Sometimes the timing is instinct...sometimes it's luck...either way I'm grateful it landed when you needed it.
Bless the audio feature for carrying you through a migraine!
Eyes closed...just listening... that counts. Don't let anyone tell you that's not "really" reading. You took it in. That's the whole point.
The random bursts of French got a real laugh out of me. The robot moonlighting as a Parisian for three words...and then snapping back like nothing happened. Bonjour, anyway, here's the part about Weimar...hahhaa.
I'll take the comic relief wherever it sneaks in.
Now...go easy on yourself the rest of today. Dark room...quiet...water. The fight will keep until your head does.
Susan, there is a pressure point between your thumb and first finger. When my migraines were bad I had been told to press hard in that space for a few seconds, release slowly and switch hands. It did help ease the pain of my headaches.
Thanks, Jack. Very important message. (Of course they all are.)
Katie Phang did a great episode on South Korea today and its escape from possible authoritarian rule in December, 2024. Possible trump is using their ex president's playbook. Sure sounded familiar. But their country was saved by the quick thinking and fast acting of its citizens, including members of their legislature. They know what authoritarian rule looks like, it is immediately next door, and they want no part of it. Maybe they had planned what they would do if the worst happened, kept the glass clean.
I also liked that the ex president's wife was imprisoned for bribery and corruption, and the ex president was sentenced to two lifetimes in prison.
Sue...you just gave this comment section its motto. I'm stealing it.
You picked the PERFECT case.
South Korea in December 2024....is the CLEANEST proof of the thesis: the martial-law gambit came...and it FAILE...because citizens and lawmakers ALREADY knew the shape of the threat...and moved in HOURS...not weeks.
That's not luck. That's a people who KEPT THE GLASS CLEAN...refusing to mistake the emergency...for Thursday.
Your "next door" point is the underrated one! They could see authoritarianism from their border...so it was NEVER abstract. Distance....is the comfort we can't afford.
Yes I try every single day. Helping a neighbor bring up her trash cans from the curb side. Making an Afghan for a dear friend who just had a baby. Reconnecting with an old friend who saved me in a time of need and making her an Afghan too.. Giving away eggs to the servers at my fav 2 eating places.. because they’re so expensive in the stores and I have a dozen pet hens.. walking my Corgi and having the kids on the block come out and give him pets and he gives them kisses.. going grocery shopping and made friends with all of them so when I’m there I give hugs to everyone. Yeah I’m Hawaiian and I’m a hugger..
Beautiful story Jack! We must keep doing the quiet work while also remembering to enjoy our time, preparing but not letting that be our only focus every day…life is beautiful, treasure our time! Come autumn I expect lots of indications of the “storm” that they’re brewing up for the midterms, but if we’ve done our work, we will hopefully, despite what may come, we will be ready and prevail!
You nailed it Jack. I’m not surprised. You used a parable to share deep wisdom. If one waits when the sky is blue, Then, when the storm hits, it’s already too late. Great wisdom, The ritual of one’s daily life process is even more necessary than re-acting in a crisis. I’m going to remember that (:)
A way with words, you have. It’s quite close to poetry and touching in the same way.
I feel like this little light of mine shines a bit brighter because of my being exposed to yours. Sometimes an unexpected quiet turn of phrase is all it takes to open up whole new horizons.
Thanks for having the courage and dedication to share yours, friend.
#HoldFast
(^^^ I thought of this while taking a photo through a screen of a little gecko 🦎 clinging there when I let the dogs out at 5:00 this morning. No, not my dogs. Yes, before daylight. Love those little shits, but not as much in the dark sometimes.)
Jack is correct. The historical record on this point is consistent across cases that otherwise share very little. The Polish Solidarity movement did not emerge in 1989. It was built through a decade of ordinary acts performed by ordinary people in conditions that offered no immediate evidence those acts were working. Underground printing operations. Illegal study circles. Small workplace conversations conducted in careful language. None of it felt historic while it was happening. All of it was the precondition for what history eventually recorded as a transformation. The lighthouse was being maintained. No one outside the lighthouse knew.
The cases in which democratic institutions failed to survive follow a different pattern, and that pattern is worth naming precisely because it inverts the one Hopkins describes. In Weimar Germany, in pre-Orbán Hungary, in the slow erosion of Turkish democratic norms across the 2010s, the common feature was not the absence of resistance at the moment of crisis. It was the absence of the infrastructure of resistance that should have been built before the crisis arrived. When the storm came, there was no glass to clean because no one had cleaned it on the calm days. The keepers had either disengaged or panicked, and both responses, as Hopkins correctly observes, produce the same result: a dark lighthouse at the moment it is most needed.
