In Defense of Democracy and Freedom
A Democratic Republic, a 'Great Experiment' in the United States
๐๏ธ Ours is a democracy, a republic, a work-in-progress continuing to this day, a heritage worth protecting...
As we consider the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence, we celebrate an agenda of rights, inalienable rights, human rights, put forward with and embodied in a founding US Constitution, a Bill of Rights and Constitutional Amendments -- together a Constitutional government envisioning a living Democratic Republic.
The words of the founding documents act as a liberty bell and signal to the world.
The US Declaration of Independence proclaims ...
โWe hold these truths to be self-evidentโ.... โall men are created equalโ... with the right to โlife, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessโ, with rights to live under a government of their own choosing."
Today, amid multiple challenges to democratic institutions, we choose a defense of democracy and freedom.
As the 250th anniversary of a new form of government comes into view, a historian, Walter Isaacson, takes us back to June 1776...
The founders of the nation, three around a table, gathered to write a 'mission statement'...
Historian Issacson's newly published 'pamphlet' renews and re-rings words that have lasting meaning:
"The Greatest Sentence Ever Written"
In the US Declaration of Independence, a rationale, and guidance for a revolutionary action
- https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Greatest-Sentence-Ever-Written/Walter-Isaacson/9781982181314
- https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/11/our-self-evident-truths/
We recall a quote of Benjamin Franklin responding to a question in 1787 about the newly announced birth of the US as he left Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention:
We have "a Republic, if you can keep it."
Today's generation, and future generations, would be wise to remember Franklin's words of warning.
Looking Forward & Looking Back
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To secure the Blessings of Liberty...
The Preamble of the Constitution of the United States
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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2026
A reminder of the need for New Definitions of National Security, the necessity to move beyond failed national security policies, failed wars that deliver deep generational costs, and defend our nation's foundational Constitutional system.
New Definitions of Security -- Local, National, & Global Security
GreenPolicy360/StrategicDemands Advocate:
"Strategic Realism"
Any full scientific assessment of security threats on the horizon is replete with environmental/global risks that are drawing daily into view. These risks are presenting a clear and present danger, in U.S. Department of Defense terms. A 'clear and present danger' has yet to be acknowledged by the US Department of Defense, or in the US military budget of more than $1 trillion in annual spending -- and, as of 2026, a budget request for ~$1.5 trillion.
The ongoing wars in the Middle East, and in Ukraine, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq,and now an escalating nuclear weapons race, nuclear power system expansion, as in Saudi Arabia, and 'rattling sabers' in South Asia with China threats in the South Sea, and Japan rearming, North Korea expanding its weapon and nuclear capabilities, in alliance with Russia and China, and escalating cyber conflicts and artificial intelligence era 'chip wars', with AI being rolled out in surveillance and targeting as in the Gaza war, drone delivery systems, algorithmic command and control, a NATO-Russia arms race, oil/gas disruptions, and a bizarre stream obsessive social media 'AI slop' postings and threats by an unpredictable U.S. commander-in-chief.
As of 2026, amid multiple hot spots and near-, mid- and long-term security threats, we, at Green Policy, demand 'a new vision and new policies' of security.
The security threats are not 'on the horizon'. The threats are 'here and now', a veritable 'clear and present danger' facing today's generation.
- https://strategicdemands.com/costsofwar/
- https://strategicdemands.com/nuclear-arms-race-3-0/
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/New_Definitions_of_National_Security
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Environmental_Security,_National_Security
Strategic Demands of the 21st Century: A New Vision for a New World
by Roger Morris & Steven Schmidt
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August 2026
An 'Autocracy Index'
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On Freedom, Democracy & On the State of the Nation
"Unfinished Revolution"
A Time of Responsibility
By Anne Applebaum
Via The Atlantic Magazine
This article is part of โThe Unfinished Revolution,โ a project exploring 250 years of the American experiment...
