Reading Hedges - Days of Devastation in West Virginia and next is New York

"Elected officials at the state and federal level are paid employees of the corporate state. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the front group for the major corporations in this country, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Chevron, News Corp, spent more money on the 2010 elections than the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined. A staggering ninety-four percent of the Chamber's contributions went to politicians who deny the existence of climate change." p. 129

"The coal companies write the laws. They control local and state politicians. They destroy the water tables, suck billions of dollars' worth of coal out of the state (West Virginia), and render hundreds of acres uninhabitable." p. 128

West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the United States and its beautiful Appalachin Mountains are being destroyed by the coal companies who have no interest in the environment or the people or other living creatures who live in those mountains. The interest of the coal company is purely financial profit.

Hedges quotes Patty Sebok, a resident of the mountains, 
"A lot of people didn't want to believe their water was bad because they are coal mining families," she says. They just don't want to hear it, because, I mean, it's a hard choice when you gotta make a living, or you gotta say you water is bad from the company they're working for. They're scared".

While we don't have mountains we do have gas and the gas companies what to destroy our water tables, pollute our land, fracking for gas. They have a huge lobby in Albany. Our Senator Maziarz has the largest campaign fund in the State because of utility contributions to his campaign fund. Maziarz is not working for his constituents in Western New York, he is working for the utility companies and for a profit and money the environment in Western New York can be put at risk and destroyed. Keep your eye on the 1% willing to sell the well being of the earth out from under us for their profit.

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Remember New Year's Eve 2010: Death of the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps

Chris Hedges in his book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt on p. 270 quotes Hannah Arendt as writing, "The greatest evildoers are those who don't remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and without remembrance, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stablizing ourselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur - the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world."

While Arrendt was speaking of things like the holocaust, and Hedges is speaking of the horrendous suffering caused by corporate capitalism out of control, I am reminded of the New Year's Coup right here in Brockport on 12/31/10 when the Town of Sweden council consisting of Jack Milner, Mike Meyers, Patricia Connors, Rob Carges, and Rebecca Donahue reneged on its promise to the people of Sweden to study the matter for two months and abruptly voted, under pressure from Paul Kimball in Clarkson, to change  the Town ambulance contract from the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps to Monroe Ambulance thereby killing the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps which they acknowledged provided excellent services at no cost to Town Taxpayers. And so the questions of why the change, why the deceit have never been answered. And after two years they are hoping it will be forgotten, but with the 41% increase in taxes for fire protection, we have not forgotten and continue to connect the dots of history to understand our own oppression.

Public hearings, held just days before this emergency action, had unanimously supported the continuation of the contract with the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps and yet the Town of Sweden council acted in direct contradiction to that democratic decision and mandate, and after promising to study the matter for a couple of months in front of the TV cameras, three days later held an emergency meeting and canceled the contract with the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps and gave it to Monroe Ambulance.

Shortly there after Milner and Meyers left office perhaps because they couldn't face their constituents knowing that they had acted in bad faith.  Hedges further writes "...Arendt points out, the only morally reliable people are not those who say 'this is wrong' or 'this should not be done', but those who say 'I can't.'"

Moral damage was done in Sweden on 12/31/10. Democracy was corrupted by autocratic power, and life saving services where taken from a group of committed community volunteers and given to corporate, profit making enterprise undermining the communitarian fabric of our Brockport community. Connors and Donahue continue in office and witness the rise of the Fire District, another layer of government, which has increased fire protection rates 41% and which tax is now an additional tax for there has been no reduction in Town or Village taxes even though the Towns and Villages no longer are responsible for funding fire protection services.

When asked why Clarkson and Sweden voted to give the ambulance contracts to Monroe Ambulance and take them away from the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps, a member of the Clarkson/Sweden Fire Protection District Study Committee told me "to cut the head off the beast" meaning to deprive the Village of Brockport of whatever profit could be made from insurance fees for ambulance services so it would be forced to turn over the Brockport Fire Department assetts to the new Fire District.

