Banned But Not Forgotten

I haven't been active for more than a month, the demands of latter day fatherhood taking up more time than I realized. Nevertheless I couldn't miss the opportunity to respond to my nemesis, Hobbes, over at Niagara Times. He couldn't help but wonder what I thought of County Manager Greg Lewis' supposed call for the freezing of the NCCC budget for three years. According to Hobbes apparently I've been a supporter of Lewis. Well, not quite. Not in my recollection.

If we look at the big picture, something which Hobbes is want to do regarding all too many issues, from the beginning of County Manager government, I've been against having a County Manager. But given we do have it, let's give the guy a fair shake. I don't believe Hobbes always, if ever, does that, especially in this case, given it seems Lewis is Hobbes latest witch hunt target. I don't care to review all the issues which have arisen around Lewis's actions and decisions and whether I was overall an actual supporter of Lewis. I don't believe I was.

But with respect to freezing the NCCC budget for three years, obviously this is another penny wise pound foolish suggestion as was the whole downsizing fiasco. I hope the Legislature doesn't jump on Lewis' bandwagon this time as they did the wholly irrational, shortsighted and undoubtedly counterproductive downsizing bandwagon of that clown, Kevin Gaughan.

The Legislature, as it is, keeps the college on a year to year shoestring budget. If they want to kill the college just go along with this stunt of Lewis. And if Hobbes wants to improve the quality of critical thinking on his blog he should invite me back and admit he can't stand real, concrete critical thinking that moves him out of the politically stifling pragmatic box he thinks in. I'll accept his apology. In Hobbes own words he did "ban," that is permanently censor, me but apparently he hasn't forgotten me. I wonder why?

PRETEND POPULISM AT NIAGARA TIMES

I had been arguing for months with Hobbes and the gang over at Niagara Times about the virtues of going beyond party politics. But Hobbes couldn't stand the truth unless he could take credit for it; so he barred me from his blog permanently. Now it seems the light has dawned and we hear him pleading for regional unity to fight downstate exploitation of upstate. Some people are just slow learners. But of course he hasn't really learned and is not to be trusted.

Hobbes whines, "We're said it before, and we'll it again - if you vote for a Dem at the state level, you are voting to send all of the power and money to New York City. Get your collective heads out of your asses people, this is not about parties, it's about Upstate getting our fair share and ending the tyranny bestowed upon us by New York City Dems." (October 15, 2009, "States Senate Dems Continue to Spend Recklessly") [Typos are Hobbes' mistakes.]

Well, the truth is that it is and is not about parties. It's about party destruction of the public sphere and civic life. Now that the Democratic party seems to the Republicans to be becoming a political juggernaut in NYS, Hobbes appeals to regionalism if not the populism which, in unusually degraded form, is manifesting across the county. However, his regionalism/populism will last only as long as the Democrats are in power and will stop as soon as the Republicans take control.

Hobbes is an oligarch at heart. Like most Republicans all he can think of politically is reduction of taxes, de-regulation and powermongering for his party. It takes more than random and opportunistic appeals to the people to be taken seriously with respect to transcending party politics. Such meaningful action would require real political thought and diplomacy. Instead he chooses for the most part to moralize and rant about the inanities of local politicos who continue to fail to pull our county and region out of the polluted backwater gutter that it is.

When the Niagara County Communities Comprehensive Plan initiative was getting under way over a year or so ago, Hobbes was stumbling over himself to oppose the project. Even though the lead consulting firm itself said that it would be a major achievement for Niagara County if nothing more than a county wide dialogue was started as a result. The likes of Hobbes, however, does not want dialogue any more than he wants regional empowerment or a sustainable economy. The New Class business bureaucracy that the Niagara County Republicans imagine themselves to be are elitist, chauvinistic technocrats who will not give up their superiority complex any time soon.

Although there are signs that the Republican dominated Legislature might get the value of regionalism particularly in their lawsuit against NYPA, the downside is that they can't see past the limits of such legalistic reductions of political issues to the courtroom. The Republicans see the enemy but then choose to fight the battle on their turf and their terms. What this means is that they have no intention of politicizing NYPA's rape of WNY power profits.

They want to re-appropriate the monies swept to the Albany coffers but they don't want to expropriate the power that enables such bald exploitation of our regional community to continue.

So at present regional Republicanism is the mouse that roared. The lion they could be is not likely to show up because they can't draw the necessary but painful political conclusions. Like their Hobbes-ian mouthpiece the Niagara politicos remain blinded by the impotent but toxic institution of party dominated parliamentarism in NYS. Like their Washingtonian counterparts the local politicos are part of the tail that wags the dog. It's just that at present they don't get to do the wagging. And they don't like it. So they choose to, believe it or not, appeal to the populist sentiments of the people.

Nice try Hobbes. But it's all too easy to smell the hypocrisy and the anti-democratic demagoguery waiting in the wings.

The populist protest in America today, grotesque as it is, is a symptom trying to understand the disease. As the country moves slowly but surely toward Plutocracy, the people fail to understand the disease. Until the primacy and sanctity of the communal roots of democratic self-determination is re-awakened, the dismantling of America and Niagara County will continue.

