My 2023 Letter to President Jimmy Carter
Remembering President Carter's Extroardinary Presidency (updated)
I wrote this letter to former President Jimmy Carter in 2023 after the love of his life, Rosalyn Carter passed away. I would like to share it in honor of his incredible legacy.
You are one of the strongest and most courageous presidents our country has ever had! You are the only president who used real diplomatic negotiation to create peace! You pioneered solar and you stood up to the fossil fuel industry—which no other president had done! —And it took incredible courage and strength for you to withstand their subsequent attacks. You honored America’s promise regarding the Panama Canal. You and Rosalyn rid much of the world of some of the most horrific diseases on Earth in some of the most underserved areas of the world. After the presidency, instead of going after personal gain, you used your knowledge and connections to heal the world! You championed and built houses with Habitat for Humanity! You lifted up the rights of women and you challenged world religions to honor women’s rights and recognize women in ministry! You convened isolated women leaders from around the world to talk about these issues. The Carter Center is a lasting testimony and legacy of your love for humanity, justice, and peace. You and Rosalyn are modern day Saints and an inspiration to us all!
My mother Marian Perz and I came to hear you teach Sunday School years ago and you asked if there were any ministers in the room. You talked about the importance of women in ministry! I raised my hand among many other raised hands—most if not all were men—and you called on me to give the opening prayer! What an honor! You lifted me up as a woman minister in that moment! I gave you a copy of my Ph.D. dissertation, which later became my ebook, “Conceiving a Peaceful World: Women’s BodyWisdom, Leadership, and Peacemaking,” based on my Ph.D. research. I read several of your books and I quoted and cited you in many places in my book. You expanded the definition of human rights! You raised issues of justice between Israel and Palestine! The Carter Center has championed human rights and fair elections around the globe. In the U.S. you called for campaign finance reform and said our democracy has become an oligarchy. Your books are incredibly inspiring, transformative, and informative!
What an honor to live at the same time in history as you both! A few years later, my mother came across you and Rosalyn at an event at the Carter Center in the hallway and she told me afterward, that she was so excited that she got to shake your hand as a former President of the United States! You are always gracious, kind, generous, and wise!
I created a video hosting website earthfamily.tv about social and environmental justice and peace—and the Carter Center gave me permission to film one of your “Conversation with the Carters” events. I then created a YouTube channel, and now a documentary climate change film, “Saving Jaguars and Ourselves” with an impact campaign at https://www.savingjaguarsandourselves.com
The Carter Center’s openness was empowering to me in my earlier days of filmmaking. I am a journalist, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and now an independent documentary filmmaker—And your life has touched, empowered, and inspired me in so many ways!
I wrote about you and cited your books in my ebook, "Conceiving a Peaceful World: Women's BodyWisdom, Leadership, and Peacemaking," based on the dissertation that I gave you decades ago when my mom and I came to hear your Sunday School class! Your life and leadership have shown a light on a different way of leading, a transformative diplomatic presidency, and a saintly way of living.
Your unique soulmate relationship with Rosalyn Carter has also been an incredibly heartwarming inspiration to me and many others! I love that you prayed together daily and never went to bed angry. My favorite story about the remarkable and lovely relationship between you both is the story of you asking Rosalyn what she wanted for her birthday and she said something to the effect of--a glass of orange juice and a kiss every morning!
I am so thankful to both of you for the lives you have lived and the great shining lights you have been truly as beacons of God's Love in the world--and showing what systemic change and Love through systems and structures and economics and social justice can look like.
Sincerely,
Susan Perz, Ph.D.
Email: dr.susan@earthfamily.tv
Phone: 770-519-0002
_______________________
Here are some excerpted quotes from my ebook, where I wrote about your life and leadership as a model for effective leadership in the presidency. My ebook is Conceiving a Peaceful World: Women's BodyWisdom, Leadership, and Peacemaking, c.Susan Perz 2016, based on 25 years of research before, during, and after my Ph.D. from Claremont School of Theology, CA. (The footnote numbers are listed in the text, but the full citations are in the book. There are few Wikipedia citations below, but most of the citations are from my book’s 30-page bibliography.)
