Government and Society – Page 50 – Rural Tompkins County

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Rise of the Evil Ones” – “Form Based Urban Sprawl”

“Form Based Code” advocates always postulate the best of all worlds for their own plans; and the worst for everyone else’s. This follows the modern technique where one side of an argument also presents the case for the opposition – invariably to their detriment. [A real debate, like real public participation, is considered a dangerous throwback.]

These planners use the same arguments as dictators have always used: decision making by citizens is inefficient and contains too many varied and conflicting viewpoints for a properly directed society. And their vision of everybody rowing together under one authority does not preclude the use of galley slaves.

Like architectural drawings; where the buildings come first and the people are thrown in in later – Form Based Codes are all about power of codes; not the lives of people. Their vision is not about making people happy – it’s about making people conform.

In a time when the public has no meaningful say in policy making – it’s beyond foolish to increase the scope of government policy making power.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Rise of the Evil Ones” – “The Puppet Show”

Got me again. Even though I wrote about the bureaucratic trick of referring you to another department – another bureaucrat, and another and another — I requested the support that was promised with petition signatures: and received nothing – no response to my emails at all. It took waiting a couple of days to sink in.

The Holidays are a dangerous time for citizens; the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years are the season for sliding in unwanted decisions and developments – while the opposition is busy elsewhere. Ho, Ho, Holy Cow! What was that resolution!? I thought that was tabled until January!

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Rise of the Evil Ones” – “Load Stomach”

Too much turkey, and you won’t be climbing many of those ladders. A full stomach can make you content – not to worry about where the next meal is coming from – not to worry where the money for this meal is coming from. Where do all those government payments come from? The future.

So sit back, loosen your belt, and watch the game: it’s a race between global warming, over population, pandemic pathogens, and crashing debt.

That’s OK – we can make it all better with a combination Artificial Intelligence and GMO Nanotechnology . . . Oops.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Rise of the Evil Ones” – “Form Based Boiler Room”

Balance yourself on the pipes to find a way across the bed of hot Prohibitions – but even following the pipes can’t prevent you from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Today’s Doctrine monitors, not only your actions, but your thoughts — and the looks of anxiety and fear are everywhere in Cornithaca County. One Thought – One Taught – One Voice – One Choice.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “If Wisdom is extinct” Bumper sticker

“If Wisdom is extinct; how far behind are we?” In thinking back; all the cautions of arrogance, and the counselling of Wisdom have disappeared – all the governors that stop runaway pride and hubris have been removed.

Our social policies directly contradict the lives and beliefs of every notable figure of human worth and equality.

Our scientists eschew the advice of unpredictable and disastrous worldwide consequences; by covering their asses with unaccountability.

Our activists bond with the same forms and institutions as those whom they decry; in competition, rather than in opposition.

The “gadfly” is now considered a disruptive force – a noise in the “lossy” one-voice rhetoric of today’s authoritative elite.

Young people are media-fed on attractive lies; growing unnaturally, like 6 month old chickens that are bigger than an adult of the last century – and for the same purpose: money.

Everything that contradicts and competes with today’s Doctrine of Using has been relegated and erased — and that includes the wisdom and humanity of millennia.

We’re calling on science to drive us ever faster from the scene of our crimes — but in one global world; we’re only racing more quickly to meet it as we come full circle.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Rise of the Evil Ones” – “Form Basted Thanksgiving”

The form based conventions and convocations of Thanksgiving are everything that Form Based Codes are not – they’re all about people. And when there’s no room left for food and drink; there’s room on the couch for a snooze.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Education 101” Bumper sticker

According to the new ABCs: “Authority, Bureaucracy, Conformity” — citizens should wait for the proper experts to get them out of any difficulty; praising them for their salvation, or dismissing the victims as being “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Citizens coming upon an emergency should call 911, text a friend to call 911, or post it on Facebook . . . while our “Bread and Circuses” Media tosses another sanitized tidbit into their scheduling abyss.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “It’s not a government; it’s a gang” Bumper sticker

Tompkins County’s elitist clique doesn’t need the public as a source of legitimacy; just a source of funds and goods. Like the bandits in Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” – they see the surrounding communities as a means of comfortable living; just due for just force. An air of intimidation hangs over every County policy making decision.

What sort of people are these gang members? In a county where the people overwhelmingly believe that the government is corrupt and self-serving — County leaders publicly declare their unbroken service to the people and their commitment to public participation. It’s a measure of their power – and their hypocrisy.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Whenever they talk about ‘everybody’” Bumper sticker

Talk, talk, talk: in one chapter of the upcoming “Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” – I deconstructed one of their “goodness and togetherness” policy statements to arrive at the following core description:

“This plan is based on values that reflect the principles of the County’s Legislature. In serving this agenda; We will choose the burdens to place on individuals and businesses, and decide which individuals to restrict in their choice of where and how they can live.”

Not only does it reveal the authoritarian bones in their body of policy making — it showed a mocking and dismissive humor in the way that it was clothed.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Rural people have no representatives” Bumper sticker

Yes, we certainly have tax collectors; and tax assessors — and they each ramp up the taxes in turn – while pointing to the other.

The assessment department claims that they are saving us money by keeping the number of employees down – but gather many times the amount of that “savings” from the blanket assessments their reduced size “forces” them use.

Representatives do nothing; can’t do anything; won’t do anything to help rural taxpayers — they just explain “why” this is happening; and feel content. It’s like a doctor diagnosing a gunshot wound without worrying about treating it – rural representatives seem to feel no need to actually help the people they “represent” – they have “larger issues” [more important people] to be concerned with.

In a meeting of unhappy rural taxpayers; the head of the assessment department announced that next year they would reassess homeowners on the other side of the county – Really? I wonder what he’ll be telling them . . .