Joe Biden Affirms Equality

Joe Biden Affirms Equality

For months, as in my September 2019 and October 2019 blog posts, I’ve expressed frustration that the Democratic Party candidates for President never affirmed the essential equality of all human beings. It has been my belief that doing so would be both ethical and strategic — a way for a candidate to connect with voters and counter the charge of Democratic Party elitism — a way to affirm values that undergird concern about economics and other justice issues — a way to help establish and clarify a culture that stands over against the dominant culture, and thereby prepare the soil for more effective grassroots movements.

So I was glad to hear Joe Biden, in his victory speech tonight, declare: “This is a battle for the soul of America…. Once again fight for the proposition that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…. But we’ve never fully lived up to it….I believe with every fiber of my being that all men and women are created equal.”

Now I hope that some or all of the other candidates will do the same.

Draft Declaration for Evolutionary Transformation – 2/29/20 

We, the undersigned, commit to serve humanity, the environment, and life itself  by promoting holistic democracy, which addresses the whole person, the whole society, and our interwoven social system. Currently, this movement is primarily cultural; many seeds are being planted to advance these principles. We urge the development of more organizations committed to these goals, whose members:

  • identify as co-equal members of the human family, respect the essential equality of all human beings, affirm individuals’ multiple identities, recognize each individual’s unique personality and particular skills, and work together to weave our diverse peoples into one nation; 
  • aim to overcome unconscious bias and resist discrimination based on race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or any other similar identity;
  • promote partnerships, nurture democracy throughout society, empower people, support freedom for all, and oppose arbitrary efforts to dominate others;
  • work to prevent social problems by correcting root causes and standing up for each other; 
  • love others as they love themselves, avoid selfishness and self-sacrifice, rely on love and trust rather than hate and fear, channel anger productively, and decline to scapegoat or demonize opponents; 
  • attract people with contagious joy, face-to-face community, and caring friendships;
  • honor their nation’s accomplishments, maintain its highest traditions, criticize its failures, and help build a more perfect union;
  • push for compassionate policies supported by strong majorities, recognize the value of visionary campaigns focused on goals not yet supported by strong majorities, and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and consumer boycotts when needed;
  • encourage members to improve their emotional reactions, engage in honest self-examination, support each other with their personal and spiritual growth, and avoid oppressive or disrespectful behavior;
  • seek to help transform their nation into a compassionate community rooted in healthy families that:
    • establishes everyone’s equal rights and their equality under the law;
    • one way or the other, assures everyone a meaningful, living-wage job opportunity and provides a non-poverty income for those unable to take advantage of those opportunities or entitled to retire;
    • cultivates shared leadership, assists the development of worker-owned businesses, and supports labor unions and worker representation on boards of directors;
    • protects free speech, makes it easy for everyone to vote, reinforces the rule of law, and defends individuals’ freedom to engage in activities that don’t deny freedom to others; 
    • stops global warming and lives in harmony with the natural environment;
    • ends animal cruelty;
    • forms supportive relationships with other countries, affirms their right to self-determination, promotes human rights, and advocates peaceful resolution of conflicts with mediation and negotiation.

In these ways, using specific tools such as those included in the Systemopedia, step-by-step, person-by-person, family-by-family, community-by-community, nation-by-nation, we pursue the eventual, evolutionary transformation of our social system into a compassionate community that serves humanity, the environment, and life itself. 

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NOTE: Feedback welcome. My latest draft will always be here (with its date in the title). Feel free to take it, modify it, gain signers (perhaps using Google Forms), and post their names (perhaps using Airtable). Signers could then be invited to horizontally collaborate concerning next steps. 

