Category Archives: Stephen Golub

[Note from BenIndy: This post was first published on Stephen Golub’s blog, A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country. There, Steve blogs about domestic and international politics and policy, including lessons that the United States can learn from other nations. If interested, you may sign up for future posts by subscribing to the blog.]

In a blast from the past, a hopeful film resonates as Kamala’s campaign takes off.

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

A Promised Land, by Stephen Golub, August 4, 2024

For a fun, relaxing time the other day, my wife and I went to see Fly Me to the Moon, the lighthearted Scarlett Johansson/Channing Tatum flick about an attempt at faking the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Despite the enjoyable escapism, I couldn’t help comparing it with our troubled times.

A Time of Darkness, Division, Promise and Progress

I’ll start, though, by acknowledging that 1969 was far from untroubled. We were in the depths of the Vietnam war, wreaking havoc on that country while absorbing over 50,000 deaths of our own. The war and a host of other issues bitterly divided the United States. President Richard Nixon was hardly a unifying figure.

Still, if 1969 was far from an innocent time, it at least offered signs of hope and progress, starting with the massively moving accomplishment of the moon landing itself. The seeds of the women’s rights and environmental movements had already been planted, with progress soon to flower in both fields.

And for all of Nixon’s sins, insecurities and instability, which became even clearer as the Watergate scandal came crashing down on him a few years later, some of his proposals (such as a guaranteed annual income) and achievements (the launching of the Environmental Protection Agency) would be considered progressive today in Democratic circles and anathema to Republicans.

That era also merits comparison with today in other respects. There was no Fox “News” or social media to pervasively present a perverse, fact-resistant version of reality to Americans. Which in turn meant that senior Republicans could and would force Nixon to step down when the actual reality of Watergate made that a necessity. Contrast that with today’s craven Republican leaders caving to Trump even after he sought to extort Ukraine’s president and distort U.S. foreign policy for political gain, and even after he chose to support insurrectionists intent on tearing apart the Capitol and the Constitution.

Hope

Speaking of today… Fly Me to the Moon is by no means a great movie. But underlying the mix of humor, goofiness, romance, drama, cynicism and commercialism marking the film, there’s an underlying spirit of hope. And hope, despite the darkness and craziness of 2024, is what many of us now feel for the first time in some time.

It started, obviously, with the leaders of the one flawed but functional major political party we have left persuading a diminished, unpopular president that his time had gone, that for the good of the party and the country he needed to step aside. It continued with his accepting that verdict, as painful as it was, and doing the right thing.

It’s culminated, for the moment, with the impressive rocket launch of Kamala’s campaign. In the wake of her debacle of a race four years ago, the first doubt about her could have been whether she could even run for president competently. The three months ahead will truly be trying, with lots of difficulties. But she’s off to an inspiring start.

What I find most promising is that she seems to have learned valuable lessons from that campaign, as well as from those of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. Those lessons include tacking toward the center somewhat, given the realities of winning the crucial, centrist swing states necessary to win the Electoral College, which is all that matters in a presidential campaign. That in turn involves playing up her prosecutorial credentials, as opposed to previously playing them down.

Her strong start also involves standing steadfast on vital matters of principle (as well as political advantage), especially a woman’s right to an abortion and women’s rights in general; triggering an organic online buzz that might sway younger voters; and bringing on senior advisors from the successful Obama campaigns.

She’s smoothly parrying Trump’s ugly, racist, misogynist, nativist thrusts, most recently by not getting dragged into his pigsty over whether she’s Asian or Black. (Though I wonder how J.D. and Usha Vance feel about what Trump’s either/or attacks mean for their mixed-race kids.)

There’s another president Harris merits comparison with: Ronald Reagan. For all their dozens of differences, she’s coming across as her own kind of Reaganesque “happy warrior”: a blend of strong, stern, sunny, cheerful and hopeful. It’s a winning combination if one can pull it off. So far, she is.

Triumphing Despite the Troubled Skies

Inevitable troubles lie ahead, ranging from potentially legitimate negative stories to attacks on Kamala’s policy positions to Trump lying about her at every nasty turn.

Which is where we all come in. By voting, donating and working for Harris. By influencing others to do the same. By holding on to hope, even during those days when things look dark.

Triumphing in November is all very doable. After all, we’re not talking about shooting for the moon.

2024 General Election, A Promised Land, Donald Trump, Gun violence, Stephen Golub

Stephen Golub: A Dark Day

July 15, 2024 BenIndy

[Note from BenIndy: This post was first published on Stephen Golub’s blog, A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country. There, Steve blogs about domestic and international politics and policy, including lessons that the United States can learn from other nations. If interested, you may sign up for future posts by subscribing to the blog.]

By Stephen Golub, July 15, 2024

The Trump assassination attempt and its possible aftermath are so horrific on so many levels. For what it’s worth, here are two excerpts from my interview with the Indian TV station WION (World Is One News) a few hours after the attack. As you might imagine, they capture just a slice of my views on the matter. The American woman who’s also contributing is WION’s U.S. correspondent – with whom, you might note, I disagree on a couple of points.

