Author: Julia King

Tax and Spend? Please Do

As far back as the Boston Tea Party, taxes have stirred passions. In campaign season, the word “tax” is tossed around like a grenade, often prompting politicians to duck and hide. But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, thinks politicians should stop running from the “Tax-and-Spend” label and instead defend taxes – and the many vital services they fund:

Transcript

As far back as the Boston Tea Party, taxes have stirred passions. In campaign season the
word “tax” is tossed around like a grenade, often prompting politicians to duck and hide.
But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, thinks politicians should
stop running from the “Tax-and-Spend” label and instead defend taxes – and the many
vital services they fund.


Despite a shaky economy, a looming war, despite rising numbers of uninsured
Americans, somehow there are still politicians who peddle tax cuts as cure alls.


It’s about time we clear something up: When a candidate says, “I’ll lower your taxes,”
he’s put forth only half of an idea. The other half of that idea involves cutting programs
that could be important to many of us.


I recently stood on a Northern Indiana lakeshore and admired a crisp, autumn scene. But
instead of inspiring me the quiet water and the changing landscape filled me with a dull,
nagging worry. I imagined a future without such places – or at least without public
access to them.


Like countless other venues around the country, the Indiana Department of Natural
Resources recently suffered the loss of 8.2 million dollars in permanent budget cuts, cuts
that forced the elimination of arts and cultural programs in state parks, the closing of
some parks, and the “downsizing” of many that stayed open. Still others were turned
over to private operators who increased fees to cover actual costs, making visits now
unaffordable for some people.


Few politicians seem willing to admit that slashing taxes means shrinking public service
and even public safety. Yet this is the time to connect the dots, to thread together rhetoric
and reality. It’s a long list of things that make a society — our society — livable. A
thriving park system is just one piece of the delicate mosaic we call civilization.


Is there ever mismanagement of public funds? Sure, and it deserves attention. But,
seriously, when’s the last time you saw a park naturalist in an Armani suit or behind the
wheel of a Rolls Royce? For the most part, government employees are not whooping it
up on your tax dollars. And never mind Enron – in Indiana the salaries of just 10 of our
highest paid executives could support the entire Indiana Department of Natural
Resources’ general fund. That’s a story that plays out in nearly every state across the
nation.


Right now — in the midst of campaign season — is the time to sort through national and
local priorities. Whether anyone acknowledges it or not, cutting taxes means cutting
away at the fabric of society.


Surely if our nation can find the money and the will to fully fund war and death, we can’t
claim poverty when we’re challenged to enhance life.


Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us through the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium.

Stump Speech for Democracy

Election Day is right around the corner. About 70-percent of the voting age population in the United States is registered to vote. If national voting patterns hold true, only about half of those registered voters will go to the polls in this off-year election. A still smaller group of Americans will have laid the groundwork leading up to election day. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, asks if you’ve done your part for democracy this season:

Transcript

Election Day is right around the corner. About 70% of the voting age population in the
United States is registered to vote. If national voting patterns hold true, only about half of
those registered voters will go to the polls in this off-year election. A still smaller group
of Americans will have laid the groundwork leading up to election day. Great Lakes Radio
Consortium commentator Julia King asks if you’ve done your part for democracy this
season.


There’s an election coming. Have you done your fair share of the work?


Can I let you in on a little secret? Some of us were talking the other day and we’re tired of
carrying most of the democracy load while the rest of you sit on your bums.


What’s that you say? You VOTE? Ha! That’s a mere drop in the proverbial ocean of
democracy.


Have you ever volunteered your time for a candidate? If you don’t like any of the
candidates, have you encouraged a decent, competent person you do like to run for office?
Have you considered running yourself? Have you ever worked the polls? A whole 14-
hour shift?


Have you ever written a check to a candidate? One that’s big enough to help, but not so
big that it’s an attempt to finance an unpopular agenda (like federal funding for circus
pigeon farmers)?


Have you talked civilly with your friends and neighbors about the issues? Asked others’
opinions – from the political left and right – and told them yours?


Have you stuffed envelopes, delivered yard signs, organized a candidate forum or debate?
Have you asked local media to do a better job of covering elections – reminded them that
the most crucial coverage comes not on election night, but in the months and weeks leading
up it?


Yes, yes, everybody’s busy (and yes, I’m aware that I’m preaching). But democracy
doesn’t just happen. Somebody’s got to do the work. If you’re one of those people who’s
been doing your chores, pat yourself on the back. Keep it up.


