The Joy of Resistance

The Compassion Forward movement is inspired by the Flag of Compassion. Our mission is to promote compassion as foundational for civic healing.

The Compassion Forward movement is a joyful and healing movement. We aim to make the world a better place, we promote universal good… we are persistent in our message, and we don’t back down.

When you carry the Flag of Compassion, you are signaling to the world that you are part of a growing movement working to heal our nation and the world. We don’t aim to humiliate our opponents, we wish to build understanding based on mutual respect for everyone in our communities. We embrace each other as humans with common values, wants, and needs.

We settle our disputes with votes, not fists raised in anger.

The Flag of Compassion does not take sides. We ask Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Independents, and Libertarians to rally around this flag and its message of compassion.

Visit our website at CompassionFwd.org if you would like to learn more.

“…a republic ma’am, if you can keep it.”

In 1789, Elizabeth Willing Powel famously asked Benjamin Franklin, “what sort of government has the Constitutional Convention bequeathed the people?” Franklin’s reply was… “a republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.” Today we ask ourselves, “can we keep it?”

A republic is a form of government in which authority is derived from the governed, not from an elite class or a monarch. In this moment we find ourselves faced with the fact that the president of the United States and most of his cabinet are an elite class of billionaires.

This billionaire governing class is now drafting laws that could disenfranchise millions of working-class voters. The corrosive impact of this disenfranchisement is likely to further our political polarization.

While the United States of America has been an imperfect democracy since its founding, there has been a slow but steady move toward a more perfect union. Two hundred and fifty years ago our forebears declared that “all men are created equal.” Since the signing of the declaration we have amended our constitution and our laws aimed at ensuring all “people” are created equal.

Today a right-wing nationalist movement has taken the reins of government. This movement is rapidly reversing the progress made over two centuries of struggle.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion, key foundational components of Compassion, are under threat. In order to preserve our republic, we must be vigilant and active and we must make our voices heard at the ballot box.

Our ballots are the atoms of democracy.

The federal government along with many state governments are taking action to disenfranchise voters under the guise of voter fraud. However, investigations by government entities and both major parties have conclude that voter fraud is incredible rare.

While many of the government’s own supporters will get caught up in this wide-net effort to restrict voting, the overall effect is likely to reduce voter turnout and subvert our efforts to keep our republic.

Laws requiring proof of citizenship to vote sound like good practice. But. There are only two documents that can prove citizenship for most people: 1) a birth certificate, and 2) a passport. A majority of US citizens do not already have one of these documents, and they can be difficult and expensive to acquire. Additionally, people who have changed their names, often the case with married women, will not have a name-match between their driver’s license ID with their birth certificate. Millions of women may be at risk of being disenfranchised.

Mail-in and absentee voting allows people with disabilities and/or people who may have difficulty getting to the polls on election day to vote. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the president has issued an executive order that charges the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) with determining who may vote by mail and instructs it to refuse to deliver ballots sent by anyone not included on newly created federal mail voter lists.

Gerrymandering is a process in which politicians choose their voters. In this way people in power are able to carve out voting districts that have populations of people favorable to them. The Supreme Court recently overturned most of the protective provisions of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, there are virtually no constitutional guardrails on a state’s ability to gerrymander their maps. They can create new maps for each election to ensure that minority voters are always disenfranchised.

Compassion Forward is a non-partisan movement working to keep you informed of critical issues that may impact our freedoms. We actively promote free and fair elections, equal protection under the law, human dignity, and the capacity to act with a deep sense of equality between oneself and others, above and beyond the awareness of our differences.

This newsletter includes a focus on challenges to Voting Rights. The subject is political, but the content is nonpartisan. The facts and opinions included in this newsletter are intended only to inspire debate and critical thinking.