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TITLE: Nearly All Hospital Websites Send Tracking Data to 3rd Parties, Endangering Pt Privacy—Common Recipients: Alphabet, Meta, Adobe, AT&T
3rd party data aggregators can follow people across multiple websites. When they track browser cookies, pixels, beacons, mobile application identifiers, and Adobe Flash technology it is very possible for them to figure out specific people.
This sort of computing device data often qualifies as PHI according to HHS:
Use of Online Tracking Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates
https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/hipaa-online-tracking/index.htmlThank you Dr. Pope for summary below.
Michael Reeder, LCPC
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Medpage includes an article: “Nearly All Hospital Websites Send Tracking Data to Third Parties — Most common recipients of data were Alphabet, Meta, Adobe, and AT&T.”
Here are some excerpts:
Third-party tracking is used on almost all U.S. hospital websites, endangering patient privacy, a cross-sectional observational study found.
Of 3,747 hospitals included in the 2019 American Hospital Association (AHA) annual survey, 98.6% of their website home pages had at least one third-party data transfer, and 94.3% had at least one third-party cookie.
"In the U.S., third-party tracking is ubiquitous and extensive," researchers led by Ari B. Friedman, MD, PhD of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, wrote in Health Affairs.
"The high number of entities engaged in tracking on hospital websites heightens potential privacy risks to patients."
The tracking data most commonly went to Google's parent company Alphabet (98.5% of homepages), followed by Meta (formerly Facebook), which was used in 55.6% of hospital homepages. Adobe Systems and AT&T collected data from 31.4% and 24.6% of hospital pages, respectively.
"What we found is that it's virtually impossible to look at any hospital website in the country without exposing yourself to some tracking," study coauthor Matthew McCoy, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, told MedPage Today.
"That's really significant, because even if you were a patient with privacy concerns and you wanted to avoid this kind of thing, what that means is you really don't have an option to do that."
Hospital website home pages had a median of 16 third-party transfers, with more third-party transfers from medium-sized hospitals as opposed to small and large ones (24, 17, and 13 transfers, respectively).
Of hospital characteristic factors, membership in a health system, having a primarily urban patient population, and having a medical school affiliation were all significantly associated with a greater number of third-party transfers on hospital website home pages.
<snip>
On 100 randomly sampled hospital websites, searches for six "potentially sensitive" conditions turned up 30 patient-facing pages for those conditions -- and all had at least one third-party data transfer.
McCoy said the number of companies tracking data on any given website was alarming.
"Imagine you were browsing a hospital website for something related to your health, and you had one person looking over your shoulder and gleaning information about your health from a browsing session -- that would probably make you pretty uncomfortable," he said.
"Multiply that by 16, by 20, and you've got that many more people looking over your shoulder."
<snip>
According to the study, "Many of the third parties to which data are transferred have business models built on identifying and tracking people for the purposes of targeting online advertisements.”
Some tracking companies, like Acxiom, sell the data to other companies or allow health-related profiling, like Adobe and Oracle.
Because of this tracking, patients might see more targeted advertising for drugs, supplements, or insurance based on their personal medical conditions.
Health-related information, the authors wrote, could even be used in risk scores that affect credit or insurance eligibility.
<snip>
"Setting aside those kinds of questions about legal liability..., I think most healthcare providers would recognize themselves as having a responsibility to protect the interests of their patients, and that means also protecting their patients' interest in privacy," McCoy said.
<snip>
Researchers used a tool called webXray to record third-party tracking from hospital home pages, count the data transfers that occurred when a page loaded, and linked individual tracking domains to their parent companies.
Ken Pope
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Merely forwarded by:
Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD#Ethics #EthicalAI #AI #CollaborativeHumanAISystems #HumanAwareAI #chatbotgpt #bard #security #dataanalytics #artificialintelligence #CopyAI #HIPAA #privacy #psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy #research
@psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #EHR #mentalhealth #technology #psychiatry #healthcare #medical #doctor #healthcare #hospital
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Narratives, Pacing, and Conundrum of Ableism
The day starts cold, the wind brisk, and the pain I feel simmers at the usual 5 out of 10 pain scale. It is rare for it to drop below 5, even with pain meds like Tynelol, but after awhile, the body grows accustomed to the pain, making it an annoying background noise at best. Other days it consumes my awareness like a furious tornado, and that is when I know the flare-up has started.
When it comes to being disabled, I’m hyperaware of many different factors, which I have to be to navigate a world that is often not accessible and a minefield of ableism. To avoid the minefield, I hyperanalyze the words I say, and will try different communication styles.
This can prove exhausting over time because I am a human being not a programmable robot. Thus when I am upset, I tend toward very direct language to describe why I’m upset and my exact emotions.
NARRATIVES WE TELL OURSELVES
The narrative I tell myself has its roots in how I was socialized growing up, the experiences I’ve had throughout my life, the oppression I’ve faced, the healing and good things I’ve done, and the harmful things I’ve done. No one person is ever perfect, but some may feel that drive to be perfect, to set impossible standards. I have spent many an hour examining the narratives I tell myself in order to unlearn the biased and unhealthy narratives that impede communication and empathy.
Some of the narratives we hold derive from societal narratives. For example, we live in a culture that villianizes neurodivergent communication and thinking styles, thus being direct can be viewed as ‘aggressive,’ ‘too emotional,’ and/or ‘illogical.’ Even if we provide logical and rational thoughts, because of the ‘directness’ the content of our words is ignored in favor of how the neurotypical, non-disabled person perceived our tone. A story is written in their head that superimposes over us, and thus we cease to be a person. Tone-policing is one way this retaliation to our words can manifest, through the critiques of our ‘tone’ and dismissing of the content of our words.
When we interact with one another, we build stories of ourselves and those people in our head. If we are not conscious of this act, the stories built often are riddled with stereotypes about various groups of people rather than based on who the person actually is. These stories — or narratives — are also influenced by the culture within which we live, our upbringing, societal norms, community norms, and how we’re educated and by whom and various historical events.
