My Final Takeaway from The Last Half of 2018: A Reminder of Emotional Attunement, Connection, and Kindness

On the first day of 2018, I figure it's time to wrap up my Ameya Pawar Gubernatorial Campaign takeaway.

Inspired by

• My anger about the Charlottesville white supremacy demonstration
• [45]'s reaction to it
• My almost violent encounter with some jerk in a pickup harassing a woman on a bicycle
• The Solidarity Against White Supremacy demonstration in downtown Chicago
• A demonstration a couple weeks later regarding [45] repealing DACA
• Thinking about political civic-liberal strategy
• And coming to understand
  
  • Expansion of suffrage
  • The Outlawing of Slavery in the United States
  • The Civil Rights Movement
  • How everyday local and state politics affect peoples' sentiment toward the political parties and candidates

I went to the 2018 campaign webpage for Ameya Pawar where I provided my contact information to volunteer. It frankly came down to him having become the most familiar candidate to me through friends on social media, local radio, and even at church (though after some exposure to other candidates, Pawar still strikes me as the one would do the best job in the position). Even now, I hardly hear anything about the remaining candidates other than on the radio or a random news article that strikes me as just some privileged guy who thinks they know what's best for everyone or someone who doesn't have the attention of the Illinois people for many reasons (but most likely lack of money and reputation to get their name out).

A week or so later the campaign texted me about the Chicago Kick Off Event for Collecting Signatures to put Pawar on the Democratic ticket for governor to happen on September 9th at the Irish American Heritage Center in Northwest Chicago. They had a more graceful name to it or the conversation happened so naturally that they just called it a "Signature Gathering Kick Up Event".

The event, itself, doesn't play a huge part in my experience of the campaign, though it's one of two "official" events around many volunteers. I've already recorded most of the events and significance from the event to the end of Pawar campaign entry on the blog and through my Twitter account.

My main takeaway from the event occurred at the beginning when they had us turn to each other and make some greetings. The young lady and her family to the right of me had a similar story as me: when [45] won Presidential Election 2016, we felt disappointed, frustrated with our society, and even a bit depressed by the prospect of how [45] and the GOP would attack the society we had come to love and the many advances that had occurred for civil liberties and civil rights during the last half century and last century and a half, and also the dignity that Barack Obama had brought to the office of President over the last 8 years. Also, [45] becoming President has emboldened many hateful people who seek to harm fellow Americans and human beings.

We hadn't done anything significant immediately, at least not until that point, except maybe that the family tried finding some action to take to fight back against the hateful and undignified scourge that took over our federal government. They might have reached this point more organically than I did, since they had gone to a speech that Pawar had made and talked about how he had charisma and made amazing speeches. I felt like a latecomer, but this family made me feel welcome and emboldened my desire to volunteer for the campaign (and maybe get further into the Democratic Party to try encouraging a better route for them).

More than this family and I have felt this need for initiative, too. The article I just linked to might come from the summer, but based on what I've heard from coverage regarding the Doug Jones victory in Alabama for the US Senate seat, the "[45] Bump" in liberal/progressive donating and activism continues strong to this day. Now that the Individual Health Insurance Open Enrollment has ended along with other high volumes of work at the office, I hope to get back in the fray (though the Chicago freezing weather might discourage it for a few months).

I enjoyed making this connection with that family, even if the only thing we knew that we had in common was our distaste for [45] and that Pawar provided us an avenue to channel our energies. A couple weeks later, I fantasized about focusing social events and community gatherings for the purposes of political or social justice action. It happened at an event tangentially involved in anything like this, Therapy Sessions at the Hungry Brain, and is somewhat in a similar spirit to my deeper, more primal goal. It is somewhat of a live interview show focused on local talent and personality. When I went, it had a monologue about empty time, boredom, and how we seem to compulsively try to fill that time. Other than incidental topics brought up because of guests, the show didn’t really get into any intentional social dissection or anything.

