Tag Archives: progress

Don’t Disregard The Good News

Virtually all of my conversations with friends and family these days eventually descend into “gloom and doom” focused on the state of our politics,  the erosion of American liberty and the effect of the administration’s insane policies on the country’s economic health. All of those reasons for despair–and more–are very real, and the need to be persistent in our fight to reclaim the American Idea is urgent, but we really shouldn’t let our obsession with the forces of repression and regression obscure the fact that there are also lots of good things happening.

Take, for example, some welcome news about the nation’s public schools. A recent study focused on the emergence of “community schools”–a movement that has shown great promise in both educational outcomes and community support. The introduction to the study explains what makes a public school a community school:

Community schools are public schools that use the community school approach to transform into a place where educators, local community members, families, and students work together to strengthen conditions for student learning and healthy development. They provide services and support to fit each community’s needs, guided by the people who know students best— families, teachers, and the students themselves. They often partner with outside organizations and local governments to support the entirety of a student’s well-being to ensure they are healthy, well-fed, safe, and in a better position to learn.

The researchers included a number of examples of community schools that have improved student educational outcomes, increased attendance, improved peer/adult relationships and attitudes toward school, and reduced racial and economic achievement gaps. They estimated that for every dollar invested in a community school, the community received $15 back in improved economic performance and well-being, and they offered a collection of stories about community schools that are transforming the way they function and demonstrating progress on a wide variety of outcome measures.

It isn’t only education. The Trump administration may deny the reality of climate change and be intent on enriching fossil fuel companies, but environmental engineers and scientists around the world are announcing breakthroughs every day.

For example, concern about climate change requires significant attention to construction materials. (The concrete and steel industries together are responsible for as much as 15% of global C02 emissions.) But there has been real progress in this area.

Researchers in Australia have created cement from the hundreds of thousands of tons of glass that is no longer being processed in a failing recycling system. They report that the resulting cement is cheaper, stronger and lighter than traditional cement and delivers functional insulation, fire-resistance and a lower emissions threshold. Other researchers are using brown seaweed to create unfired clay bricks as an alternative to conventional fired bricks and concrete blocks, and Swiss researchers are also moving cement-bonded wood products into the realm of weight-bearing wood-based concrete. There are several others.

There’s also good news in the effort to electrify air travel. One solar-powered around-the-world-flight already took place in 2016. And although replacing larger fossil-fuel powered airplanes probably won’t be a reality until at least 2050, there are already electrified short-range planes built for a small number of passengers.

A really exciting innovation is solar glass– windows and doors that can provide electric power to homes and buildings. Researchers at the University of Michigan have invented a solar glass for windows, doors, skylights and other building-related glass applications.

There’s much, much more. We humans continue to demonstrate real brilliance in solving our more technical and environmental problems. I wonder what it would take to apply that brilliance to our political and social life.

That said, even on the political front, there’s encouraging news. The national resistance is growing, and in Indiana, where we’re all too aware of the problems created by one-party rule, an emerging phenomenon is a sign that MAGA can’t take residents of Red states for granted.  Indiana has seen a surge in independent candidacies, and those Independents are winning more often than many people realize—52% of those who made the ballot in 2023–24 were successful.

Nearly half of Indiana’s voters identify as independent, and a growing number of Republicans are repelled by Republican candidates who are increasingly MAGA and Christian Nationalist zealots. (Too many of them still can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, but evidently they will vote for an Independent.)

I’m actually going to meet some of these officials and hear why they chose to run as Independents. A group called Independent Indiana is hosting a panel discussion Monday night in Indianapolis, and I plan to attend.

We need to cling to those rays of sunshine in our dark times…..

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Some Positive Harbingers

These days, there is so much to complain about, to worry about–and thanks to the Internet, so many voices (including mine) pointing to our social deficits and failures. But there is also good news “out there,” and anyone who isn’t fixated on what’s going wrong can’t help but acknowledge positive harbingers as well as dire predictions.

I receive a number of publications that focus on science and the environment, for example, and reports of breakthroughs are a consistent–for that matter, a daily– feature. Let me just share a few examples of the sort of positive news that rarely makes the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post. These are from just one source: Euronews:

A Belgian NGO is using human hair clippings to absorb environmental pollutants.The hair is turned into matted squares, which can be used to absorb oil and other hydrocarbons. The mats can be placed in drains to soak up pollution in water before it reaches a river. They can also be used to deal with pollution problems due to flooding and to clean up oil spills.

In the EU, solar power soared by almost 50 per cent this year (2022).

The IEA reported that the world is set to add as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the past 20.

London-based start-up Notpla believes it has an answer to our plastic waste problem: a plastic alternative made from seaweed and plants. It’s totally natural, completely biodegradable and can be used to make a range of packaging from bubbles to hold liquid to linings for food containers.

