George Rebane
Well, maybe I deserved it. I was taken to task by some strong comments appended to Jeff Pelline’s Union article on emergency preparedness. This upbraiding is for what, even to me, was a lengthy presentation of my bonafides before giving some input during the recent county economic development summit at the Miner’s Foundry. I apologize for the amount of wind it took me to say it.
That afternoon the audience was filled with all the usual representatives from the county’s legion of non-profits and activists and special interest groups. There was little evidence of many for-profit employers in attendance, they must have been minding their stores/shops. So before I gave my distinctly politically incorrect input, I wanted to make sure people knew it didn’t come from someone who had never been there nor done that. But if summarizing one’s business experience – garnered over 45 years – makes people think that you might know something, then I take the “smart” appellation as a compliment, no matter by which side of the hand it was delivered. Nevertheless I do wish I could have said it shorter and was happy to see that the solicited comments from the audience petered out way before the clock did. Everyone who wanted to speak had more than ample opportunity to do so.
However, the criticism from the left about my representing the “rich” retired people is expected but misdirected. I was talking about the thousands of us in Nevada County who are retired and own our own home. We demand very few services, put down a gentle footprint, like to and do shop locally, and generously support local charities. For the simple reason that we are empty nesters and employment is no longer an issue, we are able to move very easily if the environment here turns bad. It is a reality that is often forgotten in this county with double the average percentage of older folks – we are pandered by the local social engineers, but otherwise ignored. However, to the class warriors at the meeting, anyone who is retired and owns their home is instantly a member of the benighted rich living off the backs of the poor. As such, the content of our words can be dismissed by simple attribution as a discredited source.
And so our community again makes a show of promoting economic development guided by those for whom profit and its pursuit is misunderstood, foreign, and distasteful.
(PS – Most of us whose public comments are made over our own names continue to decry the futility of dialogue with people who hide behind the veil of anonymity. In such cases it is hard to tell whether they are sincere in their statements or use the veil to vent some mood of the day so that they will not be burdened by consistency or coherence in their diatribes. Most disconcerting is that some profiles of the pen names (e.g. “General J”) used by these worthies are not even registered by The Union as required by their stated policy. How could they get around doing that without some inside connection to the newspaper? But then again, I guess "yellowdog" says it all.)
