Al Owski > Recent Status Updates

“simultaneously be honest and yet also learn how to practice convenient duplicity. As they mature they begin to see how often grown-ups lie. They begin to see that few people around them tell the truth. I was raised in a world where children were taught to tell the truth, but it did not take long for us to figure out that adults did not practice what they preached.”

“Lots of people learn how to lie in childhood. Usually they begin to lie to avoid punishment or to avoid disappointing or hurting an adult. How many of us can vividly recall childhood moments where we courageously practiced the honesty we had been taught to value by our parents, only to find that they did not really mean for us to tell the truth all the time.”

“Lies are told about the most insignificant aspects of daily life. When many of us are asked basic questions, like How are you today? a lie is substituted for the truth. Much of the lying people do in everyday life is done either to avoid conflict or to spare someone's feelings.”

“It is no accident that we first learn about justice and fair play as children it is usually in a context where the issue is one of telling the truth. The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be. In recent years sociologists and psychologists have documented the fact that we live in a nation where people are lying more and more each day”

“When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery-that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are...This kind of unmasking-speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges-is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet”—John Welwood

“...the states of the ex-Confederacy held constitutional conventions. Black men there voted in great numbers in the fall of 1867, while most eligible adult white men in the South refused to participate. As a result, Republican delegates dominated those conventions, and the constitutions they produced declared legal and political equality for blacks; created the South's first public school system...”

“In January 1867, Stevens announced himself "for negro suffrage in every rebel state." Only on that basis would loyal governments arise there; otherwise "loyal men, black and white, will be oppressed, exiled, or murdered, and those states "are sure to be ruled by traitors" who would "send a solid rebel representative delegation to Congress, and cast a solid rebel electoral vote" for the presidency...”

“So Thaddeus Stevens did press for black suffrage in his own state and in other places where the national government exercised clear constitutional authority. Why, then, did he wait longer before consistently championing black voting rights within the rebel states? He did that at least in part for fear that associating a measure so unpopular" in the North...would jeopardize the whole undertaking.”

“In July, as noted, [Stevens] parted company with Charles Sumner and some other congressional radicals by voting to admit Tennessee's representatives to Congress in spite of that state's denial of the vote to black men. A few days later, he pressed for giving the vote to former slaves, feeling "pangs of self-condemnation"”

“Illinois congressman Shelby Cullom pointed to the dynamic once again at work. "The men who have been struggling so hard to destroy this country were and still are the instruments, however wicked, by which we are driven to give the black man justice, whether we will or no," he observed. It was precisely "by the unholy persistence of rebels that slavery was at last overthrown.”

“Although weaker than Stevens wished, this Reconstruction bill [was vetoed by President Johnson]. The measure, Johnson declared, was unnecessary, unjust, unconstitutional, and "utterly destructive to those great principles of liberty and humanity for which our ancestors... have shed so much blood and expended so much treasure." Congress overrode his veto the same day... upending the antebellum order in the South.”

“Stevens had opposed any fixed formula for how [rebel states] might regain their pre-war rights and powers... Each state must hold a convention to draft a new constitution. Black men must participate in the election of delegates, but no one barred from holding office by the proposed 14th amendment could vote for delegates or serve as a delegate to a state's constitutional convention.”

“To burden the proposed Reconstruction bill with a guaranteed path for ex-Confederate states to gain readmission to Congress, Stevens warned, "would be an entire surrender of those States into the hands of the rebels." Observing his party "about to destroy itself" and about to deserve destruction through a "great dereliction of duty" that would forever damn it in the annals of history...”

“Shifting sentiments among House Republicans allowed Stevens to scotch Blaine's maneuver on February 13 with a powerful speech in the House pointing to the pro-Confederate violence in the South. "For the past few months," he bleeding at every pore, Congress has done nothing to protect the Congress has been sitting there, and while the South has been liberty, or in their property."”

