One of Joe Biden’s very first appointments on January 21^st, one of his least publicized but definitely one of his most important when it comes to the future of the earth’s ecosystems and human societies, was the appointment of Richard Glick to be chair of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Why was that appointment so important?

It is essential that we as a species urgently transition away from polluting fossil fuels and nukes to clean, jobs-creating, renewable energy sources–wind, sun, tides and currents and the relative heat, in winter, and the relative coolness, in summer, of the earth. Those non-polluting energy sources can then not just generate electricity for the world’s homes and businesses but to power electric cars, trucks, buses, and electric heat pump powered heating and cooling systems.

Electrification of power sources, transportation vehicles and heating and cooling systems is absolutely essential to make a clean energy revolution in enough time to prevent escalating and massive, worldwide climate catastrophe.

Richard Glick was nominated to be a FERC commissioner in 2017. Before his nomination he had a decades-long history of work in government and business in support of renewable energy. I learned this from him in person when we met about a week after I had been arrested during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on FERC in the summer of that year. Glick, who is no relation, was at that time the general counsel for the Democrats on that committee. He was in the room up at the front with all the Senators when I stood up as part of an organized nonviolent action and loudly said something like, “FERC is a rubber-stamp agency for the fossil fuel industry and a threat to the future of life on earth.” I was quickly removed by Capitol Police and ending up spending two days and one night in DC Central Cellblock before being released.

A couple of days later us two Glicks received an email from a staffer for one of the Democratic Senators on the Senate ENR committee. She suggested that the two of us might benefit from meeting and talking; I agreed to do so and a week later Rich and I met in the same room where I had been arrested.

By the end of 2017 he had been nominated and approved as a FERC commissioner, and since then I have watched with some amazement as Glick did something no other FERC commissioner has ever done: speak truth to power over and over again from within the corridors of power, particularly about the urgency of the climate crisis. The Republican majority over those years continued what had been happening under both Democrats and Republicans for at least 20 years, rubber-stamping every methane gas industry permit application to expand that industry. They were also making decisions to disadvantage renewables. In those 20 years, according to a House Committee on Oversight and Reform report last summer, of the 1,021 gas industry permit applications to FERC over that time only six had been rejected.

Glick dissented from just about all of those renewable energy disadvantaging and gas industry expansion permits when they came before the commissioners for a vote. He always wrote clear and well-reasoned dissents, primarily arguing that FERC was not doing serious analyses of the climate impacts of those new pipelines, compressor stations and gas export terminals. There’s little doubt that his dissents helped to educate people, including federal judges, about the reality of rubber-stamping FERC. By the fall of 2020 he was saying publicly that it was understandable why so many people were describing FERC as a rubber-stamping agency.

Glick’s first commissioners meeting as chair was last week, on February 18^th. Once again, he didn’t disappoint. In his opening presentation, he made clear that FERC must become an agency where renewable energy and battery storage would be given space to grow and expand; where FERC’s rubber-stamping ways would be a thing of the past; where environmental justice concerns would become, for the first time, FERC concerns; where, 43 years after being authorized by Congress, there would be a FERC Office of Public Participation; and where the rampant abuse of landowners and property owners via eminent domain for corporate gain would be reined in. And from statements made by the other four commissioners, it was clear that some of those positions were more than just his.

As of June of this year, when Republican commissioner Neil Chatterjee’s term is up, Biden will be able to appoint a third Democrat to team with Glick and commissioner Allison Clements, giving them a majority for the next four years to transform FERC. It really is a whole new FERC world.

There is no question that there will be all kinds of pressures brought to bear to weaken what a Glick-led majority will try to do, including lawsuits brought by deep pockets fossil fuel and pipeline companies. There’s also FERC’s internal culture, corrupted by many years of partnership with the fossil fuelers. And if, in 2024, Republicans take over the White House, whatever positive has transpired up until then will be threatened.

That is why Beyond Extreme Energy and 240 other organizations, as well as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, among other elected officials, are supporting the idea of replacing FERC with FREC, a Federal Renewable Energy Commission. FREC would have a Congressional mandate to be all about helping to lead the transition away from fossil fuels to renewables. Leadership would be required to have a background of support for renewables. Environmental justice and community participation in decision-making would be guiding principles. Eminent domain abuse for corporate gain would come to an end.

BXE has been talking with House and Senate offices about this idea for the last several months, and we’ve been pleased by the response. We anticipate that legislation will be introduced, hopefully this spring, for FERC Into FREC.

