EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was published in the current edition of Nina Royal’s North Valley Reporter.
By Ron Kaye
I chatted recently with a longtime union leader about my belief in grassroots democracy and how people all over Los Angeles could come together in a movement for change despite their differences in values and demographics.
He scoffed at the notion.
“Grassroots movements will work when there’s a single hot-button issue,” he said. “People get mad. They come together but once the issue is over, they go back to their lives or start fighting with each other. It’s not like a union where we’ve got their jobs to keep them involved.”
He was right, of course, when times are more or less normal. But these are no ordinary times. War, global economic chaos, high taxes, government overspending, reduced public services, unmet needs.
There are growing signs the people’s patience has finally worn out with the failure of our politicians, from Washington to Sacramento to our local communities. The list of small victories by community activists, from the Home Depot fight in Sunland-Tujunga, to the solid front of Neighborhood Council members for adequate funding, has grown long in the last year or two.
The same energy that fueled those efforts also drove voters to the polls to reject Measure B, the solar energy boondoggle, on the March primary ballot.
And to show their contempt for the handiwork of the politicians in the May 19 election, they defeated state ballot propositions 1-A through 1-E.
The LA political machine even lost its bid to install the lackluster Jack Weiss in the City Attorney’s office and a true outsider, Tina Park, knocked off the incumbent in the LA Community College board race.
In the grand scheme of things, those are small victories. The big challenges remain.
The state is facing a $21 billion deficit this year. LA faces billions of dollars in expenses it can’t pay for in the next few years.
In both cases, our elected officials have shown no ability to get their arms around the problems. They only know how to tax and spend. It seems like they lose touch with the people almost from the day they are sworn in and start selling out their integrity to special interests.
The only answer I have is people power.
Structural reforms, tougher ethics laws, and clean money might be useful but it ought to be clear by now that the politicians can corrupt just about every effort at reform.
Democracy is a full-time job.
Seventeen percent of registered voters going to the polls on Election Day only shows the politicians that 83 percent of the people don’t give a hoot about what happens.
In the last year, we’ve seen the impact that a few hundred community activists can have when they keep the pressure on City Hall day after day.
For real change to occur, it will take a citizens’army of thousands coming together from all over the city.
I don’t know if people make history, or if the circumstances create the people who make a difference.
But I’m certain that the time is ripe for real change in our city, state and nation. It depends on each and every one of us waking up and getting involved.
There are so many ways to make a difference, from political action groups like Neighborhood Councils and homeowner groups, to service clubs like Kiwanis, to charities of one sort or another.
So turn off the TV and get off the sidelines and join the movement to restore democracy to America.
Sounds great, Ron. Uhm, we’re STILL waiting for your proposed city budget for Los Angeles and the Ron Kaye Energy Policy For L.A….
Any ideas yet?
Excuse me 9:41 am.
Can you not understand English? We constantly complain but we expect someone else to solve the problems, All I read in Kaye’s item just now is
if you are b—-ing about something, tell the world and try to get it on your side. He doesn’t know you or me. He just knows that we need help. Do you pray? Well on your knees, Bubba. Otherwise, take out your frustrations by letting everyone know you are miserable and then VOTE VOTE VOTE Get off your duff and run for an office or work in someone’s campaign.
I think Brad Sherman is a loser. I intend to support Mark S. Reed,Sr. for the 27th Congressional seat in November, 2010. Go to MrCongress@verizon.net.. Or any campaign, we need new people who really care and will work for a change for the better. Money that candidates collect is intended to buy help, you can volunteer your time and effort Good luck
So anon at 9:41 I suppose your “plan” is to keep spending till we’re broke; and keep taxing until this is a city of only municipal unionized workers (and welfare recipients) with only themselves left to tax?
The great thing about Ron is the absence of some master plan to reshape a city that belongs to everyone else. The plan from here is to stop running the city for the benefit of its city workers and elected politicians.
Instead, we want things that benefit all people: here’s a list that you can read, or have read to you:
We want the streets ours taxes already pay for—without holes or repairs made by a blind city worker with a hostility for automotive suspensions.
We want swimming pools in Watts to be working all summer, no matter how important the stress lessening classes might be to the underworked denizens of the Department of Passing The Buck To Someone Else.
We want an end to endless subsidized automobiles; to the seemingly unstoppable proliferation of irritating billboards that hector our taxpayers daily.
We want honest competent transparent government where the voices heard are not merely the unions that think the city exists to be fleeced by them; developers that were eagerly hoping for the election of Jack Weiss, their man downtown; and the multiculti people that waste our money with endless decrees on “diversity,” re-cycling, and god knows what else–anything but what the city ought to be doing.
We want LAUSD dealt with so our kids benefit as oppsoed t countless generations of teachers and administrators encrusted on the taxpayer’s teats: –FYI, that means the mayor must stop posing for photos long enough to help oust the unions and the administrators so real teachers can control the schools (and for long term loser-teachers to be fired).
Keep it up Ron! Somewhere Jack Weiss and the billboard companies are nursing their scotch and wondering what happened. You were a big part of it. Thank you!
*The great thing about Ron is the absence of some master plan to reshape a city that belongs to everyone else.*
lol
9:41, you just don’t get it. This blog is for people, like myself, who enjoy going to a restaurant and telling the waiter everything they don’t want on the menu first.
What’s the panic, 3:13? Tina Park will save us all!