If you’re one of the people who’s been coasting up until now, consider pitching in. But
like the third grade teacher who ends the lecture with ‘You know who you are,’ these
words aren’t for everyone. There are countless Americans whose lives are already
bursting at the seams with inescapable poverty or tragedy, or both. Those citizens are
already doing their fair share.


These words are for the other countless Americans – the ones who throw great dinner
parties and find the perfect pair of shoes, or build model airplanes in the garage, or never
miss the West Wing. These words are for happy, healthy Americans who benefit the most
from democracy and simply give too little back.


So if you fit that description, this is for you: Get off your bum and do some work for
democracy. There’s an election coming, for goodness sake.


Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

The ‘Cause’ of Pollution

It’s hard for non-profits to raise money. And it’s hard for big business to gain public trust and admiration. But when the two are put together – struggling non-profits and wealthy businesses – it appears to be a win, win situation. Or is it? Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King looks at one summertime case where the environment is the loser:

Transcript

It’s hard for non-profits to raise money. And it’s hard for big business to gain public
trust and admiration. But when the two are put together – struggling non-profits and wealthy businesses – it appears to be a win, win situation. Or is it? Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King looks at one summertime case where the environment is the loser:


How many times have you heard these words: Come on: it’s for a good cause!


You know, like the elementary school teacher who takes a water balloon in
the face for literacy. “That’s the spirit!” we cheer. Because sometimes
you’ve got to go out on a limb to inspire people to action, to get things
done.


But what if someone asked you to smoke cigarettes… to fight world hunger?
Or toss motor oil in a lake… to help cure diabetes? So, there are bad ways
to call attention (and funding) to a cause. Water in face: good. Motor
oil in lake: bad.


Yet more and more these days, our “causes” are tangled up in elaborate
marketing schemes that muddy the moral waters of both charity and activism.


Recently on a 95-degree Ozone Alert Day, my local news reported that area
residents could brave the hot weather (not to mention the respiratory
damage) and test drive a BMW… for a good cause. Without the slightest bit
of irony in her voice, the anchor segued from a story about the dangers of
ozone, to a story about the joys of driving (the very thing that leads to
ozone on a hot day).


With what they call “The Ultimate Drive” campaign, BMW has helped the Susan
G. Komen Foundation raise over three million dollars (a dollar a mile) for
the fight against breast cancer. That’s a lot of carbon monoxide for
breast cancer.


Collaboration. Cooperation. Call it what you will, but the you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours-fundraiser is hot. Big corporations draw big money for worthy causes, and worthy causes draw favorable publicity for big corporations. But what if those big names are at cross-purposes with the fundraiser’s end goal? Or even at cross-purposes with other worthy efforts?


If good health is a goal, for instance, it hardly makes good sense to ask
people to drive on ozone alert days – even if the car IS a BMW. The Komen
Foundation also sponsors walks and runs – far more appropriate activities
considering the cause.


Nobody wants to see environmentalists (or asthmatics) duke it out with
breast cancer patients, but it’s time for organizations to fundraise with an
eye toward more than just money. Innovation and creativity is great, but
when the public is asked to participate in an activity, it ought to be a
positive one.


Now, I’m waiting for someone to ask me to drink margaritas… for world peace,
of course.


Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana.

Golf Course Goes Green, Neighbors See Red

Long known for their expanses of shorn grass and highly manicured grounds, some golf course owners are taking a second look at their landscaping practices and striving to become more environmentally friendly. In the process, however, they seem to have made a few enemies. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King explains:

Transcript

Long known for their expanses of shorn grass and highly manicured grounds,
some golf course owners are taking a second look at their landscaping practices and striving to become more environmentally friendly. In the process, however, they seem to have made a few enemies. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King explains:


In a nutshell, here’s the story: Golf Course Goes Green, Neighbors See Red.


Golf course owner Tony Krebs recently saw the environmental “light” and decided to reduce his use of pesticides, gasoline, and water. He wants to mow less, grow wildflowers, re-introduce native grasses and attract wildlife. The neighbors – instead of cheering – have filed formal complaints with the city.


Golf courses have long been havens for precision landscaping, places where the great outdoors are shaped into forms… well, unfamiliar to Mother Nature. So to some residents around golf courses, a new, more natural landscape looks suspiciously like neglect. But it’s not.


For a little over a decade, the Audubon Society has been helping to “green” golf courses with their Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. While any course can become a member and receive environmental tips and guidelines, members earn certification by completing projects in specified areas. Out of an estimated 20,000 golf courses in the U.S., a select 2,300 have achieved certification.


