Citizen Cartwright

Tools for stressful times: A good-news story of America’s resilience

On the eve of our Independence Day holiday, I'd like to share with you some encouragement from historian Heather Cox Richardson in a podcast hosted by Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark. The interview is behind The Bulwark’s paywall, so I’m going to share with you two excerpts from the interview transcript (I’ve cleaned up the transcript in a couple of places for clarity).

"This is a very big country, more than 334 million people in it. The people who are trying to control that huge number of people are a very small percentage of the population. And I maintain that if we continue to speak up for the values that we care about, that we will be able to regain control of our democracy," Richardson says.

“The thing that always jumps out to me is the 1850s for the simple reason that in the 1850s, only white men could vote," Richardson says. "And in 1853, if you looked at the United States, it sure looked like the elite Southern enslavers had gotten everything. Because people sometimes forget that enslavement, while it was widespread in the American South, the people who were really profiting off of it were a very small number of extraordinarily wealthy people. people like Wade Hampton III, for example. I mean, just rich beyond belief.

"And they controlled the Democratic Party, and through the Democratic Party, they controlled the national government. And they had control of the White House, the Supreme Court, and the Senate. And in 1854, they got control of the House of Representatives, Under pressure from the president, the House of Representatives passes a law, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, that allows the large enslavers to move their system of enslavement into the Western territories. And that matters a lot because in addition to the lives of the people who are going to be moved out there and their lives being ruined, it's going to mean that the Western states that form out of the Western territories are going to become slave states. 

"And those slave states can work together with the Southern slave states to overawe the Northern free states in the House of Representatives, and they will make enslavement national. Democracy is going to be gone. 

"And after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, you actually get the formation of the Republican Party. And a bunch of House representatives come together, and they come from all parties, and they say, listen, we don't agree with each other about immigration or about finances or about internal improvements, but by God, we can agree that we do not want to lose our democracy to an oligarchy. And they spread out over the summer of 54, and they begin to talk to people in their districts and say, you know, are you aware this is going on? 

"In 1855 and 1856, the party sweeps the districts in the north and becomes a viable, powerful party. So that by 1856, we have the rise of the Republican party.

"By 1858, they have Abraham Lincoln paying attention to all this. He at the time is kind of a nobody. He's had one unsuccessful term in the House of Representatives and he's a corporate lawyer, but he listens to all this agitation about what the country should be. And in 1859, he articulates a new ideology for this new party that says, hey, maybe instead of just protecting property, the government should actually work for ordinary Americans.

"[In] 1860, those white male voters elect Lincoln [president] on that platform with the idea that human enslavement should not spread to the American West and with the recognition that he honors the Declaration of Independence. And by January of 1863, he has signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending human enslavement in the districts that are covered by the Confederacy.

"And by November of 1863, he has given the Gettysburg Address, dedicating the country to a new birth of freedom and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. So in the space of nine freaking years, voters took a system that gave everything to a very few rich guys who thought they were better than everybody else and had the right to rule and created a nation based in the idea that the government should work for ordinary people. And they did that with only white male votes. 

"So I look at that and I think, you know, if they could do it then, when the only people voting to end human enslavement and to achieve rights for black Americans, black American men, were white guys who were actually, most of them, profoundly racist, we can do a lot better in the 21st century with coalitions that are made up of all races, all genders, all abilities, all religions, and get it righter this time."

The showdown Trump wants — and how Americans can push back

“It is the fight President Trump had been waiting for,” says a New York Times analysis.

In bypassing the authority of California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, calling in the National Guard to respond to protests in the Los Angeles area over his administration’s efforts to deport more migrants, the president is pushing the boundaries of presidential authority and stoking criticism that he's inflaming the situation for political gain, says the Times.

Local and state authorities hadn't asked for help in dealing with the scattered protests after an immigration raid on Friday. But Trump and his top aides leaned into the confrontation with California's leaders on Sunday, portraying the demonstrations as an existential threat to the country — and setting in motion an aggressive federal response that in turn sparked new protests across the city, the Times says.

“This is a fight to save civilization,” says Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff.

“It could not be clearer,” says Newt Gingrich, former GOP House speaker and Trump ally. “One side is for enforcing the law and protecting Americans, and the other side is for defending illegals and being on the side of the people who break the law.”

Many California officials, who long have been at odds with Trump, say the president is trying to exploit the situation for his political advantage and sow unneeded disorder and confusion, says the Los Angeles Times.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., says the president and his aides “create a crisis of their own making and come in with all the theatrics and cruelty of immigration enforcement.”

Here is an explainer of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles, from The Associated Press.

Peaceful pushback

“Right now, our major bulwarks against Trump’s police state are the federal courts and broad-based peaceful protests — such as the one that many of us will engage in this coming Saturday, June 14, on the No Kings Day of Action (information here),” says political economist and author Robert Reich, who served in the Ford, Carter and Clinton administrations, on Substack.

“If you are in the National Guard or active-duty military and you believe you are being ordered to violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, I urge you to call the GI Rights Hotline for advice and support, at 877-447-4487,” he says.

