A Post-Election Path Forward
“Gather. Do better together.”
–Tuscon Community Participant, Radical Unity “Seeds of Kindness” mural, a Mediators Foundation project.
"We can heal through local action."
I wrote this sentence on January 7th, 2021 in the aftermath of deep divisions culminating in what turned out to be a riotous and deadly march into the United States capital. At that time, I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. I, along with so much of the country felt the splintering of American society caused by the pendulum swinging recklessly from left to right and back again. Our take-no-prisoners politics rewards all the power to the victors, no matter how tight the margins. Our political system, as-is, cultivates polarization rather than working across divides.
Adapt
Hope in the Face of the Polycrisis
[Part two in our four-part series: “Local Organizing in a Polycrisis Era”]
According to many historians, it is currently the best time to be alive in all of human history. We live longer, we are on average wealthier, we eat better, and are more educated. Yet, many of us wake up each morning overwhelmed by the current or looming crises of our time. Climate change, threats to democracies across the world, wars, a growing wealth gap, deep disparities in health and well-being, mass extinction, mass migration – the list goes on. These large, evolving, and often interconnected, crises are known as a polycrisis. (For a full description of the polycrisis, please see the first article in this four-part series here.)
Towards a Polycrisis Consciousness
Challenges and opportunities of organizing amidst societal collapse
[Part one in our four-part series: “Local Organizing in a Polycrisis Era”]
The polycrisis, which is the result of the compounding pressure of simultaneous global crises, presents a unique threat in human history. Some experts on the subject, including Daniel Schmachtenger, go so far as to call it “the end of history,” – an “extinction-level threat.” While we cannot pretend to know the outcome of humanity’s long and winding road, we know that business as usual will no longer suffice. It will take nothing short of a global shift in consciousness at all levels in order to defuse the ticking time bomb that is the polycrisis.
2024 President’s Letter
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” ~Albert Einstein
Is it dawn or dusk? The beginning of a new day, of possibility and innovation in America, or the dying of the light as a new era of endarkenment begins?
It is challenging to tell. But there is one certainty: it is a red flag day. We are in danger.
A Cult Is Not a Party
“It’s a cult,” Idaho grandmother Pam Hemphill told CNN, referring to the MAGA crowd that stormed the Capitol on January 6th. After spending two months in federal prison for her participation in the riot, she returned home and now admits that she had been “brainwashed.”
A Prejudice We Can’t Ignore
It is good that we are having important conversations about prejudices and implicit biases — racial, religious, sexual, linguistic, even educational. But we are missing one of the most important. If we don’t identify and address this prejudice, all the others are likely to get worse. The group being stereotyped, and sometimes denigrated, goes by a variety of names. Some of them sound neutral: “centrists,” “moderates,” “bi-partisans,” "trans-partisans." Other names are explicitly critical: “cowards,” “frauds,” “complicits," “wishy-washy.”
Why I Am Transpartisan
For me, transpartisan describes a meme, a field, a constituency, a dynamic, a movement, and even a philosophy. Like pragmatism – its homegrown, American predecessor from the late 19th to the early 20th century – transpartisan has emerged as an important political expression in the 21st century, recognizing differences agreeably while mostly focusing on our commonalities.
Mediators Foundation President’s Letter – 2023
Dear Colleagues,
Although this year’s letter begins on a note of pride, it will quickly pivot to humility for a very simple reason: something has been missing in our work. It is missing not just in Mediators’ portfolio of projects. It is also missing in The Work to which so many of our fellow bridge-builders, peacemakers, and social entrepreneurs have dedicated our lives. If you look at our new website, you will see why we have become one of the premier incubators in America of projects that bridge divides.
If We Can Laugh Together, Maybe We Can Last Together
I need a reasonably decent sense of humor to do the work I do, bringing people together across differences and helping people discover their capacities to affect positive transformation in their communities. I have to see the comedy in everything even if not all of it can be turned into a joke. That is because laughter is the most effective natural tension reliever there is. And without it, I am sure that we would not have made any of the social progress that we’ve had up to this point.
Putin vs. Next Gen
Dear President Putin,
As someone who, at the age of eighteen, patriotically turned in his draft card at the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War, let me tell you that you have just made a colossal blunder by trying to force thousands of young Russian men to fight in Ukraine. Believe me: a quarter of a million young Russians dodging the draft by crossing the border is just the beginning. Protests are spreading from St Petersburg to Dagestan.
Don’t Cancel the Debates – Fix Them.
As a nation, we are all recovering from the disaster that was the first presidential ‘debate.’ Despite his best effort, moderator Chris Wallace was steamrolled by waves of insults, acrimony, and incomprehensible cross-talk. Now Facebook is filled with people calling on future debates to be canceled. We think the answer is to fix the debates, not to cancel them.