The United States of Anger
Over a decade ago, I saw a headline on The Christian Science Monitor’s front page that said, “The United States of Anger.” It showed a photo of angry Americans, yelling at something outside the photo (I assumed they were yelling at maybe other Americans, or perhaps yelling at the Government in protest of something).
It is now maybe 12-14 years later after I saw that headline. (I went to their website to try to look up when this article was published, but I can’t find it.) The idea of ”United States of Anger” still seems pertinent to where we are, as a country, in my opinion.
The Civil War
I talked with a friend recently about The Civil War. I grew up in Virginia and Maryland. A Maryland-raised uncle of mine used to make his own bullets out of lead, and fire muskets as he participated in Civil War reenactments. I remember the smell of that molten lead and his strongly worded caution: “Don’t touch! It’s hot! You’ll be burned!” quite clearly, to this day. There is nothing like the smell of melting lead. If you smell it once, you’ll remember it. It’s a distinct smell.
I have been to countless Civil War sites in many of the US States. I have been to too many to count, multiple times. I have heard stories at each of these sites. I have even told stories that I learned, when I worked at The Winery at Bull Run, which touts that the first Civil War cannon, (I think it was named “Old Tom,”) was fired from the base of their own driveway.
Guns in the USA
I learned a few years ago that gun ownership in the USA is more prominent per citizen than in any other country’s military. By a landslide. No country will invade the USA with handheld weapons. They would be slaughtered. And not even by our military.
Our country is proud to have the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution that states:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.“
I may not be up to my interpretation of archaic terminology, but I believe this is saying that the right of WE THE PEOPLE to bear arms gives us the freedom to be well armed in case we might need to fight our own militia. [In case we need to rise up and fight our own government, as our fore-fathers needed to].
I want to repeat what I just said - I believe no country would come and invade the United States of America with handheld weapons, because they would be slaughtered. And not even by our own military, but by WE THE PEOPLE, the citizens of the United States who own guns, who would rise up and defeat an invading army, all on their own.
This makes countries who don’t particularly like us, who want to invade us, think of other ways to invade us.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation
There is a wonderful organization that I hope you will go look into at some point. Make a note to go look after reading this newsletter. The Friends Committee on National Legislation. FCNL.org
A handful of years ago, I sat in a conference room and listened to a presentation from one of the folks who leads the group. That one time I heard a representative talking about their organization has stayed with me. They were talking about coal mining in West Virginia. That was the only topic. It didn’t encompass the whole country or even region. It was a small state, and one topic only.
The speaker told of the desire that many folks have, to change legislation quickly. “This is wrong! It must be fixed!” And they want it fixed by the end of the week. And they wonder why it’s not fixed yet! The speaker talked about how change isn’t quick. A long game is what needs to happen. They have been working on changing the regulations on coal mining in West Virginia - destroying mountains, health issues, infrastructure of counties and towns, income, energy sources - a whole plethora of things that coal mining in West Virginia affected.
Plus, the state senate has to hear things, ponder them, discuss in committee, talk with citizens about, find out opinions, factor in the weather and the shoe size of everyone who lives in their district (okay, I’m starting to exaggerate, but you get the point). In other words: it takes time to effect change(s).
The speaker told us how progress was made, and it took I think he said something like 10 years to make this one change. It was a bold change, and a change for the good, but it took 10 years to do it. He knew that to change anything means to play the long game, be patient and stay the course.
Invading Powers
I have heard for several years now about specific countries attacking the USA in ways other than with weapons. For instance, it was noted that a group of people in one Eastern Country started their day, ended their day, and even took lunch break, at the same time as time zones in the USA. They were doing cyber attacks on our country on our schedule, not theirs. This blew me away - that this sort of thing had been thought out, figured out, and was happening. How outside the box did they have to think, in order to conceive to do this kind of thing?
I have to admire the creativity. Can’t say I’m fond of how it’s being used, but it is creativity.
A Sudden Realization
As I talked with my friend about the Civil War and mentioned a few of the things I have mentioned here, it dawned on me that countries have used their creativity to attack us from abroad - by seeding ideas in the heads of the citizens of the United States.
Okay, this article here talks about it far better than I ever could. But in Jodi-words, the idea that there are “divides” in our country or “fracture lines,” like that article mentions, can be wedged wider and wider by an entity trying to get another entity to fight itself.
