Ending The Politics of Hate Begins With Us, In The Voting Booth

I woke up early this morning thanks to a nightmare. I, as an adult, was back in my childhood home looking through the front window. Several white men with stern faces and a business-like or zombie-like manner were nailing boards over the windows from the outside. They were nailing in my wife and me. I yelled to my wife that we had to get out—and then awoke.

Afterwards, I lay in bed with the image pressing down on me. In my mind I took the dream further, imagining us grabbing our phones and money, chasing our cats out an upper story window as we followed them out and ran. I imagined the attackers might be planning more than just locking us inside.

Back in the late 1970s I wrote a play that was produced locally. It was indirectly about the JFK assassination, or more accurately, about a woman, Wilma Tice, who was called by the Warren Commission to give testimony related to the assassination. After Wilma heard the President had been shot and was being taken to Parkland Hospital, in Dallas, she drove to the hospital. It was only 15 minutes from her home. When she was there, she saw Jack Ruby walking next to the stretcher that was carrying JFK’s body after it was wheeled inside the hospital.

The Warren Commission inquiry was established about a week after the assassination, on November 29th, 1963. She later wrote to them about what she had seen. But after receiving a letter from the Commission telling her where and when she would give her testimony, she received threatening phone calls and faced tremendous opposition. It was never made clear how anyone learned she was going to testify.

The night before she was supposed to appear before the Commission, she was home alone; her husband worked nights. She woke up to find herself “barricaded” in the house; her windows and doors blockaded shut. She couldn’t get out until her husband came home and broke her out.

When she arrived for the interview, instead of supporting or compelling her testimony, they told her that, if she feared for her life, maybe she should not testify.

The whole image of people locked into a structure by others who hated or wanted to silence them reverberates through history. Consider what happened to Jewish people locked in Synagogues or African-Americans locked in churches that were burned.

When I hear about T’s actions and statements, I feel they themselves are a form of terrorism….

**This blog was submitted before Saturday’s horrible act of terrorism in a Pittsburgh synagogue. This act is truly upsetting and we must meet it with thoughts of compassion for the people hurt and killed, their families, the whole congregation, the police and other first responders.

 

To read the whole post, go to The Good Men Project.

 

 

Understanding Love Is The Key To Making It Last: An Interview with Lesli Doares, from the radio show: Happily Ever After Is Just The Beginning.

Do you remember the first time your partner told you they loved you? How it made you feel?

Do you remember the moment you first loved them? Do you remember being anxious about saying it to them?

Love is the universal feeling we all want to have. It’s why it’s been a constant in stories and art for as long as humans have been around.

So, if it is so ubiquitous and desirable, why does it seem to be so difficult to hold onto? That is the very subject I am tackling today with my guest Ira Rabois, a long-time teacher at the Lehman Alternative School in Ithaca, NY and the author of Compassionate Critical Thinking: How Mindfulness, Creativity, Empathy and Socratic Questioning Can Transform Teaching.

Segment 1: In your article for The Good Men Project you state that to keep love alive, it’s important to know how it is born. In fact, that’s the title of the article. Why is this so important?

Thank you for inviting me to be on your show.

Knowing how love is born or knowing how any emotion is created in us is important because it is a crucial part of knowing ourselves. It is knowing how we work. Knowing ourselves better makes it possible for us to know others better, and thus to have a more fulfilling and equitable relationship. It makes it more possible, when all that passion or confusion rises in us, to know what to do with it and what it means.

When we feel this love or attraction to someone, it is so powerful it is easy to think that love arises all at once and that the other person is responsible for the excitement, attraction, feeling of completion.

But love, like any emotion, arises in stages, and includes different components like sensations, feelings, thoughts, beliefs and images. Even when we think we feel love at first sight, it is “Wow” at first sight, waking up at first sight. Our attention is focused. Then we feel good or bad, want to run away or approach. Then memories, thoughts, evaluations, choices are made, full-scale emotions are born.

