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When I was much younger, I believed political action could save the world. During high school in Oregon I wrote letters to our senator Wayne Morse and later to the president. I asked them to please find a way to end racial discrimination. In June 1964 just days after I graduated from high school, three young civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan.
Just a month later, President Johnson managed to force passage of the Civil Rights Act that President Kennedy had instigated not long before his assassination. Yet we have never truly vanquished racism in our country and it still permeates the lives of people of color.
Beginning in my early twenties I joined with tens of thousands of others to try and stop the war in Vietnam. It wasn’t until I was nearly 30 that the U.S. brought our troops home after losing over 50,000 men and women. Their names are listed row upon row on the polished black granite of the Vietnam War Memorial simply called The Wall.
I remember during one peace march, a gray-haired veteran of WWII surprised me by approaching and reaching out to shake my hand. Even more surprising were his words, “You young folks are fightin’ the good fight.” In 2008 I finally made my first visit to Washington, DC. My husband and I spent a day at the Wall, walking silently and reading names and dates. As I walked all I could think of was what an unnecessary and grievous loss to all those families and to our country.
In the 1968 Oregon primary election, I went door to door, manned the phones and stuffed a lot of envelopes for Robert Kennedy. While he lost that race to Senator Eugene McCarthy, Bobby went on to win the California primary just days later. That victory ended in tragedy just before midnight on June 5, 1968. After being announced as the winner, Senator Kennedy was gunned down. The next morning my three-year-old daughter was on my lap when they made the announcement of his death. She kept patting my arm and saying, “Mama, don’t cry.”
Those early efforts with civil rights and the peace movement led to other things. When Oregon’s major energy provider decided to construct a nuclear power plant right on the banks of the Columbia River near Portland, I joined one of the groups hoping to stop the project. It prevailed of course, but after only 16 years of operation, the plant was discovered to be irreparably defective and was shut down.
My first husband often ridiculed my political interests and efforts. He told me I was naïve and just wasting my time. There was some truth to his complaints. Looking back, there have been more than once that politics broke my heart.
Now we are in the worst political season I’ve known. There is meanness and ugliness and so much fear and anger in the rhetoric. With the crises that are affecting us, we need leaders who not only have wisdom, courage and integrity, but also a deep love for this country and all its people, a love for the world itself.
At 74 it’s been a long time since I thought politics could save the world, but I haven’t given up hope. Politics can certainly change things, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Last week I read this advice: “Choose your leaders like you’d catch a porcupine — very carefully.” The election is fast approaching. This morning I will fill out my ballot — carefully, very carefully.
Source:- Sonoma West
Opinion: Brad West been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization
Published Apr 22, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read
VICTORIA — Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West fired off a letter to Premier David Eby last week about Allan Schoenborn, the child killer who changed his name in a bid for anonymity.
“It is completely beyond the pale that individuals like Schoenborn have the ability to legally change their name in an attempt to disassociate themselves from their horrific crimes and to evade the public,” wrote West.
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The Alberta government has legislated against dangerous, long-term and high risk offenders who seek to change their names to escape public scrutiny.
“I urge your government to pass similar legislation as a high priority to ensure the safety of British Columbians,” West wrote the premier.
The B.C. Review Board has granted Schoenborn overnight, unescorted leave for up to 28 days, and he spent some of that time in Port Coquitlam, according to West.
This despite the board being notified that “in the last two years there have been 15 reported incidents where Schoenborn demonstrated aggressive behaviour.”
“It is absolutely unacceptable that an individual who has committed such heinous crimes, and continues to demonstrate this type of behaviour, is able to roam the community unescorted.”
Understandably, those details alarmed PoCo residents.
But the letter is also an example of the outspoken mayor’s penchant for to-the-point pronouncements on provincewide concerns.
He’s been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization.
His most recent blast followed the news that the New Democrats were appointing a task force to advise on ways to curb the use of illicit drugs and the spread of weapons in provincial hospitals.
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“Where the hell is the common sense here?” West told Mike Smyth on CKNW recently. “This has just gone way too far. And to have a task force to figure out what to do — it’s obvious what we need to do.
“In a hospital, there’s no weapons and you can’t smoke crack or fentanyl or any other drugs. There you go. Just saved God knows how much money and probably at least six months of dithering.”
He had a pithy comment on the government’s excessive reliance on outside consultants like MNP to process grants for clean energy and other programs.
“If ever there was a place to find savings that could be redirected to actually delivering core public services, it is government contracts to consultants like MNP,” wrote West.
He’s also broken with the Eby government on the carbon tax.
“The NDP once opposed the carbon tax because, by its very design, it is punishing to working people,” wrote West in a social media posting.
“The whole point of the tax is to make gas MORE expensive so people don’t use it. But instead of being honest about that, advocates rely on flimsy rebate BS. It is hard to find someone who thinks they are getting more dollars back in rebates than they are paying in carbon tax on gas, home heat, etc.”
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West has a history with the NDP. He was a political staffer and campaign worker with Mike Farnworth, the longtime NDP MLA for Port Coquitlam and now minister of public safety.
When West showed up at the legislature recently, Farnworth introduced him to the house as “the best mayor in Canada” and endorsed him as his successor: “I hope at some time he follows in my footsteps and takes over when I decide to retire — which is not just yet,” added Farnworth who is running this year for what would be his eighth term.
Other political players have their eye on West as a future prospect as well.
Several parties have invited him to run in the next federal election. He turned them all down.
Lately there has also been an effort to recruit him to lead a unified Opposition party against Premier David Eby in this year’s provincial election.
I gather the advocates have some opinion polling to back them up and a scenario that would see B.C. United and the Conservatives make way (!) for a party to be named later.
Such flights of fancy are commonplace in B.C. when the NDP is poised to win against a divided Opposition.
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By going after West, the advocates pay a compliment to his record as mayor (low property taxes and a fix-every-pothole work ethic) and his populist stands on public safety, carbon taxation and other provincial issues.
The outreach to a small city mayor who has never run provincially also says something about the perceived weaknesses of the alternatives to Eby.
“It is humbling,” West said Monday when I asked his reaction to the overtures.
But he is a young father with two boys, aged three and seven. The mayor was 10 when he lost his own dad and he believes that if he sought provincial political leadership now, “I would not be the type of dad I want to be.”
When West ran for re-election — unopposed — in 2022, he promised to serve out the full four years as mayor.
He is poised to keep his word, confident that if the overtures to run provincially are serious, they will still be there when his term is up.
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LIVE Q&A WITH B.C. PREMIER DAVID EBY: Join us April 23 at 3:30 p.m. when we will sit down with B.C. Premier David Eby for a special edition of Conversations Live. The premier will answer our questions — and yours — about a range of topics, including housing, drug decriminalization, transportation, the economy, crime and carbon taxes. Click HERE to get a link to the livestream emailed to your inbox.
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