Democracy in Boston: Another voter-less election
Nov 09, 2007 12:45
Low voter
turn-out isn't due to apathy, contentment, or
complacency. It's due to resignation and helplessnes
and frustration.
We need:
--Elimination of the BRA, which stole the City Council's legislative role and then legislated away citizens' legal recourse, and cannibalizes our tax base and our capital assets; fifty years of black-box government is more than enough.
--Term limits, because the incumbent advantage costs us more in fresh talent than it yields in wise elder-statesmen
--Charter reform, which chisels away the few remaining Council powers
--More elected offices and fewer mayorally appointed positions; there's one person stacking all the boards, committees, etc.
All powers are now in the executive branch, which uses the BRA's ill-gotten legislative powers to make everything that's illegal, legal. Absent two of the three branches of government, we do not have a democracy. We desperately need diffusion of power -- and that would be true even with a more capable mayor.
Voters feel it. There is no hopeful, energetic civic life; there is only "politics as usual," an insider game played by a permanent oligarchy, funded by all-powerful real estate and other corporate interests.
The media are complicit, in their obsequious support of a deeply flawed mayor and their blind-eye endorsements of city councilors who do nothing. There is plenty to reveal about all our officials, and about the way City Hall works; but there is no one to do it.
I can't imagine how we will make Boston, the cradle of democracy become a banana republic, a democracy again. Another revolution, perhaps.
We need:
--Elimination of the BRA, which stole the City Council's legislative role and then legislated away citizens' legal recourse, and cannibalizes our tax base and our capital assets; fifty years of black-box government is more than enough.
--Term limits, because the incumbent advantage costs us more in fresh talent than it yields in wise elder-statesmen
--Charter reform, which chisels away the few remaining Council powers
--More elected offices and fewer mayorally appointed positions; there's one person stacking all the boards, committees, etc.
All powers are now in the executive branch, which uses the BRA's ill-gotten legislative powers to make everything that's illegal, legal. Absent two of the three branches of government, we do not have a democracy. We desperately need diffusion of power -- and that would be true even with a more capable mayor.
Voters feel it. There is no hopeful, energetic civic life; there is only "politics as usual," an insider game played by a permanent oligarchy, funded by all-powerful real estate and other corporate interests.
The media are complicit, in their obsequious support of a deeply flawed mayor and their blind-eye endorsements of city councilors who do nothing. There is plenty to reveal about all our officials, and about the way City Hall works; but there is no one to do it.
I can't imagine how we will make Boston, the cradle of democracy become a banana republic, a democracy again. Another revolution, perhaps.
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