By AmbrÖese Bierce. Who Do You Think You Are? That’s the gist of the correspondence I received this week and have decided to publish, unedited, because I think, whatever the answers are to the questions asked – they should come from the readers, writers, contributors and citizens who have made this community news website their own.
When I first sent this to my editor I was concerned he might take offense but I was pleasantly surprised to find that he wanted me to publish it verbatim because, he said, “It’s a good question. We should let the people of Abbotsford answer that question.”
Let’s find out.
Dear Ambroese Bierce,
Abbotsford Today has had a lot of fun at the expense of the good people who built this city and you’ve called a lot of people names and pointed out their faults but I haven’t heard a lot of constructive or useful alternatives to the decisions we’ve made in building a city we like to think is based on Christian values.
Perhaps you don’t have the same value system, and, at the risk of being hit with one of your sarcastic diatribes, I ask you this – what makes your value system better than ours?
Who are you to tell us that our city doesn’t measure up? Why don’t you express your dislike for the values and beliefs of a community more to your liking instead of continually telling us how wrong we are in the way we approach things?
Mayor Banman may seem a little silly at times. Maybe he doesn’t think enough before he speaks but he is welcome in my home any time. He has the good, old fashioned values I grew up with. He believes in hard work and the value of a job well done. He doesn’t think people should be rewarded for making bad choices. He may be simple but that doesn’t make him wrong.
You regularly attack people like John Smith and Dave Loewen just because they made decisions you disagree with and cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, maybe it takes guts to risk what you snidely call ‘their friends and neighbours money’. Maybe they were visionaries and maybe they would have done things differently if they had known it wasn’t going to work out.
Maybe you would have made the same mistakes – except, wait a minute, maybe you wouldn’t have dared take the risk.
Fine … mistakes were made. Get over it and be part of the solution instead of destroying the reputations of the people who had the courage to risk their reputation by making the decisions you object to.
You seem to object to the religious make-up of our community. You seem to think you have a better way of running things than the ways we have made a part of our community life for 100 years. That’s fine. You are welcome to your views. No one attacks you for yours. I wish you would stop attacking others for theirs.
Some of us don’t believe in the treatments you praise like giving free drugs to drug addicts or rewarding bad decisions with free housing. That doesn’t make us bad … it just makes us different than you. The fact that we have a loud and vocal group of homeless people who seem to like to protest doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us.
Maybe they should consider living in one of the cities where they give out free drugs and reward bad behaviour. Why don’t they just move?
You seem to take a great deal of pleasure in attacking what you call the ‘old newspapers’ of Abbotsford. One no longer exists but the other seems to be doing just fine publishing the kind of journalism you make fun of. It has even taken to publishing news on the Internet where you like to publish what you call news.
Yes our newspaper presents the views of solid and respectable organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, our churches and the Historic Abbotsford Downtown Business Association. So what. That’s its job.
Without a newspaper which speaks to the people of the community who may not understand what is going on and explain the decisions being made by the people who do know we would have chaos. Maybe that’s what you want but most of us prefer the kind of community our newspaper reflects.
You may not like the fact that the people we trust to run our community have made mistakes but who appointed you the judge and jury of those who’ve made the mistakes you keep reporting. Maybe the world would be a better place if more newspapers and online newspapers like yours would stand up for the organizations which provide the strength and leadership our community needs to take the values we share forward.
The traditions and backwardness you like to make fun of have managed to help us build a community of which I, for one, am very proud.
One last thing.
You like to attack small businesses and what you call ‘Mom and Pop’ operations for not knowing anything about social policy or economics. You make fun of our local politicians who listen small business owners and have the same views.
Well, right or wrong, the Moms and Pops who work, sometimes seven days a week, to pay off their loans and mortgages may not know what they are doing but they are paying taxes and have a right to protection from those who would threaten what they have worked so hard to achieve.
If councilors like John Smith, Simon Gibson and Dave Loewen don’t know what they’re doing like you say, that’s fine by me and many others in this community. At least they are doing what we tell them to do.
And that’s democracy. Isn’t it?
—
AmbrÖse Bierce
AmbrÖse Bierce
AmbrÖse Bierce is Today’s writer in residence who occasionally gives voice to the concerns of individual citizens and taxpayers who, for a variety of reasons, are unable or unwilling to take a public stand on issues of relevance to the rest of the community. Reasons may include possible loss of job, injury to their business, or any number of quite legitimate reasons to keep their mouths shut.
While all columns and letters on Today are signed by their authors, we have decided to provide this venue for those with legitimate opinions, based on fact, with something to contribute to the public debate in the city. This is not a place for wild venting or personal attacks. AmbrÖse requires you identify yourself to him and explain why you need to keep your identity secure.
To Write AmbrÖse Simply Email Him At: AmbrÖse@Today.ca
Isn’t that what journalists and columnists are supposed to do? Informing the public whether it be positive or negative. Giving the public perhaps a moment to think and reflect on the circumstances surrounding them. Let the public decide what is right or wrong.
