A New Eugenics Wave: Trying to Make Disability and Disease Disappear

Back in the 1980s when I was a budding journalist publishing articles related to women and health while working as Program Director for the National Women’s Health Network, I had the privilege of interviewing Judy Heumann and her collaborator Ed Roberts. Judy was known by then as the Mother of the Disability Movement and Ed was called the Father of Independent Living.

Judy, who died in 2023, had contracted polio as a child who then spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair.  She was denied the right to attend school because she was considered a fire hazard at the age of five. That was the seed that led to her life’s work. Determined to work with other disabled people, she helped found the Berkeley Center for Independent Living and the World Institute on Disability with Ed, who also had polio at the age of fourteen. It left him completely paralyzed and on a respirator for the rest of his life.  Undeterred, Ed fought to attend UC Berkeley, and ultimately became the first student to use a wheelchair there, let alone a respirator.

Their stories opened my mind to justice issues as no one else had. Together Judy and Ed changed the lives of all disabled people by helping to institute laws like the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), and much more. They weren’t afraid of shocking people, and they knew how to mobilize the media. In 1990 they led a demonstration in which thousands of activists abandoned their wheelchairs and mobility aids, many of them crawling up the eighty-three steps of the U.S. Capital building. The youngest one among them was eight years old.

A recent article in The Guardian noted that the day after Donald Trump was sworn for a second term was the day that the accessibility page and all assisted living content was removed from the White House website. Live interpretation (ASL) was removed from the White House and various federal agencies too.

Additionally, words like “diversity,” “women,” “accessibility” and “disability” were listed as reason to reject grant applications at the National Science Foundation, scaring other agencies and research institutions. That was followed by the order to dismantle the Department of Education, with over 1300 employees fired, and seven regional offices were closed. Special education and rehabilitation services along with the department’s office of civil rights were affected – after Linda McMahon, Trump’s Secretary of Education, promised that those programs would not be affected.

As the Guardian pointed out, early intervention programs and post-high school transition programs, including those that help with employment for disabled workers, are being slashed. They even went so far as to scrub the Special Olympics.  Services like speech, physical and occupational therapy have been cut. So were funds for ramps and braille materials, along with the idea of preferential seating and more. Some have called the treatment of disabled people “the canary in the coal mine.”  After all, Hitler started his elimination campaigns with disabled people. 

What’s happening here now smacks of Eugenics, which was first passed in the U.S. in 1907 in Indiana. Eugenics laws targeted disabled people in schools, institutions, and jails.  Sterilization was mandated for “criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles” in the state. Another law passed that year called for compulsory sterilization for those with “heredity diseases, which included deafness, blindness, epilepsy, and a lot of other conditions. In 1930s Germany mandatory abortions were also required if a parent had one of the identified conditions.

In the U.S. it remains legal in at least 31 states and Washington, D.C. to forcibly sterilize people because of a 1927 SCOTUS decision that upheld sterilization in Virginia. That decision has never been overturned.

This is the stuff of nightmares, and horror stories. It’s a shameful piece of American history, and a frightening example of what can happen when dictators and oligarchs take over a country and massacre their laws, ignore their courts, and extort institutions of learning, law, and civil rights. It’s beyond Draconian and Dystopian.  It’s just plain evil.

Alongside these travesties it bears illuminating what is happening at the same time in the health sector.  An April post on Bluesky by someone named Josh Marshall made the case that “most of the country has little idea of what has happened at NIH or through it the entire ecosystem of biomedical research in the U.S.” Marshall reminds us that cancer research has been put back decades along with other research about treatments and cures for other illnesses that lead to disability or death.

“It’s real, and it’s happened so quickly that most of the country doesn’t know it yet [including] the biomedical research world outside of NIH. … The prospect of more lifesaving cures and treatments [is] bleak,” Marshall says. So is life for disabled or otherwise comprised Americans, including children, elders, and those with chronic illnesses or disease, all because of political extremism led by totally incompetent people with no relevant experience or an ounce of empathy.

The canaries in the coal mines are sounding alarms. We must stay alert and actively resist in whatever ways we can. Our lives and our loved ones depend on us.  As Dylan Thomas famously said, “Do not go gently into the night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt. 

The Power and Promise of Resistance

It’s become clear that the time to act against political evil is now because this is an extraordinary moment in our history: We stand to lose the democracy we have taken for granted. Luckily, we are not new to resistance. We’ve done it before, and we’ve learned lessons from the past. But there are new lessons to be learned.

As Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard, points out, we have a history of resisting authoritarianism. Pro-independence colonists organized campaigns refusing to buy British goods and refused to abide by laws that required colonists to export raw materials to Britain. They defied other orders from Britain when they mounted the Boston Tea Party and undertook other  rebellious acts

More recently we have realized success by resisting modern travesties. The civil rights movement achieved desegregation with noncooperation campaigns like the Montgomery bus boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins, strikes, business boycotts, marches, demonstrations and the power of Martin Luther King Jr.’s oratory along with legal action. The women’s movement of the 1960s that continues today changed social norms and misogynist legislation, and organized resistance helped end the Vietnam War.

Lessons from the past are instructive. For example, Plato wrote that Socrates risked “all consequences in preference to becoming a partner in their iniquitous deeds.” Perhaps that inspired him to write The Republic in 380 BC in which he envisioned a just society in which “The best and most just of all rulers are those who are most reluctant to govern, while the worst and most unjust are those who are most eager. “

            Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata, a play in which the women of Athens occupied the Acropolis and went on a sex strike until the men agreed to make peace. Lysistrata stated that even if I was born a woman, don't hold it against me if I manage to suggest something better than what we've got now."

             Gandhi’s Quit India campaign, a unifying rallying cry for civil disobedience spread quickly and culminated in his 1930 Salt March which inspired the march on Washington in 1963 and the Selma to Montgomery march two years later. “Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt”, King wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which included his famous statement that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

             There are many ways to resist, and literature, music, and art have played their part. A strong artistic protest against injustice occurred in the Baker Library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH in the 1920s when Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco painted frescoes that depict the history of the American continent from the immigration of native peoples in prehistoric times to the arrival of the Europeans and their impact on native civilization.  Diego Rivera also used murals as a way to resist tyranny.  He called Orozco the conscience of his generation because of his intentional speaking out about things without fear of the consequences.  

            Music also rails against injustice. The Beatles, Arlo Guthrie, Helen Reddy, and many more recognized the importance of resistance through protest songs which still resonate today.

              American writers wrote books of resistance about political and social issues, mobilizing public opinion, advocating for the persecuted and marginalized, celebrating resisters, making space for direct action, aimed at a way forward. Protest literature made its mark with books like John Hersey's Hiroshima, a masterful anti-war book. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring woke people up to environmental issues, and James Baldwin’s essays in The Fire Next Time explored the American civil rights movement while Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee chronicled the violence of America's systemic destruction of Native America’s indigenous peoples and their culture.

            This cultural context is enlightening but as Erica Chenoweth points out “today’s political terrain calls for a more muscular movement strategy” centered on economic resistance given that our future elections are at risk. She agrees with other strategists that withholding labor and purchasing power along with strikes or slowdowns, are both effective methods of resistance.

I personally advocate for a national strike day, and a Project 2028 document (which needn’t be 900 pages long) that blasts Project 2025 and states specifically what new leadership would do to roll back Trump travesties and makes clear what antidotes will restore civil and human rights.

Another resistance tool for pressuring policy makers is employing a proven communication strategy aimed at raising awareness, increasing knowledge of what’s at stake, addressing attitudes, practices and beliefs and conveying a visionary, achievable future. Such a strategy calls for acting vs. reacting and focusing on “target audiences” by meeting them where they are and hearing what they say and think.

When stories are localized and opinion leaders and trusted change agents are in partnership with the media the results can be amazing.  I know because I worked internationally on a successful communication project that involved media advocacy methods vs. political public relations. It saved lives. Sadly, our politicians have not realized the potential and efficacy of well-researched and designed messages that rely on multiple ways to convey information and inspire action.

Add that to the mix and Erica Chenweth could be right. “Americans seem to be rediscovering the art, science, and potency of noncooperation, combined with a robust protest capacity and legal action, [that suggests] resistance against Trump’s agenda in America is not only alive and well. It is savvy, diversifying and probably just getting started.”

Let’s hope she’s right.

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt.

The Shock and Awe of Immigrant Deportations

They left Colombia to escape violence hoping to legally apply for asylum in the United States. Tthey were among the first to be deported by the Trump administration. It happened after five flights returned hundreds of Colombian migrants to their home country in the waning days of January, the Washington Post reported on Instagram.

As the new administration got into full swing, applying for asylum instantly became increasingly difficult. One way to halt applications was cutting off established and future appointments with CBP One, a mobile app that offered migrants a legal pathway to apply. Without that option still available, the Colombian family turned themselves in at the border hoping they could keep their scheduled appointment. Within days they were deported.

Another family, profiled on Instagram by Occupy Democrats last month involved three generations, a three-year-old child, her mother, and her grandmother, all American citizens from Puerto Rico who spoke fluent English when they were shopping in a Milwaukee store. Denied the chance to talk to an official they were taken to a detention center where the child was separated from her mother. When presented with birth certificates an officer released them.

An immigrant daughter who graduated from an Ivy League college and later earned a law degree, told a cable TV reporter that she received a call to bring her father to a government office because his green card was pending. He had lived in the U.S. for dozens of years, worked and paid taxes, and never been in trouble with the law so she had no reason to think he would encounter difficulties. But upon arrival the daughter was told to leave the room. When she refused, security escorted her out. When she returned, her father was gone – deported. 

Errors, cruel separations, and  entrapment is happening in many places. Children are separated from their mothers. People are followed home in their cars by ICE, identified perhaps by a woman wearing hijab or a dark-skinned man spotted in a grocery store. People who contribute to their communities, are vital to our economy, and never disobey the law are dragged away in front of their families. Many are victims of mistaken identity. Stories like these vary but they are similarly painful, heartbreaking and grievous.

