Was This July Fourth a Celebration of Independence or Its End?
Food for Thought from the Alliance for Sustainability
By Alliance President Terry Gips
While we hope you had a good Fourth of July, it was a horrendous one for our country. Sadly, President Trump and the Republicans signed into law one of the most devastating budget bills ever. This, plus all of Trump’s other actions, have quickly dismantled a huge part of the successful work of the Alliance for Sustainability over our 42 years.
As brilliant author Anand Giridharadas said in The Ink, it will “make millions of Americans poorer and sicker and turn a huge portion of the federal budget to a massive deportation effort,” with by far the largest portion going to tax breaks for the wealthy.
On top of this, we want to share the chilling words of conservative jurist J. Michael Luttig, the former federal judge and friend-turned-critic of the Roberts Court and the Trump White House. He just published his own list of 27 ‘self-evident truths’ for today’s America— an update of the Declaration for our troubled times.
Luttig analyzed most of the president’s signature initiatives, in addition to other of his initiatives during his first 100 days in office. “I concluded that he was without constitutional authority or other authority in the laws of the US for every single one of those initiatives. And I drew the overall conclusion that when the President is consciously and deliberately acting contrary to the Constitution and laws of the US, that portends the end of the rule of law in America.”
In his stunning conclusion, Luttig says, “The Chief Justice is currently presiding over what I have predicted would represent the end of the rule of law in America.”
Clearly, we are in deep doo-doo. We all need to come together to preserve our democracy and create a world of sustainability, health, equity and kindness.
In this light, we are particularly grateful to MN350 Director Tee McClenty for her poignant thoughts on July Fourth that we should also embrace every day:
“It’s a time to reflect on the gap between this country’s promises and the reality we live with every day. True freedom doesn’t exist when families are forced to breathe toxic air. It doesn’t exist when our water systems fail entire communities. It doesn’t exist when extreme heat and flooding displace people who have contributed the least to the climate crisis. And it doesn’t exist when corporations profit from pollution while frontline communities are left with the consequences.”