Hi Charles, I don’t know much about your newsletter and I don’t even remember when I subscribed to it, but today morning I got it in my email and I thought of reading it.
The first line was enough to hook me in. I have been a follower of Gandhi and I went on an 1800 km walk across India when India was burning in the fumes of nationalism and religious divide. What I realised was exactly what you talked about. There is no good or bad and there is good and bad in both sides. What I do know now is peace is the only way forward. I don’t pick sides instead I meet people as people. I reason with them armoured with love and believe it or not the hate subsides.
In the current context I have met Israeli friends who started off with hatred but as we spoke more the hate subsided and similarly I met Muslim friends who hated the Israelis but soon their hatred diminished too.
The fortress can be breached.
The ammunition is love. 🕊️
Thanks for writing this man. I look forward to reading more from you.
I went to a trump rally in June. Precisely becasue of what charles said here. I wanted to hear directly what he talks about and feel the man out through first hand experience. Literally the entire energy of his talk was along the OTHERING and demonizing the other line that charles constantly claims that poor trump is a victim of. 99% of what he talked about was about how evil "they" are and how good "we" are. The good guys vs the bad guys. US vs The evil other. That was literally his entire talk. He didn't mention any policy even once (becasue if his followers actually knew what this pro-billionaire pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-Genocide pro-NeoCon pro-Big Pharma pro-Big Agri mass murdering billiionaire did as president then the entire bubble of 'anti-elite rebel' would burst for the sham that it is). His entire talk (and what he clearly thrives on) was riding on the energy of OTHERING, dehumanizing, hatred against 'the evil ones', demonizing, constantly inciting tribalist (religious or nationalist) hatred of the 'evil other'. It was absolutely clear to me during the rally that I am looking at the LOWEST LEVEL of human development. The lowest of the low!!
Precisely everything that charles constantly tells us that we are doing to poor misunderstood trump, this infantile psuchologically-undeveloped emotionally-stunted bully narcissist was actually doing to others!! Constant OTHERING and demonizing!! Constantly!!
You seem to repeatedly admonish us, dear Charles, for supposedly demonizing trump and that having compassion for the bully oppresser is the only way for true healing. I fully agree with you on that and love you for that, but please don't forget that there is also another half for this equation. It's not all about just compassion for the bully, the bully also needs to learn how to stop demonizing, othering, dehumanizing, abusing, inciting division and hatred along tribalistic (religious-nationalist) lines...
Whether I agree or disagree with all of your points, Charles, I appreciate that you continue to speak out. Naïve or not, we need alternatives to the predictable, entrenched narratives that propel us along road to disaster.
For what it’s worth, here’s a true story:
Once upon a time, while hitchhiking, I found myself lying underneath a large man with a knife to my throat. He was unresponsive to reason. I was terrified, and if could have gotten my hand on a gun, I probably would have done my best to kill him. But that wasn’t an option, and my perspective shifted:
There are two people here, and one of them is really in trouble. I reached my arms around him and gently patted his shoulder:
Hey it’s going to be OK.
It’s gonna be OK.
He got quiet, blinked a few times, and then poured out a story of years as a POW in Vietnam. Later he continued the story over dinner in a truck stop restaurant. He drove on, and I became a trauma therapist.
I’m not so naïve to think that this one event automatically translates to international politics.
But I believe Love wins in the long run- with no guarantees that things won’t be disastrously messy in the meantime.
I have a different yet similar story. Appealing to my would-be attacker as a human being under serious duress flipped the outcome in the moment. I never forgot that.
I found this an incredible and very moving story that reveals the power of compassion better than any philosophical argument could. Thank you for sharing it with us Kate.
Love is the answer. What can I do about all the wars around the world? I can choose love. When i remember that people kill out of fear, compassion returns. We choose a world that works for everybody, and love brings that destiny to life. Thank you ❤️🌏😍🙏🏽
But...I don't think this is a problem that can be solved by appeals to the rational mind. It can be solved, I believe, by awakening to a deeper reality. By healing the separation within ourselves, so that we no longer need to project evil onto some other. By opening our curiosity and receptivity, by listening deeply. By extending the boundaries of our perception outward to include all of the humans and beings and living systems that share our air and water, the miracle of dividing cells, the intricate dance of the biosphere.
