A Consummation Devoutly to be Wished

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Bill Hewitt

This nightmare that we’ve been experiencing for the past four years may finally be coming to its end. Like many nightmares, it looks like it may culminate in a last, intensely frightening burst of violence. And then we’ll wake up, bathed in sweat, but breathing freely again, feeling relieved that we’re not dead or mangled or crushed by the monsters that were pursuing us in the dreamscape. This nightmare has not just been afflicting those of us who feel as if social justice and sane, reasoned public policy are the means and the ends to which society should attain. Those among us who see ourselves as rightful inheritors of a legacy of cultural dominance over the “other,” be they of a different skin color or sexual orientation or religion, have also been plunged into a darker night of fear than that in which they had previously been trapped. Continue reading →

Quantum Leap

Posted on September 18, 2020 by Bill Hewitt

Credit: Ross MacDonald

It is big news that Scientific American, one of the world’s most prestigious sources on science and technology, after 175 years of publication, has endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time ever. The Editors declare that “Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden.” They feel “compelled to do so” and “do not do this lightly.” The first and foremost reason given for this historic endorsement is clear: “The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science.” They detail the catastrophic consequences of this rejection, like the nearly 200,000 Americans who have succumbed to the coronavirus. They further note his lies and, beyond that, the attacks on “environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges.” Continue reading →

Bull Hill

Posted on November 5, 2019 by Bill Hewitt

(click on the photo here, then see the slide show)

We were out with friends early in November for a hike over Cold Spring, NY to Bull Hill. Here is a photo from about fifty miles north of New York City. You can see the towers of Manhattan and also Jersey City off to the west. This was a great day to get out of the big city and to get a sense that there are mountains, and forests, and the mighty Hudson all still there beyond the concrete and steel, the millions churning and the power plants burning. Sometimes you forget how magnificent our old planet really is. John Muir’s message was to get out and see the magnificence and then get back home and work like the devil to protect it. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” Continue reading →

Zephyr Teachout for NY State Attorney General

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Bill Hewitt

I have known about Zephyr Teachout ever since 2014 when she mounted a quixotic Democratic party primary challenge against Andrew Cuomo in New York. She bloodied his nose then, but lost. One of the key charges that she leveled against him was his hamstringing and then premature shutdown of a state commission on corruption. A NY Times investigation at the time substantially supported her allegations. Continue reading →

Moving the Needle – The Trump Foundation

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Bill Hewitt

Just before busting out of NYC for a vacation, I got involved in promoting a cause on MoveOn. I’m back and wanted to recount the positive experience and hail a few important people and one impressive organization: MoveOn. I had not had much traffic with these folks before, but am now fully prepared to attest to their effectiveness. They are thorough, smart, responsive to questions and equipped to provide good, timely answers. Continue reading →

Connecting the Dots on Oil – Iran, Trump, and the Kochs

Posted on May 11, 2018 by Bill Hewitt

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

I wrote here almost a year ago that “It’s the fossil fuels, stupid.” We, the people, suffer, of course, from Trump Inc.’s self-serving, kleptocratic impulses, manifest in his executive agencies, with the full complicity of that wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, the Republicans in Congress, aided and abetted by the reactionary majority on SCOTUS. But if there’s a guiding force behind the greed, the racism, the sheer vileness of the behavior, indeed the treason of these mutants, it’s fossil fuels. More precisely, it’s the money generated by the fossil fuels. Continue reading →

America, We Need to Talk

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Bill Hewitt

America, you need to read this book. In fact, America, this is a textbook for how to get yourself out of the regressed state in which you find yourself. It’s more: It’s an encyclopedia of the reasons why we’ve come to this parlous state in our history, why our democracy is at greater risk than it’s ever been, how we have been lied to and cheated on – including to and by ourselves, the missed chances for righting our wrongs, and the abundant opportunities that are ours for the taking. This book is a paean to good sense and civic engagement; a laurel wreath for our forebears who fought for freedom – political, economic, cultural, and spiritual; and it’s a recipe book for how to make nourishing, delectable meals to build our moral strength and satisfy our souls. Continue reading →

The Nightmare Continues

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Bill Hewitt

You can find all sorts of explanations for the parlous state of our body politic. The catastrophe of our last national election cycle here was preceded by the irrational Brexit vote (a misguided cry of anger and pain from English nationalists [but not Londoners]), has since been compounded in Europe by the onslaught of the far right in Germany in September and now this week in Austria. I wrote a paper several years ago that took a long, hard look at the Contemporary American Right in which I posited that right wingers are, in a word, ill. A distinguished student of conflict, Vamik Volkan, calls them regressed. (Notice that I don’t dignify the inhabitants of these pathologies as “conservative” – it does them far too much justice.) Continue reading →

“It’s the fossil fuels, stupid.”

Posted on July 16, 2017 by Bill Hewitt

James Carville, one of the sharper Democratic consultants to come around in several generations, reminded Bill Clinton’s campaign staff that among the three things on which they needed to focus one was: “The Economy, Stupid.” This morphed into the expression “It’s the economy, stupid.” It has become abundantly clear that the message of the present White House administration, along with their Republican party enablers and a few Democrats from fossil fuel-dependent states (like Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota), is that “It’s the fossil fuels, stupid.” Continue reading →

Can Trump Destroy the Paris Agreement and Thus the Earth’s Climate System?

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Bill Hewitt

I have a Spanish friend who likes to use the expression: “Is complicate.” When it comes to the climate crisis, the transition to clean energy, and international politics one can safely say: “Is complicate.” I tried to convey a real sense of optimism in my book, A Newer World, and some of the hopeful trends I identified then have proven even more robust than I could have imagined at the time I was researching and writing it. We are spending a great deal of money, globally, on clean tech, and that’s only going to continue. Continue reading →

A Newer World

on the policy, politics, science and economics of environmental protection, sustainability, energy and climate change

Category Archives: Trump Administration