Initial Post-Election Note

Election day of 2006 has arrived, and Arcata has results of its political
process designed to disallow meaningful presentation, dialogue and
examination of key issues, through a meager format dominated by spewing
tiny soundbites against a crazy-quilt of questions.

Opportunities for underclass candidate participation is wholly undermined
by such flawed process, a bleak and superficial mimic of real democracy
wherein candidates are afforded ample public venue, rather than suitably
marginalized according to their class status, as if political value was
just another property of the economically elite.

Working-poor, typically laboring fifty or more hours each week, without
holiday, cannot muster muscle-money and free time needed to conduct a
regularly lavish campaign, although council service would be attainable.
Working seven days a week on a very tight budget eliminates underclass
campaign participation, in ways and manners of gentrified expectations.

Because of insufficient publicly sponsored venues: Stillman, Meserve,
Wheetley and Winkler, etc., all well benefit; while Harris (especially)
suffers. Lives of economic elites are organized and well funded, affording
ample resources and time for their prolific display of class status
against both each other and candidacies of the poor and oppressed.

Many folks believe this undemocratic style of political dynamic is
precisely responsible for political failures within all levels of
government. One way or another, the system is largely fixed and outcomes
controlled by those with money, time and entrenched investment in a status
quo power-grid.

Incumbancy is nurtured by elite factions, with political process
culturally manipulated by confining channels of discourse to preserve
upper-class interests, while repressing and discouraging underclass
participation. Plutocracy is this system’s true name, existing ‘right here
in River City.’

Electoral demands for expanded process, such as single-subject forums
wherein candidates might have five minutes to organize messages, instead
of being cut to ribbons by time limits, were ignored. Entreaties to HSU,
the business community, other candidates and interests found no response,
so local institutional sectors are presumedly content with barely
half-a-loaf of democracy riding a well-greased slide toward political
power.

I’m not content with such undemocratic process, so I’ll attempt to employ
an ancient tactic of voicing a shadow government, creating an essential
counterpoint to establishment perspective, scrutinizing and explicating
its failures, while proposing publicly advantageous alternatives. In this
fashion, campaigning will persist for local exercise of optimum municipal
judgment. Failures of judgment have led to huge problems, massive
mishandling of a variety of matters, and diminished municipal confidence.

Glaringly intrusive upon this electoral season is one fine example of the
poor quality of recent municipal decisionmaking. The initiative (W) issue
of fluoridated water needn’t have soaked-up such a long and steady stream
of press and public attention. Better political judgement would have
easily recognized the contours of this question and established a
reasonable city program to satisfy the concerns of perhaps twenty-plus
percent of citizens who strongly prefer unfluoridated water. Instead, a
prolonged and useless political circus unfolded, eclipsing crucial affairs
and priorities.

Other obvious examples of council failure are its inadequate address to
the housing crisis, while bungling social service efforts, combined with
absences of both creative vision and a political rudder over a variety of
subjects. Deleterious conditions have evolved to a point where local elite
interests are determined to scapegoat Meserve for these problems,
installing Stillman as a remedy. While guilty of much, Meserve isn’t
fairly responsible for all of these problems, and he represents left-wing
political activism to a large sector of citizens. Stillman still hasn’t
been pulled off her intense fascination with political generalities,
couched upon an upper-class perspective.

Unconfident about key municipal policymaking, I pledge two means of
support for initiating improved accountability and political opportunity,
my own efforts combined with a vehicle which I’ve kept secure and ready to
perform such a task when such a need arose, the URL: Arcata.org.

Once this website gains essential technical capabilities to properly serve
purposes of occupying the role of a shadow government for Arcata, this
community will possess a basic venue for organizing its political
dialogue, expressing and elucidating civic innovations, seeking civic
accountability.

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