The Gift of Consession

Tags

2016 Presidential Election, 2020 presidential election, an alternate reality, Concession speech, democracy, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Politics, USA

“Donald Trump is going to be our president. We must accept this result and then look to the future. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

This is what Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech in 2016 when half the nation was in deep mourning. Many were convinced that the election had been “stolen”: by Trump’s call-out to Putin and the following Russian disinformation campaign, by Wiki-Leaks hacking of Democratic servers, by Comey’s disgraceful announcement of yet another fruitless investigation only days before the election, by the media’s constant hounding on the now debunked email scandal, by the razor-thin margin of votes that cracked the Blue Wall, by the fact that three million more people voted for Clinton than Trump.

As an avid supporter of Clinton, it was not easy to let go and move on, as I wrote about four years ago in Waking Up in an Alternate Reality. It still seems we are living in that alternate universe where half the country believes that Trump won instead of Biden.  But Clinton’s concession speech, so full of grace and dignity, was a shining example of how to do so. It helped me immensely. She went on to say:

“Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.”

“This is painful, and it will be for a long time, but I want you to remember this: Our campaign was never about one person, or even one election. It was about the country we love.”

I wish President Trump could give this gift of concession to his supporters, a speech that would help them to move on to fight another day. And encourage them to give the next President an open mind and chance to lead. That’s what true leaders do. They put their country and their supporters first. But Trump’s presidency was never about this nation. It was about one man, Trump, who he will always put first.

These lawsuits will not change the outcome of the election. But in the meantime, chaos still reigns supreme under this administration. January 20th can not come fast enough.

Truth and Love Wins, and I Can Breathe Again!

Tags

America is Back, Biden wins, celebration, Love, Politics, Presidential Election 2020, truth, Truth and Love wins, USA

I feel like I’ve been ship-wrecked at sea for the past four years and finally have reached the shore.

I want to kiss the ground.

And then get up and dance.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, America!!!

The Personal & Political, Past & Present

Tags

Activism, community advocate, labor organizer, living wage, memoir, part-time teaching, personal, Politics, social justice, vocation

America Today by Thomas Hart Benton

Years ago, in what seems like another life time, I wrote a political column called “Taking Care of Labor” in the local daily newspaper. It was in direct response, or opposition, to another column called “Taking Care of Business” written by my nemesis, Andy Caldwell. Interestingly, Caldwell is now running for the seat of an old colleague of mine, Salud Carbajal, who is the current US Congressman for our District.

I didn’t know either man when I began writing the column. I was teaching as an adjunct professor or part-time instructor at three different colleges and universities at the time. I was what was known then as a “Freeway Flyer,” someone who pieces together a full-time living on part-time wages. Part-time instructors were all the rage back then and no doubt they still are.

Colleges and universities could save tons of money hiring teaching staff on a part-time basis, where they didn’t have to provide health care or offices, or pay for “office hours” to advise students. Instead, we part-timers held office hours in libraries, or on campus benches, or even from the tailgates of our cars when we needed to hand out study materials from files we kept in back seats. Indeed, we only got paid for the actual hours we spent in class, not for the considerable prep time before class or for the evaluations and grading of work after class. But this exploitation of part-time labor wasn’t confined to higher education. It was, and still is, rampant throughout all industries.

That’s when I entered politics, to help right this wrong. My column was my first step on this road. I also was involved in creating a state-wide association for part-time community college instructors so we could lobby for change at the state level. I served as the communications director, writing and editing a newspaper for members that was distributed to every college campus across the state. Eventually I led an effort to organize a union for part-time instructors at one of the colleges where I worked. As its first president and contract negotiator, we were able to finally get increased wages, paid office hours (no offices however), and some limited health insurance.

After all this, however, I became so disenchanted with higher education that I left it to work in the nonprofit field. This is where I met Carbajal. He was the board president of the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN) when I joined. He left soon after to become a county board supervisor, and I eventually became the board president, and then the Director, of SBCAN, advocating on social justice and environmental issues at the city and county level. My column evolved to take up that work–again, in opposition to Caldwell’s columns. We butted heads often when advocating on opposite sides of issues at Board of Supervisor hearings.

