Agendas

Agendas

When I was still in office during a Board of Supervisors’ meeting people would often times comment that those who spoke in opposition to their own position had “an agenda”.    To which I would invariably respond that everyone in the chambers had an agenda, though each one was undoubtedly different.  The County Counsel’s agenda was to make sure the meetings were conducted in a legal manner.  The County Clerk-Recorder’s agenda was to make sure that the meetings were recorded accurately, and that protocol was conducted in a correct manner.  All the rest of us had agendas as well, if only to get through the rest of the day alive.  So I didn’t want to hear about people having an agenda.  We all had one.

Thus, it surprised me a tad the other day when someone whom I am very fond of, and who is a truly delightful person, though a tad conservative, commented that this blog had a left-wing agenda.  I have no problem with the comment about it being left-wing.  After all, it is Progressive Political Punditry and other irrelevant matters.  As far as having an agenda, the only agenda it has is to get these thoughts out of my head and possibly make someone consider another point of view than the one they currently have. 

Anyway, to be on the safe side I looked up “agenda” in the on-line dictionary and found two definitions.  1) A list or outline of things to be considered or done, and 2) An underlying often ideological plan or program.  So, I guess under part of the first definition, this blog does have an agenda.  Things to be considered, but it certainly does not fit the second definition of an underlying plan or program. 

Then I got to thinking about some of the other issues where people have said there is an “agenda”.  The other night I heard someone talk about the “homosexual agenda”, inferring that there is an underlying plan or program.  In my mind the homosexual agenda is pretty open.  The same civil rights everyone else has.  Or the “radical feminist agenda”.  This one, too, is pretty open.  Women want to be treated as fully human, with intelligence equal to that of men, and to be given all of the same opportunities men have, in church and out.  It does not appear that there is anything “underlying” about either of these so-called agendas.

Although my friend would not have implied anything nefarious to the term, many people forget the first definition of something to be considered, and only refer to the second definition of an underlying often ideological plan or program.  It has long been my habit, unless I have documentation in hand, to discount accusations of some group having an underlying agenda.  For no other reason, than if it is an underlying agenda, it is usually underlying because the perpetrators don’t want it known, so how did the documentation surface?  That, too, has to be researched. 

Ah, politics!  At once both a fascinating and frustrating occupation to be involved in.