posted by Mike Madison at 11:15 PM /
Frequent commenter and occasional guest poster Dave Franklin posted the following in a comment at this post, which referred to the Mt. Lebanon School District's decision to ban the classroom showing of President Obama's recent speech to schoolchildren. Joe and I thought that the comment was worth a full guest post.
Dave's words:
If someone in Mt. Lebanon is considering moving out of Mt. Lebanon because of this incident, let me know where you end up because according to published reports Peters Twp., Bethel Park, Chartiers Valley, Fox Chapel, Hampton, McKeesport, North Allegheny, North Hills, Penn-Trafford, Pine-Richland, Plum and Upper St. Clair didn't show the speech. Personally, I have no problem with the President of the United States or the cafeteria lady telling my kids to study hard and stay in school. And Mike, I agree that when given the opportunity, we should all take the high road.
However, I feel compelled to add that this issue only underscores the growing uncomfortable, petty tug-of-war that exists in Mt. Lebanon these days. Everything is a battle - but for what? Mr. Brown says “Fight for what is right?” What does that even mean? What are we fighting for? Why are we even fighting?
I received an email from a friend (a conservative Republican) the other day that really struck a chord with me. He said, "I have come to the conclusion that a cooperative, consensus-building, bipartisan approach is the only way ANYTHING is going to get done in Lebo. I am, quite frankly, sick of the personal agendas, divisiveness and exclusionary tactics employed by many within positions of power in this community. We are so lacking of any leadership within Lebo and we have stagnated because of the inability of anybody to unite the community." Amen! I’d wager $20 that I could stop 50 voters on Washington Rd and well over half wouldn’t even know the party affiliation of our School Board members and Commissioners!! Why?? Because they are absolutely irrelevant! Yet certain factions of this community continue to throw partisan wedges between us all.
When I was a kid growing up here, there were Rs and Ds, liberals and conservatives, have and have-nots. More importantly though, we had a whole helluva lot of strong leaders. Businessmen and volunteers who stepped up for the sake of stepping up. People willing to give of themselves without asking for something in return. People who said and did what was right, regardless of what other people may have thought or what their party told them to think. People like Robert Seymour, Bryson Schreiner, Wiley Bucey, Leon Hickman, Dave Wholeber, Wally & Guy Bland, Dr. Frank Pawlosky, Jack Armstrong, Stan Marshall, Ed Sell and others. I'm not implying that we don't have good people anymore, but their good deeds are certainly overshadowed (and in some instances left incomplete), due to all of the bickering and BS.
My supplement:
There are commenters here on the blog who are Democratic Committee members. There are commenters here who are Republican Committee members. There are independents; there are those who don't follow politics at all. There are lurkers -- lots of lurkers. Before any of you comments on this post (or to your friends and neighbors) and indulges the common reflex to blame the other side (or all of the sides) or -- equally unhelpfully, indulges the impulse to say, "vote for me" or "vote for this candidate" -- I ask you to do this: Please, look in the mirror. Are you and your words part of the problem? Take a deep breath, answer truthfully ("yes" will often be the truthful if painful answer), then proceed accordingly.
Specifically: How are you going to cooperate openly with people who disagree with you politically? How are you going to give of yourself without regard to your personal reputation or standing in elected or volunteer office, in order to make Mt. Lebanon a better place?
Dave's words:
If someone in Mt. Lebanon is considering moving out of Mt. Lebanon because of this incident, let me know where you end up because according to published reports Peters Twp., Bethel Park, Chartiers Valley, Fox Chapel, Hampton, McKeesport, North Allegheny, North Hills, Penn-Trafford, Pine-Richland, Plum and Upper St. Clair didn't show the speech. Personally, I have no problem with the President of the United States or the cafeteria lady telling my kids to study hard and stay in school. And Mike, I agree that when given the opportunity, we should all take the high road.
However, I feel compelled to add that this issue only underscores the growing uncomfortable, petty tug-of-war that exists in Mt. Lebanon these days. Everything is a battle - but for what? Mr. Brown says “Fight for what is right?” What does that even mean? What are we fighting for? Why are we even fighting?
