The Sustainist

Be a #Truthcare Provider

Just as healthcare is essential for a person’s physical wellness, we need to provide truthcare to nurture and develop our social, spiritual and economic wellness. In the internet age, when millions of people read and hear the same thing over and over again, over time, they believe that it is true. This is not healthy. When a lie was propagated that way like a virus, it had led to violence and destruction of relationships, properties, communities and institutions.

I did a quick search on hashtags that have the word “truth” in it and many of the posts and tweets were propagating misinformation inciting hate and division. Where are the truthcare providers? How do we provide truthcare in the U.S. today when over 70% of a party did not believe that the newly elected president of the U.S. is legitimate despite verified truth from all 50 States?

Some social media companies finally take truthcare seriously by disabling the accounts of those who spread untruth and incited violence on January 6, 2021. Truthcare providers now have a small window to start a truthcare wave that can flood the internet with life-giving truth-vaccines. I invite you to be a truthcare provider and take a few minutes each day this week and share a truth through your various social media accounts and invite your friends and followers to do the same. Here are some criteria for posting a life-giving and community-building truth:

- Share a truth to build wellness for individuals and communities and not to hurt or judge others.

- If it is a factual truth, cite your source and verification process.

- If it is a personal experienced truth, own it by using “I” statements.

- If it is an interpreted truth, say that it is your interpretation only and invite dialogue.

- Make sure you begin or end with #truthcare. And add as many hashtags that has the word “truth” that you can think of, such as truthwave, truthtellers, truthtelling, truthmatters, . . . etc.

When you got a negative reaction/comment, be kind and respectful in your response.  Listen and feedback to let the person know you care enough to try to understand.  Ask for clarifying question such as where did you get that information, or how or from whom did you learn that, . . . etc.   

When a truth is verified and it is life-giving and community-building, it is worth repeating over and over again so that more and more people will come to live and believe it. For example, if 1,000 of my FB friends share a life-giving and community-building truth today and invite 10 of their friends to do the same, we will have 10,000 truthcare posts. If their friends share it with 10 friends, we will have 100,000 more. You can see who we can distribute our truth-vaccine life-giving to millions upon millions in a very short time.

If we care about the wellbeing of the people in our nation, we must provide its people truthcare: seek the truth, verify the truth, share and teach the truth.

Here are a couple of examples of truthcare posts:

- #truthcare: I have voted by mail in California for the last 4 federal elections. Last November I was able to track my vote and I got a confirmation that my voted was counted. A friend reminded me to make sure I signed it with my full name as it appears in my voter registration or it would not be counted. My experience of voting by mail is safe in preventing fraud and safe from exposing myself to Covid-19. I invite you to share a life-giving community-building truth today and be sure to include #truthcare. #truthmatters #truthtelling

• #truthcare: I voted for Biden/Harris along with 63.5% of the voters in California. That’s over 11 million votes. This was verified by the California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, in the website: https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/president. I look forward to a peaceful inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on January 20, 2021.   I invite you to share a life-giving community-building truth today and be sure to include #truthcare.

Eric H. F. Law

Unity through Truth

As I watched the congressional impeachment debate, I heard many appealed for unity. The argument went like this – to avoid further division, lets forgive and forget. Having experienced at least 4 years of intentional divisive speeches and actions by the same people who now called for unity, it felt a bit ingenuous to me. The reason why we were divided in the first place stemmed from the lie that the election was stolen especially after all the states had certified the election results. This was why people gathered at the capital on Jan 6. This was why they invaded the capital.

 

Unity doesn't come about by ignoring the past for fear of punishment, losing power and further threat of violence. In our democracy, we are united by the agreement on the truth, and the rights and responsibilities laid out in the Constitution. If we really want to heal our nation and move people toward unity, I proposed the following four essential steps:

 

1. Truth matters: Trump and the politicians who insisted that the election was stolen have to to tell their supporters in no uncertain terms that the election was not stolen and Trump did not win by a landslide. For that matter, all lawmakers and senators should go back to their districts and states and do the same.

 

2. Money matters: Trump and the politicians who raised money for the purpose of overturning the election should return the money to their supporters and tell them why: there is not election to overturn.

 

3. Rights matter: Those who voted for Trump should take time to reflect on their fears and concerns as a result of their candidate losing the election -- concerns for selves, families, immediate communities, states and nation. Gather with others and share these concerns and find ways to made them known through nonviolent civic and community means. This is your right.

 

4. Responsibilities matter: Those who voted for Biden (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) should sit down (formally and informally) with people who voted for Trump (with neighbors, in community gatherings, places of worship, schools, workplaces, etc.) to listen to their concerns and have real caring and respectful conversations. The Biden voters should take the responsibility to collect what they heard and share them through civic and community channels back to the leaders of our communities, states and nation.

 

In a true democracy, we need caring winners and courageous losers.

 

Eric H. F. Law