Here in the U.S., despite GOP resistance, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act–a  historic bill that makes the single largest investment in climate and energy in America’s history.

There are many, many more stories of progress, including the important breakthrough on nuclear fusion, which may eventually provide humanity with unlimited–and non-globe-warming–power.

It isn’t just science, or medical science (where equally impressive progress continues to be made). Even in our fraught politics, there are bright spots. The election of Lula to replace climate denier Bolsonaro in Brazil may save the rest of the  critically-important Amazon rainforest from further destruction.

Fareed Zakaria argues that there are signs that the coming year will finally see a decline in the global populism that threatens democracies worldwide.

Zakaria begins by describing the current travails of the GOP, which are likely to prevent the party from doing anything substantive, including damage. He then writes:

The Republican Party’s troubles are severe. Newt Gingrich told Axios that the party is in its worst shape in almost six decades. But it is not alone. In many countries around the world, populists are flailing.

Look at Britain, where Brexit — perhaps the ultimate 21st-century populist cause — has caused havoc within the Conservative Party, which used to be described as the world’s oldest and most successful political party. Britain has had five prime ministers in the six years since 2016; the prior five prime ministers spanned more than 30 years. The self-defeating decision to exit its largest market, the European Union, continues to depress the country’s economic prospects, and it remains the weakest of the Group of Seven economies. In the Group of 20, only Russia is projected to do worse than Britain in the near future…

In the recent elections, Australia’s conservatives suffered their worst loss ever, and the even more extreme United Australia and One Nation Parties did poorly as well. The new Labor prime minister enjoys an extraordinarily high approval rating.

Even in Argentina– a hotbed of populism since Peron–the populist movement is at its lowest ebb.

Zakaria explains these setbacks for the movement by reminding readers that populism is essentially an opposition movement. Populist politicians denounce the “establishment” or the “elites,” encourage fear and promote conspiracy theories. Their  promises are emotional rather than practical–build a wall, ban immigration, stop trade.

But once in government, the shallowness of its policy proposals is exposed, and its leaders can’t blame others as easily. Meanwhile, if non-populist forces are sensible and actually get things done, they defang some of the populist right.

Look at the United States, where President Biden’s moderate style, serious demeanor and practical policymaking have given him large legislative accomplishments without triggering a massive electoral backlash. Now, he does benefit by being an old, White man. Had Barack Obama enacted the same policies, I have a feeling we would be hearing much more talk of Obama’s dangerous socialism and un-American policies, complete with racial innuendos.

As Zakaria notes, the world’s problems are complicated, and there will always be activists proposing solutions that are “simple, seductive and wrong.” But there are hopeful signs; 2023 could be the year the fever begins to break.

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Stop The World, I Want Off Doesn’t Work

Posted this by mistake, but just consider it an extra…Sorry to clutter your inboxes.

I’ve often thought that if ultra-wealthy people like Bloomberg and Gates really want to help the country reject White Nationalism and misogyny, they would use their dollars to buy Fox News and its clones. (But no one ever listens to me…)

Evidently, however, some rich people on the Right have come to the same conclusion: propaganda can be effective if you dominate the information landscape. As Vox (among others) has reported, CNN-one of the world’s most powerful news outlets– is in the process of change, and that change happens to be in sync with the views of one of the world’s richest men.

OK–so CNN has a new owner, and a new boss. Changes are coming. There is nothing inherently suspicious about change–but in this case, the question is: will change come “because the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, its new owner, wants an overhaul? Or is it at the behest of a conservative billionaire investor in the company who sits on its board?

Malone has repeatedly wished, in public, for CNN to remake itself. And his prescription happens to sync with the new CNN agenda: a plan to steer the channel away from what Malone and others call a liberal bias they say muddles opinion and news. And to shift it toward a supposedly centrist, just-the-facts bent.

Just “fair and balanced,” right? (Malone has opined that Fox News is “real journalism.”..)

Those who now control CNN have hotly denied any meddling by Malone, and insist that their goal is a non-ideological middle ground between Fox and MSNBC. Time will tell, but suspicions of a political agenda raise a more basic question: can the various plutocrats who are  “flooding the zone” with conservative propaganda, the Neanderthals in Red state legislatures, and the ideologues who’ve been appointed to the courts win the fight they are waging against modernity?

Can they take the country back to a time when rich White Christian men were in charge? A time when they didn’t have to share dominance with uppity women, people of color and immigrants from “shithole” countries?

I very much doubt it.

Don’t get me wrong–the forces of reaction can bring progress to a temporary standstill–and “temporary” can be a long time.  As we’ve seen, GOP efforts to pack the courts can end up eviscerating constitutional guarantees and eliminating longstanding rights. The Tucker Carlsons of the world can give aid and comfort to the incels, militias and other assorted hate groups that litter the American landscape.

