Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. WE are in this together! I love reading your journalism, sometimes we all need to be reminded of the other human.
As brainy as you always are, I love it when you share those little cartoons. Those toons remind me so much of the educational cartoons I grew up on in the 1950’s and 60’s. Call me simple but I learned all about government from little short cartoons. Like, how a bill becomes a law. Pre Sesame Street. Thanks for sharing E to We. As Joyce Vance say’s pretty much every day, we’re all in this together. Loved your essay. 😊💙✡️
Thank yoiu, Claudia. We certainly are in this together. Which is why I was disturbed by the excessive righteous indignation that seems to be seeping into conversations these days. Yes, those cartoons are great!
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, which seem to offer a pluralism shaped by a more vibrant sense of shared responsibility and openness to listening. Perhaps this take on pluralism may be joined by a new vision of diversity. Often used as a definition of identity that ties up advocates and opponents in debates over opposed perceptions of exclusion, diversity could instead (particularly if there is a resumed confidence that economic opportunity is expanding) be seen as a means to strengthen interdependence and cooperation.
There is an account by Doris Kearns Goodwin in her 2024 memoir An Unfinished Love Story (pp. 278-284) that provides background and aftermath for RFK's 1966 speech (and her husband Richard Goodwin’s last-minute rescue of that speech) to college students in South Africa. The pluralism of that glowing moment was punished by the white South African government years later, when it barred reentry by the white South African student leader. So exiled, she later became general counsel of Harvard and then Chief Juastice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The “we” in South Africa was shrunk by a defensive government.
I differ with one comment in your essay: Connecticut Senator Murphy’s call to Democrats to match Republicans in “flooding the zone” is a metaphor for political strategy that is likely to leave Americans drowning in counter-currents. Perhaps it’s time to steal from the GOP invective and misinformation team and call for Democrats to “drain the swamp” caused by GOP dam-busting.
Good points, Jonathan. I guess I'm saying that inclusiveness needs to be all inclusive. Flooding the zone with accusations may not be the best. But with truth? To mix the wet-metaphors, do we flood the swamp with fresh water?
The freshwater metaphor is apt for a classic First Amendment, marketplace of ideas approach to combating misleading or false speech.
I fear though that speech is increasingly caught in cycles of noise and there probably is a place for intervention by unspoken facts like the changes in people’s lives and how that changes their perception of the information or misinformation they’re receiving.
In the meantime, your pluralistic talk and listening approach is worth pursuing for its civic and civil merits, regardless of whether better results come quickly.
Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. WE are in this together! I love reading your journalism, sometimes we all need to be reminded of the other human.
Thank you for your continual kind education and resistance. I appreciate your words.
Thank you!
As brainy as you always are, I love it when you share those little cartoons. Those toons remind me so much of the educational cartoons I grew up on in the 1950’s and 60’s. Call me simple but I learned all about government from little short cartoons. Like, how a bill becomes a law. Pre Sesame Street. Thanks for sharing E to We. As Joyce Vance say’s pretty much every day, we’re all in this together. Loved your essay. 😊💙✡️
Thank yoiu, Claudia. We certainly are in this together. Which is why I was disturbed by the excessive righteous indignation that seems to be seeping into conversations these days. Yes, those cartoons are great!
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, which seem to offer a pluralism shaped by a more vibrant sense of shared responsibility and openness to listening. Perhaps this take on pluralism may be joined by a new vision of diversity. Often used as a definition of identity that ties up advocates and opponents in debates over opposed perceptions of exclusion, diversity could instead (particularly if there is a resumed confidence that economic opportunity is expanding) be seen as a means to strengthen interdependence and cooperation.
There is an account by Doris Kearns Goodwin in her 2024 memoir An Unfinished Love Story (pp. 278-284) that provides background and aftermath for RFK's 1966 speech (and her husband Richard Goodwin’s last-minute rescue of that speech) to college students in South Africa. The pluralism of that glowing moment was punished by the white South African government years later, when it barred reentry by the white South African student leader. So exiled, she later became general counsel of Harvard and then Chief Juastice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The “we” in South Africa was shrunk by a defensive government.
I differ with one comment in your essay: Connecticut Senator Murphy’s call to Democrats to match Republicans in “flooding the zone” is a metaphor for political strategy that is likely to leave Americans drowning in counter-currents. Perhaps it’s time to steal from the GOP invective and misinformation team and call for Democrats to “drain the swamp” caused by GOP dam-busting.
Good points, Jonathan. I guess I'm saying that inclusiveness needs to be all inclusive. Flooding the zone with accusations may not be the best. But with truth? To mix the wet-metaphors, do we flood the swamp with fresh water?
The freshwater metaphor is apt for a classic First Amendment, marketplace of ideas approach to combating misleading or false speech.
I fear though that speech is increasingly caught in cycles of noise and there probably is a place for intervention by unspoken facts like the changes in people’s lives and how that changes their perception of the information or misinformation they’re receiving.
In the meantime, your pluralistic talk and listening approach is worth pursuing for its civic and civil merits, regardless of whether better results come quickly.