#Marianne2020
A Politics of Love.
April 27, 2019The humanitarian crisis is in the White House.
DT’s Second Term
Paul Starr
So far, much of the concern about the long-term effects of DT’s presidency has centered on his antidemocratic tendencies. But even if we take those off the table—even if we assume that Trump continues to be hemmed in by other parts of the government and by outside institutions, and that he governs no more effectively than he has until now—the impact of a second term would be more lasting than that of the first.
[…]
Three areas—climate change, the risk of a renewed global arms race, and control of the Supreme Court—illustrate the historic significance of the 2020 election. The first two problems will become much harder to address as time goes on. The third one stands to remake our constitutional democracy and undermine the capacity for future change.
[…]
In short, the biggest difference between electing Trump in 2016 and reelecting DT in 2020 would be irreversibility.
[…]
Democracy is always a gamble, but ordinarily the stakes involve short-term wins and losses. Much more hangs in the balance next year.
[…]
The choice Americans face in 2020 is one we will not get to make again. What remains to be seen is whether voters will grasp the stakes before them. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s emails absorbed more media and public attention than any other issue. In 2018, DT tried to focus attention on a ragtag caravan of a few thousand Central Americans approaching the southern border. That effort failed, but the master of distraction will be back at it next year. If we cannot focus on what matters, we may sleepwalk into a truly perilous future.
[Full article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/trump-2020-second-term/585994/]
“Humanity has come to a fork in the road. There is a way marked Love and there is a way marked Fear, each path leading tumor of the same…in our finest hours, America has stood for what humanity at our best aspires to be. We have sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed, but today, in our time, it is ours to decide our path as we move forward. lady Liberty’s torch is in our hands, but only we can determine whether it burns within our hearts.”
-Marianne Williamson, A Politics of Love
Marianne spoke in Las Vegas last night. I recommend beginning at 50:15 for her introduction video. Forward to 1:20:00 for her Q&A to hear the depth of her issues, wisdom, compassion, and her connection with “We the People.” (1:24:00 is beautiful.)
https://livestream.com/accounts/11464019/events/8656602/videos/190529602
“A truth teller, a seeker, a mother, and a learned woman in this scary and strange new world, her voice is at once strong medicine for our roundedness, warmth, insistence, good humor, and a little light to see by.”
-Author Anne Lamott
Author. Lecturer. Activist. Democratic Presidential Candidate.
♡
‘My campaign for the presidency is dedicated to this search, for wisdom of the heart is too often absent from the political sphere.
Together we can reclaim both our democratic principles and the angels of our better selves, expressed not just in our personal lives but on acts of citizenship as well.
Politics should not be a pursuit disconnected from the heart; it should be, as everything should be, an expression of the heart. Where fear has been harnessed for political purposes, let’s now harness the power of love.
It is time to let go of an old and tired political conversation, and forge a new, whole-person, heart-centered political dynamic.’
～
From Marianne on Saturday, April 27th: “We’re under 8,000 left to go! So we’re totally getting there. Please do everything you can to get even the smallest donations to get us onto the DNC debate stage.”
[Only$1-$5 donations needed for a singular/unique donation.]
Kindness
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.