Walking in a Dark Alley

In the past several days I have been in a bit of a pressure cooker. Against all advice last year I ran for an elected position. I won. The position has turned into hell. Do you know how many people are willing to say I told you so in such a situation? A great number really. They usually begin with a “Thank you for serving, I would never do it, it is an untenable spot you are in.” The I told you so you come in the second burst of conversation after this.

Two nights ago I endured a public hearing where I was called a racist, was compared to a Nazi and was told I was the agent of white privilege. C’est la vie. I won’t take my time here to spout my leftist credentials but they exist. Okay I will spout them a little. I had my own “red” file back in the day when the state’s attorney general maintained them. I have my arm bands from numerous marches for equal rights. I studied equal protection from one of the drafters of the government’s brief in Brown vs. Board.

The core issue for me is one that is a much larger one than the particular battle I find myself caught up in. It is an issue of the stratification of class in America and our inability as a public to deal with that. We as a people have lost all perspective and it seems we have lost all our common sense as well. Somehow we have to deal with providing education to our children at a high level of quality, provide infrastructure for the conduct of civil society and care to those who cannot care for themselves. Raise taxes, cut spending, do one or the other, but don’t just let the issue sit.

I do believe that lobbying has screwed us up. Just saying. Both parties have claimed they were going to clean up the system in the past few rounds of elections but neither side has done squat.

One thought I return again and again is that maybe Vonnegut was right, as a nation we are too large. Maybe we should be divided up into a number of smaller countries that are more responsive to the individual needs of the geographic region’s peoples. Maybe not. Maybe the red state and blue state regions should divide and provide libertarian and socialistic governance styles to their respective approving populi. We could mutual commit to fund defense and interstate highways and not much else.

My choice that I am facing is to whether or not to close a school and if a school is closed to pick which one it will be. I will make a choice and live with the consequences because that is what people have elected me to do. Personally I think I have to vote to close a school, maybe more. Remember I am a socialist and this is a hard choice to make.

I don’t believe it is all for nothing it isn’t written on the wind to quote Jamie Robbie Robertson. We take on the job of public service because it needs to be done and because we all owe an obligation of public service to the commonwealth we reside in. Just because I make a decision that does not satisfy you doesn’t make me comparable to those who relocated the Jews of Europe to the death camps.

Now I have now gotten that off my chest. I will not speak of it again. Soon I will go back to ruminating on the ill advised adventures of my youth or perhaps the surreal moments of living with an ASD child, an unnaturally bright child and two demented cats. The vote is a few days off and so I may not be posting or e-mailing much before then.

Doing this job has really been turning me toward Buddhism. Today from the Tricycle’s daily motivation blurb I offer the following small part:

We can receive teachings on the nature of suffering, compassion, or emptiness, but when we sit down to practice, no one can show us how to integrate these teachings. What we end up doing with the wild and unruly character of our thoughts and emotions still remains a question for us. How we bring the practice to life is something personal, and it can’t be taught.

– Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, "The Power of an Open Question"