A process is underway in Niagara County called the Niagara Communities Comprehensive Plan. I wrote about it below on March 2, 2008. I’ll bet you still haven’t heard about it. I bet if you had heard about it you have since forgotten it. That’s too bad because this is a chance for you as a citizen to engage the communities as a potentially unified whole over the next 6 months of meetings and discussions regarding the future of Niagara County.
Actually, I do not exaggerate if I say that this is an amazing opportunity for the “stakeholders” in Niagara County to meet monthly to systematically discuss the issues, problems, potentials and possibilities of our communities, their concerns regarding land use, infrastructure, business needs and economic prospects and much more.
Hired to lead the process was a group of community planning experts called Clough Harbour & Associates. The project began on Feb. 27, 2008 with a Steering Committee meeting and one Public meeting. Since then a second Steering Committee meeting took place on March 26 at the Niagara County Center for Economic Development.
At the first Public meeting there was much negativity, cynicism and suspicion about spending several thousands of dollars on a questionably useful process. One citizen objected that the process would be used merely to legitimate decisions and projects already underway by the power bloc now in control of the county. Another attendee outright accused the consultants of being in it just and only for the money. I myself question the competency of the consultants but not their integrity. I had no reason to distrust them until I saw more. I questioned their competency only in the sense that I wanted some evidence that they knew what they were doing, that is, had some knowledge as to how to get antagonistic communities to work together in the interest of a unified whole not yet really even defined other than in name, namely, Niagara County as a “community” of communities. The man to whom I addressed my question, Mr. Walter Kalina an associate with CHA, was rather oddly mute when I asked my question. It was a simple question. I didn’t really get an answer. It seems that an experienced expert could have given me some brief synopsis of his work. But none was forthcoming. Yet I remained enamored if not bemused by anyone who might claim that they could unify such a fragmented geography, one which seems quite self-satisfied with its inability to come together in a unity, balance and harmony of political economy.
Nevertheless I remained hopeful that some good could come of this community process of self-examination and self-determination, or in the parlance of the community planning experts, simply PLANNING. My reason for optimism was that Kalina said possibly the best thing that could come out of this process was an authentic, trusting relationship of communities on the basis of which people might start working together. My idealistc democratic heart began to stir and populist juices began to flow. I was a believer.
I myself have since attended the first public meeting and the second steering committee meeting. I would have been at the first steering meeting but didn’t know that citizens not appointed by their jurisdiction as an official representative of the stakeholder group could attend the Steering meetings. I take full responsibility for that. And yet I excuse others because the Project has not been excessively advertised. I stumbled across an announcement of it in the local paper. I suppose if you are an avid reader of the county website you might also have seen a link to the subject of the Comprehensive Plan there. I don’t know how many attended the first steering meeting. I do know that at most about 20 or 25 people in a county of 240,000 or so were in attendance for the first Public meeting at the NCCC Fine Arts Auditorium. It seats about 500 or 600. Somebody had high hopes.
The second steering committee meeting had about 50-60 in attendance. I think there are @ 150 stakeholder representatives. I may be wrong about that. I do know that my own representative from North Tonawanda, Chuck Bell, was not in attendance at the second steering meeting although I understand he was at the first meeting.
At the second steering meeting it was promised that complete notes of the discussions would be circulated to all at the meeting by way of the internet. As of today, Saturday, April 19, no such notes have been forthcoming. I’ve sent several e-mails of inquiry to CHA, contacted Jason Murgia, Niagara County Legislator, and searched desperately on the hopelessly inadequate Niagara County website for some way to request the information.
Today however finally I received an e-mail from Mr. Kalina that the notes would be posted on the Niagara County site “early next week.” If we are lucky, this will give the 100 or so people involved time to review, think about and contact one another about the process. If we are lucky that “time to review” will be about 1 day. Yes, I wax sarcastic if you hadn’t noticed. Why? Because this just will not do. This is embarrassingly inadequate, demeaning and offensive to anyone seriously engaged in this process. Should I raise the question of the competency of CHA at the next meeting again? Or is it just a matter of the process not really being taken seriously?
Maybe as the pessimistic accuser at the first public meeting said, this Project will just be used to legitimate the prior decisions of the powers that be. Maybe it will be used, should it fail and is filed away as a final “REPORT” that no one will ever again read, to say to the people: “Well, we gave you a chance to practice democracy and you blew it. So we the rich and powerful, the conscientious and caring, must take over.” Is this a set-up? Am I paranoid? Is this Comprehensive Plan planned to fail. Will the Lone Ranger and Tonto ride in to save the day?
Well, the point is that not enough people are engaged in this process and too few are paying attention to the ‘process’ of the process. The Diamond here, my friends, is in the process itself. The “result” that matters here will be in the relationships that develop and the experience of seeing that people can come together to think about the whole of the county communities and how it might become One. The Report and Document that get filed away are not the result that will matter.
If we want to get our thousands of dollars of money worth we must participate. CHA must also spend more of that money to advertise this Project. And the naysayers who crapped on the Project such as the Tonawanda News editor’s column and the local blog Niagara Times need to get their collective head out of the sand, then come down from their high horses and smell the democratic process. It’s easy to pretend you can piss on the people when you stand in such high and lofty places.
I suggest you get involved and begin to learn to talk to one another with the unity, integrity and prosperity of the communities of Niagara County in mind.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
PRIME TIME AT CAFE LCTV
I’ve been wondering for some time exactly what political identity I have or should have. As a Viet Nam war protester in the late sixties and early seventies, I gravitated toward Marxism. But I no sooner started to understand what it was about that I also began to understand that its politics was obsolete. Since then I have remained actively apolitical at least insofar as I’ve not been engaged in the community or on the state or national scene as some sort of ‘player’ or ‘participant.’
Watching LCTV’s latest installment last night brought the question again to the fore regarding political identity. It occurred to me that the ousting of Tom Christy was motivated by an attempt on the part of the Republican/Business crowd in Niagara County to consolidate the image/identity that they have of themselves and that others in the county also have, although not in the same positive light. Christy threatened that identity, even if ever so slightly, enough to invoke their wrath and set in motion the political correctness purge, always justified of course by handy administrative rules and the blessings of some state bureaucratic functionary.
But oddly it seems that the image that the Christy supporters and various Democratic critics of the Republicans had of the Republican/business crowd, call them the “Rebizzlicans,” contributed to the perceived necessity of saving that political identity. So before the Christy phenomenon actually consolidated into an identity of its own--whether Democratic or possibly even authentic Populist, or, maybe Libertarian or some unnamed breed—the Rebizzlican machine, be it as it may be, kicked into gear and cleansed its Lockport staging ground. Lockport is now kind of the Green Zone of Rebizzlicanism in Niagara County.
So with the oh so smoothly nice and conciliatory, if not somewhat nauseating, manners of Jackie Davis, LCTV Board Member and host apparent of Access to Government, the Rebizzlican damage control machine got under way. Whew! Back to bizziness as usual! What a relief! I was starting to worry that honest and open critical political discourse might actually take hold in Niagara County. Never fear! Politics has been safely sublimated as business problems soon to be solved by the IDA and Center for Economic Development and ethical concerns quickly cleaned up by the county “Ethics” committee. It’s kind of like the Beckett play, Waiting for Godot. Godot never seems to get here. Vladimir and Estragon are played by lawyers of course.
So you may continue to fire away at the Green Zone but you’ll never get in now. The occupation is secured. I’m not sure it could have been avoided nor that the critics of the Rebizzlicans could have done anything differently.
By the way, did anybody else get the feeling that Jackie Davis’ head would start spinning around at any minute like the Linda Blair character in the Exorcist and she’d start screaming at Edwina Luksch something like, “Go die in hell and fuck yourself while you’re at it!!!”
Watching LCTV’s latest installment last night brought the question again to the fore regarding political identity. It occurred to me that the ousting of Tom Christy was motivated by an attempt on the part of the Republican/Business crowd in Niagara County to consolidate the image/identity that they have of themselves and that others in the county also have, although not in the same positive light. Christy threatened that identity, even if ever so slightly, enough to invoke their wrath and set in motion the political correctness purge, always justified of course by handy administrative rules and the blessings of some state bureaucratic functionary.
But oddly it seems that the image that the Christy supporters and various Democratic critics of the Republicans had of the Republican/business crowd, call them the “Rebizzlicans,” contributed to the perceived necessity of saving that political identity. So before the Christy phenomenon actually consolidated into an identity of its own--whether Democratic or possibly even authentic Populist, or, maybe Libertarian or some unnamed breed—the Rebizzlican machine, be it as it may be, kicked into gear and cleansed its Lockport staging ground. Lockport is now kind of the Green Zone of Rebizzlicanism in Niagara County.
So with the oh so smoothly nice and conciliatory, if not somewhat nauseating, manners of Jackie Davis, LCTV Board Member and host apparent of Access to Government, the Rebizzlican damage control machine got under way. Whew! Back to bizziness as usual! What a relief! I was starting to worry that honest and open critical political discourse might actually take hold in Niagara County. Never fear! Politics has been safely sublimated as business problems soon to be solved by the IDA and Center for Economic Development and ethical concerns quickly cleaned up by the county “Ethics” committee. It’s kind of like the Beckett play, Waiting for Godot. Godot never seems to get here. Vladimir and Estragon are played by lawyers of course.
So you may continue to fire away at the Green Zone but you’ll never get in now. The occupation is secured. I’m not sure it could have been avoided nor that the critics of the Rebizzlicans could have done anything differently.
By the way, did anybody else get the feeling that Jackie Davis’ head would start spinning around at any minute like the Linda Blair character in the Exorcist and she’d start screaming at Edwina Luksch something like, “Go die in hell and fuck yourself while you’re at it!!!”
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
CONSPIRACY OR STRATEGY: Writing Off America
If the American people continue to delude themselves that the regime in Washington represents the interests of a sovereign America, their world will continue to appear irrational and they will continue to feel powerlesss. As I began to argue in “Illegal Immigration and the End of America”(see below), it is not difficult to see the pattern of the dismantling of American sovereignty and national solidarity and integrity. Consider the following from Scott Thill’s article, “Over the Top Fed actions Feed Conspiracy Thinking,” at http://www.alternet.org/workplace/80501/?page=2:
"If you're one of the 2 million American families losing your house this year, it's a depression," argues Greg Palast, BBC investigative journalist, author of Armed Madhouse and onetime student of neoconservative privatization guru Milton Friedman. "If you're a mortgage shark, happy days are here again. The difference between the Great Depression and this one is that, back then, everyone was in it. Now, it's a selective mangling. Exxon's profit hit $40 billion, the highest of any corporation since the pharaohs. So how can you say the economy is going down? For whom?"
