Belltown Messenger

"Why should I murmur at the fate of my people? Tribes are made up of individuals and are no better than they. Men come and go like the waves of the sea." -Chief Seattle

For some time now there has been a growing alarm about the dwindling number of salmon returning to the home waters. The argument is that the species will go extinct if more of the habitat is degraded and the spawning cycle falls below a sustainable threshold. At some point the adversities become too much and the system collapses. The run stops.

The life of Seattle's politics is coasting to a similar stop. The issues and candidates of 2005 have not held much interest for Seattle's voters. Only 28 percent of these voters bothered to cast a vote in the September primary. This is not a good indicator for the health of our political cycle. And the odds are better than good that the November election will return historic lows, numerically and otherwise, creating a silence that is no longer awkward but has become the new norm.

What happens if this trend continues in 2006, 2007, 2008, and beyond? Will we have the bitter and unrewarding task of being our own archeologists, asking how this place came to an untimely ruin? Will Seattle become like other western ghost towns, remembered not for what it is but what it once was, or once could have been?

Do we really want a future determined by apathy and indifference? What kind of leadership will we have when we are ruled by the cult of "Don't know and don't care"? Mediocrity begets mediocrity. The new faith of cynicism has converted multitudes who don't ask questions and are ready-right now-to settle for less. A city with a great future requires a city with a great ambition. That's not something we can currently claim. With each passing day, the love Seattleites once had for Seattle becomes more of a memory and less of a current relationship. Our passion isn't returning our calls. "Giving a damn" is too old fashioned nowadays.

Yet there are stirrings. This spiral entropy to nowhere need not be our fate. The Monorail, for all its controversy, did provide the Seattle with a worthy service. The controversy itself began serious and much needed self examination of our city. Seattleites considered, sometimes for the first time, what should be added to or subtracted from our urban landscape. We asked what makes a city and what makes Seattle.

Let us welcome more controversy and more debate. Let us ask questions and find answers. Let us renew a circulation of ideas. Let us be the people we have been waiting for and rescue ourselves. This is what it will take to restore life to Seattle's politics and rejuvenate Seattle's future. And who will bring the future? Reader, this falls to you.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi