"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

One Potato....Two Potato...

I have had comments.. to my blog. Heather says I should not presume to know from whence they came. But I do. They always have the same tone. The last comment was that I obviously have no idea how much I am revealing of myself when I write.


I have lived for more than three-quarters of a century. If you can't imagine that length of time, don't worry. I have trouble myself realizing it and it is my time. I have been writing blurbs of one kind or another for almost half a century. Reading other people's offerings for longer than that. Nothing reveals more about a person than their writing. It is the reason most active politicians are reluctant scribes...ergo anonymous.


Writing what I thought about a particular situation was my first political act, although I did not know it at the time. Not until a neighbour suggested I should make a bid for a council seat. When I was elected and others were not, an oft heard comment was ”I guess we should be writing letters to the editor.”


Had they asked, I would have told them - what you write reveals everything . You can't fake it when you write it.


If you are full of bluff and bluster, it shows. If you are full of bile and other digestive byproducts, it shows. If your logic is adrift and shifts in the breeze, oh dearrie me yes, it will show.


Of course I know how much I reveal . I do it consciously because I know I can strike a chord. I believe we are all the same under the skin. We are as good as the best and better than the rest.


I want people to trust their own judgment, make up their own minds, let no-one tell them what to think or how to vote. Look for someone to trust because they showed their respect by being forthright about themselves.

I do not believe a person should have to pretend they are something they are not to be able to win public office. I passionately disbelieve the right to govern belongs to the elite of society.


Furthermore, if Winston Churchill had not been raised as an elite, he could undoubtedly have made great strides to improve the system for which he had nothing but contempt.


Maybe just maybe, in this speck of the world, I might be able to use my opportunity to sow a small seed in an effort to increase participation in our political process. Is that too large an ambition? Or is that just what every person with the privilege of living in a society such as ours should be doing?



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