Easter Sunday

Happy Easter!

Easter is a holiday that symbolizes new life rising from the dead. Let's all hope that the pall hanging over our city this Easter is the beginning of a new phase of life for our city. Justice is not an issue isolated by race or religion. When injustice occurs, everyone is offended by it. It is time for us to take a serious look at many of the things we have been taking for granted over the past few years that have contributed to the increase in injustice rather than its abatement.

For starters, the CRG, which may have had a point on one issue (the retirement scandal thing) is not, and should not be an institution of government and must be neutralized. It stands in the way of the normal democratic functioning of government, and biases the composition of our legally established political bodies. Campaign money is difficult to raise, and the process of recall elections forces this money to be raised twice. This biases the government in favor of the wealthy and away from the majority of its constituents.

Simply look back at early Rome to see an example. The Roman Senate was comprised of the nobility (wealthy class) by birth and no plebians could ever hold office. After the army walking out of town with the claim that it made no difference if their enemies took over, since they would probably get a better shake under foreign rule than under their current rule, the people won a balancing power for government, the Tribunes (composed only of the plebian class), with the power to try members of the senate. Eventually, the people won the right for plebians to hold actual authoritative positions, but they almost never voted for one of their own, opting instead for individuals of the patrician class, simply out of habit and social conditioning.

The exclusionary aristocratical form of government is what Executive Walker is after when he first tried to eliminate the salaries for government officials, so that everyone in county government would be of the independently wealthy class. Leaving, of course, No one to represent the common working class. The persecution of Supervisor Holloway, with mountains of illigitimate charges for him to expend his financial potential to fight, is part of the strategy, since Supervisor Holloway is the lead representative of minority and working class people. If Supervisor Holloway can't survive in county government, justice for the majority of us is over at that level, since without a balance, in the form of a voice of the people, in government, there is no opposition and there is no need to base arguments for legislation on sound reasoning.

This is what our founding father John Adams warned us about; imbalanced government, and wrote three volumes showing why it was important that all power does not collect into the hands of one class of society. The solution of that problem he showed, is to divide the power of government into three branches, one to represent the government, or monarchical powers, one to represent the capitalist class or aristocratical powers and one to represent the people or democratic class. This is what a republican form of government is.

Our county government is comprised of only two branches, an elected assembly, which can be either aristocratical or democratic. If aristocratical, it becomes identical to the ancient Roman senate. The primary concern for us, is how the members of this branch are chosen. If we are limited in any way to only the aristocratical types, we are in trouble. If democratical, it can be balanced only if closely watched. What is needed at the county level is an independent democratical branch, which the ethics comittee could be if all members were elected instead of appointed. As it stands, the ethics board is a tool the executive branch can hold over the members of the Board of Supervisors, effectively collecting all power in one center and hastening tyranny (that abandonment of reason thing).

The only way the ethics board can be a functional part of a republic in any sense is if the members are appointed by the executive and the funding of cases is closely controlled by the Board of Supervisors, meaning that they MUST exercise their right to refuse funding on a regular basis. If there is a case against one of the Supervisors, then there is an ethics issue with regard to the ethics board, in which case the ethics board must be monitored by an independent body, say the State or Federal Government, since we are guaranteed a Republican form of government by the U.S. Constitution at those two levels. Perhaps, all Wisconsin County Ethics Boards should be combined into one State Ethics Board, to keep local power in check.

I believe the case against Supervisor Holloway should be postponed until some sort of oversight is in place, or justice can not be served, either in principal as shown above, or in practice as our local (and recent) history shows. So, a reform of the Ethics process or the restructuring of county government needs to occur.

Next, we need a riparian zoning classification that forbids all commercial forms of development in areas that are necessary for the continued existence of insectivorous migratory birds along our river corridors.

It is also time for an end to the growing culture of corruption in government and in industry. Our education system has failed everyone, not just the urban poor. The principals upon which all modern practices are based have been lost and are not taught. Instead, most learning is by rote, passing only the letter of the practices and not the intent from generation to generation. We need a revival of philosophy - the study of reason in our world. Religion from the perspective either from the bottom up or the top down is the authority of reason. God in any religion, is the source of the contrasts that establish real objects in the universe and also the force that holds the principals governing them all constant. In any circumstance, god is necessary as the authority upon which to justify reason and justice over tyranny and arbitrary whim. We have the capacity for reason to use it, and when we fail to do so we fail reason and we fail god.

Liberty, for instance, is the perpetual right to question conventional dogma and have one's claims formally considered. It is guaranteed to society by the principal in legislative government whereby no laws will be passed that do not directly and reasonably protect persons or property from harm or loss.

today, a flock of 90 cormorants flew up the lakeshore in V formation and a flock of 5 vultures were seen circling over the Milwaukee river...

peace,
Lou