Once Andy and I appeared back to back for interviews on a local radio station. He challenged me to a public debate. I had to laugh it off. I knew, and my board buddies knew, that he would have behaved in much the same manner as Trump treated Biden at that first debate. We weren’t willing to give him that show.

When my husband retired in 2011 and we moved to a new county, I also retired. I had become disenchanted with political advocacy and sought a creative life. At the core of my being I had always thought of myself as a writer, and now I would have the time to pursue that. I’ve managed to stay outside politics, or on its fringe all these years. I could well afford to because I lived in a state and county that “leaned left” as I did. I was happy and relieved to let others lead in local politics.

But it does seem strange now as I watch TV ads by my former nemesis, Caldwell, and my former colleague, Carbajal, vying for the same seat in Congress. Both still actively fighting the good fight, as they see it, while I sit on the sidelines. One of our SBCAN board members was a political icon in Santa Barbara County well into her nineties. She would attend our board meetings, as well as a dozen others in her walker. She was actively engaged in politics until the day she died. I fear she would be disappointed in me.

There was a time when she and other colleagues hoped that I would take Carbajal’s path, running for a seat on city council or county board of supervisors. I was sorry to have to disappoint them. But having sat through so many of those meetings, I knew I would be bored to tears to take that on full-time. It’s not where my passion lay.

I do not regret that choice, but it’s interesting sometimes to look back and see where we’ve been and where it led us. And sometimes I think I could have taken up a larger pen, even in retirement, to advocate on the issues that most touch my heart–a living wage, affordable housing, an end to homelessness, decriminalization of drug use, and increased services and treatment programs for substance abuse and mental health.

Perhaps I’m writing all this to assuage a guilt I still sometimes feel, having abandoned colleagues and causes I had once fought so fervently with and for. Looking back, I can honestly say I’d “been there, done that.” I’d hoped this would reassure me in my choice to go another direction now.

But it also reminds me how the good fight never really seems to end. Certainly not in one lifetime. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Inch by slow inch.

I am deeply grateful to all who are still actively engaged in helping to bend that mighty arc.

Grieving for America, and Getting Past It

Tags

2020 presidential election, America, faith, Fear, grief, inspiration, Mary Oliver, patriotism, poetry, Politics, pride, Starlings in Winter, the United states, USA

Worldphoto.org

I found this quote by Mary Oliver in a recent blog post and it struck a chord.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it

— Mary Oliver, from “Starlings in Winter”

So many of us have been grieving and fearing for our country of late, with the upcoming election and all the uncertainty and chaos it promises.

Feeling so keenly the need to get past this grief and fear I eagerly sought out the full poem to see what wisdom or encouragement Oliver’s “Starlings in Winter” might impart. Not surprisingly, I was not disappointed.

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

What I read in this poem is a metaphor, not so much for what is happening in our country today that makes us grieve, but for what is so resilient and beautiful about who we are as a people, as a nation, and why we will survive even this.

The starlings and the miraculous murmurations they create in flight are a symbol for the principles upon which this nation was founded and our messy history in striving to live up to those principles, to create a more perfect union.

Like the starlings we are “chunky and noisy, but  with stars” in our eyes as well as on the back of our flag.  We created and continue to create this miraculous, exceptional, “notable thing”, this republic, this democracy, these United States. And we did so during the wintry blasts of protest and rebellion against an authority we no longer wished to follow. We did so as acrobats, flying through the uncertainty of the times, “dipping and rising” across time and space, through decades of challenges, “fragmented for a moment” and then reuniting again and again.

Like the poet’s narrator, I “simply cannot imagine how they did it,” our forefathers and foremothers, how “in the freezing wind,” through “the theater of time” they created what we have today, this “silent confirmation” of a miracle,  “this notable thing,” this free-flowing, ever-changing but endurable nation.

