March 2020 – Page 2 – Rural Tompkins County

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “The Celebrated Breakfast Program of Cornithaca County”

This story highlights how the focus of a government or charitable institution can switch from the welfare of the recipients to the welfare of the program itself. After all, the program is where the time and money, and reputations are committed. It’s an actual story of the effectiveness of a school breakfast program somewhere. [And maybe many-wheres.]

Programs and charities become vested with goodness; cloaking themselves with the same moral protections as the people that are supposed to be helping — the perfect environment for bureaucracy, inefficiency, and waste.

Our government and our institutions would be much more effective if they saw themselves as self-dissolving servants of our welfare; rather than enthroning themselves as administrators.

Modern technology may be used to reduce the paperwork, but not the work. It’s like inventing the internal combustion engine; and using it to circulate air among the galley slaves.

Why do we spend $100,000 to pay someone to distribute $1,000, when it could be done with a $10 chip?

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – Plain Speaking/Brain Speaking: “100-Year Flood”

This series will examine the dictionary meanings and the common perceptions of certain words and phrases, and show how they can be used to hide the intentions and actions of powerful political and corporate interests from the public.

50 years ago; the idea of “killing for peace” was used to ridicule war. Today, it doesn’t seem ridiculous to imagine a government program called “Future Love” or “Affirmative Love” that would kill to achieve “Love.”

Pluto was redefined to no longer being a planet; and the individual you has been redefined as a fill-in-the-box – put-in-the-box person [“person” is added because you are “respected”]. What’s in the future? More control means smaller boxes.

It’s ironic that while Biology is turning from physical characteristics to the actions of organisms as a means of classification; government is turning from people’s actions [the only workable structuring for a free society] to a policy characterized by physical characteristics.

You know they “love” you — just maybe they’ll “love” you to death.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Inclusion/Exclusion Pattern”

The tiles in this image form a repeating pattern where the Green crosses never touch sides, the Magenta crosses seldom touch sides, the Blue crosses usually touch sides, and the Yellow crosses almost always touch sides: explain this pattern in terms of inclusion, exclusion, and loss of identity.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Meaningful Participation Erasers”

As Cornithaca County steamrollers its way into ever more blatant displays of dictatorial and doctrinal hubris; the use of “meaningful participation erasers” is a bureaucratic given for every public policy enacted.

Their theocracy [The Revealed Church of Secular Self-interest] empowers the elite to hand down policy from the highest possible level: themselves [soon to be capitalized.] And unlike the Divine Right of Kings, they don’t share their authority; even with God.

There is an uneasiness that can actually be felt. There is no job security. People who have differing opinions are lashed out at and defiled in public. Scary stuff.

Is this just over the top rhetoric? What do you see? Maybe there’s no “post” to go with apocalyptic. Extinction is just as natural as evolution.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – Undercover Party – “Pig in a Poke” Game

In a world that no longer recognizes human or individual worth; “due process” is no longer needed. All that’s required are Judges, and those that will be judged.

In Cornithaca County and throughout the whole State: fetuses of any age are no longer human. It’s the Law.

Who’s next? The elderly, the infirmed, the deficient, the troublemakers; it’s just a matter of time . . . and Doctrine — all the big steps have already been taken.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Chipping Away at Bureaucracy” – Lines of Defense – Part 7

I like to recommend the movie Ikiru to people for its portrayal of bureaucracy in Japan in the early 1950s; the same as here and now, and everywhere at every time — I would recommend it for many reasons; it’s a great movie.

Bureaucracy’s no mystery

It’s unchanged throughout history

With power, privilege, and with wealth

It works to keep them for itself.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Chipping Away at Bureaucracy” – Lines of Defense – Part 6

Like any testing, meaningfully involving yourself in government policy requires being prepared. Not just prepared with the facts and information, but being prepared to use them in a constructive and meaningful way. What are your plans?

Having a vision can give you the resolve for the long haul.

If my more conventional attempts had worked; I wouldn’t be writing this book. And if I could have handed the job off to someone else; this book would never have been started.

Coronavirus? When our governor banned gatherings of 500 people or more; a little chill went down my spine. I wonder how many people felt the same uneasiness.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Chipping Away at Bureaucracy” – Lines of Defense – Part 5

I live in an Ag Ghetto. I call it an Ag Ghetto because the local policy is one of containment: contain the poverty, contain the crime, contain the drugs. The deputies patrol the borders of the Ag Zone and only enter when called, write a report, and leave. A kid was tossed onto the road outside my house while playing a game where they stand on the truck of a car as it drives around. It’s the sort of games they allow kids to play in the Ag Ghetto. He landed on his head. He died.

The Ag Zone is no Old MacDonald’s Farm; it more like “Fire Down Below”: people use the land as a dumping ground, buy off the residents futures with next to nothing, while telling them they’re lucky to get anything at all — and the residents know who calls the shots at the sheriff’s dept. and the regulatory offices.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Chipping Away at Bureaucracy” – Lines of Defense – Part 4

Getting “public servants” to see eye-to-eye with the public on policy decisions goes beyond logic, and into the world of politics. Even with a groundswell of public support; committees, experts, and agenda filled studies can be used to load the deck and leave the public on the sidelines. No one can divert a flood of voter concern into a thousand rivulets of fast-drying intentions better than an experienced politician.

With Cornithaca County’s large college population and their 4-year memory; the sands of time are turned into a veritable sponge for false promises and self-serving policies. The legacy of this year’s biggest event is, a few months later, merely the mention that it was last year’s biggest event, and within another year almost forgotten.

Politicians know that the students are ephemeral, but the powerful interests are always there.

“Cornithaca County” Book Preview – “Chipping Away at Bureaucracy” – Lines of Defense – Part 3

It’s never a good idea to use government and municipal handouts as the sole source of fact gathering; they always put themselves in the best light possible — even if they have to smash a few light bulbs to keep us in the dark.

In Cornithaca County, it’s laid on thick: our town’s new Comprehensive Plan states that the factory farm agriculture in the north of town prevents development and keeps taxes lower, and that extensively developing the south of the town with condos and apartments is good because that will lower taxes as well. They refuse to explain or correct this conundrum.

This new Comp Plan document is over 300 pages long, and is stored at the County level as images only; it can no longer be searched by the public for words and phrases.