The U. S. We Hope and Expect to Be Here Is Almost Gone: DT and DOGE are Killing U. S.

Maybe, hopefully, we’re all realizing that the country many of us loved; that, in a variety of ways, many fought for and dreamed of, is disappearing. DT, Musk, their GOP sycophants and billionaire cheering section are doing all they can to rip away our rights and incomes to feed their own power and greed. And people are already, and increasingly, dying from this.

 

Take elementary aged children people in Reserve, La, whose school is located next to the Denka Performance Elastomer Plant. The region is called Cancer Alley, and rates of deaths, especially for children, are one of the highest in the US. The Biden administration sued to finally curb the plant’s emissions. The DT DOJ stopped the suit. DT seems to care more about profits than common people; and in this case, the majority of residents are black.

 

DT’s EPA has announced it would cut 31 climate, air, water, and emissions regulations, putting the health and lives of millions at risk. According to Health Policy Watch, under attack is a 2009 EPA finding that climate change-causing pollutants, including methane and carbon dioxide, harm human health. Without this “endangerment” clause, the EPA will clear the way for widespread dismantling of greenhouse gas emission regulations.

 

“The potential increase in health-related expenses, environmental degradation, and the stifling of innovation will lead to higher costs for consumers and impede economic growth,” said Margo Oge, former EPA director of transportation and air quality. “These actions will not make America great – they will just make Americans sicker,” she said in a LinkedIn post.

 

The safety of the food we eat is being drastically threatened by DOGE’s cuts to the US Department of Agriculture. According to interviews taken by WIRED, thousands of workers, food inspectors, disease-sniffing dog handlers and trainers fired by Musk remain unemployed, leading to food rotting and pests proliferating. Without inspectors, invasive pests and diseases can slip through inspection cracks, and wipe out an entire agricultural commodity, which can cause national security concerns and price increases. Some people thought DT would lower their food and other costs of living—not so.

 

The same is true with the bird flu killing chickens and raising the cost of eggs (15.2% increase since December)⎼ among those fired (and later re-hired) were those from the Department of Agriculture who had been working to respond to the bird flu outbreak.

 

I’ve written elsewhere about the measles epidemic increasing and spreading due to DT’s Health secretary, RFK Jr.’s history of spreading anti-vaccination misinformation. RFK Jr.’s fixation on attacking vaccinations is also interfering with research into cancer and other diseases. A senior official at the National Cancer Institute told KFF Health News that DT’s acting NIH director sent an agency-wide email directing all grants, contracts, and “collaborations involving mRNA vaccines” be reported to Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy’s office and the White House. The mRNA technology, crucial to the development of successful COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, has also exhibited promise in research on HIV/AIDS and cancer.

 

In a recent column, Heather Cox Richardson warned us that RFK, Jr. is now proposing to address the bird flu decimating US poultry and cattle farms by letting the disease free to run rampant.

 

She writes that veterinary scientists say that letting the virus sweep through flocks is “a really terrible idea,” as Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas, told Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times….

 

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

Has the Shock Doctrine Won? “If my love does not cause me to protect those I love, is it love?”

Part of me wants to just put this election and the unbelievable loss by Kamala Harris behind me, or at least until I know I can or must do something. Maybe I’ll take a vacation from news media. Focus on doing things I love, be with those who love me. It’s just so much to accept, too much to bear.

 

But his actions so far, in choosing his cabinet, administrative, and advisory positions and proposing policies might be too disturbing to ignore, hopefully too disturbing to come to fruition. He’s chosen a cabinet aimed to give him total power and undermine legitimate agency functions. People like:

Matt Gaetz, who is a subject of a House Ethics Investigation, for sex-trafficking and other accused crimes, for Attorney General.

Stephen Miller a white nationalist and creator of the policy to take young children from their immigrant parents during DT’s first term of office, as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.

Lee Zeldin, who questions the reality of climate change and promises to favor big oil and big business over environmental protection, to head the EPA.

Elon Musk, world’s richest man, a megadonor to DT’s campaign, and as Public Citizen reports, a beneficiary of government contracts while 3 of his companies are under investigation for civil and criminal charges, was picked to co-lead a proposed Department of Government Efficiency, to gut federal regulations and slash spending. His partner would be Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire. Shocking.

