I’ve been reading about the genius of Abraham Lincoln* and in particular his political style which included a great deal of empathy, a great deal of understanding of diverse viewpoints from which he would make arguments which were based upon the moral-ethical values of our nation, while grounded in the realities of the times.  He used homespun stories, and analogies to help people understand his points of views, but never denigrated or demeaned others, knowing that “In order to win a man to your cause” Lincoln explained you must first reach his heart “the great high road to reason” … even in the political fight against slavery, he knew slavery was evil and horrible injustices were being done, but he would not assign evilness to slave holders, as abolishment was challenging their way of life and income… he proposed to meet them where they are and help to move them with reason and compassion, but do so with relentless persuasion, and eventually war for this purpose and to maintain the American experiment and ideals of the Declaration of Independence, that all are created equal.

We today, face challenging times, with threats to our nation not dissimilar to those of the 1850s… for a “house divided against itself cannot stand” as Lincoln said.  Today we are divided.  Today we denigrate and demean instead of understand and communicate.  We must understand that for many of our fellow Americans don’t care if democratic institutions were to be replaced by autocracy or an oligarchy for they have lost faith in our institutions.  Our form of government just doesn’t seem to work for them.  Furthermore the entertainment news and social media is laced with misinformation masquerading as news.  Their fears and mistrust are being used to push them down a path of compliance to powers which would in turn exploit them.  I warned of this coming storm with a book I published 4 years ago this month called Trump, Power & the Lessons of Orwell’s 1984: Democracy is Being Threatened … and my message remains true.  Disinformation, distrust of institutions and fears are still being used to move people toward the darkness of power and autocracy, and this is not a problem which is going away any time soon.  

I believe Trump will be defeated in November, largely because he will lose the women vote as, reproductive rights will be front and center for many, and the damage done by the dark tome of Project 2025 seems to be sticking to Trump.  Therefore democracy will survive, but the seeds of this Trumpian-darkness are planted deep and the distrust by his followers will not recover without healing.  Dangerously these seeds will be harvested by another, possibly more cunning than Trump in the future.  We as a nation must address and treat the underlying issues and concerns in order to reach the heart of the matter through the hearts and minds of the disillusioned.

We must address the underlying issues with compassion and understanding, never using denigrating terms like “basket of deplorables”, as was once done, as this will only harden their resolve.  We must understand their fears and distrust are born of experience… and we must relate.  We all know the frustration with institutions, after all, who hasn’t fought with insurance companies?  We all know of family or friends and heard stories of the devastation of drugs, of homelessness, of despair, and who cannot relate to the cumulative effect of inflation?   Also, it is not a Christian conspiracy or some failure in reason to seek power through a leader like Trump, but rather a break in the faith of compromise and democracy that leads Evangelical Christians to side with someone who clearly doesn’t know the Bible and doesn’t live Christian values.  The source of these problems are not rooted in the liberal democracy which they are turning away from, these problems are pervasive and are due to human frailties and crime and corruption… and they exists in autocracies as well, the press there is just not free to report on the problems.  The problems can be fought only with understanding and the raising-up of everyone.  Especially those who have felt abandoned as liberal elites have written them off… government is not of the people for the people if it is not for all the people.

Reason and historical perspective and sourcing of information to those living in the desert-echo-chamber of MAGA requires meeting them where they are… understanding why they think the way they do?  Asking why is the only way.   Refuting the “they all do it,  all politicians are corrupt and criminal” cannot be accomplished with a wave of the  hand, or saying that’s stupid.  Rather, asking where would you rather live?  Asking, isn’t it good to have a free press and open sources of information to challenge and expose corruption?  Isn’t it good to have a justice system who will prosecute the Menendez’s as well as the Trump’s of this world equally?   Where in the world does this happen, except in countries with an open democracy with institutions like the DoJ and importantly the free press.   Sure our government can be improved, all can… but it is up to us to support it and to vote.  Encourage the widening of the information horizon, encourage questioning and build bridges through reason and understanding… for a “house divided against itself cannot stand”.

I know, I have not always lived by these words, I’ve been quick to dismiss those I believed would not understand, those who had been seduced by the idea that there is a way toward (or back) to a way of life where all problems were solved by force of authority and enforced conformity.   But I am still learning, as we all should; and for me Abraham Lincoln is a remarkable teacher through his actions and words so very many years ago.

* Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin…. Thank you Tracy for the gift of this marvelous book.

Power of Nature…

Six million gallons a minute sourced from the upper great lakes rushing toward Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Seaway and on to the Atlantic.  An incredible phenomenon, to see the concentrated power of so much water and gravity at work.  The energy of a closed system of water replenishment in the upper great lakes through rain and snow across a massive watershed fed into rivers feeding and replenishing the great lakes.  Nature’s concentrated force visible at this nexus of power.

Timing…

10,000 years ago a gorge created by a collapse of limestone, formed the opportunity for the falls, and as the mass of water erodes the falls at nearly a foot per year, in some 50,000 years the falls will have receded into nothing but the flow of a river.  We are fortunate to have seen it while we can. 😉

Power…

Nikola Tesla…

saw this great power of water dropping some 180 feet and realized this could be tapped to spin a turbine, to turn a shaft linked to magnetic rotors, which spinning past copper stators would produce electric energy to power industry and homes through distribution of alternating current electricity.  Together with George Westinghouse they conceived a power plant which was built on this site.  In 1905 it went into service and operated for 101 years.

The power of invention…

and thought, and massive amounts of manual labor, dynamite and machinery allowed for tapping into the power of water and gravity and transport it to where it could be used productively.  Amazing the work done and illumination accomplished.

The power plant is now a museum worth seeing.  The 2200 ft. tunnel which once was used for the outflow of water that had turned the 11 turbines of the power plant, is now a walkway which leads to a viewing platform near the base of the horseshoe falls offering another view of the power of water and gravity…

The romance of nature…

the moonrise over the falls at night as they are lit by the power of electric light, an accident of timing, human innovation and celestial power, but beautiful nonetheless.

Niagara Falls 2024

This flag was adopted June 14, 1777 to be the flag
of the United States of America!

This flag has found itself on a hundred foreign battlefields and yet never as a conqueror of distant lands.   It has been saluted with pride over the last 247 years by hundreds of millions of people in the service of this country, and by many billions out of love for this country.

It flies, as it should, topped with a blue field of white stars
as a reminder of our democratic freedoms, never to be
overturned by autocrats who’d rather enslave us to
their image of an America of conformity, as they enforce
their religious white nationalism, one-size-fits-all tyranny,
rather than the spirit of liberty, rights of self-determination and
rule of the people and by the people we cherish!

We are Americans!
We fought for the rights to worship as we wish, for equality
of race, gender and to keep government from telling us who
we can love.  We fought to be free of the dictates of tyrannical
leaders and for the opportunity of commerce, and for the
right to advance our lives and our children’s lives
in the pursuit of happiness.  We don’t seek retribution
and revenge from our leaders, rather we revere justice
and service to the causes of freedom!

We are strong!
We can protect our freedoms as well as, support the
weak who are fighting for the freedoms and liberties of self-determination we enjoy.

May our flag fly (right-side-up) over this land and always
represent freedom, liberty, and justice for all!

We have been taught that Christ died for our sins, and through his resurrection we may be forgiven, thus opening the gates of heaven to us sinners.  This simple transactional view should be replaced with one which is more transformational.  God did not need a sacrifice by his son to forgive his children.  God could do so out of love as he pleases, and it is our human hubris to interpret the events in this transactional way.

We may think of the demonstration and example of Christ’s sacrifice, in the context of proving that a life-commitment to loving others, to doing good, and of humility and sacrifice can be extended through one’s life, through death, and lives on forever in a spirit and form that remains transformational today.

The legacy of Christ and his love lives on today two millenniums later and has spread around the world. This message is that we can transform beyond our human frailties into a spirit and legacy that lives on.  This for me is a truer message of Easter.  How we live is defined more than how we interact with our complex worlds in some transactional manner, but how we influence others, and how that subsequently influences others we may not even know… extending through generations.  So, just as we are influenced by Christ’s teachings today, you are influencing today your friends, your families, your casual acquaintances and even those you may view as enemies, and they will influence others in a geometric sequence of legacy which extends on forever.  So, he is risen, and he influences us today, and we should remember we are doing the same.  You are a transformational influence in our worlds.  What would you like your influence to be?  One of love I hope!

Happy Easter! 

