Rocky Neptun | 18.08.2007 00:00

Only participatory democracy will save this planet. Political power from the bottom-up, the inside-out, that is self-governing and makes decisions in unity with our common global needs. Face to face democracy breaks down the pyramids of power which institutionalize unfairness,inequality and privilege. That is what I propose for San Diego.

As a candidate for an office that I can't possibly win, part of a broader coalition, possibly a local justice movement, if nothing else, at least an adventure; I am free to campaign on the issues. To go beyond the media forged parameters of possibility and discussion. To change the political dialogue or, as that great Chicago organizer, Saul Alinsky, once said, "to stink up the place."

I will challenge the fundamental nature of store bought politics. Today's politicians have become squabbling creatures of self-interest. Our mayor is their poster boy. Jerry Sanders...jerry rigging city contracts and peddling influence.....JS....BS. The darling of the corporate media and wealthy developers, he has been called a "crook" by our own elected City Attorney and "silly and uniformed" in a recent City Beat editorial. Like Sanders, most local politicians lack vision and have forgotten how to imagine, prisoners of their own mendacity and greed. They pander to despair and fear, thumping the virtues of selfishness and looking out for number one, reducing collective existence to its most banal aspects.

Rocky Neptun announced Sunday, Aug.12, at the General Membership meeting of the Green Party of San Diego County that he is running for Mayor of San Diego. Below is a transcipt of his speech.

Good afternoon, Before I begin my presentation. Let me announce that
the San Diego Coalition for Clean and Fair Government will be running a
slate of candidates for all four council races and the mayors office. I
will be their candidate for mayor, Kevin Mock, our Green Party
treasurer, will be the candidate for the 3rd district Council seat.

My friends. I would like to personally thank you for attending this
meeting. You know, it often seems, like there are so few of us.... for
so big a struggle.

However, as Greens, we weave ourselves, like a fine thread of silk
through the tapestry of local activism. Just this week, Mark and I, on
Tuesday, joined with others to object to yet another military training
program in yet another high school, with 75% students of color. We
faced a right-wing school board, with four of its five members, either
former military officers or married to military personal. The
district's chief operating officer is a former admiral.

On Monday, I wore my Green Party T-shirt to the Hiroshima Day
observance in front of the warship, the Midway; and, a week ago
Saturday, Ann Menasche and I participated in the strategic planning
session of the Peace and Justice Coalition.

We will, I foresee, become the political wing of the local peace and
justice movement. But we must do our part. For instance, we must
consider running candidates for every school board in every part of the
county; raising the alarm against the militarization and exploitation
of our children, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, as cannon
fodder.

Peace and justice dosen't come easy. If it did, Corporate America would
find a way to package it and sell it back to us. As a political party,
we have been strong on theory, short on action. We must find better
ways to promote solidarity among people with different priorities. The
right is damn good at it, we on the left fail miserably. We must also
expand our understanding of society, develop visionary goals and create
effective strategies. We are good at the first two, slip a bit on the
third.

I believe the only way we are going to grow our party is to get out
front and run for office on the issues, year and year, election after
election. Another petition, another policy statement, even brochures
and flyers will not engage those who are disengaged from the political
system. Talk is cheap, actions speak louder than words; only by our
courage and tenacity, our repeated attacks on power and wealth, will we
build a political party that is organic, holistic and holds the ethical
banner to be an attractive and effective alternative.

Now, It is easy to challenge others, harder to challenge oneself. Thus,
I stepped up to run for a political position. But running for public
office in San Diego is like going to a Tupperware party. Part fashion
show, part gripe session; insiders maneuver and squabble amongst
themselves to move up in the pecking order of power. Too much focus on
ego and money. The issues are not discussed; there is a kind of
mindless chatter, small talk for even smaller people. Like our
Tupperware party goers, they mumble about the shapes of the Tupperware,
the pretty colors, even the packaging it comes in; without ever even
questioning whether we should be using plastic in the first place or
the ways we can recycle and minimize its damage to our environment.

If we extend that metaphor of Tupperware to all of the pressing issues
facing us as a city; the need for affordable housing, rent control,
energy independence, public ownership of San Diego Gas and Electric, a
minimum wage for all San Deigns, free public transportation, fiscal
fairness and the right-wing, corporate financed, assault on community
regulation and government - they are not being discussed.

As the ownership of public communication becomes concentrated in fewer
and fewer hands - what is possible, what is thinkable, the notion of
fundamental change, becomes boxed in. The supreme instrument of
power....is the ability to control the definition of the alternative.
That is where we must concentrate our efforts.

Personally, I was always uncomfortable with my political race for the
Council; it required too much ego. The possibility of winning dictated
too many compromises. My human need to be liked fought with the
activist who needed to raise the issues - to talk about power and
money, to step on toes, to challenge the corporate lie we all live. I
considered, like so many of our brothers and sisters in the struggle,
dropping out of the race, scaling back my commitments, individualizing
my life and personalizing my priorities, like so many of my generation
have done over the years.

Yet, as director of the Renters' Union, I get daily pleas for help from
families being dislocated, facing homelessness as rent climb ever
higher and wages, cut by inflation, sink ever further. To watch a
mother's heartrenching sobs because her child has no economic option
other than the killing sands of Iraq. To watch as globalization,
corporate colonialism, destroys the Mexican culture of my lover and
globalization's twin evil... gentrification, as it creates a
class-based caste system in our neighborhoods, continually trips my
feet as I edge toward the door that separates flight from fight.