Physician-writer Danielle Ofri, writing in The New York Times just after the January election, said that “Doctors and nurses [who are immigrants] should get ready for mass deportations. Patients are scared too. One patient who had multiple chronic health issues told Ofri that she was afraid of being picked up because she would not be allowed to take her medications “in the immigration camps.” She had stopped coming to the hospital for checkups because she was “scared ICE will be in train stations and bus stops.”

As horror stories mount individuals and families are going into hiding, clinging to their children who no longer go to school and who can’t seek healthcare. The price of eggs doesn’t compare to that kind of trauma.

Yet the Trump administration continues to cling to ideas that are built on myth, assumptions, stereotyping, racism and an appalling lack of understanding about what will happen if millions of hardworking, productive, honest, skilled and unskilled workers are forced out of the country.

Historical context is called for here. In 1980 Congress passed the Refuge Act which meant that people claiming political asylum had to meet a set of requirements to qualify for refuge or asylum.  But Ronald Reagan chose to view people fleeing political violence in Latin American as economic migrants, a designation that caused many applicants to be disqualified for asylum.

At about that time the government began resisting the sanctuary movement, especially in places of worship. In 1984 the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a predecessor to ICE, launched a full-scale investigation into the sanctuary movement and its leaders. Undercover agents were employed to collect evidence that religion was being used as a covert way to push a radical political agenda and to thus undermine immigration laws.

Soon, leaders of the sanctuary movement were charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to violate federal law. Not long afterwards, sanctuaries began spreading from churches to college campuses, local legislative bodies and state level protections and laws.

Now Donald Trump insists that sanctuary cities are havens of crime so overrun by dangerous immigrants that he needs to have an army of agents like ICE, the National Guard, and the military to control a plague of epic proportions perpetrated by people of color, poor people who have suffered unimaginable violence and persecution. That, of course, demands an expansion of “detention centers” which are, in reality, concentration camps where innocent people and families can languish for years.

“Many of these deportations threaten a range of fundamental human rights including the right to family unity, the right to seek asylum from persecution, the right to humane treatment in detention, the right to due process, and the rights of children,” Human Rights Watch points out.

These rights are being denied by an administration that is hell-bent on making America white again, run by cowards and oligarchs who suck up to and financially support a wannabe lifetime dictator.  But as Rebecca Solnit wrote in The Guardian, “The more we stand up, the harder it is for this authoritarian agenda to succeed, and the more uncomfortable we make it for those going along with the lies and cruelty, the harder it will be to persecute any single person who says what’s being done to immigrants is terrorism.

 Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt. 

Welcome to the Gilded Age

It’s déjà vu all over again. The robber barons are back. The wealthy have their cottages by the sea in the Hamptons, in international mansions, and at Mara Lago instead of Newport. Their yachts are shining and staffed while rivers of money flow from the coffers of billionaires who escape paying taxes and offer their obscene wealth in exchange for political favor and power. Clearly, we are once again a nation of prospering oligarchs and exploited paupers.

The glittering Gilded Age that reached its apex between 1880 and 1920 was a golden era of opulent architecture, extravagant fashion, expensive art, and expansive parties. Built on the economic growth that occurred following the Civil War and Reconstruction businessmen and bankers made out like bandits by investing in railroads, factories, and various industries that produced the raw materials needed for the development of innovative inventions that enabled mass production.

That led to “conspicuous consumption,” a term coined by a social critic at the time.  Mark Twain, who dubbed the era the “Gilden Age,” was among other critics troubled by the growing disparity between social classes.

While some in the monied class applied their wealth to building libraries, museums and public improvements in large cities (often prodded to do so by their wives), they overlooked the dark side of the needs of those who were on the other end of the social and economic spectrum. For example, they overlooked child labor, dangerous working conditions, and the exploitation of immigrant workers.

The Vanderbilts, Astors, and Carnegies looked the other way, ignoring life in the tenements of New York City and factories like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where the 1911 fire killed 146 trapped young women workers. Journalist and social reformer Jacob Riis brought the reality  of these travesties to light in stark photographs of slums, schools, factories, public health, and more in his photographic collection, How the Other Half lives housed at the Library of Congress.

Among today’s most recognized magnates and robber barons are three of the wealthiest and most morally corrupt men in America. Their enormous wealth and lack of social conscience makes their predecessors seem tame.

Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post is heavily invested in Uber, AirBnB, and X has a net worth of US$ 236 billion, while Amazon employees earn about $15 an hour despite the physical demands of the job and expectations about productivity. Amazon also continues to ban unions and illegally fires workers for trying to organize them. He also has had workplaces patrolled for signs of unionizing activity.  It’s positively Dickensian.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, is heavily invested in SpaceX, and owns X (formerly Twitter). He has Bezos beat in terms of net worth. According to Forbes, which tracks this kind of thing, Musk is worth over $420 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg is the third wealthiest man in America with a net worth of nearly $218 billion. He became a billionaire at the age of 23.  Owner of Meta, formerly Facebook, his latest travesty is ending fact checking on his social media platforms and that’s not the worst of it.  

Billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk are faux philanthropists who donate minimally to various pet organizations.  No libraries or museums for them. Just space capsules, AI, and a seat at high tables.

As Lasa Liberator points out, “they are often held up by the media as shining examples of philanthropists, but the reality is none of them has a foundation or philanthropic organization. By donating limited amounts of immense wealth, their public relations people argue they are changing the world for the better. That’s what they would like you to believe. While this philanthropy may seem generous from the outside, it is more often than not a ploy for the world’s wealthiest to dodge taxes, [or a way to]boost their public image, and increase their net worth, all while rarely doing that much actual good “along the way.

These newly anointed oligarchs, and others like them, are wedded to power, prestige, and political influence. They will do anything to curry favor. That makes them dangerous in ways that their forerunners were not, especially in a time of autocracy, patronage, and a good deal of pathology.

In this Gilden Age we are led into a different kind of conspicuous consumption. It’s one that consumes lies and clings to false narratives while ignoring history, facts, and good governance. It overlooks social justice issues like child labor which has made a comeback, as well as exploitive unsafe working conditions, especially for immigrants who mange not to be deported.

It burns the budgets that could help provide adequate housing, better schools, accessible healthcare and vital safety nets. It allows food and water to be contaminated because the ruling class doesn’t have to eat or drink what the lower classes do. It returns women to the Victorian age of silence and servitude.

Today’s robber barons and their elite political allies not only steal dignity and hope; they put us at great risk and conspire against anything that is fair and forward thinking while serving their own selfish purposes.  As Eugene Debs put it during the last Gilded Age, “"The time has come to regenerate society [while] we are on the eve of universal change."

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt. 

Health, Hunger, Housing: A Deadly Trifecta

As inauguration day approaches, trepidation and diverse emotions are running high.  In anticipation of what awaits us, given Donald Trump’s dubious appointments of unqualified sycophants, worries loom large about multiple possible dysfunctions. Among the sectors that are likely to be dramatically impacted are healthcare, hunger, and the housing crisis, each of which impacts the others.   

When it comes to growing fears about healthcare in a country already challenged by a broken system nothing speaks louder about how bad things could get than the lionization of Luigi Mangione, who killed the CEO of United Healthcare on a Manhattan street.

Three  New York Times columnists weighed in on what that event revealed about “the intense rage people feel toward insurance companies,” and what they said is important. As Zeynip Tufekci put it, “Dealing with health insurance companies when you’re vulnerable and knowing that a company is profiting off you is a visceral, enraging experience.” Tressie McMillan Cotton added, “every week there is a story about a well-informed, insured person fighting with their insurance company.” And Michelle Goldberg noted, “When you’re dealing with [insurance companies] you’re constantly reminded that decisions about your health and wellbeing are being made without any regard to your best interests. … It exemplifies the heartless precarity that underlies so much of American life.”

Add to this what Dr. Peter Hotez, Co-director for vaccine development at the Texas Children’s Hospital, said when asked what public health challenges the Trump administration will face on Day One.  “We’ve got some big-ticket concerns regarding infectious disease and pandemic threats. The new administration is not going to have the luxury of time to organize and think about it. They’re going to be confronted with this from the very beginning.”

Hotez cited concerns about avian flu, new strains of the Covid virus, and other potential outbreaks, like measles (and polio) if vaccines are no longer the norm. Juxtapose this with proposed cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, and the power of insurance companies to decide what gets covered. As Andrew Witty ,the new CEO of United Health Group said recently, “We will continue to guard against ”unnecessary care.”

All this is added to the fact that we have extremely high costs already while the U.S. scores badly on many key health measures like life expectance, suicide rates and infant and maternal mortality. People already face disparities in the quality of care and many risk bankruptcy in times of medical crises and debt.

Heath care and hunger are closely connected issues because as access to quality health care diminishes, and costs rise in a time of reduced insurance coverage, “a growing number of families in America struggle to put food on the table,” as a report from the Food Research & Action Center points out. “Without greater investments in anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs, hunger in this country will continue to climb.”

The FRAC report reveals some startling statistics.  In 2023 one in seven households in America experienced hunger, especially in Latinx and Black communities. Many families have had to choose between buying food and other basic necessities, especially if they live in a single-parent household headed by a woman. Thirty-three percent of households with incomes well below the poverty threshold lived with food insecurity in 2023.

Among the food insecurity programs in the U.S. aimed at addressing poverty is SNAP, which helps provide resources to participants of the program to purchase food. But several legislators want to cut nearly $30 billion in SNAP benefits, despite the increase in food insecurity. A travesty in a time when our military budget for 2023 was $916 billion.

Congress is unlikely now to reinstate the Healthy School Meals for All available to all students introduced during the Covid pandemic. (Eight states have such policies.) “Congress must also pass a permanent expanded and inclusive Child Tax Credit to create a more prosperous, nourished, and equitable society,” FRAC says. It must also “tackle the root causes and structural racism and other forms of discrimination that exacerbate hunger.” One way to do that is to ensure fair wages, and “improved access to affordable housing, health care, and disability benefits” to end the cycle of poverty and hunger.

