We cannot be afraid to hear them out, no matter how outrageous their thoughts may seem to us. For beneath it all, we are all human. We will always have something in common.
There is much to be done using non-violent means. There are many opportunities for listening to people with whom we may at first disagree. We cannot be afraid to hear them out, no matter how outrageous their thoughts may seem to us. For beneath it all, we are all human. We will always have something in common.
0 Comments
Immigration in the United States is a complex process. Terrorism is also a complex problem. Many people in our country seem to be angry about how both have been handled. Some of them voted for Donald Trump because he promised very simple actions to take.
Well, in my opinion, there are few, if any, simple actions that can really change both these complex problems for the better. We have argued back and forth about this for awhile by now. So now we have President Trump, doing just as he had promised. Applying a simple solution to some very complex problems. And now we're learning what the consequences are! Many good people are prevented from traveling in and out of the U.S., for example. Students cannot return to school here, employees cannot return to their jobs, and family members are suddenly isolated from each other. So perhaps we needed this. An 'in your face' demonstration of what happens when you try to apply simple solutions to complex problems. So that everyone can see what happens in real time. So that everyone can see why trying to run a government for a country of 325 million people, in today's complex world, is a very complicated affair indeed! I just saw this story about the outpouring of support for a mosque in Texas that was destroyed in a fire last week. I wanted to make a quick comment. Despite all the news of political rancor in Washington D.C. as President Trump sets up his administration, I see a whole lot going in the world that tells me that we're headed in a good direction, when it comes to we, the people. As I have said other times on these pages, I believe that the role of a large central government is on the decline. And acts of people networking together to help each other is on the rise. I think it is a mistake to concentrate only on news regarding conflict and forget about news of cooperation and love. Our ability to share information, as well as emotional and financial support keeps building. We are doing amazing things we never conceived of, even just a decade or so ago. We are demonstrating our great potential and, at the same time, we are facing some serious challenges. There is nothing wrong or unusual about this. After all, mutual support through networks is still in its infancy, considering that so-called 'social media' has only been around for about a decade, more or less (Facebook opened to the public in September 2006; the iPhone was introduced in January 2007). So, we're just getting started, really. One challenge we face is how to decide where we want to devote our energies. Some causes make a big splash (such as this mosque fire) and become the 'poster child' for a particular kind of networked support. Meanwhile other causes languish for lack of attention and publicity. So we face an important question: Of the millions of causes out there, how do we sort through them all and decide what to do, given our limited resources (24 hours in a day, limited balance in our bank accounts). I don't have an easy answer for this, but what I can say is that I have no doubt that we will continue to work on all this and come up with better and better ways as we gain more and more experience. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I remember thinking that a world with only one super power is inherently unstable. Of course, a lot has changed since then, but just because I live in the USA doesn't mean I think we're always the 'good guys' in the world.
But when we have so much power, who is left to provide 'push back' if we start abusing it? When you're on the 'inside' of a country (as a resident and citizen), as I am, enjoying the benefits of what that power has obtained for us, it's easy to forget that perhaps someone, somewhere, may have hurt someone else to get those benefits for us. Or perhaps they damaged the planet and other life on it, on our behalf. It's all easy when it's out of sight, to put it all out of mind. I just go into a store and buy stuff, so who am I to know how it got there, right? It was on sale. The attacks of 9/11 might be seen as a different kind of 'push back,' now that the Soviet Union is gone. The theory goes that we in the USA have abused our power around the world and oppressed and hurt other people for our gain. So finally, some of those other people struck back at us with a 'wake up call' that demanded our attention. It makes the 'cold war' seem like a nice alternative, ... sort of. Of course, it's never quite that simple. People attack each other for a whole host of reasons. But what I'm thinking is this: Just fighting back against the attackers is likely to make matters worse. Yes, it makes sense to defend ourselves. To a point. But if that's all we do, then when does it end? If we fight harder, then others will also fight back harder, and use more clever ways to get past our defenses. An eye for an eye. Well, I don't want to live in that kind of world. A world of spite, retaliation, grudges that last for generations, and so on. And I'll bet you don't either. Notice, I said "want." Even if I may not be able to see any practical way at the moment, I can still want a world of understanding, mutual support and peace. And it's ok if you want that too, even if you may not see a way right now, either. What I bet is that right now, everywhere on this planet, there are millions of people who want the same thing, and in fact, act on that every day. People who are listening to others, asking what's needed before offering help, and taking good care of themselves when their own energy needs replenishing. That is my lesson for today. Take good care of myself. I did good a good job of working today. Now, in the evening, I noticed that I'm already worrying about the tasks that are not yet done. So, I ask myself, can I stop my worry for at least a few moments and give myself credit for what I've done that's good? Can I relax and feel peace in my heart? Yes, I can. For today, only for a few minutes here and there. But it's a practice. Over time, I'll get better at it. And the better I get, the more I can save all that energy I was wasting on worrying, and use it to enhance my life and the lives of the people around me. The news today was that President Trump signed an executive order regarding immigration, promising to deny funding to "sanctuary cities" around the nation that refuse to comply with his plan to deport massive numbers of undocumented people.