Palast's point is well taken, even as it is ignored by everyone from the Bush administration to the financial (which is to say, entertainment) media and all the way to homeowners who ignorantly refinance so they can buy that new Hummer: Your life may suck ass, but others around you are sucking you dry. And most importantly, they're crushing the dollar on their way out the door to Dubai, or wherever suits hide in the New World Order's afterlife.
"Regardless of what the Fed does, the dollar is going to keep going down," Schiff agrees. "If the Fed keeps doing what it is doing, it won't make it out of this as a functioning currency."
"I'm sorry to tell you this," Palast adds, "but higher oil prices and weak dollars is not a failure of policy. That is the policy. Clinton had a strong dollar policy and Bush hated it. The weak dollar is a way to temporarily hike exports to create short-term pretend juice for the economy. But the weak dollar also made it easier for foreigners to buy up U.S. assets. The capitalists are cashing out of America. They're keeping condos in New York, Palm Beach and Malibu, but their investments are where the returns are fatter: Malaysia, China, India. A weak dollar helps the transfer of capital ownership."
With respect to how we think about all this consider again whether all the fundamental categories of political thought help us understand and act. They do not. Left-Right, Republican-Democrat, Conservative-Liberal, Democracy-Republic all are obscurantist tools of rhetorical ranting, name-calling and marginalizing one another. In the political realm this is analogous to black on black crime in the social realm. We are parasitical on and destructive to one another intellectually and economically, while transnational capital is shifting the playing field out of our neighborhood.
The spectrum of political interests are clearly not conceptualizable as a horizontal paradigm but as a vertical one. The transnational capitalist class and their military-bureaucratic Army of international “stormtroopers,” call it the New Class, are at the very top of the pole. The rest of us are at the bottom of the pole.
The war on the middle-class is part of the strategy as is opening the flood gates to illegal and legal immigrants. The New Class of international capitalists have everything to gain by “third-worldizing” America. Why protect our standard of living, when those wages and benefits could be used to invest abroad where there’s real money to be made and resistant cultures to conquer? So as the wealth distribution becomes more painfully obviously divided top-heavy to bottom light, the class division becomes more clear. The mass of atomized, disenfranchised, discounted and impoverished pseudo-citizens, is the Client Class, a class unable to pay and at the mercy of what the Owners wish to give. We are systematically and strategically dumbed down in the schools and in the media. We are morally and spiritually numbed down by religious extremism on the one hand and on the other by a dissolved public sphere where a new social morality and civic virtue could be nurtured, but is not.
In short there is no horizontal playing field any longer in America. There is only the very narrow, horizontal dichotomous stratification of the few very rich and their maintainance “Army” at the top of the food chain, and the remaining anonymous mass of self-alienated laborers and servants at the bottom.
What “technical” and “educational” infrastructure remains will be progressively used, firstly, to police and indoctrinate the masses to accept this global reconfiguration of national/international socio-economic restructuration; secondly, fight the wars of those who resist in order to save their cultures, homes and local viability and integrity; and, finally, amuse the disenfranchised with the entertainment and advertising culture that keeps them pretending that they are happy and deluded that this is the best of all possible worlds, and reasonably enough, the only possible world.
Conspiracy? Not at all. Isn’t it interesting that any ideas which presume to explain the irrationality of the whole of our disastrous American domestic and international policy, of the context of globablization, or of failed government actions and fiscal policies, get labeled as conspiracy theory. In fact events, such as FEMA’s “failure” in Katrina and actions such as the exportation of jobs and capital, are not really “irrational” to the New Class. It makes a lot of sense to them. It is only irrational to those of us, the Client Class, who expect too much from the Capitalists, that is anything more than they are willing to finance.
As was said in the movie Network, ‘America doesn’t exist. Nothing exists but international monopoly capital.’
The crops are being plowed under, the hands are being let go and a new “crop” being planned. Politics as we have known it is a game for fools. Local and regional politics play a larger part than ever. As Western NY is written off as the new ‘Appalachia’ only we can unite and redefine ourselves on a neo-populist basis to reconfigure “political representation” and change the conversation that we have with the Capitalist lackeys in Washington who pretend to, but in fact do not, represent the interests of America as a self-sufficient nation and the greatest political idea in the history of Modernity.
Conspiracy or strategy? Old politics or new politics?
"If you're one of the 2 million American families losing your house this year, it's a depression," argues Greg Palast, BBC investigative journalist, author of Armed Madhouse and onetime student of neoconservative privatization guru Milton Friedman. "If you're a mortgage shark, happy days are here again. The difference between the Great Depression and this one is that, back then, everyone was in it. Now, it's a selective mangling. Exxon's profit hit $40 billion, the highest of any corporation since the pharaohs. So how can you say the economy is going down? For whom?"
Palast's point is well taken, even as it is ignored by everyone from the Bush administration to the financial (which is to say, entertainment) media and all the way to homeowners who ignorantly refinance so they can buy that new Hummer: Your life may suck ass, but others around you are sucking you dry. And most importantly, they're crushing the dollar on their way out the door to Dubai, or wherever suits hide in the New World Order's afterlife.
"Regardless of what the Fed does, the dollar is going to keep going down," Schiff agrees. "If the Fed keeps doing what it is doing, it won't make it out of this as a functioning currency."
"I'm sorry to tell you this," Palast adds, "but higher oil prices and weak dollars is not a failure of policy. That is the policy. Clinton had a strong dollar policy and Bush hated it. The weak dollar is a way to temporarily hike exports to create short-term pretend juice for the economy. But the weak dollar also made it easier for foreigners to buy up U.S. assets. The capitalists are cashing out of America. They're keeping condos in New York, Palm Beach and Malibu, but their investments are where the returns are fatter: Malaysia, China, India. A weak dollar helps the transfer of capital ownership."
With respect to how we think about all this consider again whether all the fundamental categories of political thought help us understand and act. They do not. Left-Right, Republican-Democrat, Conservative-Liberal, Democracy-Republic all are obscurantist tools of rhetorical ranting, name-calling and marginalizing one another. In the political realm this is analogous to black on black crime in the social realm. We are parasitical on and destructive to one another intellectually and economically, while transnational capital is shifting the playing field out of our neighborhood.
The spectrum of political interests are clearly not conceptualizable as a horizontal paradigm but as a vertical one. The transnational capitalist class and their military-bureaucratic Army of international “stormtroopers,” call it the New Class, are at the very top of the pole. The rest of us are at the bottom of the pole.
The war on the middle-class is part of the strategy as is opening the flood gates to illegal and legal immigrants. The New Class of international capitalists have everything to gain by “third-worldizing” America. Why protect our standard of living, when those wages and benefits could be used to invest abroad where there’s real money to be made and resistant cultures to conquer? So as the wealth distribution becomes more painfully obviously divided top-heavy to bottom light, the class division becomes more clear. The mass of atomized, disenfranchised, discounted and impoverished pseudo-citizens, is the Client Class, a class unable to pay and at the mercy of what the Owners wish to give. We are systematically and strategically dumbed down in the schools and in the media. We are morally and spiritually numbed down by religious extremism on the one hand and on the other by a dissolved public sphere where a new social morality and civic virtue could be nurtured, but is not.
In short there is no horizontal playing field any longer in America. There is only the very narrow, horizontal dichotomous stratification of the few very rich and their maintainance “Army” at the top of the food chain, and the remaining anonymous mass of self-alienated laborers and servants at the bottom.
What “technical” and “educational” infrastructure remains will be progressively used, firstly, to police and indoctrinate the masses to accept this global reconfiguration of national/international socio-economic restructuration; secondly, fight the wars of those who resist in order to save their cultures, homes and local viability and integrity; and, finally, amuse the disenfranchised with the entertainment and advertising culture that keeps them pretending that they are happy and deluded that this is the best of all possible worlds, and reasonably enough, the only possible world.
Conspiracy? Not at all. Isn’t it interesting that any ideas which presume to explain the irrationality of the whole of our disastrous American domestic and international policy, of the context of globablization, or of failed government actions and fiscal policies, get labeled as conspiracy theory. In fact events, such as FEMA’s “failure” in Katrina and actions such as the exportation of jobs and capital, are not really “irrational” to the New Class. It makes a lot of sense to them. It is only irrational to those of us, the Client Class, who expect too much from the Capitalists, that is anything more than they are willing to finance.
As was said in the movie Network, ‘America doesn’t exist. Nothing exists but international monopoly capital.’
The crops are being plowed under, the hands are being let go and a new “crop” being planned. Politics as we have known it is a game for fools. Local and regional politics play a larger part than ever. As Western NY is written off as the new ‘Appalachia’ only we can unite and redefine ourselves on a neo-populist basis to reconfigure “political representation” and change the conversation that we have with the Capitalist lackeys in Washington who pretend to, but in fact do not, represent the interests of America as a self-sufficient nation and the greatest political idea in the history of Modernity.
Conspiracy or strategy? Old politics or new politics?
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
THE ISSUES ACCORDING TO NADER, PLEASE
Nader continues to be the only candidate willing to break with the stranglehold on political thought and action. We might ask the question why all the candidates of the last two presidential elections been afraid to debate him. He may be off the radar but soon we may well have to start asking if there’s something wrong with the radar. Consider Nader’s issues:
1. Adopt a single payer national health insurance.
2. Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget.
3. Say no to nuclear power, solar energy first.
4. Crack down on corporate crime and corporate welfare.
5. Open up the Presidential debates.
6. Adopt a carbon pollution tax.
7. Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East.
8. Impeach Bush/Cheney.
9. Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law.
10. Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax.
11. End to ballot access obstructionism.
12. End corporate personhood.
1. Adopt a single payer national health insurance.
2. Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget.
3. Say no to nuclear power, solar energy first.
4. Crack down on corporate crime and corporate welfare.
5. Open up the Presidential debates.
6. Adopt a carbon pollution tax.
7. Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East.
8. Impeach Bush/Cheney.
9. Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law.
10. Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax.
11. End to ballot access obstructionism.
12. End corporate personhood.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
BENEATH CONTEMPT IN NIAGARA POLITICS
I had the great displeasure of seeing a re-run tonight of Senator Maziarz's interview with Kathy Paradowski.
WHY? WHY? WHY SUCH AUDACIOUS ARROGANCE? Well, now we know why.
This is such a violation of everything from good taste to ethics and everything in between it is inexorably appalling. I was deeply, deeply offended. After LCTV tells Tom Christy that the Government Channel was about the interview of elected officials, they run this blatantly audacious violation of their stated rules. This is nothing but the conscious intent to add insult to injury rubbing in the face of the public what the tyrannical political situation is in Niagara County. This is moral nihilism passing as business as usual. The Government Channel apparently now with impunity can be used for business advertisement and a platform to denigrate Democratic political leadership in North Tonawanda.