 
“It is imperative that we remain peaceful, that we demonstrate our resolve to combat this tyranny but do so nonviolently, and that we let America know about the emerging infrastructure of Trump’s police state and the importance of resisting it,” he says.

“Remember: Although it takes one authoritarian to establish a police state, it takes just 3.5 percent of a population to topple him and end it,” Reich says.

Angus Hervey talks progress at TED

The talk by our Fix the News friend at the main TED conference in Vancouver last month has been released. 

Angus tells us the backstory here.

The talk itself is here.

As usual, I’m grateful for his focus on what’s aspirational and inspirational.

Being morally ambitious

I’ve written before about Rutger Bregman, who was described in a New York Times interview over the weekend as “something of a professional optimist.”

Bregman has a new book out titled “Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference” — an effort to “meet the current moment by redirecting self-interest into social good,” as the Times puts it.

He also is cofounder of the School for Moral Ambition, which seeks to help as many people as possible devote their careers to some of the most pressing challenges we face.

Bregman says that in the move from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era, “You had figures such as Alva Vanderbilt — a fascinating character who was this very decadent woman, incredibly rich, but later in her life, after she divorced her Vanderbilt husband, became a radical suffragette and one of the main financers of the women’s rights movement. She reminded me of MacKenzie Scott, who divorced Jeff Bezos and now is one of the most morally ambitious philanthropists in the U.S.” 

Bregman says: “Someone said this to me recently: If you are watching the news right now and you’re not terrified for yourself because you have some savings or a nice job, then you are the person who needs to stand up.”

Celebrating the compassion and humility of Pope Francis

“He was a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, in his homily during the pope’s funeral on Saturday.

“His gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons are countless. His insistence on working on behalf of the poor was constant,” Re said.

Francis “strongly supported” transforming the Vatican post office into a free medical clinic for the homeless and undocumented migrants, where it averages 100 visits a day, says The New York Times. Showers for the homeless were set up near the clinic, along with tents distributed by an office of papal charities.

In 2019, Francis blessed a four-story Vatican property behind St. Peter’s Basilica as he opened a shelter that provides housing for about 50 people, says the Times. The pope often ate with the homeless and invited them to annual concerts at the Vatican.

The pope “gave immense emphasis to aid to the poor, not just the poor in Rome, but the poor around the world,” says Carlo Santoro of the Sant’Egidio Community, a Rome-based charity that runs the building, citing trips by a cardinal to take supplies to Ukraine. The most recent trip was earlier this month.

The pope also was outspoken about prison conditions, and one of his final public outings, four days before his death, was to visit inmates at Rome’s Regina Coeli prison.

I hope you have a second to click on this photo of the joy of the inmates as the pope greeted them.

The last people to bid farewell to the pope after the funeral mass at St. Peter’s and just before his burial on Saturday were a group of poor, homeless, migrant, transgender, and incarcerated people, each of them holding a white rose. The idea was that all the pope’s favorite people would be accompanying him in his final journey, says Vatican News. 

Reasons for optimism about U.S. democracy

Columnist David Brooks writes in The Atlantic: "America may well enter a period of democratic decay and international isolation. It takes decades to develop strong alliances, and to build the structures and customs of democracy — and only weeks to decimate them, as we’ve now seen. And yet I find myself confident that America will survive this crisis. Many nations, including our own, have gone through worse and bloodier crises and recovered. 

 

"In 'Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis,' the historian and scientist Jared Diamond provides case studies — Japan in the late 19th century, Finland and Germany after World War II, Indonesia after the 1960s, Chile and Australia during and after the ’70s — of countries that came back stronger after crisis, collapse, or defeat. To these examples, I’d add Britain in the 1830s and '40s, and the 1980s, and South Korea in the 1980s. 

 

"Some of these countries (such as Japan) endured war; others (Chile) endured mass torture and 'disappearances'; still others (Britain and Australia) endured social decay and national decline. All of them eventually healed and came back.

"Even now, as I travel around the country, I see the forces of repair gathering in neighborhoods and communities. If you’re part of an organization that builds trust across class, you’re fighting Trumpism. If you’re a Democrat jettisoning insular faculty-lounge progressivism in favor of a Whig-like [Whigs emphasized traditional morality and progressive improvements, Brooks says] working-class abundance agenda, you’re fighting Trumpism. If you are standing up for a moral code of tolerance and pluralism that can hold America together, you’re fighting Trumpism.

"Over time, changes in values lead to changes in relationships, which lead to changes in civic life, which eventually lead to changes in policy and then in the general trajectory of the nation."

 

Laura Gamboa, an assistant professor of democracy and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame, says in Foreign Affairs: "For democracy to survive, it must be protected. In the past few decades, in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Poland, opposition groups pushed back successfully against leaders with authoritarian tendencies early in the process of democratic backsliding, when they still had institutional levers to pull. 