These are some of your most important contributions that I hope will be remembered in history--and which I hope will give you joy and fulfillment to remember.
During the Camp David Accord negotiations between leaders of Israel and Egypt, former president Jimmy Carter recalls how the talks were at a standstill until Carter’s secretary, a woman, suggested the leaders take photographs of the historic meeting to give to their grandchildren. Israel President Begin was moved to come to a peace agreement while looking at the pictures. He became emotional reading their names out loud. Both Presidents Carter and Begin had tears in their eyes. The importance of peace to future generations and the harsh realities of what happens to children in war unlocked their hearts to finding a way to create peace through the famous Camp David Peace Accords. Carter’s description of the peace process of the Camp David Accords provides important models for peacemaking and conflict resolution.90. Interestingly, when CNN tells this story, it doesn’t mention that it was Carter’s woman secretary who suggested the photos for their grandchildren.
Jimmy Carter made the first ever U.S. government investments in renewable energies and had 32 solar panels installed on the White House. Carter announced that he planned to transition America toward 20% of the United States’ energy use to renewable energies by 2000. This was a huge threat to the oil, gas, and coal—the fossil fuel industry—and much of the corporate-owned press went after Carter, calling him a weak president and creating enormous negative press. If the U.S. had heeded Jimmy Carter’s leadership and moved toward solar and renewable energies along with conversion [of the grid,] the U.S. could have avoided many wars over oil, saved untold numbers of lives, prevented comprehensive environmental damage due to war, and created a truly sustainable community-based energy system (wind turbines and solar panels routinely installed on roofs to power homes and cars for example.) It must be remembered that renewable energies have never received the research and development funding and subsidies that fossil fuels and the nuclear industry have received--to the grave detriment of past, present, and future generations. Recent wars that could have been prevented include the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War—which were largely over oil and pipelines. Oil was also a significant factor in U.S. involvement in the Balkans and Libya. Iraq ranks second in oil reserves internationally behind Saudi Arabia. Oil reserves in Iran ranked third in the world in 2007 and it is the world’s third largest oil producer according to the Iranian government. Oil reserves in Libya are the fifth largest in the world. (Government-owned oil reserves in Libya that benefitted the country were privatized within 24 hours of the Libyan conflict start.)
In his book, Talking Peace, former President Carter quotes scripture promising that there would be a time when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”51 Carter emphasizes the importance of preventative diplomacy... Carter is the ONLY U.S. president who used ACTUAL diplomatic negotiation to prevent wars instead of sending ultimatums that were “my way or the highway.”
Carter’s support of solar and renewable energies and his moves away from fossil fuels likely made him very unpopular with the fossil fuel empire and thus the corporate- owned press.
Carter and other world leaders came together to create a global leadership group called The Elders. The Elders have “called for an end to harmful and discriminatory practices that are justified on the grounds of religion and tradition” in 2009, notes Wikipedia,115 which presumably includes practices such as female genital mutilation, bride burning, women being confined inside the four walls of the home, child marriage, etc. Wikipedia includes quotes by Fernando Henrique Cardoso: “the idea that God is behind discrimination is unacceptable,"116 and Jimmy Carter’s call to all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. “We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasize the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world’s major faiths share.”117
Their (the Carters') work to end child marriage includes creation of the international NGO Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, to end practices such as those in Amhara, Ethiopia where half of all girls are married before the age of 15.118 Child marriage will affect 100 million girls over the next ten years if present trends continue, notes Wikipedia.119
“It is surprising to most Americans that people in other nations often define human rights almost exclusively as those that sustain life--the right to adequate food, medical care, a home, education, and a job,” notes former president Jimmy Carter, while the U.S. understands human rights in terms of freedom of expression, voting, worship, travel, assembly, and other freedoms.84 He recalls arguments with leaders of Communist countries in which he accused them of jailing people without trials, censorship, etc., only to be confronted in return regarding homelessness, unemployment, second-class citizen treatment of minorities, and high costs of medical care in the U.S.85