Senator Maziarz did not miss the opportunity-- undoubtedly part of the purpose of the show -- to disparage and denigrate Mayor Soos's political leadership. Ethically this was a bald and egregious misuse of the station. What about Mayor Soos's side of the story? Soos deserves equal time to trash Paradowski in return. Maziarz owes Soos an apology and he owes Niagara County an apology for such embarrassingly infantile behavior. This is political leadership???
If what was said about Maziarz having a big hand in getting rid of Christy was not true, then this would never have happened. He would have been more sensitive. Obviously we now know it was true. Such unabashed self-promotion in flagrant violation of the the rules of LCTV is letting Niagara County know who's boss and who can get away apparently with anything.
Apparently LCTV will now be used to promote the Republican political and business agenda.
If that is not sufficient rape of the intelligence of the community, with fraudulent smiles Maziarz and Paradowski wish North Tonawanda well in their concert series.
This is all descending far beneath contempt. Im my estimation Senator Maziarz has lost any right to moral and political leadership in Niagara County.
I myself am unaligned politically and I write with an interest in what I see as true, fair and in the interest of Niagara County as a potentially unifiable community and polity.
I may not be well experienced in local politics. I may even be naive, ignorant or even stupid. But I am not a fool. I know when I'm being told I don't count. Unless of course I get on board the band wagon.
WHY? WHY? WHY SUCH AUDACIOUS ARROGANCE? Well, now we know why.
This is such a violation of everything from good taste to ethics and everything in between it is inexorably appalling. I was deeply, deeply offended. After LCTV tells Tom Christy that the Government Channel was about the interview of elected officials, they run this blatantly audacious violation of their stated rules. This is nothing but the conscious intent to add insult to injury rubbing in the face of the public what the tyrannical political situation is in Niagara County. This is moral nihilism passing as business as usual. The Government Channel apparently now with impunity can be used for business advertisement and a platform to denigrate Democratic political leadership in North Tonawanda.
Senator Maziarz did not miss the opportunity-- undoubtedly part of the purpose of the show -- to disparage and denigrate Mayor Soos's political leadership. Ethically this was a bald and egregious misuse of the station. What about Mayor Soos's side of the story? Soos deserves equal time to trash Paradowski in return. Maziarz owes Soos an apology and he owes Niagara County an apology for such embarrassingly infantile behavior. This is political leadership???
If what was said about Maziarz having a big hand in getting rid of Christy was not true, then this would never have happened. He would have been more sensitive. Obviously we now know it was true. Such unabashed self-promotion in flagrant violation of the the rules of LCTV is letting Niagara County know who's boss and who can get away apparently with anything.
Apparently LCTV will now be used to promote the Republican political and business agenda.
If that is not sufficient rape of the intelligence of the community, with fraudulent smiles Maziarz and Paradowski wish North Tonawanda well in their concert series.
This is all descending far beneath contempt. Im my estimation Senator Maziarz has lost any right to moral and political leadership in Niagara County.
I myself am unaligned politically and I write with an interest in what I see as true, fair and in the interest of Niagara County as a potentially unifiable community and polity.
I may not be well experienced in local politics. I may even be naive, ignorant or even stupid. But I am not a fool. I know when I'm being told I don't count. Unless of course I get on board the band wagon.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
NIAGARA COUNTY LEGISLATURE CONFOUNDS COMMON SENSE
In a second round of protest in the Niagara County Legislature, the wishes of the people were again repelled and renounced by a mute and recalcitrant Republican majority. Without argument or explanation the right wing, if not reactionary, Republican power block inexplicably refused to act to restore one small venue of the public sphere, namely the popular and successful Legislative Journal with Tom Christy.
Without any concern for having their position understood, the Legislative block brazenly held its ground on mere excuses alone as to why they should not act to restore the Christy show to the people. Obviously without apology or regret and with what can only be understood as smug and arrogant indifference, the Legislature allows the unjustifiable acts of the LCTV Board of Directors to go unquestioned and unclarified.
Not only has the Legislature further deepened the divide between government and the people but now begins building a wall to prevent real communication, education and understanding. When Boards of Directors, of questionable talent and integrity, can serve as a buffer between the government and the people, between reason and the public interest, we the people enter into a very dark and dangerous period of civic neglect, disregard and repression. When government officials consider public discourse to demean and compromise their own integrity and right, the political process called democracy becomes a thing of the past.
It was with the stone wall of silence that the essentially inaccessible mind of the Republicans frustrated the democratic process. What could they really be thinking? What could really be motivating them? Who is really influencing such inscrutable if not vile actions against the people? We will probably never know. They don’t feel obligated to explain.
What little we heard from these newly self-appointed Aristocrats, came primarily from Mr. Updegrove. In brief he denied that the Legislature had any authority or authorization to act upon the Christy affair. He gave excuses as to why they can’t act but not why they should not act. They hid behind the weak claim that they had no authority to intervene. They excused themselves of any obligation with the feeble and questionable excuse of administrative and legal formalities. Sadly if not pathetically they refused to own the moral responsibility as leaders to reconcile the Lockport bureaucrats with the interest and right of the people to be heard publicly and be represented with their own voice. They failed to live up to a standard of legislative conduct given us by one no less than Plato himself. That standard is that the true mark of a Legislator is to use powers of the Law to bring harmony from conflict.
However, apparently scoffing at both legal and moral responsibility or obligation, and obviously lacking any sensitivity, compassion or respect for the voice of the community, the Legislature sharpens and exacerbates the conflict. These living obstacles to truth are no Legislators. They are functionaries and factionaries of interests and powers that ultimately do not serve you and me. They refuse to talk openly and honestly about those interests. The have de facto de-legitimated their legally given powers.
But as we should all know by now, this one small venue of public discourse, Christy’s Legislative Journal, apparently loomed very large when it insisted the failures of economic development, egregiously high and misappropriated taxes, that is the wasted wealth of the people, should be brought to light and discussed. Critical discussion of our disastrous political economy is now off the table in Niagara County. The writing is on the wall. The purging of the Christy show is a warning and threat that what may be discussed in the Niagara region will be determined by the wishes of established wealth and power. But such power is not real, only apparent. It is surely only a coercive, bullying force refusing to be held up to the mirror of self-examination.
If such people cannot explain and convince, they choose to threaten and intimidate, repress and mock if not revile any faith in the generative and nourishing power of the democracy that we stand for and countless have died for.
If it is true that Truth fears no questions, then we know now that Niagara County does not yet have the truth behind the egregious cancellation of the Christy show. Apparently many questions are feared by our Legislature. Possibly the central question is what exactly the agenda might be that permits the cancerous growth of an autocratic if not authoritarian contempt for the people, public discourse and the very lifeblood of America which is our own democracy.
This in effect is a state of siege against civic integrity, the public sphere and ultimately freedom of speech. The question for those who still desire openness of democratic inquiry is whether we will forfeit our government to the interests of greater political centralization of power and the sequestered, immune bureaucracies which make decisions and policies for a public which now no longer has the acknowledged right and means to question those decisions. The political parties do not now really work for us let alone really represent us fairly and interactively. Possibly the community must now reconstitute itself and repoliticize itself to empower actions which are really in its interest and for its benefit. Can we believe that a Legislative body that does not speak to us with respect for our need to understand is really even any longer listening to us?
However all is not lost. There are efforts underway in the Erie County Legislature and other jurisdictions in Niagara County to pass resolutions to reverse the publicly insulting decision regarding Legislative Journal with Tom Christy. The fight for legitimate and authentic democracy continues.
Without any concern for having their position understood, the Legislative block brazenly held its ground on mere excuses alone as to why they should not act to restore the Christy show to the people. Obviously without apology or regret and with what can only be understood as smug and arrogant indifference, the Legislature allows the unjustifiable acts of the LCTV Board of Directors to go unquestioned and unclarified.
Not only has the Legislature further deepened the divide between government and the people but now begins building a wall to prevent real communication, education and understanding. When Boards of Directors, of questionable talent and integrity, can serve as a buffer between the government and the people, between reason and the public interest, we the people enter into a very dark and dangerous period of civic neglect, disregard and repression. When government officials consider public discourse to demean and compromise their own integrity and right, the political process called democracy becomes a thing of the past.
It was with the stone wall of silence that the essentially inaccessible mind of the Republicans frustrated the democratic process. What could they really be thinking? What could really be motivating them? Who is really influencing such inscrutable if not vile actions against the people? We will probably never know. They don’t feel obligated to explain.
What little we heard from these newly self-appointed Aristocrats, came primarily from Mr. Updegrove. In brief he denied that the Legislature had any authority or authorization to act upon the Christy affair. He gave excuses as to why they can’t act but not why they should not act. They hid behind the weak claim that they had no authority to intervene. They excused themselves of any obligation with the feeble and questionable excuse of administrative and legal formalities. Sadly if not pathetically they refused to own the moral responsibility as leaders to reconcile the Lockport bureaucrats with the interest and right of the people to be heard publicly and be represented with their own voice. They failed to live up to a standard of legislative conduct given us by one no less than Plato himself. That standard is that the true mark of a Legislator is to use powers of the Law to bring harmony from conflict.
However, apparently scoffing at both legal and moral responsibility or obligation, and obviously lacking any sensitivity, compassion or respect for the voice of the community, the Legislature sharpens and exacerbates the conflict. These living obstacles to truth are no Legislators. They are functionaries and factionaries of interests and powers that ultimately do not serve you and me. They refuse to talk openly and honestly about those interests. The have de facto de-legitimated their legally given powers.
But as we should all know by now, this one small venue of public discourse, Christy’s Legislative Journal, apparently loomed very large when it insisted the failures of economic development, egregiously high and misappropriated taxes, that is the wasted wealth of the people, should be brought to light and discussed. Critical discussion of our disastrous political economy is now off the table in Niagara County. The writing is on the wall. The purging of the Christy show is a warning and threat that what may be discussed in the Niagara region will be determined by the wishes of established wealth and power. But such power is not real, only apparent. It is surely only a coercive, bullying force refusing to be held up to the mirror of self-examination.
If such people cannot explain and convince, they choose to threaten and intimidate, repress and mock if not revile any faith in the generative and nourishing power of the democracy that we stand for and countless have died for.
If it is true that Truth fears no questions, then we know now that Niagara County does not yet have the truth behind the egregious cancellation of the Christy show. Apparently many questions are feared by our Legislature. Possibly the central question is what exactly the agenda might be that permits the cancerous growth of an autocratic if not authoritarian contempt for the people, public discourse and the very lifeblood of America which is our own democracy.
This in effect is a state of siege against civic integrity, the public sphere and ultimately freedom of speech. The question for those who still desire openness of democratic inquiry is whether we will forfeit our government to the interests of greater political centralization of power and the sequestered, immune bureaucracies which make decisions and policies for a public which now no longer has the acknowledged right and means to question those decisions. The political parties do not now really work for us let alone really represent us fairly and interactively. Possibly the community must now reconstitute itself and repoliticize itself to empower actions which are really in its interest and for its benefit. Can we believe that a Legislative body that does not speak to us with respect for our need to understand is really even any longer listening to us?
