This past Thursday, I had the privilege of attending the turning point USA informational meeting held in Hollister. It was a great event with some very eye opening material presented, but the greatest thing about it was that there was a large in-person crowd. It was not held on ZOOM!
You could read people’s body language, hear the inflections in their voices, see facial expressions, and really put your finger on the pulse of the crowd. You could also see who and what didn’t resonate.
None of these things are possible on Zoom. Zoom was a great “stop gap” measure to keep certain things going, but should never have been a long term replacement for in-person meetings or school instruction.
After the “fireworks” at the Lowdon, Virginia school board meeting early last week, it was clear that when a large crowd of parents showed up in person for a meeting, expressing their feelings in no uncertain terms, articulately, passionately, with their back straight and necks bulled: the board members were not ready for it. This scene is being repeated all over real America, where they are having school board, city council and county board of supervisor meetings in person.
Last spring, school boards using Covid and Zoom as a cover began to teach the 1619 project, ethnic studies, equity and other like curriculums.
Using some parents’ unfamiliarity with Zoom, and the inability of people in disagreement to create a “presence” at board meetings, they implemented their socialist curriculums in many places.
The Zoom trick was not only used by school boards, but by mayors and city councils, county boards of supervisors and countless other governmental and civic organizations to push through unpopular agendas without fear of “pushback.” As citizens, these people work for us; we dictate policy, not them.
It is “mission critical” that we demand that all meetings be in person again. If there can be 40,000 fans at the Giants/A’s game Friday night, a couple hundred people can attend a school board, city council, supervisor or other meeting in person. As citizens we need to take back control of our governmental organizations.
Remember, they are elected to REPRESENT us, not RULE us. Having in-person meetings so they have to look us in the eye, vote in a public, non-hiding way, see the anger, frustration, joy and other reactions of people, is an important start! Call, write, email, visit in person, but let your elected and appointed officials know you want in-person meetings, not gutless virtual meetings. If they refuse, it is time to vote them out, or fire any appointed official who won’t.
You are the government, not them.
Randy Logue
Hollister
