Dear Progressive Reader,

Things are getting hot. Unbelievably hot. In fact, as climate scientist Daniel Swain noted on YouTube earlier this week, the first week of July “appears to be hotter than any week that we’ve observed since we’ve been recording temperatures.” The world’s hottest week—where temperatures in Canada’s Northwest Territories exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit—even as wildfires in that country continue to rage. And more heat is predicted for next week. Europe, where more than 60,000 people died last year from heat conditions, is bracing for more hot weather in an event dubbed the “Cerberus heatwave” (after the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hell in Greek mythology). Yet 139 members of the United States Congress still deny that climate change (now truly a climate crisis) is real and needs to be addressed immediately by robust federal policy.

This week on our website, Elizabeth Doerr takes on the topic of how progressives need to become “preppers” but need to re-envision prepping as a community project; Chris Edelson looks into the surreal scenario of another possible Trump presidency; Jeff Abbott reports on the move toward authoritarianism in El Salvador; and Mike Ervin writes about how Texas governor Gregg Abbott (no relation) vetoed a bill that would allow people with disabilities to cast ballots in privacy. Also, cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates the Supreme Court’s views on its “Affirmative Action [by Billionaires]” policy, and Mike Brand wonders why, if the Biden Administration opposes genocide as it claims, it does not do more about the situation in Darfur?

July 12 marked the 206th anniversary of the birth of Henry David Thoreau and two days (and ninety-five years) later, the birth of Woody Guthrie on July 14, 1912.

“Be not simply good - be good for something,” wrote Thoreau in an 1848 letter. But Guthrie took that thought one step further, saying, “I hate a song that makes you think you are not any good. . . . . I'm out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.”

Both men believed in government for the people, and both opposed authoritarian power. In his1849 book, Resistance to Civil Government, Thoreau explained, “When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact, that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.” In the same breath, Thoreau was speaking out against both slavery in the South and the U.S. war in Mexico.

As musician Steve Earle noted in a recording for the Morgan Library and Museum, “Woody first joined the U.S. Merchant Marine [in 1943] and made three dangerous voyages on the Liberty ships transporting soldiers and munitions for the D-Day Invasion. . . . For Woody, the fight against the Nazis and Fascists abroad was a continuation of the old struggles at home between labor and capital. Hitler and Mussolini hated the labor unions, and that alone was enough for him.” Guthrie, throughout his entire life and career, spoke out, and sang out for the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the everyday working people, in the United States and around the globe. In 2012, for the centennial of Guthrie’s birth, I wrote this article together with my father about a new, twenty-first century musician, Sun Heng, who was influenced by Guthrie’s songs and his politics, and sings for the everyday working people of China.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - The 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now on sale for half price. You can still order one online.

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