Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

WHY I’M RUNNING

By

We need to end the tired debate between Franklin Roosevelt’s big government will solve all of our problems and Ronald Reagan’s government isn’t the solution, it is the problem. Instead, we need to embrace Big Citizenship.

Big Citizenship means getting people involved in politics to undo decades of gridlock. We need people to participate in movements that make change. We need a new era in government which recognizes that change comes from the bottom-up, not the top-down.

Big Citizenship means fostering new partnerships with the public sector, the private sector, and the non-profit sector, because to solve our nation’s problems, we need to get all hands on deck.

Our campaign will be citizen-led, citizen-energized, and citizen-financed-that is why it will be successful. Over the course of this campaign I hope to meet you and share my vision for our Commonwealth and our country.

My website went live today and I hope you will visit it at www.alanforsenate.com. Most importantly, I hope we have the chance to meet so that I can hear your ideas about how we can seize opportunities and meet the challenges that face our Commonwealth and our country.

Thank you for your interest in this election and I hope you will consider getting involved.

In friendship,

Alan Khazei

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Comments

  1. Myself, I had already chosen a candidate, and will stay with that choice.  However, I will follow all the candidates enough to understand who they are, why they are running, and what they have to offer in governance because whether or not any of the candidates in this Special Election get the nomination, and/or get elected – or not – I hope we continue to benefit as citizens from your passion and your engagement.

  2. Thank you for introducing yourself here.  It’s nice to read about why you’re running, and I look forward to you explaining what you’ll do if elected Senator on key issues that the Senate faces.

  3. When will you state and-or publish your specific positions on the issues you cite as important:

    <

    p>economic turmoil
    health care
    climate change
    energy
    education
    wars abroad
    poverty at home

    <

    p>For example, going down the list:

    <

    p>do you think the Fed should be stripped of responsibility for consumer financial protection, as has been suggested, and should there be a new financial super-regulator;

    <

    p>do you support a public option to the point where you would vote against a reform bill that did not include it;

    <

    p>do you support cap and trade and Cape Wind;

    <

    p>should we increase the gas tax;

    <

    p>what do you think of No Child Left Behind;

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    p>do you support or oppose Obama’s conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;

    <

    p>and how can Big Citizenship reduce poverty since it doesn’t seem to generate any money on its own (although perhaps that is a misunderstanding of the concept).

  4. What does City Year do exactly? How has it benefited the poor inner city kid? Have any become doctors, lawyers, teachers, carpenters, small business owners, plumbers, police officers, etc. because of City Year?

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    p>It appears to me as being an organization which allows young suburban middle and upper middle class adults an opportunity to build a resume by performing numerous feel good hit and run projects in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan such as vacant lot clean-ups.

    <

    p>What exactly does the “community” get from City Year and why does the “community” need outsiders to perform these simple tasks?

    • Plus they get those cool red jackets like Teddy Kennedy wore in foul weather while sailing.

    • First you ask…

      <

      p>

      What does City Year do exactly?

      <

      p>Then you assume an answer…

      <

      p>

      How has it benefited the poor inner city kid? Have any become doctors, lawyers, teachers, carpenters, small business owners, plumbers, police officers, etc. because of City Year?

      <

      p>If you want an answer, wait for the answer.

      <

      p>

      It appears to me as being an organization which allows young suburban middle and upper middle class adults an opportunity to build a resume by performing numerous feel good hit and run projects in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan such as vacant lot clean-ups.

      <

      p>It appears to me as being a sort of boot camp for community organizers.  Perhaps you should visit the website and, you know, do your own homework, first…

      <

      p>…unless, of course, all your interested in is drive-by aspersions.  If that’s the case, carry on…  

      • a lot of feel good b.s. without facts.

        <

        p>Tell me some success stories. I am familiar with City Year and I do not see the longterm dividends. It’s been around a long time. Tell me some succesful results of those they mentored?

        <

        p>BTW community organizor is another word for far left political activist taking advantage of the poor, downtroddden, and hopeless with only the organizors benefitting via a non-profit salary funded through government subsidies.

        <

        p>Give me facts petr. By that I mean success stories. Not about Sally from Lexington tutoring  a fourth grader in reading once a week. The teachers don’t need volunteers, they need teachers,

        • tell me some success stories. I am familiar with City Year and I do not see the longterm dividends. It’s been around a long time. Tell me some succesful results of those they mentored?

          <

          p>Why should I do anything of the sort? A) You’ve already made up your mind and 2) we, apparently, can’t agree on what’s worthwhile: you want ‘success stories’ and I think people getting together in this manner is a worthy endeavor, in and of itself.

          <

          p>I suppose, though, that there is one measure of ‘success’ that we can both agree upon: they’ve been continuously funded, in large part, by foundations and many major corporations.  Why don’t you ask those corporations what it is they see in City Year?  

