Mangiamele's call for a 'Return to democracy' needs some changes at the front end

Or, more simply: Garbage in, garbage out

By Geoff Davidian
Editor, ShorewoodVillage.com

SHOREWOOD, Wis. (August 26 ,2005) -- Joseph Mangiamele, a candidate for village president in next year's municipal elections, writes in the North Shore Herald that "we seem to elect people who individually or collectively function as dictators for their terms."

An example of this phenomenon is Harvey Kurtz, a member of the Foley & Lardner Gang and president of the Shorewood Foundation.

Mangiamele calls for a rotating militia of citizen participants to monitor "elected representatives and their appointees and the bureaucrats."

A good start would be for residents not to just vote for the slate of candidates put forward by one of the two dominant groups in the village.

One, the Dow-Dean-Langenkamp machine, works through e-mail and social contacts to raise money and mobilize voters who in many cases have no idea who the candidate is. I have spoken with more than one intelligent, long-time resident who say they contribute to and and vote for candidates they know nothing about because their friends urge them to do so.

The other dominant group is the political mass independent of and the alternative to the Dow-Dean-Langenkamp machine. It is not organized like the Dow-Dean-Langenkamp machine, but it is the grass-roots response to the policies and personalities.

So long as village voters follow one group or the other without attending forums or bothering to educate themselves about who they contribute to or vote for, it will make little difference whether they are monitored once a candidate is elected.

You would think that a community that prides itself on being educated would pay more attention to the fundamentals of democracy.

To take someone's word on which candidate is best suggests that the word is the thing.

Trustee Ellen Eckman recently announced that she was of this or that "political tradition," but don't you have to wonder, after four years in office WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO DEFINE WHAT SHE IS? Isn't she what her behavior and voting record suggest? Or is she relying on the "word."

The misuse of "progressive, "liberal" and "conservative" to "define" candidates lures voters who vote for the label rather than the person.

Garbage in, garbage out.