The long term interests of Brockporters were ill served by political decisions to destroy the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps and to form another layer of government with the autocratic power to tax.

As Arendt says "The greatest evildoers are those who don't remember because they have never given thought to the matter,"

Some of us in Brockport remember and we see the negative consequences of bad decisions made with immoral behavior of deceit and betraying their ethical oath to their constituents. The New Year's eve coup will go down in history as immoral behavior by our local politicians committed against the people they swore to represent. The nefarious deeds of Milner, Meyers, Connors, Carges, and Donahue are not forgotten. The people of Brockport should remember how their government acted against their interests to serve the special interests of select groups. Who benefited from these unethical activities? How have they benefited? How do we as people deal with the fact that the people's trust was betrayed and that those with dirty hands still function among us keeping their misdeeds in the shadows while they watch their constituents and neighbors pay the price for their misguided decisions.

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The Brockporter Book Of The Month for December, 2012, Days Of Destruction, Days Of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco

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Brockporter Book Selection of January, 2013 is Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow

The Brockport Book of the Month for December, 2012 has been Days Of Destruction and Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco. We may run over a bit into January with a discussion of this book.

The Brockporter Book Discussion selection for January, 2013 is Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. It is available at the Lift Bridge Book Shop at 45 Main St. in Brockport, NY, on the Brockporter Book Carousel in the right hand column, at the Seymour Library and other book stores.

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Sunday Sermon - Creating a better world in Brockport

Today, 12/30/12, at the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship which meets at the Historic Church in Garland we had a service which was lay led by Matt O'Donnel, Libby Clifford, and Bill Clifford. As part of the service people who asked to bring a poem, article, story, and/or statement that deals with light, and renewal. Here is the statement I prepared and shared with the congregation:

I have been reading Rebecca Ann Parker and John Buehrens book, A House For Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion For The Twenty First Century, and in one chapter John Buehrens writes “Covenant is a concept not just about a commitment to a particular community. Because of its connection to hope, it is also about a community’s commitment to a vision without which we all perish.”

And this idea about a covenant to a vision as well as to a community got me thinking about whether things might have gone differently if Nancy and Adam Lanza, and William Spengler had been members of BUUF?

Millions of people have asked, witnessing the tragedies of Newton and Webster, “How could God Allow This To Happen?” One answer is that God didn’t allow this to happen, God gave us free will and we allowed it to happen. There were many factors that contributed to Adam and William’s behavior such as easy availability to guns and ammunition magazines, lack of mental health care, a culture which indulges in violence as entertainment, and the social isolation brought about by stigma.

What is an appropriate response to this situation? It is the existence of a faith community that offers different cultural values and practices, that points out that there is a better way.

Here in Brockport, BUUF is unique. There is no other church quite like ours based on the seven principles, and our six sources. We covenant with each other to promote and affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every  person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, acceptance of one another and encouragement in spiritual growth in our congregations and the world; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; and respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

This congregation is a beacon of light and hope. We are inclusive and value diversity and have faith that working together we can create a better world right here on earth. As Rev. Kaaren Anderson said one time at First Unitarian of Rochester, “We, as Unitarian Universalists are not as concerned with helping people get into heaven as we are helping heaven get into people.”  If more of heaven had been a part of Adam Lanza’s and William Spengler’s lives, the tragic acts which they engaged in might not have happened.

As we enter a New Year, 2013, we, as a Unitarian Universalist people can move forward knowing that our hope is based on our covenant to work together to create a more loving world bringing about  heaven on earth. It is our covenant to affirm and promote our seven principles drawing from the six sources that provides light and hope for the world. Let us renew our vows to that covenant and move forward with faith, optimism, and joy.

A slogan which we might consider is "It is good for BUUF to be seen in 2013!" May our hopeful light based on our seven principles drawn from the six sources shine throughout the world at this time of grief and sorrow as we work to create a better world.

