Brew City Brawler

Paddy Mac gearing up for war with Iran

"Let's make no mistake: Bush wasn't wrong on Iraq"

So read the headline of a September 5, 2004 column by none other than the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Patrick McIlheran. Written more than 2,000 American dead ago, the column sneered at people who claimed the war was based on lies.

Some of the more outlandish lines:

What matters is the cause, and this cause is just: to turn aside the long assault on our nation that climaxed with 3,000 Americans dead on that Sept. 11 and to do it by liberating 25 million people from a warmongering fascist regime.

***********

(Hussein) may or may not have helped al-Qaida - - unanswerable before his overthrow -- but didn't disavow the group and said, three days after 9-11, that we had it coming.

Now, more than three bloody years later -- three bloody years that have not made America safer, nor, as violence in Pakistan have demonstrated, have curbed violent Sunni radicalism -- McIlheran is subtly pimping the war with Iran that Dick Cheney wants. He doesn't come right out and say "bomb Iran!" Instead, he's used recent blog posts to tout the work of people who do say it.

One of them is the crazy Norman Podhoretz, who scarily enough, is an advisor to Rudy Giuliani.

Talking Points Memo has been examining Podhoretz's wrongheadedness for some time and distilled it nicely in a recent post describing a debate on Iran between Podhoretz and Fareed Zakaria (Zakaria reasonably argues that even a nuclear Iran could be deterred from doing anything crazy just as Mao, Stalin and Kim Il Jung were deterred. Podhoretz, meanwhile, argues that the Iranians are different, they don't mind getting blowed up in the name of Allah.)

From TPM:

Tonight on The Newshour, Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy advisor and godfather of neoconservatism, Norman Podhoretz debated Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria on the question of whether or not to go to war with Iran. It's perhaps an apt commentary on the rightward, lunatic turn of this country's foreign policy that Fareed is taking what I guess must be called the left (?) in this debate. In any case, I really urge you to give this a look. And note a few things: one is the denigrating tone Podhoretz takes toward Zakaria. It's curdled and bitter. It jumped out at me and I wonder if it does for you as well. Second are the constant references to Hitler and the Munich agreement. Hitler has become such a throwaway reference or comparison for whatever penny-ante dictator we're up in arms about at the moment that the reference has been drained of much of its meaning and horror. But with the Munich agreement and how 'time is not on our side' and so forth, this is beyond nonsense.

It's almost an insult to what the world faced in the late 1930s. Germany, industrial powerhouse, with arguably the most powerful army in the world, at the forefront of technology, overawing and invading neighboring countries. Iran, minor economic power, second or third-rate military power, which may get a couple of small nuclear-weapons compared to the couple hundred high-end nuclear warheads in Israel's arsenal (plus, a robust second strike capacity, as Fareed notes) and the many thousands we have -- and our blue water navy, satellites, air force. Please. Time's running out for us? We're going to look back on this fifty years from now and see the non-podhoretz-loons as the Chamberlains of the day? I don't know what to say. Just watch ...

There's a video of the link.

No, Paddy: Bush was clearly wrong on Iraq. And the hawks today clearly are wrong on Iran.

More at the Brawler's second home, Whallah!

Widening schism between big business and SE WI movement conservatives?

Is a schism looming between Wisconsin big business and southeastern Wisconsin movement conservatives? The Brawler poses that as an actual, not a rhetorical, question.  And the answer could, in fact, be no. But it's a question motivated by a few observations over the past week.

1. The fact that Barack Obama is leading the presidential field in fundraising among Wisconsin business executives and that the three leading Ds are ahead of Rudy Giuliani(Milwaukee Business Journal, subscription only.) True, this is not a powerful indicator as it no doubt reflects some GOP biz leaders trying to figure out where to park their bucks now that Tommy! is out of the race (though one would have to question the investment decisions of execs who contributed to Tommy!). And of course it's early and the cash money could (will?) move to the bad guys quickly and in overwhelming force, etc. But, still: interesting.
2. The fact that the business community appears to support a sales tax to revive the KRM -- something that Charlie Sykes was griping about on Friday. (Again, the Biz Journal.)
3. And, of course, the fact that leaders of some of the state's biggest businesses are calling for universal health coverage financed through payroll taxes -- a move that outraged Ol Lady Owen Robinson, among others.

