MONTHLY CONVERSATION EXPERIMENT

Fear and opportunity

Posted 12/11/24

Prompted by the changed national landscape following the November election,  we reached out to readers to weigh in on what they saw as fears and opportunities.

We asked the question,  …

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MONTHLY CONVERSATION EXPERIMENT

Fear and opportunity

Posted

Prompted by the changed national landscape following the November election, we reached out to readers to weigh in on what they saw as fears and opportunities.

We asked the question, “What is your greatest fear?” and   “What is the greatest opportunity of this time?” 

Below are the responses received. The new prompt asks the question:

Who influenced you most in your life and how did they influence you? Send your short reflections, artwork, poetry or photographs to editor@riverreporter.com by December 31.

This prompt mirrors the questions posed by WJFF’s One Small Step, a dialog initiative in partnership with Story Corps and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Read original reporting about the program here.

America needs us to work together

I hope that the majority of Americans would realize that they have been living in a country that has consistently provided the highest standard of living on Earth for the common man. 

I hope that Americans understand that in order to preserve their democracy, both sides of the aisle must cooperate with each other, rather than see their opponents as subhuman and not even worth talking to.

I hope that Americans understand that democracy is inherently difficult and messy and that American democracy can work only through a political compromise. As Winston Churchill said, after all, “democracy is the worst political system, with the exception of all those that have been tried previously.”

As for my fears, I do not have any. This is because I know from experience that while “every election is called the most important election of our lifetime,” the United States of America has been humming along successfully for 248 years through successive Democratic and Republican administrations that imprinted their indelible ideology on America and will continue doing the same for the foreseeable future.

Ivan Orisek
Forestburgh, NY

Common sense and freedom of speech

“What is your greatest fear?”

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington

It’s over for US when YOUR freedom to speak is voided.

Been spendin’ most of my life livin’ with the gangsters in their paradise and I didn’t start the fire.

Fighting for your freedom to speak should just be a campaign slogan, not a daily chore for those not campaigning.

I’m a Black Sheep, never silent and not poorly educated so I have no fear.

I do fear for the lambs being led to slaughter and fleeced by the ewes and rams to....dye.

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

—H.L. Mencken

“What is the greatest opportunity of this time?”

“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”— Bruce Lee

“It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.”—H. L. Mencken

Arnold Benadik

It’s time to listen to each other

Cervantes, in “Don Quixote,” probably said it better than I ever could.

“All these squalls to which we have been subjected are signs that the weather will soon improve and things will go well for us, because it is not possible for the bad or the good to endure forever, and from this it follows that since the bad has lasted so long, the good is close at hand.”

My greatest fear is that we will fail to pull back from the brink and continue to senselessly struggle. That we will stop hearing, seeing and being kind to our neighbors. We’ve been fed a false narrative that our world is a zero-sum game. If someone wins, someone else has to lose. It wasn’t always this way and it doesn’t have to be this way forever.

Our greatest opportunity is that we will come to a realization that more unites us than separates us. We have problems to fix that will take all of us to solve. We have had our heads down for so long: on our phones, in our internet echo chambers and feeling threatened by nonsensical rhetoric from all quarters. Our greatest opportunity is to stop being outraged and reconnect with our neighbors; to respect them, be kind to them and find common cause with them. We don’t need to agree with them on everything but we need to hear their concerns, their hopes, their dreams and they need to hear ours.

Charles Rubin
Hoboken, NJ/Lake Huntington, NY

Uphold the Constitution and the rule of law

What is my greatest fear?

My greatest fear, following the recent election, is that our democracy and rule of law will be dismantled and that Trump and his followers will be emboldened to destroy the peace and protections we enjoy.  He has flagrantly broken the law with impunity and is threatening to punish those who are trying to hold him accountable.

This precious society and country in which we live was created through hard work, vision and sacrifice and is the envy of people around the world.

What we Americans should do is respect what we have and show patriotism by respecting and upholding our Constitution and rule of law, not using our precious flag for a demonstration of political support to an autocrat—a narcissist—who cares only for himself and only ran for president so he could stay out of jail.

Worried in the Upper Delaware

The new prompt asks the question:

Who influenced you most in your life and how did they influence you?

Send your short reflections, artwork, poetry or photographs to editor@riverreporter.com by December 31.

This prompt mirrors the questions posed by WJFF’s One Small Step, a dialog initiative in partnership with Story Corps and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Read the reporting here.

america, WJFF, monthly conversation experiment, democracy, landscape, question,

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