President Jimmy Carter described U.S. dependence on oil as a national security issue. In 1977 President Carter set a goal for the U.S. to reduce foreign oil imports by fifty percent and oil dependence by the country as a whole by emphasizing energy conservation and renewable energies. The price of domestic crude oil was reduced to the 1973 price and fuel economy in cars was mandated by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975. President Carter advocated the conservation of energy and a move toward solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources through the National Energy Act and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act.279 Carter’s solar hot water panels on the roof of the White House, were later removed by President Reagan.280
[I wrote President Carter about ten years ago, that I believe that the mainstream press went after him, calling him a weak president, largely as backlash for his renewable energy and related policies that were a huge threat to the fossil fuel industry--which was--then and now--the most powerful industry in the world. I told him I thought he should write about that--so that history was correctly understanding the real dynamics happening at the time. I was disappointed when I attended the Emory conference held years ago about his presidency, that the panel of "experts" discussing his presidency did not "get" that the corporate press was and still is largely in bed with the fossil fuel industry--and that this backlash--calling his presidency weak--was an attempt to discredit him--because President Carter was in fact, one of the most ethical and powerful presidents our country has ever had! No other president in the history of this country ever put forth policies to limit fossil fuels and to transition our country to renewable energy--that was an incredibly powerful and gutsy thing to do--and it took tremendous courage! Later, President Carter did go on one of the late night talk shows to talk about his book, A Call to Action--and President Carter and the talk show host talked about when President Carter put the solar panels on part of the White House and how the press went after him as a backlash against his energy policies.] Most of the corporate-owned press is publicly traded, and their major stockholders are often big corporate banks that loan money to fossil fuel corporations or insurers of fossil fuel corporations.
When civil or government leaders stand up for issues, they have increasingly become targets of slander or negative public relations campaigns such as the one that was launched against former president Jimmy Carter when he courageously tried to steer the United States away from oil and fossil fuels toward solar and other renewable energies decades ago.
Carter created the Department of Energy during his presidency with a vision to move toward renewable energy. By 1992, only one percent of the Department of Energy Budget was designated toward research and development of renewable energies.
Not only does the U.S. have the largest military budget of any country in the world but the U.S. budget was equal to that of all other countries of the world combined under George W. Bush, notes former president Jimmy Carter.
Carter wrote and spoke out about the importance of recognizing the rights of both Israel and Palestinians in his book: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. In the book he outlines obstacles to peace in the Middle East and calls for diplomacy.
The Carter Center has been sponsoring annual conferences on Women’s Rights for nine years, in which it brings together “top religious leaders, activists, and religious scholars [many of them women] representing more than 15 countries and over 35 faith-based organizations, universities, and religious bodies, who are committed to making concrete gains in women’s rights,” according to the Carter Center website.19 These dialogues between key religious leaders and activists are distinctive in that they focus on the positive and negative roles that world religions are playing in their countries regarding women’s rights. The 2013 conference entitled “Mobilizing Faith for Women: Engaging the Power of Religion and Belief to Advance Human Rights and Dignity,” highlighted “the influence of religion on women’s rights and called on people of faith and religious leaders to assume their responsibility to advance equally the well being of all members of society.”20 This conference was webcast at the time. Topics discussed included ending human trafficking, the effects of war on women, and applying human rights and advocacy to religious life and study.21 The Carters themselves left the Southern Baptist denomination over its failure to acknowledge full rights and ordination of women--Carter has also written two Catholic popes about women’s human rights.22
Carter has joined with other outspoken world leaders regarding the subjugation of women by religious and other institutions, notes Wikipedia, highlighting a July 15, 2009, opinion piece written by Carter in which he wrote that he “chooses equality for women over the dictates of the leadership of what has been a lifetime religious commitment,” adding that views about the inferiority of women afflict many religions and the influence of that thinking spreads to other areas of culture. “The truth is that male religious leaders have had--and still have--an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions--all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views. 23
Carter’s book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, expands on these concerns to address what he calls the “worst and most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on Earth,” notes Tara Culp-Ressler.24 The Carter center website describes Carter’s purpose in writing the book.
