“Think of all the hate there is in Red China. Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama. You may leave here for four days in space. But when you return, it’s the same old place…”

Those words written back during the 1960s and made popular by Barry McGuire reflected on the struggle in Selma and the rest of the Deep South during the civil rights movement.

It seems we’re still fighting the same old battles and not moving forward because a vocal minority seeks to keep the city down.

And we don’t understand why.

But if you listen to the voices on a local radio station, you will hear nothing but hatred spewed over the air waves.

Attitudes are catching. If we listen long enough to these shouting voices with personal agendas, who try to make their ways the public ways, then we will become as negative as they. It is a shame that a former city councilman cannot accept his defeat gracefully. Instead, he waters the seeds of hate and despair in himself, and through his radio program, in others.

To those who would buy into this negativity, we would suggest they stop and think about where they are now. We would suggest they ask hard questions of those who spout half-truths or who hide behind puesdonyms to get their messages across.

Sure, we’re having hard economic times, but more and more the city is beginning to pull together so that all have an opportunity. It’s a matter of working within the system to change it, rather than raging outside the system. That’s how we move forward.

In Selma, we are not on the eve of destruction, regardless of what those who think they know shout out to the rest of us.