Editor's Message
The $64,000,000 Pyramid
More than anything else, money has been the determining factor in the most lopsided mayor’s race that, mercifully, will end in early November. Regardless of what one thinks of Mayor Bloomberg, it is obvious that any candidate who can spend $64 million (as of the end of October), or 17 times more money than his opponent, stands a pretty good chance of winning. Needless to say, there isn’t much that money can’t buy in this town.
The point of the city’s progressive public financing system—which provides matching funds of up to 6-1 in cases of financially mismatched elections such as the present one—is to create a reasonably level playing field. The justification for candidates like Bloomberg being able to circumvent that system is the Supreme Court’s ruling, in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), that the self-financing of political campaigns is protected under the First Amendment.
But as anyone subjected to Bloomberg’s deluge of ads on the airwaves, in print, and everywhere else knows, a self-financed political campaign isn’t free speech—it’s paid media. Lots of it.
In his dissent to the portion of Buckley v. Valeo dealing with self-financed campaigns, Thurgood Marshall explained quite reasonably that financing restrictions reduced “the natural advantage of the wealthy candidate” and “promoted equal access to the political arena by all potential candidates.” Alas, Marshall’s views now seem quaint, as the Age of Equality ended with the ascent of Ronald Reagan.
The only present obstacle to the reign of Bloomberg is term limits. And we can only hope that Mayor Mike doesn’t finance a campaign to do away with them. Otherwise, future challengers will face a similar fate as the current one, who in this election at least, will be remembered simply as poor Freddy Ferrer.
All of us here at the Rail would like to send a real big “thanks” to Amelia Hennighausen, our outgoing print designer, and Amanda Luker, our outgoing Webmaster. Both did wonderful design work for us. Amelia’s efforts receive further mention on p. 4 of this issue. We are also pleased to welcome the dynamic duo of Kiu Yi and Walter Chiu, who will handle both our print and Web layout and design with continued verve and aplomb.
—T. Hamm
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The words in my title belong to Robert Irwin. I came across them years ago in Lawrence Weschler’s much-loved book of dialogues with the artist, and since then they’ve become something of a personal shibboleth. Referring to his technique for placing bets at the track (a second vocation in which he enjoyed great success), Irwin relayed that, after carefully studying the statistics for each horse, he would forget all the facts, close his eyes, and “run his hand over the race.” I don’t think I’ve encountered a better metaphor for tacit thinking: the kind of thinking we do unconsciously, without language, with and through our bodies.
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Bon Iver began collaborating with Minnesota's TU Dance, which was cofounded by Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands, both Black veterans of Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater, to present Come Through, a contemporary dance performance—mixing modern dance, hip hop, and ballet among other movement styles—alongside a live Bon Iver set. With Come Through, Vernon chooses to engage directly, for the first time in his career and with unfortunately haphazard treatment, with images and media like a hoodie superimposed over the word "breathe," and audio from a speech by Viola Davis about Jim Crow racism given at the Women’s March.
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That the feasibility of using the ongoing depression to further drive down wages, cut benefits, and worsen working conditions is being discussed via a social-scientific dispute—whether a short-term relief measure is a disincentive to work at a time when 30 million jobs have vanished—tells us more about the nature of economics than about the motivation for employment. It provides further support, if any is needed, for historian of science Jerome Ravetz’s description of economics as a “folk science,” “a body of accepted knowledge whose function is not to provide the basis for further advance but to offer comfort and reassurance to some body of believers.”2
Their Money or Your Life
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The new virus, easier for the rich to guard against and to treat when stricken, illuminates the depth of social inequality and the general subordination of everyday life, including the requirements of human and animal health, to “the economy,” as we call the system subordinating the production of goods and services to the need of capitalist investors to accumulate profits.
