Letterbox

Dear Watchers:

During this past election, the nastiest non-productive pronouncements of rigid dogma were coming from fellow lefties directed at the so-called pro-growth crowd represented by realtors, developers, land rapers ....yadda, yadda, yadda. Apparently many of our local fundamentalist /purist environmentalist crowd sees more to like in the tactics of the right. To them, I say “oops, your frustration and insecurity are showing.” Also, how come during the contentious boat ban debate, basically well meaning folks apparently found no irony in the fact that Ms. Crozier had been a !!Realtor!! for a long time or questioned whether she had ever profited from the sale of property on Lake Whatcom?

Maybe instead of rounding up Gen. Jack Ripper’s shock troops (“Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”) to save us from the scourge of fluoridation stealing our precious bodily fluids, the time and energy could have been better spent educating the public that district only voting was going to threaten the environmental majority of the county council next election. Oops again.

I recognize that in these egregious and chaotic Bush years, it’s tempting to engage in clever name calling and give in to the short lived satisfaction of going toe to toe, but where does it get us? I have been as guilty as the next guy in the past, but we need to expand our horizons and build consensus amongst all of our citizens, especially Lake Whatcom homeowners. We need to give our patience a good work out also. After all this mess didn’t happen overnight and neither will the solution.

Public disclosure is important too, but imagining that the other side is some kind of monolithic, dark money machine or coming across as lovers of sour grapes can’t be productive toward the real goals. After all didn’t Carl Weimer have one of the biggest treasuries? Isn’t it time to show some maturity, go out and have a human conversation with those we may view as the Darth Vaders on the other side and become a movement of real change rather than just an eye poking, legislate it down the other side’s throat, protest movement? Have you ever brought someone around to your point of view by threatening, or insulting them?

After all, we all live in houses sold to us by realtors, built by the trades industry on land developed by someone—and nearly all of us now hail from somewhere else.