the stagecoach, or its modern variant.
John Henry
12/18/16, 2:10 PM Delete
He gets off on it.Don't play his game. let him continue believing he's the smartest guy in the room.
You guys crack me up. Is stupidity the aim in life? I never saw the point of pursuing ignorance, I never cared whether I "believe" or others "believe" that I or anyone else am "smart", and I just like to discuss the facts that make this world go 'round and their explanations regardless of how it strikes anyone's personality. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you think feelings and self-perception matter more. If you do, that's fine. Just admit it. And don't fault me for disagreeing. And don't tell me that proud, intentionally obtuse ignorance is a virtue. It's not. You can value it all you want; I never will. I don't have to.
Hi John Henry. I made many points about trains and planes. Too many to remember. Unfortunately, a blog proprietor shut them down because they contained an insult or two buried in them that he must have found to be a "personal attack" - or as the kids say nowadays, a "microagression." Either way, paying the government for the supposed privilege of sending it very personal information does not seem like it should be the price to pay for a check-in that could never take longer than 45 minutes. Check-ins are unpredictable anyway so I suspect most travelers would prefer to stick to the 2+ hour pre-board time if they can. Not convenient. I also said that time isn't the only factor. FLights are packed tight like slave ships (or sardines) and if you somehow prefer those coach seats then more power to you. Most people don't. The personal space available in them is too cramped to not be dirty with everyone else's personal effects and bacteria - or what not. Studies show how much bacteria these perennially cluttered "personal spaces" become. I also said that the regular delays of planes taken out of commission for "mechanical" attention - (due to the CEO forgoing regular maintenance if it means one extra plane in circulation) is another problem. Again, maybe not for you - but for others. Passengers HATE air travel. They complain about it nonstop. And it's getting worse. The need to make every square centimeter count is leading to efforts to stack passengers on top of each other. Literally. This is how the CEOs think.
Air travel is a mature industry. It only "de-regulated" less than 40 years ago, though. You'd better believe that subsidies before then (and after its massive mess-up known as "9/11") have helped it relative to other forms of travel. Problem is, you don't recognize that and pretend it's part of a level free-market playing field. No mode of transportation is or ever has been. It just has to do with who got the subsidies the longest, and was given the greatest advantage in squeezing out substitutes. Airlines.
Airlines are not meant to compete with anything. But trains will continue to be needed in important regional markets - like Acela, Metra, and probably the West coast. This is what happens along highly developed strong regional economies such as exist on the East coast, Chicago and the West and there ain't a thing you can do about it. Whether they catch up with better speeds is an open question, but seems to be the case. Mag-Lev will bring average speeds above 200 mph. We're talking about a market in between that for coach/auto and planes with a typical travel distance that's also in between and a speed that's also in between. Again, needed features in available markets in all these places outside of Dubuque or wherever it is you go to catch a plane at a "small airport." (I'm sorry, was that an attack?) The prices will go down once you finally allow these markets to develop and mature - as you did with the massive help of the government for autos and planes.
In any event, I sure hope my best attempt at reiterating my rant wasn't too "dishonest," or personal. And I sure hope I didn't hurt your feelings with too many personal attacks. I think there's plenty of info in there, that's strong and as irrefutable to me as I can imagine. There's an obvious case to make that we have no need to bifurcate all our travel options into just two - between plane and auto - and that there is an obvious need in larger regional economies that are more heavily populated along coasts and major cities to have a middle option in between the two - both in terms of typical route distance, speed and other important considerations that are important to other consumers apart from just yourself. There is great need to de-compress an artificial reliance on auto and air as if they should be the only modes available, and if you don't recognize that, I'm sorry to hear how out of touch you are proud to remain about the many problems with an over-utilized air and road system.
It is a feature to go downtown to downtown rather than a "bug" because that's where the populations are strongest and access to them most convenient. We no longer need to pretend that suburbs should have an artificially inflated economic and demographic importance ascribed to them relative to places that dwarf them in both - including Brooklyn. Just because you have clients who don't have the many options available to them that those of major cities like NY have, doesn't mean that's the major reality - unless you are personally "attacking" all those much greater population centers, their needs, or "dishonestly" portraying them as less important. They are not. Transit is important whether you like it or not and it's long overdue for policy to be centered around where infrastructure is necessarily strongest and most developed, not the weakest and least developed. Stop insulting people by telling them that the needs of this suburbanite or middle-of-nowhere dweller outrank the centers with the largest regional economies and populations. It's rude and destructive. And of a piece with the mindset that wants to outsource America and prioritize access for billionaires to D.C. than for ordinary working Americans.
R&B, are you Gorbachev? You both talk a lot without saying anything.
