My Politics

The System places us against each other as competitors, owner’s vs renters, public workers vs small business owners, poor vs less poor, retired vs young, progressive vs conservative. The usual way the diversity of our lives and the conflicts that result is solved with monopoly; on property, the party in government, the voices in the room, the same five people managing projects. We need to be collaborators and that means changing the rules of the game. In Ward 3 we are all workers. I am running in solidary with all here and the rest of the city. I aim to change the dynamic of distrust and deceit with community ownership, responsibility, and resources. We can do a lot here. We can be more than a pass through neighborhood.

I am also running to establish the Green Party in Albany as the party committed heart and soul to freedom, justice, and prosperity. The democrats, regardless of the quality of local actions and activists, hold that identity because it is the only game in town. At its heart, the democrats are not a workers party. They are a billionares party with workers in it. Alice Green Ran for mayor 20 years ago as a Green for the same reason I do, whatever is said or improvements made, the democrats are not accountable to us. People are not in power; bosses and central leaders are. At higher and middle levels, the democrats are funded by billionaires, real estate moguls, insurance companies, and corporate power. The measures they take to solve the underlying problems are half measures, fig leaves, or just plain not for us. Talk of a soccer stadium as a rec center on Washington now lies boarded up! Talk of fixing perceptions of downtown while drug markets operate parallel to our urban corridor within this Ward. Conservatives think we can fix everything by spending less, letting personal businesses and market actors follow their interests, but their investments go to themselves. Their interests are not ours. We can’t continue relying on a greater economy run for personal profit. Real change cannot wait. We need a party that stands for demanding more, doing better for us, is us, all of us, not just a quarter of us as we see every election cycle.

From it’s beginning, this city has been ruled by conservatives and it is still run by conservatives today. Do you see them challenging the powers that be on high, in the Governor’s Mansion, in the bank offices, the real estate firms moving money around and maybe building an asset or two? I mean that, assets, not homesor communities, assets to be exploited and dropped when no longer profitable. That’s what happened to our Ward last century, and our leadership plans for it to happen again for the sake of things looking good for a decade or two. But what about in 40 years? 60? My great fear is when I am old, we will be right where we are now. Still struggling to breath under an inhuman logic.