Another congregant shared a story about visiting his mother-in-law in a nursing home where there is a sign which reads, "Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth sharing?" This person went on to say that as a school bus driver he is encouraged to share a positive attitude with students as they board his bus because he might be the first person that child has met that day, and the driver's attitude might well set the mood for that child for the rest of the day.

I am privileged to know this man and if Adam Lanza had ridden his school bus, I wonder if Adam would still have wanted to kill all those people in the Newtown school?

Editor's note: You can learn more about the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship by clicking here.  I also recognize and acknowledge that many other churches in the Brockport area also are comprised of people of faith who are committed to making a better world. Working together, we can be a significant positive force for improving the quality of life in the Brockport area, our county, state, nation, and world.

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Top Ten films and TV series watched in 2012

Ten Top films and TV shows in 2012

Off The Map

Rid of Me

Lincoln

Life – Seaons one and two

The Burning Plain

Harry and Tonto

Hunger Games

Buck

Revenge – Seasons one and two

Damages – Season four 

2012 was not a very good year for me when it comes to enjoying films and TV series. I watch the TV series either on Netflix or Amazon. the only film I saw in the theater that made my top 10 list is Lincoln by Steven Spielberg. The films and TV shows listed are not in any particular order.

 People would love to read what your top films were this year. Please leave your recommendations in the comments.

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DWI watch - another arrest in Brockport

On December 22, 2012, the Brockport Police report arresting a 49 year old man for driving while intoxicated in Brockport. This brings the number of DWI arrests in the Village of Brockport in 2012 to approximately 41.

In 2011, Brockport Police arrested 54 offenders for driving while intoxicated on Village streets.

In 2010, Brockport Police arrested 47 people for drunk driving.

There were 3,018 DWI arrests in Monroe County in 2010.

In 2010 there were 20 DWI fatalities in Monroe County almost as many people as killed in Newtown with guns.

Over half of the 20 DWI fatalities occurred  to people between the ages of 25 and 44.

For every DWI arrest Brockport Police make, deaths, injuries, and property damage has been prevented. How much is your life or the life of a loved one worth? The next time you see a Brockport police officer thank him or her for saving your life by getting the drunk drivers off our Brockport streets.

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Reading Hedges - Principle or profit? What's destroying our cities?

Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco’s book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is a book about what they call “sacrifice zones”, those areas of the United States which corporate capitalism out of control has destroyed. The first chapter described the problems for the Native Americans on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. The second chapter describes Camden, New Jersey, the poorest city in the United States.

Hedges writes “Once communities break down physically, they bread down morally.” P.69 and I was struck with the analogy to Brockport where we have witnessed our family oriented neighborhoods taken over by slumlords who have turned the housing stock into student rental and allowed the buildings to deteriorate and watched the crime rate escalate fueled by adolescent hormones and alcohol. The demand for public safety services has increased in these neighborhoods with constant calls for service for disorderly conduct, vandalism, thefts, rapes, and this year even a murder on the campus.

There have been calls by the slumlords for Village dissolution and they have been especially critical of the police department wanting it dissolved. Here is what Hedges writes on page 70 about what happened in Camden:

“Camden is a dead city. It makes and produces nothing. It is the poorest city in the United States and is usually ranked as one of the most, and often the most, dangerous. In early 2011 nearly half of the city’s police force, one hundred and sixty-eight officers, were laid off because of a $26 million budget shortfall. By the end of 2011, although more than one hundred officers had been rehired, homicides had climbed by thirty percent and burglaries by more than forty percent from the previous year.”

On page 76, Hedges writes, “The city spends seventy-five percent of its budget on the police and fire departments, a harbinger of the corporate state where only the security apparatus is maintained. The main branch of the city’s library has been shut down due to lack of funds.”

Again in Brockport, the complaint that almost half of its budget goes for the police department which is needed because of the high concentration of non home owning transients who live densely packed into the Village core. The Village has maintained its contribution to the library which was moved out of the Village into the Town of Clarkson.

