On November 17th Becky would have been 72. But breast cancer claimed her on June 9th, 2012, less than a week before our 36th anniversary. The significance of that fact was lost on me for years. June 9th left me with indelible memories that I can recall clearly at any time. My memory has never been great, but the two years preceding Becky’s death are more clearly inscribed in the clay of my mind than most of the rest of my life.
Throughout our years together, Becky worked to make the world a better place. And for those she knew and served, she did just that. She could feel others pain, knew where it came from, and did what she could to relieve their suffering. She showed me what caring, dedication meant. Because of her, I grew more aware, imperfectly, of the unique paths each of us travel.
I often think of Becky. I have pictures of her scattered around the house. One of my favorites is of her by the pond in Monet’s garden. We would make a pilgrimage to Giverny and Monet’s house every few years. She loved the garden and how it changed with the seasons. Becky wasn’t perfect. She had her seasons too. I prefer to remember her in Monet’s garden.
The years following her death have been a mixture of frenetic activity, unconsciously trying to avoid remembering, followed by deep introspection, which revealed to me my failures as a friend, lover, and life partner. It was and continues to be a humbling experience. There were many times that I could have been more patient, understanding, and supportive; more loving.
This is a stage of grief called Regret. It is a blessing. Where the pain of remembrance is the most intense is where I see most clearly how to improve my relationships with others. After awhile, I began to understand that the past is the past. It can not be undone. But, it does not need to repeat.
Time heals all wounds. That is true, but it has left scars to help me remember.
So nine years after her death, through my regrets, Becky continues to guide me towards being a better person.
Every year of my life is precious and growing more so. Yet, those years with Becky are the most precious.
After years of droughts, fires, floods, diseases, and the humanitarian crisis at our southern border, Americans are beginning to understand that Global Warming is real and all around us. This year, hurricanes in the Gulf and along the East Coast, forest fires in the West, and record rainfall are presenting us with yet more lessons that cannot be ignored. Man-made global warming is taking our nation apart piece by piece, destroying our nation’s infrastructure, the bone and sinew of our culture, faster than we can replace it.
If the climate emergency were a movie, then this decade has been the promo. Unfortunately, this crisis is real and all of us are directly affected either with the loss of homes, livelihoods, and security, or by scarcity of goods and services, inflation, and worry. Our entire nation is feeling the emotional strain that uncertainty brings. This stress causes illnesses such as heart disease, addiction, violence, and suicide. It destroys the fabric of a person’s life, infects their family and community, and ultimately weakens our nation.
These conditions are getting worse, faster than many thought possible. And it’s happening around the world. It is happening here. Some areas will suffer more than others but all of us will feel pain. The climate emergency is global and local, there are no safe havens.
Science has been warning us for almost 50 years that our actions have the power to alter our climate, resulting in world-wide disruption and hardship. Science has also provided ample evidence about the cause, greenhouse gases (GHGs) that trap heat in our atmosphere, part of which is absorbed in our seas and land. These gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are the products of burning fossil fuels, coal, gas, and oil. Recently, carbon-based bio-fuels have been added to this list. Science has clearly shown us that we must quickly stop the use of fossil and carbon-based fuels and, in the case of fossil fuels, leave them in the ground. This will lessen the severity of the crisis while we implement more farseeing solutions that will return us to a more stable climate.
That is, if we have the will to unite and act aggressively to make our society sustainable and compatible with the processes of the natural world. It is a massive, long-term mission that will take generations. It will need a financial commitment equal to the effort required.
The climate emergency impacts all aspects of our lives. We must deal with both the causes and the consequences of our addiction to fossil and carbon-based fuels. Science and technology can provide the tools for mitigating GHGs. But that is only one part of our crisis. The other is how to handle the massive disruption to our society caused by climate change and the dislocation caused by the actions that must be taken. Do we turn our backs on the growing numbers of Americans cast adrift when they lose their homes and communities? Do we look away from the people whose jobs will disappear as we build a new sustainable society? Can we trust business-as-usual Capitalism to heal our society? No, we can’t. We are in this situation due to, in part, fundamental failures of our economic system. This emergency requires a holistic approach where the focus is on protecting people, removing GHGs and pollution, and transforming the US into a viable society.
