Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
Hope everyone had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving! Because of the holiday and my own travel plans, I am not including much news in here.
Many readers know I always end my diaries with two phrases: Truth Matters. Love Matters. Today we’re going to focus on Love. ❤️
These days, when Trump and his followers deal in lies and hatred, truth and love become weapons of resistance (as the greats, such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, discovered before us). Let’s look at Love. How do we strengthen its position in our country?
Trump and the Republican machine have been ginning up hatred for decades. Hatred is really powerful. Some people are addicted to it. I think we need a two-pronged approach. We need to attack hatred, even wean some people off of it, and we need to elevate love.
How do we do this? I am no expert but here are a few ideas:
📢 Name and shame. When people engage in egregious behavior, such as calling the police to arrest black people for having a barbecue in a public park, they are now showing up on videos, and social media is causing some of these racists to lose their jobs and so on. We need to keep this up (and some of us need to be trained in how to do this).
💰 Boycott and object. When some company is sponsoring, either through advertising or by providing services or a platform, hate-filled behavior, let them know that you disapprove. Let others know as well.
💪 Counter protest. This isn’t for everyone, but I have been so impressed by all the protesters who have shown up and said no to the racists.
💻 Stay engaged. Most of us won’t be able to fight every battle, but we can spread the word.
🌻 Celebrate good deeds. We need for there to be positive feedback for those who do the right thing. If a politician does a good deed, let them know that you appreciate it. And anyone else, too.
Don’t be shy about saying these things matter
😄 Smile and be kind whenever you can. Our side has a lot of real happiness in it, and we should enjoy it. But some of that smiling and niceness can be used to disarm the hatred on the other side. Not always, not with everyone, and the goodness of your interaction may take a while to seep in to the other person’s psyche. But sometimes it makes a big difference. And it’s the right thing to do.
By insisting on truth and love, we will get them back to positions of honor in our society. We have to reestablish them as norms.
And if you have more ideas, please include below, as well as your own good news.
🌻 💙 🌻
I am with family for Thanksgiving, when this has to be prepared, so don’t have much time. But here are a few nice bits:
⚖ Comey’s lawyer is planning to resist the Republican subpoenas
🍃 ☀️ Wind and solar cheaper than coal
Over the last two decades, the prices of renewable power—both solar and wind—has dropped sharply. For the last several years, it’s been considerably cheaper to build a wind farm than it has been to build a fossil fuel-based power plant. Coal plants in particular demand a very high up-front investment, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with pay off times that run into decades. The large capitol investment, long payoff, and uncertainty of future regulations is the big reason there are exactly zero new coal plants on the way—and the reason that any promises of “bringing coal back” are simply lies.
But, as reported by CBS, the cost difference between coal and renewables has now passed another milestone. It is now more affordable to build a new wind farm or solar installation, from scratch, than it is to simply operate an already existing coal plant.
This is absolutely fantastic news, folks!
👎 According to a pollster, Trump is losing his grip on the population
Writing in the New York Times, Stanley Greenberg says that Trump is beginning to lose his grip on power. Greenberg is a pollster, and he says that it was not just white suburban women who switched to Democrats in the Mid-terms. Parts of rural and white working class voters, male and female, peeled off, too. That means that Trump is even losing some of his base. Yes, Democrats mostly won in the cities and suburbs and mostly lost in rural areas, which makes us look divided on rural/urban lines. But Greenberg looked at the swings in those areas and found that it was the rural areas which moved the furthest toward Democrats—even if in many cases it was not far enough to flip the seat for Democrats.
Forgive me for ☎️ phoning in the rest of this, but I have turkey to eat and children’s stories to read aloud and we’ve got to do the hokey-pokey. Please add your stories below, especially the good deeds and the examples of love.
💙 What You Can Do to Rescue Democracy 💙
Indivisible 2.0
This Guide is for what comes next. The 2016 Indivisible Guide was about using constituent power to defend our values, our neighbors, and our democracy. This Guide is about using our constituent power to go on offense.
Offense is exciting, but it’s more complex than defense. We have the opportunity to use congressional oversight to hold Trump and his cronies accountable. We can set the legislative agenda with a bold progressive vision rooted in inclusion, fairness, and justice. But none of this is automatic — we have to demand it of Congress.
And some other ideas:
You can relax and recharge.
You can join protests and freeway blog.
You can help register new voters (especially if you are in Florida).
You can smile.
You can reach out to upset Republicans. Remember, a lot of them crossed over in the midterms!
You can share your ideas below.
🌻
🍀 “My experience has been that work is almost
always the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.” 🍀
Eleanor Roosevelt
🔥 If you’re going through hell, keep going! 🔥
Winston Churchill
🌹 🌹 🌹
TRUTH MATTERS. LOVE MATTERS.