In the meantime, we will continue to keep watch on FERC, expecting to like a lot of what we see and hear but prepared to take action as necessary to stand up for communities and the planet, as the movement against fracking and new fracking infrastructure has been doing over the last decade. It is good to know that this time, when we do so, we have reason to expect that our arguments will be taken seriously, finally.

Ted Glick has been a volunteer organizer with Beyond Extreme Energy since its founding in 2014. He is the author of Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the War, published last year. Past writings and other information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://jtglick.com.

The Senate impeachment trial didn’t get the 2/3rds needed for a conviction, unsurprisingly, but it has clearly hurt Donald Trump and his white supremacist followers. Trump and those who physically attacked the US Capitol have been exposed for the violent extremists that they are. Their supposed pro-police politics were forgotten as they fought with and hurt Capitol and DC Metro police standing in the way of Trump’s attempted coup. And the fact that seven Republican Senators voted to convict Mafioso Don makes clear that the internal battle within the Republican Party will deepen between the overtly anti-democracy white supremacists and those who are more traditional, right-wing conservatives.

There are some on the Left, the ultra-leftists, who lump together not just all Republicans but also centrist Democrats, see them all as enemies of the people. Indeed, when Trump was up for re-election last year, these ultra-leftists took the position that there was no difference between the Republicans and all Democrats, and anyone on the Left who gave critical support to Joe Biden was a traitor to the cause of progressivism.

This self-marginalization through ultra-leftism is definitely not the way to keep the neo-fascists and white supremacists down, much less build up the progressive Left’s political power and effectiveness.

But there’s another error that people on the Left can make that will ultimately have similar negative results. It is being uncritical of, unwilling to be independent from, Democratic Party politicians whose willingness to fight for the needs of working people and the least of these, the large majority of the population, is compromised by their hunt for big-money campaign contributions and desire to be in the good graces of the rich and powerful.

There is no way that this country can decisively move forward in a progressive direction and decrease support for Trumpist politics and policies, politically defeat the neo-fascists and white supremacists, unless these two fundamentally problematic approaches to doing politics are rejected.

Affirmatively, what the progressive Left must be about is actually very simple: a justice-oriented government of the people, by the people and for the people, and not of, by and for the corporate elite.

Very simple, yet very complex, given the domination of our political and economic systems by the obscenely rich corporate class and the results of that domination.

One result is politicians who overtly align with that class and strive for their approval and support; in many ways these are the easiest to oppose. But another result is politicians who wish things were different and who are willing to do some things to ameliorate people’s pain and suffering but who fear being truthful and acting on that truth because of lust for more personal wealth and power, concern about career advancement and/or just plain human weakness.

A progressive Left which gets it on the dangers of both ultra-leftism to the left and selloutism to the right will go about its work, determine its strategies and tactics, openly and clearly proclaiming that the ultimate goal is an end to corporate domination of our society and all that goes with it, like white supremacy, patriarchy and heterosexism. It will strive toward that objective consistently, but it will be willing to achieve victories along the way through, in part, tactical compromises with non- or sometimes-progressives.

What are examples? One is Obamacare, when what is needed is Improved Medicare for All or stronger universal, national health care. Another is Biden’s weaker climate plan if, after political struggle, we are not able get right now a strong Green New Deal. A third is forceful federal action to restructure local police forces to stop racism, police killings and brutality, when what is needed is a complete overhaul of our criminal justice system.

When the progressive Left as a whole is consistent about its objectives, flexible in its tactics to get there, principled in the way that it navigates the complexities of forward-moving social change, and a visible model of an inspiring cultural alternative to the competitive and individualistic dominant culture, helping more and more people find the strength and support to fight for justice and to grow and develop as better, more loving human beings in the process—then and only then can we change the world.

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick.

I’ve read Barack Obama’s two other books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope, so I knew his latest one, The Promised Land, would be well-written and interesting, and it was.

What I wondered about after receiving it as a gift from a loved one in my family was how honestly he would assess his administration’s failures.

There’s no question that, compared to the Trumpist hell that came after Obama’s eight years in the White House, the Obama/Biden administration was close to heavenly. But that isn’t the way a lot of progressives—climate activists, especially fracktivists, those fighting for immigrant rights, supporters of Medicare for All, economic justice advocates critical of Wall Street’s dominance of the economy, peace activists, others—felt during those eight years. For me personally, as a person who has prioritized the climate crisis since 2003, it was maddening to watch Obama consistently, uncritically and publicly support oil and gas fracking all throughout his eight years. To do so while doing some good things on climate and speaking about the climate issue as an existential crisis was very problematic and very hypocritical.