For nearly 250 years, America promoted freedom and equality abroad, even when it failed to live up to those ideals itself
The Beacon of Democracy Goes Dark
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.โ Within weeks of their publication in July 1776, those words spread around the world. In August, a London newspaper reprinted the Declaration of Independence in full. Edinburgh followed. Soon after that, it appeared in Madrid, Leiden, Vienna, and Copenhagen.
Before long, others drew on the text in more substantial ways. Thomas Jefferson himself helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, issued by French revolutionaries in 1789. The Haitian Declaration of Independence, of 1804, drew on both the American and French precedents, calling for the construction of an โempire of liberty in the country which has given us birth.โ In subsequent decades, declarations of independence were issued by Greece, Liberia (the author had been born in Virginia), and a host of new Latin American nations. In 1918, Thomรกลก Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, signed a Declaration of Common Aims of the Independent Mid-European Nations at Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, using the Foundersโ inkwell.
On that occasion, a replica of the Liberty Bell was rung, not because any American president or official had asked for it to ring but because Masaryk had been inspired by the story of the American founding. He evoked the Declaration not because of any pressure applied by U.S. foreign policy, but because of Jeffersonโs words and what they signify. Since 1776, Americans have promoted democracy just by existing. Human rights and the rule of law are in our founding documents. The dream of separation from a colonial empire is built into them too. Our aspirations have always inspired others, even when we did not live up to them ourselves.
In the 20th century, we moved from simply modeling democratic ideals to spreading or promoting them as a matter of policy. We did so in part because the language of democracy is in our DNA, and when we are confronted by autocrats and despots, we use it. Woodrow Wilson, when arguing for entry into the First World War, said America should advocate the โprinciples of peace and justiceโ in opposition to โselfish and autocratic power.โ In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to America as an โarsenal of democracyโ determined to aid British allies against the Nazis: โNo dictator, no combination of dictators, will weaken that determination.โ
During the Cold War, we connected words such as freedom and rights not just to our military strategy but to our national identity, to our culture. We were advocates of free markets, a free press, abstract expressionism, and jazz, and we exported those things too. Plenty of people wanted them. Willis Conover, the host of Voice of Americaโs nightly jazz broadcast in the 1960s and โ70s, had an audience of 30 million people, mostly in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Congress for Cultural Freedom, founded in 1950, pulled together anti-Communist intellectuals from all over Europe into a single movement.
Many people found our language hypocritical, and they were right: Americans were perfectly capable of backing dictatorships while talking about democracy. The contradiction between the ideals we said we fought for abroad and their failure at home bothered foreigners as well as Americans. In 1954, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that argued in favor of desegregation because, among other reasons, racist laws prompted โdoubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith.โ
Democratic faith. Because it was at the center of our foreign policy, we aspired to it, even if we didnโt live up to it. Others did too. Over time, the number of these democratic aspirants increased. After the Second World War, the dream of American freedom and prosperity strengthened what were initially shaky democracies in Western Europe and Asia, including recently defeated West Germany and Japan. Their political and economic success drew others into the fold. Greece and Spain joined the club of democracies in the โ70s; South Korea and Taiwan in the โ80s; Central Europe in the โ90s. Asked in 1989, the year they voted out Communism, what kind of country they wanted to be, most Poles would have said, โWe want to be normal.โ And by โnormal,โ they meant a European democracy, a capitalist state with a welfare system, a close ally of the United States.
We Americans were inspired by our own language too. We always think about Americaโs postwar role in Europe as an act of great generosity, the defense of allies from Soviet aggression. But by putting democracy at the center of our international and national identity, we also helped strengthen our own political system. If nothing else, all Americans, even those on different sides of our deepest cultural divides, had a common cause: Right-wing or left-wing, Christian or atheist, we could all be in favor of freedom.
Read the Full Article Here
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Historian Heather Richardson Looks at the Nation's Founding -- and Founding Beliefs
The Enlightenment, Reason, Rights
(T)he United States of America was not founded as a Christian nation. The Founders were quite clear about that. In the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, ratified unanimously by the Senate just a decade after the Constitution went into effect, U.S. leaders said โthe government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religionโ and has โno character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility ofโ Muslims...
