Susan Feathers

Joe Biden’s Climate Record

This morning an article about Joe Biden’s record of climate legislation appeared in Distilled on Substack. Michael Thomas, the author, believes most Americans need to know how much Biden has accomplished on climate legislation to move the nation and the world toward a viable future.

Thomas compares Biden’s record to what we can expect from a T(Rump) presidency. From believing climate change is a “hoax” to promising to raze environmental regulation, Trump plans to disengage from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which he did when in office (2017 to 2021), and promises to “drill baby drill” to increase oil and gas production. That is reckless with the futures of millions of young Americans and all the countries in the world affected by rising temperatures and its consequences. No one can buy us out of the climate catastrophe that awaits foolish decision makers and the public.

If you care about your children’s future wellbeing, it is imperative that we keep climate innovation at the pace spurred by investment into companies and communities toward a clean energy future through Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Billions of investment dollars are spurring innovation and contributing to a strong economy–stronger than any other nation in the world. The future of clean energy is being laid down now, but it is in its infancy. Will we let a mad man disrupt that again?

Read or listen to Michael Thomas on Distilled on Substack.

Read on Carbon Brief what is likely to occur if the former president is reelected.

Photo by Susan Feathers: Pensacola Beach

Related: “Last year, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) invested nearly $20 billion in promoting climate-smart systems such as advanced grazing management, manure composting, and soil health practices like cover cropping through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) working lands programs. One of the issues under negotiation for the new Farm Bill is whether to keep these funds where they are – supporting and expanding climate smart conservation – or move some or all of the remaining funds into commodity programs where they will accelerate farmland consolidation and further disadvantage small to midscale farms. The 2024 Farm Bill must maintain or expand the IRA investment in helping farmers build climate resilience, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and not raid conservation to support the outdated “get big or get out” agribusiness paradigm.” ~ VA Association for Biological Farming

What I Know About America

Democracies are bustling often raucous spaces. A country founded upon principles of freedom and the law is a marketplace of ideas, of groups grieving for freedom denied or improvements to the quality of life of groups overlooked by legislation. These strivings, using the principles and legal mechanisms for their lawful dispensation to all, in the Constitution of the United States, have resulted in a people generally welloff and generous of heart.

Our generosity extends to countries across the Earth. We have helped protect people who wish to live by a similar creed as seen through the NATO alliance and our strivings to bring peace in the Middle East. We stand by the people of Ukraine as they fight for the freedom the Russian oligarch strives to deny them.

Where we see one man (or woman) act only on his or her behalf in making decisions for all the people under his rule, we understand anew the value of democracies.

How to recognize antidemocratic forces …

Generally speaking, people who speak about themselves more than their citizens, and strike down laws and protections that are beneficial for all citizens to favor only one demographic or religious tradition, are antidemocratic forces.

No leader is perfect as no person. We all make mistakes but we expect of each other that we are striving toward the laws that govern our way of life. We look at the person over time to discern what their true intention may be. Is this leader one who works together with other lawmakers to protect democracy and enact legislations that expands freedoms to the People?

Does a potential leader have a moral compass that guides him or her during very difficult times? Does a candidate tell the truth, admit mistakes, and generally collaborate “across the aisle” in our nation’s deliberative bodies, in Congress and among world leaders similarly devoted to freedoms worldwide?

Isolationism, demogoguery, lying and cheating, and above it all hoodwinking to reach personal power over some of the people–these is not the charater traits we must have in a leader of a free and just people.

What Does Democracy Promise?

Being an American takes work and devotion to protect and grow democracy. A good thing always draws an equal and opposite force. The work of democracy is the refinement and constant reconstituting by assertion and practice the verities of our founding fathers and all the people of America who have been able to maintain its sweet elixir of liberty for 247 years.

Franklyn Delano Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech – So Relevant in 2024

For Spacious Skies

We are a mosaic of people, places and stories. Liberty’s flame welcomes all to these shores where E Pluribus Unam (many out of one) is our purpose. Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness (the welfare of the people ) our promise.

The American mosaic began with people who came from the East over a landbridge during an Ice Age. It was a time when nature was free. the rule one of reciprocity among species living in a landscape of soaring mountains, crystal rivers, lakes and oceans full of life. and forests trembling with the movements of animals, birds, insects and a few people. Though old by our planet’s account, it was brand new to the first people who wondered in its force of life surging at its own accord. They are still among us, and their memories are longlasting. If we listen, we can here the wisdom they developed living among their kin.

Oh! How I wish to be born again when America was new to us human beings. Reverence for life, the will to live so strong in all. Rivers free to run their courses, lakes shimmering like mirrors, towering clouds and lightening striking all across the open plain, the bone deep terror of its awesome vigor.

Ah, so, I hear the naysayers refuting this idyllic description, but what if it was just that way? What if the air was so clear you could see for miles, what if every body of water was drinkable? What would it feel like in virgin woods with the whole pageant of living things vigorous and free? What sounds, fragrances and piercing colors would we see agasp in the virgin wood? I wonder…

Much much later the new European immigrants, hungry for land and the very freedom they denied its Native People, a young teacher penned this poem which became the source for America the Beautiful, beloved song of our nation.

Oh beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife
Who more than self, their country loved
And mercy more than life

America, America may God thy gold refine
‘Til all success be nobleness
And every gain divined

And you know when I was in school
We used to sing it something like this, listen here

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain

But now wait a minute, I’m talking about
America, sweet America
You know, God done shed his grace on thee
He crowned thy good, yes he did, in brotherhood
From sea to shining sea

You know, I wish I had somebody to help me sing this
(America, America, God shed his grace on thee)
America, I love you America, you see
My God he done shed his grace on thee
And you oughta love him for it
‘Cause he, he, he, he crowned thy good
He told me he would, with brotherhood
(From sea to shining Sea)
Oh Lord, oh Lord, I thank you Lord
(Shining sea)

Alexander Courage and Samuel Ward wrote what came to be the song best loved among hundreds written – each inspired by the poem by Katherine Lee Bates. She penned the poem after a trip during which she observed the stunning beauty of the West. She was a professor at Wellesley College on her way to teach in Colorado Springs.

I hope with all the strength in me that this anthem can spur a rebirth of the original land and its people, and that us late comers, immigrants all, will make room for our multicultural society, our E Pluribus Unam. You see, we became the great idea stimulated by this Land, this Place. May we restore Her, restore Ourselves to higher purpose, to make that American Quilt we dreamed of when we sought to govern ourselves anew. Oh America! Oh, Liberty, may we breathe that fulsome air again and may we obtain that clarity of mind to see who we are today and who we must become again so that freedom reigns among us all.

Whitney Houston

GREAT AMERICANS: FRANCES MOORE LAPPE

Diet for a Small Planet arrived like a rolling earthquake in sunny California in 1971.

50th Anniversary Edition

In 1971 (when I first read Diet for a Small Planet), Frances Moore Lappe’s research brought to light the nature of capitalism in creating hunger and poverty. I recall her riveting question then, and just how relevant it remains today:

How much is enough?
Frances Moore Lappe

Instead of the world not producing enough food to feed everyone, she demonstrated how we produce enough food to feed everyone and that remains true today. Then why hunger? Unregulated capitalism and concentration of wealth to a few people and companies causes many problems including hunger. Access to nutritious food remains an issue of human rights. In the introductory remarks to the 5th edition, Frances doesn’t hold back on the perilous point in history in which we are poised. She titles it: Our Choice, Our Promise. Ever positive, Lappe shows us how most of our current ills are a question of democracy.

What is Democracy Anyway? For me, at the heart of democracy are the rules and norms for living together that meet our deepest needs–bringing forth the best in our species while keeping our destructive capacities in check.
Introductory Remarks, Diet for a Small Planet, 50th Edition, xx1.

Frances centers her work in food justice within democratic norms. She describes humanity’s greatest needs: personal power (voice), meaning (our lives matter), and community.

Go to Small Planet Institute

No one understands the problem of hunger and its solutions better than Frances. I highly recommend her book, Diet for a Small Planet. See also 22 other books Lappe has published at this link.

Another Great American

Jeffrey Rosen, CEO and Executive Director of the National Constitution Center (NCC) and Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School is as enthusiastic a scholar of the American Constitution as any man. His respect and love of the principles embedded in the Constitution’s DNA is infectious.

The National Constitution Center brings together people of all ages and perspectives, across America and around the world, to learn about, debate, and celebrate the greatest vision of human freedom in history, the U.S. Constitution.
https://constitutioncenter.org/about

Here below are links to a podcast and a video on the Constitution Drafting Project in which three scholars – conservative, liberal, and libertarian – draft five new amendments to the Constitution.

For the Podcast go here.