In the past, Cory Liebmann and Paul Soglin (and the Brawler) have pointed out dubious strategic decisions of the WMC and suggested its ideological zealotry was driving a wedge between it and the everyday concerns of its constituents. Are these contradictions heightening?

Dunno. But it's an iron law of journalism that three data points make a trend. And we got three data points here.

Again, observation #1 could change, almost literally overnight. And, to be sure, the right likes to periodically take issue with the machinations of big business, particulary (and correctly) on issues such as subsidies, etc. But Nos. 2 and 3 are, it seems to the Brawler (and he could be mistaken) examples where the muckity mucks are taking positions that are more at variance than usual with some deeply held positions of the movement right.

Is more to come?

The Journal Sentinel heeds the Brawler's advice on Healthy Wisconsin -- belatedly

Better late than never, right?

Bemoaning a MJS editorial that tiredly called for "bipartisanship" in addressing health care reform in the state, and took some curious shots at Healthy Wisconsin (specifically calling it "a plan too far" that, echoing the New York Dolls, tries to do "too much too fast"), the Brawler on August 13 wrote:

Finally, the Brawler deeply hopes that the JS edit board realizes soon that the state GOP will make a good faith effort to address health care reform around the same time George Bush makes a good faith effort to get out of Iraq before he leaves office. It ain't going to happen. The state GOP is too wedded, ideologically and, more importantly, financially, to the current system to make any significant changes to it.

The Brawler also noted that it was Healthy Wisconsin -- not the so-called proposals by the Assembly GOP -- that addressed the "musts" raised by the MJS  for health care reform (cost control and access among them).

So the Brawler was happy to see this in the MJS lead editorial today -- though obviously it would have been nice if this had been written a few months ago:

So while Assembly Republicans were right to insist that Healthy Wisconsin did not belong in the 2008 state budget, the plan, while not perfect, has enough merit that it shouldn't be buried. It must be put back on the table and thoroughly vetted as a starting point for health care reform.

The Brawler is a humble man, so he'll cede credit for the JS edit board's apparent shift to the Committee for Economic Development. Funny what happens when a group of local business leaders calls for universal coverage, aina?

UPDATE: Headline fixed and graf added for further context.

Brawhallah

The Brawler has deepened his commitment to the hate left by joining up with the forces at Whallah! The first offering can be seen here.

This new activity will mean a yet-to-be-thoroughly-considered change in what gets posted here. Certainly future McBride stuff will go there, as likely will some ramblings on Paddy, Charlie, Ol Lady Owen et al. Except, of course, for the stuff that doesnt.

And here's a special from the McBride Media Matters time machine: Paul, Jessica and Karl Rove.

 

Why is Jessica McBride teaching Journalism? No, seriously: Why? Part 2

Huh. The Brawler stays away from the computer for a week and controversy breaks out over Jessica McBride and bad words.

The Brawler has little new to contribute to the debate, so he'll refrain -- that is until he changes his mind. But he would like to make this juxtaposition.

Here's what Jessica McBride had to say about a family that was being slimed by McBride hero Michelle Malkin and others for using S-CHIP (a family who even reasonable conservatives said were justified in doing so) to cover their kids health care after a devastating car accident:

If you can't take the heat, stay out of the political kitchen and keep your kids out of it too.

Here's what Jessica had to say -- in  post titled "How Dare You" -- after a commenter on another blog (his comments would not have been posted on this one) said something nasty about McBride's family -- though no nastier than the kind of stuff spouted by Malkin commenters or even McBride regular commenter "John":

What kind of a person drags someone's children into it?

(h/t Whallah!)

Here's a question for McBride's media classes: True or False: Someone who believes she and her family deserves to be treated differently from another family should teach journalism.

UPDATE: A fissure in what voice of moderation Fred Dooley would call the "hate left"? In comments, Capper  sides with McBride.

What if 0.009% of Wisconsin's population rallies for "fiscal sanity"?

To the surprise of no one, the Americans for Prosperity rally in Madison was an embarrassing debacle rivaling the battle of Sedan.

From the Capital Times:

The fight over Wisconsin's deadlocked state budget moved outside the Capitol today as about 500 anti-tax advocates clashed with more than 800 public workers during a noon rally.

There's a lot of humorous commentary from the right on this, not the least of which is Owen Robinson's admission that he thought he would have trouble finding parking for the event!

