The Wildflowers

A Collection of my WNIJ Perspectives about Politics

(Photo by Jean Pauley)

Since we are well into election season, the following are some perspectives I wrote for our local NPR station, WNIJ, with regards to our political environment. I am reading them in chronological order.

This Label Shuts Down Honest Talk

July 19, 2016

A person can disagree with President Obama’s policies, or be afraid, or be troubled by our open borders, or question Sharia law, or think “maybe Trump.” These days a person can be white, going about their business. The name flies up: racist.

That racist label shuts down honest talk. When people are silenced, their thoughts fester and rankle, turning to rage. They find presidential candidates who “tell it like it is” refreshing. They vote their anger.

When someone called me a racist, I sobbed. When my boss arranged for a meeting to address micro-aggressions as a response, my heart hurt so bad I almost called 911. And then I said, “Fine. You think I’m a racist. Then I’m a racist.”

In some ways, we’re all wired to beware of the Other, with a fight-or-flight instinct that saved the ancients. But I step back horrified. I refuse this name. I choose to offer hospitality to people who trouble me.

I think about the famous Jesus saying. “Don’t take the splinter from another’s eye, if you’ve got a log in yours.” If I see racism in someone else, then maybe, just maybe I might want to examine my own racist tendencies—those quick thoughts that repel me from the Other.

And another thing: We tend to find what we’re looking for. If we look for racists, we’ll find them. If we look for good people, we’ll find them as well.

I’m Katie Andraski, and that’s my perspective.

If you’d like to see the original post, click here.

Machetes, Mean Speech, and Genocide

September 11, 2018

 My machete slices through the weeds, the stems bleeding milk, a plant toxic to my horses. When I shopped for one, blades three times as large as a kitchen knife, one edge serrated like a saw, creeped me out. The opening credits to Hotel Rwanda flickered through my thoughts. —“The Tutsi rebels, they are cockroaches…we will squash the infestation”--Machetes, the weapon neighbors used against neighbors. When I hear people calling President Trump’s supporters, fascists, Nazi’s, Russian bots, I hear language that justifies violence.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in Not in God’s Name says “pathological dualism sees humanity as radically…divided into the unimpeachably good and the irredeemably bad. (51). He cites the steps to genocide. “Pathological dualism does three things. It makes you dehumanize and demonize your enemies. It leads you to see yourself as the victim. And it allows you to commit altruistic evil, killing in the name of the God of life, hating in the name of the God of love, and practicing cruelty in the name of the God of compassion” (54).

We are sliding quickly towards committing altruistic evil, thinking we are cleansing society of the Nazi, the white supremacist, the people who voted for Trump. We need to back out of our righteous hatred. We need to know people are more than their politics and find common ground—as Americans, as people living in bodies that share the same pains and joys. If we don’t, I fear the machetes will flash, the bullets will fly, burying themselves in fellow American’s bodies.

I’m Katie Andraski. That’s my perspective.

If you'd like to hear me read this, click here.

Is Trump a Prophet for Our Times?

July 30, 2019

Back in the day, prophets wore animal skins, ate locusts and honey, stood by rivers, cried, “Repent!” These days, Donald Trump calls us to repentance. After all, hasn’t he risen out of the sea of our culture like the beast in Revelation?

The fact we elected Trump as president points to our flaws as a culture. He’s a narcissist, convinced only he can solve our nation’s problems. But don’t we shrug off help, certain we can do it ourselves? And haven’t we made selfishness a virtue calling it self-care or following our dreams, while our loved one’s cry for our attention?

To him, women are sexual objects. But don’t our music, dance, movies, commercials objectify men and women? He has not kept his marital promises. But do we see people keeping those promises in popular culture? Do we? He is blunt and bullying, crude. But aren’t we just as rude? Consider road rage. And how mean late-night TV and Twitter have become.

Trump stirs up trouble. But doesn’t the twenty-four-hour news cycle work trouble like a loose tooth? How many of us seek drama instead of peace? Or gather people who aren’t good for us?

How are we guilty of supporting those same things? Maybe we should consider our behavior. I think of Martin Luther King admonishing us to examine ourselves before we protest. Maybe we should look at our discomfort with regards to Trump’s behavior, see how he is reflecting us back on ourselves, and change our ways.

I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.

If you'd like to read the original post, click here.

The Wildflowers

September 17, 2024

During my walk, I saw a honeybee nursing on Bee balm. Queen Anne’s lace spread her doilies over the grass. Milk weed towered with shell like pods, soon to erupt in silk. Corn flowers have sopped up a bit of sky in their petals. Clover blossoms purple. Brown-eyed Susans chatter. A goldfinch bobs along ahead of me. I’ve watched the corn grow from bare fields so tall I feel tiny walking next to it. The tassels are like church spires, the ears like women’s purses.

