Flutterby™! : RIP Jimmy Carter

I was gonna just let this moment in history slip by, but I think it's worth taking a moment to celebrate Jimmy Carter. It's easy to remember Carter for his willingness to go inside a damaged nuclear reactor to repair it, or being so threatening to the GOP that Republican operatives collaborated with the Ayatollah Khomeini's government in Iran to delay the release of American hostages in order to damage Carter politically, but...

One of the things I've been pondering recently is how it's not, generally, enough to be first, or right, it's about how you get your ideas spread. It's easy to say "Jimmy Carter was the best ex-President the US has ever had", but it's harder to acknowledge that the US was willing to put someone who appears to have actually been a good person into the seat because Nixon was so bad and Ford was just a lackey, that Carter actually did accomplish a lot of good things that were then deliberately and systematically obstructed or dismantled.

So, yeah, I'm gonna celebrate that he fucking tried.

The Onion (2017): You People Made Me Give Up My Peanut Farm Before I Got To Be President

Wonkette: Rest in Power, Jimmy Carter:

He prioritized conservation, insisting his inaugural reviewing stand be made of steel, which was disassembled, shipped to Atlanta, and recycled as a bandstand. He had solar panels installed on the White House in 1979, which Ronald Reagan later had torn off, just to be an asshole.

CBC: Jimmy Carter will be buried in the same tiny, gentle town he put on the map

First, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Roselynn, sat down and enjoyed a lovely homemade meal at Jill Stuckey's home in Plains, Ga. Then, he got up and took the chair home with him. It was wonky. Maybe the leg was loose — Jill doesn't recall. But she does remember that when she got up the next morning, there it was on the porch. Carter had taken the chair home, fixed it, and brought it back. He was maybe 92 at the time.

Qasim Rashid: President Jimmy Carter has died:

In 2007 President Carter sat down with Democracy Now! to discuss what motivated him to write, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In this book, President Carter cogently argues that the main obstacle to peace in Israel and Palestine is in fact the hundreds of thousands of illegal settlements that Israel continues to build, all with U.S. backing and support. As you watch the short clip below, note that President Carter warns how “powerful forces” remove any member of Congress who speaks out against this unjust policy. Then note how those “powerful forces” that he names have only since grown in power and influence to the detriment of U.S. democracy and world peace.