Category Archives: Politics

Thank God the Fourth of July Is Over

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“Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave…” I ask, over what, exactly, is that banner waving?

July 5, 2020. The full thunder moon. Fitting. We sit within a tempest, even as it is dry as a bone here in the American Northeast: a tempestuous energy that blows through the psyche, through our communities and cities, across the land from coast to coast, and border to border.

I was struck yesterday by how fraught the Fourth of July felt to me this year—with the wildly surging pandemic and the administrative gas-lighting (rather than problem-solving) that plagues the pandemic’s resolution, or at least its reduction. With the occupant in the White House conducting audacious displays of divisiveness at Mount Rushmore and the Washington Mall, inciting people to gather in large numbers, close together (in zip-tied chairs no less) and a “wink wink” no masks or social distancing needed here. “We are invincible! No virus can get us. And if it does, well that is god’s will.” It’s just a little flu, right? One that has killed over 125,000 people just in the U.S. in less than six months—that pesky little virus. It’s of no matter, so the Occupant, in his Rushmore speech, focused instead on protecting racist statues and decrying the progressive left as fascists.

Really??! I looked up the word “fascist” just now to double check. Did I have the meaning wrong? No, I don’t think so … Dictionary.com says, “a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism … emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.” Now I know the meaning of fascist has many more nuances, too many to go into here, but this sounds, well enough, like our current status with this president.

Last I knew, the progressive left are fervently focused on saving the earth’s ecosystems before it’s too late and creating social systems that support ALL people, not just those glittering with ill-gotten wealth. Seems reasonable to be passionate about these goals.

Countries with competent leadership and intelligent citizenry abroad are watching us, aghast, and utterly flummoxed. They won’t let Americans fly into their countries without quarantine, if at all. Who could blame them? Countries led by despots just like ours are applauding our idiocy. The weaker America gets, the better for them.

This past week, I’ve noticed that the houses in the rural New England towns near where I live are the “flagged” and the “unflagged.” Or in some cases, the flagged and the “Black Lives Matter” houses. Yesterday, for the Fourth, one house had decorated its yard with quite an impressive number of medium-sized, seemingly brand new flags and a quaint little colonial-style sign that says “God Bless America” hung on a tree. I thought, as I walked past, “Man, we need blessing badly.” Now I like this family, a lot, so as I walked, I tried to understand how, maybe, they viewed the divisive issues we are grappling with as a country. Judging from their flags and crosses, obviously their views are quite different from mine.

Part of me wants to sit down with them and have a good ole lengthy civil discussion about philosophy, religion, politics, and the meaning of life. Or several discussions. But I can’t. For one, civility seems to be in short supply these days. It would be a risk. And, of course, we need to physically distance. And they would probably think I was a weirdo, with my belief that even plants have intelligence; and that all is interconnected and equal, even rocks and minerals; and that consciousness is primary and physical matter is a manifestation of consciousness. (The latter is not that crazy—some quantum physicists are starting to think in these terms. Space-time is starting to appear doomed as a theory. Ancient religions have been saying this for thousands of years.) But I digress.

To me, the Fourth of July felt this year a surreal pageant, playing out like a Stephen King or Robert R. McCammon novel. Indeed the whole year has felt this way. The past four years… The “rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem” in Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” appears to have awoken. We are all painfully aware of its presence. How we view the beast is a matter of perception, and how much love we still connect with in our hearts.

On a long walk down my country road yesterday, on the Fourth of July, I was thinking about the town I grew up in. It was a small New Hampshire town with one general store, a town hall, a town garage, and a library. That’s it. It is still that way to this day, due to vigilant zoning and a coop running the general store. It was mostly white, this town. But we had diversity of economics for sure with some families being very poor. I like to think we all looked out for them, for each other. I know my dad used to stop in regularly to check on an old hermit who lived in a one-room house with his German shepherd. This old hermit knew the town history like no one else and often helped my dad solve his surveying questions (my dad had a part-time gig as a land surveyor).

So as I walked, I was thinking about July 4, 1976 in my hometown: the two-hundredth anniversary of the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed (August 2, 1776). Okay, I didn’t know this but independence was declared on July 2nd; Congress approved the text on July 4th; and it was signed on August 2nd. A little history thanks to Constitutional Facts online.

