By Debbie Hamme
Re “A Unity Rally? Reminds Me of a Silbiger”
I wish Alan Elmont would figure out which concepts of democracy he wants to embrace this week.
A month ago he was bemoaning the fact that the unions wanted to ask the candidates questions about the adjunct issue and the formation of United Parents of Culver City. He had decided, I guess, that those subjects should have been off-limits since his chosen candidates apparently found them difficult to answer.
This week he is sanctimoniously giving us a civics lesson with two admonitions:
• “By contrast, the philosophical foundation of democracy is the concept that truth emerges from friction created by the free exchange of ideas” and
• “Questioning one’s elected leaders and candidates is fundamental to democracy.”
Mr. Elmont, which is it? Is it only democracy in action when you are posing the questions?
I have to wonder why it is that you (or anyone else) would have a problem with a candidate's declaration that he/she wants to run a positive campaign, based on the issues or that the candidate feels it is important for our community to be unified.
Are these concepts that foreign to you?
Let me ask, can any candidates, other than the ones you are endorsing, make a statement, however innocent, without you making a mean-spirited attempt to discredit it?
It does not seem so.
Is that what politics in this city has been reduced to? If it is, we should all be ashamed of ourselves.
Ms. Hamme, president of ACE, the Assn. of Classified Employees, may be contacted at antiquer01@aol.com
