Laura wrote, in part:
Choosing schools for one's own children is a deeply personal and
individual matter.
(snip)
These kinds of charges do us no good and they demean our efforts to run
campaigns on the issues.
GH:
I agree that the DFL is not running the mayoral campaign on issues. Rather,
the two candidates are attacking each other personally. The DFL provides us
with WWF-type dis-info-tainment when we need to face real issues.
Why did the DFL running two middle-aged white guys from south Minneapolis,
both of whom are "moderate Republicans?" My guess is that the DFL doesn't
want any chance of a non-DFL candidate getting past the primary --
Republican, Green, or other.
The real "mayoral strategy" here is not that between Rybak and McLaughlin,
who are two peas in a pod. The Minneapolis DFL has all of the policies and
strategies of moderate Republicans. Many people avoid primaries because it
doesn't really matter. A DFLers will win the Mayor's office and mostly
DFLers will win city council seats as always, and nothing will improve.
Insider politics will prevail, which means that "the base" will continue to
consume city services as usual while the city debt grows and wealthy special
interests use taxation as another revenue stream for amassing great
fortunes.
I will always remember candidate McLaughlin's remark that he works in "the
real world" of billionaires and millionaires -- who, of course, deny that we
need to make any changes related to energy resource depletion issues, global
warming, or rising geopolitical tensions related to our energy
overconsumption.
The DFL wants us to continue to design our lives and our city just as did
the robber barons of old. The earth is an infinite source of free or cheap
resources (including the labor of the poor people) and also an infinite sink
for our waste. The real issue is not what school a candidates' children may
attend, but it is the massive debt and the increasingly toxic, violent, and
resource-poor world we will experience for the next twenty years and beyond
as the DFL continues "politics as usual."
-- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynnhurst (the sun is out!) --
Gary Hoover
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