What a celebration that was in 1976!! I was thirteen. I believe I wore red, white, and blue elephant-bellbottom pants—remember those? Just about everyone in town joined in for picnics, a softball game, log rolling, and fireworks. We even had frog races. One of my favorite memories of time spent with my dad was he and I trying to catch those dang frogs with nets and white buckets at the pond up the road that morning. Easier said than done! Still, my dad and I realized our error as we watched the poor things prodded on hot pavement by clumsy children. We’d just engaged in an act of cruelty. A small dampening of an otherwise happy day. I never caught frogs again. Neither did my dad.

Being young teens, my friends and I were thrilled to find a half-eaten vodka-spiked watermelon on a picnic table that evening. We ate a generous quantity and I was drunk for the first time in my life. We ran through the cemetery, “oohed and awed” at the fireworks, and, on the town hall steps, I kissed a boy for whom I’d been harboring a huge crush.

Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever think that the Fourth of July would be a sad day, as it felt this year, in 2020.

Even as I got older, the Fourth was always a cause for celebration. Fireworks synced to WHEB Portsmouth playing Pink Floyd, “Dark Side of the Moon.” Sitting on my friend’s roof on State Street with a big party of folks watching the display, my friend’s brother smiling and saying to me as the colorful sparks burst and fluttered earthward, “Each one looks like it’s coming right to us.”

It was my father-in-law driving his old Corvette in the town parade and the barbecue afterwards at their big, old New England home. My husband and his dad squabbling over how to grill properly. My mother-in-law proudly presenting her cucumber molded salad that none of us liked but ate out of duty and our love for her.

Of course, history is never ideal. We had our problems for sure. Humans have always been prone to treat each other and the planet poorly. Wars, genocides, nuclear arms proliferation, Cancer Alleys created by toxic manufacturing of chemicals. Elephants slaughtered for ivory. Crooked politicians: Watergate, Iran-Contra. Religious differences. Serial killers. Crazy cult leaders like Charles Manson. Persistent racism and sexism. The tenacious patriarchy. Cultural revolution in the ‘60s followed by an insipid, growing apathy. And the ever-present human ills: selfishness, greed, egoism, and the like.

But it’s never felt like this.

Like a tinderbox ready to burst into flame. Like a tempest about to unleash. Like a very, very sick society that just needs to go to the infirmary to heal. I’m not the first to wonder if the coronavirus is an outward manifestation of our inner illness, of our cultural ills, of our sick planet.

Yesterday, it felt that the Fourth of July was a symbol of that illness with worries about people gathering in large numbers and giving another boost to the accelerating pandemic in the U.S. The fireworks—I didn’t even have the heart to watch my neighbor’s fireworks out my front windows—they felt as if erupting like the tinderbox I sense that we are. (And I actually worried about a wildfire, it being so dry.) And then there is my knowledge, contrary to my elementary and high school education in the ’70s, that the real narrative is that our independence was won by colonizing and enacting genocide on the indigenous people whose land this was when Europeans arrived. I can’t unsee that and I don’t wish to. It’s the reality we need to face and accept. And fix.

We are encouraged by this holiday to celebrate “freedom.” Yet those with little means, without the justice and respect they deserve, with health issues from toxic pollution from now unregulated or less-regulated factories, can’t take advantage of that freedom in equal ways. The indigenous tribal members who protested at the entrance to Mount Rushmore are still, centuries later, calling for the respect and apology they deserve. They are still fighting to protect their sacred lands, currently dug up and destroyed for oil and gas endeavors and other infrastructure projects we really don’t need and should not build.

The giant Formosa plastics plant they are attempting to build in St. James Parish in Louisiana would further pollute the already polluted communities nearby. The plant will create mountains of trash we can’t dispose of safely. Trash that will float to the shores of other countries. Trash that mother birds will feed to their babies, thinking its food. By 2050 it’s predicted that we will have more plastics in our oceans than fish. We already have enough fossil fuels out of the ground to warm the planet the precarious 2 degrees Celsius that will see 90% of coral reefs die off and flood out major cities (The Story of Plastics; Center for Biological Diversity). We don’t need more oil and gas extracted and piped under the Appalachian Trail or sacred indigenous lakes. We just don’t.

Our country not only has a dangerous, delusional ruler who gleefully supports the fossil fuel industry and rolls out the red carpet for projects like Formosa’s, our country has been, for decades, hijacked by corporate interests that think nothing of melting our polar ice caps or destroying every single species on this earth. More resources to grab and profit from.

Speaking of freedom, what of the brown people we have locked up in detention centers? How is it, that in the land of the free, the “give me your tired, your poor” America, that we deny asylum, lock up people in this way, and simply go about our business?

None of this is cause for celebration.

