Busting & dusting - not cleaning or changing

As Attorney General Eric Schneiderman goes around his proprietorial duties we are seeing some changes in Albany. While some people are making a big deal about all the events that have transpired in the last year or so, I am less hopeful and sanguine.

Let's face one simple fact: For all the investigations, arrests, arraignments, and “show” trials, nothing really is going to change.

Two of the three men in a room have been arrested and are out of power permanently. And who replaced them? Two people representing capitalism.

Buffalo media (and the state media for that matter) are gong all abuzz about the Steve Pigeon problem and the end of Michalek on the court. Nice to see some people abusing power being taken down. Evidently more will be going down soon. It's like an old fashioned pigeon shoot. (Pardon the pun.)

A species of pigeons went extinct because of these shooting sprees. I'm less than optimistic that anything is going to change because the two capitalist parties will still be in power after all the dust has settled.

There will be elections and appointments to replace those that are taken down in the dragnet that Schneiderman is going atound with. And will anyone representing the people really be elected?

It costs money to run in elections and people always turn to those that have it in order to get those that don't have it to vote for them.

So we probably won't be seeing any socialist candidates on the bench or in any influential office because those that have the money are going to do everything that they can to keep those that would truly represent the people out of power.

Others in the line of fire are businessmen and women, and powerful politicians who might be able to use their power and influence to shut Schneiderman down, or at least keep his dogs at bay. (And Billary is on the list. Nothing happened with Libya. What are the chances that the Republicants are going to go barking up this tree?)

To solve this problem of perpetual corruption in the halls of power in New York we need true democracy. In the Assembly and Senate we need proportional representation instead of the gerrymandered districts that we now have.

In the issue of judges, we need to remove their names from the lines of political parties. Right now a judge receives a party's ballot line if they donate a certain amount of money to that political party. Look at the last few elections for judges – it's pretty much all the same names on all ballot lines. Instead it should be based upon signatures from across the state (not just one region. Otherwise NYC would be dictating all the judgeships.) And the appointment of judges by the powerful needs to stop in its entirety.

The solution to the problem in Albany and the halls of power across the state is democracy. Let the people choose whom they want to have representing them and make recalls on those in positions of power easier.

We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union demand more power in making that union possible.

So Schneiderman can do all the busting and dusting that he wants.

In the end,  if the people don't get a voice in what happens next,  all he is doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.