Listening on Cleveland's west side

Getting an ear full.

Yesterday I visited Cleveland's West Side Market.  Foodies, if you are ever in Cleveland, pay it a visit.  I didn't go just for the food, but for the opinions as well.

Cleveland is divided culturally, ethnically and sometimes racially into the east and west sides by the Cuyahoga River.  It is hard to understand what that means unless you have spent some time here.  I am from the east side, and am proud of its diversity, its museums, its symphony orchestra - its culture.  

If a west sider doesn't know that you are from Cleveland, they may tell you to avoid the east side, where you are likely to be robbed or murdered by a "diverse type" person.  (Times have changed, and that may not be accurate anymore.)  From my grossly prejudiced statement, you can probably guess that I think  Cleveland's east side is liberal, and the west side is conservative.

I went to the west side, hoping to talk to some people who might feel differently about politics than I do, and listen to them.  I spent a lot of time listening to this fellow, while I was eating ice cream and congratulating myself on how many people I had listened to already (more on that later.)

I was eating my ice cream (chocolate peanut butter cup), and he sat down near me with a double scoop of ice cream on a cone.  He started talking immediately, so I figured that he was probably game to tell me what he thought about the direction of the country.

He told me that he was a 57 year old father of five daughters; he has several grandchildren.  He got an associate's degree in mechanical engineering, and had a good drafting job using AutoCad until the early 1980's.  That's when his job, and others like his, were outsourced to India.  Since then, he has been doing construction work all over the country.  He had even worked in Lowell, MA.

He said that it is a lie that manufacturing jobs are coming back.  Despite that firm opinion, he believes that Trump will help the country.  Trump does not "need the money", and will "shake up Washington".

He believes that Hillary should be in jail,  and that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. want to keep the status quo because they benefit from it.  He does believe that we should build a wall, although he has no problem with immigrants, just as long as they come here legally.

Trump says what is on his mind, and he is being unfairly bashed by the media.  Trump really wants to help people like him, the little guy - and will even bring back manufacturing, even though he told me that that was not going to happen.

Whoever is president needs to do a few things to help bring back the middle class, the man told me.  They need to lower the price of gas, utilities, and food.  Although he gave no suggestions on how to accomplish these goals, I can sympathize with him.

The man, whose name I never got, was tickled when I asked if I could draw him.  I didn't agree with a lot of what he told me, but he didn't need to know that.  As he left, he told me that I was the most interesting person he had met in a long time!

Before I sat down with my ice cream, I met a disabled woman selling the Cleveland Street Chronicle, a newspaper written by the homeless.  I bought a copy (I recommend everybody buy one at some point; the articles are eye opening.)  This woman HATES Donald Trump.  He is trying to take money away from the poor - from her.  She relies on Social Security to survive.

Because she was trying to sell papers, I thanked her for her time and moved on.  I approached a woman and her daughter - clearly from the suburbs (as it turns out, they are from Stark County - home of the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.)  I asked her if she could answer a question for my blog, and she said "sure".  "Do you think the country is headed in the right direction?"

Simple question, right?  She said she did not know.  She did not have enough information.  I pressed a bit, she still professed a complete lack of an opinion.  I then asked her daughter, who looked to be at least sixteen.  "Oh, she doesn't know anything, she's in high school."  I kept my horror at that response to myself, thanked them for their time, and moved on.

I then approached two men, wearing identical polo shirts bearing a distillery logo, what they thought about the direction of the country.  One of the men volunteered that the country was definitely headed in the wrong direction; in fact, it was spiraling downward.  Before I could ask "why", he said that Trump didn't know what he was doing.  He didn't have much hope for any politicians in Washington solving the problem - he compared the Democrats and Republicans to two bad football teams battling it out - specifically, the Browns and the Bengals.

The more reserved man said that he doesn't like Obamacare because his premiums keep going up and up.  He did not have much hope for the recently passed Republican version, either.  It turns out that these men owned the distillery whose logo was on their shirts.

I got more opinions than I bargained for, and I was surprised by some of the response .  That shows me that you really have to ask people what they think, and listen to their responses.  You cannot assume anything.

Is the Country Headed in the Right Direction?

An interview in Westborough, MA

I have been flummoxed about how to approach people, to listen to what they think about the current political situation, and to try to find out why they voted the way they did in 2016.  That's the money issue, one of the keys to taking back the House in 2018.

My husband picked up an old, small spiral binder a few weeks ago, and asked me if I could use it.  I said "sure" - and into my purse it went.

I decided to ask people one question:  "Is the country headed in the right direction - why or why not?"  
I pulled into a strip mall, and armed with my little notebook and a pen, screwed up my courage and approached a woman coming out of a local restaurant.

The woman seemed a bit wary when I approached her, but happily gave me her opinions.

She felt that "only time will tell" if the country is headed in the right direction - but it was definitely headed in the wrong direction before the election.  Her issues ranged from illegal immigration to education to health care (she sells health care policies).  Her parents came from Italy, legally, in 1956.  They made sure that they and their children learned English, and her father stressed the importance of speaking proper English.  Her opinion boiled down to "There are rules and people should follow them."

As someone who sells health insurance policies, she felt that the current health care system was making things too complicated.  She is in favor of giving people vouchers to buy health insurance.

She was most animated about education.  I was not surprised to hear her lament how arithmetic and spelling and reading were taught - I had many of the same concerns when my children were young - but I was shocked to hear her say that public education is PURPOSELY bad to keep people down.  If  people are not educated, the government can do whatever it wants.  She is in favor of vouchers for education.