Recognizing the interconnections between healthcare, hunger and housing couldn’t be more important, as a 2023 report by the New York Times indicated.  Being homeless affects  people differently and addressing the facts and myths surrounding homelessness must be understood.  For example, the stereotype that homeless people are dangerous, unpredictable or violent is a prevalent myth. It’s the homeless that experience violence or hate crimes for the most part. They also suffer poor health and are subject to injury and disease, as Tracy Kidder’s book Rough Sleepers, revealed so movingly.

As Pathway to Housing notes, “Homelessness is a general term that describes someone who doesn’t have a permanent residence … it is not just an issue in urban areas. … [it] happens nationwide.” It’s also false to assume that people who sleep on the streets refuse help or shelter, which Pathway to Housing says is “rooted in paternalism.” It’s also a false assumption that all homeless people are addicts. “Homelessness is not a choice that people could avoid if they got a job. That idea derives from the judgement that homelessness is a moral failing instead of a set of circumstances and structural issues,” notes Pathway.

There is much more to say about these three interconnected problems. (See, for example, how Finland solved the problem of homelessness .)  Each one deserves attention, political will, and humanity. Dare we hope to find it?

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt. 

From Chattel to Child to Red-cloaked Mother

Throughout the ages it’s been true. Now, here we go again. Sexism and misogyny 3.0. With the second reign of Donald Trump women will continue to be ignored, excluded, trivialized, objectified, assaulted, shamed, and afraid.

In the truly old days women became chattel when nomadic societies ceased to be mobile and agrarian. Before yielding to land ownership, life meant that everyone in the family and community had respectable tasks. Men hunted, women planted, and no one was treated as a lesser being. When land was claimed and “owned,” everything changed. Men became warriors who fought each other for everything that was on the property, including livestock, tools, furnishings, and women, along with children, who were regarded as a husband’s personal property.

Fast forward to modern times and notice how women are still treated as chattel. Here’s a true example, shared by Catherine Allgor, Ph.D. at the National Museum of Women’s Art in 2012.  A woman applies for a mortgage to buy a house. She is older than her husband, is senior to him in their careers and earns more money. She has bought houses before, her spouse has not. Still, in the transaction, she is listed as “wife,” and as such she is subjected to the legal practice of coverture, a term that still exists since colonial times.

Based on English law, coverture meant that no female had a legal identity. A child was covered by her father’s identity, and a wife’s identity relied on her husband’s, which is why till relatively recently wives assumed her husband’s surname. Before that, wives were considered to be “feme covert,” a covered woman who did not exist legally. (Sound familiar?) Originally that meant that females couldn’t own anything, had no rights to their inheritances, or their children. They couldn’t work, enter a contract, or have bodily autonomy because husbands had the legal right to rape.

Coverture, Allgor explains, is why white women weren’t allowed to vote until 1920. They couldn’t serve on juries until the 1960s, and marital rape wasn’t a crime until the 1980s. In my personal experience during that decade, I was denied in-state tuition when I earned my master’s degree, because although I met every requirement for it, including being co-owner of a house, the college argued that I wasn’t legally a resident of Maryland because I didn’t earn half of our family income.  It took me seven years to win the case against them.

Women are still infantilized and treated as children. It occurs in the workplace, the marketplace, the academy, religious institutions, and in homes when others, often men in domestic settings, treat women as errant children. Infantilizing women is linked to objectification because it sets up an unequal power and control situation. Women in various settings threaten the androcentric paradigm that has us locked into various, unrelenting forms of patriarchy. Examples include using demeaning nicknames, suggesting that women don’t understand a topic, using physical gestures like a hug that they wouldn’t use to greet women vs. men All of these gestures and words are meant to convey to women that men have superiority over the person who is subjected to these differentiations.

In 2018 the Harvard Business Review published an article written by four female researchers that revealed that words used in the business sector choose different ways to describe women vs. men in significant ways. Their research found that even young females are often described as “bossy” while that term is not applied to boys. In adulthood being called “ambitious” is an insult for women but not for men. … “The problem is that the words used to evaluate women differ from those used to evaluate men which reinforces gender stereotyping,” say the authors. “Similarly, people are more likely to use [words] like “superb,” “outstanding,” “remarkable,” and “exceptional” to describe male job applicants. In recommending female applicants, people used fewer superlatives but less specificity.” Then fact is: Words matter.

The incoming president and his pals play all these cards in spades.  Name calling, put downs, sexual transgressions and more will not suddenly quiet down or disappear. The likelihood is they will be exacerbated by an overblown sense of superiority and adoration by Donald Trump’s second win. Every bit of misogyny and sexism women have had to endure in the past will be more pronounced and dangerous by this administration and its rightwing collaborators.

Consider the fact that women have been robbed of bodily autonomy, lifesaving reproductive healthcare, and policies that are geared to breeding rather than being. Already women are dying from preventable crises during pregnancy and miscarriage. That is nothing short of state sponsored femicide. Women, like words, matter, but not in the incoming administration.

 An article in The Brooklyn Rail published in 2017, shortly after the last election Donald Trump won, captures the shocking reality that links the political situation ahead of us to the chillingly relevant book The Handmaid’s Tale, which suggests “parallels between a fictional totalitarianism, and the policies and ideological proclivities of Donald Trump’s administration. In many ways, these comparisons make sense: the world of The Handmaid’s Tale contains the brutal objectification of women, widespread loss of civil rights, the manipulation of facts to control the political narrative, and an authoritarian state that fetishizes a return to religious or   traditional values.”

Is it any wonder that the red cape symbolizes what women have feared since Roe v. Wade was overturned? Will history prove to be prologue?

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt.

Taking Stock of Election Shock

Usually around this time I begin thinking about writing my cheery Christmas letter to share the highlights of another year in the life of our family. This year is different. I’m still trying to grasp what just happened and what it will mean for all of us.

My initial reaction was blurted out in staccato texts to friends who were in the same state as I was: “Stunning!” “Horrific!” “Devastating!” “Dangerous!” Then I entered an emotionally strange place that felt like a Venn diagram in which anxiety and numbness meet in the center of a space that felt more like despair. Now I’m asking myself how and why the shock of the election happened.

It started with questions.  How could a 34-time convicted felon and a man who was found guilty of sexual assault be able to run for president? Why was the Justice Department so slow in moving forward on his trials? How could the Supreme Court grant him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to if he were president again? How could people vote for someone who lies incessantly, whose language is vile, whose racism and misogyny are so blatant, who dreams of being a dictator, not be enough to stop him?

Then I moved to what I fear most.  People like Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Steven Miller, the authors of Project 2025, and other-like minded tyrants taking control of every government agency and firing thousands of career civil servants.

I worried about what it would mean to close or limit agencies like the EPA, the Department of Education, NOAA, and FEMA and to ignore the ever-worsening climate crisis.

I thought about a country with such a broken, for-profit healthcare system that would result in skyrocketing illnesses and deaths (with no data to prove it), and millions of people suffering as a result. I wondered how bad it would get without vaccinations, fluoride, Medicaid, reduced Medicare, and no insurance.

I thought of the women who will have no agency over their own lives, and I imagined the women who would die because they couldn’t get reproductive healthcare when they were in crisis or who would be jailed for having a miscarriage. I worried about a reprise of the Comstock Act that would ban abortion nationally and deny women any form of birth control (except sterilization, which some young women have already resorted to).

I worried about people of all ages who would be rounded up, separated, and held in the equivalent of prisons indefinitely. I really worried about revenge politics, roundups of opposition leaders and activists, the disappearance of news outlets, and random violence. As Robert Reich said in a piece in The Guardian the day after the election, “Countless people are now endangered on a scale and intensity unheard of in modern America.”

I also worried mightily about our lost standing in the global community and the threat of an expanded war in the Middle East while Ukraine is handed to Putin who can then march into the NATO countries to start a Third World War with nukes.

Then I began to question what kind of a country we have been historically, culturally and now presently. How did we allow this to happen? I came to this conclusion:  We are a country conceived and birthed by smart, visionary, educated men who were elite white supremacists wedded to racism, misogyny, religious singularity, patriarchy, and conformity.

What we are seeing now, it seems to me, is the underbelly of an America that has always flourished, and has grown in modern times, driven by color, caste, economic advantage or disadvantage, religious beliefs, ethnicity, power, and corrupted politics, all of which have divided us into Us and Them. That makes for a dangerous, disquieted and increasingly binary way to live. It stokes fear, limits compassion and clear thinking, and people like Donald Trump rely on it for their own gains.

As an Instagram post said the day after the election, “America has showed its true character and it’s heartbreaking,”

So where do I go from here?  My answer begins with my belief that resistance doesn’t die, it re-emerges when it is vital to survival. Early Americans knew that when they threw tea into Boston harbor. Slaves resisted in various ways including dancing and drumming. People stood up to McCarthyism and to an American fascist movement in the 1930s and 40s. We started labor movements and unions to protect workers, and we made sure women could vote by refusing food and enduring forced feeding. We resisted a war in Vietnam and successfully ended it. It’s in our DNA in huge numbers when things get bad because ultimately,  most of us refuse oppression, discrimination, exploitation, and evil and choose instead to embrace freedom and democracy. 

There are some among us who don’t get that yet, but they will soon see how powerful and effective it is.  Paraphrasing Billy Wimsatt, Executive Director of the Movement Voter PAC the day after the election, we have what it takes to meet and overcome this moment as our elders and ancestors did under unthinkably difficult circumstances. We can draw on their strength and wisdom as we chart our way forward and join what is likely to be one of the largest resistance movements in history.

For now, we must take a breath and remember all we did together to avert this outcome. In that spirit let’s comfort each other as we regroup before continuing the fight for a compassionate country grounded in equality, justice, and sustainable freedom and democracy.