However all is not lost. There are efforts underway in the Erie County Legislature and other jurisdictions in Niagara County to pass resolutions to reverse the publicly insulting decision regarding Legislative Journal with Tom Christy. The fight for legitimate and authentic democracy continues.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
MUTUAL MASTURBATION AT LCTV
Well, that was excruciatingingly dull! And I’m being kind. Really! Yes, I’ve just finished viewing our first installment of ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT. LCTV GONE UN-WILD!!!
Firstly, that wasn’t accessing government. That was travelogue, a tourist’s view of the mechanics of conformist, accomodationist managerialism at its antiseptic best. That’s what you get when apparatchiks have successfully purged the political dimension from analysis of government.
This was an example of institutionalized access to government, politically correct, cleansed of any controversy. “I love you…..you love me…la la la la la la dee.” Enter Barney the Dinosaur in all his glory or possibly next week Mr. Rogers returned from the grave: “Hi Neighbor!”
The philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis once defined institutions as organizations intended to exclude. That’s exactly what we had here tonight on LCTV, the effects of institutionalized exclusion of genuine political interest and questioning.
Did anyone call in? I didn’t hear anyone call in. Did I miss something? Did anyone care to call in? I don’t think so. Did I miss something? Was everyone so riveted to the passionate, earthshaking disclosures of governmental thought and action that they just couldn’t get around to calling in. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Possibly the phone system wasn’t working? Possibly, though, the producer/Director/Phone Operator fell asleep or died of boredom?
I think Jackie Davis even resorted to talking about the weather at one point. Oh my God: help us all!!!
As Sargent Friday used to say on Dragnet: “Just the facts, Ma’am.” And that’s what we got tonight, just the “facts.” But as in a court of law its only after the finding of facts that the truth be had. Only after the description does the interpretation and critique begin. But when one is allergic to cross-examination and criticism then truth is never to be had. The absence of critique is the space of censorship.
This was the “Truman Show” of governmental reality.
Enter the Matrix.
Well at least my Thursday evenings are now free.
Firstly, that wasn’t accessing government. That was travelogue, a tourist’s view of the mechanics of conformist, accomodationist managerialism at its antiseptic best. That’s what you get when apparatchiks have successfully purged the political dimension from analysis of government.
This was an example of institutionalized access to government, politically correct, cleansed of any controversy. “I love you…..you love me…la la la la la la dee.” Enter Barney the Dinosaur in all his glory or possibly next week Mr. Rogers returned from the grave: “Hi Neighbor!”
The philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis once defined institutions as organizations intended to exclude. That’s exactly what we had here tonight on LCTV, the effects of institutionalized exclusion of genuine political interest and questioning.
Did anyone call in? I didn’t hear anyone call in. Did I miss something? Did anyone care to call in? I don’t think so. Did I miss something? Was everyone so riveted to the passionate, earthshaking disclosures of governmental thought and action that they just couldn’t get around to calling in. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Possibly the phone system wasn’t working? Possibly, though, the producer/Director/Phone Operator fell asleep or died of boredom?
I think Jackie Davis even resorted to talking about the weather at one point. Oh my God: help us all!!!
As Sargent Friday used to say on Dragnet: “Just the facts, Ma’am.” And that’s what we got tonight, just the “facts.” But as in a court of law its only after the finding of facts that the truth be had. Only after the description does the interpretation and critique begin. But when one is allergic to cross-examination and criticism then truth is never to be had. The absence of critique is the space of censorship.
This was the “Truman Show” of governmental reality.
Enter the Matrix.
Well at least my Thursday evenings are now free.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Niagara County Legislature's Conservative/Republicans Choose Politics of Assassination, Divisiveness and Exclusion
The Niagara County Legislature’s rapacious right wing rejected Dennis Virtuoso’s resolution to support the reinstatement of “Tom Christy’s Legislative Journal.” Except for a couple votes Virtuoso stood alone giving the opposition the opportunity to reconcile the government with the voice that has practiced and defended the democratic space and public sphere that’s quickly shrinking in Niagara County, namely Tom Christy.
But Christy went too far and actually asked questions on his show in the interest of truth and understanding that made the Republican advocates of questionable IDA practices, unnecessary PILOTS that increase taxes on families that don’t have the money to fund business bailouts, and the highest taxes in the kingdom, squirm and cringe. Using the LCTV Board of Directors as their front, they axed Christy as a lesson to anyone who demands reasonable discussion regarding the disaster that we so obviously are.
Nothing but the official story can be expected should a new “legislative journal” show emerge sans Tom Christy. Surely we’ll never see Louis Riciutti discussing the nuclear and chemical waste that pocks the landscape. We’ll never see a discussion of the virtual apartheid practiced against Niagara Falls effectively separating it from the county like the Mason-Dixon line. Nor will we see discussion with respect to actually using the natural wonder of the Falls, Gorge and Greenway to create a viable and sensible tourism economy. And its unlikely that the flow of Casino money out of the Falls or the sucking sound of revenue from the parks being drained to Albany will receive much attention. We’ll see some political variation of the Christian channels where true believers confess their faith and the miracles that resulted thereof.
The sophomoric rhetoric on the part of a cowardly and selfish Legislature pleaded that the public speakers didn’t have the facts to make any judgement regarding what went down at LCTV and that the Legislature didn’t have the authority to interfere in the “private sphere” of public media, whatever that meant. It amounted to excuses to not act. It amounted to the contempt that autocratic and authoritarian mentalities exhibit for democratic freedom, openness, inquiry and challenge. The thin skinned Conservative/Republicans ought to be skittish given that their leadership seems to be something analogous to the good that Jim Jones’ leadership did for his followers when he offered the Kool Aid. “Here drink. It’ll take you to heaven.”
So the Conservative/Republicans choose the assassination politics of division, derision and exclusion. They demonstrate that not even a man who wins the Volunteer of the Year Award and gives 10 or so years of his life to openness in government is worth honoring with the right that any good American deserves who has served in good faith, diligently and with honest enthusiasm and humility.
I see no salvation in the partisan politics of Democrats and Republicans. I do not identify with democrats but I could easily loath Conservative/Republicans given the callous and corruptive display of smug indifference and diplomatic violence I witnessed tonight at the Niagara County Legislative Meeting. Niagara County is in deep deep trouble with this caliber of leadership and virtual despotic disdain for the free exchange of ideas and good-natured rapport that Tom Christy created and nurtured on Legislative Journal.
But Christy went too far and actually asked questions on his show in the interest of truth and understanding that made the Republican advocates of questionable IDA practices, unnecessary PILOTS that increase taxes on families that don’t have the money to fund business bailouts, and the highest taxes in the kingdom, squirm and cringe. Using the LCTV Board of Directors as their front, they axed Christy as a lesson to anyone who demands reasonable discussion regarding the disaster that we so obviously are.
Nothing but the official story can be expected should a new “legislative journal” show emerge sans Tom Christy. Surely we’ll never see Louis Riciutti discussing the nuclear and chemical waste that pocks the landscape. We’ll never see a discussion of the virtual apartheid practiced against Niagara Falls effectively separating it from the county like the Mason-Dixon line. Nor will we see discussion with respect to actually using the natural wonder of the Falls, Gorge and Greenway to create a viable and sensible tourism economy. And its unlikely that the flow of Casino money out of the Falls or the sucking sound of revenue from the parks being drained to Albany will receive much attention. We’ll see some political variation of the Christian channels where true believers confess their faith and the miracles that resulted thereof.
The sophomoric rhetoric on the part of a cowardly and selfish Legislature pleaded that the public speakers didn’t have the facts to make any judgement regarding what went down at LCTV and that the Legislature didn’t have the authority to interfere in the “private sphere” of public media, whatever that meant. It amounted to excuses to not act. It amounted to the contempt that autocratic and authoritarian mentalities exhibit for democratic freedom, openness, inquiry and challenge. The thin skinned Conservative/Republicans ought to be skittish given that their leadership seems to be something analogous to the good that Jim Jones’ leadership did for his followers when he offered the Kool Aid. “Here drink. It’ll take you to heaven.”
So the Conservative/Republicans choose the assassination politics of division, derision and exclusion. They demonstrate that not even a man who wins the Volunteer of the Year Award and gives 10 or so years of his life to openness in government is worth honoring with the right that any good American deserves who has served in good faith, diligently and with honest enthusiasm and humility.
I see no salvation in the partisan politics of Democrats and Republicans. I do not identify with democrats but I could easily loath Conservative/Republicans given the callous and corruptive display of smug indifference and diplomatic violence I witnessed tonight at the Niagara County Legislative Meeting. Niagara County is in deep deep trouble with this caliber of leadership and virtual despotic disdain for the free exchange of ideas and good-natured rapport that Tom Christy created and nurtured on Legislative Journal.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
"HARDLINE" THROWS A TEA PARTY FOR MAZIARZ
Well, Senator Maziarz says he likes Tom Christy’s Legislative Journal and even reminds us that he appeared on the show. Hopefully his appearance wasn’t as token as the 5 second lip service sidestep he did on Hardwick’s show. This was again effectively de facto censorship. It amounts to the silence treatment and stonewalling what’s at issue in Niagara County.
Maziarz undoubtedly believes in what he does and is undoubtedly in integrity with his role as legislator and political leader. However, we have to ask the question as to how long one must be in higher office to lose touch with the grass root energy and concerns of the people. Possibly he just isn’t aware of the deeply democratic grass roots concern to have Christy’s show reinstated. But then whose fault is that?
Maybe he’s not aware of the LCTV Board refusing to name who complained about Christy. Maybe he’s not aware of the spurious, self-serving and obviously suspicious re-interpretation of general rules as pretext to deep-six Christy. Maybe he’s not aware of the faux-excuse that some local legislators or officials, still unnamed, were offended by Christy. Maybe he’s not aware that it’s ludicrous that such faux-offence, politically correct moralistic witch hunting has ulterior motives. Since when is asking tough political questions about government offensive? Why is it that the people can be offended if not thoroughly insulted but one dare not ruffle the feathers of a politician? How bogus is this?
Maziarz’s unawareness or refusal to address the issue of many citizens crying out to retain what little voice they have left is a travesty of political justice. His not having at least an opinion as a citizen as to what he might like to see happen, given he likes the show, is sad. Is it only the voice of the business community that is worth addressing? Does he not see the growing, yawning gap between those who are allowed to be heard and those who are not?
Maziarz has done a lot of good and I trust continues to do so. But on shows like “Hardline” we need to hear something more substantive than water-cooler talk about the Spitzer fallout and the tactics, strategies, proceduralist concerns, etc. of formal government. Questions of the concerns of institutional forms should never take front seat to substantive democratic issues of the people, the public sphere and the freedom of the media that makes governmental positions such as his possible and meaningful in the first place.