          <

          p>

          BTW community organizor is another word for far left political activist

          <

          p>Aha… there’s the nub of it. You forgot to add the part about driving up to the welfare office in a cadillac…

          <

          p>

          taking advantage of the poor, downtroddden, and hopeless with only the organizors benefitting via a non-profit salary funded through government subsidies.

          <

          p>You also forgot to add the part about how these community organizers are standing in the way of the vast horde of right wing political activists just aching to relieve the burdens of poverty and hopelessness for the aforementioned downtrodden.

          <

          p>  

          • Your rhetoric is obtuse. Ask the funding companies?

            <

            p>They get good p.r that’s all. And that’s all they want.
            I’m sorry. City Year has been, if anything, an A-1 self-promoting group.

            <

            p>Saying you won’t present your best argument because the inquisator has already made up his mind is the definition of having no argument.

            <

            p>Prove me wrong petr.  Don’t you have any facts? Or is the web site enough for you? No questions needed.

            <

            p>The City Year Motto should be:

            <

            p>”City Year, come feel good about yourself without accomplishing much.” or

            <

            p>”City Year, it’s not the results that matter, but how we feel about ourselves.”

            • I’m sorry. City Year has been, if anything, an A-1 self-promoting group.

              “City Year, come feel good about yourself without accomplishing much.” or

              “City Year, it’s not the results that matter, but how we feel about ourselves.”

              <

              p>Please cite actual facts to back-up this gobbledeygook.

              • More unsound logic from City Year supporters.

                <

                p>Let’s hear some facts so I can respond to your question.

                <

                p>What exactly they do and what are some of their success stories during their 20+ years.

                • You made a specific claim:

                  <

                  p>

                  City Year has been, if anything, an A-1 self-promoting group.

                  “City Year, come feel good about yourself without accomplishing much.” or

                  “City Year, it’s not the results that matter, but how we feel about ourselves.”

                  <

                  p>Please cite the facts you used to reach this conclusion. Do you have any?

                  <

                  p>If so, by all means share them; if not, your opinion is just gobbledeygook.    

            • *[new] Obviously You Can’t Answer the Question (0.00 / 0)

              <

              p>There’s no question to answer.  Simply attaching a question mark to a stray piece of your phlegm doesn’t a question make.

              <

              p>

              Your rhetoric is obtuse.

              <

              p>Of course it is. This whole argument is obtuse… that’s because you’re passive aggressively asserting your point of view through this vapid line of ‘questioning’.   You got a beef with city year?  Fine. You’re entitled to your opinion.   Just don’t go parading your opinion through some interrogation.  That won’t fly.
               

              • That’s all.
                That is a question from which a direct and substantive answer should be at the ready from any City Year supporter.

                <

                p>Your’s and others’ responses defending City Year are instead proving my point.

                <

                p>Do yourself and City Year a favor and tell us of some City Year success stories.

                • You can read it here from 2007 (the latest available on their website). For example:

                  <

                  p>

                  2006-2007 1,200 City Year corps members
                  Provided 1.8 million hours of service
                  Serving 50,000 youth
                  Leading 26,000 citizens in service
                  With the support of 850 corporate sponsors and 1,000 service partners
                  2,200 physical service projects completed, including:
                  65 playgrounds built 155 gardens planted 220 neighborhoods revitalized 900 murals painted

                  <

                  p>How many murals have you painted in the last year, Ernie?

                • 2,200 physical service projects completed, including:
                  65 playgrounds built 155 gardens planted 220 neighborhoods revitalized 900 murals painted

                  <

                  p>Everything but the above quote is just flowery numbers showing how mnay people and corps. feel good about themselves by donating time and/or money. What exactly was City Year’s role in the “building” of these parks.  Did they pay for the entire cost? Or did they show up, paint the jungle gym then leave? Or was it something in between. After the parks and garden were “built” did CYty Year provide the funds to maintain the parks? Who emptied the barrels?

                  <

                  p>Gardens are nice too. Does City Year maintain them/

                  <

                  p>Tell me exactly what they did to “revitalize 220 neighborhoods”.

                  <

                  p>Wouldn’t it have been better to use the mney given by the corporations to hire neighborhood youth at a living wage to perform these same tasks?

                  <

                  p>I still want a success story Bob. Aren’t there examples of little Johnny and Sally from Mattapan who beat the circle of poverty because of their attitude and the opportunities that City year gace them?

                  <

                  p>

                • I don’t accept it. I want specific stories. What did  City year do for him and others.

                  <

                  p>The Boys Club of Boston can give us hundreds of stories with specifics.
                  Why can’t City Year?