If you take the viewpoint from what I think of as “up above,” and look down, you can see that you don’t have to fight an entity directly. You can make the entity fight with itself. A Civil War.
I know for me in my tiny little spot of the Universe, I have loved ones on either “side” of the political equation. Both think their way is the right way, the best way, because of course it is, can’t you see that? There are people that I love very much, with whom I do not talk politics. At all. Because there is not just a difference of opinion about something, but a wedge so deep and wide that even when squinting through a pair of binoculars, we can’t see what the other person is thinking.
How did that wedge get there? I don’t remember that wedge being there when my Republican / Libertarian Dad was a fan of Ronald Reagan and Ron Paul and thought Jimmy Carter was a clown. It wasn’t the vile, despicable hatred and venom in those days that it is now. My dad spoke at Libertarian conventions and told jokes like, “did you know George beats around the Bush?”
It was light-hearted humor. And people laughed, and went on talking about ideas and concepts and policies. They didn’t start disparaging each other for having a different opinion. There wasn’t the bully-behavior of name calling for simply having a different opinion.
Politics is Actually Emotion, Not Policy
I don’t know where I read this, but last week, I read that politics is no longer about policy - it’s about emotion. Think of any current political issue you like, and see if you have a strong emotion about it. Abortion? Gerrymandering? Gun legislation? Immigration? See what I mean? My heart tenses up just thinking about those issues, and I’m sitting in a room whose only other occupants are my dogs who are arguing over their chewy treats because the one dog thinks they are both his and the other dog decidedly disagrees with him.
If I step back and view it from above, and squint a little to make it blurry like an Impressionistic painting, I can see the long game here - a foreign entity taking a small fracture line and sewing conflict and pushing a wedge wider and wider in between the small conflicts we once had, to make them canyons between us. We’re fighting within our own walls about any and every topic:
“That neighbor doesn’t cut his grass at my schedule, therefore I am going to holler and yell and become a vile person and get him to behave and do things MY WAY!”
I would say it’s gotten ridiculous, but that implies that something funny is going on, at least to me, the person who is a circus enthusiast. I find no amusement in witnessing arguing filled with hatred and verbal acid-spitting.
What Do We Have In Common?
U.S. Congressman Elijah Cummings said, often, "Our world would be a much better world, a much better place, if we would only concentrate on the things we have in common.”
These rifts need to be drawn back together. The wedges need to be taken out. The fracture lines need to be sewn back together. It will take years, nay, decades to do it. There is no quick fix to this Grand Canyon of an issue.
Listen
We each are born with 2 ears and 1 mouth. I take this to mean that it’s twice as important to listen than it is to talk. It takes courage to listen. Let me repeat that for your other ear: it takes courage to listen.
It takes courage to sit when someone else is talking, saying something that is emotionally difficult for you to listen to, for whatever reason. It takes courage and even stamina. I have sat with traumatized people who tell their story. Their story makes me uncomfortable, and I wasn’t even the one to whom the story happened!
This is how we sit with someone and support them emotionally - we sit, and listen, and have courage to stay with them so they can feel heard and understood and validated. I discovered that the best way for me to do this, personally, with my ADHD brain, is to brew them a cup of tea. And make a cup for myself, too. I time it for 4 minutes and take the tea bag out. And serve them tea while they are crying or emoting. And then I can sit, warm my hands on my cup of tea, and have that tactile sensation while they feel heard and validated. It gives me something calm and quiet to do, so I can keep my mouth shut and just listen and support them in their emotional need to speak.
It takes courage to listen more than we speak.
It takes courage and stamina, also, to change policies in the country. Remember that it took more than a decade to make 1 policy change about mining in West Virginia. How much harder is it to get anything done when it’s being done by a country with a 3-part government system that all has to agree with each other.
Let There Be Peace on Earth
There is a hymn in my Quaker Hymnal whose words say, “Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.”
What will you do to foster peace? Will you wage peace with me, instead of war?
Fixing the Rift
The book I want to write, “The Aeronauts,” is part of what I want to do to shed light on how we fix this issue. Let’s hope I have the clarity in my brain to write the next chapter of that book. For me, “The Aeronauts” is my pièce de résistance. My ultimate piece of writing. I need more “good brain” days to find clarity and peace and quietude to write it. (Did I really just write the word, “quietude” ? Is that even a word?)
Thank you for reading this newsletter. I hope to hear from you in the comments about what you are thinking of doing to help mend the tremendous gulf between so many of us in this day and age.