Is A Recall Enough?

With the much anticipated recall election now a reality, and the spending on political advertising already an embarrassment in the headlines, we still don't have a clear picture of which gubernatorial candidates are actually going to appear on the primary ballot. In the this high-stakes race, where winner takes all, it seems like more than a little thought should have gone into this already, though it clearly has not, as evidenced by the broad base of potential candidates who lack consistent support from the electorate. The names in the democratic field abound with declared candidates, and those who are being encouraged to run, and those who are thinking about running, and even those who have declared they are not running: Falk, LaFollette, Cullen, Barca, Barrett, VineHout, Obey, and Feingold, did I forget any?

With all due respect to the candidates (and non-candidates alike), the fact is that among them all, only one stands a chance of guaranteeing a Democratic win, and it's the one who has declared he's not running for office. Frankly, as I see it, they are all career politicians - bought and paid for by outside interests long ago.  Jerry Garcia may have said it best when he said "Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil."  Now where does that leave us?

Falk has a strong record of fiscal responsibility, positive labor relations, and public safety, but lacks statewide appeal, particularly with moderate republicans who are voting against the current governor (as long as the candidate isn't Falk, or so they say). LaFollette benefits from name-recognition, and his unquestionable support of public employees and collective bargaining, but sadly may lack the financial resources to actually compete against the Koch brothers - who admit to financing Scott Walker's recall fight through their SuperPAC. Barrett had his chance, he was basically forced to run the first time, and hasn't jumped enthusiastically into this race so far. Cullen had declared in December 2011 that he would run if there were enough signatures, and VineHout is now officially running for office - both current legislators, with mixed voting records that are likely to help with some and hurt with others, again they lack they statewide appeal necessary to unite enough of Wisconsin's voters behind a single candidate, rather than against a single candidate. Peter Barca is another current legislator whose name floats around and there is a petition circulating asking him to run - just another reluctant politician being forced into candidacy, and I am just not sure someone who must be forced to run is the best person to represent my voice in this democracy.

In the 2010 election Wisconsin had the highest voter turnout in decades at just over 50 percent which means that the other 49 percent of the electorate chose not to vote, not to participate in our democracy, not to chose evil of any sort. Many of the people I know who do not vote make the choice because they feel like their voice is inconsequential, that no matter who is elected their opinion, their voice, will not be represented anyways - a pragmatically true statement, all considering. Yet, I choose one of those evils anyways, every chance I get, hoping that one of these days enough of those evils are going to come around to the type of logic, sensibility, and respect for humanity that can guide fair and just legislation to benefit the electorate, rather than the special interests who shamelessly lobby elected officials for policy and legislation that makes them weathy at the expense of the middle class' very existance.  

The mere existance of the middle class is questionable at best these days; by some estimates up to 75 percent of american families are one paycheck away from disaster. If our democracy is to be Of the People, For the People, and By the People, then how has to come to pass that the majority of americans are simply unable to run for office, unable to finance the mega-operation that is campaigning, an unable to gain any sort of recognition as a candidate?  Running for office has become reserved for only the wealthiest of citizens, the wealthiest of Wisconsinites represent us at both the State and National level. Would Russ Feingold's early and inexpensive "Garage Door" commercials from the 1980's even be possible today? Would they have an impact on the voting public, and would they increase the percentage of the electorate who visit the polls regularly - would people feel empowered by a simple message from a single real person? And would that one person really make a difference in the way we do business?

As I noted in the Paradigm Shift piece that originated this blog, its time to demand more of our legislators, of ourselves, and of our neighbors; time to insist that the voices heard in our statehouse reflect the electorate rather than the lobbiests. Now the question becomes "how do we accomplish this?" A mere recall isn't enough, replacing a republican governor with a democratic governor doesn't change anything. Even replacing a republican governor with a visionary leader, independent of the political system, one that embodies the sensible, progressive values of our state's founders, one who will hear the voices of all Wisconsinites, leaves our legislature filled with partisan career politicians bound by the dirty money that lines their pockets, and their legacy of improper and imoral legislation. By Shifting the Paradigm we have the opportunity to revitalize the middle-class, and the integrity of the state's legislature, to restore our government to the electorate.