Any of us could become a climate refugee. After the fires and the smoke clears revealing a blackened landscape or, the wind and rain stop and the land is now under water, what options does a person have? A day earlier they had a home, job, and membership in a community. They had purpose and identity. Then in only a few hours they are transformed into a displaced person, adrift and suffering from emotional trauma.
This year, across the US, Americans have been reduced to climate refugees. Our entire nation has become a disaster zone in one form or another. No place is safe. Try to imagine what others are going through. All your possessions are gone. You’re living in temporary housing, perhaps with family or friends, or a school gymnasium, tent city, motel, or FEMA trailer. You are isolated because power and communications have been destroyed. You can’t access your bank account or credit cards, so you rely on the efforts of volunteers and people across the country to provide food, clothes, and shelter. You are left with daunting questions. Where do you try to rebuild your life and future? Do you stay or go? Regardless, recovery will be hard.
For the rest of us who have been lucky enough to be spared from these disasters, we too have a life changing question to answer. What do we do? Do we continue what we’ve done in the past, provide aid and comfort piecemeal while we proceed business-as-usual? Or do we act to end the worsening cycle of destruction? To do nothing leads to our assured destruction while choosing to work together provides us hope and a path towards a more sustainable future. It won’t be easy but it is doable.
What do we do? There are two simultaneous paths we need to follow. The first, which we are very good at, is to build stuff, like an alternative energy network that is far less vulnerable to disruption. And, to clean up the immense amount of existing pollution which we continue to generate. The second, is to build a robust Human Infrastructure, social safety-net, that provides support for all Americans through these turbulent times. A key to our survival is creating and maintaining a stable society. The fragmentation of our society by racism and greed undermines our efforts. Business-as-usual would choose the use of force as a solution but history has shown that violence crushes progress, ultimately failing while making the situation worse. However, the Human Infrastructure plan would address these centuries-old racial and social injustices.
Human Infrastructure provides a more equitable, just, and long-term result. We have neglected many Americans, failing to provide them the educational, economical, medical, and social support that is required to participate in the American Dream. The expansion of existing programs and the creation of others to address the unique challenges facing us is essential. Healing our nation is critical to healing our climate. The US is becoming a disaster zone. It isn’t unreasonable to say that many American families will suffer significant loss because of climate change. We would be wise to consider Biden’s Build Back Better Plan as a down payment on an insurance policy for the US and our world.
We have few options left and doing nothing is not one of them. In the past, our leaders and others around the world have failed to meet this threat head-on, preferring inaction and half-measures. On September 23, 2019, Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate activist, stood before the United Nation’s Youth Climate Conference and excoriated the attending world’s leaders for their complete abdication of their responsibilities to deal with global warming. As she said, “How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and childhood.” [1]
The COP26 climate conference has, once again, been long on promises but short on hard and fast deliverables. The wealthy nations continue to promise financial aid to poorer, less developed countries, but have failed to make good on previous pledges. Even at the end of the conference, the vested financial interests of certain nations, including Australia, China, India, Russia and the US take precedence over Global Warming. The fossil fuel industry has defeated meaningful actions such as the phasing-out the use of coal and setting strict limits on GHG emissions. “The U.N. climate talks ended in Glasgow with nothing decided that would slow greenhouse gas emissions through 2030. One activist declared ‘the whole system is broken.’ ”. [2]
The challenges we face today are varied and complex. They cannot be solved with business-as-usual thinking, which unfortunately is what is being offered. Nor can traditional economic assumptions provide the foundation needed to adapt to the new world that is materializing around us. If we are to survive as a nation and as a species, we must act bravely, decisively, to confront the disaster we have created.
How did we get to this point? Since the 1970s, Scientists and Activists have been raising the alarm more and more urgently as research exposed the growing threat. At the same time the fossil fuel industry began a deadly campaign of misinformation and lies to block critical action. [3] They pushed for more exploration, drilling and mining to maximize their profits. All the time, they knew what they were doing and that the long-term effects would be catastrophic. Others like the auto and financial industries ignored science and public action, preferring business as usual and higher profits. It is only in the last few years that the financial sector has started to factor in the tremendous risks that come with climate change. The entrenched auto industry, after decades of burying electric vehicle technology, has finally begun to produce electric cars. They’re just several of decades late.