We live in pre-revolutionary times but someone is yet to pull the curtain back on the Wizard.

STUPID OR UNEDUCATED: Ignorance in America

The real social contradiction, tension and opposition in America is not between Left/Right, Liberal/Conservative, Republican/Democrat, white/black, patriots/traitors, the intelligent/the stupid, etc., etc., etc. Such discourses inevitably end up being moronic because they are between false social realities, false social groupings.

The real contradiction and social opposition is the potentially explosive tension between, on the one hand, the New Class of bureaucrats, lawyers, professors and technocrats that maintain the status quo in the interests of a globalized ‘supercapital,’ and on the other hand, any politics that would reconstitute “the people’s” opposition such that a potential, real, de-centered, local federation of possible social identities (communities) and interests would become conscious and could be intelligently discussed and organized around, economically, culturally and politically.

But it is not as if the predominant mass of alienated individuals should try to create a mass class identity and oppose the New Class and their Masters in the manner of a Marxist inspired revolutionary force. Such a populism of new communities is not Marxism nor Socialism. Nor is it merely a 'communitarianism.'

The disenfranchised mass’s only choice, from the standpoint of de-centered loci of autonomous communities and regions, is to dismantle the monolithic mass identity created by the media and manipulated by the politicians to appear as if there were really a “We the People” that spoke for itself. But there is no such really existing mass identity which is self-consciously autonomous and self-determining.

The mass media relates to ‘the people’ as if they are a homogeneous herd and they respond in kind. A Neo-populist politics should be able to imagine the possibility of a re-federalization of communities and regions in which genuinely self-inaugurated identities, a sense of neighborly belonging and local/regional purposefulness could dismantle the monolithic, manipulative discourse of the New Class.

Then to be an American would be to have a real local identity rather than the hysterical, mythic identity so easily whipped into totalized fanatical frenzies over terrorists and led into Orwellian wars like the one presently in Afghanistan.

Short of massive media manipulation politically, culturally and educationally, the “America” of the supercapitalists doesn’t exist. It’s “The Truman Show” writ large. “We,” be it as it may be, need to find a way to stop paying tribute and obeisance to the 'wizards' of Washington.

Yet, the new populist politics is not about the people taking power in Washington. It is about taking hyper-centralized power and social control away from Washington and its pseudo-federalist bureaucratic nightmare. It is about disseminating power, wealth and autonomy to social entities whose purpose is to sustain an abundant life whose daily experience is fulfilling as such. It is not about the empty and false promise of a perpetually postponed fulfillment in a corporate-marketed dream realized only once the bills are paid, retirement arrives, the Lotto is won or you manage to create some fantastic shit that makes you a fortune like the hoola hoop or maybe pet rocks.

Their heavenly secular eternity lay in the promised progress that never comes. The dumbing down is a symptom of a discourse which is mere sublimation, distraction and obfuscation. It disillusions and demoralizes leading to ever more irrational, extremist and fanatical manifestations of democracy distorted and pathologized. Its untruth lay in its capacy to disempower the intelligence of the people and their will to self-determination and autonomy.

MAZIARZ/ NIAGARA LEGISLATURE RIGHT ON NYPA

It was a real treat seeing Richie Kessel in action at the July 28 Niagara County Legislative session. I wasn’t sure if I should be grateful or go get my gun. But as Maziarz pointed out in his rebuttal of Kessel possibly more of the story is in what NYPA has failed to get Niagara and Western NY rather than the Yahoo success. And if Maziarz is correct—and I see no reason not to agree with him—the Yahoo story is more a matter of the pressure from the Niagara Legislature and the Lockport IDA.

Regarding the legal action of the Niagara Legislature, I think we have to back them if not thank them for someone finally making a concerted move against the imperialistic actions of NYPA. Their expropriation of profits from Niagara power is regional rape and the obvious re-appropriation of our wealth for downstate.

Antoine Thompson, on Access to Government, predicted that we would fail. Of course his actions and attitude have certainly not helped the matter. His vote along with that of DelMonte, Stachowski and Schimminger to OK the sweep of half a billion dollars to the state budgetary fund is treason. Even worse, it is stupid.

What Maziarz seems to be getting is that regional unity is the only way to truly save Niagara and Western NY. Thompson inexplicably seems to think that since NYPA has in the past raped WNY it’s ok to continue to rape it and even increase the degree to which it commits its atrocities against our region. Even if Maziarz had participated in such prior sweeps he’s apparently seen the light. But Thompson’s “reasoning” is so pitifully weak I fear for our region if that’s the kind of representation we have.

As a side note it was also somewhat frightening when a caller to Access to Government by the name of “Vinson” confronted Thompson on the radioactive waste problem, it seemed clear that Thompson was hearing about this for the first time. My God in Heaven how in the hell can this guy be so asleep regarding the fact and significance of this problem? Thompson’s interview on Access was a frightening if not demoralizing example of a politician devolving into a bureaucratic slumber, incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.

On the other hand Maziarz may well be more of a populist than I thought. His willingness to work with others in WNY to challenge NYPA is more than just crossing party lines. It has all the potential to spark some insight that the political parties are irrelevant when it comes to acting in the interest of our region.