 

Heather Cox Richardson reported the DT transition team floated the idea that he could sign an executive order creating a board of retired senior military personnel to review high-ranking officers and recommend removing any they deemed unfit for leadership. Vivian Salama, Nancy A. Youssef, and Lara Seligman reported in the Wall Street Journal that such a board would enable Trump to purge the military of the generals whom he considered insufficiently loyal to him, so he would have total control over the military.

 

Thankfully, the GOP in the House of Representatives just failed to pass, for now, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act which would have granted the secretary of the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit deemed to be a “terrorist supporting organization.” It would have enabled the DT administration to revoke the non-profit status of any organization deemed to be supporting terrorism, even without proof, and stifle dissent in the US. That’s a relief. I will still have to take some time for vacations from the news.

 

Remember the Shock Doctrine, the economic and political strategy observed by Naomi Klein in her groundbreaking book published in 2008? The doctrine explained what she called “disaster capitalism,” or the exploitation and manipulation of disasters, natural and human-made, so people misperceive their own interests and accept policies they never would have accepted otherwise. It feels like the Shock Doctrine has won⎼ for the moment.

 

DT has constantly shocked us, by repeatedly inciting fear of illegal immigrants, of crime on the streets when the reality was an historic reduction in crime. Of an economy supposedly in freefall that was actually in recovery. Shocked too many of us to believe those delivering the message, reporting on or trying to prosecute him for his crimes, were the criminals. He accused Democrats of weaponizing the DOJ in order to free up a lane for him to weaponize it, as he tried to do multiple times in his first term, and promises to do in his second⎼ by imprisoning all those who oppose him. He shocked us with outrageous, even bizarre, often misogynist or racist, demented tirades and threats. It appears his motive, besides simply spreading his crazy hate, was to keep us off balance and fearful….

 

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

Transformative Moments with Trees: The Limits of Usefulness and the Beauty of Imperfection

My wife and I live in rural America on a dirt road on a sometimes-steep hill. Near our home, rising out of a steep bank, is an old red maple tree whose extensive root structure was torn open years ago when the road department widened the road to accommodate large snowplows. Many of us who live in the neighborhood resisted this move very loudly, because the trees lining the road were beautiful and made the road look so ancient.  A neighbor, inspired by other activists in the news at the time, tied herself to one of the trees.

 

But the resistance was short-lived. The crews with chain saws, excavating machines, backhoes, etc. came up the road cutting trees and carving out the banks. Exposing the roots of this one large tree which remains there even today as a reminder.

 

Sometimes, when I focus on the tree, it looks beyond sad. I feel a vulnerability, a pain constantly renewed, a wound that can never heal.  A wound that we humans caused, we humans with our frequent disregard for the health of the earth we depend on. Other times, the roots look very different, look like a secret layer from underneath the surface of the earth, a mystery that had been exposed. Unseen by us, there’s layers of possibly infinite interconnections all twisted and woven together. This is what we stand on.

 

Or maybe the two viewpoints are really one. Maybe there’s an infinite layer of vulnerability and pain, life and death woven into everything. And the pain is what we feel when we can’t sense the infinite weave.

 

We built our house room by room many years ago, in an old, abandoned apple orchard, fitting it in-between trees so we wouldn’t have to cut any. Outside our front door is one that is probably over 100 years old. It barely holds itself together anymore. Its trunk has a large hole running through its center and only three medium-large branches are left alive. It has some blossoms every spring but no edible fruit. Yet, it persists, and we can’t bear to cut it down.

 

Our cats would object strenuously if we did. They depend on the tree as a ladder to the roof and the second story of the house, where their cat window is placed. They love siting on a limb of the tree and looking down at the wildlife that enters the yard. The tree also provides some shade to the front of the house keeping it cool.

 

One morning years ago, when we had almost completed the first room of the house, and the tree was younger and still bearing fruit, I went out to feed the birds. We had a feeder, but also scattered seeds on the ground. This was before we had any pets. A few birds quickly appeared. The first was a chickadee. Maybe the tree had been feeding it for years, so when I held out a hand open with seeds, one bird flew into it to grab some food and fly off.  I was so excited; I offered my hand again. And the bird, or some bird, returned. Maybe the birds saw us as kin to trees.