We are not blameless. Each of us must share responsibility for where we are now. The industrialized world, particularly the US, is addicted to cheap energy and cheap goods. Witness the uproar around the rising cost of energy for transportation, power generation, and heating and the ripple effect on prices of goods. Many of us want to increase fossil fuel supplies to drive down prices. This only hides the problem. It sabotages our efforts to dramatically reduce our use of carbon-based fuels which are the heart of global warming.
We Americans want change but are unwilling to change ourselves. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. In this case, change won’t kill us but not changing will. We would be wise to turn toward speeding up the implementation of alternative power and adapting to our new world.
The cheap goods, energy, and services we want are based on a robber economy that ruthlessly chases profits and perpetual economic growth. The cost of extracting natural resources is reduced by ignoring the damage it causes to environment and people. Likewise, waste at a product’s end of life is ignored, thrown away, and transferred to taxpayers to pay the bill. The real cost of our prosperity is offloaded onto our environment in the form of pollution of the air, land, and water. The people that have borne the burden of this filthy practice are those least able to do anything about it; people of color, poor, disabled and elderly. These folks are the canaries in the coalmine where we all live.
The passing of the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill demonstrates that most Americans understand that our society, our economy, are woven together by physical systems that promote the Common Good. Roads, highways, bridges, state of the art communications, clean drinking water, and waste disposal keeps us connected and healthy. However, this is only a portion of our national infrastructure. Infrastructure Lite rebuilds and updates what we already have. It does not significantly move us forward in our fight for survival.
Build Back Better is the critical element needed to change the suicidal path we are on. If we want to mitigate the effects of global warming and if we want to build a healthy, just society, the only available option available is through the Build Back Better Bill.
In four days we complete our 2021, off-year election. The murder of George Floyd and systemic racism in the police have put Minneapolis on the world stage. Now, the world is watching to see how we Minneapolitans use our democratic freedoms to address the historic grievances of black Americans and other peoples of color. How we vote will be viewed as an indication of the strength of the American democracy.
Things don’t look good. Since 2016, that is no longer the case. Americans have been shocked by the Republican Party’s aggressiveness and blatant manipulation, disregard, of the truth. The attack on our democracy on January 6th and the ongoing disclosure of how Trump and Republicans have worked diligently for years to undermine our rights leaves us no doubt that our freedoms are in peril.
It is in this light that our election provides an example of the scope and power of our individual votes. There are three amendments on the ballot. Each touches a fundamental aspect of government that impacts all of us.
Question 1 asks where Minneapolitans want power to reside in our city government and changes the fundamental relationship between the Mayor and the City Council.
Minneapolis has an unusual government in that both Mayor and Council have equal powers. The amendment would reshape Minneapolis government into a federal model, with an executive Mayor, who sets goals and agenda, and a legislative Council that, handles implementation through laws and regulations. This has ramifications for the other two amendments.
Question 2 asks if we want to move from a traditional Police Department to a Department of Public Safety.
This would redefine the nature of policing, making it an integrated part of a larger department that approaches crime and safety as a public health issue. Currently, Police are asked to respond to situations for which they are not trained. This frequently leads to confrontations between the officers, the individual and the community. The Public Safety Department would provide crisis intervention social services of which policing is but one. This approach would reduce the number of calls police would respond to, freeing them to focus on the situations they are trained for, and lessening the potential for community conflict. Gradually, both police and our communities will learn to trust each other, leading to healthier relations between the two. This will improve the quality of services provided when police are required.
Question 3 asks if we want to implement rent control as part of a plan to increase affordable housing.
This question goes to the heart of the economics of rental property. How do we provide affordable housing for all Minneapolitans? New housing in Minneapolis like other cities is in the hands of developers and corporate investors whose aim is to make as much money as possible on their investment. The result is that new rental housing is too expensive for most working families, retirees, poor and disabled, regardless of race or ethnicity. This also drives up the rentals of existing units further worsening the problem. And all the time, housing gets less affordable for most Minneapolitans. Thus, we vote to determine how best to serve the common good.
