I said what I always say.
"To some extent, I do it for selfish reasons--as moral insurance:
If the worse happens, I want to be able to say that I voted No.
If they push the button, I want to be registered on some 'I-don't-think-this-is-a-good-idea' list. Or on a list of Yes-sayers: we can do better.
"But also, I don't discount the power of one person touching another person. I don't think writing a letter will change anything--it probably won't. But the chances are not zero."
And Marz said, "Wouldn't it be funny if a CEO did change because someone wrote to him about Tina Turner?"
Yes! STORY ^ IDEA!
I told that to bink, and she said, That happened!
She'd recently read about a woman who wrote to U.S. President Chester Arthur (who?), who had a corrupt past, telling his to shape up.
And he did.
"A housebound New York woman sought to influence the heart of Chester A. Arthur at a time when no one believed in him."
nytimes.com/2018/08/08/obituaries/julia-sand-chester-a-arthur-overlooked.html
As assassin shot President Garfield on July 2, 1881.
It would take him two-and-a-half months to die.
As Garfield was dying, 33-year-old Miss Julia Sands, wrote to Vice President Chester Arthur, next in line and known for corruption and cronyism:
"Now your kindest opponents say:
'Arthur will try to do right'—adding gloomily—
'He wont succeed, though—making a man President cannot change him.'
"But …great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a life.
If there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine.”
I don't know that this ^ applies to the current president of my country--I haven't seen any sign of it--but surely it applies to a lot of his associates.
And it applies to us, to our spark of nobility, to our shining forth.
"Unlike so many others who wrote to Arthur, Julia Sands asked no favors of him,
sought no position for herself, and felt free to speak to him with
honesty.
"I know that my opinion, as mine, can have no weight with you,"
she explained.
"If it has any value, it is because we are strangers, because our paths
have never crossed… I have no political ties. It is because it is
impersonal."
She wrote about all sorts of detailed advice--keep former President Grant as a friend to "smoke segars" with, but don't give him power.
Here's a good one:
Julia Sands on the "mean and cowardly" Chinese exclusion
legislation, appealing to Arthur to veto the bills passed by
Congress:
"A congress of ignorant school boys could not devise more idiotic legislation.
"It is not only behind the age, but behind several ages—not only opposed to the spirit of American institutions, but opposed to the spirit of civilization all the world over.
… It is mean & cowardly—more than that, it is a step back into barbarism.
...
"At all events do not let your Administration be marked by any such disgraceful retrograde movements."
What influence did she have on Arthur? There's no evidence.
It seems he never wrote back (though her papers were destroyed at her death), but he saved her twenty-three letters in an envelope, and he did visit her once at her family home.
At any rate,
"President Arthur left office having served far more independently and competently
than most Americans expected he would in September 1881.
He returned
to his home and law firm in New York City in 1885, but on November 18,
1886, he died of a kidney ailment then known as Bright's disease."
Source for above: "Chester A. Arthur's "Little Dwarf": The Correspondence of Julia I. Sand", Library of Congress,
loc.gov/collections/chester-alan-arthur-papers/articles-and-essays/correspondence-of-julia-i-sand
Even if we don't influence other people we write to, we shape our own selves, our own lives by our practice.
I'd been inspired years ago by Thich Nhat Hanh to try to write a letter the addressee might want to read.
A Love Letter to Your Congressman
From Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (1990), by Thich Nhat Hanh
"In the peace movement there is a lot of anger, frustration, and misunderstanding. People in the peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not so skilled at writing love letters.
"We need to learn to write letters to the Congress and the President that they will want to read, and not just throw away. The way we speak, the kind of understanding, the kind of language we use should not turn people off.
The President is a person like any of us.
"Can the peace movement talk in loving speech, showing the way for peace? I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can “be peace.” Because without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace.
If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement.
"I hope we can offer a new dimension to the peace movement. The peace movement often is filled with anger and hatred and does not fulfill the role we expect of it. A fresh way of being peace, of making peace is needed. That is why it is so important for us to practice mindfulness, to acquire the capacity to look, to see, and to understand.
"It would be wonderful if we could bring to the peace movement our non-dualistic way of looking at things. That alone would diminish hatred and aggression. Peace work means, first of all, being peace. We rely on each other.
Our children are relying on us in order for them to have a future."
