No way will Pawlenty do anything not in the interest of the richtest man/family/corporation available. 1000% for Big Tobacco. Absolutely not possible for anything smaller. Put all your eggs there, and forget any progress until he's gone - which may be a long time. Going for statewide first means BT wins and we lose for years. No way. Kick Pawlenty out, but until then, push at the local level.
We have learned in the Green Party that the only place we have any power to elect and pressure is the city/county level. One Green in over 5000 state legislators - a decade or two before there are enough state leg Greens to have any weight. If we don't win at the city level first we'll never win at the state. We have learned that CITIES can legislate against the Patriot Act; many have; but very few states. Cities are stronger against stadiums than state legs. Etc. We can get cities - Duluth and Rochester already - to go for smoking bans. Then when they plus Mpls StPaul Roseville Bloomington etc have gone for the ban, we can show that people want it, and that it works here, and that business thrives with it. And THEN we can push it on to the state. This is EXACTLY the same strategy the Green Party pursues on all other issues. Win at the local level where people will vote for us, where personal contact outweighs corporate money, and slowly move up. Corporations with their money start at the top, the country as a whole, then move to down to regions, then to states, racheting down to smaller and smaller areas of control. (Eg the Center for the American Experiment their think-tank for local conquest here). The GP and progressives and the people generally can only start at the very bottom, the smallest areas and offices, those not yet captured by CorpoRama, and move up. Telling us to jump immediately to the middle level - state - is counterstructural for us, a recipe for disaster/loss/waste. And, Peter, you seem to have bought into the BigTobacco myth that smoking is good not bad for business. I think what will happen is MORE business in the cities, and LESS in the suburbs. I know I will spend more in smoke-free bars than I do now - I almost never go, because of the smoke. I think Pawlenty wishes there to be no bans, and total victory for BT (and all other big corps) on ideological principle - remove entrepreneural control from all but the very highest elite level, wipe out all small and medium businesses, all local businesses, fill the world with big box chains run from NYC or the Grand Cayman Islands. Right here in the cities is about the only level left that the people have any power - by default it is the area we must work and win in. --David Shove Roseville On Wed, 16 Jun 2004, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > While I'm definitely not a fan of Rybak or Kelly, I'm behind them 100% > on this issue. Instead of holding their feet to the fire on the smoking > ban we'd be doing everyone concerned a favor by leaning on Governor > Pawlenty and his pals to support a state-wide smoking ban. A smoking > ban passed by the council members of Minneapolis and St. Paul will only > give Pawlenty what he wants: More revenue for the suburbs at the > expense of the cities. > > Thoughtful politicians ought to be subverting Pawlenty's vision,instead, > too many of them are acting according to his wishes. > > > Peter Schmitz, Downtown St. Paul > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! > Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! > Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! > REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
