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I got a mailer and was on my way to throw it in the trash (recycling actually) when I made the mistake to look.
“Sean Barney wants to tax the rich to pay more in Social Security Benefits…. ‘
That is awesome! It caught my attention..”Yay. ‘Bout time someone gets it… Maybe I was too hasty in writing him off… ”
(Because if you don’t know by now, you do live under a rock.. that rock could be one-sided news, I don’t know, but you DO live under a rock.)
All of society’s problems today are caused by less money being in the active economy because it is locked up in the vaults of the 1%…
Everything from schools, highways, hunger, poverty, crime, guns, abortion, religion, climate change, could be solved if we’d just move some of that money from the private economy, into the public one…
And Sean Barney is on the right path…. All our problems come from the huge amounts of money that USED TO BE ACTIVE IN OUR ECONOMY which now, are not there;… money now lying dormant which could be better served if seniors were spending it to better their lives, and everyone else for that matter.
That a former Carper aide, and former Markell aide, now finally “GETS IT” was reassuring and gave me incredible hope for our future…
But Sean is not alone in the field. There are other candidates, one of which is Bryan Townsend.
Whereas Sean Barney is “getting it” now, Bryan Townsend “got it” 4 years ago. To paraphrase someone else’s former campaign: we only send one, let’s send our best.
When we were battling the takeover of Wilmington’s schools, Bryan Townsend was there, at the meeting, not for himself, but to argue for our children.
When there was no hope to stop bad Sokolian policy from being railroaded through the General Assembly, Bryan Townsend was able to add passable amendments that put those policies under review. A review that is right now, turning people’s minds against all the one-sided crap once fed to us about how bad all public schools were.
When there was no hope to stop the horrible Smarter Balanced Assessment from being our measuring device (actually there was and his name was Greg Lavelle but that is a story for another time), Bryan was one of those arguing against it…
When we were deciding to allow marriage to include other than Men/Women, Bryan Townsend weed-killed the General Assembly by moving first to establish a ground floor of logic based on our national beliefs. The weed-seeds of dissension, divisiveness, division, demolition, were never able to take root….
Immediately upon entering the General Assembly, Bryan Townsend exhibited that he’d gained knowledge of how to manipulate the Delaware’s power structure to get progress for real people initiated…
Markell could take lessons from him. But then again, these two’s motives are completely opposite. Markell pushes corporate policy meaning he needs to sneak his diabolical and damaging policies past us We The People, because when We find out what he’s done to us, it makes us angry. His modus operandi has been to say… “oops, fait accompli, sorry you’re too late”. Bryan argues out loud and in public for how his policies better us all and the positive outcomes we can expect to achieve should we all get behind him and they get implemented. He makes things happen by consensus, by convincing the opposition they will be better off; not quick sucker punches in the dark while they sleep.
So there may be nothing wrong with Sean Barney after all. He may make a good Congressperson and carry progressive values into the Senate. But we have seen over four years that there is someone better.
For all others it would be easy to follow a crowd and be lead to cheer-lead behind a enthusiastic leader, which Hillary supposes to be… WE can expect a majority of members in both Democratic majority of Congressional Houses to do that next session. But, what we need is someone who is in advance of the mainstream, who is capable of creating and developing and not afraid of the hard work necessary to not just follow, but lead Congress forward into the unknown… For the unknown is what we face…
We only have one, and should send our best… Although all the candidates may be quality individuals and have many redeeming qualities, we can only pick one… Our best is beyond all doubt, highly visible to all, even those emerging out from under their rocks, our Bryan Townsend….
In my lifetime, covering backwards through Carney, Castle, and Carper, we have never put into the House anyone as qualified from the start as is Bryan Townsend…His track record is astounding. There is no equal comparison in abilities between him or any of the other candidates. Really, No comparison at all. His stature is so far above the rest of the field, this endorsement is an easy one and needs no further discussion.
…unless you are Bernie Sanders, which makes him even more amazing than he already was… Out-raising Clinton? Impressive. Not to mention blowing the doors off all feeble Republican efforts.
But I’m riffing on this topic today, so here it goes.
The reason is because a lot of progressive type people as well as far righters rail at their politicians for being what has often been titled “corporate whores”…
Doing whatever corporate donors ask and then getting a few bucks for it…
What most of you don’t realize, is that elected officials really don’t have a choice. Citizens United changed the playing field so that ignoring BIG money kills you off early.
(Which is why we elect progressive type people and become dismayed to find they too gyrate to corporate philosophies faster than we can find their replacements..)