Humans are a story-telling species. We love to share stories with one another, and through this sharing of stories, we create community and a sense of safety. Building community can also go awry the same way our story-telling may — the biases that society socialized into us can contaminate the community-building if left unchecked. Unlearning our biases is a life-long practice and not easy to do, but if we are to build authentic, accessible, inclusive, and loving communities then the work of unlearning biases must be done.
It takes effort and practice to meditate on the stories we build of others and the places in which we exist. By meditating on the stories we craft, we can carefully edit the biases and untrue narratives and replace with more accurate evidence based on what is shared with us, what we witness, and knowledge we’ve gained. This skill must be taught and practiced, and even then, it is still possible to run awry of biases that sneak in periodically, especially if we have not yet admitted or discovered the bias within ourselves.
However, when people’s biases are confronted, regardless of how — whether directly or subtly — defensiveness may rear up to blockade communication and retaliate against whoever confronted us.
As a disabled trans queer person, I have learned that confronting people on their biases and microaggressions can cause this defensiveness, where they cease to see me as a person. Instead, a story is built up for them to defeat, which in turn dismisses my words in order to preserve their view of themself as a ‘good person.’
It is this attachment to ‘being a good person’ that can stifle our growth and ability to build community with others. Lama Rod Owens in Love and Rage: the Path of Liberation through Anger writes:
“We’ve learned how to pack everything away, because we’re really invested in being good people. You may say, “I am a good person. I am not a misogynist. I am not transphobic. I’m a good person.” Sometimes being a good person or my attachment to being a good person actually gets in the way of me looking at all the rough spots, at all the shadows that I’m working with.”
That story all of us have built of ourselves is often riddled with unconscious biases, especially if we are unwilling to acknowledge those biases exist.
For example, in a gaming community I frequented, a member would consistently ignore what I shared about obstacles I faced due to the systems within our society and within communities. In response, this person would say: “The only obstacle is yourself, and you can overcome anything!”
Except this is a denial of everything I’d shared about obstacles outside my control. When I confronted the person to attempt a dialog about how hurtful this ableist microaggression was, the person became defensive and retaliated. Other people jumped in to join sides and it transformed into a battleground instead of being a simple dialog. In the end, the harm caused by that person’s words ends up brushed aside as the dialogue becomes about their feeling uncomfortable at being held accountable.
When another person seeks to hold us accountable, they are trusting us with the knowledge of their hurt, and they are sharing hope that healing and growth can still occur. Being held accountable isn’t meant to be an attack or to label someone as ‘bad,’ but meant to build community and dialogue for healing. Conflict will happen in any community, but if the conflict is brushed aside to keep the illusion of ‘peace and harmony’ than those harmed are further wounded by this lack of empathy and care. The narratives the group has built around accountability become an impediment to their growth and empathy.
In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. Thom writes:
“‘The first step: Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Part of the reason one may fall into seeing it as an accusation or attack is this attachment to ‘being a good person.’ In the case of that gaming group, the person refused to accept my experience because it collided with what they thought ‘being a good person’ is. I had disrupted their story of their own self, and instead of sitting with that uncomfortable feelings and working through it, the person lashed out instead.
The attachment we have to ‘being a good person’ often is the root of our defensiveness. Other roots may be wounds a person has that they are in denial about or are in the process of healing, or roots in how they are socialized.
So when defensiveness happens, it places those harmed in an impossible position — how do we hold dialogue with the other person without placing ourselves in danger of being hurt further? If the other person will not meet us halfway by enacting Thom’s steps, then healing cannot happen. That wound between me and the other person causes a rift, that can easily become impassable.
Lama Rod Owens writes:
“Look at how the narratives keep us from actually doing the really important work of liberation within our own experience. It’s not supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be really uncomfortable. If it were easy and fun, everyone would be doing it.”
“People come to me and say, “Oh, this practice that you gave me, it hasn’t helped me feel good.” I get that, because when I started my practice, it didn’t feel good either. I felt as if I was suffering more. I wasn’t. I was finally paying attention to how I’ve always felt. It’s really not fun, but it definitely gets better. It gets better because I learned how to get really curious about my experience. I learned how to be re-embodied and to actually understand that all these really difficult experiences I was having were composite — there were all these different pieces of things smashed together.”
The socialization we received as children often wounds us by instilling biases that create narratives that stunt our growth. As Owens wrote, unlearning biases, seeking to heal the wounds within us, and letting go of our attachment to ‘being good’ is not easy to do. It will be hard, but it is the only way to truly grow as a person and build more holistic and healthier communities.
Part of understanding our own narratives requires us to understand not just our biases but also our strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and especially our limitations. For disabled people, understanding our limitations is forced on us by the nature of our disability, thus we must consider our limitations in order to navigate a day without causing painful flare-ups or other frustrating and/or painful reactions within our bodies.
When I do trainings about disability or about trans issues, I often ask participants to step into our shoes for a day. To imagine themselves living the narrative disabled and/or trans people often face. I may use myself as an example or a friend may assist me and offer up their narrative. We then walk the participants through our stories, and through that, we can build a shared empathy. That empathy becomes the foundation for further dialogue.
NAVIGATING A DAY
So how do I navigate a day as a disabled trans and queer person? The first step for me is analyzing my energy. I do this partly based on how I feel and some of my vitals, but I must also carefully analyze each step I take. I must analyze the words I say and who I share my story with — where I must assess the risk level with sharing based on where I am, who is present, and whether there is a safe way to exit if the situation turns toxic or too exhausting to continue.
Before I get ahead of myself, I’ll start with how I pace my actions to avoid painful flare-ups that can leave me bedridden. I start this practice when I am still in bed.
I open up the Visible app and log my sleep and vitals — this app was made for disabled people by disabled people and uses a mathematical formula based on research to calculate a score between 1 and 5 for my stability for the day. It does this by detecting the pulse in my finger and the minute changes in skin coloration from the blood flow in my finger. Today rates me a three and suggests I pace myself gently today. To simplify this analyzing, I use spoon theory, where each spoon represents energy required to do a task.