The news tonight is that mayors of various "sanctuary cities" are responding to his plan by standing up to him, saying in effect, "To hell with your policy, we are determined to protect the people who live within our cities who are honest, hard working, and part of our community, regardless of where they came from or how they got here." So this is where it really starts to get interesting. This is pretty much what I predicted. Power is slowly ebbing away from Washington D.C. and is being taken up by the states and municipalities more and more as we watch. So, I know many people who want to fight President Trump. OK, there is some merit to direct confrontation. But what I think is more interesting is to support your mayor (or Town Manager or whatever you have) in doing right by the people who live in your city or community. This is not just political, this means working to develop practical means to welcome and support those who need it most, just as if they had just lost their homes to a tornado or some other disaster. This morning, I watched some of the press conference being held by the President Elect. I had never actually watched him speak at length before. I had only seen clips of him on the news, and a little of the debates, really. Now he was the main focus. There were no other candidates to wait for or to compete against. He won the election. He was it. At first, I just listened to the content of the questions and his answers. After awhile, I began to notice more and more about his presentation, the way he spoke and gestured no matter which question he was answering. I watched him hold his right finger up while talking, as if instructing a room full of school children. I heard him repeat certain words twice, as he often does. I observed his use of superlatives and absolutes, such as “excellent” or “great” or “smartest” or “the best” when describing his nominees or his associates. Suddenly, I realized something. Actually, I felt something. I reflected on how I felt back in school myself, being assaulted by bullies on the playground. I was so full of anger and rage and desire for revenge that I thought I would explode. But I was much smaller and weaker than they were. And I was only one boy, but they were in a pack. So I couldn’t really fight back. Later, in bed at night, I imagined what it would be like to just kill them. Not with a gun, but just pound them to death with my own fists, to express the sheer fury and rage I felt inside. I knew that I could never actually murder anybody. It was just a fantasy, but it was a fervent one. So, here I was watching the President Elect on TV. He was very serious. He was correcting a reporter. “We are going to build a wall,” he said. Not a fence. A wall. Suddenly I seemed to sense the feeling he was projecting. Here was a man who just gotten elected president who seemed just as filled with rage and revenge as I had been as a boy on the school yard. This was more than a policy decision, it was an urge to fight back. Fight back against all the people and things that it seemed had been bullying him and many of those who voted for him, for a long time. And they had had it. They had reached their limit. They were fed up. They were beyond wasting any more time in debate. His presence on stage during the campaign had mirrored this feeling. They voted for him for many different reasons, of course. But one of those reasons was that this man was someone, perhaps the first person in a long time, who was ‘on their side’ on the school yard of this country. They had felt bullied over and over again and didn’t see any way out. Finally, now there was a way. Vote for Donald Trump. And yes, they were in the minority. Not just in comparison to voters for Hillary Clinton, but in comparison to all voters. After all, only about 25% of US residents over age 18 actually voted for Donald Trump. The rest voted for somebody else or didn’t vote at all, for various reasons. So Trump voters were in a distinct minority, just in numbers alone. But beyond that, they seemed to be in a minority when it came to the press and news channels. The main stream press looked as if it was on the side of those who were ignoring them and their concerns. And in Congress, their elected representatives were in a minority when compared to the Democrats and the ‘establishment’ Republicans, when taken together. Well, they wouldn’t be ignored this time! Their guy got elected and no amount of finagling of the electoral college or recount efforts had changed that. I thought back to why I had felt so enraged when I was young. I realized that it wasn’t just being bullied but because I had no way out. School was compulsory, so I couldn’t run away. The teachers mostly had the attitude of ‘let them settle it among themselves,’ unless someone drew blood. My parents were both ineffectual. Nobody would really help me. Adults were full of suggestions about what to say or how to ‘just ignore them,’ but I was too sensitive for that. It seemed that no one could truly listen to me or understand how I felt. So what do you do if you’re an adult in the USA who is under paid, overworked, or out of a job altogether? What if you tried to go to college but found out that it was wrong for you, leaving you with no degree and staggering debt? What if the world around you has changed so much, so fast, that you feel as if you can hardly recognize your own country anymore? What if nobody seems to care about you or be willing to help you? What options do you have left? § § § I’m left with this question. Perhaps you have the same question. Am I practicing unfair discrimination? I’ve worked hard during my lifetime to accept people of color, people with disabilities, different religions, and so on. Now my challenge goes beyond that. How can I listen to and understand the feelings of people who are not in my ‘echo chamber’ of ‘liberal’ positions? People who think ‘global warming’ is a hoax or that immigrants have taken all their jobs, when I don’t necessarily agree with them?