Moreover if in fact the Legislature loses legally against NYPA, possibly it and Mr. Maziara will begin to understand that legality as it exists today is only one form of legitimacy. The actions of NYPA against our region may be legal but are clearly not legitimate. In fact legality is not the only legitimate form of political authority. So the ultimate battle here, even if Niagara wins the litigation, is political and not ultimately legal. Legality today has expropriated all legitimacy in its own name. Legality suppresses and hides the political process taking place behind its cover. When this happens systematically—and, enabled by the political unconsciousness, ignorance and weakness of will of the people and the politicians—the foundation is laid for bureaucratism at its worst. Witness the interpretative sleight of hand of Richie Kessel sweet talking the Niagara Legislature. To their credit I’m quite sure they aren’t buying it.

Such bureaucratic centralist legal invalidation of our claims to NYPA profits if not control is the political de-legitimation of the entire polity of WNY. It is by no accident or afterthought that the New York Power bureaucracy is called an “authority.” When laws are no longer the codified expression of how people want to live their lives but controls upon their rights and political voice, the law becomes a repressive and coercive force cloaking the interests of the political powers and peoples asserting their will over us. The false neutrality of State law is hidden within the proceduralist processes of state government and complicated by the power struggles of irrelevant self-aggrandizing political parties and often career minded politicians climbing the “go along get along” ladder of professionalized ‘political’ career success.

Not only is all politics local politics but really all political power is local power. If it were only true that NYPA has the interests of the whole of the State at heart, they might have an argument for their mode of existence. But given that they are a front for downstate at the expense of WNY, their legitimacy is tainted despite the mirage of legal authority.

Maziarz's challenge with respect to future leadership clearly lay in unifying political representation in WNY and debunking the claims of the Authority and the hapless 4 musketeers who have not yet grasped the power and legitimacy that lay in local unity and concerted political action. If such unity were even close to being realized then the inevitable upsurge of popular support could sway our way any straggling believers in the good will and efficacy of Albany bureaucratic nightmare. With a unifed contingent of local politicians and a population behind them, WNY may well have a chance to move itself beyond a feudal state or better a territory occupied by a ‘foreign’ power.

MAZIARZ BEHIND DOWNSIZING: Fewer Voices Behind the People

Senator Maziarz answered a few questions I had tonight on LCTV’s Access to Government regarding his position on downsizing the Niagara County Legislature. In no uncertain terms he is for it. So he will support the move to downsize to 15 and would probably support a larger reduction.

As usual there are those who believe that the Senator has given the green light to the predominantly Republican legislature to take advantage of the bandwagon effect of the downsizing campaign. Not that they can’t think for themselves. It’s just a not uncommon belief in Niagara County that the Senator calls the shots and that the Legislature doesn’t think for itself. If the Senator did not coercively crystallize the Republicans final decision, it’s unlikely that they would vote against it if they knew he was for it. Events of the recent past and the all too evident logic of group-think and linear bureaucratic line-toeing makes it appear that this is clearly the case.

It seems more clear than ever now that the move to downsize is really not about improving or securing the strongest democratic structures and process. Given that the reasoning regarding why downsizing should be done is vague and evasive, one can only conclude that the real motives for favoring this action has not been transparently offered up to the public. This evasiveness and virtually authoritarian reticence regarding the reasons why actions are or should be taken is standard fare which the people expect and many have succumb to as reason to accept their de-politicized status.

I was hoping to hear better reasoning from Senator Maziaz regarding why downsizing was at least justifiable if not wise. That’s not what I heard. Basically he said that he believes 15 is “sufficient.” He “argued” that given the state of technology somehow representation would be adequate. He seemed to lean on the fact that Niagara County has lost population.

Senator Maziarz did not really address my claim that the supposedly excess “layers of government” was a different problem than whether we should reduce representatives of the people. He also didn’t, to my mind, adequately address the fact that problems of consolidation are also a different domain of problems having nothing to do with the question of downsizing. In fact whether we downsize or not the problem of overlapping layers of government, excessive numbers of districts, bloated bureaucracy and autocratic Authorities will remain. Whether we downsize or not we still have work to be done in consolidation of county services and infrastructure. Also, a downsized Legislature is less likely to correctly appraise and address the complexities of consolidation.

Interestingly, however, his “sufficiency” argument in toto amounts to an aspect of or kind of “efficiency” argument. ‘Sufficient’ really means bare bones necessity. The drive to cut expenses is of course at play here. And if we were saving $60,000 on anything other than the optimal status of democratic representation, it may well be worth it given the economic times we live in. But that amount is just too small to justify eliminating 4 representatives from the Legislature. The health and integrity of our political foundations are at stake and to me ‘sufficient’ is not sufficient. To presume that technology itself will make up the difference in loss of voices to represent the diversity of views, conflicts and tensions in the County, is technocratic faith gone wild. Technology may change the playing field. It may offer strategic possibilities and advantages or disadvantages. However, technology cannot think, nor contextualize by itself. Technology and media is all too easily used to misconstrue, distort and manipulate discourse in the interest of power, disinformation and control of information. This complicates and makes more complex the problem of "sufficient" democratic representation. Media never quite allows the sustained face to face examination of ideas requiring for convincing, reasoned truths to emerge.