I slowly sit up to take my morning/day meds for the day. I keep a cup of water by my bed for this purpose. Cetaphil Face Cleanser sits by my bed, so I can do a dry bath. I rub it on my face and neck and a few other areas and wipe it away, which uses up half a spoon. I can’t do my whole body as that would be one too many spoons, so I leave it at that.
I pet my cats and slowly stand — if I stand too quickly I become lightheaded and may pass out — then I grab my mobility device (cane, arm crutches, rollator, or wheelchair) and navigate to the bathroom to use the toilet, dress for the day, and brush my teeth. This takes half a spoon. I have now used up one spoon simply waking up and washing up for the day.
After the bathroom, I prepare a cup of tea and select a morning snack. I return to my bedroom and assess my energy levels again. Preparing for the day has used two spoons, and I have only five today. On other days I might have six spoons, but I generally sleep and stay in bed all day to prepare for six spoon days.
Since I only have three spoons left, I boot up my computer to write, check email, check Discord and/or Signal chats, and listen to music. This will use up two spoons. That leaves my final spoon for my cats, where I feed them and play with them and clean their litter boxes.
When it is time for bed, I will take my night meds, wash up in bathroom, and read or play puzzles on my phone with its blue-light filter on until I fall asleep. This is half a spoon that I often forget to account for throughout my day.
If I plan to leave the house, I must rest the day before to prepare for a six spoon day, where five spoons is used to leave the house, go to my destination, do the activity or appointment at my destination, and return home to recover and care for my cats. Thus I only have one spoon for washing up, cat time, and eating.
If I take a shower, I will lose up to two spoons, which is why I schedule showers for a day where I do not need to leave the house. On days I must leave the house, I resort to a dry bath using Cetaphil cleanser and Rinse and Clear shampoo/conditioner.
Sometimes I must use up spoons I simply don’t have. When I push myself like this, those spoons come from future days, meaning I will crash. A crash describes how the body, overcome with fatigue from lack of sufficient energy or from intense pain will resort to forced rest, where one simply can’t get up do to an activity. On those days I have no choice but to rest as my body will not be responsive to much else. Crashes can last days, and for some disabled people can cause a backslides in their pacing and/or healing journeys.
By walking through what navigating my life is like and inviting others to do the same, where we endeavor to keep an open mind, to actively listen, we can lay a foundation for further dialogue and understanding. It’s part of how we rebuild our internal narratives.
SPOON THEORY
Since I have evaluated how I navigate my day using ‘spoons,’ let’s discuss what exactly spoon theory is.
It was developed by Christine Miserandino, when she spoke to a friend in early 2000s about her Lupus. She decided on spoons to illustrate to her friend the difficulties of navigating through a day. She asked her friend to describe how she walked through a day, but Christine would gently interrupt and share how each task cost either a full spoon or half a spoon — brushing her teeth, showering, leaving the bed and dressing, making breakfast or tea, eating breakfast, cleaning up after breakfast, preparing to leave, getting in the vehicle, the act of driving, leaving the vehicle, entering the destination, etc.
Since she had limited spoons it meant each time she left the house, she had to carefully evaluate whether she had energy for anything else. The friend was stunned because just describing her own day and using Christine’s limited spoons meant the friend wouldn’t make it through the day safely.
Christine shared this theory at the 2010 Lupus Conference and in various blog posts. Many disabled people caught wind of it, and soon ‘spoonies’ became a term some disabled people decided to call themselves.
Many disabilities can eat up a person’s energy, which makes navigating the tasks in a day difficult. The spoon theory has become a useful tool in discussing energy-limited diseases and how we navigate them. In a way, it offers abled-bodied people a glimpse into the lives of disabled people, and that can assist in fostering empathy.
Using spoon theory can build a narrative that describes disability in a relatable way. This can help with unlearning biases about what disabled people can or can’t do. Often, abled-bodied (nondisabled) people unconsciously react to disabled people by speaking and behaving as if they know more than disabled people about the disabled person’s own limitations and needs. Spoon theory helps break down that bias to reveal the truth of the disabled person’s experience, which can help open dialogue between us and others.
PACING AND ABLEIST NARRATIVES
When I attempt to describe the above to people, some people will ask why I just don’t push through and overcome this. Our culture teaches us from a young age that the only way to success is through pushing oneself hard, to not give up, to see the body as a tool to force into the mold one needs to succeed. Except that’s not how bodies function; the body isn’t a machine but a living organism that can easily break down due to illness, injury, insufficient nutrition or oxygen, allergies, etc.
Overcoming one’s own body pushes the consequences overextending ourselves to a future date, where our bodies will retaliate and force us to rest. Some people term this burn-out, which is a lovely term that encompasses not just a physical crash but also an emotional and/or mental crash.
That’s another phenomenon that people do not realize is possible — we can crash due to being overwhelmed from emotions or heavy mental activity. For example, many a friend, who worked on their PhD, admit to feeling burnt out by the time they finish. They often did little physical activity but intense mental activities, so they share frustration and confusion with me on why they feel burnt out. Part of that frustration stems from the narrative society and/or our parents built that dismisses the impact heavy mental activities have on a person’s wellbeing and health. We may be unaware this narrative exists within us, but recovering from burnout often can’t progress until we unlearn that biased narrative.
Our brain uses twenty percent of our body’s energy, and when we are engaged in a cognitive activity this can increase energy usage between five to seven percent depending on the task. We often forget how our brain is the most energy-taxing organ in our body. So when it is heavily used without must rest, our brains can decide enough is enough and force us into resting because not enough energy exists to execute the cognitive activity.
For abled-bodied — as in non-disabled people — many are in denial about these realities. They simply do not wish to acknowledge their bodies have limits, that they might someday end up disabled. The narrative about disability being bad stems from society’s classifying disabled people as a disposable class. Even if a person may not be taught directly this history, these narratives of disabled people as ‘less than’ can still be instilled in a person just by navigating their capitalist society’s productivity norms.
Marta Russel writes in Capitalism and Disability about the origin of disability as a disposable class:
“With the advent of capitalism, people were no longer tied to the land, but they were forced to find work that would pay a wage — or starve; and as production became industrialized people’s bodies were increasingly valued for their ability to function like machines.
