When the year began I was actually filled with some optimism. With a November 2004 election corrupted by King County and thousands of illegal and invalid votes counted, who would have thought that a judge would accept depositions from felons removing votes from Dino Rossi while allowing an admitted 1,760 illegal votes in a race decided by 129 votes to decide the election in Gregoire's favor?
A personal battle with the corrupt King County land use departments was coming to head and the Washington State Supreme Court would decide many of the issues once and for all. Who would have imagined that after 10 years the court would rule unanimously to excuse a decade of wrongdoing based on King County's acceptance in 1989 of an illegal subdivision application that the Superior Court, Appellate Court and even the Supremes themselves refused to even rule on given repeated opportunities?
Then last month the King County Board of Ethic refused to rule on a half-dozen ethical questions related to King County actions, keeping their 6-year record of non-action perfect. That then excused the King County Ombudsman from investigating even larger issues. I learned that in King County, ethics doesn't drive behavior, but the Ethics Code does. But what is the Ethics Code but a law written and adopted by politicians to make sure that just about anything can be done in King County and still be called ethical.
When the year began George W. Bush was the overwhelming victor in a Presidential race ran against an arguably treasonous opponent? But despite his strong victory, the mainstream media has only ratcheted up their efforts further to damage him and his popularity, with papers like the New York Times now even orchestrating the release of news to hurt the administration? It's a tribute to many Americans that they can withstand the barrage of unfair and untruthful negative coverage and still approve of the president's actions.
But as a conservative in Washington State what can one do? With a state Republican Party run by the growth industry and their poster boy Chris Vance, what kind of choice is it choosing between the Democrats' social welfare and voter "purchase plan" or the Republicans' corporate welfare agenda and corporate "purchase plan"? Democrats higher taxes to feed the dependency class versus Republican higher taxes to subsidize the growth industries profits? Or even the shared strategies supporting higher taxes to build tributes to the elite in the form of new coliseums or race tracks?
No, whatever optimism I had left in those first days of 2005 is gone in these early days of 2006.
As a conservative all I have to look forward to in 2006 is the unrelenting attacks on our "moderate" president for being too "non-Democrat". Democrats will continue to hope, and even attempt to orchestrate failures in Iraq while they and their allies in the media will continue to hype their version of the Iraq scorecard, which will continue to be centered around our soldiers' deaths and anything negative they can come up with or invent.
Brainless politicians like Maria Cantwell, elected only as a result of the tech boom and likely shenanigans in King County that helped her defeat Slade Gorton, will fight logical and reasonable efforts to drill in ANWR. Never mind that it might actually be environmentally friendly and would move tankers off the oceans where the greater risks are. But it's all political. Right and wrong don't count. What's best for Americans doesn't matter. To Democrats in Washington, both this one and DC, all that matters is winning. An America in flames would be acceptable to today's Democrats as long as they are in control of it.
I hope I'm wrong about 2006, but while conservatives argue between themselves about issues, this party has to wake up to the fact that they're up against a massive propaganda machine we call the mainstream media. The MSM doesn't care about issues. The issues are all decided, as far as they are concerned, and they just happen to be the exact opposite positions supported by Bush, Republicans and especially conservatives.
The fight cannot be won taking it to Democrat politicians. They were elected by constituencies that share in their liberalism or have been bought off with their handouts. Why would they turn on the successful equations that got them into office? These politicians, along with many liberal Republicans and other RINOs, have proven that they have no concern about right and wrong, but only gaining and holding onto power. The only way to fight this battle is to take it to the media and other forces of the miseducation of Americans in higher education and Hollywood. As long as the "left" controls those propaganda distrubution mediums, then the battle cannot even be engaged among the "majority" of Americans. As long as the New York Times, Washington Post, Network TV vews, or even the news pages of the Wall Street Journal are controlled by liberals, the alternative voice is nothing but a faint whisper heard by only a very few Americans.