I think I need a number of things to do that. First, I imagine that I need to find a way, within myself, to shift from an arguing, contentious posture to one of listening and understanding. To change from trying to convince someone to a sense of genuine openness and search for a common humanity - how we are alike as well as not alike. Second, what can I say to let them know that I’m not going to beat them over the head with my point of view? That they can trust me? Third, where do I go to find a few such people to talk with in a calm surrounding? And finally, how can I keep my cool when someone says something that rings such a sour note to me that I’m tempted to challenge their opinion without thinking? What if we need a facilitator or a forum of some kind to provide sort of a relief valve to ‘blow off steam’ when the feelings come up, without attacking each other? I’m trying to finish writing a book. What I’ve said here is partly what the book is about. Until I finish it, I’m not ready to spend significant time on other projects or volunteer work. Yet I couldn’t help myself. I sat down to write this anyway. Tomorrow is another day. Soon, my book will be done, edited, and published. And then, I may be traveling around to various places to read from it, take questions, and sign copies. And I will likely end up in places where I’m in the minority. After all, I’ll be a man wearing a dress. What they say or who they appoint is one thing. What they actually do is something else. I'm waiting patiently for that.
And if they do something I think is morally wrong, I'll join you in the streets. But showing resistance is only part of the story. The other part is working to build new ways to support each other and nature that surrounds us through our actions, not just our words and protests. This is the hard part, not because it necessarily involves sacrifice (although it does sometimes) but because it involves change and giving up old familiar ways, even the ones we don't like within ourselves. So please be committed to that, too, not just knocking on the doors of Congress. Person A: Indians [in India] are underrepresented. 545 MPs [Members of Parliment] for 1.2 billion people.
Me: Exactly. That's 2.2 million people per representative, right? Person A: :) Correct Person C: What would be a reasonable number of people per MP? Person A: A million? Me: Even with 500,000 voters per member of Congress in the USA [our current average], it's way too many. People aren't people anymore when there are that many. We become faceless statistics to government. Our humanity is lost. The sheer size of such a system is doomed from the start. The alternatives include letting the huge country dissolve into smaller pieces, smaller and smaller until people can become people to each other again. I hear so many of my friends talk about social and political action these days. They are fired up after the rhetoric used during the presidential election campaign and the appointments in the coming Trump administration. I came across this song, shared by a friend of mine on Facebook.
So, yes. On the one hand, this is about struggle. And we need to stand strong for our core beliefs of right treatment of all people. At the same time, I had mixed feelings while listening to these words. My question is, how we can move beyond 'fight' and 'they' (implying an 'us versus them' world). I want to see what we can do as we reach across to others with whom we might at first seem to disagree. I think it's possible to stand strong and build bridges at the same time. I thought about an article I read 15 years ago in the Boston Globe Magazine about some people having an incredible conversation. The organization that started that conversation has changed its name since then, to Essential Partners. I see their work and the work of others working on compassionate communication as the true key to advancing progressive causes. Sure, we need demonstrations on the streets and interviews on the news. But we also need this: millions of conversations among very small groups of people who understand how to turn down the heat and shed more light on our common humanity. I just read this analysis, predicting the future of so-called "higher education." I'd be curious as to your reaction to this story. What's your opinion? (click on the link on this page, above or below, "0 Comments" to be the first to respond).
Right now, most high school guidance counselors across the country are measuring the success of their high schools by how many of their graduates 'get into college.' After that, we don't hear much about what happens to those students. Do they stay in long enough to get a degree? Of those who do, how many find a well paying job in their chosen field? Not that a job is the only measure of success of an eduction, but considering what it costs to attend college, it is a pretty important one. And of those who don't get a degree, what happens to them? Especially if they have taken out loans? If this story is pretty much on target, then what are those high schools going to do about all their empahsis on 'college prep' courses and the entire culture that says "you should go to college?" Is it possible that the entire education system will end up being forcibly "reformed fom the top, down?" That is, once colleges start collapsing, then high schools will be next (a their purpose of getting you into college will be diminished), all the way back down to first grade? And if that does, in fact happen, what does education look like after that? Do you have a vision for the future? I'm interested. |
AuthorGlenn Koenig is the manager of this and other web sites, an author, video producer, database designer, and volunteer. Archives
October 2020
Categories |