The Promised Land is very long, 701 pages, and it ends in the Spring of 2011, with most of those pages devoted to his first Presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008 and the first two-plus years of his Presidency between 2009-2011. There’s 78 pages at the beginning briefly reviewing his life up to the announcement of his Presidential campaign in February of 2007 in Springfield, Illinois.

As I got into reading Promised Land, I found myself looking for what he had to say about Joe Biden. He didn’t say very much, but when he did our current President comes across looking pretty good, from a progressive perspective. Biden and his “able chief of staff Ron Klain” are commended for their good work administering the 2009 economic Recovery Act’s “billions of dollars in infrastructure projects.” (p. 302) The two of them did “an excellent job, with Joe often devoting chunks of his day to picking up the phone and barking at state or local officials whose projects were behind schedule.” (P. 521)

Biden, “among the principals” discussing what to do about the Afghanistan war, was the only one who “voiced his misgivings. I knew Joe still felt burned by having supported the Iraq invasion years earlier.” (P. 318) He maintained this approach in several internal battles over what to do.

When it came to whether the US should intervene militarily to help overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, “Joe considered it foolish to get involved in yet another war abroad.” (P. 657)

This was all good to learn about.

How honest was Obama in assessing not just the accomplishments and the frustrations of his time in the White House but what many progressives saw as his weaknesses? Here, I found myself reminded of a review I did of The Audacity of Hope one month before the February, 2007 Springfield, Il. Presidential candidate announcement. After delineating the good and problematic things he wrote, here’s how I concluded it:

“Last week I happened to see an article which compared Hillary Clinton’s voting record in the U.S. Senate with Obama’s. I remember the numbers: 82.5 vs. 79.8. The numbers placed them on a most conservative (1) to most liberal (100) scale in relationship to others in the Senate. (Keep in mind that 55 members of the U.S. Senate last year were Republicans, and it’s not exactly a progressive institution.) As African American author and activist Kevin Gray has written, there should be no doubt about it: Obama is cut from similar cloth as Bill and Hillary. He’s a Democratic Leadership Council man. Progressives beware.”

Obama in Promised Land acknowledges and somewhat addresses the criticisms of progressives on a range of issues, so that is a good thing. When he reflects on his handling of the 2008 Great Recession, for example, he “wonders whether I should have been bolder in those early months” taking on the Wall Streeters and financial speculators responsible for it. But after reflecting on it for a couple of paragraphs he reports that if given a do-over, “I can’t say that I would make different choices.” (pps. 304-305)

He writes more about this issue later in the book. He lays out the differences between the corporate-friendly “moderates” in the Democratic Party and “many on the left” who believed that his administration’s weak approach toward those responsible for the economic crisis “would merely put off a long-overdue reckoning with a system that failed to serve the interests of ordinary Americans.” (p. 547) Obama indicates that he agrees with that view of the reality of the “system” but goes on to rationalize and defend his incrementalist approach.

There is one huge topic that comes up nowhere in the book: the responsibility of a President who understands the systemic problems we are facing to speak truth to power and to mobilize the 99% to take on the 1%. Indeed, Obama was criticized at the time by many on the left for making very little effort, if any, to use the very big email list he compiled during his campaign, or even to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency, to mobilize support for strong policy proposals. His was not a movement-building Presidency, not at all. Indeed, after he was elected, many progressives took their cues from Obama, wishing him well and demobilizing as he and his chosen team tried to do the right things within the confines of the unjust system and the halls of power in Washington.

Clearly, Obama’s former Vice-President just cannot do the same thing. The progressive movement cannot allow him to do the same thing. We need to do what FDR is said to have told civil rights leaders after a meeting at the White House in 1941: “make me do it,” in reference to their demands.

There are signs, based upon what has happened in the two weeks since Joe and Jill Biden moved into the White House, that President Biden has his ear at least somewhat to the ground when it comes to what he is prepared to fight for. Let’s take hope from that but understand that continued movement-building and grassroots organizing and the coming together of our movements into a powerful progressive force continues to be, under Biden as under Trump, an essential component if we are to bring about the urgently-needed change this world and its ecosystems and peoples so desperately need.

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick.

