Susan Feathers

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.]

I highly recommend to Americans who voted for democracy to listen and relisten to this interview by Jon Stewart with Heather Cox Richardson to understand what was lost and how we might organize to restore democracy to the United States of America. It will be the long game.

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.

WWII Veteran, my father, Edward B. Feathers

The FDR era comes to an end. Bill McKibben, Substack

A Way Forward

Return to Beauty

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.

Walk in Wonder

John O’Donohue

Anam Cara

Photo by Susan Feathers

Requiem for America

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Mozart never finished the score to the Requiem mass. The story of how it was finally finished is a drama itself. See this history. **What is important here is that others picked up the mantle to finish it and ultimately this work was performed and now lives across the planet as hope in the face of death.

I leave this with readers who mourn the loss of our democratic principles in the election of Donald Trump and the rise of autocracy in the USA.

I am broken-hearted on this day, November 6, 2024. But, I will not yield to oppressive forces in my homeland. Our Constitution is truth manifest. These are times when Americans have faltered in their discernment of what the 2024 election means for the American experiment. God help us.

A Republic – If We Can Keep It

Benjamin Franklin’s famous response to Elizabeth Willing Powell at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, rings with great meaning today.

Our Republic’s integrity, its very existence, will be decided on this day in American history. Let’s ask Mrs. Powell’s question today.

Well, Dr. Franklin, what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?

Library of Congress

Photo by Susan Feathers

It is about the Constitution

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generations. John F. Kennedy

Will the peaceful transfer of power and the rule of law prevail in the United States of America?

Dear Readers, America is at the brink.

How a candidate more UNqualified to lead this nation, and a man who committed crimes against the country, when he incited an insurrection, EVER WAS PRESIDENT continues to baffle me.

Autocracy is a creeping malice that begins when Americans forget their obligation to think for themselves, to learn the truth and speak their minds about that truth. To be an American takes effort on everyone’s part.

It saddens me that in today’s America we have forced candidates to speak about what they will give us, what they will do for us. We no longer discuss what we should be collectively under the mantle of this great nation’s mandate: All people are created equal and leaders govern under the consent of the people. We have obligations and responsibilities to keep democracy strong, as well as having rights.

No one has said this better than a notable Republican Judge. Michael Luttig was appointed by George H.W. Bush and served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006. Here is the link to his recent Opinion in the New York Times. I encourage readers to take time to read it.

NY Times Opinion by the Honorable Micael Luttig

Concessions to a Dictator

Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny and most recently Freedom, offers a Substack message about the moguls and news agencies “Obeying in Advance” – in anticipation of a dictator coming to power.

See this video about the first step in the rise of tyranny.

It is the lowest form of behavior, to cower in the belief that a dictator will reek havoc on you and your business interests for your political position. That has made our nation smell very bad. Our body politic reeks of cowardice and self aggrandizement today as we witness the cowering of our news agencies and people with too much money and power, kneel to the dictator. We have not learned from the 20th Century which documents how Hilter and the Nazi movement came to power.

Jeff Bezos (billionaire owner of Amazon and The Washington Post) decided the paper will not endorse Kamala Harris as promised. In that, he has lent his endorsement to a dictator promising retribution, destruction of our democratic government, promises to support the rich and powerful, and head honcho for a right-wing, Christian nationalism movement building over the last decade with the emergence of a man not fit to be our President.

The Washington Post not endorsing Harris and Walz to remain neutral right when the nation teeters on the knife edge of tyranny is a massive error of judgement. Anticipation of retribution: what a cowardly lot you all are.

Americans, drink your coffee and stand in front of a mirror. Do you want to be ruled by powerful megawealthy and people who purport to care about you but don’t give a damn in reality?

Let them eat cake! Echoes from history are not whispering today, they are shouting! The news agencies turning their backs on you and your family to be “neutral” or to endorse a vindictive man with no regard for the American Republic, let alone understanding of what it is, will regret their action. History will record it. But there will be decades of suffering before it ends.

Adding this message from the Editor of the Guardian today, 10-26-24:

Patriotism or Nationalism?

Jon Meacham Goldman lecture at the Cullman Center

Begin at 5:13.

Sit with Yourself Before You Vote

Before you vote, sit with yourself in quietude – if possible. Think about which candidate represents your values. Which candidate has earned the right to lead a representative democracy based on consent of the governed, the rule of law, and the belief that no one is above the law?

Who shows the character and knowledge (experience) to represent us at home and abroad? Who is consistent in the values that govern their public life?

Who lifts people up? Who presents a positive vision of who we are and where our nation can go together? Who brings us together without putting people down? Finally, who would you bring home to meet your mother?

Actions speak louder than words. As President John Adams once famously wrote from the newly built White House: “I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.”

Our world is changing. Don’t miss the chance to be a part of assuring our nation continues on its long and hopeful path as the flagship of democracy.