Even now, during these challenging times, this “leafless season” of Covid, this “ashy city” of race riots, this chaotic election where our democracy itself appears to be in peril, even now what makes us great is that this “notable thing” we still are, still endures. Still is viable.

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America.” –President Bill Clinton

I believe this in my bones, and with all my “heart, pumping hard.” What lifts me past the turmoil of the times, past the grief that seems so prevalent, is the remembrance of and faith in this “this notable thing, this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin over and over again, full of gorgeous life.” Full of purpose and promise.

One man, one administration, one season of cold wintry blasts, one chaotic election— even one devastating defeat—will not defeat us. Will not diminish this “notable” nation that stands out unique in all of history. This “city upon a hill,” as another President called us.

It’s not hope but faith in who and what we are, for all our faults, that moves me past grief, beyond fear.

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America.”  We will right this.

Wildfires Everywhere, Literally and Politically

Tags

2020 election, California, climate change, Democrat National Convention, DNC, Joe Biden, Politics, Presidential Election 2020, wildfires

That unusual thunderstorm I wrote about last week brought more than 1200 lightening strikes that forked across California causing 560 wildfires gobbling up forests, homes and whole communities. The worst we’ve had so far, and the fire season gets worse each year.

We were fortunate here on the central coast. The few fires that struck nearby were quickly put out. But the state is ablaze north and south of us. Our county lies under a thick  pall of heavy smoke that fills the air with ash and fine particles. Air quality warnings are on high alert all around us. Our masks do double duty now, to protect us from Corona and the fires’ fallout.

While all this was going on I was watching the Democratic National Convention, which shone like a glimmer of hope beneath the pall of smoke and burst aflame during the final days.

Here’s what I wrote on Facebook after the convention:

I have been so inspired by the Democratic convention this week. I’ve been riveted all 4 nights, loving the new format, the intimacy and variety it brings, highlighting ordinary citizens all across the nation, republicans as well as democrats who are joining together to support this inspiring ticket to redeem the soul of America. While I was thrilled with the speeches by the Obamas, charmed by Jill Biden’s loving endorsement of her husband, excited by Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech, and cheered by so many others, it was Biden’s speech that filled my heart with hope and joy. He is the leader I’ve been waiting for, the one who can unite and heal our country, who can bring decency, honesty, and integrity back into the oval office. Who will defend our democracy and protect our troops and restore our standing in the world. We will again be a city on a hill, a beacon in the dark, a champion of human rights around the world. I’m stoked and hope you are too. Please VOTE

Despite this excitement and new confidence that Biden will win the day, I worry about the day after January 20. There are so many wildfires he needs to put out before he can even begin to “build back better.” Not least among them is getting this virus under control, getting kids back to school and people back to work. Replacing all the Trump-appointed heads of departments and agencies who have worked so hard to tear them apart. Recalling his ambassadors who wreck havoc overseas. Restoring our relationships with the WHO and NATO and the Climate Accord and so many other entities. The list goes on and on.

I think a President Biden administration will be up to the task. But it will be a long haul just to get back to zero, to the prosperity President Obama left for us before Trump ruined everything.  The challenge will be trying to do all this while also marching forward with new positive changes so needed, like ending systemic racism and guaranteeing affordable healthcare to one and all, in order to make this truly a “more perfect union”

The most most pressing problem to address, and the hardest in which to see timely results, is Climate Change, which contributed to all these wildfires and to the double hurricanes sweeping toward our Gulf Coast as I write.

Saving our planet from ourselves and for our children and grandchildren is priority #!. My fear is that with all the other fires we need to put out it will be put on a back burner. And if it is, who knows what devastation will be brought to our shores and across the globe next year, and the year after, and the one after that  . . . .

Photo credit – Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty. A senior center sign warning of Covid during Hennessey Fire near Lake Berryessa in Napa on August 18, 2020

Still Waiting to Land . . . .

Tags

change, humanity, interesting times, life, pandemic, personal, Politics, uncertainty

Last summer brought an abundance of roses, so many I did not have enough vases to hold them all. And I only picked those hidden from view!

