What We’re Grateful For This Year
Dear friends,
Are you wondering about Thanksgiving in this moody climate? It’s unnaturally warm most places and strangely rainy in California. Even scarier is the background muszak of our stalled national elevator. What if the family’s “crazy uncle” plays Billboard’s #1 streamed song fund-raiser, “Justice for All,” featuring an indicted former president and The J6 Choir, 20 men jailed for insurrection?
Subjects to avoid: a former House Speaker elbowing a colleague and entering a pushing match. Ferocious parents taking librarians to the police station for pushing “pornography” on kids. A Republican US Senator reminded by his senior Bernie Sanders that a Senator should sit down instead of standing for a fist fight on the hearing room floor.
It appears to be the same violent, bullying anger we saw on Jan. 6th. Your uncle might claim via social media that this was a peaceful demonstration. Questions are good for opening things up: ask him then, as comedian Jordan Klepper has, which peaceful demonstrator was it that took a poop in the Capital’s rotunda? Which peacenik built a gallows?
It might help you to know what psychoanalyst Helen Block Davis wrote about a mostly male defense to avoid shame. She called it “humiliated fury.” The latest incensed laws and policies against critical race theory, wombs, diversity, gender, and LGBTQ people openly claim that very same goal: refusing shame. No! we won’t back down. It was great in 1950, when gays knew their place in the closet, and women in the bedroom and kitchen and black and brown people and children knew to be silent because men who are real men know how to shoot a gun.
Still, let’s shame’s a common feeling. It’s an instinct warning you that your ego’s hoped-for perfection isn’t so. It’s useful, often accompanied by a measure of changed humility. Shame and other “soft” feelings, like empathy, will not kill you, like guns do. They may even help us Americans to put down defenses to join the human race.
via Wikimedia Commons
To err is human; to forgive, divine, wrote Alexander Pope in 1711. Maybe the founding fathers read his poem before they created a government with three separate powers. That we’d screw up was expected. Equal powers shared by congress, the executive and judicial branch, might help hold power’s inevitable corruption in check. This, of course, was before corporations were redefined as people and money as free speech, outshouting us all.
Allow no phones at the Thanksgiving table! To err is human, but to really mess things up takes a computer. Social media hasn’t helped our mental health or public discourse, and digital disruption is eliminating job security. The music industry and its streaming is only one great example. AI is replacing us, not the Jews.
If your faith in God and country insists you love your “uncle,” it’s probably wiser to invite him to another cup of coffee, than to friend him on Facebook. His 800 awful friends with horrible ideas and emojis are easier to get to know at school concerts or at church. There, our bands and choirs still somehow manage to harmonize bass and soprano, the oboes with the trumpets — our music made the richer by varied instruments. Its many moods sooth us. Even Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, an ode to war, is far more beautiful than any one-man band and his thug J6 choir.
Humiliated fury relies on tonal violence to hide how fragile you are behind your defenses. It wants to beat a kettle drum and march off to war. The truth is we humans ARE fragile.
If we think of the US Constitution as sheet music, revised over time to reflect what we’ve learned — then Black, gay, and non-binary citizens with wombs only add to orchestral national power.
Musicians and citizens both need lots of imperfect practice and a few sour notes, to play well. The coming year demands our courage, not fury.
Let’s make sure all our neighbors can vote and our governments play fair. Each of us is a note in the American score: E pluribus unum.
In feeling fellowship,
Rickey Gard Diamond
Founder, AEOO
What We’re Grateful For
Food, land, and an ecology for everyone. Food is anything but digital. But who owns land and nature? This Thanksgiving we’re grateful to the Women’s Food and Agriculture Network and the Young Farmer’s Coalition. Their proposed 2024 Farm Bill adjustments ensure a sustainable future of farming, conservation, and equitable access to land. Without House leadership, however, the Ag Bill got stalled. Some warn of higher food prices as a result. At least SNAP and other food programs will continue until Congress finishes this crucial work.
Speaking of food, AEOO advisor Didi Pershouse recently shared a Substack article she calls “foundational.” The Biotic Climate and the Soil Sponge begins by saying, “Heatwaves, drought, flooding, and wildfires don’t just happen to us…our relationship with the biological workforce affects weather and climate.”
Her shorter piece gives an overview of her 5-week international discussion course, which “will explore the potential for deep systems change in agriculture and urban land management…[and] climate resilience (way beyond carbon drawdown.)” Importantly, they’ll also look at Wall Street’s move to own nature’s assets and ecosystem services.
“What does this mean for your farm or community? What options can we design for financing change?” Didi asks. AEOO looks forward to learning more from Didi, farmers, and urban gardeners convening from around the world.
