Posts Tagged → harrisburg
We all have a shared dream
One of America’s greatest speeches, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” on the Washington mall, still inspires Americans.
The question is, who does it inspire?
In my opinion, the vast majority of Caucasian Americans are the audience today most inspired by King’s speech. They have fully accepted upon themselves not only words of King’s speech, but its spirit. It was that great majority that elected Barack Hussein Obama. Inspired by the opportunity to elect an American of color and prove wrong those who claim America is a racist place, Americans voted in Obama. The same Obama who, as Candidate Obama said he would change the dialogue on race, and who, as Candidate Obama, challenged long-held victimization identity in the black community, but who as President Obama has allowed the black community to languish in its self-inflicted pain, whose Justice Department advances anti-white racism by black racists in the name of defeating “racism.”
Mostly to its benefit, America is awash in black culture. White kids want black clothing, black music, black humor, black life partners, black sports players, black heroes, and black friends.
Americans elected a black president. America’s most conservative whites tried to elect another black president, candidate Herman Cain, who remained my top pick even after he stopped his campaign. Alan Keyes and Allen West remain political heroes to the most conservative of whites, who themselves are wrongly labeled as racists by black racists.
Racism is not a white problem today, it is a black problem, a result of an unwillingness by most blacks to accept that blacks have been accepted by the vast, overwhelming number of whites in America. By an almost universal unwillingness to either break out of ghettos and inner cities or reclaim them, to remain largely inactive where all institutions have failed, even the legendary black churches.
And I know this to be true, because I inhabit a largely white world, where the number of racist comments or experiences I witness can be counted on one hand year after year, after year, and because I inhabit a largely black city, where the problems of fragmented black family and community are played out daily on our streets to the point where I have long since lost count.
Black Americans, my fellow equal citizens, I say to you as a white American that you are as precious to me and to the vast majority of other “whites” in our great nation as are any other group of American citizens, and perhaps more so due to your longer presence here and greater sacrifices on our behalf. Skin color is irrelevant to 99.8% of white Americans. Culture, shared values, and the good content of character are relevant to 99.8% of white Americans.
American culture is the great equalizer, accepting all and any to its ranks, with the simple expectation that each citizen both appreciate and promote the America of its founding. The greatness of constitutional America is that it is designed to change, to improve, and having heard MLK’s call, arisen, and changed, it remains the greatest nation in the history of the planet. It is a place to be proud of.
Today, we are especially proud of one of our great American leaders, MLK. We all share the dream that his message will reach not only the intended white audience of 1963, but the black audience of 2012.
UPDATED: Tea Vs. Establishment Battle comes to Dauphin County
Aside from the epic power struggle over Lebanon County’s Republican Committee, and a smaller but equally strenuous 2010 battle in York County between 912 Patriots and entrenched Republicans, which ended in the summer of 2011 in favor of the Tea Party insurgents, Central Pennsylvania, and Dauphin County specifically, has not seen such a contest.
Until now.
Now, that open competition has fully arrived, and it may become open warfare. Oh sure, there have been some past skirmishes. The first skirmish involved former Dauphin County commissioner Lowman Henry being dumped in 2002 by the party in favor of a candidate the inner circle liked more; that planted a seed of factionalism.
Two years ago those rumblings erupted forcefully during the PA-17th Congressional District Republican Primary race, when traditionalists advocated party endorsements and the outsiders wanted an open primary, in the American spirit of “May the best person win.” That is, may the highest merit be rewarded with the highest accolades and well-earned support. No more skulduggery to edge out unwanted candidates and strong leaders by insiders whose interest is perceived by some to be retaining power and control.
In 2010, the outsiders prevailed in one way, with only one GOP Dauphin County group doing an endorsement (the Susquehanna Township GOP Committee). The other challenge came from a committee member, Alan, who unsuccessfully challenged party chairman John McNally for that chairmanship. Challenges are uncommon, and it was a second seed planted next to the Lowman Henry tree, or maybe it was fruit from that tree.
Soon after in 2010, those outsiders became identified with and then known as “Tea Party” activists. Their view was that they were merely seeking to return America’s conservative movement and Republican party to essential American traditions and principles. The way they were viewed by the established, inner-circle GOPers was with disquiet.
When the open insurrections began, no one thought they were more than disagreements between liberal and conservative Republicans.
Now, an open power struggle has erupted for the heart and soul of the Dauphin County Republican Party.
On the one hand are more conservative Republicans, feeling shunted aside and unappreciated, despite their significant sacrifices and hard work for the party. Some others had declared their interest in or intentions to run for certain seats, only to then find themselves carefully dissected from those seats in the new redistricting. Their own party did that dissecting.
Dauphin County GOP Chairman John McNally has declared his candidacy for the newly created and open state senate seat carved out of retiring senator Jeff Piccola’s district. York County businessman Steve Johnson has indicated his interest in the same senate seat. Johnson ran for lieutenant governor in 2010 among a slate of eight candidates.
UPDATE: Bill Seeds, a long time supervisor of Lower Paxton Township, is declaring his intention to run for the same senate seat, as is the York County Clerk of Courts. Each group is using the tried and useful divide-and-conquer method, as they cultivate new candidates from the opposing candidate’s county.
McNally has temporarily handed his chairmanship to Dauphin County commissioner Jeff Haste, with the expectation that McNally will re-occupy it if he loses to Johnson. However, long-time GOP activist and congressional candidate Toni Gilhooley has stated that she will seek the Dauphin County GOP chairmanship.