Thomas Jefferson, the key author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison of Virginia, the key thinker behind the Constitution, both wrote explicitly about the importance of keeping the government separate from religion. Jefferson wrote that โreligion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship.โ
โ[T]he legitimate powers of government reach actions only,โ he wrote, โ[and] not [religious] opinions.โ
In 1785, Madison explained that what was at stake in keeping the state and religion separate was not just religion, but also representative government itself. The establishment of one religion over others attacked a fundamental human rightโan unalienable rightโof conscience. If lawmakers could destroy the right of freedom of conscience, they could destroy all other unalienable rights, including those enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the Constitution...
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In Defense of American Values, a Commencement Speech Worth Recalling
Ken Burns at Brandeis
... Listen, listen. In January of 1838, shortly before his 29th birthday, a tall, thin lawyer prone to bouts of debilitating depression addressed the young men's lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?" He asked his audience, "Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the earth and crush us at a blow?" Then he answered his own question. "Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide." It is a stunning, remarkable statement, one that has animated my own understanding of the American experience since I first read it more than 40 years ago. That young man was of course Abraham Lincoln, and he would go on to preside over the closest this country has ever come to near national suicide, our civil war, and yet embedded in his extraordinary, disturbing, and prescient words is also a fundamental optimism that implicitly acknowledges the geographical forcefield two mighty oceans east and west and two relatively benign neighbors north and south have provided for us since the British burned the White House in the War of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key.
Lincoln's words that day suggest what is so great and so good about the people who happen to inhabit this lucky and exquisite country of ours. That's the world you now inherit: our work ethic and our restlessness, our innovation and our improvisation, our communities and our institutions of higher learning, our suspicion of power. The fact that we seem resolutely dedicated to parsing the meaning between individual and collective freedom; What I want versus what we need. That we are all so dedicated to understanding what Thomas Jefferson really meant when he wrote that mysterious phrase, "The pursuit of happiness". Hint, it happens right here in the lifelong learning and perpetual improvement this university is committed to...
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2025
Preparing for the 250th Anniversary
The 250th anniversary of the United States will be celebrated on July 4, 2026, marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
July 2025
Fifty + Years On, the Questions Remain
With the CNN broadcast of the Broadway theater production about Edward R. Murrow titled "Good Night, and Good Luck", today is a good day to revisit a Murrow 1958 speech of warning, a critical look at the networks and news industry. The speech came to be known as "Wires and Lights in a Box" and now, as we look around, we have to ask -- even as the era of Joseph McCarthy has faded in history -- has the McCarthy era that Murrow stood to bravely warn against, truly gone away?
Visit the Murrow Speech on YouTube
๏ปฟ* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIhy0T7Q48Y
Here is a Salon article that touches on George Clooney and the timeliness, and success, of the theatrical production.
- Image via the LA Times
May 2025
As the US President questions constitutional rights
As the US Supreme Court rules, we reiterate: Habeas corpus is enshrined in the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, as part of the powers of Congress.
The Constitution only has two conditions under which habeas corpus protections can be suspended: in cases of rebellion or invasion. Invasion by a prison gang from a South American country is the main argument the Trump administration is using to try to repeal the Constitution.
Via CNN
May 16, 2025
The Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump from moving forward with deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for a group of immigrants in northern Texas, siding with Venezuelans who feared they were poised for imminent removal under the sweeping wartime authority.
The decision is a significant loss for Trump, who wants to use the law to speed deportations โ and avoid the kind of review normally required before removing people from the country. But the decision is also temporary and the underlying legal fight over the presidentโs invocation will continue in multiple federal courts across the country.
The justices sent the case at issue back to an appeals court to decide the underlying questions in the case, including whether the presidentโs move is legal and, if it is, how much notice the migrants targeted under the act should receive.
