Good,Hopeful,Inspiring Newsletter Issue #30
from Suzanne Arms & Birthing The Future
Do you know about the Earth Shot Prizes? They are a ray of sunshine in these dark times, begun by Britain’s Prince William in 2020.You can read – and see short film clips – about amazing projects people have initiated around the world.
Earthshotprize.org
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A deep bow of thanks and appreciation for Bernie Sander’s fine, well-reasoned OpEd piece in the New York Time, published yesterday, the eve of Thanksgiving. Do read it and share it widely. Nov 22, 2023 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGwHpQPfbSxJtNsxfrMrBdLdMJF
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The Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu, who has enjoyed widespread support for many years, despite his many wrongdoings, is rapidly losing the support of his country’s citizens because of his horrific tactics in Palestine as he attempt to wipe out Hammas, who think nothing of murdering ordinary Israelis. Casualties of Netanyahu's invasion include more than 12,000 civilian Palestinians - almost half of them children and babies.
And I believe his coming downfall is good news.
The media is not doing its job by failing to report on the growing efforts in Israel to create a 2-state solution and bring Jews, Arabs and Christians together to solve the problems facing both Palestine and Israel. I hope you will read this issue of my newsletter to the end. It contains a powerful essay by Charles Eisenstein about the justifications we use to condone violence of any kind. And Eisenstein includes has some hopeful and inspiring words from relatives of those killed in this war.
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Here's some reporting good news, all reprinted from PEERS online news source that gathers good news from around the world and puts it out…
Building bridges in the midst of conflict: 12 organizations working for Israel-Palestine peace October 25, 2023, reprinted from Optimist Daily “While the sad reality of violence and division dominates the media, countless grassroots organizations are working tirelessly to bring peace and reconciliation to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
As the region continues to be ravaged by violence, Standing Together, Israel’s largest Arab-Jewish grassroots organization, brings together Jewish and Palestinian volunteers.
These courageous men and women labor relentlessly to assist victims of continuous violence while also campaigning for peace, equality, social justice, and climate justice. Their message is clear: the future they envision is one of peace, Israeli and Palestinian independence, full equality, and environmental justice.
The Parents Circle – Families Forum, which includes over 600 families who have lost loved ones in the conflict, is a symbol of reconciliation. This joint Israeli-Palestinian organization encourages conversation and reconciliation through education, public gatherings, and media participation, presenting a ray of hope for a future of coexistence. Integrated schools in Israel, where Jewish and Palestinian children attend classes together, serve as an example of a more inclusive future.
Hand in Hand promotes understanding by bringing parents together for debate and shared study of Hebrew and Arabic. They are sowing seeds of oneness. Jerusalem Peacebuilders brings together Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans with the goal of developing tomorrow’s leaders. Their work highlights the futility of violent war and the critical need for nonviolence.”
MY NOTE: Please remind anyone you know that we must separate support for the Jewish faith and support for Israel as a nation from what the far-right man whom I consider to be a thug – Netanyahu – believes and is doing with regard both to the nation of Israel and to Palestinian people.
Let’s remember that Hamas’s terrorism has its roots in what Israel has been doing to Palestine for decades.
Yes, Hamas must be stopped. But wholesale destruction that harms tens of thousands of helpless Palestinians who DO NOT support Hammas, just breeds more terrorism and hate and, among ordinary Palestinians - many of whom have never met a Jew - more fear, distrust and hate.
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On the environment and health front, another piece of good news out of California, under much-maligned Governor Newsom:
California becomes the first state to ban 4 food additives linked to disease October 10, 2023, reprinted from U.S.’s NPR [National Public Radio]
“California has become the first U.S. state to outlaw the use of four potentially harmful food and drink additives that have been linked to an array of diseases, including cancer, and are already banned in dozens of countries.
The California Food Safety Act prohibits the manufacturing, distribution and sale of food and beverages that contain brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben and red dye 3 — which can be found in candy, fruit juices, cookies and more.
The Food and Drug Administration banned the use of red dye 3 in cosmetics in 1990 after evidence showed it caused cancer in lab animals. But the government hasn't prohibited its use in food, and it's an ingredient in candies.
Brominated vegetable oil and potassium bromate have also been associated with harmful effects on the respiratory and nervous systems, while propylparaben may negatively impact reproductive health.
The proposal has been the target of a false claim that California is attempting to ban Skittles. In fact, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, has said that Skittles are sold with alternative ingredients in the European Union, where the four additives are already banned.
