Climate Emergency: Truth and Action

 

On 15th April 2021 a panel made up of:

Seema Khan and Tami Kellogg from Citizens' Climate Lobby,
Deb Wild from Mothers Out Front,
Allen McGonagill, Extinction Rebellion

discussed the topic and answered questions from WomenExplore participants.

Below is the "Chat" from this meeting.

11:53 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: Join CCL: citizensclimatelobby.org 
Check out the bill: energyinnovationact.org
Call every month to Congress: cclusa.org/mcc
Write your congressperson: cclusa.org/write

11:53 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: Tami Kellogg - tami@citizensclimate.org
11:55 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: Seema Khan - khan.seema@gmail.com

12:02 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: Wonderful work!! You all get so much done.

12:11 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: I just love this! XR is so creative and unstoppable. Thank you for pushing hard.

12:12 Barb V: And it receives fun media coverage!

12:12 Allen (XR, he/him): Newburyport action: https://xrmass.org/action/emergency-everywhere-newburyport-part-2/ 
Earth Day Action: https://xrmass.org/action/earth-day-celebration-2021/ 
Orientation: https://xrmass.org/action/xr-orientation-4-26/

12:12 Allen (XR, he/him): My email - allen.mcgonagill@gmail.com

12:13 Deb Wild/Mothers Out Front: deborahwild@comcast.net or www.mothersoutfront.org

12:14 Allen (XR, he/him): Great to see both Deb and Seema's presentation! That work is so important in keeping our voice loud and well represented in political decisions :)

12:26 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: Here is one of our chapter speakers talking about the pandemic and climate change, and how we have denied the severity in both cases... 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTjw6OhYISk&t=51s
12:27 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: (David Cash, from U.Mass Boston)

12:43 Allen (XR, he/him): Berkeley has a great carbon calculator, so you can see what the biggest components of your carbon footprint are: https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculator

< p>12:46 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: John Oliver did a great bit about plastic recycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiu9GSOmt8E

12:49 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” -E.B. White
12:50 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: To save it, or to savor it?

12:53 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: Deb's last comments about staying positive and turning despair into action embody resilience!

12:55 Allen (XR, he/him): Love that answer!

12:56 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: A woman doing this: https://myplasticfreelife.com/

12:56 Mary Ann Serra: Thank you to each of the speakers for the great information you’re giving us today and for the work you do

12:57 Allen (XR, he/him): Cleenland: https://www.cleenland.com/

13:00 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: I love a solution that demands financial/economic accountability. Magic.

13:07 Susan Hardy: Has anyone used Terracycle?
13:07 Susan Hardy: https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/
13:08 Allen (XR, he/him): I've used Terracycle. They are a good example of trying to aggregate otherwise unused waste streams.
13:09 Susan Hardy: Thank you Allen.

13:09 Allen (XR, he/him): A fun fact. BP popularized the term "Carbon Footprint" to shift the conversation towards individuals: https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham/

13:11 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: Paula, express your frustration to your Congressperson and your Senators. Tell them you don't know what to do. Ask them to create legislation that will make what is healthy the cheaper thing.

13:13 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: cclusa.org/write

13:17 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: The EnROADS simulator is amazing. We use it to show Congress what the most effective actions are. It's POWERFUL.

13:17 Linda Legge: Ival - will you please send that chart to Martha to distribute to the rest of us?

13:20 Deb Wild/Mothers Out Front: a single countertop induction stove cooker is cheap - you can buy one at Best Buy for about $80 - I plan to buy one and try it out (I prefer cooking eggs on gas myself but I'm willing to try to convert)

13:23 Barb V: Just received a text telling me that since Citizens United, the fossil fuel companies have spent $907 million to influence American elections.  The text encouraged me to contact my legislatures.
13:23 Allen (XR, he/him): That's great Barb! Thank you for sharing that.
13:24 Mary Ann Serra: Astounding!

13:28 Tami Kellogg/Citizens' Climate Lobby: This has been one of the best groups I have had the privilege to speak with. You all asked really thoughtful and personally impactful questions. (((Thank you))) for having us.

