[Peace-discuss] DI editorial board votes against democracy

[David Green]

Editorial: UC attempt to end war fails
Township meeting neglects problems of the city in
favor of worthless referenda

Posted: 4/18/06

On April 11 at the annual Champaign Township meeting,
citizens got together to discuss items slightly out of
their jurisdiction - the war in Iraq and the
impeachment of President George W. Bush.

The Township voted to place two referenda on the
November ballot. One will ask the voters whether they
want to withdraw the troops from Iraq, and the other
will ask them if they want to tell Rep. Tim Johnson
(R-15) to support the impeachment of President Bush.

Ignoring first the question of how a handful of
citizens in central Illinois know enough to declare
the need to pull out troops from Iraq, or to say that
the president has committed a crime that requires an
impeachment proceeding, the Champaign Township just
wasted a whole lot of time. No one outside central
Illinois cares at all what the Champaign township
government has to say about the war in Iraq. And
wasting a once-a-year meeting to discuss it is
ludicrous. 

Whether or not you agree with the war or the job the
president is doing, the Champaign Township meeting and
the Urbana City Council are not the right forums. 

Every community has a representative in the House for
a reason. Johnson is Champaign-Urbana's conduit to the
federal government. He exists to take the community's
concerns to the national level. If a citizen had a
problem with his or her neighbor's fence, they would
not call Johnson, because it is entirely
counter-intuitive. Instead they would bring it up at
the next zoning board meeting or city council session.


In the same way, the citizens of Champaign, who
determine the agendas of the township meetings, have
lost their focus. Instead of concentrating on the
considerable problems facing the city and the
community, they have instead chosen to waste a meeting
on something that has no place in city politics. This
is reminiscent of the Illinois Student Government's
referendum denouncing the war. The ISG, the
predecessor to the Illinois Student Senate, spent one
of their last meetings in a fiery debate on the
referendum, which, as we all know, stopped the U.S.
from invading Iraq.

If the citizens of Champaign had the right idea, they
would demand a town hall meeting with Johnson to
discuss Iraq and Bush, but instead they waste city
time that could be used to address problems in the
Champaign schools, the streets that invariably flood
every time there is hard rain, or a number of other
issues that would affect the citizens of the city
daily. If the citizens want to have direct contact
with Johnson, they could call either of his offices,
locally at 217-403-4690 or in Washington at
202-225-2371.

What makes this worse is that Urbana decided on a
similar resolution in March at a city council meeting,
where the agendas are not directly decided by the
citizens, they go through a number of screenings
before they get to be heard before the council. At
that meeting, one of the members of the council, who
was unfortunately in the minority, Lynne Barnes (Ward
4) said, "I feel it's advisable not to discuss these
issues. My job description is to drive and direct
matters in this town."

It is too bad the rest of the community did not feel
the same way. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2006 The Daily Illini 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com