Commentary Update for March 4, 2003: School Board races, The Great TIF debate, King Karma, Corporate Weevils, Student Protests, More Thoughts on the War, Doyle and Campaign Finance Reform

Commentary begins a series of shows with candidates for the Oshkosh Area School District Board of Education. Incumbents Mike Stratz and Karen Bowen join us this week. They provide their views on the budget crisis facing the district, whether they would support going to referendum to allow the district to exceed state imposed revenue caps, the "neighborhood school" concept, the freshmen failure rate, the Qualified Economic Offer, the No Child Left Untested (excuse me, I meant "Left Behind") act, and other issues.

Sometimes it's important to get ideas on the table even if said ideas have no chance of becoming reality in the the social, political, or cultural context in which the table exists (how's that for third-rate philosophy!). So I have to admire the efforts of Washington State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles to institute a special income tax on the super rich in order to pay for education. There's no way any current state legislature would consider such an idea seriously, but when it does happen down the road it will be becaue people like Kohl-Welles had the guts to get the idea on the table in the first place.

In other news:

The Great TIF Debate: Winnebago B2B Publisher Sean Fitzgerald and I debate the merits of Tax Incremental Financing in the latest edition of Sean's magazine. I also conducted an interview with Sean for the Commentary website. Sean deserves praise for inviting another view of TIFs. Contrast that with the Oshkosh Northwestern Editorial Brigade, which last June equated criticizing TIFs with "something like what Fidel Castro might be spouting on a parade espousing the value of communism in Cuba." This in spite of the fact that the leaders in the call for TIF reform are legislative Republicans.

King Karma: Most Fox Valley residents, even those who were here at the time, do not know that Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the region in May of 1967. I tell the story in this month's Media Rant for the Valley Scene.

Corporate Weevils?: Anyone who thinks northeast Wisconsin is devoid of critiques of corporate excess should check out Curt Andersen's latest column, Tom Breuer's March Valley Scene cover story on Wal-Mart, and John Lemberger's letter in today's Oshkosh Northwestern. I think this Matt Wuerker cartoon sums up the issues nicely. This one's pretty amusing too.

Student Protests: Students across northeast Wisconsin are participating in a variety of protest activities related to the looming war in Iraq. Lawrence University in Appleton was the scene of pro and anti-war events, while on March 5th UW Oshkosh Students for Peace are calling for a Student Strike to protest the war. UW Green Bay students staged a John Lennon/Yoko Ono-ish "bed in" for peace, while UW Oshkosh student/soldier Jason Moon responded to his critics. Ray Barrington comments on some of the 1960s features of our times in his most recent column.

More Thoughts on the War: Someone woke up the legendary Norman Mailer. He says we're gaining empire, but losing democracy. Diplomat John Brady Kiesling wrote a well-publicized letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell. It's not often that career bureaucrats say things like this: "The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally." How does the rest of the world see all this? Here are two cartoons showing part of the sentiment in Jordan and New Zealand. Meanwhile former leftist Christopher Hitchens remains as one of the staunchest defenders of the Bush policy.

Doyle and Campaign Finance Reform: Remember during the gubernatorial campaign when the "New Democrat" Jim Doyle said that campaign finance reform would be the first bill he'd sponsor if elected? Little did we know at that time that Doyle was planning to negotiate gambling compacts with the Native American tribes in secret. I like what Ed Garvey has to say about all this:

"Who would have dreamed that Wisconsin, land of Gaylord Nelson, Bill Proxmire and Bob La Follette would become Las Vegas East? Eat your heart out Atlantic City 'cause Wisconsin is about to become the new American gambling hot spot. Think about it. Thousands of New Yorkers flocking to Bayfield for gambling and snowmobiling, topped off with a shot and a beer. How will we spend the budget surplus? . . . Wisconsin's motto will change from "You are among friends," to "You are about to win a fortune." . . . My prediction: the Legislature in 2005, noting that gambling has fallen off as the recession has lingered, is debating the legalization of massage parlors. "What's wrong with a little rub if it closes the budget gap" intones the state's spokesman. "Besides" he adds, "when our tourists lean over the roulette table all night, they need some TLC."

Meanwhile, Common Cause Wisconsin revealed that "the $500,000 contribution made by the Ho-Chunk Nation last
October to the Democratic National Committee is the single largest soft money contribution ever made by a Wisconsin-based entity to a national party committee in history."

Gotta love those New Democrats. So principled. So passionate about democracy. So willing to help out the historically oppressed Native Americans--for a price.

All the best,

-Tony