 

The tree speaks to us, although at a frequency beyond our hearing, but not beyond our feeling. It speaks of a bond between us. I used to clean old bark off the tree every spring, which exposed new growth. It felt to me that the tree took it as a massage, because afterwards it always looked refreshed, more colorful, and alive. I don’t know if that feeling was in the tree or in me, or maybe there was no difference. Maybe this was what the tree spoke to me about. About silent bonds. About living for relationships. Maybe because of my affection for the tree, it felt like the tree had affection for me….

 

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

Should the Name of the GOP Be Changed to the DTP, the Domestic Terrorism Party? Or is Creating the Sense of a Nation Divided in Two the Biggest Threat?

No political party in any democracy should make domestic terrorism or undermining democracy a large part of its governing method, but that just might be the best description of what we’re experiencing now. On the other hand, maybe the country is less polarized than we’ve been led to believe we are, by DJT, the GOP, etc. and the way different media have been covering violent events and politics?

 

According to Reuters, the level of political violence has been drastically on the rise since DJT’s run for President in 2016. Some of these threats were subtle and not recognized for what they were. Others were grossly obvious, like Jan 6, when DJT worked the crowd with statements like, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Maybe the rhetoric of DJT, and several other members of the GOP, that has inspired violence should be considered a form of domestic terrorism?

 

The latest example are his threats against judges, probable witnesses, and possible jury members in the Jack Smith Jan 6 case, which have led to a request for a narrow gag order to stop “inflammatory” and “intimidating” comments. DJT also said, in another of the cases he now faces for alleged crimes against the nation, “If you go after me, I will go after you.” He has a history of threatening judges, threatening the rule of law, democracy itself, over and over again.

 

What fueled his power was pushing hate, fear, and grievance. Creating in our nation a sense that everything was about to tip over. Or that there were two sides, his and the sinners against him. And these “others,” mostly non-white, non-Christian people, or “left-wing extremists,” must be stopped at any cost.

 

He added to this by making extreme, shocking statements that were either untrue or exaggerated. Ones that fit his purposes and narrow perspective in that moment, to promote himself above all others. According to Slate, lying about the actual threat posed by COVID, not so much to protect us from panicking but more to avoid rattling the stock market. Suggesting injecting bleach might be a helpful treatment for COVID. Lying that “caravans of immigrants” of hardened criminals were invading our nation, when no such thing was happening. He continuously lied about and attacked President Obama.

 

This shock doctrine activity is a threat to all of us. On 9/11/2023 I was listening to MSNBC Deadline Whitehouse. This program was frightening in making this threat clear. The host, Nicole Wallace, posed the question, “If 9/11 happened today, would the nation come together as it did back in 2001? Are we capable of national unity today?”

 

The guests on MSNBC talked about the May DHS bulletin saying the US remains in a heightened threat environment, and that threat is not from foreign terrorists but domestic ones. News analyst Mary McCord discussed how 9/11 was an attack on national infrastructure to sow fear and discord. And the political violence happening today has this same goal. To increase the fear and division, to increase doubts about the government and ourselves, and democracy.

 

Politico reports 60 incidents of attacks on major grid infrastructure happened just this year. And these attacks are mostly inspired by hate and politics. For example, the recent attacks on the power grid in Baltimore, a majority black population, were carried out by people aiming their virulence at black people. How do we deal with this threat?…

 

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

 

**Photo from Museum of Natural History in New York City.

When We Don’t Try to Appear Divine, The Divine Within Us Speaks: Last Night, I Spoke with the Pope in A Dream.

I am not Catholic, and not religious in the usual sense. Yet last night, I spoke with the Pope in a dream.

 

In the dream, he was clearly the Pope. Everyone recognized him, even though it wasn’t clear which Pope he was. He was tall, thin, with a clearly expressive face, and energetic in his speech. But he was lying down, in a bed.

 

Whether he in the dream bore any resemblance to him in history or in any daytime reality, I have no idea. Maybe the dream Pope was closer to who the Pope was before becoming Pope. Maybe he was an archetype of a Pope or spiritual leader or teacher and his dual nature, and my own, was speaking in the dream.

 

The setting was night, in New York City. Probably, I was attending a conference on education, or maybe philosophy. In the dream, he was younger than Pope Francis I is now. Friendly. Not a stickler for protocols. Attentive. Wise. Dignified, like someone very familiar with being on stage, or making big decisions. Yet, down to earth. He was just there, lying down yet there with me, talking.

