Stop the King of Lies and Rip-offs from Being the King of US: What Can I Do? Is Not an Assumption of Hopelessness but A Driver of Reflection and Action

This morning, the sky was partly cloudy, after one of the wettest springs in history, with a grey haze from Canadian fires. Still, a cardinal and a vireo were singing. Outside my office, the rhododendron flowers had turned brown and were falling off the bush, but the roses were very alive with a deep red color.

 

But in our human realm, news reports set a very threatening tone to the day. This began at a news conference earlier in the week, when Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat from California, tried to ask a question of DT’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. As he tried to take a step forward to be heard, identifying himself as a US Senator (the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee on Immigration), Noem’s security detail stopped him, shoved him to the ground, where he was handcuffed and forcibly taken from the room.

 

Later, the Senator explained he had repeatedly asked DHS for information on their increasingly extreme actions against immigrants but had not received answers. He said, “If this is how this administration… the DHS responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country.”

 

Since June 6, mostly nonviolent protests continued in LA, after having been met not only with police but soldiers, National Guard troops sent in by DT against the explicit direction of California Governor Newsom. This was an even more unrestrained repeat of DT’s militarized response in 2020  to protests against the killing of George Floyd. And, as in 2020, the possibly illegal deployment of troops only served to inflame the situation further.

 

And on the morning of Saturday, June 14th, in their Minnesota home, Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state representative and her husband were assassinated, in a politically targeted killing. The assailant also shot a second Democratic lawmaker and his wife multiple times, but they both thankfully remain alive as of now.  When DT was asked by a reporter if he would call Minnesota Governor Walz, he responded with more spite than any semblance of truly caring. “Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor,” ABC News reported Trump said. “I think he’s a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too.” As of Sunday, he hadn’t called the Governor.

 

Starting Saturday morning, a “Celebration” in Washington D.C., with a military parade in the evening, honoring the 250th anniversary of the US Army⎼ and the birthday of the King of Lies. But across 200 cities covering most of the country, a NO KINGS demonstration at 1:00. Also later in the day, a Gay Pride event and a Juneteenth remembrance.

 

The events presented a dramatic contrast. The military parade celebrated not only the courage and sacrifice of soldiers, but the ego and self-centeredness of DT. In anticipation and messaging, it was frightening; but it turned out to be a sad and not well attended event.

 

The NO KINGS protests were attended by millions. They were both serious and fun, concerned for the rights and future for all of us⎼ compassionate yet defiant of DT’s attempts to destroy democracy, to mistreat and remove immigrants of color, and undermine any government agencies and policies that protect the well-being of the mass of citizens, like healthcare, Social Security, SNAP, and education.

 

The protests were peaceful yet energizing.

 

*To tread the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

When Taking a Breath Feels Like Writing a Poem: What We Ignore Grows Mythical in Size

These days, breathing-in seems to be filled with a deep dread, a darkness, as if I’m about to open a door no one wants to open but maybe must. It’s a door I rationally know I share with millions of others, but don’t always feel. And the more I hesitate about opening it, the more difficult it is to even look at it. What we ignore becomes mythical in size.

 

I also dread to verbalize this, but I wonder if sleep disruption has become a national epidemic. The anxiety levels in this country are skyrocketing. And so many people have shared with me they’re having difficulty sleeping. So many have shared a sense of mourning, not only for neighbors who have been deported or lost their jobs, but mourning for the loss of an expectation of justice, fairness, due process. The world. Their future. Humanity. So many of us are suffering from moral injury or trauma.

 

Maybe you know the work of primatologist Frans de Waal, who with Sarah Brosnan did experiments with capuchin monkeys showing these primates have a deep sense of and desire for what is fair. When two capuchins performed a simple task, and one was rewarded with a less preferred, less sweet reward than the other, they then refused to continue to participate. They noticed and didn’t like any inequity in the treatment of others. It wasn’t all about competition and winning but noticing and caring about fairness.

 

In some ways, I weirdly realize the dread I had felt back in November and December 2024 might have lessened. DT is scary, a clown in many ways and frighteningly so, frighteningly uncaring of anyone other than himself and his power-hungry cohorts, a threat to everything and everyone I hold dear. Too many others have lost their livelihood, left the country or been deported or died, yet I‘m still able to speak out. Or maybe I’ve just become better at closing certain doors.