Downsizing our Legislature is playing into the hands of the linear hierarchy of bureaucratic group-think and the state centralization of power. The fewer the representatives living out and among the people, suffering what they suffer, living in their neighborhoods, the less likely a real understanding of the communities lot will come to light and the less likely that any one voter will ‘get them’ and take a stand for the cause of the people. The people are those who are a part of “no part” especially no part of the network of official, institutionalized, Party-dominated power and concern.

Technologically and technocratically mediated reasoning will never permit the kind of conversation where grounded and justified reasoning is obligatory and moves decision-making but only after it has passed the test of critical dialogical scrutiny in the face of the people. Even moreso such faith in the power of techncity to do the work of people prevents the people, all the people, from seeing that their feelings have been dissociated from such technologically mediated practical strategizing. Fewer representatives means that the voices that matter are that much more difficult to reach. Fewer representatives means that less creative resistance is available to offer alternative ideas, questions and mirrors for reflection. Technology is not creative and technology cannot ask a question.

The tragic part is that the Legislature and Mr. Maziarz do not see that the reasoning does not hold water and would not withstand sustained scrutiny. Unfortunately the court of political debate and dialogue does not have the force, claim and power of the obligation to truth. Today and possibly since the turn of the last century, reason has lost its integrity and humility. A personal egoic opinion is as good as any well-reasoned argument, especially when you know you have the votes.

Corrupted power is that which will not allow itself in good faith to be subject to the court of reason. And it is unfortunate that the power to persuade through power alone will not offer itself to the test of convincing those not persuaded by its words, that is, to those who suffer your power without the confidence nor conviction that your power is reasonable and has reasoned well.

The failure of the power of reasoned truth was also exhibited by the Senator when he rejected my reference to the UB study that concluded that consolidation of schools is of, at best, questionable value overall. Mr. Maziarz said that you can always find studies that disagree with such findings. He said you have to look at who funds the study. So I don’t know if he mistrusted the UB study or not. He has yet to read it. But with respect to reasoned discourse and inquiry, we must at least have faith that truth is possible in Science. If we allow our skepticism to degenerate any further in our suspicion of ‘bought and paid for’ scientific results, then that is exactly what we will do: buy our scientific results with money from those who want to see certain advantageous results. I hope that Mr. Maziarz sees the danger in believing that science itself cannot be trusted because of the corrupting power of money and selfish self-interest. I hope when he thinks further about consolidation, that he does not simply look for studies that support his own present beliefs.

After all, such stacking of the deck and selectively choosing one’s evidence in the end is not very “efficient” if we consolidate services and institutions yet in the end save nothing but possibly cost ourselves more than was previously the case.

Lastly, it was sad to see but telling to experience that the people were not permitted to ask Mr. Kessel even one question during his visit to the Legislature on July 28. Mr. Ross said ‘that was the way it was set up.’ My fear is that that is the way it’s always set up. The voice of those with little power, what I call those who are really a part of no part, are not there for the “setting up” when power comes to speak. It is odd if not tragic that those who have most to lose are denied the opportunity to speak their truth to power. Whoever in the Legislature “set up” the rules according to which Mr. Kessel would be questioned ruled out the unofficial voices of the people.

Do you see why every possible representative voice must be preserved? Well, it’s because one of those downsized voices may well be the only one who doesn’t forget the voice of the people when power comes to town.

SIZING UP DOWNSIZING: The Illusion of 'Efficiency' as a Measure of Effective Democracy

The downsizing effort appears to be about or should be about the right size of democratic government. The reasons behind it seem to be it “saves money” “eliminates waste” and “increases efficiency.” The problem is whether these are meaningful and compelling reasons and measures. However, when "efficiency" is the determining motivation of all these reasons-- and it is-- we need to find out what we are really talking about and whether "efficiency" is relevant and meaningful at all.

The only compelling claim that came out of the June 16^th meeting of the Niagara Conty Legislature was Leg. Kimble’s observation that the “numbers” being thrown around were at best “arbitrary.” Why arbitrary? Because no convincing reasons were given that cost, waste and inefficiency could be reduced appreciably.

Nevertheless, some continue to make equally arbitrary claims that government is “too big” – “bloated”— “wasteful”—“redundant”—“over-represented”—“fraudulent”. But has anyone even asked yet and demonstrated why they think the NCL is too big and inefficient in the first place? If not, then why are we doing this? What’s the unfounded urgency all about?

Downsizing even gets construed as progress. Niagara County Legislative Chairman Ross in the Tonawanda News said “It’s the principle…. It sets the example and you move from there. … With this ‘going around’ and being visible you’ll likely get a county Legislator to step up and get the process going.”

Legislator Updegrove said in the same interview, “I think it is something we should explore and consider.” But then says, “At this point in time we need to determine how we should implement a reduction.” So I find it somewhat suspicious that Mr. Updegrove mentioned exploring the issue and then immediately starts talking about how to do it. He wanted to start the process of how to do it before we explored the issue. Didn’t he really have his mind made up before any inquiry took place. It seems Mr. Ross and Mr. Updegrove ought to tell us exactly what the principle is and why this is, of all things, progress. And, exactly, what example we are setting and why?

