Reassessing our journey

Throughout the years we’ve developed and strengthened personal perception to see events as they unfold locally and at the global level. We’ve moved from conventional wisdom to insightful intuition. We try to understand the meaning and context of issues we face daily. We’ve also built personal tool sizing up people to understand their mettle and idiosyncrasies.

In the process, we’ve learned to ask the right questions and analyze answers to identify fact from fiction. For all the competing distractions, we try to navigate our way through a hectic day calmly. Across these pearly isles, we know something’s amiss, quizzing how we came down this low after 36 years of constitutional government.

Understandably, the working of a democratic republic is a woefully protracted process. We’ve slowly learned that ours is a government of laws founded “by the people, of the people, and for the people.” If this hasn’t sunk into your cranium then you must be “a politician who’d lay down the lives of others in defense of our country”! No worries! Even this didn’t survive initial apprehension.

Temblor in voter land
In this long journey, we’ve also learned the troubling and humiliating disconnect and disengagement of people at the helm on people’s issues.

Front and center is the deepening economic dystopia—where nothing works—and you ask how could they have royally missed the boat? Well, political punditry isn’t a game changer for we’re equally capable of dissecting the truth from the apparent. But with the mother goose of disconnection found in ignorance plastered with arrogance as icing on the cake, could we really expect anything better?

The degenerative and toxic environment feeds upon its own parasitic influence, pushing everything that is hopelessly mediocre. So where do “we the people” fit in this scenario? Do they even have rudimentary inkling about the principles of democracy?

How about mature perception of the corrosive effects of predatory policies and what needs to be done to rectify this anomaly? I can generously forgive ignorance but not self-inflicted stupidity especially those whose craniums have been fossilized, singing White Christmas in July.

Is there hope ahead? Yes, I’ve met with some of our best students at NMC who are wary of their future role. As more of them secure their education and degrees the stronger the promise of our children meeting brighter break of dawn in the near and far term. It means the CNMI would have a far more educated workforce. I take pride in NMC taking the lead in the education of our children and it deserves the community’s accolades and constructive contributions.

It has begun morphing into four-year degree programs. I’m optimistic it would eventually attain full accreditation as a four-year institution equipped with a highly respected “research and development center” with pivotal role in policy formulation. It’s the only way we could do it right where the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.

Finally, if you’re on the wrong side of the fence please stay put. The next dump truck should haul you up to the Marpi landfill for lifetime honorary membership! Well, you would be our least worry as we forge ahead filling your posts with fully committed, young, and educated candidates this November!

Guarding the innocent
Meanwhile, I’ve seen one too many careers fold voluntarily, the genesis being self-inflicted political doom. But this isn’t the first time that I’ve outlasted careers among the elected elite. I’ve been down this road so many times in the last four decades. They come and go by the dime a dozen! Wish I could share some crocodile tears. Sorry! No time for misguided compassion here.

I may have been crusty but there’s no room for political niceties either nor do I wish to devolve into stroking bruised errand ego. I’ve also seen how history has soundly buried those who have lost their true north while at the helm. If anything, it’s always good to follow your innermost truth!

I’ve seen conscientious leadership at its best among our very own. They were people of integrity who employed mindfulness in the conduct of their duties as elected officials. There’s a dearth for this form of leadership today, a troubling scarcity.

Leadership pertains to improving the wellbeing of others. It’s the interest of others first over yours. Has this been the case in recent past? If so, how do you justify or explain the 80 percent reduction in the buying power of people you represent?

The cost of basic needs has gone up excessively while salaries remain the same for 20 years now. Where were you and did you fulfill your fiduciary responsibility on this score?

There’s no need for acrimony in our working relationship, provided you focus on substantive issues crafted to improve the livelihood of the people you represent. Have you done this? If so, name one signature accomplishment that meets the context of what was explained herein above.

If not, do you have an explanation beyond groping for words in grand disorientation? Do you now understand why I sometime step on your toes? If “we the people” pay for your loot, the least of expectation is reciprocity in conscious leadership with integrity!

Buddy Magoo echoed what writer Edith Wharton once said, “Life has its way of overgrowing its achievements including ruins.” He added that immaturity could also last a lifetime. It’s the “ruins” that took the wind out of the real of laughter this morning. Immaturity we could outgrow but “ruins” takes a process, a long process to fix and put back on track.