News From Burlington, Vermont - MORE HOT
AIR from a COOL CLIMATE
One of the things that used to bug
me about living near Burlington VT was the amazing quantity of feel-good
gobbledygook spewed continually by all the angst-ridden ‘progressive’ hand wringers
there. Here is one very recent example, from the September 2, 2001 WCAX-TV news
transcript:
“The
original Burlington Women's council self-destructed after a power struggle. The
city council revoked the group's public funding. Now, four years later, Ruby
Perry leads a revamped organization, re-named the Women's Coalition of
Burlington. ((Ruby Perry/Women's Coalition of Burlington: "The name change
reflects the difference in the organization. It's an organization of
organizations. It's a coalition of organizations that have come together to
work for similar purposes.")) Perry was hired six months ago as part-time
director. ((Over the past year, a dedicated group of people came together and
met regularly to hammer out a structure that was ultimately accepted by the
city council for funding.")) Perry says the coalition won a vote of
confidence when the city authorized a thirty thousand dollar budget. Other
organizations that help women, such as the Women's Rape Crisis Center, will
control it. Perry will answer to a steering committee of representatives from
each member organization. She says the mission is to advocate change, globally
and locally. ((Perry: "I think what needs to change in Burlington is
probably what needs to change in the world. There needs to be less violence
toward women, there needs to be more money towards education, there needs to be
a recognition of the health of the environment.... But we haven't yet
determined what our focus will be.")) Perry is putting together the
coalition's first public event, an appearance by Native American Winona LaDuke,
who was presidential candidate Ralph Nader's running mate. ((Perry: "I
think maybe that reflects the direction that we'll go in. Bringing a woman of
her caliber to Burlington is a real service to not just women in the city, but
to everybody.")) That's what Perry believes will keep this coalition alive
and effective. Andy Potter, Channel Three news, Burlington.
They spent six months of meetings
‘hammering out a structure’ that could get funding from the city of Burlington.
They hammered out that structure, Burlington has coughed up $30,000, but still nobody knows what this 'structure' is going to do. The purposes stated thus far are confusing, vague, and totally uncertain. Didn't they know why they wanted this coalition in the first place, what it was supposed to accomplish, why it needed to exist? Evidently not. The first item on the list was covered though - they knew it would need public funding.
$30,000 of public funds may not seem
like THAT much money. But it’s still $30,000, and
you can bet in another few years it will balloon to $50,000 or $75,000. For
now though, they only need $30,000 – so that groups that talk about problems
can begin to come together and talk about problems. Why? If I lived in Burlington I
would be outraged that my money could be utterly wasted, thrown away with such
abandon. This is a perfect example of why some people don't trust government to take charge of our affairs, our health care, our retirement funds... this 'progressive' willingness to flush taxpayer funds down the toilet instead of spending those funds responsibly and carefully and effectively.
While this new Women’s group has not yet even determined what its focus is going to be -
women’s issues, the environment, educational funding, who knows, they
themselves don’t know – all of these issues have advocates everywhere you
turn already. What is the first activity planned by this coalition? They are inviting someone (a woman, of course, and a Native American which is worth bonus diversity points) to come to Burlington - to talk. If this 'caliber' of guest-speaker was really worth listening to in the first place, she would tell Burlington to stop wasting their money funding yak-groups and use it directly on the problems. Not gonna happen.
How about finding some old people,
or some poor kids, or some handicapped people, who could benefit from SOME
WORTHWHILE use of that money, instead of giving it to the hot air machine to
talk, talk, talk still more? How about buying fans or air conditioners for old
people who can’t afford to escape the summer heat? How about fixing up and
donating bicycles to poor kids, or replacing some playground equipment? I can think
of endless ideas that may not be fantastic but would at least be using the
money to help someone – instead of a group helping themselves to someone’s
money.
But
no, don’t fix problems. Instead, spend the money talking about the problems and demanding that other people actually DO something about them. The results of this approach stink but you can still feel good about yourself. If I lived in Burlington,
I might try to start a publicly funded group to determine why so much money is
wasted on publicly funded groups.
Welcome
to Burlington Vermont. Good luck making sense of it; I tried for years and it only gets worse.