State representative Sue Helm is now challenged by a 26-year-old attorney, Jenna Lewis, who is endorsed by the GOP establishment, including much-liked Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico and her own father, Judge Lewis.
Susquehanna Township is a changing political landscape, where Helm, a well-known businesswoman, barely held onto her seat two years ago against Democrat activist Gene Stilp, of The Pink Pig fame.
Conservatives unhappy with Helms’ past performance now find themselves having to choose between Helm or the very young, inexperienced, and untested Lewis. Given that Lewis has the establishment wagons circling around her, the outsiders are quietly rallying to Helm.
What intrigues me is how the Tea Party began in Lebanon and Berks counties, when then-senator Arlen Spector spoke a lot of hogwash to fed-up American Joes. The Tea Party spread to Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Massachussettes, where Republicans swarmed rickety barricades manned by corpulent, unprepared Democrats.
Now what? With the Lebanon County Republican Party firmly in the hands of the pluralistic Tea Party, will Dauphin County go the same way? And if it does, will Perry County and Centre County follow suit?
Centre County is, after all, the home turf of state senator Jake Corman, known to many as the “Silver Spoon Senator” for having casually inherited his father’s former senate seat. Corman voted for the legislative pay raise and remains one of the very few elected officials upon whom rural Pennsylvania taxpayers have not yet sought revenge.
Like Perry County, Centre County is a deeply conservative region ripe for the same frustration and political dynamic that changed Lebanon County and has now landed squarely in Dauphin County.
Corman’s presence could be the spark that lights those other Tea Party fires.
Stay tuned.
Interesting Detritus from the Flood of 2011
September’s historic flood waters brought interesting gifts from upstream, nonchalantly and gently leaving them stranded on my lawn and driveway.
How did the three-gallon gas can end up in the flower bed, upright, as though I had left it there myself while mowing the lawn?
Whose pack of 1992 Topps baseball cards had been burnt around the corners before mysteriously arriving? And why were they burnt? A frustrated mother or angry girlfriend?
The cigarette pack was the most incongruous of all, at least in our neighborhood. Lying there in its minty mentholy promise, it looked like a social land mine, or lawn cancer. My tired hands found it first of all the new things, and trashed it first. Mind you, I’m an occasional pipe smoker and hardly a tobacco Prohibitionist. But let’s face it, cigarettes are a dirty habit. The soggy pack reminded of that.
Various childrens’ things, like a slipper, a sneaker, some small plastic toys, all were straight forward examples of the shared family sameness from Scranton to Harrisburg. Those were easy to trash. Heck, I’m throwing away my own kids’ leftover artifacts every week, anyhow, so the newcomers were nothing new and in good company.
Someone is missing an important part of their split rail fence. Not to waste, it’s now part of my eight-cord wood pile and will heat my home for an hour on some upcoming winter day. Undoubtedly the least showy or remarkable, it is probably the most useful of all the flotsam. at least after I chainsawed it into 18-inch lengths.
Some buildings in my neighborhood had finning, flopping, fish in their basements. Now you know that if the fence rail felt out if place lying in my lawn, then those fish certainly felt like a fish out of water, so to say. They probably survived and are back in their river now, albeit a bit more migratory than their kind is accustomed to. Just this year, fellas, ok?
While the five feet of water in the basement upended our plans and schedules for the next six weeks, at least, we enjoyed the unusual fruits dropped off by Mother Nature on her way down to the Chesapeake Bay that September weekend.
Happy 11-11-11! My beloved city is about to declare bankruptcy and get taken over by the State
By Josh First
It’s an unusual alignment of numbers today, 11-11-11, and one wonders if it’s an ill omen or good.
After all, Harrisburg City Council voted tonight to declare bankruptcy, a move that Pennsylvania law says is illegal without prior good faith negotiations. Next week, Pennsylvania legislators will vote on a bill allowing the governor to take over the city and run it until it becomes solvent.
The only good faith efforts displayed yet by local officials have been by our mayor, Linda Thompson, who has been constantly stymied by her political foes for the flimsiest of causes. Thompson has been criticized from all sides for years, and of course she has her flaws. But among elected officials here she is also the only apparent cheerleader for Harrisburg City, so dissing her is dissing the city.
Not one opposing member of city council has yet articulated a good reason for his or her opposition. Councilman Brad Koplinski, the Great White Hope of Harrisburg’s moderate Democrats, has never articulated what he is thinking, or why. Many other members are simply inarticulate. Common-sense members like Patty Kim are steamrolled by the majority.
My family has lived here in Harrisburg continuously since the early 1700s, and I am the last Mohican of our clan to remain in the city itself. Is this the kind of place that any American would want to live, regardless of their family history? Our homes’ values are low as a result of the political infighting and lack of problem solving.
As today’s date numbers have aligned in an unusual formation, so we can only hope for an alignment of the political actors here, as well.
When Texting While Driving Becomes Manslaughter
Allison was a young, smart, beautiful, productive American
Trees for Harrisburg City, A Community Effort
Harrisburg is a historic, award-winning “All-America City” often noted for its majestic trees throughout its neighborhoods. Trees naturally die with age, and it was that slow but steady attrition that has had me and many of my neighbors re-planting trees and talking in recent years about how bare some of the blocks along Second Street look, in particular. Now, it appears that the city is going to take a big, exciting step forward on this issue. In a city that is going through acrimonious debate about its precarious financial situation (Act 47 takeover by the state, or a sad declaration of bankruptcy that nevertheless gives city leaders and citizens more control), good news is hard to come by and therefore all the more enjoyed by everyone. We need a breath of fresh air here, and it can’t come too soon. Stay tuned.
Josh