And why is Hardwick’s show called Hardline? Does that refer to the line you can’t cross if you want to be in the good graces of the political correctness/acceptable topics crowd? Banal gossip and happy talk does not make for political discourse nor seriousness about democracy.
And three cheers for Dennis Virtuoso for standing up for free speech and for hearing the people.
Maziarz undoubtedly believes in what he does and is undoubtedly in integrity with his role as legislator and political leader. However, we have to ask the question as to how long one must be in higher office to lose touch with the grass root energy and concerns of the people. Possibly he just isn’t aware of the deeply democratic grass roots concern to have Christy’s show reinstated. But then whose fault is that?
Maybe he’s not aware of the LCTV Board refusing to name who complained about Christy. Maybe he’s not aware of the spurious, self-serving and obviously suspicious re-interpretation of general rules as pretext to deep-six Christy. Maybe he’s not aware of the faux-excuse that some local legislators or officials, still unnamed, were offended by Christy. Maybe he’s not aware that it’s ludicrous that such faux-offence, politically correct moralistic witch hunting has ulterior motives. Since when is asking tough political questions about government offensive? Why is it that the people can be offended if not thoroughly insulted but one dare not ruffle the feathers of a politician? How bogus is this?
Maziarz’s unawareness or refusal to address the issue of many citizens crying out to retain what little voice they have left is a travesty of political justice. His not having at least an opinion as a citizen as to what he might like to see happen, given he likes the show, is sad. Is it only the voice of the business community that is worth addressing? Does he not see the growing, yawning gap between those who are allowed to be heard and those who are not?
Maziarz has done a lot of good and I trust continues to do so. But on shows like “Hardline” we need to hear something more substantive than water-cooler talk about the Spitzer fallout and the tactics, strategies, proceduralist concerns, etc. of formal government. Questions of the concerns of institutional forms should never take front seat to substantive democratic issues of the people, the public sphere and the freedom of the media that makes governmental positions such as his possible and meaningful in the first place.
And why is Hardwick’s show called Hardline? Does that refer to the line you can’t cross if you want to be in the good graces of the political correctness/acceptable topics crowd? Banal gossip and happy talk does not make for political discourse nor seriousness about democracy.
And three cheers for Dennis Virtuoso for standing up for free speech and for hearing the people.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
BIG BANK BAILOUT WHILE THE PEOPLE "EAT CAKE": A MUST READ!!!
Palast on Spitzer, Wall Street, and Bush
A must-read from Greg Palast. An excerpt is below. Read the whole thing here:
This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.
Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.
Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.
How? Follow the money.
The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.
Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’
...
When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion dollars – he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.
But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.
Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.
The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.
[READ THE WHOLE STORY AT: http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/#more-1979.
A must-read from Greg Palast. An excerpt is below. Read the whole thing here:
This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.
Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.
Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.
How? Follow the money.
The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.
Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’
...
When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion dollars – he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.
But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.
Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.
The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.
[READ THE WHOLE STORY AT: http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/#more-1979.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
CHRISTY KICKED OFF THE AIR: "PUBLIC SCRUTINY" AND FREE SPEECH DENIED AT LCTV
Last week on the Sunday TV interview show from Albany, Senator George Maziarz was critical of the Review Board for early release of potentially dangerous criminals from incarceration. And rightly so.
He was also critical of the antiquated oversight by the State Liquor Authority of our local wine industry. He said they were clearly standing in the way of the Niagara wine industry prospering and being competitive with our Canadian neighbors. And rightly so.
The Senator emphasized that one thing that could help government and temper bureaucracy apparently in such situations was “public scrutiny” of bureaucratic activities. Truer words were never spoken. And rightly so.
However within his very own county recent harassment of Legislative Journal TV host Tom Christy by LCTV Board of Directors flagrantly flies in the face of the express wishes of our elected leadership. Stringent faux-regulations as to how Mr. Christy must “behave” during his show were imposed. This amounts to (1) an actual gag on free speech, (2) an attempt to control knowledge content by shackling free dialogue with artificial interview rules, and (3) an elitist limitation of guests to elected officials and denial of the host having any say in choosing guests, having an opinion or critically reflecting on the discussion.
Obviously these fraudulent “editorial rules” were a thinly disguised pretext to cloak their real purpose: to suppress speech, control the political content of governmental discourse and widen the gap between the "public sphere of free speech for the people" and the "institutional sphere as staging ground for governmental action, propaganda and control" of Niagara County. And to get rid of Christy.
Today Tom Christy’s program was canceled. Without explanation, excuse, reason or justification. Simply in either an arrogant display of administrative fiat or simply ignorance or indifference as to what serves the people, or possibly fear generated by well placed or powerful politicos, the program was just cancelled. Without discussion, due consideration of the consequences or consideration of Tom’s role in our community, by e-mail no less, brazenly canceled. Why? Possibly because there was a little too much “public scrutiny” for some who do not believe in the democratic process of inquiry, questioning, criticism, self-reflection, accountability and demand for meaningful action and change.
Ironically the very “public scrutiny” that Senator Maziarz calls for is being prevented in his own county. The very organ of public scrutiny is being “downsized” so to speak, contradictory to the very needs of the government and the polity as indicated by Senator Maziarz.
However not only was the ‘public scrutiny,’ that Legislative Journal enabled and facilitated when free and open media interaction was provided, denied without believable reason. But when questioned by Gloria Bryant, a Lockport citizen, as to the straitjacket placed on Christy and when asked to release their governing by-laws and articles of incorporation, LCTV Board of Directors refused to cooperate, denying her access to the information. If that is not enough, they arrogantly questioned her as to why she wished to exercise her right to know. Consider the audacity and elitism of such resistance to providing legally required public information. However this seems to be the modus operandi evolving at LCTV and possibly in Niagara County.
Tom Christy’s “Journal” is the liveliest, most spirited and interactive program of the people in our area. To have expected Tom to only speak to elected officials is an arbitrary but calculated attempt to control speech, information and knowledge. Legislators so used are reduced to mere mouthpieces which have no true voice without the constant and uncensored input of the people they represent.
Only when a polity begins to undergo a move toward such authoritarian-like rule do heinous actions like this take place. Surely Senator Maziarz did not call for “public scrutiny” merely to support his legislative efforts. Surely he recognizes that a republic which loses its democratic foundation is no longer a republic at all and fails to live up to its classical Liberal principle of limitation of government and empowerment of the voices that found and ground this Constitution.
This, my friends, is the beginning of the end of free speech in Niagara County. Unless, of course, you refuse to let these thoughtless bureaucratic wannabees get away with this. Too often recently in Western NY we see officials censoring speech, shouting down citizens in town council meetings and the like. LCTV in fact should be expanding shows like Christy’s and opening our depressed and demoralized polity to new ideas, vigorous self-examination and expanded “mediation” of democratic relations.
We should at times like this throw a new light on the historical fact that so often in the past it has been the voice of the people such as Lois Gibbs, Erin Brokovich, Karen Silkwood and even now locally Louis Ricciuti exposing the reprehensible level of chemical and nuclear pollution in the dump sites of Western NY, who have moved government forward toward meaningful democratic action.
If the citizens of Niagara County do not wish to turn their communities over to the bureaucratic-technocratic managerial elite who wish to control thought and action and suppress democracy, then join this fight and demand the restoration of Legislative Journal and Tom Christy to the democratic airways of Western NY.
Call LCTV and demand your rights. Call the Lockport Council and Mayor’s office. Call Tom and offer ideas and support at 228-3367. Call Senator Maziarz and request his help. Support Dennis Virtuoso at the next County Legislative meeting in Lockport where he will submit a resolution to restore Legislative Journal. This can be the beginning of politics as it should be in Niagara County, a democratic community of “public scrutiny” and the express will of the people guiding and informing government.
He was also critical of the antiquated oversight by the State Liquor Authority of our local wine industry. He said they were clearly standing in the way of the Niagara wine industry prospering and being competitive with our Canadian neighbors. And rightly so.
The Senator emphasized that one thing that could help government and temper bureaucracy apparently in such situations was “public scrutiny” of bureaucratic activities. Truer words were never spoken. And rightly so.
However within his very own county recent harassment of Legislative Journal TV host Tom Christy by LCTV Board of Directors flagrantly flies in the face of the express wishes of our elected leadership. Stringent faux-regulations as to how Mr. Christy must “behave” during his show were imposed. This amounts to (1) an actual gag on free speech, (2) an attempt to control knowledge content by shackling free dialogue with artificial interview rules, and (3) an elitist limitation of guests to elected officials and denial of the host having any say in choosing guests, having an opinion or critically reflecting on the discussion.
Obviously these fraudulent “editorial rules” were a thinly disguised pretext to cloak their real purpose: to suppress speech, control the political content of governmental discourse and widen the gap between the "public sphere of free speech for the people" and the "institutional sphere as staging ground for governmental action, propaganda and control" of Niagara County. And to get rid of Christy.
Today Tom Christy’s program was canceled. Without explanation, excuse, reason or justification. Simply in either an arrogant display of administrative fiat or simply ignorance or indifference as to what serves the people, or possibly fear generated by well placed or powerful politicos, the program was just cancelled. Without discussion, due consideration of the consequences or consideration of Tom’s role in our community, by e-mail no less, brazenly canceled. Why? Possibly because there was a little too much “public scrutiny” for some who do not believe in the democratic process of inquiry, questioning, criticism, self-reflection, accountability and demand for meaningful action and change.
Ironically the very “public scrutiny” that Senator Maziarz calls for is being prevented in his own county. The very organ of public scrutiny is being “downsized” so to speak, contradictory to the very needs of the government and the polity as indicated by Senator Maziarz.
However not only was the ‘public scrutiny,’ that Legislative Journal enabled and facilitated when free and open media interaction was provided, denied without believable reason. But when questioned by Gloria Bryant, a Lockport citizen, as to the straitjacket placed on Christy and when asked to release their governing by-laws and articles of incorporation, LCTV Board of Directors refused to cooperate, denying her access to the information. If that is not enough, they arrogantly questioned her as to why she wished to exercise her right to know. Consider the audacity and elitism of such resistance to providing legally required public information. However this seems to be the modus operandi evolving at LCTV and possibly in Niagara County.
Tom Christy’s “Journal” is the liveliest, most spirited and interactive program of the people in our area. To have expected Tom to only speak to elected officials is an arbitrary but calculated attempt to control speech, information and knowledge. Legislators so used are reduced to mere mouthpieces which have no true voice without the constant and uncensored input of the people they represent.
Only when a polity begins to undergo a move toward such authoritarian-like rule do heinous actions like this take place. Surely Senator Maziarz did not call for “public scrutiny” merely to support his legislative efforts. Surely he recognizes that a republic which loses its democratic foundation is no longer a republic at all and fails to live up to its classical Liberal principle of limitation of government and empowerment of the voices that found and ground this Constitution.
