Lear or Loman? That is the question.

*
By all acounts, Plainfield's most prominent and important leader -- Assemblyman Jerry Green -- has recently engaged in some public displays that verge on meltdowns. The question on everyone's mind is WHY?

Why is a man who appears to be at the top of his game, at the very apex of his power, fretting so publicly about matters large and small in a way that makes him look petty, mean-spirited and defensive?

Let's review--

• At the September 21 PLANNING BOARD meeting, the Assemblyman made remarks which many in attendance took to refer threateningly to Councilor Cory Storch's political prospects. (Storch is up for re-election next year -- perhaps the only Council member with sufficient base in the community to get re-elected WITHOUT the Assemblyman's nihil obstat.)
  
  But what was the point? Is there anything the Assemblyman wants that this Council has denied? Not to PT's knowledge. Is there any vote that the Assemblyman cannot carry with a substantial majority? PT doesn't think so. So, why threaten a single Councilor, when that person cannot effectively trip up any of the Assemblyman's objectives? Why indeed.
  
  
• Attendees at a S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting at Shiloh Baptist Church last week reported another incident, which PT commented on in Friday's HITS.
  
  Here, say attendees, the Assemblyman appeared to be angered that community organizations were meeting to share ideas and make plans of action to address common concerns in the community -- without clearing things with him beforehand. His performance led to a loud exchange afterward in the hallway outside, embarrassing attendees who could hear the ruckus even though the door to the meeting room was closed.
  
  
• Lastly, consider the meeting at the SENIOR CENTER on Tuesday, as reported by Bernice in the PLAINTALKER ("Green Suffers Pique").
  
  Here, evidently, Green mischaracterized a COMMUNITY FORUM on Abbott School funding issues (tonight, 7 PM, at Washington School), being sponsored by a local Democratic club as a community service. Instead, he protrayed is as a PARTISAN POLITICAL EVENT, which is not the case. Organizers cast a broad net, and even the Assemblyman has been invited.

What is going on here?

There are people who have said to me with an absolutely straight face that they regard the Assemblyman as the embodiment of the Antichrist.

Demonizing a person in this way misses the mark, and PT does not agree with such thinking.

The Assemblyman and the people of Plainfield have a relationship -- a covenant, if you will -- in which, in exchange for their trust, he is to look out for the community's best interest.

Where PT thinks the Assemblyman misses the mark is in mistakenly thinking that that covenantal relationship means that he must be IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING -- every jot and tittle -- that happens in his bailiwick.

If it ever was easier to exercise dominant -- if not absolute -- control over local politics, events and personalities, that dominance has been completely undermined by the changes the Internet has wrought in a few short years.

If in the past one could storm and rant about the need for people to kowtow, such a performance was only witnessed by those physically present and only rippled out in small circles, not very far into the community.

Today, what a political leader says and does is instantly magnified and speedily disseminated through the blogosphere to any and all who care to know. (Ask Congressman Foley.) The small circles who witness the rants of leadership have been transformed into the many thousands who log on in Plainfield each day, looking for what the bloggers have to report going on in the world around them.

The rules of engagement have changed. And some are slow to understand the significance of the change.

Trying to CONTROL ABSOLUTELY everything in one's little bailiwick is frustrating, fruitless and doomed to failure. As the old maps used to say, "this way there be dragons."

Which brings PT to the point of the title of this little essay.

To help understand what we are witnessing, we need a framework in which to view and interpret the actions played out on the little stage of Plainfield's public life.

It is very sad to see someone apparently at the very pinnacle of their power appear to 'lose it.' But what, actually, are we witnessing?

Do we have before us the tragedy of King Lear? Or of Willy Loman?

Is it King Lear, whose desire to see who really loves him is undone by the cruelty of his own offspring, driving him eventually to blindness, madness and despair?

Or is it Willy Loman, the antihero of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," caught unawares by the changes in the world that had been occurring unnoticed all around him until he woke up. . .too late.

Maybe Linda, Willy Loman's longsuffering wife, should have the last word:

"I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person." -- "Death of a Salesman"

Yes, attention must be paid. But what exactly does that mean?

-- Dan Damon

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