America is at her best because people keep striving. People understand that, even if America is not showing them love, love for them is built into the fabric of what America is meant to be. People understand that if they see the beauty that can be there for them, then fighting for it will make it so.
It might not happen today. It might not happen tomorrow. But the arc of history bends towards justice. If we keep our eyes on that better world, we can bring about the change that will get us there.
Obama talked about it. He talked about the dream — and the reality — of an America which includes more and more people over time on its amazing credo.
What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?
That’s why Selma is not some outlier in the American experience. That’s why it’s not a museum or a static monument to behold from a distance. It is instead the manifestation of a creed written into our founding documents: “We the People…in order to form a more perfect union.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
These are not just words. They’re a living thing, a call to action, a roadmap for citizenship and an insistence in the capacity of free men and women to shape our own destiny. For founders like Franklin and Jefferson, for leaders like Lincoln and FDR, the success of our experiment in self-government rested on engaging all of our citizens in this work. And that’s what we celebrate here in Selma. That’s what this movement was all about, one leg in our long journey toward freedom.
The American instinct that led these young men and women to pick up the torch and cross this bridge, that’s the same instinct that moved patriots to choose revolution over tyranny. It’s the same instinct that drew immigrants from across oceans and the Rio Grande; the same instinct that led women to reach for the ballot, workers to organize against an unjust status quo; the same instinct that led us to plant a flag at Iwo Jima and on the surface of the Moon.
It’s the idea held by generations of citizens who believed that America is a constant work in progress; who believed that loving this country requires more than singing its praises or avoiding uncomfortable truths. It requires the occasional disruption, the willingness to speak out for what is right, to shake up the status quo. That’s America.
That’s what makes us unique. That’s what cements our reputation as a beacon of opportunity. Young people behind the Iron Curtain would see Selma and eventually tear down that wall. Young people in Soweto would hear Bobby Kennedy talk about ripples of hope and eventually banish the scourge of apartheid. Young people in Burma went to prison rather than submit to military rule. They saw what John Lewis had done. From the streets of Tunis to the Maidan in Ukraine, this generation of young people can draw strength from this place, where the powerless could change the world’s greatest power and push their leaders to expand the boundaries of freedom.
They saw that idea made real right here in Selma, Alabama. They saw that idea manifest itself here in America.
….
Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not just for black folks, but for every American. Women marched through those doors. Latinos marched through those doors. Asian Americans, gay Americans, Americans with disabilities -- they all came through those doors. (Applause.) Their endeavors gave the entire South the chance to rise again, not by reasserting the past, but by transcending the past.
What a glorious thing, Dr. King might say. And what a solemn debt we owe. Which leads us to ask, just how might we repay that debt?
First and foremost, we have to recognize that one day’s commemoration, no matter how special, is not enough. If Selma taught us anything, it’s that our work is never done. The American experiment in self-government gives work and purpose to each generation.
Selma teaches us, as well, that action requires that we shed our cynicism. For when it comes to the pursuit of justice, we can afford neither complacency nor despair.
And this, also from Obama:
That’s what it means to love America. That’s what it means to believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is exceptional.
For we were born of change. We broke the old aristocracies, declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. We secure our rights and responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and conviction -- because we know our efforts matter. We know America is what we make of it.
Look at our history. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. That’s our spirit. That’s who we are.
We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as much as any man and then some. And we’re Susan B. Anthony, who shook the system until the law reflected that truth. That is our character.
We’re the immigrants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free –- Holocaust survivors, Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. We’re the hopeful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better life. That’s how we came to be.
We’re the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South. We’re the ranch hands and cowboys who opened up the West, and countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and organized for workers’ rights.
We’re the fresh-faced GIs who fought to liberate a continent. And we’re the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talkers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied.
We’re the firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11, the volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.
We are storytellers, writers, poets, artists who abhor unfairness, and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voiceless, and tell truths that need to be told.
We’re the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.
We are Jackie Robinson, enduring scorn and spiked cleats and pitches coming straight to his head, and stealing home in the World Series anyway. (Applause.)
We are the people Langston Hughes wrote of who “build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how.” We are the people Emerson wrote of, “who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suffer long;” who are “never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march.
…...
Because Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one person. Because the single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.” “We The People.” “We Shall Overcome.” “Yes We Can.” That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given, to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.
Biden gets it too:
Those are the words that stick with me this week. Despite all the bad news that we see. Despite the despair. Despite the fact that Ted Cruz is a Senator.