But ultimately, they can’t erase a century of cultural change. The America we currently live in is a dramatically different country than the one these people want so desperately to re-install.

Let me offer some homegrown examples.

Before I sat down to write this blog, my husband and I shopped at the Costco on the south side of Indianapolis. That location serves the suburban south side of town and the adjoining exurban and rural–very Republican– areas. The store carries a variety of foods catering to its wide variety of shoppers–as I browsed, I saw Sikh turbans, Muslim hijabs and a variety of “ethnic” folks.

I’ve previously noted that I read my husband’s Engineering World Record. (Yes, I’m a nerd.) A story in the current issue highlighted pilot projects testing out “smart roads.” Engineers in Kansas and Denver are working with technologies developed Germany’s Siemens A.G., by  Korea’s Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and by France’s Renault. Companies from Israel, Italy and India are all in the mix.

Another article reported on several cross-country joint ventures focused on “green hydrogen.” 

When I was a girl–back in the Ice Age–a trip to another continent seemed impossibly exotic. I would have been astonished to learn that I’d have a granddaughter living in England and a son living in Amsterdam–and that I would keep in touch with them between visits via that science-fiction-promised “picture phone”–i.e., FaceTime.

The frightened reactionaries trying to “stop the world” may well create an extended period of chaos, but there is simply no way they can “reverse engineer” the cultural changes that have brought us to today’s normal. Women aren’t going back to the kitchen and nursery; LGBTQ folks aren’t climbing back into the closet, interracial couples aren’t divorcing and Black Americans aren’t going back to the plantation.

The vastly increased diversity of America’s cities has spread to the suburbs. Outside of the most isolated rural precincts, most Americans have friends and relatives who don’t look or pray like they do. 

The Rightwing can make acceptance difficult, or a Blue wave in November can accelerate it.  Either way,  the Right will ultimately lose. 

America isn’t going back to the 1950s.

 

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Pride…And Prejudice

It’s June. Pride Month.

I’ve followed–and supported–the movement for LGBTQ equality for more years than I can count. When Indianapolis had a newspaper that served the gay community, I was a regular columnist; when I was Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU, I established a “Project for Equal Rights”–a project focused on gay rights (back then, ambiguity in the title was advisable.)

So I’ve been gratified by the enormous cultural and legal changes that have led to wide acceptance of gays and lesbians (transgender folks not so much…), reflected in positive newscasts about upcoming Pride events and the enormous growth of participation in those events.

I attended the first Pride Parade (proper name: Cadillac Barbie Pride Parade–don’t ask me how that name originated; I have no idea). It was a resolute effort, but as I recall (granted, at my age, memory is fallible) a fairly sad affair. There were six or eight floats, and at most a couple hundred spectators. My husband, kids and (later) grandkids have attended every year since, and at the last parade–held before COVID imposed a hiatus–there were something like 80-100 floats and over a 100,000 spectators.

It isn’t simply that the numbers have grown; the nature of the participants has expanded. Initially, both the parade floats and festival were sponsored by bars and other businesses and nonprofits that catered specifically to the gay community. These days, marchers and floats include a mix of churches and synagogues, healthcare organizations, car dealerships, universities, civil rights groups, government officials and political candidates–an array broadly representative of the entire Indianapolis community.

LGBTQ progress is undeniable. But the current backlash isn’t limited to the determined assault on women’s rights. As the Brookings Institution recently warned, this year’s Pride comes at a perilous time for the LGBTQ community.

The report began with recognition of widespread cultural change

The year 2015 marked a historic milestone in the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights: the Supreme Court’s recognition of marriage equality. The court’s ruling both reflected and promoted an incredible sea change in American life. In the two decades prior to the decision, public opinion on LGBTQ+ rights improved more rapidly than any other attitude in the history of American opinion polling.

The author followed that paragraph with a description of research reflecting those changes, especially focusing on their effects for students and young people.

He then described the less-rosy findings of that research:

For the first time ever, the CDC included a question about sexual identity in its national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). This survey provided the first population-based, nationally representative portrait of sexual minority high school students since the Add Health study two decades prior. The results were sobering. Among students who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or “not sure” (LGBQ), about 40% reported being bullied, 39% reported having “seriously considered” suicide, and a full 56% reported clinically significant signs of depression. Although some of the CDC’s estimates were later shown to be inflated by “mischievous responders,” these bullying and mental health disparities remained remarkably stable across analyses.

