Letter to the Editor – Virginia Pilot

The following Letter was submitted to the Virginia Pilot on June 14. I recently moved to Virginia Beach and subscribe to the Pilot.

It is great to be back in a military town! Growing up in the Air Force, my sisters and I absorbed the pride and pomp of being an officer’s child. Dad flew bombers, the big guys (B48s and B52s). WWII took his crew over the Pacific during low-level bombing of Tokyo and Saipan. They survived—barely.

You might surmise that my dad was a gung-ho patriot, but you would be mistaken. He was a discerning man who thought for himself. War is never an answer but sometimes its all we get when not to go to war would imperil the nation.

If Dad were alive today, he would be alarmed that we are not paying attention to the forces of authoritarianism in our country and the world. This was how Hitler and Stalin got so far. People doubted that such men could rise to power. Some welcomed them thinking they were intelligent, bold men.

It’s a curious thing that people confuse strongmen with strong leadership. If I am not mistaken, these are two different creatures. The first acts as a centrifugal force, sucking minds to its ideology, the latter upholds the law and invokes the principles that we have agreed to live by.

Beware America. Don’t look to strong men but rather to strong leaders who remind us of our common pledge to uphold certain inalienable rights for every person. Each one of us voters signed up for it. We are a nation governed by laws and each of us is responsible for making sure this is a Republic for the people and by the people. Whoever we choose to represent us must abide by the laws that govern us.

Submitted on June 14, 2022 In Response to the January 6 Insurrection Commission

https://www.c-span.org/video/?520282-1/open-testimony-january-6-committee

mike-luttig-statement-to-house-select-committeeDownload

Photo by Susan Feathers

Beauty: Norfolk Botanical Garden

The Norfolk Botanical Garden history is rich with stories. Ground was broken in 1938 by 200 African American women and men using shovels to create a levee to create a lake, make gardens and trails and to establish a Garden out of a swamp. These men and women held generations of knowledge about soil and plant cultivation. The Garden has dedicated space to honor this original legacy. It has since grown into a 175-acre wonder. Read about the history here.

Many of the images are of hydrangea because my daughter who took me on a fascinating tour of the Garden is an artist studying pattern in this iconic flower. She has studied the history of Virginia over the decades she has lived here with her husband. As she pointed out, Virginia has produced the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Oprah Winfrey, and Booker T. Washington and Henrietta Lacks.

Visit the Norfolk Botanical Garden Website

Stories the Land Holds – Center for Humans and Nature

Click here to access stories curated by Christine Luckasavitch.

I highly recommend the Center for Humans and Nature to all readers. Find solace among great leaders and artists who are providing direction in troubled times.

These stories are from Indigenous nations. Stories heal and stories give us direction. Save this link to listen and return to remember.

Life is under assault because we do not understand that all our ways of being and doing must support life. Life is all. We have forgotten ancient wisdom. We are related to every form of life on Earth. Our kin. It might be a tiny moss or a giant tree, a bug or an elephant, a drop of rain or an ocean. We are all kin.

Remembering is healing.

A Prophet for All Seasons

This film about Aldo Leopold’s life and the development of his thinking about our relationship with land is a true gem. I could not find when it was created, however, the people interviewed are his biographers and scientists who knew and worked with Leopold. It was shown on Wisconsin Public TV. A special treat is narration by Lorne Greene best remembered as “Pa” on Bonanza.

The film gives viewers an in depth history about Aldo Leopold’s life and how his ideas about The Land Ethic evolved over his lifetime.

WATCH EARLY THIS YEAR TO SET YOUR COMPASS TOWARD TRUE NORTH.

The Land Ethic_A Sand County AlmanacDownload

Mothers Unite!

I am the mother of two wonderful human beings, my daughter Heather and son Tommy. As a septuagenarian I am in those latter years, still relatively healthy, and full of enthusiasm for life in general. Sure, there are plenty (a plethora) of worrisome forces at work in the world, poverty and war among the worst. But on this 2022 Mothers’ Day, I am reflecting on what I can do to help my country and my worldwide sisters and brothers in every nation to achieve harmony.

Starting the day as I usually do with Heather Cox Richardson‘s Letters to Americans, she told the true story of Mothers’ Day. Here. Heather is an American historian at Boston College. Letters is independent of her work at the college. Find it on substack.com where you can subscribe to receive it each morning. She puts current day political and social issues in an historical perspective.

Today, in thinking of Julia Ward Howe’s work on behalf of women to influence leaders to avoid war as a solution to conflict, I am calling on all my fellow mothers and mothering women to join together to bring our powers to stop the dissolution of women’s rights to privacy, to sovereignty over her own body. We are and can bring about a national and international outcry for a woman’s right to choose whether she will give birth to a child. It is unfathomable to me that this nation could be on the way to eliminating a fundamental right for women. It can only be from a hatred of women, of feminine forces that some men fear. Control of reproductive rights is a darkness of ages past.

I never thought I’d see this day. Born into a military family with a deep love for America, I revere my parents and their generation for making the world a fairer place, eliminating the dark forces that ravaged Europe. Those forces have emerged again in Russia, Hungary, Venezuela and other autocratic states, and in the U.S.A. in the Republican Party. Right wing forces have all but destroyed that party. Conservative moderates have always had my respect as a balance to more progressive thinking in Democrats. That of course was the America that talked to each other and listened respectfully. Slowly the forces of polarized thinking have chipped away at that fragile but necessary conversation.

We stand at a precipice with numerous winds blowing at our backs. Women today can converge to bring sanity back to this nation. Women of all ilk — political, religious, racial, gender identity, and ages — can and must wage peace and reason upon society, and lift our voices in every kind of place for truth and reason. I regard this moment in American history as a pivot point.

Everything is at stake: environment, health and wellness, sovereignty…

We will need to put away everything now to manage to save this nation from its path toward anarchy. Join hands. Protest, conjure, march, and do so without rage and anger but with moral force behind you and the ghosts of millions of mothers, women and girls who saw clearly that a democracy exists when women are empowered. Mothers Unite!

Women’s March Foundation May 14 Bans Of Our Bodies – find a march near you!

2022 National NOW Conference in July in Chicago – serious organizing

Guttmacher Institute Resources to Learn More about Ban on Abortion

History and Justice
Photo by Susan Feathers

New Audio Edition of On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder-A Must Listen

Today a new audio version of Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, originally published in 2017, is available on Audible . In this version of the book, Dr. Snyder speaks directly to the threat of Trump, his actions that spread misinformation and manipulate groups which are features of authoritarian leaders.

**At the end of reading the new version, Snyder continues to explain Ukrainian and Russian history to give readers in the U.S. a broader framework to understand why the Ukrainian fight for freedom is so important. He illustrates how the lessons in On Tyranny play out in the actions of Ukrainians. He goes further to gives vital lessons on Ukrainian and Russian history – his academic focus at Yale. Dr. Snyder is a distinguished historian at Yale University. Many of his public lectures on the roots of authoritarianism are on YouTube. This one is at Prose and Politics bookstore on the release of On Tyranny. Just search on YouTube and dozens of lectures will be available to you.

Get On Tyranny. It is a small (5″ by 5″), short exposition on 20 Lessons on Tyranny from the 20th century for all Americans to consider what we can do to strengthen democracy here in the U.S.A.

Together with a pocket constitution we will gain greater discernment of the complex political and social forces that swirl about us and act.

Photo by Susan Feathers

The Lorax, Collective Bargaining, and What’s the Economy For? – John Barry

One of my regular podcasts is The Best of Belfast. I love the Irish viewpoint which I suppose evolved from the lived experience of living under colonial rule for centuries. Today’s interview with John Barry, Professor at Queen’s University and Director of the Centre for Sustainability, Equality, and Climate Action at Queen’s.

This is a wise analysis of the climate emergency in the light of economic systems asking the key question, “What is the Economy For?” From there he explains the climate emergency as a moral issue.

It’s a ranging discussion with humor, books, and an Irish cultural immersion.

Here is the link to the interview:https://bestofbelfast.org/stories/john-barry-climate-activist

Link to book mentioned in the interview:

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy by Kelton, Stephanie