“Each one….”
The new regime took power January 20, 2025, about two weeks ago. There has been a blitzkrieg, intended chaos. It’s now up to you and me and the other 75,000,000 of us who voted for a different future on November 5. All previous posts can be accessed at the archive for January 2025.
“Each One”. My hope is to use this space frequently for short personal opinion pieces that may provide one or two or three of you with some useful personal insight for your own participation in our country’s destiny.
Back in 2007 I got to thinking about the potential of multiplying influence. The philosophy was very simple: if one could influence two; and they could influence two more, and so on, ultimately there would be an immense impact.
In 2008, I tried out the idea…and it failed. I wrote about it in Uncomfortable Essays, which are easily accessible, pages 3-7 for some detail. The concept was easier than succeeding.
In more recent years, particularly as I get into elder times, I’ve rethought the concept.
The first step was to move from Each One Reach Two, to Each One Reach One…theoretically much easier, but slower and practically speaking almost as difficult. We all have our favorite thing, and reaching consensus with even one other person can be difficult, as we all know.
So I’ve evolved again: the one I want to reach, including when I publish this blog, is myself. In the simplest sense, convincing myself that is worth taking the time to do these musings which have now had a long shelf life. My ‘eye on the prize’ remains ‘each one reach two’…I don’t call it a failure to not reach that goal….
Per graphic below: There were over 75,000,000 Americans who generally agreed with me in the political decision on Nov. 5 – the people who voted for Harris/Walz, and most likely Democratic candidates. Of course, our side didn’t win.
I calculated yesterday that in the same election about 168,000,000 (167,588,214) Americans did NOT vote for the regime now in power. It is not whether we have power; the only question is whether we will exercise it as individuals. If we join together and work, the status quo will change, even though it will be a difficult year or two or three.,
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“Woke”. About the most overused word in American English is “woke”. Recently I came across a very brief definition from an excellent book gifted to me by a friend in Oregon. The brief segment is accessible here: Woke from Barbara Holmes. The brief segment is from her book, Crisis Contemplation. Healing the Wounded Village. Note also the footnoted reference to an article by Tomi Adeyemi in Oprah magazine.
There is a frontal assault occurring on what is called “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion). Woke and DEI and other words have pejorative connotations by the current regime in Washington. It is worthy of discussion. For instance, is the whole concept of “white male privilege” or “wealthy entitlement” as “woke” themselves. The saying, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” comes to mind.
Conversations: The day after the catastrophic airline/helicopter crash at Reagan Airport in Washington, I overheard two guys in the next booth at McDonalds talking about the crash. The one said that no information on identity of pilots, etc., had been released yet. The other one brought up how the Biden administration covered up details of the East Palestine PA train wreck in 2023 – where a derailment threatened a community with toxic spill of train cargo. The trajectory of the conversation was downhill, and ended quickly. One had reached a conclusion before there was even the most tentative definitive information.
The conversation brought to mind an on-line conversation three of us had in early December after the Dec. 4 murder of a Minnesota Health Care Executive in New York City.
Our conversation one week after that murder, was such that I asked if I could share it with others, which permission was given. There is nothing dramatic about this three-way conversation, which you can read here Harbinger(2). It is simply independent and spontaneous written impressions of three people, and not intended to represent conclusions. Hopefully this thread might help in your own thinking about the issues raised while the legal processes continue, and about conversations generally. Again, the comments are shared with the writers permission.
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Postnote: I started this post on January 27. For the moment I’ll continue linking to a few of my favorite sources of informed comment. All of these are available to anyone, and if Substack, you’ll be advised of others available. I support by subscribing. Most of these are also available free, but encourage subscription, which is support for their work. Beginning with January 27 e-mails, here are some well worth your time: I find Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from and American, and Joyce Vance’s Civil Discourse to be always factual, constructive and very informative. Here are some from the last few days:
(1) Letters from An American 1/26; (2) Civil Discourse 1/26; (3) Paul Krugman 1/27; (4) Weekly Sift 1/27: (5) Letters From An American 1/27; (6) Civil Discourse 1/28; (7) Letters from an American 1/28; (8) Jeffrey Frantz Sep 26, 2024; (9) Civil Discourse 1/29; (10) Letters from An American 1/29; (11) Letters from An American 1/30: (12) Civil Discourse 1/30; (13) Letters from an American 1/31; (14) Civil Discourse 1/31; (15) Letters from An American 2/1; (16) Civil Discourse Discourse 2/2,.
These and many others are informative. If I send them along, I’ve read them myself. Most of these I initially learned about from Joyce – Thanks very much – networking is extremely important. Information needs to be combined with action, wherever you are, what you can do (is most likely more than you think you can do).
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