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Keeping It Public (If the Libraries Don't Sway You, the Blazing House Might)
Last week, the New York Times reported on Library Systems & Services, a private, for-profit company that an increasing number of towns are contracting to take over their local public libraries. The company pares budgets and turns a profit by, among others things, replacing long-term employees with those who will "work." In the article, CEO Frank Pezzanite mocks "this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries" and ridicules the idea that "somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization." The problem? Local residents seem to believe there is something all-American - and possibly sacred - about this community institution. I know where they're coming from.
Public libraries represent the best of American tradition of local communities chipping in for the common good, while advancing democratic values of free inquiry and universal access.
Through our local libraries, we all contribute to create a public space where anyone can access the world's outstanding literature, music, and film; popular entertainment; the fruits of human knowledge and insight; computer and internet access; resources for jobseekers and students; edifying speakers; programs that engage schoolchildren; and story hours that delight the youngest members of our community. I'm never going to check out that new Janet Evanovich novel (or, for that matter, Bill O'Reilly's latest bestseller) but I'm damn glad my tax dollars paid for it to be available on the shelves. The common resource is bigger than any of our individual tastes.
Something of that is lost when a profit-driven company turns a community institution into a source of private gain. It's not just the likelihood that public employees earning middle-class salaries will likely be turned out in favor of less experienced staff - although I've written in opposition to that as well. Rather, it's the idea, articulated by American Library Association President Robert Stevens in response to the Times article, that for-profit libraries may not "remain directly accountable to the publics they serve." Or, in the words of the late historian Tony Judt, "shifting ownership onto businessmen allows the state to relinquish moral obligations... A social service provided by a private company does not present itself as a collective good to which all citizens have a right."
The point may be subtle when we're talking about computers and books on a shelf (no matter how critical a part of democracy) but it's hard to ignore a house on fire. This morning at Think Progress, Zaid Jilani describes the situation in Obion County, Tennessee, where fire services are funded by subscription fees rather than general tax revenue. Those who pay the fees can call the fire department to save lives and extinguish blazes. For those who can't or won't shell out for the service, Jilani's headline says it all: Tennessee County's Subscription-Based Firefighters Watch As Family Home Burns Down. Maybe there's something to the "American flag, apple pie" thing about public services after all...
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54 Comments so far
Show AllThought things were bad already? Just wait, there's more: full-blown neo-Feudalism coming to a town near you, stay tuned.
Feudalism was not all bad for the Slaves; the Rulers expressed their gratitude by building huge, obligatory, gaudy Churches for them.
The Owners could then watch over them, from their Castle vantage points.
Fascism needs it's Minestry of Truth to succeed.
It's called 'Religion'.
No other Western Nation is infected to a point that even approaches the sickness of this nation; I fear this disease will prove fatal, if it hasn’t already.
Ps. Don’t miss Bill Maher’s masterful documentary, RELIGULOUS (2008).
Religion, in and of itself can be good or bad. Look at Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Roy Bourgeois, the Une de Vegetal (ap?) in Latin America, for just a few examples. The Quakers for another. the Rabbis at www.nkusa.org and Tikkun, Buddhists, Taoists... the list goes on and on. There are (believe it or not) many very good religious people on the earth. Alienating one who would be your ally over something larger and more External is not a good strategy.
Yes, many religions are whacked out these days, and their followers seem to be among the loudest. Do not think that they are representative of all followers of all religion, however.
I respect your post, 'herdpoisoning'.
I, myself, have known many fine religious people. I often post using extreme language, in the hope that my comment may grab enough attention to get those of a Fundamentalist nature (especially) to question things. To question everything. To think. To not respect authority, unless that authority figure is worthy of respect.
I do wonder, however, whether any of the people/organizations you mention, would have been any less noble without the influence of Organized Religion.
Most of all, I fear that what we call 'Religion' - 'Faith' - is ultimately destructive, because it seems to offer an easy way out for the brain-dead amongst us, who are provided an excuse for having no interest in 'Government'.
I don't have any allies (I'm just an old fart on my way out), and those who are sensitive will make little difference in the comming battles, because we are at war. Words really don't matter much in war. Of course, that's just my opinion.
isn't that what's faux news is for?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This article is far and away too intelligent for the vast majority of 21st century post-Bush II "Amurkans." Even if they still read anything worth reading anymore they could read this piece 3 times in a row and still be unable to wrap their brains around the direct logic and morality of it.
