It is difficult for one as uneducated as I to discern when I am being duped at a public meeting. Sometimes, I think victims and heroes are selected a priori to give the drive-by media stories to advance the agendas of the evil ones. The good ones, of course, do not manipulate.
Tonight, everybody at the Buncombe County Commissioners’ meeting was picking on Holly Jones. Jones had asked for cuts to longevity perks and shorter waiting periods for enrollment in county insurance plans. Staff practically called her stupid twice for practicing monolithic thinking. Jones, however, said she would not put up with the bullying, but the commissioners and staff needed to change their culture and make it more inviting for people to conduct mature, intelligent inquiries. This is all well and good, except it is an election year, and it was members of Jones’ political party that were attacking her. My first supposition would be she was grasping for votes from fiscal conservatives. The game had defining media content, but no ghost of a chance of changing anything. But since I am naïve, I must not trust my meager opinions, but suppose something greater was afoot.
