COMMENTARY: Possible politics

Summer is here in all its bright fullness. And it has not come
without its usual hotspells and long, dry days.
But next comes the really hot season ‹ sometimes called the
³Mean Season² ‹ and otherwise known as Election Time.
It¹s already begun. The first TV attack ads are running with
Schwarzenegger bashing Angelides and Angelides returning the favor.
Millions of dollars and pixels are being torched in the good cause
of ³negativity.²
The first trickle of political junk mail is finding its place
among the Pottery Barn, Lands End and J. Crew catalogues.
The truly esteemed among us has already been chosen for a
dinnertime telephone polling about Indian gambling, offshore oil
drilling, prison construction or some other ³push poll² device.
The local city council, school board and statewide proposition
literature and debates will come later. They usually aren¹t as mean
or as hot. But, more and more, these smaller races copy the
wholesale scale of money-burning and hit piece mailers of the
bigger contests.
Sadly, we have seen early evidence of more to come.
In Sebastopol, there is a loud murmur of resentment about three
city councilmembers who live in the same neighborhood. They are
being charged with protecting their quiet neighborhood from the
traffic impacts of a housing project to be built between their
homes and Palm Drive Hospital.
At the county level, three public issues are arousing the same
old tired debate over property rights and growth on one side and
environmental protection on the other. These issues are the update
to the General Plan, the renewal of the Open Space District and the
funding of a SMART commuter rail between Sonoma and Marin
counties.
³Politics² is the source of this heat and meanness. But it
wasn¹t always that way.
³Politics² used to mean ³the world of possibilities.² It once
was a more noble pursuit defined by dialogue, great compromises,
hopefulness and grand imagery.
Today¹s political season is marked with half-truths, false
promises, shrillness, piety and a grossly inflated sense of
self.
If we practiced politics as if people really mattered, we would
go about it in a much more selfless manner.
All things ‹ perhaps politics most of all ‹ are transitory or
impermanent. Yet we approach every debate about every piece of law
or land use project as personal and permanent.
Such politics has no space for contemplation, let alone
compassion. Where all dialogue and debate is partisan, that which
is possible becomes extremely limited.
Why do we do this to ourselves and one another? Perhaps we take
ourselves too seriously, too importantly. Perhaps we fear risking
the search for better answers and other paths we can¹t call our
own.
Fortunately, the smaller, more local elections and political
contests are still the most civil and fair. But we should be
watchful.
Sebastopol needs to have an open talk about how a city
councilmember can best serve all constituents or only some.
The larger community surrounding Sebastopol needs more ³good
minds.² The kind that are open and very light, that accept and know
the impermanence of all things and the politics of all things being
possible. Good minds make open hearts. It¹s what is needed to make
new housing, Laguna protection and community progress all happen
now and at the same time, in harmony, if you will.
Harmony and compassion in the political season? We speak crazy.
We speak sane.
– Rollie Atkinson is publisher of Sonoma West Times &
News