I know you have heard from a lot of people who are disappointed in you for failing to condemn one team or the other, for maintaining your commitment to building bridges rather than divides. I support you in that, and I respect you for having the courage to enter the fray, to lend your perspectives to a real and promising political alternative.
At the same time, I feel like your recent essays are missing something that I have come to treasure whenever your writings arrive in my inbox. Heart. Love. Trust in something deeper and more powerful than our minds and institutions. The better world our hearts know is possible. I want to read fewer warnings of impending civil war, which I can find everywhere on the internet, and more stories of impossible friendships between sworn enemies, of the way that our hearts and the mysterious weaving of the larger pattern can shift our realities in unexpected and transformative ways. More of that, and less about politicians signing missiles and presidents signing particular bills into law.
Well said. It seems few are writing about those who are already building the new paradigm, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Instead humans have a propensity to focus on what is wrong instead of what is empowering. We look outside of ourselves to the politicians as if they are the solution. If this were so, we would not find ourselves where we are today. The solution is in each individual becoming empowered.
Thank you for this, Charles. I didn't resonate with your last essay because it was a stark contrast to back when we were talking about Trump as a symptom, as opposed to the root cause. I still don't believe in the potential of their movement, but that's okay — we disagree there.
Personally, part of the reason I am even able to entertain the possibility of peace is because I no longer see this life as the end. I'm not trying to convert anyone, but my belief of life beyond than this body (whether in another physical form or something else) allows me to see life as a training ground and my purpose as some sort of spiritual progression. If I'm not so fixated on this lifetime, it gives me an opportunity to consider and act on what is "right" with less influence from survival instincts.
I'm sure a cynic could write that off as privilege, but that's okay. It gives me an incredible freedom to treat all types of people with more empathy and compassion. That being said, I can humbly admit I'm a work in progress.
We forget that it doesn't take 51% to change the tides. Sometimes the threshold toward change is a lot smaller.
>> ... not blind to the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7.
It's not clear who committed atrocities. Most Israeli deaths on October 7 were actually from IDF machine guns, because their policy was not to allow Hamas to take hostages -- better to kill their own.
The mainstream narrative is about a huge failure of the most alert and competent intelligence service in the world. An alternative is that Hamas has been thoroughly infiltrated by Mossad from the beginning, and that October 7 was planned by Mossad to create an excuse for just what the Israeli army is doing now.
what a vile and twisted person you must be to make such absurd and evidence free assertions. Do you know the pain such comments would present to the families of the people who were slaughtered on 10-7 with Hamas filming the murders with glee. I suggest you look deep in your soul to see what unhealed emotions cause you to say what you said
What a supreme insult this is to the entire organizational hierarchy and the rank & file supporters of HAMAS. They haven't stood apart from other domestic Palestinian freedom movements by sticking to their charter and crowing about their plans to accomplish it because that is some sort of short-cut to personal or communal gain.
I've read remarks like yours for as long as TERRORISM STUDIES have been academic and journalistic disciplines, each held to their own peer-reviewed standards. I always put myself in the blamed group's rank and file membership and try to imagine being in their hierarchy of leadership cadre. Yours and other exonerating allegations and spun theories always come off sounding CONDESCENDING. Whether the act is spun as FREEDOM FIGHTING or TERRORISM, whether valorizing or condemnation something about it coming out of first-world mouthes of those denied membership into the exclusive COUNTRY CLUB OF RECOGNIZED STATEHOOD gives it such a condescending and under-achieving de facto spin.
Your whole first paragraph is a straw man. You're naive for other reasons, not for wanting peace. Most of the world wants peace. That's why so many peace talks have occurred. Sadly, the reality is that those at war do not want peace right now, so propounding all these theories and suggestions for peace just seems like you gloating about how wonderful you are. It is unfortunately, not realistic or about the suffering others.
I don't want to fight Trump or MAGA people, Charles, I just don't want to elect them or let them gain power by more nefarious means. Yours is a straw man argument.
Exactly, it's as if the options are support or utter demonisation. Why not clear-minded rejection, based on who he's shown himself to be, over and over?
Why all this crap about 'don't demonise' then? Just say 'vote Trump because the alternative is worse'. I know he won't say that though because he doesn't want to admit - even to himself - that he's now effectively a MAGA supporter.