Three years ago today we witnessed the horror of a president attempting an insurrection by inciting a crowd to attack the U.S. Congress to keep Congress from certifying the fair and free democratic election of his successor.   By violently attempting to deny the transfer of power, Trump demonstrated his true colors, he is a fascist … and if you think this is an exaggeration, consider the definition of fascism, per Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

There’s psychotherapy, which is talking
and aroma-therapy which is smelling
and sleep-therapy which is sleeping
and cognitive-behavioral, which is
thinking before acting (seems a good idea),
and then there is dialectical behavior
therapy which is merely accepting
what one is thinking and feeling.

Then there is exposure-therapy, which
is exposing us to what we are afraid of,
then there is interpersonal therapy,
which seems to be helping us realize
when relationships are not good for us.
But wait there’s more… mentalization,
psychodynamic, emotion-focused, and
animal-assisted therapies.

If you cannot get help from animals then
maybe family therapy is for you, if
family makes it worse, there’s group therapy,
and if this isn’t working you can work
on me, myself and I in mindfulness therapy.

More fun is creative-arts therapies,
and even better are play therapies.
And we have not scratched the surface of
pharmaceutical therapies, and physical
therapies, all arrayed in front of us
because it seems we somehow get
broken in this world between the
womb and where we are.

And thus, I offer a dose of
poetic therapy!

For adults in the room… specifically the house of representatives in the US Congress is the room I speak of… to come together and show long-missing leadership putting America ahead of respective party.

The opportunity is a pending government funding crisis, a thin Republican majority in the house, and malcontent wacko-extremist MAGA handful who want to burn it all down.

The leadership we need is Democrats to support a weaken speaker, Kevin McCarthy, against the MAGA extremists… and for Kevin McCarthy to swallow his Republican-pride and seek help from the other side of the aisle.   Yes it would be a mess in his party, but it would be leadership much needed for Americans to see, and it might just signal a sea-change in how representative democracy can work.

Can you imagine a house of representatives in congress showing leadership and accomplishing meaningful bipartisan legislation in a hostile divisive environment?

I know… I’m such an optimist!

I was sent an article called The Great Divide, from the Magazine Wired, written by Paul Ford.  It was interesting, suggesting that there are two ways to the see the world using computer processing analogy of batch vs. loop processing to compare the two; and a need to reconcile the differences.

In short, the premise is that like the early days of computing where you fed carefully prepared punch cards into the computer and awaited a response (batch) versus the interactive way we use computers today (loop)… the computer now waits for us to respond, whereas in the past, it was us waiting for the computer to answer.  Applied to current events, congress – our law-creating body in this country operates in a batch fashion… yet us as constituents we mostly operate in a TicToc, Facebook, Google world which is decidedly  loop.  Our institutions move slow, we input our concerns, our issues, our desires and we wait to see how the system may respond, if it does at all.

But there is another aspect of batch vs. loop to consider which I think is very important.  In the past, as well as present, the concepts of conservatism, of liberalism, or socialism, or any other form of thought operated on the basis of writings and debated ideas by philosopher’s, politicians and even religious leaders who hoped to lead our thinking in preparation for the batch processing that is governing, the batch process which is the basis of civic involvement.

Yesterday, speaking with some young people, and some not so young, I found them conditioned to loop processing in our highly interactive world.  We shop for something online and the ads get pushed to us. We push a button, and arguably batch but still very fast-loop a product is delivered to our doorstep.   We stream entertainment, with a switch from one platform to another and then another until something grabs our attention.  And so too, we and they are attracted to populism, the interactive relationship with political leaders is sought after, they react to the ones articulating and responding, however unreasonably, to grievances and fears we share.

There is little-to-no batch processing, such as reading opinion pieces or seeking data on performance and history, rather we respond to and quote the latest heard in the interactive world of the loop.
As an example, on the left, I heard affection for Marianne Williamson, not for any specific position, but because she’s popular on Tic-Toc… and on the right, affection for Vivek Ramaswamy, because he was demonstrably communicative, and quick on the debate stage, not for specific positions… with the exception of a position for raising the voting age to 25 which was surprisingly illustrative of what they thought about their generation’s attention to this batch-world of governing… and blindness to the obvious positioning of a right-wing which is demographically older and whiter.

Populism is winning because it fits the  nearly single-minded “loop-mindset” prevalent in our world today.   There is no reconciling batch vs. loop, the only solution is to value and enhance both.