At the end of this chapter, Hedges interviews Fr. Michael Doyle, the Pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic church, who, in his 70s now, has been at Sacred Heart since 1974. Fr. Doyle describes the anger that like toxic poison destroys Camden’s young people who are 95% people of color. Fr. Doyle is quoted as saying,

“And so that’s, I think I see violence – I’m not talking about violence on TV, which might be a violent show – but I’m talking about the violence that rises out of the marketing that shows the kid what he could have, creates a huge anger that explodes, easily. That I discovered very quickly when I came to Camden. I discovered the anger was so near the surface, you just rub it and it explodes. And there’s no respect for you if you have no money. I think the constant assault of the marketers, never-ending, it’s building up an anger that’s - you can understand it, but it’s so violent.” P.110

What Fr. Doyle seems to be saying is that it is not the poverty itself that is so much of the problem as the disparity between the haves and the have nots. It is the income inequality which is driving the violence in Camden and in other places in the United States.

We have seen this inequality in Brockport between the Village and the Towns. Village residents pay more taxes than people living in the Towns to provide services for a much more dense population in the Village and which the people in the Towns benefit from just as well. In 2010 the Towns voted to change their ambulance contracts from the Brockport Volunteer Ambulance Corps to Monroe Ambulance, a profit making company based in Rochester, in an attempt to “starve the beast” as one leader in the fire department told me to force the Village to cooperate with a fire district. The attempt was ultimately successful and a fire district was created which in its first year of operation has raised fire protection rates 41%. This additional burden will affect Village residents much more severely because they already pay higher taxes than those who live in the towns.

Hedges further quotes Fr. Doyle who says,

“I grew up in Ireland and we had the songs of our struggle, and it was clear against whom  we were struggling. The enemy was clear. I was saying about Ireland, that it’s nosediving now at an enormous rate. And I was saying before it was nosediving, that we have an enemy and we don’t know it’s an enemy. It’s the money crowd. It’s an enemy. But people don’t see it as an enemy. And you can’t challenge it because you don’t see it. And I think it’s the same way for the young people here. You have an enemy, and that enemy is greed and prejudice and injustice and all that type of thing, but you can’t get at it. There’s no head, there’s no clarity, so you take it out on your neighbor, it’s just horrendous what people do.” P.111

The enemy is the capitalistic system which seeks only profit and nothing else matters. Human well being and safety, a sense of belonging, and self worth are not quantifiable on the profit sheet and we have decided that people are to be sacrificed for money. Money is our national God and so when Americans tell you its not the money it’s the principle of the thing, you can bet your last buck they are lying, it’s the money.

Brockport is not Camden, NY, but the slumlords have tried to turn it into a Camden by extracting as much profit as possible from its housing stock destroying neighborhoods and communities in the process. When building codes were put in place and were enforced there was an effort to dissolve the very government which provided any over sight and constraint on this greed. These forces almost destroyed the Village. But Brockport is small enough that the enemies could be identified. They are a handful of slumlords and their backers who would take over the Village for their personal profit.

The point is not that there are bad people as much as we have created a bad system where money has become more important than other human values. The question that begs to be answered is “in the end what really matters?” This is a spiritual question. It is one about values. What matters the most to you, to us as a nation? What kind of a person do I want to be? What kind of a community do I want to be a part of? Who do we want to be as a people?

We look at Camden, N.J., and other former industrial cities like it, and the Occupy Movement and others are becoming aware of the enemy – it’s the 1% and their insistence on corporate profit as more important than any other human values. Capitalism, out of control, is destroying our country, our cities, our families, and unfortunately, individuals.

Fortunately, here in Brockport, we voted to keep our village government and support it. Camden, NJ and other cities have not had citizens as committed and knowledgeable. Those who could afford it emigrated to the suburbs and left the poor to fend for themselves. Here in Brockport, there are enough of us left in the Village who care about it and aren't ready to turn it over to the greedy capital extractors who would destroy it for a buck.

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