What Would We Do If Elected?
Submitted to Commentary on November 4, 2002
Tony -
I don't pretend to have done this, but I am beginning to realize that it must be done:
Those of us who are appalled by what our so-called leaders have done in office must, beyond figuring out how to reform the campaign process, figure out how to administer the state, the nation, even international, human affairs, ourselves--in as realistic and great detail as possible--and make our formulations, to the greatest extent possible, public.
I am talking about going beyond protesting, and beyond proposing solutions to this or that problem, in isolation. I am talking about doing what we were wishing the candidates would have done, and revealed to us, before tomorrow's election; and what we wish the incumbents would have done, while in office.
What would you--or I--do, if we were elected governor of Wisconsin--given not only the current financial hole the state government has dug for us, but the long-range problems of the dairy farmers in Wisconsin, the on-going degradation of the environment, the need for more electricity if there is to be more not less industry, or, if there is to be less industry, what kind of state we foresee Wisconsin being in the next year, five years, ten years, generation, etc.?
Likewise, what would we do if we were elected state representative or senator? What would we do about law and prisons? What would we do about schools? (I have never thought that it is good enough that our schools be as good--or atrocious--or slightly better than equivalent schools--K-12, tech schools, and universities: most products of our schools, as of schools of others states, clearly have not been well enough educated to avoid the mess our state and nation is in, or even to realize how great a mess exists.)
How about roads, railroads, air-traffic, ports, rivers? How are we to deal with the pulp and paper industries, and the environmental damage related to it? What are we to do about the growing crisis in health care? Shall we tax some to care for others?--or not?
Exactly what taxes shall we have in effect, for exactly what purposes? And based on what estimation of future economic conditions?
I wish I had begun to think this through in time to present you and everyone with answers, not only by Nov. 5, 2002, but well in advance. But, maybe, well in advance of election day, 2004, you or I or someone, or some of us will have come up with a program, or competing programs--comprehensive and realistic--and made them widely public.
Then the process of political consensus building can proceed with a clearer purpose, no matter how disgusting any particular choice of candidates in any particular election happens to be. So that we can achieve true, long-term, lasting progress--not here and there a victory which may not be a victory at all, and which, even if it is a victory, is overwhelmed by countervailing forces.
Eric Chaet
De Pere
Nov. 4, 2002