Consider the amazing efforts of Stefan Sharkansky and SoundPolitics.com? What percentage of Washington voters even know of this site's existence? 5% maybe? If only they knew of the evidence of fraud uncovered by Sharkansky would Sims be able to push an all-mail election system?
How about KVI or KTTH radio? Maybe 10%-20% of Puget Sound adults have listened and are already on-board with conservative beliefs. As the only successful alternatives to the Times, PI, and the plethora of television and other radio stations spewing liberalisms (or more accurately - anti-Republicanism), while some inroads have been made, the "right" has a very long way to go before they can even get into the 'real' fight over issues.
6 comments:
So, are you an anti-BIAW Republican? Not a dig, just wondering.
I have seen everything...
I think anyone has a right to attempt to influence government to achieve their goals. I would never suggest that the Building Industry does not have that right. What I object to, though, are governments and irresponsible elected officials that cave into the pressures and bias their actions for a corporate interest over the interests of people in the community. I have seen how those pressures, many of them institutionalized by the politicians into the law, have poisoned King County's land development system. Today we have a development agency (DDES) that is a defacto subsidiary of the builders. Not only funded directly by permit fees, but desperate to keep those permits flowing. DDES will find the way to approve whatever large builders wish and then shield them from the consequences with their rubber stamp. I've witnessed the "arbitrary and capricious" actions by DOT to manipulate traffic studies, forecasts, and volumes to forgive developers tens of millions of dollars in road impacts. I've seen how the county treats whistleblowers who've tried to expose the alleged fraudulent and illegal acts by their own agencies.
Am I an anti-BIAW Republican? I am a conservative. With that comes a belief that government handouts to the Builders are no less a robbery of the taxpayers as handouts to the lazy, illegal aliens, or those simply unwilling to provide for themselves. And when this government extorts money from me and my fellow taxpayers to subsidize the road construction and other infrastructure that they have worked to keep the growth industry from funding, then I think that makes me an "anti-corporate welfare" Republican.
To add insult to injury, when I see the pathetic quality of homes being built by some of these mega-developers to further maximize their subsidized profits, then I just get pissed off.
So you're a Derdowski Republican? (Back when The Derd was a GOPer that is) My family was for Derdowski despite the fact that we're Dems because of his slow growth beliefs.
I think it's bad manners for a lib like me to visit a righty blog and comment dump, but I was curious about the anti-builder angle of your blog, being that you are a conservative.
So, as far as land issues are concerned, what happenens next?
FYI- I continued to support Brian after he changed parties. I also have no problem with 99% of the builders out there. It's the mega-builders that have corrupted our system, the laws and both parties that I have the problems with. When I'm sitting in the stop and go traffic that Weyerhaeuser created waiting for the new taxes imposed upon us all to fix it, that's the only answer I have to your "what happens next" question. I don't see anything on the horizon to reverse the direction both parties have bought into for Western Washington.
I mean, "what happens next" as in, are you going to do anything else to try to bring more accountablility to King County developement? Are there anymore large developements planned for the future in E. King?
For now I'm done. Can't come up with any angle that hasn't been tried. Even the Feds appeared to believe our charges, but they too wouldn't go the next step. Too much money involved and too few - if any - folks with really integrity in government to take on the corruption. The citizen has no voice and no power to do anything by themselves, short of costly initiative drives that the courts easily dismiss and legislatures quickly ignore. I'll personally never trust a court again as long as I live. The law means nothing when certain high-dollar issues are in play.
Every person I know that has tried to fight the land use corruption has moved on. New faces step up, but they're going up against hardened, well-paid armies of lawyers and lobbiests whose only job it is to keep the gravy train going. They have all the access and we never did.
You can only beat your head against the wall for so long. I think those of us up here lasted longer than most, but in the end we were just as powerless to fight the dollars and professional parasites as anyone else.
What's sad is how few people know just how bad it is.
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