I asked a Pomona professor (environmental analysis) if he was optimistic. He said he was hopeful, rather than optimistic. Not just expecting good to happen, but (referencing Barbara Kingsolver) putting on hope as armor every day to go out into the world and do good. Your letters provide me with armor.
Well said again! All this wrangling over some stuff (that most people want) seems to be ugly and stupid. But it is democracy at work. The alternative would be a monarch, dictator or supreme committee telling us what our future will be. I'll take the wrangling.
We just fought off the Republican attempts to defund help for Afghans who we welcomed and kicked aside an effort to prevent vaccine mandates. Victories!
And a really huge one to celebrate: The guy who helped design and build the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was just confirmed for a 5 year term. Three cheers for Rohit Chopra! Let the rebuilding begin.
Fighting the fools who are controlled by the oligarchs, outvoting the bigots...all this and more will be a never ending war in our society. The loss of a legislative battle doesn't have to feel like "the end of times". Just be pissed off, regroup and go at it again.
Thank you Robert Hubbell for your insights and daily rebuttal of some common misperceptions. I read your newsletters daily along with Heather Cox Richardson’s and avoid most of the media news. Even NPR has become sensation-focused (I used to be able to count on the old guard reporters).
Both bills must pass. Even if the BBB bill is scaled back, Dems can still brag about all they accomplished. Hopefully that will preserve and increase Dem majorities in the House and Senate.
Don't you understand that the planet and climate change ARE basic infrastructure? Without a planet or the ground under us we can build no roads or bridges.
We cannot have transportation in any form if planetary conditions destroy our houses, businesses, roads, and bridges, through flooding, wind or fire!
The basic infrastructure under our feet is on fire and under water!
Attack climate change FIRST, then maybe any infrastructure we build and repair will last!
Very very sincerely, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As willing as I am to wait things out and keep on working to elect more liberals, or at the very very least, truth tellers, my heart is breaking that Climate Change is not considered basic infrastructure. Yet.
What will it take for Washington DC to understand quite simply that our lives and future generations depend on addressing Climate Change first of all to protect what infrastructure we have, broken as it is. Billions are spent several times a year to bring electricity, drain the houses we live in, put our fires and relocate families away from burned out terrain. We could use that money more wisely.
If the Congress is truly so very thrifty and doesn't want to waste tax payer money, then the effects of climate on our infrastructure must be addressed at the top of the list.
I sometimes believe I will not see, in my lifetime, which is narrowing each day, our people safe and dry and living in some harmony with the planet.
And the defense of our nation is useless if there is no infrastructure to defend. The climate changes are a threat to national security, as well as the security of the entire world. We quibble over 3 trillion while the trillions of the defense budget goes uncontested.
However, I do not despair. The young people I see working for climate justice, and equality will be here to carry on after my steps no longer fall on our mother, our Blue Boat in the universe.
On the Freedom to Vote bill, I must disagree. The chances aren’t vanishingly small. It’s Manchin’s bill now. Can he refuse a narrowly-drawn limitation on the filibuster, to exclude provisions to protect our most basic right? Not if it’s presented in the right way. And if he agrees to the limitation, will Sinema, alone, block it? Highly doubtful.
The Feedom to Vote bill is the most important one now before Congress, bar none. Call your senators and tell them not just to vote for it, but to work for it. If they are against it, tell them that they are violating their oaths.
Strange that I find you so optimistic. I hear your message! As I head to the dentist for a 2500 dollar replacement crown next week (I have come out of retirement to teach a course to pay for it) I certainly need no coaxing to support Biden’s infrastructure program. Entitlement?! What else is Citizens United? The question is not whether it is entitlement or not, but WHOSE entitlement? Thank you as always for experience and strength and hope. I am reading fiction this weekend!
Excellent newsletter! John Lewis was my Congressman, and he wisely recognized that the race we are in is a marathon, not a sprint. As you so often say (in substance), we need to take the long view and focus on winning the war, along with as many of the battles as we can.
I am a lifelong Democratic activist who would love to see most, if not all, the programs in the Build Back Better passed and funded (mostly) by the tax provisions it contains. But why can't my fellow Progressives see that Joe Manchin has done our party an enormous FAVOR. The total price tag of $3.5 trillion is simply begging the Republicans to run next year on reasonably fair charges of "You can't trust those Tax & Spend Democrats!" Better for Dems to be able to run on what excellent programs the GOP was united in killing--and why we need MORE Dems in Congress. We have to learn to be more tactical in our thinking. Also, why is including the Hyde Amendment a poison pill? 75% of voters want some reasonable sort of access to abortion. But the clear majority do NOT believe that abortions should be funded by the Federal government.
I took that break for four days. I’m catching up on newsletters this morning. So here is my comment for October 1. Great newsletter. As I read more and more history and watch all the wonderful historical stories on PBS and so on, I see this repetitive pattern all around us. I saw the one on Hearst last night. He started as good, generous, and ended up greedy and power hungry. In every historical case and example, there are mental and emotional health issues in the background. I think the most important fairly recent historical distinction was the GI Bill. It lifted a generation into the middle class. The potential for “taking care of themselves” had always been there. The free education made it possible. Blacks who served were denied the GI Bill benefits. Robert, you are doing a great job of adding to the discussions, adding to the thought links about what is, how we got here, and how we will survive by hook or by crook. Thank you!
Robert, as usual your point is well-taken and I did not mean to make scoring points against our Right-wing (NOT "Conservative") enemies. My real point is that a solid politically-popular victory is way better than an overreach that will almost inevitably led to defeat.
