“The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.” ~ Closing remarks to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Axios.
I was a young mother when President Carter was elected. I recall the years during his Presidency as very dangerous times worldwide similar to today’s volatile world. His peace accord which he helped negotiate between Egypt and Israel is a sterling example of how he brought two arch enemies together to make peace, a peace that has lasted to this day.
His moral compass kept us safe, at peace, and never in doubt about his character nor about his commitment to us and people across the world.
Rest in Peace, President Carter.
Photograph by Susan Feathers. Dream Acres Farm, KY. In remembrance of Jimmy Carter, Peanut Farmer from Plains Georgia.
One of the best resources for American Democracy is the nonpartisan National Constitution Center. They have a podcast, We the People, and Town Halls which bring together the best minds in history and law to discuss important topics related to our Republic.
Heather Cox Richardson, a Professor of American History and author of Letters from An American (Substack.com). Heather also does an informal response to readers questions on her Facebook account on Tuesday afternoons.
Timothy Snyder, a Professor of History with focus on Russia, Ukraine and international relations, is most available on his Substack.com account but if you go to YouTube, type in his name in the search function and numerous interviews and presentations pop up. Be sure to watch and listen to those about his small but popular book, On Tyranny. It is a guide to recognize when autocracy threatens democracies and what actions to take.
Anne Applebaum, a journalist, author and historian with focus on autocratic governments and their rise and defeat. Anne is a leading authority on autocracies and one of the clearest thinkers of our time.
One of the first things I did as I understood that an autocrat and movement were elected to lead this great nation, was to sit down and make a document with the contact information for my city council, state delegates, federal Congresspersons and Senators, AND identified the MAGA reps assigned to national cabinet positions and key committees in the House and Senate. Having these handy makes it easy and timely for contacting people in positions with power to make wise decisions to protect the nation.
Personally, I have upped my walking to keep in shape and in beautiful places to inspire me and to reduce stress.
Taking Action
We are encouraged to join with a group or form one for moral and social support. Second, we are encouraged to work on the state and local levels in any area of our working democracy that you feel you would like to work to protect and strengthen. For example, you may have concerns about public schools remaining the bedrock of democratic values. Attend the meetings and consider running for a place on the board.
Another example is my own: I am an environmental educator with concerns about the land, waters, and air quality in Virginia. So I joined a conservation organization, LynnhavenRiverNOW.org. They sponsored a half-day introduction to conservation issues for the State. I have signed up to take a bus to Richmond in January to lobby my delegates in the VA Assembly.
Inspiration to Endure
UPDATE [DECEMBER 31, 2024]: Clay Jenkins on NPR today discussed how people can creatively make the next four years outstanding. I highly recommend listening to this broadcast! It is for everyone, no politics.
Read or listen to great writers about history, democracy, and topics that give you a broad perspective on our nation’s path to freedom. Read about the guardrails our founding fathers put in place in the Constitution to ward off autocratic threats which arise when a people describe everyone as equal under the law and endowed with unalienable rights.
Attend community discussions about these issues. Be willing to offer your perspective, with respect for all points of view.
If you are a person of faith, read from the inspirational texts of that faith, or read and discuss the tenets and truths of people you respect and admire that refocus your mind for improving your own character.
Keep a curious and good sense of humor! Humor that reminds all of us to not take ourselves too seriously or reminds us of the pit traps of our own thought process. Humor that degrades others is simply tyranny.
In all of this, recall that our Republic is founded on religious freedom, separation between church and state (based on centuries of oppression and violence by the churches in Western Europe.) Keep the faith, keep it to yourself. Let your example be your persuasion.
I leave you with the words of President Eisenhower that are very relevant today as Donald Trump and a cohort of billionaires with personal interests in government contracts come to power. Right now, it seems like everything we cherish is up for grabs by unqualified people. Get yourself ready to wage truth.
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (from goodreads)
“Our challenge is to create a new language, even a new sense of what it is to be human. It is to transcend not only national limitations, but even our species isolation, to enter into the larger community of living species. This brings about a completely new sense of reality and value.” (Thomas Berry, “The Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth, 42). https://thomasberry.org/quotes/
Photo by Susan Feathers at Virginia Beach Botanical Garden Hydrangea Park
M. Scott Momaday, reading his poetry, A Man Made of Words.
To read or listen to powerful voices of people who have devoted their lives to celebrating the Earth is to heal and to find our way home. Each offers us solace and a direction for our lives as we anticipate times of destruction in America and around the world. Earth teaches us to live in community, to know each other and to be in reciprocal relationship with each other and all of life around us. I highly recommend these great teachers, each of whom has helped me understand a way forward in uncertain times. They offer hope and a longer point of view than ephemeral politics. They are an antidote to avarice. We need this deep resonance now to stabalize our spirits and our collective wish for unity, equality and peace.
