“But I Can’t Make A Difference”
Perhaps we cannot remake the world and even have much effect on the nation. We can accomplish things worthwhile and make a lasting impression. The best way to do that is go local.
Take a local approach to your concerns. This can be working within existing local structures or in your cyberspace. This can be participating in for example the local school, zoning or library boards or as many of us do, edit interactive political list and some, as I, write blogs. Participation is critical. Too many opt out of actively being involved. Then we have all sorts of complaints about government and politicians. What can we expect if we are not going to take the time to be involve?
Community ownership of common infrastructure and facilities are important and can be very beneficial to all. In an opposite position it is very necessary to protect private ownership. There was recently an astonishing decision by the Supreme Court allowing condemnation of private property for private development. Local ordnances are seriously challenging this.
Personal liberties are under serious pressure throughout the country. Not only are such lists, as library records are no longer sacrosanct, all sorts of private records are being made public. Police oversight is so important. And the most effective oversight is that done by local citizens.
Don’t forget our interdependence is not only national but worldwide. We are living nowadays in an increasingly smaller nation and likewise a smaller world. The population explosion is overtaking or ecological system. Not respecting this is what wars are made from. For the sole advantage of the military industrial/banking/oil establishment.
So let us dig in and participate if only to have others see and hear our points. We have to realize tat the media is not going to do it for us.
We had better do it for ourselves!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2005 at 12:21 PM and filed under Articles. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.
One Response to ““But I Can’t Make A Difference””
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Having spent 26 years ‘helping in my local environment’ in a variety of ways that would not be productive to list here, I couldn’t agree with you more, Michael. It is SO HARD to get good people to help, but it is primarily, I believe, because they become so beleaguered by people who have their own ‘agenda’ and are NOT looking to the common good, or employing any common sense, for that matter. Cindy Sheehan is a PERFECT example of someone who is suffering grievously, however, she has decided it is her ticket to her proverbial 15 minutes of fame, and she has NOT embarrassed the president at all! He’s spoken to her personnally already - and she was most gracious about it…now she’s changed HER story and you think GWB is embarrassed….No, if Ms. Sheehan gave it any thought at all, she and her now-dead son would be the ones to be embarrassed. Remember that he not only enlisted, he re-enlisted! She may not have liked it, but that was his choice, not hers. As parents, we would LOVE to make choices for our kids, except we can’t, and when they do things differently than we did, they must be allowed that. Cindy Sheehan needs to learn that. I realize she is mourning her son…she ought to learn to do so with dignity, in a way that would honor him, not turn it into a media circus that she is relishing at every turn. No wonder the rest of her family is disavowing her efforts.
Posted on 24-Aug-05 at 2:43 pm | Permalink