Billions of dollars have spawned so many good things in the clean energy transition – almost on a daily basis – most people miss the daily announcements of billions of dollars invested in business, communities and private citizens…lost in the drone and rancor of political news.
Due to the hard work of the Biden-Harris Administration and partners in many sectors of our society, America is deep into the transition!!
Volts Podcast on Substack is one of the most reliabe reporting sources in media today on the clean energy transition in the U.S. David Roberts, the host, interviews Costa Samaras, Chief Advisor for the White House Office of Science and Technology about where we are now on the clean energy transition.
Industrial supply chain, labor and widespread planning are next. Utilities that are ready for electrification is next on the trail to a clean, cheap energy society.
We must recognize the danger and come together as an electorate.
U.S. Capitol Building photo by Susan Feathers
The Nature of This Election
There is an important misunderstanding among many of us about the nature of this Presidential election. Normally, the debates bring to the voter’s attention the policies of their respective political party which form a Presidential platform of ideas and legislation for voters to consider and then vote.
Instead, the Far Right is proposing a new form of Govenment.
This so-called Republican party openly endorses Putin and Ormand as examples of leadership they admire. The Far Right plans to end democracy and replace it with an autocracy. HELLO?
In any other time, the American public would be appalled and alarmed. But today a large segment of the American voting public has become desensitized to violent rhetoric, racist comments, and threats to change our government. Fear is the undelying force among supporters of the Far Right, which is against many things but not for what most American’s want.
Our public is asleep and/or hoodwinked by manipulative leadersand media.
Our common reality is that we have a clear and present danger in Donald Trump and the so-called Republicans. THEY MUST NOT GET INTO OFFICE
It will take all of us who love democracy and wish our country to continue as it has been for nearly 250 years (under both Democrats and Republicans) to assure Donald Trump and an authoritarian, nationalist political movement will not destroy our Republic.
We will have to show heretofore devotion to democracy as our form of government by voting for a ticket you might not normally endorse.
However, if you look closely, with a non-partisan eye, it might not be too far from your own views and hopes for the future. President Biden’s policies are focused on the best interests of all voters with programs to strengthen the middle class worker. Our economy rebounded from the Pandemic under Biden’s leadership and is top in the world in growth and low inflation. Business is booming and job creation at record levels.
Biden’s administration has made major investments in familes, industry and small business, and in the safety of our population and the world through climate change investments in business, science, and health and wellbeing.
The next five months before the election we must gather together and determine that our country’s democratic way of life will be sustained by electing a leader who has proven to be a guardian of democracy.
Eligible voters must vote. Support candidates for democracy in other states. Volunteer with a legitimate party organization.
Volunteer at election precincts to assure fair voting.
Correct misinformation wherever you hear it or from anyone you know.
Anti-Trump Republicans and undecided or Independent voters must vote for the Democratic ticket eventhough you may favor Republican policies or other forms of democratic governance.
After the election, if we somehow make the curve and preserve democracy, a new party of conservative values, or whatever is determined as its policies will need to be formed to assure a well-functioning government where a healthy debate about policies can be reestablished.
We can then all work together to secure a future for our children and coming generations in an increasingly warming world.
We must keep working with the world community on climate mitigation, peace and justice, and the health of democracies across the planet. You can do this effectively as a Democrat, Republican or Independent when you live in a vibrant democracy. Recognize that the Far Right is masquerading as Republians but they are not; they are autocrats.
Justices Sotomayor and Barrett discuss civic engagement, trust in public insitutions, polarization, and community as the locus for civic actions.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor began the iCivics program when she observed that the American public did not know basic information about the three branches of government and their functions, i.e. how each functions to check power being centered in any one branch. They discuss how the Supreme Court Justices manage discussing and making decisions when there are conflicting perspectives and how in general the Court manages their relationships as friends and colleagues. We can learn much from this discussion at this point in American history.
A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, ‘although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,’ wrote Orwell, tends to be ‘uninterested in what happens in the real world.’ Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism ‘has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.’ A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”
Dr. Snyder’s book, On Tyranny, is pocket-sized for a reason. It’s meant as a guide and inspiration to discern antidemocratic forms and pundits while taking action to defend our Republic and democracies everywhere.
Photo by Susan Feathers
Biden’s State of the Union Address
It infuriates me to listen to news commentators pick apart President Biden’s State of the Union Address as partisan. It was not. Biden’s first call for action addressed the assualt on our freedom and democracy. He shined a light on the Republican Party which seeks to destroy democracy – to weaken the Republic – to install a strong man, nationalist govenment. Biden is sounding an alarm, not promoting himself. Everyone of us should be echoing that charge!
We are a society of many religions, genders, and we all have immigrant origins. This vision emanates from the Founder’s vision for a new kind of government. For nearly 250 years the U.S.A. has been striving to achieve that vision.
We are not a nation of one religion, one dictator who makes decisions for us. To claims that nationalism is easier, I wonder how Republicans might react to their personal freedoms being taken away because one man decides to take it. Women on both sides of the political spectrum felt that when a law of the land for reproductive freedom was dramatically ended, after half a century of their god given right to make decisions about their own body. And the assault continues as the right to contraceptives is being threatened.
There are signs everywhere that nationalistic forces are pressing down on Liberty. We must stay vigilant and everyone who cares about American liberty must show up at the polls to vote, and bring along several people with them.
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?
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Susan Feathers 