TOMBSTONE BLUES

TOMBSTONE BLUES: We're screwed. And we're only going to get screweder.

With Gary Hooser's decision earlier this year to abandon a run for congress in the 2nd Hawai`i District it looks like we are going to get stuck the most revoltin' of developments- Mufi Hannemann living the Life of Riley, having a virtual "lock" on next November's election.

We didn't need to be reminded that with today's news that the Hawaii Teamsters & Allied Workers Union Local 996 has endorsed him, the carpetbagging creep moves one step closer to election. He's already the poster boy for all that's wrong with so-called American democracy's campaign finance system- one that produces winners by virtue of an overflowing war chest that scares off the good guys like Hooser from even entering the race.

Oh sure, there are some good candidates challenging the Moofster in the Democratic Primary- we'd vote for patients' rights advocate Rafael del Castillo in a hot second. Or maybe even Hilo attorney Bob Marx... although by virtue of the singular fact that Marx is not Hannemann.

But the only candidate with two shots of beating Mufi- slim and none to be specific- is Honolulu City Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard, a bigoted piece of crap like her father who plays down her homophobia and plays up her supposed environmental credentials so as to woo unsuspecting progressives.

The fact is that Hooser came within whisker of deciding to take on Hannemann but, at the last moment, decided there was no way he could raise the kind of money it would take to beat him is a case study in all that's wrong with American elections in the 21st century.

Yeah, it will be soooo self-satisfying to vote for Castillo... just like voting for presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein who is seeking the Green Party nod. In both cases, come next November, we'll be able proudly have the distinctly unsatisfying privilege of saying "well don't blame me- I didn't for for him/her."

This is where we usually offer some kind of pie-in-the-sky solution- like supporting the "Move to Amend (MTA)" group that seeks to reverse the perverse Citizens United, US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling which invented "corporate personhood (CP)" by making money a form of speech. The problem is that not only are few aware of MTA- although they will be becoming more and more aware of it this summer as hundreds of millions of anonymous, "independent (yeah, right) expenditure" dollars flow into the presidential race- but ending CP still wouldn't take money completely out of elections. Full public financing of all elections would but, although some say it is possible under existing SCOTUS rulings (Buckley v Valeo), it might take a constitutional amendment to do it like any CP countering measure would.

But people- even progressives- seem to be more interested in half-assed movements that blame the individual senators and congresspersons rather than the corporate monolith that perverts the system that elects them. We especially like the one to cut congressional pay and benefits as if making sure that millionaires and billionaires were the only ones who could afford to be in congress would somehow reverse the trend toward making "independently wealthy" a requirement to serve in office.

Yesterday we came across a blog post by Robert Reich former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley entitled "The Defining Issue: Not Government’s Size, but Who It’s For."

In it he details "how the surge of cynicism now engulfing America isn’t about government’s size. The cynicism comes from a growing perception that government isn’t working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street, and the very rich instead."

Yet even the most progressive of progressives seems to get their jollies by climbing on the tea-bagger "government: bad" bandwagon. Though, like voting for Castillo or Stein, it can be really satisfying- and for pundits all too easy- to ridicule the very nature of government based on what passes for democracy in America today, unless and until all of us focus on the obscenity of the legalize bribery that passes for a democratic electoral system, we'll be stuck with the stream of gags that substitute for a functional system of representative republican democracy.

Place the final joke here yourself... we're not in the mood today.

EXTRA, EXTRA- DON'T READ ALL ABOUT IT

EXTRA, EXTRA- DON'T READ ALL ABOUT IT: The mutual admiration society known collectively as the Kaua`i County Council and the administration has evolved in the face of a dedicated group of, if not delusional at least, disillusioned voters.

Their "if only we could elect an honest mayor or four honest councilmembers..." mantra presumes that half a government is better than no governhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifment at all.

But if the the town Gould, Arkansas is any example it's going to take a lot more than merely getting a foot in the door.

