[Vision2020] Picnic Apologies/Chasuk/Phil/A step back from V2020

[Jim Meyer]

Greetings to all:

Although I intended to go to the picnic, a celebration of a life was 
decidedly more important and thus I spent the last several days in 
Sandpoint. It would have been fun to meet many of you, but maybe next year.

A couple of public personal notes:

Chasuk, "ruthless self-reflection" is a rarer quality than I imagined. I 
appreciate that you have the ability and I appreciate that you use it  
effectively.

Phil, like almost any real life issue of any substantial nature, the 
answers to the mining issue can be seen in shades of gray, not either 
just black or just white. In these type of situations examples can be 
found on both sides of the argument and both can be correct. I know a 
heck of a lot more about clearcuts than I do about mining, but if I had 
the audacity to tell you blanket statements that clearcuts are either 
right or wrong, I would expect you to call me crazy.  It is the same 
with the mining issue. In other words, our conversation has no end, no 
answer, so it is of limited usefulness. My interest (now completely 
satisfied) in the mining issue was two-fold.  One, I sincerely believe 
that it is the responsibility of government to make sure that the least 
among us is not abused by the rich and powerful. In this case, the least 
among us are the miners. I believe our current government doesn't keep 
this same value of putting people first that I do and there are strong 
indicators that they don't (whether you care to look or not).Therefore 
it is a moral obligation for me to speak up. Two, I am interested in how 
you personally look at the issue. Perhaps I can illustrate it thus: I 
was talking politics with a relative. I explained why I thought the 
current deficit was a huge problem. The response was, "It wasn't Clinton 
that balanced the budget, it was the Republicans in Congress." Huh? are 
we even talking about the past? Are we talking about Democrats verses 
Republicans? Is the situation even vaguely comparable? No on all counts, 
but similarly those are the type of unrelated answers you give me about 
the mining issue. So what--Molly Ivins is a partisan, I'll grant you 
that--Is that what we are talking about? Or are we talking about putting 
miners first and about asking some difficult questions to make sure they 
are first? That is what I am talking about. So my second interest in the 
mining issue is the psychology of why the real issue is so difficult for 
you to address. It is just about the same question as: Why do people 
vote for politicians who don't govern in that person's best interest? It 
is just about the same question as: Why do people let one emotion 
charged issue override all other issues? At any rate, I believe you 
answered my second interest, though optimistically I would rather have 
had another answer. I do not intend to research or argue or talk about 
this issue again. I do thank you for having the conversation.

Lastly, and this comment is to everyone:

I believe that we, as a country, are at some serious crossroads. We 
could argue about which way to turn at every minor intersection, but 
doing so could leave us stranded by indecision in the middle of the 
intersection with a 65000#GVW truck bearing down on us. More 
productively, we could make sure that the framework for democracy still 
exists so that no matter which way we turn it won't be down a dead end 
or worse yet, off a cliff. To me the most pressing issues of our time 
are 1) to make sure that there is at least one completely publicly 
funded news media outlet that is unfettered by commercial attachments, 
yet that has enough funding to do world-wide investigative reporting and 
whose charter prevents politicization of the content. 2) To make sure 
that our elections in our great country (it is amazing to even say 
this), are truly honest, or even honest enough, to the greatest extent 
possible.

I hope to be able to work on these issues as time allows. Toward that 
end, I will be pretty much neglecting V2020. Feel free to contact me 
directly especially if you share similar interests, otherwise I might 
not catch your comments V2020. 

Jim Meyer