Now, if only I ran the zoo…

Problem Solving, It's Not Rocket Science

When I wrote the Paradigm Shift piece earlier in the week I didn’t mean for it to be anything more than an expression of my perspective on the current state of humanity, with a few off-the-cuff recommendations that might actually lead to some real solutions here in Wisconsin. Generally speaking it was well received, even by people who don’t particularly share my view of the world, so I decided to post it as a blog, and write a follow up piece or two. Many people asked if I would write other posts specifically about women’s rights and the environment; as it turns out, I have a few more things to say about shifting the paradigm before I move on.

The recommendations I made were by no means all-inclusive, nor were they meant to be the final word on the matter, though they did illustrate my point, particularly in light of the comments I received from people who didn’t agree with them. Mainly the point that effective solutions are never as simple as implementing the will of one person (even when that one person is me, and I am sure I am correct). I want to further explore that notion by suggesting that it’s time for our state - the people and the government on both sides, together, and not separate - to engage in real problem solving that leads to effective solutions we can all agree upon and benefit from, and then move Forward setting an example for the nation to follow.

The fact is that truly collaborative problem solving requires everyone to open their minds to all sorts of ideas, even the craziest of ideas, and to engage in carefully guided exploration to identify the best ideas with the highest potential to result in the desired outcomes, to test those ideas, and to implement effective solutions based on the results of this exercise; at least that is how it’s done in the business world, and really within any institution engaged in quality or continuous improvement initiatives. Clearly, this is not the process Wisconsin’s legislature is using to resolve our issues, which is why hunger and homelessness continue to be real, tangible problems for the real people who call Wisconsin home. In fact, the inability of the state’s legislature to effectively engage in actual problem solving is the single largest barrier to job creation in Wisconsin because of the uncertainty surrounding the few job-related pieces of legislation passed - everyone wants to know, how long will they last? And, will they withstand the legal challenges in state and federal court?  Not that they are asking these questions all that frequently since most of Wisconsin's recent legislation focuses on reducing women from actual human beings to mere beasts of burden, and disenfranchising minorities and the poor - but I digress.

When I was a public employee working at one of Wisconsin’s technical colleges I went to a conference where I took a workshop called "Introduction to Compression Planning with Storyboarding," which is a facilitation technique used to garner consensus when the stakes are high by utilizing a series of guidelines to drive effective discussions among stakeholders with diverging viewpoints. During the first phase participants are asked to Suspend Judgment, Listen to Each Other, Spin Thoughts into Rich Ideas, and Avoid Speeches; during the second phase participants are asked to Challenge Ideas Not People, Merge Ideas to Create Strength, Focus on the Unique, and Narrow Down to Manageable Few. By creating a framework for effective discussions, within an environment where a diversity of opinions generates creative and unique ideas, effective solutions rise to the top, independent of political affiliations.

What a novel idea it is to borrow a technique from the private sector, and implement it in our statehouse to bring working relationships back into the realm of civil discourse? If it can be agreed that Wisconsin is in need of effective solutions to a number of issues, including but not necessarily exclusive of those I cited in the Paradigm Shift post, and we recognize that there are numerous techniques proven to be effective in developing real solutions, then we should be able to agree that perhaps our legislature needs to engage in one or more of these techniques - under the supervision of an independent third-party facilitator and with the transparency necessary to restore the public’s faith in their actions - to identify, develop, and implement real solutions to our real problems.

