Recently, my wife saw a program on C-Span that she really liked. In the program, the speaker, John Sexton, a New York University law professor, was making points about the present day political situation. {{more: Read more …}}
He used these words ? “fear, uncertainty, distrust and anger.”
Sexton went on to quote Albert Hirsham, economist, who described a possible scenario where according to him there would be ?a systematic lack of communication between groups of citizens who would become so walled off from each other that each group will at some point ask about the other in utter puzzlement and often with mutual revulsion, how did they ever get to be that way??
When men shout and shriek and call names ?
The program on C-Span that evening was about Chief Justice Warren Burger. Sexton, who had clerked for the Chief Justice, also used a quote by Burger who had written, ?When men shout and shriek and call names, we witness the end of rational thought, if not, the beginning of blows and combat.?
While these quotes were concerning a larger public stage, sadly it is being played out on the much smaller stage of our town arising out of the water rate issue
Thanks to cooler heads, especially Mayor Johnson, things at council meetings, while heated have not resorted to shouting and shrieking. But, in a place where there is no control other than self, social media, the bitterness abounds and trash talking is the game.
Caution ? don?t read ?
Unless there is a thoughtful discussion, caution is urged in reading, in fact, don?t waste your time on social media unless that is your thing. Nothing will ever come of it except to further divide.It does make you wonder what happened to the concept that if you win, you win with gratitude and if you lose, you lose with grace?
What can you do?
Take a deep, deep breath and let things play out. This is a complex problem with no simple answers. It will take some time to sort through. And it essential that you accept the fact that there are good people on both sides of this issue including friends, neighbors, relatives and fellow church members. This is not an issue of good vs evil.
But, by no means, am I saying to walk away. There are two visions of Kennedale that seem to be striving for the soul of Kennedale. Visions are extremely important but so are the lives of the people who are here and now. There is a way through this mess but it will never be accomplished by just one side. What is needed now are those leaders and community members who are looking for solutions and not agendas.
The past is worth considering ?
One reason that I did the series on the anniversary of the incorporation of Kennedale 70 years ago this past summer was to remind everyone of its survival history. This community has now spanned three centuries from its beginnings along a wagon trail and a train track to being a part in one of the major metropolitan areas in this nation.
What would the founders have though?
Kennedale founders would have had trouble envisioning the roads being dominated by motorized cars, much less their community littered by piles of those same vehicles; that the center of the town would move because a new and straighter road to Mansfield would divide the city; and, that their community would see the squalid business of selling sex settled on its boundaries because no other city would tolerate it.
But, all and all, Kennedale has survived and grown. It has weathered drought and floods, tornadoes and fire and even public scandal. One thing is for sure, it will be here tomorrow, regardless of what the city council decides in the present controversy. It will survive the year after and for may more to come.
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