I disagree with you that the media misrepresents Trump. His 3 week repetition of the,Haitian slur is unmistakably who he is. Not a friend to blacks or immigrants.
But I agree that our political system needs transformation.
I just changed my affiliation...back... to Independent.
Independent here too, left the Dems in 2015 when I was in my 60s, voted Trump in 2020 and will again. I do believe that his remark about the Haitians might be on point. Let's see what investigations show, but now that Soros is buying up all the radio stations and the FCC approved it, we know where not to look for truth.
One must understand that the behaviors of the Haitians is what is accepted in their culture. Yes, they kill and eat animals, some domestic and this was the case in Ohio. It has nothing to do with racism, but a difference in culture.
Well said. I would give Trump, as a humane being even more credit than you have. And black people pretty much know this as well as anyone. But that's just my assessment. It took me three years to warm up to the actual person in the suit. A little longer to understand the vitriol aimed his way.
One has to ask, why so much vitriol? Why is so much energy and money used to damn the man? What are they afraid of? Is Trump a threat to the old guard? A threat to the status quo? I have to say yes.
He laughs in the face of the people who support him,he is nothing like them, and will never be anything like them.He is clever,manipulative, a consumate con man and a provoker of xenophobia .I am glad I am not American, but if I was, I wouldnt be on team Maga that is for damn sure.
That being said,I love you Charles and have always appreciated the unique and sanity provoking perspective you bring into the world.
My previous respect for you is no longer. How can someone as knowledgeable as you not see that with the world on the verge of irreversible climate tipping points to put someone who can't wait to turn the country over to big oil will doom life on the planet in a matter of a very few decades. I will hold you as responsible as anyone. How dare you.
Well, there's naiveté, and there's naiveté. I'd love to believe that Kamala would joyfully turn us around from our hellbent course. But she supports fracking, supports wars which are enormous CO2 producers, is silent on the promise of nuclear power to reduce emissions, maintains huge tariffs to prevent affordable EV cars in the US....You could make the case that Trump would try to make things even worse, but then you have to argue that he has the discipline, vision and following to be an effective leader, which many folks doubt. You are illustrating Eisenstein's points about the limitations of us/them, good guys/bad guys thinking, I dare say.
Perhaps you should read Project 25 which outlines in great specificity exactly what Trump would do to dismantle every aspect of this country’s climate efforts.
I guess you will attempt to find some strained logic to dismiss what they explicitly say they will do so that you don’t have to acknowledge the Trump will continue exactly what he started when he was president.
If you choose not to believe what’s right in front of all of our eyes with project 25 all you need to do is look at his track record Promoting oil and gas, Dismantling every Climate program he could, Putting oil industry executives and allies in charge of every major federal program, firing climate scientist by the score and on and on.
So yes please ignore what actually happened And instead nitpick at Harris’s positions.
No one in the Climate community has any illusions that she is likely to do all that is required to address the climate crisis. But no one with any discernment will dispute that she will be 1000 times better than the man who took us out of the Paris agreement and claims climate change is a hoax.
Yes, it’s practicing compassion to assume the best about people as a starting point. Most people are basically good. Aside from the 3-5% of the population who are sociopaths, most people know that lying and cheating and killing people is wrong.
That’s why, when the temptation to lie or cheat arises, in order to feel better about ourselves, most of us come up with an excuse for why we harm another. Some popular rationalizations:
• "All gays are perverted and must die."
• “This or that ethnic group is subhuman."
• “Anyone who refuses the Covid shot doesn’t deserve medical care.”
Here’s the logical and tragic outcome of that prejudiced justification: Once I harm a group of people, I MUST KEEP ON HARMING THOSE PEOPLE TO JUSTIFY ALL THE PRIOR HARM.
The only sure way out is to confess. Look at 12-step programs – they understand the transformative power of admitting a mistake. From the depths of regret and guilt can arise the willingness to make amends (if possible), or at least to share the story, in case it helps others to not go down that same path.
Our culture teaches that it’s demeaning to admit a mistake. (And, of course, certain mistakes, if admitted, would lead to prosecution.) Nevertheless, if we can’t admit a mistake, changing our behavior is unlikely, and if we drop certain antisocial behaviors because of social pressure, that’s merely a strategy, not an awakening.