I’m having very mixed feelings today. I have to admit that as relieved as I am that Biden/Harris are now running the country, as emotional as I couldn’t help but be watching, first, disgraced Trump leaving town and then the Presidential inauguration ceremony yesterday, I’m not getting my hopes up too high. My politics are Bernie Sanders-type politics, which at its core is a sharp critique of the massive and growing wealth inequality, the dominance of the obscenely-ultra-rich, in the US and the world, which is THE reason for so much of the suffering and unnecessary struggling of so many people, literally in the billions worldwide.

My politics are also those of the Christian church of the first century AD, as written in the book of Acts 2:44-45:  “All who believed were together and had all things in common, they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” This was repeated in Acts 4:32: “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they held in common.”

Those are radical words, fighting words if you’re a greedy capitalist who is determined to prevent any sharing of your wealth with the homeless, the poor, the least of these, working-class people.

These early Christian politics are not Joe Biden’s politics, for sure, but on the other hand, Joe Biden appears to be a person who takes his Christian religion very seriously, so maybe there’s something inside him that can be appealed to going forward over these next four years. And I mean that seriously.

Part of my mixed feelings today come from the new political world in which we now find ourselves. One aspect of that is a number of signs that it’s not just Trump’s time in the White House that has come to an end. It could well be that his disturbing hold on the hearts and minds of so many US Americans is rapidly eroding.

A very big example can be found in an article in today’s New York Times, “They Called Trump ‘Emperor.’ Now, He’s ‘Weak.’” The article reports on comments being made on a private internet channel by members of the Proud Boys, probably the most influential of the white supremacist militias who supported Trump. Here’s some of the quotes: “Trump will go down as a total failure”; “At least the incoming administration [Biden/Harris] is honest about their intentions”; “It really is important for us all to see how much Trump betrayed his supporters this week. We are nationalists 1^st and always. Trump was just a man and as it turns out an extraordinarily weak one at the end.”

What about Biden reaching out to Republicans? In general that is understandable, but if achieving bipartisanship is more of a priority than taking action quickly to address the multiple crises of the pandemic, the economy, the climate and racial justice, that is a major problem. So far, through his Executive Actions, Biden seems to have his priorities straight.

It was so much simpler under Trump. We knew he was the enemy who had to be resisted in just about every single case, and he was such a terrible human being. Biden is a decent human being, and he is not the enemy. Biden is definitely an ally in many cases, but he is not going to be so across the board, particularly as far as militarism and the US empire with its 700 or so military bases around the world.

So is it a new world? Certainly not yet as far as on the ground realities. But it seems realistically possible that these four years could be the first part of the world-changing decade that it needs to be, that it absolutely must be for the health and survival of the planet and all of its creatures.

I believe if the Trump resistance stays in the game, doesn’t relax and “leave it to Joe and Kamala,” January 20^th, 2021 will be the beginning of a new political world, a politics of justice and democracy and respect for the earth that keeps building and building until we truly have created, in full, a new world.

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick

From 1974 into the 1980’s I worked actively with the US Branch of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) in support of the cause of independence for Puerto Rico. I have maintained connections to this should-be country ever since, primarily through a close friendship with a leading community activist in Vieques, a small island off the southeast coast of the main island.

Revolution Around the Corner is a special book. If you don’t know much about Puerto Rico and its relationship to the USA, there’s a lot to learn within this book. If you were active with the PSP back then this is definitely a book you should read. It’s the same if you are a progressive North American and understand that PR is a colony suffering for over 120 years under United States domination and that you have a responsibility to help free it.

But there’s another reason why this is such a valuable book. It’s one of the best books I’ve read that gives a sense of what it’s like to be part of a Left organization that has big successes for a number of years but then loses steam, members, energy and its sense of direction and ultimately disappears as an organization. Revolution Around the Corner includes the personal stories of people who were deeply affected by all of that and who, decades later, share their thinking about what went wrong.

That overall story is very relevant to all of us on the Left. It is particularly important for young people new to the movement to learn from and appreciate so that they will be able to minimize, if not prevent, destructive internal organizational/personal dynamics going forward.

For example, here’s what Alfredo Lopez, one of the US branch’s top leaders for years, said about his role: “Several of our leaders [including me] suffered from the same baseless arrogance, and this style managed to glue together coalitions that had no business existing. While I was in the party’s leadership, I told myself that these means were justified by the end. Since that time, I have come to realize that when the means are sullied by undemocratic practice, the end is never a desirable one. The demise of the PSP in this country is as much my responsibility as anyone’s.” [This assessment is based on the testimony of Carmen Vivian Rivera, a PSP leader and co-editor of the book.]