I received an email from a friend (a conservative Republican) the other day that really struck a chord with me. He said, "I have come to the conclusion that a cooperative, consensus-building, bipartisan approach is the only way ANYTHING is going to get done in Lebo. I am, quite frankly, sick of the personal agendas, divisiveness and exclusionary tactics employed by many within positions of power in this community. We are so lacking of any leadership within Lebo and we have stagnated because of the inability of anybody to unite the community." Amen! I’d wager $20 that I could stop 50 voters on Washington Rd and well over half wouldn’t even know the party affiliation of our School Board members and Commissioners!! Why?? Because they are absolutely irrelevant! Yet certain factions of this community continue to throw partisan wedges between us all.
When I was a kid growing up here, there were Rs and Ds, liberals and conservatives, have and have-nots. More importantly though, we had a whole helluva lot of strong leaders. Businessmen and volunteers who stepped up for the sake of stepping up. People willing to give of themselves without asking for something in return. People who said and did what was right, regardless of what other people may have thought or what their party told them to think. People like Robert Seymour, Bryson Schreiner, Wiley Bucey, Leon Hickman, Dave Wholeber, Wally & Guy Bland, Dr. Frank Pawlosky, Jack Armstrong, Stan Marshall, Ed Sell and others. I'm not implying that we don't have good people anymore, but their good deeds are certainly overshadowed (and in some instances left incomplete), due to all of the bickering and BS.
My supplement:
There are commenters here on the blog who are Democratic Committee members. There are commenters here who are Republican Committee members. There are independents; there are those who don't follow politics at all. There are lurkers -- lots of lurkers. Before any of you comments on this post (or to your friends and neighbors) and indulges the common reflex to blame the other side (or all of the sides) or -- equally unhelpfully, indulges the impulse to say, "vote for me" or "vote for this candidate" -- I ask you to do this: Please, look in the mirror. Are you and your words part of the problem? Take a deep breath, answer truthfully ("yes" will often be the truthful if painful answer), then proceed accordingly.
Specifically: How are you going to cooperate openly with people who disagree with you politically? How are you going to give of yourself without regard to your personal reputation or standing in elected or volunteer office, in order to make Mt. Lebanon a better place?
5 Comments:
I am intrigued by the Mt. Lebanon School District's decision not to let its students see or hear President Obama's message to students about education. I am intrigued because the message was entirely positive and, by no stretch of the imagination, could it have caused any harm to the students seeing or hearing it. Therefore, if the message was positive and harmless, one is forced to conclude that it was not the message but the messenger who was the source of the School District's decsion. Yet this is the President who was delivering the message. Does the School District fear him because he is a model of educational success? Because he is seen by some as liberal? Because he is black? Are those the fears that dictated the School Distirct's decision? Whatever the specific fear, it is clear that fear, not rational thinking, drove the School District's thinking. And if this is true in this case, how much can one trust the School District to make rational decsions -- as opposed to fear based decisions -- on important future issues. This is something that all citizens of Mt. Lebanon need to consider seriously.
Admittedly, "fight for what is right" was over the top. In the context of my comment to this article, it was meant as an alternative to people quitting and leaving.
But I will be glad to answer Mr. Franklin's questions and describe what I think is right and worth fighting for, if Mr. Madison will afford me the honor of a similar guest editorial. It is anything but petty.
In the meantime, this might be a good time to mention that I have for some time meant to invite Mr. Franklin and/or Mr. Reich to meet over lunch or a beer and just chat. I'm sure we will find we have much more in common than differences, and that even where we differ, our underlying motivations are the same -- to keep Mt. Lebanon a nice place to live. So even if we must disagree, we should do so nicely! And knowing each other personally helps to do just that.
If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of
inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historicallysignificant gift, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thoughtt his embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of
advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on “Earth Day”, would you have concluded he is a hypocrite?
If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic,would you have wondered whether he actually “gets” what
happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press onference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate,in one year, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan’s holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so COOL?
[I approved John Ewing's comment because I really had no idea how it was intended to respond to this post or to prior comments. In fact, one way to read the comment is that it validates Dave's point, and/or mine. So I figured that the blog's readership could try to figure it out for themselves.]
On further reflection, I am not going to post what I think is right and worth fighting for, not here anyway. There is no good way to respond, given the way the moderator has framed this discussion.
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