 

Or maybe I had just expected there would no longer be friendship, joy, love once DT was in office. No longer be any surprisingly beautiful moments. And yet these persist, some very simple. This afternoon for example, I started boiling water for tea. I then sat down to wait and so many thoughts went through my mind. It was like my mind had become a city center, with thoughts and images racing along the sidewalks and roads. And not just thoughts but inner compulsions to do something other than sit, like recording thoughts in my journal, or refinishing the window ledge above the sink, doing something “useful.”

 

But instead, I just watched and listened to the steam rising from the teapot, and it was enough. I noticed the song of water boiling was a complex song, with a deep quiet living in its core. Doing “nothing” suddenly felt so beautiful. And outside the house, a cardinal was singing. Maybe it was responding to the song of boiling tea water? Maybe I’ve stopped holding my breath and breathing-out amazed me.

 

It feels almost taboo to talk of something like this, watching and listening to water boiling when so many lives, the ecosystems of the world, and the continuation of democracy are at stake. But the freedom to live and share our moments, to let them affirm our existence, is a crucial element of human life.

 

I woke up about 1:00 am last night….

 

*To read the entire article, please go to The Good Men Project.

It’s Not When, But If: Will 2025 Be the Last Memorial Day Honoring and Mourning Those Who Died Fighting for Democracy?

This past week I wondered: will this be the last Memorial Day? With all the assaults on democracy by DT and his authoritarian party, will this be the last year the holiday is commemorated to remember and honor those who gave their lives defending democracy?

 

When he first won the election less than one year or one eternity ago, DT controlled all 3 branches of government. And many of us who opposed him said “wait until the midterms. We’ll win control of the House and maybe Senate and resurrect democracy.” But few who’re looking realistically now at recent events are still saying that. Many realize our time to act is not in a year, but now. DT is doing all he can to destroy the possibility of meaningful midterm elections. As the song says, “It’s now or [possibly] never.”

 

For example, I’ve been reading about the hidden contents of the House Reconciliation bill, or what DT calls “a big beautiful bill” and others call the Big Ugly. DT calls it “beautiful” because it gives him what no law should ever give a president in a democracy. It gives him not only more economic means to rule unopposed, to be the boss, King, Dictator, the absolute word on everything by gifting him tax cuts on the rich. And as it’s clearly developed in Project 2025, it also gives him the political power to make his dreams come true.

 

On May 22, Robert Reich wrote an article revealing details of what is hidden from most news discussions. He describes how DT has been working for years to neuter the courts. For example, several lower court justices and then the Supreme Court told  him to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of this country, illegally deported to a cruel prison in El Salvador. But DT wouldn’t comply with the orders. A federal judge ruled that the DT regime willfully disregarded a court order restraining them from such deportations. He also tries to intimidate judges with attacks on them and their families in language that could and has led to violence.

 

Courts have only one power to make their orders stick—to hold a politician or anyone in contempt. But the Big Ugly Bill has a hidden agenda. There’s a provision which says, “No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction was issued…” Translation: this provision would stop courts from enforcing contempt citations and end any power they had over DT.

 

An article in the Campaign Legal Center for Advancing Democracy Through Law news outlet, by Eric Kashdan not only gives more details on the provision described by Reich, but provides other hidden anti-democratic material in the 1000 page bill.

 

For example, in section 43201(c) is buried a provision imposing a ban of ten years on enforcing any state or local law that would regulate AI, including laws controlling its use in political campaigns and elections. This means its use to fabricate images and spread disinformation. It actually stops the enforcement of laws passed by any government bodies other than DT’s Congress, preventing any lawmakers outside Congress from protecting us, their constituents.

 

Kasdan spells out this could⎼ and would⎼ mean giving free reign to the spread of lies and disinformation that undermine our ability to make informed decisions. It would create an even more dangerous situation than what we have now, one that further debilitates any trust in the existence of truth or trust in our elections. It takes us right through the doors of the Ministry of Truth/Disinformation George Orwell described in his novel 1984.