Andres Torres writes of the PSP’s serious problems with sexism: “From the party’s beginnings the role of its women members was fraught with stereotype and tradition. Leadership was heavily male dominated. The companeras were typically assigned to supportive work areas—taking minutes at meetings, providing nourishment, and so forth. They were not expected to be spokespersons or ideological leaders. The sources of this discrepancy are found in the very structure of all societies; national liberation movements are not immune to the workings of patriarchy.”

Despite these weaknesses, which ultimately led to the PSP’s downfall, the book reports on the many successes of the PSP in the 1970’s: building a mass-based and activist, socialist and independista organization in the Puerto Rican community throughout the United States; filling Madison Square Garden with 20,000 members and supporters in the fall of 1974; leading a broad July 4^th Coalition in 1976 which brought out 40,000 people on that day in Philadelphia and 10,000 more on the west coast; and giving leadership to a Coalition for a People’s Alternative in 1980 which organized a Peoples Convention of thousands on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx and a march of 15,000 people to the Democratic National Convention in Madison Square Garden.

The book is a collection of 15 histories and testimonies by a variety of authors. It was put together and edited by Jose E. Velazquez, Carmen V. Rivera and Andres Torres, all PSP leaders in the 70’s. It is well done, an excellent read, lots of interesting stories, good writers, and comprehensive information from different perspectives. Revolution Around the Corner can help us turn the corner as we build towards a 21^st century revolution which learns from past weaknesses and errors, a necessity if it’s going to happen. Si, se puede!

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick

Was yesterday’s pre-planned, deliberate, violent attack on the US Capitol by rabid Trump supporters the last gasp, the end, the exclamation point to Mafioso Don’s four years of infamy or, God forbid, the beginning of an assertive ultra-rightist campaign of violence and terrorism?

The fact that in two weeks there will be a Biden/Harris Justice Department that should actively investigate how this terrorist action happened and should prosecute the leaders of this dangerous white supremacist network increases the chances that this was, indeed, a “last gasp.” There should be unrelenting pressure on the Biden/Harris team to make sure that happens.

In addition, they need to immediately move to get $2000 pandemic checks to low-income, working-class and small business people and take other actions to help those struggling at this difficult time.

What happens with the weakened Republicans, no longer in control of the Senate or the White House, will also be critical. The best thing to hope for is that the divisions between the militant Trumpists and the more moderate Trumpists and the much smaller group of Trump critics in the Republican Party will continue and widen. Better, if possible, would be the emergence of a bloc, almost certainly a small bloc, which openly and actively pushes for an open disassociation between the Republicans and the racist ultra-rightists.

Then there’s the progressive Left. What is our role?

Clearly, we should support in all the ways we can initiatives to pressure the new Democratic administration to be very serious about prosecuting those responsible for yesterday’s Capitol Hill criminality. Not just those who were there who were arrested but the people who planned and led it. Think Proud Boys and their ultra-rightist comrades.

In addition, those of us on the Left who are anti-racist and of European ancestry need to resolve that we will step up our support of groups like Movement for Black Lives and, also important, step up our work within predominantly white communities and workplaces to speak out against white supremacy and other backwards thinking and actions. We should do so at the same time that we work to address economic justice and food insecurity and health care and other issues affecting white low-income and working-class people. We need to show day after day that we are concerned about all forms of inequality and injustice. Only in that way will we be able, over time, to undercut white folks’ support of people like Trump. Only then can we move white working-class people whose interests lie with working-class people of color in a progressive, time-to-take-on-the-1%-together, direction.

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick

Yesterday I spoke with one of my nieces and her 3 and 6 year old children via zoom. It was the first time we’ve seen each other and interacted in months. Talking about the difficulties she is having as a teacher with two young kids during the pandemic, I wondered how this pandemic will affect them and their generation, their consciousness, their view of the world, as we eventually get past it and they grow and evolve.

I don’t have any special ideas along those lines, but I do have some ideas about what can be and should be major priorities for humanity as a whole:

-A change in our relationship to the natural world: Many of us have learned that the increasing number of devastating viruses is related to the continued expansion of human society into natural areas where we have never been on a daily basis before. Doing so puts us in contact with animals which can pass on zoonotic viruses like AIDS, SARS and COVID 19. It also causes deforestation at a time when we need to be adding, not reducing, trees and natural vegetation because of the climate emergency.

