8/29/2024

JRB,

Will you talk with Jake Sullivan (JJS) today about his trip to China & his conversation with XJ? If so, ask if the topic of Burma came up. According to AJ, the PLA has stepped up armed patrols on their border due to errant artillery shells coming in from Shan State injuring residents & damaging structures near Ruili.

I hope your upcoming phone conversation with XJ leads to a plan to meet up in Nov. I love the idea of your summiting with XJ at the APEC in Peru.

I invite you to exercise your visual imagination by picturing yourself hiking to a peak in the Andes & then shaking hands with XJ as you announce that you will stop manufacturing weapons! Hear the angels singing & the world rejoicing.

Back to reality.

I was excited to read a 2018 piece in “Democracy” where JJS talked about the idea of a political center of gravity (CoG) which has shifted over time. He characterizes the CoG as “the prevailing consensus on the relationship between government & the free market—the role of regulation, of redistribution, of public investment, & of the social safety net in promoting fairness, opportunity, and growth.” He wondered, “what if not just one party, but the American electorate as a whole is moving to embrace a more energized form of government … (that) takes on big, serious challenges through big, serious legislation instead of the more restrained measures to which we’ve grown accustomed?” Suffice it to say, this article resonated with me & made me wonder if the logic of a CoG influenced your thinking about “inflection points?”

I had a magical moment when investigating “Democracy” & finding Emily Cherniack. The magic happened when I read her writing about, “servant leadership” and the “shadow,” a concept explored by psychologist Carl Jung… “the shadow, are the parts of ourselves that conflict with (our) idealized vision of ourselves…when we haven’t done the work to confront our shadow, we project it outward.” I can’t wait to learn more about this.

BYBS,