So back to Death's Head Chess Club, by John Donoghue and its philosophical contents. It delves into the depths of human behavior and motivations, excuses and rationalizations. It explores survivors guilt and makes the reader truly question what makes us human and if being human automatically involves adding the "e" to make it humane. It asks a question in the beginning of the book if there were any "good" Germans and evidently by the end of the book questions were raised as to the answer. I know what my opinion is of the Germans who went along with their false god, Hitler, but it is for the reader to decide for him/her self. It will make for a good book club discussion.
Of course, when I picked up the next book to read, a procedural mystery, I thought, I found myself reading an excellent book, Blood Ties, by Nicholas Guild, and found myself reading another book with thought provoking content. Yes, there was a serial killer, but that was not really the point. But read it for yourself and judge.
What I found to be a continuation of the prior book's thoughts and questions was a discussion between two characters, concerned with the motivations of mankind, and one stated, "we just want it , and then we build a belief structure to justify wanting it." In other words, we do not look at situations clearly, but for the most part through selfishly tinted glasses. Sometimes the results can be great, as with the reformers of society who helped eliminate child labor, push for livable wages, safe working conditions, social nets to catch those who need catching and on and on. And sometimes the results are bad - selfish capitalism, Fascism, extremism of religion or any belief.
What we must do is discern the difference and make our choices knowingly and carefully, be it in the outside world or the one where we live. And we must accept the responsibility of those decisions and their inevitable results.
The new rules about money and political donations were a major series of steps back into the corruptible and corrupted past. Money always plays a great big role in the political world and we have allowed it to revive itself to a much greater degree and evidently we have done the same here. Our elections here are now running based along money and not on truth.
Donald Kelly, the man who is ripping apart the Village, donated a sizeable wad to the campaign of David Israel. This donation was accepted KNOWING who and what this man wanted and was doing to our home. Ask yourself now what he gained for this donation. Did he gain the continued silence, the tacit affirmation and acceptance of his deeds and plans? Did he receive the okay to continue and expand? One can only think and judge for oneself, using the history of this man here and what he has "misaccomplished", shall we say.
David Israel needed to remain in office because he, too, had a wanting, his own desires, and thus had to build a belief structure to allow for its reality. Thus we began to get limitations here in the Village of free speech, of freedom of the press, of assembly. Debates were denied, banned, in favor of fancy tri colored pamphlets that Kelly's money helped pay for, directly or indirectly does not matter, only the end results. Lies were fabricated about all sorts of things, such as the roads and paving, the state of our infrastructure, the correct financial proceedings and organization of our funds. Fundamental procedures were ignored, violated and soon the residents had no idea of where their money went or exactly how it was spent.
Only now is the entire filthy truth coming out, being uncovered from the muck and mud in which it was buried. The constant defensive cries of "no fair, no fighting, you are telling lies, etc." are now being proven false and used as stall tactics. Truth will out. Kelly's motivations and contributions to David, his plans for the future and the questions of how closely are they intertwined, the profligate wasting of our funds, the allowing of the infrastructure to deteriorate in order to better pursue and have funds for a needless Wi Fi system to be put in place with an already proven incompetent company in a poorly situated location for this system and now the attempt to foist broadband on us during a time of almost hourly changes in that world so we are behind even before we proceed, the ignoring of the decrepit fence along Haverhill so as to better spend the necessary funds on a sign that we do not need, and a lack of control and reality checks with WPRF as to what can and must be spent. Now we are in a time of great financial stress.We must adhere to an austerity budget, tell Eva what can and needs to be done and what cannot. We must build our own belief structure and attain what will be best for us and finally put aside this petty dictator who has imperiled us all. No rants from their shills, no denials will stand up anymore. The opposition movement is growing, the newsletter has hard hitting articles that expose the truth and truly informs the residents of information of the village, a job The Rag has deserted.
Folks, look around. Think of the lies and actions that have brought us to this point. Think who has benefitted from all this. Have the associations been helped? No, only blamed and yes, they do have a great share of the blame, but UCO MUST reach out to them and stop saying, "Oh, we have no legal power." No one is asking for that - just advice, help, holding hands, understanding that some associations have many elderly elderly and are in need of great hand holding. Force the officers of UCO to do their jobs and if they refuse, or cannot, then throw them out - NOW! Force the Executive Board members to show up, to work on committees, and if not, throw them out too. Let us get a functioning administration going, whatever it takes. Let us search out the talent we have in the Village and instead of trashing it - use it, and let us insist that term limits are a great necessity here and non elected "officials" must be very limited in fingers in pies status and in power.
There is much to do to rebuild our dream, our vision of reality, our belief structure. Let us get to it.
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