The limiting effects of “Next Election” Mentality

I once had great hope in the convergence of the best local minds ready to resolve long-standing issues as they ponder the disposition of new set of challenges.

It is, however, very discouraging to see people I’ve thought of as real leaders reduced to passivity and subsequent irrelevancy upon taking the oath of office.

Perhaps my idealist hope–turned delusion–was temporarily numbed when I heard rumors that the new operative word on Capital Hill was proactivity. I recently learned that it was simply an expression of political correctness, no more, no less. We’re back to square one: passivity, playing catch-up.

Or is it that the words passivity and irrelevancy may be mild assessments when the more relevant terms are either ignorance, confusion or both? Or is it this journalist who’s carried the crown of ignoramus all along?

It is really very discouraging how politicians and bureaucrats have conditioned real progressive strides on substantive issues until the “next election”. Nice try! And with the umpteen number of failure over the last decade, the much sought crown in public confidence would be illusory at best, so near yet so far, at worse.

Have we done anything to assist the struggling business community deal with the severe drop in business activities? Perhaps the Senate is best poised to answer that query. I mean, this is the bunch that railroads legislation without blinking. Now it is caught with their pants down quipping “we’re studying it…waiting for input from biz community…need to be enlightened…,” among other redundant excuses as substitutes for their indecision or inaction.

Perhaps the Senate deserves all the accolades for their sterling demonstration of “The Picnic Squad” while many of the people they represent sink further into the abyss of hopelessness and joblessness. Diabolically asinine, isn’t it? I mean, how could you subscribe to making life even more miserable for families you have subjected to abject poverty and loss of dignity? It’s political intransigence at the expense of the silent majority who must endure the failure of positive policymaking! True or False?

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Former OIA helmsman Allen Stayman has definitely wasted US mainland taxpayers money replicating the role of several law enforcement agencies. He ought to be forced by appropriate authorities to repay this blunder through the nose.

Not only did he ruin the image of these islands going to bat for monied labor unions in the name of “American Values”, but there are former and current subordinates who may lose their civil service career when the Don Young Report is issued later this year.

What went wrong? The Pinto Chief who’s now with the State Department decided to don the role of policymaking when in fact his is nothing more than an enforcement organ of Interior.

Stayman decided unilaterally that he can commit the US Congress on the Impact of the Compact funds without consulting with local leadership from Hawaii, Guam and the CNMI. When quizzed what’s the status of money owed the CNMI, his skirted the issue by quipping, “I’ll look into it”. Look no further, Mr. Pinto Chief, you were roasted by the Don Young Committee for making such presumptuous commitment, an authority solely the preserve of the US Congress.

This mess is the result of mediocrity. Someday soon, it will all be water under the bridge as the Pinto Chief’s career recedes with the lame duck Clinton presidency. If anything, Stayman should have made it a point to memorize his boss’s motto in the first election which reads: “It’s the economy, stupid!” He would have worked under the umbrella of greater partnership rather than as an adversary. Di ba?