On the agenda Tuesday is the last item under New Business--sending four of our commissioners to The League of Cities Conference being held in Hollywood this August. Party time! Great place to network, says the Vice Mayor. The League of Cities is a highly charged liberal political group.
Vice Mayor Maxwell, since 2010, has managed to politic up the ladder to become the 2nd Vice President in Palm Beach County's League of Cities. The League of Cities is a great place to spend/waste taxpayer money and it teaches its members on ways to keep constituents subdued and quiet even going so far as to join in on law suits against citizens. I will concede that it does compile some good data on cities.The National League of Cities located in Washington, D.C. (and Scott Maxwell was just in Washington for The League it was said) instructs members on how to integrate immigrants into the community. Come on now, Scott.
Its mission in this regard: Far from being strictly a national concern, immigration and integration policies have both social and economic implications for cities. While different communities are affected in different ways, all are charged with ensuring that all citizens are engaged and included in civic life. Through research and technical assistance capacities, the Municipal Action for Immigrant Integration (MAII) program is focused on promoting civic engagement and naturalization among immigrant communities in cities throughout the United States. Come on now, Scott.
The City spends ridiculous amounts of money for commissioners to attend these types of conferences. Following are the annual dues taxpayers pay towards The League so that commissioners can rub elbows with all the other politicians wanting to keep you in your place:
ICLEI-Lake Worth FL Annual Membership Dues for Population Under 50,000: $600
Palm Beach County League of Cities Annual membership $12,011
Florida League of Cities Annual Membership $3,397
At this convention will be the keynote speaker, John Avalon. He wrote a book entitled Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America. Below is a summary of the book.
What’s a Wingnut? It’s someone on the far-right wing or far-left wing of the political spectrum - the professional partisans and the unhinged activists, the hardcore haters and the paranoid conspiracy theorists. They’re the people who always try to divide us instead of unite us.Now do we really need to spend money for this? The League of Cities is a union on to itself that tells elected officials how to do it, when to do it, and who do do it to. And now they are telling us that if we, the public, take a political stand, we are all whackos. We all need to be good, little sheep while our commissioners walk in lockstep with The League and its philosophies.
Wingnuts look at the outbreak of extremism in the opening years of the Obama administration – from the unprecedented government spending that spurred the Tea-Party protests to the onset of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
John Avlon explains how hate-fueled rumors take hold (one section is called “How Obama Became Hitler, a Communist and the Antichrist”), looks at the ‘hunt for heretics’ that is taking place inside both parties and details the rise of hyper-partisan media. Avlon profiles preachers who are praying for the president’s death, goes inside the growing “Hatriot” movement and parallels the “Birthers” and the “9/11 Truthers.” The book compares current merchants of political paranoia with past fear-mongers and finds that divisive demagogues have sold this snake oil before. But the two parties’ increased polarization and the echo-chamber of the Internet are helping the fringe blur with the base, making the Wingnuts more powerful than ever before.
We are allowing paranoids, hysterics and hyper-partisans to hijack our politics – but it doesn’t have to be this way. Avlon asserts that centrists need to stand up to the extremes on both sides and declare their independence. The book ends on a hopeful note – the conclusion is “How to Take America Back from the Lunatic Fringe.”
