Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024.

I always have resonated with the Carters, and a search of the words “Jimmy Carter” at this site will find  many posts.  The most recent is October 1, 2024 (the section about Carter is near the end of the post).  Enter the words “Jimmy Carter” in the search, and it says the words occur in 40 of my posts going back to 2012.  I’m not about to review all of them, except say that if his name was mentioned, I know it was positive.  He lived and he died a “class act”.  We are all for the better because of his life’s work in many arenas.

Today’s Minnesota Star Tribune devoted seven pages to President Carter.  It helps, I’m sure, that Minnesotan Walter Mondale was his vice-president, but President Carter’s record speaks for itself.

I’ll not belabor you with many words.  I’ll link you with two morning posts who comment on Jimmy and Rosalynn’s positive legacy.

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For the first time, this morning, it occurred to me that I have much more in common with Jimmy Carter than I thought.

Jimmy Carter was born October 1, 1924.  He was a farm kid from tiny Archery, Georgia.  What hadn’t occurred to me was that my Uncle Vincent, Mom’s brother, who I knew very well, and was the last of his family to die, was also a farm kid, born just three months after Jimmy Carter.  In a sense they were ‘kin-kids’.

Both Vincent and Jimmy were kids of the Great Depression.  They were from very different parts of the U.S., but there was a community of experience about the Depression, and community, generally, which I vicariously learned through Uncle Vince (who died at 90, ten years ago), and through all of my mentors in life from “the greatest generation”.

Vince would recall 1934 as the worst year of the Depression.  He (and Jimmy) were 9 years old, and old enough to know.  The experience of the difficult decade of the 1930s, and WWII which followed, stuck with Vince, and I think with Jimmy as well,

One time I asked Vincent about a large Cottonwood tree on the home farm, I reduced his recollections to writing, and this seems an appropriate occasion to share again.  You can read it here.

Vincent never went to college, but he had a great abundance of country wisdom.

Following are two of today’s commentaries about President Carter which I resonate with: here and here.

Jimmy Carter was an inspiration.

POSTNOTE: There have been a number of comments to yesterdays Bob Dylan post.  Take a look here.

Have a good New Years eve, with hope for a Happy New Year.

COMMENTS (more at end of post)

from Michael: RIP Jimmy Carter. The US Peace Memorial will feature antiwar statements made by Americans who are easily recognized by virtue of their prominent leadership roles, cultural contributions, and historical importance. This is one quote under consideration at www.USPeaceMemorial.org/Quotes.htm. When we realize that leaders from a variety of backgrounds have articulated strong antiwar statements, our culture can change. More people will feel comfortable speaking out, and the government will be challenged more frequently when it threatens, invades, or occupies other countries.

from Dick: Do visit the US Peace Memorial website.  I have been a founding member for many years.  It is a very worthwhile project.

from Nicole: President Carter was my father’s absolute favorite President.  I lived in Atlanta for a few years, and his positive legacy was everywhere!

from Chuck:  Carter is right behind Lincoln and then Washington regarding doing what is right.  Not always what the people want…

In the 10s of thousands of words I’ve read so far in the media honoring (or criticizing) this late great man and our nation’s most principled US President, there was never a mentioned this profound commission that requisite to the office of President of the United States.

In 1980 Jimmy Carter’s bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger concluded with a specific warning if humanity failed to end the worst aspects of widespread hunger and poverty by the year 2000.  The commission concluded that “The most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living. The anger, despair, and often hatred that result represent real and persistent threats to international order… Neither the cost to national security of allowing malnutrition to spread nor the gain to be derived by a genuine effort to resolve the problem can be predicted or measured in any precise, mathematical way. Nor can monetary value be placed on avoiding the chaos that will ensue unless the United States and the rest of the world begin to develop a common institutional framework for meeting such other critical global threats  Calculable or not, however, this combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.”

They also stated “that promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to the U.S. national security than most policymakers acknowledge or even believe. Since the advent of nuclear weapons, most Americans have been conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military forces. The Commission considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic illusion. Armed might represents merely the physical aspect of national security. Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can bring.”

In the last two decades humanity has been experiencing the consequences of ignoring this warning with increases in “diseases”, “international terrorism”, “war”, “environmental problems” and “other human rights problems” (refugees, genocide, human trafficking…).  Combined, these global pressures have fueled the anti-democratic populist movements that continue to thrive in our increasingly political polarized populations, religions, nations, and East vs West strategic blocks.  In the first days of 2025 nine more nations joined the BRICS axis which President-elect Trump is threatening with even more sanctions.

Over the past 40 years dozens of other prestigious, bipartisan studies and academic reports have followed Carter’s 1980 commission report. Each clearly documents the direct and indirect links between world hunger, human rights violations, global instability, violent extremism, displaced refugees, and the growing array of other threats to our freedoms, health, economy, national security, and global political and environmental stability.  The costly consequences of failed states cannot be stopped with walls, sanctions, or more military power.

Fortunately, an affordable and achievable plan exists. Globally approved in 2015, the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are a comprehensive approach essential to addressing the root causes of most of the preventable tragic and bankrupting problems governments are dealing with now.   Yet no organization or institution has yet taken a leadership role in building the ‘Movement of Movements’ needed to bring the tens of thousands of human rights, peace and environmental organizations together into a single global movement.   Time is not on our side. The evolution of pathogens, weapons, war, corruption, environmental distresses, political polarization, government debt, and growing economic disparities are outpacing humanities will to voluntarily change our governing systems. This is literally and globally unsustainable.  Leadership is urgently needed for some organization to take the lead.

On July 4^th, 2026 the Declaration of Independence that President Carter said created the idea of America, will celebrate its 250^th anniversary of “Truths to be Self-evident” that Abraham Lincoln said was ‘for all people, everywhere, for all time”.  This coming 4^th of July many US based organizations have already started organizing for the 250 anniversary with 250 And Beyond: AARP Foundation, American Association for State and Local History, American Institute of Graphic Arts, America’s Service Commissions, California Volunteers, Campus Compact, Interfaith America, Karsh Institute of Democracy, Made By Us, National Council for Social Studies, National Youth Leadership Council, Partnership for Public Service, PBS Books, Peace Corps Foundation, Serve Colorado, The Volcker Alliance, Urban Libraries Council, Washington State Historical Society, WETA.

This unique anniversary needs to be celebrated by local communities globally to bring community members together with the paid staff organizations working in their local community to learn the priorities of that community, and then work together in a comprehensive approach to make measurable progress on each of the 168 specific measurable and achievable goals within the 17 SDGs.  Progress on these goals have been insufficient to meet the 2030 deadline.  Every minute, hour and day between now and July 4^th 2026 is an opportunity to inspire a global movement to bring sanity to humanity.

Chuck Woolery, Former Chair
United Nations Association, Council of Organizations
315 Dean Dr., Rockville, MD 20851
Cell:240-997-2209   chuck@igc.org

Blogs:  435 Campaign:  www.435globaljustice.blogspot.com  (May 2017  through today)

Dothefreakinmath http://dothefreakinmath.blogspot.com  (June 2006 to Nov 2016)

The Trilemma  http://trilemma.blogspot.com/  (Oct 2011 to Nov 2013)

“Today the most important thing, in my view, is to study the reasons why humankind does nothing to avert the threats about which it knows so much, and why it allows itself to be carried onward by some kind of perpetual motion.  It cannot suffice to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions.  It is necessary to change and improve our understanding of the true purpose of what we are and what we do in the world.  Only such an understanding will allow us to develop new models of behavior, new scales of values and goals, and thereby invest the global regulations, treaties, and institutions with a new spirit and meaning.”  President Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic.