Victim or Victor

I'm a poster boy for "don't believe everything you think." My bias, filtered by my perspective, will always shape my perception of reality. I never have any illusion that I am, at best, a commentator rather than a reporter on events. If you confuse the former with the latter or think one is the other, we need to be seeing and reading other people starting right now. 

All of that is my disclaimer on what I'm about to offer based as it is on my attendance at two mayoral candidates' forums and one for those seeking places on our City Council all to be chosen in an election two weeks from yesterday. 

If you, too, attended these same events, we may/may not have drawn similar conclusions (see my first two sentences on why). These are mine; your mileage may vary.
  

All those in elected office and all seeking to gain or retain those offices deserve our thanks for their generosity as well as gratitude for their service. Norwich, to hear us talk among ourselves, may lack many things but engagement and enthusiasm aren't among them. 

That said, however, not everyone who wants to help can, or should. 

We are fortunate to have as many talented people as we do seeking to serve in elected office and freedom of choice rather than freedom from choice is important in any, and every, election.

I see more often online than felt in any of the audiences I was part of, a sense of quiet anger at the politics as usual that many believe we are suffering from and a poorly disguised desire to find a single issue as a litmus test to prove to ourselves why my choices for office are thoughtful while yours are stupid. I'm concerned that too many of us are willing to cut off one another's noses to spite a total stranger's face. 

During the forums sometimes those seeking our vote didn't do themselves any favors by being part of the problem rather than offering opportunities and collaboration. I fear we're edging ever closer to 'love me, love my dog' absolutism that leaves no space for dialogue.

Something about the insular (perhaps abstract) nature in reacting online at a newspaper's website or on a Social Media platform frees us to be more bruising and brusque in our comments and reactions towards a candidate and their supporters, inflaming them to respond to us and our choices in a similar manner. We need to get better at reading and listening to understand others’ point of view rather than to dismiss and argue with them.  

Sitting in the audience and listening over the last couple of weeks as candidates offered themselves and their vision of our shared reality to the rest of us I concluded as well-run as the public forums have been, a fact-checker should be added because time-keepers and moderators have their hands full with the events on stage as they unfold in real time. 

Don't misunderstand me: Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts and I saw (too) many instances where opinions somehow became facts because they were offered in a dogmatic tone of voice with no one challenging the accuracy of the assertion. 

Since there’s so much confusion starting at the national level and spilling down to us here in the weeds, let me stipulate for future reference that factual accuracy is not political correctness and ignorant belligerence is not leadership.

What I kept hearing were candidates who were frequently wrong but never in doubt, at least about their own utterances. But it is NOT costing twice the national average for Norwich to educate our children. And developments like the Wauregan Hotel and Ponemah Mills are paying taxes. If you keep claiming otherwise after being corrected (by another candidate), you are dishonest. 

Too often I heard excuses like "I read it in a newspaper," or "I saw online" masquerading as reasons for lies (a lie, for me, is having a misstatement corrected but repeating it at the next forum because it's a new audience).Sorry to upset you, but that's crap on a cracker. And so are you for trying to pull it off.

I'm not sure how a mish-mosh of half-truths, 'everybody says it' statements, factual conflations, and flat-out lies are supposed to help me decide who should be our next leaders. What they really do is help me decide who will never get my support, and that's not how we should be choosing.

I work to avoid being or appearing partisan because I know my truth may not be yours, but we should all agree that honesty with one another is essential to continuing to progress as a city. 

The mindset each of us chooses approaching Election Day, November 7, has everything to do with the outcome of our votes. 

Victim or Victor, We are what we choose.

-bill kenny