Recently, Mayor Dave Bronson, the great opportunist, using as pretext a recent ADN article referencing remarks by the director of the Federation of Community Councils, irrationally deduced that all community councils, somehow his perceived nemeses, should be eliminated. In the interest of disclosure, I am the president of the Rogers Park Community Council, but this letter was written independently without input or authorization of the Council.
For Mr. Bronson’s edification, community councils are the essence, the epitome of participatory democracy, each representing neighbors and neighborhoods, and proffering each the special opportunity to interact with our elected representatives at all levels — municipal and state, as well as guests who are knowledgeable about issues of concern. Councils are advisory only and have no lawmaking or enforcement authority. How fortunate we are that we have our system of community councils, and that the municipality continues to recognize and support both the federation and every community council.
In this unprecedented age of Donald Trump and his sycophants, I must enlist the counsel of President Abraham Lincoln: “When you have stricken down the principles of the Declaration of Independence — ‘that all men are created equal,’ are you quite sure that the Demon will not turn and rend you? Will not the people then be ready to go down beneath the tread of any tyrant who may wish to rule them?” Mr. Lincoln accused any politicians who dismiss the promise of the Declaration of “blowing out the moral lights around us.” Consider Sen. Dan Sullivan, our proud Marine who has twice taken a sacred oath — upon swearing into the U.S. Senate and the Marines, to “protect and defend against all enemies...” — who defended not the Constitution, but the violent and treasonous Jan. 6 rioters, saying that “they were only exercising their First Amendment rights and protesting peacefully.” All men are created equal, except when Sullivan and the party of Trump and Mitch McConnell vote against the Inflation Reduction Act to elevate every American; against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act, both intended to ensure equal voting for “all men”; against the Build Back Better Act to improve the lives of “all men”; or as he opposes measures supporting women’s rights and health, or protections for our most vulnerable, including trans youth, or when he generally refuses to be interviewed by media by other than Fox News and other conservative news outlets. For the people, all people?
How have so many politicians utterly failed to comprehend, much less embrace, and even struck down these sacred principles which are clearly not self evident to so many? They are, indeed, “blowing out the moral lights around us.”
— Peter Mjos
Anchorage
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