More than 30 million people viewed a short video of Marjorie Taylor Green speaking about what the Biden administration is doing to the country. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:
Biden-Harris campaign ad on July 19, 2023.
It’s not about the words she spoke. Greene appears to be framing Biden in a certain way, assuming people will accept her framing and vote Biden out. In more popular jargon among right-wing politicians, she is attempting to “own the liberals.” You know, because that’s what the crazies do.
It didn’t quite work if that was her assumption. Biden received a lot of free, public media because of the way their campaign used words she spoke. It was a moment of brilliance on the part of team Biden in a campaign expected to have many advertisements. Biden got the better of Greene in this face-off.
It is early in the campaign to think much about a single advertisement. I enjoyed this one and as it runs its course, will forget it just as quickly as it was created. The lesson is not only do words matter, the context in which they are spoken does too. When words like Greene’s are spoken in the right-wing media echo chamber, the speaker should do a reality check, something she didn’t do before the Turning Point conference where she unwittingly made a Biden Harris ad.
Last night I led the last annual meeting of our home owners association as president. About a dozen members gathered at the shelter in town to share a potluck dinner, socialize, and hear news of what our board has been doing. I did my best to be thorough. It has taken me a while to shed volunteer activities undertaken since retiring in July 2009. This one dates back to 1994.
I’m almost there. The last will be to leave the county party central committee and become a regular voter. This one is tricky in that no one else in our precinct expressed interest in taking the responsibility for more than one term. I’ll figure a way to let go and it won’t be long.
I lost track of how many hours I volunteered in my life. After retirement it became a way of life for more than ten years. We’re at the end of the line. Going forward, I plan to concentrate on writing, gardening, and fixing up the house.
People should be helpers in society. I plan to continue to grow more food than we can use and donate extras to the food banks. Books, kitchenware and other excess possessions will be donated as well. Yet to lend time and experience to leadership of social groups is not in my future. If there was a catastrophe, I’d surely help out.
It’s not that I’ve earned time working on myself and our home, although I have multiple times over. It’s that the male drive that brought me this far needs to step back to let a new generation of people take the baton from here. I’m confident we’ll be fine, and so will my ego.
It is a brilliant day near the lake today. Wildflowers are blooming, and the ambient temperature hasn’t been too hot. For a while, I was able to walk the trail and just breathe.
When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973, I was a junior at university. I re-read the decision after retirement in 2009, along with dissenting opinions and some of the briefs. I know exactly one thing about House File 732 passed in a special session of the Iowa legislature this summer: It did nothing, zero, to resolve controversy over abortion.
In 2022, a Republican-stacked Supreme Court overturned Roe which had enabled women with the right to seek an abortion. Discarding legal precedent, the justices ignored what’s best for the common good. Along with this decision, male dominance over women is re-surging. Abortion restrictions have led to a significant uptick in intimate partner violence, according to PBS Newshour.
Presently and throughout American history men have sought to dominate women at home, in the boardroom, and notably in legislation. A new generation of women, subservient to mostly male Republican legislators, are taking their marching orders. As Governor Kim Reynolds signed a near total ban on abortion in Iowa, women are faced with a familiar historic uphill struggle.
“Receiving an abortion does not harm the health and well-being of women,” according to The Turnaway Study by Diana Greene Foster. “Being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health and family outcomes.”
Failure to enable women with bodily autonomy and to make their own health decisions is a human rights violation.
A majority of Iowans can begin to take back rights denied us by House File 732 during the 2024 election.
~ A version of this post appeared in the July 21, 2023 edition of the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
We are at the point of summer where if I see you in person, I’m likely to give you a cucumber. Two if you’ll take them. Last night at a meeting of mostly grey-haired friends, the box of cucumbers was empty when I left. Those who took one seemed to want and like the vegetable.
There is always something to do in the county where I live. In part, that was why I moved here in 1980. I attended three gatherings in the last 30 days. When I reflect upon them, I noticed there was little age difference between most participants. To the extent we can discuss new ideas and avoid worn out tropes, I am okay with being with members of my cohort. All of these meet ups were initiated because of politics.