Kamala Harris is in Good Company as She Moves Forward

As Vice President Kamala Harris has proven since she began campaigning to be president, she is no neophyte in the world of politics as some proclaim. Nor is she a potted plant: She has an amazing presence, a strong intellect, an impressive resume, and refreshing charm as she campaigns calmly and with dignity. She joins a distinguished group of accomplished women who precede her as capable, courageous change makers.

History is full of such women. Hypatia, who died in 415, was a mathematician and philosopher who risked upsetting the establishment’s sexism. She was killed for that, but we know her name. Hildegard von Bingen, born in 1098, is better known than Hypatia. Sequestered in an abbey at age nine she became a scientist, healer and mystic and is regarded as the most accomplished medieval woman.

Christine de Pizan was born in Italy in 1364. As a writer she advocated for women’s equality. Her works are considered to be among the earliest feminist writing. She argued that speaking up was a powerful tool for women. Olympe de Gouges, born in 1748 France, was a social reformer who challenged conventional views on many issues, including divorce, women’s roles, the need for maternity hospitals and the rights of orphaned children.

In the 18th century Mary Wollstonecraft was a renowned women’s rights activist who authored A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which remains a classic. Nearly a century later the women of Seneca Falls, including women of the Iroquois Nation, forged a new agenda for women, including the right to vote. The list of leaders, orators, and organizers of that movement is long and important. Matilda Joslyn Gage, Sojourner Truth, the Grimke sisters and many others changed women’s lives, although it took decades for them to vote.

Alice Paul continued the work of the Suffragists when she helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution enfranchising women. She authored the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, which has still not been adopted. Paul’s “Silent Sentinels” picketed the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, remaining persistent despite attacks and arrests. Paul was jailed and quickly organized a hunger strike while enduring force feedings and threats of psychiatric incarceration.

These women, and others weren’t viewed as overtly political figures in their own time, but their social justice work was profoundly political. Dorothy Day is an example. A journalist and social activist, she resisted war and nuclear testing. She also led the peace movement, the civil and workers’ rights movements while advocating for women’s rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt, with help from the educator Mary McCleod Bethune, had a major impact on FDR and his reluctance to address racism. She became actively political by promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights while urging women’s involvement in international affairs. She likely influenced FDR to appoint Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor, the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. Perkins was the driving force behind the New Deal and actively supported labor laws.

Subsequently women began being elected or appointed to their governments highest offices. Among them were Sirimavo Bandaranaike the world’s first female Prime Minister in 1960, and Vigdis Finnbogadottir, voted Iceland’s president three times, becoming the first elected female president in the world.  She was followed by other Nordic women as effective heads of state.

Norwegian politician Gro Harlem Brundtland made her mark as an environmental leader, Prime Minister, and party leader. She gained international recognition for her work on the environment, human rights, and sustainable development.

Ellen Sirleaf Johnson became Liberia’s first female president and won the 2011 Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts to further women’s rights internationally.  Known as Africa’s Iron Lady, she promoted peace, justice and democratic rule, for which she was jailed by a military junta. 

Mary Robinson was President of Ireland and was highly regarded for her transformative effect on her country. She fought for the legalization of contraception, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the legalization of divorce, and women’s ability to serve on juries

Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile twice, was that country’s first woman president. She focused on the needs of the poor, reformed the pension system, promoted the rights of women, and recognized the rights of Chile’s indigenous people.

Outside the political arena of presidents and prime ministers, politically active women throughout history have contributed to the realm of social justice, human rights and equality. Among them are writers who see the world through a gender lens. Simone de Beauvoir, Tillie Olson, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde and others have illuminated the reality of people’s lives, the need for political action and reform, the value of women’s contributions no matter their class or caste. They help us see the urgency of defeating stereotypes, overcoming destructive assumptions, and instituting compassionate laws and practices that demonstrate an understanding of what makes us strong, safe, and free.

Kamala Haris joins these women. She is part of a sisterhood who envisioned a different way of being. She is not an anomaly. In this time of fractious debate, it’s urgent that we recognize who she is, what she offers, and what she will do as she goes forward in good company.[i]

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 Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt.  www.elayne-clift.com

[i] Sources:

Britannica, Wikipedia, UN Chronical,           

National Women’s History Museum,

Nobel Peace Prizes, Council of Women’s World Leader

Beware the Shrinking Divide Between Church and State

The Pope uses the power of the pulpit to tell his followers that they should “vote for the lesser of two evils.” Politicians call for mandating schools to teach the Bible. Oklahoma's top education official orders public schools to teach the Bible while Louisiana leaders direct schools to display the Ten Commandments and Texas leaders propose a curriculum that incorporates biblical lessons.

In 1947 when a woman named Vashti McCollum argued in the Supreme Court that religious education had no place in public schools, SCOTUS interpreting the First Amendment religious establishment clause known as “separation of church and state.” Though not explicitly stated in the First Amendment, the clause has been interpreted ever since to mean that the Constitution requires that separation.

I was a young student some years after that, and I still remember feeling that I didn’t belong. In today’s parlance I was astutely aware that I was the Other. I resented having to sing Christmas carols around a tree in December, having my absent days to mark the Jewish New Year considered an unexcused absence, and being obliged to recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning. So I’m acutely aware of the impact such a sense of exclusion can have and the damage it can cause to a child’s sense of self. 

Today, I am acutely aware that the eroding distinction between church and state is eating away at our American identity. That distinction and identity is essential to a democracy, as our founders realized, and it’s been disappearing before our eyes.  It’s also driving us further toward autocracy as part of a system of governance, which so many other countries have experienced.

It’s dangerous when popes, priests, politicians, educators and others use their power to alter our personal way of life and it’s distressful when controlling what we believe, what we think, what we choose, or choose to ignore, is no longer an option.

It’s also stressful, and illegitimate, when the courts, namely SCOTUS, mandate that no distinction should be made between church and state. Two years ago, “the conservative majority of the Supreme Court made it clear that there was little room for the separation of church and state,” as  the .ACLU put it, when they ruled on two relevant key cases.

They were referring to two major decisions in 2022 that over-ruled “75 years in which the court had recognized that both of the First Amendment’s religious clauses were vital to protecting religious freedom.” One of those cases involved the Establishment Clause which protected citizens from the government imposing religion on citizens or endorsing a religious position. The other case was about the Free Exercise Clause which ensured people’s right to practice their faith as long as it didn’t harm others. These were two incidents in which the Supreme Court overthrew settled precedent. In her dissent, Justice Sonika Sotomayor said these two cases led “us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.”

The ACLU also points out that SCOTUS has allowed “official, nearly exclusively Christian prayer at government meetings and has sided with those who, in the name of religion, discriminate against customers, and recipients of government funded social services.”

Almost two decades ago, as ACLU shares, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor noted that “when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government,” we need constitutional boundaries that protect us from similar worries. Why, she asked, “would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly.”

Why indeed.  This election cycle it’s imperative that we keep in mind that we are voting not just for who will occupy the White House with their finger on the button, but who will be appointed to our Federal and Supreme courts for lifetime terms.  We owe it to the generations who follow us to leave them with a legal legacy that protects their freedoms, their lifestyles, and their democratic way of life, even when they are in elementary school.

The Pope’s words were misguided and should have been called out. The clergy writ large needs to realize that they are spiritual leaders and not political idealogues when they stand before us. Politicians who like to play God must be removed from office and never elected again. Educators must honor their mandate to educate children in ways that encourage their intellectual, social, and personal growth, and not their religious beliefs. And all of us need to remember the principles upon which our country was founded, because they will keep us free, and because no one, least of all a child, should feel like they don’t belong in their schools, their places of worship, their communities or their families.

Thomas Jefferson put it this way in 1802: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

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 Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt. 

Coming to Grips with Violence in America

Like so many others, I experienced huge relief when Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the Democratic candidate for President in the forthcoming election. Watching her reveal her strengths as a competent politician, experienced leader, and likeable person lifted my hope for the future of this country, in both the short and long term.

My relief that we could return to political sanity, however, was tempered by the anxiety I’ve borne for months, fearing a reprise of violence once the election is over, no matter the results. I worry that we could see another insurrection at the Capital (or worse), and multiple acts of violence in a variety of other venues. It wouldn’t be the first time. The capital riots were stunning and terrifying but not all that surprising given the source. But the fact is our history is rife with political violence. The number of examples I found in researching the topic was stunning.

 One source revealed that the New York City draft riots of 1864 were the largest popular insurrection in American history. “Hundreds of young men poured into the streets to protest the federal draft lottery. The riots soon turned violent” and led to an uncontrolled mob burning homes, offices and other properties. The riots continued for four days until 4,000 federal troops ended the destruction and death.

And in 1898 2,000 armed white men spurred on by white supremacists rioted in Wilmington, North Carolina trashing the office of a Black newspaper, which resulted in dozens of Black people being killed. The mayor resigned along with several Black local leaders while thousands fled the city.

A hundred years later we saw political violence in the 1960s and 1970s, usually around social issues like civil rights, minorities, and abortion. And in the 21st century we actually experienced a nearly successful takeover of the United State government.

But America’s violent underbelly was present long before these kinds of acts. It was there from the beginning when we treated Native Americans so viciously, and it was there when we were wedded to slavery and lynching Black boys and men. Racist violence seems to be in our DNA. Just think about the brutal murders of everyone from Emmett Till to Martin Luther King, Jr. to George Floyd and all the others, male and female, in their homes, their cars, their beds, or just jogging down the street.

Violence in America also reveals itself in the form of sexual violence and abuse, whether in our local churches or in Hollywood, in bedrooms and workplaces, in department store changing rooms, schools, sports teams – the list is endless. The National Institutes of Health reveals that

“Family and domestic violence including child abuse, intimate partner abuse, and elder abuse is a common problem in the United States. Family and domestic health violence are estimated to affect 10 million people in the United States every year. It is a national public health problem, and virtually all healthcare professionals will at some point evaluate or treat a patient who is a victim of some form of domestic or family violence.”

Then there’s the epidemic of gun violence in America. Johns Hopkins University frames the problem as a public health emergency. “Firearm violence is a preventable public health tragedy affecting communities across the United States.” They reported that in 2022, over 48,000 people died by firearms in the U. S. That’s an average of one death every 11 minutes.  Almost 27,000 people died that year by firearm suicide and another nearly 20,000 died by firearm homicide. Then there were the unintentional gun injuries and deaths often caused by children or police.

There is violence in America’s prisons, violence against asylum seekers, continuing violence in the form of antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, racial profiling, and discriminations in everything from jobs, housing, restrooms and more. Each of these arenas of violence deserves legal, political, economic and human rights reform. 

There is another form of violence that is gender-based. It has been part of this country in largely invisible ways that often involve emotional vs. physical harm.  Take, for example, the fact that women did not get the right to vote until 1920, and that took a kind of activism that few could endure. Suffragists were tortured in prison for the right to have their voices heard and it took them decades to be granted that right – if they were white. 

In the 19th and 20th centuries women like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Clara Barton, and Jane Addams were considered ill, weak, hysterical or crazy and subjected to a brutalizing rest cure or incarcerated in mental asylums either by their husbands or by a male psychiatric establishment that killed them spiritually, and occasionally physically.

Today women still struggle to be recognized as competent leaders and professionals, to earn equal pay, to secure childcare, to avoid domestic or elder abuse, to escape sexual harassment, and to live autonomous lives, which includes the right to control their own bodies. All of that is a form of violence, based on power and control, aimed at women.

Taken together, these examples of violence in America remind us that there is so much work to be done to end the scourge of various violent oppressions. The time to start is now.

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt. 

Were We the Lucky Ones?

A docudrama, We Were the Lucky Ones, streaming on Hulu recently inspired me to consider this question: Were Americans in my generation the lucky ones, post WWII? In the story a real family scattered across Europe during the pogroms against Jews in the war. Miraculously they managed to survive and to reunite with their loved ones.

Now I wonder if those of us who have lived in America since the 1940s may be the lucky ones. We have lived in a post-war period of democracy, freedom from fear, and peace for the most part, without the obscenity of war and dictatorship on our doorsteps. We have never had to experience the terror of autocratic regimes. Most of us can’t even imagine what that is like. We have been able to trust our families, friends, and neighbors, and to receive uncensored information free of propaganda, to travel freely across state lines and to other countries without being impeded or interrogated. We have never had a government that destroyed the basis of our republic in the document called the Constitution. Most of us were able to live decent lives and to sleep soundly at night.

Admittedly the “good old days” weren’t all good. They were rife with racism, antisemitism, sexism, discrimination, and fear of the Other. We lived in a time when America flirted seriously with fascism, schools were segregated, domestic violence and sexual abuse were hidden. We lived to see the development of nuclear weapons and suffered the threat of the Bay of Pigs, when Russian threatened us with missiles from Cuba. There were race riots and a war we never should have been in, political assassinations of some of our beloved leaders, terrorist attacks and later an insurrection, and so much more that never should have happened in “the land of the free and the brave.” 

But still we were mostly the lucky ones. We never headed to bomb shelters, most of us could feel safe in our homes, and we proceeded with our lives under the protection of the Constitution. It was safe to send our kids to school, to go to a café, a concert, a grocery store, and to worship in a variety of religious environments.

We could choose our politicians in free and fair elections and vote them out of office when we needed to.  When necessary, we protested what we believed was wrong in our local communities and nationally, peacefully and without fear of being silenced or arrested. We chose whether or when to start families, we read the books we wanted to. We trusted our friends and neighbors to look out for each other, and most of all we felt free.

Those freedoms could now become fading memories.  What looms large in November is a clarion call for civility, compassion, humanity, intelligent leadership, sound judgement, and continuing democracy.  Our country cannot afford to lose its standing in a global world or risk the hideous thought of a nuclear war because we have felons and fascists in charge who admire the likes of Mr. Putin and other autocrats and dictators.

Unless we act appropriately, the idea of American exceptionalism will be nothing more than a memory embedded in the jargon of despair. In the past, Americans have managed to come together in critical times in ways that revealed our character and upheld the principles of this country. We have demonstrated to the world our capacity for cohesion, compassion, sound judgement and right action. Now is the time to reclaim that spirit by making a commitment to disavow a dystopian future.

We stand now on the precipice of a giant sink hole that would take years to dig out of, if not generations. We owe it to our progeny to leave them a world in which we proved again our resilience and our love of freedom. 

We need to make sure that they too are the lucky ones who remain free of oppression and disaster,  the lucky ones who reunite with the spirit of this country in hard times, and the lucky ones who build a new and secure future together. That means doing the right thing in November for the loved ones in your life.

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt.

Just How Broken is Our Healthcare System?

A young woman dies in childbirth for lack of proper perinatal care. An elderly man can’t afford meds to control his chronic conditions, so he rations them. A child is misdiagnosed in the emergency room. A patient waits months to see her doctor about a troublesome symptom.

Stories like these abound. They are shared by patients, parents, partners, good healthcare providers and others who’ve had enough of medical runarounds, cost issues, access problems, diagnostic and treatment errors, insufficient time with providers, and more, to contend with. Reports of major issues in healthcare by medical professionals as well as patients and politicians with a conscience are increasingly sounding alarms.

In a recent Instagram post, for example, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) was outraged to learn that drug companies charge as little as $7.00 for an inhaler outside the U.S. while here the price gouging rises to as much as $380 depending on what type of inhaler is needed. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is among several Democratic senators, and The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, that have demanded information about asthma inhaler patents and prices from four major manufacturers accused of “manipulating the patent system.”

One of the four companies was cited for charging $645 for an inhaler it sells in the UK for $49. Another company was called out for charging $286 on the U.S. market for an inhaler that costs $9.00 in Germany. According to another Instagram post in February, “Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly reported over two billion dollars in profit in the last three months of last year alone. This massive number comes from hiking prices of vital drugs for American seniors and other patients”.

Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University wrote in a Washington Post editorial in January expressing his concern that some doctors are selling their practices to private equity firms because running a medical practice has become a management nightmare. “The number of private equity firms in health care has exploded in recent years,” Dr Jha lamented. “It’s a trend that should have everyone’s attention, from politicians to patients, because it can significantly increase costs, reduce access, and threaten patient safety.”

In an article published in the New York Times in November last year, Dr. Amol Navathe, co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, worried that non-profit hospitals were focusing more on dollars than patients.  He wrote that nonprofit hospitals are “hounding poor patients for money, cutting nursing staffing too aggressively, and giving preferential treatment to the rich.” It’s gotten so bad, he says, that nurses and other healthcare workers are resorting to strikes to improve workplace safety at several hospitals during an “acquisition spree” that is making healthcare less affordable.

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities are taking a hit too. According to the New York Times these profitable facilities charge $5,000 per month or more topped up by fees for such things as a blood pressure check, $50 for an injection (more for insulin), almost $100 a month for medication orders from external pharmacies, and over $300 a month for daily help with an overpriced inhaler. There can be extra charges for help in toileting, dining room fees, or a daily check in by staff.

There are currently 31,000 assisted living facilities nationwide. Four out of five of them are for profit businesses. Most of them cater to affluent white elders, although minority groups are a quarter of the population older than 65 in the U.S. According to the New York Times piece, assisted living is “part of a broader affordability crisis in long term-care for the swelling population of older Americans.” Aside from cost issues, there are reports of serious care problems reported by watch groups, ranging from staffing shortages, growing infection rates, and lower vaccination rates in assisted living facilities.

Another area of healthcare feeling a looming crisis is mental health, including addiction.  Daniel Bergner, author of the book My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches, points out that while housing, additional psych wards, and community-based treatment facilities are traditionally identified remedies, budgetary and logistical problems are ignored. “These fundamental changes often involve the involuntary nature of care,  and the flawed antipsychotic medications that are the mainstay of treatment for people dealing with the symptoms of  psychosis,” he says.

Bergner reveals that existing laws in almost all states allow for mandatory care that can rely on court-ordered treatment, including the use of antipsychotic drugs. “Imagine,” he asks us, “being hauled off to an emergency room, forcibly injected with a powerful drug…and held in a locked ward until being dispatched into a compulsory outpatient program.” He points out that is likely to add to a patient’s trauma, isolation, and lack of agency, rather than their recovery. “Compulsory care is deeply problematic…made more so by the medications at its core. … Drugs shouldn’t be the required linchpin of treatment.”

This is just a sampling of the issues confronting our failing healthcare systems. Our disgraceful maternal and infant mortality rates are often linked to racial discrimination. Shrinking Medicaid payments to clinics for the poor dramatically affects healthcare for the poor. And reproductive healthcare is on a rapid road to crises that smack of sexism -- all among the reasons our voices and votes need to be heard this year.

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The Time for Change is Now

As Greek philosopher Heraclitus claimed around 500 BCE, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. There is nothing permanent except change.” The noted philosopher meant that change is the only reality. Given our political processes in election years, institutional change is needed more than ever as we hover on the brink of disaster.

Four major changes need to occur, and none will be quick or easy, nor are they imminent, but maybe we can begin by ending the Electoral College, an antiquated system that means we are not a true democracy because our president and vice president aren’t elected by a majority of the popular vote, which is why five times candidates who won the popular vote didn’t get elected.   

The  Electoral College has its roots in racism and misogyny, as the Brennan Center points out. When it was established, it gave an electoral advantage to slave states in the South because they upheld the Constitution’s declaration that “any person who wasn’t free would be counted as three-fifths of a free individual for the purposes of determining congressional representation.” Racism still prevails through voter suppression. As for women, they didn’t get to vote until 1920, if they were white!

The 538 members of the Electoral College are chosen by state officials, a change from voter choice that resulted from the 2023 Electoral Count Reform Act designed to deal with prior problems regarding who became a member of the College. To win an election, a presidential candidate must have a majority of all the electoral votes cast to win. Nearly all U.S. states have a winner-take-all system in which all the electoral votes go to the candidate who won the popular vote in respective states.

