NWPC Fresno, 50 Years of “Good Trouble”
I’m reading a newly published book by the popular young Dutch historian, thinker and author Rutger Bregman entitled Moral Ambition. I was unfamiliar with this author until I read a review of his latest book. I found myself hooked on the book by the second sentence of the Prologue when the author quoted writer Leo Rosten, (1908-1997):
“I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.”.
Bregman defines Moral Ambition as “the will to make the world a wildly better place… It’s a longing to make a difference – and to build a legacy that truly matters.”
Gosh, this sounds exactly like “Good Trouble” to me.
For more than fifty years NWPC and NWPC Fresno have worked to build a legacy that truly mattered. In the early 1970’s I’m sure most Americans could hardly conceive of a time when a woman would be a Presidential candidate for a major political party. For those of us in NWPC we can’t understand why several women haven’t already been elected to the Oval Office.
I remember taking my daughter’s Girl Scout troop to the CA Capital in the 1980s. The girls were in elementary school and we had the great honor of meeting and being escorted through the CA Senate chambers by Senator Rose Ann Vuich. In 1976 Rose Ann Vuich from Dinuba became the first women elected to the California Senate, in a seat she held until 1992. Sen. Vuich proudly escorted our troop to the Rose Room, named for her, and build for her since until her election there had been no need for a women’s bathroom in the CA Senate.
What a difference 24 years has made. Today, the CA legislature has near parity with 59 women and 61 men holding state office. NWPC Fresno has endorsed and supported many women who have sought and been elected to local Valley offices and some of them have gone on to hold offices in Sacramento. Good Trouble indeed!
Today we see a new cause that calls Americans to demonstrate Moral Ambition and to engage in Good Trouble. We are fighting for the very foundations of our democracy – for the Constitution, The Rule of Law, the Sanctity of the Courts and the Judicial System. It is sobering to think that our American way of life is hanging in the balance, but clearly this is true.
If we are to be successful in holding onto democracy, decency, kindness and compassion for those in need, the balance of power and the rule of law; we will need the majority of our citizens to join us in committing to the principles of Moral Ambition and Good Trouble.
Perhaps one day our generation will be seen as another “Great Generation.”
In Unity & Equality,
Lynn Badertscher