Large-scale crimes against women enumerated in “A Call to Action” include: slavery, genital cutting, infanticide, child marriage, rape, honor killings, and economic and social deprivation. He calls on everyone to study these violations of basic moral values and take corrective action. President Carter writes, “My own experiences and the testimony of courageous women from all regions and all major religions have made it clear that there is a pervasive denial of equal rights to more than half of all human beings, and this discrimination results in tangible harm to all of us, male and female.” A commitment to universal human rights is desperately needed if humanity is to escape the cycle of war, poverty, and oppression.25
Carter describes the connections between conservative faith leaders’ treatment of women, violence against women, and inequality, notes Culp- Ressler. "Religious leaders say women are inferior in the eyes of God, which is a false interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. When [people] see the Pope, the Southern Baptist Convention, and others say that women can’t serve as priests equally with men, they say well, I’ll treat my wife the way I want to because she’s inferior to me,” Carter told NBC News.26
Carter told Marianne Schnall in an interview for the Huffington Post that 160 million girls have been killed globally in the womb or at birth simply because they are girls. He named infanticide and the sexual slavery of girls as two of the worst human rights abuses against women, noting that 800,000 girls were kidnapped last year with eighty percent sold into slavery last year, and Atlanta is a major hub because it has the largest airport on the planet.27
Carter describes the second major factor in violence against women,
“And the other thing is the excessive commitment to violence in this country. We have been involved in more wars, on a bilateral basis, since the United Nations was formed than any other country by far. About thirty different times...”28.
He notes that the U.S. is the only country in North America or NATO that still uses the death penalty.
“And we have about seven and a half times as many prisoners in jail right now in America as we had when I was a Governor. And we have about 3,200 people in prison in the United States now for life who have never committed a crime of violence."29
When she asked him why he was so passionate about women’s human rights, Carter described his reasons.
“I think it’s perhaps the most important single issue that I have ever addressed - certainly since I left the White House. Keeping my country at peace and promoting human rights around the world was important when I was president, but nothing has ever effected me more, or convinced me more, that the abuse is horrendous, and that very few people are doing anything about it...30
Carter offers twenty-three steps to address violence against women in his book, also listed on the Carter.org website.31
Encourage women and girls, including those not abused, to speak out more forcefully. It is imperative that those who do speak out are protected from retaliation.
Remind political and religious leaders of the abuses and what they can do to alleviate them.
Encourage these same leaders to become supporters of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other U.N. agencies that advance human rights and peace.
Encourage religious and political leaders to relegate warfare and violence to a last resort as a solution to terrorism and national security challenges.
Abandon the death penalty and seek to rehabilitate criminals instead of relying on excessive incarceration, especially for nonviolent offenders.
Marshal the efforts of women officeholders and first ladies, and encourage involvement of prominent civilian women in correcting abuses.
Induce individual nations to elevate the end of human trafficking to a top priority, as they did to end slavery in the nineteenth century.
Help remove commanding officers from control over cases of sexual abuse in the military so that professional prosecutors can take action.
Apply title IX protection for women students and evolve laws and procedures in all nations to reduce the plague of sexual abuse on university campuses. [Carter explains that Title IX can be used to deny a university funding if it refuses to provide adequate protections for women.]
Include women’s rights specifically in new U.N. Millennium Development Goals.
Expose and condemn infanticide of baby girls and selective abortion of female fetuses.
Explore alternatives to battered women’s shelters, such as installing GPS locators on male abusers, and make police reports of spousal abuse mandatory.
Strengthen U.N. and other legal impediments to ending genital mutilation, child marriage, trafficking, and other abuses of girls and women.
Increase training of midwives and other health workers to provide care at birth.
Help scholars working to clarify religious beliefs on protecting women’s rights and nonviolence, and give activists and practitioners access to such training resources.
Insist that the U.S. Senate ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Insist that the United States adopt the International Violence Against Women Act.
Encourage more qualified women to seek public office, and support them.
Recruit influential men to assist in gaining equal rights for women.