Mr. Updegrove seemed on the right track when he said “The question is what level of representation is optimum?” But then he inexplicably says “We are committed to reducing the size of government in Niagara County.” Again it seems his mind is made up which direction “rightsizing” should go. Why isn’t rightsizing increasing the number? For example if we had more Legislators maybe a few more would have attended the public meetings of the Niagara Communities Comprehensive Planning Process besides Legislator Murgia and Legislator Farnham.

Mr. Updegrove also claimed the people have “made it clear” that they want downsizing. He nor Legislator Ceretto, who made the same vague claim, made it clear why the people believe this. Without some explanation, justification or argument, there’s no clarity at all.

The Lockport Union Sun Journal concluded that “it[downsizing] makes business sense and tax sense.” If we get past the confused idea that government should be run like a business, we see that it’s not about selling a product nor making profit. Think of it as a business and it will eventually be exploited for nothing but business as we see happening in the Federal Government today. It’s about speaking for the common good. And it doesn’t make sense as business sense nor tax sense.

But still the tax issue seems to carry the day. Yet considering how much money is alloted for managers, lawyers, “public information officers,” etc. to hack away at representation for the sake of several thousand dollars of tax money is penny wise and pound foolish. This can’t be sufficient reason. If it is we’ve vastly over-privileged the value of money in measuring the worth of optimal democracy. If it is the predominant reason, then a few thousand dollar pay cut for each of you could preserve the 4 positions proposed for cutting.

Consolidating services for efficiency is not the same as downsizing or consolidating government for effectiveness. It’s apples and oranges. The kind of “efficiency” achieved in consolidation is not the kind of ‘efficiency’ it might be reasonable to talk about in government. Legislator Wojtaszek’s suggesting that consolidating the county workforce implies the same can and should be done in government manipulatively mixes apples and oranges.

Efficiency is a matter of how things are done, not just how many are doing it. How is it that fewer Legislators deal more effectively with complex issues?

The idea of efficiency mystifies what effectiveness really is in government. Efficiency as a scientific value and standard made some sense in the Progressive Era, through the Scientific Management Movement, Taylorism and Fordism. But when the efficiency model of mechanized labor, standardization and mass production overseen by specialists, experts and managers is applied to government you forget that government isn’t an industry any more than a business. Such technical science applied to government is like trying to make a screwdriver work like a hammer.

Government is more like a craft or art than a matter of mass production. The error is that in industry a product is ready at hand for assembly. The problem is to streamline the process. But in government you don’t know what the final product—the legislation is. It’s a creative process. How do you streamline that? Efficiency applied applied as a measure of government is ill-conceived if not cultish.

We could end up with our own version of three men in a room if we don’t have it already. An oligarchy of those who’ve got the money can, with fewer seats to be sought in government, spend more of that money on fewer campaigns making it even more difficult for the average person to ever consider running for office. Moreover, if you really want uncomplicated efficiency, then dictatorship is the way to go.

Without further study, even beliefs about the value of consolidation may well be spurious. For example UB did a study recently demonstrating that school consolidation which has been happening exponentially over the decades, does not save money except in a very few very small districts and is otherwise not worth other human costs. What seemed even to me like an excess of overpaid administrators turns out, according to the study, to be a virtually negligible part of expenditures.

Mr. Updegrove said at the June 16^th meeting that he was “not in theory against [9. And I’d love to hear what that theory is that might settle on 9 but prefers 15. It seems as if the real reasons or motives are simply not coming forth.

Also, Mr. Wojtaszek pointed to the large number of districts in the state. That may be a problem but it has nothing to do with deciding on the optimum size of our Legislature. Nothing. It may have to do with re-districting but not necessarily therefore with the size of our Legislature.

A government too big really only means one that sticks its nose into the privacy and freedom of the peoples lives. Even a government of two people is too big when it tries to do that. Mr. Wojtaszek’s adage that the government that governs least, governs best means it should stick to its charge. It doesn’t mean you should downsize to save tax money.

If efficiency is a measure of anything it’s a measure of how well the community works in harmony with itself not how “big” the Legislature is in number. An “efficient” Legislature has to be effective. An effective one doesn’t have to be efficient. Efficiency without effectiveness is dangerous.

So we should be spending this time talking about Legislative effectivity and not the magical number of Legislators that achieves efficiency. If you want efficiency unplug the D and R parties in NC and NYS. Politicians of all parties should state thinking in terms of a local party defending local interest, a community party, a regional party.

Downsizing’s danger is not just that it plays politics in the system but plays politics with the system. It may make the people feel like they’ve won the war, but in fact this would be a minor victory with possibly major consequences.

Efficiency means timely and proper problem solving, decision-making and innovation. It’s never a matter of simply how fast we can get things done. But reducing the size doesn’t even necessarily guarantee speed. What does speed things up and even guarantee efficiency is integrity, inclusiveness, honesty, transparency, openness and commitment. The right size should be whatever guarantees those 6 characteristic.