Since 2015, the story told by America’s LGBQ high school students has not improved. (Because these data do not assess gender identity or sexual identities beyond L/G/B/Q, I refer here only to LGBQ students). In Figure 1, I present estimates from the 2015, 2017, and 2019 National YRBS. For LGBQ respondents, the results show no change in bullying, no change in suicidal ideation, and a slight upward trend in depression. On every measure, LGBQ students report substantially worse outcomes than their straight peers: LGBQ students are about 70% more likely to report bullying, twice as likely to report suicidal ideation, and three times more likely to report depression. Population-representative data on transgender students are more limited. However, the data that are available provide a picture of an especially vulnerable population, reporting outcomes similar to or worse than those reported by LGBQ students. Early indications suggest that the experiences of LGBTQ+ teens only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And then there is the “far-reaching and well-orchestrated backlash against LGBTQ+ rights.”  The Brookings report tells us that a record-breaking number of anti-LGBTQ+ measures have been proposed and passed across the country over the past three years. (In just the first three months of this year, 238 bills restricting LGBTQ+ rights have been introduced.)

 These legislative initiatives also appear to have emboldened a wave of LGBTQ+ book bans, efforts to dismantle gay-straight alliances, and the forced removal of LGBTQ+-affirming materials from school spaces.

Given the success of Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans in politicizing  the Supreme Court, rights like marriage equality “appear newly uncertain.”

On June 11th, my family will join the throng of supporters cheering for Pride –and hoping for the defeat of re-emerging prejudice.

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1968?

As Americans have increasingly taken to the streets, not just to protest George Floyd’s murder, but also to protest overreach by the current, lawless administration, I’ve seen several articles comparing those demonstrations with the civil unrest that characterized the 1960s.

The consensus, I am happy to report, seems to be that we aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The Brookings Institution examined public opinion on race, and concluded–as the title of that report put it–“When it comes to opinions on race, it isn’t 1968 anymore.”

For one thing, there is very little disagreement about public reaction to the horrific video showing Floyd’s murder. According to survey research, only 2% of Americans believe that the use of force against him was justified, and 81% consider it unjustified. Fifty-seven percent believe it reflects a greater willingness on the part of police to use excessive force against Black people.

Furthermore,

76% of Americans now say that discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities in the United States is a “big problem,” including 57% of conservatives, 71% of whites, and 69% of whites without college degrees.  In addition, Americans have turned more pessimistic about progress toward racial equality. In 2014, the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, 79% of Americans saw gains in the fight to end racial discrimination, compared to just 56% today.

Attitudes about protests have similarly evolved. Americans overwhelmingly say that peaceful protests are a justifiable response to police misconduct, and they also believe that police have over-reacted and used excessive and unjustifiable force against peaceful protesters. A whopping two-thirds blame “other people”– not the protesters themselves– for the outbreaks of violence, which they do condemn.

The bottom line: it’s not 1968 anymore. A large share of white Americans now endorse views on race relations once confined largely to African Americans. While Americans of all parties and races continue to oppose violent protests, appeals to “law and order” not balanced with the recognition of deep injustice lack the resonance of half a century ago. This helps explain why barely one-third of Americans support President Trump’s handling of race relations—and why 53% of Americans say that relations have gotten worse on his watch.

In June, Todd Gitlin took a slightly different approach in a column for the Washington Post, comparing today’s protests to 1969 rather than 1968. Gitlin acknowledged that “When windows are smashed, shops go up in flames, looters ransack and police open fire, the collective psyche automatically clicks over to 1968 ,” but he went on to argue that the current anger has more in common with the (far more effective) anti-war demonstrations of 1969.

The issue was different from today’s, but the ecumenical spirit, the resolve and the conviction about the need for a new political start were similar. Then as now, the rallies expressed both solidarity and self-interest. In 1969, with the draft in force, many in the Moratorium crowds had a huge personal stake, though many did not. Today, black protesters have the most obvious stakes, but whites in the far-flung crowds, under a broad range of leaders, are also moved selflessly and morally.

I remember the upheaval of the 60s, and I especially remember the attitudes of my own middle-class, White, “proper” cohort–attitudes that were definitely not sympathetic to the “rabble” that was disturbing their complacency. But looking back, it’s hard to deny that both the riots and the anti-war protests changed America.

Historians tell us that the upheaval of the 1960s integrated universities, spurred the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, put black faces on TV shows other than sports, and provided a blueprint that would be followed by women, LGBTQ Americans and other oppressed groups.

America is a much fairer country as a result of that upheaval.

Of course, making additional places at the civic table continues to upset people who experience equality for others as a diminution of their own status. A columnist for CNN repeated a story that continues to be both explanatory and relevant:

As Hodding Carter put it to historian Arthur Schlesinger, when Schlesinger asked why Southern white men hated Bill Clinton so much, “They look back with longing at the good old days — the days when abortion was in the back alley, gays were in the closet, women were in the kitchen, blacks were in the back of the bus, and condoms were under the counter.”

Progress doesn’t come without disruption–and not everyone applauds when it comes.

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