Guest Editorial: Dennis Leary
I address myself to persons with whom I find myself in a cross fertilization of political communication, via the Ojai Valley News, Ojai Post, Ventura County Reporter, Star, and Voice. If you have not been following the political discourse lately, you will miss nuances but the essentials are evident.
1) I am not a socialist. I believe in qualified rights of private property.
2) I believe that capitalism is a loose cannon that will sink our earth ship, if not held in place by a higher value system, such as personism or lovism.
3) Ojai's Los Arboles residents are just as welcome and valuable as anyone else. Los Arboles should be grandfathered in, along with other oversized, outdated houses, and serve as examples of what not to do in the
future age of sustainability.
4) The misunderstandings about Los Arboles vis a vis the Libbey Bowl concerts arose from the city's arbitrarily cancelling the concerts, while giving no reason for doing so. In the absence of information, speculation arose that Los Arboles residentscomplained, which is false according to a recent comment on the Ojai Post. To date, there has been no official explanation for why the concerts were cancelled, or who was responsible.
5) Interpretation of Ojai election results is a matter of opinion. I interpret over one third of Ojai votes for challengers as a substantial desire for change in leadership and policy.
6) Enlightenment is a progressive concept, that has little to do with quantity. It relates to associated values, such as truth, justice and love. I see the one third who voted for change as being more politically enlightened than the two thirds who voted for the status quo. That's debatable, and I would welcome debate on the subject.
7) I am just now bringing out my "big guns" which are ideas, not quantitative votes, or pecking order seats in a council chamber. Ideas whose time has come are truly shocking and awesome.
8) My camper is a gas guzzler only if I drive it, which I seldom do. I ride a bicycle or walk practically everywhere. Parked in front of the Oaks, it does illustrate two different classes, but to posit "class envy" is unnecessary, unfounded speculation.
9) If Los Arboles units are 2000-3000 sq. ft., and there are 22 of them (per Hammerschmidt), assuming 2500 sq. ft. as an average, then 55 1000 sq. ft. units could have been built instead, while keeping most of the trees, views of the park, providing more sales tax revenue from more people, less commuting and waste of gas for local workers, while providing equal property taxes, and opportunities for low cost housing.
10) We can thus have our cake of a beautiful, just and stable community and have lowered housing costs too,
if capitalism / moneyism excesses can be reined in by enlightened government.
11) We live in a capitalist society only because capitalists have forced their will upon us, contrary to reason and law. The general principles of our country are expressed in statements such as "We the People," "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," "one nation under God with liberty and justice for all," "all men are created equal," and "in God we trust" on the dollar bill. These principles came from an enlightened minority (probably less than one third) in the Age of Enlightenment. Private property and capital are subsidiary, derivative rights to these self-evident truths and inalienable rights. As far as God goes, I don't recall Her favoring so much the wealthy, as being concerned for social
justice and needs of the poor. In the Christian version, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
12) Generalizations can be misleading but they can also be useful. One useful generalization is that persons have higher value than money (capital). "We the People" is higher value statement than "We the Capitalists," not to speak of being more lawful. In the 1800's, robber barons, with the complicity of the courts, forced the idea that corporations are persons into common law, against constitutional law. Money talks, but seldom truthfully, as in this case of rich persons hiding behind unjust corporate law.
13) Unqualified, capitalist spin promotes ideas such as free market, supply and demand, invisible hand, and property rights to prop up an unjust, cruel system. They are seemingly inpenetrable myths, which actually are full of holes and hold little water. If unchecked, they result in "population replacement," as one writer on the Ojai Post put it. In biblical
times, imperial regimes like Babylon relocated whole populations by force. Nowadays, it's more subtle but it is still unjust, and it's happening in Ojai, on a small scale.
14) Space dictates brevity, so I must forgoe more detailed analysis here, and be content to settle my big guns in place, while throwing a few ropes about the loose cannon, unenlightened capitalism.
- Dennis Leary
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Comments (2)
The primary reason I stepped into the thankless race
for seats on city council is because long time valley
loyalists stayed on the sidelines and threw stones
which is apparentlly their solution to Ojai growing
pains now being considered efforts of progress. I keep
every hollow council and planning meeting agenda and
motion which has grown to resemble a stuffed shopping
bag from the Walmart mentality now threatoning Ojai.
As for being called a socialist, it seems that some
of the best assets in the valley, such as Help of Ojai
and the Land Conservancy, to name a few, can be called
social efforts, so the writer can tuck that under his
considerable girth next time he cares to get some
exercise along the socialist bike path. We need to
talk, by the way Leland, when you are not too busy either
flinging mud at people making efforts to improve the
quality of life here, or withdrawing from city council
races. Maybe see you at the next meeting?
Comment #1 Posted by: pete lafollette | December 6, 2006 10:02 AM
I tend to disagree with some of what Dennis Leary says. But he usually comes across as a dedicated, caring individual. And people like Dennis, who participate and state their opinions, are so important to our political life, because the entrenched status quo always knows he (and others like him) are there watching. As for the Los Arboles project, I suspect if people wanted 55 1,000 square foot units, then we would have seen them built. It may be a kinder, gentler future government that tells us what to build, how to build it, what we can sell, how we can sell it, taxes us and redistributes our money, and increasingly regulates further and further into every little crevice of our lives, but it is not a future that I happily anticipate. The question is, how much freedom must we give up by inviting the city to dictate how we run our businesses and lives so that we can preserve the beauty and uniqueness of Ojai and is it too much.
Comment #2 Posted by: Laura | December 6, 2006 11:17 AM