Together we are going to change the face of Public Access Television. I believe that IPTV sites like www.AccessTv.org is the future of the medium. We at the Access Television Organization, Inc. believe that free speech is the greatest freedom that an individual can have. While we obviously cannot give voice to everyone, we can make sure that those to whom we give a voice have the freedom to express themselves without editorial control and micro managing from the likes of people like me that just happen to be in charge.

So it is with great pleasure that we give you this space to make comments and discuss the programs that air at  AccessTV.org  Once you have AccessTV.org . . .  Your imagination can take you beyond public access to the world!

God bless the freedom to express ourselves!   Enjoy the following submission by Mercado Indanti.

Who Will Lead Hartford?

Mercado Indanti

Tug McGraw, professional baseball pitcher, had a motto “You gotta believe.” The
Pointer sisters, professional singers, intoned “You got to believe in something,”
which is followed by, Why not, Why not believe in Me? These two philosophic
sources, although different in ethnicity and gender were in agreement on one thing:
“You have to believe.” This would make you follower. The women being more specific,
suggest that they should be believed in. This would surely make their audience
‘ists’ or possibly followers. Indeed other songs, both pop and hymnal, suggest that
one should “Follow me.” What this all suggests is that we all must believe
something or in something. We cannot run scared. We all are part of the human race
and interdependent social creatures. We follow leaders of the ruling estate’s
social theories, be they set in democracies, monarchies, oligarchies or
dictatorships. One could say that all humans are socialists or followers of a
social theory. That social theory developed mainly by the members of ruling estate
with some help from hand-picked members of the remaining estates: the clergy,
commoners and the press. This hand-picking process is known as politicing and
election.

Everywhere there exists a social theory and a social order. This order is
structured in classes or strata arranged in convenient pecking orders call estates.
The estates (that we have adopted from ancient times) are: first, the royals;
second, the clergy; third, the commoners; and fourth, a mob, the army, or a
collective action agency. Upon the advent of large populations and mass production,
the  press replaced the army and it became the Fourth Estate, and thus the pen
became mightier than the sword.  It is the priority and the nature of the estates
in the social order that we feel and react to every day. Feeling low, feeling like
you are on the bottom, and feeling someone else is on top has to do with social
order more so than racism or elitism. When you’re feeling ganged-up on, as an
example, is it that the other estates are working in collusion against you? We all
know what it is like to feel divorced from the state or the church, or
misrepresented by the the press. Knowing the estates goes a long way in determining
your estate singularly, and collectively your city’s estate and lot.

From the commoners, the pastors and press people come candidates who play vital
roles in determining policy, and manpower in the lower positions of the ruling or
govermental process, which very much includes local government for a local
government, like the one in Hartford, CT, effectiveness is dependant not only on a
strong mayor and complementary city council, but also on a socially active clergy
and investigative and unbias reporting press. The citizenry must hold the estate of
the clergy accountable when a small church Reverand’s excuses his social inactivity
by saying “politics isn’t my role.”  When the minority owned paper’s editor doesn’t
report a story that goes against the establishment’s interest and says “there is
not enough room in this week’s issue,’ the people should hold that institution,
within the fourth estate, responsible.

Within The Church, which some say is the black’s only institution, some think that
the clergy, the second estate, are the keepers of our fates and fortunes. If this
is the case then their agressive activism must be supported on the same level as it
was during the ministries of Martin Luther King and Jerry Falwell. King was more
than a Reverand Dr. he was the embodiment of a complete social theory,
non-violence. We have many Reverand Dr’s. in the community, however, we must push
them to become instruments of social change. Considering all of the time, education
and hope that our community invests in its Reverands it doesn’t seems to much to
ask that they go back to school and get a masters in Public Administration so that
they can, at least, feel qualifed to become a mayor. The clergy must be given a
church atmosphere where they don’t feel limited in fighting for the rights of those who
think Reverands are the spiritual representatives for final justice.

The plight of the institution of minority newspapers seems to be reflected in the
economic times where the least capitalized of the institutions began to fail first.
The pressure to fold because of high costs and reduced readership felt now by main
line dailies has been felt by the minority owner for more than ten years. Now there
are no known popular black dailies. Interestingly such is not the case with
hispanic dailies. This could lead one to think that there is a lack of support
mixed with the issues of high costs and reduced readership. High costs are a given
for the industry. But maybe the proliferation in newpaper companies caused the
mainliners’ reduced readership. Perhaps, the reduced readership of black-owned
papers is a result of non-support (causing spotty distribution), apathy, the
reading levels of their readers, and an ancient myth.

How can the press help defend you against administrative, legal and social
injustices if you don’t want to read about the injustices nor the remedies for
those injustices? The black newspaper owner cannot be blamed if his readership
chooses to perpetuate the myth that black people do not like to read. He can only
be blamed if his paper is crowded  with superfically edited versions of news wire
stories that do not futher the social cause of his readership. The press must be
given the support to warrant their battling to keep their Hartford readers current
or to be their court of last resort i.e., public opinion.
From these estates Clergy, Press, and the Public, shall come the people to change
unpopular governments and policy and the supporters of those most active in that
change. Those who wish to become more effective in social change need to be
knowledgeable and familiar with each estate and supported by the public. During the
politicing and campaigning process many will say “you got to believe” and “follow
me.” But, who will say, “on the basis of my being very familiar with the common
man, the church and press, why not, why not believe in me?”

Together we are going to change the face of Public Access Television. I believe that IPTV sites like www.AccessTv.org is the future of the medium. We at the Access Television Organization, Inc. believe that free speech is the greatest freedom that an individual can have. While we obviously cannot give voice to everyone, we can make sure that those to whom we give a voice have the freedom to express themselves without editorial control and micro managing from the likes of people like me that just happen to be in charge.

