Reading about World War II is a passion that I share with many friends and kin.
I have just finished Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre and it tells the story of the invasion of Sicily. I am not going to tell you the story, but the plot involves a corpse equipped with secret but false information that is planted in the sea to wash ashore. The false information got to Hitler and changed his battle plans and thus casualties were avoided. It was said that any man who survived the invasion of Sicily owed his life to this operation.
As I was reading this fascinating tale, it occurred to me that Henderson could learn a few lessons from a story like this.
Lesson Number One: Everybody has something to contribute.
For Operation Mincemeat to be successful, they obviously needed lawyers, doctors, government agents (like the real Ian Fleming), secretaries, and military operatives from Winston Churchill to Ike Eisenhower. But while this group of people was important and made significant contributions, the real success of the mission depended on a lowly fisherman and a skilled driver.
In Henderson we need to welcome more people to the table. For years the progress of this community has been held in check by a wealthy few maneuverers who love competing and, for them, progress has been good. But they have not considered that “the lowly fisherman and the skilled driver” have ideas to contribute, much less talents. By overlooking, disregarding, and ignoring many in our community, we have promoted stagnation. The rich get richer, the middle class disappears, and the poor multiply.
Lesson Number Two: When the players are not succeeding at achieving an essential goal, don’t change the goal — change the players.
For years in our community, many different ideas were fostered and completed all in an effort to get the economic machinery moving. Would you say they have been successful? Maybe it is time to change the players. If the game plan is to make our community prosperous and economically viable for all (and that should be the plan), it can happen, but the same old players are not making it happen. There are many bright, young, and energetic people who have creative ideas and they are worth listening to. They might not be crowned the “chosen ones,” they may not be an attorney or own a family business, but they need to be brought into the picture and given parts to play. Their ideas will be worth far more than their resumes.
Lesson Number Three: Sometimes you may have to work with a foe to achieve your goal.
Around here the sentiment is often, “If you are not with me, you are against me.” Stubbornness, bull-headedness, arrogance, and conceit take precedence over reflective thinking, compassion, diligence, and ingenuity. We have a culture that has been forced down our throats that we can spend our way to prosperity. It has not happened, it ain’t going to happen, and it was a bad plan to start with. But getting anyone to admit this will be like moving mountains. If the two sides of the joint funding issue would work together and admit the mistakes of the past and correct them going into the future, just think how much could be accomplished. But when you will not admit you made mistakes, why work to correct them?
Lesson Number Four: The success of the mission takes precedence over your personal beliefs, reputation, or desires.
We all want a successful mission in making our community wholesome and livable. This is the mission. We want it to be wholesome and livable for not just for certain business areas and certain neighborhoods but for the entire community. Where do we find people who are working for the good of all in our community? Where are we going to find those who are not motivated by a sense of superiority — whether it is superiority in wealth, power, control, or intelligence? I fear that most of the hard-hitting players in our community are more concerned about their reputations and pocketbooks than they are the good of all in our community. If this is the case, then the mission fails.
Why do I say this? Just a few weeks ago I was told that even though I had lost the election, I had not “gone away”, and I was causing trouble because “when you do something out of compassion you will never succeed.” Hearing that I gave me a case of “righteous indigestion.”
So let me present this invitation to Sam Watkins. We are pretty much on opposite sides when it comes to how to go about economic development, joint-funding, and the “New Direction.” I invite him to meet me at my house on any day (when I am not tending to my grandchildren). We’ll sit down at the kitchen table and, after we eat a tomato sandwich, we’ll talk one-on-one about the issues – economic development, joint ventures, and the “New Direction”.
Neither of us are elected officials, so no promises can be made. Despite that, we can get to the root of many of the problems around here and get some positions clarified. We will agree not to argue, raise our voices, use sarcasm, or use platitudes. We will face the issues head-on equipped with only facts, and we will question any lie, misconception or misstatement that is spoken. HiH can video the discussion for all to see, or, if Mr. Watkins objects to that, we can record the audio.
Let’s see if we can learn some lessons from WWII and start a successful mission of improving our community.
No corpse will be needed.