Bosses could push non-disabled workers to produce at ever increasing rates of speed. Factory discipline, time-keeping and production norms broke with the slower, more self-determined and flexible work pattern into which many disabled people had been integrated.’ As work became more rationalized, requiring precise mechanical movements of the body, repeated in quicker succession, impaired persons — the deaf or blind, and those with mobility difficulties — were seen as — and, without job accommodations to meet their impairments, were — less ‘fit’ to do the tasks required of factory workers, and were increasingly excluded from paid employment…”
This focus on production shifted the values of society more toward who is productive versus who is not productive. It built a narrative around this ideology and socialized it into the workforce through job trainings, various educational experiences, and how we are taught about the world in childhood by parental figures and educators.
In turn, these narratives built a negative connotation around disability. Russell continues:
… as a result, disabled persons came to be regarded as a social problem and a justification emerged for segregating them out of mainstream life and into a variety of institutions, including workhouses, asylums, prisons, colonies and special schools…
.. being categorized as ‘disabled’, however, and the subsequent impoverishment that so many face when struggling to survive on disability benefits, serves another class function: it generates a very realistic fear among workers of becoming disabled. At base, the inadequate safety net is a product of the owning class’s fear of losing full control of what they do with the means of production; the American work ethic is a mechanism of social control that ensures capitalists a reliable work force for making profits. If workers were provided with a social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, labour would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment. American business retains its power over the working-class through a fear of destitution that would be weakened if the safety net were to actually become safe.”
Within capitalist societies, this narrative of disposable classes unconsciously influences how we react to limitations, to disabled people in general, and to witnessing someone experiencing hardships.
People often may not realize how much historical views, events, and ideologies can influence our interactions and how we are socialized today. These unconscious biases and unexamined narratives influence how we react to other people, to situations, and how we navigate our days.
Disability, due to how capitalism prioritizes production, has been labeled ‘disposable,’ and capitalism often uses it as a fear tactic to control the workforce. This bias then becomes embedded within the narratives people unconsciously build about themselves and other people. in turn, those narratives can often be painted over the person we interact with, thus failing to see the person as they actually are.
In the case of that gaming group, several members, who engaged in ableist microaggressions, had failed to examine their own biases about limitations, disabled people, and narratives of productivity. So when I presented them with my marginalized experience that directly contradicted their unexamined narratives, they choose to react defensively rather than meeting me halfway to build understanding.
Understanding often fails when these biased narratives, especially denial of one’s limitations, turns a person too defensive and retaliatory. Often in these cases, the person who tried to hold them accountable is punished for speaking up. This breaks down trust within the group, impedes understanding, and seeds the group with negative narratives surrounding conflict, limitations, and accountability.
Yet, we cannot fully realize our own potentials without assessing our limitations and examining the narratives we tell ourselves. Our bodies are not limitless energy sources no matter how carefully we care for it, and anyone can become ill or injured at any time, which can limit oneself further. The idea society taught us of “overcoming our limitations” sets an impossible standard that often injuries people in attempts to reach that perfect state. It is far healthier to find ways to work around our limitations, while respecting what our bodies have to tell us.
Pacing is the term used to describe how one works within their limitations, while respecting what truths our bodies may share about such limitations. For those of us with energy-limited diseases, we must learn the art of pacing, but this concept isn’t unique to disabled people.
Everyone needs to pace themselves in order to navigate a day, but they may not realize that is what it is. When people craft schedules and determine what they will work on in a day and what they save for another day — that’s the start of pacing work. The next step is facing one’s limitations and factoring our health and wellbeing into planning.
However, if the person is in denial about their limitation, if they have attached themselves to society’s perfection ideal, they increase the risk of burnout, injury, and/or illness. It also blocks understanding of other people, thus breaking attempts at dialogue.
Part of unlearning that harmful narrative of denial about limitations involves addressing the narratives we build about ourselves and other people. We cannot build healthier communities if we are unable to address the unexamined narratives and biases that poison our waters.
The narratives we tell ourselves play a major role in all we think and do, so it is crucial to examine them if we are to build empathy and dialogue with one another. This takes effort and work to allow oneself to be held accountable for harms done, and to unlearn inaccurate and biased narratives. This journey isn’t easy to do, but then building truly loving and healthy communities is never easy.
To end on a hopeful note, Amanda Leduc, a disabled author, writes:
“If society is used to not seeing disabled people in stories, society becomes used to not seeing disabled people in real life. If society is used to not seeing disabled people in real life, society will continue to build a world that makes it exceedingly difficult for disabled people to participate in said world, thus perpetuating the problem. In this world, there is no need for a wheelchair ramp because hardly anyone who wins an award will need one to get onstage. But what if we took it for granted that anyone, regardless of ability, might be able to achieve [that award], and built our stages and our environments accordingly?
It is time for us to tell different stories.”
#accountability #biases #buildingCommunity #chronicIllness #communication #disability #disabilityJustice #disabled #empathyBuilding #health #laborHistory #mentalHealth #narratives #oppression #stereotypes
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Narratives, Pacing, and Conundrum of Ableism
The day starts cold, the wind brisk, and the pain I feel simmers at the usual 5 out of 10 pain scale. It is rare for it to drop below 5, even with pain meds like Tynelol, but after awhile, the body grows accustomed to the pain, making it an annoying background noise at best. Other days it consumes my awareness like a furious tornado, and that is when I know the flare-up has started.
When it comes to being disabled, I’m hyperaware of many different factors, which I have to be to navigate a world that is often not accessible and a minefield of ableism. To avoid the minefield, I hyperanalyze the words I say, and will try different communication styles.
This can prove exhausting over time because I am a human being not a programmable robot. Thus when I am upset, I tend toward very direct language to describe why I’m upset and my exact emotions.
NARRATIVES WE TELL OURSELVES
The narrative I tell myself has its roots in how I was socialized growing up, the experiences I’ve had throughout my life, the oppression I’ve faced, the healing and good things I’ve done, and the harmful things I’ve done. No one person is ever perfect, but some may feel that drive to be perfect, to set impossible standards. I have spent many an hour examining the narratives I tell myself in order to unlearn the biased and unhealthy narratives that impede communication and empathy.
