Ignore party bosses
The way I remember “back in the day,” it was an honor and privilege to be a member of a political committee. You helped pick the candidate that reflected your values and you worked hard to elect their choice. Now let’s fast forward to today.
My personal observation is if one is not corrupt or dishonest, you are treated as an outcast because you just don’t fit the bill. These political committees are nothing more than good old boys clubs who are led by individuals who live in the dark ages and should have been put out to pasture a long time ago. Political bosses convince their committee to believe their chosen candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties are the most qualified for the seat they are aspiring to. It helps, too, if they have deep pockets to finance their own campaign. Truth is, the committees are broke and the candidates are forced to promote themselves on a wing and prayer to get elected.
In races where one party dominates the field, it is even more foolish to allow the party bosses (good old boys) to place unknowns on ballots, just for the sake of filling the slots. All too often, they stifle the process by placing an insider party faithful with little chance of success rather than opening it up to one of the faithfuls. Regarding nominations, I feel it is also unfair for a room full of committee people to decide the fate of candidates. Positive or negative personal relations between members often get in the way of picking the best person for the job, as is the case with the current race for mayor in the City of Kingston. I would almost recommend abandoning the convention process and just offer the primary. It is the voter who should have that right to decide who should lead and represent their constituency. Some town committees actually rely on a primary to select the candidates who will represent their communities. This is far better than the party bosses (good old boys) having a chokehold on the electoral process.
Further, party bosses also control whether the area will succeed in economic recovery through the selection process. Unfortunately, rebounding will continue to be stagnated because the good old boys do not want economic growth for fear they will lose control, power and the stronghold they have maintained in this area for far too long. The mayoral candidates can tout their vision and plan for the future all they want. It is all rhetoric because they will concede to the party bosses (good old boys) and deals will be made behind closed doors. If not, they will fail in their attempt to win their election. You may as well elect the party boss to the seat because they will control the candidate. It’s as simple as that.
It would serve the party bosses right if each voter would not support the mayoral candidates of the two major parties because it will be business as usual. It is obvious they don’t have the qualifications to run the city. The bosses will be calling the shots and still be in control.
Unless there is a massive cleanup of the unethical activity and ties in the community, it will be impossible to win a local election on a platform of transparency and ethics in government. One must have political ties and connections to the power groups that influence everyone or anything of relevance. Like it or not, that’s why I don’t recognize the party leaders and what they stand for.
Joseph DiFalco
Former City of Kingston Republican committeeman
What kind of god?
What kind of homosexual-hating god does Pastor Johann Christoph Arnold worship? Is it the same god that allows the recall of 36 million pounds of ground turkey to be disposed of while millions starve in Ethiopia? Or a golden calf, (or a calf sculpted of ground turkey) or Thor or Zeus or the angry little war god Yahweh who was most appeased by the smoke from burning flesh as documented in the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Pastor Arnold’s ideas come from a time when the Earth was thought to be the center of the universe, the sun revolved around the earth, and the invocation against “spilling seed” was to bolster the number of warriors who could defend the tribe against invaders.
If you want to believe in the magical world of the child, fine, but don’t make trouble for everyone else, or Santa will put coal in your stocking.
And while I’m on the subject, perhaps the pastor would like to explain why religious difference, throughout history and to this day, has been at the root of slaughter in the name of god. I think it is because of the intolerance of people like the “pastor.”
Bill Campion
Palm Coast, Fla.
Surely Pastor Arnold believes in the integrity of children(per his book and his group’s general practice of granting esteem to its children) as opposed to the regularly brutal policies perpetrated thereon(especially by the Catholic church and especially in my day). As such what is the purpose of all this talk against Pastor Arnold? It seems the answer is really quite simple:you are the “liberal elite ideologues”, supposedly well-educated and thus feel you have a monopoly on truth and anyone who dares assert you may not have that privilege is to be persecuted “a la Sottile’s bloggate” and its attempt to do likewise to me), out to prove(at any cost of logic or reason it seems)that religion of any kind and religious people of any kind have no business having a voice or a seat at your exclusive table. Having said that, let me now propose a valid reason upon which to “perhaps” be validly critical of Arnold and the Burderhof: although they “claim” to separate themselves from the rest of the world, they most certainly “play footsie”(and happily, since they recognize the angst their separation inculcates within them at the prospect that their children will hate them without such access to educational privileges) with the local Catholic elites that run education inasmuch as they are happy to send their children through such institutions(not unlike the “flavoring” of remembering that Nazi Germany was under Roman Catholicism also). In my personal experience(as well as that of countless others some of whom I’ve known), there is a clearcut disconnect between honoring the child maximally and honoring the Parochial School System(which always practiced the ethic of “the end justifies the means”–not unlike the general flavoring of Nazi Germany). Thus in my day we had Gerard Gretzinger and his Children’s Theatre at Coleman High(which produced the “most powerful woman in Hollywood who got there through Disney, Inc.)to counter such evils at least in theory and in the ritual of putting on such plays(now villified, inevitably, because he got a position with huge political flavoring and huge political bashing as well, made equivalent morally to Tim Mathews, the corrupt cop who also got his materialist values teaching out of Coleman High–and one thinks, earlier than that also). And then of course there’s the case of the Jews, who because they cannot retain a pure Jewish identity AND be as good in business as they were taught to be from the leaving of the womb, have to crawl up the butts of those who run the Catholic elitist systems(ie, Beneidctine Hospital, etc.) for their business-flavored bread.
Perhaps–and just and only perhaps—Pastor Arnold is thus, in some sense and to some degree–disingenuous if not hypocritical in a practical sense. My conclusion over that is merely that “parents have the same general angst for their children in whatever context” and most certainly not, as some would have it, refelective of a tyrant who actually believes in the methods of Nazi Germany while continuing to rail against it both historically and as a means to validate the group’s existence. I have had contact with him and he seems much more genuine than the few who would gratuitously indulge their own sociopolitical ideologies by finding fault with such a soul–whether done on here or in any fora.