Giving Thanks

This is the time of year when families and friends gather to share memories, favorite foods and think about the upcoming holidays and the new year. Many also look back and see what they can be thankful for, in keeping with the spirit of the holiday. Of course, I have many reasons personally to be grateful, but I think I also have some thanks to say to others in the public eye.

In writing this, I am so not ignoring the fact that some in the world are starving, homeless, or otherwise destitute. However, this is a column about Thanks, sorta.

This week Israel and Hamas agreed to a four-day truce, hostage and prisoner release. It has taken six weeks for diplomats from many nations to make this happen, as there are a lot of moving pieces. However, during these six weeks, far too many additional casualties occurred. I am thankful the bombing is stopped for now.

Tonight, I learned that the terrorist group Hamas released an American hostage they had captured. She was a little girl who just turned four and was just slightly older than my granddaughter. They killed her father, who was shielding her when she was captured. I cannot imagine the grief her family experienced, nor understand the horrors she endured. I do not know how, as a three-year-old, she could possibly process this atrocity.

Yet, I give thanks, she is now safe. Thanks to that, for a few days at least, diplomats did what they do best. Talk, compromise, concede, argue, and eventually broker a truce. A truce, however tenuous, that might save some lives. Yet, there is cruelty here also, as only women and children are being released. Mothers of teenage sons have little joy. There was deliberate cruelty in the raid, as most of those killed and captured were civilians, celebrating a holiday, not military personnel. Again, society long ago set up some allowable criteria, some Rules of War, so to speak, that demand that civilian populations not be targets.

It is just a tiny thanks, that this is now being considered.

I am thankful that the truce has allowed food, fuel, and medicines to again get into Gaza. I fear that in many cases it is too little, too late. Too often civilians are collateral damage in war. Since the population of Gaza skews quite young, the young are especially vulnerable. I note that the world is speaking out against this style of warfare; that non-combatants caught during a war, they neither allowed nor took part in, should not be targets because they just have nowhere to go. Gaza is not like Ukraine, where civilians were also targeted, but there, at least, most had some way to fee the violence.

I worry that disease will follow in the upcoming weeks, as winter approaches without clean water or safe sewage, and the inability to create the necessary public infrastructure that could fix this. I hear some are encouraging the oil rich Gulf states to pledge to address these concerns in the absence of a government in Gaza. This would be good news, if accurate. Repairs could take decades in the absence of an organized ruling authority. For far too long, people said “two-state solution”, but did nothing to make it happen. This long-delayed resolution cannot happen overnight. But if these horrors can make it start to move toward a just resolution, I will be thankful.

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And, in moving on from discussions of War to Politics, I can thank the Economist for an exceptionally clear-eyed view of the GOP front-runner in the 2024 Presidential race in their annual outlook (November 18-24^th issue) for the upcoming year. I paraphrase below.

“But a second term would be different (for DJT), because the world has changed…. No wonder the thought of a second DJT term fills the world's parliaments and boardrooms with despair; but despair is not a plan. It is past time to impose order on anxiety.

The greatest threat Trump poses is to his own country. In pursuing his enemies, Trump will wage war on any institution that stands in his way, including the courts and the Department of Justice.

However, his lust for a deal and his sense of American interests are unconstrained by reality and unanchored by values.

A second Trump term would be a watershed in a way the first was not. Victory would confirm his most destructive instincts about power….his plans would encounter less resistance. Because America elected him, its moral authority would decline.”

I am thankful that this challenge to the voters of America has been issued. The question is still outstanding – will Americans vote either for President Biden or against DJT? Will voters stay away on Election Day or show up to preserve our democracy? Do we really wish to elect an aggrieved and petulant child-man, now inundated with 91 indictments who surrounds himself with sycophants and conspiracy theorists, with power grabbers who embrace authoritarianism? Do we really want to elect a president who borrows from Nazi speakers when choosing his stump speeches – or is it his speech writers who are trying to channel them? Don’t know, don’t care; either way, the ideas are harmful and dangerous, chosen to divide and conquer, and need to be dispensed with ASAP.

What are you thankful for?

“Til next week-Peace!