"The Democratic Party in the United States can make the erosion of democracy visible to the public and costly to the perpetrators. It can obstruct legislation in Congress, compete in electoral districts where Republicans typically run uncontested, and coordinate to maintain a presence, even if only in protest, in as many institutional spaces as possible. Recent attempts to lead town halls in districts where Republicans refuse to hold them are great examples of this strategy.

"Well-organized social movements and civil society groups can shelter democratic institutions, mobilize voters, and increase the costs of antidemocratic behavior."

 

Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard, and Lucan Way, a professor of democracy at the University of Toronto, write in Foreign Affairs: "Civil society is another potential source of democratic resilience. One major reason that rich democracies are more stable is that capitalist development disperses human, financial, and organizational resources away from the state, generating countervailing power in society. 

"Wealth cannot wholly inoculate the private sector from the pressures imposed by a weaponized state. But the larger and richer a private sector is, the harder it is to fully capture or bully into submission. In addition, wealthier citizens have more time, skills, and resources to join or create civic or opposition organizations, and because they depend less on the state for their livelihoods than poor citizens do, they are in a better position to protest or vote against the government. 

"Compared with those in other competitive authoritarian regimes, opposition forces in the United States are well-organized, well-financed, and electorally viable, which makes them harder to co-opt, repress, and defeat at the polls. American opposition will therefore be harder to sideline than it was in countries such as El Salvador, Hungary, and Turkey."

In a webinar, Levitsky and Erica Chenoweth, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, say the important thing is for individuals to act, to choose the cause that’s most meaningful them. They cite as a resource the website Choose Democracy. 

Responding to difficult times

Over the years, I’ve mentioned various Buddhist resources for living this human experience, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned Tara Brach. I’ve been listening to Brach's podcasts for about ten years. She tells corny jokes, but I’ve found her very helpful.

Brach is a PhD clinical psychologist, and I’ve seen her on webinars training psychotherapists. She founded the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. And she’s the author of four books: "Radical Acceptance," "True Refuge," "Radical Compassion" and "Trusting the Gold." Her website says her podcast is downloaded more than 2.5 million times each month.  

In what I think is one of her best podcasts, she explores:

— The roots of tyranny and fear: ways unprocessed fear fuels aggression, domination and the rise of authoritarianism

— The power of belonging: how remembering our interconnectedness can empower resistance against oppression

— Inner freedom as a path to outer change: ways mindfulness and heart-centered practices dismantle fear and awaken courage

— The role of the "spiritual warrior": cultivating presence, compassion, and truth to stand against inner and outer oppression

— Taking action from love, not fear: ways small, heartfelt acts contribute to collective healing and justice

Universal good news

It seems that Fix the News is giving everyone access to this week’s 50 examples of good news. So I hope you’ll have time to at least scroll through the abundance of good that’s occurring on our little planet.

But I’d like to focus on one item that's simultaneously making me smile and bringing tears to my eyes.

The European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope has captured images of 26 million galaxies, covering 10 billion years of cosmic history, The Guardian reports.

The most popular theory of the universe suggests that just 5 percent is made from ordinary matter, The Guardian says. Dark matter, an invisible substance that forms what's called the cosmic web, is said to account for 25 percent. The bulk, about 70 percent, is said to be dark energy, a “mysterious” force that's accelerating the expansion of the universe.

Adam Amara, the UK Space Agency’s chief scientist and one of the researchers who first proposed the mission 20 years ago, says, “I’m now convinced that we have the image quality in the resolution that in six years’ time, there’ll be new categories of objects discovered by Euclid.”

Sages and scientists tell us that a skill for emotional well-being is to broaden our perspective. Here are some examples, from Psychology Today.

And there couldn't be a much wider perspective than we get from the Euclid space telescope. 

Just how important is my personal to-do list or our national or international to-do list amid the 1.5 billion galaxies the Euclid space telescope is expected to document?

Tools for stressful times: The perspective of kindness

The Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched in 1977 to fly by Jupiter and Saturn, but it’s far exceeded its mission.

 

In 1990, as Voyager 1 was speeding out of our solar system, mission managers commanded it to look back toward home for a final time, from 3.7 billion miles away. It snapped a series of 60 images that were used to create the first “family portrait” of our solar system.

 

The photo that would become known as the Pale Blue Dot shows Earth in a scattered ray of sunlight. The original image and a 2020 updated version using modern software and other tech are here.

 

After snapping the Pale Blue Dot and the other “family photos” on Feb. 14, 1990, Voyager 1 powered off its cameras forever. Mission planners wanted to save its energy for the long journey to come.

 

Voyager now is 15 billion miles away, traveling at 38,000 miles an hour.

 

Planetary scientist Carl Sagan wrote this about the Pale Blue Dot:

 

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

What citizens can do right now — and how to most easily do it

After yesterday’s item on contacting House and Senate lawmakers about fulfilling their constitutional oaths to protect the separation of powers, I’ve been asked how people can most easily get the addresses and phone numbers of their lawmakers.

 

If you type your address in this form on the Congress.gov website, you’ll get the contact information for your House representative and your two senators.