Rescue the Children

HURRAH! A cooperative worldwide effort to rescue Thailand children trapped in a flooded cave has rescued them all in less than 3 weeks from the time they entered the cave to the time of their rescue. 

It should be much easier, shouldn't even take a heroic effort, to rescue children trapped in separation from their families at the Mexican border. These things are possible, but this week this administration did not even meet the first deadline to get all the children below 5 years old reunited with their families.  

It should even be logistically possible with a cooperative world wide effort to develop economic systems that could rescue all the hungry children everywhere living in poverty,  1 in 5 in the US. According to a recently released United Nations report, “The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries [. . . .] The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality.” 

In Maine the situation is worse according to Maine Equal Justice Partners. Since the election of Governor LePage in 2010, childood poverty has risen: "One in every six children in Maine lives in poverty.  But more troubling still, the depth of poverty is getting worse for Maine children.  One out of every 13 children is living in extreme or “deep poverty” here in Maine.  That means that their family’s income is less than half of the poverty level—less than $840 a month for a family of three.  For many, it’s much less." 

Such inequality and poverty is a direct result of economic policies that are chosen by elected leaders. The solution is to elect different leaders than the ones in power now, leaders who will fulfill the constitutional promises of promoting the general welfare, the common good, and equality for all. Please consider carefully when you vote this November.

Published, The Star Herald, July 18, 2018

"Love your neighbor"

More on Civility: I like Stephen King's July 4th post on Twitter:  "@StephenKing · 4 Jul. Progressives, go find a Trump supporting friend--the one you haven't spoken to since November of 2016--and give him or her a hug. Trumpies, find a 'liberal snowflake' friend and do the same. Just for today, let's all be Americans."

He got a lot of flack from liberals about it, but I really love the simplicity of it. You don't have to agree, approve, or forgive. It's only one friend, only one hug, and only for one day. Reminds me of the story of St. Francis embracing the leper considered a very dangerous thing to do in his day. In its simple way, such an action can change your world. 

Closing Facebook

With some relief, regret, and sadness, I deactivated my Facebook account yesterday morning. The decision to do this had been coming on for months with growing frustration over my inability to keep up in spite of the amount of time I spent there and with increasing partisan negativity and hate coming from both major parties. This FB page has been a valued part of my life for nearly 10 years as an important tool in my efforts to help the cause of peace and justice. I appreciate more than I can say the many FB friends who have supported my efforts and contributed their own: all those I have never met in person as well as those I know and will continue to be in touch with. Thanks and love to you all.  

The final trigger that propelled me to actually close it down was an argument with a FB friend about civility which failed to come to a satisfying conclusion. Although I had never met this person we had been having friendly, respectful, and supportive conversations for many months. But in this conversation I was feeling increasingly attacked about my views on the values of civility and then on my use of the term verbal violence to describe Trump's attacks on Mexicans, Muslims, media, handicapped, women and more. I wanted my use of the term to show how his kind of incivility encourages and enables the level of violence in the whole culture, and how returning it in kind escalates  conflicts as we get caught up in  vicious cycles. She claimed my use of the term was dangerous because it demeans victims of actual  physical violence to be told that Trump stating anything is actual violence. 

At this point, over 700 words into the conversation, I thought attempts to explain and defend myself against feelings of being attacked were not promoting understanding between us but were instead escalating conflict, and I bowed out of the conversation. 

This trigger is superficially trivial. By itself, it would not prompt me to give up the substantial benefits I knew from FB involvement. But it came at the end of months of self evaluation leading up to my 80th birthday about the best use of my fleeting time and energy. Today it feels like this action has opened up and expanded time. And at this time in my life my daily feelings, like never before, are reality.