SitNews - Stories in the News - Ketchikan, Alaska

Viewpoints: Letters / Opinions

ERRATA & CORRECTIVE

By David G Hanger

 

April 20, 2015
Monday PM


Grow up, child. This is Alaska where the politics are a bit on the rough and tumble side, and should be. More to the point, your lacking the subtlety to comprehend simple satire is not my problem.

The term “really, really stupid” is City Council Member's KJ Harris’s handle. Had KJ carped because I kyped his handle I’d have to honor that because I did. You seem to want to give it far more meaning than it has. So let’s roll this whole thing back a few frames, so that you do get it. I wrote a little fluff piece that was intended to be at least half-amusing; if you can’t comprehend satire, again not my problem.

That was followed by School Board Member Dave Timmerman being very insulting. I don’t read; I really don’t know what’s going on. And you are damned right I responded to that, in spades. I took Timmerman’s crap and shoved it right back in his face with a snow shovel (haven’t had any other use for it this winter), because that is where it belongs.

And I will do it every time some elected official pulls that crap!!! Any public figure who pulls that nonsense against a private citizen should be slapped down immediately, and around me it will always be that way. Concern for your supercilious sensitivities is just not part of the equation.

I wrote a fluff piece. Mr. Timmerman chose to make it a test of his character, not mine, and in that regard he has flunked miserably. What he has demonstrated to the community is that he is a thin-skinned, self-righteous tee-totaler with an agenda, the exact nature of which I am sure we will learn shortly. As his mouthpiece and surrogate, self-appointed or otherwise, all you have accomplished is to reinforce the message that Mr. Timmerman is thin-skinned and abominably arrogant.

I have heard any number of people in town express considerable hope that Mr. Timmerman is a breath of fresh air in local politics, but maybe not. This is the conduct of just another corncob sitting sideways in a leather chair.

As to the numbers in my piece there are no inaccuracies; none. I very specifically stated and repeated that I do not know how many people smoke marijuana in this community. I chose 3000 on my grid primarily because that is intended to be used as a sliding scale, thus I have to have room both above and below my chosen midpoint on which the scale can slide. Duh! Based on numerous studies done in other places I would estimate you are talking 2300 to 2800 locally, but the fact that the laws have been loose here for 40 years leads several people to believe that number is low. There is also the fact that we are a clearing house for users in Metlakatla, Prince of Wales, and other outlying communities. Consumption of one-quarter ounce a week is low to moderate consumption for a user. There is nothing wrong with my numbers.

As for this cosmic joke of a local government if you are foolish enough to seek to defend it, no more really needs to be said. For 50 years I have watched this swing from absurdist, to corrupt, to absolutely nuts, which is basically where “Bond City” is today. From no-bid contracts with their buds, to not even doing the due diligence they claim to do, they lie so frequently there is nothing that really can be believed. Let’s see now, Jerry Jenkins scorched this town for several million dollars, then skated; no consequences. They didn’t even pick up the phone or turn on the internet to discover the track record and the trail of disaster this man left in his wake. They lied. With KIS Dave Brown dealt honestly with City Manager Karl Amylon, as business people generally do, and for his effort there are banker’s boxes full of Amylon’s lies. We have $200 million of Air Force contracts out at Cape Fox, of all places; the incredibly dubious privilege of owning a highly toxic Superfund site, purchased with money purportedly designated for the purpose of developing Ketchikan’s future economy.

For 40 years this bunch of fools has wasted untold quantities of political capital on a bridge that never had a chance of happening, and tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in real cash. For studies.

What has this town been deprived of because of all that crap and the copious quantities unmentioned? Lots.

What I have tried to point out repeatedly is that is the product of the system of government under which we operate, the Council-Manager form of government. It is a piece of crap that is designed to guarantee results and ensure white power in perpetuity. It works very well in that regard. In Ketchikan it is owned by the Chamber of Commerce, but the simple fact is what benefits that bunch does not benefit the community; it just benefits them.

You seek claim to be a member of the Order, so I will give you an opportunity to show it. I would actually recommend this to anyone in local government, but most lack the requisite research and intellectual skills to get into it. To understand the Council-Manager form of government requires a reading effort of 5,000 to 10,000 pages, which can conceivably be synopsized in 1000 to 1500 pages.

Your key words are ‘Banfield & Wilson.’ Banfield was a Harvard professor, Wilson University of Chicago. They are probably the two most important individuals in this country in the past century that no one knows of because of their contributions to institutionalized racism through their defense of the Council-Manager form of government and through their creation of the “no unbroken windows” concept of policing. By starting with them and working forward in such publications as the “Journal of Political Science” from 1965 to the present, you should be able to discern a comprehensive history of the Council-Manager form of government, the National Municipal League, and their concomitant creation in 1893. Their declared purpose at inception was to eliminate the “ethnic ethos” from local politics, and, boy, have they been really good at that. There are as many refutations. Chomsky’s is considered among the best. There is also the court record since about 1975, where the Feds have come in and crushed or modified cabals created by this abominable form of government. A classic case is San Antonio, Texas, which as consequence elected the first Mexican-American mayor of a major U.S. city. I had a fair hand in that project, and my work has been archived by the state of Texas since 1975. It is something of which I am very proud, but I am not here to toot my own horn.

You want to learn, learn. When you are finished, get back to me if you want. Don’t bother me until then because you really have nothing to contribute.

David G Hanger
Ketchikan, Alaska

 

Received April 12, 2015 - Published April 20, 2015

Related Viewpoint:

letter RE: BUY (AND GROW) LOCAL, LET’S CRUNCH THE NUMBERS By Tyler Randall

letter Re: Marijuana Committee Rant By Dave Timmerman

 

 

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