                • Those are great questions Ernie.  We need to get people interested in long-term grunt work of emptying barrels and maintaining gardens.  We don’t need a Senator who’s going to focus on fluffing up the population with short term useless feel-good resume padding work.  City Year does not encourage nose-to-the-grindstone actual work, it is surrogate activity for neutered disrespected people, prozac and lithium to calm the restlessness caused by outsourcing jobs to China and the feminization of work here.

                • You don’t believe there are any success stories. You’ve already stated as much.  

                  <

                  p>

                  That is a question from which a direct and substantive answer should be at the ready from any City Year supporter.

                  <

                  p>The question you ‘asked’ to begin with was “what does City Year do?”, to which you replied with your own half-baked ideas about what you think City Year does.

                  <

                  p>Always about you.  

                • …cleaning up city parks and giving the youth of the city something productive to do with their summer break.

    • Two-Fer

      <

      p>As someone who’s been hoping that some capable, non-politico-types enter this race, I give Khazei tremendous credit for throwing his proverbial hat into the ring (and I wish a couple more outsiders had, too).

      <

      p>Based on the video of his announcement on Boston.com, he’s going to be a Howard Dean-style candidate who gets a lot of people involved in a positive way, and is going to challenge the establishment types with his pledge not to take PAC money.  

      <

      p>That said, I am interested to here where he and the others stand on specific issues.

      <

      p>Two-Fer:

      <

      p>When I lived in Chelsea, we had City Year volunteers tutoring in our largest middle-school and running after-school homework help classes at the public library. The volunteers come from all economic backgrounds and most of their work is in schools, not cleaning vacant lots (that was CETA in the 1970’s, bro’).

      <

      p>The volunteers were local kids and kids from other parts of Greater Boston. According to their website, City Year now works in 17 other cities and in South Africa.

  5. Thanks for coming to this blog and I echo the posts of sabutai and Bob by asking where you stand on important issues. I await your website and your answers here clarifying those positions and I will not waste time by redundantly repeating them.

    <

    p>Instead I will ask the following:

    <

    p>-What experiences have prepared you, in your mind, that you will be a great legislator with the ability to write, sponsor, and pass substantial laws?

    <

    p>-Will you be able to work across the aisle?

    <

    p>-What Republicans have you worked with in the past?

    <

    p>-Do you support public funding and will you maintain a publicly funded campaign?

    <

    p>-Will you hire experienced Senatorial staff or recruit your own people?

    <

    p>-Considering you are new to public office why start as high as Senator? Why not build substantial political experience in a lower position?

    <

    p>-What political defeats have you endured already and how did you rebound from them?

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    p>-Do you support Harry Reid’s leadership in the United States Senate? If not who would you recommend in his stead?

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    p>-Do you support continuing the tradition of the filibuster?

    <

    p>-Who, besides Ted Kennedy, is your Senatorial role model who you would like to emulate?

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    p>-What do you hope to accomplish specifically for the people of MA, what have you accomplished so far and what specific things to you intend to bring home for the people of MA?

    <

    p>-Do you think your political inexperience will be a liability in any way such as clout regarding military base closures, bringing home earmarks, etc?

    <

    p>-Will you try to reform the way earmarks are currently allocated?

    <

    p>-Do you support the Cape Wind project? If not tell us why

    <

    p>-What school of international relations, if any, do you subscribe to are you a realist, an internationalist, a neoliberal, a neoconservative, an isolationist, or something else?

    <

    p>-Briefly describe your foreign policy/national security background and experience

    <

    p>-Under what circumstances do you feel military intervention by the US is justified?

  6. We need to end the tired debate between Franklin Roosevelt’s big government will solve all of our problems and Ronald Reagan’s government isn’t the solution, it is the problem. Instead, we need to embrace Big Citizenship.

    This sounds very nice, and I’m all for looking for ways to improve citizen engagement.  I agree that that’s an extremely important thing to do.

    <

    p>But I’m not sure what debate you’re talking about.  For one thing, you’re attributing to Reagan something he actually said, and to Roosevelt something that, as far as I know, he neither ever said nor acted as though he believed.  (Not to mention, of course, that Roosevelt did a huge amount of lasting good for the country, while Reagan did a huge amount of lasting harm, so…it doesn’t seem like a middle ground is really the thing to look for there.)  If you mean we need to end the false idea that there is this kind of a debate and that those are the two sides — the dishonest framing that’s been pushed by conservatives for decades — then I certainly agree.

    • <

      p>It’s also worth noting that FDRs actions and policies were in direct response to the earlier version of Reagans mantra, to wit “The markets can do no wrong”… which ideology led, then as now, to dire economic distress.

      <

      p>FDR first address

      Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

      True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

  8. at my house today.  The survey started out innnocently enough but at the end sounded like a push poll for Pagliauca so I did not complete it.    

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