Month: January 2024

If there’s mark left by Cornell’s planning on the county’s rural landscape; it’s a serpentine path that is anything but meandering. Sometimes it brushes against the boundaries of license, and sometimes against the shackles of repression: but it always follows the path of greatest profit.

In their self-serving New Millennium way; Cornell molds particles of fact and law together to create a reasoning that was never intended – to support their policies of unilateral gain.

Cornell’s County planning talks about working together: but it’s not a together of equals – it’s a together of master and servant; or master and slave. There is no togetherness in Cornell’s “together” – it’s leadership by royal proclamation: and enforcement by tax collector and bailiff.

From cap and gown to robe and crown: Cornell typifies the trend of our country’s elite: from thinking they’re better than other people — to acting on that belief.

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Residents of the old rural community in Lansing have not all been driven out; but in the minds of its new rulers – they no longer exist. A recent message and plea for support of traffic control on a rural road that has become overrun with a high volume of reckless drivers; including weeks of speed/volume statistics, photo documentation, letters of support from two authorities, and federal guidelines showing it conformed to “best practices,” was sent to Lansing government.

There was no response. No response at all.

It’s a government that suppresses, a government that refuses, a government that denies. Like Scrooge; they measure everything in terms of gain – but there will never be an epiphany.

Cornell, like other colonial powers; quells unrest at home through the application of foreign booty. What happens in the rest of Tompkins County is of no interest to the dwellers of Ithaca. Newspapers, media, and debate froth in a teapot of narcissistic navel viewing – hair-splitting doctrinal reasoning and witch-hunting the scent of non-conformity.

Cornell’s Urban Colonialist policies maintain a constant flow: exporting problems and burdens to rural towns – and importing a higher quality of life for those who can still feel the pea of discomfort through the many layers of perks and privileges. Cornell cunningly promotes a society of dependence at home; through taxation and privation abroad.

Even their industrial policies echo those of past colonial paradigms: when Lansing was about to receive natural gas from NYSEG and attract business and manufacturing – Cornell’s County Legislature traveled to Albany to block it. The County’s planning clearly states that Ithaca is to be the center of business, industry, finance, and culture . . . the center of all. The centrality.  

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Money clubs with money – and all money trails lead to Cornell: along with the corruption, cronyism, duplicity, greed . . . and arrogance that so often accompanies money. The rural poor know: “Cornell don’t care, Cornell don’t share.”

Legality, legitimacy, ethics, and the intent of those who created New York State Town Law have little meaning in Tompkins County. The Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan had no more meaningful participation by the town’s residents; than the assertion that they did.

Although Town Law states “Among the most important powers and duties granted by the legislature to a town government is the authority and responsibility to undertake town comprehensive planning” – Lansing’s comprehensive plan was created and approved by Cornell. And while the Law’s intent was that the comprehensive plan “is in the best interest of the people of each town” – Lansing’s comp plan creators [Cornell] disputed that; ignoring the town’s best interests, and claiming the law “does not forbid a more coordinated process” and even calling its predatory policies a “symbiotic relationship.”

The planning began with Cornell’s cold call survey of the issues [before residents even knew there were issues]: and ended with Cornell’s stamp of approval.

Lansing’s comprehensive plan was never allowed to be publicly questioned, debated, or approved by its residents.

And there’s more: I’ve never been able to find an authority, at any level, who admits to jurisdiction, or has shown any willingness to help. When fraud is an everyday occurrence — it’s just business as usual.

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If a fraud takes place and nobody does anything – is it still a fraud?

If you ask the Town of Lansing to do anything for the rural community; they ignore you. And if you ask them again; you’re a troublemaker.

Their denial of the worth of rural residents is not just a passive thing: they actively, if that’s a proper usage, refuse to respond or acknowledge anything that comes from the rural community. Letters, emails, and documents disappear into the Town’s offices – and whether they are even opened and read is left to the imagination.

Their reaction to Cornell-affiliated agricultural interests, however, is almost fawning. I was there, a few years ago, when a farmer strode into a meeting: announcing that a landowner who rented to him [for chump-change] signed a much more lucrative lease with a solar farm company. Within days; the Town Board released a public policy statement condemning that action, and created a bureaucratic atmosphere of obstruction and denial for solar farm land usage.