 

This is only one part of the DT GOP assault on “we the people” of the U. S….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

A Necessary Ingredient for Sanity in Our World Today; The Empowering Force of Compassion

When I stop and just feel what is going on in myself, and listen to what I most need, I discover a drive for being held, and for holding. For care and comfort, and for comforting. And somehow tied to that is a need to be more accepting of how little I know for sure. And to realize this is one aspect of compassion⎼ to recognize I share so much with others but there’s so much more I don’t know. And to value all of it, the knowing and the not-knowing. And the learning of how to be more open and compassionate, for myself and for others.

 

It often feels like one aim of the DT administration is to suck the life out of our mutual concern for others. Embedding compassion in the community itself would help not only ourselves but all those around us. It would make us feel stronger, more ready to act. And I think DT abhors this possibility, yet this is exactly what we need right now.

 

But what exactly is compassion? What images do we have of it or of compassionate people? How would we change if we were more compassionate? What differentiates it from other mental or emotional states associated with it, like empathy, sympathy, or pity? First, we must realize that we can actually develop our compassion.

 

One book that could be a resource for us is The Compassionate Instinct, edited by Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh, and Jeremy Adam Smith. The book explores scientific evidence and philosophical arguments for compassion. In the first essay, Keltner argues that it is “rooted in our brain and biology, and [is] ready to be cultivated for the greater good.” It’s in us as a possibility, to be developed—or subverted. Our brains are plastic in that they’re continuously rewiring; that’s how we learn. Learning means change. We change according to our experience and education. Even the way our DNA expresses itself and influences our development depends on experience.

 

Compassion is not just empathy, or not necessarily feeling the suffering of others, but a readiness to recognize and act to relieve that suffering. It’s a responsiveness that empowers us. It’s not just sympathy for, and certainly not pity for, what others are experiencing. Pity can be so condescending, separating, and compassion is more of a welcoming. It’s a recognition and valuing of the fact that we never have a full understanding of any other person. Each person is partly an infinite mystery, and we share that mystery and so much else with them.

 

To develop our compassion, it’s best if, in each possible moment, we intend to respect and directly learn who we are. This means mindfulness, or trauma informed mindfulness, and compassion practices. To respond with clarity to events, and to make decisions with depth of thought, we must be able to observe and be present in our experiences, and feel in ourselves the presence and responsiveness of others. We need empathy.

 

We can, for example, pause in whatever we’re doing. Maybe close our eyes or look closely around us; or just feel our feet on the ground, how the weight is distributed on our feet, what our toes feel like in our shoes. How it feels to just stand where we are. Can we smell the air? Where in our body do we feel the breathing in? And when we breathe out, can we feel our shoulders relax, and settle down?

 

Maybe our minds are full of thoughts, self-attacks for not doing enough or wishing the election had turned out differently. With so much awful news, it’s so easy to distance, hurt, exhaust and thus disempower ourselves. We might feel we don’t deserve compassion. But when the world needs us so badly is exactly when we must give ourselves to it….

 

*To read the whole piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

Science & Democracy: Anaximander and Opening the Mind Replacing a Myth of What Was with Expanding Our Understanding of What Could Be

A few years ago, I wrote an article asking Is Uncertainty A Blessing or a Curse, Or Both? It was based on a book by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. As a result of the article, Dr. Rovelli’s publisher sent me a copy of his new book, Anaximander and the Birth of Science. This new book is as well written and intriguing as the first one I read years ago. It’s also as relevant as the older book was to this frightening moment in history that we are facing.

 

Rovelli defines science, in the introduction, as “the passionate search for ever newer ways to conceive the world.” Its strength is thus based not in what we’re certain of, but in a “radical awareness” of our ignorance, of recognizing that what we don’t know is vast. Thus, it’s fluid and constantly pushes us to learn more and more. And it constantly moves to overthrow the old ways that we ordered our world and move us into something new, something ever deeper and more comprehensive.

 

And one aspect of the threat we face today is the emphasis on certainty. To emphasize certainty in the face of a universe that’s continually changing and evolving is to deny and even hide reality. It’s to cling to the ideas, images, illusions we held of the past in order to pretend we can manufacture a future that fits those created illusions. It means to undermine learning itself in favor of indoctrination. It’s to fight for dominance for one person or group over the many; to fight for total centralized control of information, resources, and power instead of a de-centralized, interdependent, democratic sharing of perspectives, information, resources, and power. In other words, science and democracy are linked together.