So leave the Legislature alone. Let’s talk about those 6 characteristics.

The Language of the New Financial Class

There is no better evidence of the veil dividing the new Aristocrats of the financialized super-capital social class and the rest of us, than the following video. How is it that the people can play any real part in what happens to “our investments” as a nation of taxpayers? In short, they can not.

The tools of self-determination have been safely tucked away from our view in the “technicalities” of the esoterically mystified language and “methodologies” of the mega-banks, wall street brokers and the insurance companies. We the People, that is, we the politically disenfranchised, no longer have a political part in the macroeconomic dealings of the financiers. We the People are now, at best, regional statistics to make the totality of the balance sheets come out looking less than red.

If you do understand this language of wealth expropriation, what are the odds that you could cross over the veil that divides the two Americas and have a real say in what happens to our economy of "growth?"

Technocrats Thwarted in Erie County

A recent article by Bruce Fisher in Artvoice argued that the autonomy and will to self-determination of local communities in Erie County are obstacles to proper growth and economic development. Fisher maintains that the more rural areas have already lost the battle to "development" intruding into their way of life. He argues that only planning by a control board will save the day for Erie County.

Whether the conditions and ways of life of the communities in question in Erie County have already been eroded and compromised is beside the point. The sense of community is still alive and in fact may be reconstituted on the basis of the residues of existing traditions, customs, practices and values.

There is no guarantee, let alone much promise, that a central planning board will be able to achieve any desirable sense of sustainable community nor any balance between town and country. Mr. Fisher seems not to get that there is a deep sense of mistrust, justifiably so, of any move toward centralization of powers that may function to turn control of the constitutive activities of the peoples lives over to technocrats who claim only neutral regulatory powers. Such professional planners are not necessarily guided by principles and values that would serve the ways of life that apparently the communities, towns and villages, seem to want to live.

If there were some assurance that a “planning board” were not in the pockets of the traditional political parties which are not to be trusted to preserve local autonomy, integrity and sovereignty, nor under the influence of ‘developers,’ let alone the influence of the bureaucratic centralist ideology of liberal democratic Washington, then such “centralization” of control may conceivably come about in such a way that it would be representative of the interests expressed by the smaller communities. But there is no such assurance and our history of centralism, pseudo-federalism and expropriation of local wealth by the State is reason enough not to trust the professional political technocrats and “developers.”

It is also odd that Mr. Fisher castigates Legislator Reynolds--who voted against the control board after consulting with the people of the targeted communities-- for doing what he was elected to do. It is also more than odd that Fisher attributes economic decline to ‘fractured, local governance.’

But it seems that the professionals and professoriat at Buff State concluded during their conference [on the economic plight of the region in light of Obama’s stimulus promises], that the same technocratically inspired “professionals” who would serve on a control board for regional planning would also be the ones, of an academic variety, who would know better how to effectively spend the hoped for stimulus money. I don’t know how it is possible that such a conclusion could be reached-- that the money would best be spent by regional planning boards as opposed to local governments-- given that the best and most effective use of the money is not determined a priori.

My incredulity and my suspicion grow when Mr. Fisher assures us that the planning board would be a “nonpartisan, disinterested, and apolitical county planning body.” To me this sounds like our author is either living in a fantasy or actually does believe the people of the towns and villages are a bunch of yahoos. Or possibly the academic credentials have gone to his head.

The plot thickens when our good academic technocrat claims that his is an “approach that could finally help Erie County government take the next evolutionary step toward being a functional, metrowide coordinator of public health, infrastructure, and economic conditions.” At this point it seems clear to me that democracy plays little part in Fisher’s utopia. And the use of “evolutionary step” is embarrassing or at least requires some explanation of how he understands history, change and democracy not to mention self-determination. At best this is an autocratic vision which may well fly should the Obama administration buy into the 'regionalist-control board vision' of the Buff State conferencees.

Lastly I would like to know how Mr. Fisher defines the “public interest” that he claims is being “thwarted” simply by people practicing their political imperative within a democracy if not within the imperative of a new populist opposition. It is this populist sensibility which undoubtedly best understands what's in the public interest. It is also this new populist consciousness that detects the dangers of Fisher's technocratic vision taking on new life under the auspices of an economic crisis in which all such schemes seem justifiable when exigency and efficiency become everything and democracy becomes a luxury not a fundamental, unimpeachable political value.

NIAGARA COUNTY COMMUNITIES COMPROMISED BY VISIONLESS LEADERSHIP AND A DEMORALIZED, DE-POLITICIZED CONSTITUENCY

It is useless to continue to point out the relentless internecine political party warfare over at the Niagara Times blog. You know, the one that is too afraid to answer my criticism. So Hobbes and his gang of Republican blog “administrators,” the Orwellian variety, kicked me off, refusing to post my criticisms and ideas. It is useless to draw further attention to their pathetically Roveian tactics of attack and destroy any real criticism, any space in the public sphere where a real discourse is beginning and any idea that doesn’t empower their party. They are nihilistically committed to hyper-partisan propaganda and agitprop. They are a politics of violence.