(7-2 Decision) Two conservative justices โ Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito โ publicly noted their dissent.
... โTodayโs ruling effectively extends the temporary freeze that the justices put on Alien Enemies Act removals from the Northern District of Texas back on April 19,โ said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown Law. โBecause lower courts have blocked use of the act in every other district in which the president has sought to invoke it, that means itโs effectively pausing all removals under the act until the 5th Circuit โ and, presumably, the Supreme Court itself โ conclusively resolves whether theyโre legal and how much process is due if so.โ ...
Several courts have also entered more permanent orders against the lawโs use, and a Trump-appointed judge in Southern Texas ruled on May 2 that the president had unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act. ...
After lower courts temporarily blocked the government from carrying out additional deportations, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court in late March, citing โsensitive national-security-related operationsโ and asking to resume the removals. In a murky, unsigned order on April 7, the Supreme Court technically allowed Trump to continue using the law, and it blocked a legal pathway civil rights groups were attempting to use to challenge Trumpโs invocation of the law so they could shut down its use wholesale. ...
The court also ruled that migrants subject to deportation under the Alien Enemies Act were entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal through federal habeas corpus petitions โ suits brought by people who claim they are being detained by the government unlawfully ...
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April 2025
Trump claims mantle of FDRโs first 100 days, but differences are stark
April 28 / Washington Post
[President] Rooseveltโs opening act yielded major new laws, while Trump governs largely by executive orders that can be swiftly challenged in court.
โRoosevelt was putting into place things that lasted for the rest of his century and well into this century,โ said Elaine Kamarck, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution who served in the Clinton administration. โNothing, nothing, nothing in these 200 executive orders is likely to last beyond Trumpโs term.โ
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March 2025
The end of the American-led world order
Via Op/Ed in the Washington Post
March 27, 2025
GreenPolicy360: After making a case that post World War 2 economic dominance and US hegemony militarily is in decline, and that neoliberal globalization policies have resulted in a loss of manufacturing and a political shift across the country, the conclusion of this WaPo editorial columnist is stark:
๏ปฟ...Democracy has been eroding for decades. In its latest report on the state of democracy, issued six weeks into the Trump administration but based on data through 2024, the V-Dem Institute in Sweden noted that there are fewer democracies than autocracies for the first time in more than 20 years. Almost three out of four people in the world live under autocratic governments, the highest share since 1978, well before the end of the Cold War. Liberal democracies host 12 percent of the world population.
What if the National Rally wins the next presidential election in France? What if the government of Friedrich Merz fails in Germany and the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany triumphs? The V-Dem assessment of the United States does not include the past couple of months of democratic backsliding, with Trump challenging the judiciary, snubbing due process and fishing for justifications to ignore the rule of law. But American democracy, it suggests, is due for a downgrade.
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A New Year is here, and it's promising to be a ride ...
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November 5th, 2024 / Election Day USA
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American Universities Examining the State of the Republic
- "Strengthening Democracy Challenge"
- https://www.strengtheningdemocracychallenge.org/
- https://www.strengtheningdemocracychallenge.org/challenge-info
Education and an Informed Electorate Rise in Importance
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October
Nearly half of all voters are skeptical that the American experiment in self-governance is working, with 45 percent believing that the nationโs democracy does not do a good job representing ordinary people, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll.
Three-quarters of voters in the United States say democracy is under threat, though their perception of the forces imperiling it vary widely based on partisan leanings. And a majority of voters believe that the country is plagued by corruption, with 62 percent saying that the government is mostly working to benefit itself and elites rather than the common good.
The eroding faith in the nearly 250-year-old American system of government follows four years of unparalleled challenges: a violent riot in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the criminal conviction of former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Trumpโs continued insistence that the democratic process is rigged...
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October 27, 2024
GreenPolicy360: November 5th can be seen as a Day of Reckoning in the United States.
Election Day 2024 will will bring a vote for president and control of Congress that will reverberate immediately and for years.
