SHAME AND HOPE

     Just watched and listened to a telecast about Hong Kong and have been following the events there with great interest. The students there are of the same quality as those who stood in Tiannemen Square and stopped the tanks all those years ago. Now they are standing up against the forces of mainland China with great courage and what is more, have inspired others as well - from tiny storekeepers to bank managers and everything in between. These people have the courage to stand up to a huge force, a repressive force and are doing it under forceful sprays of pepper spray, of enveloping clouds of tear gas, so much so that one can barely make out the people encased within and even are facing down bullets. This is the moment of pride in the human race, of hope..
      And what is the moment of shame? Here, us, CV. Why do we not have the courage to stand up for our beliefs, for our needs, for democracy here in our Village, here in the home of the world's foremost democratic nation? But no, we tremble in fear of a megalomaniac who still conducts himself as if he were a toddler with the world centered only around him. Read my prior blog, On the Precipice and understand better what I mean.
     We have no tear gas here. No pepper spray and mostly, no guns! so why do thinking people keep refusing to act? Because some are allowing themselves to be deluded by David Israel and Ed Black,  are given a small sinecure of authority in the form of a committee chair or a little group they wanted to form and thus - they are bought. Others have major power here, such as Ed Black, an non elected person to UCO, and thus our finances are in a perilous situation. Others are just apathetic and others are the pathetic hanger ons that all dictators, petty or not, always have by their side.
     Let us have our moments of courage and vote the way we need to. No on village wide Wi Fi, yes on term limits and start turfing out the David Israel clones in the upcoming March election. The Tree of Liberty and all that, but people, if we do not step up to the plate - the Tree dies - and so does our dream of a Village as well.
     Pride or shame? Despair or hope? The choice is yours.