"It's unacceptable that the U.S. is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to food safety," Gabriel said in a statement. In addition to the EU, countries that have banned the four additives in food include the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan.”
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Students building bridges across the American divide
Reprinted from October 8, 2023, CBS News
“This past summer more than 300 high school graduates signed up for a unique student exchange program. Unlike the well-known foreign exchange model ... this program gives students the opportunity to soak in a brand-new culture without ever leaving the country. It's called The American Exchange Project, or AEP for short, co-founded by 29-year-old David McCullough III. "We fund kids to spend a week in the summer after senior year in an American town that is politically and socio-economically and culturally very different from the one that they're growing up in," McCullough said.
One student, Alex, said, "My groups of friends are not really close to each other, so I feel like I've actually bonded with you guys more than I have with my own friends."
A girl from South Dakota said, "I've never been a part of a community where ... I'm not the minority, I'm not the odd one out. So, this is very much an experience that I really appreciate so much."
McCullough hopes to offer the program to a million students a year by decade's end, and all free of charge, thanks to big name donors, including the likes of Steven Spielberg.
"I think this all ought to be as typical to the American high school experience as the prom," McCullough said. There's that old adage about walking a mile in someone else's shoes; the problem is, you can't see the person face-to-face if you're walking away.
What David McCullough is hoping is the next generation will turn around, look those they differ with in the eye, and just talk.”
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Rojava’s Women-Led Restorative Justice System Centers Mediation, Not Retribution
October 20, 2023, from Truthout [another online reporting service] “A growing women-led restorative justice system ... operates within the territory of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, a revolutionary social experiment involving more than 4.5 million people.
The system features a network, autonomous from the AANES, of more than 60 Mala Jin, or “women’s houses,” which allow people to solve disputes at the community level, instead of through courts or police, by offering reconciliation and mediation processes for domestic and family situations.
Activist and independent researcher Clara Moore ... recently returned from spending two years in the region, working at both the Rojava Information Center and at Mala Jin.
"Essentially, they’re trying to build a system around the political philosophy of Democratic Confederalism, which was initially inspired by the ideas of [the American intellectual] Murray Bookchin and theorized by [Kurdish leader] Abdullah Öcalan from prison in Turkey," [said Moore].
"It’s based on ideas of pluralism, direct democracy, decentralization, gender equality and self-defense. In practice, this means that all communities have the ability and right to defend themselves and provide for their own needs.
The idea of the justice system in Rojava, in North and East Syria in general, is that it’s possible to solve a dispute without going to court. There are laws in Rojava and courts. Ideally, those only become relevant when people can’t come to a resolution together outside of court."
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Also, on the international front, have you heard about the success of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh as a positive model for the world?
Over the last two decades, Grameen Bank has loaned out over 6.5 billion dollars to the poorest of the poor, while maintaining a repayment rate consistently above 98%.
It’s founder, banker and economist Muhammed Yunus, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. His goal: to help people lift themselves out of extreme poverty if they are given small long-term loans with low interest.
By 2006 there had been 7 million borrowers, mostly in rural villages, with the average loan being $100. Traditionally, banks are unwilling to give loans to people who do not have anything valuable to “secure” the loan. Since its founding, in 1983, most of the loans have been given to women, because in Yunus’ experience, women are more careful and innovative with money.
Most of the women and groups of women receiving those loans have never had money of their own. As of January 2022, the total borrowers of the bank number nearly 9.5 million, and 96.81% of those are women. They have been able to start businesses, improve their housing, and educate their children. And the concept of micro-loans has caught on around the world.
As a sad side note, the far-right government of Bangladesh (that came into power in 2008) has been doing everything it its power to discredit Yunus’ work, bringing one criminal charge after another.
However, on 5 September 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement expressing concern about the harassment and intimidation of Yunus and other dissenting voices in Bangladesh.
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Just because… We all needs hugs, don't we? https://twitter.com/KamiAnimess/status/1705452003562815979
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Something good coming out of the spate book bannings in U.S. schools and libraries…
Beacon Press, a U.S. publisher with a long history of opposing censorship (It published the Pentagon Papers), came out with a public statement on Twitter and Instagram: “Banning access to books and literacy has long been used in the white supremacist war against marginalized communities…”
So, Beacon Press is donating copies of its banned books to schools in more than 40 states and also offering free e-books of those that have been banned.