This year the roses are few and those poorly formed, although our watering and fertilizing and spraying have all been the same. But the baby quail, and deer, and turkey! We’ve never seen so many baby critters trailing through all our yards, hunkering under the bushes, and flying up into the treetops!

This week a heatwave has been forecast, with temperature over 100 for ten days straight and up to 112 degrees. Clear skies, zero precipitation.

But twice this week, instead of heat, we got warm rain. One time lasting all day, and today our house shook with thunder. The rain fell so hard and thick it looked like hail. And they say it never rains in California in the summertime!

A sign of the times, this unexpected mixture of drought and abundance. And not limited to nature. So much seems surreal.

Mailboxes ripped up and sorting machines thrown into dumpsters right before an election!

Walls of moms, and dads with leaf blowers, being tear-gassed by storm troopers!

The first Black woman chosen as VP on a major political ticket!

A diplomatic treaty signed between the UAE and Israel!

Open warfare between teachers and governors over whether to open schools or resort to distant learning again!

Hoards of unmasked worshipers swamping the beaches in Orange County, despite a pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans!

What does it all mean? How will it all end?

We are lost within the grey fog of war.

Clearly we live in interesting times. A curse? Possibly. A cleansing? Hopefully.

No wonder we feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under our feet. And we haven’t quite landed yet.

Chaos Can Take a Hike

Tags

books, chaos, Family, grandparenting, Politics, Vikings

I wrote the following post For Love of Chaos in August three years ago, when I had my little three year old granddaughter living with me. She’s six now and again living with me. So times haven’t changed much in many ways, including the wrecking-ball politics we saw on the nightly news, then as now.  And I still enjoy watching The Last Kingdom on Netflix.

But chaos itself I can do without. I’m weaning myself away from cable news, and the dark, edgy stuff I used to like to read and watch I now avoid.

Now my nightly reading is Judy Blume, Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, and Super Fudge, stories I used to read to my children when they were young. I read a chapter to my granddaughter before bed and she loves them just as much as her dad and auntie did. It’s so cute when she gets excited and starts giggling and covering her face when Fudgie does some new crazy thing that drives his big brother Peter nuts.

O give me light, give me laughter, give me snuggles and giggles. Chaos can take a hike.

For Love of Chaos, Trump, and Wrecking-Ball Politics

(First posted August 2016)

Since becoming the full-time nanny for my little granddaughter, my reading tastes have taken a decisive darker turn. Instead of the lyrical literary novels I’m usually drawn to, I’ve been on a Viking binge.

It started with Bernard Cromwell’s The Saxon Stories, upon which the acclaimed BBC series “The Last Kingdom” is based. It continued with Judson Roberts’ “The Strongbow Saga“, Giles Kristoan’s “Raven Trilogy”, and James Wilde’s books about Hereward, the English hero that some claim the Robin Hood tales were based on.

The question puzzling me for quite some time is why this dark turn toward such violent reads? What is it that draws me to them and keeps me reading?

I may have found at least a partial answer in one of Kristian’s books, when the young Viking Raven muses on “the love of chaos.” How even in the most life-threatening moments, when absolute silence is needed to keep death from descending and destroying them all, part of him wants to cry out and “turn that still night into seething madness.” Part of him wants to “break through the thick ice of that mute terror, for even chaos would be better than waiting, than expecting the fire to reach out of the night and eat your flesh.”

Perhaps we’ve all felt a bit of that “love of chaos” at some time in our lives. Felt in the face of some extreme danger a wild giddy urge–to run the car off the edge of a dark winding road, to step off the edge of the cliff into the wild-blue thrill of free-fall. Perhaps all extreme sport enthusiasts harbor a bit of this in their hearts when attempting their death-defying stunts. The mad desire to push past the edge of all reason into a wild unknown.

Maybe my turn toward these violent reads is a dormant “love of chaos,” the urge to experience, if only vicariously, that death-defying thrill. To travel with these warriors into a dark unknown as they risk death and destruction in a daring quest for gold and glory. To risk all to see what great gain may stand on the other side. Or not.