–A stronger and wider commitment to quality, affordable health care for all: It’s pretty basic. A healthy society is one which will make it harder for viruses to take root and spread. The US is not a very healthy society, overall, particularly for black, brown and Indigenous and low-income people, as well as in too many institutions providing elder care. Medicare for All isn’t a radical idea; it’s common sense, social defense, the logical next step once we’ve beaten this pandemic.

-Prioritizing a living wage jobs or income for all approach: Along the same lines, a healthy society is one where everyone gets enough income each year, via either a living wage job or adequate income support if unable to work, to have decent housing, healthy food, and programs that provide other needed support. And the creation of millions of new jobs building windmills and solar panels and plugging leaks in buildings is absolutely what is needed right now to solve the climate emergency.

–Reforming our food system away from industrial agriculture: Tens of thousands of chickens, hogs, cattle or other animals kept together in one place is a recipe for serious problems, including increased risk of the development and spread of zoonotic viruses to humans. We need land reform that takes land away from corporate ag and distributes it to family and cooperative farms which use much healthier, environmentally sound food-growing practices.

–International solidarity in support of improved lives for all: We live in an interconnected world and economy, which is why the pandemic has spread to all corners of it. There aren’t enough walls and other obstructions to prevent person-to-person contact. That is why the Covid 19 vaccine needs to be made available this year to every country for free, financed by wealth taxes, as a common sense measure. Conscious efforts need to be made to strengthen grassroots organizations that can raise people’s standards of living, including by taking on corporate profiteers trying to dominate local communities and economies for selfish and greedy purposes.

–Action to slow, stop and reverse the earth’s growing population. The earth cannot provide a decent standard of living for everyone under our current system. Even under a new, people-oriented system it can’t unless there’s a reversal of the continual growth in human population. It has been shown that the best ways to reduce population are through a raising of living standards, the empowerment of women and the widespread availability of family planning services and reproductive health care.

Consciously, deliberately, and fiercely combating the Republican dogma that “government is the problem not the solution.” Ever since Reagan days over and over they’ve been repeating their official talking point: “The nine scariest words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, I’m here to help you.'” If ever there was a right time to challenge that dogma, this pandemic crisis and the Republican/Trump failure to address it is the time to start pushing back against the ideology. (1)

We in the USA don’t need to wait for the pandemic to be defeated to begin advancing these approaches to avoiding future pandemics. Indeed, in all of these areas progressive organizations are working to advance them. The new Biden/Harris administration should support them, though they’re not going to do so as comprehensively and cleanly as they should without massive pressure from below.

Let’s make a commitment on this new year’s day that we will do all we can in the coming weeks and months to come out of this pandemic clearly pointed down this hopeful road.

(1) Thanks to Bruce Hartman for this additional point.

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick

This day before the worldwide celebration among Christians of Jesus of Nazareth’s birth has found me thinking about spiritual questions. I’m doing so not just because of that calendar reality; it’s because it just so happened that this was the day for me to do some work on an essay, “Does God Exist, Does It Matter,” in connection with a new book manuscript I’m in the process of finalizing.

In the latter parts of the essay, I quote from a very important but relatively unknown historical figure, Rev. Howard Thurman. Thurman was an African American minister, an author, a visionary and an active participant in the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s. He was close to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In one of his most popular books, Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman sagely articulates how Jesus, preaching and teaching to the oppressed masses under Roman rule, “recognized fully that out of the heart are the issues of life and that no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people if it does not first win the victory of the spirit against them. Jesus saw this with almighty clarity. Again and again he came back to the inner life of the individual. With increasing insight and startling accuracy he placed his finger on the ‘inward center’ as the crucial arena where the issues would determine the destiny of his people.”

In Jesus’ day, in Thurman’s time, and still today this holds true. Positive social change doesn’t happen unless growing numbers of individuals develop the inward clarity and strength to fight for justice day after day. Over time, all of this can add up to needed and even revolutionary change.

In a sermon preached in 1951 published in the book Sermons on the Parables, before the 50’s civil rights movement had burst forth, Thurman spoke very specifically to this “inward center” work in a way that all people, whether religious or not, can learn from:

“The restlessness of our age, the churning tumult of our times, the quiet frustrations and the riotous frustrations in the midst of which we live, all these surround us in the quietness, and yet we recognize the privilege of unhurried contemplation, of laying ourselves bare to the searching processes of singleness of mind, the privilege of becoming aware of needs of which we are scarcely conscious in our fevered rush, the privilege of hearing voices that need not speak above a whisper in our hearts, pointing us to the way that we should take in the midst of our own problems and responsibilities, our own hopes, and our own fears. The time of regaining of quiet. The time of searching of heart. The time of regaining of perspective. The time of lifting of hopes about ourselves and the world. The time of insight. The time of the renewal of courage.”  

