Category Archives: politics

Dear Bernie,

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Dear Bernie,

I sometimes ask myself, “What would Bernie do?” when I’m puzzling over a problem involving interaction with my fellow humans. I know you would always treat people fairly. I know you would be above all the jostling and ego stuff that sometimes gets in my way when I’m trying to be a good human. I know there are things that just don’t matter to you – and that SHOULDN’T matter to me – and I’m trying my best to emulate you. You know what’s important. You keep your priorities straight. You are above the nonsense that I struggle with too much of the time. And so I’m turning to you now because I’d like your wisdom and advice.

Back in 2016 (and man, that seems a long time ago now) I was really hoping you’d win the Democratic nomination, and go on to become President. You were my favorite presidential candidate EVER. But when your workers would call my home they never wanted to talk with me – they always wanted to talk to my twenty-something son. This happened time and time again. “Hello? We’re calling from the Bernie Sanders campaign and we’d like to talk to Andrew.”

I so wanted to let them know that I was a Bernie supporter, too, but they never seemed interested in what I had to say. I was brushed aside – and I know it was because of my age and gender. Everyone assumed I was a Hillary Clinton supporter. This was frustrating. Exasperating. It hurt. Finally –  probably the fifth or sixth time your campaign people called asking for my son – I blurted out, “EVERYone in this house is for Bernie – my husband, myself, my son…”

And I remember the happy surprise on the other end of the line, “Really?! Everyone?! YOU, TOO?!!” 

Sheesh.

When we went to the local district caucus the room was packed full of baby boomers like myself – and only a handful of them were for Hillary Clinton. The room was hot and stuffy with excitement, and one of my fellow boomers yelled out, “Feel the Bern!” It was awesome.

So here’s the thing: The millennials – the generation whose turn it is to lead the charge now and get our nation through its current mess – are considering starting their own party. And I guess I don’t blame them – they must be frustrated, as I have been through the years, by the unwieldy political parties we currently have.  But… how do I help the millennials see that there are a lot of boomers like me who are actually on their side – wanting what they want – wanting to help? When I march and stand in front of the courthouse these days I see as many senior citizens as youngsters participating – and that makes me happy.

Everything has become a competition, Bernie. I was at the GLBT Pride festival – happy to be celebrating with our GLBT community – and saw someone was holding a sign that said, “Gay people do it better.” I saw a little girl wearing a tee-shirt that read: “Anything boys can do, girls can do better.” And it made me feel disappointed in humanity. I don’t think it should be a matter of somebody being “better” or doing things “better” – it should be a matter of people being accepted for who they are – of celebrating our differences and the perspective we each have to offer to the community. Differences in religion and non-religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation – and age, too – shouldn’t be viewed as a reason to compete, but as a means to seeing the world in a new way. In my opinion.

Dividing progressives by generation, gender, religion, or whatever, isn’t going to fix our country, Bernie. Progressives have to come together if they want to change what’s wrong.

So what would you do? How would you bring progressives together? What advice can you give us?

Sincerely,

Karen Molenaar Terrell

The Job of Mainstream Media

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“When the press is gagged, liberty is besieged…”
– Mary Baker Eddy, founder of The Christian Science Monitor

It is not the job of mainstream media to present the President in a positive way. It is the job of mainstream media to report the facts, and it is the responsibility of the citizenry to stay informed of the facts. And sometimes none of that is any fun.

***

Here is a link to a survey about media on the Trump-Pence website that I found very interesting. I took the survey, but at the end it asked for my email and so forth and I didn’t want to share that stuff so I didn’t submit my answers. I’m sure y’all can guess how I answered the questions, though. 🙂 I suppose as you would find on any political website – Republican OR Democrat – the questions had built-in bias in them. That was not unexpected. For fun and mental stimulation, you might want to put on your critical thinking caps and look for the bias in the questions.

Here is how I answered a couple of the questions –

#18 Do you agree with President Trump’s strategy of communicating directly with his supporters through Twitter, email, and Facebook videos?
– Twittering your opinions into an echo chamber is not very presidential, no.

