THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

Yesterday, my congressional candidate brother, Will, visited  Cousin Gary visiting from Southern, CA. Gary had never been to an Occupy Wall Street protest because, as he put it, “I’m not interested in closing ports and businesses where people have jobs. And, I don’t want to lay down in the street.”

He also confessed to not quite understanding what the point is. While vitriolic radio show hosts criticize and condemn the movement as pointless and leaderless, I notice that all National news organizations are covering this movement- because  it has legs.  As one local protester, Rick Mines put it, “Protesting the concentration of wealth and power held by less than 1 percent of the population is an effort to  save capitalism.  Capitalism has to be fair,”  (And I would add regulated.)
You can’t compete when some guy is putting $100 million down to put a  Supreme Court Justice in place, or when 80% of congress regards their major job in governing is to get rich by way of  hand-outs, insider trading, and million dollar jobs when they leave. I take heart because the long term apathy among the general population is finally over. You couldn’t get people to take to the streets. That has changed all over the world as well as  in our highly conservative mountain counties, Tuolumne, Calaveras and Amador.

It was a small band on a cold December evening during the busy Christmas season. Two young students were there. The only other woman said to me, “In our county we are all part of the 99%. We don’t have any concentration of wealthy here. But, it is still important to let people know, its time to take a stand and we desperately need change and jobs and a robust middle class.”

This sign speaks to an issue that may be more important than the government laws that tilt toward the wealthy.  It is a slippery slope to a fascist state when we weaken our first amendment rights.  There are many good things in the NDAA, like protections for whistleblowers. But, we are not to know if sub-par maintenance of our airplanes is a factor in crash. We cannot know who contributed what to the congressional committee people overseeing the granting of government contracts. On any contract,  any savings realized cannot be directed to the National Debt once the money has been set aside and is not used for that project. No clue to where that money WILL go. Suspected terrorists will not have the same rights of trial, detention, and ability to defend themselves as we do now. There are good things in the act, but  many slippery areas. The idea to audit the Defense Department Budget was soundly rejected. Hmmm. It’s on-line. Read it.

THE HUTONGS

During the cultural revolution, the city was cleared of many of its old quarters and high rises were built as the “standard” housing. Some old families were allowed to remain in the center of Beijing called the Hutongs. Old, dilapidated one-family residences have been preserved. They are part of the narrow warrens, the crooked uneven, unplanned streets where at one time shacks were built on top of shacks and people rarely wandered more than a few blocks from their home. All business was conducted on the streets where neighbors traded goods with neighbors.  Some streets have been widened enough for a small car. At one time only bicycles and rickshaws plied the rough streets of the  Hutongs.

We disembark from our rickshaw and push our way through the throngs to a family home where our guide has arranged a home visit.
Just about every family has a  bike, still the main mode of transportation.

The area is dark and moving from one place to the other is from memory. No numbers or addresses are seen on these buildings.

We reach our destination and we crowd into two different houses.  They are very basic dwellings with a small shared courtyard to grow and gather herbs and some vegetables or flowers in pots. This is middle-class housing, usually one room. A few families have more spacious places with three rooms.  They are occupied by working middle class people, not at all what Chinese think of as poor, but to us they seem poor.

These neighborhoods are friendly, and safe. They are a very desired commodity, individual family housing, rare in modern China.  The  Hutong  families have modern amenities like a TV, a refrigerator and a place to cook on a coal or wood stove that is also used for heat. No indoor toilets.  The tour company pays them to open their homes to tours. Our hostess’s furniture was matched.  Our host family was very proud of their special home.

This is one of the bigger houses with three rooms.  Pictures  of family members share space with “decorator” pictures as well, showing their affluence.  The floor  at one time was well trodden dirt with bamboo mats.  The floor is now cement tiles.



The third room, a small bedroom with a fancy spread.

Here is a place where buildings have been removed to allow cars to enter.

Our rickshaw driver is “Joe.”  He knew some English and told us he has two kids. He was very chatty. He lives in the country and spends only one month per year with his family. Country people are allowed two children per couple. Joe works in the city and bunks in with other drivers and sends a required amount of his earnings home. He scowled and didn’t like his $1 tip. (Our guide warned us not to pay more.)