Wrapping up the January 6th Committee hearings

My wife and I watched the final hearing this week from the House January 6th Select Committee on the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 (also, see C-SPAN archive collection. It was a day that I remember well, having kept a liveblog of the day’s events (also see posts here and here). I think that the committee has done an excellent job of telling the story of what led up to this event and how Donald Trump was the central figure in trying to overturn the 2020 election. My fervent hope is that the Department of Justice is going to pursue Trump and hold him accountable for his crimes (i.e., indict, arrest, and convict him!). The site JustSecurity.org has a January 6 clearinghouse of information on this event, well worth checking out, as well as a citizen’s guide to the evidentiary record.

The most striking part of the hearing was the documentary video of the congressional leaders at Fort McNair filmed by Alexandra Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi’s daughter). CNN also carried more of this footage the evening of the hearing (also here). It was riveting. One question came up in my wife and I discussing the hearing – how was it that Alexandra Pelosi came to be there that day? And for myself, how is it that this is the first time this footage is coming to public view? Was she planning to make a documentary with this? Her Wikipedia page says she works for HBO, but she has not released any documentaries since 2020. I hope that some journalist will dig into this a little more.

Using non-violence techniques to achieve goals

In a recent post on Waging Nonviolence, organizer George Lakey related a story about use of non-violence training and techniques in a boycott of South African sport teams during the apartheid era. Through these trainings, anti-racism and anti-apartheid groups were able to work together to come up with a plan to stage de-centralized civil disobedience events. The New Zealand government could not handle this approach, and cancelled a tour by the South African rugby team.

With the upcoming mid-term elections, there may be problems resulting from election protestors and disrupters. These techniques may be of use in this troubled time. We will have to wait, watch, and perhaps take action to preserve our democracy through civil disobedience.

Upholding our democracy

The United States is having challenges in maintaining and upholding democracy. In Oregon, all of the candidates for governor have all called each other “extreme” for one reason or another. In many states, people who deny the results of the 2020 presidential election won their primaries and are candidates for high office. The Democracy Day journalism collaborative held an event in September 2022 to highlight issues and seek solutions. In a post on Waging Nonviolence, the group outlined seven ideas for coming together as partisans for democracy:

Look beyond electoral politics
Define “anti-democratic” behavior beyond partisan identities
Bridge the understanding of “anti-democratic” behavior to mobilize against it
Calling out toxic othering
Now is not the time for neutrality
Partisanship for democracy versus bipartisanship
A cross-ideological democracy movement is both necessary and possible

This post is excellent reading, with many links to supporting material. As for each of us, let us do what we can to help uphold our democracy.