I can’t help seeing some of this “love of chaos” playing out on the political stage today in what some have called a kind of “wrecking-ball” mentality in some American voters. Their impatience with restraint, nuance, diplomacy, and what they see as political correctness. The wild urge to tear it all down, all apart, and see what rises out of the ashes. They see Trump as wielding the wrecking ball that will destroy the status quo in the wild hope that out of such chaos will come gold and glory.

I’m far from being a Trump fan, but I do understand that wild impulse. In certain seemingly hopeless situations, throwing caution to the wind has a strong appeal. The desperate hope is that chaos itself will become the cauldron out of which a new, better world will emerge.

This urge toward chaos has strong a strong corollary in nature, in the violent upheavals that impose a new order: The shifting Teutonic plates that broke apart to create the continents and seas that sustain life today. The glaciers that ripped away vast chunks of earth to carve out spectacular canyons and riverbeds. The wild-fire that brings so much destruction, yet germinates new seeds for future forests.The list goes on.

“Out of chaos the dancing star is born.” So sang the poet.

Perhaps this love of chaos is etched into our DNA. We can’t escape it, but we can try to understand it, in ourselves and each other.

I’m hoping our better angels, our more reasonable natures, will prevail in the November election, and we do not trust our future to the chaos of wrecking-ball politics. But it’s important to try to understand what gives rise to these desparate tendencies. To not make the mistake of thinking we are above it all, that only the others, the so-called “deplorables,” have such dark urges. Hate, racism, xenophobia, terrorism–if we look deep enough into our own hearts and minds we will find the seeds of each, whether lying dormant or on fertile ground. We have to see this, and understand it in ourselves, before we can understand it in others. And learn to rein it in.

Young Raven learned to rein in his urge toward chaos that dark and deadly night, and he and his companions lived to fight again for gold and glory. Learning when to let our wilder urges move us forward, and when to rein them is what will move all of us closer to our own common goals, whether they be of gold and glory, or peace and prosperity and a better world

Steeling Myself for Tomorrow: The Day After the Election

Tags

Current Events, Despair, election, Election Day 2018, Hope, Politics, Survival, Trump, USA

Carmen Herrara, Art in America

Recently, in a morbid mood, I told my husband that if the Democrats do not win back the House I would slit my throat.

I know, YIKES!

Even I was shocked by that imagery. But I remember grasping for something dire enough to describe how I felt. How such an outcome would signal the end of something I dearly love. How another two years of Trump unchecked would usher in “the end times,” the end of the United States as I know and love it.

And yet, I felt much the same way when President Bush won a second term, and I know Republicans felt that way when Obama won again. We each survived our defeats to fight over our differences once again, as we have down through the ages and will continue well into the future.

Our nation survived a Civil War, a Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, Hitler’s Holocaust, Vietnam, Watergate, 9-11, and the financial crash of 08. We will survive Trump, whether we win back the House or not.

And things will get better, as they always have in our strife to create a more perfect union.

Slowly over time we abolished slavery, gave women and Blacks the right to vote, ended child labor and won a 40-hour work week, desegregated schools and drinking fountains, ended the constant flow of litter beside our roadways, turned the yellow-smog skies of LA blue again.

Martin Luther King once said: ” The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.”

Even emphasizing the LONG, and the achingly SLOW BEND, another two, or even six, years under Trump unchecked will not break us.

Or so I reassure myself. And steel myself for tomorrow: The Day After the Election.

Will there be a great Sigh of Blue Relief? Or a great Cry of Blue Despair?

Either way, the slow, sure bend toward the promise our Nation stands for will continue.

 

This Moment Is Too Important to Sit Out

Tags

common ground, Current Events, election, Election Day 2018, inspiration, personal, Politics, President Obama, speech, voting

I’ve tried my best to steer clear of politics on this blog. I spent too many years in the trenches fighting for economic, social, and environmental justice. Too many years canvassing neighborhoods, making phone calls, getting out the vote. Too many years trying to find common ground between groups of people with diametrically opposed and often hostile viewpoints. It was exhausting and enervating work, as well at times, exhilarating and soul-satisfying.

