President Lincoln’s Cottage at Soldiers Home
I spent the first part of the week in a class-A stew. Congress can’t pass a budget. Everyone’s blaming everybody else. House members are yelling at hapless park rangers for enforcing the shut-down that the members themselves precipitated. To top it off, my state’s paper of record stopped daily delivery, laid off 35 reporters, and then spent the week talking about record growth in advertising.
I told everyone who would listen that democracy is going to hell in a handbasket, that the institutions we rely on to govern ourselves are collapsing under their own weight, that the end is neigh. And I can still make a pretty persuasive case in favor of that dark and despotic future.
But it was another kind of week as well. Under the headlines of shutdowns and name-calling and the careening fourth estate, other things were also happening. Extraordinary things. I spent the morning at the National Press Club, where we unveiled a new organization–Voice of the People—which launched its campaign to create a Citizen Cabinet. Without going into all the details, the theory is that we have to get more informed citizen voices up on Capitol Hill. The American people are pretty smart, and they have a lot to offer. Maybe it would be a good idea for members of Congress to have a better way to listen to them.
And to top it off, an incredible team of citizens, volunteers, and staff are celebrating the success of Oregon’s first major civic crowdfunding project. Today, we surpassed the $100,000 goal for Build Gateway Green. Gateway Green is unused parcel of land between two freeways in East Portland. Two incredibly visionary Portlanders imagined it could be repurposed—recycled (excuse the pun)—into a world-class bike park with amenities for everyone, cyclist or not. After eight years of labor and love, they brought it to us, and we gave crowdfunding a whirl. And, it worked! Nearly 700 people have given so far, and it has been one of the most inspiring teams I have ever worked with.
It just goes to show you that regular citizens not involved in a power struggle can bring real change to the public sphere and can keep doing good even while top-drawer politicians can’t figure it out. But, there’s more too. David and three other friends published books this week, keeping faith with the impossible—that humans have something to say to each other and that we can teach each other stuff. That we can step into the experience of others and become more whole.
David’s book, Charming Gardeners—if I may brag for a moment—is full of civic sensibility and wisdom. There are outright political poems like “To Buckley from Berkeley”:
“Dear Bill—
Maybe you’d like the first hundred names
From the New York City phone book to run the government,
But I’d prefer the names came from out here in the West
Among the bare-assed and tan and with a bitchin’ view of the Bay”
Or “To Conda from Anaconda”:
“That’s America, too,
Eight miles from the Continental Divide
Where no one leaves for work
And everyone returns to bed,
And not God or animal, man or child
Knows what to do about it.
What would you do with your theories
Composed by Jack Kemp?”
But, there are also quieter poems that take into account the sweep and fragility and perils of the Republic, of the whole enterprise of self-governance. My personal favorite is “To C.D. from D.C.” You really should read the whole poem, but here is one of its must heart-ripping bits:
“Can you imagine the Great Emancipator
Standing on his back porch among the dead
As he listened to the diggers graveling the graves,
Chipping the soil, lifting in the bodies,
From Rochester and Groton and Poolesville
And King of Prussia, lifting in the bodies
With the steam rising from their skins
Into the insect-mating womb of the light
Around the city, the utterly still bodies
unquivering?”
It’s hard for me not to cry, even as I type that. Because of the detail, yes. But also because of the deep awareness of the sacrifice of those who came before us who struggled to protect this crazy nation that we keep abusing. And, yet, yet. We’re still here. So even as members of Congress hurl insults across the Rotunda and push each other down to cast blame before the cameras, I guess it behooves us to remember, we are a resilient people. A foolish one, for sure. But resilient and wise and hardy. So, while I still want to knock some Congressional heads and carry a picket sign outside the soon-to-be-empty headquarters of the Oregonian, I am buoyed by being in such great company. In the company of believers and dreamers and poets. And we’re the Republic too. So I think we might be OK.
