> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [UC] Sound vaguely familiar? From the Washington Times --
> 11/18/07> Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 13:34:43 -0500>>Stabbing the community in the
> back through collusion with hypocrites isn't
>the same as the transparency required in a representative democracy.
Thanks to Tom Lussenhop and the "Campus Inn" proposal, I have had a epiphany.
I now know when Penn says "jump", who the jumpers will be and how high they
will jump (or, if you will, how low they will stoop).
I have seen the depths of hypocrisy that people can sink to. I have seen how
people and organizations who have publicly supported a purported ideal can
throw that ideal under the bus without hesitation, and can come up with utterly
preposterous, and insulting-to-one's-intellegence justifications for doing so.
Arguments analogous to "We have to save the forests, but until we get a law
protecting them, we're going to help the lumber company destroy the forests".
I now know that historic preservation, at least in this neighborhood, is not an
ideal, but a weapon that can be selectively used against certain people or
entities, while others are totally free to do whatever they want, so long as
they are aligned with the "right" people. Whenever I hear "historic
preservation" invoked in the future, I will automatically question the motives
of the people invoking it, why it is being invoked, and for or against whom is
it being invoked. Instead of naively assuming that it is being used to
preserve the past, I will now question whether it is being used to manipulate
the present, or to ensure a bright future for a self-selected few.
Thanks, Tom, for enlightening me. [That's NOT a solicitation for you to write
to me offlist.]
Karen Allen
"I went to school at Temple, but I got my education at Penn."