 

Anaximander lived in a place and time where both political and mental realms were opening up, where gaps were emerging in the sources and institutions of both political power and intellectual ideas and belief. He was born in Miletus, a Greek city-state on the Ionian or Turkish coast, in 610 BCE. Athens was just beginning to grow in power. The Odyssey and The Iliad had been composed two centuries earlier.  Solon, the creator of the first constitution to incorporate democratic ideas, had just been born. And about 200 years later, we have Sophocles, Sappho, and Plato and the Golden Age of Greece.

 

Miletus was close to Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Black Sea, and traded with a good portion of the rest of the world. The city thrived from the introduction of ideas and products from all these different areas. Rovelli discusses how civilizations flourish when they mingle; they decline in isolation. So called cultural “purity’ closes off new ideas and understandings.

 

His was a time of secularization, where the religious or spiritual realms were not controlled by a church or religious institution. Where the ideas of the ancients, of the past, were not given divine and unquestioned status. The Homeric gods were neither fully credible nor majestic, but full of faults as well as powers. Miletus itself was an independent city-state in a league of cities where no one entity dominated the others. It was called the Ionian League, and it met in a Parliament, maybe the first in history.

 

Writing was no longer the exclusive domain of the religious elite and rulers, or to scribes, priests, and aristocrats. It was possibly the first time in history written accumulated knowledge and study were accessible to many, both to learn⎼ and to question, criticize, and debate. A large class of citizens could discuss not only intellectual issues but how to apportion power and make decisions critical to the lives of the community. And it was assumed that knowledge and truth best emerge from allowing criticism⎼ of established ideas as well as new understandings. And where open discussion replaced absolute belief. The same held true in social and political matters. Democracy in intellect and belief mirrored democracy in politics.

 

Of course, this didn’t last….

 

*To read the whole piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

Who Are They Coming After Next? If We Didn’t Believe It Before, We’ll Believe It Now

The volume of birdcalls increases as night slowly transforms into day. It’s spring; my wife’s flowers are painting the yard beautiful colors. The air smells sweet to breathe. On a day like this, how can we believe it can all end? How can we believe our savings can be stolen or depleted, the protections on air quality ended, so the air will no longer smell so sweet or be safely breathed. Bird habitats dangerously threatened. The safety of my home and property ended. And all by the DT government. How do we see the ferocity of such a beast when so much of what was, and so much beauty remains?

 

The Washington Post recently revealed that DT is having plans written up to weaken the independence of the nuclear safety regulators and relax rules that protect us from radiation exposure. Why? To fast track the resurrection of the nuclear power industry.

 

According to Reuters, on May 11 FEMA announced that, to align themselves with DT’s intentions, they are sharply reducing training for state and local weather and other emergency managers. This would leave all storm-prone communities more vulnerable, less prepared to handle the often-devastating effects of hurricanes and other catastrophic weather events, all of which have been happening more frequently with global warming. And they’re doing this just a few weeks before the June 1 beginning of hurricane season, a hurricane season predicted to be busier than normal this year.

 

Why? They claim their aim is to reduce waste and save money. But it’s difficult to understand how paying the people who help us prepare for storms and rebuild afterwards is wasteful—unless you’re a billionaire and think your money makes you immune from needing their services.

 

And this is happening in every aspect of government, affecting every aspect of our lives, from weakening rules that protect our water from highly dangerous, forever chemicals, firing those who fight forest fires, firing inspectors who provide food safety, healthcare, to stealing our retirement savings, habeas corpus, and even our right to speak out and vote.

 

And if that isn’t enough, this really scared me⎼ The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was recently arrested by DHS agents and charged with trespass at an ICE detention facility. This was a private detention facility, opened despite a law prohibiting such, and without allowing legally required inspections by the state. The mayor was there in support of a congressional delegation aiming to inspect the site and was not on private land but public property. The mayor said he had been standing there for over an hour when arrested and had not been warned to move.