These are signals that the light of love has burnt out in our hearts, leaving us in darkness. Perhaps this is a necessary part of the process for us to learn, by coming to our knees, that love is the only truth. Maybe this is the only way forward? I don’t know. But it’s painful. And heart-wrenchingly sad. Grief is my constant companion these days. Even as I see the light everywhere: in the nest of blue-headed vireos that flourished in my lilac bush this past month. In the full thunder moon that will rise tonight.

How will we carry America forward? How will we steward the earth? With the light of love reignited in our hearts? Co-created in the spirit of thoughtfulness, communication, and cooperation? Or in pieces and tatters, barricaded behind walls and waving flags, while sacrificing the vulnerable, the “others,” and all the beauty of this planet on the altar of short-term gratification, selfishness, independence, and greed?

We get to choose. We choose every single day. Each day there are consequences of our choices—individually and collectively. Each day we create consequences that could turn us from this darkness to light. Or, we create consequences that could take hundreds of years to rectify. And we create consequences that can never be undone—such as melting permafrost, or a grandmother who dies in the ICU because her grandchild went to a party and, not meaning to, passed the coronavirus on to her.

Let’s pause … live slowly and deliberately. Let’s rethink and revise our words, our actions, and our beliefs. Let’s realize that individually we really don’t know everything and that together, with open ears and minds, we might figure out something. Let’s create good ripples. Let’s celebrate independence in conjunction with cooperation and collective wellness—for we can’t separate them. They have never been separate. In the illusion of separateness, we won’t survive. But with the inclusion of interconnected hearts, we will.

Communion

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“Okay, this is where I am. How am I going to let that grief alchemize me into something that can listen to life in a different way? …the awakening is so strong, so rich. Because there’s so much loss going on. The love that’s becoming available because of the grief is so huge [so as to] blast through our apathy.” Clare Dubois, interview on Buddha at the Gas Pump, March 9, 2020

These words and this entire interview with Clare Dubois, the intelligent and passionate founder of Tree Sisters, strikes me in this time. Especially when, this morning, I took a bit of time to catch up on the news and saw headline after headline, from PBS to the NRDC, about this heartless U.S. administration destroying one environmental protection after another—migratory birds, old growth forests, trophy hunting on nature preserves with the allowance to kill animals raising young in their dens, industry bypassing environmental impact studies and rules, deregulation of chemicals and pesticides (that go into our food and our homes, by the way), and the frightening list goes on.

This is where the Orange One has been putting his energy (when he is not bolstering his ego and his image with those he has in his thrall) during Covid-19, during a nation uprising in rightful and right-minded protest. He and those focused only on GDP and $$$ would like us so very much to just forget about the protests and especially the coronavirus. I’ve seen politicians and media encouraging us to go out and spend money! Drink at a bar! Go to the beach! To return to “normal” ASAP. It’s a gas-lighting campaign, for anyone who hasn’t figured that out. If you tell folks it is safe and everything is great enough times, they will believe it.

I know we are weary, but racism is a deep, deep societal ill that will require long, sustained energy to change and heal. We need long-range activism to deal with it. And the virus is still here. This novel coronavirus is here to stay. Yes, we will have waves, spikes, and outbreaks for the foreseeable future (aka, years). Yes, case counts and mortality of the First Wave continue to rise, especially in countries led by despots like the U.S., Brazil & Russia. Yes, if you haven’t already, you will know someone who dies of Covid-19 before long. No, they don’t know how herd immunity will look or if it is likely, yet. Or how long immunity will last – a few months, a year, permanent? We just don’t know yet. No, we won’t have a vaccine distributed to 7 billion people by next year. No, a vaccine won’t magically make normal life reappear. Only small pox was eradicated by vaccine and it took a drastic concerted effort and decades upon decades. Eventually, scientists are thinking Covid’s effects upon those who are vulnerable will grow milder over time, but that will take years. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/2020/05/27/coronavirus-en…/)

So we need to build long-range, thoughtful strategies. We need to work together to RETHINK how we live and what we value, to build a new vision. We should not return to the damaging “normal,” to, in the words of Dubois, “kneel at the altar of the current economy that requires the death of nature [and people] to thrive.”

Donald Trump and his administration have made war on us—war on the environment, war on our health through inaction or negligent action concerning the virus and increased pollutants through deregulation, and have incited renewed war on race, color, and difference of any kind.

This is reality. And acceptance of what IS now, not what once WAS, or what we WISH were true, is the only sensible path. Because acceptance allows us to make rational decisions. Like removing this man and those who support him from office as soon as possible, by whatever legal means we can find.