 

I kept on wanting to scream out with excitement to any passersby, “Here is the Pope. This is the Pope lying here. On this bed.” And to totally focus on him. Just ask him questions, like “How are you doing? What’s it really like to speak to God? What’s going on with the Yankees?” Or “is heaven really a realm separated from the known physical universe? Or is it a metaphor for what we could experience right here and now?”

 

I didn’t ask those questions. Didn’t even ask about the sex abuses of priests or justice for DJT’s crimes. Those questions would break the mood, the atmosphere, and send him and me back to daytime reality.

 

He asked about me, who I was. About my teaching. Not intrusively, but respectfully, subtly. He was a very subtle person.

 

And humble. I think he was enjoying the conversation and enjoying life. But why was he lying down? Was he not feeling well? Was he tired? Was it because in my actual body I was lying down and in bed? Was this a reference to the Buddha, reclining or lying down during his final illness, and death, before he entered parinirvana or complete enlightenment?

 

It was never clear how it happened that I came upon the Pope.

 

I soon woke up. It was the middle of the night. I wrote down what I could remember of the experience and then fell back to sleep.

 

And re-entered the dream ⎼ but from a different angle….

 

…But I can accurately record the feeling that remained after part one and still remains now. It was of grace and beauty. Or of love and compassion actualized in a person. Or maybe of the potential lying in all of us, to speak from God ⎼ or from whatever truth lives within us. If only…

 

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

Compassion Helps Us Perceive How to Act Effectively

One evening a few weeks ago, I was sitting in the living room with my wife, talking, and suddenly heard a sharp cry. Something was rushing outside, on the roof and by the front door. I thought maybe it was racoons, as in the past one had tried to tear out a screen in the upstairs bedroom window to enter the house. So, I jumped up, found a flashlight, and raced out the door.

 

I didn’t see anything, at first. But then there was a rustling sound around the corner of the building, in the flowers along the uphill side of the house. I shined the flashlight there and saw an adult racoon and yelled at it to leave. It took off up the hill.

 

Then a whimpering sound came from further in the flowers. I approached cautiously closer and saw a young racoon staring at me. But it wasn’t alone. It was wrapped around another, even smaller racoon, maybe a brother or sister, who had buried its head in its sibling’s stomach. Had the smaller racoon fallen off the roof and hurt itself?

 

All my anger vanished. This young animal had stayed where it was, silently protecting and comforting its crying sibling. Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help but didn’t know how. My wife, who had followed me outside, said we should leave. She was afraid staying around would discourage the mother from returning. So, we both left.

 

About fifteen minutes later, once again there was a noticeable rustling outside. The young racoons must have been led off by their mom. I went outside and saw they were gone.

 

In just a minute or two, I had gone from fear and anger of the coons getting in the house, to empathy, care, fear for the animal family. I realized how my expectations and interpretations of what was happening shaped my emotions and actions. And how universal, how instantaneous compassion can be, if it’s not drummed, traumatized, or oppressed out of us.

 

And the eruption of compassion helped me see straight or perceive more clearly.

 

But how do we live and keep ourselves safe if we readily feel compassion for others? Or maybe it’s the opposite? How can we feel safe if we’ve lost our compassion? When we wish others well, when we care, we are constantly greeted by care. We see it reflected in the eyes of others and are thus surrounded by it. When we hate, feel anger, or jealousy, then everywhere we go, we meet hate, anger, jealousy.

 

A good friend told me the story of a doctor he knew. The doctor lived and worked in New York City but was thinking of leaving the city and profession. He had recently treated a man with severe COVID who had not been vaccinated and who repeated disinformation denying the efficacy of the vaccine, denying the need to wear a mask for his own safety and that of others. And this was only one of several such patients. The doctor said he was losing his compassion. Losing his desire to help others in the face of those who were so closed off and whose lack of care was so toxic to themselves and others….

 

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

When the Air Sings to Us: What Makes a Good Relationship?

It’s truly a spring day and a beautiful morning. For once, the sky is clear, and the quality of sunlight is so alive. I love the early morning light even though I rarely get up to see it or hear it. There’s a hum in the air.

 

Early, for me nowadays, means 8:00 or 9:00 am, not 6:00. And the birds. Amazing. Right now, a male cardinal is singing. They sing love songs to their mate or hopeful mate. And we, lucky humans, get to hear it⎼ if we’re quiet enough, or our neighbors are. Imagine one creature making love to another with its voice and we get to listen in.

