“The few always behave in the mode of the few.” - Machiavelli, The Discourses
What is PUSD Board of Education candidate’s crime? Is it the misdemeanor and fine he still has to resolve in court? Or is it the crime of being politically incorrect and a political outsider to the political club that runs Pasadena?
Baggett’s Record No Worse Than Others
Relatively speaking, Baggett’s record is no worse than some already elected reputable public officials in Pasadena and elsewhere whose legal records are not used by the press to smear them. That is apparently because other public officials may fall into a legally protected category as a minority. So the Pasadena Civil Rights Commission and the ACLU are silent when the press smears the average Joe or Jane running for political office, but activate when someone who falls into a legally protected category is pilloried in the press or in the courts. This is the privilege system of so-called civil rights that have evolved in a nation that was founded on the idea that birth and class should have no bearing on one’s life pursuits.
Baggett Didn’t Arrive From a System of Privilege
Baggett didn’t work his way through the ranks of the Pasadena Education Foundation (PEF), the sub rosa school board that controls who gets on the Board of Education and controls whose back gets scratched in Pasadena. He evidently got a Teacher’s Credential and found employment with L.A. County running a Continuation School in Highland Park. Let’s call his career path the working class route to social mobility rather than the elitist’s pathway through serving on commissions and foundations.
Baggett’s crime is that he didn’t scratch anyone’s back to get where he is. He apparently has had some problems of life because he has apparently not had a free ride through schools or the privileges of affirmative action. Is it any wonder that the very people smearing him are those who fit into a category and may have benefitted from such privileges?
The attitude of elites is to oppress
The elites unquenchable appetite for oppression drives its efforts to monopolize offices, accumulate wealth by political favoritism, and gain renown within approved social circles. Indeed the famed “Pasadena Way” of political service is to work your way up in the political system to enrich oneself through the commonweal than any desire to further the public good.
The politically connected do not just use their advantages only for their private benefit but also to oppress common citizens – to keep them out of the privilege system. Hence the large political smear machine that operates in Pasadena. Ironically, the common people typically do not in return smear those who smear them.
But government is doomed unless the common people are not only allowed to fairly participate in lawmaking and public policy making but also are allowed to vigorously check the insolence of the privileged class through accountability institutions. The common people, operating within the bounds of the law, typically act more wisely than the elites. This doesn’t mean that their actions are always faultless. It just means that being unencumbered of striving for privilege that they possess greater “political virtue,” which is not the same as moral virtue.
Perfection is a snob standard
Utter perfection is a standard unfairly deployed since medieval times by writers to discredit democracies and protect oligarchies. Indeed, Sean Baggett has displayed ignorance about teacher layoffs and other issues. He needs to do his homework if he wants to serve on the Board of Education. He is not a perfect candidate. But he is there, knocking on the door. And that scares the beejeebees out of the elites.
Affirmative Action for Common Citizens Needed
The Board of Education needs to create an at-large seat on its Board that represents the interests of the common people, the homeowners and taxpayers, not the privilege system that currently runs the show. The persons serving in this position needs to be chosen not by election but by lottery from a group of outsiders who do not have high net wealth or poverty and have not already served inside the oligarchic privilege system. There needs to be an affirmative action system for common citizens. A system of elite constraining institutions needs to be established in Pasadena just as the ancient Romans established the position of the Tribune to represent the interests of the Popolo – the people.
What the recent smear campaign against Sean Baggett serves is to remind the common people of their subordination to cultural and political elites. What the political crime of Sean Baggett has revealed is the lack of institutional channels to challenge the elite’s power and privileges. Only through broader political participation will the politically and culturally marginalized be able to bring political elites more directly to account.
"The tribunes were ordered with such eminence and reputation that they mediated between the plebs and the senate, and halted the insolence of the nobles." - Machiavelli, The Discourses
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