So, in a single local election, we are given the opportunity to make fundamental changes to our city government’s structure and distribution of power; create a new definition for Public Safety and the role of the police; and promote affordable housing for the poor and people of modest income by moderating the power of developers, investors, and corporate owners. For now, all Minneapolitans can express themselves by voting on these weighty, contentious issues that can transform their lives. This is what democracy is all about.
This coming vote is unique and precious. There is a strong possibility that, across the nation, the Republican Party will find ways to contest the results of our local and state elections, attempting to sow confusion and doubt, not to mention change the results.
The mid-term election in 2022 will not be free. Republicans[1] have full control of both the Executive and Legislative branches in 23 states, and full control of 30 state legislatures while Democrats have 15 and 18 respectively.
This year there has been a concentrated, nation-wide effort to restrict voting. There have been 425 bills containing restrictive provisions introduced in 49 states. Of these, 19 Republican dominated states have passed 33 bills to restrict voting. Most erect obstructions to voting, such as limiting days and hours available for early voting, reducing the number of polling places, and such. However, 4 states, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas have gone much further, giving their legislatures or government departments the power to intercede and determine the results of elections. In effect, allowing them to ignore the will of the voters. [2]
While the Republicans have been trying to strangle democracy, 25 states have expanded access to voting, passing 62 laws containing voting rights elements. In 2021, 49 states proposed almost 1,000 bills with expanded voting provisions. However, the Brennan Center for Justice article pointed out, “But this expansive legislation does not balance the scales. The states that have enacted restrictive laws tend to be ones in which voting is already relatively difficult, while the states that have enacted expansive laws tend to have relatively more accessible voting processes. In other words, access to the right to vote increasingly depends on the state in which a voter happens to reside.”
Minnesota’s Republican Party marches lockstep with the national party, parroting the same dishonest arguments based on refuted accusations. This year the Republican controlled state Senate voted for a Voter ID law. They were blocked by DFL Governor, Tim Walz, and the DFL controlled House. To stay busy, Republicans have followed Mitch McConnell lead by stalling and blocking Governor Walz’s choices for his Cabinet, denying qualified leadership of various state departments. In the cases where an demonstrator has done anything to offend the Republicans, they have used the Senate to attack and hound them.
Most alarming is the recent disclosure that 60% of Republicans do not believe that President Biden is really the President, preferring to pledge their allegiance to Trump. The genuine threat posed by Trump, his supporters, and the Republican Party becomes clearer each day as the Insurrectionist leadership continues to crank up the volume and madness of the Big Lie.
A few days ago, at a Turning Point USA youth event in Idaho, a man asked the host, “At this point, we’re living under corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny.” And then “When do we get to use the guns?” The audience applauded. He continued, “No, and I’m not — that’s not a joke. I’m not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where’s the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” [3]
Is that what Minnesotan Republicans ask? I wish I could say no, but evidence suggests that there is a genuine threat in here at home too.
That is why, each one of us must vote to support democracy and our unalienable rights to participate in our government. The people and amendments we vote for must reinforce democracy. They will be the folks and tools that we will depend on to fight for our rights. Every vote cast to defend democracy and the right to vote, to promote economic, environmental, and social justice is a sign of our commitment to carry on the dreams of the Founders and all intervening generations of Americans. We will continue to fight for the American Experiment, the American Dream.
Republicans to Have Full Control of 23 States, Democrats 15 (2021 Map). Americans for Tax Reform. 11/09/2020 https://www.atr.org/map?amp↑
The Image The image is a composite, the sky and flag are individual images covered by Creative Commons usage. I manipulated both images and color corrected so that they would work together. The Flag is by Mike Mozart, JeepersMedia, CC-BY. The sky is by Fractal Artists, CC-BY. The image above, Stormy Skies 2, is mine, CC-BY.
On this important day, I am at a loss for words. Everything I write sounds contrived and hollow. So, I’ve decided not to say a word. Rather, today has been for reflection. Quiet is good.