Rosalynn Carter Dies at 96

 

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who had dementia, died today at the age of 96. She and former President Jimmy Carter were married in 1946 and were the longest married presidential couple. They were indeed a team as they campaigned together, strategized together, and shared his presidency. She took her role on as a First Lady seriously, walking from her residence to her office with a briefcase of projects. Although criticized for doing so, she frequently attended Cabinet meetings, where she sometimes picked upon subtleties missed by her more trusting husband. She was fiercely loyal and her husband's friend and companion for over 70 years.

Sometimes people today forget that Carter was an underdog in his presidential campaign; some people laughed at the idea of a Southern peanut farmer, even though he was an elected governor of Georgia, running for that high office. Rosalyn made over 40 campaign stops on his behalf during that improbable, but ultimately successful, quest for office. His race was close against Gerald Ford as he won with 51% of the vote to Ford's 48% and gathered 297 Electoral College votes.

Once her husband was in office, Rosalyn took on mental health issues and advocated for insurance coverage of mental health diagnoses, which at that time were often minimal or excluded. Mental health care in was abysmal in many state institutions, and better care in private hospitals was often only for the wealthy. She served as an unofficial member of the Presidents Commission on Mental Health and lobbied for the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, which was eventually shelved by his successor, Reagan. Even after they left office, she continued her advocacy, working to de-stigmatize mental health issues so patients would free it safe to seek treatment. As she aged herself, she became an advocate for those who had dementia or Alzheimer’s. She wrote a book in 2010, Within Our Reach, Ending the Mental Health Crisis. (Over her long career, she wrote and published over 25 books.) In this book she described a failed mental health system with many of the same failures she had noted when attending hearings back in the late 1970s. And, although acknowledging that improvements with medications and other treatments have happened, there is much work still to be done. Around that time, I was lucky enough to attend a speech she made about the findings in this book. She was quiet, forceful, and precise in the ideas she presented. Rosalynn wanted to demand action, but she was not one to stamp her foot or pound the podium on stage. She quietly asserted what she knew should be done. A few short years later, she celebrated some small victories with several mental health changes included in the ACA or Obamacare legislation.

She was a quiet southern style feminist, but had a steel core to her person. She worked tirelessly for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, but that option failed to gather enough state votes to pass.

They credit her with the suggestion to President Carter that he invite Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt to Camp David, where they eventually signed a Peace Treaty in 1978.

After their election loss in a landslide by Ronald Reagan, the Carters reinvented their role in life, as builders for Habitat for Humanity, election watchers, and health campaigns against Guinea Worm in Africa, to mention only a few. They also established the Carter Center, whose mission is stated as a Non-governmental Organization (NGO that helps to improve lives by resolving conflicts, advancing democracy, and preventing diseases.

Tributes have been pouring in all day to celebrate the life of Rosalynn Carter. I can only agree with all of them as they celebrate a woman of quiet resolve and service to her country, her husband, and the world.

Thanks, Rosalynn.

“Til next week – Peace!

The Voters Speak!

 

One of the best things about a democracy is when we listen to what the voters say, freely and fairly without coercion in election after election. In autocracies, voters may have a chance to vote, but no one really cares as the results are preordained.

That is why I was so happy to see the results this week from a special election in Ohio and a statewide contest in Virginia. True to form, Republicans in both states tried to place their thumbs on the theoretical scales as they purged voters from allowable lists close to election day. Ohio went even further. Once citizens had petitioned the abortion measure onto the ballot, they tried to change the rules, and in the middle of a hot summer called a special election to change acceptance from a simple majority to 60%. An extraordinary effort by women’s groups and others, along with millions of dollars, defeated this measure in that election by 57% to 43%. But - wait- just like those bad TV commercials, wait there are more dirty tricks to be played. The Ohio Secretary of State experimented with the wording of the ballot measure to make it read opposite to what it should have said. The Governor of Ohio, and his wife, cut an ad against the constitutional measure claiming that it would allow abortion up to the time of birth, a blatant falsehood.

Although I tend toward being an idealist, I would like to believe that issues such as ballot measures enhance our democracy. Some states are now trying to curtail these measures.

Despite all the dirty tricks, bad wording, and lies, the voters saw right through them and approved the Constitutional issue this past week with a margin (56.6%) similar to that from the summer. No matter what some politicians think, voters are not dumb. They do not live in a Wonderland where ‘up’ means ‘down’ and ‘no’ means ‘yes’!

