There is little doubt in my mind that the electeds like Senator Kevin Parker, Nick Perry and a few others from the inept Brooklyn crew, symbolize near everything wrong with too many contemporary elected officials: a breed of mindless, spineless, classless, gutless, unimaginative nincompoops; clueless as to what a true elected should stand for or be about. I say this as I personally observed (all week long) Senator Kevin Parker fighting for his political life against challenger Wellington Sharpe: in a Brooklyn court room and also at the Brooklyn Board of Elections (both located on Adams Street). It’s that faulty part of the electoral process, wherein electeds do near everything imaginable, in order to avoid an election challenge any September. Truth be told is that judges, lawyers and other officers of the court facilitate and encourage this affront to democracy every single election year.
On Friday 6th August, 2010, the courts will probably again allow Senator Parker and his attorneys to frivolously -though legally- frustrate his opponent, despite knowing that Sharpe submitted almost three times the number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot in next month’s democratic primary. One judge once tritely summed it up by saying: “this is how the game is played; that’s all!”
For weeks -seemingly unending- a candidate can be tied up in the court (and at the Board of Elections) simply because the rules of engagement allow lawyers to make money under false pretences- during the silly election season. If something cries out for reform it surely is the pre-election ballot-access process and the attendant court challenges.
So here is the rub: an elected official named Kevin Parker, who has consistently failed (over the last 8 years) to demonstrate the decorum, decency, intelligence, morality, integrity and class to be a state senator, has a chance of possibly getting his only opponent off the ballot on a series of technicalities, via legal intimidation and chicanery. And not a single mainstream newspaper has the guts to write this story as it unfolds: these same newspapers which went after former state senator Hiram Monseratte like nobody’s business, now turns a blind eye to Kevin Parkers indiscretions and extravagances. And Parker has done more dirt than Monseratte could only hope to do.
But those aren’t the only strange happenings in this race folks; they aren’t. Why hasn’t Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes prosecuted said senator Kevin Parker, for his assault of a newspaper reporter many many moons ago? Why aren’t the vocal feminist groups of today not calling for Parker’s expulsion from the senate (a la Monseratte) given the many strikes Parker has against him? Why aren’t visible and vocal union leaders not calling for Parker’s head, given the many times he has used violence to settle perceived grievances? Senator Parker is as belligerent as a young Mike Tyson; he is as violent as any common felon and law breaker; and yet he is being endorsed by Nick Perry and a slew of his fellow electeds from Brooklyn. How shameful that not one single elected has the temerity to stand up and say Parker should not be re-elected: not one.
Some time aback, Kevin Parker cowardly attacked a NYC traffic officer over a traffic ticket he felt was undeserved; this physical attack has led to the state laws now being changed, whereby it is now a felony to physically attack a traffic-enforcement official. Recently he showed the willingness and the inclination to physically go after a female member of the senate, and yet none of his colleagues will demonstrate the testicular fortitude to condemn this sordid behavior. Parker has clearly shown over time that he is no role-model for the millions of young black men and women trying to navigate the treacherous lures of the violent inner-city streets.
Senator Parker’s opponent (Wellington Sharpe) is a pillar of Brooklyn’s East-Flatbush community. He is a very successful businessman who has been a member of the Community Board (#17) for many years. He has spent the last quarter-century successfully developing an education center and a job-training facility. He has worked with infants, children and young adults all his professional life -as an educator and also as a health-professional. He holds membership in many prominent civic, social, cultural and political organizations in Brooklyn. He is just the refreshing breath of clean air needed to sanitize Parker’s stale tracks. But who is going to help Sharpe? Not mainstream media based on what they have shown so far in this race. And that’s a shame; isn’t it?
Stay tuned-in folks.