history – Susan Feathers

Lest It Slip through Our Hands

There have been 9 generations of Americans since the ratification of the Constitution. Our form of federal governance has been discussed and amended by citizens over our Republic’s history as we labor together to create a more perfect union.

Over the last 80 years however, that “conversation” has gradually intensified until the present moment. The rule of law and civil rights are ignored. Corruption is flagrant. The treasure of America is being raided and spent without Congressional oversight.

Dark money has bored into the election system, causing candidates to find more substantial sources of funding to win a race. Citizens United, one of the most consequential Supreme Court rulings on the election system, has diminished the vote of the people. The rich and powerful have steadily gained greater influence.

The American citizen is the last and greatest bastion of our freedom and justice. But how do we become the kind of citizens who know how to wield power or identify its misuse by our representatives and administration?

I can only share my own experience to describe how I learned about my government and the roles a citizen plays to fulfill his or her obligation.

As a child and teen my parents led discussions at the dinner table about our nation’s history and, at times, of elections and why they voted for a candidate. Often, my mother and father diverged on candidates which was fun with spirited debates. This was how my sisters and I realized the nature of democracy: it is participatory.

In public school, we students learned how and why our form of government was established, and what rights are guaranteed and rules of order. Social studies and civics education was integrated into K-12 education. Debate clubs offered students instruction on how to defend ideas while learning to respectfully listen to opposing views. When Congress functions in this manner it is called bipartisanship. Compromise is the core.

Public institutions further reminded us about democratic behavior. Churches, clubs, libraries, museums, and public leaders across many disciplines modeled how we treat and care for each other as citizens and neighbors. Standards of moral behavior kept the Republic steady. No one is above the law in a democratic nation.

My parents and grandparents also supported our education with expectations we would apply ourselves to learn a body of facts and skills that prepared us to go out in the world. Then, there were generally accepted truths and facts shared by three TV channels. Diversity of thought and opinion were available in numerous print magazines and journals. People read books, journal articles, and local newspapers. We exchanged opinions face to face.

My parent’s love of reading was contagious. Biographies, literature, and poetry – culture from across the world – was brought to us as we read together or listened to discussions. I recall my father reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries out loud on a winter’s day around a roaring fire. How was this possible? There were no cell phones, no social media. And, in our small southern town in Tennessee, no business was open on Sunday. There was time and quietude. We were not wealthy or powerful people. Our relatives were farmers and skilled laborers. They all understood that dreams could be fulfilled with a good public education.

I do not expect that we could or would even wish to go back to those “slow” times, but maybe we might look back to understand how to raise up citizens who are curious, well read, and able to function as a living guardrail to keep our democracy fit and strong.

A key skill is the ability to discern when ideas that are opposed to a healthy functioning democracy rise up as they do from time to time. Today, American citizens can barely make heads from tails with an onslaught of disinformation and outright lies. AI enables citizens to create false videos to fool an electorate. We are all to blame for the mess we are in today.

Should we wish to keep our democracy, we must seriously confront these issues. Working locally to speak truth to power; to discipline ourselves to listen respectfully to ideas you may abhor. But listen we must.

We are the guardians of freedom, of liberty, lest we neglect our obligations and let it slip through our hands.

Capitol Building Rotunda, Photo by Susan Feathers

Food Security

… every day, 2,000 acres of farmland are lost to non-agricultural uses, many farms continue to lose topsoil at alarming rates; and one-third of America’s farmland may change hands in the next 15 years as aging landowners sell their properties. These trends jeopardize the future of agriculture and our environment. Farmland is essential for food production—the demand for which is expected to increase by 60% by 2050. But farmland is also essential for a wide array of ecosystem services on which our future depends.~ American Farmland Trust

The American Farmland Trust is where I first learned about the importance of land trusts as a means of conserving land for farming, forestry, and soil improvement. I was living in Bowling Green, Kentucky when I was learning about the organization and its goals. This was during the Pandemic years from 2019 – 2022. I was an avid supporter of Community Supported Farmers (CSF).

