Leave ... or stay and fight?

By JoAnne Young

 

I am driving through Florida and Georgia and Tennessee as I write this, rolling back to Nebraska from a two-week stay at the beach house of the Young Youngs (Joseph, Michaela, Ky and Finn). 

 

For 14 days I’ve touched the sand and salt water every day. Watched the sun rise over the waves. Eaten wonderful seafood in restaurants surrounded by lapping water. 

 

Earlier this year, we visited our oldest son in San Diego and our daughter’s family in Denver. All of these are places where the living is pretty easy; all places where we could pull up our Nebraska roots and move, as they did.

 

Many people have vacated this state. Sometimes the state’s politics and policies figure into those moves; frequently it’s for family, lifestyle, economy, taxes. Even former governors and U.S. senators move away from Nebraska. 

 

So I ask myself daily, should we – the last of the Young clan to reside here – leave, too? Or do we stay and fight for a place that has been home for so long, that has established family memories and good friends, but that has distanced itself from me with its stubbornness of conservative politics, its failure to embrace women and people of color in its state leadership, and its refusal to protect the LBGTQ+ community in state law. 

 

I watch as it becomes increasingly difficult for people who ran for office to help their communities and to speak for people who aren’t really able to speak for themselves. 

 

We aren’t confused about the fact that we live in a red state, with Republican rule in the legislative and administrative branches. Money frequently determines policy. That’s due in part to a governor whose net worth is estimated at $60 million to $70 million and whose family’s net worth is in the billions. A governor who uses that money to fund handpicked candidates for the Legislature and other offices and defeat those who don’t walk his line. He uses it to thwart the will of the majority of lawmakers and disrupt the results of petition processes with which he disagrees.

 

I talked today to one of our lawmakers, Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, about why she has chosen the fight. I see hers as an uphill battle. Thirty-six years old, a woman, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, a single mom, a progressive.  

 

The question of whether to stay or go is one Nebraskans of all ages ask themselves, she told me. She has pondered it herself. What people don’t talk about is the guilt of leaving, of turning your back on the people who don’t have that option. We all need to live in a place where we have faith that we can reach our dreams. 

 

Politics are getting nastier, she said. Leaders are getting more authoritarian. It’s more difficult to be an elected official. 

 

The fights in state government these days are not substantive, she said. They are “dumb culture wars” that don’t matter deeply to the needs and wants of real people. It’s frustrating, she said, and nothing more than playing at politics and lawmaking.

 

She quoted wisdom from Jewish Talmudic sages: “You are not required to finish your work, yet neither are you permitted to desist from it.”

 

The obligation is in the effort, not the outcome. 

 

A mental health break is good, she said. Hers would take her to the mountains of Norway. When and if she gets there, she will know her contribution has been made, that she did what she could. She’d be more than ready for the freedom leaving could bring. 

 

For me, I will put off the question at least another year, maybe two. I will fight, not out of a sense of obligation, but the result of inspiration. My work with state Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, who ran valiantly for Congress but was defeated by the candidate handpicked by Ricketts and other conservative Republicans, showed me the beauty is in the journey, not the victory or defeat. 

 

So in January, as a new legislative session begins, I plan to go to the Capitol, to be the watchful citizen, an observer of what the lawmakers and administrators are up to. And I will report back, a battlefield correspondent at least for a while. 

Thank You, Madame Speaker

 By Marilyn Moore

I have been amazed, no, appalled, at the vitriol and hatred flung at Rep. Nancy Pelosi, (D, CA), Speaker of the House.  In the election just concluded, and in the election of 2020, and 2018, and most likely the federal elections before that, she has been the target of outrageous political ads, demeaning her intelligence, her leadership, her courage, her, well, everything about her.  

She is bright. She is strong.  She is courageous.  She knows the rules of the House, and she plays by them, and uses them to get things done.  She has been elected to the Speaker’s position twice.  She is the only woman to have held that position, to have been second in line to the presidency.  

She has been exceptionally effective, leading the large, messy, sometimes unwieldy House to the adoption of laws that, in her words, help the American people.  Laws that increase access to health insurance, laws that cap the cost of insulin for seniors on Medicare, laws that let the federal government negotiate the prices for subscription drugs, likely bringing down the cost for consumers.  Laws that increased the child credit tax during the pandemic, that provided payroll protection for small businesses and their employees.  Laws that build bridges and highways and broadband internet, and that provide increased services for veterans. Laws that protect the marriages of LGBTQ couples and inter-racial couples.  Laws that made real the campaign promises of presidents and legislators.  Laws which are widely popular with American voters.  

And for all that, she has been a prominent target of scorn by the opposing party, and by some within her own party.  And that would be because….well, not because of the positions she has taken.  Those positions have been shared by a majority of the members of the House while she has been Speaker, but theirs are not the faces on the anti ads and political cartoons.  It’s not just because she’s from California; lots of political office holders are from California.  It’s not because of her age, or her clothes, or the fact that she’s a devout Catholic; other officials share those qualities, too.  It’s because she’s smart, and courageous, and strong, and persistent…and because she’s a she.  And especially because she’s very effective.

Nancy Pelosi is, of course, in good company.  Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Patty Pansing Brooks, the leaders of the suffragist movement, and thousands more over the years….all have been disparaged, not only for their political stances, but for their gender.  And yet….and yet….all persisted, and they have done way more than their part to assure the strength of our democratic institutions.   

Words from an essay written by Clarissa Pinkolo Estes have been shared by Patty Pansing Brooks several times.  “One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul…. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”  I remember the first time I heard Patty quote these lines….and I think of them every time brave women stand up and step forward, knowing they will be attacked for who they are, but they do it anyway, and they give strength to others in doing so.  