To eliminate the College requires a constitutional amendment – difficult, but not impossible. The John R. Lewis Act passed in the House (but not Senate) in 2022 would have addressed many problems that arise as a result of the Electoral College. It’s a bill that desperately needs to be a priority in the next Congress.

Another pressing issue calling for change is lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court and the federal courts, an “outdated relic” as the Brennan Center calls the practice. Lifetime appointments to the courts gives enormous, long-term power to judges to decide laws that can affect generations. The consequences of that longevity can be dire, especially as the courts become more politically polarized. Abortion is a case in point. SCOTUS overruled the constitutional right to abortion that was established fifty years ago because far-right Trump appointees on the Supreme Court, who promised in their confirmation hearings to follow precedent, proceeded to overturn Roe v. Wade.

That’s why the call for 18-year terms and regular appointments on the Supreme Court is growing. Term limits would enable every president to shape the direction of the court and its decisions during the four years she or he served a four-year term.  There would be no constitutional crises because of unexpected vacancies late in that four-year term and scheduled appointments for Congressional oversight would be less contentious. Enforcing ethical rules would also be upheld and belief in the court’s integrity would be restored. Secret money would no longer be able to influence justices.

As the Brennan Center notes, “On average, justices today sit on the bench for more than a decade longer than their predecessors did. … Unbounded tenure allows a single justice to shape the direction of the law … without regard to the evolving views and composition of the electorate. It puts justices in an elite and unaccountable bubble.  … It is time to reform the Supreme Court.”

When it comes to reform and rebellion, Campaign Finance Reform is up there with the Electoral College and SCOTUS appointments.  Many organizations, like the ACLU, “support a comprehensive and meaningful system of public financing that would help create a level playing field for every qualified candidate.”

To make our playing field more equitable we can look to the UK for guidance. First, they have a “regulated period” prior to each election campaign. The length of time depends on the election and covers the period that someone is formally a candidate who must only spend a limited amount of money on campaigning. There is no political advertising on TV, radio, or social media, other than a short, free pre-election TV broadcast. There are no debates! Political donations to national parties over a certain amount, about US$8000, must be declared as well as donations to local parties worth more than US$2000. Donations to members' associations – groups whose members are primarily or entirely members of a single political party – also need to be declared above $8000. That’s it when it comes to financial.donations ( *[1])

In contrast, citing superPACs and dark money, the Brennan Center says that “A handful of wealthy donors dominate electoral giving and spending in the U.S. We need limits on campaign finance, transparency, and effective enforcement of these rules – along with public financing”.

 A fourth issue that calls for action is voting systems that keep people from the polls. Purged voter rolls, gerrymandering, and deceptive election practices, primarily meant to block voters of color, low-income communities, students and seniors, must be addressed so that everyone can participate in the democratic process of voting.

This is a time for constitutional change despite challenges. We must keep the pressure for reform up if we are not to become a banana republic.

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[1] Other source: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2021-0121/CDP-2021-0121.pdf

Democracy vs. Fascism: America's Choice in the 2024 Election

Let’s get real about the most vital issue Americans face as we slowly march toward our dubious future as a nation.

It’s not about President Biden’s age which is annoyingly centerstage. After all, Donald Trump is only three years younger than the president, morbidly obese, and an obvious psychopath.  It’s about one issue and one issue only and that is whether we survive as a democracy and what will happen if not.

So far in this threatening time President Biden is the only viable candidate if we value our freedom in this contentious time. Given his commitment to the principles of democracy and the protection of the Constitution and his years of experience and achievement domestically and internationally, there is no other choice. That story needs to be told often and powerfully. The fact is you don’t have to like him or always agree with him, but you do need to realize that our future depends on his re-election, because once democracy disappears you never get it back, at least not for decades if you’re lucky. Every other issue from the economy, taxes, gun control, reproductive healthcare, First Amendment rights, education, a free press, and our stature in the world depends on saving our democracy. It’s that simple – and that urgent.

Americans are lucky. We haven’t lived under an autocracy or a dictatorship. We have no idea what that’s like in real terms, but it’s never pretty. There are many examples of how bad it is. To be clear, autocratic governments and dictatorships are similar but there is a distinction between them as the Carnegie Foundation has noted. As they point out, there are two important differences: An autocracy focuses power on a single person, while single-party dictatorships can share power through a small group of people who are appointed by the dictator. Dictatorships always include inherent abuse of power, while some autocrats relying on centralized power can sometimes effect positive change for their citizens. Both autocrats and dictators, however, exercise total control.

It’s important to realize that dictators have absolute power (think Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler).   Human rights are suppressed, and any sign of opposition is quickly shut down with intimidation, imprisonment, physical violence, or assassination. Citizens have “shallow levels of freedom,” and “no personal autonomy or quality of life. Social organizations and democratic institutions cease to exist, and democratic countries see the end of their rights as enshrined in constitutions.” People can lose their religion, see sexual orientation and same-sex marriage outlawed while security police are ubiquitous, and surveillance is prevalent. Over time no one dares to trust anyone.

According to the Carnegie Foundation democracies flourished in the 20th century but by 2019 dictatorships outnumbered democracies, sharing features including repressed opposition, control of communications, punishment of critics, imposed ideology and frequent attacks on democratic ideals.  Cross-border travel is stopped, and fear prevails as information becomes propaganda.

In the course of my international work, I became aware of the reality of autocratic and dictatorial countries. Even knowing I could leave, if I behaved myself, I sensed the oppression.  A Kenyan woman advised me to be cautious about the kind of questions I asked. In 1960s Greece when the political future there was bleak, I naively remarked to a man sitting next to me on an airplane that I didn’t think much of his government.  He interrogated me for the rest of the journey about who I’d been speaking with. In Romania, where the deceased dictator Ceausescu had mandated monthly pelvic exams for female students and workers to ensure pregnancies were carried to term I saw scores of children in an orphanage as a result. The visit shook me to the core. In Burma someone whispered her oppression, and in China, at the 1995 UN women’s conference, as a journalist I was barred from opening ceremonies, and I suspected I was surveilled and tapped in my hotel room. My relief as the plane departed was palpable.

We need to think about what life was like in the Franco, Marcos or Pinochet regimes in Spain, the Philippines or Chile. Today we must think about what life is like in Hungary under the control of Viktor Orban. In power for years he has “chipped away at the foundations of democracy,” as Vox.com put it. There journalism requires permits, propaganda prevails, and refugees and Muslims are seen as an existential threat. Dissent is silenced or disappears if it occurs in public or on blogs. Books vanish from libraries and shops. It didn’t happen overnight. It was achieved gradually in subtle ways.

Nationalism, right wing religion, militarism, anti-liberalism, and the silencing of citizens are deeply destructive forces that result in devastation and despair.  We cannot, we must not, ignore the signs of autocracy and fascism that already exist, or the dangerous pledges of Donald Trump. Nor can we think it can’t happen here. Our challenge is to ensure that autocracy or dictatorship doesn’t surprise us because we ignored its signals or couldn’t envision such systems. To protect ourselves and our country we must exercise the strongest sign of resistance to oppression, and that is our vote. It is incumbent upon each of us to keep that focus as we head to local, state, and national polling stations.

We must be prepared to save our democracy.

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The Power of Hope and the Promise of the Parkland Generation

 Ever since David Hogg, Emma Gonzales, and other high school student leaders began organizing against gun violence when their Florida school experienced a massacre in 2018 that killed 17 people and injured 17 more, I’ve clung to the belief that if we could get to the Parkland generation as political leaders, we just might save our country. I believe that now more than ever.

David Hogg is 23 now and a student at Harvard. It should come as no surprise that he has reached a new level of political advocacy. Working with Kevin Lata, Rep. Maxwell Frost’s (D-FL) campaign manager in 2022, the two activists have launched a new organization that seeks to put more young people in elected office at the state level and in Congress.

Leaders We Deserve has a PAC to coordinate with selected campaigns and a super PAC to raise funds for those campaigns. The organization has a diverse advisory group that includes Reps. Root, Swalwell (D-Calif.), Justin Jones (D-TN) and Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.). It plans to hire staff going forward.

“A big part of this,” Lata told NBC’s Meet the Press, “is electing young people that have the values of our generation [which] understands the anxiety of not knowing if you’re going to be able to survive math class.”

Hogg, who cofounded March for Our Lives, put it this way to CBS: “There are so many charismatic, brilliant young people that have come from March for Our Lives, and have now started running for office, like Maxwell, and there’s so many more that I think can come. That’s why I’m doing this, it’s to help build that pathway.”

Both Hogg and Lata take a long view of the work they have begun.  They know it’s more than an ideology-driven effort. It requires organizational skills, political savvy, resources, an experienced staff and viable candidates. That’s why they are starting with a plan that includes raising money, connecting 15 to 30 candidates at the state level to media, and supporting them in the “mechanics of a campaign.” Their goal is to help young people gain and remain in elected office with a view to running for higher office when the time is right. They are starting in states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. As Hogg told NBC, the aim is to “make inroads and start building the bench now.”

They have notable role models to look to as their work progresses. Maxwell Frost was the first Gen Z member of Congress and he’s made a name for himself as he serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, asking astute questions while standing up to Republican extremists who work hard to politicize committee work in Congress. He also represents a progressive view unfamiliar to many in Congress who are out of touch with youth, Black, and Latino constituents.

It's worth noting that Frost, a former organizer, activist, and special needs teacher, was inspired to activism when he was 15 years old because of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He also witnessed and survived gun violence himself in Orlando in 2016.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is another example of effective leadership from younger members in Congress. She worked in the 2016 presidential election as a volunteer organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT.) Inspired by demonstrations led by indigenous communities in South Dakota who opposed a new pipeline, she joined them, resolving after that experience to commit to public service. Shortly afterwards, she launched her first campaign for Congress, and won against a long-time incumbent.