Mainly, I just felt receptive to the anticipation of a somewhat intimate social event and thought about the potential positive effect it could have when used to bring people closer together, to facilitate people connecting (on a more sincere, emotional than loose networking), then working together to compound those connections and attunement to encourage more connections and attunement among even more people then to continue on even more. Even now, I can imagine such connecting as something to use for nefarious purposes, but the potential for good things feels worth it.

Not directly political, but apparently even the founders of Airbnb felt a similar urge when starting out. Per a Ted Radio Hour talk that one of the founders made, he said something like "We can make friends and make a tent!" He spoke very idealistic about how the social economy can lead to good things.

Obviously Airbnb has had to deal with the realistic, frustrating and disappointing issues of running such a service, just as Uber past CEO Travis Kalanick has contributed to sexual harassment and other issues in the social economy, and it's easy to imagine many other social economy firms having been the center and contributing to bad situations. Even considering those issues and some of my own general skeptical cynicism, the Airbnb founder idealistic desire for connection still felt infectious.

To get back to politics, Doug Jones in the Senate victory demonstrates the importance of coalitions. His coalition building also vindicates the argument that I made during Election 2016 that I didn't think either Clinton or Bernie could win the general election unless they supported and got the support of marginalized communities by understanding the people, language and issues, bringing up the issues, and coming up with good solutions for those issues that executed well.

Apparently, Clinton reached that point but too late, after she had already used up the patience of Black Lives Matter and other black people. Black and other marginalized peoples' votes had something to do with getting her 3 million votes more than [45], but her work and attempts to understand and get those votes came too late. The marginalized votes she got, she probably would have gotten no matter what. You can find my argument about how Clinton failed the black and other marginalized communities here, mainly because she had little, if any, outreach along with the just not showing early enough that she cared per the articles I linked in the last paragraph. She might have gotten some good numbers, but they were too geographically focused, and she needed a wider distribution of votes.

I donated $55 to the NAACP in 2017 (and likely the future) because of an interview of Cornel West I heard. He talked a lot about how marginalized communities have a lot more interests in common than they think offhand, whether because of the color of their skin, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, or whatever characteristic that those with power decide they don't like. When these marginalized populations work together, they can accomplish a lot of good. Some doubts might arise because of the tactical and strategic arguments between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Cornel West and the same between the NAACP and Black Lives Matter, but coalitions can work and ARE powerful. They can work to make the world a better place. Doug Jones has demonstrated the power of working in and with coalitions.

I believe I stated my takeaway from the Pawar gubernatorial campaign in a blog entry around the time I volunteered for the campaign: emotional attunement and connection. I don't have any grand statements that have come from this campaign or have any methods to reach that point or anything, just that it's worth aiming for as a way to understand, feel good, and fight back the forces that seek to tear down those good and kind experiences. Maybe not so much in this sub-zero weather in Chicago now, but I want to get back into the political fray again, to try understanding more through real life experience and try to help us all get there (though I don't care to actually run for office, I don't have the quick wits or the personality).

The journey has its challenges and has the possibility for major mistakes. I come from a place of privilege. This status helps me get things easier for less cost than people with different characteristics and a similar status as me. Not only that, but much like how I discussed Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders above, I don't fully understand experiences different than mine, and I may say things in a dumb fashion that doesn't appreciate other peoples' experiences.

Hopefully I can embody enough humbleness not to remain stupid when I encounter it in myself and when people bring it to my attention. Maybe others with characteristics similar to mine can see me doing so, find inspiration through me and in themselves, then work on their humbleness to learn more, act kindly, then get some more connection and attunement while helping to strike down the forces that try to tear us apart for their own greed, shame, and insecurity. And maybe my studies and writing can help paint this map, too.

Who wants to join me in 2018 on the journey? Hopefully I'll get back to more volume with the blog posting again. I know I've gotten a little better with the fiction writing and studying again, having gotten the many tasks I had enumerated in the past done, so I shouldn't have too much trouble getting back into the swing of things!

