Are you ready to rumble?

Governor Elect Susana Martinez stands at a turning point in history. The culture of corruption in Santa Fe will end, or not, on her watch. We will leave the well established path, or continue upon it.

We needn't wait four years to evaluate her effect.

The effect will be known on January 18th, 2011,
Put Up or Shut Up Day in New Mexico.

One cannot end corruption and incompetence without exposing corruption and incompetence. One cannot expose corruption and incompetence without exposing the individually corrupt and incompetent.

Expect some push back.

Does Martinez have the character and the courage to actually pull the trigger on the careers of a bunch of corrupt and incompetent politicians and public servants?

There is an indicator; transparency.

If she can prove she is willing to shine sunlight on every aspect of the spending of the people's power and resources; she will have proved that she is willing to let the chips fall where they may in the full exposure of the culture of corruption.

If she doesn't push transparency to the limit, her hesitation is indicative of something. If she isn't willing to explain, defend, deny or even acknowledge her reservations, we are left to conclude that she too is willing to compromise on transparency, and by extension, willing to "grandfather in" formerly corrupt and incompetent politicians and public servants. Since grandfathering in the corrupt is itself corrupt, there can be no grandfathering in, in a genuine end of a culture of corruption.

When our government is as transparent to us as the law will allow, the culture of corruption will evaporate.

A culture of corruption provides temptation to moral weakness. Transparency eliminates temptation and eliminates corruption.

Accountability is fatal to corruption and incompetence;
100% accountability is 100% fatal.

For as long a politicians and public servants control the redaction of the public record and public meetings, the culture of corruption is enabled.

Until deliberative meetings are webcast to a searchable archive, the culture of corruption is enabled.

Casinos don't get ripped off nearly as often as government.
It isn't because they hire human beings with super human character. It isn't that their employees are more able to resist temptation,
it is because their employees are delivered from temptation by transparency.

If there is no way to steal, there is no temptation to steal.

If there is no way to be a corrupt politician or public servant,
there is no temptation to be corrupt.

There are at least two kinds of legislators; those who are willing to fight for transparency limited only by the law, and, those who are not.

If you subscribe to the thinking that avers;

if you're not part of the solution,
you are part of the problem,

then those who are not willing to fight for transparency,
fight for secrecy and obscurity. It is a fight they cannot win
again.

We allowed secrecy and obscurity to thrive in government
only though our inattention. We have the high ground in
any open and honest battle over the principle.

Legislators who obfuscate transparency measures, even by
doing nothing, in fact, especially by doing nothing,
will continue to win, by continuing to not lose.
They can never win, they can only not lose.

They win, until the day the house is divided, the day that
everyone has to pick a side.

I believed at one point, link, that Senator Tim Eichenberg promised that the Governmental Restructuring Task Force, would talk about transparency. They never did.

The responsibility was not his alone; there are seventeen other members of that Task Force, any one of whom could have said, let's talk about transparency.

There is a line where transparency and obscurity divide. That line needs to be clear and unequivocal. There needs to be due process (speedy and fair) to decide inevitable disputes when the line doesn't apply clearly.

The power is ours, the resources are ours, and the truth about their spending is ours. It is our prerogative to establish the policy and the process which guarantees our access to the ethically redacted truth about the public interests; our power, our resources, and their public service.

"They" win as long as they can avoid an open and honest discussion. Stonewalling, though dishonest on its face, is demonstrably effective in avoiding confrontations on transparency.

It hides nothing. When the question is
do you promise to tell the truth?
any answer except yes means, no.

"They" will not promise to tell us the truth
because they don't intend to tell us the ethically truth.

We have lost control over the spending of our power and resources. If we don't know the truth about the spending of our power and resources, we have no control over the spending of our power and resources.

That control was usurped not given. The usurpers do not
intend to give it back. They do not intend restore control
to the people by holding themselves honestly accountable
to the truth. It is time to identify them and call them out.

It is time to divide the house; those for transparency and
those against it.

Let's draw a line and pick sides.

I cannot think of a single good reason that this battle
must be not begin in the very first minute of the very first day
of the very next meeting of our legislature.

Let there be a clash on the steps of the Roundhouse between

• those who would hide the truth about the spending of the people's power and resources, and about their public service, and

• those who are willing to gather their torches and pitchforks and carry them in defense of government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Let's get it over with,
let's rumble.

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011