CARLTON FLETCHER: Will there be needed changes in 2023 or more of the same?

“Ch-ch-Changes, Where’s your shame? You’ve left us up to our necks in it.”

— David Bowie

People say we should be the change we want to see. For those of us who are set in our ways, that’s a tough ask.

Still, even those of us whose ways are set in concrete can see that change — life’s only constant — is a must if we are to progress more than we regress. To that end, here are some changes I’d like to see in 2023:

♦ It would be nice for voters to have the opportunity to cast ballots FOR someone rather than AGAINST someone else. (And that goes for elections on the local, state and national levels.)

♦ These local politicians who have convinced themselves that their egos are what matter, not the needs of the people they were elected to represent, most somehow be convinced that we are not interested in their “show of strength” in matters that mean little to them but are vital to everyone else. (This LOST issue that appears to be going down to the wire is a perfect example: These people who are supposed to be looking out for our best interest are risking $170 million that taxpayers will have to make up over the next decade just so they can show how tough they are. Which is laughable.)

♦ We need a radio station that plays more than a handful of songs … over and over and over. Yes, “Stairway to Heaven” and “Turn the Page” are among the greatest songs ever recorded, but hearing them loses its significance when we hear those songs — and other classics — three to five times a week. (The same could be said of local country stations, I’m told. I’ll take listeners’ words on that one.)

♦ As one squawker pointed out recently, quoting the Joker in the first Batman movie, “This town needs an enema.” It is one of the dirtiest, trashiest cities in the South. Dougherty County Commissioner Anthony Jones and former Mayor Dorothy Hubbard pushed for cleanup campaigns that fizzled out, but at least they tried. The problem is, this is not a problem caused by politicians. it’s a problem caused by a lazy, entitled, slovenly population that has no pride of place, the attitude being “Let someone else clean up after me.”

♦ We need a facelift. Yes, we need new businesses here — not would-be entrepreneurs who use city grant money to open for a month or so before realizing their friends who told them they’d shop at their establishment were liars and then shut down without repaying the money that came out of real taxpayers’ pockets — but we also need for existing businesses to make a few repairs or throw on a fresh coat of paint.

♦ We need to support local businesses. If someone is going to put themselves and their own money on the line to provide needed services or viable products, we need to buy from them. After all, the “I had to hang around the house because I had a package due and didn’t want anyone to steal it” excuse for being late yet again to work is getting tired.

♦ We need to show — and tell — the people we love that we love them.

♦ It would be, as Ricky Gervais would say, “brilliant” if we returned to the old ways of helping each other, of finding the good in people rather than the bad.

♦ The “fad” of using our differences as excuses or symbols rather than points of pride has played out. I don’t care if you’re black or white, Catholic or atheist, gay or trans or bi-curious, rich or poor, flamboyant or shy … any such. What I care about is what Martin Luther King called the “content of your character.” Demanding “rights” that infringe on others’ rights is not a character issue. It’s gaming the system. Be who you are, but let others do the same, and maybe we’ll have a memorable ’23.

One can dream.