And it is not the other person who fulfills us. It is our loving itself that fulfills us, our mind feeling love that fulfills us. It is the fact of opening up, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to risk, that makes us feel important, capable of being loved.

Segment 2: You mention some of the ways love is misunderstood or gets off track. What are they?

Yes. We get off track when we lose touch with both ourselves and the other person.

We forget that love, like any emotion, gives meaning to events, to the world. We go toward what we like and run from what we fear….

 

**To hear the whole interview, go to WebTalk Radio.

T Is A Hurricane Of Historic Proportions

I have many calm moments, when I meditate, exercise, walk in the woods, talk with friends or simply breathe. Beautiful moments. And then—I turn on the radio or my phone and who knows what insanity might ensue.

Like everyone I know, since the Kavanaugh hearings and his appointment to the Supreme Court, and almost two years of the T administration, I have become overly sensitive to bad news.

It’s just eight days since I heard the news about Hurricane Michael smashing into the Florida panhandle with winds of up to 155 miles an hour (on Wednesday, October 10). The hurricane is now recognized as the strongest to strike the coast in 100 years. And it grew so quickly, from a category 2 on that Sunday, to almost a category 5 on Wednesday. It grew so quickly probably due to waters overheated by global warming, the same global warming the GOP deny despite the overwhelming scientific evidence.

Nature itself seems to be yelling at us to wake up to what we humans are doing to our world. The day after the hurricane, a neighbor called to tell me of two sightings of Fishers, a carnivorous mammal related to weasels. They have only recently returned to this area (along with other recent and not-so-welcome additions, like coyotes, coy-wolves, and ticks) and kill squirrels and other small animals, including porcupine and hare, occasionally wild turkey, bobcat, and even house cats. They are excellent climbers and can be vicious. I immediately went to the front door of my house to call in my cats.

This administration puts us all on a continual threat alert and I think this is exactly what they want. People continually stressed are not as likely to think clearly or feel powerful or vote. According to Tali Sharot in the book The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others, fear is most effective in influencing the behavior of others under two conditions—when what they are trying to do is cause inaction and the person they’re trying to influence is already anxious.

 The last two weeks and the hearings and discussion on Judge Kavanaugh were especially bad. They were a continual assault, a political hurricane of historic proportions threatening not only women but all of us who are not misogynists, not white nationalists or sycophantic supporters of the President, or who are not in favor of considering corporate rights or the rights of the wealthy as more important than any other rights.

These GOP attacked anyone who called for a real investigation into Kavanaugh’s past and were especially vicious in their attacks on any of the women who came forward. In fact, T even mocked Dr. Ford.  He called for holding those who made “false” claims against Kavanaugh liable. What about false claims by, or in support of, Kavanaugh? Would Kavanaugh or any his supporters who lied or rushed to hide the truth be held accountable?

Many wondered: was the GOP rush to judgment due to fears about what will happen in the November election? Or was something else involved?

The Supreme Court is going to hear a case called Gamble v US. It involves a felon arrested for possession of a firearm. It could, however, have grave implications if T is ever impeached, indicted, or tries to use his power to pardon anyone from his administration or campaign who have been prosecuted for crimes or called to testify to the Mueller investigation….  

 

To read the whole piece, please click on the link to the Good Men Project.

 

 

 

 

Teaching The Story From Day One

I’d like to share with you what I learned from teaching a middle school class called ‘The Story From Day One,’ which integrated mindfulness, visualization and inquiry exercises with the language arts curriculum.

We often teach myths as merely literature, divorced from the cultural, spiritual, and historical context. But we pay a price for this approach. It limits the depth of meaning students can derive from their study.

Combine this with the narrow focus on the now that social media can foster, and students easily feel isolated on an island of self, cut off not only from their contemporaries, but from a sense of the continuity of life. They have little grasp of how their lives today emerge from yesterday.

Kieran Egan, educator and author, advises in his wonderful book Imagination In Teaching And Learning: The Middle School Years, to design lessons with a narrative structure, understanding not only the skills and knowledge we want to develop but the transcendent qualities in the subject studied.

