I was considering writing about the usual Wrong-Wing Evil, or about all that we can look forward to accomplishing in January, but no, it is better to take the Middle Way, and look at the steps immediately before us. Start with the Mourning in America ad, from the Lincoln Project.
Joe Biden is coming out of a quiet period, when he followed the maxims of Napoleon and Sunzi:
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a fatal error.
When your enemy is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him.
Rejoice with me at this serious Good News.
I commented
Republished to several more climate-related groups, and also to Political Language and Messaging.
I hope that AOC can be the Frances Perkins of the new Administration. When FDR got into office, he was willing to give the country his New Deal, but he had no idea how to go about it. Perkins invented most of the well-known New Deal programs from her position as the first woman to be a Cabinet member, Secretary of Labor.
So much of the New Deal was directed at supporting labor with jobs, pensions, rights, worker safety, pay, and more. Also essential infrastructure, notably rural electrification. If you look at the various plans put forward by recent Presidential candidates, people in Congress, and other Progressive individuals and groups, you will see comprehensive labor reform high on the list, including the living wage, a possible Universal Basic Income, getting rid of discrimination in housing, the environment, education, policing, the courts, the prisons, voting, and much more that disproportionately affects workers, especial poor and marginalized workers.
Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880[1][2] – May 14, 1965) was an American sociologist and workers-rights advocate who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet to remain in office for his entire presidency.
During her term as Secretary of Labor, Perkins executed many aspects of the New Deal, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration and its successor the Federal Works Agency, and the labor portion of the National Industrial Recovery Act. With the Social Security Act she established unemployment benefits, pensions for the many uncovered elderly Americans, and welfare for the poorest Americans. She pushed to reduce workplace accidents and helped craft laws against child labor. Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she established the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, and defined the standard forty-hour workweek. She formed governmental policy for working with labor unions and helped to alleviate strikes by way of the United States Conciliation Service. Perkins dealt with many labor questions during World War II, when skilled labor was vital and women were moving into formerly male jobs.[3] She was the subject of the documentary film "Summoned" (2020).
Books, articles, films, TV...
The Jim Crow Southern Democrats were able to block expansion of many programs to predominantly Black agricultural and domestic workers, and Rs since then have blocked much help for minorities, women, immigrants, teachers, and so on, but those days are coming to an end.
Of course, I had much more to say about AOC and Biden and our incredible crop of incredibly diverse women in leadership.
AOC has already brought together the original Green New Deal.
Renewable Friday: AOC and the Green New Deal
That pushed everybody else forward.
Renewable Friday: Inslee's Got a Plan, and Beto's Got a Plan, and All God's Chillun Got Plans
Renewable Friday: Bernie's NEW Green New Deal
AOC also has an international coalition for Biden to work with.
Renewable Friday: AOC, Cities' Global Climate Summit, PreCOP25
Applause at Global Summit as Ocasio-Cortez Calls Climate Crisis 'Consequence of Our Unsustainable Way of Life'
"She got a rockstar welcome in that audience," Nicholas Reece, a city councillor from Melbourne, Australia, told The Guardian. "There's just something about her which is really mobilizing and electrifying people around the world, particularly young people."
The Guardian reported that "from the moment she began speaking, the main hall at the summit became completely still, and when she finished, the ovation she received far exceeded that received by the veteran climate campaigner and former Vice President Al Gore, Denmark's prime minister, Mette Frederiksen; or the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres."
with video that I can't embed here.
I would also like Elizabeth Warren to have a position as the Frances Perkins of the New Administration, since she has a plan for that. But if she prefers to be the Frances Perkins of the Senate, I won't argue with her.
Also, we have Nancy Pelosi as the Frances Perkins of the House, having shepherded through 500+ bills that we can start with in January. She has said that Voting Rights will be job #1, since all else follows from that.
Which means that Stacey Abrams needs to be another Frances Perkins, somewhere. VP? What would you say to a strong woman of color in a position of no power but great authority, who knows where the Republican bodies are buried?
So many Frances Perkinses!
Kamala Harris for AG!
Amy Klobuchar for restoring niceness!
Michelle Obama for—well what has she indicated she would like to do?
Oprah?
Add your nominations in the comments.
Animals
Music
The Gaita Gallega of Galicia in Spain
Comedy!
I first heard The Goon Show on Socialist Radio, WBAI-New York, and I was instantly hooked. I was running a Buddhist monastery in the north of England when they put on The Very Last Goon Show of All, a Royal Command Performance requested by Charles P, who was known to be able to do all of the voices. His Mum didn't attend, so, as was their custom, Harry Secombe played her part, in a floral cretonne frock.
What's that you're wearing?
Cretonne!
Well, you don't have to be rude about it.
I will have my usual Renewable Thursday and Covid Karma Diaries up in a moment.