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Failed Clinton/DNC Campaign for POTUS Contributed to My Volunteering for Ameya Pawar

I’ll admit, my volunteering for the Ameya Pawar for Governor of Illinois campaign has something of a twofold motivation, long-term political strategy and short-term-plus emotional drive. The long-term political strategy has provided me the primary impetus for participation, dry as the explanations may come out. My dry strategy comes largely, as I have said many times before, from my studying, a build up of rage against [45] from the day he announced his running for POTUS that reached a breaking point after Charlottesville and his speeches afterward, and many discussions on social media about the the election, the Democratic party, and how to shorten the scourge of [45]. Charlottesville provided me the final push into action while the discussions and research for them provided me the building materials for developing my strategy.

Three online articles/essays come distinctly to mind for this situation. I didn't have a good organizing system for bookmarking or had thought about the importance of doing so at the time (I recently just installed Google Bookmark Manager onto Chrome, which I think should help), so for at least one of these articles, I had to find the most equivalent or better article to list here. Not much of a loss, though, as I had remembered the facts wrong from one of the articles. The articles/essays are:

• The Democrats' Biggest Disaster - The DNC has focused so much on National campaigns that they've lost ground in local and state politics, weakening them on the national level and having a lot to do with enthroning [45] and getting majority GOP seats in the Senate and House
• Clinton fundraising leaves little for state parties: The Democratic front-runner says she's raising big checks to help state committees, but they've gotten to keep only 1 percent of the $60 million raised. (The last bit is the tagline, but I think it describes the article perfectly)
• Why the Democratic Bench Is So Thin - GOP did a great job recruiting my cohort generation (I'm on the tail end of X, just a couple years away from being a Millennial), but the Democrats didn't do so well. Historical life shaping events, like the Housing Crash/Great Recession, also didn't help

I'll start with my opinion on Hillary Clinton and the DNC fundraising scandal. There might be some misrepresentation with the promotion of their plans for funds they raised (even George Clooney had the impression that more money would go to downticket state campaigns!), which could violate an element of trust and maybe even law somewhere. Misrepresenting your goals for funds raised to run an entrepreneurial venture or funds raised for charity or assistance to be delivered can get you into some major trouble, probably moreso than what some people see on Kickstarter.

Mostly, though, I view this activity as misdirected goals that showed a misperception of the politics and opinions about the DNC, Clinton, and the importance of the downticket races and elected positions. Corruption, to me, feels like a hard accusation to stick. Political parties are strange animals, being more of a private entity than a public governmental organization or committee. They have a lot more freedom than we like to think. If anything, look at all the different approaches they have to run primaries. A lot of us know that they can have Open Primaries, Cauceses, and all types of mixed ways of picking their candidate for the general election.

Utah (PDF from a Utah government website about elections) has an interesting process for parties to choose their candidates, which provides two routes. A candidate can get on the primary ballot by being handpicked by their party however the party wants.

The second way a candidate can get onto the ballot is by getting enough petition signatures to get onto the ballot. A party would prefer the first route, but the State made a law requiring qualified parties to accept the petition signature route, too. So, yes, states can make laws regulating Primaries, Caucuses, etc. but they generally don't do much other than providing access to get onto the ballot, as far as I believe. They probably do some election fundraising regulation, too, along with the Federal government doing some of that, too, but it's mostly about allowing people avenues to get into primary elections and caucuses.

I think even in the case of Hillary and the DNC, they skirted by a lot of regulation to avoid breaking fundraising laws. Wrong priorities, as plenty of articles point out (including one that I linked to), along with common facts known by a lot of us and at least one news story I heard on the radio. Clinton and the DNC didn't put enough boots on the ground and campaign enough, person to person. As we all know, she didn't visit Wisconsin during the 2016 campaign and I believe a few other states, too. I believe voter suppression played a part in these locales, but I think showing her face could have done a bit more to sway these voters.

