A series of unfiltered thoughts

I was recently invited to speak at a Sertoma Club meeting at the University Club. After being introduced, I gave the group a choice between speech A (a conventional presentation of city affairs) or speech B (a series of unfiltered thoughts I listed out the night before).

I warned them that first off, speech B is not really a speech but a random sampling of thoughts and they may not make sense and could anger them. It may well please them. Who knew? I was simply letting them into the world of my thought process since being on council. I was sharing direct observations. Something very dangerous for a politician I suppose. They all wanted B.

So I read them the following:

· The instinct to care for each other (neighborliness) has been challenged or worn thin by a general misunderstanding or privatized understanding of the idea of property rights and its place in the ethos of community health. Generations before us thought of themselves as citizens, not so much taxpayers. The shift in how we see ourselves changes how we behave toward each other. A citizen thinks more in terms of responsibility, knowing that while private property is a right or privilege that allows for personal sanctuary and expression, he is mindful that he is a neighbor to others and therefore must account for that in his stewardship and private dealings. A taxpayer thinks more in terms of value and self interest.

· In light of being responsible for an entire city of people, both socially and economically, I am not sure what it means to be either pro business or pro neighborhood.

· We spend more time at city council discussing bureaucratic procedure than systemic city problems.

· We tend to focus on problems rather than strength. This obsession fixates our mind on what is wrong, and not on what is right. You can only build off of what is right.

· The public often uses city council proceedings to “get back” at each other rather than seriously dealing with each other. In other words we are used in a way that legitimizes individual people’s immaturity or unresolved anger.

· A politician is tempted to concern himself with people’s reactions, in what he thinks and says, rather than what he believes to be true. This is what is referred to as “politics.”

· We do not understand tradeoffs. We get more if we are able to accept small losses. And conversely if we never are willing to lose a thing, we sacrifice big gains.

· We have a bias toward the present at the expense of the future.

· We do not talk about issues of poverty and homelessness and yet it is one of our primary expenses.

· Politicians can be insulated from “reality” because they generally receive information from reports or people who are seeking something or from people who are angry about something. The reality is not expressed in its natural complexity and the goal in dealing with the problem drifts toward resolving the “dramatic” elements of the situation and not the fundamental conflict which requires insight from both sides. In other words we usually deal with what appears to be so and not what is and we tend not to ever get to the bottom of things because the “opponents” won’t speak to each other.

· When contemplating a change people tend to focus on the risk of the change rather than the risk of not changing.

· In the area of race relations we are still very backward – white people persist in negligence and lack of awareness of the climate and circumstance both economically and socially that people of color live in. On the other hand people of color are held back by their own anger at this situation and often refuse to accept or see real opportunities.

Now which of these would you like to talk about? (Everybody jumped in.)