Update on the Occupy Tacoma Saga…
Original post here, for those that haven’t been paying attention. Also make sure to read the comments. And do your penance here.
But let’s circle back to the topic at hand. Seems my email and posts yesterday caused some small amount of ruckus, because blog hits in the area were way up, and as you saw in the comments of the previous post, it was seemingly passed around or discussed in the old neighborhood group.
Wait for it…wait for it….there’s more. Despite that harsh email I received that claimed to revoke my First Amendment rights, and the firm stance that I would, in fact, be removed from the mailing list, I received another email from the person in question that, if I am reading correctly, indicates I might not have been the only one to take issue with the email.
Hi WANers!
Some incorrect assumptions have been made, so I want to provide clarification on an issue.
Yesterday I sent an email out regarding an Occupy Tacoma march that is occurring in our neighborhood this week.
We all have differing views on political, socio-cultural, and financial issues, and those opinions are our own and deserve to be respected as such, unless they harm others or affect our neighborhood in a negative way. Hopefully, we can at least all agree on the stated mission of the Whitman Area Neighbors, which is below:
We are a group of residents in the Lincoln district committed to community partnerships, to improving our quality of life, and to creating a safer, more enjoyable place to live for all residents.
“When strangers start acting like neighbors… communities are re-invigorated.”
I send out information regularly from many sources, in order to serve as a neutral conduit of information, simply as a way to provide information to the members of our community and to improve communication.
In this particular case, I was asked to forward the email to the group by one neighbor in our community who is a part of this movement. Sending the email about the march should in NO WAY be construed as an ENDORSEMENT of the Occupy movement by the Whitman Area Neighbors AS A GROUP.
Thank you for allowing me to clarify on this issue. And thank you for trusting me to represent our neighborhood. I truly love doing it and have a deep passion for improving my neighborhood.
There’s so much to go on in this…so much…but I want to focus on just two things: first, the purpose of the group and how it relates to yesterday’s email; second, the claim of being a “neutral conduit of information”.
The latter will take a bit of time to analyze, both in creating the Google searches of the emails received over, say, the past year…and because we are moving this weekend. But needless to say, I’ll be posting about it when done, and perhaps in the midst. My initial recollection is that there’s quite a bit of general information…but as for the politically-charged or -oriented emails, it will be nearly completely on one side of the political aisle, and as such, not even remotely neutral.
As for the former, however, let’s take a look at this portion again:
We are a group of residents in the Lincoln district committed to community partnerships, to improving our quality of life, and to creating a safer, more enjoyable place to live for all residents.
“When strangers start acting like neighbors… communities are re-invigorated.”
Safer. More enjoyable. Um…not so much. Many of the emails we’ve received since we fled the area last year are related to crime, which has increased. Property values have plummeted. Homeowners have left, like we did, and foreclosures are up. So it begs the question…how’s that working? NOTE: I’m not saying the neighborhood group isn’t important or hasn’t done important things…but has it been effective? Goes back to my point on yesterday’s response that perhaps the neighborhood might be better served if the time, resources, and energy were put back into action in the area, with people, rather than marching against glittering generalities and nameless, faceless corporations.
Second point on the effectiveness and/or mission of the group: in the time before we left, when the van was smashed in by the drug dealer, my wife contacted that leader. Response? Not much other than letting the group know and that we should talk to the Community Liaison Officer. Contrast that to another local friend not in the neighborhood, who called and offered to come and set up a 24/7 watch on our street. Tell me which best met the need. Tell me which was most effective.
Original post here, for those that haven’t been paying attention. Also make sure to read the comments. And do your penance here. But let’s circle back to the topic at hand. Seems my email and posts yesterday caused some small amount of ruckus, because blog hits in the area were way up, and as you saw in…
Turns out I may have bitten off more than I can chew at this time on the analyzing of the emails over the past year. An initial search turns out 156 emails over the past year, and while I can come up with some rudimentary searches, it doesn't do justice to my intent.
What I can pass along thus far (and probably only update for a while, with the move and resettlement) is that just barely over half actually included "Fwd:" in the subject to indicate a forwarded email…including one from the Pierce County Democratic Party chair.
What would be interesting to the discussion regarding this "neutral conduit" is what criteria or guidelines are used to decide whether to pass something along or not…