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Great news for workers in the U.S. auto industry...
The United Auto Workers ratified their new contracts with General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. The new contracts include wage increases of at least 25% over the next 4.5 years, cost of living increases, union coverage for electric battery plants, and the reopening of a closed plant. “These were just extraordinary wins, especially for those of us who’ve been studying strikes for decades,” said Washington University labor expert Jake Rosenfeld.
Union president Shawn Fain told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, “It’s a sign of the times…. In the last 40 years…working class people went backwards continually…. There’s this massive chasm between the billionaire class and the working class and…when those things get out of balance, we need to turn it upside down. When 26 billionaires have as much wealth as half of humanity, that’s a crisis….”
[NOTE: U.S. automakers have made huge profits ever since their workers agreed to lowering their pay in order to help their companies] “The final contracts that emerged from long negotiations gave workers wage gains of 30% over the next four and a half years, better retirement security, more paid leave, commitments that automakers would create more union jobs, union coverage for workers at electric vehicle battery plants.
U.S. Made Electric Vehicles Will Now Be Union Made “General Motors has agreed to place battery manufacturing for electric vehicles under its main agreement with the United Auto Workers (UAW), a major demand in the union’s ongoing strike against the Big Three automakers.
NOTE: The demand to bring electric battery manufacturing into union contracts was a key part of the union’s strike, despite it being legally difficult to accomplish. As automakers move to expand electric vehicle production, a major goal for the Biden administration, and an essential part of the fight against climate change, auto workers were at risk of being left out of the transition, since battery plants are overwhelmingly nonunion (despite the significant government subsidies they receive).
The lack of that protection had been a key reason autoworkers had been skittish about electric vehicles—and a commitment from Stellantis to reopen the Jeep Cherokee plant that closed in February. “The UAW’s success is already affecting other automakers.
As workers at non-union plants begin to explore unionization, Honda and Toyota have already announced wage hikes to match those in the new UAW contracts, and Subaru is hinting it will do the same.
Biden had worked hard to get the Belvidere plant reopened joined the UAW picket line. He was the 1st president to do such a thing.
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This, from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American
November 8th
Results of the U.S. mid-term elections: “[Yesterday] was a bad day for extremism in the United States of America. “In Ohio, voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution; in Kentucky, voters reelected Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, for another four-year term; in Pennsylvania, voters put Democrat Daniel McCaffery, who positioned himself as a defender of abortion rights, on the state supreme court.
In Rhode Island, Gabe Amo, a former Biden staffer who emphasized his experience in the Biden White House, won an open seat in the House of Representatives to become Rhode Island’s first Black member of Congress; and nationwide, right-wing Moms4Liberty and anti-transgender-rights school board candidates tended to lose their races.
“In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin campaigned hard to flip the state senate to the Republicans, telling voters that if his party had control of the whole government he would push through a measure banning abortion after 15 weeks.
This has been a ploy advanced by Republicans to suggest they are moderating their stance on abortion, and Youngkin appeared to be trying out the argument as a basis for a run for the presidency.
“But voters, who are still angry at the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which protected abortion rights until about 24 weeks, after fetal abnormalities are evident, rejected the suggestion they should settle for a smaller piece of what they feel has been taken from them by extremists on the Supreme Court. “
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Really good news… As reported in Common Dreams By Julia Conley, Nov 9th 2023
“Right-wing Democratic U.S. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has decided not to seek reelection next year, following recent polling showed him 13 points behind Republican Gov. Jim Justice. Manchin has held that seat since 2010.
“[Manchin] has outraged progressives in recent years by refusing to join his party in backing broadly popular reforms. He made numerous demands to reduce the anti-poverty and climate provisions in President Joe Biden's signature Build Back Better Act in 2021 before finally killing the bill over its inclusion of the expanded child tax credit — a program that than 300,000 children in his own state [had] benefited from…
Manchin claimed the tax credit would be used by parents to buy drugs.
Manchin also joined Republicans in 2022 to block legislation codifying abortion rights months before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.”
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This, from The Lever (Levernews.com) online news service 10/28/23
On October 7, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed The Stable Affordable Housing Act of 2023, which commits the state to produce a formal study and recommendations on so-called “social housing”. The study will provide recommendations to the legislature in 2026 and identify “public agencies or mission-driven nonprofit entities” that could help manage the process.