Party politics or better, partisan warfare, in Niagara County will undoubtedly continue like the Hatfields and McCoys. And like that hillbilly feud, after a while they won’t really be sure why they are attacking one another. Their doubt might arise, and should arise, because objectively these Democrats and Republicans have more in common as a community of communities than they are courageous enough and wise enough to realize and act upon.

If what George Maziarz claims is true, as Francine DelMonte said on Access to Government last week, that “as Niagara Falls goes, so goes Niagara County,” then Niagara County may well be on its way out as a sustainable community of communities. Failing to generate a leadership to bring unified co-operation to the county, the factors of racism, partisanism power mongering and feuding over the crumbs allocated by the State, will continue to fracture the polity and inflame tensions in the region.

The Niagara County Communities Comprehensive Plan project seemed like a venue in which a real dialogue could begin in order to heal and genuinely empower the people here in an authentic solidarity and re-identification of who we are. But no sooner than announcements of that project hit the newspapers last year, the Niagara Times blog came out flatly against the project. Apparently it was too much democracy for their taste. As far as I know, having attended several of the meetings, the Republican Legislators did not attend the meetings to participate with the people in the process. They would rather have a few Republican lawyers run the county in the name of better business conditions for the connected and well-placed. This opposition to the planning project is symptomatic of their nay-saying regarding any political momentum of which they are not firmly in control and the beneficiaries of. They are the local party of NO.

The democrats do no better in supporting a sweep of millions from NYPA to the State coffers. Also, Virtuoso’s inexplicable recommendation of reducing the Niagara County Legislature to 9, cutting it’s members in half and assuring the decimation of any real representation of the people in county politics, is equally counterproductive. Moreover Mayor Dyster’s not being more aggressive in working to eliminate the Robert Moses and restore the Gorge somewhat closer to its natural state, is equally inexplicable and also counterproductive.

Until the Legislators can place community harmony as their number one priority and give up the partisan power struggle, give up any belief that the machinations in Albany will ever do any sustainable good for our region and give up subsidizing the exploitation of our resources by the State, they will fail to comprehend the power of regional cooperation and local unity, identity and self-determining purposefulness.

Tourism as the centerpiece of success is the answer but each local group seems to think they are the jewel in the crown ending up subverting the success of the project as a whole. Everyone wants to be their own ‘jewel’ and consequently no crown exists to hold the jewels together. Provincial selfishness, shortsightedness and hatred will assure backwater status despite the fact that objective conditions exist to compete and succeed at a world-class level.

STALINISM AND RUMOR MONGERING AT NIAGARA TIMES BLOG

The anonymous person or group that calls itself Hobbes at the Niagara Times blogspot—clearly a Roveian if not Orwellian inspired Republican front group—is a threat to democracy and the public sphere in Niagara County. A few days ago the blog administrator deleted my posts and barred me from participation when I challenged the truth of his “story” regarding the activities of County Manager Greg Lewis and pointed out his hypocrisy in criticizing the moves of Gov. Paterson. In the manner of any good Orwellian bureaucrat, Hobbes, the supposed Administrator, deleted most of the remaining of my recent posts. This is a Stalinist practice right out of the pages of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Hobbes, like Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, chooses to re-write history rather than deal with the truth of historical events. So Hobbes deletes my posts and writes me out of the pages of discursive history as if my critical disagreements with him never happened.

This is seriously dangerous stuff. Memory and history are essential dimensions of truth and freedom. But Hobbes arrogantly and self-righteously chooses to help us forget and re-write history by deleting crucial events and ideas. It is understandable why these people stay anonymous. The Republicans obviously don’t want to be associated with these tactics—at least if they have any common sense or integrity—and yet this proto-fascistic action goes unchallenged by the Republicans.

Today Hobbes continues his witch hunt against Mr. Greg Lewis, Niagara County Manager, much of which is based on sources that he never discloses, undoubtedly Republican insiders who wish to control Niagara County politics no matter what the cost to democracy, truth and freedom of speech. Hobbes arrogantly and self-righteously claims knowledge he could not possibly have. Using tactics right out of the play book of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney he tries to instill fear and hysteria in the citizenry in order to force actions that are irrational and impulsive.

Hobbes bends over backwards to find contradictions and supposed incompetence in Lewis’ actions. If in fact Lewis was being particularly cautious in playing according to the letter of the law in reporting possible swine flu at the Niagara County Courthouse, it could only be because he knows there are Republican Party “hit men” out there jumping at every opportunity to discredit and oust Lewis from his position.

Hobbes tactics are character assassination pure and simple. At the very least, these tactics are mean spirited, ill willed and at worst seriously destructive to the spirit of community cooperation and trust. The likes of Hobbes perpetuates the Party domination of county politics and the inability of the people to move forward in a spirit of honesty and trust and create the conditions of a true polity. He/she/it is destructive to openness, transparency and accountability. He creates paranoia in the community and pollutes what it means to be a member of community and democracy.

His tactics, in short, are in effect violent and interested not in the force of truth but the force of fear, domination and exploitation. Anyone of good will, who is honest and interested in reason and the spirit of community should attack this character with all their energy and will within the court of reason and limits of law.

The integrity and creativity of the Niagara polity depends upon eliminating such toxic and vicious voices from our politics.