As I retired from that work I tried to carve out another space for a different kind of soul-satisfying endeavor, and this blog is part of that effort. So I’ve tried to keep the two apart and will continue to do so, for the most part. But the times are such politically that I feel the need to use this space over the next few days to voice my conscience, as well as vote it, and to urge others to do so.

If you have been following this blog I know that we have more in common, more ideals and values that unite us than divide us, whatever our political persuasion, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. I’ve found over the years that what often divides good, well-meaning people is based more on gross misunderstandings, irrational fears, and entrenched distrust than on anything else. That’s a formidable wall to knock down or climb over. But we must do it.

Most everyone agrees that this is an election of our lifetime. That our vote now counts more than at any other time in our lives. President Obama on the campaign trail this week has spoken to that in a speech to the University of Illinois. His words are well worth noting, no matter which political party you belong to, because he’s speaking to all of us, urging us to see each other with new eyes, and to find the common ground we so desperately need, now more than ever.

Please vote, and vote Democrat, even if you aren’t one, to restore the check and balance and accountability we need in Congress to keep us safe and sane during these troubled times.

A few excerpts from Obama’s speech:

I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moment when every one of us, as citizens of the United States, need to determine just who it is that we are, just what it is that we stand for. And as a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president but as a fellow citizen, I am here to deliver a simple message, and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it. . . . 

[E]ven if you don’t agree with me or Democrats on policy, even if you believe in more libertarian economic theories, even if you are an evangelical and our position on certain social issues is a bridge too far, even if you think my assessment of immigration is mistaken and that Democrats aren’t serious enough about immigration enforcement, I’m here to tell you that you should still be concerned with our current course and should still want to see a restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government. . . . .

[T]o move this country forward, to actually solve problems and make people’s lives better, we need a well-functioning government. We need our civic institutions to work. We need cooperation among people of different political persuasions. And to make that work, we have to restore our faith in democracy. You have to bring people together, not tear them apart. We need majorities in Congress and state legislatures who are serious about governing and want to bring about real change and improvements in people’s lives. And we won’t win people over by calling them names or dismissing entire chunks of the country as racist or sexist or homophobic

To make democracy work, we have to be able to get inside the reality of people who are different, have different experiences, come from different backgrounds. We have to engage them even when it is frustrating. We have to listen to them even when we don’t like what they have to say. We have to hope we can change their minds and we have to remain open to them changing ours.

And that doesn’t mean, by the way, abandoning our principles, or caving to bad policy in the interests of maintaining some phony version of civility—that seems to be, by the way, the definition of civility offered by too many congressional Republicans right now. We will be polite as long as we get 100 percent of what we want and you don’t call us on the various ways we are sticking it to people. 

Making democracy work means holding on to our principles, having clarity about our principles, and then having the confidence to get in the arena and have a serious debate. And it also means appreciating that progress does not happen all at once, but when you put your shoulder to the wheel, if you’re willing to fight for it, things do get better. And let me tell you something, particularly young people here, better is good. I used to have to tell my young staff this all the time in the White House, better is good. That’s the history of progress in this country—not perfect, better. The Civil Rights Act didn’t end racism, but it made things better. Social Security didn’t eliminate all poverty for seniors, but it made things better for millions of people.

I know there are white people who care deeply about black people being treated unfairly. I have talked to them, and loved them. And I know there are black people who care deeply about the struggles of white rural America. I’m one of them, and I have a track record to prove it. I know there are evangelicals who are deeply committed to doing something about climate change. I have seen them do the work. I know there are conservatives who think there’s nothing compassionate about separating immigrant children from their mothers. I know there are Republicans who believe that government should only perform a few minimal functions, but that one of those functions should be making sure that nearly 3,000 Americans don’t die in a hurricane and its aftermath.