The Electoral College, the 'Swing States', the 'Stop the Steal' crowd, those who will act to stop the certification of the votes certification are poised to act. Others are ready, as they have agreed and volunteered, to serve throughout the country officially counting and reporting the election results.
The polls tell a tale of a four-century experiment in a democratic republic under threat and the 2024 vote will, without doubt, go a long way to telling the nation and world 'What Comes Next'.
We can say today, on a Sunday beginning a week before this auspicious election that augers waves of lasting repercussions, that democracy, the republic, freedom and rights are our legacy.
We support a working democracy and democratic institutions.
Vote to support what's best about the US experiment to build a democratic republic.
Support those who work to build a better future.
Stand in opposition to those attempting to deconstruct.
Listen to the words and promises made. Words and votes deliver actions.
As some in the media step away from editorial political endorsements on the eve of Election 2024, we step forward.
To our readers and supporters in the US, citizens and voters, step up and vote for a future that will lift us all.
Make your vote a vote of hope and action.
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Could it be time to change to a more representative voting system?
Opinion Ranked-choice voting is on the ballot across the nation. Vote yes
Via the Washington Post
This change to how elections are run could help
Referendums in the District, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon will ask voters in November whether they want to institute ranked choice; in Alaska, the question for residents is whether to repeal the same system, first used in the state in 2022. The proposals differ on various details: whether primaries would become open (in most cases), remain partisan (in Oregonโs) or become semi-open, as in D.C. โ where independent voters, nearly 1 of every 6 voters in the capital, would be able to choose to vote in either Democratic or Republican contests. But all these contests would be ranked choice.
In a typical ranked-choice system, voters select their favorite candidate, then their second-favorite and so on. At that point, their job is done. If a candidate receives more than half of the first-place votes, that candidate wins. But if none does, the candidate in last place is dropped from the race, and voters who supported that candidate have their second choices redistributed to the remaining hopefuls. This process, sometimes known as an โinstant runoff,โ continues, automatically, until one candidate has a majority.
Critics allege that ranked-choice voting is too complicated. Voters sometimes think so, too โ at least before theyโve tried it. After voters participate in a ranked-choice election, research suggests, their attitudes usually change. The overwhelming majority of voters โ as many as 90 percent in some jurisdictions โ say they understand ranked-choice voting after doing it. Similarly substantial numbers in places such as New York; Santa Fe, N.M.; and Minneapolis have said they prefer the system to the alternative or would want to use it again.
Meanwhile, the system has myriad advantages. Voters can vote for their preferred candidate, without worrying as much about wasting their vote or the โspoilerโ effect they could have on others in the race. People do not have to settle for a second-choice candidate because, if their top pick gets knocked out of the running, their vote goes to their second choice anyway. Candidates must attract peopleโs second- and third-place votes, giving them strong incentive to make broad-based appeals and inducing more moderate, independent-minded candidates to run. For the same reason, ranked choice encourages everyone to campaign not on smears against their opponents or other negative angles but on more positive messages...
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US Voters in several states could upend how their elections are run
Via NPR
Voters in a record number of states โ including the battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada โ are set to decide this fall whether to enact far-reaching changes to how their elections are run.
Most of the proposals would replace party primaries with nonpartisan contests, where all candidates, regardless of party, appear on the same ballot and some number of candidates, like the "top four" vote-getters, move on to the general election.
Nick Troiano โ founding executive director of Unite America, a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan electoral reform โ called this year โan inflection point for the primary reform movement.โ
Several of the ballot measures would pair nonpartisan primaries with ranked choice voting for general elections. (Alaska, on the other hand, will vote on getting rid of its ranked choice system.)
Proponents of primary reform say partisan elections often exclude unaffiliated voters and bolster more extreme candidates who mainly appeal to a partyโs base, likely exacerbating polarization.
September
More Democracy Quotes
August
The Democratic Party Nominating Convention in Chicago concludes as a young girl watches.
Kamala Harris, with her acceptance speech, becomes the nominee for U.S. President...