She became the youngest woman and youngest Latina to serve in Congress in 2019 and she quickly got to work. During her first term she introduced 23 pieces of legislation, one of which was the Green New Deal resolution, which envisioned a 10-year plan inspired by FDR’s New Deal. It was designed to open work opportunities in construction and restoring infrastructure, reduce air and water pollution, and fight economic, social, racial and climate crises. She was also recognized for her skill as a questioner in committee hearings, effectively standing up to Big Pharma, defense contractors, and other power players.

Leaders like Frost and Ocasio-Cortez reveal the possibilities inherent in the purpose of Leaders We Deserve. Along with Hogg et al. they offer an important and timely new vision of effective leadership at a time when we are worried about the aging of some current, long-time legislators and leaders, many of whom have no real connection to or understanding of their constituencies or other Americans.   

According to a Tufts University study an estimated 8.3 million newly eligible voters emerged in the 2022 midterm elections, including White, Latino, Asian, Native American, and Black youth. In the current Congress, 52 members of the House are Millennials, aged 27 to 42, up from 31 in the last Congress. They represent 10 percent of all current voting House members and are divided equally between Democrats and  Republicans. In next year’s election those numbers are likely to grow.

David Hogg sees this as “a second step for our generation and the people in power. We’re not just voting, we’re also running.”

Activist Ariana Jasmine.agrees. “Young people are the future. They are showing that they are fed up, and they are showing up even if they aren’t old enough to vote. They understand that the direction we’re going in is completely unsustainable.”

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Are We Facing the End of Free Speech?

CEOs from major businesses in the U.S. demand that Harvard University release the names of students from 30 student organizations who signed a letter casting blame on Israel for the attacks by Hamas. The business leaders further urged the university to provide names of the signatories with photographs so that students who signed the letter would not be hired once they leave Harvard. Students began immediately to take back their signatures, as Axios and The Guardian reported.

 A law firm withdraws its job offer to a New York York University law student, president of the Student Bar Association, who wrote in the Association’s bulletin, “This [Israeli] regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary,” claiming that she made “inflammatory comments” that “profoundly conflict with [our] values.

 edish climate activist Greta Thunberg and 26 others are charged by British police in London for joining a protest outside an oil and gas conference. The charge? “Failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act,” according to the London Metropolitan police.

 In England police have made dozens of arrests after protests across the UK arose in the aftermath of Hamas terrorist attacks and Israel’s response. Many protesters are unsure whether they can now carry placards or wear symbols, or join in chants after

Suella Braverman, a member of the Conservative Party who became the UK Home Secretary in 2022, wrote to chief constables in England and Wales saying that waving a Palestinian flag or singing to advocate for Arab freedom might be a criminal offence. “I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use … may amount to a racially aggravated … public order offence,” she said

An increasing number of countries are resorting to force and legislation to crush protests, treating them as a threat rather than a right, as Amnesty International points out. “Peaceful protest is a right, not a privilege, and one that states have a duty to respect, protect and  facilitate.”

 In Washington, DC 49 Jewish demonstrators in front of the White House, including rabbis, were arrested urging President Biden to call for a ceasefire on his recent trip to Israel. Their charge? Crossing safety barriers and blocking entrances. And a recent post on social media revealed that the U.S. State Department has instructed ambassadors and other government officials not to use words like “de-escalation, ceasefire, end to violence, restoring calm and bloodshed.” The post has since been taken down.

 These are troubling signs that in this country the Constitution’s First Amendment is being ignored or violated. As a reminder, here is what the Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (emphasis mine).

Arresting protestors making their voices heard in peaceful ways is a dangerous travesty wherever it happens, but it is particularly egregious in a country that prides itself on “the rule of law.” In this time of terror and rapidly escalating international conflict America’s leadership and example could not be more urgent. Calls for a cease fire and an end to killing fields where both sides have become tragic victims is not an act of violence. Nor is it a display of national allegiance. It’s much bigger and more urgent than that. It is a call for restraint, human rights, and shared humanity in the face of unleashed rage and hopelessness.

That collective rage, fear and hopelessness threatens the future we wish for our progeny, whether we are American, Israeli or Palestinian.  We cannot move forward in a world in which a slaughter of innocents, no matter where they live, continues. We can’t make progress in the name of peace without allowing all of us to inhabit land we love because our roots are there. We can’t make peace if we are continually oppressed, and myopic in our views. And we cannot move forward if we cling to limited views of right and wrong, framed by the concept of winners and losers, power and weakness.

The struggles we face are not a matter of politics, persuasion, or power.  They are about people; ordinary people who all matter. In this time of conflict of biblical proportion, a time when history could lead us to the table of resolution, let us not seek to silence those calling out for – indeed begging for - compassion, intelligent discourse and wise decisions free of partisanship.

Let us remember that our voices are not weapons. They are instead our monuments and our roadmap to a sane future for all of us.  No one should be punished for raising them.

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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, VT. www.elayne-clift.com

A is For Absent: America's Teacher Shortage

 Her name was Shirley Myers, and she was a gift in my life when I needed one. I was in middle school and a loner, unlike most kids that age, because my mother suffered from depression that meant she was hospitalized for long stretches. Ms. Myers was a calm teacher and a gentle soul and somehow, I started going to her classroom after school to talk with her. It was quietly comforting to be with her, and we formed a bond that got me through those lonely times.

 She wasn’t my only good teacher. In high school, Desmond Jones, who scared everyone with his high standards and grim demeanor, taught me how to consider literature carefully and to write cogently about it in his English class. Vivienne Davenport gave me my love of language with her Word for the Day. They were delicious words like obsequious, sartorial, serendipity, and ubiquitous. We were required to learn their definition and to write a sentence using each day’s word. I think about her each time I use one of her many fine words. Doc Martin, slightly disheveled and occasionally distracted got me through Latin; later Spanish helped me become bi-lingual until I forgot how to conjugate.

 In college I had fine teachers who taught me about literature, art, religion, psychology, sociology, and other subjects that interested me.  And in graduate school I learned to do professional research, explore interdisciplinary methodologies in my chosen field, write for publication, and have confidence in my abilities. My advisor during that time is still a close friend.

 Later I became a teacher myself. I taught at high end colleges and universities and at community colleges, and I now teach in adult learning programs because I love teaching no matter where I do it. I know the joy of watching motivated students consider issues they’ve never contemplated before, the pleasure of seeing their thinking and writing skills grow, their openness to new ideas, their new sense of confidence.

 So I am deeply saddened, and worried by the loss of so many good teachers, at all levels, who are leaving their chosen, and often undervalued, profession. They are quitting for numerous reasons that are valid. They work under poor conditions, suffer high stress, heavy workloads and burnout, as well as insulting salaries and a lack of administrative support, and now more than 60 percent of them fear mass shootings at their schools according to a 2018 survey conducted by the National Education Association (NEA) and reported by CNN earlier this year. CNN also reported that “one in three teachers say they are likely to quit and find another job in the next two years, according to a recent survey by the EdWeek Research Center and Merrimack College.

 Briana Takhtani, a teacher who resigned and spoke to CNN, said she quit her “dream job” because of the pandemic and school shootings. “It just became too much for me to handle on a day-to-day basis and still feel sane,” she said. Her statement is reflective of those made by numerous other teachers.

 The loss of qualified teachers is alarming in many ways.  Some schools have had to cancel core classes, others are hiring people who lack professional teaching qualifications and, in some cases don’t even have a basic college degree. The impact is especially dramatic for children who need special education or bilingual teachers as well as those who live in rural areas.

 One superintendent told PBS at the start of the 2022 school year that “it really impacts the children because they’re not learning what they need to learn. “When you have these uncertified, emergency or inexperienced teachers, students are in classrooms where they’re not going to get the level of rigor and classroom experiences.” In other words, a generation of children are not being prepared adequately for what lies ahead for them, not only professionally but intellectually, culturally, and psycho-socially.

 As a story in The Atlantic revealed recently, “The education system is headed toward a cliff at a moment when it most needs to help students who fell behind during the pandemic. For nearly a decade, America’s students have been backsliding on the nation’s report card, which evaluates their command of math, science, U.S. history and reading.”

That’s a sobering reality. It makes me grieve for all the children who will never have a Shirley Myers, a Desmond Jones, or a Vivienne Davenport in their academic lives, and will never experience the difference they make. Teachers like those I was gifted with understood that as a Tibetan proverb says, “A child without education is like a bird without wings.”

I am ever grateful for having been educated in a time when they represented the finest members of the teaching profession and I fervently hope that children will fly again once the reasons for our educational crisis are adequately resolved.  

The Time for Bread and Roses is Now

When I think about labor movements and unions, two favorite stories come to mind, and both are true. The first one is about a group of girls and young women known as the Lowell Factory Girls. They worked in the mills and factories of Lowell, Massachusetts in the 19th century. Little more than children who labored for long days doing dangerous and exhausting work, they revolted in 1836 when their dismal wages were cut while their factory-owner mandated living expenses went up.

One day an 11-year-old worker named Harriet Hanson, decided enough was enough. She walked out “with childish bravado,” as she wrote in her 1898 memoir, declaring that she would go alone if she had to. That wasn’t necessary. A long line of girls followed her and thus began a strike that led to an organized labor movement launched by women, and the establishment of an early U.S. union.

The second story is less well known. It involves a labor leader and activist, Esther Peterson, who was born into a conservative family in Utah. Esther, who was much older than me, eventually came to New York where she taught wealthy girls by day and the daughters of their household maids at night.  Working at home, the young girls sewed pockets onto Hoover aprons if they were old enough, alongside their mothers. The pockets were squares until management decided heart-shaped pockets were nicer. The work was piecemeal, and hearts took longer than squares. Esther was outraged that they weren’t paid more.

