Webb has a new book out and while I don’t think he’s talking about changing existing arrangements–he is a Democrat after all–i BELIEVE he’s interested in trying to generate a new populist consensus. There’s a video over at Ta-Nehisi’s that I tried to find for my own purposes but could not. Webb is talking about the need for a coalition like what I talk about above.

It sure seems to me that $4/gallon gasoline is going to do more for getting people to support public transit than any amount of political organizing.

I wish I knew what would get people interested in fixing public education. As far as I can tell, the political importance of the schools’ role as a source of patronage and jobs trumps the importance of actually educating kids. And the role of school district boundaries in determining property values in the suburbs also trumps the importance of educating kids. It seems like any serious change is going to have to come from outside the two big parties and the existing political arrangements.

I’m not sure about public health.

F’zample, we have a constipated light rail initiative underway in the greater metropolitan sprawl. It was enacted by referendum, and then derailed by mayoral and city council veto. Actually a quite shocking and yet jarringly controversial turn of events.

Most folks being pounded out in the far flung suburban rings remain opposed to light rail that would serve their economic interests, if that light rail also entails access by inner city folks to their far flung suburban flight refuges.

Second, KC is a legendary anomaly in the annals of public education.

As for the “public health” I’d need to mull that one over a bit further, but suffice it to say, private interests have plunged billions into the effort to make KC a biotechnology hub, only to be thwarted by rural Missouri and Kansas theoconservative nitwits seeking to legislate against science that doesn’t respect the “dignity and sanctity of life”……,

(or should that be “working” ideology?)

interesting post. Good to see you.