#26 What percentage do you believe is an accurate representation of President Trump’s positive news coverage by the mainstream media?
– Regarding the previous question (#26) I don’t think it is the job of mainstream media to represent Trump in a positive or a negative way. It is the job of mainstream media to report the facts.

“It is the pulpit and press, clerical robes and the prohibiting of free speech, that cradles and covers the sins of the world,—all unmitigated systems of crime; and it requires the enlightenment of these worthies, through civil and religious reform, to blot out all inhuman codes. ”
– Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings

fake news isn't

We Are a Most Peculiar People

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It is mind-boggling to me how the same country that put Obama in office just a short time ago has Trump sitting in the White House now. We are a most peculiar people.

That is all. Carry on then…

Our World Is in Labor

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Our world is in labor.
It’s painful to watch
and painful to go through.
But there’s a birth going
on here. Or a rebirth.
Something beautiful is going
to be born of this. I feel it.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

Butterfly on Table Mountain

An alpine butterfly flits among the flowers on Table Mountain. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.

 

We Have to Keep Trying

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We have to keep trying
keep loving, keep vying
with hate, bigotry, and greed
We need to be kind in word
and in deed
We have to keep singing,
keep dancing, keep bringing
our gifts to the world’s table
and give what we’re able
We have to keep hope alive,
and laughter and joy, dive
into Life’s celebration –
it belongs to all nations
We have to keep trying –

because what’s the alternative?
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

Thou shalt have no other gods but Love

my country is killing people

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my country is killing people
separating parents from children
building walls to keep “them” out
and to keep “us” in
my country is killing people
in the streets because of the color
of their skin, their sexual orientation,
and their religion
my country is killing people
in their newspaper offices, churches,
at concerts, schools, and malls
because guns are more important
my country is killing people
in an economy that gives tax
cuts to the rich, and denies access
to health care for the poor
my country is killing people
as it kills the environment with coal
trains, fracking, oil pipelines, pesticides
and greed

and i am ashamed

– Karen Molenaar Terrell

“Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law”

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 “It is very biblical to enforce the law,” said Sarah Sanders in reference to children being separated from their parents.

Here’s what the Bible says about the law:

“Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
– Romans 13:10

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
– Galatians 5:22, 23

“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
– Matthew 22:36-40

“They were children. They had no place to go. They needed love.”

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My friend, Mei Mei, shared some powerful thoughts on Facebook. She gave me permission to share her post:

“My parents spent their younger adulthood, and my childhood, taking care of children.

“These children were not technically ‘theirs’.

“These children were broken.

“These children had no home, and in a lot of cases, no one else loving them.

“These children had all survived significant trauma.

“These children were all colors. Some were rich, but most were poor. Born into circumstances beyond their control, forced into a life they did not ask for.

“These children were babies. And young preschoolers. Tweens. Teens. Even some young adults.

“These children were black, white, brown, and often a combination of all.

“Almost all of them had special needs. Most had complex medical needs.

“They were children. They had no place to go. They needed love. They needed hugs. They needed food, and clothes, and medicine, and a bed, and toys to call their own.

“They needed some adults they could trust, most of all. People who would love them instantly, even when they came in at 2am with not even a jacket in the dead of winter, sobbing. ESPECIALLY then, they were loved. Instantly.

“Because they are children, and children who have seen our worst deserve our best, even more so than others.

“My parents opened their hearts and made these kids theirs. Sometimes it was the churches who placed them in our home. Sometimes the state. A few times their own parents dropped them off. It didn’t matter where they came from. Sometimes they stayed just days, sometimes, weeks, sometimes years, and one is ours for life. But really, they are all ours and they know our love is still there and we will still be there in an instant, whenever and wherever they need us.

“What mattered is as soon as they crossed that door, they were ours. Ours to love. Ours to care for. Ours to show what a real home and a real family and a real love feels like, looks like. We loved them and still love them. Even in the dead of night, when a now 32 year old calls and says “Nana? I need you.”