P.S. Since when does a politician do “what we tell them to do”? (only after they have been shamed into doing so)
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Abbotsford Today published an anonymous letter recently by a writer who challenged the legitimacy of Ambroese Bierce’s ongoing critique of Abbotsford’s local government for, “…decisions we’ve made in building a city we like to think is based on Christian values.” The writer, lets call him/her Terry, goes on to defend “good, old fashion” value like “hard work and the value of a job well done” all of which Terry believes have underpinned councils decisions to date. And Mayor Banman, “…doesn’t think people should be rewarded for making bad choices. He may be simple but that doesn’t make him wrong.” Terry presents his/her perspective as balanced & reasoned.
Ambroese Bierce has invited the “people of Abbotsford” to respond.
I’m responding because I think it’s important to publicly debate all significant issues openly. We have a better chance of making informed decisions through that process and are more prone to accept the shared outcome as invested stakeholders (whether good or bad). In other words, the responsibility of governance is shared.
The course of events driving any city, province or country become exponentially more critical when they’re off-course by even a fractional degree, and then left unchecked. Does the City of Abbotsford’s governance embrace course corrections? Specifically, does our local government’s current expression of due process include people within the community who hold different values, or is it designed to create the perception that due process is served?
If the City’s due process is more perceptual than real, what are the expressions of it? How far has it yawed off course? Finally, who is allowed to critique City failures if not its reporters?
Abbotsford Today has become an important forum for community discourse because the City’s due process has been compromised and local reporting about it is derelict. Incredibly, Terry extols the virtues of those very failure and goes on to applaud negligent “Ignorance is Bliss” reporting of this way:
“Yes our newspaper presents the views of solid and respectable organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, our churches and the Historic Abbotsford Downtown Business Association. So what. That’s its job.
Without a newspaper which speaks to the people of the community who may not understand what is going on and explain the decisions being made by the people who do know we would have chaos. Maybe that’s what you want but most of us prefer the kind of community our newspaper reflects.”
It is breathtaking rationale.
Terry questions the legitimacy of such critiques they are uncomfortable for his friends and associates who made the blunderous decisions in the first place. They challenge City Council decision makers for its monumental fiscal, environmental and social blunders (I will not recite them here but they are legion, well documented and the veracity of the critique remains unchallenged). It’s important to note here that the expressed critiques were made before, during and after Council’s numerous ill-advised decisions were made.
Put differently, the community attempted repeatedly to engage the City’s due process in due course but was rebuffed by Council at each attempt, only to see reams of evidence ignored which might otherwise have led to a more informed decision. Instead of due process, they witnessed the appearance of rubber stamped forgone conclusions. When that cycle got repeated time after time, reasonable people began to conclude that the “perception of due process” had been over-run the real thing. That in turn strikes at the heart of the legitimacy of our governance. Taxpayers/constituents are elbowed out of the process but are expected to accept the costs of rubber-stamped decisions no matter how odious the liabilities become. In other words, decisions are made that benefit a select few while the community is made liable for the costs.
It’s important to remember that many people with special interests are heavily invested in this corruption of due process. They stand to loose more than their reputations if healthier versions of democracy were to be implemented.
That contextual backgrounder may help make sense of Terry’s next statement:
“You regularly attack people like John Smith and Dave Loewen just because they made decisions you disagree with and cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, maybe it takes guts to risk what you snidely call ‘their friends and neighbours money’. Maybe they were visionaries and maybe they would have done things differently if they had known it wasn’t going to work out.
Maybe you would have made the same mistakes – except, wait a minute, maybe you wouldn’t have dared take the risk.
Fine … mistakes were made. Get over it and be part of the solution instead of destroying the reputations of the people who had the courage to risk their reputation by making the decisions you object to.”
Although Terry praises hard work/christian values ethos, both appear highly leveraged & subsidized at the expense of others:
“Some of us don’t believe in the treatments you praise like giving free drugs to drug addicts or rewarding bad decisions with free housing. That doesn’t make us bad … it just makes us different than you. The fact that we have a loud and vocal group of homeless people who seem to like to protest doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us.
Maybe they should consider living in one of the cities where they give out free drugs and reward bad behaviour. Why don’t they just move?”
Ambrose has challenged your corrupt version of christianity above & challenged local churches to heed Jesus’ own words regarding Abbotsford’s homeless community:
“(Matthew 38)…when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?
(39) When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’
(40) The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
Contrary to Terry’s claims, many fine Christian organizations had been helping the homeless for years and more recently MCC and the Abbotsford Christian Leaders Network (ACLN) came out strongly in support of ACS’ proposed housing initiative. The local churches’ support inspires the heart and helps make sense of the corruptions you’ve espoused under the guise of faith.
Terry’s views have until recently held sway in our community and allow him to claim, “The traditions and backwardness you like to make fun of have managed to help us build a community of which I, for one, am very proud.”
Mayor Banman, “…doesn’t think people should be rewarded for making bad choices” and yet that is the implicit expectation Mayor and Council have of their own constituents: stay out of the municipal decision making process, accept council’s ill-advised decisions as well as the consequences because it’s all based on sound “…traditions and backwardness” that trump due process and reason. When “democracy” is usurped by a few then those few must shoulder the blame and all associated costs.
There is a better way
Terry’s perspective spotlights our democracy badly yawed off course. I just don’t know how badly.