In other words, the movement towards greater sustainability in the golf world is still young. And old standards of beauty die hard. According to an Audubon source, it’s not uncommon for bordering property owners to balk at a golf course’s naturalization. Just as one man’s treasure is another’s trash, apparently one man’s “wildflower” is another man’s “weed.”


But this is more than a beauty-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder tale. Health officials have linked weed killers to everything from childhood leukemia, to gender malformation in frogs. Yet here we have well-to-do citizens banding together to fight for such chemicals.


“We live in a community,” one concerned resident said. “We have to be accountable to one another.” But he was talking about standards of property upkeep, not about public safety or about the delicate ecosystem we share.


He’s right, though, we are accountable to one another. And not only to one another, but to those who come long after we’re gone. There is a price to be paid for that so-called “perfect” landscape, and it’s a price we will all have to pay. It’s time for responsible citizens not only to tolerate sustainability, but to demand it.


Host Tag: Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Campaign Finance Reform

The recent collapse of the energy-trading corporation, Enron, has put campaign finance reform back on the congressional agenda. Environmentalists have long decried big business influence in energy policy; and while Enron illustrates the worst kind of backroom decision-making, it isn’t an isolated case. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King suggests that we all take notice…and take up the cause of campaign finance reform:

America’s Hidden Arsenal

Americans are still struggling to recapture the skies, even as they follow news of military action in Afghanistan. Some airlines are attracting passengers with reduced prices, and airport officials are reassuring citizens with promises of heightened security. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks that both on the ground and in the air, maybe our nation’s best weapon is one the naked eye can’t see:

Transcript

Americans are still struggling to recapture the skies, even as they follow news of military action in Afghanistan. Some airlines are attracting passengers with reduced prices and airport officials are reassuring citizens with promises of heightened security. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, thinks that both on the ground and in the air, maybe our nation’s best weapon is one the naked eye can’t see.


My 61-year-old peace activist mother is ready to fight. She called me the day before her first post-Sept. 11th air travel and announced her intentions to battle any would-be hijackers.


“I’ll be one of the people who charge them,” she said. “I would hope that my adrenaline would be pumping and maybe I wouldn’t even feel it if I was stabbed.”


She wasn’t joking; she has enlisted in the war against terrorism — and her resolve shouldn’t be underestimated. Nor should we underestimate the power of similar declarations made by millions of other Americans just like my mother. They are all part of a vast, hidden arsenal: everyday people with a plan to resist. They aren’t militia types, and although gun sales are reportedly up, many of our newest “soldiers” would never even consider purchasing a weapon.


There is something oddly reassuring about the image of grandparents taking on terrorists — gray-haired ladies sitting quietly beneath the radar until the last minute when they storm out of hiding and thwart the evildoers. It’s a scene right out of a B movie, one that until recently would have left all but the most fanciful of us rolling our eyes in disbelief.


But that was before the plane went down off-target in Pennsylvania at the hands of heroic passengers. That was before a nation spent countless midnight hours concocting scenarios in which they were up there.


“What would I have done,” we have all asked ourselves by now. “What will I do?” My mother’s answer (“I’ll charge!”) is a good one, one that both offers comfort and fulfills some primal need to maintain control in the face of chaos. What makes it so poignant is that many of the new enlistees of this war do not, as a habit, raise their fists in anger. And even now, it’s not anger that motivates them, but rather a sacred sense of human duty to minimize harm to others.


We can search everyone who gets on a plane, lock cockpit doors, arm pilots, but in the end, this war may be fought and won by 61-year-old peace activists and skinny guys with glasses – just ordinary people who are willing to do extraordinary things.

No Such Thing as a Just War

Americans, often independent and splintered, learned on September 11th that – like it or not – we are tethered to our neighbors in ways we never imagined. As the world awaits the next phase of the U.S. response to the terrorist attack, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King examines the ethical paradox of a just war:

Transcript

Americans, often independent and splintered, learned on September 11th that – like it or not, we are tethered to our neighbors in ways we never imagined. As the world awaits the next phase of the U.S. response to the terrorist attack, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King examines the ethical paradox of a just war.


On one side of my home, there lives a jovial, white-haired grandpa who likes feeding birds and playing soccer with his granddaughters. A retired cop and staunch patriot, he plans to cheer out loud when the United States retaliates for the World Trade Center attack.


On the other side of my home, there lives a quiet, soft-spoken Mennonite couple. Thin, gentle people, they spend their time tending an organic garden and often share their tomatoes and flowers with my young daughter. They are pacifists, bracing themselves for the coming horrors of American warfare.