“Truth? We needed them more.

“We never asked them their legal status. I know at least a handful were undocumented but we didn’t care. We never asked them how they got here, how they crossed the border. We didn’t care. They were home.

“They enriched our lives, and taught us much. They made us better versions of ourselves.

“Our country now has children. They are ours now. They came into our country alone, or were so horrifically separated from their loved ones.

“It doesn’t matter how they got here. It matters they are here. Now, we have a choice. Us, these Americans. All of us. We have a choice.

“Do we lock these babies in cages? Do we strip them of their humanity, and in turn lose ours as well? Do we take away their hope? Their love?

“Or do we remember these are CHILDREN?

“It doesn’t matter right now where they are from, how they got here. It matters how we treat them, because as children, THEY MATTER.

“Our choice is here. Staring us in the face. It looks like a toddler in a cage.

“So now we make the right choice, when our government failed so horribly. We make the choice to stand up, and shout with all of our might:

”’THIS IS NOT OKAY AND WE WILL NOT STAND FOR IT’

“We call our government officials and we don’t shut up

“We protest and march until they cannot ignore us.

“We stand up and say ‘We will take them. Give us the babies. We can do this together’

“We scream, we shout, and we DO NOT QUIT, because these are children.

“And when it is all over, we beg these babies forgiveness for failing to do what Jesus would do, for ignoring the example set for us. For failing to be human, and for failing to treat them as little humans.

“And then we sit down, and we figure it out. We figure out policies that don’t include children being stripped from their parents or babies in cages.

“The entire time we write those policies, and demand good, humane, loving action, we look at these awful pictures and remind ourselves to never let our humanity fall this far again.

“They are children. We failed them. Now let us fix this.”
– “Mei Mei”

Do we really even need to debate this stuff?

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I can’t believe we’re still debating stuff in 2018 that we should have moved beyond long ago.

No, it’s not alright to separate children from their parents at the border. No, it’s not alright to torture ANYone or thing. No, we shouldn’t be taking from the poor to give to the rich. Yes, we should be caring for our planet – it’s the only one we’ve got. No, we should not be denying people their rights to life, liberty, happiness, and prosperity because of their race, religion or non-religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Are these things we really even need to debate? Sheesh.

debating stuff

 

“You and I Are Nothing Alike!”

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“You and I Are Nothing Alike!”

She had known him for years –
mutual interests, politics, and friends
had made for conversation filled
with laughter at the absurd,
and a shared concern about
the state of the world.

She had known him for years –
had enjoyed brief, happy encounters
with him on her favorite walk
along the bay, beside the rocks –
– their cameras at the ready –
as they clicked photos and talked.

She had known him for years –
then one day he asked if she’d heard
of the Dominionists. She said no,
she didn’t think so.
He reminded her she was a Christian
and he said she must know.

(She had known him for years.)
“The Dominionists are Christians
just like you are,” he said.
“They think the more children bred
the closer the men are
to God after they’re dead.”

(She had known him for years.)
“You know all Christian religions
are just exactly the same, ”
he said, “Patriarchal and lame.”
She told him her way of life
was actually founded by a dame.

(She had known him for years.)
She said the teachings she followed
believed God was, literally, Love.
An old geezer sitting in the clouds above
was not her idea of God, she said.
(And she wondered to herself
why he didn’t know this about her…

…She had known him for years.)
“We have the same thoughts about fears,
greed, over-population,” she named
the things they had both blamed
for the current state of the world. But
“You and I are nothing alike!” he exclaimed,
his face turning red.

She had known him for years –
this friend from her walks.
Now she laughed out loud because
that is what she does
when something strikes her
as completely ridiculous.

She had known him for years –
and her feelings of friendship towards him
weren’t going to change because this time
he’d chosen to see what made them different.

Love is what is true;
the rest is just nonsense.

– Karen Molenaar Terrell

love is what is true