 

What is it in the song, what quality attracts one bird to another? Biologists often talk about ‘fitness,’ but I think that’s bunk. What does ‘fittest’ mean in terms of a bird song?  I’m not an ornithologist but I don’t think a female cardinal picks the gruffest or toughest sounding male. Being gruff, at least in a human, limits the vocal range.

 

Even Darwin, who is often misquoted as saying or implying it is aggression or a “selfish gene” that makes beings fittest, actually spoke in his book The Descent of Man only twice about survival of the fittest. Of course, we humans can be selfish. We’d have to be blind not to see it. But many of us act like we are helpless before our selfish impulses and blind to other aspects of ourselves, aspects that Darwin named as essential to our survival.

 

Systems scientist David Loye pointed out in his research on Darwin’s Lost Theory of Love: A Healing Vision for the New Century, that Darwin included 24 entries on the importance of mutual aid, 24 on reason and imagination, 61 on sympathy, 90 on a moral sense, and 95 on love.

 

Especially since cardinals mate for life, and males feed the females both before and after she lays her eggs, wouldn’t ‘fitness’ in a voice be its beauty, its subtle and yet lingering notes? Wouldn’t it be the ability of a vocal vibration to make a listener feel warm inside, safe?

 

Imagine we let ourselves feel loved by the world around us. So much would change, I think. Maybe fewer of us would have a cavalier attitude toward nature and treat it as mere “equipment” to exploit for our own immediate purposes. We’d feel the life around us more intimately. Maybe we’d feel more valued and loved ourselves. More powerful, alive, engaged. We’d feel everything speaking to us. Not just birds but trees, rivers, clouds, the air we breathe, the other people around us.

 

We’d feel the streams of the earth as the veins of our body. The air as the fuel that animates us….

 

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

Becoming Warriors of Presence

William Butler Yeats wrote over a century ago, in the wake of the First World War,

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…

 

We easily feel this today. One minute, I look outside my house and see an apple tree greening with spring and hear a raven’s raucous call. The next a car horn. Then, faintly, an NPR report of a bombed Mariupol, and of a GOP Congresswoman repeating Russian disinformation.

 

Which way does my mind turn? Do I relax into the calm beauty the tree and natural universe provides in this moment? Or do I get ready to battle those aiming to rip the constitutional rights and protections from my limbs and claim them all for themselves? Or who threaten to deny us the very air we need to breathe because we are not able or willing to pay their price?

 

How do we know what future will be revealed? We don’t. But we know the price we’ll pay for doing nothing is unpayable.

 

We all want an enjoyable life. One that satisfies. Maybe one with meaning. That makes the world a little better. But when the natural world itself or the sustainability of the climate is threatened⎼ and the human world is degrading so fast it’s impossible to have any idea what will happen tomorrow or if anything caring, humane, and democratic will be left for us⎼ how do we not burn out or give up? How do we live day to day without degenerating into a blubbering mass, knowing we must act but not knowing what it is we can do?

 

David Loy, Buddhist philosopher, eco-activist and author gave a talk on Friday, April 29th. He spoke about a fellow Buddhist, from Boulder, CO, Wynn Bruce, who had immolated himself on the Supreme Court steps on Earth Day, one week earlier. Wynn’s father said he did it out of concern for our world and the lack of determined action by our political system to save it.

 

Loy quoted philosopher Noam Chomsky saying, “the world is at the most dangerous moment in human history.” How do we face this? Wynn Bruce acted. But his act was so painful and terrifying. Not the most skillful of actions to take, said Loy. But Wynn’s concern, his fear is in all of us who look and see the climate emergency that is occurring.

 

Loy went on to share author, eco-activist Joanna Macy’s piece on the Tibetan legend of a Shambhala Warrior. “There comes a time,” she recounts, “when all lives on earth are in danger.” Barbarian powers use unfathomable technologies to lay waste the world. To remove these weapons, the warriors must show great moral and physical courage, and go forth to the very heart of barbarian power. (Putin? The GOP who plotted Jan 6?)

 

But since the weapons are made by mind, the way to fight them involves mind. Our strongest weapons, she says, are compassion and insight, heart, and knowledge.

 

It seems right now that we can’t look, and we can’t look away. But maybe we’ve got it wrong. Maybe we’re asking the wrong questions….