In one of the clips, I refer to a Washington Post article that ironically appeared earlier in the day, on Trump-supporting, violence-advocating Christian nationalists. In its own way, it’s just as frightening as the shooting.

The days just seem to be getting darker lately. But let’s not give up on our creating light down the road.

MORE POSTS FROM STEPHEN GOLUB’S BLOG, A PROMISED LAND:

Benicia, Benicia City Council, Benicia's Budget Crisis, Stephen Golub

Stephen Golub: Kudos to the Council on the Potential Transfer Tax

June 18, 2024 BenIndy

By Stephen Golub, June 18, 2024

On June 11, the City Council took the first step in a multi-stage process to put on the November ballot a vote on whether Benicia should adopt a Real Property Transfer Tax (RPTT) for the sale of real estate, be it residential, commercial or industrial.

Kudos to the Council for both biting the bullet on this significant step to close the City’s budget gap and conducting its discussion and initial community input in a collegial way. Thanks too to City Manager Mario Giuliani and the City staff for undertaking the grunt work to date (as summarized by a “Policy Direction” memo from Mr. Giuliani to the Council in preparation for the June 11 meeting, and for further figuring out over the next several weeks optimal options for the Council to consider regarding this potential tax.

If adopted, the transfer tax will levy a fee on the sale of real estate. Among the many matters the City staff and Council need to address are how high the fee should be. One figure being considered is one percent (i.e., $10 for every $1,000 in sales price, or $8,000 on an $800,000 house). As per the Policy Direction memo I mentioned, that $10 rate – which is actually lower than the $12 mean for many other Bay Area cities – would generate an additional $2.1million for the City annually at this point. Presumably, that figure would rise over the years as housing prices escalate.

Some initial thoughts on the matter:

Pardon the cliché, but there’s still no such thing as a free lunch. As Mayor Steve Young, City Manager Giuliani and others have consistently pointed out, the City is taking multiple cost-saving and revenue enhancing steps toward putting our finances on stable footing going forward. But there’s still much to do if we want to keep Benicia the pretty, pleasant, enjoyable, safe, special place we love. With the building of new housing mandated by state law, a potential generational turnover in housing ownership due to our aging population and other conceivable developments coming down the pike, the transfer tax makes sense as big way of closing our budget gap.

This need not affect most or any current Benicia residents at all in the near or medium terms or even permanently. For one thing, most of us won’t be selling our homes in the foreseeable future. Even more importantly, the City could mandate or at least strongly push for the tax to be paid by property buyers – rather than by sellers or by the two splitting the cost. (Admittedly, whether it could mandate who’d pay the tax was not clear from Tuesday’s discussion, but some sort of “Sense of the Council” suggestion might at least nudge realtors’ arrangements in the right direction.)

This approach would ensure that buyers enjoying the pleasure of moving into our wonderful town would pay the additional price for doing so, rather than sellers – who may need to maximize their finances on the way out – bearing that burden. Plus, it’s an investment of sorts by the buyers: In paying that price, they would help ensure a balanced Benicia budget that enables it to provide services that in turn increase their property values over the years.

The additional cost is relatively manageable. While I don’t want to dismiss the significance of a buyer taking on, say, an additional $8,000 of debt due to the RPTT, that works out to less than $50 per month for a 30-year, six percent loan. It’s not a deal-breaker, in other words, particularly given the overbidding that has come to characterize parts of Benicia’s housing market.

I’m also plugging for the Council and realtors alike to push for the buyers to pay the tax because, frankly, it’s more politically palatable (as well as substantively sustainable) to point out to current residents that they won’t bear the burden of the RPTT.

The Council discussed, and the staff will explore varying the transfer tax rates according to the size or nature of the transaction. Thus, hypothetically, the tax might be only $5 per $10,000 sale for lower-priced homes and $15 or more for more expensive houses, commercial properties and/or industrial concerns. This approach seems fairest in that it burdens lower priced transactions less. I want to emphasize the “hypothetical” here, however – this all remains to be sorted out in the process that will unfold.

So what is that process? As I mentioned, in the next several weeks the staff will get back to the Council (and public) with further reporting on options for moving forward. On July 16, there will be another Council meeting on the transfer tax and on the crucial related matter of the City amending its Charter so as to allow the tax. On August 6, the Council may vote on whether to put the two related measures – the Charter change and the RPTT – on the November ballot; the deadline for ballot submissions is August 9.

I’m seeking to summarize a lot here; I’m unavoidably leaving out even more. For instance, there may well be all sorts of exceptions to the potential RPPT rule, including intra-family transfers, division of property in case of divorce, etc. For more on this matter, keep track of future messages from Mayor Young and City Manager Giuliani, as well as postings at the City site.

And spice up your summer by circling the July 16 and August 6 Council meetings on your calendar!