More recently, famers submitted a unilateral restructuring of rural zoning to the Town of Lansing. It entirely removed most of the traditional land uses from the non-farming residents; and “streamlined” the approval of farming uses. There was no representation or participation by the rural community, and no debate. The farmers’ re-zoning plan was quickly passed without demur.

In the Town’s recent “loophole election” [where Cornell’s “Vichy” government won every Town Board seat] – not one of the Cornell/Progressive candidates visited, or had anything to do with the town’s rural community.

Cornell’s Progressives practice a de facto rural segregation as rigid as any racial one in our history.

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I have often been told that I will get into trouble for what I write about Tompkins County – but I have never been told that I’m wrong. In a county where the overwhelming opinion is that the government is corrupt, and that there is no meaningful participation by the people; why do people put up with it? Because they have been convinced that they are in a lifeboat – with dangerous seas all around.

An old-time farmer scoffed at the term “free range”: stating that; when chickens were raised packed in a giant shed under artificial lights; cutting a couple of small doors in the walls to allow outdoor access fulfilled the “free range” criteria – but the chickens were terrified to come out into this strange and different environment.

2024 is an environment locked in time, space, and thought: every Where, When, and How is portrayed as a dangerous choice. But what is more dangerous than having a corrupt and tyrannical government decide for you?

“Tompkins County” is a concept created by Cornell to legitimize unilateral policy making for their sole benefit.

Cornell’s planners cite “agriculture” as a banner cry for their mistreatment and lack of representation for the vast majority of those living in rural Lansing. They pretend that by claiming one segment of the population is important; they can legitimize ignoring the needs of everyone else.

Even though the area was settled more than 200 years ago; rural residents are now demonized as squandering natural resources and restricting the activities of invasive corporate farms: who rule this newly created Agricultural Zone ‘without let or hindrance.’ These land gobbling farms are the “Irish Landlords” of Cornell’s Urban Colonialism.

And just as the Landlords exported ship after ship of food to England at the height of the Irish famine – so do Cornell’s CAFO and Agribusiness cronies promote policies that remove services and land uses from the rural poor; while increasing taxes and assessments on a community already dying from crime, drugs, and neglect.

Cornell’s constructive eviction policies are eroding the county’s rural communities like a flood of toxic waste.

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Cornell is a rich tax exempt corporation that decides the where public taxes should be spent – on themselves, of course. And Ithaca’s preening advocates and institutions think no more of the county’s rural population; than fair goers do of the day-workers behind its existence.

The county’s rural areas are the perfect dumping grounds – and its residents are the perfect victims. And as climate change, immigration, and economic woes increasingly impact New York State — this policy will only become more widespread.

They say you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps: but Cornell’s rural policies can be ratified without any participation or representation by the county’s rural residents – and successively built upon with no more foundation than the existence of a previously ratified policy: creating a stairway to maximum profits; on the backs of a poor and marginalized rural population.

The sole justification needed for these policies is the second generation progeny of “the greater good”: any action can be excused.

This could never happen in a legitimate government: but it’s not a government – it’s a gang. It’s the flagrant abuse of corporate and political power that insures that these policies can’t be questioned, publicly debated or written about, or even need to be ethically defended.

It’s a level of hypocrisy so rarefied that the Cornell elite claim that their policy driven, urban sprawl bedroom community in rural Lansing; is not only the fault of the rural community [they label it rural sprawl]; but that the only solution is to increase it into a high-density “urban node” with sewers and municipal water.

And that the CAFO overlords that they have forced onto Lansing’s rural poor: are the polluting and environmentally destructive farms that they oppose.

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I remember streaming a reality crime show where the prosecutor said that they have so much evidence: their biggest problem was how to present it all to the jury. This is my problem.

I have so much documented evidence: and it all points in the same direction – a conspiracy. No journalist, politician, or authority at any level has acknowledged my request for help. But no one has dared to debate the evidence.

Like Dorian Gray; Tompkins County’s Collegiate Progressives feel that their public persona is safe: as long as the results of their actions can remain hidden.