Kamala means “lotus flower.” The Lotus Flower
symbolizes resilience and strength. I don’t normally read memoirs by
politicians, but her book caught my interest as soon as I learned about it, when
President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed her.
The
journalists often report Trump’s latest comments without even
questioning his mental fitness to become president, and they don’t bother to write
about Kamala’s work and accomplishments. They don't seem to be interested in shining a
light on what Kamala Harris stands for: truth, integrity, hard work and
responsibility.
Why don’t
they take the time to read her book and write about it?
My Writing Life blog: Awareness, Reflection,
Inspiration is doing the work that journalists should be doing.
Kamala Harris’s writing style is pleasant and engaging. I appreciate how well she researched
every topic she included. I feel thankful and proud of the fact that she is the
presidential candidate for the Democratic Party.
The Truths We Hold is not only an
excellent resource to learn about Kamala Harris’s work and perseverance in the
face of obstacles and challenges; it is also about several issues of interest
to Americans and how she worked consistently to address them.
Kamala Harris has always worked for the people
and with the people. Throughout her career, she stood up to rapists, violent
criminals, and fraudsters. She did so with intelligence and deep compassion for
the victims of violent crimes.
I will write a list of her undertakings and
endeavors to communicate how she has made a difference in the lives of so many
people. I hope my post will help to quell the forces of prejudices, biases,
lies and insults that are promoted by her hateful opponents.
Kamala Harris worked hard to protect
vulnerable youth from being sexually exploited. When she took a job as a
city attorney in California for two years, she co-founded a task force to study
the issues of sexually exploited youth. Together with her team, she led the
fight “to disrupt the network of brothels masquerading as massage parlors,
where so many people were being sexually exploited.” They asked the board
of supervisors to direct law enforcement to investigate them as one of their
top priorities. As a result of this, her recommendations were adopted and
funded. Law enforcement shut down nearly three dozen brothels in the city.
Her
task force established a safe house for sexually exploited youth. It was a kind
of sanctuary that offered substance abuse rehabilitation and mental health
treatment as well as the resources needed to get back to school. She was
actively engaged in the process to get the funding needed and to rescue at-risk
youth. This experience was empowering and enlightening to Kamala. She describes
it as “the realization that turned my sights to elected office.”
The
foreclosure crisis triggered under the Republican presidency of George
Bush was a time period in which she worked hard as an attorney to advocate for
the people who were scammed by the banks. She did her part to make banks
accountable, reaching settlements that helped the people. However, she reveals
the limitations of such settlements due to the social and financial impact of
the foreclosure crisis on working families. On the other hand, the Trump administration rolled back regulations that were put in place after the foreclosure crisis to protect the people from the abuse of banks.
It is crucial to be aware of how history shapes the present to understand that elections matter and the book plays a role in making this clear. “Tomorrow’s generations will suffer as a result of yesterday’s folly and greed. We cannot change what has already happened. But we can make sure it never happens again.”
Kamala Harris has always worked to reduce the cost of prescription drugs against the lobby of the big pharmaceutical companies. For details on this, I encourage you to read her book. Trump did just the opposite. Trump tried to make the Affordable Care Act implode during his presidency without offering any suitable alternative. During the years of his administration, he did nothing to address healthcare but appointed somebody who followed the interests of Big Pharma. His promise to reduce the cost of prescription drugs was never fulfilled.
The Trump administration did not offer an appropriate response to the opioid crisis either. While it declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, the fund they used to deal with it was less than one dollar for each person who died of a drug overdose, and “If Republicans had succeeded in repealing the Affordable Care Act, they would have taken addiction treatment coverage away from three million Americans.”
As an
attorney general, Kamala Harris made the fight against opioids one of her
highest priorities:
“We
took down a large-scale transnational drug-trafficking organization in 2011
while sponsoring legislation to make it more difficult to print fraudulent
prescription pads. We went after pill mills and shut down so-called recovery
centers that were overprescribing, leading to patient deaths. When funding to
my department’s drug monitoring program was cut, we fought tooth and nail until
I got the budget restored. The system allowed prescribers and pharmacists to
quickly access a patient’s prescription history and make sure the patient
wasn’t seeking the same painkillers from different doctors simultaneously. We
went after criminals who were selling opioids on Craiglist and filed a lawsuit
against a pharmaceutical company inflating prices for opioid addiction
treatment.”