13:28 Seema Khan - Citizens' Climate Lobby: I agree, it has been such a pleasure to join you all today~

13:29 Allen (XR, he/him): Really great to be with such wonderful climate organizers. And this group that had such thoughtful questions and responses. Very much appreciated the dialogue.

13:29 Linda Legge: Thanks to all the speakers - this was a wonderfully informative forum!

13:29 Deb Wild/Mothers Out Front: Many thanks to WomenExplore and my co-panelists for a great session. So honored to be in community with you. Feel free to let me know if you have follow up questions. We are here to help and encourage!

Spring 2021 week 3 focus: Grappling with Opposing Views

—Linda Legge

A relative newcomer to WomenExplore, Linda Legge has recently retired from a career in Human Resource Management and Civil Rights that spanned more than 30 years.  She held management positions in Employee Relations, Training and Development, Recruitment, Benefits, Affirmative Action and Diversity and Inclusion.  Linda holds a Masters’ Degree in Human Resource Management, is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources, and is also certified as an Executive Coach.

-So yes, I spent more than 30 years of my life in Human Resources and Civil Rights

-I was especially good at employee relations and was usually the one called on to

-listen to and deal with the concerns of employees

-mediate difficult disputes between co-workers

-train and coach supervisors on effective communication with staff

-You might think that this experience would have provided transferrable skills when grappling w/ opposing views

I certainly thought so, until I started interacting with family members on Facebook

-for the longest time, I had remained happily unplugged from the digital age

-for years, my only Facebook friends were my daughter (b/c I wanted to keep tabs on her) 

and my mother (b/c I couldn’t say no to a FB invitation from my mother)

-but when I moved to TN last summer, I decided to become more engaged on-line to keep connected w/ my family and friends

-I distinctly remember when I first started actively posting on FB, asking if there was any FB etiquette that I should be observing

-the wife of one of my cousins who happens to be very liberal said, “Don’t Discuss Politics.”

-I laughed at that, but I would have been wise to have headed her warning

Of course, at that point, we were well into the pandemic & the presidential election was only a few mnths away

-I was following the news on both issues very closely at that time

-and I was increasingly alarmed by the disinformation and hyperbole I saw being re-posted by my family

-when my cousin who has a heart condition was complaining that he could not get hydroxychloroquine, (remember that drug Trump was touting that scientists found had adverse health effects and did nothing to help with Covid-19?) I begged him not to take it and sent him scientific studies about its adverse health effects

-After a few rounds of him arguing with me, I told him that I was just sending him that info b/c I loved him and did not want him to come to any harm; he then sent me a smiley face emoji 

My mother was increasingly reposting things that I thought were so crazy, I truly thought she might be experiencing some brain dysfunction

-I had no idea what was influencing her or where she was coming up with her crazy ideas

-but I did notice that she seemed to be angry and agitated all the time (maybe it was just all the time she was speaking to me because I had opposing views)

-my father suggested family counseling, which in hindsight, might have been good but we never did it

My relatives were also reposting frightening Q-anon conspiracy theories and strong anti-BLM rhetoric

-For awhile I stayed silent, but I increasingly felt like my silence would be taken as complicity

-So I started posting my views and my experiences, such as my attendance at several peaceful BLM events and what I learned from them (but that was met with scorn and derision)

-I tried encouraging family members to fact-check their info before reposting (but they didn’t)

-I started fact-checking both the information I was posting and the info they were reposting (which were often opposing views), but they just demeaned my fact-checking sources

-Many times I thought of leaving FB or blocking some of my family members with the most egregious posts; but I really didn’t want to cut myself off from my family members and I DID want to HEAR them

-I thought I was “listening” to understand what they were saying and where they were coming from

-but I now know that I was listening more to try to effectively “preach” my version of “the facts” instead of listening to really understand their point of view

-I got nowhere with this strategy

-At best they accused me of is being a know-it-all elitist; 

-The worst things they said were that I joined a cult and was brainwashed and that the US would turn into a fully socialist country if Biden won the election