Elsewhere in Sermons on the Parables he writes: “So many things of which we are not aware when we are living at a more superficial level, we become aware of in the stillness, when all the noises, the interior noises, are quieted.” 

I hope that at this special time for those who believe in the importance of the life of Jesus of Nazareth that everyone, Christian or not, will take time to reflect on Thurman’s wise and very relevant words.

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick

I can’t remember ever hearing the two-word phrase, “civil war,” as much as I’ve heard it over the past year. Yesterday, at the latest, post-election, Trump-forever rally in downtown Washington, DC, the Washington Post reported that “podcaster David Harris, Jr. riled the crowd by suggesting if there were a civil war, ‘we’re the ones with all the guns.’”

This followed news reports that ultra-rightist Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, the day before, “posted photos taken inside the White House gates on the conservative platform Parler, adding that he had received a ‘last minute invite to an undisclosed location.’” White House officials denied that he had met with Trump or anyone else.

Is it realistic that Trump would have such a meeting? I’d say yes, given his desperation after all of the Supreme Court justices, including the three he appointed, summarily dismissed his latest loser lawsuit, clearing the way for the Electoral College tomorrow to officially elect Biden/Harris.

A desperate, anti-democratic, authoritarian, narcissistic, emotionally-depressed would-be dictator, with nowhere else to turn, could turn to extra-legal, extra-parliamentary action.

After all, in the months leading up to the November 3 election, he repeatedly and consistently declared that the elections were rigged. He called upon his supporters on election day to jam up polling sites. At the September 29^th Presidential debate he said, “I am urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen. I am urging them to do it.”

Did any of this happen on November 3? Apparently very little, if any. If it did it sure hasn’t been reported anywhere that I’ve seen, and you’d think it would be.

The fact is that for all of Trump’s bluster and bombast, for all the tens of millions of people who voted for him, the fact is that the November 3 election, held during pandemic times, was possibly the fairest, most transparent and most successful Presidential election ever. Masses of people were willing to vote for Trump, and to turn out for his rallies, but the evidence so far indicates that the percentage of those supporters willing to go beyond that is very small.

This is a critical point when it comes to the question of “civil war.”

Is the country very divided ideologically? Yes, although there’s a definite majority of voters, 51-47%, who support a center-left orientation.

Has Trump inflamed and hardened those divisions? Yes.

Is it therefore more possible than in the past that those divisions could lead to increased physical attacks on the Left and others by ultra-rightist, armed militias? Yes, but what the new Biden/Harris administration does about them is very key. If the federal government, acting via the FBI and the Justice Department, is willing to investigate and prosecute groups doing so, similar to what was done this summer when a plot to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was discovered, it seems to me that this will definitely tamp down the domestic terrorism threat.

But more than this is necessary. What is needed is for a Biden/Harris administration to move to seriously enact policies on a wide range of issues that clearly and unmistakably are intended to improve the lives of working class people of all races and nationalities, urban, suburban and rural. There must be a willingness to take on the billionaire class and the deep-seated economic inequality that disproportionately affects people of color but affects people of all colors and cultures. We need Green New Deal-type initiatives and just transition policies that create jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors for the currently un- and underemployed and for workers displaced from a shrinking fossil fuel industry. We need a wealth tax on the 1% and shifting money from the military budget to programs that benefit working people.

In many ways, this is the harder work, given Biden’s historic ties to transnational corporations and the influence of the 1% over the dominant forces in the Democratic Party.

The Left must work with the Biden/Harris administration, but it must also be willing to speak up and bring pressure, including public pressure via action in the streets, nonviolent direct action, hunger strikes and more for a genuine people’s program. It is not an extreme statement to say that to the extent this does not happen, to that extent will popular disillusionment grow, the Trumpublicans be given political openings and the armed rightist militias be empowered and grow.

Let’s work to support Democrats Warnock and Ossoff in Georgia January 5 as we keep building a unified, grassroots-based, issue-oriented people’s movement, the prerequisite for forward progress after our historic defeat of Trump.

Ted Glick is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick

There are many aspects to a successful energy revolution that moves human society off of fossil fuels and onto a genuinely clean, just, and jobs-creating renewable energy path. But there’s at least one indispensable aspect: the electrification of our energy system.