One radio news story really sticks out for me, though. NPR had broadcasted it. It focused on race in the election, as we did in 2016. The reporter interviewed a black woman some distance from a population center in Florida, I believe. She said that she preferred Clinton to win the election, but the woman didn't feel that motivated to go out to vote because she had no real exposure to Clinton. Even if some volunteer had come out, knocked on her door, and talked to her about Clinton would likely have been enough to motivate her to go out to vote Clinton.

Say what you will about we all have a duty and responsibility to vote in our Democratic Republic (and I agree with you to a point), but I sympathize with this woman. Since the beginning of the 2016 Election when discussing with people on social media, especially about Bernie Sanders, I criticized both Sanders and Clinton for not reaching out to marginalized people and that they were so off point with their messaging to marginalized people (especially black people), that neither of them would get the necessary votes from marginalized people, mainly because they wouldn't even bother to come out to vote.

The marginalized vote was essential to getting the win in the General Election. Maybe the the ethnic/racial white still is the majority of the population, but we, for the most part, probably have a roughly even split between parties and motivation to actually vote. This especially is the case if Hispanics, Jews, and other white-skinned ethnicities are taken into account as marginalized people. In essence, the white vote alone wouldn't win for the Democratic candidate.

At an event about engaging in self care after [45] won the election, I overheard a black woman say "Now the liberals know how it feels [when society and the government doesn't reach out and even strikes out at you]!" How much time had passed from police shootings of black people reaching public consciousness and nothing substantially being done to prevent the deaths of black people to [45] winning? How long have black families and heritage been destroyed by slavery with no state-provided restitution or resources being provided to help create stability and support in black families and communities to [45] winning? How long has society ignored schools in predominantly black neighborhoods and pushed scorn and apathy on black children and teenagers rather than taking them seriously as young students to [45] winning? How long have black people been scrutinized morally to receive material support (if they can even get it) to [45] winning? How long have black people and communities simply been tossed aside by society to [45] winning? And this is just the second largest skin-color demographic, though one of the most downtrodden by society. Compared to other demographics, economic class distribution looks horrible.

Arguably, about half of black people in the USA have fought through selection bias, aggressions, and micro-aggressions of society but even these successful African Americans face prejudice and aggression. Who was the sports celebrity who was treated horribly by some cops and worried that he might get shot? Even when they try, black people get shit on because of bigotry. "Merit" only gets you so far or protects so much if you're not white, cis-male, straight, Christian, etc.

There are abstract arguments that voting is an irrational activity, but for most of the black community, I would say it's a-rational. Even if the person they want gets into office, they still will likely not see great results coming from it. Most of us love to have seen Obama get into office, but when it comes to the day to day lives of marginalized people, especially black people and immigrants, things really didn't get that much better. Even the improvements for the LGBT community are getting attacked by [45] and the Right to take away what meager gains they had gotten. At the most, Obama helped expose things to the daylight, so we could all see the inequities and injustices in our country, if we care enough to look.

So, honestly, I think this black woman in the backwoods expressed a lot of charity by suggesting that if a Clinton campaign volunteer had just knocked on her door and talked about Clinton with her, she would have very likely go out to vote for Clinton. Sure, Clinton had gotten a lot of the black female vote, but she needed more distributed throughout the country. Something simple as this, why didn't Clinton do it? Suppression is an argument for her not getting in office, but she also didn't do the outreach to motivate people coming out to vote for her and provide a counterpoint to suppressors.

To me, the success of Obama's campaigns came down to him having volunteers going door to door EVERYWHERE. One of our most popular Presidents ever faced an uphill battle, against Clinton even, and the DNC and Clinton hadn't learned the importance of outreach to people. Sure, she may not have had gotten as many volunteers as Obama, but when just public appearances in a state can make a difference, she should have done so.

I voted Clinton in the General Election. I wanted her to win. I think she would have made a great President (obviously much better than [45]). I think she's very capable and skilled in politics. Heck, I'm impressed with her work ethic when she learned about healthcare, put together presentations, and tried getting healthcare reform through the government during Bill's Presidency. She inspired the hell out of me with her speech and other polticians' speeches about her at the Democratic Convention that chose her as the Democratic candidate for POTUS. I wrote her a four or five page letter to notify her that she had inspired me, I really wanted her to win, and that we needed an inspiration like her to get the American people engaged in the fate of our nation and to strengthen the social fabric.