No Charles, you haven't lost your mind. Thank you for your detailed prospective. There are many layers, it is not black or white, but rather gray. I travel full time in the Western US and I meet people from all walks of life. Differences are a natural human expression, but there are also many commonalities. I see a very different picture from what is depicted on television screens. People in general have good hearts, they want to be useful, and they want to be heard. We have to drop the labels--Trumpers, Demoncrats, or what have you and talk to each other! By doing so, it opens the door to a totally different perception and a path to building a world that we so desire.
I just wrote a piece a week or two ago, somewhat about you Charles, called 'A politics of softness and unapologetic naivete'.
I won't link it but you can easily find it.
'naive' comes through french from the Latin for native, originally referring to an unspoiled state of innocence and only later when the colonial politics-machine discovered it benefits from the people adopting a sophisticated worldly stance did the word shift to mean something negative, so we could look down on those silly natives and their silly naive ways we were obliterating at the time, for instance.
I'm not sure which country you live in, but here in Australia we have a cartoonist who exemplifies this 'politics of softness and unapologetic naivete': his name is Michael Leunig. Look him up if you have the chance - I think you will resonate with his work.
Hi Charles, I don’t know much about your newsletter and I don’t even remember when I subscribed to it, but today morning I got it in my email and I thought of reading it.
The first line was enough to hook me in. I have been a follower of Gandhi and I went on an 1800 km walk across India when India was burning in the fumes of nationalism and religious divide. What I realised was exactly what you talked about. There is no good or bad and there is good and bad in both sides. What I do know now is peace is the only way forward. I don’t pick sides instead I meet people as people. I reason with them armoured with love and believe it or not the hate subsides.
In the current context I have met Israeli friends who started off with hatred but as we spoke more the hate subsided and similarly I met Muslim friends who hated the Israelis but soon their hatred diminished too.
The fortress can be breached.
The ammunition is love. 🕊️
Thanks for writing this man. I look forward to reading more from you.
I went to a trump rally in June. Precisely becasue of what charles said here. I wanted to hear directly what he talks about and feel the man out through first hand experience. Literally the entire energy of his talk was along the OTHERING and demonizing the other line that charles constantly claims that poor trump is a victim of. 99% of what he talked about was about how evil "they" are and how good "we" are. The good guys vs the bad guys. US vs The evil other. That was literally his entire talk. He didn't mention any policy even once (becasue if his followers actually knew what this pro-billionaire pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-Genocide pro-NeoCon pro-Big Pharma pro-Big Agri mass murdering billiionaire did as president then the entire bubble of 'anti-elite rebel' would burst for the sham that it is). His entire talk (and what he clearly thrives on) was riding on the energy of OTHERING, dehumanizing, hatred against 'the evil ones', demonizing, constantly inciting tribalist (religious or nationalist) hatred of the 'evil other'. It was absolutely clear to me during the rally that I am looking at the LOWEST LEVEL of human development. The lowest of the low!!
Precisely everything that charles constantly tells us that we are doing to poor misunderstood trump, this infantile psuchologically-undeveloped emotionally-stunted bully narcissist was actually doing to others!! Constant OTHERING and demonizing!! Constantly!!
You seem to repeatedly admonish us, dear Charles, for supposedly demonizing trump and that having compassion for the bully oppresser is the only way for true healing. I fully agree with you on that and love you for that, but please don't forget that there is also another half for this equation. It's not all about just compassion for the bully, the bully also needs to learn how to stop demonizing, othering, dehumanizing, abusing, inciting division and hatred along tribalistic (religious-nationalist) lines...
Whether I agree or disagree with all of your points, Charles, I appreciate that you continue to speak out. Naïve or not, we need alternatives to the predictable, entrenched narratives that propel us along road to disaster.
For what it’s worth, here’s a true story:
Once upon a time, while hitchhiking, I found myself lying underneath a large man with a knife to my throat. He was unresponsive to reason. I was terrified, and if could have gotten my hand on a gun, I probably would have done my best to kill him. But that wasn’t an option, and my perspective shifted:
There are two people here, and one of them is really in trouble. I reached my arms around him and gently patted his shoulder:
Hey it’s going to be OK.
It’s gonna be OK.
