Archives for posts with tag: democracy

You Never Know

January 23, 2026 //

My country, the U.S., is in peril, which impacts the entire world. Our President has gone from the horror show that he was during his first term to a whole new level of malevolent incompetence. The President excels in a few areas 1) breaking things, 2) stealing money, 3) scaring people, groups, and countries, 4) sexual assault, 5) probable child rape, and 6) packaging his evil into some kind of cartoon campy package that makes his followers think they are watching a World Wrestling Federation (WWF) villain instead of a powerful head of state. Speaking of WWF villains, we have one as Secretary of Education, who is breaking our education system, a head of health and human services who is taking away our access to vaccinations as well as recommending that we all eat more red meat, and a snake oil salesman in charge of Medicare, who just like the snake oil salesman in the Wizard of Oz, is actually named, “Oz.” And yes, the reality star presidency has a Fox news host who habitually arrived drunk to work in the MORNINGS as the head of the largest military in the world. We now have our own Gestapo, headed by a woman who actually shot and killed her puppy and the WROTE ABOUT IT in her autobiography. People are being hunted, especially dark-skinned people. I almost forgot to mention that the President invaded Venezuela, took out their head of state as well as the country’s autonomy to select their own government and up until a couple of days ago, he was threatening to take Greenland, by force, with his stated excuse that he needed it because he was not awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. The President is also clearly not in charge. There seems to be a cabal of appointed, non-elected people in his administration who are mostly in charge. Currently, the main leader is Stephen Miller, a truly frightening Neo-Nazi with a fixation on conquering people and nations by force.

This country is exhausting and I say this as a person who is one of the least personally impacted citizens of this huge nation. I am not being hunted and terrorized. However, now that ICE has escalated their attacks of protestors to murder, anyone can be hunted. The state of Minnesota, especially the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, has been targeted and attacked for what seems like months but is a much shorter amount of time. Thousands of ICE agents, masked, unidentified, and heavily armed have been terrorizing immigrants, native tribal members (not the “right” color), protestors, children, people driving home from the grocery stores, and even breaking into homes without warrants.

Minnesota, however, is not backing down. They are increasing their protests and their protection of their neighbors. There are major protests today, thousands of people out in the bitter cold (the high temperature there today was -10 F, which is -23 C), marching through the streets of Minneapolis. About 100 clergy members were arrested for protesting outside of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. They were quietly lined up, kneeling on icy pavement, exercising passive resistance as they were taken into custody. Hundreds of businesses across the state closed today in solidarity with their neighbors and in protest of this cruelty.

Our major media outlets have been corrupted by oligarchs and people who benefit financially from this administration. Consequently, the coverage of the resistance efforts, the ones I’ve described and so many more across the country, have not gotten the coverage that they deserve. But people in this country are catching on and I hope that our fellow humans in other countries are getting more accurate information about what is going on here. Trump should never have earned the admiration of so many, let alone be voted into office, regardless of the voter suppression, our Electoral College (favors less densely populated states), and Russian espionage that helped put him over the top. However, he is a historically unpopular president, losing support by the day, and I hope this continues. He is also clearly hitting a new low in respect to his psychological and medical health. He’s showing obvious dementia and it appears to be accelerating.

As Trump is falling, and I hope this fall continues, the consequence is increased desperation, danger, and aggression. We’ve long past the period of opportunity for a graceful exit from the decades long march toward oligarchy headed by a despot. It’s no time for complacency, as tired as we already are from the first year of this first term. There is also the grief of knowing that a significant and powerful minority of our fellow citizens are consumed by delusion, hatred, and fear.

Timothy Snyder, a well known historian of authoritarianism, makes nearly daily social media videos. He is a serious and sober person committed to resisting the authoritarian takeover of this country. Something he said a week or so ago really stuck with me and has been a well-spring of strength, “You never know when you are about to win.” He was speaking of past non-violent resistance efforts. Dr. Snyder explained that it is important to keep resisting because even the day before success, can feel like losing. For me, his words work a lot better than, “It’s always darkest before the dawn” because this latter saying is absolute and often untrue. “You never know when you are about to win” acknowledges the uncertainty of success. It does not guarantee it and for that reason, for me, it sounds like truth.

You never know when you are about to win.

Much love, friends.

Elizabeth

Tags activism, democracy, donald-trump, news, patriotism, politics, resistance, trump

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The Truth Mandala

August 21, 2025 //

I’ve belonged to a small online meditation group for the last two years taught by Donald Rothberg, a psychologist and major teacher on socially engaged Buddhism. He comes from a long line of nonviolent activists and really merits a separate blog post. Donald was very close friends with Joanna Macy, an environmental activist and Buddhist scholar who died last month at age 96. Joanna led the development of a collective grief ritual, for world events, the Truth Mandala.

At our request, Donald led the ritual with our online group of seven people, to deal with the current democracy crisis in the U.S. There are four phases of the ritual. During the first phase, people talk about gratitude. The second phase is opening to the pain of the world. The third is seeing in a different way, and the fourth phase is to “go forth into the world”. We completed the first three phases. Participation was optional at all times.