To excite students, especially middle school students who are still close to, if not seeped in, this age of magic, and who have a natural yearning for adventure and awe: Use stories of facing the extremes of reality and limits of experience, of heroes braving dangers and encountering wonders, to connect to and utilize students’ romantic imagination and emotional awareness to better understand course material.

A good way to begin is with Gilgamesh, the protagonist in the first written epic story, recorded sometime around 2100 BCE. Gilgamesh is the first literary hero, actually the first greatly flawed superhero. The story also introduces a precursor to the biblical Noah and the flood, as well as central themes that have filled literature ever since.

First There Was Breath, Then There Were Words, Then There Were Stories.

The first step in teaching mythology, literature, and language is to create the space in the classroom so language comes fully alive to students. Where they feel as well as examine what they say and read.

 

To read the whole post, click on this link to the ImaginEd website which published this piece.

It Only Takes One Good Moment

It was early summer, about 8:00 in the morning, and I was awakened by my calve muscles beginning to cramp. As quickly as possible, I got out of bed, started walking to stretch the muscles, and did my best to breathe into the pain. Once the muscles fully seize up, it can be impossibly painful. It happens to so many people. What an awful way to start the day.

 

But what a day to be awakened to! Once I walked off the pain and felt more normal, I put on some clothes and went outside. Milo, one of my cats, ran up to greet me and plopped down on the stone pathway in front of me.

 

Most of the summer, here, was wet. But on this day, it was cool, maybe 64 degrees, and the sky was clear. A catbird was squawking; a car was passing down the road. Young blue jays in their nest were screeching for food. A wood thrush was singing for love or joy or whatever a wood thrush sings for. The light on the leaves of a maple tree in the yard was so fresh, so full of life, it seemed to go on forever. I felt if only I could look deeply enough I would find places and sights never seen before, find people I would celebrate meeting.

 

Isn’t this, this sense of beauty or mystery, enough?

 

If I sat in my yard more often, with Milo, the birdcalls, the clear light and the incredible calm, would my calves stop cramping? Would my body more often feel like a gift I give myself than a source of pain?

 

Why is it so easy to forget this exists? To forget the feel of the cool breeze on our face? To forget how to be nice to ourselves and to keep easy company with the world? Even when the wasps and flies and a gray fox enter the scene, even when the phone rings and the mail is delivered and the human world cries for our attention, must we forget this also exists? Must we forget we have this ability to relax, open, and fully sink into a moment?

 

And what a price we pay for forgetting….

 

To read the rest of this piece, click on this link to The Good Men Project.

T Is A Hurricane of Historic Proportions

I have many calm moments, when I meditate, exercise, walk in the woods, talk with friends or simply breathe. Beautiful moments. And then—I turn on the radio or my phone and who knows what insanity might ensue.

 

I just heard the latest news about Hurricane Michael, which struck the Florida panhandle with winds of up to 155 miles an hour. It is now called the strongest hurricane to ever strike the coast. It grew so quickly, from a category 2 on Sunday to almost a category 5 today, probably due to waters overheated by global warming, the same global warming the GOP deny despite the overwhelming scientific evidence against their position.

 

Yesterday, a neighbor called to tell me of two sightings of Fishers, a carnivorous mammal related to weasels. They have only recently returned to this area and have been known to kill squirrels and other small animals, including porcupine and hare, occasionally wild turkey, bobcat, and even house cats (although rarely). They are excellent climbers and can be vicious. I immediately went to the front door of my house to call in my cats. After the Kavanaugh abomination and almost two years of T, I am, like everyone I know, a bit sensitive to bad news.

 

This administration puts us all on a continual threat alert and I think this is exactly what they want. People continually stressed are not as likely to think clearly or feel powerful.