Luckily, we have come up with a solution that overcomes my personal
struggle with ego and the need to publicize our community agenda. The
Renters' Union will be joining with other organizations and citizen
groups in the San Diego Coalition for Clean and Fair Government.

As a candidate for an office that I can't possibly win, part of a
broader coalition, possibly a local justice movement, if nothing else,
at least an adventure; I am free to campaign on the issues. To go
beyond the media forged parameters of possibility and discussion. To
change the political dialogue or, as that great Chicago organizer, Saul
Alinsky, once said, "to stink up the place."

I will challenge the fundamental nature of store bought politics.
Today's politicians have become squabbling creatures of self-interest.
Our mayor is their poster boy. Jerry Sanders...jerry rigging city
contracts and peddling influence.....JS....BS. The darling of the
corporate media and wealthy developers, he has been called a "crook" by
our own elected City Attorney and "silly and uniformed" in a recent
City Beat editorial. Like Sanders, most local politicians lack vision
and have forgotten how to imagine, prisoners of their own mendacity and
greed. They pander to despair and fear, thumping the virtues of
selfishness and looking out for number one, reducing collective
existence to its most banal aspects.

At City Hall there has been a lack of compassion and a failure to
share. City government seems almost dysfunctional , torn between
special interests that belly up to the public trough. The Mayor hopes,
through his hand picked Charter Amendment committee, to consolidate
even more political power in his office. To feed the right-wing agenda
of privatization of city staff and services. To carve up the public
commons for private profit. To give our water systems to companies like
Exon-Mobil, so taking a shower will cost $35. To give our city services
and infrastructure to companies like Haliburton. To destroy public
libraries and parks in favor of theme parks and stadiums.

Where are the statesmen and stateswomen, the people of vision, in
public life today? We live in well-off neighborhoods, in a rich city,
in an even wealthier state, among the most powerful nation humankind
has ever seen - we need humility, not pandering from grubby
politicians. We need challenges to our better nature, our compassion
and humanity, not appeals to fear and greed. We need community over
individual isolation, sharing over hoarding, participatory economics,
where market forces are not manipulated to enrich a select few.

Wendell Berry said it best ...."our crisis is a crisis of character."
We need to build and nurture institutions and processes that build
autonomy, self-respect and integrity rather than those that cripple our
outrage and numbs our sense of possibility in claustrophobic conformity
behind a mask of individualism.

Instead of building strength in each person as a member of a community,
neighbors who can make decisions, today's politicians increasingly rely
on profit driven corporations who staff government bureaucracies to
institutionalize our lives, usurp ever greater amounts of our
hard-earned dollars into profit and turn us into automated, faceless,
powerless citizens. Wealth imposes (like dictatorships) rather than
proposes (as in a democracy.)

I once heard Buckminster Fuller say that it is not enough to criticize
and protest, we must create new models to replace the old ones. That is
what I hope to do as part of this campaign for clean and fair
government.

Over the last few years, I have come to believe in the basics.
Participatory democracy at the neighborhood level, I feel, is the only
process, the only system of government, that has the possibility to
make a difference against power and wealth. Face to face democracy
breaks down the pyramids of power which institutionalize unfairness,
inequality and privilege. It creates a transforming, educative force
beyond the isolation of self-interest to a sense of human closeness,
friendship and solidarity with our neighbors. That is what I propose
for San Diego.

Having served on the City Heights planning board, elected by my
neighbors; I participated in true democracy. Community members involved
in the political process at the grass-roots level. I found that even
when we disagreed, personal interaction and discussion led to trust -
and trust begins cooperation and a sharing of resources. We begin to
understand that community is not merely living in some space - but
having some measure of control over that space and the quality of our
lives.

As Americans, and as San Diegans, we are at a critical juncture in
human history. We can continue on a collusion course with nature, with
Global warming, and with the rest of the world - increasingly more wars
over shrinking natural resources. Or we can begin to elect public
officials who do not give empty promises about vague solutions.
Statespersons who will give us - as citizens - the means, tools and
governmental capabilities to do it ourselves. Only true participatory
democracy will save this planet. Political power from the bottom-up,
the inside-out, that is self-governing and makes decisions in unity
with our common global needs.

I propose that we work to change the structural characteristics of city
government by building into the very fabric of the administrative
process citizen participation requirements and effective neighborhood
policy-making authority.

In corporate owned government, as the Mayor proposes; we as citizens
are rendered tame, dependent and obedient to the needs of wealth. To
fight back, we must move beyond mere reactive responses. Abstract
actions - signing a petition, giving money, joining yet another
organization - correct neither the cause nor the effect leading to
citizen apathy, cynicism, helplessness and cowardice. To correct this
we must become intimate with our government, we must.....become...the
government. In our front yards, on our blocks, in our apartment
buildings, we must bring the knowledge of self, the needs of our
families and partners, the hopes and dreams of our neighbors together -
to build a community based on compassion, sharing and the needs of the
environment. Rather than an illusion of participation; separated,
unengaged, looking on from a distance, a caricature of democracy; I
believe we can experience a truly sharing community and weld it to the
needs of our threatened planet.

Thank you.

e-mail:: dustyddelon@yahoo.com