Tag Archives: public good

The sun came up on a different world —Julian Assange

Julian Assange of Wikileaks spoke from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London today (video, text):

The next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend the rights we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark outside the Embassy of Ecuador, and how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world, and a courageous Latin American nation took a stand for justice.

The British government made a stunning mistake in throwing away the worldwide goodwill just gained through the London Olympic Games, by actually beginning to storm a sovereign embassy in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that was observed throughout the Cold War. How could they be so foolish? This man, this reporter and publisher, they think is somehow more dangerous to them than the armed might of the Soviet Union was? This is as if JFK arrested MLK after John Glenn’s first orbital flight (a step which JFK fortunately did not take).


There is something you can do,
even when the world is turned upside down:

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VDT gets feisty with VLCIA over biomass

After noting that the Industrial Authority still hasn’t resolved

still hasn’t decided about Sterling Planet’s land purchase offer
even though

they had a meeting last week at which they could have,
with their new executive director and their new chairman,
the VDT editorialized today:

The IA promised a future of more open communication.



And yet Tuesday, the board’s attorney refused to answer any questions
regarding the potential sale of the land to the company, citing a caveat
in the Open Records Act that protects information involved in a current
legal issue. The Times issued an Open Records request Tuesday to obtain
the information requested or copies of the litigation documents, assuming
that since the attorney cited this exemption, there is an active lawsuit
over the land sale.

Good point!

The VDT acknowledged its own mistake and moved to correct it:

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Andrea Schruijer’s Opportunity —John S. Quarterman

Here’s my op-ed in the VDT today. -jsq

Welcome

Andrea Shuijer Schruijer to a great opportunity as the new Executive
Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA)!


For a year I’ve been asking for a list of jobs attracted by the
Authority. We welcome your marketing expertise so we’ll know
the Authority’s successes!

We welcome your communications expertise to inform the community
affected by the process of bringing new jobs. VLCIA could publish
its agendas, minutes, and videos of its meetings, events, and
new jobs on its web pages, and facebook, maybe even twitter.

We welcome your stewardship of the Authority’s $3 million/year in taxes.
Maybe some

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The politics of climate change denial

Why do some people deny the overwhelming science of climate
change in a time when the evidence and analysis is so thorough
and so conclusive that no reputable scientific organization
in the world doubts any longer that humans are changing the climate
of the whole planet for the worse:
because it threatens their political and economic beliefs.

Naomi Klein: Why Climate Change Is So Threatening to Right-Wing Ideologues:



And the reason is that climate change is now seen as an identity issue
on the right. People are defining themselves, like they’re against
abortion, they don’t believe in climate change. It’s part of who
they are.

It’s like denying the earth goes around the sun.
Why would they identify with such a silly thing?
Because of what actually dealing with climate change would mean:

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LAKE as a news medium



We are the media, and you can be, too!

According to the

OPEN Government Act of 2007:

[T]he term ‘a representative of the news media’ means any person or
entity that gathers information of potential interest to a segment of
the public, uses its editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a
distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience. In this clause,
the term ‘news’ means information that is about current events or
that would be of current interest to the public. Examples of news-media
entities are television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at
large and publishers of periodicals (but only if such entities qualify
as disseminators of ‘news’) who make their products available for
purchase by or subscription by or free distribution to the general
public. These examples are not all-inclusive. Moreover, as methods
of news delivery evolve (for example, the adoption of the electronic
dissemination of newspapers through telecommunications services), such
alternative media shall be considered to be news-media entities.



It’s pretty obvious LAKE qualifies as a news medium
with its blog,

On the LAKE Front,
as well as its

web pages
and its

facebook page.

Here is the bill’s full text.
The bill was sponsored by

Sen. Patrick Leahy and

17 others, ranging from Sen. Barack Obama to Sen. Johnny Isakson.
It was signed into law by President George W. Bush

31 December 2007.



Of course that’s really just a detail, having to do with the

Wikileaks comparison.

Most of what LAKE does has more to do with Georgia law,
about
open records requests
and

this passage, O.C.G.A. § 50-14-1-c.:



“Visual, sound, and visual and sound recording during open meetings shall be permitted.”

None of that requires a news medium.
Any citizen can file open records requests or record public meetings.
Remember,

you are the media!

-jsq for


LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange

“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state.” –Julian Assange



Some people compare LAKE to Wikileaks, so let’s go there.
Julian Assange, like

Wendell Berry,
links the civil rights movement and the environmental movement.
He

then says:

“For the Internet generation this is our challenge and this is our time.
We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state.
The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness.
Surely it was only a matter of time before citizens pushed back and we asserted our rights.”

LAKE’s

motto is:

Citizen dialog for transparent process

That makes Assange’s proposition

“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state”

sound very familiar to us.

Locally it’s more a matter of elected and appointed bodies ignoring
their chartered responsibilities to

the public good and the general welfare.
Well, many people are also tired of the permit inspection brigade,
but that’s another story.

Assange

also adds:

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Why “jobs, jobs, jobs” isn’t good enough for the public good and the general welfare –John S. Quarterman



Sure, everyone wants jobs for the people right now and jobs
so the children don’t have to go somewhere else to find one.
But what good is that if those jobs suck up all the water
those children need to drink?

This is the problem:

“What I believe the three most important things are,
not only for our community, and our state, and our country,
but for our country,
thats jobs number 1, jobs number 2, and jobs.”





Brad Lofton, Executive Director,
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
speaking at the
Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

I shook Brad Lofton’s hand after that speech and told him I liked it,
because I did: in general it was a positive speech about real accomplishments.
I’ve also pointed out I had a few nits with that speech.
This one is more than a nit.
This one is basic philosophy and policy.

Now one would expect an executive director of an industrial authority
to be all about jobs.
And that would be OK, if

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