As the election neared I just became UNRELENTING in my fact-checking posts

-it was like a full-time job to me and & consumed much time

-I would agree with things I found to be true (and that did gain me some credibility among some w/opposing views)

  -I also posted lots of fact-checked info discrediting the opposing point of view

-that was often met with a dump of vitriolic personal attacks followed by accusations that I was “angry” 

-I would always answer that I had nothing but love for them which was/is true and then drop it

-Clearly, this was not working either

-so, sharing my personal experiences in opposition to their point of view was not working and discrediting their opposing point of view with my sources of information was not working

I was becoming worn out so I sought some solace by joining a FB grp called “Suburban Wmn for Kamala Harris”

-while I mostly enjoyed this group, I did try to keep the conversation on the issues 

-I did call out as inappropriate the negative personal attacks on Trump’s appearance or “mean Memes”

-I was on a new mission to try to keep those who shared my point of view above the negativity and engaged in civil discourse 

-I wanted us to win people over by our stance on issues, not by negative attacks of a personal nature on those with opposing views

-some agreed with me and also helped to try to curb the mean memes and negative rhetoric

-I must admit that I did find some consolation in interacting with like-minded people, even though I am a registered Republican

Also, even though I live in a very pro-Trump state/region (TN), I put up two “Republicans for Biden” signs

-I was a bit worried about vandalism, but my neighbors were respectful

-some neighbors commented on my sign, but comments were always focused on “Biden” and not the fact that the sign indicated that I was a “Republican”

  -however, I avoided any real conversation about the election or my views w/ my new neighbors

-on hindsight, that wasn’t very productive either (lost opportunity)

The list of things that did not work for me in grappling with opposing views was growing:

-sharing my personal experiences

-fact-checking to prove that my opinion was right

-avoiding discourse altogether

Finally, the election came and I was more than thrilled that it was finally over and that Biden had won

-Even though there was a flurry of disinformation spreading about the election being stolen, I largely remained silent except to sometimes comment on evidence presented to the courts and how they ruled

-I decided specifically not to comment on Biden or Trump at all so as not to rub salt in any wounds, especially when the GA victories gave the Democrats the slimmest majority

-my family largely went silent on politics and FB news was more civil and about family matters

-by that time, my mother had stopped speaking to me/ only my father would occasionally take my calls

-after the election, I think we all needed a break and I was happy to have one

Then we had the events of January 6^th at the Capitol

-again, I maintained my political posting silence

-I expected more silence on politics from my family, thinking they would be embarrassed by the events

-however, I was absolutely shocked at the FB post my cousin’s wife sent

My cousin - Shame on each and every one of you who are saying Trump should be arrested for inciting domestic terrorism today!!! Where the Hell were all of you when cities were being burned to the ground and no one was held responsible?!?! Hypocrites!!!! Cozying up to the New One World Order. Might as well get your ticket now for the microchip train. There's gonna be a long line. I'll kick back with my popcorn, and pistol and watch the show.

Me - We were condemning the violence every time it happened, and we cheered the peaceful protests for civil rights. But no leaders were advocating for violence the way President Trump has. It is reprehensible that the President of the US who has sworn to uphold the Constitution has so violated his oath of office. Shame on all who are defending him.

As I now read the response I wrote then, I am truly ashamed of myself. 

-I started off OK, but I know better than to use inflammatory words like “reprehensible” and “shame”.

-I knew I needed help grappling with opposing views in a more positive and productive way b/c my strategies clearly weren’t working

Thankfully, the WomenExplore group recommended “Braver Angels”, an organization dedicated to improving the civility of discourse in the US and helping people to truly understand and work with fellow citizens who have opposing views

-I attended several of their free seminars and decided to join to get access to even more

-although I made a larger contribution, anyone can join for a year for just $12 

-through the Braver Angel workshops I’ve attended, I have become keenly aware of my personal shortcomings in fostering constructive dialogue with those who hold views that are opposed to mine

-even though I had a wealth of skills from my background, the workshops have helped me to listen and understand better those with opposing views and to find constructive strategies for engaging in positive civil discourse 