Some of the narratives we hold derive from societal narratives. For example, we live in a culture that villianizes neurodivergent communication and thinking styles, thus being direct can be viewed as ‘aggressive,’ ‘too emotional,’ and/or ‘illogical.’ Even if we provide logical and rational thoughts, because of the ‘directness’ the content of our words is ignored in favor of how the neurotypical, non-disabled person perceived our tone. A story is written in their head that superimposes over us, and thus we cease to be a person. Tone-policing is one way this retaliation to our words can manifest, through the critiques of our ‘tone’ and dismissing of the content of our words.
When we interact with one another, we build stories of ourselves and those people in our head. If we are not conscious of this act, the stories built often are riddled with stereotypes about various groups of people rather than based on who the person actually is. These stories — or narratives — are also influenced by the culture within which we live, our upbringing, societal norms, community norms, and how we’re educated and by whom and various historical events.
Humans are a story-telling species. We love to share stories with one another, and through this sharing of stories, we create community and a sense of safety. Building community can also go awry the same way our story-telling may — the biases that society socialized into us can contaminate the community-building if left unchecked. Unlearning our biases is a life-long practice and not easy to do, but if we are to build authentic, accessible, inclusive, and loving communities then the work of unlearning biases must be done.
It takes effort and practice to meditate on the stories we build of others and the places in which we exist. By meditating on the stories we craft, we can carefully edit the biases and untrue narratives and replace with more accurate evidence based on what is shared with us, what we witness, and knowledge we’ve gained. This skill must be taught and practiced, and even then, it is still possible to run awry of biases that sneak in periodically, especially if we have not yet admitted or discovered the bias within ourselves.
However, when people’s biases are confronted, regardless of how — whether directly or subtly — defensiveness may rear up to blockade communication and retaliate against whoever confronted us.
As a disabled trans queer person, I have learned that confronting people on their biases and microaggressions can cause this defensiveness, where they cease to see me as a person. Instead, a story is built up for them to defeat, which in turn dismisses my words in order to preserve their view of themself as a ‘good person.’
It is this attachment to ‘being a good person’ that can stifle our growth and ability to build community with others. Lama Rod Owens in Love and Rage: the Path of Liberation through Anger writes:
“We’ve learned how to pack everything away, because we’re really invested in being good people. You may say, “I am a good person. I am not a misogynist. I am not transphobic. I’m a good person.” Sometimes being a good person or my attachment to being a good person actually gets in the way of me looking at all the rough spots, at all the shadows that I’m working with.”
That story all of us have built of ourselves is often riddled with unconscious biases, especially if we are unwilling to acknowledge those biases exist.
For example, in a gaming community I frequented, a member would consistently ignore what I shared about obstacles I faced due to the systems within our society and within communities. In response, this person would say: “The only obstacle is yourself, and you can overcome anything!”
Except this is a denial of everything I’d shared about obstacles outside my control. When I confronted the person to attempt a dialog about how hurtful this ableist microaggression was, the person became defensive and retaliated. Other people jumped in to join sides and it transformed into a battleground instead of being a simple dialog. In the end, the harm caused by that person’s words ends up brushed aside as the dialogue becomes about their feeling uncomfortable at being held accountable.
When another person seeks to hold us accountable, they are trusting us with the knowledge of their hurt, and they are sharing hope that healing and growth can still occur. Being held accountable isn’t meant to be an attack or to label someone as ‘bad,’ but meant to build community and dialogue for healing. Conflict will happen in any community, but if the conflict is brushed aside to keep the illusion of ‘peace and harmony’ than those harmed are further wounded by this lack of empathy and care. The narratives the group has built around accountability become an impediment to their growth and empathy.
In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. Thom writes:
“‘The first step: Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Part of the reason one may fall into seeing it as an accusation or attack is this attachment to ‘being a good person.’ In the case of that gaming group, the person refused to accept my experience because it collided with what they thought ‘being a good person’ is. I had disrupted their story of their own self, and instead of sitting with that uncomfortable feelings and working through it, the person lashed out instead.
The attachment we have to ‘being a good person’ often is the root of our defensiveness. Other roots may be wounds a person has that they are in denial about or are in the process of healing, or roots in how they are socialized.
So when defensiveness happens, it places those harmed in an impossible position — how do we hold dialogue with the other person without placing ourselves in danger of being hurt further? If the other person will not meet us halfway by enacting Thom’s steps, then healing cannot happen. That wound between me and the other person causes a rift, that can easily become impassable.
Lama Rod Owens writes:
“Look at how the narratives keep us from actually doing the really important work of liberation within our own experience. It’s not supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be really uncomfortable. If it were easy and fun, everyone would be doing it.”
“People come to me and say, “Oh, this practice that you gave me, it hasn’t helped me feel good.” I get that, because when I started my practice, it didn’t feel good either. I felt as if I was suffering more. I wasn’t. I was finally paying attention to how I’ve always felt. It’s really not fun, but it definitely gets better. It gets better because I learned how to get really curious about my experience. I learned how to be re-embodied and to actually understand that all these really difficult experiences I was having were composite — there were all these different pieces of things smashed together.”
The socialization we received as children often wounds us by instilling biases that create narratives that stunt our growth. As Owens wrote, unlearning biases, seeking to heal the wounds within us, and letting go of our attachment to ‘being good’ is not easy to do. It will be hard, but it is the only way to truly grow as a person and build more holistic and healthier communities.
Part of understanding our own narratives requires us to understand not just our biases but also our strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and especially our limitations. For disabled people, understanding our limitations is forced on us by the nature of our disability, thus we must consider our limitations in order to navigate a day without causing painful flare-ups or other frustrating and/or painful reactions within our bodies.
When I do trainings about disability or about trans issues, I often ask participants to step into our shoes for a day. To imagine themselves living the narrative disabled and/or trans people often face. I may use myself as an example or a friend may assist me and offer up their narrative. We then walk the participants through our stories, and through that, we can build a shared empathy. That empathy becomes the foundation for further dialogue.
