Monday, March 5, 2007

God's Creation--Oshawa City Politicians

We needed a lot of help with this one…so we asked a group of others with much more familiarity with the source than your humble author!

Why did God make Oshawa politicians??

1. He needed something to make wind for the world.
2. He needed some way to spend all of Oshawa’s extra tax dollars.
3. He needed to have politicians to listen to all of the other politicians otherwise no one would listen to them.
4. He needed to add more humour to this part of the world.
5. He needed to hold up a sample of greedy “self-serving" to the public as an example of what “good people” should avoid.
6. He wanted to provide some humour for Oshawa people.


What ingredients did God make Oshawa politicians out of?

1. He found a pile of stinky raw material stuff behind the barn.
2. He found some used spaghetti that got installed as brains.
3. Bagpipes that got blown up and turned into people windbags.
4. God thought that, in the interests of democracy, everyone should have a hand in this and so he left one ingredient to each voter's imagination.


Why did God give Oshawa its politicians?

1. He realized Oshawa people had to suffer for the original sin.
2. He figured that Oshawa politicians attempts to bring in the general vote would wake up Oshawa people to the injustices being perpetrated on them.
3. As Canada’s auto center, Oshawa is a unique place and he figured a self-serving council would be a way to characterize this uniqueness.
4. Because of it’s wealth as the highest income place in Canada, he figured Oshawa shouldn’t have the best of everything in the country.


What did God give Oshawa politicians that he didn’t give other politicians?

1. The wisdom to adapt an election system seldom used in the country.
2. The guile to design a scheme to "trick" the people of Oshawa to vote for a general vote council to give incumbents a lifetime seat.
3. The uncommon characteristic of being self-serving rather than holding a strong sense in public service for the public good found in most jurisdictions in the country.


What kind of children were our Oshawa politicians?

1. One was a bully always scheming to get his way---and perpetrating fierce verbal attacks on those that didn’t measure up.
2. Three others were “perfect” children always doing what the dominant person around them wanted them to do…these along with the bully ended up as Oshawa’s “Gang of Four”--Councillors Pidwerbecki, Kolodzie, Parkes, and Henry.
3. Four of them fought for justice for all and tried to make the world around them a better place representing everybody’s interests. These children grew up to be Councillors Nicholson, Neal, Lutczyk, and Cullen. As adults they showed their childhood traits by defending the democratic ward voting for the people of Oshawa.
4. Some just blew in the wind. You couldn’t predict ahead of time what they were going to do. These are the ones that may change their vote to abandon a return to the general vote. However, they will first have to realize the political consequences of continuing to support a change to the general vote. They need your letters! Send them to Mayor Gray and Councillors Sholdra and Mariempietri. You can click on the names to send them emails.


What did Oshawa voters need to know about our politicians before electing them?

1. Whether they believed in serving the people first or themselves first…The "Gang of Four" who are solidly behind a return to the general vote obviously are self-serving.
2. Whether they were true to voting for what they truly believed to be best for Oshawa. Some say they know ward voting is best but they are voting to reject it. This doesn’t make sense. You must vote for what you know and believe to be right and best for Oshawa.
3. Whether they really wanted to serve the people necessary under the ward vote or whether they wanted to “retire” with the general vote and just continue to collect their salaries, perks, allowances, expense accounts, and honoraria.


Why did Oshawa voters elect our politicians?

1. They were uninformed about the values of some politicians who kept their beliefs and agendas private from the people.
2. Some were elected because of their good service to the residents of their ward.
3. Others were newly elected because of the promise they held for ward voters. Hopefully their votes will not disappoint their supporters…if that is the case, they will become non-supporters leading to the defeat of these politicians.


Who is the boss on city council?

1. There is one guy who bullies members to support him lest he turn on them with his personal attacks…thus he is a leader of three others.
2. There is the “Chair” who votes but seldom offers his own comment as that is difficult from the chair position which is supposed to be neutral.
3. There is a guy who often comes up with the most sensible motions which unfortunately seldom “carry” among the rest.
4. There are the aligned followers whose votes are predictable with a group no matter the issue and the unaligned independents who bring their personal and wisest judgment to all issues.


What’s the difference between politicians and ordinary people?

1. Most politicians like to listen to themselves while ordinary people often listen to others.
2. Most politicians think they are expert on everything while ordinary people recognize there are a few things they don’t know.
3. The money they make in relation to the energy they exert.


What would it take to make our Oshawa politicians perfect?

1. More common sense.
2. A real sense of the meaning of democracy.
3. A real sense of the high calling of politics in providing service to the people.
4. Listening to the people.
5. Communicating about important issues rather than trying to pull “a fast one” on the public by keeping issues such as the plebescite question” a virtual secret which confronted people “cold” in the voting booth never before thinking about or discussing the issue and then voting on a convoluted question where voters had to vote “NO” to preserve the system that they were satisfied with.

2 comments:

Bob Graham said...

Mr. Longworth,

It is obvious by now that you are (or at least are trying to be) a strong advocate for the Ward System to be retained in Oshawa.

I too am a strong advocate of the same, and am of the belief that City Council will eventually make the right decision.

However, you have managed to turn this blog from an informative, useful tool for people to express their beliefs, and turn it into nothing more than a mere joke, for local politicians to guffaw at.

By continuously, and, more and more ludicrously attacking your so-called "Gang Of Four", you are doing nothing more than to reaffirm their own beliefs, and making your credibility vanish. Now, you have seemingly already announced that you are running for Mayor, good for you, but, to shove your rhetoric down the throats of this city, is something I consider just as bad as anything that the "Gang Of Four" can manage.

If you will take the advice of one humble city resident, just please stick to the facts, and provide the city of Oshawa with the truths of the matter, and leave all of your self-made, stand up comic routines out of it.

I know that, of course, " Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author", so I am appealing to you to do the right thing, whether this is published or not, and stick to doing what is right for Oshawa, and ALL of its citizens. If this blog was to turn into a joke, it would be a great waste of all you have built here.

Yours,

Bob Graham.

Site Administrator said...

Hello Bob...I will publish your letter. I believe that a "dry blog" will not nurture the growth in readership that is required. This blog is designed to entertain as well as inform. The use of humour at times is designed to attract readership and thus the flow of info to more people. There is always a serious message behind comedy. If the content was dry, the blog would not enjoy the level of success and exponential growth that it is. Humour is the kind of content that "sticks" and gets talked about and has been used since the beginning of time as part of political commentary...witness political caricatures and "political cartoons" in virtually every newspaper. The New Yorker Magazine is most famous for it's political commentary presented as cartoons. I appreciate your interest and support for the ward system issue. I am thankful that you are checking our site. Unfortunately, we do have a bit of a difference in opinion as to how information about this very serious issue should be presented. Thanks for your letter and your opinion.
Bill Longworth