I’m going to leave you with four L’s from Linda that have helped me to grapple with opposing views:

Listen – listen deeply to really understand the other person (don’t just listen to try to persuade the other person to your point of view)

Learn – keep an open mind and learn from others even if you don’t agree with their perspective; see if you can find any underlying common ground with them

Love – maintain a deep empathy and care for the person you are communicating with; think of the person as your friend/neighbor, not an adversary or enemy

Lead – take an active role in promoting civil discourse; demonstrate by your own actions your unwillingness to sink into meanness; work actively to end racism, injustice, hate and to model inclusivity of marginalized

I just want to end by saying that I am disheartened and scared by the extreme polarization of our country today. 

-The tone and tenor of civic discourse is at an all-time low

-Disinformation and angst seem to be at an all-time high

However, I am happy that we have David Ball from Braver Angels here today to speak on this topic.

I think it is crucial that we all build our skills at Grappling with Opposing Views and I think Braver Angels is one step in the right direction.

Grappling with Opposing Views

—David S Ball

MA State Coordinator

Braver Angels

A week after the 2016 Presidential Election a group consisting of half Conservative and half Liberal Americans started a grassroots organization to depolarize America. Braver Angels has become the leading group promoting civility and constructive engagement in the country.  It conducts hundreds of workshops and debates to promote understanding, increase trust, and search for common ground. You can learn more at BraverAngels.org.

Following his retirement from the healthcare field and a career as an Air Force officer, David S. Ball.  joined Braver Angels. He currently serves as the State Coordinator for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

Expression:

1-(Presented as) Fact
2-(Presented as) Fact with some Analysis 3-(Presented as) Analysis
4-(Presented as Analysis with some Opinion 5-(Presented as) Opinion

Veracity:

1-True (Easily provable and widely accepted)
2-Mostly True (Mostly provable and mostly accepted)
3-Neither True nor False (Neither provable nor disprovable; subject to debate) 

4-Mostly False (Mostly disprovable and the facts disproving are mostly accepted) 

5-False (Easily disprovable and the facts disproving are widely accepted)

Graphics measures relevance and fairness.
Headlines scored relevance/fairness scale plus Veracity/Expression scale use for all text.

How to Rate Language ( Opponent characterization and Political terminology)
Words like “secretive” or “cunning” fall into the “skews left/right”; words like “lazy” or “vindictive” fall into the “hyper-partisan” categories

The first category of biased words refers to the preferred terminology like being for/against abortion as “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” or referring to certain immigrants as “illegal aliens” or “undocumented immigrants.”
The second category of specific insults and pejorative terms including “deplorables,” “snowflakes,” “leftists,” and “the mainstream media.”
The third category of words—bogeymen—to incite fear, anger, or loathing when they become used as abstractions of these acts, thereby transforming into a sort of common enemy like “the Muslim Brotherhood,” “the 1%,” “the Deep State,” and “Big Pharma.”

To date, we have rated over 8500 individual articles and shows. Each article or show is rated by at least three analysts–one left, one center, and one right, politically–which means we have over 25,000 individual ratings. We have fully or partially rated over 400 individual news sources.

 

Four Skills

1. Setting a constructive tone. 
2. Listening so others feel heard. 
3. Speaking so others hear you. 
4. Handling difficult moments.

Tone-Setting Skills

1. Letting the other person know that you want to understand other perspectives better.

2. Asking permission to pose questions.

3. Acknowledging your political stance.

4. Offering something critical of your own side and crediting something positive about the other side.

Listening Skills

1. Paraphrasing: Make sure you understand and the other person feels heard. Listen for a “Yes, that’s what I’m saying”, but be ready to be corrected instead. DO NOT suggest any implications beyond their statement or offer your critique of what they said.

2. Ask real and honest questions of understanding, vs. loaded “gotcha” questions. Ask how the other person came to their view on an issue, especially if it’s strongly held. Stories humanize. Then acknowledge the experience.

3. Listening for underlying values and aspirations, and acknowledging them.

Speaking Skills
1. Using “I" statements (“This is how I see it”) more often than truth statements (“This is how it is”).

