[Mpls] Do More with Less until We Can Do Everything With Nothing

[Aaarty at aol.com]

The so called "mayoral debate" at the Women's Club last night that  excluded 
most of the mayoral candidates was pretty much what I expected.  Tweedle Dee 
and Tweedle Dumb bragging about their work fighting crime and all  three 
candidates telling us we need more housing and job opportunities. All  three 
candidates were handing out their stickers, buttons, T shirts and  pamphlets with 
their names and listing the issues and the problems but  short on details of how 
we solve those problems.
 
 I wish housing and job opportunities were all that was needed  to solve our 
growing problems of crime. Now brace yourself. You won't hear this  from any 
other candidate. The painful truth is that we not only have too many  people 
working, we have too much housing. WHAT????!!!!!   Yes, we  actually  have too 
many people working too hard and too long at jobs that  are unnecessary, 
destructive, wasteful and do nothing more than create   pollution, inflation, 
resource shortages and greenhouse gasses. Our entire  economy, our entire culture, 
our lifestyles are wasteful, destructive and  obsolete. By continuing with 
"business as usual" we will only speed up the  process of global climate change 
and global calamity. 
 
As far as housing goes we waste it just like we waste everything  else. We 
don't use what we have efficiently. Millions of people have too many  houses 
with a maybe a lake home up north or a condo in Florida that sit empty  most of 
the year or maybe a four bedroom house for a two person household. We  don't 
need people to continually crowd into our cities. We need more people in  the 
country working in organic farming or building efficient housing and  renewable 
energy technology or maybe doing nothing for a while but the last  thing we 
need is more people crowding into our city making more bombs and guns  and 
lipstick or parking ramps, more cars and car culture or more jewelry,  tattoos, 
leaf blowers, power lawn mowers and endless unnecessary  nonsense. 
 
Our housing laws are too restrictive with ordinances that  prohibit housing 
that might be a few inches short of space or outlawing people  who might want 
to sleep in an available loft or carriage house or guest house.  We have 
landlords that buy up affordable housing and turn them into unaffordable  housing 
and we have police that are harassing homeless people who might want to  sleep 
under a bridge. Of course a huge number of people sleeping under a bridge  can 
be a problem but this is not what I'm talking about. Believe me I've been  
there and I know what the humble and the frugal people and the people  who live 
with minimum resources who leave a small "footprint" on this  planet have to go 
thru. 
 
Let's create essential life saving and earth saving industries.  Let's create 
and encourage stem cell research and hydrogen fueling stations,  organic 
victory gardens, organic vegetarian prisons, grid tied photovoltaic  arrays on our 
freeway sound barriers so we can reduce mercury and greenhouse  gasses, 
better walking and bicycle accommodations, more L.E.D. lighting,  efficient 
technology and let's maximize efficiency everywhere especially in city  government so 
we can reduce taxes. Scale back some of the extremely expensive  and 
destructive school busing boondoggle that squanders our education dollars  and 
destroys the health of our children and our city. And we can do so much  more.
 
We don't need a mayor who will perpetuate business as usual or who  will not 
tell it like it is or who will not lead us off of this path of death,  decay 
and destruction. We don't need a leader who uses 20th century  solutions for 
21st century problems. Minneapolis has more  educated and more progressive and 
enlightened people than any city in the  country. We not only can but we must 
show the world what can and should be done  to reduce the poisons that pour 
into our air and most important try to slow the  global warming progression, a 
crisis that will likely b our  last.

 
Sincerely,  Don Johnson, Candidate for Mayor, 3808 Grand Ave So. Minneapolis, 
MN 55409 (612)  824 1111 _www.DonJohnsonMayor.org_ 
(http://www.donjohnsonmayor.org/)