“We are not enemies, but friends,” said Abraham Lincoln. “We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
I’ve thought a lot about Better Angels in my life. I am always looking for mine, and sometimes even find them. The dictionary defines “better angels” as “morally upright or otherwise positive attributes of human character.
My better angels are compassion, empathy, and sympathy.
I was reading some old Woody Guthrie lyrics today, wondering what he would make of the Trump rally scheduled for Tulsa next week.
I sort of half dozed, half dreamed.
In my dream, I was telling Guthrie about the cruel and heartless politics in our country and our abandonment of the poor, and of how I was always looking for them in people, and I wondered what Abraham Lincoln might say about our politics now.
“Take it easy,” Guthrie sang in my doze, “but take it…”
I guess when it comes down to it, I want a leader who appeals to our better angels. I’m not sure who that is right now.
When I think of my better angels, I often think of Patty, with whom I have had a love-hate relationship online for years. I respect Patty, she is smart and insightful, and I read her posts carefully.
I think I’ve banned Patty about a dozen times from my blog and my Facebook and other social media platforms. We have this thing, she comes on, writes thoughtful commentary for a while and then gets frustrated or annoyed with me and comes after me, writing longer and longer and angrier and angrier posts.
I warn her about a dozen times, and then I ban or block her.
Sometimes she’s gone for a few months, sometimes for a year or more. I miss her when she’s gone; although we have many differences, we often see the world in the same way.
This week, Patty is getting sick of me again. She likes it when I poke the extremists on the left and the right, but she doesn’t like it when I poke the President or write something that annoys her. Which is a lot of things.
“But lately your blogs read more like talking points from MSNBC and CNN. Any more left, they would go off a cliff. “Going off a cliff” is what the country is doing right now. Cities boarded up, censorship, intimidation taking overexpression of free thought, anarchy occupying a Seattle neighborhood. Four years ago and three weeks ago. I would have said there was no way I would ever vote for Trump. Now, I regrettably have to consider it.”
I told her it was not my business who she voted for, and I warned her not to get personal again, or I would have to block her for a while. Again.
I like Patty’s honesty, but I sense her making the turn again, and I cautioned her not to start coming after me in a personal way on my blog.
I read her message a couple of times, and I realized how different our ideas about better angels are. She is following hers, I am following mine, and they are the complete opposite from one another.
It is essential that I remember that each of us has their own better angel, and each of us thinks we have the higher ground. How easy to forget that in our distracted and divided world.
I feel the same way Patty does about the country but in a completely different way. I admire the Seattle mayor for letting those kids control a seven-block police-free area of Seattle. They are doing what kids are supposed to be doing, raising the bar, challenging authority, experimenting.
The police were knocking heads and spewing tear gas for days. Isn’t it possible there is a better way?
I would hate to see the police come crashing into them, knocking heads, tossing gas canisters, waving batons. Their little world is by no means perfect, or even safe, but they are trying something a lot more meaningful than writing nasty posts on Twitter.
I admire the protesters, most of whom are peaceful and heartfelt, they are already helping to shape a better and more gentle world, even if they do overreact and overreach.
Or maybe they are just reaching. Have we created such a perfect world that it can’t survive the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, now occupying the space in front of the Police Departments East Precinct in Seattle?
The zone was abandoned by the Seattle Police to avoid the kind of bloodshed wreaking havoc in the rest of the country. What has emerged, said the New York Times, “is an experiment in life without the police – part street festival, part commune. Hundreds have gathered to hear speeches, poetry, and music.”
I wish I were there. I admire their spirit and courage and idealism, and I hope the city finds a way to negotiate them into giving their little town within a city back.
Can’t we find it in our hearts to give them some rope and cut them some slack? Can’t we spare seven blocks for a while, we all know how this must end, but the mayor of Seattle is willing to negotiate with them.
Don’t be humorless Patty, you aren’t exactly a part of the establishment yourself.
Like Patty, I dislike politically correct censorship, when a bad word or tweet can destroy life without mercy or appeal.
I’ve always hated mobs, even righteous ones. They are running amok this week.