The Brawler was amused that the hard men of the internet were so shocked by the mean words thrown their way. Particularly given that Owen called an elected representative a "whore" the other day.

But clearly the best lines go to Fred Dooley of  Real Debate Wisconsin:

Public employee unions turned out a massive array of counter protesters. These people were some of the rudest individuals it has ever been my displeasure to encounter.

This would be the same Fred who said:

I have an idea, why don't we put a brand new tax on union dues and pompass windbag party crashers?

And hilariously said this:

Let's show Madison what 1,000 people or more demanding fiscal sanity look like!

Umm...how about 500 people or less? Hey Fred: Politics ain't bean bag! I hope you called those AFSCME meanies "pompass" windbags to their faces!

Also, if the battle of ideas is to be determined by the size of crowds attending rallies, shouldn't the Assembly immediately approve Doyle's budget?

And, is it just the Brawler, or did this nonevent draw a disproportionate amount of media coverage relative to that of rallies against the endless occupation of Iraq?

 

Hey buddy -- leave! And take your hair helmet with you!

UPDATE: Headline corrected to address the Brawler's horrible late night math!

McIlheran enables crybaby businessman

Remember Christopher Carter? Not the former Vikings receiver (that's Cris Carter), but the head of local software consultancy CCI? The guy who complained about the local business environment because he got his ass kissed by some guys in Texas while in Milwaukee he had to wait in line with uneducated and rude bureaucrats? And who also failed to mention the business climate was so godawful here that he has been able to successfully expand his business, at least twice, in Brew City? 

The Brawler and other local bloggers had sport with his context- and content-free Milwaukee bashing.

Yet now, nearly two months later, Patrick McIlheran rushes? stumbles? to his defense.

Writes Paddy Mack:

Listen, for instance, to Christopher Carter. He's the boss of CCI, a software consultancy based in a refurbished factory on the south side. He wrote a short essay in August comparing his dealings with public officials in Texas - he bought a company there - and his experience in Milwaukee.

"They were courteous; they were eager to assist," he wrote of the Texans. He contrasted this with trying to get some information out of Milwaukee city government - unanswered messages, standing in line, dealing with "an uneducated person who felt I was bothering her and asking too many questions before she was to go on her cigarette break." Which she took, leaving Carter to another official who started grilling him about revenue - "Milwaukee needs to tax you on that," Carter quoted the man as saying.

OK, is this an apples to apples comparison? Who were the people in Texas? Who were the people in Milwaukee? If Carter had just bought a company in Milwaukee, I'm sure state/city development people would have taken him out for lunch. If he had to fill out some form in Texas, I'm sure he would have had to deal with some bureaucrats -- and maybe their education wouldn't live up to his expectations.

Paddy says instead of criticizing the likes of Carter as crybabies we should listen (how very liberal!) to them.

OK, what's he got to say?

The essay got attention, says Carter. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett called, ready to deliver retribution to any troublesome city staffers, and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker called, too, asking how the county could help.

Not with money, exactly: "We're not looking for tax breaks," says Carter. Rather, in what is already a vexingly high-tax place, he'd like government to be at least a little more accommodating.

Ummm...OK. Thanks, Chris. Government should be more "accommodating." That sterling piece of policy insight -- the extent of what Patrick wants us to "hear" --  tells you all you need to know about why Patrick left reporting for copy editing and page design.

Patrick, because he has space to fill, goes on:

I wonder if we could simply refrain from branding such whistle-blowers as "crybabies," as at least one commentator called Carter. His essay, as happens with any bluntness about our business climate, set off a love-it-or-leave-it defensiveness, as if dysfunction and hostility were essential parts of our identity.

"I like Wisconsin; I like Milwaukee," says Carter. He wants to stay here. By the way, he hopes Miller does, too.

Later, Carter says:

Capital and ideas are mobile. Carter says he'd rather stay, but he also aims to turn his $20 million firm into a $100 million one in three years. To do it, he'll go where he must. "Some of our staff could work out of a Starbucks," he says.

So, what, if you set up business in Texas or any state without an income tax your business providing services to SAP users will grow X% faster ... how? Also, please explain your incredible mobility to the guys at CNH and other local customers who might want you close at hand.

A few points.