Seems that, according to the NY Times, when the ad-hoc Gould Citizens Advisory Council- "a nonpartisan group that educates voters and raises money for public causes"- recruited the town's Mayor Earnest Nash Jr. to their ranks the city council simply passed an ordinance banning the formation of any group without their permission and "made it illegal for the mayor to meet with any organization in any location' either 'inside or outside Gould city limits' without the Council’s permission."

Of course Kaua`i is in no danger of a similar law, not because the council would never do it but because the fact is that the combination of the lack of transparency and the manipulation of public input has effectively made any group that might form, ineffective before they ever meet.

That and the fact that the local newspaper is dedicated to making sure that the county gets free access to its pages through the papers' pre-spun regurgitated press releases and news by photo-op.

Even when meetings are "covered" by reporters, the reporters are unable to discern when they're being led around through the chamber-of-commerce-installed rings through their noses. They are so hopped up on the power that being the single news source in town confers upon them that, even if they knew how to do it, they wouldn't dare present the causes of dissident groups in any coherent manner.

In the last month, the paper allowed its top advertiser, Kaua`i Island Utilities Co-op, (KIUC) to have free reign of their pages, even going so far as to simply quote a KIUC release on the state's opposition to the federal "FERC" process rather than actually talking to the state official that was quoted.

Then the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho held a series of meaningless meetings, supposedly about the location of the proposed teen drug rehab facility in Lihu`e, presenting it- as the administration claimed in their press releases- as a chance to give input on the location.

But when the last meeting suddenly turned into an announcement that the site had been selected they failed to note that as irrefutable evidence that the whole thing was a sham to begin with, as many of those opposing the location maintained.

The question is whether if the Kaua`i County Council tried to surgically remove the basic constitutional rights of its citizens anyone would notice since the only stories that appear behind the dual paywalls of the Honolulu print and on-line news outlets are ones generated by our local paper. Neither publication seems to think that anything we do here is of interest to anyone at all, if the lack of Kaua`i news bureaus is any indication.

There's more to a functioning democracy that three branches of government- that's the reason why a free press is enshrined in the constitution. But the press is only as free as the flow of information and without some attention from the outside we're headed for the kind of corruption that is limited only by the imagination of those who make the laws.

STOP US BEFORE WE VOTE AGAIN

STOP US BEFORE WE VOTE AGAIN: The TV news last night was full of the same “because there’s video” lede about a sign-carrying demonstration support for one of the worst, most reactionary ideas to come down the pike in many a year- the constitutional amendment to stop electing Board of Education (BOE) members and allow the governor to appoint them with senate confirmation.

According to this morning’s Starvertiser.

"We need to do something," said Colbert Matsumoto, chairman and CEO of Island Insurance Co. Ltd. "We just can't stand idly back."

Admittedly the current election system for electing BOE members has it’s problems. People vote for all the members across the state, not just their local island reps and often have no idea who the candidates are so that they either vote for a “pig in a poke” or leave their ballot blank.

This creates a statewide election- the only one other than that for governor and US senator- run on campaign budgets that preclude interisland campaigning, assuring that no one has any idea who the candidates are, especially with the media emphasis on the glamour races.

But to start doing the “dance of the headless chicken” by waving our arms in the air and yelling “do something” and then deciding to reject democracy as “too messy”, belies the Jeffersonian axiom that the answer to the problems of the messiness of democracy lies not in less but rather more democracy.

The reality of a gubernatorial appointment system will result in more of the same problems experienced with similar appointment schemes such as that of the UH Board of Regents (BOR) which is somehow cited by proponents.

But as with the BOR the positions will be filled by cronies and hacks with no particular expertise other than a partisan knee-jerk adherence to the governor’s agenda. Haven’t we seen the dangers of that during the Lingle administration?

If we need to tweak the election system then let’s do it.

By creating districts and allowing voters to elect only their own local representatives we would assure not just local recognition of candidates but would go a long way toward local control and accountability which is what many say is the right prescription for K-12 educational reform.

It’s very easy to look at governmental systems without accounting for people and politics and deciding that, if the systems works the way it should, it would be better than the present.

That’s always a huge “if” which ignores the political reality of changing control of that system to a single person and placing another layer of accountability between the voters and those acting on our behalf.