 

The following day, a DHS spokesperson said they were considering also arresting the 3 member Democratic Congressional delegation that was at the facility with the mayor. They accused the Democrats of assaulting ICE agents.

 

One member of the Democratic delegation, Representative Rob Menendez, said: “As Members of Congress, we have a legal right to conduct oversight at any DHS facility without prior notice, as we have already done twice this year. Throughout every step of this visit, ICE attempted to intimidate everyone involved and impede our ability to conduct oversight.” Menendez added, “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I am shocked and disturbed that something like this happened in our community.”

 

Another member of the delegation, Representative LaMonica McIver added that the lawmakers were met with “contempt, disrespect, and aggression from ICE.” So⎼ who is violating the law here?

 

And this comes just a few weeks after DT’s Department of Justice arrested Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan…

 

*To read the entire piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

It’s So Overwhelming: Rediscovering the Core of Our Being

DT continues to do all he can to stir up the chaos, the shock, the abuses so we can’t keep up. My e-mails are flooded with petitions, unbelievable news stories, information on protests that happened and ones to join, and requests for money to fight back against the assaults. Never before did I so anticipate and cheer on suits against the government. I used to automatically delete 95% of emails; now, 95% seem too critical to ignore.

 

This morning: Scott Dworkin, Massive Anti-DT Protests Erupt Everywhere and More Good News. And: Opinion You Don’t Want To Miss. Trump IRS Pick Just Enriched by Tax Schemers, Trump Relaunches His Tariff Corruption Game. Articles on DT’s threat to the economy and threat to our ability to afford our lives. The Supreme Court denying or sometimes affirming DT’s lust for absolute power at our expense. The illegal imprisonment of immigrants, the attempts to destroy due process and the rule of law. Articles repeatedly appear on the destruction of health care, environmental protections, and all government functions that support the well-being and the very lives of most Americans.

 

And notably, an article in the New York Times on Easter Sunday about how Americans desire and are turning to a belief in a god, soul, afterlife, a spiritual dimension to their lives. 92% of Americans claim they have some kind of spiritual belief. The article, Believing, by Lauren Jackson, appears in a section of the Times dramatically titled America Wants a God. It’s part of her now yearlong project studying a significant shift in American life, after decades of people turning away from religion. A good number of us, 40 million Americans, had left their churches, synagogues, etc. and looked to jobs, gym classes, mysticism, meditation, mostly secular replacements.

 

But since the pandemic, the environmental emergency, and DT, more and more of us have felt an “existential malaise.” Our world, our lives are threatened on so many fronts, and we want somewhere to turn for support, for reason, for care. And studies, including one by the Pew Research Center, show that people who practice a religion, or have some sort of regular spiritual practice, tend to be happier, and one from Harvard on how religion contributes to being healthier. (Yeah, Harvard.)

 

This revival of spiritual longing, or maybe desperation, rings very true to me. We see this in the great interest in mindfulness over the last 40 years. And on the other hand, we see it in the maybe one third of Americans who have declared DT their new God or savior. I don’t know how believing in the Donald’s holiness makes people happier. I mean, he sells bibles for extra cash and seems to sell access to power to evangelicals for votes.

 

If godly means moral, caring about the well-being of others, living by the Golden Rule or Ten Commandments, and knowledgeable of the content of whatever Holy teachings one says one believes in, I think DT is probably one of the last people on earth to be called godly. But he nevertheless claims the title so absolutely others seem to accept his insistence as proof. When an assassin’s bullet just grazed him, he claimed God intervened in his behalf. Maybe spreading hate has a happy edge to it, or makes people feel united in a community of shared bitterness. Or maybe people can mistake autocratic political power for power over eternity.

 

Since even before the early Middle Ages, religion was often pitted against reason. With a 20th century decrease in church membership there was an increase in trust in science, research, rationality. And, at the same time, an increase in materialism, in a commodification of every aspect of life. Our own attention, our very mind, became the biggest commodity to sell. Although maybe this effort of commodifying the human mind, of controlling the mind of others, has always been the biggest power that certain humans hungered for?…

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Silence Sits at the Open End of Everything⎼ Savor It: Right at the Core of Anything is the Silent Heart of Everything

Silence can be a frightening experience or the voice of welcoming. There is a silence of the heavens.  A silence that can remind people who can hear of death. And then there’s a silence that is peace itself.