Land Trusts Help Young Farmers

My farm family was a young couple with a growing family. They supplied me and their subscribers with a beautiful box of fresh farm produce with occasional surprises like local jam or sauces. And during the Pandemic, this enterprising family delivered the produce to our door.

A land trust conserves farmland and leases it to farmers in long-term leases as long as they fulfill the terms of the lease. Some leases can be as long as 99 years and inheritable. With some, farmers can gain equity for buildings and equipment they invested in farming the land leased. This can be passed on to relatives. Land trust have formed to specifically address inequities such as farmable land being bought by industrial farming operations that drive up the cost of land. Young farmers wanting to do the right thing by the soil, water, and air often cannot find land they can afford to buy. A lease with a Land Trust makes it possible. Black Soil KY is an innovative agribusiness model.

No-Till Growers: the Innovators

Young farmers and entrepreneurs put together podcasts about regenerative, no-till farming. I helped them with a start up grant from the government to provide educational videos for farmers to learn the art and practice of regenerating their farmland or market gardens. Today, this is a nationally recognized nonprofit business: No-Till Growers.

During these heavy, Pandemic years, I found hope in Kentucky farmers, especially the young farmers. Most could not afford to buy land and thus joining a Land Trust allowed them to lease land long term and even gain equity on it should they wish to pass it on to relatives.

My mind was on fire with stories I could write about a quiet revolution happening on farms with dreamers regenerating the soil. The outcome? A novel! The Last Farm on Lovers Lane is complete and I am now looking for a publisher. Below is an excerpt, protected by copyright law. Read it here.

CHAPTER 1

Belle Patterson

I parked the truck in the shade of a sprawling sugar maple. The redolence of warm soil and spice of wild grasses filled the cab as I rolled down the window. On this day I would continue an experiment on a worn out field on my grandfather’s property. Two centuries of extractive farming had depleted our farmland of its natural soil diversity. Teaming up with my friend Janelle, we were conducting a 2-year capstone project to restore the soil.

Stowing the instruments of my trade in a tool belt – spade, sample bags, soil test kit, thermometer, syringe, and Draeger tube – I headed for the field with anticipation. Kneeling in the spongy soil near the first metal cylinder, I inserted a needle into the aperture on the lid to draw a sample of air and pump it into a Draeger tube to measure the gas concentrations, recording them in a field notebook. Knowing the relative amounts of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen, we could determine the health of the soil’s ecosystem. Next, I drove my spade into the dark loam for a sample. An earthworm oozed out.

“There you are earth-queen,” I whispered to the soil denizen. A drop of my sweat splashed onto its glistening skin causing the worm to contract and plunge out of sight. Small insects worried their bodies through the soil while a sow bug rumbled along my glove like an invertebrate Humvee. Under a hand lens, springtails were busy at life and ants went about their well-ordered societies. The soil community was reawakening.

Hours passed happily as I continued this process at each of the cylinders placed at intervals across the field. A flock of sparrows in the old maple chattered amicably. Engrossed in the process, I jumped when my flip phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Pops.

The Aberration of Pete Hegseth

Here is a man whose whole reason is funneled into killing people and blowing things up. His poses as a warrior, but a true warrior is constrained by ethics and a moral code.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense is constrained under U.S. law and military codes of conduct. These state to whom the power to enter a war resides, how wars are funded and who decides and how long that funding shall be provided. These are all vested in the Legislature (Congress) and are detailed in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution.

Every citizen should have a pocket Constitution to refer to for the proper functioning of our Republic. You can obtain free copies at libraries and voting centers and through nonprofits and U.S. agencies. We should all send a copy to Pete with the section highlighted.

