So many times, I’ve seen smart people saying we should not impeach or invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment (the Constitution’s presidential removal clause). Here’s why I think we should.
But if he is sworn in after impeachment, he will be very, very careful. He will have to be seen as the unifier, and he will have to walk very carefully to avoid falling into the pit he created by his own actions, his own complicity. I think he will be quite cautious. And if he is not sworn in, the next in line is the very competent and moderately liberal Nancy Pelosi.
The possibility of a maniac like DT in office is why we HAVE the impeachment, emoluments, and removal-for-incompetence/incapacity clauses. We damned well better use them if they are anything other than ink on paper. Not using them forfeits our rights as citizens and makes it harder to challenge the next incompetent narcissist. I wonder: would this presidency have even been possible if GWB had been impeached for his incompetence, the actions of his competent but evil henchmen like Cheney and Rumsfeld, or for the fraudulent justifications for the Iraq war—or if the Democrats had fought hard enough in 2000 to prove that the election was fraudulent and should be overturned, thus preventing the GWB presidency in the first place?
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
In short, a legal maneuver to get DT out of office (and perhaps behind bars) is well justified, even though it will only succeed if several Senate Republicans desert him. Because they will, if a people’s movement demands it and they’d rather not lose their own jobs.
In other words, just because the GOP made a bad strategic decision to embrace the devil doesn’t mean we’re stuck with him. If they see the public swinging strongly against DT, they’ll abandon the sinking ship—but they need to hear from their constituents, loudly and often. They could have reined DT in early and firmly but they didn’t want to annoy his “base”—which as a result thinks those members of Congress are weak and don’t care much, and therefore continue to push the envelope on making very bad behavior acceptable. It’s time to push back and demand accountability for letting an incompetent maniac sack our democracy, burn bridges with our allies, collude with our enemies, and lash out at those who can’t defend themselves.
The faster the Republicans move, the easier it will be to re-cage the monster.
Surely, we can build a better future with technology instead of focusing on autonomous drone delivery of a latte 9 blocks away in San Francisco.
—Seth Godin, December 31, 2018
On New Year’s Eve, Seth Godin riffed on an ambitious list of 23 problems we can focus on solving. A few of my favorites:
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
1. High efficiency, sustainable method for growing sufficient food, including market-shifting replacements for animals as food 2. High efficiency, renewable energy sources and useful batteries (cost, weight, efficiency) 8. Useful methods for enhancing, scaling or replacing primary education, particularly literacy 12. Gene therapies for obesity, cancer and chronic degenerative diseases 13. Dramatic leaps of AI interactions with humans 14. Alternatives to paid labor for most humans 15. Successful interactions with intelligent species off Earth 17. Cultural and nation-state conflict resolution and de-escalation 18. Dramatically new artistic methods for expression
Seth’s list fascinates me because it uses technology as a jumping-off point to solve social problems. Most of us don’t think of technology that way; too often, we think of technology only in terms of lifestyle issues (I don’t even want to label them as problems). Go back to the quote at the very top of this post to see what Seth says about that!
I’m one who does think of technology this way. I’ve written frequently about using technology to turn hunger and poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change into abundance, peace, and planetary balance.
And like Seth, I think we actually can solve these huge problems. As he writes,
[This list seems ridiculous until you realize that in the last few generations, we created vaccines, antibiotics, smartphones, GPS and the Furby].
Not to mention viable solar power, conflict resolution based on deep listening, the ability to access the world’s entire written or pictorial knowledge base from devices the size of a watch, a vast increase in the quantity and quality of organic food…
So I let Seth’s list percolate in the back of my brain for a week.
Here are a few I’d add:
Peace: no more armed conflict as a way to settle grievances, anywhere—and this means diplomats must be trained deeply in nonviolence theory and practice, using not just academic but also empirical hands-on problem-solving and creative thinking
Nonviolent, respectful conflict resolution taught from preschool through college as a required subject, and reinforced through adulthood in the media, the court system, and government—among other things, that means no longer glorifying actual or threatened violence or presenting it as a way to solve problems in film, TV, or literature
New tools for genuine democracy: governments at all levels from village to planet that work for the benefit of their entire population while minimizing any restrictions on personal freedom to act in any ways that don’t harm others, that are based not in who pays the candidates the most but in how each government unit can benefit its population (including the non-humans) and the ecosystem (macro and micro)—this also means ensuring that votes are free and fair, honestly and accurately counted, and allow all citizens to participate
Two-way or multiple-way communication with many plant as well as animal species—maybe even with bacteria—not just by a few outliers, but as other languages people could study
At least 50 percent urban community food self-sufficiency: even our most paved-over spaces, like New York City, should be able to supply 50 percent or more of their own food, using rooftops, windowsills, traffic islands, public green spaces, etc. (This will require cleaning up pollution using plant-based filtration, first—and ending sources of ongoing pollution from fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, buildings, and powerplants)
Complete conversion to clean, renewable, non-fossil, non-nuclear power sources within five years for new construction or manufacture, and fifteen years to phase in the conversion of existing buildings and vehicles
Elimination of all forms of slavery, including not just sex trafficking (Seth’s #3), but also sweatshops, child slaves picking cocoa beans in Africa, prison labor at far below minimum wage…
Speaking of prison—isn’t it time we had more humane ways of dealing with criminals and sociopaths?
