The Enormous Difference Between Eric Adams’ and Edward Sonnino’s Campaign Platforms For New York City Mayor 2021
There is an enormous difference between the campaign platforms of New York City mayoral candidates Eric Adams (Democrat) and Edward Sonnino (Independent). The Adams platform is traditional, with modest proposals on how to incrementally improve New York City and marginally solve its problems. Whereas the Sonnino platform is truly innovative, with many transformative, sustainable solutions, not timid, incremental ones. New York City voters in the 2021 mayoral election have a real choice, between a traditional candidate and a visionary one.
The most dramatic platform difference concerns New York City’s public schools, which are of crucial importance since all our social and economic problems are the consequence of mediocre public schools producing large numbers of poorly educated citizens. NYC’s public schools need to be vastly upgraded. That should be the number one priority. The city’s social and economic prosperity depends on it. The Adams platform has only vague, traditional ideas on how to slightly improve our public schools. The Sonnino platform, instead, has very specific, transformative proposals on how to turn every single NYC public school into an “elite” school, as good as, if not better than the best private schools in the country. NYC public high school graduates would then be among the best educated in the nation. High paying jobs would flock to New York. New York would have a sustained economic boom along with social prosperity.
The formula of all successful private schools is strict class discipline, lots of homework/study hall, an enlightened curriculum, and individual assistance for every student having academic or psychological difficulties. That formula must be applied to every single New York City public school. That would lead to all public school graduates being more than ready for the best colleges and graduate schools. That would lead to the end of dropouts, widespread poverty, violence, crime, and addiction. Also to much lower taxes.
Devising an enlightened curriculum is essential for providing a truly excellent public school education. The basics and math/science are not nearly enough. We need our public schools to provide a “liberal arts” education, giving all students a solid foundation of general knowledge along with a strong grasp of logic and critical thinking. This is particularly necessary for those who do not go on to college, as well as for those who do but focus excessively on courses related to a professional career, with the result that they end up with a narrow education. A broad based education is essential for being truly well educated.
Here are important courses the Sonnino platform includes in the curriculum of every NYC public high school: 1) The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the world history of human rights violations; 2)economics/finance/investments, including properly examining whether QE financing by the Federal Reserve is inflationary per se, whether QE-financed debt is necessarily passed on to future generations, and examining which mainstream economic theories are flawed, not backed up by statistics, such as those on the causes of inflation and the effects of budget deficits; 3) 20th Century world history in great detail, since all students must understand the causes of World War I; the causes of the Great Depression; the causes of communism and fascism and why they failed; the causes of World War II and the Holocaust; the causes of the Cold War; the causes of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the reasons why all “land for peace” negotiations have failed; the causes of Islamic terrorism; 4) history of art/architecture/design; 5) history of music; 6) logic and critical thinking, and how to properly play “the devil’s advocate”, in order to spot fallacies generally and in conventional wisdoms in particular, accompanied by case histories and workshops; 7) ethics and empathy; 8) introductory and Constitutional law, including examining whether presidential pardons are limited by conflict of interest considerations, must be for specific adjudicated crimes, and must include a written moral or legal justification; whether the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opinion against indicting sitting presidents (ordered by Nixon as Watergate was unfolding) is legally invalid and fraudulent, and whether that OLC opinion is misleading and full of fallacies and misstatements; whether wealth and estate taxes violate the “no taking” clause of the 5th Amendment; whether the death penalty violates the “cruel and unusual punishments” clause of the 8thAmendment; 9) foreign languages/cultures and Latin; 10) comparative religion, including examining key parts of the Bible and the Koran; 11) marketing and advertising; 12) psychology, including “group therapy” and “good parenting” workshops; 13) the major mistakes in economic, social, and foreign policy over the past 100 years and which would have been the correct policies.
To heighten interest in the 4-year economics/finance/investment course, all high school students will manage their own virtual stock portfolio, viewable by everyone online in real-time along with their monthly economic forecasts. Cash prizes for portfolio management and economic forecasting will be awarded to class, school, borough, and citywide winners annually. There will also be annual competitions in art, design (including fashion design), music, and sports, with high profile celebration events for the winners at the end of each school year.
Additionally, the Sonnino platform states the need for all-day public school, from nursery through high school, to free parents to work and to keep our youth constructively occupied and out of trouble. Quality breakfast, lunch, and dinner offered daily. And of crucial importance, well-organized voluntary extracurricular activities in arts, sports, and vocational topics on weekends, holidays, and during the entire summer break, True, real equal opportunity must be provided to all our youth, and top quality extracurricular activities are essential, not just top quality academics.
New York City’s and our nation’s serious chronic problems are the result of mediocre public schools imparting inadequate knowledge combined with deficient training in logic and critical thinking. Knowledge without logic and critical thinking is worthless. Lyndon Johnson proclaimed the “War on Poverty” in 1965. The results since then have been miserable because the emphasis was not put on making all our public schools elite, the common sense solution. Had all public schools been turned into elite schools in 1965, there would be practically no poverty today. There would also be practically no unwanted pregnancies, so no battles over abortion; no violence, no crime, no mass shootings, so no need for gun control; no addiction; no racism, no religious, gender or sexual discrimination; no abusive behavior, no rape; no police brutality; no absurd conspiracy theories, no political animosity; no class warfare, no invidiousness; no need for high taxes, given more reliance on QE financing, a full-employment policy, and a much more productive citizenry; no proposals for unconstitutional, anti-investment, and double-taxation wealth taxes; no more unfair and economically counterproductive long-term capital gains taxes; no dishonesty, no hypocrisy, no corruption, no mentally disturbed, no authoritarians, no seditionists. We would have no migrant/illegal immigration crisis, as our political leaders long ago would have understood the logic of requiring all visa and asylum requests to be made exclusively at U.S. consulates in the country of residence, not at our border, and the logic of having a major, sustained Peace Corps effort to help poor countries develop economically and socially through effective education and infrastructure projects. We must finally commit to turning all our public schools into elite schools, thereby ending up with a well-educated, well-adjusted citizenry. No time to waste.
© Edward Sonnino 2021
August 7, 2021
Independent Write-In Candidate For NYC Mayor 2021 (self-funded)
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