Starting with Mother Earth, Raising the Unstated Election Issues, Why are Mothers and Children Last?

July 1, 2024

We are just recovering from the sad performances of the two Presidential leading candidates in 2024’s first official "encounter" between them. No debate took place, and no Fourth Estate spokeswoman or man stepped beyond politely following up on unanswered questions. (Data collection suggests that candidate Trump told more lies than the large number of times candidate Biden stated that Trump had lied.) Did the Fourth Estate duo ever say that someone’s statement was a lie? What responsibility do the media have here?

In terms of unanswered questions, we in WILPF have plenty – as to why most of the biggest issues are unmentioned (ranging from taking more action on carbon-based fuels to reversing militarism to affordable housing). We see national politics degraded to a condition of superficiality and cant. For me, instead of dismaying, this situation feels familiar, because since thirty years ago I was prepared by science fiction novels that portrayed such a situation. Now it’s steadily available for all on the "main-screen" media outlets!

Yet still – in a U.S. Presidential "event"? I thought that five or six lies per night might be the political limit. I guess it’s just another form of inflation!

Embracing Life, Seeing Our Responsibility

We – humans oriented to activism – have a responsibility here, as these two men talk about their support for huge global military spending. It’s time that we in the peace and Earth stewardship movements see ourselves as part of the immune system of a larger life form: the Earth. National Public Radio talked about a new book by Ferris Jabr, Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. The author presents the concept that we humans do not simply inhabit a living planet: We are one of the interdependent parts of organism Earth.

After multiple examples of how this planet – as a living thing – has expressed and shaped itself into a complex and life-supporting system through the intricate effects of different forms of life, Jabr spoke of the role – even the responsibility – of humans. Will we take action to stop the forces of environmental devastation in their headlong disruption and destruction of climate and biosystems that evolved over millennia? As Wall Street, propelled by the petrochemical and arms industries, careens onward, will we defend ourselves and our mother planet to halt matricide?

The numerous onslaughts against the planet – from the Amazon to the Bakken shale to the ocean floors – are abuses of our source of life, our Mother Earth. This socio-economic environmental mayhem also reflects the prevailing mistreatment of women and mothers. In the U.S., mothers are officially cherished (on Mothers Day) and cited in political speeches. Yet in practice – like most of "nature" – they are frequently harmed by government underfunding and laws and – more and more – by court decisions.

Connecting Mother Nature to Mothers and Children 

It’s not such a leap from the contempt for nature and its wonders to the political disregard for women’s and mothers’ concerns, including a key one: children. In this latest Presidential event, abortion was an issue – but with no mention of support for the securing women’s reproductive freedom. By ignoring the needs of mothers, the candidates also ignored the needs of their children. 

Support for reproductive freedom – for mothers ability to choose, if they wish, to have children and raise them healthily – takes many forms: clean water, safe food, housing, even good jobs. Yet we see how responses on even the most direct forms of support for mothers and children were minimized. The question on childcare was dodged by one candidate, the Childcare Tax Credit was weakly defended by the other, and renewal of the expansion of the Child Tax Credit was unmentioned. You’ll recall that credit: It helped pull millions of children out of poverty, especially when combined with the "economic impact payments" during the COVID pandemic;in 2021 our country enjoyed the largest one-year drop in child poverty on record.

We may ask why do the candidates, and the corporate media outlets so rarely address the issues that most affect the lives of women and children in the United States. WILPF branch meetings can productively discuss and analyze this question! Meanwhile, WILPF members can work to influence 2024 election coverage and its conversation preferences.

WILPF positions are strongly pro family, pro woman, and pro child – for the reproductive freedom that gives meaningful choices! What tactic will you and/or your activist group choose to direct the public’s focus to the many issues that affect women and children? Vigiling with information, letters to the editor, grocery store leafletting – or continuing the conversations that perhaps you’ve been having, across the issues and connecting the issues?

Claiming the Terrain of the Positive While Addressing the Difficulties

In our WILPF Congress a month ago, I talked about the crippling effects of fear. When we speak up with people about our issues – family health, safe workplaces, women’s priorities, a clean environment, justice and peace for all! – we can replace those fear narratives about job insecurity, violence, and crime.

