It’s a sound position to focus criticism of Trumpism on Trump, His Inner Circle, Principal Surrogates, and Media Defenders. This sometimes includes Trumpism Down to the Local Level. (Those local officials across America who have this past decade spread sugary lies of boosterism during the Great Recession, during its aftermath, and during the opioid crisis are contemptibly…
Babbittry
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Local Government, Politics, School District, Taxes/Taxation
School Board, 8.26.19: Insatiable
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
School Board Meeting 08/26/19 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo. Update, evening of 9.9.19: Although this discussion of tax incremental financing (TIF) took place at a school board meeting, a program like this is (obviously) very much an initiative of city government and special interests. School districts like Whitewater’s have a role on a joint…
Babbittry, Boosterism, Economy, Health, Wisconsin
The Rural Condition: Life expectancy for Wisconsin babies falls
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Boosters’ ceaseless distortions to ‘accentuate the positive’ – so common across the state and in Whitewater before, during, and after the Great Recession – meet their tragic refutation in life expectancy declines for Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Public Policy Forum reports on Troubling trends in Wisconsin: Life expectancy down; alcohol, drug and suicide deaths up: The…
Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, Foxconn, Mendacity, Reasoning, Science/Nature, That Which Paved the Way, Waste Digesters, WEDC
Junk Reasoning Isn’t Simply a Problem at the Top
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Helena Bottemiller Evich reports ‘It feels like something out of a bad sci-fi movie’ (‘A top climate scientist quit USDA, following others who say Trump has politicized science’): One of the nation’s leading climate change scientists is quitting the Agriculture Department in protest over the Trump administration’s efforts to bury his groundbreaking study about how…
America, Babbittry, Boosterism, Mendacity, Politics, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
Origins, National
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at the Gaslit Nation podcast, guest Greg Sargent contends that the ‘90s, under the influence of Newt Gingrich and his ilk, are the origin of contemporary Trumpism. Sargent points to the craziness of anti-Clinton conspiracy theories as the beginning of our current condition. (Our current condition is one in which lies don’t have to…
Babbittry, Boosterism, City, Culture, Philosophy, Religion
That’s Been Done for Generations
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The Atlantic has a story, from Faith Hill (not the singer, obviously), about how gatherings of atheists in Secular Churches Rethink Their Sales Pitch (‘They Tried to Start a Church Without God. For a While, It Worked). These groups are learning – like all civic groups – that it’s hard to sustain membership. There’s nothing…
Babbittry, Books, Culture, Fact Checking, Local Government, Marketing, Mendacity, Politics, Public Relations, That Which Paved the Way
Fact-Checking is an Active, Ongoing Effort
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Laura Hazard Cohen explains that “First-generation fact-checking” is no longer good enough. Here’s what comes next: “Fact checkers need to move from ‘publish and pray’ to ‘publish and act.’” “The idea that fact checking can work by correcting the public’s inaccurate beliefs on a mass scale alone doesn’t stack up,” write representatives from Full Fact…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Employment, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Three Fundamental Failures: Employment, Income, and Poverty
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
An earlier post addressed Walker’s Fundamental Failure to meet his jobs pledge even after eight years. The record is much worse: years of corporate subsidies and meddling in the marketplace for preferred businesses & political cronies have produced failures of employment, income, and poverty. (Small town officials who copied this approach on the local level, as…
Babbittry, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Education, Employment, Government Spending, Local Government, WEDC, Wisconsin
Public Money for Unskilled Manufacturing Jobs is Money Wasted
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
In times of historically low unemployment, communities are simply wasting public money when they subsidize unskilled manufacturing jobs. The jobs, jobs, jobs mantra only makes sense in conditions of unemployment, unemployment, unemployment. Despite relatively low unemployment, ‘community development men’ in places like Whitewater still push business subsidies for companies using unskilled labor. Pretending that dead-end…
Babbittry, CDA, Culture, Economy, Fortitude, Local Government, Marketing, New Media, New Whitewater, Newspapers, Politics, Press, Social Media, Writing
What Can Be Done About Rural Newspapers (Even Though It Probably Won’t Be)?
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Yesterday I wrote that Another Local Paper Changes Hands. With the failure of legacy publishing, what are rural communities to do? (Obvious point: FREE WHITEWATER is not an online newspaper – never aspired to be, never will be. This is a website of independent commentary: aligned with no faction, beholden to no faction.) A few…
Babbittry, CDA, City, Demographics, Development, Diversity, Economy, Local Government, That Which Paved the Way
Rural Population Drain
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Thirteen years ago, local notables in small-town Whitewater, Wisconsin insisted that Whitewater was the very center of the universe. When that claim didn’t entice newcomers, these same men began to claim the very opposite, that Whitewater wasn’t doing better because no one knew where the city was. (Both of these claims are silly: billions of…
Babbittry, City, Culture, Seven Deadly, University
Coming & Going Depend on Doing
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Originally posted 5.3.19, updated 5.17.19. Although another candidate has withdrawn from the final pool of applicants for a new UW-Whitewater chancellor, conditions that led to the present (stretching over the last two chancellors’ tenure) matter more than the immediate and futile hope that a single appointment will overcome years of the wrong direction. Genuine change…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Despite Denials, Foxconn’s Empty Buildings Are Still Empty
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
This morning, Joe sent along a comment mentioning a story about Foxconn from the national technology website The Verge. (Many thanks for the pointer.) Josh Dzieza reports One month ago, Foxconn said its innovation centers weren’t empty — they still are (“Foxconn still hasn’t done anything with the buildings it bought in Wisconsin”): Last summer,…