Below is the YouTube video of the full discussion among these scholars. I was struck by the fact that in spite of different viewpoints, their five amendments were very similar which also came as a surprise to them. Their discussion provides citizens with understanding of how a broad range of viewpoints can converge on how to govern ourselves.

Today’s Great Americans

Heather Cox Richardson is one of America’s most trustworthy and insightful voices for democracy in our current struggle to preserve and restore democratic institutions in the U.S.A. She is a historian, professor at Boston College, and author of the recent book, Democracy Awakening.

Heather publishes a daily Letters from An American on Substack. I rely on her daily digest of the day’s events put into a historical context. Heather examines our present struggle to protect democratic governance with a long view from the founders to the present leadership. She shows us a longer trajectory and reminds us that we the people have agency to shape our future. Most importantly, she corrects misinformation, clears the clouds of half-truths.

February 1, 2024

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Cox_Richardson

N. Scott Momaday

A Great Voice for the Earth and for Belonging to Land has passed out of our direct experience but his voice, his art, his words will last forever as long as he is remembered. We must not forget what he taught us to see and feel.

2/7/24 – Joy Harjo’s tribute to Momaday in the Washington Post (2/5/24)

Fall in Love with Scott.

He shares his works and his life story.

American Masters Film about N. Scott Momaday’s life and works. This film is a work of art as well. He’s not like anyone you know but you feel like you recognize people in him. His words are powerful in that they are skinny on description but its all there in the way the words are put together. A spirit of land is what I believe he embodies in flesh, voice, and his writing.

Formative Boyhood Experiences of Momaday

Words from a Bear

I recommend this beautiful little book, a masterwork of all N. Scott Momaday knew and shared condensed into these short but powerful recollections of the Earth: Earth Keeper. Published in 2020. 65 pages. You can carry it in your pocket as you travel this incredible Earth.

David Hume Revisited at the National Constitutional Center

David Hume and the Ideas That Shaped America

See the National Constitution Center site for this discussion. Includes bios of the David Hume scholars and additional resources to explore after the program.

What can modern American citizens and our political leaders learn from Hume? How were the views of our founding fathers shaped by the great philosophers of their time? How do they influence modern understanding of our Republic today? See this link to Federalist Paper 10 which considers the power of a government system to stem the tidal pull of dangerous fractions.

Jeffrey Rosen leads the discussion with three scholars of Hume. Original sources are suggested and links embedded in the chat during the discussion and provided on the wesite link above.

These same ideas are not only alive and well in our current political deliberations but also illuminate what has gone wrong and why. We can all use a dose of Hume and Madison to understand the forces that can threaten or aid the pursuit of happiness, meaning the common good.

Highly recommended to readers on this blog. Please forward to friends, neighbos and teachers and leaders in your communities. It is a non partisan discussion for all political persuasions to consider and for understanding the original thoughts and ideals that influenced the founding of America.

Hats off to the National Constitution Center, its guest scholars, and to Jeffrey Rosen for his able leadership.

The Long View on the Economy

Janet Yellen, Sec. of the Treasury, at the Economic Club of Chicago…

Please share this critical address on the state of America’s economy as a way to encourage Americans overall and to stem the tide of disinformation from the MAGA Republicans.

The Art of Diplomacy

The Biden Administration is led by an exceptional Cabinet of experts who carry out the work of the People on a daily basis, many without much public media coverage. However, one exception is Anthony J. Blinken, Secretary of State who is receiving widespread coverage with the Ukraine war and the Israeli-Hamas conflict and other rumblings around the Middle East. No President and administration knows when conflicts like Ukraine and Israeli will happen during their administration. These two conflicts are now consuming Biden and Blinken’s attention, travel and diplomatic talks. Both Ukraine and Israel were attacked without provocation by Russia and Hamas respectively. Each of these conflicts has sent shock waves throughout the world and we are now witnessing new alliances form and old ones consolidate. Some say the U.S. diplomatic position (leading) is waning, others that it is essential to peaceful resolution.

Each time I listen to Anthony Blinken describe America’s diplomatic goals around the world, as well as the thinking behind policies, I realize how critical it is to elect a President with experience, one who will bring the best minds to the challenge to democracies from authoritarian movements rising around the world.

Mr. Blinken executes his office of Secretary of State with wisdom, humanity, and a clear vision of America’s role in the world. In this interview below, Secretary Blinken is interviewed by Tom Friedman at Davos on January 17.