Power based on love is a thousand times more effective

Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was Monday. I mentioned the day when I wrote about Wab Kinew’s book a couple weeks ago. It is a time for the nation to grapple with the way European settlers of Canada treated the original residents. In honor of that Michael de Adder posted a few appropriate cartoons. The last one has the caption, “John Cabot didn’t ‘discover’ anything.” Today, through Canadian news, I learned that Kinew was elected as premier of Manitoba in 2023. Tuesday was Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday. Of course, there were tributes and best wishes from many people. Walter Einenkel wrote a tribute for Daily Kos. He was the 39th president and did a pretty good job of it (though not many thought so at the time). After he wasn’t reelected in 1981 his stature seemed to grow through the Carter Center and its push for democracy and human rights around the world and also his personal involvement with Habitat for Humanity. The tribute ends with a cartoon based on Carter’s wish that, though he is under hospice care and has been for about 18 months, he very much wants to live long enough to vote for Harris. Bill in Portland, Maine, as part of his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, also has a tribute to Carter. Here’s the part on his presidency:

That Jimmy grin and the sense of optimism that went with it was what the country wanted and needed after the Republicans’ Watergate mess. Although his one term isn't considered a rousing success, he kept us out of war, focused our attention on energy policy, protected huge amounts of land, was at the helm during the creation of eight million jobs, brokered peace between Israel and Egypt, and brought honesty and integrity back to the White House.

We could use some of that honesty and integrity in the current campaign. BlisterPearl posted a cartoon in honor of Carter. I can’t make out the creator’s name. It shows a series of houses built by Carter for Habitat for Humanity. Each house has a one-word sign: Grace, Compassion, Dignity, Humility, Faith, Love, Honesty, Courage, Service. Bill in Portland, Maine also honored the 154th birthday of Mohandas Gandhi on Wednesday, the guy who employed non-violent dissent to great effect. Many, including Martin Luther King and John Lewis, employed his tactics. A couple of quotes:

“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.” “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”

Sigh. From those lofty thoughts back to the every day mud. Marhsall Cohen and Daniel Dale of CNN Politics discussed 12 election lies the nasty guy has been saying over the last couple months to lay the groundwork to dispute the 2024 election if he loses. He made similar statements ahead of the 2020 election and we saw where that went – an attempt to overthrow democracy. Here are some of the lies. The article describes where the nasty guy said it and why it is false. + Harris can only win through cheating. + Democrats replacing Biden with Harris is unconstitutional. + Voting by non-citizens is a widespread problem. + The FBI caught Iran spying on his campaign and gave the info to Harris. This is partly true in that Iran did hack his campaign. + California’s vote counts are dishonest, though California won’t decide the election. + There was fraud in early voting. + A large portion of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent. + Biden or Harris orchestrated his legal cases. Yes, all of them are false. All of them damage democracy. Morgan Stephens of Kos wrote that the nasty guy has been saying he knows nothing about Project 2025 and its authors. Also, during his time in the Oval Office he implemented suggestions made by the Heritage Foundation, the group that authored Project 2025. They then boasted about how the nasty guy did their bidding. The post’s title says there are 11 times he did their bidding, but then lists two more before the count is started. Here are some of them. + Pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. + Repealed net neutrality. + Cut child nutrition programs. + Banned transgender people from the military. + Eliminated grants to prevent violence against women. + Slashed the Department of Justice civil rights division. + Pulled out of the World Health Organization during a pandemic. Don’t believe him when he says he doesn’t know Project 2025 and its authors. Kos of Kos discussed a speech the nasty guy gave last weekend. He says the speech is making it harder for news outlets to “sane-wash” his mental state. But they’re still doing it anyway. The speech, though rambling, also insulted his supporters. Some of the things he said: He hates paying overtime (no one clapped for that line). He blamed small crowd sizes on Biden and past losses on cities with large black populations. He insulted Harris’ intelligence. He said Democrats will cheat in the election. He gave a solution to theft. That should have gotten a lot of press, and didn’t. An example of how the media has been treating the nasty guy: Bloomberg said he “sharpened his criticism” of border security. Mark Jacob responded:

When Trump says immigrants are “animals” who will invade your kitchen and slit your throat, Bloomberg sane-washes him by saying he “sharpened his criticism.” This is a stain on journalism. It’s utter malpractice that endangers our country.

In a pundit roundup for Kos, Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Sebastian Smith on what the nasty guy said about theft:

Trump in Erie, PA, says in US “the police aren’t allowed to do their job.” To stop crime, you need “one really violent day.” He says: “One rough hour and I mean real rough, the word would get out and it would end immediately.”