 

The last two weeks and the hearings and discussion on Judge Kavanaugh were especially bad. They were a continual assault, a political hurricane of historic proportions threatening not only women but all of us who are not misogynists, not white nationalists or sycophantic supporters of the President, or who are not in favor of considering corporate rights or the rights of the wealthy as more important than any other rights.

 

These GOP attacked anyone who called for a real investigation into Kavanaugh’s past and were particularly vicious in their attacks on any of the women who came forward. In fact, T even mocked Dr. Ford.  He called for holding those who made “false” claims against Kavanaugh liable. What about false claims by, or in support of, Kavanaugh? Would Kavanaugh or any his supporters who lied or rushed to hide the truth be held accountable?

 

Many wondered: was the GOP rush to judgment due to fears about what will happen in the November election? Or was something else involved?

 

The Supreme Court is going to hear a case called the Gamble v US. It involves a felon arrested for possession of a firearm. It could, however, have grave implications if T is ever impeached, indicted, or tries to use his power to pardon anyone from his administration or campaign who have been prosecuted for crimes or called to testify to the Mueller investigation.

 

The Gamble case involves the question of whether “double jeopardy” is limited by “dual sovereignty.” In other words, whether a state can separately prosecute anyone after they were tried by the Federal government.

 

Right now, T can pardon people for Federal crimes, but anyone so pardoned can still be prosecuted in state courts. T wants to destroy this possibility. And Kavanaugh could help make that a reality. He might be the deciding vote in expanding T’s and the GOP’s power, so they can’t be held accountable for crimes they commit or their assaults on the rest of us.

 

While hurricane Michael was striking Florida, hurricane T was in Erie, Pennsylvania at a fundraiser and then a rally, yelling “lock her up” and such. Even a threat to the lives and property of millions of citizens did not stop him from focusing on himself and trying to rake in money.  He needs to be stopped.

 

And let me repeat what many have been advocating: each of us needs to vote, make calls, volunteer as an election official, write postcards to get out the vote—to do whatever we can to energize ourselves and throw T and his supporters out of office.

 

**Thank you to Jill Swenson and other friends who first posted on FB about Gamble v US.

Does The Core of the GOP Care At All About Democracy?

I can’t remember a time or an election that has more meaning than this upcoming one. Last week, the faux hearings on Judge Kavanaugh made this abundantly clear. We will be voting soon not only to elect representatives to Congress but to save and hopefully expand democracy. We will be voting to save our rights and the very idea that the government should serve the people of the nation, not just the rich and the politicians.

 

We will be voting to save our planet, the future of our children and our sense of ourselves as caring beings. Everyone who cares about these issues must vote.

 

This is not hyperbole. We not only have a president and an administration that uses lying and distorting the truth as daily policy, but a president who attacks the free press constantly, calling it “the enemy of the people,” calls reporters who oppose him “disgusting,” and those who believe in the freedom of the press as “foolish people.” We have all seen and heard this repeatedly.

 

We have heard T attack the institutions that keep us safe, try to undermine voting, civil and legal rights, act for his own corrupt interest and not the nation’s, and even collude with the dictator of a foreign and hostile government to undermine our voting system.

 

Kevin Baker, in a recent article in the New Republic, describes what almost everyone who pays attention has observed: our politics has become open warfare, with the aim being not to serve the people but to make sure the other party never again comes to power. It is not to foster democracy and serve the people but to seize power and keep it, by any means.

 

The Senate hearings last week clearly showed there was no intent to get at the truth of what happened to Dr. Ford or to examine Kavanaugh’s qualifications for the Supreme Court. There was only the fight for power. How can you call something a hearing when the conclusion is decided in advance—when Mitch McConnell announces in advance that no matter what happens they will plow on through to pick Kavanaugh? There was no intention to provide a humane response to a brave woman clearly describing an awful attack on her.**

 

But what many of us forget, many of us who wonder how anyone could support T, is that a good portion of his supporters do not think living in a democracy is important to them. It is not only the President who does not care about democracy, free speech or a free press.

