Looking for, finding hope locally

As I start to write, I am aware that the Trump inauguration is coming. When he leaves office, I will be 84 years old. 

 

The holidays in 2024 have come and gone. I seems like I was barely conscious. Feeling lost and searching. Still trying to absorb the shock of another four years of the Trump oligarchy. My primary guide but not my only guide is “The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from The Ruling Class” by Thom Hartmann. I am currently focused on the chapter entitled “America Slides into Oligarchy and Dances Close to Tyranny.” At the outset he reminds me that, “Democracy is rule of, by, and for the people; oligarchy is rule of, by, and for the rich.” He goes on to remind me that two other times oligarchs have tried to replace American democracy with oligarchy. Today we are living through a third effort to change the American experiment from democracy to oligarchy, but also pushing beyond oligarchy to outright tyranny.  Tyranny.....” a form of government that entirely abandons even the pretense of the rule of law and reigns through police-state terror.” I fear we are perilously close to tyranny if we don’t find a way to resist and fight back. 

The Trump presidency is just one expression of America’s third struggle with oligarchy that began in 1971 with the Lewis Powell Memo. Hartmann writes. “..... Lewis Powell,  himself a proud agent of tobacco oligarchs, laid out in a famous memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce  a plan for various oligarchs of America to stop competing and organize to take over the U.S. government.” 

I am keeping in mind that for me the greatest U.S. Presidents in my lifetime were Franklin D. Roosevelt and his vice president Henry Wallace, who warned us about the danger of American fascism in the New York Times on April 9,1944. Add to my list Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. They spoke to me in ways that others did not because they were pro-democracy and for the most part pro-farmer-labor. 

And so, dear reader, if you have read this far you have taken the plunge into the river(flow) of life experiences which is Stories and Journeys.

 

I have adopted other guides so far to help me get through this period of being lost and searching. I am discovering the world of Podcasts through an app on my phone called Spotify. These podcasters are helping me get through each day. There is the Mary Trump Podcast, The Weekly List with Amy Siskind, the Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich, The Hartmann Report with Thom Hartman along with others. They all comprise a library of sorts. All these progressive podcasters seem to be echoing one theme which is despair is not an option. If not despair, then what? I’m trying to re-ground myself in my south Minneapolis life and what I call ‘hope local.’

So, dear reader, what are your sources of information and inspiration besides the Longfellow Nokomis Messenger and the Southwest Connector for local news and views to help you through the next four years? Tell me, tell others or tell me via tesha@tmcpub.com.

 

More than ever I need to stay rooted and  grounded in south Minneapolis and focus what I am calling ‘hope locally.’ For example there is the Minneapolis Advisory Committee on Aging. 

Tuesday Jan. 9. It was billed as an open house. Right away when I walked into the meeting a woman asked me if I write a column in the Southwest Connector. I said yes. Turns out she showed up because she read about the committee in a Stories and Journeys column.

 

It’s International Stand Up to Bullying Day. Look for the table with the Elder Voices sign. In December, I was joined by my neighbor and Messenger reader Judith. She wanted to know about the history of Elder Voices. She thinking about coming back. Me, too!

 

In gratitude.