Unfortunately, these fundraising issues, the lack of support for downticket candidates by the DNC, and lack of outreach just shows how out of touch they were with the Electorate and citizens of this country. I love the fact that Clinton actually got the real majority of the vote, but those votes came from Democratic strongholds, and not even from the states that we expected to be strongholds. She needed to win the Electoral College, not the majority. I know a lot of people don't care for the Electoral College, but I think it has its place along with a proposal that I have to provide it a check and balance.

But I'm going to pause this epic here: Clinton and the DNC were out of touch. I don't think the results had to do with the issues, that it had to do with coming up with policies or promises for the White Working Class alone, the opioid crisis, that she criticized [45] too much, or that she focused too much on identity politics. No, I think the DNC and Clinton were both just so plain out of touch with actual people and didn't know that they had to engage in more face-to-face outreach and to provide a lot stronger support for downticket candidates, in person and financially. If that had occurred, I think the Democratic Party wouldn't have gotten smacked around so bad.

This revelation plays a big part in fueling my action and even provides some of the building materials for my strategy. This part didn't end up so dry, either. I want to get something posted, though, and I'm realizing now that I've got just as much, if not more, material to write about the age/generation issue then also how my history research has contributed to my strategy. Please stay tuned in for more.

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Time to Act (or at least plan)

I haven't posted in nearly a year. Partly I haven't because time had become scarce.

Mostly, though, I haven't posted anything because I feared hurting people with my words because of ignorance. All the good intentions in the world mean nothing if the end result means good people get hurt, physically or emotionally.

I had started writing a literary criticism that touched upon population that wasn't my own. The path it took had some interesting points, if it stayed within that population. It drifted into another population in way that would likely cause hurt. I axed that criticism because I didn't find it worthwhile anymore. It would enter into major disrespect.

This experience sent me into analysis paralysis. I felt that I needed to learn more now before I could write about difficult topics without causing offense. I also couldn't think up any other relevant topics to post about.

The US Election of 2016, however, has inspired me to act more and write more. It has fired me up, all the hatemongering and fearmongering. I need to do something to help turnaround the collapse of global civilization and the prejudice out there between populations.

For the last week, I've unleashed plenty of raw anger on social media. Following that path will only contribute to the problem. Strategized and/or concerted hatemongering and fearmongering have heightened the horrible sides of society.

I need hone and temper my anger, use it smarter to actually improve the world. Who knows where this will all take me and the world and how fast it will go?

I can't sit idly by, though. The field calls me as I get off the bench on the sidelines. The time has come to act, which can include learning and self care.

The difference between then and now, though: the sense of urgency.

Amplifying Green Party POTUS Candidate, Jill Stein's Intersectional Statements on Twitter

I don't pay attention to Twitter all throughout the day a lot and only through my starred favorites, so this is probably only a small proportion of what she said yesterday and before. Nonetheless, the statements say enough to make me OK with not even with adding to the entry, especially since I don't want my maleness to outshine Dr. Stein.

I would think any amount of fame that she has gotten through her political career outshines my privilege from maleness. It doesn't matter. The Tweets quoted below are the important part. Read them. Take them and Dr. Stein seriously as a viable candidate for the United States President in the 2016 Election.

Even though she's late to the party, I think she issues better statements on these issues than Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton put together. As for the Republicans, they have to fight hard to get attention from me, and Mr. Trump definitely repels me.

#BlackWomensLivesMatter #BlackQueerLivesMatter #BlackTransLivesMatter make no distinction.

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 21, 2015

Racial Inequality is more than just an economic issue. It's a structural feature of our society that requires a structural solution

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 21, 2015

We will implement a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice developed by Black and other oppressed peoples, Day 1. #BlackLivesMatter

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 22, 2015