Despite all that, I am filled with hope. Because freedom, equality, and the pursuit of happiness are things worth fighting for. Because striving to make things better is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.
And here we are together, continuing the fight. With every postcard we send to voters. With every petition we sign. With donation. With every act of kindness. We fight. We strive. We keep faith. And we win.
What are some of the things that gave me hope this week? One is the finding that during the pandemic, people got kinder:
Pandemic of kindness: A world full of resilience
There’s no doubt the pandemic brought darkness, and in times of crisis, we tend to focus on the negative. But there are silver linings, too, that can provide optimism, promote resilience and increase our ability to adapt to future challenges.
The World Happiness Report (WHR) provided a number of silver linings when they published their latest report last Friday.
During the pandemic, overall positive emotions (measured by enjoyment, laughter, and learning/doing something interesting) continued to be more than twice as frequent as negative emotions (sadness, anger, worry). The WHR reported the global average of positive emotions was 0.66 (i.e., the average respondent experienced 2 of the 3 positive emotions the previous day) compared to the global average of 0.29 for negative emotions.
However, in 2020, negative emotions (sadness, worry, and anger) increased and were 8% higher than their pre-pandemic baseline. This was driven by an increase in sadness and worry; it was not driven by anger. In 2021, overall negative emotions fell back to baseline thanks to a significant reduction in stress. Sadness remained stable in 2021.
In 2020/2021, two positive emotions, laughing and enjoyment, slightly decreased, but learning/doing something interesting significantly increased. (Hello, sourdough bread makers.) This led to zero net change in positive emotion.
While there was an increase in negative emotions this was accompanied by an even larger increase in kindness. Kindness, measured by donations, volunteering, and helping strangers, improved in every region of the globe. In 2020, there was a substantial increase in helping strangers but no meaningful change in donations and volunteering. But by 2021, all three types of kindness had increased an average of 25% from baseline. Helping strangers increased the most throughout the pandemic.
While SARS-CoV-2 created the biggest health crisis of the century, a global wave of benevolence follows in its wake. Not just in the early phase of the pandemic, but thereafter. Simply put, in times of crisis people step up. Some acts of kindness are news worthy but millions are boring and unheralded acts in the background: Checking on neighbors, volunteering for clinical trials, sewing masks for coworkers, easing isolation through zoom.
We need to grieve and countries need learn from their pandemic mistakes, but we cannot lose sight of the onslaught of kindness and the number of helpers the pandemic also brought forth. This will enable us to continue to trudge through the pandemic. And maybe, just maybe, we can continue this wake of kindness for years after the pandemic. As Pablo Neruda said, “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”
Here is a giant act of kindness (small ones are just as good)
I was also heartened to see continued evidence of liberal democracies hanging together and showing strength we never would have predicted just a couple of years ago:
NATO was in crisis. Putin’s war made it even more powerful.
When President Joe Biden landed in Europe this week, it was a different continent than he had last visited in the fall of 2021.
By invading Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has catalyzed some major shifts. Germany, long averse to military spending, has decided to up its defense budget. European countries, skeptical of migrants, have welcomed Ukrainian refugees. And most of all, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been revived.
Long a lethargic dinosaur of an organization, NATO this week announced new battle groups would deploy to four countries on its eastern flank, and Biden announced that the alliance would respond to Russia should it use chemical weapons in Ukraine. It’s a remarkable shift for an alliance that French President Emmanuel Macron called brain dead just two and a half years ago. And it reveals a fundamental truth of the organization: It’s an alliance meant to counter a great power adversary, for good and bad.
Biden, who has long cheered the relationship between the United States and Europe, met 29 other heads of state and the secretary general of NATO for a closed-door meeting Thursday, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined by video. “Today’s establishment of four new battle groups in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary is a strong signal that we will collectively defend and protect every inch of NATO territory,” Biden said.
The emerging consensus among the Washington foreign policy establishment, both right and left, is that the Biden administration deserves praise for how it has handled this crisis and shepherded NATO quickly to respond to Russian aggression. NATO has been unified with providing Ukraine with weapons, sanctioning Russia, and beginning to address the new influx of refugees.
and this lovely twist:
Heroic Guards Who Famously Told Russia to ‘Go F*ck Yourself’ Are Freed
The 19 Ukrainian border guards who famously told an approaching Russian warship to “go fuck yourselves” rather than surrender to them have been returned to Ukraine in a prisoner exchange. The guards, who were manning the tiny Ukrainian outpost of Snake Island (also known as Zmiinyi Island), were initially presumed to have been killed by their Russian invaders. But Ukrainian officials later learned they’d been taken prisoner. The Ukrainian parliament wrote on Twitter late Thursday that the “first exchange of war hostages occurred on President Zelensky’s order.” The 19 guards were exchanged for 11 Russian sailors rescued from a sunken ship near Odessa. They will return home on a ship captured by Russian occupiers while trying to take the guards from Snake Island.