This is no time for apathy, or magical thinking. And we are rising up, no longer apathetic. This is full of heart and is heart-lifting.

All of these “illnesses” above are rooted in dualistic thinking and the ideology/worship of domination. I have said it and will say it again. We are all interconnected. That small snail crawling on the stone wall after the rain? It is no less important than you. It deserves just as much compassion as you. It deserves life, just like you. Clare Dubois goes on to say that “Communion—oh my god, communion! The most exquisite level of belonging!” It is time for communion my friends. The time is NOW. Before it is too late.

It Is Time for New Visions

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The refrain to open up and get back to business as usual, back to “normal” is amplifying. Understandable—being asked to stay mostly in our houses, many not working, and with a tanking economy is not healthy. However, I have a thought: I would like to see a conversation emerge—a loud and pervasive conversation, an unrelenting conversation—that seriously explores the question: “Is ‘normal’ even what we want to or should go back to?”

Initially, of course, we will just need to get up and running, to the extent that we are able, so as to not create a second, more deadly wave of the virus. Just because we have cabin fever does not mean the virus is magically gone. Nor will it be gone for a long while. Nor do we have herd immunity. Researchers are not even certain, at this point (as far as I’ve read) how herd immunity will even play out. But, though I feel we will open too fast and too soon, I get that we need to “open” CAREFULLY so that financially bereft families have income coming in, so they can eat and keep a roof over their heads. I am one of those people. BUT I hope that we will self-reflect for the longer trajectory of “opening.”

Do we really want gridlocked highways? To be sitting in our cars for 2-3 hours a day? To be so harried that we barely get to see our families? To be mindlessly consuming the next shiny thing to quell the existential ache in our hearts?

Do we really want brown air, the same level of noise from traffic and planes, and the machines that bulldoze and carve up our remaining wild spaces? Do we really want a world with so many fewer birds, so many species gone extinct? Do we really want particles of discarded plastic ending up in our food and water, like they are now? Do we really want to eliminate our pollinators with loosely or now unregulated pesticides? (Look sharp to the EPA rules that were suspended and are being drastically eroded.)

Do we want a world of unprecedented droughts, storms, fires and floods due to a dramatically altering climate? Do we really want no ice sheets at our polar caps?? For the permafrost to melt and release large quantities of methane gas and create a runaway warming?

And do we even need to rescue the fossil fuel industry (with price per barrel in the negative)? Let it fall. It is time. It is way past time.

Do we really want to continue a society where some people don’t have a place to get out of danger in the face of a threat like a virus, or a catastrophic weather event? A society where the poorest had the least ability to self-isolate safely, due to crowded living conditions? Where the poorest ran out of food first? Or had the highest mortality rates?

Let’s instead open up to a new idea of “wealth” where the wellbeing of all people, animals, and wild spaces is what is measured, is what drives our decisions, and is the focus of our “work.” Capitalist consumerism is soulless; neoliberalism only works for an elite few and it sucks the life out of Nature and out of us.

Let’s instead pour the recovery energy and money into green technology, into local sustainable living, into buying ourselves more time to do what we love, into more practices of working from home for some of the week, into a new way of living.

Let’s ALL re-envision this, so we can preserve the precious little gifts we’ve discovered while self-isolating.

For those of us privileged enough to have a place to self-isolate, how many people, in the past month, have deepened their relationships with partners and children? How many people made some art for the first time since they could remember? How many people read a really good book? Or several? How many people made amazing food and relished the process? How many people meditated more, walked more, did yoga more? How many people created a much more healthy routine in working from home? How many people did some thoughtful introspection and felt themselves grow consciously and in dedication to live a more compassionate, meaningful life?

Let’s not throw away the silver lining while we chase the gold of the opening up. The reality is that there is no “normal.” We can create a new normal, a better normal.

Trauma Memories: Listening to the Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh Hearing

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After listening to both testimonies for the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, like many I ended the day feeling cognitive dissonance fracturing my mind and jangling my nerves. Two completely different possible truths. One was delivered humbly, with strength, but also trepidation: in a one-piece bathing suit she had practiced her dives. The other was delivered forcefully with anger, indignation, and bitter upset: he lifted weights, played football, and drank beers with the guys. The two narratives spoke volumes about the effects of patriarchy. Each voice could be credible, depending on one’s construct of reality, of what’s right and what’s wrong … of what is really going on here.

I took a long walk down my dirt road.