* https://greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Point_of_View_of_the_Acceptance_Speech.png
โHistory has shown that nothing about democracy is guaranteed.
Every generation has to protect it, preserve it, choose it. We must stand together to choose what we want America to be.โ
-- Democratic Party National Platform
2024 Democratic National Convention
July
Vice President Kamala Harris Campaign in the News as Young Volunteers Rush to Join a Newly Energized Campaign
- President Joe Biden gives his "extraordinary partner" a green light to go
Biden Says It's Time to 'Pass the Torch' to a New Generation
โข In just the fourth Oval Office address of his presidency, President Biden praised Kamala Harris: "She's experienced, she's tough, she's capable."
โข Mr. Biden said he believed his record merited a second term, but "nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy."
President Biden Steps Away from His 2024 Campaign
Via GreenPolicy360's associate, Strategic Demands
Posted on July 22, 2024
The withdrawal letter of the US president, delivered to the nation via social media, was not a shock given wide concerns about the Presidentโs health condition
President Biden Endorses Kamala Harris
Strategic Demands Editor: Here we are together, how will we do? As the U.S. president steps away from his nomination and the U.S. vice president steps forward as candidate for president, there are those asking of the future of the Republic. Larger questions rise to the forefront. Is the โU.S. experimentโ, democracy, a constitutional republic in danger? Claims are being made that democratic institutions are under assault. Examples are being given. Angst, anger, violence, an attempted assassination, chaos, foreign government influence, online dis/misformation, daily, hourly present challenges to the U.S. government and its policies. How will be the future of U.S. governance look after 2024?
These questions are real, the decisions about to be made in a national election weeks away will shape the future. The stark differences between the competing visions cannot be wished away or pushed into force without push back. ...
Some 28 days before the Democratic Party convention in Chicago, the President has passed a torchโฆ It can be said now that, strategically, itโs a new race to election day โฆ. cards have been shuffled, wild cards yet to be seen, odds have shifted, polls are changing, eyes are on swing states, swing districts. Deep pocket players are pushing in hoping for payoffs and average Americans, โsmall donorsโ, are dealing with online asks. Neighbors and families, preachers and preached to, businesses and every niche in America is being asked. This is time to decide where you stand.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024, is election Day in the United States of America. The Tuesday following the first Monday in November, is weeks away.
The continuing story of a nation, the United States, an epic story, is about to become next chapter reality with consequences across lives and resounding far into the future.
President Biden Letter Withdrawing from the Presidential Campaign / July 21, 2024
โMy Fellow Americans,
โOver the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a Nation.
โToday, America has the strongest economy in the world. Weโve made historic investments in rebuilding our Nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans. Weโve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years.
Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.
โI know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Weโve protected and preserved our Democracy. And weโve revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.
โIt has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.
โI will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.
โFor now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected. I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.
โI believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America canโt do - when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.โ
ยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยท
Highlights from the 2024 Republican National Convention
Via NPR
ยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยท
The Debate Continues, Turbulence in Politics Is the Word of the Day
Democracy Awakening, Notes on the State of America (2023) by Heather Cox Richardson
At a time when the very foundations of democracy seem under threat, the lessons of the past offer a roadmap for navigating a moment of political crisis. In Democracy Awakening, acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson delves into the tumultuous journey of American democracy
Our appreciation to Heather and our Boston supporters for Heatherโs signed copy of Democracy Awakening. We especially value Heatherโs daily โLetters from an Americanโ, posted to Substack with accompanying Podcasts. Sign up. Get with the action. As Hannah Arendt said, โVita Contemplativa to Vita Activaโ.