You can learn more about this topic by reading
The Truths We Hold.
Kamala reveals the details of her work
throughout her career and integrates this information with memories about her childhood,
upbringing and family, delving into her motivations, ethical principles and
goals.
It was interesting to read how she had to
navigate the healthcare system when she had to face her mother’s diagnosis of
colon cancer, and how they coped with the management of the disease. Her account is forthright and truthful. It was
heartbreaking to read about the loss of her mother, Shyamala Harris, who was an
exceptional role model to Kamala.
Reading
Kamala Harris’s book was also an emotional experience of connection and
understanding. It is touching to learn about her mother’s life story and how
she influenced Kamala:
“My mother was raising us to believe that
‘It’s too hard’ was never an acceptable excuse; that being a good person meant
standing for something larger than yourself; that success is measured in part
by what you help others achieve and accomplish. She would tell us, ‘Fight
systems in a way that causes them to be fairer, and don’t be limited by what
has always been.’”
As an attorney general
Kamala Harris advocated for college students who had been conned by the now-defunct
Corinthian College. Kamala Harris said, “They targeted people who they assumed wouldn’t fight back. They targeted people who they assumed no one would be there to fight for. And they were wrong.” They targeted veterans, single
mothers and single fathers. They took advantage of people below the poverty line who had
suffered the effects of the Great Recession, people who believed in the power
of education... The judge agreed with Kamala Harris and the now-defunct company had to pay more than one billion dollars in restitution and penalties.
This post is about Kamala Harris’s book, but I feel compelled to highlight the contrast between Kamala Harris and her opponent, because Donald Trump did just the opposite. Donald Trump duped college students through his now-defunct Trump University. You can learn the details here:
Donald Trump brags about being the right person to handle the economy, but the truth is that at the end of his administration he left the economy in shambles. Also, murders and violent crimes increased during the last year of the Trump administration. Thankfully, during Biden’s presidency the rate of violent crimes went down according to the data recorded by the FBI.
Trump claims to care about security. This is laughable. Trump is responsible for the release of 5,000 Taliban terrorists from prison. Trump makes the world more dangerous. (Facts are not propaganda. I am aware of the fact that his followers label facts as "propaganda.") Why?
Trump claims to be concerned about inflation in America. Inflation has been an issue across the world over the last few years. However, to tackle the roots of inflation it is important to acknowledge climate change and to address it. We cannot afford four more years of a Trump administration rolling back environmental regulations that will worsen climate change and inflation across the world. If you don’t understand the connection between the two, feel free to check the supplementary links at the bottom of this post.
The Trump administration rolled back over seventy regulations that are related to climate change and the protection of the quality of water and air. We are still dealing with the consequences of his lack of foresight and understanding.
It is imperative to continue working to lower greenhouse emissions. Trump denies the need to do so. It is convenient for him to ignore the matter altogether because he receives financial contributions for his political campaign from the fossil fuel industry, which has denied the existence of climate change for many years in the same way that the tobacco industry denied the effects of tobacco on human health. In other words, Trump wants to serve himself at the expense of human health and the economy. The wellbeing of his country is not his priority. He said he would be a dictator on day one. He has also told his supporters that they will not need to vote again afer the 2024 election.
Trump and his supporters claim to be pro-life, but they fail to understand that climate change is killing people every day, so there is nothing pro-life about denying the need to address the climate crisis. There is nothing pro-life about ravaging the environment to satisfy corporate greed.
Fostering the development and infrastructure of clean energy under Biden’s Presidency has created and will continue to create millions of jobs. It is up to the people to embrace these opportunities. The Biden’s administration also created a plan that is not only creating new jobs in the clean energy field, but it is also raising the wages in the clean energy field. What is not to like about that?