NAVIGATING A DAY
So how do I navigate a day as a disabled trans and queer person? The first step for me is analyzing my energy. I do this partly based on how I feel and some of my vitals, but I must also carefully analyze each step I take. I must analyze the words I say and who I share my story with — where I must assess the risk level with sharing based on where I am, who is present, and whether there is a safe way to exit if the situation turns toxic or too exhausting to continue.
Before I get ahead of myself, I’ll start with how I pace my actions to avoid painful flare-ups that can leave me bedridden. I start this practice when I am still in bed.
I open up the Visible app and log my sleep and vitals — this app was made for disabled people by disabled people and uses a mathematical formula based on research to calculate a score between 1 and 5 for my stability for the day. It does this by detecting the pulse in my finger and the minute changes in skin coloration from the blood flow in my finger. Today rates me a three and suggests I pace myself gently today. To simplify this analyzing, I use spoon theory, where each spoon represents energy required to do a task.
I slowly sit up to take my morning/day meds for the day. I keep a cup of water by my bed for this purpose. Cetaphil Face Cleanser sits by my bed, so I can do a dry bath. I rub it on my face and neck and a few other areas and wipe it away, which uses up half a spoon. I can’t do my whole body as that would be one too many spoons, so I leave it at that.
I pet my cats and slowly stand — if I stand too quickly I become lightheaded and may pass out — then I grab my mobility device (cane, arm crutches, rollator, or wheelchair) and navigate to the bathroom to use the toilet, dress for the day, and brush my teeth. This takes half a spoon. I have now used up one spoon simply waking up and washing up for the day.
After the bathroom, I prepare a cup of tea and select a morning snack. I return to my bedroom and assess my energy levels again. Preparing for the day has used two spoons, and I have only five today. On other days I might have six spoons, but I generally sleep and stay in bed all day to prepare for six spoon days.
Since I only have three spoons left, I boot up my computer to write, check email, check Discord and/or Signal chats, and listen to music. This will use up two spoons. That leaves my final spoon for my cats, where I feed them and play with them and clean their litter boxes.
When it is time for bed, I will take my night meds, wash up in bathroom, and read or play puzzles on my phone with its blue-light filter on until I fall asleep. This is half a spoon that I often forget to account for throughout my day.
If I plan to leave the house, I must rest the day before to prepare for a six spoon day, where five spoons is used to leave the house, go to my destination, do the activity or appointment at my destination, and return home to recover and care for my cats. Thus I only have one spoon for washing up, cat time, and eating.
If I take a shower, I will lose up to two spoons, which is why I schedule showers for a day where I do not need to leave the house. On days I must leave the house, I resort to a dry bath using Cetaphil cleanser and Rinse and Clear shampoo/conditioner.
Sometimes I must use up spoons I simply don’t have. When I push myself like this, those spoons come from future days, meaning I will crash. A crash describes how the body, overcome with fatigue from lack of sufficient energy or from intense pain will resort to forced rest, where one simply can’t get up do to an activity. On those days I have no choice but to rest as my body will not be responsive to much else. Crashes can last days, and for some disabled people can cause a backslides in their pacing and/or healing journeys.
By walking through what navigating my life is like and inviting others to do the same, where we endeavor to keep an open mind, to actively listen, we can lay a foundation for further dialogue and understanding. It’s part of how we rebuild our internal narratives.
SPOON THEORY
Since I have evaluated how I navigate my day using ‘spoons,’ let’s discuss what exactly spoon theory is.
It was developed by Christine Miserandino, when she spoke to a friend in early 2000s about her Lupus. She decided on spoons to illustrate to her friend the difficulties of navigating through a day. She asked her friend to describe how she walked through a day, but Christine would gently interrupt and share how each task cost either a full spoon or half a spoon — brushing her teeth, showering, leaving the bed and dressing, making breakfast or tea, eating breakfast, cleaning up after breakfast, preparing to leave, getting in the vehicle, the act of driving, leaving the vehicle, entering the destination, etc.
Since she had limited spoons it meant each time she left the house, she had to carefully evaluate whether she had energy for anything else. The friend was stunned because just describing her own day and using Christine’s limited spoons meant the friend wouldn’t make it through the day safely.
Christine shared this theory at the 2010 Lupus Conference and in various blog posts. Many disabled people caught wind of it, and soon ‘spoonies’ became a term some disabled people decided to call themselves.
Many disabilities can eat up a person’s energy, which makes navigating the tasks in a day difficult. The spoon theory has become a useful tool in discussing energy-limited diseases and how we navigate them. In a way, it offers abled-bodied people a glimpse into the lives of disabled people, and that can assist in fostering empathy.
Using spoon theory can build a narrative that describes disability in a relatable way. This can help with unlearning biases about what disabled people can or can’t do. Often, abled-bodied (nondisabled) people unconsciously react to disabled people by speaking and behaving as if they know more than disabled people about the disabled person’s own limitations and needs. Spoon theory helps break down that bias to reveal the truth of the disabled person’s experience, which can help open dialogue between us and others.
PACING AND ABLEIST NARRATIVES
When I attempt to describe the above to people, some people will ask why I just don’t push through and overcome this. Our culture teaches us from a young age that the only way to success is through pushing oneself hard, to not give up, to see the body as a tool to force into the mold one needs to succeed. Except that’s not how bodies function; the body isn’t a machine but a living organism that can easily break down due to illness, injury, insufficient nutrition or oxygen, allergies, etc.
Overcoming one’s own body pushes the consequences overextending ourselves to a future date, where our bodies will retaliate and force us to rest. Some people term this burn-out, which is a lovely term that encompasses not just a physical crash but also an emotional and/or mental crash.
That’s another phenomenon that people do not realize is possible — we can crash due to being overwhelmed from emotions or heavy mental activity. For example, many a friend, who worked on their PhD, admit to feeling burnt out by the time they finish. They often did little physical activity but intense mental activities, so they share frustration and confusion with me on why they feel burnt out. Part of that frustration stems from the narrative society and/or our parents built that dismisses the impact heavy mental activities have on a person’s wellbeing and health. We may be unaware this narrative exists within us, but recovering from burnout often can’t progress until we unlearn that biased narrative.