Exploration of space in ways that honor the ecosystems, not to rape and plunder their resources but to expand our knowledge, develop laboratories for alternative ways to design a society, and perhaps find other intelligent life forms we can communicate with and learn from, as Seth notes in his #15 and #23
And because not everything has to be so ambitious and grandiose, making email useful again. Figuring out a way to eliminate spam while letting legitimate messages through, even if people write about subjects like marketing or cancer of a the mammary system using the b-word, but keeping the real junk out. That’s actually pretty ambitious, because the only way it’s likely to get done is with a huge leap in artificial intelligence technology—in other words, this is one application of Seth’s #13.
Like Seth, I’ll ask, “What’s on your list?” Please leave a comment whether it’s your top few or a longer list. If comments are closed (which they do automatically after a certain time), write to me at my contact form, https://greenandprofitable.com/contact/, and use the subject, Blog Comment: Seth’s List. I’ll get them posted here.
We hear lots of talk about being customer-centric—but then we see far too many examples of companies that DON’T walk their talk. I still remember seeing a sign inside a Blockbuster Video store, maybe 20 years ago, talking about their empowered employees. I went up to the counter clerk and asked permission to snap a picture of the sign; I wanted to use it as a positive example in the customer service section of the marketing book I was writing—and the clerk said I’d have to call corporate headquarters. What kind of empowered employee is that? I was so disgusted I never set foot in another Blockbuster.
Most companies will need to make three shifts at the same time to become truly customer-centric. All three are challenging but bring very big returns.
Create a culture where employees feel valued and listened to—where what they do makes a difference. Empower them not just to fix customers’ problems but to harness their own creativity to create preemptive change. IN the trenches every day, employees often have the best ideas for improving things. But they will only share those ideas if they think management will pay attention and that they won’t get punished in any way. No matter how crazy an idea may seem, give it a full airing. Often, you can modify it to be practical, and implement those pieces. Consider implementing a reward system for any idea. The reward doesn’t have to be monetary. It could be as simple as naming the employee with the best idea, or with the most ideas, Employee of the Month. However, if the idea saves or makes the company a big pile, the originator should get a money reward too. For hierarchical companies, this means letting go of command-and-control and making line employees feel that management really wants their ideas—which can be discussed in public meetings/assigned to study/IMPLEMENTATION committees and NEVER dismissed out-of-hand by a manager either 1:1 or in public. This takes training, of course.
Really listen to your customers. Don’t just wait for them to complain. Go out and ask them what they love about working with you, and what they’d like you to improve—and why.
A woman on a customer service call, taking handwritten notes
Treat this seriously and publicize the way their suggestions become innovations (including honoring them by name, if they consent). Not only will this show how responsive you are, it encourages more people to jump in with their own ideas.
Align your company with a higher purpose. If people feel that you’re making both a difference and a profit, they will become much more enthusiastic Employee turnover drops while productivity goes up, customer retention increases, and you might even become a media darling. For instance, can you identify, develop, and market a profitable product or service that actually helps turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, or catastrophic climate change into planetary balance?
Bonus tip, because I like to overdeliver: shift from a scarcity to an abundance mindset. Replace “yes, but” with “yes, and”: expand the possibilities, build off that suggestions until you’ve co-created something wonderful. Then go implement it!
Need help? This is what I do in my consulting, writing, and speaking. I’m really good at finding opportunities for almost any company to “do well by doing good” (old Quaker saying): to find profitable niches that make the world better, and to create the products and services to fill those niches. Here’s my contact info. Want to learn more? Drop by https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/ and have an explore.
DT forces out Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not being enough of a yes-man, and replaces him with someone expected to be a complete toady, who has stated publicly that he thinks the White House should replace Sessions with someone who will muzzle the Mueller investigation
Two years ago, possibly the most corrupt, venal, and dishonest presidential candidate ever nominated by a major party managed to come up with an apparent majority in the Electoral College.
Forbes leads 13 million Google results on DT bullying (screenshot)
Corrupt: Numerous scandals involving diverting business to his hotels in DC and Florida, daughter Ivanka’s role in government and thin line between her business and his politics, refusal to disclose his taxes and thus conflicts of interest, violation of the Constitutions Emoluments Clause from the moment he was sworn in…
Why do I say “:apparent majority”? We knew immediately, in November, 2016, that a lot of funny business went on; Green Party candidate Jill Stein filed for a recount in three key states (we still don’t know why key elements within the Democratic Party supported the Republican efforts to block these recounts, only one of which was carried out). We know now that at least one foreign government was actively interfering in the election. To me, this means the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania is not there legitimately.
