Wiger responds to Communitarian article

By KEVIN SWEENEY

Journal Editor

NEW ULM -- District 21B legislative candidate Mark Wiger has taken exception to a report in The Journal on Oct. 30 on his endorsement of the Responsive Communitarian Platform that includes a dictionary definition of a communitarians as "a member or advocate of a communistic or communalistic community."

The Responsive Communitarian Platform, said Wiger, has nothing to do with communism, or communal living. He would never endorse anything connected with communism or socialism, he said.

The platform can be found on the Internet at http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/RCPlatform.html.

The document was developed by the Communitarian Network, based in Washington, D.C., which describes itself as "a coalition of individuals and organizations who have come together to shore up the moral, social, and political environment. We are a nonsectarian, nonpartisan, international association.

The platform, developed in 1991, was endorsed by a long list of academic, business and political figures, including John B. Anderson, presidential candidate in 1980; John E. Brandl of the University of Minnesota, former Minnesota state senator and representative; Henry Cisneros, former mayor of San Antonio and former HUD Secretary; Lloyd Elliot, president emeritus of George Washington University; former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach; William C. Norris of the Willliam C. Norris Institute in Minneapolis; and many others.

"These are not fringe type of jokers out of the mainstream," said Wiger.

The Responsive Communitarian Platform, said Wiger, fits in with his beliefs and work over the last several years on building community by reconnecting people in neighborhoods. Wiger was instrumental in organizing the Neighborhood Night Out program in New Ulm.

"Over the last six years I have been very intense in a grassroots way in trying to develop the essence of people caring more deeply about one another in their own neighborhoods," said Wiger. "And when I think about churches, and neighborhoods, and hospitals or health organizations, I think about how much healthier we could all be if we all worked to tighten our relationships."

Wiger said closer community ties -- church members rallying around a member who is undergoing a health crisis, neighbors checking up on the welfare of their elderly neighbors and providing help for them -- could reduce the amount of care and services people needed from government organizations, and reduce the cost to the taxpayer of providing services.

"Think how many health dollars could be saved if it meant that someone could come back from an acute care facility sooner, or didn't have to go to a halfway house.

"It stems from that notion of personal responsibility towards one another and caring for each other. My career has been committed to the notion of expanding the capacity of community to care for one another, and if we can do that, there's less of a need for agencies like ours," said Wiger, referring to his own business, MBW, Inc., which provides services to people with disabilities.

"Right now the state is giving our company $3 million a year to work with people with disabilities. The less that we need to be around to be friends, paid friends, the less that we need to look in on people... there would be less cost for government," said Wiger.

The Communitarian Platform describes this approach, said Wiger. It talks about an individual's responsibility to contribute to the well being of society, tobe aware of the well being of others, and the need for society to be responsive to the individual's well being. It is about reducing, not increasing, the role of government and the need for regulation through increased education and awareness, said Wiger.

"We get to this place I've been talking about through education and changes in values, not by regulating or forcing," said Wiger. "We can't force people to care about their neighbors. It happens through education and awareness. And I think we've seen that in our own community with Neighborhood Night Out. People have discovered the value and importance of being together. People look forward to it as a part of a tradition that reminds them of what strong neighborhoods bring as far as quality of life. That's what's going to perpetuate this whole effort, not through more regulations or taking guns away. I read that, and to me that eight pages (of the platform) is about everything else but coming up with a government force that would go in and knock down the doors and take the guns."

"Is this document about idealism and about vision?" said Wiger. "It certainly is. That's what my campaign is about."

Wiger said he may not have the ability to encite enthusiasm as Paul Wellstone did, but he said he shares many of the same motives: "The promise of what we as a democracy can move towards. It's about community, and discovering the potential of community."

Wiger said it would be unfortunate for voters to judge him on the basis of a dictionary definition. "It increases the lack of understanding, of not seeing me as the person I have tried to be. I have tried to walk the talk in my volunteer work around the community. If people can see me for what I am, and that what I want is more of what I have done, then I would feel understood.

"To be cast in some sort of dictionary definition that associates me with communism, that's not what I'm about." said Wiger. "I'm about upholding churches, and our law enforcement system, and our sense of neighborliness and our focus on values and morals as families."