But this is not what makes Pete immoral. He answers only to the President, not to the Constitution, i.e., congressional powers and oversight. Why these laws are in place is no more obvious than when the Executive (the President and his appointed Cabinet and staff) is unhinged. Donald Trump is also ignorant of Constitutional laws and regularly ignores them. He has been aided by a Supreme Court bent toward a powerful Executive Branch in a conspiracy of powers to override Congress.

Pete is one among many in the present fascist cabal that has taken over the American government and holds law abiding members and citizens hostage through sheer audacity and subterfuge. As a whole, this cabal is ignorant of our governance and history, and they operate with delusions of grandeur such as Pete’s posturing as a vicious, all-powerful warrior. His only guidelines are killing and blowing things up. He reminds me of little boys playing war on their bedrooms rugs, gunning down soldiers and throwing bombs to destroy combatants, vehicles and infrastructure. It is madness but it is happening at the highest levels of government in America!

The consequences have spread all over the world, destabilizing countries, fraying or breaking long-standing relationships among democracies. We are now risking the development of a third world war. The deadheads in the White House and the Pentagon envision a “golden age.” Their actions and illusions will create havoc, death, hatred, and loss of civilized order that so many have given their lives to protect over the ages.

Pete is a verified case. Donald Trump is an unhinged man. The Cabal is enabled by Republicans like Lindsey Graham who speaks out of both sides of his mouth as the wind blows. He is a traitor to the United States along with all who aide and abet these aberrant imposters who now control our government and unless we act decisively, our lives.

And have we now forgotten the Epstein files, the Ukrainian war to preserve a nation’s democracy? Lest we do, I am sharing a poem from Ukrainian Victor Kravchuk from his Substack.

https://substack.com/profile/130906845-viktor-kravchuk/note/c-222123213

Freedom, Nation’s Capitol. Photo by Susan L Feathers, 2013

This is the image of a true warrior for Freedom, Liberty, and decency.

They are Stealing Our History

The first steps taken by the incumbent regime sought to selectively erase American history:

Fired the national Archivist putting the national archives under the watch of the Secretary of State who also holds several other major offices for which he has no training; the minions of fascism bore away in the Archives like termites in channels and holes under no sunlight of public observance;
Deleted web pages of government agencies, replacing articles and documents to reflect a racist, white history and removing all they call “woke” (i.e. racial justice; the mistakes America has made at home and abroad as we have learned how to live up to the high ideals of a true democracy where truth is key; the most egregious are the removal of civil rights struggles over our history, and the multicultural nature of our population from our inception: a. erasure. deletion of language of human rights and therefore human dignity; b. lying about the truth [misinformation] thus disabling citizens of a shared history, shared reality; c. denigration and shaming as a way of instilling fear and removal or disempowerment);
Harassment and legal actions against America’s most prestigious universities in order to make Boards of Governance to bend to their will;
Attacking science institutions and ignoring the illegality of impoundment of funds authorized by Congress.
Harming the public and worldwide population by denial of climate change; removal climate change research and monitoring facilities and staffing; withdrawing from global climate and health agreements and initiatives.
Disempowering political opponents and the public through legal, social media, and law enforcement activities meant to shame and induce fear;
Abandonment of the government’s responsibility to the public to follow the laws and regulations of a democratic Republic through our federal, state and local laws.
Acting against longstanding policies that have created peace among nations with longstanding allies across the world.

I never thought this could happen in the United States of America, but it truly is and we in the fight of our lives to defeat the evil doers in the trump regime that seek to install a Christian nationalist autocracy with unelected fascist ideologues like Steven Miller supported by the Heritage Foundation.

I fault the Republican party which no longer can claim any legitimacy in our Republic, our democracy. They abrogated their claim to moral fortitude by selling out the American people for an ideology inconsistent with democratic values. Indeed, looking over its long pursuit to enslave Americans whom they have long deemed unequal to white Christian males, we have tolerated it long enough. We must turnover this vile, dark element and once and for all declare and reiterate the moral force of our founders’ vision with a new one for modern times including a public awareness of its duty to guard against despots and their sycophants and the utter corruption of wealth in our politics.