For new comers to this process, we should say, it was not always this way… There was a time when BIG MONEY was just a player like everyone else. If they had good ideas, you listened. If they were a crock, you ignored their pleas…
Citizen’s United changed that playing field by allowing dark money to invade any contest. Prior, one had limits on contributions each which alone would not sway an entire election, plus it had to be publicly disclosed…
Now if someone doesn’t like the “size of your nose”, they can secretly donate unlimited amounts to unseat you… In local races it may not be effective. Bryan Townsend (2012) trounced “Big Bucks” Tony Deluca who had paid a lot for slick pieces to land in every district mailbox every day a month before the election… It sorta pissed people off.
But the threat of big money arising against you, makes you seriously weigh what normally would have been good sense legislation against that potential threat…
For example: do I dare stop this cancer causing power plant in the heart of Newark which will prematurely kill of 15,000 of our citizens over the next 50 years,…. or risk losing the next election due to dark money behind a dark opponent?
That would be a no-brainer right? Those dead could be your children, right? But no, it is not a no-brainer because you won’t be around in 50 years. And if you vote against it, you definitely will have an all out fight to still be employed beginning the next election cycle..
So more than donated money itself, it is the threat of potential money that has killed off all “pro-people” legislation.
Just like: the threat of getting stopped at a sobriety checkpoint…. chance of a 100 per million… makes you not drink too much before driving. Or getting a ticket from the camera pole, makes you not run a red light and instead sit at the corner for 3 minutes with no cars in sight; or eventually losing your license, makes you choose to pay at tolls instead of sneaking through the EZ Pass lane.
All those ridiculous things we do that defy common sense, we do because of existential threats. With Citizen’s United, the threat is real that if we do not side with corporate against WE, THE PEOPLE, we will lose everything we’ve worked for our entire professional lives….
This is why calling anyone, including Hillary, a corporate whore, is pretty lame… They have no choice really… Sadly it is like name calling a 13 year old who was forced to prostitute.. They could be a concert pianist had events gone differently for them… But we, have forced them into this situation… and as would any 13 year old rapidly figure out, you get killed if you don’t play the game, so you had better play it well because no one is coming to save you….
Unless it is YOU… Are YOU going to vote to end Citizen’s United?….. If not, shut your mouth… You are polluting the air with your breath…
When everyone else runs away from those with unchallenged power, he runs straight at them.
Support him. Join him. We, The People, need more like him.
I will be brief which I know is a change from the way we have our “nice discussions”.
As a proud product of Christina School district, a graduate of Glasgow High School, and a graduate of Stubbs Elementary, I just want to express today that I urge you to vote to reject the proposed Memorandum of Understanding. i think there is no doubt that we need to do a much better job of serving the students in all of our schools.
I think there is a lot to discuss in regards to how these schools were identified and the validity of the various tests that we subject our students to, but for the purpose of tonight I’m not looking into getting into that, because I think it is important that elected officials do a much better job of what I think was not done here, which is to listen to folks in the schools, listen to the lay leaders, listen to the parents, listen to the teachers, dare I say listen to even the students perhaps?
Because that has not seemed to be done here, this plan seems to have been announced (perhaps with the best intentions), I think in that way this falls short of engagement in a very direct way with the teachers, the school leaders, the parents, the students, and I believe the only way we are going to get where we should go as a school system, is to have that kind of collaboration.
I wholeheartedly urge the board to reject the MOU and to reach out of hand to the Department of Education with an offer to meet and collaborate on a plan that is very nuanced and very targeted for our schools on what is actually happening in our schools, and I can think of no better point to illustrate that than to note that of the three principals of the three Christina Schools that are now priority schools, One is in his first year, his very first year, a few weeks in the building now. One is in his second year, and one is in his third year now, as I understand it.
And to announce a plan that would basically say to these new three leaders, without explaining in any way, shape, or form what these leaders have or have not done, that are currently in these schools, at the very least shows, an unwillingness, an inability , or perhaps just forgetting to engage with the schools about what is actually going on.
So I think there are a lot of good questions that will come of this process, but I think that it needs to start with a real conversation and dialogue, and not agree to an MOU which in my mind would certainly impose restrictions and requirements on the district, in a way, which doesn’t seem narrated by individual, targeted investigation analysis of what’s going on
As always, I’m happy to take questions, but I’m also happy too to sit down and listen to what others have to say, and to be a resource for the board and for the schools, students, parents, teachers as we try to have more effective ideas come out of Dover.
{Applause: (quick, turn down volume}
Board: Thank you very much Senator.
kavips 