<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Posted today at <a
href="http://cagreening.blogspot.com/2009/11/not-with-bang.html">California
Greening.</a><br>
<h3 class="post-title"> Not with a bang. </h3>
<!-- put the first or teaser paragraph here --><br>
The condemnation of the current political regime in Sacramento has
become nearly universal. The following T. S. Eliot inspired quote
appeared in the August/September issue of <a
href="http://www.pjnsjc.org/connections/Aug%2009.pdf">Connections</a>,
a publication of the Peace and Justice Center, Stockton, CA. <br>
<blockquote>This is the way California ends. Not with a bang, but a
whimper. With a failure of leadership so complete, so total, as to
leave the state bereft of hope for its future.</blockquote>
Those were the final words of an opinion piece by Robert Cruickshank
from his <a
href="http://www.calitics.com/diary/9421/not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper">July
19th post</a> at Calitics. <br>
<span class="fullpost"><br>
<!-- put the main text here. --><br>
I am not as pessimistic as Robert was in this post, but then maybe he
sees more of the intestinal insides of power politics than I do. After
all, he is a delegate to the State Democratic Party. I still hold out
the hope of a fundamental change that I believe is necessary if the
never truly realized dream of California is to have another chance. <br>
<br>
It should be clear to all that the frustration with Sacramento politics
as usual has essentially gone viral in California. Comb through the
comments to OpEds in the opinion pages of any California newspaper from
the very Libertarian Orange County Register to San Francisco Chronicle
and you need to hack through the resentment with a mental machete,
filtering it out to determine if there is any real substance to the
comment or just emotion. <br>
<br>
We are now ready to got through another long, painful and secretive
budget process. Economic recovery has not come to California. If
history repeats itself, California will lag the rest of the nation in
terms of job creation and that makes it very difficult to be optimistic
about revenue projections for the State. It appears that history will
also repeat itself in that the real negotiations will take place in
secret meetings and then both sides will run to the nearest microphone
to sell the result as a victory for their side. <br>
<br>
California needs a legislature where there are no backroom deals, where
the process of legislative budgeting if fully transparent and open to
media and the public, where the education of our children is an assumed
responsibility of government, where the care of the ill and dying is
not determined by the need to pay executive bonuses, where water is a
human right and not a tradeable commodity. <br>
<br>
If your legislator is not running to deliver all of the above, then it
is time to go in a new direction. Those goals, common to most
Californians, define what Green candidates can, and if elected, will
deliver. Green candidates who do not accept corporate donations are set
free to serve the public rather than their masters. </span><br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="80">--
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente
Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.refpub.com/">http://www.refpub.com/</a> -- Tel: 408.778.3024</pre>
</body>
</html>