Virginia was a different story. Two years ago. then Candidate Glenn Youngkin propelled himself into the Governor's office with a campaign of demagogues, parents' rights, anti CRT and more. He stayed away from the MAGA crowd, presenting himself as a gentler, kinder candidate. He also stayed away from the abortion issue, until he was caught on an open mike saying he could not go public on that until after the election.

Once elected, he was no longer the gentle giant, but a leader who set up a hotline to rat out teachers, supported book banning, replacing elected school boards, and attacked trans policy. The legislative election this year was the first time he had a chance to redo the state legislature. He had a divided power structure and wanted both houses under his Republican Party so he could enact his proposed 15-week abortion ban. (Virginia is the last state in the South with abortion rights.)

The two parties ran ads from parallel universes. Republicans emphasized rampant crime in the streets, claimed Democrats wanted to defund the police (So last year!) and would not prosecute crime.

Democrats claimed Republicans would take away a woman's ’right to choose’

Once the voters had their say, Democrats controlled both Houses of the State Legislature and abortion rights again seemed safe in the state. Rumors that were murmured about Youngkin stepping into the 2024 race as a consensus candidate, as soon as his victory was complete, disappeared.

Elsewhere in the US, Moms for Liberty ran for office; all but one lost their contests.

Tuesday was a good day for Democracy.

Do you Remember

Fifteen years ago, this weekend? In November 2008, Americans elected Barack Obama as our President. I stood with friends and laughed and cried and hugged others. Many of us had worked so hard for months to see this day. We had endured abuse when we made phone calls and sometimes found others who agreed with us. We were ready for hope and change and were eager to see a new era of politics on the horizon.

As the young family stood on that stage in Chicago, we, along with millions of others, applauded the words we heard that night and those we listened to during the campaign.

For many of us, the journey started on a stage in Boston at the Democratic Convention in 2004 when a young orator took to the stage and spoke of his views for America. How there was no red America or blue America but a red white and blue America that brought together all of us as the United States of America.

Here is an excerpt from that frequently quoted speech:

“Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

Many did not accept those words, true as they were, even those who claimed to be patriots. Some, because they were spoken by a young black man, even as he noted, with a funny name. Others would use that “funny name” later to question his citizenship and deride his leadership.

But for many, those words brought them to his campaign when he announced on a wintry day in Illinois years later. Volunteers came; young and old, women, and men, black, white, Hispanic. Asian, and more. Immigrants who were first generation saw someone who knew them. Gay, straight, bi, and trans members were welcomed into the fold. We did everything campaigns usually do and more. Even now, fifteen years later, I still have friends from those days.

We wanted to make America better. And, if you looked at our cross-section of America, you knew we believed we could do so. We wanted a leader who could inspire, who could call us to our better selves, who could bring us together. I won’t recap the 8 years of Obamas’ presidency. We were there. Some critics say the actions did not match the rhetoric. But we have the Affordable Care Act, imperfect as it was, which pulled millions into the healthcare networks, despite years of lies and lobbying against it. Remember Sarah Palin and her Death Panels? Remember also Mitch McConnell, on the day of Obama's inauguration, pulling together a coalition of Republican forces to fight everything he tried to accomplish? And, of course, we cannot forget the idiocy of the birther campaigns or the savagery of the Tea Party movement, all based on lies.

Now, 15 years later, we are looking at a presidential year in 2024. We have candidates who do not inspire, but try to instill fear. Fear of the other, the foreigner, the immigrant, “the gays”.  There is a former president who vows to take names and punish enemies and presents himself both as a martyr and a retribution for all wrongs. We have a new Speaker in the House of Representatives who claims we do not have a democracy but a Christian republic.

Heather Cox Richardson describes his thinking in part: <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com>

“Johnson rejects the separation of church and state in our government, saying that the framers’ idea “clearly did not mean…to keep religion from influencing issues of civil government. To the contrary, it was meant to keep the federal government from impeding the religious practice of citizens. The Founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.”

America is a country with many religions. According to Statistica, 26% of the country is affiliated with no religion. If one adds all of the members of Christian religions together, about half of the country identifies as Christian. The remaining groups include Hindu, Mormon, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and others. So, for me, Christian nationalism just won’t fit this country.

Polls today claim that DJT, a man facing 91 indictments, is leading President Biden in several swing states. I certainly hope these stats change soon.

There is a ton of news this weekend, but I wanted to remind people of where we once were. Maybe our nation can again find hope and a belief in each other.

“Til next week, Peace!