[Steve Golub also blogs about U.S. politics, international developments and lessons America can learn from other countries at his site, A Promised Land, apromisedland.org]

MORE POSTS ABOUT BENICIA FROM AUTHOR STEPHEN GOLUB:

California Forever Inc., Flannery Associates, Solano County CA, Solano County Orderly Growth Committee, Solano County Registrar of Voters, Solano Together, Stephen Golub, Travis Air Force Base

Stephen Golub: Flim-Flannery (Is a Techno-cult Coming to Solano County?)

May 28, 2024 BenIndy

Jack Ohman’s editorial cartoon from the May 26 SF Chron.

By Stephen Golub, May 28, 2024

“Is this the Golub household?”

The pleasant young woman who rang my doorbell on Friday was soliciting support for the East Solano Plan, otherwise known as California Forever, otherwise known as Flannery Associates, the shadowy company launched by ultra-rich Silicon Valley investors. The firm has bought $900 million of Solano County land in recent years in order to supposedly build a model city, despite widespread traffic congestion, water shortage, environmental and credibility concerns to the contrary.

After I calmly but firmly expressed my doubts about the project and its backers, she went on her way.

I’d previously suspected that the Flannery flim-flam was simply a get-even-richer-quick scheme for the billionaires: Start by buying the land. Then have its mainly farmland zoning changed to allow residential use, via passage of the firm’s “East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative” referendum this November. Finally, flip the land to developers at inflated prices.

But there could be more to this scheme than meets the eye.

In a fascinating blog post and New Republic article, journalist and communications strategist Gil Duran dives into what possibly drives CF: “California Forever aligns with the Network State cult, a movement which seeks to build new sovereign territories ruled by tech plutocrats. The idea behind the Network State is to build new cities that can eventually gain sovereignty and essentially secede from the United States.”

Though he has an impressive background working for leading California news outlets and officials, don’t just take Duran’s word about Network State ideology. Here’s the leader of the Network State movement, tech entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan, on the topic: “[A] network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states”. [Emphasis added.]

As suggested by Duran’s New Republic piece, that vision may be dark rather than hopeful, offering ways to evade a dystopian future rather than shape a utopian one, more Terminator than Star Trek. Also bear in mind that Srinivasan’s politics are such that in January 2017 Donald Trump reportedly interviewed him to head the Food and Drug Administration.

Duran suggests links between California Forever and the Network State in terms of Srinivasan repeatedly alluding to the former in discussing the latter, as well as Srinivasan’s shared orientations and connections with several CF funders. Where there’s smoke, there could well be fire.

Now, let’s take a few steps back…

First, in fairness to Flannery or California Forever or the East Solano Plan – or whatever surveys or focus groups might tell the initiative’s leaders they should call it these days – the project denies any ties to the Network State movement. I’d add that thus far Duran is making an intriguing case for the connection, rather than conclusively proving it.

Still, as he asserts, “Given the company’s history of evasiveness, its denials mean little.”

That’s a powerful point, in view of how the initiative keeps rebranding itself; how some of its backers’ outlooks overlap with Network State ideology; how its recent mass mailing misleadingly maintains that the project will “Keep Travis Air Force Base Secure and Thriving,” when in fact the project’s original plans put the Base’s security in question; and, most notably, how it’s offering glowing “guarantees” of massive benefits it’s actually not obliged to honor

Second, are we really seeing the potential birth of an Independent Republic of East Solano? I don’t see how. But if the California Forever initiative passes in November, or if its backers otherwise exert enough political sway, we could witness the rise of an undemocratic and unaccountable entity that echoes the Network State orientation.

Third, wouldn’t Solano County benefit from something of a shakeup, in terms of additional housing, resources, environmental enhancements and a host of other would-be benefits? Sure. But there are better ways of doing that, consistent with the County’s General Plan adopted by the Board of Supervisors and approved by voters in 2008, by working with our existing cities rather than converting farmland. Plus we get back to whether we can even trust the project. I’m afraid we can’t.

How will Duran’s allegations play out over time? Who knows? The fact that California Forever is misleading on many other matters does not automatically mean it’s being dishonest in denying this Network State connection. But neither has it earned the benefit of the doubt.

It’s certainly worth subscribing to Duran’s blog to learn more. It’s also worth being beware, should an East Solano Plan solicitor come knocking at your door the way one did at mine.

What can we do about the billionaires’ dubious development? For months, “a group of concerned residents, leaders, and organizations” called Solano Together has been working to “provide the public, voters, and decision-makers with accurate information on the impacts of California Forever and unite around a shared [alternative] vision for the future.” Thanks to the invaluable Benicia Independent, I very recently learned of a new group, whimsically called California ForNever, where folks can also gather further information and register opposition to the project. Both organizations seem well worth checking out.

Back to Duran: Regardless of whether he turns out to be completely correct regarding the Network State connection, kudos for his raising crucial questions that add fuel to the flim-Flannery fire.

[Hat tip: MK, JK, Benicia Independent and Gil Duran.]