"...an utterly corrupt new religion called environmentalism..."
If the history of this planet's climate over millions of years is any guide, we are about to enter a new ice age.
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he wants to see the United States become a Muslim country.
California's Political Madness
By Arthur Bruzzone (08/01/03)
From around the country, political columnists are chiming in on recall of California Governor Gray Davis. This is my state and I resent how my state is being portrayed. California is now the object of harsh ridicule and late night jokes. Some, like columnist Pat Buchanan, place the blame on the California's generous policies on illegal immigrants. Buchanan takes it farther. He warns that what is happening in California could spread to the rest of the country.
Well, I disagree. Buchanan's explanation is too simplistic. In reality, the state's immigration policies (and programs) are part of a larger dysfunction -- one that can indeed spread to other states.
True, California's large population of illegal immigrants strains the California state budget. But they are the cause of our political madness. The California's powerful economy has in the last four years generated a 28% increase in tax revenues - more than enough to handle the massive influx of illegal entrants, many of whom are needed by the state's large agricultural interests. But spending has increased by 38% in the same period. And buried in those numbers is the California story.
California politics sits on a dangerous fault line. We have the same bitter struggles between Republicans and Democrats as in other states. California's intra-party rivalries are even more astringent. But a peace treaty was effectively signed during the reapportionment exercise. The Republicans safeguarded their congressional majority; the Democrats locked in a majority of seats in the California state assembly and senate. Presumably, each party had the state's interests in mind when the deal was struck.
The "deal" ensured that most primaries would be empty campaigns. It also had three unintended effects.
First, by locking in a majority of assembly and senate seats, more radical left-leaning candidates run and win under the Democrat banner. And for those GOP seats remaining, conservative candidates dominate the Republican districts. There is no meaningful center. The state legislature has become the nation's laboratory for so-called "progressive" programs. Cost has not been the concern. Ideology is paramount. With safe seats back home, the Democrat majority has been free to experiment and expend the hefty budget surpluses with costly programs for the poor, the unions, and, yes, illegal entrants.
Second, by owning most of the state legislature seats, the Democrats have managed to also monopolize all elected statewide positions. With that comes the massive influx of campaign contributions from thousands of large state interest groups. The Democrats have built the most effective campaign-winning machine in the country. And now they must pay the piper - the state budget has become a Christmas tree of favors for special interest groups. Meanwhile, out of power, the republicans have resorted to attacking each other. They are unable to pass any meaningful programs, so the political price has been unimportant. Ideological purity has become primary. Republicans have done the devil's work; rival GOP factions, like street gangs, have destroyed each other in the primaries.
The last unintended result of the "deal" concerns the voters. Disenfranchised and disconnected from their state leaders, the voters have used California's voter initiative procedures to voice their concerns. And when California voters have spoken they have voiced a very different tune than the Democrat-dominated state legislature. While the democrats in Sacramento passed measures to sanctify gay/lesbian relationships, the voters voted no to gay marriages. While Sacramento worked to strengthen affirmative action, the voters voted to end affirmative action. While Sacramento expanded programs for illegal entrants, California voters voted to end all services for illegal entrants. This disconnect between the Democrats and the voters has now exploded with the recall.
The California recall is a lesson for the entire nation, as Pat Buchanan suggests. When the political parties ignore the voters for whatever reason, they ingite an eventual firestorm. When elected officials put ideology over the common good and economic sense, they will seed a fiscal and economic disaster which is now consuming California, as it did to socialist nations in the last century. When political parties succeed in building well-financed campaign machines that thrash and burn, those machines will eventually devour the madmen who built it. And finally, when political parties work to satisfy the special interests that finance them, the people will rise up and put their interests ahead of special interests.
That is the lesson in California's current political madness. Insanity is the disconnect from reality. That is exactly what has happened in both parties in California. Any party or any political leader who fails to heed the California lesson is doomed to the same political misfortune.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Arthur Bruzzone
Arthur Bruzzone is a well known San Francisco Bay Area political media
commentator, an award- winning public affairs TV producer, talk show host,
and served four years as Chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party. He
has written over 150 political articles for national and regional media, and
has appeared or commented on political issues for American, European, and
Asian television and radio networks.
Art Bruzzone has been published in local, state, and national journals
including the Wall Street Journal. He's been a regular online columnist at
AmericanDaily.com, previously featured columnist at Townhall.com and other
gateway sites. He is editor of Counterviews.com.
Media Appearances include guest or commentator on major national network
news programs, CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN-TV, BBC-TV, French TV, local
affiliated and independent TV Stations. He served as talk show host for
KSFO-AM, San Francisco. He's been a Panelist or guest covering national,
state-local, and environmental issues. Bruzzone has been quoted in the NY
Times, LA Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today and on urban policy,
international politics, and urban environmentalism
Bruzzone is a former Peace Corps Volunteer and owner an investment real
estate company, Bruzzone Strategic Investments. He holds a MBA from Golden
Gate University, and a MA in Philosophy from CUA, Washington, DC.
He has served as State Commissioner on the Bay Conservation and Development
Commission, Chair of San Francisco Republican Party, and Vice Chair of the
Count Chairs Association of the California Republican Party.
To unwind, Bruzzone, engages in long distance in-line speed skating, open
water ocean rowing, writing poetry and microstories, and viewing weekly
Nascar Nextel Cup Races, among others.. He and his program would be
impossible without a community of enlightened and patient friends, and
family.
Send Feedback To Arthur Bruzzone
Site: http://www.rightturns.com
UPSSA
United Progressive Socialist States of America
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