Nobody likes violence or looting, but given the country’s horrific relation with African-Americans over centuries, I can’t say I’m shocked at the violence and exploitation.
I can’t make any excuses for it, I don’t have any, but my better angels are telling me we need a kinder and more compassionate country, not even a more hardened and even meaner one.
The kids are sending a message I am hearing.
We need to think of what policing means and how we can do it in a better and more humane way. This system works pretty well for me, but it is not working pretty well for millions of other people—too many horror stories from too many people in too many different places for too many years.
The kids in Seattle are asking us to consider the world differently and less violently. I’m all ears. We all know they won’t be in their zone unmolested for too much longer, I pray there’s a peaceful way out of it.
President Trump told the mayor that if she doesn’t take her neighborhood back, he will come in and do it himself. She told him to get back into his bunker.
But this brings me back to Patty and me and Abraham Lincoln.
I hope Patty and I can find a way to be friends; perhaps we are friends already. We must not be enemies, or our country will not be worth living in.
I hope the mystic chords of memory will swell when touched, and I realize that Patty’s idea of better angels and mine are not the same, which doesn’t mean that either of us are right or wrong.
Out of all this churning and seething, I see that behind the rhetoric, conversations are beginning to happen, and people like me are beginning to absorb a reality that has always been around but was easy to hide from.
We are not enemies, but friends, our passions must not break the bonds of affection. I think I know what Patty is trying to say, and I hope she knows what I am trying to say.
If we can do that, we are doing something, starting something—godspeed to the people in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.
I hope you are starting something too. And I thank you for trying.
When you started The Army of Good, it was a direct result of Donald Trump’s election. “All things work together for good…”
Your comments regarding Patty show that you are growing in awareness and are open to civil disagreement. I find Patty’s words interesting. They fill in some questions regarding what creates a Trump supporter.
I enjoy the variety of comments and look forward to reading what other’s share. Thank you for such insightful writing, questioning and sharing.
Thanks Antoniette, growing in awareness is what I do for a living, it is not new, it pretty much my core philosophy since I started my blog. Awareness is not about agreeing, it’s about listening. I’ve always admired Patty and her thinking, I just don’t believe in turning disagreements into personal attacks. And I will continue to not permit that. Otherwise, everyone is free to be here and say what they want.
No, those aren’t kids who have taken over the streets in Seattle. They are armed thugs who are shaking down businesses for protection money, setting up checkpoints demanding to see residents’ proof that they live there. The Seattle police chief just confirmed they can’t answer calls for rape and robbery. You are very sheltered up there in upstate NY. You would quickly change your tune if your daughter was in an area in NY that was the same as those 7 blocks in Seattle.
Wow!
I wish Woody were still alive during these times to give us one more of his brilliantly simple songs about unity, and Abraham Lincoln to bring us together with another historical speech. But they gave more than enough in their time on Earth and we received what they gave. So let’s keep using it because it’s proven it doesn’t wear out.
Two of the finest statues in Delaware have been removed:: Christopher Columbus and Caesar Rodney. I am really saddened by this. Remember The Soviet Union and its huge many volumed history, which was changed so frequently it was a bad joke? Is every slave owner’s statue going to be pulled down? If so half of the US’s history will disappear.
Removing statues is simply a gesture. African Americans will continue to be pushed around, injured and shot–no difference. Maybe even more, because of built-up resentment. I feel this and I’m not black and grew up in Europe, of American parentage. Caesar Rodney is known to almost every Delaware school child child for his famous ride.
Sorry to let off steam, it’s not my usual habit.