Common ground is out there. I see it every day. In just how people interact and people treat each other. You see it on the ball field. You see it at work. You see it in places of worship. But to say that common ground exists doesn’t mean it will inevitably win out. History shows the power of fear. And the closer that we get to Election Day, the more those invested in the politics of fear and division will work, will do anything to hang on to their recent gains.

The antidote to a government controlled by a powerful few, a government that divides, is a government by the organized, energized, inclusive many. That’s what this moment’s about. That has to be the answer. You cannot sit back and wait for a savior. You cannot doubt, because you don’t feel sufficiently inspired by this or that particular candidate . . .  All we need are decent, honest, hardworking people who are accountable and who have America’s best interests at heart. And they’ll step up, and they’ll join our government, and they’ll make things better if they have support

We have been through much darker times than these, and somehow each generation of Americans carried us through to the other side. Not by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not by leaving it to others to do something, but by leading that movement for change themselves. And if you do that, if you get involved, and you get engaged, and you knock on some doors, and you talk with your friends, and you argue with your family members, and you change some minds, and you vote, something powerful happens. Change happens. Hope happens. . . . . With each new step we take in the direction of fairness and justice and equality and opportunity, hope spreads. And that can be the legacy of your generation.

You can be the generation that, at a critical moment, stood up and reminded us just how precious this experiment in democracy really is, just how powerful it can be when we fight for it, when we believe in it. I believe in you. I believe you will help lead us in the right direction, and I will be right there with you every step of the way.

“Truth & Love Wins” Redux

Tags

good government, Love, personal, Politics, special interests., the common good, truth

Sunrise with Sea Monsters by JMW Turner

I am happy to report that at least in one very narrow slice of life, truth and love has indeed won. If you read my original post, the whole thing started with me ruminating about a nasty custody battle, and my fervent hope that “truth and love” would win in the end. It did. The judge was not persuaded by all the lies (easily proven) that were slung against my son, and the eventually ruling favored him, while benefiting the mother as well. A win-win, as I see it, and hope that she does too.

On the political front, I’m still hopeful that “truth and love” will win in the end, and there is evidence that this is bearing true.

But the problem with “winning” is that it splits us all into two camps: the winners and the losers. And when that happens, no one really wins, at least for long. The pendulum will keep swinging back and forth between the two camps.

In reality, truth and loves “wins” only when there are no losers and winners, when there is only the common good. As a nation we seemed to have moved far away from that once common goal. In fact, the whole notion of a “common good” seems to be in ill repute.

In the struggle between rugged individualism and the common good, a struggle which gave rise to our nation, rugged individualism seems to be winning out. “Rugged individualism” even sounds way cooler than the tepid “common good.” Who wants to be “common,” after all?  Or “good”?

During an earlier age of Enlightenment and Reformation, “the common good” was a revolutionary idea:

Saint Thomas Aquinas held “the common good” (bonum commune, in Latin) to be the end of law and government; John Locke declared that “the peace, safety, and public good of the people” are the ends of political society, and further argued that “the well being of the people shall be the supreme law”; David Hume contended that “social conventions” are adopted and given moral support in virtue of the fact that they serve the “public” or “common” interest; James Madison wrote of the “public,” “common,” or “general” good as closely tied with justice and declared that justice is the end of government and civil society; and Jean-Jacques Rousseau understood “the common good” (le bien commun, in French) to be the object of a society’s general will and the highest end pursued by government.

The “common good” and ‘”good government” were one in the same:

Though these thinkers differed significantly in their views of what the common good consists in, as well as over what the state should do to promote it, they nonetheless agreed that the common good is the end of government, that it is a good of all the citizens, and that no government should become the “perverted servant of special interests,”[10] whether these special interests be understood as Aristotle’s “interest of the rulers,” Locke’s “private good,” Hume’s and Madison’s “interested factions,” or Rousseau’s “particular wills.” Wikipedia  

But we live in troubled times and good ideas cycle in and out of favor. Self interest and serving special interests seem to be winning the day. And so there will be no peace.

Jane Addams, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1831 wisely cautioned: “The  good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

I’m hoping for the sake of peace in my family, and our nation, that a “common good” will be secured for all of us.