I thought about my sex education as a young woman growing up in the ‘70s, just a few years earlier than Blasey Ford, in a small town. I got a booklet from my mom, but learned the details on the playground, like many of us did. One boy in elementary school told me, as I sat casually, legs sprawled: “Close your legs; the war is over.” I had no idea what he meant. I am not sure he did either. I felt terribly embarrassed and did not feel confident to ever sit with my legs sprawled again.

As I progressed into middle school, some girls already having sex, I learned from peers, TV, movies, and jokes told by adults:

  • Girls with big boobs got male attention. I developed quite late, not until the very end of high school. Strike one.
  • Girls who had sex were desirable, popular, and got the cutest boyfriends. They dated the sports stars. I held out until I was 17. Strike two.
  • “Boys will be boys.” Whatever boys did or desired should get preference. Home run.

The last, most damaging message was: If you teased a boy—if you flirted, made out, or put yourself in close proximity unsupervised by adults—and you got the boy excited, he had every right to do whatever he wished, because … you asked for it. It was your fault. Especially if you were drinking. Because guys, well, they have this “uncontrollable” physical reaction. It was cruel, once arousing them, not to follow through. Girls who teased were chided with the phrase “blue balls.”

I am not sure if these messages were pervasive, then, for all girls my age, in all towns, and all schools, but these were planted in my adolescent psyche, and, I suspect, in the minds of most of my peers.

Fast-forward to my senior year. When I finally went “all the way,” it felt like a badge of honor. I was in the club! Not long after this dubiously victorious moment, I went out with my friends on Halloween. Somehow over the course of the night, in three cars, we got separated. We were hanging out near our high school, thirty minutes away from home, and decided to meet at this party a classmate told us about. Driving alone for some reason, I found my way to the party at a house out in the middle of nowhere on a back road. I waited in my car in the driveway, but my friends never showed up. Not wanting the night to be a total loss and miffed at my girlfriends, I put on my witch hat and cape and went inside. It was packed and loud music was playing. I did not know a soul.

Turns out many there were a bit older and from a motorcycle gang. I didn’t drink anything, or talk to many people. I didn’t stay long. But I remember two encounters: a short, thin woman, wearing a leather biker hat, took a swig from a bottle of wine as she told me she’d just taken two valiums. Then she confided she was pregnant. I remember feeling panicked. Oh my god! I must have looked out of place and startled. The owner of the house, a stocky guy with medium-length blond hair, came over and for the rest of the short time I was there, he was nice to me. I don’t remember why, or what he did, just that he was nice.

Fast-forward to some evening in some month following this party. I visited this guy. I don’t remember how it was arranged, or why. I don’t remember exactly when—not what day, what week, or even what month. I know it was my senior year. I know it was cold out. I know this because he was fixing his furnace, which wasn’t working. That’s what he did for a living. He fixed furnaces. I don’t remember how I got there, or how I got home. I suppose I drove. Who else would drive me way up to this house out in the boondocks? I have no recollection of where it was; I could not ever find it today.

I suppose this was a stupid thing to do. But he had been nice. Perhaps I wanted a boyfriend. Perhaps I hoped for love. Perhaps I wanted to be cool. Perhaps I was simply looking for a diversion. Our senior class was tiny and here was someone new, outside our small circle. I don’t remember what we did after he fixed the furnace. We might have eaten a little dinner, listened to music. I don’t think I had more than a beer, maybe two. If I had any.

What I do remember is this:

A narrow, dirty-white couch in the middle of an otherwise sparse living room. Making out on this couch with this blond-haired guy I barely knew. Saying, “Stop” when he wanted to keep going past making out. His look of disgust. I remember telling him it was my time of the month, hoping to dissuade him with a decent excuse. It did not stop him. He asked me how many days was I into my cycle. I said, “near the end.” I was shocked when he pushed forward, saying, “no big deal.”

I don’t remember if I said stop again. I might have just gone along with him, because, well, boys will be boys. He was stocky; I didn’t know him very well. I had aroused him, so it was my duty to deliver. I remember my humiliation when he removed my monthly protection and dangled it in the air, almost mocking me. I don’t remember the act itself. I think it was rather quick and business-like. I remember a sick feeling when we were done. Something wasn’t right. But I didn’t know what. And I remember the month of terror after, hoping I wouldn’t become pregnant. Luckily I did not.

I might have told a friend or two. Otherwise I filed this incident away as one of the dumb things I did as a teen. It was my fault. I filed it away initially as evidence that those early messages were true. But one was not true: I was not cool or desirable to have put myself in such a position. I filed away a sense of my powerlessness as a young woman, as a woman of any age. My “Stop” did not matter. Not to him. Not to our culture. I had no name for this until I was in my early 30s—date rape.