So it is with great pleasure that we give you this space to make comments and discuss the programs that air at  AccessTV.org  Once you have AccessTV.org . . .  Your imagination can take you beyond public access to the world!

God bless the freedom to express ourselves!   Enjoy the following submission by Mercado Indanti.

 A SCARED CITY  CAN’T WIN

by Mercado Indanti

As a result of a viewing a recent interview of Dr. Al DiChiara, a professor of
sociology and noted crimnologist, one could infer that most of Hartford, CT’s crime
problems were because of fear. The cause of that fear might well be the city fear of
the head of that city government, Mayor Eddie Perez and his reactions to those fears
he had to face in guiding the city. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, ‘we have nothing
to fear but fear itself.’ This was said after

FDR’s predecessor, Herbert Hoover had stated that the needless fear over the stock
market crash of 1929 had driven the country into what became The Great Depression.
Whatever the reason for Mayor Eddie’s fear, he currently reacts vindictively to
being scared. In his earlier days in social activism within organized gang structure
Perez reacted more courageously to being scared.

Dr. DiChiara seems to blame the area’s crime problem on parents’ fear to step-up and
raise their children properly. This reminded me of President Barack Obama’s Fathers
Day Message – June 6, 2009 speech’s excerpt, that is why we need fathers to step up,
to realize that their job does not end at conception, that what makes you a man is
not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.’ This statement is
applicable to all people and should be practiced by as many as possible. The doctor
also inferred that Hartford’s clergy were not very manly in facing Hartford’s crime
problems.

In the case of the clergy’s courage the word “some” should have preceeded clergy. In
the interview we were introduced to different and more pervasive definitions of
crime. One included more than the general offenses that we are more familiar with,
and that was the principle of rule breaking. The other, social harm, was an extended
concept of crime which I hope is antithesisal to the Indian philosophy of “No Harm.”

Dr. DiChiara was asked, that discounting his alleged crimes, if Mayor Perez’s early
background and evolving vindictive personality had created among the city’s youth a
mindset that crime was alright. His response was that the youth most likely didn’t
know who the mayor of the city is nor the members of his council. Hopefully, this
lack of awareness is not the result of the Hartford School Board and local media’s
proficiency in educating.

When asked if this same perception of Perez had caused certain communities to be
fearful and hopeless in their reporting of criminal activity, DiChiara replied that,
generally speaking, this reporting was being done, but there wasn’t enough
information to advance those offenses along the prosecutorial process. This lack of
information is simultaneously factored with statistics to show that crime is going
down and that there are fewer drugs on the streets. Could this mean that some people
are scared to fully prosecute? Has vindictiveness at the Mayor’s level caused
venality within certain council persons and city departments? Is it fear in the city
or is it corruption? My guess is that the city is afraid to deal with difficulty in
instituting the changes necessary for the city’s growth. These changes, like the
handling of the criminality in a near habitually depressed local economy, a less
skilled workforce, and the inevitable reduced financial importance of a insurance
industry that will change because of healthcare reform are extremely difficult
problems to solve without sinking to committing crime and/or causing social harm.

This city may or may not get past mayor Perez’s alleged crimes but they must erase
the systemic effects of Perez’s vindictive reactions to running scared. Perhaps he
will recognize the detrimental effects of his reactions have had on City Council men
and women, or how they are now seemingly, or are in fact, corrupt and venal. Perhaps
this self recognition will convince society that the mayor has begun his
rehabilitation and is deserving of some degree of
grace if not leniency.

I agreed with Dr. DiChiara and President Obama that parents must not be fearful and
must face their responsibilites.  DiChiara’s position on the clergy being scared
must be tempered. You must consider that part of their fear might not be the
Goliath, that is, crime, but the limitation of the effectiveness of their sling
shot. Would not a policeman arrest Goliath if the pastor approached the giant during
a march and the giant became violent? The Church’s fear of government reprisal by
the government because of its clergy and laity praciticing activism to whatever
degree, is creating a tragic social stagnation. Should the clergy risk their
non-profit status and if so for what cause?  Is risking the souls of our children,
our more frequently muderous children,  worth a representative reduction in church
coffers?

Correspondingly, government and industry cannot be paranoid about the effect of the
states’ or  the feds’ operations. This leads to pre-emptive attacks of political
warfare and vindictiveness, which in turn leads to corruption. Show the average
citizen, the small businessman, the youth  and the worker that leadership is
vindictive and the environment becomes a state of fear, scared men, or worse, a
scared city.  And elements of that scared city will feel vindicated
by turning to crime and corruption and definitely social harm. A scared city can’t win.

The answer to the problems of parenting, sheparding and managing a public service
enterprise demands that one exhibit courage while performing these tasks. The answer
to the problems of managing a public service organization is to be able to
communicate information, messages, and peoples’ needs and wants to a multi-cultural,
multi-ethnic and multi-interest audience called “the public.” And, to that segment
of the public called the citizens  of  Hartford. CT the message is, if you place
courage in every portal, than you can truly believe that you have nothing to fear
but fear itself.

Together we are going to change the face of Public Access Television. I believe that IPTV sites like www.AccessTv.org is the future of the medium. We at the Access Television Organization, Inc. believe that free speech is the greatest freedom that an individual can have. While we obviously cannot give voice to everyone, we can make sure that those to whom we give a voice have the freedom to express themselves without editorial control and micro managing from the likes of people like me that just happen to be in charge.

So it is with great pleasure that we give you this space to comment and discuss the programs that air at  AccessTV.org

Once you have AccessTV.org . . .  Your imagination can take you beyond public access to the world!

God bless our freedom to express!

J. Stan McCauley