 

I once shared in a blog something my father told me. I was in my early twenties, temporarily staying with my parents, and planning to hitch-hike across the country. My dad hated the idea. One night, he yelled at me, calling me irresponsible for not getting a job immediately, but ignoring the fact that in three months I had a job lined up and was going to graduate school.

 

My mother heard the yelling, came into the room and calmed him down. He then shared what motivated his outburst. It was partly his economic fears, based on his experience during the depression in the 1930s. And partly, it was his reaction when he went outside at night and looked up at the stars. He said he’d feel lost in the expanse of darkness, unable to accept the infinite silence of the heavens. The only way he knew to deal with this reality was by having a job, having a schedule and something “useful” to accomplish.

 

We humans have been feeling, questioning, and speaking of the awful or awesome silence of the heavens forever. But there are other dimensions, other ways to experience silence. Imagine being in a medium sized room with 20 or 30 people all engaged simultaneously in independent conversations, their voices echoing from the walls. Then we leave the room and go into a hallway empty of noise, Muzak, or of anyone besides ourselves. The silence would be so welcome.

 

Or we’re in a forest or walking a rural road. Trees moan as they move together in the wind. Water streams along the bank of the road, crows cough, robins share their sweet voices. And then, seemingly absolute silence that seems to go on forever. No more trees talking, water streaming, or robins singing. The silence feels incomprehensible. Mysterious. Absorbing. I want to wrap my life in it.

 

We might find ourselves wanting to just get something done, or over-with. Or we feel we must do something but don’t want to⎼ we resist doing it. Whatever it is feels too difficult emotionally or physically to face. This leads to us to being on the defense; we experience in our shoulders, maybe our face or belly a flee-fight-flight response. We tense up. Everything becomes a drag.

 

But then we realize, hey, at least we can still do this task. Our body is mostly healthy. We are conscious. We focus on feeling the moment of awareness, feeling right here; feeling the fact that we can feel, that we can hear and see. Or we notice the feeling of our feet on the floor, hands in our lap. And suddenly, everything changes. Our sense of isolation ends, sense of connection expands. Switching our attention for a moment from an object of awareness, like a particular person or a step in a task, or our initial dislike, to the fact of being aware can do that.

 

This allows us to stop and savor the moment. Or savor the fact we’re right here, present. And suddenly, there’s silence; there’s joy. We notice the pleasure of being here. Right amidst whatever angers us, right inside whatever fear we might hold onto, there’s a space of silence. There’s a space of breath. There’s a space for joy. Right at the core of anything is the silent heart of everything. There’s been too little joy for many of us lately⎼ and we can use a great big dose of it. We need to give ourselves a great big dose of joy and compassion.

 

We might be in the middle of a conversation,….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

The Movement Has Begun in Earnest⎼ And Just in Time, I Hope

I joined maybe millions of others in over 1400 cities and towns across this nation in the Hands Off rally and march on Saturday, April 5th. It was both deadly serious and wonderful; a reminder of the terror we face and an awakening of the heart⎼ an awakening of a commitment to act. And an act of caring for ourselves, others, and our physical and social worlds.

 

It was deadly serious for obvious reasons and maybe some not so obvious. After about 40 minutes of speeches and songs, the rally became a march, from the downtown commons to a Community Center. It stopped at a busy intersection, where it became a “honk & wave” demonstration. So many cars honked to join in and support us, 50 times more than those that gave us a thumbs down. Many cars even had signs supporting ours.

 

At that point, I was with a good friend, standing on a busy street corner crowded with cars on the roads, and protestors for several blocks filling both sides of the sidewalks. I leaned in, giving a thumbs up to a car, and my friend grabbed me by my coat and pulled me back. He said you never know when someone opposed to our message might come by and try to push you into the street in front of cars.

 

The obvious reason of the deadly seriousness of the march, of course, was DT, EM, and their attacks on every aspect of our democracy, almost every aspect of life. They’ve attacked our rights to free speech, due process, voting; to health care, in the process destroying federal agencies and the lives of workers who’ve dedicated themselves to looking out for our health. They’ve fired, attacked, and  threatened anyone who speaks out against them or shares the truth about DOGE, illegal deportations, etc.