The Build Back Better Act is the last best hope for fighting climate change. In response, Republicans react and say, “$3.5 B is too much. We need to be careful and study the problem.” While dramatically clutching their pearls. Their sentiments are worth as much as their paste pearls. With the medias’ and politicians’ focus is on the political game play and the pointless arguing over dollars and cents, odds are plummeting for our combating Climate Change and preserving a livable environment. The sun should be setting on the fossil fuel industry and its wanton destruction of our environment. Instead, it appears that night is gathering over the forces of reason and action.
This is a disaster of unprecedented proportions. A handful of “moderate” Democrats are working against the keystone Biden legislation that would give us the tools and social safety net to allow us to do what it takes to adapt to and mitigate the deadly consequences of Global Warming. Once again, it appears that the Democrats are about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Republicans are, as usual, promoting their lies, doing all they can to obstruct our government’s ability to serve the best interests of all Americans. Moderate Republicans have yet to show any spine and join with Democrats in supporting this critical legislation. They have the power but refuse to use it.
How serious is it? Global warming worsens as we continue to pump growing amounts of greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere. These GHGs are predominately due to the burning of fossil fuels and carbon-based substitutes, such as ethanol. The effect of this catastrophic warming is literally everywhere. Every American lives in a region that has suffered serious climate events or disasters; fires in the West, hurricanes, and powerful storms throughout the South and South-East, the torrential rains producing floods in the East, and the drought that stretches from Los Angeles to Minneapolis and between the Canadian and Mexican Borders. We all have personal experience with some aspect of this escalating climate crisis.
Moderate Democrats and the GOP en mass, focus on the supposed outrageous cost of Biden’s plan. They forget to mention that each year’s, $350Bn will be paid for by increasing the taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations that haven’t paid their share since before Reagan. They also neglect to say that the taxing and the programs in the Build Back Better Bill are very popular with a broad cross-section of Americans, regardless of party affiliation.
The critics also have forgotten basic economics and Return On Investment. The ROI for government money spent where it is most needed is significant. A page on the Center For High Impact Philanthropy, summed up investing in children, “… early childhood stands out as a particularly notable area for investment precisely because so many interventions appear to save money in the longer term.”
Other studies have shown that one dollar spent on the poor, labor and middle classes, does more work and produces more good among the greatest number of people. Not surprisingly, a dollar doled out to the wealthy does little productive work, and simply collects interest. Interest must come from somewhere. It does as money saved through, efficiencies, including minimizing the wages of workers and their benefits. Right now, it appears that many workers are in a very advantageous position. There is a severe shortage of workers at all levels of the economy. Personal experience tells me that these times are rare and short-lived. Soon, if nothing changes, climate disasters, robots, and AI, will create a labor market with a glut of workers and wages plummeting. The Build Back Better Plan finances 10 years of steady job creation and work.
Inflation, the big menace waved about by moderates and the GOP, is being driven by the costs for rebuilding climate damaged infrastructure and communities. Prices are rising because of a scarcity of raw and processed materials and the disruptions to supply chains caused by climate change. Insurance rates are going up to help cover the growing destruction.
Along the coasts, people are becoming aware that life there is untenable and are looking to migrate to other parts of the country, even though there are no climate havens. This is putting a greater economic and social burden on the communities the migrants choose to move to. And all of this is going to continue to get worse.
How bad can it get? Major biological systems are collapsing. Our oceans have played a major role in absorbing the excess heat and CO2 trapped in our atmosphere. But in so doing, the conditions for life there are changing dramatically. The warming waters are deadly for many aquatic species, such as coral, plankton and the animals that feed on them. The increasing amounts of carbon dissolved in sea water, have turned the oceans acidic; reversing a “50,000,000-year trend. The current low pH in the open ocean of recent decades is unusual in the last 2 million years.”
This eats away at the calcium shells of plankton which is a major food source for the smallest and largest animals in the ocean. Because of this, fisheries are collapsing, resulting in growing hunger. Worse, plankton is a major source of Oxygen that we need to breathe. At the same time, the Amazon rainforest is no longer a major carbon capture and oxygen creation area but now, a net carbon emitter with reduced oxygen production. The air that we breath is slowly headed towards potential oxygen starvation.