Listening
Here is a brilliant conversation between Robin Wall Kimmerer and Emanuel Vaughn Lee of Emergence Magazine. Robin describes the wonderful serviceberry tree and what she has learned from its generosity. I also recommend Emergence Magazine for its films from artists and thought leaders across our great planet. I go there frequently to keep the balance.
“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” ~ Aldo Leopold
When I was 13, my family moved to Plattsburg, New York. We rented a model home built at the edge of the forest surrounding St. Bellarmine College and Noviate. It was housed in what had been the 2nd Hotel Champlain and surrounding grounds with trails winding down to Lake Champlain.
When I left our home, I walked on the monastery trails toward the lake with our family beagle who loved exploring the grounds with nose and long velvet ears with which he breathed in the fragrances of the woods and touched the rocks and trails sensing creatures who had passed by.
I was pensive on this day. Military families, as we were, suffer trauma through moving which separates children and youth from new found friends and causes stress in parents through absense of the father or mother, and often living in less than ideal housing and circumstances. I longed to belong somewhere.
It was fall in the Adirondacks and the woods were aflame in nature’s palette of red, gold, purple, orange and yellow. I stopped in a spot ablaze with autumn leaves which appeared as a mosaic. As I stared into its palette, I became aware that I was becoming a part of the wholeness of it. At that moment “I” no longer existed. I was lifted out of body.
This realization of the oneness of life in varying forms, colors and beingness profoundly changed me. At 13 I realized there is no separation between the “natural world” and me nor any other life form. We are part of a livingmosaic moving through space on a spinning planet.
After that seminal day, I have felt that I belonged, wherever I may be; I draw no distinction between myself and the mosaic of life around me. And now, wherever I live, I belong. This has brought me great peace and satisfaction. Desert, mountains, grasslands, tropical zones – I’ve lived in each one loving it and learning from the people and the land, waters, and all the life there.
Rising Sun Redbud in VA Beach at Tidewater Community College
The adoption of regenerative agricultural practices is a low-cost, ready-to-deploy approach to combat the climate crisis on a meaningful scale. But numerous challenges remain that hinder widespread adoption. ~ American Farmlands Trust
I have drafted a fiction story based in Kentucky about a young woman farmer who sets out to regenerate the land of her family’s legacy farm. Readers learn the challenges that stand in the way of family farmers and young people trying to do the right thing on their land.
In part, I based the novel on the experiences of the No-Till Growers whom I came to know when I lived in Bowling Green, KY. I was part of a Community Supported Farmer network who grew my food.
These young farmers are the true dreamers of America. And I think you’ll agree with me that this is a time for dreams that are based in reality.
Afternoon Glow Just Before Hay Harvest at Dream Acres Farm
To readers: I recommend Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder as historians and active citizens – as people who can provide trustworthy guidance as we move into a period. While we are entering a stark reality in he U.S.A., there is still much we can do to protect democracy, and there are long term strategies to protect the nearly 250 years of progress toward equality for all and the rule of law. In fact, if we do not engage in protecting this progress, we may lose it all.
What American Voters Actually Voted For
In state governments citizens voted to restore or protect abortion rights for women’s health; better wages; higher taxes on super wealthy, equality under the law, protection of workers’ rights. Voters also voted for climate mitigation and green energy development. Americans voted to protect right to fair voting rules. This is what Americans voted for on both sides of the political ticket.
Why did more than half of them then vote for Trump? They were deceived. Disinformation created a picture that by voting for the MAGA movement you would get all those things. They are in for a big disappointment.
We don’t have to stand by while Trump and his cronies hack away at democratic institutions and use violence against the American people.
We are entering a period of potential internal destruction/reconstruction of our governing structure (with the wealthiest men in the world in charge now) with promises to withdraw from international leadership (even participating at all) with other countries working together to keep a rules-based system of world peace. We’ll be cronies with Putin and the like. We are probably entering a period of isolation from other democracies while the new governance forms partnerships and deals with other autocracies that increase their power and individual wealth.
Trump promises to withdraw from the climate accords and he and the elected party deny that climate change is real. Call your Senators and Representatives to let them know you do not support this, even if they are MAGA recruits.
So we have some slivers of light and hope. On the local and state levels we can start building coalitions as a stabilizing force to what is happening federally. Many states are already working on this. Call your representatives.
All over the country we are witnessing right wing leaders declaring loyalty to Trump: “He is always right. Whatever he tells me to do, I will do it.” This is an acute sign of impending autocratic rule. Right from the play book.
Timothy Snyder, Yale professor of history, and author of On Tyranny and most recently On Freedom, calls this ‘obeying in advance’ to the dictator.
What can we do? We get in touch with our Senators and Representatives to tell them no, we do not believe this is right. We need to do this now. Also, create communities. Work together. You are probably already in one or more that have been active on one or more of these aspects of democratic governance.
Unqualified individuals and cronies of Trump are moving into powerful position such as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense (heading up our entire miliary establishment). Shout from the mountain tops that you do not agree and will not support it!!!!!
Remember, Kamala and Tim built a large coalition of democracy-loving citizens from left, right and center.
We must now step up together to defend our country.
In a timely interview by Jon Stewart with Heather Cox Richardson, the historian reflects on how Americans chose an autocracy as our form of government, and then reflected that we have witnessed the end of the American century.
In that century Americans rose to the moment to protect America by joining free nations in the world to overcome autocracies led by Nazi Germany who strove to establish a white Christian oligarchy and rule by a few powerful men.
Richardson is a respected historian of history who publishes Letters from An Americans on Substack in which millions of readers learn to interpret the present moment in politics by understanding our history. She has become an island of sanity in the stream of disinformation on social media and legacy media. Richardson observes that voters in a “swirl of disinformation” voted for something they do not expect. In fact we elected an autocrat with eyes on dismantling our institutions that protect our democracy.
On this Veteran’s Day, how can I go to my father’s memory – a man who fought in WWII as a B-29 pilot and then came back to our democracy and served for another 22 years as an Air Force officer – now that we just threw away the country, the democracy, for which he risked his life and defended at great risk against autocracies that threatened the world?
We lost our democracy on November 5, 2024.
The truth is that Kamala Harris ran a strongly democratic campaign in a centrist coalition which gained Republicans, independents, and a diverse electorate in the belief that a majority of people with agency, doing the best for as many as possible, can continue a lasting, democracy. [This is a paraphrase from Heather Cox Richardson.]
This, then, is my tribute to all the Veterans – to the memory of my father, Edward B. Feathers, Colonel, US Air Force and recipient of the Air Medal of the Army Air Corp (now the Air Force)- who risked their lives in defense of democracy as did Veterans throughout our history.I pledge to you to devote what is left of my life to gain back the democracy we have lost.
My sources of inspiration are men and women who have graced our world by writing or painting or creating soliliques about nature, about the land, about the nonhuman existence. Trees, bears, bugs, soil, water in all its forms. The human, with our species ability to think, rarely understands how thought stands between the experience of being alive and the life of the mind.
Thought can stand between wonder and the mind – our political constructs a recent example. I have to relearn this periodically. Nature is an endless well of creativity and joy and the font from which the best thoughts arose when our species had ready and more intact nature for inspiration.
People can be wells of beauty, too. Think on a little child and the wonderment in his eyes…before thoughts circumvent that pure sense of wonderment into an altered form of itself. The people whom I turn to for inspiration go to nature often and some eventually return to a life in the wood.
Aspen grove by cabin – Frank Waters Foundation
Somewhere in “there” we might reside in joy and be a part of a constructed world. We would need to rethink almost everything about modern Western culture that places a dollar value on everything. Everything.
I came to believe that what is on the news, the fear-saturated society in which we have become experts at scaring the s**t out of ourselves, is real. Then, I go to the trees or the mountains and step into wonder and commune with them. I had forgotten we are not in a political jail without a get-out-of- jail free card. My God, I got sucked down that well of artificiality, again!
It’s not that I step completely away from our self-made social terribles, but only that I remember what is real, where my soul resides, and how to stay sane when the world we’ve made becomes insane, as it has in my country now. We got here because so many of us believed a contructed image, a constructed reality that is anything but real. Because of that, we have lost our minds.
I step toward beauty. I step toward love and communion as one of God’s beings on a vast and beautiful planet spinning in a universe more awesome than we can ever conceive. I understand that I do not understand.
Susan Feathers 