On the fire dept story in Tenn. Thank you to whoever it was who went to the station. People have got to fight this neo-liberal model. It is cynical and enslaving beyond words.
Please fire fighters: SPEAK YOUR CONSCIENCE!
In this situation as in the military, people must have the courage to speak and stand in good conscience. These are the most valuable people alive in terms of real change. Those who stand and deliver will go down in history among the models for the resurgence of democracy.
Dignity not pride.
a poster named brian something-or-other made a fabulous posting recently that I wish I'd kept...
the whole idea was revolution for dignity, above and beyond all other reasons...
that human dignity fundamentally required standing up to one's oppressors...
I found it a very liberating piece...
Invent a commercially viable sewer meter that weighs the solids heading down each building's sewer connection and you will have customers.
I bet you are so happy that the beaner government, headed by Felipe Calderon so progressive. Did you "vote" for him?
Aw, you can dish it out but you can't take it eh? You need to learn some politcal terms: neo-liberal, finance capitalist vulture economics. "Gringo" does not cut it, just like me sarcastically calling you a beaner.
Now cut the crap and get serious, your conservative neo-lib line to try and separate radicals on both sides of the border is pathetic. Divide and rule. Whether a gringo or a beaner, a radical is a radical, whether your hypocritical ass likes it or not.
You also need to brush up on a sense of irony and sarcasm.
Where are the radicals in beanerland oh wise one? Nationalist clap trap, F Nationalism. I don't care where you are from. I don't vote D, so why you takin out your anger on me? Cause I'm a cracker-assed gringo? You need to learn up some gringo slang, you obvisouly don't talk no working-class gringo slang do you?
You aint no international socialist, that's for sure. So keep on venting on those who don't vote Duopoly if it makes you feel better, you only help the status quo.
The only rational reason you are taking your anger out on me is because you hate Anglos (gringos). Gringos this, gringos that, gringos this, yeah they are very bad people. Very sophisticated analysis.
I must have hit a raw nerve. I am glad that you are angry, although it is misplaced.
"You aint no international socialist, that's for sure."
and then jumps to assuming that the only other choice is D or R.
From my reading of read_between's posts I'm guessing "Peace and Freedom Party" if there is any "party" affiliation. I could be mistaken.
I have to agree here that "gringo" from a Native American, especially from certain regions, is not used as a pejorative any more than calling a "Lakota" a "Sioux" is (less than in fact as "Sioux" is a word used by the Crow (or is it Cree? I get confused) who were an enemy of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota/Hunkpapa grouping of tribes, and the word literally meant "snake." The word "gringo" if I am not mistaken, was used by southwestern tribes to name these new people they had scouted out singing a song that started with the words "green grow" as they meandered along "settling" the area.
Also keep in mind, Native Americans still have every right to see others as "occupiers".
There is a history there that goes back well before the "Labor Movement" started by anarchists in Chicago set the ball rolling that your ISO later decided to latch themselves onto. Then the doctrine of your ISO was shown in all of its glories at Kronstadt.
Notice that the "cost savings" doesn't come down to eliminating wasteful spending but comes from cutting wages for the librarian yielding more profit for the owner.
Republicans alleged fear that Obama would re-distribute wealth. That's an incomplete sentence, they are only afraid that the re-distribution might not be upwards.
And boy, he proved their fears unfounded.
When the librarians work for the "public" library, they are responsible to the people of that community. When they work for a "private" company, they have to abide by the conditions and rules of that company. What happens if the private company decides it isn't profitable enough in a community...say after a year or two. The library closes, has to find a new "private" contractor, or the community has to go through a process of building it back up as a "public" library. For the reasons Amy listed and many more, the privatization of public libraries is one of the worst decisions we can make for our communities and society.
The library system in a certain Massachusetts city had been run since its inception by a group of unelected, wealthy elites who didn't even live in the city. The people of the city funded the system through taxation, but had no say in how those monies were spent.
One morning, people woke to find "CLOSED" and "For Sale" signs on several of the branch library buildings including 3 historically-significant ones. The "Museums and Libraries Association" scum had decided that the libraries were too expensive to keep up and run. So they laid off staff en masse and put the "excess" buildings up for sale, including one that was fully supported in perpetuity by the will of a deceased benefactrix. They thought they'd ignore her will, sell the building she'd paid for and her trust fund was supporting, and fold the money from the trust fund into their museums fund: the museums make money, the libraries don't.