“Why don’t you do something about it,” her husband asked. “Organize a strike!” Esther, who grew up thinking unions led to danger and violence, resisted. But she decided to advocate for the children, so she organized the “Heartbreaker Strike,” inviting her wealthy day students’ mothers to go on picket lines since the police would never brutalize them as they would the poor mothers. It worked, and Esther was on her way to becoming a beloved labor leader.   

I think of the Factory Girls and Esther now, when so many large-scale strikes loom large, and for good reason.  It’s no coincidence that workers at UPS and in Teamsters unions, Amazon warehouses across the country, Starbucks, and Hollywood writers and actors are striking or contemplating striking for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. American Airlines cabin crews may soon be joining them as I write this commentary.

That’s a wide, diverse swath of American workers and a huge number of jobs, goods, and services at stake. The implications are alarming. A short time ago the threat of a railroad strike was enough to make economists shudder and that’s only one sector that could have wrought havoc throughout the country.

Leaders of unions that represent large numbers of people working in companies trying to deny them their right to unionize act as though union organizing was something new and egregiously difficult. The fact is that huge, organized strikes are nothing new in this country. We’ve had labor unions forever, inspired originally by the 18th century Industrial Revolution in Europe. Shorter work days, livable minimum wages, and rational benefits have always been a bit part of union organizing. For example, poor pay and working conditions led to strikes by the Pullman Railroad Workers and the United Mine Workers in the late 19th century.

Over the years unions grew across many sectors and by 1979 there were 21 million union members in America. Today union membership is growing again after a slump, thanks in part to the pandemic and a rapidly changing labor market.  Young workers are unionizing across various sectors now because of tech-driven jobs. They are joining farmers, factory workers, food handlers, and others as they seek safe and equitable employment, just as factory girls and children sewing apron pockets did before them.  

For UPS drivers, Amazon workers, Starbucks baristas and others, companies that refuse to bargain are enraging. Labor leaders and workers have had enough. They are tired of corporate leaders who make phenomenal amounts of money a year, own mansions and yachts, and still continue reneging on workers’ rights.  Amazon, for example, has engaged in dozens of unfair labor practices, Including terminating the entire unit of newly organized workers.  Starbucks “has become the most aggressive union-busting company in America,” according to a staffer for Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and more than 200 workers have been fired for taking part in organizing activities.

I’m not trying to put a Pollyanna spin on unions. I know there is a troubling history of corruption and criminal intent in some organized labor movements and unions, and that is not something to be overlooked.  But I agree with John F. Kennedy that, “Labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided supplemental benefits. … They have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.”

More to the point perhaps in these troubling political times, labor leader Delores Huerta was right when she put the point this way: “If we don’t have workers organizing into labor unions, we’re in great danger of losing our democracy.”

My friend Esther would agree with her old boss, JFK , and with Delores Huerta, with whom  she worked on labor rights for women and children.

Choosing Freedom: A Political Imperative

 When Franklin Delano Roosevelt uttered his famous phrase, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” at his first inaugural address in 1933, he recognized that fear of the Great Depression could paralyze people and interfere with ways to address an unprecedented economic crisis. He realized that catastrophic thinking and overwhelming anxiety had the power to harm his plan for economic (and political) recovery.

 He recognized, as Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl did, that “between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

FDR and Frankl were both right, and in many ways, we find ourselves in that space where fear and insecurity reside, inhibiting our ability to respond appropriately and effectively to the political, economic, and emotional situation we find ourselves in as a nation as we approach the most crucial election of our time.

In his 1941 State of the Union address, FDR also said that there was “nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy.” He noted that he looked forward to “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms, as the New York Times pointed out in an op-ed. by Jamelle Bouie last month .Those were the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of every person to worship God in his [sic] way, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear. They were the guiding lights of his New Deal, and “they remained the guiding lights of his administration through the trials of World War II,” as Bouie reminds us.

In his essay, Bouie also enumerated four freedoms that today’s Republican party embraces. They are, he says, the freedom to control, the freedom to exploit, the freedom to censor, and the freedom to menace. “Roosevelt’s four freedoms,” he claims, “were the building blocks of a humane society – a social democratic aspiration for egalitarians then and now. These Republican freedoms are also building blocks not of a humane society but of a rigid and hierarchical one, in which you can either dominate or be dominated.” 

It’s a parallel vision of a future in which we do not have the basic freedoms and human rights that FDR espoused. Should the Republicans win the White House and the Congress next year, we will find ourselves living in a theocratic, oppressive country driven by oligarchs and dictators who embrace fear, violence, and autocracy with absolutely no regard for fundamental freedom, privacy or self-determination.

So let’s think about some of the freedoms that should drive us to the polls in droves next November. First and foremost are the freedom from fear and the menace of gun violence as we walk the streets, attend houses of worship, schools, entertainment or simply go to the market, the movies, and the mall.

Let us also think about the urgency of freedom to control our bodies and our futures as we remember the women and girls who have been denied bodily autonomy and privacy and who have suffered and died as a result of forced pregnancy because the State owns their wombs. Let us remember the women jailed for miscarriage, the health providers who live in fear of losing their licenses, or worse, and the mothers, sisters, friends, advocates who could well be imprisoned for driving someone to the airport or across a state line.

Let us remember the freedom to speak openly and honestly, and to gather, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, and the freedom from censorship so that we can read books we choose, and the freedom to worship in our own ways, and the freedom to keep our children free from want, whether it’s food or healthcare or the right to be who they are. Let our friends and families be free to live in the houses and neighborhoods they wish, be they Chinese, Syrian, Cuban, Muslim, Jewish, gay or straight, or otherwise. Let there be an end to Otherness, persecution, blinding stereotyping, and ungrounded assumptions that strike fear in the hearts of so many of us in this time.    

Let us be free from financial and physical exploitation in the workplace, especially when that exploitation involves children. And let us be free from willful prejudice, evil intentions, unenlightened faux leaders, and restrictive political actions that inhibit democracy, human rights, and social justice once and for all.  

And let us remember the wisdom of Nelson Mandela, who said “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others,” along with the wise words of Dag Hammarskjold, former General Secretary of the United Nations, who so wisely noted that “’Freedom from fear’ could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.”

It’s a philosophy we need to value, remember, and embrace. We are called upon it in this moment and in the days to come to do the right thing for future generations.

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 Elayne Clift writes about women, health, politics and social justice from Brattleboro, Vt. www,elayn-eclift.com

Suffer the Little Children

They come from countries of unrelenting poverty, oppression, war, and violence. They come to escape all of that with parents, relatives, friends, or alone. They walk miles and miles, day after day, hungry, thirsty, afraid, exhausted. As a recent report in The New York Times revealed the number of migrant children crossing the U.S. border from the south has “soared” for several reasons, including declining situations in Latin American countries along with pandemic induced migration, and the election of President Biden. Last year the influx of migrant children rose to 130,000. That’s three times higher than five years ago.

 With this influx of unaccompanied children, child employment has reached Dickensian levels and conditions in most parts of the U.S. Another New York Times article illuminated the reality of this exploitation. One teenage worker “stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing carton. It could be dangerous work, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers and ripped open a woman’s scalp.” That factory “was full of underage workers … spending late hours bent over hazardous machinery.”  In other places kids work in slaughterhouses, wood sawing businesses, or tend giant ovens making granola bars and other snack foods.

 According to the Times report, this kind of child labor is part of a “new economy of exploitation,” in which migrant youth constitute a “shadow work force that extends across industries in every state.” This new labor force has been growing, particularly in the last two years, and it’s all in violation of child labor laws. In addition to the work in plants and factories, children wash dishes and deliver meals in various venues. They help build vacation homes, harvest crops, and work as hotel maids, usually at night, after trying to stay awake in school during the day, if the families they stay with actually send them to school as mandated.

 Often these children are housed with adults they don’t know. These “sponsors” often exploit the kids, pressuring them to earn money to help with expenses, or payoff smugglers who have helped place the children with them. Oversight and monitoring of these housing situations are often ignored, even though they are mandated.  As one caseworker told the Times, “It’s getting to be a business for some of the sponsors.” Schools, businesses, workers in federal agencies, and law enforcement are guilty of “willful ignorance,” as the Times reporter put it.

 Child trafficking is another related issue. Anti-trafficking legislation exists in the U.S. but is inadequately adhered to, and made more difficult because of the growing number of children coming across the border, often with worrying debt to pay off. According to the Times report, concerns about unaccompanied minors at the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement began to grow two years ago when labor trafficking began growing, exacerbated by the inappropriately quick release of children from detention centers rather than maintaining a focus on preventing unsafe releases.

 Child marriage is also something we should be concerned about in this country. According to Equality Now, shocking as it may seem, here in the U.S. child marriage, which occurs when one or both parties to a marriage are under 18 years of age, is legal in 43 states, but 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, if there is parental consent or a judicial waiver.

 A human rights violation, “child marriage legitimizes abuse and denies girls’ autonomy. When young girls are forced to marry, they are essentially subject to state-sanctioned rape and are at risk of increased domestic violence, forced pregnancy, and negative health consequences, while being denied education and economic opportunity.” Equality Now explains. Yet, nearly 300,000 female children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018, most of them to much older men. And in some states, child marriage is considered a valid defense to statutory rape.

 Child abuse doesn’t stop there in this country. It starts with our inability to end the continuing brutality of gun violence that is the biggest killer of children and teenagers in America. It begs the question, how much do we really care about children when rightwing politicians and the people who vote for them support so-called leaders’ refusal to fund daycare, food programs, and healthcare for children in need, or parental leave so that infants are safe and bonding with their parents? How can we claim to care about children of all ages and ethnicities when Republican legislators try to slash Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, deny healthcare to trans kids and mess with the child tax credit program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as SNAP? 

 It's abundantly clear that all children in this country are in serious trouble, physically and emotionally, and that a sizeable swath of Americans in high and not so high places don’t seem to care and are willing to put future generations in jeopardy – all of which raises the real question:

How is it we go on allowing children to suffer (and die), and still delude ourselves that our country is exceptional?

 Perhaps it is, but sadly in is so many wrong ways. Just ask the children.

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