Will we move forward? - Silence DoGood

So it is done. As I read the responses of the various principals and interested parties from both sides, I see promise and foreboding in the words.

While it is a victory for NSB in the sense that their interpretation of the representative process received more votes and confirmation that Hickory is not yet ready for overt change, the margin of victory is slight. I hope that communicates and solidifies the words of those who spoke for NSB in the championing of their cause. I word that previous sentence carefully because it will remain to be seen if it is indeed a cause of all the people or on their behalf. I genuinely hope that it is. I hope my pessimistic views and prognostications of woe are for naught. I hope this is the eye opening event that causes a bright light of hope to appear and become the beacon for better things to come. I hope this will renew the notion that “either we all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately.” Then again, I grew up here.

I’ve seen the pettiness of personalities at work. It is there, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Byrd, and members of council en banc that we will all see if the actions spoken of as, “moving forward as one” and “uniting for common good” will be representative of what transpires. Or, if the ‘No’ triumph will merely serve as quantification for a return to business as usual and an undeclared open season to wage vendetta against those who exercised their rights as citizens and spoke out about their concerns and what they saw as a skewed political process. It will be interesting to see if this unity of purpose goes beyond picking up campaign signs.

Joe Brannock isn’t wrong; it gave the people a chance to finally voice their preference. Was that preference the same today as it might have been in 1967? We’ll never know for certain. When the people feel disengaged from their representatives in the representative form of democracy, they will resort to other means to have their voices heard, even if that means engaging in participatory forms of democracy in order to voice their concerns to an otherwise disengaged representative body politic.

For CEG, this is an example of what can be done when people work together for a common goal. My quote from above about hanging together is apt here as well and should serve as your encouragement to not sit idly by and allow transgression to go unchallenged. If the victors in this contest are not humble enough and secure enough to extend the olive branch and an offer to move forward together for betterment of all, then I would proffer then need to keep your organization and ideals intact.

I will contend to each of you reading this that rarely will two groups or even two people ideologically agree to purpose and process 100% of the time. It lies then to compromise in order to move forward that might not be ideal to any one side, but are at least amiable to both. Stalemate and obfuscation of sincerity of one by the other will bring you back full circle to this inevitability time and time again. And at some point, the underdog will rise up, if by nothing else the law of probability and the factor of chance.



From a Hickory Hound follower -- Couldn’t resist not sending this to you guys. The only ACORN’S I see in the room are these two “NUTS”.  Have a great weekend. GO PACK!!

"The guys who took on ACORN.... and won." — with Eddie Jolly and Paul Byrd Jr.....   And your Hickory City Council backs these guys 100%.