It is becoming increasingly clear to me that there has been a pattern of political intimidation in this community. This has apparently gone on for years. I myself have recently become a victim of such tactics. The acts of intimidation are usually conducted anonymously and indicate a concerted effort by the perpetrator(s) to uncover aspects of peoples past that they think would embarrass people or to threaten the economic well being of the targeted individual. A common feature of these tactics is that they usually are utilized against people who have criticized the conduct of the city government.
I am asking that anyone who has been a victim of such tactics, or has any information about the use of such tactics, to please come forward. If we can establish a pattern of such activity then we can, and will, request that appropriate authorities, state or Federal, conduct an investigation. This will be hard for many of you and the people who have utilized such tactics count upon your fear of ?“exposure?”. For many of you, this may involve reporting the misconduct of your friends or your employers or even your political allies. They are counting upon your ''friendship'' to prtoect them.
Let me be perfectly blunt. The people who utilize such tactics are thugs, cowards, and criminals. If we passively allow them to continue to utilize such tactics we should be ashamed of ourselves and are equally to blame for the continuation of a political environment where threats and intimidations prevail over political discourse.
Hannah Arendt wrote the definitive book on the trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi leader who coordinated the Holocaust. Her book revealed that Adolph Eichmann was not a monster nor was he particularly anti-Semitic. He was a ?“nice?” man who was a good neighbor and parent who was involved in many charitable and community groups. The frightening thing about Eichmann was his ?“normality?”. If he had been a monster, like Hitler, it would have been easy to dismiss him as an aberration. The fact that he and others who carried out the atrocities of the period were ''normal'' was what allowed it to be so successful. After all, it is hard to conceive of the person whose children goes to school with your child and works on community organizations such as the PTO and athletic boosters as ?“evil?”. It is therefore easy to not confront or hold them responsible for their acts, particularly when exposure of their conduct would result in some discomfort to you. The subtitle of her book was ?“the banality of evil?”, meaning that frightening aspect of evil was that it was carried out by dull, ordinary persons in the furtherance of small petty schemes, such as protecting their economic, social or political position. In commenting on this phenomena in his book ?“The People of the Lie- The Hope for Healing Human Evil.?” Scott Peck, M.D., states, ?“What are we to do with the evil when their masquerade of sanity is so successful, their destructiveness so ?‘normal?’? First, we must stop buying the masquerade and being deceived by the pretense.?”
If we allow such conduct to continue, we are cheapening the world in which our children live. We are telling them the world is not governed by the acts of courage and kindness of good people, but by those who utilize scheming, lying and bullying. Quite simply put, if we do not stand up to these people we are no better than they are.