 

They’ve attacked our children in so many ways, but one major attack was the dismantling of the Education Department, making it more difficult for our future generations to get food, get the support many need, and receive a good education. They’re attacking our future economic security, dismantling Social Security.

 

They’ve increased tensions throughout the world, undermined our international standing and our national security in countless ways, from firing thousands from the defense and state departments, destroying the Voice of [Democratic] America, which formerly had enabled people in nations with censored media to get reliable facts. They cut USAID, threatening our influence over third world countries. DT even threatened to invade our closest allies, Canada and Greenland.

 

DT’s tariffs not only threaten American businesses and the pocketbooks of most of us but have started trade wars with allies! The tariffs undermine both our national security and our personal incomes. One reason for the tariffs is to pay for tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Such cuts lead to an increase in the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, and a loss of power for the majority. And it means the rest of us will have to cover more of the costs for government functions, for so many things, from repairing roads, to researching cures for illnesses, and protecting our food system from contamination and us from criminals and terrorists both foreign and domestic.

 

They’ve undermined our environment by dismantling whole sections of the EPA and transforming its mission from safeguarding the environment to increasing the huge profits corporations get from our natural resources, while destroying our heritage of forests, polluting land, air, and water. They’ve even removed bans on forever toxic chemicals.,,,

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

It’s Just Who I Am Now: Feeling More Deeply at Home in Our Bodies

One gigantic reality each of us must face is aging. We can feel it when we’re 11 going on 18, or 65 going on 85. At first, the aging, the changes are usually so small, so subtle, just normal reality. Then, seemingly suddenly, the change is immense, startling, towering over our old understanding of ourselves.

 

A few days ago, I was experiencing persistent shortness of breath and thought I should go to the ER for immediate diagnosis and treatment. The symptoms started during a hike; suddenly, it got so intense I couldn’t tell if I would be able to make it back to my car. I kept imagining having to call on my phone for an ambulance. It was too late in the afternoon to call a doctor; so I slowed my pace and distracted my mind from the fear by counting my steps until I reached my car. And when I did see the car, what an amazing relief it was.

 

But despite all that, I didn’t want to go to the ER. I had a physical sense of what might be going on, and it wasn’t a heart attack. So, I drove home.

 

The difficulty breathing abated for a while; but after dinner, it returned, with even more symptoms added on. So, my wife drove me to the ER. After several hours, the ER medical team decided I had issues, but nothing warranting a stay in the hospital.

 

When we got home, the sky thundered. I couldn’t see any lightning, but I felt not only thunder but a driving wind; and an intense rain seemed to fall suddenly out of everywhere, from the sky, the hills, the buildings. We ran inside, dried off, and went to bed as soon as we could.

 

The next morning, I at first wanted to buy myself something, some material compensation for going through the confusion, fear, and physical discomfort, but wasn’t sure what it could be. I imagined going to some local store, maybe a bookstore. I love bookstores. Or go online, if I could just think of something I felt I really needed or wanted. Consumerism shows itself in unanticipated ways.

 

Then I realized these occasional symptoms and physical changes were just an important element of who I now was. I didn’t need any distractions from my own life. It was just that my self-image was miles behind my reality. My awareness hadn’t comfortably settled into my moment-by-moment experience. But now, maybe, this was changing, like everything else. And maybe now I could perceive this seemingly new situation or time of life as valuable, not just something to deal with⎼ but as something interesting in-itself to observe and learn from.

 

And it became clear to me that no material gifts, or outside objects was what mattered the most to me. What mattered the most was my response⎼ what I did, what actions I took, how I understood whatever occurred. This mattered. This was what would most determine the quality of the next moments and years of my life.

 

A few days later I ran into a co-worker from a job I had years ago. We went through the usual greetings⎼ how are you? what’s your life like now? And we answered as honestly as possible without going into many details. She talked about being 80 years old and beginning to feel old; and she added that young people she knew described older people as afraid of change.

 

But I replied I didn’t think that assessment of older people, of us was entirely accurate. As we age, certainly as I age, I notice changes more quickly than I used to, especially changes in my health, in my environment, in my friends….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.