2019
July
24
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 24, 2019
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In today’s edition, we’ve selected five stories to look at political perceptions (Mueller testimony), innovation (on the farm), busting stereotypes (one-child families), hope (a Liberian in Montana), and nurturing (purple martins).

But first, let’s examine people power in Nashville, Tennessee. 

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived Monday morning in a Nashville suburb, they met passive resistance. A handful of residents cheered and gave food and water to a neighbor and his 12-year-old son, who refused to leave their van. After a four-hour peaceful standoff, the ICE agents left. 

You’ve heard of sanctuary cities? This might be the first sanctuary neighborhood. 

However you may feel about unauthorized immigrants, what happened in that Nashville subdivision fits into a larger pattern of nonviolent people power challenging perceived injustice. You can see it in the streets of Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Moldova, Algeria, and Sudan. 

Concurrent with a global rise in authoritarian governments is the rise of individuals feeling empowered to address societal wrongs. At no other time in human history has it been so easy to organize, thanks to the ubiquity of cellphones and social media. 

We might view the often leaderless protest as another form of populism. We might see it as a manifestation of direct democracy and the exercise of free speech. We might see it as a collapse of the rule of law and order, too. 

Or, in the case of Nashville, we might see it as an expression of basic compassion and loyalty. “We stuck together like neighbors are supposed to do,” Felishadae Young told WZTV, the Fox TV station in Nashville.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

If you’re looking for clarity, or a shift in public opinion, little was added to the record during Wednesday’s six-hour testimony by Robert Mueller. But the political parties may get some “highlight clips” for the 2020 campaign.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Sarah Sortum drives the Jeep she uses to take tourists around the grasslands on her family farm, Switzer Ranch, as part of her ecotourism business, Calamus Outfitters, in Burwell, Nebraska. Farmers are diversifying in order to make a living in rural America.

For this generation of small farmers to survive, they are learning to innovate and diversify into such areas as prairie chicken festivals, branded beef, and “tanking.”

As more Americans opt to have only one child, they’re dismantling stereotypes about only children, and redefining successful families.

Points of Progress

What's going right

Our next story is a tale of success: Here’s how an effort to house and nurture a bird species developed in the U.S. and why it continues.

Conversations on hope

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Wilmot Collins (right), mayor of Helena, Montana, and his wife, Maddie (in red), chat with Bruce and Joyce Nachtsheim while eating apples off the tree in the yard of the Nachtsheims' new home, on Sept. 19, 2018, in Helena.

We were moved by Maddie Collins’ story and example. She tells us why the U.S. is a land of relentless hope, hard work, freedom, love, and decency.  


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Youth are seen in the yard in central Kiev, Ukraine, July 24.

In the history of democracy, this may be a first: Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who won by a landslide in April, just saw his party win big in an election for parliament on Sunday. And what is one of his top priorities? He will ask the new lawmakers to make it easy to impeach him.

The former TV comedian wants to be given the hook if he turns out to be a crook.

The proposal is only one of Mr. Zelenskiy’s planned anti-corruption reforms. He also seeks to abolish the official immunity from prosecution that members of parliament enjoy – a protection that past lawmakers have used to hide their corrupt dealings. And he plans to ensure corruption-fighting agencies are independent of political control. He has a long list of institutional solutions.

As one of Europe’s most corrupt countries – and its largest – Ukraine has begun a sweep out of old practices that have driven corruption. The election results on Sunday reflected the dramatic upsurge in popular demand for clean and transparent governance: More than two-thirds of the new MPs have never been in parliament before. And the fresh faces are not all. The new president and his anti-corruption party, Servant of the People, will command the country’s first ruling majority, giving it both a chance and a mandate for concrete reform.

Two previous attempts at fixing Ukraine’s democracy, the 2004 Orange Revolution and the Maidan Revolution of 2014-15, failed to bring major changes. Yet as Ukrainians still eagerly hope to join the European Union – and as Russia tries to hold them back and ensure oligarchic rule – this time may be the best opportunity to instill civic virtues in public life.

“Years of public debate have given rise to a broad and sensible consensus around reforms,” writes Ukraine expert Anders Åslund at the Atlantic Council. “The question is no longer what to do but whether it will actually be done.”

Europe’s largest country in the west, Britain, may be leaving the EU soon. But the 45 million strong Ukrainians are impatient to join the bloc, which they see as helping ensure an end to corrupt rule. First they will need to finish the task themselves. One of the initial tests will be making it easy to impeach a president, thus showing the humility to be held accountable is an important public virtue.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

When our care for others stems from a realization that everyone is able to feel and experience God’s healing, restoring love, we are better equipped to help and find solutions.


A message of love

Gabriella N. Baez/Reuters
Demonstrators chant and wave Puerto Rican flags calling for the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on July 24. The speaker of the House of Representatives announced Wednesday the House was beginning impeachment proceedings against the governor after the 11th day of mass protests.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Come back tomorrow. We’re working on a story about what more freedom really means for women in Saudi Arabia.

More issues

2019
July
24
Wednesday

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