What Hopkins is describing has a name in the scholarship on democratic resilience. Researchers call it “civic capacity” — the accumulated reserves of organized, practiced, habitual democratic participation that a society can draw upon under pressure. Civic capacity is not built in emergencies. It is built exactly as Hopkins describes: one phone call, one meeting, one conversation, one vote protected, one person welcomed. These acts do not feel like infrastructure while they are being performed. They are infrastructure. The distinction between feeling like infrastructure and being infrastructure is the entire argument.
Jack is correct that the measuring stick is wrong. History does not record most of the people who kept the lights burning. It records the outcomes that their unseen labor made possible. The Solidarity activists whose names no one knows. The precinct captains who turned out the vote in counties no journalist visited. The lawyers who filed the motions that didn’t make the news. The teachers who explained what was at stake to students who were paying partial attention. None of them were looking for recognition. They were cleaning the glass. The question for the reader who finishes this piece is not whether they feel up to a heroic act. The question is whether they are willing to perform an ordinary one. Again. And again. And again. That is what keepers do. It is also, the historical record suggests, what republics require.
The storm has arrived Jack. The daily routine is way preferable to reacting and disrupting it. But doing the daily routine will lead to losing. It is time to modify the daily routine to be ready and on the offensive. Complacency will yield a loss. Make the lantern brighter. Check the seas more than once. Hold on to your resolve.
Excellent focusing thoughts as the storm clouds continue to gather ahead of midterms.
Carol Anne Wilson...I'm glad it resonated with you!
-Jack
You seen to always recognize when we need an article like this… so thank you, Jack. I definitely needed it today.
Also, many thanks to SubStack for audio. My migraine wouldn’t have allowed me to read so I closed my eyes and listened.
It didn’t happen in this article but I get a little giggle when it suddenly speaks three random words in French lol
#Holdfast
~Susan
Susan...I'm glad it found you on the right day.
Sometimes the timing is instinct...sometimes it's luck...either way I'm grateful it landed when you needed it.
Bless the audio feature for carrying you through a migraine!
Eyes closed...just listening... that counts. Don't let anyone tell you that's not "really" reading. You took it in. That's the whole point.
The random bursts of French got a real laugh out of me. The robot moonlighting as a Parisian for three words...and then snapping back like nothing happened. Bonjour, anyway, here's the part about Weimar...hahhaa.
I'll take the comic relief wherever it sneaks in.
Now...go easy on yourself the rest of today. Dark room...quiet...water. The fight will keep until your head does.
Feel better, Susan!
#Holdfast
-Jack
Susan, there is a pressure point between your thumb and first finger. When my migraines were bad I had been told to press hard in that space for a few seconds, release slowly and switch hands. It did help ease the pain of my headaches.
Feel better soon.
Sue
Sue P...my mother used to use that same pressure point...with significant success for her migraines. Thanks for that share!
-Jack
Have a good night ✨ Jack 😴
Likewise, Karen Scofield!
-Jack
Thanks, Jack. Very important message. (Of course they all are.)
Katie Phang did a great episode on South Korea today and its escape from possible authoritarian rule in December, 2024. Possible trump is using their ex president's playbook. Sure sounded familiar. But their country was saved by the quick thinking and fast acting of its citizens, including members of their legislature. They know what authoritarian rule looks like, it is immediately next door, and they want no part of it. Maybe they had planned what they would do if the worst happened, kept the glass clean.
I also liked that the ex president's wife was imprisoned for bribery and corruption, and the ex president was sentenced to two lifetimes in prison.
#HoldFast and pass the glass cleaner.
Sue
Sue...you just gave this comment section its motto. I'm stealing it.
You picked the PERFECT case.
South Korea in December 2024....is the CLEANEST proof of the thesis: the martial-law gambit came...and it FAILE...because citizens and lawmakers ALREADY knew the shape of the threat...and moved in HOURS...not weeks.
That's not luck. That's a people who KEPT THE GLASS CLEAN...refusing to mistake the emergency...for Thursday.
Your "next door" point is the underrated one! They could see authoritarianism from their border...so it was NEVER abstract. Distance....is the comfort we can't afford.
#HoldFast...and pass the glass cleaner.
-Jack
I like this story very much. Let's keep cleaning the glass. #holdfast
Working to clean the glass everyday!
#HoldFast
As I KNEW you would be, Robert Kraybill!
Thank you...truly.