ASSESSING ALBANY: The Futility of Moralism

Certain kinds of analysis of recent events in Albany-- political coup, weeks of insider ‘politiking’ while shutting out democratic transparency, shuffling the deck chairs of the Albany version of the Titanic, and finally, seemingly, things returning to where they were at the beginning of the Republican coup-- are as politically useless and unproductive as the events themselves. They are moralistic and one-sided, leaving little room for possible change and hope of transformative renewal.

For example, LC Scotty over at Buffalo Pundit says in response to the Pundit’s call for abolishing the State Senate,

“The folks in the assembly are culled from the same political cesspool as the senators.”

Scotty doesn't really tell us what he understands by the 'cesspool' source he talks about. We should consider that those “political cesspools,” by the way, are our communities. What else would they be except possibly a new class of professionals serving the interests of the state and servicing the needs of mega-capital to influence government to write laws favorable to privilege and profit.

Another contrasting example of useless moralistic political ‘analysis is Robert Harding of the Albany Project who points to Pedro Espada as the fly in the ointment who

"represents everything that is wrong with our legislative process and everything that is wrong with politics and governance in New York."

Harding doesn't really explicate what exactly Espada represents politically and governmentally. Is it moral decrepitude and lack of political integrity that he points to? Possibly. But this kind of political analysis amounts to holier than thou moralism that leaves things at the status quo.

So, whereas LC Scotty doesn't really tell us what he thinks constitutes the "cesspool" from which we "cull" our elected officials, and Harding doesn't clarify how such an individual as Espada embodies our political decadence, we are left with business as usual in local/state political analysis. These two types-- let's say macro-political and micro-political -- of political analysis of the problem as originating socially from a "pool" of people or as arising in individuals themselves is a blame game that doesn't describe let alone explain what might be going on let alone how to extract ourselves from the dilemma.

LC Scotty and Harding are both right and both wrong. Their kinds of analysis are equally one-sided and equally abstract. Communities are in a cesspool-like state of decay and most individual politicians have little concern for a moral consistency that properly informs their political activity. Transparency and accountability to real community interests are just something they try to make people believe actually exists. But it doesn't. It's smoke and mirrors, illusion and sleight of hand. Practicing an ethical politics is impossible for professional legislators because their morality is no longer rooted in their identity with and loyalty to an authentic community. Nor is there any transcendent universal ethics that exists that could obligate and inform their behavior. Moreover, on the other hand, ethics committees in legislative bodies are more useless than the fox guarding the hen house.

Throwing out all of the state senators is a wasted suggestion, should we try to start all over again. The community as it is would simply recreate the same type of candidates in the Assembly.

Endlessly moralizing in condemnation of this and that individual senator is equally useless. Possibly once a politician has played the game long enough to qualify for state office, they have been sufficiently conditioned to know how to promise the people of the community everything and deliver very little besides a little pork-payoff trickling down to the Party faithful in the 'community.'

Also, the politician/candidates have more or less sold their souls and minds to the bureaucratized party duopoly, the Republicrats, who operate and think more and more like a self-interested autonomous social class. For all practical purposes they are a social class effectively no longer accountable to, for the most part, an effete, indifferent and powerless community. The party leviathan vitiates community and eviscerates the little left of the individual politician’s moral integrity.

The solution is turning back to community to reconstitute the foundational autonomy of polity as a self-sustaining entity. The community must reconstitute those things such as education whose substance has been eviscerated by state bureaucracies, both at the pseudo-federal and state levels. Education must be education for citizenship and therefore for an individuality which enables critical thought and self-understanding of what the community is and what is in its interest. Such reconstitution is also a matter of extracting from communities corporate incursion into the socialization of individuals who they turn into mindless consumers of the culture industry. Corporations have colonized community and commodified consciousness.

In short, our essentially depoliticized, disempowered and uneducated communities ARE political cesspools sending their scum to Albany. But the solution still lay in the community not in playing mental checkers and chess with the media events in Albany as another form of the culture industry’s colonization of consciousness and character. We can play imaginatively at politician all we want in trying to shuffle the chairs on the deck of the Albany Titanic, but short of re-appropriation of individual political consciousness and community sovereignty, the centralist bureaucratic regime of Albany will wax on, continuing to sell their soul/minds to the state-party mechanism, while a few aspire to even higher office in Washington, requiring of course that they compromise their loyalty and belonging to community even more egregiously than they already do.

Mega-businessmen like Golisano will continue to weasel their way into power through people like Pigeon as people like Espada will work their way up through the corruption of community and muscle their way toward careers of personal self-aggrandizement.

The Community must reconstitute a social individual who actually belongs to community. Without out that pre-condition representation is meaningless. Without a community of citizens who believe in and belong to their community how can they be represented at all? Without community we will remain aggregated macroeconomic statistics on the spreadsheets of corporate-owned state and national politicians.

An aggregated constituency artificially engineered through media manipulation and party domination of local political discourse does not make a community nor a polity of citizens who can claim democratic power. The faithful, true-believers, who consume the platitudes and procrastinating propaganda of the machine wait on and on for the professionals to change their lives. And they do not.