The snarky, hateful comments about Blasey Ford on social media run the gamut, but one refrain, even chanted by the President, ridicules her spotty memory of her trauma: How can she not remember how she got there and back? Why can’t she remember how much she drank? When it was? Where it was? Why she went in the first place?

Walking down my dirt road, thinking back on my own trauma, I realized I was missing all the same puzzle pieces. Yet, like Blasey Ford, the moment of violation was crystal clear some 36 years later. I have a similar residual trauma from the incident, though it has manifested in me differently than hers.

But Blasey Ford has at least one memory I don’t have. She remembers his name.

 

 

A Positive Observation on the Great American Divide

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With the fascination of a latent sociologist I’ve been studying the dialogue of the “Great American Divide,” a seemingly terrifying fissure that appears to have suddenly cracked open in the past couple of years, though many say this division has been present and growing for some time. Before the election, few people were discussing politics on social media. I am sure some of you are wistfully uttering, “Those were the days.” During the election we were screaming at each other on Twitter and Facebook like lunatics. But now…something else is emerging. And I think it’s good.

In response to the appearance of the fissure, I’ve been frantically amending what I thought was a more than adequate and comprehensive education in order to get up to speed on just what the heck is going on. That is, when I can find the time in the midst of, like many Americans right now, “working my fanny off just to pay the bills,” which is a sad thing as I don’t have much of a fanny to begin with since I inherited my father’s flat-as-a pancake derriere, which means I have to earn even more money to keep myself in a selection of stylish belts. But I digress…I would argue that this workaholic condition that afflicts many of us (because if we don’t adopt it, we sink) has most definitely contributed to these trying, divisive times. How can any of us take enough time to roll up our fraying pant-legs and wade through the mire in order to pluck out the truth about the latest political crisis from the swamp on any given day…and since the election, the onslaught of political crises seems relentless.

To get educated, I first reread The Constitution. Wow, it’s a lot more interesting than I remember in 8th grade when we were more focused on which one of us was shooting spitballs at the somewhat plain and boring social studies teacher in his white button down shirt and khaki pants (still, he had a pretty amazing afro for a white guy). I’ve also been reading a range of online media sources that relay wide perspectives (sometimes alarmingly wide!) on the significant issues we face, trying to bookmark the least biased sources of information (quite a tough undertaking). I’ve been listening to a range of radio news and noting (okay, I admit it, sometimes welcoming) the biases of my favorite sources, such as Democracy Now, NPR’s Morning Edition, and On Point. I regularly tune into Vermont’s WDEV’s somewhat right-leaning Open Mike and Common Sense Radio. Occasionally, I even venture into far right Christian radio land just to see what they are saying. And lo and behold, they appear to care about the same human concerns as most of us, like friends and family, helping the downtrodden, and living a compassionate life. It’s just that their narrative of how and why to live this way is different than mine. By far, my favorite program has been Indivisible and I was sorry to see it go when the current administration passed the 100-day mark. I am sure I am not alone in craving “centrist” news and discussion…if anything today, many of us are seeking dialogue between extremes.

While some friends have plain opted out of Facebook, others have gone back to posting videos of cute animal antics, and others are still ranting and raving, I have taken to “limited Facebook exposure,” like one tends to limit exposing pale bare skin to especially bright and damaging sunlight. I walk the fence between posting benign, quirky life observations and occasional political commentary. So, following the passage of the AHCA in the House this week, I bravely ventured into two different Facebook threads—one post by a solidly conservative friend and one post by a solidly liberal friend.

Both posts started out, predictably, on an emotional level. The rightwing post was the equivalent of “Yay! Goodbye Obamacare!” And the leftwing post echoed the sentiments of Henny Penny: “The sky is falling!” As a liberal I did not share the view of my conservative friend, so of course, I reacted emotionally, but as respectfully as I could—something to the effect of “women, children, and the elderly are not going to be able to afford appropriate care under the new bill, the rich are going to get richer, and how dare they put sexual and domestic assault on a list of pre-existing conditions??” Meanwhile, something akin to the liberal post had coursed on a wave of adrenaline through my veins when I heard the AHCA had passed the House by a narrow margin. What did this potentially mean for my healthcare going forward? I was having enough trouble making my insurance payments and out of pocket expenses already. Riveted to the radio on my way to teach my morning class at a local college, I had decided that it was most definitely going to get worse. Thus, I “Liked” the liberal post and was about to log off and rejoin the world of the real.

