For insight into the neighborhoods' reaction to the use of NRP funds for Police, it might be helpful to look at conditioned reflex and "Culture Building" experiments.
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when any monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will have the crap kicked out of him. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys, which have been sprayed with cold water, have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been around here. And that's how City policy is created. Now the neighborhoods start with a proposal to create a "NRP Affordable Homeownership Guarantee Fund" and --- well you know the rest of the story! And the political cold water sprayers are surprised when the neighborhoods balks about going to the stairs for the police funding banana. MY, MY, MY! Jim Graham, Ventura Village >"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment." TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
