One part this, one part that, one part another...

Poster by Graham Crawford, 'Dissident' Primoris

(Yes, used without permission.)

On the one hand, I get where this comes from.

But on the other hand...I don't quite get the unquenched thirst, the unabated need to mollify.

On yet another, I do...but expect more from all concerned.

Regardless, I guess it's the inaccuracy of the lead-point that rankles, the sloppiness in messaging.

So I get that something like this comes from the anger and frustration and ire and rage that so many of the energized residents preparing to gather have been feeling. I get that this fomenting is felt to be necessary in order to keep the momentum up until the S.O.S. rally...even if the audience is much smaller than anyone involved would want to concede. (I'm not saying there's 'nobody' ready to rally; I'm sure there'll be a nice turnout for the protest. But out of a city or more than half-a-million...)

But on the other hand, there's this blood-lust, this...well, rage. I'd pay to get the more vocal of 'the energized' in the same room with the HWDSB trustees. Just to see what would result. (Better yet, I'd pay blood to actually have 'The Overseers', the race of aliens who published that revelatory tome 'The Truth' do the same in this instance. Oh, wait; that book didn't end up getting published, did it? My bad.)  I've been a little gobsmacked by the fervour of some of the online comments; I'd bet they wouldn't unleash in-person the way they have via their keyboard. (But, maybe they would.) Not because I don't feel that passion is called for, but more that a) we've created yet another 'Us vs Them' situation, and b) we're suddenly out to hector, to vilify, if not pillory, rather than actually generate dialogue. The countdown to 2014's election has already begun. Not sure how many of these brave souls will be as committed to 'cleaning house' at that point as they are right now.

As for 'expecting more'... I know, I shouldn't. I tend to ascribe too many concomitant abiliies to the intelligent; it's a horrible bias, and admittedly one of my biggest flaws. LOL I think that I can cut myself some slack by conceding that they're not actually engaging (publicly, anyway) with anyone who might challenge them on their interpretations...and when they do, the person making even the most sincere, objective comment gets sprayed with so much high dudgeon bile that it pretty much ends the conversation then and there.

And the final point, 'splitting a community in two'... Puhlease. This situation stinks. No argument from these quarters. But what's transpired hasn't been a case of anything being 'split in two'. That phrase connotes that an issue has been contentious enough that a community has been polarized. Such as, for instance, a security guard/neighbourhood patrol member killing a youth, one of these being from one community, the other being from another, and people take sides, investing in the situation all manner of seemingly unrelated issues, creating a conflagration, one that tears the place apart...'splitting a community in two'. Or, a stadium being proposed for one part of town, while the current location wants the new development too, and factions are formed and things get all 'territorial' and messy, resulting in a 'community split in two'. In the case of the HWDSB destruction of Singer building/relocation to an Upper Hamilton location, I don't sense that here. At all.

Yes, I sense outrage. I sense the rising clamour of protest.

But I also sense disinterest. A distinct lack of investment, of engagement with a profound issue. (Ironically...although not really...the same can be said about the 'walkable streets' issue. Hmm...)

Unless Graham is seeing on the one hand (or split-half) the objective, cogent editorials from The Spec, etc, and the articles written by his co-horts in combination with his endless stream of posters on the other side of the division. But it's a stretch to say that Hamilton has been 'split in two'. 

Oh! Wait! Unless he's talking about Ward 2, or Durand and Central neighbourhoods being torn in half because the School Board is leaving for Upper Hamilton environs...but even that is a tenuous stance, given that a lovely Mac facility will be constructed on the former HWDSB headquarters site, and surely to God in the world of 2012, we no longer have to have physical immediacy to make things happen on just about any level. Methinks there's some sizeable conflation going on here, utilizing the points found in this post back in February, 'Elements at Play at 100 Main Street West'. (Surely to God he can't be talking about the proposal to use the Cannon Knitting Mills location being torpedoed pre-emptively 'splitting a community', namely Beasley... Can he?!?)

Therefore, I'm wondering if maybe the first priority of 'the engaged' should be...aside from giving Scott London's articles a read...to stop mainlining Hyperbole™.

M Adrian Brassington