 

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

 

A Crazy Dream: When We Teeter on the Edge Between Depression and Hopefulness

I am dreaming that what seemed impossible yesterday will be possible tomorrow. Or as Anne Applebaum put it in her recent article in the Atlantic, the Impossible Suddenly Became Possible. People are waking up to the fact that war can still happen, yet we can and we must not only save Ukraine but save and expand democracy.

 

On February 28, Ali Velshi, substituting for Joy Reid on the MSNBC program the ReidOut, discussed results unexpected by Putin, and maybe by many of us. He didn’t expect President Zelensky of Ukraine to be such a determined, inspiring leader. He didn’t expect so many Ukrainian civilians to take up arms. Didn’t expect university students, bartenders, common citizens to make Molotov cocktails in their classrooms, bars and homes. He didn’t expect ordinary Ukrainians to sit down in front of tanks. He didn’t expect thousands to protest in Russian cities, and cities throughout the world. He didn’t expect former Soviet satellite states like Belarus, or Hungary, to refuse to send troops or support him, but instead to speak out against him. To help isolate him.

 

He didn’t expect Russian troops to surrender their arms and admit to reporters they were told they were being sent on maneuvers or a peacekeeping mission, not being asked to kill fellow Balkans. He didn’t see NATO coming together after his protégé, DJT, did all he could to undermine or destroy US alliances with other democracies.

 

All through the world, as well as here in the U. S., people who want to live in a democracy, who were shocked by DJT, GOP attacks on voting rights, white nationalist violence, COVID, global warming, economic insecurity into being afraid or hopeless saw what we dreaded most played out. Putin made them see, made us see, what we could lose. Made us see what might happen if we did not act. If we got so caught up in ourselves that we forgot that we share this world, this suffering, this love of life with others, billions of others. We realized if we hadn’t already done so⎼ we cannot allow the forces of autocracy to be emboldened any further.

 

In-between the perception that something is wrong, and the action taken to stop it is a gigantic space, and an opportunity we all have, to find our communion with others. To find our power. To find the way that we, the unique people that we are, to act, to help, to speak. Seeing what the Ukrainians are facing and doing can inspire us to act. But will we act?

 

Yet, as Dana Milbank put it in a Washington Post article, Republicans are so eager to see Biden fail, so eager to undermine democracy, they act in ways that help Putin succeed. Act in ways that threaten not only Ukrainians, and other Europeans, but us. Here, in the U. S. They are supporting an autocratic ruler who is causing an unknown number of deaths and, so far, almost one million refugees with the goal of destroying a nation’s freedom and way of life.

 

There is the popular expression about using a carrot or a stick to get people to learn, or to act ⎼ using praise or blame, prizes or threats, inspiration or fear. Due to the awful conditions we face right now and might face later, from COVID, climate change, white nationalists, and Putin⎼ this is the stick. We can see what we fear happening here or everywhere. But there’s also the carrot, the opportunity, the prize. But this prize is not something someone else gives us but one we give ourselves. We get stronger. We get closer to others. More compassionate. We build a better society.

 

Because of Putin we might be shocked into action. Because of the Ukrainian people, we might be inspired.

 

As Heather Cox Richardson put it, “…Ukrainian resistance to Russian president Vladimir Putin, supported by the cooperation of the U.S. and European allies and partners in strangling Russia’s economic system, was forging a global alliance against the authoritarianism that has been growing in power around the world.” It’s time to join that resistance. To speak out in support of, to send aid, money, supplies to Ukraine.

 

As I fear what the Ukrainian people are facing, and teeter on an edge between depression and hopefulness, it is beginning to seem more possible that we can build a resistance and maybe create a better world for us to live in. We can build or actualize a love for this world. I hope I’m not just dreaming.

 

 

**Many people and organizations are working to aid the people of Ukraine and stop not only Putin but international and American forces of autocracy. One list of organizations to support is provided by Timothy Snyder, historian, and author of On Tyranny. You can also read his newsletter on Ukraine. Charity Navigator is another resource.

 

***This article was syndicated by The Good Men Project. Please go to this link.

 

War: Only If We Care Will We Listen. Only If We Listen Will We Hear.

At 10:30 pm EST on Wednesday night tv programs were interrupted for a special report no one wanted to hear. War.