I asked a Pomona professor (environmental analysis) if he was optimistic. He said he was hopeful, rather than optimistic. Not just expecting good to happen, but (referencing Barbara Kingsolver) putting on hope as armor every day to go out into the world and do good. Your letters provide me with armor.
Well said again! All this wrangling over some stuff (that most people want) seems to be ugly and stupid. But it is democracy at work. The alternative would be a monarch, dictator or supreme committee telling us what our future will be. I'll take the wrangling.
We just fought off the Republican attempts to defund help for Afghans who we welcomed and kicked aside an effort to prevent vaccine mandates. Victories!
And a really huge one to celebrate: The guy who helped design and build the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was just confirmed for a 5 year term. Three cheers for Rohit Chopra! Let the rebuilding begin.
Fighting the fools who are controlled by the oligarchs, outvoting the bigots...all this and more will be a never ending war in our society. The loss of a legislative battle doesn't have to feel like "the end of times". Just be pissed off, regroup and go at it again.
Thank you Robert Hubbell for your insights and daily rebuttal of some common misperceptions. I read your newsletters daily along with Heather Cox Richardson’s and avoid most of the media news. Even NPR has become sensation-focused (I used to be able to count on the old guard reporters).
Both bills must pass. Even if the BBB bill is scaled back, Dems can still brag about all they accomplished. Hopefully that will preserve and increase Dem majorities in the House and Senate.
As I wrote to Collins yesterday:
Senator-
Don't you understand that the planet and climate change ARE basic infrastructure? Without a planet or the ground under us we can build no roads or bridges.
We cannot have transportation in any form if planetary conditions destroy our houses, businesses, roads, and bridges, through flooding, wind or fire!
The basic infrastructure under our feet is on fire and under water!
Attack climate change FIRST, then maybe any infrastructure we build and repair will last!
Very very sincerely, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As willing as I am to wait things out and keep on working to elect more liberals, or at the very very least, truth tellers, my heart is breaking that Climate Change is not considered basic infrastructure. Yet.
What will it take for Washington DC to understand quite simply that our lives and future generations depend on addressing Climate Change first of all to protect what infrastructure we have, broken as it is. Billions are spent several times a year to bring electricity, drain the houses we live in, put our fires and relocate families away from burned out terrain. We could use that money more wisely.
If the Congress is truly so very thrifty and doesn't want to waste tax payer money, then the effects of climate on our infrastructure must be addressed at the top of the list.
I sometimes believe I will not see, in my lifetime, which is narrowing each day, our people safe and dry and living in some harmony with the planet.
And the defense of our nation is useless if there is no infrastructure to defend. The climate changes are a threat to national security, as well as the security of the entire world. We quibble over 3 trillion while the trillions of the defense budget goes uncontested.
However, I do not despair. The young people I see working for climate justice, and equality will be here to carry on after my steps no longer fall on our mother, our Blue Boat in the universe.
You are eloquent as well as angry.
On the Freedom to Vote bill, I must disagree. The chances aren’t vanishingly small. It’s Manchin’s bill now. Can he refuse a narrowly-drawn limitation on the filibuster, to exclude provisions to protect our most basic right? Not if it’s presented in the right way. And if he agrees to the limitation, will Sinema, alone, block it? Highly doubtful.
The Feedom to Vote bill is the most important one now before Congress, bar none. Call your senators and tell them not just to vote for it, but to work for it. If they are against it, tell them that they are violating their oaths.
Have a good weekend.
Strange that I find you so optimistic. I hear your message! As I head to the dentist for a 2500 dollar replacement crown next week (I have come out of retirement to teach a course to pay for it) I certainly need no coaxing to support Biden’s infrastructure program. Entitlement?! What else is Citizens United? The question is not whether it is entitlement or not, but WHOSE entitlement? Thank you as always for experience and strength and hope. I am reading fiction this weekend!
Excellent newsletter! John Lewis was my Congressman, and he wisely recognized that the race we are in is a marathon, not a sprint. As you so often say (in substance), we need to take the long view and focus on winning the war, along with as many of the battles as we can.
I am a lifelong Democratic activist who would love to see most, if not all, the programs in the Build Back Better passed and funded (mostly) by the tax provisions it contains. But why can't my fellow Progressives see that Joe Manchin has done our party an enormous FAVOR. The total price tag of $3.5 trillion is simply begging the Republicans to run next year on reasonably fair charges of "You can't trust those Tax & Spend Democrats!" Better for Dems to be able to run on what excellent programs the GOP was united in killing--and why we need MORE Dems in Congress. We have to learn to be more tactical in our thinking. Also, why is including the Hyde Amendment a poison pill? 75% of voters want some reasonable sort of access to abortion. But the clear majority do NOT believe that abortions should be funded by the Federal government.
I took that break for four days. I’m catching up on newsletters this morning. So here is my comment for October 1. Great newsletter. As I read more and more history and watch all the wonderful historical stories on PBS and so on, I see this repetitive pattern all around us. I saw the one on Hearst last night. He started as good, generous, and ended up greedy and power hungry. In every historical case and example, there are mental and emotional health issues in the background. I think the most important fairly recent historical distinction was the GI Bill. It lifted a generation into the middle class. The potential for “taking care of themselves” had always been there. The free education made it possible. Blacks who served were denied the GI Bill benefits. Robert, you are doing a great job of adding to the discussions, adding to the thought links about what is, how we got here, and how we will survive by hook or by crook. Thank you!
Robert, as usual your point is well-taken and I did not mean to make scoring points against our Right-wing (NOT "Conservative") enemies. My real point is that a solid politically-popular victory is way better than an overreach that will almost inevitably led to defeat.