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Nov. 1st, 2010
Vote.
I did, before I left for New York (and it's odd, the gravity of things. I am sitting in Jersey City, but I refer to it as New York. I live Palo Alto [further from SF than Jersey City is from NY] and once I get out of the Bay (well, no, out of the coastal population belt of Calif., I say I live in SF, but I digress), was to leave early for work last Weds. and vote.
It was, actually, sort of surreal. I cast a vote I never, in all my wildest flights of political fancy dreamed I'd cast.
Jerry Brown. He was the governor elect when I moved to California (Reagan was very lame duck, having not run for re-election). That was 35 years ago. He got a lot of flack, mostly for being young. Given what happened (the fiasco that Prop. 13 created), he did pretty well.
I'd be happier if his campaign wasn't a bit to the right of the campaign Obama ran, but Whitman is terrifying. Any possibility I might have been convinced of her fitness for office were dispelled by her early ad buys, where she said the thing to do was cut taxes, and increase spending on the UC/CS systems.
How? By echoing Reagan's 1966 campaign appeal to, "put the welfare bums to work". She implied that vast numbers of people move to California to collect benefits. Having applied for some of those benefits I can say 1: They aren't all that much (so I can't see the billions she says she wants to spend, to make the UC/CS systems better than they are now, and more affordable coming from cutting $400 a month for foodstamps), and 2: not all that easy to get (which means it's likely the vast majority of the people who get that $400 a month really need it. I, with an income of nothing... wasn't able to collect; because I was enrolled at a community college; so I can see how, and for whom, we prioritise education).
Then again, I was irked when the recall of Davis took place, and the moreso when Arnie, elected because of the criminal frauds of the electric companies, rolled over and let them keep the billions they bilked us for.
So having Whitman, who looks to be even more business friendly than Arnie, in charge... not for me.
When, by the way, did we decide gov't ought to be businesslike? I am all for it being efficient, but there is a difference between efficient, and "profitable". The return on things gov't provides aren't directly monetary. The Post Office, by way of example, has gone to hell since it became a profit oriented undertaking (and the basic contradiction of an affordable, for-profit entity, which serves everyone has been used to beat up on the Post Office [who, for all the decline still do amazing, work; better than e-mail in lots of ways] and so, by extension all gov't function, which is a false measure. What the Post Office shows is there are some things which ought not be privately run).
Roads, police, fire, customs, the army/navy/air force, none of those are things which should turn a profit. That's the "taxed-twice" myth of capital gains and estates in actual practice (if I pay for the roads, why in the world should I have to see to it they make a profit too? Where is that profit going? Not to me. If it goes back into the general fund, why not just adjust the rate of collection to reflect the actual cost. Why increase the bookkeeping and operating costs [one has to track income/outflow to determine profit]?).
I am not a stockholder in gov't. I am certainly not a "customer" (and if one looks at the various models of, "customer service", in even the most customer friendly of establishments; with "upselling", and "minimum transaction per customer" metrics... that's not a model I want my gov't to emulate). I am citizen. A business doesn't work for it's customers, it works for it's owners.
I am an owner. The, "I pay your taxes" line is stupid, at the individual transaction level but it's sure as hell the model I want the people I elect to remember.
Find me a CEO who really, deep in that CEO's heart of hearts that there is anyone who is really entitled to tell them what to do with the company they are running? I'll bet you can't. You can fire them, but you can't make them do anything unless they are convinced you will fire them.
I don't think (honestly) that there is a CEO type out there, who can remember the idea of being answerable. Which is why I don't think they should be elected.
But that's me.
What you need to do is figure out what it is you want your various elected officials to be like.
Then, tomorrow, (if you've not already) go forth and vote.
I commend you to then do what I've done since I cast my ballot:
Wear the sticker. Let other people know you voted. Give testimony that voting matters.
I did, before I left for New York (and it's odd, the gravity of things. I am sitting in Jersey City, but I refer to it as New York. I live Palo Alto [further from SF than Jersey City is from NY] and once I get out of the Bay (well, no, out of the coastal population belt of Calif., I say I live in SF, but I digress), was to leave early for work last Weds. and vote.
It was, actually, sort of surreal. I cast a vote I never, in all my wildest flights of political fancy dreamed I'd cast.
Jerry Brown. He was the governor elect when I moved to California (Reagan was very lame duck, having not run for re-election). That was 35 years ago. He got a lot of flack, mostly for being young. Given what happened (the fiasco that Prop. 13 created), he did pretty well.
I'd be happier if his campaign wasn't a bit to the right of the campaign Obama ran, but Whitman is terrifying. Any possibility I might have been convinced of her fitness for office were dispelled by her early ad buys, where she said the thing to do was cut taxes, and increase spending on the UC/CS systems.
How? By echoing Reagan's 1966 campaign appeal to, "put the welfare bums to work". She implied that vast numbers of people move to California to collect benefits. Having applied for some of those benefits I can say 1: They aren't all that much (so I can't see the billions she says she wants to spend, to make the UC/CS systems better than they are now, and more affordable coming from cutting $400 a month for foodstamps), and 2: not all that easy to get (which means it's likely the vast majority of the people who get that $400 a month really need it. I, with an income of nothing... wasn't able to collect; because I was enrolled at a community college; so I can see how, and for whom, we prioritise education).
Then again, I was irked when the recall of Davis took place, and the moreso when Arnie, elected because of the criminal frauds of the electric companies, rolled over and let them keep the billions they bilked us for.
So having Whitman, who looks to be even more business friendly than Arnie, in charge... not for me.
When, by the way, did we decide gov't ought to be businesslike? I am all for it being efficient, but there is a difference between efficient, and "profitable". The return on things gov't provides aren't directly monetary. The Post Office, by way of example, has gone to hell since it became a profit oriented undertaking (and the basic contradiction of an affordable, for-profit entity, which serves everyone has been used to beat up on the Post Office [who, for all the decline still do amazing, work; better than e-mail in lots of ways] and so, by extension all gov't function, which is a false measure. What the Post Office shows is there are some things which ought not be privately run).
Roads, police, fire, customs, the army/navy/air force, none of those are things which should turn a profit. That's the "taxed-twice" myth of capital gains and estates in actual practice (if I pay for the roads, why in the world should I have to see to it they make a profit too? Where is that profit going? Not to me. If it goes back into the general fund, why not just adjust the rate of collection to reflect the actual cost. Why increase the bookkeeping and operating costs [one has to track income/outflow to determine profit]?).
I am not a stockholder in gov't. I am certainly not a "customer" (and if one looks at the various models of, "customer service", in even the most customer friendly of establishments; with "upselling", and "minimum transaction per customer" metrics... that's not a model I want my gov't to emulate). I am citizen. A business doesn't work for it's customers, it works for it's owners.
I am an owner. The, "I pay your taxes" line is stupid, at the individual transaction level but it's sure as hell the model I want the people I elect to remember.
Find me a CEO who really, deep in that CEO's heart of hearts that there is anyone who is really entitled to tell them what to do with the company they are running? I'll bet you can't. You can fire them, but you can't make them do anything unless they are convinced you will fire them.
I don't think (honestly) that there is a CEO type out there, who can remember the idea of being answerable. Which is why I don't think they should be elected.
But that's me.
What you need to do is figure out what it is you want your various elected officials to be like.
Then, tomorrow, (if you've not already) go forth and vote.
I commend you to then do what I've done since I cast my ballot:
Wear the sticker. Let other people know you voted. Give testimony that voting matters.