“whites surged into black neighborhoods, assaulting men, women, and children, killing 46, injuring 75, and destroying more than 90 homes. On the floor of the House...Stevens lashed out at those urging hasty national reconciliation. They should cease "their siren song of peace and good will until they can stop my ears to the screams and groans of the dying victims at Memphis." ”

“Violence against freed people and southern white unionists along with the open defiance of Congress by both Johnson and southern states drove growing numbers of moderates toward firmer measures. In the spring and early summer of 1866, white crowds rioted against blacks in Charleston and Norfolk. In May of that year, white police and black Union army veterans clashed in Memphis...”

“Love is as love does, and it is our responsibility to give children love. When we love children we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights-that we respect and uphold their rights. Without justice there can be no love.”

“Until we begin to see loving parenting in all walks of life in our culture, many people will continue to believe we can only teach discipline through punishment, and that harsh punishment is an acceptable way to relate to children.”

“By revealing her willingness to accept criticism and her capacity to reflect on her behavior and change, the mother modeled for her daughter, without losing dignity or authority, the recognition that parents are not always right.”

“Had there not been another adult parenting figure involved, it might have taken these two a longer time to resolve their conflict, and unnecessary estrangement and wounding might have occurred.”

“Even though the mother was absent on My Three Sons, the lovable Uncle Charlie was a second parent. In a loving household where there are several parental caregivers, when a child feels one parent is being unjust that child can appeal to another adult for mediation, understanding, or support. We live in a society where there are a growing number of single parents, female and male.”

“"Severe separations in early life leave emotional scars on the brain because they assault the essential human connection: The [parent-child] bond which teaches us that we are lovable. The [parent-child] bond which teaches us how to love. We cannot be whole human beings-indeed, we may find it hard to be human- without the sustenance of this first attachment." —Judith Viorst”

“"we have imposed upon them the privileges...of dying in defence of freedom, ... bearing ... taxes." But what did their legal freedom amount to when whites remained free to assault and kill black people without restraint by local or state governments? "We have unchained them from the stake so as to allow them locomotion," he said, but only "provided they do not walk in paths trod by white men."”

“Stevens's original bill allowed existing state governments... but...Stevens ...drop[ped] that provision. And when Representative Spalding of Ohio warned that blacks would likely be "shot down like so many dogs" when they tried to vote, Stevens accepted an amendment that would strengthen federal protection of black voters by placing the states involved under martial law and suspending habeas corpus there.”

“It was imperative, Stevens said, to protect loyal residents of rebel states "from the barbarians who are now daily murdering them" and who were "daily putting into secret graves not only hundreds but thousands of the colored people." From freed people and white southern unionists came a stream of letters recounting discrimination, intimidation, and violence by vengeful whites both in and out of public office.”

“"May I ask, without offense, will Congress have the courage to do its duty? Or will it be deterred by the clamor of ignorance, bigotry, and despotism from perfecting a revolution?" Much remained to be done. Although the prospective Fourteenth Amendment did threaten southern white influence in Washington, it contained no practical mechanism with which to protect black people and loyal whites inside the South.”

“the 1866 congressional elections proved Stevens's apparent nervousness to be unfounded. Johnson's opposition to the 14th Amendment had alienated even conservative Republicans, and his incendiary rhetoric helped clarify for the Union public how high were the stakes and how stark were the alternatives it faced. In the North, the verdict was unmistakable. Republicans...added to their already big majorities....”

“But then we see them offering each other flowers they’ve picked from the backyard, or stopping amid their madcap play to kiss each other... we see these things and we ask: How could we not have had them? How could they not be? How could such life, such love, ever have remained latent and dormant within us?”

“Though people never say it, you can see it in their eyes sometimes, the question: How could you do it? How could you bring children into a situation so precarious? How could you seed them with this grief? And of course we ask ourselves these questions, my wife and I, when things are bad with me or difficult at home.”

“It takes a real jolt to get us to change our jobs, our relationships, our daily coffee consumption, for goodness’ sake—or, if we are wired that way, to change our addiction to change. How much more urgency is needed, how much more primal fear, to startle the heart out of its ruts and ruins?”