First off, the Brawler has no problem listening to "whistleblowers" -- if they can offer critiques that go beyond rightwing boilerplate (taxes are too high!). The CEO of Northwestern Mutual has raised legitimate concerns about the local environment and how it affects business. The Brawler has not assailed him. The Brawler expends his powder on business leaders whose only apparent goal is to gripe about taxes -- have you seen the tax rates in CA, NY or NJ? -- and feed the talking points of the talk radio nexus. Anywhere you do business there are tradeoffs. Grow up and deal with it.

(BTW, has anyone noticed how those leftwing hedge fund guys at Stark have been expanding their presence in the Milwaukee area?)

Second, the Brawler has a particular problem with business leaders who have expanded in  Milwaukee -- a fact about CCI that McIlheran fails to report -- and then complain about how the environment sucks.

Third, the Brawler has little patience for BS claims by complaining businesses. Remember how Menards claimed they were forced to open distribution centers in Iowa and Ohio because DNR regs made it too tough to open one here? They pimped that line, Sykes pimped that line ,the JS reported that line with a bit too much credulity. Think about it -- they opened up two distribution centers hundreds of miles apart rather than opening one up north. That doesn't make sense on the face of it --yet Sykes et al threw it out to their audience.  Carter's implicit suggestion that the Milwaukee business environment is stifling his growth -- when he caters to local businesses and has an out-of-state presence -- falls under the BS category.

Fourth ,the Brawler has little patience for critics who place undue emphasis on taxes as a disincentive for attracting talent. Strangely, GE Medical seems to be doing just fine in drawing talent from around the world. Manpower does an OK job too. (Yes, both of these have the advantage of being parts of global businesses.) Milwaukee is not Chicago, Los Angeles or New York. But that has nothing to do with taxes.

Fifth, saying "recruiters in "Paducah, Ky."  are concerned about Healthy Wisconsin ... um, who cares?

Most importantly: Padraig, you say "at least one local commentator" called Carter a "crybaby." Can't you give the Brawler a little love in print?

Yes, let's listen to businesses. But let's listen to businesses -- and commentators -- who actually have something original to say beyond rightwing boilerplate.

The Journal Sentinel needs to get more shrill about Scott Walker and parks

The Brawler yesterday was, as the kids might say "teh shrill" about Scott Walker's programmatic vandalism of the county park system.

The Journal Sentinel, in its editorials, has been harsh -- in a measured way -- on Walker's programmatic vandalism of the county park system. But if the JS is serious about the parks -- and wants to hold Walker accountable for their disrepair -- it's going to have to get a bit more shrill.

Dig the progression:

On December 5, 2002 it said this:

Milwaukee County's greenest commodity -- its celebrated parks system -- is not really withering away, as some folks have suggested. But it is heading in the wrong direction because of serial budget cuts over the years.

And if a decision isn't made fairly soon on an independent financing source to provide the necessary public dollars for park maintenance, the decline that has occurred will eventually gain so much momentum it will be almost impossible to stop.

That, in essence, is the reasonable conclusion of an exhaustive and valuable new study of the parks by the Public Policy Forum. This group is highly respected because it does its homework. In this case, it sent researchers into 52 major parks this summer for firsthand observations. The researchers were asked to look at the parks the way typical users would, which probably provides the most useful assessment.

Most of the parks received good marks and, to the casual observer, still appear well-maintained. But only four parks rated above average in all four basic categories examined. One of the most troubling conclusions was that many of the parks with the best grades tended to be located in wealthier suburban communities or more prosperous and middle-class areas of the city. And, although there were notable exceptions, some of the parks with the lowest grades were located in poorer areas of the city, where the population tends to be made up of racial minorities.

That observation should make parks officials and others take notice and correct the problem, which in some cases might be as simple as unlocking restrooms, reinstalling basketball hoops or installing drinking fountains. Concerns about vandalism and other crimes were the explanations offered for missing basketball hoops and locked restrooms. But if there are such problems, sheriff's deputies and police ought to arrest the troublemakers rather than make everyone suffer.

The underlying problem with the parks is that they must compete with other programs for county tax money. To deal with that harsh fiscal reality, the study's authors recommended setting aside revenue from a sales tax or the property tax and using it for parks. That idea is also being studied by a county task force headed by Supervisor Dan Diliberti. The task force is finishing its work.

