© Hazel Henderson 2022
“American Reboot”, by Will Hurd
Simon & Schuster, NY 2022
Reading Will Hurd’s practical idealism for reclaiming the Republican Party gave me hope that this 3-term Member of the US Congress and former CIA global intelligence officer decides to run in the next Presidential primary. Will Hurd’s diverse life experiences, with a Black father and a white mother, growing up under Jim Crow in Texas never held him back. His impressive academic achievements and his three terms in the US Congress promoting many sensible bills on current issues, make vivid reading. The only blind spot I found in Hurd’s thinking is his uncritical acceptance of our market-domination of our society, ignoring deeper values of what I call the love economy, still alive in all communities based on the Golden Rule: Do As you would Be Done by, which is humanity’s age-old commitment to our mutual interdependence.
“100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting“
By E.J Dionne and Miles Rapoport, with a Foreword
By Heather McGhee, author of “The Sum of US“(2021)
The New Press, NY 2022
This equally intelligent and inspiring book calls for making voting and participating in US elections mandatory. Just like jury duty, with many ways objectors can opt-out, by spoiling their ballots, voting for none of the above and avoiding the token fine of $20. This is not a radical idea! In Australia voting has been a civic duty required of all eligible voters, who are automatically registered — for over 100 years! The many advantages in the USA include: reducing the domination of money in political campaigns; ending politically-dominated primaries; banning gerrymandering and reducing influence of money and lobbying with extensive background research. Supported by many academic and professional groups, this book contains contributions from many experts along with major authors E.J Dionne and Miles Rapoport, along with the Foreword by Heather McGhee, author of “The Sum of Us“ (2021)
Freedom Fuel
No “Planet B”
By Rinaldo S. Brutoco
2022
Some of the best proposals come from Rinaldo Brutoco, President of the World Business Academy, our partner. Rinaldo is an esteemed member of our global Advisory Board and his new proposal is titled “From Transmission Lines to Freedom Fuel“. He points out correctly that we in the USA now need to dispense with most of our aging electrical grids, which often have to be shut down due to the dangers of fire and loss of life, as with the Paradise fire, started by Pacific Gas & Electric power lines and killed 84 people. Rinaldo builds on the historical fight between Thomas Edison, who backed direct current (DC) and Nikola Tesla and his backer Westinghouse who favored Alternating Current (AC).
Today, most of our devices run on DC and this is some 75 times more efficient that AC. All this can now be overhauled by using micro-neighborhood grids, green hydrogen, and transportation by Rinaldo’s company “H2 Clipper“! Read more.