Besides the immediate damage done by our use of carbon-based fuels, fossil fuels and ethanol, there are closed-loop cycles that, until the last few decades, we didn’t worry about. But now they are the tipping points pushing us towards calamity. An example is the thawing permafrost. Immense amounts of organic matter have accumulated over millions of years in the arctic. The cold kept this detritus from decomposing and locked the potential carbon dioxide, CO2, and methane CH4 in the frozen soil. However, Arctic areas have experienced the most rapid warming of any place on the planet, which is thawing the permafrost. The result is the rotting of organic material, thousands of years old, and the release of greenhouse gases, GHGs.
The feedback-loop is the effect of these released gases increasing warming more quickly and, in turn, thawing more permafrost, releasing even more GHGs that increase warming even more. It is a cycle that we have no control over unless we find a way to rapidly remove vast quantities of CO2 and CH4 from the air.
Another source of unwanted CH4 comes from the bottom of the sea. There are large deposits of frozen CH4 in the sediments on the sea floor. Safely stored away for millions of years, areas of ocean have warmed until these deposits have begun to release GHGs into the water and thus, into the air. Similar conditions exist in many northern lakes where GHGs are being freed during the winter and captured in bubbles in the ice. There are videos showing people breaking these frozen bubbles in the ice followed by a burst of flame.
The latest UN climate report, IPCC AR6, stated, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere [Arctic, Antarctic, Glaciers] and biosphere have occurred.” The past tells us how extraordinary our situation is, “Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850 [when modern weather data began to be collected globally]. Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years.”
The report offered five future scenarios, and none return us to our historic normal. Not surprisingly, the less we do to fight climate change the more disastrous our future becomes. “Future emissions cause future additional warming, with total warming dominated by past [feedback loops] and future CO₂ emissions.” The report emphasizes, “Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5 [previous report].”
What we will see, “With every increment of global warming, changes get larger in regional mean temperature, precipitation and soil moisture.” And “Projected changes in extremes are larger in frequency and intensity with every additional increment of global warming.” In addition, one extreme event, such as fire caused by drought will create the conditions for a second extreme event, for instance, mudslides and flooding when it rains on the fire ravaged landscape.
What about global warming and our changing climate don’t our legislators and political leaders understand? The issue is not about money. It’s about survival. Anyone choosing to pinch pennies clearly doesn’t have a clue about the shit we are in. Or they are bilking the situation for all it’s worth, and they don’t give a damn about their constituents, our nation, and the imperiled world we live on.
What can we do? Immediately contact your legislators at the federal, state, and local levels and make your concerns known. Get on social media and express yourself. Build momentum so that those pesky algorithms pay attention and elevate the topic to top position.
Most importantly, actively support candidates that are bold and forward looking. Business as usual is the kiss of death. The GOP and Trump are amassing huge war chests to win the coming Primary elections and the General in 2022. If this happens, global warming will continue unabated, destroying our economy and killing any chance to create an equitable and just society.
Remember, that while climate change may not be your primary interest, if we don’t deal with our climate crisis boldly, willingly funding the actions necessary, then your concerns won’t have a chance. Climate change makes all other issues unsolvable. Unabated climate change is on the verge of killing our personal freedoms and Democracy.
Our Founders, put their wealth and lives on the line to create this noble experiment in self-government. Can we do any less to save that experiment by saving the lives of our children and future generations from hell on Earth?
Don’t allow the sun to set on this new era of cooperation, dramatic climate action and social justice. Don’t allow business as usual to slowly kill us.
Notes
Climate data is from Special Reports and a draft, both are part of the coming Sixth Assessment Report 2022, by the United Nations, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
High Return On Investment (ROI), University of Pennsylvania’s Center For High Impact Philanthropy, They can be large.For example, the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs has found that high quality early childhood programs can yield a $4 – $9 dollar return per $1 invested. A 2009 study of Perry Preschool, a high-quality program for 3–5-year-olds developed in Michigan in the 1960s, estimated a return to society of between about $7 and $12 for each $1 invested (see Figure 1 below).1 It is important to note that different assumptions can shift estimates and that different studies often rely on different assumptions, limiting comparisons across studies and programs. That said, early childhood stands out as a particularly notable area for investment precisely because so many interventions appear to save money in the longer term.
