[Mpls] Prophetic Panhandling Pandemic and Criminal Politics

[Gary Hoover]

I find it odd that panhandling and crime stats are waved around like red 
flags at bulls who vote.  We have two Democratic candidates for Mayor who 
are very much alike, and who both promote the status quo.

Why waste energy to elect one over the other?  The poor will continue to be 
kept poor and to live in crime-ridden neighborhoods.  As our nation continue 
to descend into the third world we will see more panhandling and street 
crime.

Panhandling has more to do with the criminal politics of poverty than 
anything else.  Street crime mirrors politically acceptable boardroom piracy 
and plunder.  Preachers and politicians for the most part fawn upon 
corporate criminals, beg for corporate sponsorship, and dole out corporate 
welfare.  Corporate panhandling is a virtue.

Minneapolis Democrats wax eloquent about meaningless political choices. 
Would you like New York Vanilla or French Vanilla?  Would you like your 
crime served with this rhetoric or that rhetoric?  Wake up, folks.  Rybak 
and McLaughlin are both thoroughly bought and paid for.  A vote for either 
one is a vote for the status quo.  No change.

We need a new, more meaningful political mantra for our local DFL.  I 
suggest that we use Stan Goff's mantra for America.  Let's repeat this 
mantra to ourselves every minute or so throughout the day: "I am George W. 
Bush.  I am George W. Bush.  I am George W. Bush." For all of the empty 
rhetoric we are reinforcing the status quo.

Let public education starve while we spend on public circuses and spectacle. 
Forget the violence we export to sustain our non-negotiable "way of life." 
Yes, our local politicians also sweep that neatly under the rug.

Let corporate welfare flourish and use the carrot and the stick to seduce 
and manipulate the "useless eaters" who bedevil the system with their 
prophetic presence.

Our local leaders ought to be crying from the rooftops for a radical change 
in our priorities.  Education and employment in local sustainable enterprise 
are desperately needed.

Minneapolis will "power down" one way or another, but our local politicians 
speak of issues as though we do not exist in the global environmental 
"bottleneck."  Minneapolis must exist in a bubble, like our 
Emporer-president.

Just as the Democrats on the national level blather on about "progress" in 
Iraq, local Democrats blather on about how they will stop street crime and 
those pesky panhandlers.

Guess what?  We haven't seen anything yet.  Panhandling and street crime 
will continue and will most likely increase as the poor become even more 
desperate.  Stay home and watch "reality politics" on TV.  If Donald Trump 
marries Paris Hilton, will we elect their child as Mayor?  But stay off the 
streets. If you are compliant, perhaps you will be invited into the 
privatized parks for a picnic.

I think I will write in Farheen Hakeem for mayor. I know that Rybak and 
McLaughlin are "nice guys" who are working the special interest groups and 
working the voters with incredible campaign-time attention.  But to me they 
represent more of the same.  We cannot afford more of the same.

-- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynnhurst for now -- Gary Hoover