#HoldFast
-Jack
Thank you Jack!
Raven...my pleasure!
-Jack
Yes I try every single day. Helping a neighbor bring up her trash cans from the curb side. Making an Afghan for a dear friend who just had a baby. Reconnecting with an old friend who saved me in a time of need and making her an Afghan too.. Giving away eggs to the servers at my fav 2 eating places.. because they’re so expensive in the stores and I have a dozen pet hens.. walking my Corgi and having the kids on the block come out and give him pets and he gives them kisses.. going grocery shopping and made friends with all of them so when I’m there I give hugs to everyone. Yeah I’m Hawaiian and I’m a hugger..
Again?
Again, Coco. Again.
-Jack
Beautiful story Jack! We must keep doing the quiet work while also remembering to enjoy our time, preparing but not letting that be our only focus every day…life is beautiful, treasure our time! Come autumn I expect lots of indications of the “storm” that they’re brewing up for the midterms, but if we’ve done our work, we will hopefully, despite what may come, we will be ready and prevail!
Thank you, Jack. Although I have to say a lonely isolated lighthouse is sounding about perfect
Very uplifting! Thank you!!
I'm thrilled you thought so, BG.
You're welcome!
-Jack
You nailed it Jack. I’m not surprised. You used a parable to share deep wisdom. If one waits when the sky is blue, Then, when the storm hits, it’s already too late. Great wisdom, The ritual of one’s daily life process is even more necessary than re-acting in a crisis. I’m going to remember that (:)
“. . orientation is a form of service.”
A way with words, you have. It’s quite close to poetry and touching in the same way.
I feel like this little light of mine shines a bit brighter because of my being exposed to yours. Sometimes an unexpected quiet turn of phrase is all it takes to open up whole new horizons.
Thanks for having the courage and dedication to share yours, friend.
#HoldFast
(^^^ I thought of this while taking a photo through a screen of a little gecko 🦎 clinging there when I let the dogs out at 5:00 this morning. No, not my dogs. Yes, before daylight. Love those little shits, but not as much in the dark sometimes.)
You can see more clearly through cleaned glass.
Jack is correct. The historical record on this point is consistent across cases that otherwise share very little. The Polish Solidarity movement did not emerge in 1989. It was built through a decade of ordinary acts performed by ordinary people in conditions that offered no immediate evidence those acts were working. Underground printing operations. Illegal study circles. Small workplace conversations conducted in careful language. None of it felt historic while it was happening. All of it was the precondition for what history eventually recorded as a transformation. The lighthouse was being maintained. No one outside the lighthouse knew.
The cases in which democratic institutions failed to survive follow a different pattern, and that pattern is worth naming precisely because it inverts the one Hopkins describes. In Weimar Germany, in pre-Orbán Hungary, in the slow erosion of Turkish democratic norms across the 2010s, the common feature was not the absence of resistance at the moment of crisis. It was the absence of the infrastructure of resistance that should have been built before the crisis arrived. When the storm came, there was no glass to clean because no one had cleaned it on the calm days. The keepers had either disengaged or panicked, and both responses, as Hopkins correctly observes, produce the same result: a dark lighthouse at the moment it is most needed.
What Hopkins is describing has a name in the scholarship on democratic resilience. Researchers call it “civic capacity” — the accumulated reserves of organized, practiced, habitual democratic participation that a society can draw upon under pressure. Civic capacity is not built in emergencies. It is built exactly as Hopkins describes: one phone call, one meeting, one conversation, one vote protected, one person welcomed. These acts do not feel like infrastructure while they are being performed. They are infrastructure. The distinction between feeling like infrastructure and being infrastructure is the entire argument.
Jack is correct that the measuring stick is wrong. History does not record most of the people who kept the lights burning. It records the outcomes that their unseen labor made possible. The Solidarity activists whose names no one knows. The precinct captains who turned out the vote in counties no journalist visited. The lawyers who filed the motions that didn’t make the news. The teachers who explained what was at stake to students who were paying partial attention. None of them were looking for recognition. They were cleaning the glass. The question for the reader who finishes this piece is not whether they feel up to a heroic act. The question is whether they are willing to perform an ordinary one. Again. And again. And again. That is what keepers do. It is also, the historical record suggests, what republics require.
#HOLDFAST
The storm has arrived Jack. The daily routine is way preferable to reacting and disrupting it. But doing the daily routine will lead to losing. It is time to modify the daily routine to be ready and on the offensive. Complacency will yield a loss. Make the lantern brighter. Check the seas more than once. Hold on to your resolve.