Friday night, I sat paralyzed watching the Rachel Maddow Show. Her hour was an urgent alarm jammed with bad news. The Insurrection is well entrenched in our government and our society. We barely survived January 6th . The people most responsible for the US’s survival were state Republican officials and two Attorneys General who refused to be coerced into taking the last step in destroying the Rule of Law. They are now being forced out of office to make way for Trump extremists. Rachel and her quests delivered a stunning analysis of the perilous state our Democracy is in. The odds that we will lose the 2022 elections are high. We will lose control of both Houses. Trump’s supporters will turn all elements of the government, particularly the Judiciary, into a lethal weapon. Clearing the way for Trump or his designee to march into the White House in 2024. It’s important to see Rachel’s 09/23 MSNBC broadcast to experience the whole narrative. It is historic, by definition.
Rachel began her show by reading an unusually long excerpt from an opinion piece by Robert Kagan, who Rachel said in her intro to the story, ” I’ve never agreed with him.” (Pause, as if self-censoring). What she read sat me back in my chair. It was the clearest analysis of our situation, its threats, the strength of the enemy, and the weaknesses for democratic forces. Just the quote that Rachel read had conveyed more than the hours of analysis by the mass media and many left commentators.
Who is Robert Kagan? He is a columnist who writes for the Washington Post and is a contributing editor to The New Republic and The Weekly Standard. In addition, he is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. His career includes being a member of the United States Department of State, Policy Planning Staff, serving in the State Department Bureau of Inter-American Affairs from 1986-1988.
His Conservative credentials include being foreign policy adviser for Jack Kemp, (R New York, Rep.) and being Secretary of State George P. Schultz’s speechwriter, during the Reagan Administration. Kagan also was foreign policy advisor to John McCain, 2008 Republican Presidential Candidate. Yet, during the 2016 Presidential Campaign, Kagan endorsed Hillary Clinton while renouncing the Republican Party.
He is considered an important neoconservative foreign policy theorist. He and fellow neocon William Kristel, commentator, founded the no-longer existent, Project for A New American Century. It’s neocon ideas were used by Newt Gingrich to push for total American military domination of the world, guided by American Morality. Many members of the Project ended filling important positions in George W Bush’s Administration. After 9/11, the neocon, go it alone, quick-draw, cowboy philosophy was on clear display.
So why in hell, would I read his op-ed in the Washington Post? Kagan knows the hearts of the Insurrectionists and appreciates the long-term effort that has gone into the destruction of our democracy. If anyone can provide an important point of view, it would be him. It is a must read to understand the evolution of the authoritarian personality cult that is about to overwhelm our fragile democratic experiment.
Kagan points out that the Founding Fathers had a healthy dislike for political parties and demagogues. They thought that in 18th Century American society, with its dispersed agrarian population and energetic competition between the states that it would create a system of checks and balances to protect against nation-wide extremism. Indeed, they believed in, as Kagan points out, “(small-R) republican virtue, a love of freedom not only for oneself but also as an abstract, universal good; a love of self-government as an ideal; a commitment to abide by the laws passed by legitimate democratic processes; and a healthy fear of and vigilance against tyranny of any kind.” Kagan observes how unusual the Founders’ belief in republican virtue was when normal people then believed much as Trump supporters do now. “… these are normal people in the sense that they think and act as people have for centuries. They put their trust in family, tribe, religion and race. Although jealous in defense of their own rights and freedoms, they are less concerned about the rights and freedoms of those who are not like them. That, too, is not unusual. What is unnatural is to value the rights of others who are unlike you as much as you value your own.”
Again, Kagan’s analysis of our dire situation needs to be read.
About the Image
The image is a composite, the sky and flag are individual images covered by Creative Commons usage. I manipulated both images and color corrected so that they would work together. The Flag is by Mike Mozart, JeepersMedia, CC-BY. The sky is by Fractal Artists, CC-BY. The image above, Stormy Skies 2, is mine, CC-BY.