But then I was drawn further into the threads of both posts, past the ranting against government regulation and those dastardly democrats, past the pronouncements of disgust about the new administration and how we are all going to die in the streets, bereft and shoeless. And here is what happened.

In the conservative thread, my friend who made the post, happy to see a step taken towards repealing Obamacare, was relaying the exact same struggles I felt: unmanageable, unaffordable insurance premiums, high deductibles, a convoluted system that was not working so well, painful out of pocket costs, and feeling broke as hell. The only difference was she saw the AHCA as a step towards a solution and I saw it as a giant step away from a solution. (Personally, I would love to see a single-payer system such as has worked well in Canada and Europe for years and be done with the whole mess.) Because I saw commonality, I started dialoguing with her and some of the strangers on her thread, and guess what? I lived! Some of the responders went into detail about their medical costs and illness woes. We were all in the same boat. People posted this and that resource—some biased sources, some not. Some people chided others for not having their facts straight, but in a respectful manner. Those who were chided appeared to research and revise their opinions. Was this a miracle?

What I observed was a shift. Where a couple of months ago, condescending, derogatory comments would have flown, name calling would have started, and the F-word would have been typed as fast as fingers could fly, instead, we were talking, listening, teaching, and learning. I read the articles they posted and followed links to even more articles. When I left the thread, I felt better informed on the AHCA, though I still disagree with many of the bill’s points. I felt like President Obama’s statement in The New Yorker following this election was right: “This is not the apocalypse.”

In the liberal thread, I noticed one lone conservative voice. The friend who had made the initial post, which was a list of pre-existing conditions for which Americans would struggle to get coverage if the AHCA becomes law, had dismissed this lone naysayer and said, “We will have to agree to disagree.” Okay, fair enough. But what if this voice of dissent had something important to share about the legislation poised to impact our lives to such a great degree? I followed her link to read about the misinformation being spread about pre-existing conditions. If it was misinformation, I wanted to know. While exhibiting a subtle condescension towards all things liberal, the information in her chosen article was actually on par with what I had managed to glean about the AHCA bill by poking around online and listening to a variety of radio news. Of course her source was right-biased and there were nuances that the article downplayed—namely that if one has a lapse in coverage, the potential is to pay much higher premiums for pre-existing conditions. However, this woman’s article showed that the post that my liberal friend had made was incorrect and misleading. There is no “list” of conditions in the bill. And the decision falls to the states as to whether to allow insurance companies to charge higher premiums if there is a lapse in coverage (a 60-day lapse, as I learned from a guy on the conservative thread). There is, apparently, no denial of coverage of pre-existing conditions as my friend’s post had intimated, and even higher premiums are not a given. “Thank god I live in Vermont,” I thought, as my representatives will not likely seek a waiver from the community rating. Still, this bill weakens pre-existing condition protections because if one is unlucky enough to live in a state that seeks a waiver, and has some bum luck that causes a lapse of coverage, a person could quickly be out-priced and out of luck on pre-existing conditions. Yes, there would be a high-risk pool, but is this funding enough?

Surprisingly, little ole liberal me then jumped in to stand with the conservative woman in the thread, because what I want is accurate information, not to be right. As I stood with her, others came to the center and the dialogue deepened.

On the subject of being right, I also discovered, thanks to her and because I did some more sleuthing after reading her article, that I was not “right” in regards to my freak out about sexual and domestic assault being on the AHCA’s list of pre-existing conditions—a point about which liberal bloggers had also been freaking out the day before—because, well, there is no list of pre-existing conditions in the bill, and second, those items are not on the lists of common pre-existing conditions identified by insurers. Here was another nuance: many conditions that assault victims may suffer from, such as anxiety, PTSD, depression, and STDs, ARE on such lists. And so, by default, IF a person is assaulted, has a lapse in coverage longer than 60 days, and suffers from some of those conditions, she might have to pay higher premiums to get treatment. Whether this nuance is ethical or not will need to be saved for another debate.

So…I had to pull up my Big Girl frayed pants over my hardworking, flat fanny and go back to the conservative thread to amend my position on the sexual assault point I had made the day before, and I included a link to a solid article on Politifact that I found about how the initial freak out had been off base. No one tore me apart.