Somewhere else I heard this is similar to the plot of The Purge. See below. Dworkin also quoted Elad Nehorai discussing the Middle East:

We launched 2 wars in which hundreds of thousands were killed as a response to a terror attack where thousands were killed, wars which brought neither security nor peace and which most now regret. And here we are 20 years later with people cheering almost the exact same thing. People confuse hurting the enemy with safety, and this lesson never seems to be learned. Hopefully one day we’ll raise a consciousness that goes beyond violence = success.

Dworkin added:

You can hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. This can also be thought of as tactical success, strategic failure.

EJ Dionne of the Washington Post discussed North Carolina as the center of the faith war. One side is white evangelical Christian’s loyalty to the nasty guy.

Don’t try to tell this tale to Bishop Haywood Parker, the senior pastor at Truth Tabernacle Ministries here. “There are White evangelicals who will utilize the gospel and twist it in a way that works to their advantage and gives them a way to support Trump,” he told me last week. “But there are lots of us who don’t feel that way. When I’m told that if I support Kamala Harris that somehow, I’m anti-church, anti-Biblical, that really bothers me.” Parker is not alone. In fact, he represents another equally powerful, politically active Christian tradition shaping this year’s elections.

I found The Purge on the Barnes & Noble website as a horror movie released in 2013. It looks like there are four sequels. The description of the first says in part:

In the not-too-distant future, rampant crime and prison overcrowding have inspired the U.S. government to implement a unique solution to restore the peace: Each year, for a 12-hour period, any and all crime becomes permissible as police put their jobs on hold, and hospitals close their doors. It's called the Purge, and remarkably, the annual event leads to drastically reduced crime and record-low unemployment levels throughout the rest of the year.

The plot of this first movie is about how a family tries to secure their home during the purge which, of course, goes wrong. I doubt the nasty guy watched this movie. I wonder who told him about it. Well. After that we need something more upbeat. Towards the bottom of his Monday column Bill in Portland, Maine included a meme. It shows Biden as Dark Brandon in a yellow convertible saying, “Get in Patriot, we got some malarkey to stop.” And in his column for today he included a video by Dominique Davis that uses stop motion and live actors to create short scenes that are a lot of fun. Each little scene is shown to ways, in fast motion from the side, then as intended in stop motion. The video is 1:19 long. In the comments of another pundit roundup are a couple good cartoons. The first is by Mark Parisi and features one cat talking to a kitten saying, “I should warn you, this place is haunted by a tiny, red, uncatchable ghost dot.” The other is by David Hayward, the Naked Pastor. Jesus says to a crowd, “I really don’t care what religion you are, if any. Just use it to make you more kind and less jerk.”

Power based on love

When I was a college instructor at the end of the semester I would hand out a page that listed the semester’s topics and tell the student you can write whatever you want on this page and you may refer to it during the final exam.

Professor Reb Beatty of Ann Arundel Community College in Maryland teaches accounting. He told his students they could bring exam notes on a “3x5 notecard.”

Student Elijah Bowen showed up for the exam with a notecard measuring 3x5 feet. Beatty quickly checked the syllabus and related handouts and saw he had never specified units of measure. So he allowed Bowen to use the gigantic card – and awarded Bowen extra credit for ingenuity and creativity – and for actually filling up the card.



Germany approved same-sex marriage at the end of June. On Sunday, the first same-sex weddings were held. Registry offices opened for the day to allow the couples to marry on the first day possible. The first couple to wed were Karl Kreile and Bodo Mende, who have been together for 38 years.



Tracey Samuelson of the Marketplace program on NPR reports on a problem with the GOP tax plan. Lawmakers are shouting that the economy is in the pits and must be saved by this massive tax cut. But the Federal Reserve says the economy is doing well – steady growth, low unemployment, people rejoining the workforce. The big concern of the Fed would be that inflation takes off. And a tax cut would prompt more spending, which would raise inflation. Which the Fed would have to choke off.

Translation: The economy doesn’t need a tax cut and would do better without it.

I add: The federal deficit would also do better without this tax cut. But GOP lawmakers are only concerned about deficits when a Democrat is President.



Today is the 148th birthday of Mohandas Gandhi. A couple quotes from him:

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

The ACLU, with a huge increase in donations since last November, is launching a “Let People Vote” campaign, tackling various state laws that suppress voting. Their first effort will be in Lawrence, Kansas. That’s where Kris Kobach is Secretary of State and doing all he can to suppress the vote. Kobach has also been appointed to the misnamed national Election Integrity Commission.