This, my friends, is the beginning of the end of free speech in Niagara County. Unless, of course, you refuse to let these thoughtless bureaucratic wannabees get away with this. Too often recently in Western NY we see officials censoring speech, shouting down citizens in town council meetings and the like. LCTV in fact should be expanding shows like Christy’s and opening our depressed and demoralized polity to new ideas, vigorous self-examination and expanded “mediation” of democratic relations.
We should at times like this throw a new light on the historical fact that so often in the past it has been the voice of the people such as Lois Gibbs, Erin Brokovich, Karen Silkwood and even now locally Louis Ricciuti exposing the reprehensible level of chemical and nuclear pollution in the dump sites of Western NY, who have moved government forward toward meaningful democratic action.
If the citizens of Niagara County do not wish to turn their communities over to the bureaucratic-technocratic managerial elite who wish to control thought and action and suppress democracy, then join this fight and demand the restoration of Legislative Journal and Tom Christy to the democratic airways of Western NY.
Call LCTV and demand your rights. Call the Lockport Council and Mayor’s office. Call Tom and offer ideas and support at 228-3367. Call Senator Maziarz and request his help. Support Dennis Virtuoso at the next County Legislative meeting in Lockport where he will submit a resolution to restore Legislative Journal. This can be the beginning of politics as it should be in Niagara County, a democratic community of “public scrutiny” and the express will of the people guiding and informing government.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
OPEN LETTER TO GREG LEWIS AND CHA CONSULTANTS
I would like to see serious effort put into publicizing the Niagara Communities Comprehensive Plan(NCCP) meetings. The Clough, Harbor & Associates consultant, Walter Kalina, a highly paid “consultant,” who spoke at the first public meeting, appeared embarrassingly far less than enthusiastic about increasing publicity to get the people involved to participate let alone educating anyone as to how this process can or should work. Very little money, he indicated, would be put into publicity or education. Why? This is unacceptable if not outrageous to anyone, unless of course you are one who is passively, unconsciously sleepwalking your way through life while our government drifts dangerously away from its democratic moorings. Where was Greg Lewis at the first public meeting of the NCCP project??? Why were only 25 people there? We are planning a possible future and 25 people minus a County Manager and only one County Legislator in attendance, Jason Murgio.
This planning process can be a great thing. It could be in itself quite an educational experience in democracy. However it will take more than the appointed few, and the other usual suspects of local government, to turn out to plan a possible future for Niagara County. Those leading this planning process are morally obligated to take responsibility to publicize this project and educate the people regarding exactly what this planning project is all about, how it’s done and how people might participate. Or it’s business as usual. Insular! Hermetically sealed “government” behind the backs of the people. Business as usual!
The first public meeting two weeks ago at NCCC was negative, pessimistic and cynical. Twenty five people or so showed up. The attitude of virtual despair at that meeting can only be overcome if some effort and enthusiasm is shown on the part of our putative leadership and hired consultants to further involve, motivate and help our people to participate.
If this is going to be more than an insider governmental process, then representation needs to go far, far beyond the appointed representatives of the so-called stakeholders. Or it’s business as usual.
For the most part, I fear, the appointment of stakeholders is an inside job. I’m sure some will think the appointees are enough in number and qualitatively representative. I hope they are adequately representative of the people of Niagara County essentially and as a whole. I don’t believe that they are. Right now it appears as business as usual. Of course it does not appear this way to the insiders. But business as usual never appears as business as usual to the insiders. To them it’s just the way it is and just the way it has to be.
I asked one councilman from North Tonawanda, Kevin Brick, appearing on Tom Christy’s Legislative Journal on LCTV, about this project when I called in to the show. He knew very little about the NCCP planning project of a substantive nature, if anything at all. When I asked who the representative was from North Tonawanda, he didn’t know. How are the citizens supposed to know if the councilmen don’t know???
Did the Mayor of NT do a search for a good representative? Did he bother to consult or inform the people as to this process that “we” are involved in. Who knows? I heard nothing. Did he send out notice asking if anyone was interested in representing North Tonawanda? Not as far as I know. Is this government degenerated into bureaucracy at its worst?! Business as usual? I hope not. There is much reason to believe it is.
We must do more to encourage this democratic process. It could be amazing. Or it could be business as usual. Democracy, when nurtured at its source, must be nurtured at its “grass roots.” Think about that metaphor. The nutrients must come in through the roots, the people, all of the people. Democratic governmental process is “for” the people, but if not “by” them, then at best it’s just “about” them and not “of” them.
Wake up Niagara County! Your tax money, your representation and your governmental rights are being pissed away. This plutocratic oligarchy is pretending to be democratic but is nowhere within the most meager limits of democracy. The specialists, experts, managers, bureaucrats and patronage appointees are devolving toward a centralized administration of the few over the many. It is a “show” of the forms of democracy without the specifics and particulars of democracy’s substance. Business as usual? Not if you demand to be involved, accounted for and respected.
This planning process can be a great thing. It could be in itself quite an educational experience in democracy. However it will take more than the appointed few, and the other usual suspects of local government, to turn out to plan a possible future for Niagara County. Those leading this planning process are morally obligated to take responsibility to publicize this project and educate the people regarding exactly what this planning project is all about, how it’s done and how people might participate. Or it’s business as usual. Insular! Hermetically sealed “government” behind the backs of the people. Business as usual!
The first public meeting two weeks ago at NCCC was negative, pessimistic and cynical. Twenty five people or so showed up. The attitude of virtual despair at that meeting can only be overcome if some effort and enthusiasm is shown on the part of our putative leadership and hired consultants to further involve, motivate and help our people to participate.
If this is going to be more than an insider governmental process, then representation needs to go far, far beyond the appointed representatives of the so-called stakeholders. Or it’s business as usual.
For the most part, I fear, the appointment of stakeholders is an inside job. I’m sure some will think the appointees are enough in number and qualitatively representative. I hope they are adequately representative of the people of Niagara County essentially and as a whole. I don’t believe that they are. Right now it appears as business as usual. Of course it does not appear this way to the insiders. But business as usual never appears as business as usual to the insiders. To them it’s just the way it is and just the way it has to be.
I asked one councilman from North Tonawanda, Kevin Brick, appearing on Tom Christy’s Legislative Journal on LCTV, about this project when I called in to the show. He knew very little about the NCCP planning project of a substantive nature, if anything at all. When I asked who the representative was from North Tonawanda, he didn’t know. How are the citizens supposed to know if the councilmen don’t know???
Did the Mayor of NT do a search for a good representative? Did he bother to consult or inform the people as to this process that “we” are involved in. Who knows? I heard nothing. Did he send out notice asking if anyone was interested in representing North Tonawanda? Not as far as I know. Is this government degenerated into bureaucracy at its worst?! Business as usual? I hope not. There is much reason to believe it is.
We must do more to encourage this democratic process. It could be amazing. Or it could be business as usual. Democracy, when nurtured at its source, must be nurtured at its “grass roots.” Think about that metaphor. The nutrients must come in through the roots, the people, all of the people. Democratic governmental process is “for” the people, but if not “by” them, then at best it’s just “about” them and not “of” them.
Wake up Niagara County! Your tax money, your representation and your governmental rights are being pissed away. This plutocratic oligarchy is pretending to be democratic but is nowhere within the most meager limits of democracy. The specialists, experts, managers, bureaucrats and patronage appointees are devolving toward a centralized administration of the few over the many. It is a “show” of the forms of democracy without the specifics and particulars of democracy’s substance. Business as usual? Not if you demand to be involved, accounted for and respected.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
FIVE 800 LB GORILLAS LOOSE IN NIAGARA COUNTY
Whether the Niagara Communities Comprehensive Plan is too messy, too expensive or simply a way of legitimating a “comprehensive plan” whose recommendations have already been reached in some hidden agenda, the process should continue. Despite the naysayers who may obstruct, exploit or attempt to enervate the project, something quite good can come from this democratic process. Possibly the Republican juggernaut of Niagara County finds it potentially just a little too threatening to its local hegemony to allow such a potentially authentic democratic process to succeed. For the same reason it chooses to conjure up reasons to gag or eliminate Tom Christy on LCTV’s Legislative Journal, and prevent him from giving voice to others such as Louis Ricciuti who has tried to inform us about the extent of nuclear pollution in our backyards. (cf. “The Bomb that Fell on Niagara” in the Buffalo publication, ArtVoice.)
The Tonawanda News editors also jumped on the naysayers bandwagon regarding the county communities planning process, complaining that such a process should already have taken place. But it hasn’t. They want the citizens to hold their legislators feet to the fire if they voted for this project. But this seems to imply that they don’t get that this is more than a project for the legislators. This is about the people entering into the process. In fact is it not the case that it is so often the citizen seeing the problem and bringing it to the legislators, the courts or the press that can lead to real change. Witness Lois Gibbs, Erin Brockovich, Karen Silkwood and so many more citizens who must plead and fight for change while our local pusillanimous parliamentarism fails to produce.
Duvalle & Co at Tonawanda News conclude their editorial rallying the people to “take back control of their county” but fail to see that this project and process has the great potential to enable that to happen. Why quibble over the cost when the benefits could be so great. The Republican business crowd seems not to wince a bit when they throw money at our problems through the IDA’s PILOTs. Isn’t this just another form of ‘throwing money at the problem?’ The only solution some people seem to know is the mantra of cutting taxes. It seems this tax break theory should have long since been discredited. William Greider in Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of Democracy in America maintains that since the 1920’s, of all the tax breaks given the rich at the Federal level only one time did there result any appreciable increase in investment in American business and industry. I wonder where the money went? Switzerland, Monaco? Or, maybe instead wherever the desperate and starving will work for slave wages?
Despite the various voices who believe we shouldn’t need to spend thousands of dollars to get the municipalities to talk to one another, the fact is I don’t think we have yet proven ourselves really capable of it in a creative way. We need to use this process to educate us in democracy and do so by using the planning project’s real problems as the training ground. But simultaneously it will be the staging ground to demonstrate that democracy can solve real problems. And if networking does in fact begin and a dialogue is established, then possibly we can begin creating a communion of communities out of the municipalities. We might actually engender a participatory democracy. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the towns and villages may retain their identities or traditions, if you will, yet still find a way to cooperate to integrate and streamline administration, infrastructure and services. The by-product may be an education in democracy for us all not to mention potentially reducing costs. That is, the internal unity and relatedness may be the greatest outcome in the long run even if no recommendations are acted on immediately.