Then one day I hear a roar as the road commissioner drops his bat wing brush hog. He does a fine job lopping off the grass and flowers. Soon the combine will sound like a monster chewing the corn stalks, refining the cobs to gold kernels that don’t pay much on the commodities market.

There’s a machine dropping its batwing cutter, working its way around the world, chopping people’s freedoms to say what they think, in the name of safety and rules about hate speech and misinformation. Elon Musk and X have been kicked out of Brazil. The EU has threatened X with fines if Musk livestreams a conversation with Donald Trump. Pavel Durov of Telegram has been arrested in France for not ratting out his clients. Mark Zuckerberg has admitted to censoring true stories because the federal government pressured him to silence them.

Do we want to cut the beauty and variety of human opinion in the name of safety? Who decides what’s misinformation?

I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.

If you'd like to hear me read this, click here.

With much trepidation, I'd like to share some thoughts about this. 

“The dehumanizing language towards Trump and his followers is leading us to genocide,” I said. I was commenting in the National Review Plus group on Facebook. For the most part it’s been a safe place to offer opinions and be treated kindly. I very much appreciate the variety of viewpoints. No one is in lockstep.

“You’re a threat to democracy,” the gentleman said.

“Are you seriously saying that?”

He deflected by asking me to back up what I said. Then his friend jumped in with his , “You’re MAGA. Trump’s a lunatic” comment. Both of these men are known trolls. (Since I couldn’t find the actual conversation, this is my best reconstruction.)

No I’m not MAGA. I am holding my nose and voting for Trump because the Democratic machine scares me.

The other day I watched a video of Matt Gaetz grilling General Matlock about General Mark Milley’s policy that warned Christian and pro-life soldiers that they were considered a terrorist threat. Matlock evaded the question whether any soldiers had be disciplined for their faith.

It’s troubling the insult has ratcheted up from racist to terrorist threat. That’s a dehumanization that people warned against being turned on Moslems after 9/11, yet threat to democracy is being hurled at MAGA and anyone who might vote for Trump.

In “Rachel Madow and The Madman” Sasha Stone says, “When the media narrative dumps so much hate and fear on the American public, it puts a price on Trump’s head. It’s not for money but for status inside utopia. Who will be the one who saves the country and the world from the axis of evil that is Trump and Putin?

“No movement can survive if its survival depends on the other half of America not existing anymore. That seems to be why more and more people are being drawn in by the alliance of Trump and RFKJr,”

Stone’s last statement is chilling. Let me repeat. “No movement can survive if its survival depends on the other half of America not existing.” People’s fear of MAGA, of rural America has been so enflamed that a gay university professor said he was afraid to drive through our rural neighborhood and drove miles out of his way to avoid it. (If a person lands in a ditch my neighbors will go out of their way to help.)

My spiritual director has said she talks to people from the left side who are afraid of the right side, just as I am afraid of what the Democratic machine will do to me and my neighbors. It’s the fear and outrage that’s the enemy. Both sides are guilty of working the wedge between us. Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric is no church service. But neither is Harris’ or the news media or academia or Hollywood.

What are your feelings when I confessed I will hold my nose and vote for Trump? How do you feel when people say they will vote for Harris? Perhaps mark these feelings, see what they are telling you. See if you can replace them curiosity, with an openness to the other person’s perspective. Maybe ask questions and put your quick response on the back burner. Listen.

I am sharing these thoughts cautiously because I don’t want my views on politics to block our friendship. There’s more to me and more to you than our political perspectives. But I trust you to hear me. Thank you so much for being here and listening.

Some  journalists I recommend, whose perspectives make the most sense and who offer a different take on the news are Bari Weiss of the Free Press, Michael Shellenberger of Public, and Matt Taibbi of Racket. El Gato Malo is a hoot because he uses cats to make his point.

Finally let me leave you with a poem.

Before Harvest

The first summer Mr. Miller planted winter wheat,

he brought us a jar with a red rose on the lid

full of seeds smooth as fannies. He handed them

to my mother to show her what he would be planting.

She said yes seeds were good as kittens to teach

her children about life. The first day I took

Social Studies, we read about store-bought bread.

I told the teacher I knew about the wheat part.

"Just read the page," she said.

Before harvest, we drove to church and stopped

past our lawn. In a fog, spiders wove webs

like Queen Anne's lace as far back as the woods.

I would have begged my parents to stop and watch

until the sun if I'd known the webs would break.