Gorbachev seemed to do a lot more than you ever did, Joe. But thanks for your personal attack. Especially since it had nothing to do with you. You might notice that John Henry was itching and scratching for a re-post of a comment he's been vexed by that has since disappeared. So I did him the favor of re-capturing it. Of course, this has nothing to do with you and it's quite a pity that, as a right-winger, you think so much revolves around you personally that I'm obligated to anticipate what some nobody I've never spoken to will think of their length. But I'm not. So stop personally attacking me and other commenters for the "crime" of their engagement with issues that you think you're too good for. And butt out of conversations that are none of your business. Just stick to whatever it was you were doing (whatever that is) and the rest of us will get on fine.
I'm pretty sure that most people who live in the D.C. metropolitan area can get to Dulles, Reagan National, or Thurgood-Marshall-BWI in less time and for less money (travel cost + parking cost, if needed) than they can get to Union Station. And I think that's true whether you're counting all people equally, or just those who have the most need to travel, or adjusting for how often each individual needs to travel long distances. I'm sure there are metropolitan areas where the central train station is easier to get to for more people than the airport(s), but it's not true everywhere. There are plenty of doughnut-shaped metropolitan areas, where the center has lost population as the suburbs filled up - Detroit, for one.
Detroit - pretty much for only. Right wingers seem not to get this. (Hopefully that's not a personal attack because it's broad instead of just against a single person). They don't realize that the decision of the American auto industry to be competitive on profits alone - rather than on value - led to the decimation of that city's principal industry. Other major cities (NYC, Chicago, LA, etc.) never had a principal core industry that decided to stop being competitive, and hence those cities revived after 1970 and became the major attractions for young people, tourists, economic activity and culture that they remain today. But right wingers hate that and want government to instead focus on the places without people, and the people who already have a lot of political power and prosperity. To focus on the "haves" rather than the "have nots".
DC has a bad transit system. It's also not the major city (yet) that the destinations north of it on the Acela are. It's spread around a broader geography that draws its government activity into northern Virginia, etc. And an already major city, Baltimore, is just a bit up the road, anyway.
But yes, the D.C. transit situation is horrible.
Further on doughnut-shaped metropolitan areas: sparsely-populated Loudoun County, Virginia (which includes Dulles) has 65% of the population of the entire District of Columbia. Closer in Fairfax County has 60% more people than the entire District of Columbia. The D.C. Metropolitan Area has a ridiculously-broad definition - it includes bits of West Virginia and goes all the way to Chesapeake Bay - but the federal district has less than one-ninth of the total population, so even a narrower definition would find that the suburbs have far more people than the city.
What "Right-wingers seem not to get" is not in fact true. Detroit is not the only doughnut-shaped metropolitan area. Washington, D.C., as I have shown, is another, and so is Baltimore - Baltimore County has a third more people than Baltimore City, and there are several other counties in the metropolitan area. Nor is it true that "DC has a bad transit system" - it's well-equipped with airports, there are plenty of roads, Amtrak is better there than most places, and the subway, though decaying and unreliable after years of Democratic mismanagement, is still mostly useful. Try again.
There you go again.
Downtown to downtown will be a feature for some people some trips. It will probably be a bug to other people on other trips. In my case, since I seldom work in cities, it would mostly be a bug. I would certainly consider the train if I was going downtown to downtown and it didn't take longer.
But perhaps you can explain why I would pay more for a slower trip (train) rather than ride a bus?
Also, how do you justify the enormous subsidies for Amtrak, a couple hundred per passenger trip vs little or no subsidie for the bus.
I await with bated breathy. I am not all that great with bated breath, unlike a master such as yourself. So please hurry.
John Henry
R&B,
I work mostly with manufacturing. There is very little manufacturing done in most cities. Certainly not in most downtowns. Cities mostly drove it out.
In the 60's I worked in a plant on Broadway at Union Square Park and lived down on 6th and C. In the same 10-12 story building there were probably 6-7 other manufacturing plants. Nobody could afford to do that anymore. That plant is now out in NJ, last I knew.
But if you can find me some work in a city (or anwhere else)I'll be happy to give you 20% of my billings. Call me at 787-550-9650
That applies to anyone else, as well.
My business is teaching workers to be lazy. 2017 is looking really good so far and Trump isn't even President Elect yet.
John Henry
In my case, since I seldom work in cities, it would mostly be a bug.
There you go again. Applying your privileged and sheltered situation to everyone.
Nope, cities are not going to go away. They will remain the more important economic and cultural centers that suburbs will never match. Either live in the country around nature or in the city around people. I guess misanthropic nature-haters might feel they can have it both ways in the suburbs, but the appeal is not there.
And there you go again with your obsession on speed. Some people actually like having things to look at out the window as they go by. Life, commerce, pigeons. Whatever. Things that Republicans would destroy if you could, to be sure. But things that normal people appreciate.
Keep manufacturing out of the cities, if you want. America doesn't manufacture nearly as much of what it should, anyway. But until you can get onboard with less toxic processes, go ahead and make a Beijing skyline out of whatever socially destitute outpost you want. We'll wait until the special interests are out of it and someone who doesn't just talk the talk on America's workers gets into office.
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