Our brain uses twenty percent of our body’s energy, and when we are engaged in a cognitive activity this can increase energy usage between five to seven percent depending on the task. We often forget how our brain is the most energy-taxing organ in our body. So when it is heavily used without must rest, our brains can decide enough is enough and force us into resting because not enough energy exists to execute the cognitive activity.
For abled-bodied — as in non-disabled people — many are in denial about these realities. They simply do not wish to acknowledge their bodies have limits, that they might someday end up disabled. The narrative about disability being bad stems from society’s classifying disabled people as a disposable class. Even if a person may not be taught directly this history, these narratives of disabled people as ‘less than’ can still be instilled in a person just by navigating their capitalist society’s productivity norms.
Marta Russel writes in Capitalism and Disability about the origin of disability as a disposable class:
“With the advent of capitalism, people were no longer tied to the land, but they were forced to find work that would pay a wage — or starve; and as production became industrialized people’s bodies were increasingly valued for their ability to function like machines.
Bosses could push non-disabled workers to produce at ever increasing rates of speed. Factory discipline, time-keeping and production norms broke with the slower, more self-determined and flexible work pattern into which many disabled people had been integrated.’ As work became more rationalized, requiring precise mechanical movements of the body, repeated in quicker succession, impaired persons — the deaf or blind, and those with mobility difficulties — were seen as — and, without job accommodations to meet their impairments, were — less ‘fit’ to do the tasks required of factory workers, and were increasingly excluded from paid employment…”
This focus on production shifted the values of society more toward who is productive versus who is not productive. It built a narrative around this ideology and socialized it into the workforce through job trainings, various educational experiences, and how we are taught about the world in childhood by parental figures and educators.
In turn, these narratives built a negative connotation around disability. Russell continues:
… as a result, disabled persons came to be regarded as a social problem and a justification emerged for segregating them out of mainstream life and into a variety of institutions, including workhouses, asylums, prisons, colonies and special schools…
.. being categorized as ‘disabled’, however, and the subsequent impoverishment that so many face when struggling to survive on disability benefits, serves another class function: it generates a very realistic fear among workers of becoming disabled. At base, the inadequate safety net is a product of the owning class’s fear of losing full control of what they do with the means of production; the American work ethic is a mechanism of social control that ensures capitalists a reliable work force for making profits. If workers were provided with a social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, labour would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment. American business retains its power over the working-class through a fear of destitution that would be weakened if the safety net were to actually become safe.”
Within capitalist societies, this narrative of disposable classes unconsciously influences how we react to limitations, to disabled people in general, and to witnessing someone experiencing hardships.
People often may not realize how much historical views, events, and ideologies can influence our interactions and how we are socialized today. These unconscious biases and unexamined narratives influence how we react to other people, to situations, and how we navigate our days.
Disability, due to how capitalism prioritizes production, has been labeled ‘disposable,’ and capitalism often uses it as a fear tactic to control the workforce. This bias then becomes embedded within the narratives people unconsciously build about themselves and other people. in turn, those narratives can often be painted over the person we interact with, thus failing to see the person as they actually are.
In the case of that gaming group, several members, who engaged in ableist microaggressions, had failed to examine their own biases about limitations, disabled people, and narratives of productivity. So when I presented them with my marginalized experience that directly contradicted their unexamined narratives, they choose to react defensively rather than meeting me halfway to build understanding.
Understanding often fails when these biased narratives, especially denial of one’s limitations, turns a person too defensive and retaliatory. Often in these cases, the person who tried to hold them accountable is punished for speaking up. This breaks down trust within the group, impedes understanding, and seeds the group with negative narratives surrounding conflict, limitations, and accountability.
Yet, we cannot fully realize our own potentials without assessing our limitations and examining the narratives we tell ourselves. Our bodies are not limitless energy sources no matter how carefully we care for it, and anyone can become ill or injured at any time, which can limit oneself further. The idea society taught us of “overcoming our limitations” sets an impossible standard that often injuries people in attempts to reach that perfect state. It is far healthier to find ways to work around our limitations, while respecting what our bodies have to tell us.
Pacing is the term used to describe how one works within their limitations, while respecting what truths our bodies may share about such limitations. For those of us with energy-limited diseases, we must learn the art of pacing, but this concept isn’t unique to disabled people.
Everyone needs to pace themselves in order to navigate a day, but they may not realize that is what it is. When people craft schedules and determine what they will work on in a day and what they save for another day — that’s the start of pacing work. The next step is facing one’s limitations and factoring our health and wellbeing into planning.
However, if the person is in denial about their limitation, if they have attached themselves to society’s perfection ideal, they increase the risk of burnout, injury, and/or illness. It also blocks understanding of other people, thus breaking attempts at dialogue.
Part of unlearning that harmful narrative of denial about limitations involves addressing the narratives we build about ourselves and other people. We cannot build healthier communities if we are unable to address the unexamined narratives and biases that poison our waters.
The narratives we tell ourselves play a major role in all we think and do, so it is crucial to examine them if we are to build empathy and dialogue with one another. This takes effort and work to allow oneself to be held accountable for harms done, and to unlearn inaccurate and biased narratives. This journey isn’t easy to do, but then building truly loving and healthy communities is never easy.
To end on a hopeful note, Amanda Leduc, a disabled author, writes:
“If society is used to not seeing disabled people in stories, society becomes used to not seeing disabled people in real life. If society is used to not seeing disabled people in real life, society will continue to build a world that makes it exceedingly difficult for disabled people to participate in said world, thus perpetuating the problem. In this world, there is no need for a wheelchair ramp because hardly anyone who wins an award will need one to get onstage. But what if we took it for granted that anyone, regardless of ability, might be able to achieve [that award], and built our stages and our environments accordingly?
It is time for us to tell different stories.”
