Bloomingpol's Blog

Book Review - The Assault on Reason

Being a Town Volunteer, Al Gore’s New Book and Why The Forum is So Important: A Book Review

I started out to write an article on being involved in town government and why it was so important to me. Then, over the Memorial Day weekend, I read Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason. If you are going to read one book this year, read this one.  If you are involved with your town, read this and think about your connection or "attachment" to your government at the town level.  If you are engaged in something that requires science, or law, or anything that involves dealing with facts, and you depend on government at any level to get your projects done, read this.  If you are one of the many Americans who does not like the direction our nation is headed, read this. 
I have been a volunteer for my town for 10 years now. I got into it very selfishly, when the selectboard asked for townspeople who were interesting in assisting them to negotiate a new cable TV contract. I had heard that internet access by cable was possible, and was getting very frustrated with dial up, having discovered the possibilities of the world wide web. Working on this committee and meeting some of my fellow townspeople led me to volunteer for other committees and to finally run for selectboard in 2003.
I have been on the planning board, helped with the master plan, worked on historic and land and water conservation efforts, and continued with work on the cable advisory committee. My town has welcomed my participation, except for last year, when members of the selectboard who were elected in 2006 decided I was not welcome to serve. My involvement with my town has been an enormous learning experience in so many ways. Not only do I have a good understanding of how town government works, and how dependent on the willingness of citizens to give their time and expertise towns are, I have a deeper appreciation of this form of government and how it can support a sense of community and the roots of true democracy.
There is a perception out there that this desire to be involved is all about power, but that is not true. Last year I had the perfect excuse to declare that I was no longer volunteering, that what happened in our town last year “proved” that my participation did not matter, yet I did not stop offering my time and expertise. I don’t offer my services for power or prestige, I offer them because public service is a value I cherish.
I find Al Gore’s book helps me to understand how we get to places such as where we are today, and that we don't have to continue on this course from sheer inertia.  In my town, it helps me to understand why we were in a mess last year, and what we did, even if we didn't think of it in those terms, to change direction.   This book informed my understanding of what my "attachment" to the process of democracy, particularly at the local level, means to me, what values matter to me.
I said that The Forum was very important. Al Gore writes extensively about the importance of the printed word and a well-connected citizenry. We are very blessed in our area to have a shining example of citizen journalism, a real two-way street of communication, where our voices can be heard and our governments can become transparent in their practice, if we so choose.

Insulting Iowa farmers

Link: Media Matters - Altercation by Eric Alterman.

For instance, I read in The Note that The Washington Post's Dana Milbank plumbs the book's depths to find clues to Gore's political ambitions. Campaign treatise it's not, Milbank writes: "Imagine the Iowa hog farmer cracking open 'Assault on Reason,' and meeting Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, John Kenneth Galbraith, Walter Lippmann, Johannes Gutenberg, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Jefferson and Marshall McLuhan -- all before finishing the introduction."

I don't know a lot of Iowa farmers, true, but I think it amazingly insulting that Milbank thinks those
names are above their collective heads. But anything to mock Gore, even the
fact that he treats people with sufficient respect to expect them to understand
the arguments of their country's founders and intellectual heroes.

War is bad

I am with him on this one!

Link: Eschaton.

Joking aside, it occurs to me on this Memorial Day that the biggest challenge ahead is getting politicians, pundits, other elites, and to the extent that it's necessary the American public back to the radical consensus which seemed to hold between the end of the Vietnam War and September 11, 2001:War is bad.

Where your tax dollars are going...it goes on and on

Link: The Blotter.

Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program.

That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, including an hour-long tirade on the importance of anti-Jewish violence, among other questionable pieces.

Time is not neutral

Why all those idiots who keep saying we have to stay in Iraq are wrong.

Link: THE NEWS BLOG.

our invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's fondest hopes, and ... the longer we stay there the better for al Qaeda. I like the way Perret puts it — Time is not neutral. Time is on the enemy's side. The more time they get, the stronger they will be.

An Evening with Our Legislators

Sunday, May 20, 7-9 pm Deerfield Library

Our five state representatives and state senator have been invited to a public forum on the 2007 Legislative Session for all residents of Deerfield, Candia, Nottingham and Northwood. The NH House of Representatives has considered over 1000 pieces of legislation, ranging from requiring licensing of contractors and masseuse, the revamping of the state retirement system, legalizing civil unions, expanding coverage of health insurance for young adults, eliminating the burning of construction debris, increasing the minimum wage, paying the legal fees of the Supreme Court justices impeached several years ago, banning greyhound racing and legalizing medical marijuana…and don’t forget the definition of an adequate education and the state budget, LCHIP and renaming the Epsom Traffic circle in honor of Officers Briggs and Charron.

This year we are represented by four freshmen legislators and Rep Johnson who is the most senior member of the NH House. This event will be your chance to ask them and our state senator about issues, the challenge of legislating and how they decide their positions of a wide range of legislation.

The “Evening with our Legislators” is sponsored by the Deerfield Democratic Town Committee. We hope you’ll join us at the Deerfield Library, 4 Old Center Rd. For questions, call Rebecca at 463-7692.

How Republicans "Govern"

This article reminds me of how my town was being run last year!

Link: Hullabaloo.