It is also necessary to remember that when we support regulations that curb climate change, we protect the quality of water, air and soil. Again, what is not to like about that? A clean environment will help decrease the cost of healthcare, because of the cost of pollution and its impact on human health.
Kamala Harris addresses climate change in her
book and the multiple dimensions that the challenge encompasses. Her research
is thorough and relevant to what is happening today. She shares statistics,
facts, experiences and the work she’s done. Environmental regulations are
crucial to human health.
Paying attention to the statistics and
research, however, was not enough for Kamala Harris when she had to support the
people of Mira Loma, California. She traveled to the area, listened to the
people and did not let them down.
The quiet rural community was swallowed up by an industrial warehousing district. The air turned toxic. Every day trucks made more than 15,000 trips on Mira Loma’s main roads, bringing with them soot and other particulate matter. Soon Mira Loma had one of the highest rates of diesel pollution in the state—well beyond state and federal air quality standards. The county failed to respond to standards that would protect the community, even though people did their best to be heard. The community was ignored and the situation would worsen with the plan to bring in more trucks to the area.
How did
this impact peoples’ lives? Due to
the filthy air, it was not safe for children to play outside. The trees
in their backyard stopped bearing fruits and were dying. The people in
the community were suffering from high rates of cancer, asthma and heart
disease. Kamala Harris spent time with the people to understand what they
were going through. With tears in his eyes, one father told her about the
loss of his fourteenth-year-old daughter to lung cancer.
In
Kamala’s words, “To really understand the pain that a community is coping
with, it’s not enough to imagine what it must be like. Smart policies cannot be
created in an ivory tower, and arguments aren’t won by facts alone. What
matters just as much is being there whenever possible, in person, ears and eyes
wide open, talking to the folks living closest to the challenge. It mattered
that we were there to hear this anguished father’s story and the stories of
other families in Mira Loma.
“It
mattered when I visited soldiers in Iraq who were waiting for their next
mission, and sailors in San Diego, preparing to deploy for months on a nuclear
submarine. It is one thing to talk about the needs of the military and
intelligence communities in a Senate hearing room. It is another to go to the
scene and make real, in-person connections with the men and women who are
serving.”
There is a chapter entitled Smart on
Security that I strongly recommend. I was impressed by how much Kamala Harris
did for the safety and security of the United States of America when she was a
Senator. She was an active member of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, and has knowledge and experience in dealing with issues of
security; she makes it clear that her goal is to foster and support innovation
in technology to protect the United States of America.
The Biden-Harris team has always worked to support America’s democracy in every way... On the other hand, what did Trump do? He promoted falsehoods about the 2020 election, incited violence and tried to block the peaceful transfer of power. And what did he do to Mike Pence? You can read about it here. Pence even stated that he was concerned over his family’s safety on January 6, 2021 because of Donald Trump.
If the people of his own party cannot trust Donald Trump, how can anybody trust him to become President of our country?
Trump promotes divisiveness and hate in America. His poor decision making continues to have consequences today on many levels.
It is disconcerting that Donald Trump selected judges for the Supreme Court who have no interest in protecting environmental legislation and the safety and health of human beings. In fact, their decisions prove just the opposite. We are in a very fragile situation as a result of Trump’s poor decisions and choices, but there is hope. We can’t afford apathy and negligence. We have to vote because our life depends on it; the health of our democracy is at stake.
There
is no doubt in my mind that honest Republicans will agree that we need to stand
united to protect democratic principles, and that Kamala Harris is the
right candidate to represent the values that matter: respect for the rule of
law, social responsibility, and democratic principles.
My Writing Life blog endorses Kamala Harris for president. I will vote for her, and I encourage every American reader of My Writing Life Blog: Awareness, Reflection, Inspiration, to read her book. Her enthusiasm and energy can transcend the boundaries of America. The Truths We Hold is an invigorating, edifying read that will inspire people across the world.
Supplementary
links:
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/13/g-s1-9360/judiciary-election-climate-change-environment-supreme-court
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/trump-rally-nato/677426/
