NEW YORK AT THE ABYSS
The state is dying. True political leadership is absent. Scandal is the rule and not the exception. We the suffering citizenry, exist in a political desert at the edge of a political abyss. We are a one party commonwealth with no wealth left in common.
How did we come to this? How did we become the state of the Union that most resembles Venezuela?
Why did we allow one party to assume near total political hegemony and why did we allow that party to be co-opted by a virulent ideology that distains democratic capitalism, limited government, and individual rights over group entitlements?
How do we save our state and ourselves and where do we begin?
The answer is simple on it’s face and complex in it’s details. We must have true partisan competition! That means two or more parties that offer real choice to the voters and not just be pale reflections of one another. The voters in this state are not stupid despite how the elected elite and the chattering classes treat them. We are overtaxed and underserved.
We are treated with condescension by having elected and appointed officials determine what we can eat, drink, or smoke and how we are to transport ourselves to work, shop or eat, drink or smoke that what the nanny state allows. Elected official seem to believe that being our mothers is now part of their job description.
So how do we begin?
A good first step would be for each of the two major parties and the minor ones in addition, to present the voters with a “Compact with New York”. This would be the basic pledge to New Yorkers as to what each candidate and each party promises to accomplish if elected. The head of each ticket would secure the support of all the candidates running under him or her to sign on to this “Compact”. This would in fact be the first test of leadership they could demonstrate to the electorate. The success or failure of someone who wants to lead the state through these perilous times rests in the first instance on their capacity to lead through the art of persuasion, the act of consensus and the power of ideas.
This “Compact” should be inclusive, concise and detailed where necessary and appropriate. It should be as much a blueprint for governance as a strategy for problem solving. It should not mince words…we are too far down the rabbit hole for glibness and obfuscation! It should address the citizens with respect and candor and offer them practical solutions for getting us out of the mess we are in.
Where necessary it should identify both the problems we face and how we got to where we are. You cannot solve a problem in a vacuum. You can only deal with it in the historical context from which it arose and the present reality in which it festers.
New Yorkers deserve a real choice. They also deserve that this choice be in no small part be part of a local, state and national dialogue in which they participate. The ideas that grow into policy and programs must, like the problems they wish to solve, emanate from the real experience of real people. In other words we must once again become a government of the people, for the people and by the people.
If we do not allow the ultimate stakeholders, the people, to decide on not just conflicting
ideas, but also on conflicting philosophies, we run the very real risk of collapsing the house because we have not strengthened the foundation.
We are living in a new era. It is an era where complacency will wither and citizen involvement will become the new norm. There is simply too much at stake…too much to lose and that whistling sound you hear is the teapot boiling!
ERLANDSSON
The state is dying. True political leadership is absent. Scandal is the rule and not the exception. We the suffering citizenry, exist in a political desert at the edge of a political abyss. We are a one party commonwealth with no wealth left in common.
How did we come to this? How did we become the state of the Union that most resembles Venezuela?
Why did we allow one party to assume near total political hegemony and why did we allow that party to be co-opted by a virulent ideology that distains democratic capitalism, limited government, and individual rights over group entitlements?
How do we save our state and ourselves and where do we begin?
The answer is simple on it’s face and complex in it’s details. We must have true partisan competition! That means two or more parties that offer real choice to the voters and not just be pale reflections of one another. The voters in this state are not stupid despite how the elected elite and the chattering classes treat them. We are overtaxed and underserved.
We are treated with condescension by having elected and appointed officials determine what we can eat, drink, or smoke and how we are to transport ourselves to work, shop or eat, drink or smoke that what the nanny state allows. Elected official seem to believe that being our mothers is now part of their job description.
So how do we begin?
A good first step would be for each of the two major parties and the minor ones in addition, to present the voters with a “Compact with New York”. This would be the basic pledge to New Yorkers as to what each candidate and each party promises to accomplish if elected. The head of each ticket would secure the support of all the candidates running under him or her to sign on to this “Compact”. This would in fact be the first test of leadership they could demonstrate to the electorate. The success or failure of someone who wants to lead the state through these perilous times rests in the first instance on their capacity to lead through the art of persuasion, the act of consensus and the power of ideas.
This “Compact” should be inclusive, concise and detailed where necessary and appropriate. It should be as much a blueprint for governance as a strategy for problem solving. It should not mince words…we are too far down the rabbit hole for glibness and obfuscation! It should address the citizens with respect and candor and offer them practical solutions for getting us out of the mess we are in.
Where necessary it should identify both the problems we face and how we got to where we are. You cannot solve a problem in a vacuum. You can only deal with it in the historical context from which it arose and the present reality in which it festers.
New Yorkers deserve a real choice. They also deserve that this choice be in no small part be part of a local, state and national dialogue in which they participate. The ideas that grow into policy and programs must, like the problems they wish to solve, emanate from the real experience of real people. In other words we must once again become a government of the people, for the people and by the people.
If we do not allow the ultimate stakeholders, the people, to decide on not just conflicting
ideas, but also on conflicting philosophies, we run the very real risk of collapsing the house because we have not strengthened the foundation.
We are living in a new era. It is an era where complacency will wither and citizen involvement will become the new norm. There is simply too much at stake…too much to lose and that whistling sound you hear is the teapot boiling!
ERLANDSSON
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