Adopt the Swedish model by prosecuting pimps, brothel owners, and male customers, not the prostitutes.
Publicize and implement U.N. Security Resolution 1325, which encourages the participation of women in peace efforts.
Publicize and implement U.N. Security Resolution 1820, which condemns the use of sexual violence as a tool of war.
Condemn and outlaw honor killings.
In 2014 the United States ranks 60th in the world in the percentage of women in all levels of political office, (local, state, and national,) notes Carter.
And on the overall ranking of women compared to men, according to the World Economic Forum - they have been doing this for seven years - the United States ranks 23rd in the world. So twenty-two other countries have a better record on giving women equal rights than men.33
Carter notes that today 18 percent of Congress members are women compared with only three percent when he was president--however this is still lower than the worldwide average of about 23 percent. Furthermore women still only earn 23 percent of the average pay men earn, notes Carter, and only about 24 of the Fortune 500 companies have women CEOs--even at that top level women still only earn 42 percent of what men 34 earn.
Former President Jimmy Carter charts a dramatic increase in the use of violence to solve international conflicts rather than diplomatic negotiation by presidents who followed him in office, including Ronald Reagan (19811989), George Bush (1989-1983), and William Clinton (1993-1995), in his book, Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation.197 Perhaps more than any other president in recent times, Carter relied on diplomatic negotiation to solve international conflicts. He cut the U.S. defense budget by $6 billion during his first month in office, notes Wikipedia, and removed all nuclear weapons from South Korea.198 He planned to remove all troops by 1982, but pressures from military generals and Congress forced him to allow most to remain.199 In 1994, President Clinton asked Carter to go on a peace mission to North Korea,200 after it threatened to start processing nuclear fuel, and force International Atomic Energy Agency investigators to leave. Clinton also advocated for U.S. sanctions against North Korea and sent troops in to prepare for possible war. Carter’s mission was portrayed as a private mission in order to give North Korean president Kim Il-sung the opportunity to back down while saving face.201
Carter not only negotiated with Kim Il-sung, he outlined a new armistice agreement (the 1994 Agreed Framework,) and announced it on CNN without Clinton’s permission in order to pressure the U.S. into approving it. Clinton did sign a later version which was widely viewed as a significant diplomatic achievement, notes Wikipedia.202 The agreement stated that North Korea would freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear program and comply with nonproliferation obligations in exchange for oil deliveries, two light water reactors for nuclear power to replace its graphite nuclear power reactors, along with discussions to establish diplomatic relations.203
Helman describes in specific terms the actions North Korea took in 1994 after the agreement to end its active weapons, shutting down its 5 MW Magnox research reactor; putting the fuel rods from that reactor under lock and key, so that plutonium could not be extracted to make an estimated 4-8 bombs; stopping construction of an almost completed 50 MW Magnox reactor, which would have made 10 bombs a year; and stopping construction of a 200 MW Magnox reactor which would have made 40 bombs a year.204
Former president Jimmy Carter stated that he disagrees with President Obama’s decision to allow the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to stay open, notes Wikipedia, which quotes Carter below. As of 2013 Guantanamo hadn’t been closed noted Amy Goodman speaking at Greenfest 2013, (video aired on LINK TV, DISH cable provider, June 22, 2014.)314
“[inmates] have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers.”315
Carter also stated the U.S. government lacks moral leadership, is committing human rights violations, and is no longer “the global champion of human rights,” notes Wikipedia, citing Carter’s New York Times oped.317
Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter’s work through the Carter Center has eliminated or dramatically reduced many of the world’s most horrible diseases. The Guinea Worm disease is one of the most painful and debilitating diseases and only about 20 cases remain this year because of the Carters’ and the Carter Center’s work. The Carters and the Carter Center has worked to support democracy around the world, provide witnesses for fair elections in many nations, and much more. The Carter Center website can provide a fuller description of the vast scope of the Carter’s work and the work of the Center.
More than any other U.S. president, the Jimmy Carter, with Rosalyn, used his post-presidency years to dramatically and massively transform the world for good.
Thank you former President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalyn Carter for your lives and legacies!