Photo by Susan Feathers. A ghost crab on Santa Rosa Island, Gulf Islands National Seashore: sands of quartz crystal washed to sea form barrier islands.

Any Grown-ups in the Room?

The hourly dismantling of the American Republic demands that grown-ups stand and exert their authority as citizens. Afterall, this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Since 2015, Donald J. Trump has intended to rid us of the rule of law. His principal tool has been obfuscation of fact, otherwise known as lies. The Heritage Foundation, which brought billions of dollars to elect Trump and crafted Project 2025, engaged Russell Vought as its principal writer. Later installed by Trump as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Vought is orchestrating the takeover and destruction of democracy at an unrelenting pace.

Because Trump doesn’t read or investigate, he is a stooge for powerful ideologues. A barrage of Executive Orders signed in the first quarter of his term were lifted directly from Project 2025. This plan cloaks itself in the language of patriotism and democratic values, while the intent is its opposite: the wholesale destruction of the guardrails in the Constitution to check executive power. Now that Trump et al have functionally dismantled or made ineffective federal agencies and branches of government, the intent is clear: empower the Executive to Install a new form of governance: authoritarian. All of it is unconstitutional. A raft of lawsuits in pursuit of these thieves has made some progress in holding back full scale implementation. However, a Supreme Court dominated by Trump nominees, is preventing just outcomes that are within the scope of a true Republic as shown in our history.

Onerous still is the outright rewriting of our history. This is accomplished on a large scale while the American public watches in shock. So preposterous in scope, the dismantling of historic buildings, art and information in our museums, National Archives, federal buildings, and even the architecture of the White House, has temporarily stunned Americans. Some make jokes about it, but Trump is dead serious. I imagine closets filled with cans of white paint and gold leaf off the Oval Office and a meandering president doing touch ups late at night. Its about image with Trump. But the people who made him president intend to take what is ours.

The most recent outrage is the announcement that there will be no national holiday commemorating the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. who advanced civil rights through faith and leadership, and built a powerful nonviolent movement that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Instead, we will celebrate the birthday of Donald the Trump.

One of the most tragic periods in recollection, history will not forget the mean intent and childish actions of a mentally dysfunctional leader installed by a party and minority electorate intent on imposing their warped, racist ideology on all the rest of us. We must resist! Citizens and courts are the last bastions of the Republic. Recall the warning of John Adams when asked the outcome of the Constitutional Congress. “You have a Republic, if you can keep it.”

To me this is the strongest statement of our shared responsibility to be ever vigilant and willing to defend the government that emerged from our founders best ideas. Now, as the jaws of injustice aim to rip asunder both the physical and ideological bulwarks of Freedom and Justice, we must stand up as adults and resist these forces that fool an unwary citizenry through lies and the theft of democratic language to mean its opposite.

Wherever each of us resides, we must be willing to speak truth to power, to correct lies and misleading language. Pick your battles, friends, for such is the multi-pronged attack on American laws, customs and values that there is plenty of room for everyone to choose their cause.

Make no mistake. These are dangerous people running our Republic. Free and fair elections are their next target. If we lose that battle, I fear it will harken the end of our democratic society.

Tolerate no fools. We must be the adults in the room. We must restore our liberties and place our trust in each other to do so justly.

https://open.substack.com/pub/anntelnaes/p/trump-dusting-off-the-old-playbook?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Update: Today’s Substack post from Heather Cox Richardson pay tribute to Rob Reiner and his wife by quoting from the film by Reiner, The American President.

In this clip, the American President speaks to an opponent about character and the requirement of the Office of President which depends of good character. In our current situation, this should be said to the current occupant of the White House Office of the President whose name I shall not utter for he has violated every aspect of character Americans have come to value in their President.

Eisenhower’s Warning and A National Security Plan at Odds with American Values and History

Below is a section of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech to the American people on January 17, 1961.