Recommended Links

No one’s less moderate than moderates,” Ezra Klein

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Swing Left

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Neither one of us is more important than the other
–Tracy K. Smith

From “Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry”https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/e/67633893?autoplay=true
Ezra Klein Show

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“No one is better than me and I’m not better than anyone.”
–Joe Biden, 2/25/20
 
Finally! A Democratic Party presidential candidate affirmed democratic equality at one of their debates. It was only a sentence, but that’s better than nothing.
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Links

Our Presidential Roundtable, Pod Save the People

Barbara Ehrenreich on UBI, class conflict, and collective joy, Ezra Klein Show:
I don’t know if there has ever been such a self-centered culture as as emerged in the United States in the 20th century….looking out for yourself…. We are very unusual, compared to prehistoric societies for sure, and even compared to ones that are quite recent in the last few hundred years……  I don’t think we started that way…. This comes from a little intellectual excursion into the Paleolithic Era, the Stone Age, when there were modern humans….. We do our best to try to figure things out for ourselves, which is a good thing, but we also don’t have a clear sense of what is a job for all of us, or groups of us, and what is a job for just an individual. I think we’d get a lot more done if we chose to work together…. The professional middle-class only existed as a class in the late 19th century. And it’s a class that defied the Marxist notion that there were just two main classes in society…. That’s the way things were thought of until some time in the early 20th century when the professions as we know them took form…. They organized themselves…., and very important to that was distinguishing themselves from workers. The managerial class had the ambition to rise higher in the class structure, even if it did not mean becoming part of the bourgeoisie if it meant earning more, having more authority over other people…. We expect to be listened to in our professional middle-class lives, whereas if you are a person who cleans the office that night you don’t expect to have any effect on the people you’re working for or the enterprise you’re supposedly a part of. We have this idea built into us as professional middle-class people that we are worth more, that our views are worth more, than those of other people who drive trucks and clean bedpans and do so many of the obviously necessary jobs in our society…. Is what we do really more worthy [worth more compensation] than what a nurse’s aide does? I don’t think so. I think we need a little more humility here…. [Being a professional involves] seeing yourself as better than other people, which I don’t think is helpful in any way.

 

 

The Open Topic Dialog: A Way to Cultivate Democracy

In San Francisco and Austria, recent successful experiments with the Open Topic Dialog format have been encouraging. You’re invited to experiment with this mechanism. 

These dialogs nurture democratic equality, democratic dialog, and respect for others’ equal value as a human being. The hope is that others will adopt this format as a way to enrich lives and prepare the soil for more effective, compassionate, grassroots movements. Following are the format’s guidelines:

Open Topic Dialog

A conversation group based on the “talking stick” principle. Enter a safe, respectful space, speak from the heart, and express what’s on your mind. It’s an opportunity to talk, listen, learn and brainstorm with others.

  • The person holding the “stick,” which may be any object, speaks for up to two minutes without interruption.
  • The speaker then passes the stick to someone who raises their hand, who responds to the previous speaker and then perhaps takes the discussion to another topic. 
  • Speakers can use their two minutes to ask a clarifying question (and may interrupt the answer).
  • The Timekeeper convenes the dialog, reviews the guidelines, selects the first speaker randomly if more than one person wants to speak first, sets a timer when each person begins speaking, facilitates the selection of the next Timekeeper, and adjourns the dialog. At the end of each dialog, the Timekeeper facilitates the selection of the Timekeeper for the next dialog — or continues to
  • that role. 
  • People with mobility difficulties can ask someone to give the stick to the next speaker. Everyone is encouraged to: 
  • be respectful and avoid personal attacks or name-calling; 
  • avoid going back and forth repeatedly with the same person, and;
  • call on people who haven’t spoken or spoken less and perhaps ask: Does anyone who hasn’t spoken wish to speak?

With this approach, the Dialog is horizontal, self-regulating, peer-to-peer, leaderless, and leaderfull. Everyone is a leader. Each Dialog can become self-perpetuating. Any group can easily learn and adopt the Dialog format.