I feel differently. While experiments are always interesting, I would hate to have my entire life savings invested in a home in that Seattle zone, falling prey to someone’s experiment. For the long-term, I cannot imagine landing in a worse place. My heart and prayers go out to the people who live and have invested there. I feel law enforcement is a benefit and part of what we pay for when we invest to live in a municipal environment and I would bet that over time there will be a major exodus from that neighborhood. But then, I work closely with many law enforcement personnel–police, game wardens, sheriff’s deputies. As with all walks of life/professions, there are bad people–some very bad ones, as we saw in Minneapolis. However, I feel it is very important to say for the record that the many law enforcement personnel I have worked with for over 15 years are good and normal people, doing their best in a more difficult job than any of us will ever dream of having–made more difficult by the day, now–and one that I can up-close and personally see the acute need for. “Experiments” would never cut it for some of what I encounter daily in my work. I am very disturbed by the growing (and I feel, superficial) assumption that all police and police departments are bad people doing bad things. I have seen those I work with demonstrate kindness, patience, and empathy on countless occasions. And when their specialized training is needed, IMHO nothing else will do. One of them saved my life–and risked his own in the process–by discovering and removing a pipe bomb left by vandals on a piece of state property I manage, in a location where I would undoubtedly have come in contact with it. His specific law enforcement training and knowledge enabled that to occur, and he saw that situation as part of his daily work and something he was trained to do. I saw it as a much bigger deal. He also did not hesitate to accompany me when I had to negotiate with a diagnosed schitzophrenic crystal meth addict (unstable), and his skill sets were invaluable. Another had the instincts to recognize something awry with a tenant I was dealing with and we subsequently discovered the tenant was an FBI-convicted violent offender (multiple convictions) and he kept me safe at his own risk throughout that process. What happened in Minneapolis was horrific and reprehensible, but I am proud to say I respect law enforcement personnel and their work, and I remain deeply thankful for our local police and sheriff, and the work they and their employees do.
As always, Jon, thank you for thought-provoking posts, and being willing to entertain different viewpoints in your blog space–you know how much I appreciate and respect that.
Best,
Anne from Montana
Thank you.
“There is a little truth in everything and the whole truth in nothing.”
Such is the personal motto on my FB page and one I try to live by. It propels one to try and investigate and see all sides — and sometimes contradictory facts — of dilemma and conflict.
All humans are possessed of gifts and flaws; all professions that employ humans are composed of the “good and bad.”
Some weeks ago, our country was revulsed and horrified when witnessing the killing of a black man by four policmen on video.
We are called as a nation to address those criminal elements in some of our police personnel, as well as to address and solve any racial inequities in our institutionalized systems.
What we are not (in my view) called to do is label, attack and destroy entire systems (i.e “Dispand/defund, abolish the police”) as well as attack, censor, destroy and cancel anything we don’t like be they TV shows, movies, statues, columnists with whom we disagree, a woman making poor decisions in a park or even a controversial President we don’t like.
Of course the right to petition and peacefully protest injustices are guaranteed rights in this country — as they should be. I have been part of peaceful protests.
But I have NEVER been part of (or support) protests that were violent in words and actions and caused injury or death to innocent people. Nor would I ever be.
The excuse of “righteous anger” is no excuse at all for behaviors that violate all the laws of due justice and process.
What is occurring now in Seattle is not a “block party” or “summer of love.”
It is quite the opposite in its list of “demands” that call for the abolishment of police, the courts and prisons. Such is call to anarchy.
We would be wise to see these “calls to action” for what they are rather than what we wish them to be. To not do so is to plant the seeds of our own peril and self-destruction as well as laws of due process and freedoms of speech and thought.
You mentioned Woody Guthrie lyrics. For me, the lyrics which say it all, for 2020, are the ones from the QUEEN/David Bowie song: Under Pressure. Those lyrics are prophetic and it was as if Freddie Mercury knew what was coming.
Jon Remember when Chuck Schumer told Rachael Maddow The intelligence agencies have 6 ways from Sunday to take care of DT. Maybe this is one of them. We have a Deep State. Goerge Soros Nancy Polosi Chuck Schumer and others many others may be part of this 4 yr Viva ala resistance prairie fire. So if DT always seems nauseating I can’t blame him for standing up for himself in the midst of all this hatred towards him. He’s only doing what is right for the country in alot of people s opinion. Like 63 million.
Mary, sorry, but we don’t do conspiracy theories here…this is a different state…You are very welcome to your opinion, but I like to deal in facts, not crackpot theories…..Good luck with it..