The moral of Cory Booker’s Wazn Miller story

Cory Booker tells the tale of Wazn Miller’s murder as a set up to an important insight the mayor says his father shared with him in the aftermath of the incident—that the elder Booker, born in 1936 to a Black single mother, in poverty in a segregated community, had a better future than Black men born in 1996 (or 2006 depending on where and when the younger Booker told the story) have before them.

The news out of Newark of 10 murders in 10 days is a testament to the truth of that insight.  The recent news of violence in Asbury Park, Camden, Trenton, Chicago and Detroit further attests to the fact that young Black men today are more likely to end up dead or in jail than they are to become IBM executives residing in Harrington Park  and, if they know their sons, witness them graduate from the most prestigious universities in the world, become mayor of a major U.S. city or serve in the United States Senate.

Cory Booker heard that insight from his father in 2004, before he became mayor.

Yet the well intentioned policies that Booker pursued in leading the city have failed.  They failed in Newark, as they have failed in Asbury Park, Camden, Trenton, Chicago and Detroit.  Young Black men are more likely to end up dead or in jail today than they were when Booker, and his father, were growing up.  The progress in racial equality that Booker’s father’s generation fought for, and Booker’s generation reaped the benefits of, has been replaced by a not so great society of despair.

As Booker says in his speeches, we’ve made a great deal of progress towards racial equality, that his father’s generation fought for, yet we’ve got so much further to go.  To the young Black men, and their families, in Newark, Asbury Park, Camden, Trenton, Chicago and Detroit, there is no where to go but failing schools, gangs, guns, death or jail.

The big government entitlement programs that reward single motherhood and social programs that encourage eugenics are not creating a brighter future.  There is no Hope in these programs.  The Change is not good.

Government programs are not designed to solve the problems they are created to address.  Government programs are designed to perpetuate themselves.  If government anti-poverty programs ended poverty, what would the people who work for government agencies do?

Regarding urban crime and violence, there is a model of a government program that works to create safer cities.  It exists in the city where Booker raises a great deal of money, put the headquarters of his Internet start-up and gets his 3am mani-pedis.

New York City has not had a Democratic mayor is 20 years.  During the 8 years of the Giuliani administration and the 12 years of the Bloomberg administration, New York has thrived. Murders are down from over 2000 per year to about 400 per year.

The Booker/Holder/Obama urban crime reduction program will not produce those kind of results. The Booker/Holder/Obama urban crime reduction program involves a new government program for the reentry into society of ex-cons.  This new government program will address a need caused by other failed government programs….paying single women to raise children, schools that don’t educate and prisons that don’t rehabilitate.

The problem with Cory Booker is not that he embellishes stories to make a point.  The problem with Cory Booker is that he espouses policies and programs that don’t work, waste money and doom generations of Black families to lives of despair.  The problem with Cory Booker is that he espouses policies and programs that yield mediocrity, government dependency, and a lack of opportunity for most Americans, regardless of their race.

We need government leaders that are willing to eliminate government programs that are counter productive and don’t work. We need government leaders that will not capitulate to government workers unions out of political expediency.

We need government leaders who believe in Lincoln’s principle of “government of the people, for the people and by the people.” We don’t need more leaders who believe in and benefit from government of the government employees, for the government employees and by the government employees.”

Booker talks a good game.  He has a vision for the country, and the world, that all people of good will can agree with.   His heart is not the problem.  His philosophy of big government is the problem.

Booker would make a great civil rights leaders.  Certainly better than Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.  He would make a great preacher, certainly better than Jeremiah Wright.

A political or governmental leader?  Maybe someday if he develops the courage to stand up to the unions, special interests and other members of his party who pressure him to sell out like he did over his Bain Capital comments on Meet the Press last year.  But he’s not that guy, yet.  He may never be.

Booker is great at sharing inspirational stories and aphorisms.  He can provoke important thought and possibility. But he has proven to be more adept at promoting himself than he is at creating solutions to the problems he says he is committed to impacting.

 

Posted: September 13th, 2013 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Cory Booker, Newark, Special Senate Election, Wazn Miller | 1 Comment »

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