The past 21 months have been a barrage of broken promises, broken treaties and international agreements…sabotaging the environment, education, and the safety net…diverting billions in tax breaks to those who are already among the wealthiest people and corporations in history, while slashing funds to human services…inciting violence against his opponents…attacking people of color, women, disabled people, the press, his critics, and others…tearing immigrant children from their families and imprisoning them, and failing to keep good records of what kids they stole from whom…threatening the citizenship of children born in the US…appointing a proven liar and probable multiple sexual predator to the Supreme Court…blaming others every time something goes wrong (which is frequent)…appointing corrupt Cabinet members who snack at the public trough while making no pretense of actually carrying out their departmental mandates–it’s far too long a list to fully document here; it would go on for hundreds of pages. I am more ashamed of this administration than of any previous one. Being an American is embarrassing these days.
It is time for this disgraceful man to leave office–preferably in handcuffs. It is time for his enablers in Congress to step down and apologize to the American people. It is well-past time. We have at least two paths to get him out: impeachment and the 25th Amendment *removal for incompetence).
#WeBeleiveHer demonstration supporting Christine Blasey Ford -Northampton, MA, 9-27-18. Photo by Shel Horowitz
This month, in my newsletter, I’ll be reviewing Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect is Tearing Us Apart, by Howard J. Ross with Jonrobert Tartaglione. Ross, of course, wrote well before Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court. But as I was reading, the relevance of his work to the Kavanaugh/Ford hearings stood out for me.
I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault. The attack happened when I was 10 or 11, but I didn’t tell anyone until I was 16. That didn’t make it any less real or any less painful. It was the defining trauma of my life.
The Senate hearings brought something home to me:
White, straight men with economic privilege attacked Dr. Ford for speaking out, for not speaking out right away, for not presenting enough evidence (when the Republicans refused her attempts to call witnesses or have an outside investigation). White, straight men with power were in such a great rush to vote in someone who made obvious lies under oath and may well have been a serial sexual assailant that they belittled her and lionized him. Meanwhile, white, straight men without economic privilege made death threats against her and forced her from her home. White, straight men defended the high school and college rape culture even while accepting Kavanaugh’s unconvincing explanation that he was far too pure to have participated in that oppressive culture–despite considerable evidence to the contrary on his own calendars and yearbook.
In Ross’s paradigm, those white straight men have set up an us versus them situation. They’ve turned Dr. Ford–and by extension, any survivor of sexual assault, including me–into “other”–something to marginalize, ignore, and/or discredit (my choice not to say “someone” is deliberate, because dehumanizing is a lot of what happens in these “other” situations). While both the Left and the Right engage in this kind of behavior, from my point of view, the Right uses the tactic both more viciously and more consistently).
Watching the highlight video clips, I found Ford quite credible. Watching Kavanaugh attack her, I perceived a sense of entitlement, attempts to dehumanize, and even the tired old tactic of calling the whole thing out as a partisan attack–not to mention that his testimony was crammed with false statements. It sickened me, just as watching Clarence Thomas use similar tactics to deflect similar accusations against him sickened me in 1991. To the Kavanuaghs and Thomases of the world, as a survivor of sexual assault, I will always be an outsider, even though I am male.
In Ross’s view, one key piece of identity politics is the difference in perception between members of the dominant and non-dominant groups: members of dominant groups typically don’t often think about the experience of those in non-dominant groups. Yet, a person of color or a woman or someone who identifies as another type of minority experiences daily reminders that society puts up physical, psychological, economic, and other barriers.
The Kavanaugh/Ford hearings illustrate that difference in perception really well.
I think many of us perceive ourselves or are perceived by others as outsiders in various ways. I have certainly experienced that as a Jew, as a northeastern progressive, as an activist, as someone involved in various liberation struggles. Yet, to a person of color or a Muslim, I would be perceived as part of the in-group that excludes them. That these categorizations are fluid was brought home to me when I ran for City Council in my town, in 1985. I knocked on the door of a man who said, “You’re Jewish, I’m Polish. We’re both Eastern European. We have to stick together against the Irish and Italians who run this town.” I had seen the Polish population as very much a part of the majority culture in this area, and I, as a Jew, was an outsider; he saw it differently, and that opened my eyes.
In the Kavanaugh case, the ignoring strategy no longer worked, so he moved to attempts to discredit, presenting a wide range of emotional behaviors in the process.
Back when I was representing domestic violence survivors in their family law cases, I witnessed a very high proportion of the abusive men on the other side cry in court. For a long time, I thought it was intentionally manipulative, but after a while I came to see it as genuine decompensation as they confronted for perhaps the first time their inability to control the realities they had constructed. For once, someone else — their victims, the court — was writing the script, and they simply couldn’t handle it. The mirror held up to their behavior undid them, at least temporarily; even more so, the loss of control over their little worlds.