“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

“Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peace time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

On Friday, December 5, the Trump administration released its National Security Plan. Below is the summary. I juxtapose the two statements – one from a President upholding the alliance with NATO allies and the principles beneath that enduring plan to protect democratic governments against the rise of autocratic governments. It is clear that Trump’s plans are the later and in fact seek to destroy democracy as a form of governance in favor of autocratic rule and a transactional relationship with other governments based on financial advantages to the industrial/technology complex over liberty and rule of law.

This will not be accepted by the American public. This is NOT who we are. We are not perfect, but we have always held the values of freedom and rule of law as the basis for our governance and relationships across the world. I also cringe as the language which is clearly racist to its core. Very dangerous words.

WE MUST REJECT THESE IDEAS AND PLANS WHOLE CLOTH.

2025-National-Security-Strategy Download

Americans Under Assault

Well-fed people can enhance their dignity, their health and their learning capacity. Putting resources into social programs is not expenditure. It is investment. ~ Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

Tonight I opened a notice from the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore. This organization serves hundreds of thousands of people living in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Right now, 152,720 people in Southeastern Virginia are having trouble accessing fresh and nutritious food… ~ Christopher Tan, President and CEO of the Foodbank.

Today, I talked to a nonprofit customer of mine whose organization assists people experiencing homelessness or near eviction. She said the need was rising sharply as households are unable to pay the rising rental or mortgage payments. Families who never dreamed they’d be on the street are facing that possibility as the cost and availability of affordable housing rises out of reach.

Then I opened a letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center which has worked on behalf of a healthy environment for 40 years.

The streams and rivers that provide our drinking water. The air we breathe. The wild places and wildlife we love. The communities we call home, from the coast to the mountains. …Right now, they are all at risk. And amidst it all, we face a changing climate-one that’s intensifying our storms, eroding our beaches, and supercharging summers. ~ Southern Environmental Law Center

The current administration has cut back social and environmental programs intended for the betterment of the people, and ended policies all legally and constitutionally passed by the Congress of the USA. Legally, the Republicans have impounded funds delegated for the American people. By doing so, deaths have already occurred and suffering is growing among citizens in what was once a prosperous, strong democratic governing body which adhered to the principle that a democracy is rule by consent of the governed. But Trump and his despicable helpmates have damaged and intend to destroy democratic governance in our country.

Friends we are only in the first year of this destruction. Forces are being amassed in major cities and along borders to control the people, but its all in the name of cleaning up crime or getting rid of dangerous criminals. It is not.

Project 2025, conceived by the likes of Steve Miller and Russell Vought and the Heritage Foundation – supported by far right conservatives – intends to destroy democracy and replace it with autocratic rule.

It’s almost all in place. The only thing left to do is rise up en mass and break down the barriers and take back the country. That would be the start. Then the long but potentially powerful remaking of our democracy. This will be the project of generations.

Look around. The signs of suffering are everywhere.

Standing Up: Be a Citizen

For the first American citizens of a new democracy, people who had been “subjects of a monarchy” had to learn how to be a citizen. What did that mean? Require? In early American homes, taverns and gatherings, this was the topic. All agreed it meant something important. Something was required. Acting in another way meant being involved, and contributing to maintain the rights the democracy asserts belong to all of us. It is active, not reactionary.

A recent conversation between Heather Cox Richardson, American historian and author of Letters from An American Substack publication, and Joanne Freeman, Yale Professor of early American history, discussed the behavior of our current legislators. Richardson posed that their current behavior, with exceptions, overall is not about principles of democracy but rather about keeping their seat and about a consumer economy.

Listen here to their 20 minute discussion.

Questions: 1. Have we forgotten how to be a citizen and what is required? 2. Have our representatives forgotten what their role is in representing us and defending a democracy?

Richardson points out that around the 1980s our discourse and our representatives no longer shared a common understanding of what a democracy is and does. The original consensus shared by the majority of Americans regardless of party?

