Edgewood And The Chamber Of Not Exactly Secrets

by John Weckerle

We take it as a compliment that our readers are willing to send us information on which to report.

We received a forwarded e-mail today that apparently originated with the Edgewood Chamber of Commerce.  The message reads as follows:

There is going to be a workshop titled “Making of America in the History of our Constitution”
The workshop will be on May 1, 2010 from 9:00 Am – 4:30 PM and will be held at Valley View Christian Church in Edgewood, NM
The cost is $15/adults and $12/students – includes workbook, lunch and refreshments

I have registration forms at the Edgewood Chamber office if you are interested.

We thought it was worth looking into.

Your editor recalled having read a notice about this workshop before, in a Gadabout-Blogalot.com article titled “Constitution Class…Non-Partisan…Non-Sectarian…All American.”   According to the article, the workshop was to be presented by the East Mountain Federated Republican Women’s Group, which would tend to cast a little doubt, at least, on the “non-partisan” nature of the workshop. We gave it little notice at the time. However, the Chamber’s obvious endorsement and support for this seminar, which includes providing registration forms for the workshop, sparked our interest in light of the Chamber’s recent re-entry into the political arena (see our article “Cap, Trade and Chambers“).

The Gadabout-Blogalot.com article indicates that this is a workshop conducted by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, and provides a link to a Wikipedia article on that organization, in which it is described as a “conservative constitutionalist organization.” Not being particularly enamored of Wikipedia as a complete source of information, we decided to look over the organization’s web site and do a little searching.  As indicated in the Wikipedia article, this is clearly a conservative organization and, drilling down into the course materials and other content on the site, we found a great deal of conservative and neoconservative philosophy woven into the “constitutional” information contained therein.  We were also not terribly surprised to find at least an apparent bias toward incorporation of religious principles into government, citing the purported but not specifically referenced intentions of the Founding Fathers (we would perhaps have to buy the books, but our book budget is laden with other priorities at present).  We were again not astonished to note that TV entertainment personality Glenn Beck had endorsed several of the organization’s publications.

Conservatives, liberals, and everyone else have a right to look to the Constitution and seek to interpret it.  The beauty of the Constitution is that there is a wide berth for such interpretations – it is, after all, supposed to ensure the rights of everybody.  We’re sure that we will all be wrangling over the meaning of the document for years to come, and that’s  just fine.  However, we’re just a little uncomfortable with seeing an event like this labeled as non-partisan (we again note the sponsor), and think that application of the term “non-sectarian” may be a little misleading, as well.  Regardless, we recognize the right of both churches and political organizations to promote their ideologies, although we would greatly appreciate it if some of them would be just a bit more up-front about it.  We would also suggest that potential workshop-goers take a good, hard look at the pricing policies discussed on the NCCS site, and get a feeling for where their money is going. We also recommend looking through the materials for the online webinar to get a sense as to whether this is a course for you.

But, to steal a phrase (and probably misquote it)  from Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant, that’s not what I came here to talk about…

The entire purpose of the detail in the last few paragraphs is provided simply to make a point: that this would appear to be yet more dabbling in the political and/or religious arena on the part of the Edgewood Chamber of Commerce – something which, in our opinion, is not the appropriate focus for a Chamber of Commerce.  The Chamber is not just passing forward a notification; it is clearly endorsing the workshop, and passing out registration forms.  As Ms. House noted in a comment to our earlier article on the Moriarty Chamber of Commerce, and as have others who have contacted us outside the blogsphere  have also indicated, the Edgewood Chamber of Commerce is the recipient of public funding, whether in the form of free space provided by the Town of Edgewood, advertising and other assistance through the State of New Mexico, or support from other directions.  In that light, we again suggest that the Chamber should cease, in one of our readers’ parlance, politickin’ – and stick to working to bring customers to Edgewood’s businesses or face the possible and justified loss of public (not to mention private) support.  That is, after all, what we’re paying them for – not just the members, but everyone who pays gross receipts tax in Edgewood, a small portion of which, after all, goes into giving the Chamber a place from which to distribute materials.

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