 

I’m sitting here, like millions of people, horrified. Watching a nightmare unfold on tv. Americans, Europeans, people all over the world, but especially Ukranians, who were being awakened at 5:30 am to the sound of bombing, too shocked, too frightened to speak.

 

I was watching NBC and at one point the reporters, I think it was Tom Llamas and Erin McLaughlin, just stopped and let us see the city of Kyiv, at night. We saw in the forefront a beautiful cathedral, a beautiful city lit up behind it. And we heard a moment of silence interrupted by explosions in the distance. The silence of the reporters was like a prayer for the lives of these people. And maybe for all of us. A last look at a beautiful city threatened by an enormous cloud of violence and malignancy.

 

And I thought, what will this city look like tomorrow? The reporters told us about bombs, missiles, and the threat of infantry. And all of this preceded by cyber-attacks, disinformation, all combining to interrupt the connection between the government and its people; the government and its military forces. To isolate in fear. Russian agents going through the streets looking for Ukrainian leaders or people of influence. To arrest? Murder?

 

This is now. But we’ve seen it coming, although almost all of us prayed in our own ways that it wouldn’t happen. Putin has been building up to this in Ukraine for months and years. And in the U. S. we’ve seen forces of autocracy, oppression, malignant greed, narcissism, ignorance attacking democracy and decency at the root. Attacking education. Attacking unions. Attacking a free press and the very concept that a news organization should aim at truth. Attacking authentic political speech and protests. Attacking diversity of thought. Gender, race, religious freedom. And many on the right, in the GOP are supporting Putin. Supporting Russia and war.

 

And cyber-attacks are happening here, in the US, too. Led by agents from Russia and other nations. Other autocrats. Not only in the 2016 election but since then.

 

Attacking democracy is not an abstract attack just on a political system. Democracy means everyone has a voice, which means everyone has rights and a bit of power, responsibility, and value. Just for being alive. Democracy is attacked so only certain people will have power, will have rights, will have value just for being human, alive. Attacking democracy is happening so one small group, less than 1% of the population, can steal the wealth of the many to give it to the few. Democracy is attacked so one group can turn other groups from fellow humans to items with value only for what they can contribute to the one small group in power.

 

What we’re seeing played out in front of us in Ukraine, the U. S. and elsewhere is the Shock Doctrine actualized. Behind recent threats to democracy, internet security, etc. is the threat of chaos. Loss. Shock. De-stabilizing society so even those not threatened by direct violence from Putin will feel threatened. We will feel threatened also by those who were on the streets of Charlottesville and elsewhere. Or from increasing gun violence, while that violence is indirectly protected by those who claim to only want to protect their right to own guns. (In 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, more people died from gun violence than any other  prior year. The violence continues to increase today.) Many in the GOP and those who support them seem to want us so afraid, so on edge, we will accept the unacceptable. But we won’t.

 

I can relate to people, now, who want a gun to protect themselves, their family. Their rights. I want to protect myself, my family. My rights. But there are more important and proficient ways to arm ourselves. It is more important to make ourselves strong inwardly so what we do outwardly makes the situation better, not worse.

 

When we feel so strongly the horror being inflicted on others, and fear so strongly who might be next, it is our responsibility to make our hearts open and our minds as clear as we can. The situation is so traumatic that to let our minds digest information and think critically we need to be kind to ourselves. Empathic.

 

We need to be as literate about the media as possible. And question what we hear as we search for the truth amongst all the lies and distortions. Who is giving us this information? What is the source? What is the bias or perspective? Is it from someone expert in the field? Is it firsthand, second hand? Is it backed by a reputable agency or university source?

 

And how do we listen? Do we recognize the source as another human being, as fragile and tender as we are? And as we listen to reporters, pundits, neighbors, do we listen to ourselves? Do we hear the thoughts in our mind or hear sounds outside our room or home as part of the music of our life?

 

Do we feel the sensations in our body? Our breath? Can we feel ourselves as one of all the selves in this world? Can we feel ourselves in community with those in Ukraine? Can we take on minor burdens to help those facing the worst of burdens? Can we send *support to Ukraine in any way we can? Can we help those physically fighting autocracy by opposing autocracy here?

 

Only if we care will we listen. Only if we listen can we hear. When the world is threatened and our hearts are afraid, that is the most important time to pause and listen. That is a moment we can make a difference.

 

*To send support to Ukraine, one resource is Charity Navigator.

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