Dorie Rae Gallager asked whether bike trails should be allocated 4 million bucks more than our libraries, after she read the Clic report.
My thought is that bike trails and libraries ought to be fully funded. Why is there a discrepency? I offer two partial answers for consideration... First, I think there is more than enough wealth to fund libraries along with bike trails, but our regressive wealth re-distribution system of taxation subsidizes the bloated over-compensation of corporate CEO's and a bevy of similiarly overpaid professional PR/lawyer/media relations/journalists who advocate shamelessly for the status quo. This corporate welfare and redistribution of the wealth of the poor and middle class to the rich is well documented. Books like "Wealth and Democracy" by Kevin Phillips or "Nickeled and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich come to mind most readily. When corrupt crony capitalism is wed to government, that is called fascism. The way fascism expresses itself locally is to further concentrate wealth and power at the expense of the common people, and even at the expense of local political leadership. Local political leaders in Minneapolis are left trying to scrape by on less as our tax dollars subsidise well-connected capitalists who quite often don't live here and never will. This is how I see it. Secondly -- and more directly related to these specific items -- the local advocacy for bike trails has been very strong for a number of years, hence the relatively hefty budget for that represented in the Clic report. I am aware that the public library has the "Friends of the Library" and other advocacy going on, but it seems that all of the budget cuts really took the library system and the people served by it by suprise. My thought is that we need more spent on libraries (and schools and bikeways) now than ever, but that our culture chooses to produce dumbed-down "cannon fodder" and McJobbers to serve the shrinking Elite. After all, if you want blood-for-oil and fast food and plenty of clerks at the counters in shopping malls, libraries and education are simply not real high priorities. I offer two partial solutions to this dilemma. First, organize communities of people on a local level to live as much outside the system as possible. That is, organize around economic democracy (cooperative living), local self-sustaining food growing, transportation and energy models, and strong, longterm community ties. At our housing cooperative, we are forming a small urban ecovillage, one step at a time. Our kids are raised a village of people committed to principles of democracy rather than of fascism. We are learning to raise food and to make decisions based on ecological values. Organizing outside our current fascist political and economic system while living in the middle of it is challenging, but vital to positive change. Second, we need to participate in what little semblance of democracy is left in our country and specifically in Minneapolis. Even though local political efforts are often like an umbrella in a hail storm, offering a little protection for a short time before they are destroyed, we can make incremental progress through political action. One day the time may be right for political action to bear real fruit, but for now it is simply an effort to keep a tiny flame of democracy going, it seems to me. Infrastructure reflects our values and political culture. Right now we value a shrinking minority of people who are accruing more power and wealth. Libraries, education and transportation for most people will see more budget cuts, not budget relief. Many millions of dollars each year are being sucked out of Minneapolis just to support the Blood-For-Oil War In Iraq. Minneapolis has provided over $210 million to support the War in Iraq so far. This money could help our libraries, schools, and bike trails, could it not? (See http://www.nationalpriorities.org/issues/military/iraq/CostOfWar.html ). The shrinking class of "Corporate Welfare Queens" and their professional class of Courtesans have plenty, and see no need to change the system. It works fine for them! The kids in your neighborhood and mine need to be dumb, easily manipulated, and economically desperate enough to join the ever-expanding military, or perhaps to look for work as "private contractors" oversees --now, there's a future for Minneapolis kids in that growing industry! Working for economic demcracy, pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Kingfield neighborhood...... Gary Hoover 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