If I had had any doubts previously about the truth of the allegations against Kavanaugh, they disappeared when I heard him sniffling his way through the small part of the hearings I listened to yesterday. The angry outbursts I read about later further sealed the deal. I found myself not just certain the assaultive behavior had occurred, but concerned about his wife and daughters — a man who would come that undone during high profile hearings is almost certainly still engaging in those behaviors, in my experience, and I’d wager he’s still a problem drinker as well.
The old white guys in the Senate, and the one in the White House, are similarly breaking down. They are grasping desperately at their control of the world, the reality they have lived for decades, and they are angrily and sometimes tearfully acting out as it is slowly but certainly removed from their collective grip.
The fall of white male supremacy really is happening right now, in painful slow motion, and it is deadly for sure: survivors of domestic violence are at the most risk when they finally decide to leave.
Now more than ever, we need to support one another, we need to make collective safety plans, and we need to keep working to leave white male supremacy behind.
Multilingual polling place sign, courtesy of USDOJ
Here in Western Massachusetts, four adjacent State House of Representatives seats and an overlapping State Senate seat have no incumbent. So we are challenged by a loss of continuity and institutional memory–but blessed by a plethora of great candidates in both local and state races. In some of these races, I could support as many as three candidates and it’s very tough to make a choice. But since we unfortunately don’t have Ranked Choice Voting, which allows you to pick a second and third choice, etc., we have to support someone.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past several months attending candidate forums and house parties, reading about the candidates in the newspaper and on social media, and, having individual meetings, calls, and correspondence with some of them. So I feel I’m making informed decisions, and I’d like to share my choices with you–and why I picked these folks. For the two candidates in my own local districts, I’m including links to their websites and/or Facebook campaign pages.
The Democratic primary is September 4, just one day after Labor Day. If you’re registered to vote, please mark your calendar and exercise your rights on that day.
First, the races where I get to vote, and then the neighboring ones.
State Senate (to replace Stan Rosenberg, who resigned): Jo Comerford (write-in). Of the original six candidates, four remain, three of whom I know personally. I feel any of those three would do a good job, and probably so would the fourth. But Jo is a cut above. She has the perfect resume for a State Senator in a district full of activists. I first met her when she began running the American Friends Service Committee office in Northampton, after Frances Crowe (who started the local branch in her basement back in the 1960s) finally retired. From there, she took over from the late Greg Speeter as director of the National Priorities Project, the organization that shows cities and towns dollar for dollar what they send to the military, and how they might use that money at home instead. NPP has been a resource to academics and activists for decades, and I’m so proud that they’re based here in the Valley (along with several other wonderful national organizations). Her next job was at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, which gave her direct experience with the issues people in our area face around hunger and poverty, as well as highly relevant experience working with local farmers. Then she went to MoveOn, where she was a national campaign director for four years, stepping down only to run for this seat. Jo is humble and clearly in the race as a way to serve. She’s also highly organized, has mobilized a veritable army of volunteers, and brought in a bunch of awesome endorsements (including progressive commentator and former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who has personal connections with Northampton). Her other endorsements include Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz, former State Rep. Ellen Story, former Congressman John Olver, as well a whole host of peace and justice, environmental, and labor groups. While election officials are supposed to count votes for Jo Comerford, Northampton, it’s best if you write in Joanne Comerford, 186 Federal Street, Northampton. Visit Jo Comerford’s campaign Facebook page for more information.
State House (to replace retiring John Scibak in Hadley, South Hadley, Easthampton, part of Granby): Marie McCourt. I see Marie first off as grounded in the experience of marginalized people who learn to make the system work through painful trial and error. Between her own disabilities and her son’s special needs, she has had to be an advocate her entire adult life. I also see her as very willing to listen, to be thoughtful, to look at an issue from many sides. And I see her as a passionate representative of her constituents; she is in the race to be of service. Of the three candidates, Marie appears to have the strongest grasp of the different personalities and issues in the four communities–because she has gone out and listened to people in all of them. Marie is a protege of both long-time State Reps Ellen Story (who has endorsed her) and John Scibak (who is not publicly endorsing anyone), and received the strongest candidate endorsement I can ever remember the Daily Hampshire Gazette giving any candidate in the 36+ years I’ve been reading the paper. I didn’t know Marie before Scibak announced his retirement, but I have met with her in-depth several times, hosted a house party with her, and been part of her strategy group. That’s how impressed I am with her. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mccourt4rep/
State-Wide races: Governor (to run against Charlie Baker in the November general election): Bob Massie. Massie impressed me when I met him while he was running for statewide office many years ago, and he impresses me still. He has a terrific record on the environment, personal experience with the challenges of our health system (and also experience of the European single-payer model), and as strong a commitment to social and environmental justice issues as any gubernatorial candidate I can remember, similar to Robert Reich (who ran for governor several years ago) . He is more openly progressive and considerably more charismatic than his opponent, and I think he has a better chance of beating Baker, who is surprisingly popular. But if Gonzales is the nominee, I will have no problem supporting him in November.
