What Matters to You – Possession and Perception

There is a famous old saying that states “Possession is 9/10 of the law” so if you have it in your hands or are caught with it in your hands it can go one of 2 ways for you.  When it comes to politics, “Perception is 100 percent of the Law” the real challenge that I’ve found over the last few years is how that perception is created in the first place. The public memory can be short, however, when the narrative subtly changes, and given time, can turn a full 180. George Orwell illustrated this perfectly in his book 1984.  It’s all about wording and timing and the public is none the wiser.  Friends turn into enemies, and saviours turn into sinners.

In Alberta, we have a long fuse but also a hot temper.  When Albertans have had enough, it is enough!  There are a number of values that the vast majority hold near and dear to their hearts. Honesty, trust, showing respect and having a strong Work Ethic.  Albertans can forgive mistakes, heck even blunders, and are very empathetic when leaders are given extremely difficult circumstances to navigate, but if they can’t trust you, or you drive wedges and disrespect them, they will seldom forget, or forgive.

If you don’t support certain leaders, agree with their messaging, their style of management, well then you are a Fringe Minority, A racist, you indeed are an Anti (pick the subject) and are downright going to tear down the system.  Beware of the boogey man, look over there, not here, and lets all turn on that other group they are the problem.  The “Woke” style of perception forming and opinion making is not new, nor is it simply reserved for one political camp or another, it has become institutionalized. I am counting on Albertans to do the right thing, and never forgive that behavior, that style of leadership.  It has been used to cover up shortcomings and mistakes of the leaders, with the hope to lengthen their careers to the detriment of our province, and our country.

There is a change coming for the better I believe when it comes the calibre of people becoming involved in their communities, and as well as the politics as a whole.  This is starting to upset the establishments, and the “Traditional” organizations that have been in behind the scenes for years giving you the population the candidates to choose from.  I believe that we have a chance of making some extremely positive changes going forward, as long as we keep engaged, as long as we hold onto our beliefs and values.  We can no longer justify compromising our values, it is because of this that we have reached this inflection point, we are at a point where we can make a very positive change in the right direction.

In a recent townhall I received feedback from a gentleman that was not from our constituency, but still had business connections in our area.  He was extremely surprised to hear the discussion focusing on positive items, managing some challenging issues.  The panel taking questions from the audience consisted of 2 levels of government, local businesses, and even a school board chair.  The audience was engaged, had their questions answered, and even if they didn’t like the answers were appreciative for the information, and that the panel was working towards a solution.

That same gentleman asked me if I could go to his constituency and put on a townhall, because they too needed to hear about all of the other things happening other than the current division items that have his community fighting amongst each other. Honestly, I was a little taken aback from the request, but was at the same time very happy to hear that our approach of engagement truly had left such a positive impression.

I attribute that tone and that feel of the townhall to the folks in our community who are engaged, stepped away from the computers to express their concerns, and get the feedback in an open environment.  There are always going to be a few in the weeds, who have other motivations who want to hijack conversations, but typically they won’t do that on an open microphone, they prefer hit and run engagements, with letter writing campaigns afterwards.

The folks who are showing up, who are pitching in, who are making a difference, who are starting to change the perceptions, who are not the keyboard warriors, but are the lead by example crowd, they are the ones who gave such a great impression to the gent who was visiting. There were a good number that I had only met for the first time, and this was their first “Townhall”.  That was extremely encouraging, because with that, we will have a chance of turning things around. Working together we can make some real progress, regardless of who may be the current leaders may be, new leaders are emerging, bucking the system, for all the right reasons.

Sincerely,

Shane Getson