A few days ago, Speaker Pelosi announced she would step down from the leadership position of the Democratic caucus.  She did so with grace and class, noting that the beauty of the U.S. Capitol is because of what it represents…the work of a democracy, the work of the American people.  She named those who had been beside her all the way, including her family.  She celebrated the increase in the number of women in the Democratic caucus from when she was first elected to Congress 35 years ago, from 12 to 90.  A seven-fold increase in a little more than a generation, cause for celebration.  And quoting from the Book of Ecclesiastes, she said that there’s a time for everything…and it’s time for a new generation of leaders to step up.  And so they will.

She has persisted, she has led, she has paved the way for others.  It seems she has, for the most part, been able to ignore the mean girls, and the mean boys.  (Except for the hateful and mean-spirited comments about her husband, who was assaulted in their San Francisco home just before the election.  The pain of those remarks was visible…and those remarks were quite simply inexcusable.) She will continue to serve as a member of the House, and she will be a source of wisdom and strength for others. 

This has been a hard election, and while there are many individual races that did not have the outcome for which I had so hoped, the overall outcome at the federal level was far better than I anticipated.  Still, there are rocky roads ahead, but they are roads that we navigate in a democracy.  Before we enter the next session of Congress, I say with full gratitude, thank you, Madame Speaker.  

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Class of ’72: What would I say to the 18-year-old me?

By Mary Kay Roth

Dark, soulful almost brooding eyes.  That’s what strikes me most when I gaze upon this photograph of the girl I once was.  As a senior in high school, she was a gentle spirit, shy, geeky.

But studying this image, snapped some 50 years ago, there is so much I cannot remember.  What was she feeling, thinking?  What would I tell her today?

The photograph came back into my life, recently, wearing it as a name tag for the Lincoln Southeast High School 50th reunion.

And though I know we approach reunions with some amount of trepidation, strangely, age is a great equalizer. Nobody has acne at the half-century high school milestone, but all of us sport wrinkles. Politics loom, but an unspoken truce seems to provide temporary respite from election debate. We seem less preoccupied with clothes and career paths, more mellow showing off photos of grandchildren and talking hip replacements.  

No, I don’t want to hop “Back to the Future” to revisit the class of ’72, ala Marty McFly.  But even though reunion weekend has now passed, for some reason I have left my high school name tag on the kitchen table and look upon that yearbook photograph daily. 

I remember a young woman who was quiet, pensive, nerdy, bookish.  Editor of the creative writing magazine.  Not popular.  Not  bullied.  

Yet as I look at Mary at 18, I wonder about all the things she didn’t know: What would the 68-year-old Mary tell her now?

     * Perhaps the very most important advice of all:  For gosh sakes, never sell that precious 1969 Mustang. 

     * And ignore the mean girls.

     * I know it sounds crazy, but those new-fangled things called computers – they are worth learning something about.

     * One pimple – even on prom night – is not a true catastrophe.  

     * Be nice to the students everyone teases.  At lunch, try not to worry about sitting with the popular kids – look for the kids who are sitting alone.

     * And being alone is not a bad thing. 

     * You are merely a late bloomer.  You will get boobs.  Eventually.

     * And someday you will no longer iron your hair, nor coil it around enormous orange juice cans overnight, dreaming of tresses as arrow-straight as Peggy Lipton (from the Mod Squad). Someday, believe it or not, you will love your curly, unruly hair.

     * No, “he” is not the love of your life.

     * But your dad is another story.  Remember how he danced the polka with you at the father-daughter high school dance, even though he had no clue how to dance the polka?  Give that sweet man – more hugs. (For that matter, give your mom more hugs, and your grandparents.)

      * Pay more attention in your home economics class.

      * You are smarter than you think.  At the same time, please don’t measure your worth in grade averages and SAT scores.  You are so much more than a number.

      * Yeah, it sucks that you work in high school and others don’t.  But someday you will not only have a deeper understanding of those who wait tables and take fast food orders – you will tell glorious tales of the strange adventures of a long-distance telephone operator (a job you didn’t realize was on the endangered species list).

      * Kids who are often labeled as “losers” – the ones who know welding, mechanics, woodworking – they will be golden someday. 

      * Quiet people are not inferior.

      * Stop apologizing when you spend Friday night with a book.  Reading will be your friend forever.

      * Besides, nothing good happens after midnight when you are a teenager.

      * Listen to your wisest of teachers. Ignore the ones who claim, as a woman, your career choices are limited.

      * Take nothing for granted.  Just a few months after high school graduation, the U.S. Supreme Court will confer your right to have an abortion.  Fifty years later, that same court will take it away.

      * I know you have a soft voice.  Speak up anyway. 

      * Your heart is much more resilient than you think.  

      * You will survive high school.  OK, so you’re not a cheerleader, a student athlete, have the starring role in the high school musical, and you agonize over not fitting in.  Someday you will find your fit. Trust me on that.

***********

On Saturday eve at the close of reunion festivities, my friend Pam and I were packing up remains of the “Memorial Table”– photographs of fellow students who had passed away – when a favorite high school pal wandered up to talk.  Quietly, she contemplated those pictures of students we had lost.  Quietly, she told us she had stage 4 cancer – in her liver, pancreas, lungs.

I’m not sure I want to tell the young Mary about that moment, nor about any of the students we have lost over these past decades.  I’m not sure an 18-year-old can grasp that sort of raw fragility.  I’m not sure this 68-year-old can.

Instead, I think I would tell young Mary that, yes, she will have sorrow in her life.  But she will have glorious moments of joy, magic, adventure.  I would tell her to live with abandon, love well, take risks, embrace the mystery. 

I would tell her that she is enough.  She will be ok.  

Even if she does sell that Mustang.