Lieutenant Governor (to run against Karen Polito on a slate with the primary winner for governor in the November general election): Quentin Palfrey. Again, two fine candidates with good politics and good grasp of policy, and I will happily support the primary winner in November. My only exposure to Jimmy Tingle was at the Democratic Convention in June, while I’ve heard Palfrey two other times: once at a meeting of an activist group in Northampton, and once at an a rally against the White House policies on separating families of immigrants. To me, it’s very important that he shows up to progressive events and sees us as integral to the Democratic Party, and he knows the state extends past Route 128 and even I-495. I know he’s been out here in western Massachusetts several other times during the campaign, while I’m only aware of one Tingle appearance in the area. It also helps that I see myself in complete agreement with everything I read on Palfrey’s policy page.
Secretary of State (running against incumbent Democrat William Galvin): Josh Zakim. This is a very clear choice. The incumbent, first elected in 1994, has been good about holding corporate interests accountable to consumers, but otherwise has kept a very low profile. He is wishy-washy on a number of electoral reforms that would open up the process, while Zakim, currently a Boston City Councilor, unashamedly embraces them.
US Congress, Massachusetts 2nd District: no primary. Supporting incumbent Jim McGovern in the general election. McGovern’s been great on defending SNAP and other hunger programs, standing for meaningful action on climate change, and opposing the racist, anti-consumer white House agenda at every turn. He comes to the western part of the state frequently and maintains a district office in Northampton. I consider him one of the best people in the entire Congress and am proud to be in his district.
Adjoining districts:
To replace the late Rep. Peter Kocot (Northampton/Hatfield): Lindsay Sabadosa. Lindsay is a progressive activist who has had a high profile in the Valley, organizing the local chapter of the Women’s March and active in numerous progressive activities. She also knows her way around the Statehouse and has built progressive issue-oriented coalitions. Her opponent, who ran Kokot’s district office, seems quite decent but doesn’t seem to bring the passion and energy. I also worry that some of the people in her camp are openly hostile to a progressive agenda.
To replace retiring Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose (Amherst, Pelham, part of Granby): Mindy Domb. Two good candidates for this seat. I give the edge to Domb on the basis of her passion and the level of support I see in the community. When Goldstein-Rose bowed out of the race, he endorsed Domb.
To replace retiring Rep. Steve Kulik (western Hilltowns and Deerfield/Sunderland): I see three good candidates. While I have not followed this one as closely as the others, I dealt with Nataie Blais when she worked for Congressman McGovern and found her very professional. She also has Kulik’s endorsement. Thus, she edges out Francia Wisnewski and Kate Albright-Hanna for my support in this eight-way(!) race.
US Congress, Massachusetts 1st District: Tahirah Amatul-Wadud (running against incumbent Democrat Richie Neal for a seat that includes all of Hampden and Berkshire Counties and big chunks of Hampshire and Franklin). Tahirah is a fresh face in local politics, whom I met shortly after the DT inauguration and quickly became friends with. I’ve been advising her campaign and I’m very much in favor of her candidacy. I used to live in Neal’s district. He seldom came to any of the other counties besides his base in Hampden County, did little on most issues, and only got me to vote for him once–because he’d voted no on the Iraq war. It is the only vote of courage I can remember him taking. Tahirah has been getting to know the geographically vast district and its very diverse voters, listening hard to people’s concerns, doing her research, speaking with issue experts…and to me, that leadership is worth sacrificing Neal’s power through seniority, as one of the longer-serving MOCs
In November, Massachusetts voters also have three ballot questions. I recommend voting Yes on Questions 2 and 3–but after much research (and confusion) I’ve changed my mind on Question 1 and plan to vote no:
Question 1 has a laudible goal of redcuce the burden on overworked nurses, and I had been a strong supporter of Question 1–until I started educating myself. However, the bill–yes, I’ve read it–is very poorly drafted. Specifically, the definition of what constitutes a finable incident is alarmingly vague. While the intent of the bill is laudable, it is so poorly written that I am convinced it will do more harm than good. It could result in community hospitals like Northampton’s Cooley Dickinson (my nearest hospital) being forced to close. Reluctantly, I am now a no vote.
Question 2 will take the first steps to get Massachusetts, at least, out from under the thumb of big corporate money in politics and give our state at least a little bit of protection from the horrible Citizens United US Supreme Court decision of several years ago that allowed dark money in politics, pretty much without restriction–and puts the wheels in motion to create a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. Please vote Yes!
Question 3 protects against an attack on the rights of transgender people. A yes vote maintains the present protective law, while a no vote removes protections from a class of people who have done nothing criminal. Please vote Yes!
Some progressives have wondered, as a life-long grassroots activist, why I’m getting so involved in electoral politics. Because we need to do both. In 1975, I put a sign in my yard that said “Don’t vote. It only encourages them.” But like Obama’s position on same-sex marriage, my position has evolved. I was only 18 and didn’t see the use of a system that had little use for me as a youth, that under both LBJ (Democrat) and Nixon (Republican) was sending people just slightly older than me to fight and die in the far-away jungles of Vietnam, was despoiling the earth, and was not responsive (in my opinion at the time) to citizen needs.
But by 1983, I was of a different mind. I began to follow local politics closely that year, and since that time have been involved in many local, state, and national campaigns. I even ran for local office three times and managed a successful campaign to get a progressive insurgent on the City Council. He beat the three-term incumbent conservative by seven votes! I still do the grassroots work and see it as important. I go into electoral politics with my eyes open, knowing that no candidate will be the savior, that the pressures on elected officials to side with the powerful are immense, and increase the more you go up the ladder from municipal to county to in-state region to state to national region to president. But I also see good people all the way along the ladder. I think Obama and Carter and Kennedy were good people. They had plenty of flaws, but they had heart.
And if we have learned nothing from the horrible policies and horrible statements emanating from Washington the past two years, we know now without any doubt that our votes make a difference, that staying home or voting third-party in a swing state is not an option under the current electoral system, and that we could have beaten back this nightmare if more people had understood what was at stake.
So, Massachusetts residents, get out there and vote on September 4. So, all US citizens, get out there again to vote on November 6.
Everyone should read this article on why Democrats should abandon wimpy centrism. The link is in the first paragraph of the post.
Here’s an essay I wish I had written: Why do Democrats love limp dishrag centrism?, by Ryan Cooper. It eloquently expresses a lot of things I’ve been saying for a long time. Spend a few minutes reading it, then please come back here for some deeper context and a longer, more historical perspective. The link will open a new tab, so this one will still be up on a computer screen (not true from a phone, but you should have a Back arrow)
Consider these tidbits:
The last non-incumbent Democrat who won the presidency as an obvious centrist without a third-party candidate siphoning off significant votes from the Republicans was Jimmy Carter; the one before was John F. Kennedy. Bill
Clinton had help from the third-party campaign of H. Ross Perot. Obama ran on a platform of “Hope and Change” that looked pretty progressive if you didn’t look too closely. LBJ was already an incumbent in 1964, and withdrew his bid in 1968 in the face of progressive challenges from Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. Centrists Carter (running for re-election in 1980), Mondale (1984), and Dukakis (1988) lost honestly. Gore (2000), Kerry (2004), and Hillary Clinton (2016) chose not to seriously contest highly suspicious election results.
It is true that the only progressive nominated in my lifetime to head the ticket of a major party, George McGovern, was badly defeated. However, there were a number of factors besides his agenda: He threw his running mate under the bus after saying he’d stand behind him “1000 percent.” He was an incredibly uncharismatic campaigner (at age 15, I witnessed one of his pathetic rallies). And he couldn’t count on his greatest constituency–antiwar youth–because 18-to-20 year olds didn’t get the right to vote until 1971. And, just like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders in more recent years, he got basically no support–let’s state the truth: active hostility–from the Democratic Party establishment. As that same NPR piece that reported on McGovern’s VP fiasco notes,
The post-election reforms instituted by Sen. George McGovern (D-SD) made sure that, starting in 1972, delegates would be decided in primaries, not backroom deals, and that primaries — not smoke-filled rooms — would determine the nominee. The fact that McGovern, a strong opponent of the war, would win the nomination — helping, along the way, to curtail the power of such longtime Democratic leaders/bosses like Daley — was one reason why many in the Democratic Old Guard refused to unite behind their presidential candidate.
Interestingly, that same NPR link also shows that people respect and support candidates who actually have the guts to stand up and fight. In response to a reader question lower on the page, writer Ken Rudin points out that only one of the 126 Democrats who voted against the Iraq war in 2002 lost that November. I know that in my own district, I felt that his vote against the war was important enough that I voted for Richie Neal for the first and only time. My town has since been moved to an adjoining district, but I’m actively supporting and advising Neal’s progressive opponent, Tahirah Amatul-Wadud.
The Democrats need to realize that they are sabotaging themselves when the sabotage progressive candidates and refuse to fight against the continuous Republican encroachments. They need to stand up and fight back when the Mitch McConnells of this country undermine the people’s agenda. They need to give active support to candidates who inspire, and can win. The same old same old doesn’t cut it anymore. Cooper’s “dishrag centrists” won’t win a majority in Congress, and those elected won’t be a force for change. They need to recognize that even many of the votes for DT were votes for change, and that they could harness that momentum for a progressive agenda.
It’s time to change that. Run good candidates. Take back the House and maybe the Senate. Push the people’s agenda. Call out the Republican traitors, saboteurs, and liars; oppose them at every turn. And run someone who has skills, experiences, AND an agenda to lead the ticket in 2020. Fighting the slide toward fascism is not enough. The Dems must be for a positive agenda as well as against their opponent’s agenda. This a point even made in this New York Times “report” on DT’s hypothetical 2020 re-election. While the author’s intent was to warn against a slate that’s too progressive, to me the message to the Democrats is not that at all, but to make sure that any progressive slate has a powerful agenda that helps ordinary people.
After I posted something opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, I received this comment from someone who prefers not to be named:
I voted for Hillary and most Democrats. Hillary lost. Trump won. The Republicans won. They get to govern and part of governing is choosing and confirming a judges. You can voice opposition, but when you are not in the majority, there is little else you can do. You are best advised to stop tilting at windmills with meaningless protests, petitions, and propaganda and instead find better candidates, finance them, work your precincts, get out your vote, win your elections, and become the majority again.
US Supreme Court building, Washington, DC
This is my response:
1. A little history lesson. Judges on both sides of the spectrum have been successfully blocked if enough people see them as extremist. Nixon failed to get Hainsworth and Carswell. LBJ couldn’t get sitting SCOTUS Justice Abe Fortas into the Chief Justice seat. Reagan failed with Bork.
2. Kavanaugh’s positions on presidential power alone disqualify him as extremist. He wants to preclude any possibility that DT can be held accountable for his many crimes. Even some Republicans are saying Helsinki was treasonous. And DT was fully aware on the day he took office that he was violating the domestic and foreign emoluments clauses of the Constitution. And then there are DT’s consistent violations of so many other laws. (Click here for a listing of specifically criminal activity and here for an Atlantic Magazine piece on DT scandals, many of which involve criminal activity; both contain several source links–and both were published well before the current kerfluffle.) Since he is an Executive Branch absolutist, it would not surprise me if Kavanaugh even wanted to overturn 215 years of precedent and say that the courts have no power to declare something unconstitutional–something John Marshall created as Chief Justice during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency in his ruling in Marbury v. Madison, 1803 and does not actually appear in the Constitution. Right now, the courts are our best check on executive overreach or criminal behavior other than public pressure.
3. Lawrence Tribe, noted legal scholar, has stated that a president under investigation should not be allowed to appoint the person who will ultimately decide his fate. This has gained some traction and makes more sense to me than attempting to use the despicable McConnell precedent that allowed the theft of one seat from the Democrats (with the cooperation of Obama, who should have fought it much harder).
4. You talk about majorities. Let’s remember that even as weak a candidate as she was, Hillary won the popular vote with about 3,000,000 more than DT. If that group were a city, it would be bigger than the in-city-limits population of every city in the country other than NYC or L.A.. Bigger than Chicago or Houston, nearly twice as big as Philadelphia.
Why This Matters: A Metaphor for Something Much Deeper
Why am I going on about this? Why does it matter? Isn’t it just some people having fun making a feel-good film?
Answer: I do marketing and strategic profitability consulting for green and social change organizations, as well as for authors and publishers–and I’m also a lifelong activist. This combination of activism and marketing gives me another set of lenses to filter things, as well as a magnificent toolkit to make the world better. My activism also brings a strong sense of ethics into the marketing side.
Both as a marketer and an activist, I pay careful attention to how we motivate people to take action–to the psychology of messaging, One category for this post is psychology; click on that category to get posts going back many years. I worry deeply about our tendency as a society to crowd out facts with emotions. (I also worry about another tendency, to crowd out emotions with facts, but that’s a different post.)
And this is an example of crowding out facts with emotion. While this particular instance is innocuous as far as I can tell, we see examples of overreach on both the left and right, and they work to push us apart from each other, talk at each other instead of seeking common ground, and push real solutions farther and farther out of reach.
My inbox is full of scare-tactic emails from progressive, environmental, or Democratic Party organizations. Because I’m in the biz and understand what they’re doing, I leave most of them unopened. I just searched my unread emails for subject lines that contain the word “Breaking” and came with hundreds, including this one from a group called Win Without War:
An unarmed man with a small flag stops four Chinese tanks in Tiannanmen Square, Beijing,
It’s a clear attempt to generate hysteria, to have people perceiving tanks in the streets with their guns pointed at dissenters.
Only in the body of the email do we find out what’s really going on:
Shel —
Last night, the Washington Post broke the story that Donald Trump has ordered a giant military parade with tanks, guns, and troops taking over the streets of our nation’s capital. [1] This is the kind of parade that dictators around the world use to intimidate their enemies and, more importantly, their own citizens.
This is what authoritarian dictatorships look like.
But Trump can’t change the fact that we still live in a democracy — which means Washington, D.C.’s local government gets to have a say before Donald Trump’s tanks roll down its streets.
Note the use of mail merge software to appear personal. Does that really fool anybody anymore? But OK, even when you know it’s a mail merge, it still generates at least a small warm fuzzy.
More importantly, note that the actual content is totally different from the expectation in the headline. We can argue the foolishness of Trump wanting a military parade (I think it’s foolish, and an expensive attempt to stroke his ego)–but in no way is this the same as attacking demonstrators in the streets of Washington, DC.