Sandwiched between committed Hawks and Doves, I’m lonely with my ambivalence.


Americans overwhelmingly say they support a military response. But how many of us answered the question with true contemplation, instead of simple reflex?


“My God,” we said as the buildings smoldered, “do something!” Our minds were made up before we even had time to think.


I both envy and mistrust such certainty. Some of my neighbors are as unyielding in their pacifism as others are in their wish to fight. Both sides are unwilling to consider that the answer might lie somewhere beyond the confines of their own firm beliefs. (Or maybe that there’s no answer at all.)


There are Americans who believe we can bomb Evil from the earth, while others believe that if we are just kind enough; Evil will wander off on its own, like a child without a playmate. And if we believe that our path — whether it be military action or inaction — offers the final solution, we seem to think we have no moral culpability, no blood on our own hands.


And yet we all must know by now, especially now, that with our convictions come ethical burdens. All we can do is follow the paths of our ideals to their logical ends and hope against all odds that they remain intact.


But they won’t, and that is the true horror of war. To fight means that innocent, precious human life will be lost. To refuse to fight means that innocent, precious human life will be lost. And either way, Evil will remain standing. Guilt clings to us all — like original sin — because none of us has been able to end hate.


This is why Americans weep. It’s why our nights are sleepless and our days are clouded with sadness. It’s why we hold to one another and light candles and why we have flooded our places of worship.


We know now what we never wanted to know: there is no such thing as innocence.

Labor Sells Itself Short

The House of Representatives recently approved a bill that would allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Although the Senate is not expected to follow the lead, the bill’s passage in the House demonstrates the fragile and often complex alliances that come together – and fall apart – when passions run deep. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King suspects that it might just be time to re-examine old political friendships:

Transcript

The House of Representatives recently approved a bill that would allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Although the Senate is not expected to follow the lead, the bill’s passage in the House demonstrates the fragile and often complex alliances that come together – and fall apart — when passions run deep. Great Lakes Radio commentator, Julia King, suspects that it might just be time to re-examine old political friendships.


Labor unions have a proud history of righting some of the many wrongs inherent in capitalism. One of those “wrongs” is the tendency to put the pursuit of economic gain ahead of almost everything else. Labor unions have worked tirelessly in this country — and throughout the world — to shift attitudes about working conditions and living wages and to create a balance between profit margins and social justice. For this, they should be applauded.


But recently they took a giant step backwards when unions lobbied heavily in favor of (and helped to pass) a House bill that would allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge. The Teamsters say that the drilling will create some 700,000 domestic jobs. A lobbyist for the Teamsters was quoted as saying, “What environmentalists fail to realize is that we are not an environmental organization… Our responsibility is to grow the work force.” And for some key Democrat players, such as Representative Dick Gephart, environmental concerns eroded under the pressures of long-held loyalties to working class Americans.


But by supporting Bush’s energy plan, labor will undercut not only the environment, but it’s own hard-won credibility. Labor will cease to be a voice for progress, and instead become a voice of conspicuous self-interest. For unions, pitting economics against the environment is a dangerous game: if decisions are made based on jobs and dollars without attention to broader social concerns, then we’re back where we started — a place where profits trump everything, including the needs of the working class.


From coalmines to vineyards, labor leaders have shown the world – usually with great resistance from business owners — that businesses can thrive even when they respect their workers. The economic sky doesn’t fall when employees are given their fair share. Yet now the Teamsters are using the same tactics that businesses have used for years. They want to add up the dollars in the Arctic Refuge and declare the equation complete without regard to the broader implications.


Under any scenario, the oil that’s in the refuge is finite. Any jobs that are created by the drilling will eventually disappear because the practice is not sustainable. Instead of clinging to Old Guard energy policies in an effort to squeeze the last pennies out of a dying industry, unions would be wise to use their considerable political clout to help usher in a new era of clean, sustainable energy production. And if organized labor is unable to support wise, long-term energy plans, it’s time for politicians to question NOT good environmental policy, but their loyalties to labor.

Land Where Water Runs Free

Summers in the Midwest mean corn, county fairs and lots of heat and humidity, but while some seasonal traditions remain intact, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King recently discovered that at least one significant summer custom is slipping away:

Bush Plan Offers No Leadership

Energy and the environment are on center stage after White
House Task Force on Energy chairman Dick Cheney announced plans
to build nuclear power plants, increase production of oil and coal, and
do
little to encourage conservation. Concerned about the environmental
consequences of nuclear power and of burning fossil fuels, Great Lakes
Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks the plan might need
some ”tweaking”: