Paparazzi in Shelton?

REALLY?

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Katherine Price

Civility has deteriorated: That was the title of a letter to the Editor of the Shelton-Mason County Journal on November 23, 2010. “Civility has deteriorated.”

As if to confirm the very title of the letter (which title, to be fair, is usually chosen by the editor). the letter writer, one Jack Krause, goes on to prove his point. He proves his point in a manner that is not only lacking in civility, but also through his apparently utter disregard for the facts.

Since 2000, I, too, have watched civility die in this nation. That is the extent to which Jack Krause and I agree on what is real and what is fiction.

I have seen the purveyors of entertainment who pose as journalists, who allege they are “reporting the news,” divide this country with issues that have nothing to do with surviving in a time of great change. And make no mistake; we are in a time of great change. We are in a time of great change, and there are those who would prefer that we not see the change coming at us. There are those who need us to be constantly diverted by things that will not affect the quality of our lives or our very survival.

For our corporate masters to continue to be successful, it is necessary that we not address real issues and real problems. With their 24 hour news cycle, and their teams of paid talking heads who say “look over here” and “look over there,” our corporate masters have successfully divided this nation along lines of ideology.

To make sure that we DO divide as instructed, we are told that:

• We are blue, or we are red.

• We are us, or we are them.

• We love the environment which allows us to live, thrive and survive, or loving the environment is for nuts and sissies.

• We believe in civil rights; we don’t believe in civil rights.

• We believe that people in love should have the right to marry each other; we believe marriage can only be amongst some of our citizens, not all of our citizens.

• We believe in a woman’s right to choose when she will have a child; we do not believe she has such a right.

• We believe that gays serving openly in the military will be no different than gays serving in the military now we are completely terrified by the idea of gays serving in the military.

These are only a few of the things that we are told makes us different. We are told this for a very specific reason: So we do not unite as a people, as citizens of the United States of America, and look for solutions to the real problems that we are facing as a nation and as a planet. None of the problems we are facing as a planet and a nation have anything to do with reproduction, marriage, religion or race.

The real problems we are facing are going to affect us all, and they are more real than ideology; they are the difference between surviving the coming changes and not surviving the coming changes.

And that brings me back to Jack Krause’s letter to the Journal.

Jack Krause, in writing his letter, seems to have acted as a mouth piece for those who want to do everything humanly possible to make sure that Americans do not unite. He appears to serve our corporate masters, who know with great certainly that it is in their interests that we stay hating, that we stay angry with each other, and that we believe the divide between us is so great it cannot be bridged.

Jack Krause is commenting, in an extremely derogatory fashion, on the people in this community who want to continue to breathe. As one of those people, I believe that I simply cannot live without clean air; this is scientifically fact based. As a human being, as an “air-breather,” I cannot live without air, and I cannot live well, or for long, with toxic air.

Jack Krause, because he is a “faith based” thinker rather than a “fact-based” thinker, has a different opinion. Jack Krause perhaps is someone who does not believe in air (because he can’t see it I suspect), and Jack Krause perhaps has filled his letter to the editor with just what he describes in his letter: misinformation. Jack Krause appears to be doing more than just playing fast and loose with the faith-based-facts in his letter. Is it possible that he could be deliberately distorting and misrepresenting the facts?

Just to help Jack realize how far his “faith based” thinking is from reality, or “reality-based-thinking,” let’s take his statement about: “Attending public meetings means confronting obnoxious paparazzi poking cameras in your face while screaming: “I know my rights” when you object.”

The obnoxious paparazzi? Really? Who does this Jack Krause think he is, Princess Diana? While we have several fine photographers in the reality based community, they are not paparazzi. What they are, is citizens of Mason County who, in their capacity as citizens, sometimes attend PUBLIC meetings and take pictures of the participants and attendees. We do not have paparazzi in Shelton; we have citizen activists who are concerned that their elected officials are not working for the public and who intend to continue watching, listening, asking questions, taking pictures, and holding these elected officials accountable TO THE PUBLIC.

As to the allegation that we are radical; I would propose that nobody has seen radical yet in this movement to save our community. We are simply concerned citizens who want to protect ourselves and our families and our amazing, beautiful environment from rapacious, money-grubbing fat-cats, who do not even live in our community and, in the case of AREVA, who do not even live in our country.

Jack’s letter is seemingly replete with half-truths, innuendo, and what might even be down right falsehoods, and everything he accuses the blogs of, except foul language.

There is the “costly trial” Jack describes in his letter, in connection with the recall of Port Commissioner Jay Hupp. Here, Jack Krause is either terribly misinformed, or again, is it possible that he could be deliberately distorting the facts?

The costly trial was a single hearing, following the filing of the recall petition, to see whether the recall should be allowed to go forward. The Thurston County Superior Court Judge Pomeroy ruled against the citizens (surprise, surprise, surprise), and that was the end of that. There was no great waste of time or public resources.

However, the judge did rule from the bench that the citizens “had a right” to bring the recall petition. She did not find that the citizens brought the petition in bad faith, and she did not find that they brought the petition for purposes of harassment (one of Jay Hupp’s allegations for why the citizens pursued the recall petition). As a result of Judge Pomeroy’s findings, there was no award of attorney’s fees against the petitioner/citizens for bringing the recall petition.

Jack Krause suggests that if you are with this community, and if you have not heretofore been a radical, that you may “… often unknowingly - have openly sided with radical movements.”

He is talking about the people in this community who want to be able to breathe when they go outdoors without danger of dying. He is talking about those “radical” doctors at Mason General Hospital who believe that biomass incinerators pose a huge health risk.

I don’t even know how to respond to Jack’s bizarre talk about “easterners” who tout their academic degrees, but I am heartily sick of the ignorance of those who believe an education somehow disqualifies you for membership in polite society.

These past weeks, this community has breathed some of the dirtiest air most of us have ever known. Fortunately, and because of the blogs and the movement to SAVE OUR AIR, more of us know about the daily air quality (or lack of air quality) than ever. And more of us will know about it tomorrow, because we are going to blog about it.

An informed citizenry will defend itself against assault and attack, whether it be frontal and obvious, like Jack Krause’s attack on the air-breathers and our blogs; or invisible, like 2.5 particulate matter.

As to Jack’s allegations of “foul language” on the blogs; blogs may allow a certain latitude with regard to language and, to that allegation I say: If the posts on our blogs or the infrequent rough language offend some, they should feel free to “change the channel".

Keep it light.

Shelton Blog invites Mr Krause to comment if he so wishes.

Photo by Christine