11 Comments

A day to celebrate a beautiful love story and a life dedicated to the advancement of all of humanity. If there is a heaven, Rosalynn will have him back soon enough.

Together they founded The Carter Center doing their best to promote peace, democracy, and conflict resolution.

I remember the Carter Presidency. People did not want to face the truths he told. The American people instead chose to listen to a poser telling pretty lies about making America great again. Sound familiar?

Back to the Birthday Boy---Happy Birthday and love to Jimmy from Plains, Georgia. He is the oldest, smartest, and one of the most honest Presidents we have had.

Expand full comment

All my adult life I've thought of Reagan's election as the turning point that set the US on the road to hell, but I've forgotten plenty of the details and some of the ones you cite I never knew, like the details of the 1978 Bellotti decision. That particular Court was also responsible for the Bakke decision, which kneecapped, though it did not kill, affirmative action in college admissions. I didn't start to appreciate Jimmy Carter till after he'd left the White House, so thanks for laying out his achievements so clearly.

Expand full comment

He is human...but a better human than all other presidents......

Expand full comment

Many things I (sadly) did not know about Mr Carter. Appreciate this story even more now.

What I do know is he has been a true man of faith, unlike so many that claim to be of faith like our Louisiana 4th Congressional District representative that happens to be tRump’s speaker of his house Mike Johnson.

Each offering I read of Jimmy Carter just continues to show me the lack of character I and those of this country are in need of. I am sure Mr Carter has flaws, and things he wishes he could’ve handled differently over the 100 years of his life but this man has so much to teach all of us about honor and dignity.

Expand full comment

Jimmy Carter was a genius who was painted as a peanut farmer from Georgia. Maybe the first President to challenge the economic model of "guns and butter". He knew who and what he was taking on and he forcefully moved forward. Jimmy Carter was the only President within whose term no U. S. war was started, fought, or ended. He lived his life as taught by Jesus and he was unabashedly proud to exhibit his faith. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with the "guns and butter" people who sought to discredit him and resist his move to oust them from controlling the levers of power in this country. This started a right wing, conservative / corporate movement to regain and retain power under the guise of being a conservative Christian....which Jimmy Carter actually was. One of the strangest parables of our country's history and a big reason we are in this situation today. Sidebar: In 1970 I volunteered to work for the campaign for the opposition candidate for Governor of Georgia and was accused of being a Jimmy Carter plant when the polls showed that he was loosing. I was simply trying to network and meet people because I was recently a college graduate and I needed a job. They threw me out of their office. Jimmy who?

Expand full comment

Last night on PBS, third-generation dirt farmer Jon Tester, another great Democratic politician who usually knows how to get elected in a red state, like Jimmy Carter did, debated out-of-stater Tim Sheehy, another phony Republican politician funded by right-wing billionaires. Tester performed perfectly and convincingly, speaking in plain language, sticking to the truth, reaming Sheehy a new a**hole.

And yet this time around, Tester is trailing badly in the polls. Either the polling is wrong, or, more likely, Sheehy's barrage of big splashy fliers chock full of lies, landing daily in every citizen's mailbox, is having the desired effect. There's just enough gullible fools in the state, hopelessly conditioned to eagerly swallow the heaping pile of bullshit shoveled out by the nation's power-hungry rich bastards, who own the Republican Party and most of big corporate media, to defeat Tester, one of the best Senators Montana has ever had.

This race is a microcosm of the entire Republican effort in America today. The elite ruling class of privileged white men, like Trump, Elon Musk, and company who live in the stratosphere far above ordinary working people, have convinced the weak-minded and morally bereft to fear and hate all Democrats, liberals and progressives, black and brown immigrants, and anyone else who happens not to be a homogenized white Christian nationalist, i.e., racist bigot.

This total idiocy is a deep-seated phenomenon, which has been slowly and methodically infecting vulnerable minds for decades if not centuries, culminating in this year's election cycle. Blind greed, false religion, and the internet is a toxic combination that is proving that maybe Homo sapiens just aren't evolving fast enough to overcome their darker nature, threatening their very survival, their ultimate extinction as a species on planet Earth.

Simply to speak the hard truth of the destructive nature of the monstrous society we have created by our abject selfishness, both individually and collectively, sounds much too depressing for most people to contemplate or even to comprehend. We would rather escape into our ridiculous fantasies and mindless entertainments that make us feel good, like junkies on heroin; yet, to solve — and to survive — the monumental problems of our own glaring stupidity, we need to rise above all lesser concerns, swallow our pride, and truly face the harsh reality of that stupidity.

And then act accordingly. There is no other way.

Expand full comment

Thank you for this tribute. He is a truly great human being.

Expand full comment

Happy B day the Great Jimmy Carter. My first vote ever was for this great man as was my second vote for president. I never can understand how Reagan got elected twice. I was sad to watch the debate and not hear our guy tell the Repub that it was the GOP that gave us our present bad trade agreements and Trump talked about doing something but never ever did. Maga hats come from China.

Expand full comment

He is amazing ..

Expand full comment

Outstanding piece! I learned many things i didn't know about Jimmy Carter and I have to agree with you that he's the best president of my lifetime but Biden is running neck and neck. I'll be sharing this widely. Thank you.

Expand full comment

I was in Panama when the canal zone treaty was signed, and the US relinquished sovereignty of the canal to Panama. Panamanians were ecstatic, Soberana en la Canal was the headline and chant on the streets.

It was only later that we discovered that the canal had been run down, the maintenance costs were such that to keep it open, if the CZ goverment continued to operate it, would require subsidy from the U.S. taxpayer.

The Canal Zone had it's own government, it's citizens by and large were born in the Canal Zone, some were Anglo and some were Afro Carib. children and grandchildren of Caribbeans, mostly Jamaicans, which had been imported to build the canal. Their English had a peculiar patois, which took some getting use to.

Zonians, as they were called, were well remunerated for their labor, by turning the canal over to Panama the labor costs plummeted.

Most of the Afro Carib stayed on to become Panamanian citizens, as did some of the Anglo's.

Expand full comment