Existing organizations can supplement their current activities by scheduling a Dialog to enable their members to get to better know each other, share whatever emerges, and perhaps explore issues related to their organization’s work that emerge spontaneously. When in the course of their normal business an organization becomes “stuck” with members not really listening to each other, it can be helpful to pause and conduct a Dialog, which can help members better appreciate different perspectives. Individuals who don’t belong to the same organization can invite friends and relatives to form a Dialog as a way for individuals with various perspectives to communicate and better understand each other.

There’s no pre-defined specific agenda. The focus is simply to “speak from the heart, and express what’s on your mind.” The only content that’s prohibited is “personal attacks or name-calling.” This open-ended focus encourages spontaneity and authenticity — and allows for unexpected issues to emerge, such as a timely current event or recent personal experience. The participants may, however, end up focusing on a specific topic.

This format enables participants to practice listening and respecting each other, which encourages the development of those skills. It’s not “therapy” and it’s not problem-solving. There’s no commitment to try to “fix” anything. Nevertheless, the Dialog may prove to be “therapeutic.” The talking stick gives everyone a voice — a chance to speak freely and be heard without interruption, which cultivates self-empowerment. 

Being asked to respond to the previous speaker encourages listening and dialog (an exchange of ideas on a topic). Nevertheless, participants are free to change the topic if they wish. Clarifying questions should be honest questions, not rhetorical or argumentative. Speakers are free to disagree respectfully. 

Each participant is equally responsible for the conduct of the group. The two-minute time limit helps assure everyone has a fair chance to participate. The Timekeeper is merely a functionary.  Anyone can perform that easy-to-perform role, which rotates from time to time. Each Dialog can determine the frequency and length of its meetings. It seems 5-12 is a good number of participants. A group of more than twelve can divide into two groups.

There’s no need to go through a time-consuming decision-making process to decide on what to talk about. There’s no decision-making process led by one person or a few persons. Everyone has an equal voice. There’s no trained facilitator. Anyone can initiate a Dialog, make copies of the guidelines, and serve as the first Timekeeper. 

According to the wikipedia, many aborignal tribes, especially Native Amerians, have used the talking stick as an “instrument of democracy”. According to the First People site:

The Talking Stick is used…when a council is called. It allows all council members to present their Sacred Point of View…. Only the person holding the stick is allowed to speak…. Every member of the meeting must listen closely… Indian children are taught to listen from age three forward; they are also taught to respect another’s viewpoint…. Since each piece of material used in the Talking Stick speaks of the personal Medicine of the stick owner, each stick will be different…. The Talking Stick is the tool that teaches each of us to honor the Sacred Point of View of every living creature.

The Open Topic Dialog is not based on this spiritual understanding, though we honor it. We express our gratitude to Native Americans for developing this tool, which we adapt. We encourage others to use it to conduct Open Topic Dialogs as a way to cultivate democracy.

Wade Lee Hudson
2/22/2020

Recommended Links

The Equality That Wasn’t Enough
The most radical Radical Republicans had a better idea of how to cast the 15th Amendment. We should have listened to them.
By Jamelle Bouie

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CAN WE HAVE PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH?
The critique of economic growth, once a fringe position, is gaining widespread attention in the face of the climate crisis.
By John Cassidy
The New Yorker

“…Given the scale of the environmental threat and the need to lift up poor countries, some sort of green-growth policy would seem to be the only option, but it may involve emphasizing “green” over “growth.” Kate Raworth has proposed that we adopt environmentally sound policies even when we’re uncertain how they will affect the long-term rate of growth. There are plenty of such policies available. …”

Recommended Links

Joaquin Phoenix 2020 Oscar Acceptance Speech

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This Is How Scandinavia Got Great
The power of educating the whole person.
By David Brooks

“…the complete moral, emotional, intellectual and civic transformation of the person…. ever bigger personal responsibility towards family, friends, fellow citizens, society, humanity, our globe, and the global heritage of our species, …”

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The Future of Democracy, a New Yorker series