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VOTER-ED “GRIEVANCE"
LETTER TO THE EDITOR (NEWS RELEASE)
by Christine L. Weiss
Dear Editor,
It was heartening, as it has been throughout this multi-month process of
cooperatively organizing, sponsoring, and hosting a couple of voter
education assemblies, to experience the “member benefits” of belonging to
this closely knit Van Buren County community. As I have been for the
near-thirteen years we’ve nestled in this neck of the woods, I was
unceasingly amazed and dazzled, over and over again, by the willingness of
people to “pitch in” and do “whatever it takes.”
The folks who came together to pull together these two meetings are, in my
personal opinion, the cream of the crop. Real shakers and movers. When
they say they’re gonna do something, it gets done. The meetings were
vibrant, well planned and equally well coordinated. Facilitation was
seamless. Everything “worked.”
Yet on the other side of the coin, in the course of doing these two
assemblies -- one of which examined two ballot issues (“Axe the Tax” and
“Animal Cruelty”) and the other being a “Candidates Q&A Forum” -- I got
the first hand opportunity to rub elbows with a number of the folks who
are (or want to be) our leaders and representatives in the land of
self-governance. And while many of these individuals impressed me as
“upstanding,” harboring true and virtuous motivations to serve the
community we all love, I met more than one who was close-minded, rude,
unprofessional, manipulating, aggressively postured (in a powerfully
defensive way), ill-informed, poorly educated, willfully arrogant,
tremendously unqualified and completely lacking the most fundamental
skills requisite to do the incumbent job.
Quite frankly, I found this embarrassing. It disgusted me. I was annoyed.
Reflecting on this, I have come to believe that what I witnessed is the
consequence of the grave public apathy which has delivered us to an
exceedingly low point on the “voter participation” system of
checks-and-balances. Which is, in turn, my greatest and primary grievance
about these two voter education assemblies…
That for all the time, labor, resource, talent, and heartfelt desire
invested by many in the culmination of these events, and for all the
people who chronically rail about the overbearing, domineering,
unprincipled, lack luster, evasive, irresponsible, fumbling, misconduct of
“government,” well…. At the candidate forum, only about 30 folks cared
enough to turn out and ditto that for the ballot issue event, which raised
the collective number closer to 50. But still…??? Only 50 folks from a
regional population numbering in excess of 10,000 potential voters?
I mean really, is this our bread being cast upon the waters… or what?
On the upbeat side of this scale, however, while voter turnout was low it
definitely was NOT shallow. The questions asked by the voters were
pointed, challenging and powerfully deep. Even more amazing, some of the
politicians and pundits actually answered the questions asked of them and
at one point some rather heated words were exchanged (which resulted in
one stumper stomping from the room).
Yet nobody got into a fight. Everything flowed.
Thus the “big picture” was refreshing. And I was, as I’ve repeated loudly
and often, phenomenally heartened. Especially because, as someone once
said, “Decisions are made by those who show up.” Thus I’m already looking
forward to the next OLA get together at 6pm on Thursday, November 14, at
the Western Sizzlin’ Steakhouse in Clinton. Sincerely, I hope to see all
y’all there.
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editorial
news release prepared and distributed by:
Christine Louise Weiss
POBox 211, Shirley, AR 72153
HomeOffice 501-723-4322
editor@gozarks.com
Gozarks: Everything Ozarks
http://www.gozarks.com
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