 

A Pew Research Poll in March showed that only 49% of Republicans thought a free press, with the ability to criticize the government, was important for a democracy. 76% of Democrats said it was important.

 

A recent poll from the Economist/YouGov showed something similar. It asked Americans if they would support “permitting the courts to shut down news media outlets for publishing or broadcasting stories that are biased or inaccurate.” Americans in general were roughly divided, 28% in favor, 29% against. When looked at through the lens of political affiliation, 45% of Republicans were in favor of the idea. About twice as many Democrats and Independents opposed the idea.

 

The T administration has even removed language about freedom of the press from its guidebook for U. S. attorneys.

 

Now, I have to admit that I think a “news media” organization should seek as much of the truth as possible, without political or other bias. But how will something like bias be determined or who will do it, especially with an open internet? How will a diversity of viewpoints be protected as we protect the nation from “fake news”? Is the only way to accomplish this through better education in critical thinking, compassion, and agency?

 

And when we combine these poll results with T’s attacks on anyone who does not support him, and the sycophantic support he gets in public from almost every GOP politician, we reveal an enormous problem.

 

Almost two years ago, just before T was sworn in, Diane Rehms had a show on the question: Is Liberal Democracy now a stable form of government? What movements in Europe and the US are primary threats to democracy? It was possibly her last show on NPR. The speakers on the show (Moises Naim, Alina Polyakova, and Yascha Mounk) discussed how many Americans have begun to take democracy for granted. Would they say this today?

 

Yascha Mounk said that, when asked how important it is to live in a democracy, more than two thirds of Americans born in the 1930s said it was of top importance. They rated it number ten on a one-to-ten scale. Fewer than one third of millennials in the US today thought (in 2016) it was important to live in a democracy.

 

Mounk and the other speakers speculated that many millennials do not understand what most alternatives to democracy might be like— what it would be like to live under a dictatorship or an oligarchy, for example, where the “people,” or the majority of citizens of a nation have no institutionalized source of power. They do not grasp that a dictatorship or any form of one-man or one group rule means the loss of many rights and freedoms. They never fought or lived under a Fascist government, for example. In fact, there are a few GOP candidates running for office in this country now who espouse Fascist policies.

 

Although a Pew Research Center Poll shows millenials to be the most liberal generation in the U. S., in many respects, there is some disturbing evidence against that interpretation. According to Jean Twenge, a Professor of Psychology and author, nearly two fifths of Millenials (born 1980-’94) and iGen (1995-2012) voted not just for a GOP candidate but one “affiliated with a white nationalism many thought had died out long before iGen was born.”

 

Many do not understand that democracy in a large, diverse nation, means compromise, and are focused only on the negative side of democracy—how much effort it takes, or how frustrating it could be. They do not understand that once the institutions of a democracy are undermined (as is happening today, under T), it is extremely difficult to build them back.

 

Democracy only works if a great majority of citizens take an active part in politics and their communities. We are learning, now, how much we need to research and think about the issues, imagine and value diverse viewpoints, consider the well-being of others as part of our own well-being, and act and speak up to hold our political representatives accountable.

 

And we must vote. We must vote to preserve the possibility that we will have a meaningful voice in the future. On November 6th, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 in the Senate will be contested. We must encourage every one we know to vote. We must think about it as a national imperative, if necessary even take the day off to do it. We can not afford to be complacent, like many were only two years ago. There is little or nothing that is more important right now than voting for those who will oppose the present administration and strengthen democracy. This is a grand opportunity to act. be strong, to stand up. We can do this. This is not hyperbole.

 

**Senator Flake called for a pause in the rush to vote, in order to allow for a limited FBI investigation of Kavanaugh—for one week. One week! Will this be just a ploy to allow those in the GOP with a disturbed conscience an excuse to vote for a candidate they know to be unfit? Or will it lead to an end to or even an easing of the now bitter war for power? If the latter is true, then the inspiration provided by one woman’s bravery might help save US democracy.

 

***This post was syndicated by The Good Men Project.