We can’t keep burning polluting coal, oil and/or gas to access the power which fuels our transportation vehicles, provides for heat in the winter and cooler air in the summer, and allows us to use electricity for all of our many devices, appliances and other power-using inventions. We must make a shift to getting all, or almost all, of that power from electricity generated by non-polluting energy sources like wind and solar.

Fortunately, the world is clearly on this path, if still with a ways to go on the journey. Unfortunately, as we have seen over the past four years in the USA, if people like Trump are in charge, this transition can be slowed down and gummed up. It can’t be stopped; there’s too much momentum, and for not just environmental but for economic reasons. Wind and solar and possibly other clean technologies are a better deal economically than fossil fuels. But the transition can be slowed down, and that is a huge problem since we’re already so far behind where we need to be because of the fossil fuel industry’s continuing, if decreasing, political power.

That is why the campaign to transform FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, into FREC, our Federal Renewable Energy Commission, is so timely and strategic.

This campaign was initiated last year by Beyond Extreme Energy and has been signed onto so far by 236 organizations, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and others. A 13 minute, well-received video, FERC Into FREC, was produced and released earlier this year, and this fall BXE began to circulate a nine-page Legislative Proposal to House and Senate offices with specific ideas on what a new FREC would look like and how it would function. We’ve been pleased by the response we’re getting.

There is historic precedent for Congress taking this step. In 1935 Congress transformed the Federal Power Commission, created in the 1920’s, into an independent regulatory agency. It was authorized to regulate both hydropower and interstate electricity. In 1977 the FPC was renamed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as an independent agency within the newly-created Department of Energy. Its primary mandate was to regulate the electricity grid. Since then its responsibilities have expanded, including that of making decisions about the expansion of the “natural” gas industry, today a primarily fracked gas industry.

Today, in 2020, its time for the former FPC, now FERC, to be transformed into the 21^st century, renewables first, transparent and community-involving electricity regulatory agency we need. As part of the Green New Deal, we need a new FREC.

BXE has identified five central points that we see as essential for a new FREC to be what the times call for:

-Commissioners of FREC must be champions of renewable energy and free of conflicts of interest.
-FREC would be funded through appropriations, not industry fees which encourage corruption.
-FREC would actively seek input and involvement from environmental justice communities, Indigenous, people of color and low-income, which have historically and disproportionately suffered most from fossil fuel operations
-FREC would actively promote community involvement in decision-making as a new electrical grid is built based on renewables with storage
-There would no longer be any eminent domain for private gain, no tolling, no forcing landowners into court as standard operating policy.

There is little doubt that changes are coming for FERC. It is no longer an out-of-the-public-eye, industry-controlled agency rubber-stamping virtually every single gas industry permit for expansion the industry applies for. Earlier this year the House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a report revealing that over the last 20 years, FERC has approved 1,021 gas industry permit applications and rejected no more than six. And the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, set up by Nancy Pelosi last year, put forward 40 pages of proposals for FERC reform in its 547 page document released this summer.

BXE believes that many of these reforms would be an improvement, but the fact is that FERC’s historic connections to the fossil fuel industry are wide and deep. News stories have reported on the revolving door for FERC staff and leadership with industry. We just cannot trust it.

This is true even if, under Joe Biden’s Presidency, he appoints, as is likely, the sole, current Democratic commissioner, Richard Glick, as a new Chairperson. It will be true even if, come next summer, it will be possible for there to be three Democratic and two Republican commissioners, as distinct from the Republican numerical dominance that has been the case under Trump. Over those 20 years of gas industry permit rubber stamping by FERC, there were many years when Democratic commissioners were in the majority.

But what if a Richard Glick-led Democratic majority takes a different course, makes a genuine effort to change FERC from the inside? That would be an improvement, but as long as FERC’s mission in relation to renewable energy is ambiguous, as is true right now; as long as FERC leadership can be deeply immersed in fossil fuel industry connections; and as long as, come 2024, a new Republican President could be elected who can jam things up the way that Trump did, we cannot expect FERC to be what is needed. We need a new FREC with a clear, Congressionally mandated mission to give leadership in the urgent, fossil-fuels-to-renewables transition and a FREC leadership that is actually committed to doing that. We need to dismantle FERC and replace it with a Federal Renewable Energy Commission.

Ted Glick is a volunteer organizer with Beyond Extreme Energy, He is the author of the recently-published “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War.” More information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick