(Aside: the cowards who ran the factory let him come in anyway. They should have said, “No mask? Then no tour.” Perhaps they were afraid of being ridiculed in a nasty tweet. Or of losing a federal contract. The former, which was quite likely, would put them in a prestigious club of people and organizations important enough to be publicly scorned by the country’s most incompetent president. The latter would have been a juicy lawsuit, and meanwhile, New England’s governors would have been falling all over themselves to grab those suddenly available supplies.)
The man who also refused to take the necessary actions months ago that would have contained the virus impact, as countries from Vietnam to New Zealand did, along with countries more comparable to the US, like Germany and South Korea.
If it were either Juneteenth or Tulsa, it could conceivably have been a coincidence. But to have the kick-off event for the revived in-person re-election campaign held on that day, in that city, could not be a coincidence. It’s a dog-whistle to the racists, no doubt schemed up by one of DT’s senior advisors (I don’t think the man himself is educated enough to know about Tulsa, and it wouldn’t shock me if he hadn’t known what Juneteenth is.)
Along with much of the nation, I get to decide what vision for the next four years inspires me. As a progressive, I have many friends in both the Warren and Sanders camps.
But my big worry with Bernie is he may get elected but be functionally unable to govern, because the Dem establishment will block his agenda at every turn, as the Repubs promised but failed to do with DT. Bernie is not a team player or a negotiator and he will get sabotaged.
I also think Elizabeth is smarter and her plans are more well-thought-out. She would prove that HRC didn’t lose because she’s a woman but because she 1) came with a whole lot of negative baggage, such as the pay-to-play scandal, 2) ran a terrible campaign (as just one example: failing to visit Wisconsin even once between the convention and the election, despite losing hugely to Sanders in the Wisconsin primary), and 3) faced a disinformation campaign funded by at least one foreign government. I voted proudly for Bernie in the primary four years ago (and not-so-proudly for HRC in November), but I’m voting for Warren tomorrow. I live in Massachusetts and feel she’s done an excellent job as my Senator.
I do agree with my Bernie-supporter friends that if she does poorly on Super Tuesday, it’s time for her to endorse Bernie and get out.
I have to wonder yet again why the Dems didn’t bring us mandatory hand-countable paper ballots (I wrote that post back in 2007) and ranked-choice voting when they had the chance in ’09. I don’t think DT would be squatting in the Oval Office if there had not been active voter suppression (see that top link in this post again) and if there were paper-ballot recounts in those three very marginal states that put him over the top–and yet the Dems ignored (and may have actually sabotaged) Jill Stein’s effort to get recounts there. Their failure means I and millions of others do not accept the 2016 results as legitimate. It would have been healthy for the country to settle the question of who actually one.
I also don’t believe DT would be president if we’d had ranked choice four years ago. We might have President Hillary Clinton, President Ted Cruz, or President Bernie Sanders–but we would not have this lying, cheating, mean-spirited sociopathic bully destroying our foreign policy, our environment, our education, and our human rights.
Q: Bernie supporters told me that a vote for Elizabeth is a vote for Biden. Is that true?
A: No. A vote for Elizabeth is a vote for Elizabeth. Bernie’s camp is reasonably worried that nobody will have a majority of delegates when they get to the convention this summer?.
There are rules in place that Bernie helped write in 2016. Under those rules, on the first vote at the convention, pledged delegates must vote according to our primaries. If nobody has a majority, then there will be a second vote. On the second vote, delegates can realign. And so on.
It’s quite likely that neither Bernie nor Biden nor Warren will have a majority at the outset. So, all three of them will be viable and there will be some serious horse trading.
Please join me in voting for the future we want, and not any kind of “lesser evil.” We might have to do that in November, but we certainly don’t have to do it now.
Every year, bestselling author and social media visionary Chris Brogan challenges his huge reader base to come up with three words to provide focus for the coming year. This year, I decided to take the challenge for the first time since 2016. My three words are:
Today’s installment is about Justice, and how it shapes both my career and my activism.
My career has evolved quite a bit from its founding (as a term-paper typing service!) in 1981. For the past several years, I’ve focused my writing, speaking, and consulting on helping business turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. By showing companies how to make a profit doing this, I hope to leverage far greater change than I would if I tried to motivate them through guilt, shame, and fear.
Ready to know more? In the very early phases of this shift in my business, I did a TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare.” (you have to click on “Event Videos”, and then on my talk). It’s a nice 15-minute introduction to this idea as it existed in 2014; I’ve refined it quite a bit since then. A much deeper introduction is my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, endorsed by Chris, Seth Godin, Chicken Soup;’s Jack Canfield, Joel Makower (Executive Director of GreenBiz.com) and many other business and environmental leaders. And of course, I’m happy to talk to you about how I can be a “Sherpa” on this journey for your organization.
But now, let’s go back to the activist side. In order to talk about Justice, I also have to talk about Injustice: what we’re trying to change.
And from there, how I personally am working to change injustice into justice through community-based activism: the work I do in my non-career time. There have been a few times in my life where that work dominated my day and pushed the career part off to the side. This is one of those times.
Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
As a citizen of the US, I’m deeply concerned about the attack on our planet and its people (and other living beings) by the current federal government. This government and its most visible spokesperson have viciously attacked immigrants, people of color, people without a Y chromosome (not male, in other words) or who don’t identify with the gender of their birth or any gender, people who are not Christian or even Christians who condemn him, people with disabilities, people suffering in poverty who face attacks on safety-net programs such as SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) as well as authoritarian responses to homelessness, people who’ve survived crimes this government doesn’t view as important (such as sexual harassment), and even 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg–as well as people who might be likely to vote for someone other than that very visible spokesperson.
Humans, at least, can defend themselves. Forests, oceans, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the plants and animals that we share our planet with–they need human beings to defend them against the brutal attack by this administration. Since January 2017, this government has rolled back dozens of environmental protections, stripped government websites of information about issues from the human impact on climate change to toxic pollution databases, barred government scientists from speaking out, and of course, pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord.
As of October, 2019, that same visible spokesperson had lied at least 13,435 times while in office. He has violated his Oath of Office every single day since he was sworn in, because he refused to divest himself of emolument-laden business interests and thus undermines the Constitution; he illegally uses his position for personal enrichment. He even went so far as to order the next G7 Summit held at his own golf resort (public pressure forced him to walk this one back; even Fox raised an eyebrow). And of course, there were the two violations so egregious that they led to his impeachment. I would have preferred a much fuller bill of criminal activity (this link lists nine potential counts as far back as July, 2018).
But the problem goes far deeper than one corrupt and mean-spirited individual in a position of great power.
As a citizen not just of the US but also of the world, I worry to see similar patterns repeating in many other countries, among them Brazil, Hungary, India, and Bolivia–and less intense versions attempting to rear their heads in places like France and UK.
I’ve been an environmental and social justice activist since October, 1969. That’s just over 50 years. Since that time, I’ve done much to improve the lives of my fellow residents of Earth, whether human, other animal, plant, fungus, or other lifeforms. I’ve been involved in numerous campaigns, and was glad to play a role in winning some of them. But there’s so much more to be done!
Each of these situations involves many cases of justice denied. I will do what I can to turn that around; I will continue to write and speak and act and organize and demonstrate and lobby from a place that says we are better than this, that we don’t accept this as normal, and that we are not willing to turn the clock all the way back to 1930s Germany. And I will continue to take comfort in the small victories we win, and the many friends I have made in the Resistance who prove to me that we are, indeed, better than this.
And each of us has an impact, often far greater than we realize at the time. Never accept that you cannot make a difference as an individual! But recognize that it’s easier to make that difference if you work with others.
I can take direct credit for victories ranging from a crosswalk at an intersection that desperately need one to starting the movement that saved a mountain when the “experts” thought our victory was impossible. And I’m far from done.
In May, 2019, my wife and I were accepted as sanctuary accompaniment volunteers, helping protect an upstanding immigrant who has to live in a church because he would be deported if caught outside the grounds. This is a hard-working man who just wants to provide for his family, including three children born in this country. He has lived in the US for nearly two decades, and in the church for more than two years.
A month later, we participated in an eight-person delegation to stand witness outside the prison holding up to 3000 migrant teenagers in Homestead, Florida. That prison, like the far worse one in Tornillio, Texas, was closed due to public outcry. The affinity group we went with is called Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western Massachusetts. In February, we will be part of a ten-member JAIJ delegation doing relief work on the border at Brownsville, Texas and Mataoros, Mexico. Despite our tiny numbers, we’ve had a lot of influence, because we’ve been doing talkbacks, media interviews, and multiple public events since our return from Florida, and we’ve raised thousands of dollars to support the relief mission.
As in all my environmental and social work these 50 years, I hope to see my work become obsolete and unnecessary, because the problem has been fixed.
I dedicate my 2020 work for justice to the spirit of Frances Crowe, of Northampton, Massachusetts. She requested, for her 100th birthday, a demonstration with 100 signs representing 100 causes. She got 300 people marching in the streets, and I think she got her 100 causes, too. A few months later, she attended one of our public talks about the Homestead Detention Center just two weeks before she died. She was working on a climate scorecard for individuals to observe and improve their behavior at the time of her death. I first met Frances at one of those actions that turned out later to have made a huge difference. She and I were both among the 1414 people arrested in 1977 while occupying the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear power plant, in New Hampshire. She was 58; I was 20, and I didn’t have a leadership role. When we got out, we discovered we’d birthed a nationwide safe-energy movement.
Part 3, on why I chose “Healing” for my third word, went live on January 20. Please leave your own three words (or any other appropriate comment) in the comments. Note that they are moderated, so don’t bother spamming.
Remember some of those unflattering names for TV in the 1960s and 70s? “Boob tube.” Idiot box.” I think these names are rooted in the neurological changes TV works on our brains, combined with the inherently passive nature of watching–AND with the low content quality that too often marks this powerful and addictive medium.
TV too often incites violence and racism. And I don’t choose to play in that sandbox. For every Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street inculcating positive values, for every National Geographic or Discovery Channel special that broadens our sense of what is possible, there are dozens of shoot-em-up adventure shows and newscasts to focus our attention on the worst parts of our society. And it’s all tied together with ads designed to make us feel inadequate because we don’t buy certain brands. As Mick Jagger sang, “He can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke/the same cigarettes as me.“
The original promise of cable TV was no ads in return for the monthly payment (1970s). But that original promise didn’t last very long! I grew up in NYC, which had seven stations on the VHF band, plus what must have been another 20 on UHF for those who had sets that could pull them in. Moving to places that had only two or three channels on the broadcast spectrum, I could see the appeal, at least for those who love TV.
TV is not an active part of my life.
We moved when I was 10 and left the big clunky ancient black-and-white TV behind. We didn’t get another one for two years–just in time to watch All In The Family. That was pretty much the only show I watched through high school. Through much of my early adult life, we didn’t even own a TV.
And when we got one, it was mostly as a video monitor, with some PBS kid shows on the side. We thought it was healthier to let our kids watch up to an hour a day of content-supervised TV than to ban it altogether and have it become alluring forbidden fruit.
A few years ago, when regular old broadcast TV was discontinued, our cable company gave us a converter box free for the first two years. We never even got it to work properly, and when the two years were up, we returned the box and eventually convinced them that we shouldn’t be paying the $10 month for a service we weren’t using. They acted deeply shocked but eventually lowered our bill. They supply both our landline phone and our broadband Internet.
A few times a year, we go to a friend’s house or a public place to watch a presidential debate, World Series game, or other special broadcast. I think TV news is the worst kind of mind pollution and get my news from other sources–that’s been true for decades, even when I had a working set. I still read my local daily newspaper, which has great coverage of my own region and at least some coverage of the wider world. I read a ton of e-newsletters that keep me informed within my various niches, and click to interesting links on social media (which has its own positives and negatives)–yes, including some TV clips. I’ll listen to radio news and public affairs programs such as All Things Considered (NPR) and Democracy Now (Pacifica). And yes, I spend some time daily on social media.
In fact, I deeply resent being forced to watch TV news with all its shallowness and violence when I ride elevators, wait for planes or buses or trains, or use a hotel fitness room. If there’s a great skit on Saturday Night Live or a new Randy Rainbow parody, or shocking testimony implicating high government officials, I will hear about it on Facebook and watch online. I worry about the people who spend so much time watching violence disguised as news, especially if they do it right before bed, leaving the whole night for the subconscious to absorb the message that this is normal.
While I don’t duck from the unpleasant things happening, I don’t steep myself in them. I surround myself with enough positive news (through those and many other channels) to insulate me from the bad effects of soaking in negativtiy. I recommend doing that as much as possible.
What strategies do YOU use to stay focused on the change you can make rather than letting the problems paralyze you? I’d love to see your comments, below.
Greta Thunberg on the cover of GQ, with commentary by Marisa Murgatroyd (Instagram screenshot)
It attracted a lot of comments, many of them expressing thanks for a great post–but others, far too many, dissing Greta and her work. Here’s my comment, in italics.
Thanks, Marisa, for posting this. Shocking how many people are posting to tear this young woman down because she’s changing the world. She will probably grow out of her extremism but if the world is lucky, she will keep her passion. I ask every person who is putting Greta down: what have you done in HER lifetime to make the world better, and what are you doing now toward that goal? Why is it important to you to spend your good energy attacking someone who is making a difference in the only ways she knows how?
And before you attack ME for using the word, “extremism,” remember this:
This was a response to people who see her as an extremist. I used their own talking point to perhaps be listened to–to increase the chances that I might change a mind or two.
Greta is acting out of deep despair. She does sound extreme at times. But let’s remember how hard it is to act out of despair, even if you don’t have Asperger’s (as she does). Positive motivators tend to work much better. To act from a dark place in a positive way is itself remarkable. In time, she will learn (as I did) that the world can be a very positive place, and we get the fun job of making it more positive, harnessing and amplifying the trends in the good directions, doing our best to neutralize the haters and the planet-killers. And that while the pace may seem glacial, we are actually winning.
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
Editor’s Note from Shel Horowitz: this was originally published on Seth’s blog under the title, Where Will the Media Take Us Next? I am a long-time reader and fan of author and teacher Seth’s daily blog (and thrilled that he gave me a terrific endorsement for my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World). I have often linked to his blog posts on Facebook, and sometimes corresponded with him. This one struck me as one I wanted to share on my own website. Used with his permission. And now, here’s Seth.
Where Will the Media Take Us, by Seth Godin
Since the first story was carved on a rock, media pundits have explained that they have simply given people what they want, reporting the best they can on what’s happening.
Cause (the culture, human activity, people’s desires) leads to effect (front page news).
In fact, it’s becoming ever more clear that the attention-seeking, profit-driven media industrial complex drives our culture even more than it reports on it.
Thoughtful people regularly bemoan our loss of civility, the rise of trolling and bullying and most of all, divisive behavior designed to rip people apart instead of moving us productively forward.
And at the very same time, reality TV gets ever better ratings. So much so that the news has become the longest-running, cheapest to produce and most corrosive TV show in history. Increase that exponentially by adding in the peer-to-peer reality show that is social media, and you can see what’s happening.
Imagine two classrooms, each filled with second graders.
In the first classroom, the teacher shines a spotlight on the bullies, the troublemakers and the fighters, going so far as to arrange all the chairs so that the students are watching them and cheering them on all day.
In the second classroom, the teacher establishes standards, acts as a damper on selfish outliers and celebrates the generous and productive kids in the classroom…
How will the classrooms diverge? Which one would you rather have your child enrolled in?
We’re not in elementary school anymore, and the media isn’t our teacher or our nanny. But the attention we pay to the electronic channels we click on consumes more of our day than we ever spent with Miss Binder in second grade. And that attention is corrosive. To us and to those around us.
The producers of reality TV know this. And they seek out more of it. When they can’t find it easily, they search harder. Because that’s their job.
It’s their job to amp up the reality show that is our culture.
But it’s not our job to buy into it. More than anything, profit-driven media needs our active participation in order to pay their bills.
It’s an asymmetrical game, with tons of behavioral research working against each of us–the uncoordinated but disaffected masses. Perhaps we can find the resolve to seek out the others, to connect and to organize in a direction that actually works.
The first step is to stop taking the bait. The second step is to say, “follow me.”
Go and read it. I’ll wait. And yes, I know it’s almost a year old–but it’s still completely relevant.
It makes so much sense to me! It’s not that DT’s ardent followers can’t see the criminal behavior, the looting of the public treasury, the constant lying and bullying, the attempt to accuse someone else of whatever it is he’s accused of today. It’s that they define corruption very differently than the rest of us to.
Of course, if this is accurate, it poses a big challenge for activists. When facts don’t matter at all because ideology is paramount, it’s really hard to change people’s minds.
I think it can be done, one conversation at a time. And those conversations have to be handled very carefully. They have to:
Respect the other person as a person (that means no name calling, among other things)
Seek common ground even when it’s hard to find
Avoid making the other person feel diminished, stupid, heartless, etc. and at the same time, not condoning the diminishment or insult of others (in the form of prejudice
This is a huge challenge. I recognize that. I’ve had some of these conversations. Van Jones has had some.
Van Jones, activist, speaking in 2015. Photo Credit: Department of Labor, Shawn T Moore
I’m a big fan of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She’s been my Senator for more than six years, and I was aware of her consumer advocacy for several years before that. In the crowded field of Democrats seeking the presidency, she’s my top choice.
I’ve been puzzling about this for almost two weeks, looking for something fresh to say that hasn’t been said before, as in this article by Megan Day:
In Warren’s scenario, Fox News’s politics will be defeated by a few principled liberal politicians engaging in a media blackout. In [Bernie] Sanders’s, Fox News’s politics will be defeated when the Left convinces a significant portion of the Right’s working-class base that they’ve been duped, and that the pro-worker left best represents their political interests...
By refusing to go on Fox News, Warren has demonstrated that she doesn’t take this task as seriously as she ought to. As Sanders has plainly stated, the power of the capitalist class is so formidable that it will take a huge movement of millions of united workers to actually overcome it in reality. Warren’s policy ideas are frequently excellent, but without a fundamental orientation toward the very people who stand to benefit from them, they stand little chance of materializing.
I agree with Day. Warren’s better policy initiatives are not enough if she’s going to rely on the liberal elite to make them a reality.
And she should know this. She’s a born organizer, and her speeches are very approachable. Like that guy in the White House, she understands how to talk to ordinary people with in some cases limited education, to make them feel excited by (and ownership of) her ideas.
Yes, Fox is toxic. But when people have swallowed poison, you go in and pump their stomachs. The argument she makes that she doesn’t want to enrich the network or legitimize it seems spurious. After all, Bernie Sanders attacked Fox during the Town Hall they gave him and televised.
And then it hit me that my own start in journalism was very relevant.
In 1972, as a 15-year-old junior at Bronx High School of Science, I got my first article bylines–covering peace demonstrations and other progressive events. I didn’t get them in the official school newspaper; writing for Science Survey was only an option for the students in the honors journalism English class.
I got them in one of the school’s underground papers. A paper called Insight, published by a small group of right-wingers who identified as libertarians. They ran my stuff with disclaimers: “the following article does not reflect the views of the management,” etc.
But they ran my stuff! I was able to share my viewpoint, encourage the peace and environmental agendas of groups I was involved with, and build a publication portfolio that led to a 45-year writing career and the authorship of 10 books and thousands of articles.
And even at the time, I felt that maybe the best part was that they put me in front of an audience that was skeptical of my views. They gave me a forum to reach people who disagreed with me. I have no idea if I changed anyone’s mind, but I was given that chance.
Effigy of “the Donald,” photographed by Shel Horowitz at the Climate March, April 2017, Washington, DC
Just for the record, I am a Jew and I was not offended by her tweet “It’s all about the Benjamins,” about AIPAC’s support for the Israeli government and its frequent mistreatment of its minorities. Criticism of Israel, or of Israeli influence in US politics, is not antisemitism any more than criticism of any US president is antiamericanism. However, I can see where some people would read into it a “trope” that reinforces stereotypes. I don’t agree with them, but I see their point—and so does Rep. Omar, who apologized quickly and meaningfully.
So here’s my question to Donald: If you think Omar should resign over a single ambiguous remark, why haven’t you resigned after a lifetime of hate speech?