Looking into local issues, our activism can expand the public discourse on ways to reverse the poverty rates – and the toxic exposures and other life-shortening factors that so often accompany being poor. We can call on candidates to approve funding for better jobs – Green Jobs – satisfying and reasonably paid ones. 

Our country has the money! We can’t let the military-corporate-industrial monster block serious discussion of Moving the Money. Paid skills training, work our society needs, jobs that can help restore a sense of purpose and hope in many unengaged and unfulfilled souls – those are campaign issues!

Alongside the Poor People’s Campaign, we call for redistributing Pentagon cash – and the nuclear arms billions of the "Department of Energy" – to fund human needs! It’s past time for the local Congressional candidates to have to answer questions about why Congress continues to vote overwhelmingly for the nearly trillion dollar annual National Defense Authorization Act. Moving some of that money – to education, more care (and caring), and actions addressing carbon reduction all will make our communities much more secure! 

Supporting Schools as Places of Learning for Future Informed Citizens

I spoke of disregard for mothers’ concerns, including children. Some claim that children are protected by classroom book banning. Yet at the same time that popular attention is directed there, the media sidestep the educational decline in many public schools.

We know democracy depends on an educated electorate, to see through big-money campaigns and increasing "content" manipulation. Remember civics? That class barely exists these days! That’s just one feature we want to bring back to primary and secondary public education. Cuts like those can’t simply be blamed on the lack of money.

Much of federal funding for schools was designed to address the complications of poverty and racism. But, somehow, the funds are often spent otherwise. We can bring more local attention to what is being done with education money. Questionable uses must be tracked, not ignored.

Seeing It All Coming Together  

In Brockton, an outlying town in the Boston area, supplemental funds appear to have been used questionably or very poorly – if not illegally. So, despite those federal allocations, public education is still struggling after "virtual learning" during the pandemic. Earlier this year, WILPF’s Boston Branch arranged to hear several insiders’ perspectives about the situation at the Brockton High School.

That school, which enrolls over 4,300 students, not long ago was reputed for its educations excellence. But this largest high school in New England has suffered many reverses. In Massachusetts, a state with a reputation for good funding for quality public education, Brockton High School chose to cut hundreds of teachers’ jobs. Subsequently, large numbers of students have been left sitting in the multiple school cafeterias for one or more "classes", idle and disengaged, due to teacher shortages. No surprise, this school has mostly Black and Latinx students – many the children of immigrants.

Just sometime last year the school said that it had finally achieved full staffing. Yet, after years of underfunded programs, many parents had moved their children out of Brockton High. Large drops in enrollment led to new funding losses, and then subsequent school budget deficits led to more cuts of hundreds of teachers. (As of October 2023, almost 200 positions were still unfilled.) 

Sadly, it gets worse. Having seen Pandemic-era coping strategies, the school is implementing impersonal and commercialized computer-based learning. The district says it can save a lot of money, using fewer teachers. 

Confronting Ignorance, Militarism, and Extremism with Analysis and Interconnection

It’s not only that learning for these low-income students, stuffed into cafeterias and placed in front of screens, appears to be considered optional. Under the current conditions, student unrest increases. Given inadequate supervision, "out-of-control behavior" flares, including fights. In response, four of the School Committee members requested that the National Guard come to their school; they urged a militarized response to students acting out because classrooms are understaffed.

In this election year, Brockton’s situation has gained international media attention, becoming the plaything of extremist responses and right-wing media. You can guess the angles: violent immigrants, "woke" teachers, blame on BIPOC families. It is crucial that other voices be heard in situations like this. By joining other community members in support of the children we want to nurture, we prepare skilled and thoughtful voters for the future.

Voters need better issue information and analysis; WILPF can help. Look over the many links, documents, and issue background on WILPF’s issue committees’ pages. The actions of WILPF members and allies can publicize the fullness of issues, raising unstated ones and revealing interconnections.

 And for those WILPF members who want to support new voters and voting in general, find ideas, fact sheets, and how-to on a variety of Get Out the Vote approaches on our Freedom to Vote pages.

Mobilizing for Four Months

We’ve heard it before, but this year we can’t deny it: These elections are too important for us to "sit this one out". We can’t let heartbreak, anger, despair, or even a feeling of exhaustion make us give up on the planet or the children. Choose a direction, build on and with the efforts of others, take some action!

Darien Elyse De Lu
WILPF US President