The right wing is at least as bad. I don’t subscribe to their e-blasts, but I found this juicy example (with an introduction and then a rebuttal by the site hosting this post) in about ten seconds of searching.
And then there are DT’s own Tweets, news conferences, and speeches, both during the campaign and since he took the oath to uphold the constitution as President of the United States (an oath he has been in violation of every single day of his term). They are full of lies, misrepresentations, name-calling, bullying, and fear-mongering. They are hate speech. I will not give them legitimacy by quoting them here; they’re easy enough to find.
As a country, we are better than this..
How You Can “Vaccinate” Yourself Against Sensationalist Fear-mongering
Before sharing any news story or meme, run through a series of questions to help you identify if it’s real.And if it passes that test, pop on rumor-checking site Snopes and check its status. For that matter, go through a similar questions for advertising claims.
The questions will vary by the situation. Here are a few to get you started:
Does the post link to documentation? Are most of the linked sites reputable? If they advance a specific agenda, does the post disclose this? (Note that THIS post links to several reputable sites, including NPR, New York Times, history.com, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google, CNN, Snopes, and my own goingbeyondsustainability.com and greenandprofitable.com. Yes, I am aware of the issues in using Wikipedia or Youtube as the only source. I am also aware that Google gives them a tremendous amount of “link juice” because on the whole, they are considered authoritative. For both those citations, I had plenty of documentation from major news sites.) Strong documentation linking to known and respected sources is a sign to take the post seriously.
Does the post name-drop without specifics? See how the Win Without War letter mentions the Washington Post but leaves out the link? Remember that ancient email hoax citing longtime NPR reporter Nina Totenberg? Name-dropping to buy unsusbstantiated respect is not a good sign.
Are the language and tone calm and rational, or screaming and sensationalist or even salacious?
Is the post attributed? Can you easily contact the creator?
And last but far from least, the most important question: Who benefits from the post’s point of view ? What are their relationships to the post’s creator? (Hello, Russian trollbots!). Don’t just follow the money. Follow the power dynamics, too.
I could go on but you get the idea. Please share your reactions in the comments.
Parkland HS activists including David Hogg, left, and Emma Gonzales, in tank top. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Editor’s note: This was written back in February. I don’t know why I never hit Publish. Unfortunately, even the Parkland activists—as amazing and powerful as they are—even the mass rallies they organized, even the wide public outcry—has not ended the violence even at schools yet, though they’ve already made more progress than anyone has ever done on this issue. In Arizona alone, there were 17 shooting threats (not actual shootings) just between Valentine’s Day and March 10th. I hope their activism sparks a massive rejection in November of guns-uber-alles politicians.
Meanwhile, just in the past week, we’ve seen a merchant of hatred, the always-despicable Milo Yiannopoulos, call for “vigilantes” to attack journalists. Yiannopoulos was forced to backpedal, but this is getting even uglier. The crazies will take this stuff seriously. We’ve also seen consistent, repeated attacks against the press by the current occupant of the Oval Office. And we’ve seen a mass shooting inside a newspaper newsroom in Maryland. Everything Kropotkin says below about people who make death threats against child activists is true of those who attack journalists, too, and thus this post is more relevant than ever. Remember: when dictators take over, they start restricting the press.
Guest Post By Pyotr Kropotkin
In the wake of the horrible (and so could-have-been-avoided) shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, several of the surviving students have spoken out. In this short time, they’ve shown themselves as articulate spokespeople for common sense, and they are changing the conversation around the right to own any type of weapon versus the right to personal and public safety.
But despite the incredible trauma they’ve been through, quite a few people don’t think they should be speaking out. Some are even making death threats against these kids!
If you are making death threats against people just because you disagree with them, here are some of the things we know about you:
Somewhere along the way, you lost your compassion, lost your heart
You don’t understand the difference between freedom to and freedom from—that your freedom to shoot an assault rifle ends when it impinges on others’ freedom from attack
You are mentally or emotionally unbalanced and should not have access to firearms, because you’ve made a death threat against an innocent child who has done you no harm
You should be the subject of immediate criminal investigation, for threatening the life of another
You don’t love the Constitution—the 2nd Amendment is fine for you, but not the 1st Amendment, which protects the rights of free speech, free assembly, worship, and petitioning the government to redress grievances
You probably believe that an armed presence is a deterrent to violence—even though an armed deputy was outside Stoneman High, and even though the majority of people at Fort Hood the day of that massacre were armed
You might also believe that there’s some crazy government conspiracy to take away your guns so they can take away the rest of your freedom—even though even an assault rifle is no protection against tanks and howitzers
You like to feel powerful, and you think your assault rifles and your threats make you powerful (they don’t—they make you the equivalent of a two-year-old at playtime)
You’re a bully who thinks the way to succeed is by throwing your weight around and scaring other people
You probably have not experienced enough love in your life—and I feel sorry for you.