2. Using “I’m concerned/worried/troubled” expressions rather than “This is what will happen”.

3. Mentioning an area of similarity or agreement (if you see one).

4. Before expressing disagreement, saying some version of “I hear you.” An intentional pause allows for a transition from acknowledging the other's viewpoint to your own. Aim for “yes, and” rather than “yes, but.”

5. Say something about what life experiences have led to you to be passionate about it. Stories humanize issues and make passionate political people come across as human beings who care.

6. Softening flat-out disagreements by signaling first that your perspective is very different.

Handling Difficult Moments
1. Staying focused on a topic when the other person jumps around from issue to issue.

2. Not answering baiting questions; instead, just restating your viewpoint on the topic.

3. Not returning provocative statements in kind.

4. Instead of beating entrenched differences into the ground, agreeing to disagree.

5. If the other person is upset and no longer listening, exiting the conversation in a low-key way.

Questions to consider

When are political parties useful?

What can you do to decrease polarization in the country? 

How can we deal with others with opposing views?

Life Review

-- Andrea DeSharone

Exercise for Life Review: Testing Our Values with Andrea DeSharone

This is the exercise that Andrea DeSharone asked us to complete BEFORE the lecture on 25th March 2021.  Just doing this exercise will give you a good overview of your life on several parallel but intersecting dimensions. From a mathematical point of view you are looking at your life in a five -or more!- dimensional space.  I regard each of my five orthogonal dimensions as continually bifurcating.  For example, in the months before I was born my only significant relationship was with my mother.  After birth I developed relationships with my father, my grandparents and then my sisters, one by one, and so on.  I can't wait to find out what we do in the lecture!

What you need:

• A very large paper (newsprint or drawing paper, if you can manage). Some people taped two sheets together.
• Markers of contrasting colors

The exercise:
• Turn your page so it’s as wide as possible. Draw 5 (or more) horizontal lines from west to east. These will be 5 (or more) parallel lifecycle continuums. Label as follows:
        1. Place/location
        2. Physical development/health
        3. Psycho/spiritual
        4. Relationships
        4. Vocation/career/life’s work
        6. ....

• Draw vertical time markers by decades: Birth…..10 years….20 years…up to your current age. You can also label these by the calendar year to help you locate events.
• Fill in all five+ continuums, by marking small vertical lines at the times of significant events or transitions in your life, and adding labels.  Some people chose to divide the page into boxes and writing signifiant moments into the box for the corresponding decade.
• Circle with contrasting marker: pivotal moments or crossroads or defining change that has occurred in your life.

Fall 2020: Democracy in Crisis! Week 8

Week 8 IS OUR ELECTORAL INTEGRITY AT RISK? 29th October 2020

Focus talk: Susan Nulsen

Susan has lived and experienced the voting systems in the UK, Australia and most recently here in the US.

My talk is more on the topic of voting and voting systems in general rather than on electoral integrity specifically.  I want to explain the WomenExplore voting system and how it came about.

First of all, I would like to expand a bit on the voting system in Australia. Like the US, and very much patterned on the US, the Commonwealth of Australia was a federation of a number of states. The Commonwealth is governed by two houses of parliament: the Senate, in which each of the six states has equal representation with a few extra seats for territories, and the House of Representatives, where each member of parliament represents a roughly equal number of constituents. 

Simplifying slightly, in federal elections the voters fill out a ballot for each house by numbering the candidates in their order of preference. (Voting is done with pencil and paper.) For the House of Representatives each district is represented by a single member who is elected by a straightforward ranked-choice vote in which the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and their votes go to the next choice of the voter. This process of elimination continues until one candidate gets more than 50% of the votes. 