A retired social worker and library fanatic went ballistic. She gathered support, including a retired lawyer who'd been mayor of the city in the '60s, and gave the city council hark from the tomb until, terrified of being sued themselves for their failure to exercise oversight, they pulled the libraries out from the clutches of the elites and made them not just publicly funded, but publicly controlled too. (The first person to get appointed to the new Library Commission was the retired social worker. Sometimes the good do win).
As part of the infighting that finally won freedom for the libraries, it was discovered that *for decades* the members of the association had been spending large amounts of library money on junkets and dinners for themselves, and on acquisitions for and upkeep of the money-making museums. It was only the threat of a major lawsuit for breach of contract and fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, and possible individual criminal charges that finally convinced the wealthy scum to let go of the cookie jar.
Anyone wonder if the librarians working for the private library will be as willing as our publicly employed librarians to protect your privacy when the US gov. comes asking about what books you've been reading?
This could also be an end-run around burning books. The corporate management-style staffs will find reasons to do away with politically "inconvenient" topics. They'll say they need the shelves for what "sells," i.e. gains popularity. Bye, bye Charle Dickens.
Heck, if the Christian theocrats fight the teaching of evolution; and if that awful Texan company with its blatantly revisionistic views of history gets to circulate textbooks to huge school systems, then control of the local library is next up... especially since the goal is to make Truth itself inconvenient. How else to continue to manufacture consent while the society all around us continues to implode?
I will fight to the end for my library to keep its copies of Howard Zinn's history books- and other important works!
So, the fire in TN... in this particular case, everyone got out of the house and it was just material possessions that were lost. What happens if someone is trapped and they didn't pay their subscription? Do they let those people die there?
would they have stood there if the owner or his wife had been in the home when it was on fire? Holy shit batman, we have some fucked up people in this country.
as for the library,the only reason these clown want to privatize everything is that all the other business's have sent there factories over to china and they still need to make money off of us over here. and exactly what kind of books and reading material would they have for you to read? hitlerism has returned.. god help us
Privatization is a scourge on humanity casting people as slaves for the wealthy, because the wealthy have a special relationship with god giving them absolute dominion. This is an arrogant rationalization that reaches beyond the human imagination into limitless darkness from which there is no recovery. Death is the only word that reasonably approaches defining such a place and it is no surprise that it is being visited upon America.
Americans probably don't realize the service they provide to the civilized world by putting on display what happens when what should be considered a public service is handed over to the money-mad classes to run.
Here in Australia over the decades any time some right wing politician would pop up to threaten our universal, government funded heath care system, all that had to be said was "we don't want an American style health care system" and they would disappear back down the hole the crawled out of, never to appear again.
Now should anyone suggest turning our free public library system into an enterprise for private profit, America will provide the example that demonstrates why it should not be considered.
This is America's gift to the world.
MICHAEL: I suppose you can add to that list: how NOT to wreck an economy by over-investing in militarism to the expense of everything else. Too bad greed has proven such an enduring sin (as in: The LOVE of money = the root of all evil), or the European bankers might not have fallen for that other uniquely toxic American export, the derivative/swap dressed up as a perfectly viable investment. This fraud infiltrating other nations' economies at the peril of their people.
Yes. America's captains of greed and militarism have exported MANY lessons to the world. Too bad this nation's extravagant use of fossil fuels will add disproportionately to climate chaos. There's knowledge, but there's also the impact of what's been generated by the architects of absolute disaster capitalism. The lords of karma are working overtime to try to sort it all out.
@Siouxrose:
"The lords of karma are working overtime to try to sort it all out."
That's very unlike you! First to say that anything could be above the law of karma. And secondly to say "Lords", as opposed to Ladies, perhaps, or Queens, or any matriarchal figurehead.
May I suggest a good dose of Terry Pratchett, starting perhaps with Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad, and progressing to Monstrous Regiment!
A great post.
I hope that America's "gifts" given during the collapse of her disastrous empire don't include the nuclear destruction of human life. If such madness is possible, only the USA would actually prosecute it. In foxholes, they say, there are no atheists. So I say, from the fetid hole in Utah I call home, may God have mercy on all of us.
