President
Board of Aldermen
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It is humbling, and thrilling, to be even in this small way connected to the great democratic traditions of this nation, and of this Commonwealth.
Massachusetts is justly proud of its historic role in transforming our land into - as Lincoln described it, in the greatest short speech of all time - a "nation conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
A few days ago we celebrated the 228th anniversary of the raising of that new nation's first flag from the heights of Prospect Hill.
I was struck that day by the words of Somerville poet Sam Walter Foss:
"They flung their banner to the wind,
They flung it in the face of foes,
And thus they published to mankind
That human nature grows..."
"Human nature grows." Human nature is not static. It grows. We grow. We are not doomed always to be stuck, repeating the same frustrating patterns. We can grow out of unsatisfactory old ways, and into new ways that serve us better. We can progress, and our government can be the ally, and even the agent, of progress.
Many of the events that inspire us still are those moments when human progress moved forward here, when the people of Massachusetts showed the world the capacity of human nature to grow.
It was the little Massachusetts Bay Colony that started the great revolution against the tyranny of an absentee monarch. Even before that revolution, Massachusetts established the first public schools IN THE NEW WORLD. Slaves here petitioned our courts to declare them free, making Massachusetts the first of the newly United States to abolish slavery.
And all this had happened here by the end of the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, Massachusetts became a national hotbed of transformational ideas and impulses.
Public education spread. Massachusetts was at the forefront of an ultimately successful movement to abolish slavery throughout the country. Shoemakers went on strike in Lynn, and millworkers in Lowell, developing the power of organized labor.
We take these radical transformations of the past almost for granted now. Can we imagine living before these great events of liberation took place? Imagine struggling with want and oppression, not knowing by what means we could improve life for ourselves, or for our children?
To some extent, that is our situation, as Somerville struggles for its economic independence. We still depend on state handouts for sufficient dollars to run our city and its schools. We suffer when the state cuts our allowance. Many of our people need employment, homes, medicines. Many who have adequate economic means feel oppressed by rising taxes, diminishing services, an unsatisfactory quality of life.
As a community, we are struggling to grow beyond these difficulties, and find solutions. We struggle to get the information that we need, we find ourselves stuck with rumor, speculation, and secrecy. Sometimes in our frustration, we blame each other, for our deprivations and for our struggles.
We've got some growing to do - which is hard work. We have only to watch our children to see how hard it is. Our children have us to help them - who is to help us grow?
A few years ago, I got some ideas about growth from the economist, Amartya Sen. His book, "Development as Freedom," starts from the premise that economic development can liberate people from the "great unfreedoms" - hunger, poor health, lack of education, unemployment.
Unfortunately, much of what passes in this world for "economic development" brings instead the opposite results: The sale of irreplaceable resources for small gain. Wealth for a few, oppressively low wages for many. The degradation of the natural environment.
Fortunately, Sen sees an alternative to exploitative development. His solution - for which he won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998 - is that growth must come about through democratic decision-making processes, if it is to create real benefit for the people affected by it.
Sen points out, "Democracy is not just majority rule. It's also toleration -- tolerance of minority views, and tolerance of criticism." These values are already part of our historic inheritance. I believe that Somerville needs a fresh infusion of tolerance and democratic decision-making - combined with accurate, reliable information - to help us realize truly beneficial development.
My greatest desire for Somerville is that we should embark on a truly democratic, broad-based process for shaping the future development of our city - not only at Assembly Square, but for our whole city, including our school system. I would like everyone in this city to have access to the information and analytic tools they need to make informed, intelligent decisions about our future development.
I am committed to nurturing, enabling, and informing such a democratic process, and I invite everyone in Somerville to join me. What is at stake is no less than the liberation and transformation of our city.
President
Board of Aldermen
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