1/27/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Keep up the good work. I don’t know how you do it. Making speeches every day on a new topic of grave importance. I will be making one presentation this week & that seems like a lot.

            It seems your call yesterday with VPP went as well as could be expected. Did you Zoom or just use audio? Thanks for raising concerns about the excessive force used against peaceful protestors demonstrating against the imprisonment of Alexi Navalny. It seems that the many young Russians are woke & not intimidated by the prospect of getting arrested. 100,000 taking to the streets in over 100 cities, some in subzero temps, to express their frustration with corruption – that’s inspiring! I saw some video of people throwing snowballs at police officers. I’m not sure if that counts as violence or not.

            I continue to be challenged by the idea of civil disobedience & when it is warranted. Have you ever willfully disobeyed the law for moral reasons? I haven’t, but I reserve the right to, with the understanding that I will have to face the consequences when apprehended. This stance makes me somewhat conflicted about those rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan 6. I wonder how different they are from the folks protesting in Moscow. I’d love to know what you think about this.

            Thanks for taking a strong stance on racial justice yesterday. I look forward to hearing about your climate change ideas today. If you were really brave you would mention that we need to do something to control population growth so your administration is going to incentivize small families. That might be tricky for a Catholic, but you are quite skilled at navigating politics so perhaps you can figure out how to promote that idea.

            BYBS,