Holy Terror, part 7: Love

In his book, Holy Terror, Lies the Christian Right Tells Us to Deny Gay Equality Mel White talks about progressive values. In the last post I talked about progressive political values, those based on the Constitution. In this post we move on to progressive moral values, those based on the Bible.

Yes, the previous section discussed that the Constitution is more important than the Bible in a democracy. But the Bible is still quite important. We must rescue it from abuse.

* We reclaim the Bible as a primary source of our progressive moral values and we will resist fundamentalist efforts to claim the bible as their own.

White describes the Bible as the Greatest Book Never Read. Lots of people profess to believe what is says. It seems very few have actually read it. White describes the lives who suffered for the Bible: John Wycliffe and William Tyndale – both had translated the Bible into English and the king felt threatened. There are those sustained by it – Captain Howard Rutledge in solitary confinement sustained by verses he memorized as a child. White gives the example of his own father, a pillar of the church, who defied advice of church leaders and rode with his son in a Pride Parade.

* We reclaim our faith to help empower & inform our progressive moral values and will resist any fundamentalist efforts to define God for us.

White heard stories for E. Stanley Jones, a famous evangelist, talk about what he had learned from Gandhi. Jones said Gandhi had loved and respected the teachings of Jesus, yet remained Hindu. Jones reportedly asked Gandhi, "What makes you different from the average Christian?" Gandhi replied, "I think Jesus meant it." Jones asked how he and his colleagues might be more effective in sharing their faith. Gandhi replied:

First, I would suggest that all of you Christians must begin to live more like Jesus. Second, practice your religion without toning it down. Third, emphasize love and make it your working force for love is central to Christianity. Fourth, study the non-Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good that is within them, in order to have a more sympathetic approach to the people.

White responds:

Gandhi and Jones taught me how to be entirely "out" as a Christian and at the same time be totally accepting of anyone who disagrees. Trusting that the Spirit of Truth with touch us both in the process.
…
Unfortunately, this means dialogue, and, as the well-known language theorist Stanley Fish has said, a fundamentalist "doesn't want dialogue about his beliefs; he wants those beliefs to prevail. Dialogue is not a tenet in his creed, and invoking it is unlikely to do anything but further persuade him that you have missed the point."

White is concerned for the large number of people, mostly sexual minorities, who have been so damaged by religion they have stopped their spiritual journeys. That, says White, has serious consequences for our liberation movement and for progressives in general. Without this force for love our values are likely to break down at a critical moment.

* We reclaim the values of the Jewish prophets: justice and mercy; therefore we will resist injustice and seek to be more merciful to those who suffer injustice.

I've written before about the many Bible verses that discuss justice and mercy as part of discussing how the tax system purposefully underfunds schools to make sure the poor and racial minorities do not have the education to rise to the middle class.

Here are a couple more definitions. From Gandhi: "'Mercy' means helping those who suffer, and 'justice' means cutting off that suffering at its source."

And from Dietrich Bonhoffer: "Our role is NOT just to bandage the victims pulled out from under the wheel, bu to put a spike in the wheel itself."

White's hope: We see that sexual minorities are in desperate need of mercy and justice. Those who have been damaged by Fundie actions will see that Jesus was not a fundamentalist nor held fundamentalist beliefs.

* We reclaim the primary value of Jesus love. Therefore we will resist thoughts, words and actions that are unloving and put nonviolence into practice with out friends and enemies alike.

Those damaged by fundamentalism hear White speak and they come to him with a burning question, "How can you be sure that God loves you, too?"

The answer is to let Jesus speak for himself. The stories of Jesus assure us he loves outcasts best. From his first sermon Jesus condemned the Pharisees "who knew the law by heart but had forgotten that love is the heart of the law."

As for outcasts: Jesus was born of an unwed mother in a conquered nation and spent time as a war refugee in Egypt. Jesus did not graduate from college or even high school and made his living as a laborer. Jesus gathered quite a collection of outcasts as his disciples. Jesus healed the outcast leper, the outcast woman with a flow of blood, the outcast lunatic in the graveyard, the outcast man blind from birth. He accepted a drink from the outcast woman at the well. Jesus healed the centurion's "special servant" – an outcast both because he is part of the occupying army and because that "special servant" is almost certainly a gay lover.

White concludes this chapter by writing:

Becoming and activist is simply a matter of putting love into action. For activists, love is something you do, not something you just talk about, and that's when the fun begins.