It's clear that something needs to happen to give county residents the park system they deserve. "I don't think the parks are thriving. They're surviving, but there's still time," Emily Van Dunk, senior researcher for the Public Policy Forum, said Wednesday. "I don't think we've reached the tipping point yet, but the current levy support is unsustainable. Residents of Milwaukee County are going to have to decide how important parks are."

She's right, of course, and the issue of the ideal financial source for the parks warrants further study and public discussion. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, for one, likes the idea of a separate parks district with an elected board and taxing authority. We'd also suggest that policy-makers consider going beyond Milwaukee County's borders. A regional authority encompassing parks in Milwaukee and neighboring counties may be the smartest long- term answer.

On June 3 2006 it said this:

If some of the long-dead park visionaries, men like Charles Whitnall and Frederick Law Olmstead - the designer of Central Park - could see what is happening today to their legacy, they would surely be sputtering angrier than any chain saw.

If this 15,000-acre parks system is going to survive as Milwaukeeans now know it, the system will need far more help than The Park People and similar "friends" groups can possibly provide. Besides the cost of operating the parks, the county faces millions of dollars in deferred maintenance to its parks buildings and facilities.

And even more painful budget cuts loom next year as the county wrestles with the mushrooming cost of pension and health care benefits for its retirees and active employees, played out against the now familiar backdrop of County Executive Scott Walker's pledge not to raise taxes.

The parks are already showing the signs of a starvation diet. And as several officials said at a roundtable discussion on the future of the parks sponsored by the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board last week, the community must do something fast to prevent the parks from deteriorating any further.

The immediate need is financial rather than organizational. The county must designate either an increase in the county's existing sales tax or a certain percentage of the property tax for the sole purpose of parks and recreation. The alternative - continuing to rely on an ever-shrinking share of the county's overburdened property tax - will eventually spell disaster.

Of the two options, the sales tax makes more sense because the county is already too dependent on the overused property tax and the sales tax would spread the cost of parks and culture over a broader tax base, namely tourists and out-of-county residents.

Because of the county's problems, some well-intentioned community leaders say the county must first get a handle on its fringe benefits and restore public trust lost in the pension scandal before it can ask for more money for its parks. But there is no time. The parks are like a badly leaking roof. You don't wait until you can get your household budget under control before you call a roofer because by then, your living room may look like a wading pool and the cost of repairs are much higher.

On September 20, 2006 it said this:

Letting things slide has cost Milwaukee County's parks dearly. A new report conservatively estimates the cost of more than a decade of deferred parks maintenance at nearly $150 million.

Not surprisingly, the report has restoked the simmering controversy over the best way to save the county's 15,000-acre parks system through an increase in the county sales tax proposed by some County Board members or a proposal to create a park district.

While a park district may well prove to be the best course of action over the long term, the best short-term solution is to give the county and the Parks Department a source of revenue other than the already overused property tax to pay the bills. And that would be the sales tax.

The staggering bill that the county is now facing to perform long- overdue maintenance on parkways, ponds and pools, ball fields and buildings helps to dramatize that point.

Quite clearly, this major maintenance can't be put off much longer, no more than a homeowner can put off such maintenance for long. The longer major maintenance is put off, the more it costs.

And officials acknowledge that most of the estimated $147.9 million in repairs in the parks are items that must be fixed now or very soon. The system's crumbling parkways, for instance, need $44.3 million in work. And since the parkways and park drives provide public access to much of the sprawling system, one could hardly argue that this is a low-priority item.

Exactly a year later on September 20 2007 it said this:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's proposed budget for next year would abolish 81 additional full-time county parks jobs. Walker says the parks won't suffer, because the job cuts are part of a broader plan to reorganize parks maintenance operations.

For the sake of our parks system, we hope he's right, but we're skeptical. Our parks are already paying the price for chronic cuts in staff and deferred maintenance.

That skepticism is shared by some members of the County Board, who have justifiably chided Walker for refusing to even consider an advisory referendum on raising the county sales tax to produce more revenue for parks.

Walker points out that of the 81 jobs he proposed to eliminate next year, 31 are vacant. He also noted that his budget calls for hiring 20 new forestry and maintenance workers who will have more supervisory duties, provides $600,000 to hire more seasonal workers because much of the work in parks is seasonal and includes $1.1 million to purchase new mowers and other maintenance equipment and gear.

The budget also calls for creating a park patrol of 12 half-time seasonal workers on bicycles with two-way radios.