For the Senate, where each state is a single district usually choosing six representatives, counting the votes becomes more complicated. When choosing six representatives any candidate who get more than one seventh of the votes is elected immediately. Their surplus votes will be redistributed but each of these redistributed votes will only be worth a fraction of a single vote. For example if the candidate received one and a half times as many votes as they needed the redistributed votes will only be worth a third of a single vote, because a third of the votes were surplus. Once this redistribution has taken place the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed at full value. And so on. This is why this voting system is sometimes referred to as STV – Single Transferable Vote. Each voter gets to contribute a single vote to the process, although part of it might go to one candidate and part to another. The Senate system is a very fair way of electing the required number of candidates and results in proportional representation of the electorate. On occasion when all twelve seats are up for grabs in each state it becomes even more representative with smaller parties having more chance of winning a seat. Of course the big parties don't like this but it is what the voters want.  The Senate system is a variation of the Hare-Clark system which you may have heard of.  The Hare-Clark system has been used in the state of Tasmania since 1909. I think that the Senate system is slightly more fair in the way in which votes are transferred. 

After I arrived in America and when the subject came up in conversation I would point out what I regarded as two things in the Australian voting system which produced more representative results from elections, but I soon realized that there was a third which was every bit as important. This was the Australian Electoral Commission and the corresponding state electoral commissions which are made up of civil servants who act impartially in determining the boundaries of the electoral districts as well as in running the elections.  Gerrymandering is a powerful force in maintaining a minority government in power, when its political appointees are able control redistricting.  They aim to create as many districts as possible in which their party has a small but safe majority, thus ensuring that the voices of opposition supporters in these districts are nullified. The remainder of the voters are corralled into districts that are as close as possible a hundred percent opposition supporters. In this way these voters elect as few as possible opposition candidates. Just last year the Supreme Court validated the right of states to gerrymander. In gerrymandered districts the winning candidate is always appealing to a majority of supporters. They have no incentive to reach out to the other side. They just need to gin up their voters to make sure they get out to vote.

Those first two differences I had noticed between the two voting systems were compulsory voting and preferential voting (or ranked choice voting as it's being called in this election). 

Three weeks ago Jenny Mansbridge mentioned that she was leery of preferential voting because it dampened the debate between opposing sides. She might have been thinking of the 2018 election for the mayor of San Francisco which used ranked choice voting. In this election two of the candidates[1] who opposed the front runner[2] and who realized that they had more in common with each other than the front runner decided to join together and swap second preferences. Of course, they can actually only recommend that their supporters put the other second, they cannot compel.  The ability to express a second (or third or fourth etc) preference prevents a third candidate acting as a spoiler as happened in the 2000 presidential election when Ralph Nader's candidacy deprived Al Gore of the presidency. Also, even when courting valuable second preferences, the candidates still need to put their positions clearly and draw a distinction between their policies and their opponents'.  It is true that a candidate is probably less hateful towards the other candidates than they would be in a first-past-the-post election, but I regard this as a plus.  It is much less likely to incite violence in their supporters.  It is much less polarizing.

By the way, in San Francisco the front runner still won. From my experience in Australia, I can say that there is still a very robust debate at election time, and, in practice, about seven times out of eight preferential voting gives the same outcome as the first-past-the-post system, but that eighth time still matters.

What about compulsory voting? Why should I be forced to vote? You can all think of reasons why that is a good thing.  Just think of all the money and effort that is spent on trying to get out maybe 60% of the vote, money and effort that could be much better spent on explaining policies. One of the techniques used is to scare voters to the polls by portraying the opposition as monsters.  This has the effect of further polarizing the electorate.  I also suspect that compulsory voting would act as another hurdle to bad actors disenfranchising voters.  When everyone votes it goes without saying that the result is much more representative of the people.  Voting is not very onerous, and actually, in Australia, you are not required to cast a valid vote, just to turn up. I saw recently that people were fined $55 for not voting in state elections in New South Wales.  When I left Australia I think the fine for not voting in a federal election was only $20. Still who wants to pay $20?  Voter turnout in Australia is around 95%.  It could probably be better.   I believe that voting is not only a privilege but also a duty. 

In a representative democracy the aim of voting should be to select the most representative representatives. Impartial districting, ranked choice voting and compulsory voting all do that. In addition, it turns out, they all have a tendency to decrease the polarization of the electorate which is a welcome benefit.

