This posting is partially prompted by Michael Atherton's much discussed posts about a "gay agenda" and what I percieve as the poor judgement shown in a number of the Star Tribune endorsements.
Studs Terkel, the well loved popular sociologist from Chicago, once said that "Special interests was a term coined to describe the unethical and immoral influence of commerce and business interests at odds with the interest. It has been much abused in more recent times by being used to describe people with their backs against the wall. Labor, racial and ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, feminists, religious minorities, environmentalists, and working and middle class families are not "special interests". They are the people. And as the people, are who are government was designed to serve." Vandana Shiva, well known advocate for the poor of India and the world, has used similiar arguments in speaking of "food first" when it comes to international "fair trade" as opposed to "free trade". Production of food for the populations of impoverished countries should take precedence over the interest of commerce. In exploiting these poor countries through IMF imposed structural adjustment to create export opportunities using up resources which would better be used to produce for domestic consumption, we denigrate the right of people to mere survival in the name of furthering commerce. Would we as Minneapolitans be inclined to favor a privatizing of our public water system as the IMF imposed upon Bolivia where water rates jumped to 50% of annual household income to profit privately held Bechdel of San Francisco? My point is that there are times when encouraging the growth of commerce in our community is obviously to are advantage as a community. There are also times when the expenditure of funds is not in the interest of the community but primarily of benefit to a "special interest". Many in our community view the Star Tribune's blind allegiance to what is best for Downtown business interests with skepticism. It at times is a positive for the community as a whole and at times appears to be sheer thievery enabled by our political bodies to the benefit of "special interests"-as defined by Studs Terkel above. The line between the two is sometimes blurred and sometimes it is not. Might the Star Tribune be influenced in their endorsements by their large advertising accounts with Target Corp. which has been a large beneficiary of city largesse? Marshall Field's(the department store formerly known as Dayton's), Mervyn's, and Target makeup a large chunk of the Star Tribune's advertising revenue stream. I am far more concerned about improprieties on the part of our city council concerning traditionally defined special interests than I am about commitments by candidates to work on people issues whether they be concerns raised by racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual minorities and/or labor, neighborhood groups, and others representing the interests of the city's diverse residents. The preamble to the US constitution begins "We the people...". We the people are of diverse sexual orientations, faiths, races, ethnicities, national origins, genders, and socio-economic classes. We the people have interests and concerns that trump those of commerce. Commerce is a simply a tool that is good when it serves people and not good when it abuses them. We the people are not simply "human resources" or as tax papers "financial reserves" for commerce. Let's not let the tool of commerce become the sole determinant in what is "good" for Minneapolis. David Strand Loring Park Ward 7 . __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