Now, if only I ran the Zoo…    

A Paradigm Shift for Wisconsin, and Perhaps the Nation

Wisconsin has always been a progressive state - we sent a man racing on horseback to ensure that Wisconsin was the first state to ratify the 19^th amendment of the U.S. Constitution which granted women the right to vote in 1920, and soon after established Wisconsin’s chapter of the League of Women Voters.  Long before that, the Grand Old Party (GOP) was founded on March 20, 1858 - only ten years after Wisconsin became a state - in Ripon, Wisconsin, where the term Republican was coined as the name of our nation’s anti-slavery party. The progressive values espoused by these actions are broadly indicative of the values of the people who populated Wisconsin during the settlement of the western U.S. and strived to create a state where hard work, mutual respect, and democracy became the cornerstones of our social fabric.

After living out west for nearly a decade I can attest that being from Wisconsin carries certain responsibilities because others have the highest expectations of us. Specifically, Wisconsinites are known coast-to-coast for receiving a top-notch public education and possessing an unmatched work ethic. To be from Wisconsin means something, at least it used to.

The state’s motto says it all - Forward - yet here we sit, stationary at best, and perhaps even moving backward to a state of old fashioned English-like rule, like that which the pilgrims fled from in the first place, where politicians legislated morality based solely on the religious beliefs of the rich and powerful. The GOP has shifted radically in this direction over the past few years, leaving behind truly conservative values in favor of radical oppression of women and their children, minorities, and the poor, overt voter suppression designed to silence and disenfranchise these same demographics, deceptive legislative practices, and outright law-breaking, particularly as it relates to campaign finance and election laws. The GOP’s platform has swung radically to the right, and Democrats are engaged in an ongoing battle with them over who might be right, or perhaps correct, on any number of issues, and together, but separately, they pass legislation that satisfies no one, and provides no real solutions to our current problems - all the while, both sides are accepting money, donations, and gifts from lobbyists who have cheapened our statehouse to nothing more than a shell. In the end they are all the same: bought and paid for by corporate and special interests who are in no way representing you and me, the electorate of Wisconsin. 

Meanwhile, here we sit, the electorate as real people, with real problems and no real hope for a solution on the horizon among all the bickering, to which there appears to be no end in sight. By real people and real problems what I am talking about is hungry children and homeless families. Real people who are unemployed and struggling to make ends meet to ensure their families have enough to eat and a place to live, not to mention equitable and affordable health insurance and access to high quality healthcare. Families who send their children to failing and desperately underfunded schools, without any other option for the education that is now nearly always required for gainful employment. People who are living in communities with a rapidly deteriorating physical infrastructure and who are further subject to a caustically eroded social fabric. And that’s just here in Wisconsin.

Clearly we have failed, as a government, as a state, as a society, and as humans. Just one hungry child in Wisconsin is one too many - and this holds true for all of our failures, particularly as it relates to homelessness, hunger, education, and community safety. As a state, as a society, as human beings, it is incumbent upon us to do better, to demand better, of ourselves and our neighbors, our elected officials, and our government. So long as our politicians, on both sides of the aisle, continue to be bought and paid for by special interests they will never live up to these expectations, and there can be no new and innovative solutions to resolve the issues that have spiraled out of control over the past 20 plus years, particularly the largest social injustice issues of hunger, homelessness, healthcare/health insurance, and unemployment.  Current estimates for political advertising in the 2012 election season eclipse $32 Billion - can you imagine how many families that amount of money could feed instead?

By providing all Wisconsin residents affordable and equitable access to real health insurance (not some discount program with limited services) and the highest quality healthcare the state resolves two issues with a multiplier effect that ripples throughout our social fabric. First, it is consistent with our humanitarian values to ensure every resident of our state has equitable and affordable health insurance and access to high quality healthcare, and it further rises to the expectation that we must do better for ourselves, and demand more of our government if we are to live up to the values our state was founded upon. Second, it removes a substantial burden and cost for employers doing business in the state. By providing health insurance and healthcare to every single resident, the state’s employers no longer have to pay for benefits, nor employ personnel to negotiate and administer workplace programs related to health insurance. This includes public schools, colleges, municipalities, and your neighborhood manufacturer - you want to talk about job creation, do you?  