The combination of the new positions, new equipment and more seasonal help will give parks administrators more managerial flexibility and resources, Walker said Thursday. In fact, he said, the Parks Department will have more hours of help available next year than it does now.

Walker is also proposing $14 million in new construction next year, including $2.5 million for the new Lincoln Park Family Aquatic Center and $1.5 million for three new splash pads to replace old wading pools in other parks. That makes sense, as does his decision to keep the Dr. Martin Luther King and Kosciusko community centers open. They earlier had been targeted for closure.

But we question the wisdom of slashing so many full-time parks maintenance workers in one fell swoop and relying so heavily on seasonal workers. That changing pool of workers will need to be trained and retrained, and valuable institutional memory will be lost.

With the parks already in trouble, now is not the best time for such drastic shifts in staffing.

Yeah, if the Scott Walker's parks can't clean gutters or maintain a baseball diamond, it's fair to say now is not the best time for such drastic shifts in staffing.

It's good stuff, all of it. But if the Journal Sentinel takes the state of the parks seriously -- and the Brawler would suggest that Walker's willful neglect of the park system fosters blight in the larger community -- it would do more than call for a dedicated source of funding for the parks et cetera.

It would call for Scott Walker's ouster.

The Journal Sentinel Edit Board Ate Its Wheaties!

A very Catholic mazel tov to the Journal Sentinel edit board for heaping derision (albeit without naming names) on the likes of Charlie Sykes, Owen Robinson and its very own Patrick McIlheran for their baying over Wisconsin's "tax hell" status. In this case, it related to the announced deal between Miller and Coors.

The barking over taxes last week came as Miller Brewing Co. was announcing that it had formed a joint venture with Coors Brewing Co., of Golden, Colo., to create a much larger, more competitive business.

But . . . owoooo! We've got such a problem with taxes - owoooo! - that maybe we can't compete with Colorado!

Let's put a muzzle on that argument for just a moment.

Listening to Charlie Sykes whine about the article this morning -- the gist of his plaint was "The JS is saying we should just shush and pretend there's not a problem" -- was eminently entertaining.

Because, of course, for all of Chuck's purported toughminded realism, tax rates are not at the top of the list in a major corporation's HQ location decision. Talent pool, yes. Proximity to customers, yes. Physical assets, yes. But tax rates? Last the Brawler's checked, the tax hells of California (#47 compared to Wisconsin's #39) and the East Coast (New York is #47) are home to a fair number of businesses.

The JS makes that point:

The best cards include a skilled work force across a range of industries, a convenient airport with proximity to one of the largest air hubs in the world, expertise in business finance, a location astride one of the largest fresh water sources in the world and Milwaukee's many cultural amenities. And don't forget that businesses and their employees have ready access to knowledge, cultural and technical centers in Chicago and Madison.

Thirty-seven Fortune 500 companies call the Chicago/Milwaukee corridor home - eight in the Milwaukee region alone. Milwaukee is a national leader in business clout by that measure on a per-capita basis. There is a reason for that. It's still a good place to do business.

"This is a vibrant corridor, in terms of what would trip the trigger on a corporate headquarters location," said Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

Now, the Brawler wishes the JS would have skewered the study that Sykes et al cite in their moanings - it cherrypicks data, it doesn't measure how tax rates affect a company's cost of doing business -- as did Paul Soglin. But you can't have everything.

In the meantime. though, it's good to see the JS have the stones to actually stand up to Sykes' know-nothing rhetoric. Perhaps they recognize not challenging Sykes' BS rhetoric is bad for the city.

More, please.

The Socrates of West Bend has more.

Broken parks

Milwaukee's right wing pundits are big fans of Scott Walker -- a dumb, antidemocratic failure whom nobody likes.

They also espouse to be fans of the "broken windows" school of policing. But typically they're thinking of the way it was put into action by Rudy "Bad Catholic" Guiliani -- arresting squeegee guys, people who jump the turnstiles in the subway, etc. Bust people for the little crimes and people will be less likely to commit bigger crimes. Or so the thinking goes (and the Brawler's not going to enter into the debate on the efficacy Giuliani's war on crime).

Thing is, the whole notion of Broken Windows -- as first articulated by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in the Atlantic Magazine in 1982 -- goes far beyond arresting people who commit petty crime. It's about addressing an entire environment that encourages disorder and crime.

