Gov. Deukmejian Needs to Meet the Neighbors : A Kinder Climate for All Who Live Here Is Achievable--It’s a Matter of Caring

One has every reason to admire and take seriously Gov. George Deukmejian’s commitment during the last two years of his Administration to find a window through which a star of hope and opportunity will shine for all Californians.

His search for that star should be kicked off with a reality tour of the state, beginning with visits to the persons and communities to which the window of opportunity has been tightly shut over the last six years.

The governor’s State of the State address and his speech on the presentation of the new state budget confirm the need for such a reality tour. Once again the glaring absence of any mention of those suffering from homelessness in this state gives evidence that Deukmejian--for all his obvious sincerity, dedication and good will--simply does not know the rich diversity of the people of California whom he sincerely wants to serve. If he is to develop a budget plan “that is balanced, fair and compassionate to all Californians,” he needs to move into the community and get to know his neighbors.

The gubernatorial itinerary should include at least one shelter for the homeless, a detention center for illegal aliens and a center for persons with AIDS--perhaps the Star Cross Community for abandoned babies with AIDS in Sonoma County, where he could learn firsthand about the second phase of this disease. He needs to come into contact with the inner city and the rural poor, to chat with people in unemployment lines and in agricultural labor camps. Prisons would be an important stop, especially San Quentin’s Death Row.

Such a tour, if seriously undertaken, could change information into real knowledge, putting faces and names on disturbing facts and figures.

Deukmejian might be pleasantly surprised to find not only problems and needs in the community but also the tremendous inner resources of the people of California, from the newest immigrants to native Americans. He will not be alone in his newborn approach. There are numerous church-based and secular social-service agencies and community organizations that have been grappling with the problems, often ignored by the governor, for a long time. They would welcome his leadership. The good and generous people of California need to hear their governor, by his example, challenge them all to place the public interest over private gain.

One must also hope that Deukmejian will be moved to reconsider some of the policies that he has championed. Has not the emphasis on capital punishment and a tough law-and-order rhetoric, for example, distracted us from getting at the real issues of criminal justice?

Farm policies bear close reevaluation, too. The dismantling of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act has been one of the meanest and most senseless actions of this Administration. Monterey County officials report that living conditions for farm workers there were worse in 1988 than at any time since the Great Depression. The policy bias toward the concentration of land ownership and the industrialization of agriculture has created poverty and health hazards in rural communities while scuttling the institution of family farming and destroying the land for future generations.

At root we face a crisis of values. And it is the values that we commit ourselvesto that will determine how the issues will be resolved. We must recover in public policy the values that mean so much in our private lives--selfless care for others,a sense of justice, a recognition of the intrinsic worth, dignity and potential of every human being, a sense of responsibility and reverence for Mother Earth. What is wrong in California is that misplaced economic and cultural values are bolstering a system that is tilted toward the benefit of the already wealthy and powerful at the inevitable expense of the most vulnerable. The challenge of leadership for Deukmejian is to help us rediscover America’s values. At the conclusion of his 1988 book, “Family Farming: A New Economic Vision,” Marty Strange recalls a scene from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” It offers a lesson from the Industrial Revolution that Deukmejian, and Californians in general, might well take to heart. The Spirit of Christmas-Yet-to-Come leads the terrorized Ebenezer Scrooge to his own marker in a desolate, overgrown and debris-strewn cemetery. For all his mean avarice, we feel for him and wish that he could do something to avoid this fate as he sobs out, “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of thethings that will be, or are they shadows of the things that may be only? Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends must change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

Whether we have a gentler, kinder California for all who live here is not a matter of fate. It is a matter of caring. It is a matter of political will. It is a matter of enlightened leadership. Gov. Deukmejian, you have two more years.