The Soviet Union, in civilized Russian fashion after a largely faux coup d'etat, got its representatives together in a mahogany paneled room and voted itself out of existence. Don't expect the American beasts to behave as well.
'There's more than one way to burn a book.'
__ Ray Bradbury
Library's , who needs library's , everyone knows that the most important people in America get all there working daily knowledge from Fox news.
Besides , who wants to go to a library, thats where they send all the fake DHS FBI wanna be agents with NSL letters to screw with Americans lives.
If you absolutely must consider everything in commercial terms, you can still find value in Libraries _ we live in a 'knowledge-based economy,' and if you're going to make circuit boards as an adult, you can learn the basics of electronic engineering as a child from a book.
Thus Libraries are storehouses of a natural resource, and should be protected _ and valued _ as such. Many Conservatives have no dispute about tax funds going to the military, which theoretically protects us from physical harm _ they should have no dispute with tax funds going into Libraries, which protect us from Ignorance.
In the classic sense of Conservatives, I think your argument may hold some validity. With what parades as "Conservatives" today, protecting ourselves from ignorance makes them appear as ridiculous as they are.
Too many people in the US don't want to pay for any services. The majority of our population has become disconnected from any sense of community. Personally, I think this can help explain many of our problems. We no longer have neighbors, we have people who live next door.
The more we become disconnected from our local communities the easier it is to justify not providing for the common good. It becomes an easy sell to convince someone to turn previously public services into "play for play"
About the firefighters and the burnt home. I posted this elswere.
"I also think it's horible they just stood around and let it burn. But I also think many people here missed something. These people lived outside the city and so they were paying NO taxes for any city services.
That said, they should have put the fire out and just sent them a bill or madesome other arrangement. Can't imagine anyone of good conscious just standing around watching someone's home burn to the ground.
Taxes or no taxes, whether someone pays you or not, you don't sit by and watch someone's house, and maybe someone's life, destroyed _ it's inhuman. If you have the capacity to act, you do so unthinkingly, even if it's a stranger. To reduce saving a life to a monetary transaction is insane _ it goes against all the values of 'heroism' and 'sacrifice' we tout.
Some CDers seem to be short on information, gleanable from reading articles about the fire. Here are some data points:
- The people who owned the house live outside the city and pay no city taxes.
- The county has been toying with the idea of providing a fire service for some time, but hasn't actually done anything. Because of this incident, the county will now collect the fee from each homeowner as a tax and pass it on to the respective city.
- The guy was asked at least twice to sign up and *chose* not to. At the fire scene, he said "I thought they would put it out even if I didn't pay".
- The firefighter captain said that, had there been life at stake, his squad, onsite to protect neighboring homes, would unquestionably have risked their own lives to save those endangered. (Edit: this might repulsively not quite be true: one account said 3 dogs and a cat died in the fire, with no attempt by the firefighters to save them. But it also said the fire started outside and only later engulfed the house. If that's the case, why were the non-humans still inside? Didn't the owner of the house care about those family members either?)
- Perhaps Tennessee doesn't have mechanic's liens, or perhaps cities can't impose them. But for whatever reason, because the owners of the property live outside the city, the people of the city would have had no way to collect from them if they chose not to pay a post-hoc firefighting bill as of course they might well have done--$75/yr is not exactly burdensome ($6.25/mo--less than the price of a 6-pack), yet those people thought they could get the service without paying. That says something unpleasant about how they view the world and their place in it as compared with other people.
Would you feel the need to risk your health or life to save the possessions (house, furnishings, mementos) of someone like that? Someone who feels so privileged that he regards the dangerous professional service you provide the community, a service whose performance might disable or kill you, as his due even after he cold-bloodedly chose not to pay the trivial price of community membership? I wouldn't.
There could've been life at stake, and the fire could've spread to other houses. Their inaction was barbaric. They had a chance to prove themselves better than the dumbass who owned the property. Instead, they proved themselves to be only something far, far worse.
In secondary school, our English teacher (RIP) decided to eschew trying to pointlessly teach us English grammar or lit, and instead taught us the tools of logical and critical thinking. I shall always be grateful to him, because I've used those tools many times each day, ever since.
One of his exposés was of the platitude that "each human life is priceless".
He asked how many of us believed that. Every hand went up.
He then asked how many of us had jobs that paid money. Nearly every hand went up.