Most experience meditation practitioners have a gratitude practice. We all shared during this phase, such as for our health, personal safety, music, and the beauty of nature. Then we opened ourselves to the pain of the world expressing feelings of sorrow, fear, anger, and confusion, the four segments of the Truth Mandala. People spoke when they felt like they had something to share, after which, the group said, “We hear you.” It’s simple but it was also very deep. Since what people say in our group is private, I will only share my own feelings. I expressed sadness and anger at the cruel actions of the government and people in support of it as well as the apparent enjoyment in it, as if it were a game. I shared my sadness that so many were disconnected from activism because it is too painful to act or because anxiety and anger have led them to hopelessness.

Although the second phase was painful, by the third phase, when there were some people able to share a different kind of seeing. For example, I expressed fear and confusion about the outcome of our democracy but clarity about my immediate next steps as an activist. I also shared that I view myself as having resources to draw on for activism given my age, race, economic security, and emotional resilience. Others appeared to be in deep despair and chose not to speak. I could see a lot of pain in their eyes and body language. I have spent a couple of years with these people and they have wisdom and fortitude.

I saw their distress and I felt it. I wondered if I should not have shared about my sadness that more people were not engaged in activism. I know how people are, especially emotionally sensitive people. They often don’t think they are doing enough even when they are doing a lot. I didn’t want to make anyone distressed with my statements. Then I thought, “Well, this is the truth mandala. This is true for me and is not targeted toward anyone in the group.”

Most of us in this country are going through collective grief, which has intensified with the second Trump administration. Many are familiar with the late Swiss American psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ work on death and dying, in particular, the stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. An important thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that this stage model was never meant to be a strict progress toward a final end point of acceptance.

I realized that what was making me most distressed was that although my meditation group was in shared grief, we were not all experiencing it in the same way at that moment. We typically share about our perspectives on an individual experience, not on a world event.

I am often distressed by other activist’s distress, the distress that results along the lines of “we’re doomed” or beliefs that there is only one answer to the problems we are facing. People can be so sure that they have the right answer and everyone else is wrong. My right answer is that there is not just one, even when we share guiding principles of non-violence, building an inclusive, “We, the People”, democracy, and respecting the Earth and living things.

A teaching I am taking out of the Truth Mandala is to recognize that some of the disconnect I often feel with others who also want a better world, is a difference in the way we are grieving, in that moment. I can respect that. I can also respect that grief changes.

My friends, however you are grieving, I am working to honor and validate it.

Much love,
Elizabeth

Tags Authoritarianism, democracy, grief, life, loss, love, meditation, Mental Health, Non-violent social activism, the truth mandala

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What I Know

May 11, 2025 //

I don’t know a lot right now. The world is on a precipice, most notably, the ongoing administrative coup in the U.S. “Administrative” makes it sound like we are being taken over by binders and checklists. Instead, we’ve had flagrant law breaking by Donald Trump, who told us he was going to be horrible not to mention being horrible in his first term, ending it with a violent coup attempt. Somehow, enough people voted for him, anyway.

One of my psychologist friends who is originally from Ukraine, immigrated to the U.S. as a child, when the then U.S.S.R. allowed some Jews to leave the country. My friend told me that to protect their safety, her parents could not tell her that they were leaving the country until the day they left. She remarked to me that living in the U.S.S.R. was different than the U.S. because there was no sense that laws, police, or other institutions offered any stability or protection.

The U.S. has always offered more safety to some people than others. However, with a strong democracy, there were mechanisms in place to evolve toward a more just and inclusive multi-cultural society. The Trump administration has been attacking our democracy at alarming speed. Federal government workers are being fired en masse, departments are being dismantled, money is being sucked out of our government, and our personal data is being mined by young tech super fans of Elon Musk. Incompetent and malevolent people are being put in charge of cabinet positions. They are the worst people for the job that you could possibly imagine. The President is putting tariffs on foreign products including China and he insists that the lack of ships in major port cities like LA and Seattle is “good” because “it will save us money.” Talk of invading Greenland and making Canada our 51st state are discussed on a daily basis. ICE agents are kidnapping people off of the streets and out of their homes claiming that they are in this country illegally. Even if they were, this would be against the law and our Constitution. All of it is illegal. Everything that I love about the U.S. and humanity, in general, are under attack.

I don’t know how this will play out. How long will it take for “We, the People”, to reclaim this democracy. Will it take months, years, or decades? What I do know is that a lot of regular U.S. citizens are rising to the ideal of “We, the People”. The resistance is stronger this time and thank goodness, has been non-violent so far. We are using a wider variety of resistance strategies, not just marches. We are calling our representatives, boycotting companies, and there are unions who have begun general work strikes. In terms of company boycotts, Tesla has been internationally boycotted and it is working! I also see our historically allied countries banding together and standing up. I am cheering them on.

I have been spending the last several years identifying my democracy priorities as well as identifying the resources I have that are best suited to them. A huge asset that I have in terms of civil resistance is my anonymity, level of education, age, race, and relative financial security. I am not a high profile person. I am smart and can learn about the best people and institutions to follow for effective leadership in resistance. Although I work, I am an empty nester and I have more time and less family responsibility than I had in the past.

Finally, I know that in all of this ongoing and impending disaster, there is something beautiful to see or experience every day.

Be well, Friends,

Elizabeth

Tags democracy, history, news, politics

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