Here is the thing. What I see happening that I think is a good development in our country is that we ARE talking about politics and we are growing up past the “Green and Yellow Told Ya!” unproductive shouting phase. In social media we are now quickly identifying trolls; we are chiding anyone who name calls or swears. We are asking challenging questions and checking each other’s facts. And, best of all, we are listening and learning. And this, this is the gem of our current time. This is the heart of the Socratic method that I have seen over and over bring diverse students in my classrooms to a common discourse that deepens understanding of any text or issue on the table.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all puppies and rainbows. But it never was and never will be. Respectful discourse—like what I just experienced on both sides of the political fence while discussing a highly charged issue on a social media platform infamous for knockdown-drag outs—is what will bridge our divide and help us to find logical solutions to our complex problems. Now if it could only plump up my rump…

To-Do List for Our Trying Time (or, for any time, really)

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[This blog was inspired by a friend who is really struggling to navigate the current upset in America after our long, ugly, divisive election and its disturbing outcomes which have only just begun to unfold…what those outcomes may look like is anyone’s guess. We are in new territory politically and as a nation. My attempt to share with her how I am feeling and what I am doing to stay healthy was the rudimentary fodder for this list. Thank you Trixie! This is my to-do list for me. It is not a mandate for those with whom I share it. Readers may take from it what they wish.]

Take a deep breath. Take another. And another.

Listen. Ask a question. Listen again. Ask another question.

Remember, many moments in history have been extremely difficult; difficulty is not new.

Know that many countries have it much harder than we do.

Pay close attention to what our leaders are doing. Seek information about their actions from multiple sources.

Resist the temptation to tune out. Apathy is our worst enemy.

Take 3 minutes every day to note the parts of your life for which you are grateful. Gratitude counters anxiety.

If you like what your leaders are doing, tell them. If you don’t like what your leaders are doing, tell them.

Spend time with your “tribe” for comfort, AND spend time with other “tribes,” even if it’s difficult to do—we are all one human tribe.

Ask a person who is struggling with seemingly insurmountable odds such as a homeless person, an addict, a recent immigrant, someone with a serious illness, a person on welfare—any one of us could be in their position—to tell you their story and see what you can do to help; or, if you are down on your own luck, ask for help—humility is not a four letter word or a cause for shame.

Speak your truth; raise your voice…even if it is unpopular or taking a risk.

Respect that everyone deals with the stress of challenging times differently.

Ask for a livable wage, often. The cost of living and income disparity is hurting so many of us.

Buying equals power. What we buy has huge ramifications, ramifications of which we are largely unaware. Buy only what you really need. Buy locally. Ask questions about who made what you buy. Ask questions about who profits. Ask questions about what resources were used to make what you buy.

Take regular media and social media breaks. Live in the non-virtual world.

Consider, is this the direction in which I wish my country, or a particular institution, to be going? Is this what I wish my government or leadership to be like? If not, seek change through any viable, workable means you can.

Burn candles that smell nice.

Be especially kind to animals, plants, insects, amphibians, trees, air, water, and sea life—the argument over whether or not climate change is imminent or is our fault is inconsequential. We are their stewards. We are their voices. Ask other people to treat animals, plants, insects, amphibians, trees, air, water, and sea life nicely.

Take excellent care of your health. The world needs you! Sleep, eat, and play luxuriously.

Avoid escapism through consumption, or substances. We need as many clear minds working together to problem-solve as we can get.

If you don’t like what you see happening, take action, rather than complaining or judging.

Adopt a cause, however small, to champion with passion.

Dance, color, sing, or play a game.

Do something nice for your neighbors no matter what side of the fence they might be on. They may need something—a smile, a hammer, a hand, a plate of cookies—but may never ask. You never know what they may be dealing with that is difficult.

Really look at and learn about the tragedies that unfold in the world, even if they are painful. Then, recharge by noticing that beauty unfolds at the same time.

Drive slower and notice what is around you. There is so much to see!

Yodel in the car and then laugh at yourself. It’s hard to yodel and take yourself seriously.

Stand up to small-minded acts of meanness.

Be skeptical and do your research. Be suspicious of assumptions. Seek the truest perceptions.

Spend time doing nothing. Simply be and observe.

Use words wisely—they are more powerful than guns, bombs, or swords.

Call your family and friends and tell them you love them.

Take a walk. Take a lot of walks.

Put energy into the positive. As the saying goes, that which gets the most energy—good or evil—gains the most momentum.

Don’t wait for someone else to do what needs to be done.

Go to a meeting, a public hearing, a protest—see what is happening!

Laugh with a child, often.

Trust your gut, even if outside persuasions run counter to your intuition—your gut knows what is good and right.

Look up at the night sky regularly and let all the stars, all the space, the eons of time remind you, we are but a spark—what do you wish to illuminate?