| Usually at this time of day the cars start filling the streets of my quiet Monterey neighborhood. Families spill out, carrying lawn chairs and blankets and hot drinks, headed for the hill on the lower Presidio just above the municipal wharf to watch the annual fireworks display. Sure, it's a bit cheesy, and last year was a bit obnoxious when the woman brought the boom box belting out the Sousa and Lee Greenwood, but the city's fireworks display was also a small yet meaningful moment of a community coming together, and it was always the highlight of the evening.
But not this year. Monterey, like several other cities around the state, have canceled the fireworks display because of budget cuts.
I don't exactly oppose the move. Sure, city fireworks displays were a key part of getting people away from using their own fireworks and losing a hand, but as Monterey city officials noted, it's not a difficult decision to cancel the fireworks to preserve other programs:
Kay Russo, director of Monterey's recreation and community services, said the exact opposite. She thought it was more important than ever to use public funds to provide services to citizens....
A $7.5 million budget deficit for this fiscal year has forced $6 million in program and service cuts, layoffs and employee concessions totaling an additional $1 million, said Anne McGrath, city spokeswoman.
"Given the fiscal environment, I know that people will miss the fireworks display, but they understand this has to be done," McGrath said.
And judging by the reaction of my friends and neighbors, McGrath is right. I couldn't justify spending the money on fireworks and policing the event that could otherwise go to keep city employees on the job, keeping the library open more hours, and so on.
A canceled fireworks display doesn't compare to the 900,000 Californians who lost dental coverage this week, the 26,000 teachers who aren't going back to work this fall, the disabled Californians who are losing their caregivers and their support checks.
And yet they all share a common link - they've been sacrificed in order to protect the wealthy and corporations from a tax increase. Social values of education, health, and community gatherings are all being undermined and denigrated by a state government which has decided, without any public discussion, that spending cuts are a necessity. Even those localities that would like to raise their own taxes to keep teachers in the classrooms or ensure their neighbors and families have health coverage cannot do so, because nobody in government is willing to challenge the bogeyman that is Prop 13-induced system of government that prevents tax increases no matter the cost.
So Monterey isn't going to have fireworks this year. Perhaps it's a good thing - the sea otters will be pleased. But if our community wanted to do something else - improve bus service, fix our schools, build the long-desired train to the Bay Area, open a community health clinic - we are prevented from doing it, because we are effectively prevented from raising the money to make it happen. We cannot make collective decisions any more, we cannot take community action to do something as important as saving our schools or something as small and ultimately insignificant as holding a fireworks display. We are stuck with a false and rigged choice - cut schools or health care - because the biggest choice of all, whether to tax wealth or not, is not a choice we are free to make.
It's hard then to not see the canceled fireworks display as a symbol of a broader social collapse happening all around us. On the day we celebrate 233 years of independence, and almost 163 years to the day since the US took possession of Monterey and brought California into that independent nation, the 4th of July seems almost funerary. There isn't much to celebrate, certainly not here in California, where our national holiday feels hollow.
We are a center-left state and nation governed by a center-right politics - and in California, by a government that gives conservatives veto power even though they represent just 33% of the population. On a day when we are supposed to celebrate our freedom, it is rather ironic to realize that in California in 2009, unless you are wealthy you aren't really free. |
