Years ago (and gosh, when I say years, I mean twenty-four or something crazy like that), I went to Russia (well, then the Soviet Union) with a peace group. We led a series of workshops, many of them nearly clandestine meetings, incorporating Joanna Macy’s Despair and Empowerment model to discussions about peace and nuclear arms.
One thing that was striking about our nearly three weeks in the Soviet Union was being followed. Going to a person’s apartment in Moscow, we basically had to sneak in, because the hallways were bugged. It was very Big Brother realizing governmental conspiracies were a constant. It’s hard not to become preoccupied by looking for signs of being followed, once you’ve been followed, I’ll tell you that. Despite (at times plenty of) evidence to the contrary, I’ve remained either naïve or hopeful overall about governmental conspiracies (ours) against individuals. I’m not sure where gullibility and oversight fit in, but in Shirley Sherrod’s case, those two descriptors are key, along with a healthy dose of disdain for Fox “news” (and why can’t we somehow, somehow stop treating it as a news organization and strip the press credentials and privileges like a band-aid, fast?) and the laziness of the people who should have been skeptical of the reports for not digging deeper. I barely paid attention to the details of this story, that’s how dismaying I found it.
Yesterday, when the Democratic fundraising machine (oh, it was a person, but not a personal call) rang to ask for money because Karl Rove is set to raise $320 million or something ridiculous like that to oppose the Democrats, I stopped her. Here was my question: if the Democrats have to raise money like that, how can they do anything substantive? And here was my rant: The BP disaster, to any thinking person would be a sign to shut down any further deep water drilling. Reproductive rights are being eroded (I didn’t say, but thought, and Harry Reid, who is not pro-abortion leads our party and he’s in trouble against a Teabagger. Really? I never liked him in the first place, not as leader and now…). We’re still at war in Afghanistan. I’m sorry to say this but right now, I don’t want to give the Democratic Party money. It doesn’t seem like a particularly wise investment. To the caller’s credit, she was most gracious in saying she was sorry I felt that way.
There are plenty of Democratic candidates I can heartily endorse (Peter Shumlin for Governor of Vermont, for one). I am not going all Ralph Nadar let’s-shoot-our-party-in-the-foot in order to cede everything to Mr. Rove’s pals here. I did need some talking down, some urging to think about Elena Kagan. Okay, I will. I do. I am. To secure my trust, I need more than the trade-off that Kagan’s worth more than losing Sherrod so horribly and seeing good people using energy they should not have to expend in order to fight for what should be a no-brainer appointment of Elizabeth Warren. I need to know that a woman with severe diabetes facing a stroke if she continues a pregnancy can receive help in the form of funding for an abortion because the costs, not just financial but physical are too great in her estimation (as a mother to two already) to remain pregnant this time. When the most vulnerable can’t be helped, I don’t think it bodes well for the rest of us.
From my little sinkhole of despair this week, I found myself remembering Macy’s work.
The despair and empowerment work goes kind of like this: if we can’t face our fear and sadness and anger at how things are now, we’ll be ostriches with heads in the sand, inactive because that’s easier than facing our feelings and working through them in order to find our voices and our will to work for change.
Remembering this model—after ranting—got me thinking about what makes me believe in change. What springs to my mind first are my kids, how hearing the way they pull ideas together and perceive the world (my twelve year-old is writing a blog as a summer project and his concern for the world and reverie in things he loves is palpable) gives me much hope. I look out a little further than home. Treehouse Communities’ camps for kids in foster care model new ideas to support kids’ potential through a hard experience rather than let the hard define them. Belonging to a CSA (ours is Town Farm) makes me grateful that my area is moving in pretty brilliant direction. The Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts ensures that at least some women locally unable to pay for necessary reproductive health care can obtain that care, and that’s reproductive justice in action. My task is to open my eyes—and then my heart responds in kind, and my hands pitch in.
So, it’s a neat trick, despair and a neater trick, empowerment. Joe Hill said, “Don’t mourn. Organize.” That’s the take home message. Rant and then once the feelings are aired, look up and out, open eyes and heart, sign the petitions, give the money, march, talk, write, and sing. Organize.
