Salon.com > Charlotte

Are streetcars the future of public transportation?

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:18:00 +0000

When President Obama nominated Charlotte, North Carolina, Mayor Anthony Foxx to head the U.S. Department of Transportation last month, he cited among Foxx’s other relevant accomplishments “a new streetcar project that’s going to bring modern electric tram service to [Charlotte’s] downtown area.” All well and good. But honestly, if enthusiasm for downtown streetcar projects was a prerequisite for the job, the president could probably have compiled his short list of candidates simply by closing his eyes and aiming a dart at a wall-mounted map of the lower 48.

“We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up”

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:42:00 +0000

Michelle, I love you. The other night, I think the entire country saw just how lucky I am. Malia and Sasha, you make me so proud…but don’t get any ideas, you’re still going to class tomorrow. And Joe Biden, thank you for being the best Vice President I could ever hope for.

Madam Chairwoman, delegates, I accept your nomination for President of the United States.

The first time I addressed this convention in 2004, I was a younger man; a Senate candidate from Illinois who spoke about hope – not blind optimism or wishful thinking, but hope in the face of difficulty; hope in the face of uncertainty; that dogged faith in the future which has pushed this nation forward, even when the odds are great; even when the road is long.

Eight years later, that hope has been tested – by the cost of war; by one of the worst economic crises in history; and by political gridlock that’s left us wondering whether it’s still possible to tackle the challenges of our time.

GOP apostates

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 01:53:00 +0000

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Democrats speaking at their National Convention here didn't need to make a hard sell about how the Republican Party has been taken over by right-wing ideologues -- they had Republicans do it for them. Each night of the convention featured former Republicans who have seen the light and switched sides, and each apostate cited the increasingly shrill rhetoric and hard-right policies of their former party as the reason for their conversion.

Tonight featured former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a moderate who was exiled from his party when he lost a Senate primary against Sen. Marco Rubio. Crist has since watched his name become a shorthand among conservatives for an insufficiently pure Republican, exemplified by a hug he gave to Obama in 2009. But even Ronald Reagan himself, Crist said, "would have been too moderate and too reasonable for today's GOP." (He's right.) Paraphrasing Reagan, Crist said, "I didn't leave the Republican Party; it left me."

Are Dems shutting out labor?

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:27:00 +0000

As often as conservatives mention President Obama and “union thugs” in the same breath, you would at least expect them to be friends. But though the Democratic Party and labor unions have in recent history been joined at the hip, today unions are sleeping on the couch. The DNC provides just the latest evidence of a relationship that is frayed at best.

While according to the AFL-CIO, there are apparently 1,000 union members attending the convention as delegates, the labor movement just doesn't seem very visible here. Those 1,000 delegates aren't walking around swathed in union buttons and T-shirts. And unions themselves haven't contributed the large sums to the convention that they did four years ago, which came with prominent speaking roles and banners and such. The Laborer's International Union of North America (LIUNA), which spent $1.5 million on the 2008 DNC and was heavily involved in the event, isn't even participating in Charlotte this year. They're still spending money on their ground game, but the lack of convention enthusiasm is pronounced.

Dumb tweet of the day

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:30:00 +0000

#Baracking <- When u can't fill BofA stadium and have to move to a much smaller venue. #tcot #p2 #DNC2012

— Fleckman (@Fleckman) September 5, 2012

“They want to run us to death”

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 18:44:00 +0000

In two weeks, Democrats will gather in Charlotte, N.C., and pledge once more to strengthen the right of workers to join unions and negotiate with their bosses. But the convention's success depends on the work of the city's sanitation workers, who are banned by law from exercising that right. As the party readies its platform pronouncements, those workers are asking for more concrete help.

Wednesday, leaders of a North Carolina union released a letter appealing to President Obama and the Democratic National Committee for support in their efforts to win union rights. “Despite the added work and dangers for Charlotte City workers in preparation for and in the aftermath of the DNC, and the fact that $50 million in federal funding has been allotted to the City of Charlotte to host the DNC,” the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 150 wrote, “the City of Charlotte refuses to address the needs and rights of the City workers.”

“The workers are working like dogs,” said garbage driver Al Locklear, the president of Local 150’s Charlotte chapter. “They want to run us to death.”

Crashing the conventions

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:25:00 +0000

In Nobel Prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago’s 2004 book, "Seeing," the people of an unnamed but uncanny nation take to the ballots and cast more than 80 percent blank votes in defiance of their corrupt, disengaged political parties. Saramago’s earlier novel, "Blindness," tells of the same nation, four years earlier, when the populace is struck by a sweeping epidemic of blindness, producing havoc, despair and cruelty. What is the link, demand the authorities in "Seeing," between “the plague of white blindness and the plague of blank ballots”?

If you see nothing hauntingly prophetic in Saramago’s near decade-old narrative, you may struggle to understand many of the protests planned for both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this year. Thousands of protesters will head to Tampa, Fla., or Charlotte, N.C., or both, with no intention of supporting either party. Unlike in 2008, when counter-DNC antiwar demonstrations numbering in the hundreds were dwarfed by anti-RNC crowds over 10,000-strong in Saint Paul, Minn., this year much of the planned protest takes aim at both parties and their corporate underpinnings. Much of the "Hope" (or, pace Saramago, “blindness”) from four years ago has long cleared up and the DNC and RNC protests look likely to share tone, relative size -- anywhere between 2,000 to 15,000 protesters in each city -- and even many participants.