Richardson continues to conjecture that being a good citizen has changed from defending principles to defending political parties and a form of economic policy, to the point that the majority of us, including leaders, have lost sight of our responsibility as citizens.

Joanne Freeman believes we assumed that as we are going about our lives that the democracy would just hum along without our oversight, without our participation. Making money, following economic indicators, obtaining power through how much money you make have taken over our sense of the country to which we belong.

Richardson and Freeman both believe that we must regain self-empowerment in order to empower a government to protect and nourish the democracy.

Self-empowerment (self-actualization) leads to democracy empowerment when we come together to act for decency, right and wrong and stand together against oligarchy.

Self-actualization comes from values of behavior and action in a democratic society, self-improvement (hard work, education, and engagement with fellow citizens) to keep the conditions of freedom healthy and alive through collective action: stand up for principles whenever they are challenged.

What do you think?

Certain About Democracy

“In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I love this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt for its wisdom and emphasis that our government, our democracy, is no better and no worse than each of us.

My parents, born during the Depression, taught their daughters that being in a democracy requires us to do our part in exercising the rights of citizens. They were always engaged in voting, reading history and political analysis. Wherever we lived (we moved frequently as a military family), my parents joined a church community, showed up at PTA and school functions, and loved engaging with neighbors. Of course there was a web of relationships because TV was just three major channels, and Americans on the whole shared similar beliefs about democracy no matter their declared political party.

True Story: My great grandfather on my Dad’s side of the family tree was Andrew Jackson Feathers. He was a small farmer in East Tennessee and, according to Dad, a real raconteur of his village (Watauga). My Dad as a young boy accompanied Andy Jackson on his horse drawn wagon filled with fresh produce from his farm. They would stop at small markets in the hollers and hills in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. At each stop, there would be an ongoing discussion among locals about politics, economics and news of the day. Dad was an active listener and adopted the habit of engagement in his time and government.

Gatherings were common in my family. We entertained ourselves with lively discussions.

We need to think clearly about the elements of our current social structure on the family to federal levels. What was working in a time when we shared the basic beliefs about democratic governance sans party considerations?

It’s easy to grow sentimental about the “good old days” which of course were not good for many Americans. But, I think there was something very wholesome about America when we actually all agreed that democracy was a precious thing worthy of protection and the exercise of its basic principles.

National Constitution Center is a great source of civic education!

The Greatest Steal: American Liberty

“Sell not liberty to purchase power.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Freedom loving Americans feel the crumbling foundation of what generations of Americans strove to create and preserve: a republic founded on principles of freedom and fairness. A governance structure that protects the rights of everyone and works for the betterment of its people and people everywhere.

We are not a naive people yet even the most politically active citizen and public servant is in a state of shock as we watch the brazen violation of our laws to achieve another kind of society with autocratic governance. A nation not conceived in liberty but rather for control of the individual by the powerful.

There are no words to describe how I feel at this moment. It is like watching someone you love being drawn and quartered. Our collective screams and sobs are everywhere now as the full impact of destruction becomes apparent.

To listen to Donald Trump rant and rave, burble and goo, to witness his making a travesty of our seats of government, throw off and denigrate our allies and alliances bought with the blood of Americans, is simply a horror.

Behind him are the men and women doing the hacking and imprisoning: Steven Miller, Kristy Noem, Pam Bondi, and the king of it all, Russell Vought. Like automatons with weapons they bow and scrape in front of the menace while checking off their list of targets. Vought is the man behind the Project 2025, their Playbook of Terribles. Developed with the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 intends to create what it believes was the true America. But it has been corrupted with Christian Nationalism and white male supremacy and turns its blade to people it perceives as enemies and to the “other”.

There is only this now: rise and go forth and join the growing throngs of Americans willing to lay down their lives and livelihoods for Liberty. Rise and never rest until the whole lot of the MAGAs are removed. Then we must rebuild all that has been destroyed and with greater energy and purpose.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We know that now.