If the process of the project is sufficiently publicized and thus involves the communities in a shared narrative, it may well loosen up the power structure which seems to have a stranglehold on Niagara County. Why would one want to stop a process with such potential? Probably only to protect one’s power and network of patronage. If in fact the Republican power structure here is, as I’ve read in the Tonawanda News article recently by Jill Tierreri, so influential if not domineering, then it may itself be interested in this process given that it has gotten so little done for the county. Yes, a fair number of lucky followers are rewarded and some few others benefit but the county as a whole continues to sink, losing population and languishing in despair. Such power as we suffer here has not necessarily translated into creative productivity.
Given that we still suffer from water pollution, chemical pollution, the threat from the nuclear waste sites, a city at the falls that is largely an embarrassment and a highway that scars the rim of the gorge preventing us moving forward with consequential restoration of the natural ecology – the five 800 lb gorillas – one would think that the leadership might benevolently want to loosen the reins on power and empower the process in which creative thought and action can begin in good faith. Given that all we’ve really got is the natural aesthetic power of the Falls and Gorge to revive the area as the class act it could be, why should we not stop allowing ourselves to be the doormat for America while, contradictorily enough, presuming to be a world class tourist destination equally worth visiting? Is it that if we started making the kind of noise that might lead to a serious clean-up and restoration that the world would find out that Niagara is a hazard zone. Visit beautiful Niagara Falls and, oh by the way, bring your gas mask and Geiger counter with you. And don’t eat the fish you’ve caught in the river. Let’s leave the denial behind and finally pay the piper.
It seems that we should seriously now consider the recommendations of Niagara Heritage Partnership et.al. Their plan offers a coherent strategy consistent with a vision that is concrete and positive. It offers relatively immediate productive possibilities while generating open-ended future projects and possibilities. This plan renders visible the jewel in the crown that is Niagara. It could be the unifying moment of the County’s Comprehensive Communities Plan. It integrates business, ecology and education. What are we waiting for? Check out the proposal at www.nfwhc.org and sign the petition at www.niagaraheritage.org.
The Tonawanda News editors also jumped on the naysayers bandwagon regarding the county communities planning process, complaining that such a process should already have taken place. But it hasn’t. They want the citizens to hold their legislators feet to the fire if they voted for this project. But this seems to imply that they don’t get that this is more than a project for the legislators. This is about the people entering into the process. In fact is it not the case that it is so often the citizen seeing the problem and bringing it to the legislators, the courts or the press that can lead to real change. Witness Lois Gibbs, Erin Brockovich, Karen Silkwood and so many more citizens who must plead and fight for change while our local pusillanimous parliamentarism fails to produce.
Duvalle & Co at Tonawanda News conclude their editorial rallying the people to “take back control of their county” but fail to see that this project and process has the great potential to enable that to happen. Why quibble over the cost when the benefits could be so great. The Republican business crowd seems not to wince a bit when they throw money at our problems through the IDA’s PILOTs. Isn’t this just another form of ‘throwing money at the problem?’ The only solution some people seem to know is the mantra of cutting taxes. It seems this tax break theory should have long since been discredited. William Greider in Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of Democracy in America maintains that since the 1920’s, of all the tax breaks given the rich at the Federal level only one time did there result any appreciable increase in investment in American business and industry. I wonder where the money went? Switzerland, Monaco? Or, maybe instead wherever the desperate and starving will work for slave wages?
Despite the various voices who believe we shouldn’t need to spend thousands of dollars to get the municipalities to talk to one another, the fact is I don’t think we have yet proven ourselves really capable of it in a creative way. We need to use this process to educate us in democracy and do so by using the planning project’s real problems as the training ground. But simultaneously it will be the staging ground to demonstrate that democracy can solve real problems. And if networking does in fact begin and a dialogue is established, then possibly we can begin creating a communion of communities out of the municipalities. We might actually engender a participatory democracy. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the towns and villages may retain their identities or traditions, if you will, yet still find a way to cooperate to integrate and streamline administration, infrastructure and services. The by-product may be an education in democracy for us all not to mention potentially reducing costs. That is, the internal unity and relatedness may be the greatest outcome in the long run even if no recommendations are acted on immediately.
If the process of the project is sufficiently publicized and thus involves the communities in a shared narrative, it may well loosen up the power structure which seems to have a stranglehold on Niagara County. Why would one want to stop a process with such potential? Probably only to protect one’s power and network of patronage. If in fact the Republican power structure here is, as I’ve read in the Tonawanda News article recently by Jill Tierreri, so influential if not domineering, then it may itself be interested in this process given that it has gotten so little done for the county. Yes, a fair number of lucky followers are rewarded and some few others benefit but the county as a whole continues to sink, losing population and languishing in despair. Such power as we suffer here has not necessarily translated into creative productivity.
Given that we still suffer from water pollution, chemical pollution, the threat from the nuclear waste sites, a city at the falls that is largely an embarrassment and a highway that scars the rim of the gorge preventing us moving forward with consequential restoration of the natural ecology – the five 800 lb gorillas – one would think that the leadership might benevolently want to loosen the reins on power and empower the process in which creative thought and action can begin in good faith. Given that all we’ve really got is the natural aesthetic power of the Falls and Gorge to revive the area as the class act it could be, why should we not stop allowing ourselves to be the doormat for America while, contradictorily enough, presuming to be a world class tourist destination equally worth visiting? Is it that if we started making the kind of noise that might lead to a serious clean-up and restoration that the world would find out that Niagara is a hazard zone. Visit beautiful Niagara Falls and, oh by the way, bring your gas mask and Geiger counter with you. And don’t eat the fish you’ve caught in the river. Let’s leave the denial behind and finally pay the piper.
It seems that we should seriously now consider the recommendations of Niagara Heritage Partnership et.al. Their plan offers a coherent strategy consistent with a vision that is concrete and positive. It offers relatively immediate productive possibilities while generating open-ended future projects and possibilities. This plan renders visible the jewel in the crown that is Niagara. It could be the unifying moment of the County’s Comprehensive Communities Plan. It integrates business, ecology and education. What are we waiting for? Check out the proposal at www.nfwhc.org and sign the petition at www.niagaraheritage.org.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
NIAGARA COMMUNITIES COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
Have you heard of this plan? I’ll bet not. Actually it’s a year-long effort to create a plan, a County-wide brainstorming process to figure out what we need to do to improve life in Niagara County. More concretely, it's a series of meetings of representatives of supposedly all the "communities" and "stakeholders" in Niagara County. These representatives constitute the Steering Committee. There will also be 4 more open-to-all public meetings apparently of an informational nature but also open to comments and questions on the part of the public regarding the progress of the process.
It’s just getting under way although the representatives for the steering committee have already been chosen. I'm not sure how often they will meet. If you did hear of this project, I fear that it appeared as another HoHum technocratic endeavor that begins and ends with a lot of talk by business, managerial, and bureaucratic types but nothing happens.
That was the fear that a few people at the first public informational meeting expressed quite vociferously with sharp overtones of anger, cynicism and pessimism. Nevertheless, this project is a countywide comprehensive plan to serve as a concrete vision of our future that will include specific recommendations at its conclusion next Fall. New York State does not require this planning process but encourages it.
The meeting was held at NCCC last Wednesday, Feb. 27 in the Fine Arts Auditorium. There were roughly 25 people in attendance. If there are about 250,000 people in Niagara County that’s about 1 in every 10,000 people in attendance. There was a “stakeholders” meeting earlier in the day. I wasn’t invited. Were you?
I’ll take responsibility for not knowing anything about this until I saw it in the paper last week. But I suspect that even if I did know about it at the start, I still wouldn’t have been able to get myself invited. I jest of course. Why should I be invited? What “stake” do I have, mild-mannered insignificant philosophy professor that I am.
My point is that it seems the choice of stakeholders while based on a reasonable if not obvious criterion may still be suspect. But why should I be suspicious? After all the brochure says, “Each phase of the process relies on participation by the stakeholder communities and the public for its input.” Ok, fair enough. But in the first place, why distinguish ‘stakeholders’ from the ‘public’? Could that mean, pray tell, that there could be some citizens who aren’t stakeholders but still get to count as part of the “public?” But since the “public” isn’t a stakeholder, that means that they only get to participate in these “informational” meetings. They don’t really get to “plan.” Did anybody consider that with such a criterion, that the public itself is really at "stake?"
Does that mean that the stake-less public gets to be “informed” after the real decisions by the people that matter have already been made? Well, my fear is that the usual suspects or their spokespeople will be on the Steering Committee. Yes there will be some ordinary, average everyday citizens who will represent their communities, at least I hope. Nevertheless I seriously doubt that the representation will really be representative. And I doubt that the “public” will be represented. My last doubt is that the summing up of the whole process at the bitter end by those leading the process will resemble the data gathered.
I have many more doubts and questions. I hope you look into it. After all we’ve apparently spent a lot of taxpayers’ money on this little adventure. One attendee at the Public Meeting asked the speaker representing CLA, the consulting firm running the show, if it was true they were getting over $300,000 for this love fest. Walter Kalina, the consultant representing CLA, refused to answer.
I have my doubts but I am really not cynical. Possibly a skeptic and not really yet inspired. Yet it could be a great thing if it spurs public discourse and stirs a sense of community. Hopefully it will not continue in the spirit of the naysayers who set much of the tone of the first public meeting.
My lingering puzzlement is why I don’t hear about these things until after the players are picked. It reminds me of reading in the paper that Wal-Mart in NT was a “done deal” even before I knew the big-box monopoly was possibly setting up shop on the Boulevard. It reminds me also of reading in the paper that some other “consulting firm” had completed their plans to “improve” Gratwick Park before I even knew they were hired to do so. From what I read of their proposals my cat could have come up with something considerably more creative for much less than the $50,000 bucks I heard NT spent. Ok, ok maybe I’m just out of the loop. But will someone please tell me where/when the “loop” starts?
It’s just getting under way although the representatives for the steering committee have already been chosen. I'm not sure how often they will meet. If you did hear of this project, I fear that it appeared as another HoHum technocratic endeavor that begins and ends with a lot of talk by business, managerial, and bureaucratic types but nothing happens.
That was the fear that a few people at the first public informational meeting expressed quite vociferously with sharp overtones of anger, cynicism and pessimism. Nevertheless, this project is a countywide comprehensive plan to serve as a concrete vision of our future that will include specific recommendations at its conclusion next Fall. New York State does not require this planning process but encourages it.
The meeting was held at NCCC last Wednesday, Feb. 27 in the Fine Arts Auditorium. There were roughly 25 people in attendance. If there are about 250,000 people in Niagara County that’s about 1 in every 10,000 people in attendance. There was a “stakeholders” meeting earlier in the day. I wasn’t invited. Were you?
I’ll take responsibility for not knowing anything about this until I saw it in the paper last week. But I suspect that even if I did know about it at the start, I still wouldn’t have been able to get myself invited. I jest of course. Why should I be invited? What “stake” do I have, mild-mannered insignificant philosophy professor that I am.