The job creation aspect goes a long way to resolving hunger and homelessness - and I am not talking about dirty, dangerous mining jobs or minimum wage box-store jobs that people are admittedly grateful to have, but fall short of providing the income necessary to support Wisconsin’s families. We are talking about modern manufacturing careers, high-tech biotechnology careers, and other high-demand, high-wage industry sectors that provide safe working conditions, and wages that are sufficient to support Wisconsin’s families.

The other part of the jobs equation is a workforce that supports innovation and creativity to ensure Wisconsin’s firms can compete on a global scale with the quality and value today’s global consumers demand. Wisconsin can only live up to employers’ expectations if our education system produces graduates who are work- and/or college-ready without remediation. Current data indicates that more than 50 percent of incoming freshmen at public universities require remediation in Mathematics, Reading, or Writing - and more often than not, in all three subjects. Cost savings that schools realize when the state provides health insurance to its residents aren’t enough to resolve the problems within our schools, though it goes a long way under the direction of a visionary leader who recognizes that ALL children can learn, and learn at high levels when exposed to consistently high-quality instruction structured around clear, high standards and powerful, thinking curriculum.

This requires a paradigm shift in education where teachers are constantly challenged to find new and better ways to deliver instruction, empowered with the resources and professional development necessary to implement meaningful, evidence-based changes, fairly compensated, and revered like the professionals they are when students demonstrate academic gains. Furthermore, teachers whose students aren’t being successful must be supported by school leadership, and frankly the entire community, as they grow into effective teachers or other professions. Protecting the comfort of adults at the expense of our children can’t be tolerated any longer; teachers must live up to the awesome responsibility they have been charged with: to help raise other peoples’ children. Or they must find a new line of work.

With health insurance and healthcare off the table, and the resurrection of a first-class educational system in Wisconsin that feeds a high quality workforce to attract employers and create jobs, our state can easily resume the long-standing practice of collective bargaining. To be effective though, collective bargaining must be revisioned to ensure that every unionized worker is as good as the union’s best worker, and that unions discontinue the practice of protecting all members at any cost - when a worker isn’t performing to adequate standards and expectations they cannot continue to be granted union protections from discipline and termination. By charging the state’s unions with the responsibility of revisioning collective bargaining in Wisconsin within this framework, Wisconsin’s worker’s rights are guaranteed to be protected and worker quality becomes unmatched - like it once had been.

The only real question is “are we human enough to do this?”  To set aside our religious and political differences and demand the changes necessary to ensure no resident of Wisconsin goes hungry or homeless, or is without access to health insurance or healthcare, or is unable to get a good, family-supporting job. It’s not as hard as you think:

1 - Forbid all lobbying of Wisconsin’s politicians, in and out of our statehouse, under penalty of criminal law assessed against both the lobbyist and the politician. We must demand that our legislature answer to the electorate, and no one else, especially not corporate personhoods.

2 - Transition to a part-time, volunteer legislature that only conducts actual legislative business (sorry Aaron Rodgers, and Lactococcus lactis the state’s official microbe), with no time wasted on honorariums and other pomp and circumstance.

3 - Require any politician, PAC, SuperPAC, or any other political or social special interest group that wishes to clog our air waves (tv, radio, internet) with advertising donate $5 for every $1 spent to Wisconsin’s chapters of SecondHarvest/Feeding America. There is just no excuse for the excessive spending when there are hungry people in our state.

4 -Simplify our state’s tax code so every single resident and corporation based in Wisconsin, or having a physical location in Wisconsin, pays a flat tax rate on every single dime they earn, along a scale from five to 25 percent based on the previous years’ income, without deductions or loopholes of any kind. This is what human(e) people mean by shared sacrifice.

Now, if only I ran the zoo…