Defending our beavers has been a constant struggle against threat of one kind or another. We were warned that lives could be lost, that buildings would collapse, that supporters would be sued, and that the website would be come a target for hate-mail the world wide. With each subsequent challenge the threats would increase. Of course when you feel most threatened, you instinctively feel most vulnerable and unable to achieve your goals. However I have learned through painstaking observation that the reverse is usually true.
The closer you get to power the more ominous the response, and the surer your success. Threat comes when you are strong, not weak.
I mention this because this weekend one of our beaver loyals ran into a certain councilman who kindly wondered whether the “beaver people” were planning some kind of anti-Redevelopment campaign. He expressed concern that this could harm the beavers and bring “Stigma”, and he hoped that wasn’t true.
Are we both hearing the same theme song in the background here? “Nice Colony, shame if something were to happen to them”. (I mean other than lowering their dam by three feet, removing all their food and installing sheetpile through their lodge.) It would be a shame for the beavers to be tainted by a controversial issue that has been dramatically argued in this city since 1950. We wouldn’t want to bring controversy to these peaceful uncontroversial and uncritically accepted rodents, right?
For the record, Worth A Dam doesn’t have an “official” position on the Redevelopment issue. We’re beaver people, and we are committed to beavers. We are a heterogeneous group, and voted for Kennedy, Alford, McCain, Obama and Ron Paul. This is the way its supposed to be, where people set aside their differences to work on common goals, support each other’s shared interests and make space for things that they can’t agree on. I don’t expect readers of this website to agree with my opinion on everything, including RDA. You know how to contact me and express your thoughts as well. To be honest, if the city had ever sat me down and said, ‘if you will make sure beaver people don’t have any opposition for our RDA we’ll keep them safe and build the most beautiful habitat for them you’ve ever seen’, I’d have seriously thought twice. But of course the city didn’t do that. They didn’t ever view us as important enough to promise anything, or even vote on the issue. They just want to threaten that if we offer any opposition to an RDA they’ll support the beavers even less than they do already. (Get your nano-tools so we can measure the incremental shift.)
Honestly, their sheetpile-palooza was for me the single best indicator about whose interests they are likely to protect in this city, with or without an RDA. Warning a beaver loyalist that talking about RDA could harm the beavers is italian old school. Here’s the kindest version of what I think about that particular councilman’s concern for the possible stigma my having an opinion will bring the beavers…
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=0LnJskwydvM&feature]