From the article:

... at the community level, disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence. Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)

Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, reported in 1969 on some experiments testing the broken-window theory. He arranged to have an automobile without license plates parked with its hood up on a street in the Bronx and a comparable automobile on a street in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked by "vandals" within ten minutes of its "abandonment." The first to arrive were a family--father, mother, and young son--who removed the radiator and battery. Within twenty-four hours, virtually everything of value had been removed. Then random destruction began--windows were smashed, parts torn off, upholstery ripped. Children began to use the car as a playground. Most of the adult "vandals" were well-dressed, apparently clean-cut whites. The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week. Then Zimbardo smashed part of it with a sledgehammer. Soon, passersby were joining in. Within a few hours, the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed. Again, the "vandals" appeared to be primarily respectable whites.

Untended property becomes fair game for people out for fun or plunder and even for people who ordinarily would not dream of doing such things and who probably consider themselves law-abiding. Because of the nature of community life in the Bronx--its anonymity, the frequency with which cars are abandoned and things are stolen or broken, the past experience of "no one caring"--vandalism begins much more quickly than it does in staid Palo Alto, where people have come to believe that private possessions are cared for, and that mischievous behavior is costly. But vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers--the sense of mutual regard and the obligations of civility--are lowered by actions that seem to signal that "no one cares."

We suggest that "untended" behavior also leads to the breakdown of community controls. A stable neighborhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other's children, and confidently frown on unwanted intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle. A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children; the children, emboldened, become more rowdy. Families move out, unattached adults move in. Teenagers gather in front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to move; they refuse. Fights occur. Litter accumulates. People start drinking in front of the grocery; in time, an inebriate slumps to the sidewalk and is allowed to sleep it off. Pedestrians are approached by panhandlers.

*****

... When an interviewer asked people in a housing project where the most dangerous spot was, they mentioned a place where young persons gathered to drink and play music, despite the fact that not a single crime had occurred there. In Boston public housing projects, the greatest fear was expressed by persons living in the buildings where disorderliness and incivility, not crime, were the greatest. Knowing this helps one understand the significance of such otherwise harmless displays as subway graffiti. As Nathan Glazer has written, the proliferation of graffiti, even when not obscene, confronts the subway rider with the inescapable knowledge that the environment he must endure for an hour or more a day is uncontrolled and uncontrollable, and that anyone can invade it to do whatever damage and mischief the mind suggests."

Here are a few pictures the intrepid Gretchen Schuldt has run on her blog Milwaukee Rising. These are from Washington Park, part of the Brawler's native Washington Heights:

And from Jacobus Park, another of the Brawler's old haunts:

The last picture is of vegetation growing in the choked gutters of the park pavilion. As Schuldt shrewdly notes: "Yo! Scott! Letting gutters get clogged like this will end up costing a lot more than keeping them clear in the first place."

Again the words from Wilson and Kelling:

Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. ... Untended property becomes fair game for people out for fun or plunder and even for people who ordinarily would not dream of doing such things and who probably consider themselves law-abiding. ... In Boston public housing projects, the greatest fear was expressed by persons living in the buildings where disorderliness and incivility, not crime, were the greatest. Knowing this helps one understand the significance of such otherwise harmless displays as subway graffiti. As Nathan Glazer has written, the proliferation of graffiti, even when not obscene, confronts the subway rider with the inescapable knowledge that the environment he must endure for an hour or more a day is uncontrolled and uncontrollable, and that anyone can invade it to do whatever damage and mischief the mind suggests."

The Brawler is not suggesting that if Milwaukee's parks were overhauled overnight that the city's crime problems would disappear. Nor, obviously, is the Brawler blaming Milwaukee's crime problems on Walker. But the Brawler would suggest that Walker's neglect -- his willful neglect -- of the county's park system fosters a sense of disorder. What have broad swathes of the system become but "untended property" where "no one cares"?  Then again, in some areas there are few ways vandals can improve on Walker's handiwork.

The park system has been one of the county's greatest assets during the Brawler's relatively short time on the planet. Letting an asset deteriorate, as Walker has done, undermines the entire community.

Walker has to go and be replaced by someone who understands that caring for an asset like our park system is not merely an expense but truly an investment. At a minimum, someone who can figure out how to clear out gutters.