Social housing is different than public housing. which is a much more common concept in Europe. In the U.S. public housing is usually available to only low-income families at very subsidized rates, and concentrated in poverty-stricken areas. Social housing, on the other hand, brings together mixed-income communities.
Social housing is built on publicly-owned land and funded by government money, but then handed off to private companies under public control.
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We're inching forward toward worldwide acceptance of the indisputable fact of climate change. Hopefully, in the near future, we'll hit a "tipping point" and be able to enact meaningful changes worldwide.
The UN Affirms the Climate Crisis Threatens Children's Rights
From Common Dreams online news source [commondreams.org]
by Julia Conley – published August 28th 2023
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a formal statement that the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises present "an urgent and systemic threat to children's rights globally."
“After consulting with more than 16,000 children in more than 120 countries, the Committed updated the 1989 Convention on Children's Rights to say that there is an urgent need to address the "triple planetary crisis" and to explain "how children's rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child apply to environmental protection, and confirms that children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment."
As stated: "The right to life is threatened by environmental degradation, including climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, which are closely linked to other fundamental challenges impeding the realization of this right, including poverty, inequality, and conflict.
[Member nations] should take positive measures to ensure that children are protected from foreseeable premature or unnatural death and threats to their lives that may be caused by acts and omissions, as well as the activities of business actors, and enjoy their right to life with dignity."
[The UN's stand is expected to help a Portuguese case] where six children are arguing that the 33 member-states of the European Union have failed to fight the climate crisis and to seek a legally binding decision requiring the countries to make immediate, deeper cuts to their fossil fuel emissions.”
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A ruling that may have far-reaching positive impact in the U.S. in a suit brought forth by youth:
Aug. 14 – a Montana State judge issued a groundbreaking decision in favor of the young people who sued Montana in the landmark case “After five days of dramatic testimony on who can be held responsible for the climate crisis, in a youth-led climate case – Held vs the State of Montana – the State judge ruled in favor of the young people suing their state.
This landmark case was led by 16 children and young adults, ranging in age from 5 to 22, who accused the State of Montana of violating their constitutional rights as it pushed policies that encouraged the use of fossil fuels, devastated the environment and severely impacted their health.
The case is the first of its kind to go to trial in the United States. And federal judge in Oregon just cleared the way for another children’s climate case against the U.S. government.
In the 1st ruling of its kind nationwide, the Montana State Court determined that a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act has harmed the state’s environment and the young plaintiffs, by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects. The provision is accordingly unconstitutional, the court said.
Here's the exact wording of the U.S. District Court Judge Kathy Seeley. She agreed with the plaintiffs’ suit, saying:
[they have] “experienced past and ongoing injuries resulting from the State’s failure to consider [greenhouse gas emissions] and climate change, including injuries to their physical and mental health, homes and property, recreational, spiritual, and aesthetic interests, tribal and cultural traditions, economic security, and happiness.”
Judge Seeley also wrote that: their “injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change.” This groundbreaking ruling may open the way for lawsuits brought by youth demanding that adults address climate change and the extraction and use of fossil fuels around the world.
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From The Conversation online news source theconversation.com October 10, 2023
Many of the world’s largest public and private companies will soon be required to track and report almost all of their greenhouse gas emissions if they do business in California. This includes emissions from their supply chains, business travel, employees’ commutes and the way customers use their products.
That means oil and gas companies like Chevron will likely have to account for emissions from vehicles that use their gasoline, and Apple will have to account for materials that go into iPhones.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 2 new laws Oct. 7, 2023. The first, The Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, requires that all U.S. companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more will have to report both their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, starting in 2026 and 2027. More than a dozen major corporations have endorsed that law, including Microsoft, Apple, and Patagonia.
The second, The Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, requires companies generating $500 million or more to report risks related to climate change and their plans for risk mitigation.
Most of the companies covered by California’s climate disclosure rules are multinational corporations such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Walmart, Costco, ExxonMobil and Chevron. And their subsidiaries that do not currently have to report their emissions will be subject to the same disclosure requirements.
Although California isn’t the first place to mandate climate disclosures, it is the 5th largest economy in the world. So, these new laws are likely to have major influence worldwide
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From Blue Amp Action
October 15,2023
President Biden announced the creation of the Federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. “In the last five years, the U.S. went from having the most pro-NRA (National Rifle Association) president in American history to the most pro-gun safety president in American history. “This could not have happened without the non-stop work of young leaders and activists across the country.”
AND On September 20th the Biden administration announced the creation of The American Climate Corps. This will be a group of more than 20,000 young Americans who will learn to work in clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience while also earning good wages and addressing climate change.
This ACC looks a great deal like the Civilian Conservation Corps established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats in 1933, during the New Deal.
The CCC was designed to provide jobs for unemployed young men (prompting critics to ask, “Where’s the She, She, She?”) while they worked to build fire towers, bridges, and foot trails, plant trees to stop soil erosion, stock fish, dig ditches, build dams, and so on.
While the CCC was segregated, the ACC will prioritize hiring within communities traditionally left behind, as well as addressing the needs of those communities that have borne the brunt of climate change.
If the administration’s rules for it become finalized, the corps will also create a streamlined pathway into federal service for those who participated in the program.
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An inspiring 14-minute TED talk by Krista Tippett, the host of On Being: https://onbeing.org/ted/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=bb384e8f-0b2d-4513-afe5-da5b3c363675
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And, for those who claim that organic food isn’t worth the cost, because it doesn’t make a difference in your or your family’s health:
This, from The Environmental Working Group [ewg.org]
August 28th, 2023
BIG NEWS about glyphosate, the cancer-linked pesticide (think: ROUNDUP weed killer) produced by Bayer-Monsanto. According to a peer-reviewed scientific study, just one week of an organic diet reduced average levels of glyphosate in pregnant participants by 25-30%! Increased levels of glyphosate in pregnant women have been shown to shorten pregnancy length (think prematurity) and increase the risk of a baby having long-term health problems.
But the organic diet only benefited participants who live far from agricultural fields. Those living near agricultural fields, highly likely to be sprayed with glyphosate, were not able to reduce their exposure to this pesticide, even when switching to eating organic.
NOTE: Tell everyone you know. This study reminds us that “we are what we eat” as well as what we think, and that it’s possible to get rid of some of the toxic chemical in our body.
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Although it’s not good news that an honest, thoughtful Republican in the U.S. Senate has decided not to run for re-election, it is good news that he’s now willing to call his own party out:
From Sept 15th Letters From An American, by Heather Cox Richardson, whose newsletters I often recommend you subscribe to (It's FREE!)
“On Sept. 14th, Senator Mitt Romney (Republican from Utah) announced he would NOT run for reelection. That announcement came just as The Atlantic published an excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Romney by McKay Coppins in which Romney expressed disgust with his Republican colleagues for feeding Trump lies to their voters in exchange for power.
[Romney] acknowledged that “[a] very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”
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Stepping into the breach created by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to states being able to outlaw abortion, 2 heroes went into action.
In 2017, pharmacist Jessica Nouhavandi and Peter Wang founded Honeybee Health has led the way to supplying medication abortion by mail at a vastly reduced cost. They wanted their mail-order pharmacy to be a place where uninsured people could buy generic forms of drugs at up to 80% off what other pharmacies and online pharmacies were charging.
Honeybee became the 1st pharmacy officially cleared by the FDA to afford medication for early abortion and started offering that in 2020. Note: Honeybee only buys drugs that are FDA approved; and they continue to guarantee that your RX medication will arrive at your door within 36 hours.
This is a godsend for women wanting a safe early abortion from a certified pharmacy. TIME magazine in July of 2023 named this one of the 100 most influential companies with a worldwide impact.
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This, from Spotlight, the newsletter of the fine activist nonprofit/charity
2023 Issue 2, by Daniel Dorado, Tobacco Campaign Director CorporateAccountability.org
Goodbye, Philip Morris International (PMI) “When an industry knows that it’s running out of options to continue exploiting the public for profits, it typically resorts to “healthwashing” its image by positioning itself as a socially responsible entity. Meanwhile it’s misleading people about the reality behind its products and practices.
That’s exactly what Philip Morris tried to do by investing in the Canadian Government’s planned COVID-19 vaccine – a move loudly condemned by public health professionals and government alike. Working closely with Action On Smoking and Health Canada, Corporate Accountability pushed the World Health Organization (WHO) to publicly reject this investment and mobilized hundreds of organizations to demand that the Canadian government sever it’s ties with Philip Morris.
And they succeeded!
After more than 2 years of grassroots organizing, the Canadian government announced that it would sever its ties and PMI would no longer be included as an investor in the vaccine. A huge victory, and example of what grassroots efforts can accomplish.
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This, from The Associate Press’s Morning Wire Sept 7th, 2023
By Sarah Naffa
A Mexican Supreme Court ruling that canceled federal criminal penalties for abortion continued a regional trend of widening access to the procedure. But it left in place a patchwork of varying state restrictions.
• The high court ordered Wednesday that abortion be removed from the federal penal code and will require the Mexican public health service and all federal health institutions to offer abortions on request. That will mean access for millions of Mexicans.
• Abortions in Mexico are not widely prosecuted as a crime, but many doctors refuse to provide them. Some 20 Mexican states still criminalize the procedure. Those laws are not affected by the Supreme Court ruling, but abortion rights advocates will likely ask state judges to follow suit.
• Across Latin America, countries have moved toward lifting abortion restrictions in recent years. The trend stands in sharp contrast to increasing restrictions on abortion in parts of the United States.
Also from that issue of AP:
The Biden administration cancels remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic Refuge Angering Republicans, the Biden administration canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday, overturning sales held in the Trump administration’s waning days. The administration proposed stronger protections against development on vast swaths of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
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Yet another proven effort to address homelessness that refute the widespread belief that if you give people $ they haven’t “earned” – i.e. a guaranteed income – they’ll just waste it on useless things such as drugs, tobacco and alcohol:
A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it. September 2,2023, Vox https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21528569/homeless-poverty-cash...
“Ray, a man in his 50s, used to live in an emergency homeless shelter in Vancouver, Canada. Then he participated in a study that changed his life.
A newly published, peer reviewed study conducted by the charity Foundations for Social Change in partnership with the University of British Columbia, was fairly simple. It identified 50 people in the Vancouver area who had become homeless in the past two years.
In spring 2018, it gave them each one lump sum of $7,500 (in Canadian dollars). And it told them to do whatever they wanted with the cash.
Over the next year, the study followed up with the recipients periodically, asking how they were spending the money and what was happening in their lives.
The recipients of the cash transfers did not increase spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, but did increase spending on food, clothes, and rent. What’s more, they moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up.
“Counter to really harmful stereotypes, we saw that people made wise financial choices,” the CEO of Foundations for Social Change, said.
What’s more ... giving out the cash transfers in the Vancouver area actually saved the broader society money. Enabling 50 people to move into housing faster saved the shelter system $8,277 per person over the year, for a total savings of $413,850. That’s more than the value of the cash transfers, which means the transfers pay for themselves.”
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I can’t recall where I saw this:
The U.N. announced that it completed the transfer of more than 1 billion barrels of oil from a decaying supertanker off Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The supertanker was considered a ticking time bomb that could have destroyed biodiversity and fisheries in the Red Sea for a quarter of a century.
This very good news for the U.S., from Heather Cox Richardon.
"I want to remind us all of the important work President Biden and his administration have accomplished. It’s important to note this, since so many folks seem to be unaware of Biden’s accomplishments and want to see him gone next election. “[November 15th was] the 2nd anniversary of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that invested $1.2 trillion—$550 billion of it new spending—in roads, water systems, electrical grids, broadband, bridges, and so on.
So far, that act has seen the start of more than 37,000 projects across the country. Bridges, airports, and supply chain projects are underway, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The Democrats today emphasized that they are delivering on the things that make people’s lives easier, and the White House listed a number of Republicans who voted against the measure only to boast of the benefits of the infrastructure investments to their constituents.
And Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a video in which he echoed the tagline of the administration: “the great news is, we’re just getting started.” The investment in infrastructure is part of what has created a booming U.S. economy. Growth is far better in the U.S. than in Europe or China, where a property bubble and local government debts have led to deflation.”
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This post from Jim Hightower, a true populist! And one good reason to sign up for Hightower News, which he published on on the platform Substack.
“When I met Sen. John McCain a decade ago, his first words to me were: “You are the very personification of a maverick.” I’m pretty sure he meant that as a compliment. And I certainly took it as such, for the people I most admire are mavericks—the free spirits who defy the corporate order and carve out a new path, not just for their own gain, but for the common good.
Carol Ann Sayle is a prime example. When the Texas Department of Agriculture launched the nation’s first state-certified organic farm program in the 1980s, Carol Ann and her late husband Larry Butler were at the front of the line with their 5-acre urban farm, also pioneering in direct marketing and regenerative agriculture.
They were wildly creative, joyous innovators, rebelling against chemicalized, conglomeratized, monopolized food. I loved them from the start.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? It’s widely known that “maverick” is another word for nonconformist, but few know that the term comes from a South Texas family by that name [that] immigrated to San Antonio in 1835 to seek fame and fortune… As a rancher, Maverick defied the norm by steadfastly refusing to brand his herd of some 400 cattle, asserting that he abhorred inflicting such searing pain on the animals.
Thus, if an unbranded steer was found on the range, it was considered to be “a maverick,” and the word soon became a synonym for anyone who refuses to be branded by anyone else’s political-religious-ideological logos.
Wait, there’s more! Sam’s grandson… was a fiery progressive populist lawyer who was elected to Congress from San Antonio in the 1930s. He fought Franklin Roosevelt—from the left, deeming him too conservative and wedded to the moneyed powers!
FDR retaliated by recruiting right-wing business interests to oppose and defeat Maury’s 1938 re-election bid. But the irrepressible Maverick quickly rebelled by getting elected mayor of San Antonio.
Then, in an ironic political twist, Mayor Maverick used Roosevelt’s WPA Program to fund and build the now-famous San Antonia RiverWalk. [TIDBIT: In keeping with this column’s linguistic theme, Maury Maverick also coined the term “gobbledygook.”]
Coming full circle to my time in Texas politics, I knew and was influenced by Maury Maverick Jr, who served as a wild-assed, unabashed, gutsy progressive Texas legislator in the 1950s. Son of Maury, great-grandson of Samuel, he fought for labor, civil rights, and civil liberties during the horror of McCarthyism.
When I met him in the 1960s, Maury Jr. had moved from politics to journalism, writing an uncompromising iconoclastic column for 23 years. A renown, crusty, red-hot Texas liberal, he was tough—inspiring a generation of political and journalistic disciples like Molly Ivins… and me. Indeed, when I was in office, he kept challenging me to get tougher. He was, after all, a maverick.”
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War is Always Justified
by Charles Eisenstein
Nov 18th
I feel it's so good, I'm reprinting it in its entirety.
“I just heard someone say, “One war crime does not justify another.” My reflex as a peace advocate is to agree with that statement, but something gives me pause. It starts with a grammatical issue but it doesn’t end there.
The only beings on earth that perform the act of justifying are human beings. “War crimes” do not perform that act. What the statement intends to say is something like, “One cannot legitimately use one war crime to justify another.” But what is this “legitimate”? A substitute for justifiable. One cannot justifiably use one war crime to justify another.
We are on the brink of an infinite regress that seeks to convert the subjective act of justifying something into an objective property, as if one could filter all acts through a moral sieve that separates them into two categories, the wrong and the right.
Seen this way, the statement about justifying war crimes is exactly wrong. People do indeed use one war crime to justify another.
With the exception of crimes of passion, which people typically justify in retrospect, all wars and most violence begins with justification. The heinous acts of the other side are high-octane fuel for the justification engine.
In the objective sense of an ethical principle, we can argue whether this or that war was justified. But in terms of the rhetorical act of the human being called justifying, all wars are justified. Someone is justifying them.
This is why, as I have argued over the past month, we must exit the conversation about what is justified if there is ever going to be an end to the violence in the Holy Land.
The word "just" comes from the Latin justus — upright, equitable, lawful, right, proper. To justify literally means to make it right. To take something self-interested or indeterminate and make it into something right, that is justification.
It is much easier to override the heart’s repulsion and harm others when aided by a story in which it is right. Both sides in the Gaza conflict believe they are right. Hamas and the Israeli government both justify acts of carnage.
So it has always been, and so it shall ever be. To end it, we have to appeal to something outside of what is justified, who is right, and who is wrong. Force me to speak in terms of right and wrong, and I would say, yes, it is wrong to kill 4500 children in a bombing campaign. I would say it is wrong to kidnap and murder innocent festival-goers and children in a kibbutz.
I do not mean to establish the two sides as equivalent here. I understand well the assymetrical dynamics of oppressor and oppressed. If forced to, I could tell you which side I think is wronger or righter than the other.
I am fully capable of understanding each side’s logic and adjudge one or the other more valid. But like many of you, I am sick of being asked to pitch my tent in one camp or another. I am unwillng to do that, and it is not because, sheltered by my circumstances and privilege, I have the luxury of not taking sides.
I am unwilling because I want to see the violence end, and that means that people are going to have to stop doing what they think is justified.
I repeat: for there to be peace, people are going to have to stop doing what they think is justified.
If I am on a side, it is the side of peace. I know I am not alone there. In fact many people who do not enjoy the shelter of circumstance and privilege are saying something similar. I already shared the video “In my name, I want no vengeance” by Michal Helav, whose only son was murdered by Hamas. There are many others. Here are a few examples from the article, “Listen to Israeli survivors: They don’t want revenge.”
1. In a eulogy for her brother Hayim, an anti-occupation activist who was murdered in Kibbutz Holit, Noi Katsman called on her country “not to use our deaths and our pain to cause the death and pain of other people or other families. I demand that we stop the circle of pain, and understand that the only way [forward] is freedom and equal rights. Peace, brotherhood, and security for all human beings.”
2. Ziv Stahl, executive director of the human rights organization Yesh Din, and a survivor of the hellfire in Kfar Aza, also came out strongly against Israel’s assault on Gaza in an article in Haaretz.
“I have no need for revenge, nothing will return those who are gone,” she wrote. “Indiscriminate bombing in Gaza and the killing of civilians uninvolved with these horrible crimes are no solution.”
3. Yotam Kipnis, whose father was murdered in the Hamas attack, said in his eulogy: “Do not write my father’s name on a [military] shell. He wouldn’t have wanted that. Don’t say, ‘God will avenge his blood.’ Say, ‘May his memory be for a blessing.’”
4. Maoz Inon, whose parents were murdered on Oct. 7, wrote in Al Jazeera: “My parents were people of peace … Revenge is not going to bring my parents back to life. It is not going to bring back other Israelis and Palestinians killed either. It is going to do the opposite … We must break the cycle.”
5. When Yonatan Ziegen, the son of Vivian Silver, was asked by a journalist what his mother — who is thought to have been kidnapped — would think about what Israel is doing in Gaza now, he replied: “She would be mortified. Because you can’t cure dead babies with more dead babies. We need peace. That’s what she was working for all her life … Pain is pain.”
I am in awe of the courage of these people. It is not easy to speak against the howls of a bloodthirsty mob — and the bloodthirsty inner mob that wants to relieve the grief for a moment by converting it into hate.
I was on a call a few weeks ago with a group of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. “If you speak out, they slap you down,” one said. They were afraid to say anything publicly, afraid to protest, and trying to think of more indirect forms of peace action.
In times of conflict, the advocate for peace draws more hatred than even the enemy. The enemy by his existence validates the drama that affirms the partisan’s role and identity (and, in the case of a nation, an agenda of domination or conquest). The more abhorrent the enemy’s acts, the better.
But the peace advocate undermines that drama and the roles and justifications that it creates. Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah describes what it is like: It is a very tough time obviously to be a peace activist and much harder than choosing which side I want to care about more. Because if you are pro-Palestinian you sympathize obviously with the Palestinian cause. If you're pro-Israel, you sympathize with the Israeli cause.
And if you're a peace activist, you have friends on both sides. And so your pain is multiplied. Because if I'm talking to my friends and family in the West Bank, I'm talking to my family or my family in Jerusalem, they are living in complete fear.
I'm talking to my friends in Gaza who are escaping, terrified. I'm talking to my friends in Israel who are living the biggest nightmare in their lives. I'm terrified for my friends who have missing family members. They are trying to find where they are, most likely hostages in Gaza.
I have friends who lost family members. And so you're trying to take the pain of both the Israelis and the Palestinians and absorb both of it and live with both of it. And understand both perspectives, understand when your Israeli friends are angry, and they can't comprehend how you could talk about Gaza right now. Because in their mind, but what about my pain? And my friends in Gaza think I'm completely a traitor, because how am I able to sympathize with the Israelis pain, with the people who've lost their lives in Israel.
It's very difficult. But I also think this is exactly what we need right now. This is the time to stand up and say there is an alternative: hate isn't the only path. This is not someone who advocates peace only because he is unaware of the injustice meted out upon the Palestinians, just as the Israelis I quoted above are not calling for peace because they are untouched by Hamas’s violence. Hate isn’t the only path.”
THANK YOU, CHARLES EISENSTEIN!
Dear Friends, I hope some of what I have printed here has given you reason to hope and to invest time and effort in doing anything you can to contribute to a better world...right now.
With Love, and Blessings, on Thanksgiving,
Suzanne