All of the above explains where I am coming from, what informs me with regard to voting systems.  Now to WomenExplore.

In 1896 Anna Parker Lowell, the wife of a Harvard professor, started a group called the Society of Harvard Dames which met on Thursday afternoons for a talk followed by afternoon tea. You might be interested in this notice [5] that I found in the Harvard Crimson from nearly a hundred years ago.

Published: Thursday, May 10, 1923
The Society of Harvard Dames will be addressed by Professor L. J. Johnson '87 on "Proportional Representation" in Phillips Brooks House at 3 o'clock this afternoon. The feature of the meeting will be a mock election to illustrate the subject of the speech.

Clearly the subject of voting systems has been with us for a long time and is not going away.

In the late 50s the divinity school resurrected the Society of Harvard Dames as Ladies Lectures. In 1973 Brita Stendahl with a small advisory committee reformulated these lectures as the Theological Opportunities Program (TOP).  Like the Ladies Lectures they weren't just open to Harvard wives but to any women who were interested. TOP evolved into the WomenExplore we know after Liz Dodson Gray became coordinator in 1978. She opened the advisory committee up to all who attended, developing our unique method of devising a lecture series through the topics that are on our minds. She then introduced the idea of an existential focus to ground the topic of the day in the experiences of one of the women who attended. Today I am that woman. These two features are what distinguish WE from the myriad of other lectures that are available to us.

In 2003 TOP/WomenExplore cut its ties with Harvard, becoming an independent non-profit. This legally required us to have a board which was initially selected by Liz, who became the executive director and president of the board. In 2008 Liz asked whether we, the Advisory Committee, could set up a committee to nominate potential new board members. I was on that committee along with Louise McMurray, the chair, Erica Kenny and Sandy Wayne. What Liz was looking for was a list of volunteers in the order of preference of the Advisory Committee. We decided on the procedures for running an election whenever it might be required, and I volunteered to come up with a voting system, because I was intensely interested in ensuring that our board members truly represented the Advisory Committee and that the elections were as fair as possible.

From what I have just been telling you about my background, you might guess that I would choose a system like the Senate system and you would be right. However when I looked closely I realized just how unwieldy that system could be, even for such a small group as WomenExplore. I dreaded the thought of trying to explain how to count the votes to all the future generations of WE members. Then I had the idea of just averaging the order of preference numbers that each candidate received (or simply just summing them). The result would give an overall order of preference of the candidates, with the most preferred candidates having the lowest numbers. It was immediately obvious that this had some advantages over other systems I have mentioned. You can imagine the situation where there is a compromise candidate, I'll call her Claire, who is liked by all the voters, but not quite as much as they like their first choice candidate. So everybody ranks her second after their varied first choices. Under other systems she would be the first candidate to be eliminated, and the voters would lose the opportunity to have elected a candidate that they are all happy with. This method of counting the votes tends to select consensus candidates which is very much in line with the philosophy of WomenExplore which always looks for consensus in its decision making. As a way of making it easier for voters by allowing them to number only as many of the candidates as they like we give the unnumbered candidates the average of the numbers that the voter missed. This is equivalent to saying that all of the unnumbered candidates are equal last in order of preference. It does not distort the result and encourage voters to game the system (or “vote strategically”), not that I think anyone in WomenExplore would deliberately do that. Still it is what we all do when we vote Al Gore rather than our first choice, Ralph Nader. [This method of using the average of the missing numbers can also be generalized to allow voters to, for example, give two candidates equal second preference. This would translate to each getting a preference of 2.5 and the next candidate in order of preference would have a preference of 4. It is somewhat like awarding places in a running race.]  Preferential or ranked-choice voting is one thing. Interpreting those votes for all the voters in a district is another.

With a little bit of research I discovered that the WE voting system is just one of a family of voting systems called Borda counts, named after Jean-Charles Borda who devised the method in 1770. A number of these variants are used in different places around the world, including the Harvard Undergraduate Council which, in 2018, adopted one of the Borda variants for its elections, after finding the Hare-Clark system too complicated, following in WomenExplore's footsteps.