I asked her if she thought that one candidate understood her concerns more than the other.  She answered "yes", but did not say which candidate she was referring to.  I don't think it was Hillary Clinton.  She did volunteer that the country was too divided, and that Congress needs to get its act together.  That is something I think I can agree with her on.

Thoughts about listening

When it seems all is lost, listen

I went to an authors' talk a few days ago at Wellesley College.  Andrew Forsthoefel, a 2011 graduate of Middlebury College (same year as my daughter graduated from college), was talking about his book Walking to Listen.   I had seen an article about him in the Boston Globe a few months earlier, and because I believe that our current political climate demands that we LISTEN to people, I was intrigued by his story.

I sent him an e-mail, and he got back to me and let me know about his book and his talk at Wellesley.
Hoping to pick up some pointers about how to get people to talk to me, I attended his presentation - and bought his book.

Today I started reading his book.  It seemed like my best option - given that the House was on the verge of passing Trumpcare and I needed to get my mind off of what this means for people like my daughter who have a pre-existing condition.

As I read, I realized that Andrew was not going to give me any nuggets of wisdom about how to make my goal of listening to strangers any easier.  I did find out that Andrew was scared about approaching people - not just about being rejected, but about being physically attacked.  His mother's landlord sent him off with these words of wisdom:  "Don't trust anybody".  The whole point to him WAS TO TRUST PEOPLE.

He felt foolish at first.  He thought that "a lifestyle of comfort and consumption inhibits peoples' ability to make a pilgrimage."

After reading fifty pages, I realized that Andrew would have no trouble getting people to talk to him.  "And then there was serendipity, that inexplicable cascade of just-so conditions that moves your right where you didn't know you wanted to be, to people you didn't know you were looking for."

I realized that I want to listen to people, but I want it to be on my terms, on my schedule - to fit into my idea of what the future will look like.

After meeting Andrew, and reading some of his book (I am a slow reader), I know that I will renew my efforts to listen to people, and to be open to who they are and what they have to tell me.

I Didn't Go to the March for Science

Instead, I worked on an illustration for Sustainable Wellesley

Here it is:

Sustainable Wellesley is a group that advocates for a clean, sustainable environment.  They are hosting a forum on Eco friendly landscaping at the Wellesley, MA Free Library on May 13.  I've always wanted a lawn that is safe for all of God's creatures, so I am attending.

We cannot always make every march, protest or event.  We can do what our time, mood, and energy levels allow.  Let's remember when we are close to despair - keep doing, keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Own It

WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO WIN IN 2018

After the electoral gut punch in November, the exhilaration of the Womens' March in January, and the thrill of staging raucous town halls throughout the late winter and early spring, it is time to come to grips with what it will take to win in 2018.  I am talking about putting up with a long, slow slog.

I live a block away from mile 15 of the Boston Marathon.  This point is after the "Scream Tunnel" of Wellesley College, and before the brutal Newton hills - most notably Heartbreak Hill.  People are starting to look not too happy around this area.  They have to dig in, because they have another 11.5 miles to go.

We are entering the really tough part of the journey to take back the House in 2018.  It's time to own  this marathon.  The exhilaration will be back when we cross the finish line.

Listening to Ohio

Ohio Democrats Take Action

I recently had the pleasure of talking to David Pepper, Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.  Here are the major takeaways from our conversation:

• Ohio has not felt the benefits of the recovery from the Great Recession that most of the nation has enjoyed.
• Democrats can get themselves into a bubble - they did in 2016, believing that Trump's liabilities would hurt him more than it did.
• Every time Trump talked trade, Democrats knew that they were losing voters to him.
• The Ohio Democratic Party is making a serious, sustained effort to listen to voters across all 88   Ohio counties.

I have been hoping that Democrats would undertake serious, brutally honest listening tours among all voters.  The Democrats in Ohio are doing that.  These are taking place through KITCHEN TABLE CONVERSATION throughout the state.  The goal is not only to listen, but to develop messages that resonate  throughout the entire state, not just the blue sections.

Let Renewable Energy Power the Democrats' Strategy

"China poised to take lead on climate after Trump's move to undo policies" reads the headline from the March 29, 2017 New York Times article written by Edward Wong.

"China wants to take over the role of the U.S. as a climate leader, and they've baked it into their five year plans." said Barbara Finamore, senior lawyer and Asia director at the Natural Resources Defense Council

From the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA.org), PacRim is pulling out of its Alaska Coal Project because of a lack of customers.

"The contributions of sustainable energy to the country's economic competitiveness are direct, dramatic and dynamic."  Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

It seems to me that the Democrats have a ready made strategy, screaming to be adopted.  Push sustainable energy.  It doesn't have to mean a loss of jobs; indeed, I believe that it is a nascent economic sector that is only going to get bigger, and employ more people. The cost of sustainables continue to drop - Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that investment fell 18% from 2015 to 2016 because of the dramatic drop in cost, not demand.

Engineering and building storage capacity should be a big part of the economy.  Not only does the grid need upgrading and expanding, storage capacity has to be increased as well.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has implemented a program to get most of its energy from renewable energy sources (there have been some hiccups, largely because the grid and storage capacity cannot accommodate the supply.)  Germany has day where close to 100% of its power comes from renewable energy.

If Germany and China take the lead in the renewable energy market, is the US crippling our future economy?  I think so.