He got quiet, blinked a few times, and then poured out a story of years as a POW in Vietnam. Later he continued the story over dinner in a truck stop restaurant. He drove on, and I became a trauma therapist.
I’m not so naïve to think that this one event automatically translates to international politics.
But I believe Love wins in the long run- with no guarantees that things won’t be disastrously messy in the meantime.
Loved this.
I have a different yet similar story. Appealing to my would-be attacker as a human being under serious duress flipped the outcome in the moment. I never forgot that.
THIS
(speechless and in tears and wondering how to say "hey algorithm, over here!")
I found this an incredible and very moving story that reveals the power of compassion better than any philosophical argument could. Thank you for sharing it with us Kate.
Love is the answer. What can I do about all the wars around the world? I can choose love. When i remember that people kill out of fear, compassion returns. We choose a world that works for everybody, and love brings that destiny to life. Thank you ❤️🌏😍🙏🏽
Sounds like a wonderful epitaph: "He chose to love his enemies. Here lies love."
I hear you, Charles, and I agree 100%.
But...I don't think this is a problem that can be solved by appeals to the rational mind. It can be solved, I believe, by awakening to a deeper reality. By healing the separation within ourselves, so that we no longer need to project evil onto some other. By opening our curiosity and receptivity, by listening deeply. By extending the boundaries of our perception outward to include all of the humans and beings and living systems that share our air and water, the miracle of dividing cells, the intricate dance of the biosphere.
I know you have heard from a lot of people who are disappointed in you for failing to condemn one team or the other, for maintaining your commitment to building bridges rather than divides. I support you in that, and I respect you for having the courage to enter the fray, to lend your perspectives to a real and promising political alternative.
At the same time, I feel like your recent essays are missing something that I have come to treasure whenever your writings arrive in my inbox. Heart. Love. Trust in something deeper and more powerful than our minds and institutions. The better world our hearts know is possible. I want to read fewer warnings of impending civil war, which I can find everywhere on the internet, and more stories of impossible friendships between sworn enemies, of the way that our hearts and the mysterious weaving of the larger pattern can shift our realities in unexpected and transformative ways. More of that, and less about politicians signing missiles and presidents signing particular bills into law.
Well said. It seems few are writing about those who are already building the new paradigm, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Instead humans have a propensity to focus on what is wrong instead of what is empowering. We look outside of ourselves to the politicians as if they are the solution. If this were so, we would not find ourselves where we are today. The solution is in each individual becoming empowered.
Citing specifics to illustrate a point is helpful, for me.
Thank you for this, Charles. I didn't resonate with your last essay because it was a stark contrast to back when we were talking about Trump as a symptom, as opposed to the root cause. I still don't believe in the potential of their movement, but that's okay — we disagree there.
Personally, part of the reason I am even able to entertain the possibility of peace is because I no longer see this life as the end. I'm not trying to convert anyone, but my belief of life beyond than this body (whether in another physical form or something else) allows me to see life as a training ground and my purpose as some sort of spiritual progression. If I'm not so fixated on this lifetime, it gives me an opportunity to consider and act on what is "right" with less influence from survival instincts.
I'm sure a cynic could write that off as privilege, but that's okay. It gives me an incredible freedom to treat all types of people with more empathy and compassion. That being said, I can humbly admit I'm a work in progress.
We forget that it doesn't take 51% to change the tides. Sometimes the threshold toward change is a lot smaller.
>> ... not blind to the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7.
It's not clear who committed atrocities. Most Israeli deaths on October 7 were actually from IDF machine guns, because their policy was not to allow Hamas to take hostages -- better to kill their own.
The mainstream narrative is about a huge failure of the most alert and competent intelligence service in the world. An alternative is that Hamas has been thoroughly infiltrated by Mossad from the beginning, and that October 7 was planned by Mossad to create an excuse for just what the Israeli army is doing now.
what a vile and twisted person you must be to make such absurd and evidence free assertions. Do you know the pain such comments would present to the families of the people who were slaughtered on 10-7 with Hamas filming the murders with glee. I suggest you look deep in your soul to see what unhealed emotions cause you to say what you said
Wiki the Hannibal Directive. My friend in Tel Aviv says it's important for the IDF to kill Israelis before Hamas can.
