I. When will the victims of history ever learn? We've gone through the "weed 'n seed" period. There was the "round-em all up and dump the poor across the state line" chanting crowd. Gentrification under the false pretense of "revitalization". And the manufacturing of "gangs" and "crime" throughout the last three and more decades in targeted areas to justify it all and make it a reality when storm-trooper/Gestapo types rush in where only the most brave and fearless dare to tread.
A. The lesson in need of learning is simple, peeps. If someone comes along and promises to make all your troubles disappear. Flip a switch and turn your night to day, and suddenly things appear to actually brighten. Then isn't it obvious they were controlling the switch all along? Why do you continue to allow others to control your light switch in the first place?
II. Neither are those "liberal-policies" to blame. When those same policies were exclusive and geared only for a select group, they were widely accepted as a "birthright." They only fail out of favor as they became more and more inclusive. That's where the sabotaging began. Folks don't like sharing what they've been conditioned to believe for centuries is exclusively theirs for the picking.
III. On the million bucks to Children's Hospital. Dear Mayor Berke, if I had a 1.2 million you could have the million to donate to Erlanger Children's Hospital. I only need enough to get out of this crazy Dodge City, and the whiners could just please go away. However, since I don't have that 1.2 mil, I'm proud and honored that my tax dollars, though small, can be used in such a selfless way as to honor the memory of those recently six lives lost.
IV. Finally, the rest of the lunatic rantings and attacks are irrelevant. Irrelevant. That strategy is old. I plan on voting for the individuals in the upcoming election who doesn't resort to slinging the doo-doo all over and everywhere.
Happy New Year to e'erybody.
Brenda Washington
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I reread this post three times and still cannot make sense of it, other than the part about lunatic rantings. Things like failing out of favor etc. I don't have the answer to solving our inner city problems but that has nothing to do with the corruption we have had in this current administration.
I for one am not happy about this so-called donation of our money to the hospital. There is such a thing as rule of law and it even applies to our mayor's office. Perhaps this is why we cannot solve the crime on our streets. It needs to start at the top.
Nancy Allshouse
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Wow. Either someone had a few too many totties at midnight for New Year or I need to locate my Ovaltine decoder ring for this latest opinion piece by Brenda. The bottom line is I don’t think there is a soul in Chattanooga who doesn’t feel compassion for the families of the six children of Woodhaven that lost their lives that tragic evening. Unfortunately we can only move forward and pray for the families as they mourn and heal over time.
I can also only hope there is not an underlying cause to Mayor Berke’s donation of taxpayers money, but his timing is suspect at best and the proper channels were not followed. Only Mayor Berke knows that answer for sure and he would be the one that has to sleep with that on his conscious.
As for the crime rate, I don’t need a study to tell me Chattanooga has become increasingly violent over the past couple of years as it is plastered all over the news daily, not to mention the gunshots ringing out across the city 24 hours a day.
As for Brenda and her accusations of “doo-doo” slinging, if there was not so much “doo-doo” being left behind by the current administration then maybe we wouldn’t need a tractor trailer load of toilet paper to clean up the mess being left behind.
I do agree with Brenda on one thing, it is going to be a Happy New Year and hopefully one in which Chattanooga and this great nation as whole can start to come together once again instead of being divided any further that it already has.
Chris Morgan