My point is that it seems the choice of stakeholders while based on a reasonable if not obvious criterion may still be suspect. But why should I be suspicious? After all the brochure says, “Each phase of the process relies on participation by the stakeholder communities and the public for its input.” Ok, fair enough. But in the first place, why distinguish ‘stakeholders’ from the ‘public’? Could that mean, pray tell, that there could be some citizens who aren’t stakeholders but still get to count as part of the “public?” But since the “public” isn’t a stakeholder, that means that they only get to participate in these “informational” meetings. They don’t really get to “plan.” Did anybody consider that with such a criterion, that the public itself is really at "stake?"
Does that mean that the stake-less public gets to be “informed” after the real decisions by the people that matter have already been made? Well, my fear is that the usual suspects or their spokespeople will be on the Steering Committee. Yes there will be some ordinary, average everyday citizens who will represent their communities, at least I hope. Nevertheless I seriously doubt that the representation will really be representative. And I doubt that the “public” will be represented. My last doubt is that the summing up of the whole process at the bitter end by those leading the process will resemble the data gathered.
I have many more doubts and questions. I hope you look into it. After all we’ve apparently spent a lot of taxpayers’ money on this little adventure. One attendee at the Public Meeting asked the speaker representing CLA, the consulting firm running the show, if it was true they were getting over $300,000 for this love fest. Walter Kalina, the consultant representing CLA, refused to answer.
I have my doubts but I am really not cynical. Possibly a skeptic and not really yet inspired. Yet it could be a great thing if it spurs public discourse and stirs a sense of community. Hopefully it will not continue in the spirit of the naysayers who set much of the tone of the first public meeting.
My lingering puzzlement is why I don’t hear about these things until after the players are picked. It reminds me of reading in the paper that Wal-Mart in NT was a “done deal” even before I knew the big-box monopoly was possibly setting up shop on the Boulevard. It reminds me also of reading in the paper that some other “consulting firm” had completed their plans to “improve” Gratwick Park before I even knew they were hired to do so. From what I read of their proposals my cat could have come up with something considerably more creative for much less than the $50,000 bucks I heard NT spent. Ok, ok maybe I’m just out of the loop. But will someone please tell me where/when the “loop” starts?
Saturday, March 01, 2008
RESTORING THE POLITICAL TO POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Certainly the practice of attempting to denigrate peoples’ character and show them in the worst conceivable light is clearly the lowest moral road in politics. Americans who understand our democracy are for the most part done with this. Surely we continue to see such practices of character assassination continuing. On the national scene, for instance, most recently Hillary Clinton in concert with shadowy figures on the lunatic red-neck fringe are doing their venal best to destroy Obama’s reputation. The Niagara Times blogger, “Hobbes,” is doing his best to disparage the person of LCTV Legislative Journal talk-show host Tom Christy. At the state level there were recent revelations regarding Karl Roves paying off a Republican lawyer to “find dirt” on a democract (imprisoned, former governor, Don Siegelman) running again for Governor in Georgia, in particular sexually compromising pictures which she never found. Nevertheless the Republican assassination machine eventually got the democratic candidate on trumped up bribery charges. And of course the sad and demoralizing list could go on of other heinous acts of corruption of the democratic and political process.
But America is waking up to the fact that destroying people struggling to practice democracy is really not politics at all. It is violent, elitist and arrogant actions of authoritarian types who prefer to achieve power through whatever force is necessary. But democracy is about creative ideas, rational persuasion and a competitive yet cooperative social self-determination of a people. To keep open this fragile space of freedom between people in the public sphere for the practice of such self-determination is to be political and to create a political space. One herein and hereby engages in debate, critical self-examination, reflective self-inquiry, sharing new ideas and suspending judgement long enough to allow oneself to listen to the voice of the other with whom we must engage and actually hear. That is, actually be affected. As the Old Testament says, “He who does not hear must suffer.”
But attempting to prevent the flourishing of an informed public by refusing to engage in democratic dialogue with respect to what one feels should not be discussed nor heard by others; by suppressing issues, information, questions and problems that people actually have, is to attempt to destroy the political content of discourse and discussion. By trying to control what is discussed by controlling who gets to talk and how it is talked about is to destroy democracy and the political sphere. Such attempts and efforts are usually on the part of people to whom, in order to stop open, public engagement and dialogue or debate, it must seem necessary if not actually more right, to assassinate character, control the media, dumb down education and dis-inform the public. The alternative would be to engage one’s adversary openly and honestly in the spirit of truth, listening to one’s fellow citizen with the respectful anticipation that someone else may really have something to teach us.
The local issue that Niagara County faces in the attempt of the LCTV board of directors using bureaucratic rules to silence Tom Christy is an example of the de-politicization of politics. Their reason for gagging Christy is to enable objective talk about Government to take place and prevent biased political talk from taking place. However what goes unseen in this repressive tactic of speech control is that the politics will still be there if they continue to have their heavy-handed way. Where is the political bias? It lay in the assumptions that the Board makes that allow them to distort to their seeming advantage bureaucratic rules that then construe suppressing speech as editorial privilege. So these days at LCTV the politics has already taken place before the show starts. It seems the Board is either consciously “playing politics” to achieve political advantage or possibly they are afraid as individuals or as a group to lose the favor of local politicians. And, by the way, these Government officials who are after the purging are going “only to talk about government” are politicians first and foremost. Those, like “Hobbes,” who believe that Government exists independently of “the political” or that the self-justification and vision of such officials are not political acts are suffering from double vision. To believe that the democratic struggle for political self-determination stops when a politician is elected as a Government official is naïve or simply lying.
So, such supposedly Governmental purists would rather take the politically self-destructive road of villifying individuals rather than the high road of building democratic communities of creative self-determination.
Political intelligence in its present state in Niagara County is inadequate. The communities are for the most part failing. Thousands of people have left the area over the past decade or so. To stop any speech is to curtail creative thinking even though it is in short supply and there is nothing we need more.
It is sad that “Hobbes” chooses virtual cyber-terrorist tactics hiding behind a blog non-identity and carrying out the dirty work of someone’s political agenda in the name of preserving the purity of Government discourse on the public air waves. We don’t know who you are. And you aren’t using bombs but to attempt to destroy the free political space of intellectual inquiry and discovery is a form of terroristic violence and tactically proto-fascist.
However when the freedom of the political space between people is suppressed and its pressing subject matter repressed, then the political emerges everywhere. If the space of Government is not permitted to express the tensions, oppositions, differences and possibilities of political existence, then the very forms of Government are subject to dissolution in the medium of “politics through other means,” namely war, violence, corruption and the forceful, manipulative misuse and destruction of speech, language, discourse and dialogue, not to mention mutual distrust, suspicion and cynicism.
On LCTV Legislative Journal is educational. It is not news or mere journalism. It is political discourse as it is mediated and constituted by the forms of institutions which are forms of political expression. To censor politics out of government discourse is to bureaucratize its very being or to strive to wrest from its democratic aspirations a fascist future. I’m not sure which is worse, maybe government conceived on a business and crisis management mode.
But America is waking up to the fact that destroying people struggling to practice democracy is really not politics at all. It is violent, elitist and arrogant actions of authoritarian types who prefer to achieve power through whatever force is necessary. But democracy is about creative ideas, rational persuasion and a competitive yet cooperative social self-determination of a people. To keep open this fragile space of freedom between people in the public sphere for the practice of such self-determination is to be political and to create a political space. One herein and hereby engages in debate, critical self-examination, reflective self-inquiry, sharing new ideas and suspending judgement long enough to allow oneself to listen to the voice of the other with whom we must engage and actually hear. That is, actually be affected. As the Old Testament says, “He who does not hear must suffer.”
But attempting to prevent the flourishing of an informed public by refusing to engage in democratic dialogue with respect to what one feels should not be discussed nor heard by others; by suppressing issues, information, questions and problems that people actually have, is to attempt to destroy the political content of discourse and discussion. By trying to control what is discussed by controlling who gets to talk and how it is talked about is to destroy democracy and the political sphere. Such attempts and efforts are usually on the part of people to whom, in order to stop open, public engagement and dialogue or debate, it must seem necessary if not actually more right, to assassinate character, control the media, dumb down education and dis-inform the public. The alternative would be to engage one’s adversary openly and honestly in the spirit of truth, listening to one’s fellow citizen with the respectful anticipation that someone else may really have something to teach us.
The local issue that Niagara County faces in the attempt of the LCTV board of directors using bureaucratic rules to silence Tom Christy is an example of the de-politicization of politics. Their reason for gagging Christy is to enable objective talk about Government to take place and prevent biased political talk from taking place. However what goes unseen in this repressive tactic of speech control is that the politics will still be there if they continue to have their heavy-handed way. Where is the political bias? It lay in the assumptions that the Board makes that allow them to distort to their seeming advantage bureaucratic rules that then construe suppressing speech as editorial privilege. So these days at LCTV the politics has already taken place before the show starts. It seems the Board is either consciously “playing politics” to achieve political advantage or possibly they are afraid as individuals or as a group to lose the favor of local politicians. And, by the way, these Government officials who are after the purging are going “only to talk about government” are politicians first and foremost. Those, like “Hobbes,” who believe that Government exists independently of “the political” or that the self-justification and vision of such officials are not political acts are suffering from double vision. To believe that the democratic struggle for political self-determination stops when a politician is elected as a Government official is naïve or simply lying.
So, such supposedly Governmental purists would rather take the politically self-destructive road of villifying individuals rather than the high road of building democratic communities of creative self-determination.
Political intelligence in its present state in Niagara County is inadequate. The communities are for the most part failing. Thousands of people have left the area over the past decade or so. To stop any speech is to curtail creative thinking even though it is in short supply and there is nothing we need more.
It is sad that “Hobbes” chooses virtual cyber-terrorist tactics hiding behind a blog non-identity and carrying out the dirty work of someone’s political agenda in the name of preserving the purity of Government discourse on the public air waves. We don’t know who you are. And you aren’t using bombs but to attempt to destroy the free political space of intellectual inquiry and discovery is a form of terroristic violence and tactically proto-fascist.
However when the freedom of the political space between people is suppressed and its pressing subject matter repressed, then the political emerges everywhere. If the space of Government is not permitted to express the tensions, oppositions, differences and possibilities of political existence, then the very forms of Government are subject to dissolution in the medium of “politics through other means,” namely war, violence, corruption and the forceful, manipulative misuse and destruction of speech, language, discourse and dialogue, not to mention mutual distrust, suspicion and cynicism.
On LCTV Legislative Journal is educational. It is not news or mere journalism. It is political discourse as it is mediated and constituted by the forms of institutions which are forms of political expression. To censor politics out of government discourse is to bureaucratize its very being or to strive to wrest from its democratic aspirations a fascist future. I’m not sure which is worse, maybe government conceived on a business and crisis management mode.
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