Copying here, too:
Hey man, I live here too, and no, this is not true. Not that it never happened, but it was something like a single incident.
But wow, the tone of the responses here are incredibly disappointing coming from followers of Charles' blog. Very disheartening to see it.
You’re an imbecile.
What a supreme insult this is to the entire organizational hierarchy and the rank & file supporters of HAMAS. They haven't stood apart from other domestic Palestinian freedom movements by sticking to their charter and crowing about their plans to accomplish it because that is some sort of short-cut to personal or communal gain.
I've read remarks like yours for as long as TERRORISM STUDIES have been academic and journalistic disciplines, each held to their own peer-reviewed standards. I always put myself in the blamed group's rank and file membership and try to imagine being in their hierarchy of leadership cadre. Yours and other exonerating allegations and spun theories always come off sounding CONDESCENDING. Whether the act is spun as FREEDOM FIGHTING or TERRORISM, whether valorizing or condemnation something about it coming out of first-world mouthes of those denied membership into the exclusive COUNTRY CLUB OF RECOGNIZED STATEHOOD gives it such a condescending and under-achieving de facto spin.
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
This is utter and complete garbage. You’re a drooling anti-Semitic moron.
what absolute nonsense.
Yes, you won't be popular posting this, but I agree.
Yep
Hey man, I live here, and no, this is not true. Not that it never happened, but it was something like a single incident.
But wow, the tone of the responses here are incredibly disappointing coming from followers of Charles' blog. Very disheartening to see it.
Ignore him. Josh shoots his mouth off about all manner of things he has no idea about. He’s another one who makes a living from it.
May peace prevail. May we learn one another’s stories. May words replace wars.💕🙏☀️
Your whole first paragraph is a straw man. You're naive for other reasons, not for wanting peace. Most of the world wants peace. That's why so many peace talks have occurred. Sadly, the reality is that those at war do not want peace right now, so propounding all these theories and suggestions for peace just seems like you gloating about how wonderful you are. It is unfortunately, not realistic or about the suffering others.
I don't want to fight Trump or MAGA people, Charles, I just don't want to elect them or let them gain power by more nefarious means. Yours is a straw man argument.
Exactly, it's as if the options are support or utter demonisation. Why not clear-minded rejection, based on who he's shown himself to be, over and over?
Maybe he doesn't like the alternative? Many former Dems like myself are voting for Trump. And not because we like what he says on the whole
yet, what you and we get if he is elected is all those things you dont like.
Why all this crap about 'don't demonise' then? Just say 'vote Trump because the alternative is worse'. I know he won't say that though because he doesn't want to admit - even to himself - that he's now effectively a MAGA supporter.
Wait- demonizers aren't allowed to be demonized?? Only dehumanizers who dehumanize dehumanizers
I disagree with you that the media misrepresents Trump. His 3 week repetition of the,Haitian slur is unmistakably who he is. Not a friend to blacks or immigrants.
But I agree that our political system needs transformation.
I just changed my affiliation...back... to Independent.
Independent here too, left the Dems in 2015 when I was in my 60s, voted Trump in 2020 and will again. I do believe that his remark about the Haitians might be on point. Let's see what investigations show, but now that Soros is buying up all the radio stations and the FCC approved it, we know where not to look for truth.
One must understand that the behaviors of the Haitians is what is accepted in their culture. Yes, they kill and eat animals, some domestic and this was the case in Ohio. It has nothing to do with racism, but a difference in culture.
Don't eat at a chinese restaurant btw
Well said. I would give Trump, as a humane being even more credit than you have. And black people pretty much know this as well as anyone. But that's just my assessment. It took me three years to warm up to the actual person in the suit. A little longer to understand the vitriol aimed his way.
One has to ask, why so much vitriol? Why is so much energy and money used to damn the man? What are they afraid of? Is Trump a threat to the old guard? A threat to the status quo? I have to say yes.
He laughs in the face of the people who support him,he is nothing like them, and will never be anything like them.He is clever,manipulative, a consumate con man and a provoker of xenophobia .I am glad I am not American, but if I was, I wouldnt be on team Maga that is for damn sure.
That being said,I love you Charles and have always appreciated the unique and sanity provoking perspective you bring into the world.
Excellent questions, why do they protest so much, what are they themselves trying to hide?
