A Page from the Fascist Playbook: Pitting the lower classes against one another

Bad hair, worse ideas.

With the whole Donald Trump race-baiting affair making its way through the news cycle we should all take a step back and consider just how this fits into the conservative plan for America as we see it unfolding. First we have created a vast divide between rich and poor beginning with the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s. Virtually every law since then has added to the misallocation of income favoring those who already have too much at the expense of everyone else. Of course, it’s impossible to win an election when your group represents only the wealthiest 1% of Americans which means that you need to appeal to the prols on other issues besides taking care of their economic needs.

“Social issues” like abortion and “family values” (whatever the hell that means) have become the battle cry of conservatives for years now. Of course, wealthy people never need worry about safe abortion for their progeny because they have always had easy access to abortion. The only thing that making abortion the law of the land did was to extend this same right to the poorer people in America who didn’t have the resources to send their daughters to some other country where abortion is legal. As far as family values, whenever you hear of some group with the word “family” in the title you can rest assured that what they really mean are white, middle class families.

The most deceitful practice of the conservatives is to pit the lower classes against one another, as if one group of the poor is the enemy and responsible for the other group’s misfortune. At the beginning of the financial meltdown when Obama took office conservatives made a valiant effort to blame the whole scandal on deadbeat home owners. Next they went after school teachers, as if those entrusted with the education of our children don’t deserve a position in middle class society. Fast food workers have been constantly pilloried for having the gall to ask for a livable wage, one that doesn’t require them to ask for government assistance to make ends meet. You can forget about anyone on public assistance; they don't even rate as human beings as far as conservatives are concerned.

And now we have a purported Republican presidential candidate spewing the most hateful vile to have come out of the mouth of a politician since Munich…and he’s doing well in the polls! Here is a man who makes Sarah Palin look like Bertrand Russell in comparison and he is polling second among Republicans.

I am supremely confident that there aren't enough racist hicks in America to ever elect someone from this party as our president. 

The Ruzafa Neighborhood: From Seedy to Yuppie in One Crisis

One of the most remarkable transformations to occur in Valencia in the past five years has been the neighborhood of Ruzafa, one of the oldest in the city. The area has never been without a certain charm but not too long ago most people in Valencia would have considered it a good place to buy drugs and little else. I don’t think that I had ever walked down Calle Denia without being offered drugs or sex as North African dealers and South American hookers worked seemingly from dusk to dawn. There are still plenty of drugs to be had in the form of cocktails in the new avalanche of bars that line the streets and sex, too, is readily available but strictly on an amateur level—one of the main reasons many people go to bars in the first place.

Things began to change in the neighborhood at almost the exact moment that Spain’s economy went into the toilet. As a jobs program the city’s administration began a works project to redesign Ruzafa to make it more pedestrian-friendly by widening sidewalks, eliminating a lot of on-street parking, narrowing the roads, and adding bike paths. Beginning with Puerto Rico street the works were agonizingly snail-like in their progress but crews seemed to learn speed and efficiency as the project pressed forward until almost every street in the area has now been renovated.  

The neighborhood is a much better place for pedestrians than it was before when every street was choked with cars and worse, parked cars cluttered every inch of both sides of the street. Several streets have been closed to car traffic and little plazas (like in the photo) dot the landscape. Ruzafa is a great place to live with dozens of cool restaurants and bars, a big public market, and something like 80 artist studios. Most of the buildings have some historic value making Russafa (in Valenciano) a jewel inside Valencia.

Dispatches from Flip-Flop Nation

Allow me to preface this by saying that I shower regularly—I swear—but do you ever look down when you’re out in public and practically screech with terror at the state of your toe nails? ¡Yikes! Perhaps shoe shiners could do double duty as feet bathers.

I'm Definitely Not a Nosey Neighbor

Sometimes hanging the clothes out to dry can be horrifying.

Here’s a bit of counsel from someone with experience: Whatever you do, don’t look down. The problem with free advice is that people don’t respect anything they get for nothing. Now go take a peek out my back window into what we call the “Patio de Manzana” which is the interior courtyard of a block of apartments and try to remember my warning.

You can stop screaming now. Hysterics won’t wash away the image cauterized in your mind of the guy sunbathing on the deck below as naked as the day he was born, which if I had to venture a guess was about 125 years ago. I hope that we’ve all learned something here today.