It's not that taxes were ever popular, any more than paying your electric bill is "popular" or buying a new furnace is "popular." But until the GOP hit on their free lunch propaganda they were just considered a fact of life ("death and taxes") as long as the rich weren't perceived to be getting off easy and the government was delivering services to the people. Republican campaign tactics and governance have pretty much destroyed that resigned acceptance by making people believe that taxes are inherently evil and if the government needs to do something it will magically find the money some other way. The truth is that the Republicans have been running a game that's the equivalent of you or I taking off work without pay for weeks so we can go to Vegas and play roulette with our credit cards. One only hopes "the grown-ups" haven't gone so far that we will have to spend the next decade suffering from the hangover.

More on education

One of the things that vision accomplishes is to integrate ideas from all levels of governmental policy. In small NH towns, there are times when you would think that there was a wall around the town, that no money comes in from other layers of government, and no money flows out, so cutting school funding at that level is the only solution to the tax burden problem. It is almost impossible to even discuss unfunded mandates for special ed, it is like throwing your words into a black hole, they just vanish and we move on. In our town, because so far our school budgets have passed, the town budget, which is much smaller and contributes much less to the property tax assessment, is always under the gun, as a safer place to attack. No kids involved. (Unless you count fire and police, and they seldom get the ax.)
One of the things I really hold against the Republicans who have and still represent our state in Congress is the constant promise to do something about the unfunded education mandates and then somehow not succeeding. They get credit for saying it, apparently.
This is why I believe that we have to change the conversation on education to what we truly value, something that is right there in the NH Constitution but is another phrase that goes into the black hole, “cherishing” education. There was a reason for that, the need for an educated citizenry who could defend their rights through governmental processes. Instead we argue about the right to carry concealed weapons into schools! And that passes for the NH brand of “civil rights.” We don’t need educated citizens to make government work for us if we don’t believe government works, period. We can all carry guns and get what we want and need that way, or something.
The whole picture of what education is for has become skewed, from an educated citizenry to a trained labor force. I would like to think I am more than a money-making machine. I have been, and continue to be, part of my town government, one of those volunteers who does the committee and board work that keeps the town moving forward.

Gov. Bill Richardson

I went to hear Gov. Richardson at the Rockingham Democrats Clambake this afternoon. First of all it was a chance to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen for a couple of months, having been completely taken up, politically, in my own town issues and election. I caught up with some of the Carol campaign folks and some of the state reps and other candidates I was involved with as both town chair and campaign manager for my husband’s run for state rep. (He didn’t win this time, but may try again next year.) I got to hear my congresswoman give another concise and powerful description of what she has been doing, and to hear three people who are probably going to vie for the chance to take out Sununu.
Gov. Richardson spoke about what he would do in the “first six days” of his presidency. He hit all the points that a Democrat will need to hit, Iraq, education, healthcare, etc. I had come into the afternoon interested in his foreign policy credentials, and he did not disappoint. I had heard a couple of things in the blogosphere that concerned me about his position on choice, but he was unequivocal in his support. He said nothing about civil rights to raise any flags with me. I tend to like Democratic governors as candidates, because they have had the challenge of actually running something, rather than debating it. (Perhaps having been a selectman in my town biases me toward people who successfully run a governmental entity, since I know how hard even a town can be.)
Perhaps the only place where I had some discomfort was in his talk about education. For most of us in NH, this is the really distressing issue at home, because we are in such a bind with our funding. He said a lot about accountability, and bringing back our preeminence in math and science, but I just didn’t end up feeling that his heart was in it. I would say his approach needs more work. It just had no coherence for me, no sense that he really had a solution.
This may be because I think that education is so wrapped up in all the other issues that impact our children that discussing it as if it were in another room from healthcare, and the increase in poverty and the disdain for women and children that pervade our society today, despite all the talk of “family values,” is just missing the point. It is almost impossible to educate a child who is not healthy, well-fed, feeling loved and part of a “family” (whatever form that may take), and with parent figures who find value in learning and have time for their children.
I don’t think any of our social issues are going to have a chance to be fixed until we change our whole value system. We need to be willing to really plan for a future for our children, and so many of the evils we are now undergoing have to do with a devaluation of human existence. I am not talking “pro-life” in the sense the right means it, which stops as soon as you are born. I am talking about making a world where every child in every country has a chance to live a decent life with enough food, medical care, and love from the community. There is no reason we can’t do that, except the greed and aggression that seem to be the “values” we have been worshipping for far too long.
So I come back to NH, where we just can’t seem to really agree that children are our future and must come first. We are a rich state and have managed to get away with not funding education or healthcare adequately because there is almost enough money to do a passable job. If we were a poorer state, with lower per capita incomes, the way we fund schools would be a disaster. But this is no excuse not to change our attitudes and make our children a priority.
I have no children or grandchildren in NH schools. This does not make me care less. The years that I have left will be better, selfishly, if the citizens of my state, my country and my planet are healthy, well-educated, community-oriented people, and that can only happen if they are cared for as children.
There has been discussion of whether we should be looking for vision in our candidate for President, or looking for policies. I think we need both, because policy with no vision driving it is hollow. I think that is what was lacking today in Richardson’s talking about education. He has no real vision, so it sounded like a laundry list. Certainly not something to rule him out at all, just something he needs to work on.
We are facing an embarrassment of riches as Democrats this year. The Republicans are simply facing embarrassment. I came away liking Richardson more than when I went in, and I hear much the same from others who have heard other candidates. Not a bad place to be at all. What a difference winning an election makes!

Cost of the war to NH

Link: Democrats.senate.gov - Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader.

Number of Active Duty Service-Members in Iraq: 1,014 Number of Reserve Forces in Iraq: 246 Number of Service-Members Killed in Iraq: 20 Number of Service-Members Wounded in Iraq: 159 Cost of War to the People of New Hampshire: $1.5 billion