Ron Areglado: Not-so-civil Mr. Civility

Practice what you preach

Collage by Lin Collette. See more by clicking here.

By Will Collette

On September 28, the Westerly Sun published a version of this piece as a letter to the editor.

In it, I challenged the credibility of CCA Town Council candidate Ron Areglado to deliver a lecture on civility when he and his CCA cohorts have been far from civil during their six-year reign of invective in Charlestown.

Areglado’s remarks published in the Sun on August 31 reminded me a lot of President Lyndon Johnson and things he said in his final years in office as he took increasingly hard criticism for the carnage in Vietnam. LBJ, who had a reputation as one of the meanest, nastiest politicians in 20^th century politics, discovered civility and tried to use it to fend off his critics.

I think Areglado may be taking a page from LBJ’s playbook, especially this famous LBJ homily on civility: “I believe it very damaging to the American nation to have opposition for opposition’s sake, and to have blind opposition…I try to keep as far away from partisanship and campaigning as I can.” 

(Lyndon Baines Johnson, news conference, April 18, 1964).
             

Here’s the letter as I originally sent it to the Sun.

A disgruntled and not very civil Ron Areglado

To the editor:

On August 31, you published a letter by Ron Areglado entitled “Restore civility in Charlestown politics” decrying “caustic, disrespectful personal diatribes.”

Readers should know that Mr. Areglado is a candidate for Charlestown Town Council endorsed by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA), a fact omitted from his letter. Nor did the letter note that Mr. Areglado was a leader in two unsuccessful lawsuits against the town of Charlestown and an unsuccessful complaint to the RI Attorney General alleging violations of the Open Meetings Act by the prior Town Council.

In dismissing Areglado et al. v. Charlestown Town Council, the Attorney General’s office agreed with Charlestown Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero that there was “a question of credibility” in Mr. Areglado’s complaint due to a lack of evidence to back up his charges.

Mr. Areglado’s sermon on civility also did not note the key role he and Maureen Areglado played in the character assassination campaign the CCA waged against Town Administrator Bill DiLibero, a campaign that drove Mr. DiLibero from office.

Mr. Areglado’s sermon does not name names, although I suspect at least one of the targets for his homily is Progressive Charlestown, the on-line news and opinion journal where I proudly serve as co-editor. I doubt that Mr. Areglado intended his deprecations to mean his own organization, the CCA, with its six-year history of relentless personal attacks against its many enemies.

Mr. Areglado might be referring to the CCA’s own website and its e-mail publication of unsubstantiated, personal assaults, usually anonymous[i]. But I doubt it.

Politics is a rough-and-tumble game and Ron Areglado can’t expect to have it both ways. He cannot expect that he can take hard shots and swing low blows and then expect any sympathy when his opponents fight back. As ye sow, so shall ye reap (Galatians 6:7).

Mr. Areglado begins his ode to civility by quoting Irish orator Edmund Burke’s famous quote, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Burke might have added that those who don’t know history are bound to be fooled by politicians who try to hide their own history.

I think in Mr. Areglado’s case, a different Edmund Burke quote is more appropriate – “Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises; it costs nothing.”

Mr. Areglado’s sermon on civility would have a lot more credibility if he practiced what he preaches.

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[i] One of my favorite anonymous CCA “voices of greed:” 

We bought here in the mid 1980′s to enjoy a quiet, slow going community. We understand/understood the value of this being a vacation mecca. Why are we so determined to help this area become even more active, faster paced, and accomodating [SIC] to others than [SIC] live here and enjoy the tranquility? I live close enough to the beach to use my own facilities. I would strongly urge residents to join me in voting for no improvements at any of our beaches. If we need more revenue to continue being Charlestown [SIC], let’s raise the parking rates .