Inspiring conversations. Praxis Peace Institute founder and AEOO ally, Georgia Kelly, had a great conversation with Richard Heinberg of the Post-Carbon Institute, whose most recent book is Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. You’ll value this talk, and may be as inspired as we were to get a copy of his shorter paper called, “Welcome to the Great Unraveling.” Georgia says she learned a lot and calls it “empowering.”
Another Post-Carbon Institute fellow, Vicki Robin, takes a smaller and different approach we love, with her podcast called What Could Possibly Go Right? Yes! We were intrigued by her interview with Margaret Wheatley, titled Finding our Right Work and Path of Contribution. Wheatley highlights life-affirming leadership and dedicated service at the local level.
We also want to highlight Cherri Jacobs’ The Power of Partnership podcast from AEOO Advisory Board member Riane Eisler’s Center for Partnership Systems, especially this interview with John C. Havens, titled Heartificial Intelligence. The title alone is a peach, but do take time for a pleasureable listen.
Voices calling for peace… We are thankful for the women working together for peace and security needed by Palestine AND Israel.
…And calling out capitalism. Take a listen to Carsie Blanton’s great song, Rich People, just in time for Thanksgiving Dinner. Have some fun and see what your “crazy uncles” think! You might be surprised!
The history that guides us. Another of AEOO’s partners, WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom) went to Chicago last month to learn more about their founder, Jane Addams, and her work at Hull House more than a hundred years ago with immigrants. She offers hope and methods for today. Meanwhile, WILPF reminds us of the 75th anniversary of Eleanor Roosevelt’s work with the UN’s Commission on Human Rights and its Declaration of Universal Human Rights, and WILPF’s continued work, bringing young women to the UN. Their issues they work on include nuclear disarmament, and the connections of Women-$-and Democracy!
Rachel Maddow is also talking about what could possibly go right! Her latest book PREQUEL: An American Fight Against Fascism tells the World War II story of a committed group of public servants and courageous private citizens thwarting the far-right’s attempts to align our nation with the Nazis.
If Henry Ford’s huge role in this is news to you, don’t miss this great and inspiring conversation at the Chicago Humanities Festival with lots of great questions from the audience. Maddow sits down with historian, author and Northwestern University professor Kathleen Belew to explore the rise of American authoritarianism, insights from our 30s and 40s history, and Maddow’s take on the courage needed in these unprecedented times.
Upcoming Events
Women Investing for Change. We’re following up on our October talk with a Zoom of Our Own on Monday Dec. 4 on Feminist-ing Our Finance for People and Planet. Financiers and investors have traditionally been male and remain so when guarding the bucks of the largest global investors on Wall Street. If you or your state or your company are growing pensions, it’s likely you’re investing in global fossil fuels and the military industrial complex without knowing it. A growing number of women are instead learning how to actively invest their values. Learn how they’re growing the livelihoods of local communities, women and BIPOC entrepreneurs, and companies that care about the environment, fair and inclusive governance, and sustainability.
We’ll be joined by Janine Firpo, author of Activate Your Money: Invest to Grow Your Wealth and Build a Better World and co-founder of the educational nonprofit, Invest for Better; Women Lead the Way; Vanessa Lowe, an economic development professional who has a passion for equipping low-and moderate-income people with the tools to manage their money and build their wealth. host of Vanessa’s Money Hour on G-Town Radio in Philadelphia. and Gwen Pokalo Hart, an entrepreneur with New England’s Center for Women and Enterprise and on the board of Vermont Community Loan Fund.
Don’t miss it! Learn the inspiring ways women’s money is already making needed change! You can RSVP here, at no cost or with an optional donation.
In this season of giving and gratitude…
Next year marks a serious American pivot point, determining whether we’ll preserve our imperfect moves toward a more perfect union and democracy, or collapse into a Kraken world of autocracy, lies, and violence.
Think of this pivot point, not in need of another military tactic, but of an awe-inspiring dance move — a sweeping change in economic purpose and direction.
Like you, we’re looking at our budget and building a future — and we’ll only be able to expand our woman-friendly resources with your help.
Most of our alliance work is done by professionals providing pro-bono services, as advisors and including those experts who join our Zoom of Our Own conversations. We value their generosity, stretching our tiny budget. But this isn’t a sustainable model, and changing the economy’s purpose is a long-term project.
While times are tough, especially for those of us who most need a change in economic purpose, building for the future isn’t as impossible as it may first appear. When we dare look at the numbers, if just 1532 women (and the men who love us) invest $31 in An Economy of Our Own for 2024, we’ll meet our goal of $47,500! Those of you who already give might even be moved to give a bit more. You can be sure penny-wise women will use it for the long-term!
