George Takei: ‘I maintain that without optimism, we’ve already failed’; The Washington Post, February 15, 2022

KK Ottesen, The Washington Post; George Takei: ‘I maintain that without optimism, we’ve already failed’

"There’s been a recent backlash against stories about the uglier side of American history, especially around what can be taught in the classroom, with [criticism] of critical race theory and the banning of books.

Fanatics — they’re passionately opposed to something that doesn’t exist. I mean, that’s the kind of craziness that we had to put up with during the war. In the vast scope of American history, this kind of fanaticism — which is what that is, they don’t even know what they’re talking about, and they’re getting all excited and passionate and carrying guns about it, you know — this will pass. Our focus and our energy has to be put into education. A people’s democracy is existentially dependent on an educated citizenry.

And my effort is just a small effort on a short chapter of American history. Our story is four years. The African American story is four centuries. It’s a big story to be told. But each person telling small stories and fitting it into this panorama of American history will ultimately prevail. I’m optimistic because of people like Sally Yates and the people that rush to the airports after the Muslim travel ban. I maintain that without optimism, we’ve already failed. So we need optimistic people to be hanging in there. Otherwise, it’s going to be a dystopian society. I don’t subscribe to that. Our democracy is a precious form of government. A people’s democracy. And it’s optimistic people who have faith in the ideals of our democracy that’s going to make it survive.

There has been a decrying of the backsliding of American democracy these days. But having seen some of the best and worst of it in your own life, you feel like this is just a period we’ll get through?

When Trump was chanting “China flu” and “Wuhan flu” and “kung flu” — you know, ignorant people, people who are uneducated, are low-paid, and they’re angry, and they’re jealous, and they want their rights. That’s the enemy of democracy. Because they are the ones that grab at things. What they are not teaching at school, they get all riled up and emotional and shaking a fist at. Ignorance is the enemy of democracy.

And so going back to education again: We need to emphasize education. Without educated people who understand what those shining ideals stand for — a government of the people, by the people, and for the people — we will have those people that will rant and yell when they don’t know what they’re talking about. And that’s what we have now. And back then, that’s what we had during the war.

We’ve got to make America understand that we have great ideals, shining ideals, noble words — equal justice, rule of law — they’re noble words. But they’re just words on paper. They take on substance, meaning, when we take on the responsibility. This is a people’s democracy, and the people have to give meaning to those words."

The Soviet era’s leading dissident is still a provocation for today’s Kremlin; The Washington Post, May 21, 2021

Vladimir Kara-Murza, The Washington Post; The Soviet era’s leading dissident is still a provocation for today’s Kremlin

 

"“Freedom of thought requires the defense of all thinking and honest people,” Sakharov wrote in his first major political essay in 1968. “[It] is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.” It was at the end of the 1960s when Sakharov the scientist finally gave way to Sakharov the dissident as he began to focus almost exclusively on defending prisoners of conscience, displaced peoples (notably Crimean Tatars), those seeking to emigrate and others who came under attack from the repressive state...

 

Although it has been more than three decades since his passing, Sakharov’s time has not yet come in Russia. But today’s young people, who may know little about him, unwittingly continue his work as they risk arrests and beatings to demonstrate their solidarity with prisoners of conscience. “Today as always I believe in the power of reason and the human spirit,” Sakharov wrote in the darkest days of his Gorky exile. His own spirit of optimism and hope is very much needed in today’s Russia."

Why We Shouldn’t Mourn The Obamas’ Departure From The White House; Huffington Post, 1/19/17

Zeba Blay, Huffington Post; 

Why We Shouldn’t Mourn The Obamas’ Departure From The White House

"The Obamas meant many things to many people. To some they meant the fruition of the American Dream. To others they meant the destruction of it. There are millions of Americans who are emphatically glad to see Obama go, who are blissfully excited about a Trump presidency and its vague promise to “make America great again.” 

And there are millions of Americans who feel as if a loved one has just died. But no one has died. If we should take anything away from the legacy of these last eight years, it’s that there is no president who can save us from our collective demons. Only we can do that.

For those whose hearts are breaking, it may seem pithy and banal to use the quote: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

But really. Don’t cry. Because the Obamas get to be citizens again, for one thing. They get to move out of the line of fire of an almost constant, condensed stream of racial hate. But also ― we got to witness this. For better or worse. We witnessed a black president. And for centuries to come, children of all races and backgrounds will see his face looking up at them from their history textbooks, and they will take for granted the profundity of it.  

There’s actually a streak of that intangible thing called “hope” to be found in the Obama’s departure. For many of us, the prospect of the next four years seems bleak. But if Barack Obama could get through eight years as a black president in America with his sanity and his dignity intact, and even effect a little change, perhaps there is room for some cautious optimism. At the very least, we can try."

Have Yourself a Merry Little 2017; New York Times, 12/24/16

Bruce Handy, New York Times; Have Yourself a Merry Little 2017:

"The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has used the original lyrics before, including on the 2015 album “Big Band Holidays,” so it’s not as if someone fished them out of the trunk 72 years later to make a tart postelection point. I’m also well aware that our current challenges pale in comparison to fighting a world war with civilization in the balance. Let’s say we are somewhere on a continuum between that and facing a move from St. Louis to New York. Still, I have to confess the “it may be your last” line captured my near-apocalyptic mood — and maybe yours as well.

But the lyric that moved me to tears is the line that follows “If the fates allow” (and remained in Martin’s final lyrics):

Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.

How prosaic, even homely as pre-rock era songwriting goes, and yet how perfect. Muddling through, somehow, may not sound particularly inspirational, but perseverance is often the best option at hand, when just moving forward, one inch or foot or yard at a time, can be a kind of heroism. At least that’s how it struck me listening to Ms. Russell, her deeply felt performance offering a subdued and cleareyed but still genuine optimism...

In “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is the catalyst for a happy ending: Tootie’s backyard rampage prompts her father to change his mind about the move, and we cut to a dazzling climax at the 1904 World’s Fair, electric lights and handsome beaus suggesting a fine future for all. Happy endings seem a little more remote in 2016 — miles away, as they say, or at least as distant as the next election. In the meantime, we muddle through. It’s a start."