Visit pages at GreenPolicy360 to explore more about democracy, the republic, politics, history, current events, and citizen rights and responsibilities
Re: The Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Statue of Liberty, Torch of Freedom, with message of 'breaking the chains'
Opportunity, human rights, and the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
GreenPolicy360 / New Horizons of Security
The 'Big Picture', moving into the 21st Century and 'New Definitions of National Security'
- Democracy and Freedom Is an International Issue, Security Is Indivisible
ยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยทยท
In Defense of Democracy and Freedom
โข https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Democracy
โข https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Human_Rights
โข https://greenpolicy360.net/w/The_Commons
New definitions of security are demanded... forward planning with a new and more acutely aware vision of security.
GreenPolicy360 and its associate Strategic Demands challenge prevailing views that are not focused as they must be on existential threats of our era. A new vision of security must drive the politics of our times. New definitions of national and global security must become highest priorities.
The climate crisis is real. Severe eco-impacts are now being experienced by communities, local to national, as science is reporting with voluminous data warnings of a proliferating threat horizon.
Action is demanded in response. We must move climate and environmental impacts from 'irritants' to a central role as we rethink security risks. GreenPolicy360 and Strategic Demands point the way toward the new definitions, responses and solutions necessary for comprehensive, and sustainable security.
GreenPolicy360 Joins with Strategic Demands
Strategic Issues, National Security, Global Security
New Strategic Definitions of Security, Confronting the Existential Challenges of Our Era
The Nuclear War Threat & Climate Change Threat Brings Forward Global Green Political Action
Beginnings of the Modern Environmental Movement
A new vision of our home planet is delivered from the Apollo NASA mission and a modern environmental protection movement in turn is launched. As Earth in full color is seen as never before, a question arises... How are we going to navigate our journey as planet citizens?
We have come far from the past, what will the future now hold, how best can we manage?
- A Generation Green, Inspired by "Earthrise"
At GreenPolicy360 we speak of how each of us can make a positive difference.
Each of us can make a positive difference by stepping up & doing our best
We go on to write of 'quality of life', human rights, and a broader rights agenda that are 'top of mind'.
Now comes a strategic demand, one that professes the importance of defending our democratic institutions, freedom, and need for mutual security and common cause in this 360 world of ours...
Democracy, a Free Press, Facts & Fact Checking
- Fact Finding and the '3 Ds' -- Discussion, Debate and Decision-Making
โTruthful campaign discussion of public issues is essential to the American form of Government; but wilful misrepresentation of fact has no place either during election time or at any other time.โ
-- US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 23, 1940
Read & watch Hannah's warnings how democracy can be lost
โThe result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world โ and the category of truth vs falsehood is among the mental means to this end โ is being destroyed.โ
-- Hannah Arendt, "Truth and Politics", 1967
Hannah Arendtโs last public interview
Arendt spoke about the importance of a free press in an era of mass manipulation of truth and public lying
Interview with Roger Errera in 1974
"What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule..."
If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie โ a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days โ but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please."
Hannah Arendt, a Voice from the Past, a Clarion Call Not to Ignore
- Democracy at Risk Explained by a Scholar -- One Who Experienced the Loss of Democracy
Many liberals are perplexed that when their fact-checking clearly and definitively shows that a lie is a lie, people seem unconcerned and indifferent. But Arendt understood how propaganda really works. โWhat convinces masses are not facts, not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably a part.โ
People who feel that they have been neglected and forgotten yearn for a narrative โ even an invented fictional one โ that will make sense of the anxiety they are experiencing, and promises some sort of redemption. An authoritarian leader has enormous advantages by exploiting anxieties and creating a fiction that people want to believe. A fictional story that promises to solve oneโs problems is much more appealing than facts and โreasonableโ arguments.
Arendt was not a doomsayer. To counter her warnings about political dangers, she elaborated a detailed conception of the dignity of politics. Because of our natality, our capacity to act, we can always begin something new. The deepest theme in Arendt is the need to take responsibility for our political lives.
-- Richard J. Bernstein, professor of philosophy at The New School for Social Research, 2018
Disinformation - Online - Dangerous | Fact Checking, Facts Count
๐
GreenPolicy360 -- supporting freedom, a rights agenda, democratic institutions, a constitutional U.S. republic
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