The following slide takes the example of a small district which needs to elect one of three candidates. The first two candidates, Adele and Brooke are very polarizing. Supporters of one would do anything rather than vote for the other. Our friend Claire is the third candidate. Some of her supporters favor Adele as their second choice and some Brooke.

The slide shows how the different systems can give different results with the same votes for a simple case of 100 voters.

And the second slide shows the tally sheet from a real WE board election. The names are changed to protect identities.

Thank you.

[1] Jane Kim and Mark Leno     [2] London Breed

                                                   +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Week 8 IS OUR ELECTORAL INTEGRITY AT RISK? 29th October 2020

Main lecture:  Eitan Hersh

Eitan Hersh is associate professor of political science at Tufts University. His research focuses on US elections, voting rights, and civic participation. Hersh is the author of Politics is for Power (Scribner, 2020), Hacking the Electorate (Cambridge UP 2015), as well as many scholarly articles. Hersh earned his PhD from Harvard in 2011 and served as assistant professor of political science at Yale University from 2011-2017. His public writings have appeared in venues such as the New York Times, USA Today, The Atlantic, POLITICO, and the Boston Globe. Hersh regularly testifies in voting rights court cases and has testified to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary about the role of data analytics in political campaigns.

Click here to play main lecture and discussion (1 hr 25 m).

Note: Naakh Vysoky, Ukrainian immigrant, died peacefully on 31st December 2019, just three days shy of his 99th birthday.

Fall 2020: Democracy in Crisis! Week 7

Week 7 THE PERILS AND PRIDE OF PATRIOTISM 22nd October 2020

 

Timothy Patrick McCarthy is an award-winning historian, educator, and human rights activist who has taught on Harvard's faculty since 2005. Dr. McCarthy currently holds a joint appointment in the undergraduate honors program in History and Literature, Graduate School of Education, and Kennedy School of Government, where he is Core Faculty at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He is also Stanley Paterson Professor of American History in the Boston Clemente Course, a free college course for lower income adults in Dorchester, where he has taught since its founding in 2001.

He is the author or editor of five books, including the forthcoming Stonewall's Children: Living Queer History in an Age of Liberation, Loss, and Love, and a frequent media commentator. Dr. McCarthy has devoted his life to public service and social justice. He currently serves as Board Chair for Free the Slaves, a leading global NGO in the fight against modern slavery, and also hosts and directs A.R.T. of Human Rights and Resistance Mic! through the Tony Award-winning American Repertory Theater, where he serves on the Board of Advisors.

Click here to play lecture (54 minutes).

Crystal Lucas-Perry plays John Adams in the 2020 revival of the musical 1776 by the American Repertory Theater.

“As we embark on our journey together on this production, we find ourselves reckoning with our country’s history, reexamining the pivotal moment of our nation’s founding portrayed in 1776—the writing of the Declaration of Independence, a ‘promissory note,’ that, in Martin Luther King’s words ‘America has defaulted on.’ Our cast includes multiple representations of gender, race, and ethnicity that allow this revival of 1776 to more broadly reflect today’s America, our America.” 

– Diane Paulus, Director of 1776 / Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director

Is Anybody There? is the song that John Adams sings when he's referring to the rest of Congress not seeing his way on Independence after the South walked out on Adams' defending Jefferson's clause against slavery. These are the lyrics by Sherman Edwards from previous productions.

John Adams:

Is anybody there?

Does anybody care?

Does anybody see what I see?

They want to me to quit; they say

John, give up the fight

Still to England I say

Good night, forever, good night!

For I have crossed the Rubicon

Let the bridge be burned behind me

Come what may, come what may

Commitment!

The croakers all say we'll rue the day

There'll be hell to pay in fiery purgatory

Through all the gloom, through all the gloom

I see the rays of ravishing light and glory!

Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

Does anybody see what I see?

I see fireworks! I see the pageant and

Pomp and parade

I hear the bells ringing out

I hear the cannons roar

I see Americans - all Americans

Free forever more

How quiet, how quiet the chamber is

How silent, how silent the chamber is

Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

Does anybody see what I see?