And signs of cooperation and hope in an area of the world that rarely brings either:
Israel to Host 3 Arab Foreign Ministers in Historic Meeting
Israel will host a historic summit this weekend with the top diplomats from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, a sign of how quickly the realignment of Middle Eastern powers is accelerating as Israelis and some Arab governments find common cause not only over Iran but in navigating the new global realities created by the Ukraine war.
Unimaginable half a decade ago, the high-level meeting reflects the new political reality created when Israel sealed landmark diplomatic agreements with the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco in 2020. Planned for Sunday and Monday, it is set to be the first meeting with top officials from three Arab countries on Israeli soil, and highlights how Israel — which needed the United States to help broker the 2020 accords — can now become a bridge between Washington and certain Arab governments.
“In many ways, Israel is the center — the epicenter — of all kinds of developments that are taking place,” Mr. Guzansky said. “Israel is the go-between, not just between Russia and Ukraine, but apparently between some of the Arab countries and Washington.”
The meeting will take place against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and will give Mr. Blinken a chance to encourage Washington’s Middle East allies to align with American efforts to isolate Russia.
and the reminder that, despite the assholes on the right, this woman will be the next supreme court justice:
Ketanji Brown Jackson is on track for a pretty quick confirmation
Senate Democrats are trying to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson as quickly as they can now that her nomination hearings are over. While they were contentious at points, they brought no real surprises that altered her chances of getting on the court.
Democrats want to close the deal swiftly, with a Senate vote to confirm Jackson’s nomination by April 8. If confirmed, Jackson would become the first Black woman to take a seat on the nation’s highest court.
Because they are in the majority, Democrats have a pretty clear path to getting this done
and glimmers of hope from troubling institutions:
The Supreme Court’s latest religion opinion should reassure liberals
On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Ramirez v. Collier, which involved a death row inmate who sought to have his pastor lay hands on him and audibly pray during his execution. Though there are some procedural complexities to the decision, eight justices sided with John Ramirez, the inmate. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.
It was, in short, a ruling that prioritized religious liberty.
But, perhaps surprisingly, the Ramirez decision should be comforting to liberals, including myself, who’ve watched the Court’s recent religion decisions with alarm. Especially after Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation in the fall of 2020 gave Republicans a supermajority on the Supreme Court, the Court has been extraordinarily solicitous toward conservative Christian litigants — even ruling in favor of litigants who sought legal exemptions that potentially endangered other citizens’ lives.
But the Court hasn’t always shown the same respect for religion claims brought by people who do not make up a key constituency of the Republican Party.
If nothing else, this opinion is a sign that the Court will not always limit the blessings of religious liberty to politically favored causes.
In the end, however, eight justices chose the rule of law over their own personal convenience. That’s the bare minimum that anyone can expect out of a court of law. But, given the Court’s prior decisions in Hawaii and Ray, it’s also a much more reassuring outcome than the alternative.
and glimmers of hope from partners who aren’t always easy to work with:
Sen. Manchin launches new push for ‘all of the above’ energy bill
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) has restarted talks with fellow Democrats about reviving the party’s climate and social spending bill, according to two people familiar with the matter, as administration officials search for oil and gas policies that could make the measure more palatable to him.
Manchin, who has traveled in the past week with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, has told staff members and colleagues that the legislation must be voted on before senators leave town in August, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
and unintended consequences bringing hope (and laughs)
Ted Cruz held up ‘The End of Policing’ in a hearing. Sales soared.
As Sen. Ted Cruz questioned President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, on Tuesday at her Senate confirmation hearing, the Republican from Texas one-by-one held up books “either assigned or recommended,” he said, to students at a D.C. prep school where the judge is on the board of trustees.
Among the stack was a white paperback with large, bright orange letters: “The End of Policing,” Alex S. Vitale’s 2017 book that analyzes modern policing and makes the case for defunding the police.
But Cruz’s use of the prop had a different outcome than the senator probably intended. Sales of the book are skyrocketing.