Dear friends,
Let’s start with the extraordinarily good news that Mary Peltola, the first Indigenous Alaskan to serve in Congress, defeated Sarah Palin for Alaska’s only seat in the House of Representatives.
A Democrat hasn’t represented Alaska since Peltola was born. For the numerologists: she won on her 49th birthday and will represent the 49th state. It was a special election, so Peltola will have to run again in November.
For fans of ranked-choice voting (like me!), it’s cool to note that Peltola faced two Republicans, and even though Palin picked up 10,000 more votes from the other Republican in round two, Peltola won by a margin of more than 4,000 votes.
This was the first general election in which ranked-choice voting was used since Alaskan voters approved the system in 2020.
New York City has ranked-choice voting only for local elections. In the August primary in New York, the difficulties for progressives arose when they split the vote.
This was certainly true in the race in for District 10, in which Dan Goldman is edging out Yuh-Line Niou. Mondaire Jones and Carlina Rivera pulled in over 22,000 votes. Together, Joanne Simon and Elizabeth Holtzman pulled in more than 6,800 votes.
I have some reservations about Niou, but I am nonetheless interested in the question of whether Niou will run on the Working Families Party line. In a column in The Nation, Joan Walsh writes:
A general election race between Goldman and Niou would be fascinating. It would also be a political bloodbath. I don’t think the country needs that heading into these crucial midterm elections.
What do you think?
When I was in grad school, I remember encountering Mike Davis’s then-new Prisoners of the American Dream.
Unfortunately, it was on the reading list for the worst class I took at City College, during which a friend and I drew stick figure comics in the margins of our notebooks, roasting our dreadfully boring professor. (In our defense, we were in our early twenties and we were teaching full time and taking early evening courses.)
In spite of the bad teaching, I remember being moved by Davis’s critical essays, especially while grappling with the Reagan era. It was a turning point in my own political development, since Davis helped me understand the implications of living in a nation in which almost everyone imagines themself to be middle class.
What keeps us going, ultimately, is our love for each other, and our refusal to bow our heads, to accept the verdict, however all-powerful it seems. It’s what ordinary people have to do. You have to love each other. You have to defend each other. You have to fight.
A few dozen climate activists showed up to defend us all in Grand Teton National Park while the Federal Reserve was holding its annual Economic Policy Symposium last week. An organizer with 350.org explained their message:
“We would like to see stronger action from the Fed influencing the banks on limiting their fossil fuel financing. There have been $4.6 trillion poured into fossil fuel funding since the Paris climate agreement [which went into effect in 2016], and the banks are showing that they are not going to stop unless some outside force makes them because they care about their profits first and foremost.”
This is love — for the folks who are suffering climate change impacts right now and for our children and for the beautiful places threatened by fossil fuel extraction and pollution.
Contact the Federal Reserve and let them know that banks are endangering the planet and their own stability when they invest in fossil fuel projects. This quick action comes from Chop Wood, Carry Water!
One of my readers recently introduced me to Chop Wood, Carry Water. It’s another SubStack publication — a big sibling to this one — that provides daily, ready-made political action
Check out Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water.
Here are two climate actions you can take today if you missed them:
Tell Congress that we don’t want to fast-track fossil fuel projects. This quick action is from Th!rd Act.
We continue the macro fight against pipeline projects while we battle one bad project after another.
Send a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today to demand to a meaningful Environmental Impact Statement. This action is from EarthJustice.
with love,
L
Yes, it is a great news, Mrs. Peltola representing Alaska at the House of Representatives.
And other good news in Canada , Mrs. Michelle O’ Bansawan had been the first représentants of the First Nation at the Supreme Court of Canada.
It is just a beginning .
Brigitte Pion