In part, we get political news at these gatherings unavailable elsewhere. In part, people are working to organize for the 2024 general election campaign. The fallacy in this is while I enjoy being with people who work together on politics, unless we get some new ideas and new people involved, Democrats will remain the minority party in Iowa for years to come. The common denominator has been that we are all in the same U.S. Congressional District, Iowa-01.
Iowa Democrats have a long history of difficulty finding candidates for congressional elections, and winning races. The sawhorse I drag out when describing this is the Art Small U.S. Senate race against Chuck Grassley in 2004. Small and former Davenport mayor Bill Gluba were both elected to the Iowa legislature in 1970. I remember chatting with Art at the county central committee meeting where he announced his candidacy for the Senate. He showed me a letter from Gluba which said that somebody had to run against Grassley, and it was down to Gluba or Small. Art agreed to fill the ballot and lost.
When my congressional district paired us with Cedar Rapids, prominent Linn County Democrats “took turns” running against long-time incumbent Jim Leach. By the time the 2004 election came along, the party had pretty much given up on beating Leach, and ran Dave Franker who had no money, no following, and no chance against the popular Republican. Franker got only 38.7 percent of the vote.
No one has announced for U.S. Congress in Iowa-01. There was agreement at the meetings that the talent pool is shallow. It was also noted that each year our current congresswoman serves she becomes a stronger incumbent. We are at about the place Art Small and Bill Gluba were in 2004. I’m sure someone will run. In the current political environment I’m hoping the candidate is doing more than filling the ballot or taking their turn as we used to say.
If the coronavirus pandemic hadn’t happened, it seems likely Democrat Rita Hart would have won the 2020 congressional race when Dave Loebsack retired. The pandemic motivated Republicans like I’ve never seen before and they swept. 2020 was a precursor to 2022 when Republicans took all statewide offices except auditor and gained a super-majority in the Iowa legislature. Rebuilding from here won’t be possible without good candidates, starting with the Congress. We’ll see who steps forward. I don’t think it will be Rita Hart since she took a role as chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. Christina Bohannan is said to be kicking the tires on another run. She lost every county in the district except for Johnson, where she lives, with 46.6 percent of the vote. I doubt there will be enough Democratic interest for there to be a competitive primary.
Three gatherings in a month seems close to the right amount. I want to be with people more although I avoid the county seat and stick to events closer to home. For one event I drove across the lakes to North Liberty. It was a stretch of my distance requirements, yet truth be told, I had excess cucumbers needing distribution and a potential outlet. It worked out well.
Is democracy the default state of humanity? In The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living, author Thom Hartmann presents the case that democracy is our default state, overcome only by the intrusion of dictators, popes, and kings using the power of great wealth, control of media, or the force of arms and technology. He explains where society has gone astray and what we can do to restore democracy.
The Hidden History of American Democracy is the ninth volume in Hartmann’s Hidden History series. Like its predecessors, it is accessible and easily readable, especially for readers immersed in the issues it covers. Hartmann creates a narrative grounded in historical documents yet seems fresh, and modern in its interpretation. The first two parts of the book dispel myths about democracy and the meaning of our constitution. The rest of the book frames the modern war on democracy and regulated capitalism; outlines a 21st Century democracy agenda; and presents a call to action.
The United States is not a Christian nation. Although Christianity was introduced in North America by European settlers in the 16th and 17th Centuries, and has experienced periodic revivals, it did not appear to take. The founders did not envision the newly formed country as Christian. They took precautions to avoid affiliation of the government with religion. Author of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution Thomas Jefferson studied the Bible yet was decidedly not Christian. In fact, the US Constitution never explicitly mentions God or the divine. In this book, Hartmann creates a narrative about the founding using Jefferson’s own experiences with the Cherokee and other indigenous people, depicting American democracy’s indigenous and broadly based intellectual roots.
While the US Constitution isn’t strictly based on the Iroquois Confederacy, it does have some elements in common with it. The greater impact of Native Americans, however, was in helping to shape the thinking of Enlightenment thinkers from Spinoza to Locke to Montesquieu to Jefferson.
Thom Hartmann, The Hidden History of American Democracy.
Here in Iowa, people refer to the US Constitution as if they read it. What they say and appear to believe about it doesn’t match the text. Not only do citizens believe the United States was founded as a Christian nation, they superimpose misguided characteristics on the Constitution regarding gun ownership, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Electoral College, the branches of government and more. In part two of the book, Hartmann takes apart these cultural myths in an effort to return us to a basic democratic outlook from before some were led astray.
The high water mark for post World War II democracy may well have been the election of Ronald Reagan as president. 60 percent of middle class Americans lived “the American Dream” in 1980, according to Hartmann. So-called Reaganomics, or the rise of neoliberalism, brought de-regulation of capitalism, “which measurably set back the working and middle classes while also weakening our democracy,” Hartmann said. Both Republicans and Democrats espoused principles of neoliberalism, ending in an all-out war on democracy and regulated capitalism. It is hard to find fault with Hartmann’s analysis of this important issue.
The rest of the book outlines a 21st Century democracy agenda. In it, action steps such as making voting a right instead of a privilege, changing the relationship with the U.S. Supreme Court so there is a form of oversight or “regulation,” expand the U.S. Senate immediately by adding two new states (Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico), providing health care for all, and more.
Thom Hartmann
Importantly, part of Hartmann’s agenda is for each of us to get involved in our democracy.
You may think your voice is but a faint whisper in the wilderness, but there are ways you can amplify it at no cost other than a bit of effort. Write letters to the editors of your local newspapers. Become active on social media. Volunteer with the dozens of great good-government groups and organizations devoted to saving our environment, our democracy, and our world.
Thom Hartmann, The Hidden History of American Democracy.
As we enter the 2024 general election cycle, many of us are seeking things we can do to make a difference. A good way to start is to read The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living and share it with your friends.
The author interviewed Thom Hartmann about the book on July 10, 2023. Readers can hear the 31:25-minute interview by clicking here.
Thom Hartmann is a four-time winner of the Project Censored Award, a New York Times bestselling author, and America’s number one progressive talk show host. His show is syndicated on local for-profit and nonprofit stations and broadcasts nationwide and worldwide. It is also simulcast on television in nearly 60 million U.S. and Canadian homes.
To buy a copy of The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living,click here. The book is available July 18, 2023.
The decent rain this morning will help the apples. I’m particularly looking forward to having a Zestar! apple from the tree I planted a couple of years ago. Zestar! is early and a bit tart. I tried one already and there is still too much starchiness. This rain should help them get bigger and sweeten them.
It is different for a retiree when it rains. Outdoors activity slows or stops. We take up indoors tasks that may have been long neglected. Or maybe, I put up the garage door and just watch the rain fall.
There is a lot going on in Iowa right now. Before I deal with that, I just need to breathe a while.
Fennel, patty pan squash, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, cauliflower, and snow peas from the garden on July 11, 2023.
Photographs of garden vegetables serve as therapy. Therapy to get me to write and post more often. The harvest of vegetables has been better than any year I remember. It’s not even tomato and pepper season!
The biggest writing project I’ve had in a while is finished and ready to post Thursday on multiple sites. After that, I’m covering a vacation on Blog for Iowa in August. Then, I’ll return to my autobiography. Like the concertina that opens the Broadway play Carnival, it’s time to get the writer’s squeeze box going.
There is nothing wrong with just being. When I walk on the state park trail most mornings, I listen for birds, observe where sunlight and shade fall, and feel cobwebs draped across the trail caught on my skin. There are many challenges in life. That half hour is a time to let them go and concentrate on being here.
Afternoon ambient temperatures now reach into the 90s. Except to check the garden, I stay indoors when it is so hot. We are fortunate to be able to afford air conditioning. Once the household chores are caught up, I can sit at my table and write. I’ve been doing more of it now that high summer has arrived in Iowa.
I just returned from my Monday morning trip to donate to the food pantry at the Methodist Church in town. They are open Monday afternoons for clients and accept deliveries beginning at 9 a.m. I donated cucumbers, zucchini and patty pan squash today.
Donating food accomplishes a couple of things. Clients really need the food they get at the food bank. By donating there, I contribute directly to someone’s good. When I want to preserve something — kale, cucumbers, vegetable broth, cabbage — I don’t know the yield, or how much I will need. The food bank enables me to grow plenty of what I need of a specific crop and find a home for the rest. By growing different things — patty pan squash, for example — I provide produce that is a bit different from what other gardeners may be donating. That give clients more diversity in their diet. More than anything, My donations make me useful in society.
I grow a garden for the fresh food. Being able to donate excess makes it feel like nothing is going to waste. That’s a good feeling.
Garden harvest on Friday, July 7, 2023. Broccoli and cauliflower are about done.
A group of local political activists got together at a restaurant on Thursday. What characterized us was our average age of about 70. We worked together on many campaigns and are apparently ready to work on another. In 2004, this was an asset. In 2023, it is a liability.
Where are younger political activists? They exist, I met some of them and worked with them. They don’t do politics the way we oldsters do. We would like to have had more young people at our meet up. Political activism is important for Millennials and Generation Z folks. Formal, in-person political meetings are less so.
I enjoyed spending time with long-time friends. I missed the ones who died, moved outside the district, and are present only in spirit. I’m not sure of what continued relevance our generation has in local politics. Who wants to hear from us as we age?
The big political news was on Wednesday when Governor Kim Reynolds called the Iowa legislature back to the state house on July 11 for a special session to address abortion.
“Iowans have elected representatives willing to stand up for the rights of the unborn and, in doing so, they have voted strongly in support of pro-life principles and against the arbitrary destruction of innocent, defenseless lives,” stated Governor Reynolds.
Press Release from the Iowa Governor on July 5, 2023.
The governor had a specific bill in mind, the text of which was released on Friday. Voters across the state are preparing to stand for or against the governor on July 11 in Des Moines. The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa summarized my feelings about abortion legislation:
Iowa faith leaders are speaking out ahead of the special legislative session in support of reproductive freedom, including access to safe and legal abortion. The faith leaders will speak during a press conference to affirm their religious beliefs in support of reproductive rights. People of faith are not monolithic in their beliefs on abortion. Many people of faith believe in reproductive freedom for Iowa women and all people because of their faith.
Press Release from the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, July 8, 2023.
Females in the oldster set of political activists who gathered on Thursday are past child-bearing years. Nonetheless, there are children and grand children to consider. They will be affected by changes in Iowa law regarding abortion. I hope Millennials and Generation Z voters are engaged and will contact their representatives. The oldsters already have.
2023 Garlic Harvest. 70 head plus seven green garlic.
It took about two and a half hours to harvest, sort and rack the garlic. 70 good sized head plus seven green garlic where I filled in spots where the clove planted in October didn’t survive winter. There is plenty for cooking in the coming year and 100 cloves to plant in the fall. This is what a home gardener hopes for in a garlic crop.
Lining up the garlic heads on a two-by-four for drying.
The main learning lessons are these:
Use wheat straw to mulch over winter. Grass clippings created a too-dense matte that hindered spring growth.
If there are empty spots in the spring, do plant new cloves in them. They don’t grow to maturity with the rest of the garlic, yet if you harvest the entire plot at once, they make green garlic to use in the kitchen while waiting for the main crop to cure.
Inspect each head to make sure it is disease-free. As long as the heads are disease-free, they can be used to start the following year’s crop.
Set aside the largest heads to use as seeds. Don’t equivocate on this step.
Racked garlic crop of 2023.
Garlic is such a basic ingredient that if one gardens at all, some part of the garden must be devoted to it. In the years I have been growing my own, I never found garlic at the grocer that is anywhere near as good in quality as my own. Producing a good garlic crop is one of the reasons we garden.
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