Then he sprang the trap: since money could save many such "priceless" lives in places like Africa, India, war-torn Europe (this was in 1956) and even the slums and backwoods of our own country, how could we justify not giving away our money to that purpose. Surely there could be no more noble use for our money than to save those lives we'd just got done calling "priceless".
The class's response seemed about equally divided into reflective chagrin and angry, defensive protest. The discussion that followed was extremely fruitful.
If the inaction of the firefighters was barbaric, what shall we call your inaction?
I'm absolutely certain you have no intention of beggaring or even inconveniencing yourself to help build that family a new house. How can you justify that? You know their need, and you could spare at least some money each month for the purpose, and some time to solicit charity from others. How will you rationalise your inaction?
I think you'll find that whatever absolves you is true of those firefighters as well.
You're wrong. You don't know me.
Maybe it'd be good to move beyond impersonal, tidy 'logic' that made so much sense to you as a teenager, Officer Spock. Juvenile thought and the related level of morality is becoming a strong force in our culture.
There will always be dumbasses who don't want to contribute to society, but who will expect support when it comes to the crunch _ and become anti-social or dangerous if they don't get it. Today, some of them are what we call 'criminals,' and we have no choice but to spend a great deal of public money to feed and house them in prisons.
There will always be deadbeats. A socialized society doesn't institutionalize deadbeat-ism, or even encourage it. There are demonstrably fewer deadbeats in most European countries than there are in America. What you find over there is, rather, more folks who pursue what they're best at instead of struggling to survive because they need to pay for health care, they need pay off monstrous University debts, or they're terrified of what they're going to do in retirement. And as a result _ humans free to do what they're best at _ you have a richer, healthier society.
You can't euthanize irresponsible folks. Even in a crazy Darwininan, Ayn Rand, Libertarian Utopian society, they're not going to disappear. No matter how repulsive humans can be, they are still human _ and in order to retain our humanity, we must follow _ and reward _ our better instincts to treat one another with mercy.
You're trying to defend the indefensible. There are no valid reasons to sit idle when you could have helped, I don't care how much money was involved. Once again, money is seen as more important than people. I don't and won't ever believe that.
Depending on what stage the structure may have been in when they arrived, it very well could have been the best thing to do. These people were outside of the city, and often a call for something like that is not even placed to the fire department until after the people have gotten out of the house, and if, as has been stated, it started outside, it had probably engulfed one side of the house by the time it was even noticed inside. Then, if they didn't have a cell phone, it would be run to the neighbors house (and this is outside the city so that probably is not very close. By the time the firemen got there, it could have been to a point where the firemen knew that it would not be savable, and the best and only thing to do would be to just make sure it didn't spread.
Under the dominant single-payer system of fire protection, everyone is covered. Everyone has to pay. Which system do you prefer?
and of course these freaks all "claim" to be christian.......
when in fact they as as anti-christian as the devil himself......
as jesus said " it's easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven"
and "as you did to the least of my brethren you DID TO ME"!
"give away all your worldly possessions"
a better fit is from dylan for these teabagger freaks:
"sometimes satan comes as a man of peace"
My Mother was a librarian. My sister is a librarian (in the UK). Most of my close friends wives are librarians or library pages. So I am in full support of libraries and know many of the workings within. I am against the privatization of any public system, especially the Library.
Having said that, when the Unions become so powerful that the members, aka "the employees", get away with doing just about nothing, then something is wrong. The long standing joke here in California about CalTrans "there are 5 guys standing around with shovels and a 6th guy actually doing the work". But it's actually not a joke, it is real! My Mom, Sister and friends will tell you the same stories within the libraries they work at.
I work at a public college doing IT support and I see this every single day, these people that abuse the system. And there isn't a thing that I can do about it. And there isn't a thing that management can do about it.
So these people skate through 20-25 years of public "service" and then collect nice pensions, something that they were supposed to actually EARN! Meanwhile I am stuck with their work load because if I don't do it the customer, in my case the Students, ultimately suffer.
Talk about stress. It's no wonder why people either have breakdowns or just shutdown and join in with the slackers.
Something has got to change. But privatization of the Library is not the answer. And shattering the Unions isn't the answer either, however some accountability would be nice.
the fire coverage and libraries are only the 1st step......
education is next -
because the tea party freaks hold the same beliefs as the dictator somoza held during his rein in nicaragua -
when asked why he didn't support public education somoza replied:
"I want oxen not men"!