My previous respect for you is no longer. How can someone as knowledgeable as you not see that with the world on the verge of irreversible climate tipping points to put someone who can't wait to turn the country over to big oil will doom life on the planet in a matter of a very few decades. I will hold you as responsible as anyone. How dare you.
Well, there's naiveté, and there's naiveté. I'd love to believe that Kamala would joyfully turn us around from our hellbent course. But she supports fracking, supports wars which are enormous CO2 producers, is silent on the promise of nuclear power to reduce emissions, maintains huge tariffs to prevent affordable EV cars in the US....You could make the case that Trump would try to make things even worse, but then you have to argue that he has the discipline, vision and following to be an effective leader, which many folks doubt. You are illustrating Eisenstein's points about the limitations of us/them, good guys/bad guys thinking, I dare say.
Perhaps you should read Project 25 which outlines in great specificity exactly what Trump would do to dismantle every aspect of this country’s climate efforts.
I guess you will attempt to find some strained logic to dismiss what they explicitly say they will do so that you don’t have to acknowledge the Trump will continue exactly what he started when he was president.
If you choose not to believe what’s right in front of all of our eyes with project 25 all you need to do is look at his track record Promoting oil and gas, Dismantling every Climate program he could, Putting oil industry executives and allies in charge of every major federal program, firing climate scientist by the score and on and on.
So yes please ignore what actually happened And instead nitpick at Harris’s positions.
No one in the Climate community has any illusions that she is likely to do all that is required to address the climate crisis. But no one with any discernment will dispute that she will be 1000 times better than the man who took us out of the Paris agreement and claims climate change is a hoax.
Thank-you, Charles. Agree word for word.
Yes, it’s practicing compassion to assume the best about people as a starting point. Most people are basically good. Aside from the 3-5% of the population who are sociopaths, most people know that lying and cheating and killing people is wrong.
That’s why, when the temptation to lie or cheat arises, in order to feel better about ourselves, most of us come up with an excuse for why we harm another. Some popular rationalizations:
• "All gays are perverted and must die."
• “This or that ethnic group is subhuman."
• “Anyone who refuses the Covid shot doesn’t deserve medical care.”
Here’s the logical and tragic outcome of that prejudiced justification: Once I harm a group of people, I MUST KEEP ON HARMING THOSE PEOPLE TO JUSTIFY ALL THE PRIOR HARM.
The only sure way out is to confess. Look at 12-step programs – they understand the transformative power of admitting a mistake. From the depths of regret and guilt can arise the willingness to make amends (if possible), or at least to share the story, in case it helps others to not go down that same path.
Our culture teaches that it’s demeaning to admit a mistake. (And, of course, certain mistakes, if admitted, would lead to prosecution.) Nevertheless, if we can’t admit a mistake, changing our behavior is unlikely, and if we drop certain antisocial behaviors because of social pressure, that’s merely a strategy, not an awakening.
No Charles, you haven't lost your mind. Thank you for your detailed prospective. There are many layers, it is not black or white, but rather gray. I travel full time in the Western US and I meet people from all walks of life. Differences are a natural human expression, but there are also many commonalities. I see a very different picture from what is depicted on television screens. People in general have good hearts, they want to be useful, and they want to be heard. We have to drop the labels--Trumpers, Demoncrats, or what have you and talk to each other! By doing so, it opens the door to a totally different perception and a path to building a world that we so desire.
I just wrote a piece a week or two ago, somewhat about you Charles, called 'A politics of softness and unapologetic naivete'.
I won't link it but you can easily find it.
'naive' comes through french from the Latin for native, originally referring to an unspoiled state of innocence and only later when the colonial politics-machine discovered it benefits from the people adopting a sophisticated worldly stance did the word shift to mean something negative, so we could look down on those silly natives and their silly naive ways we were obliterating at the time, for instance.
We do indeed need more naivete.
I'm not sure which country you live in, but here in Australia we have a cartoonist who exemplifies this 'politics of softness and unapologetic naivete': his name is Michael Leunig. Look him up if you have the chance - I think you will resonate with his work.
Lovely. Thanks for sharing. I just checked out a bunch of his cartoons and they're great. I already recognised the characters
Love Leunig’s work! Been following him on Instagram for several years.