#accountability #biases #buildingCommunity #chronicIllness #communication #disability #disabilityJustice #disabled #empathyBuilding #health #laborHistory #mentalHealth #narratives #oppression #stereotypes
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Narratives, Pacing, and Conundrum of Ableism
The day starts cold, the wind brisk, and the pain I feel simmers at the usual 5 out of 10 pain scale. It is rare for it to drop below 5, even with pain meds like Tynelol, but after awhile, the body grows accustomed to the pain, making it an annoying background noise at best. Other days it consumes my awareness like a furious tornado, and that is when I know the flare-up has started.
When it comes to being disabled, I’m hyperaware of many different factors, which I have to be to navigate a world that is often not accessible and a minefield of ableism. To avoid the minefield, I hyperanalyze the words I say, and will try different communication styles.
This can prove exhausting over time because I am a human being not a programmable robot. Thus when I am upset, I tend toward very direct language to describe why I’m upset and my exact emotions.
NARRATIVES WE TELL OURSELVES
The narrative I tell myself has its roots in how I was socialized growing up, the experiences I’ve had throughout my life, the oppression I’ve faced, the healing and good things I’ve done, and the harmful things I’ve done. No one person is ever perfect, but some may feel that drive to be perfect, to set impossible standards. I have spent many an hour examining the narratives I tell myself in order to unlearn the biased and unhealthy narratives that impede communication and empathy.
Some of the narratives we hold derive from societal narratives. For example, we live in a culture that villianizes neurodivergent communication and thinking styles, thus being direct can be viewed as ‘aggressive,’ ‘too emotional,’ and/or ‘illogical.’ Even if we provide logical and rational thoughts, because of the ‘directness’ the content of our words is ignored in favor of how the neurotypical, non-disabled person perceived our tone. A story is written in their head that superimposes over us, and thus we cease to be a person. Tone-policing is one way this retaliation to our words can manifest, through the critiques of our ‘tone’ and dismissing of the content of our words.
When we interact with one another, we build stories of ourselves and those people in our head. If we are not conscious of this act, the stories built often are riddled with stereotypes about various groups of people rather than based on who the person actually is. These stories — or narratives — are also influenced by the culture within which we live, our upbringing, societal norms, community norms, and how we’re educated and by whom and various historical events.
Humans are a story-telling species. We love to share stories with one another, and through this sharing of stories, we create community and a sense of safety. Building community can also go awry the same way our story-telling may — the biases that society socialized into us can contaminate the community-building if left unchecked. Unlearning our biases is a life-long practice and not easy to do, but if we are to build authentic, accessible, inclusive, and loving communities then the work of unlearning biases must be done.
It takes effort and practice to meditate on the stories we build of others and the places in which we exist. By meditating on the stories we craft, we can carefully edit the biases and untrue narratives and replace with more accurate evidence based on what is shared with us, what we witness, and knowledge we’ve gained. This skill must be taught and practiced, and even then, it is still possible to run awry of biases that sneak in periodically, especially if we have not yet admitted or discovered the bias within ourselves.
However, when people’s biases are confronted, regardless of how — whether directly or subtly — defensiveness may rear up to blockade communication and retaliate against whoever confronted us.
As a disabled trans queer person, I have learned that confronting people on their biases and microaggressions can cause this defensiveness, where they cease to see me as a person. Instead, a story is built up for them to defeat, which in turn dismisses my words in order to preserve their view of themself as a ‘good person.’
It is this attachment to ‘being a good person’ that can stifle our growth and ability to build community with others. Lama Rod Owens in Love and Rage: the Path of Liberation through Anger writes:
“We’ve learned how to pack everything away, because we’re really invested in being good people. You may say, “I am a good person. I am not a misogynist. I am not transphobic. I’m a good person.” Sometimes being a good person or my attachment to being a good person actually gets in the way of me looking at all the rough spots, at all the shadows that I’m working with.”
That story all of us have built of ourselves is often riddled with unconscious biases, especially if we are unwilling to acknowledge those biases exist.
For example, in a gaming community I frequented, a member would consistently ignore what I shared about obstacles I faced due to the systems within our society and within communities. In response, this person would say: “The only obstacle is yourself, and you can overcome anything!”
Except this is a denial of everything I’d shared about obstacles outside my control. When I confronted the person to attempt a dialog about how hurtful this ableist microaggression was, the person became defensive and retaliated. Other people jumped in to join sides and it transformed into a battleground instead of being a simple dialog. In the end, the harm caused by that person’s words ends up brushed aside as the dialogue becomes about their feeling uncomfortable at being held accountable.
When another person seeks to hold us accountable, they are trusting us with the knowledge of their hurt, and they are sharing hope that healing and growth can still occur. Being held accountable isn’t meant to be an attack or to label someone as ‘bad,’ but meant to build community and dialogue for healing. Conflict will happen in any community, but if the conflict is brushed aside to keep the illusion of ‘peace and harmony’ than those harmed are further wounded by this lack of empathy and care. The narratives the group has built around accountability become an impediment to their growth and empathy.
In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. Thom writes:
“‘The first step: Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Part of the reason one may fall into seeing it as an accusation or attack is this attachment to ‘being a good person.’ In the case of that gaming group, the person refused to accept my experience because it collided with what they thought ‘being a good person’ is. I had disrupted their story of their own self, and instead of sitting with that uncomfortable feelings and working through it, the person lashed out instead.
The attachment we have to ‘being a good person’ often is the root of our defensiveness. Other roots may be wounds a person has that they are in denial about or are in the process of healing, or roots in how they are socialized.
So when defensiveness happens, it places those harmed in an impossible position — how do we hold dialogue with the other person without placing ourselves in danger of being hurt further? If the other person will not meet us halfway by enacting Thom’s steps, then healing cannot happen. That wound between me and the other person causes a rift, that can easily become impassable.
Lama Rod Owens writes:
“Look at how the narratives keep us from actually doing the really important work of liberation within our own experience. It’s not supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be really uncomfortable. If it were easy and fun, everyone would be doing it.”
“People come to me and say, “Oh, this practice that you gave me, it hasn’t helped me feel good.” I get that, because when I started my practice, it didn’t feel good either. I felt as if I was suffering more. I wasn’t. I was finally paying attention to how I’ve always felt. It’s really not fun, but it definitely gets better. It gets better because I learned how to get really curious about my experience. I learned how to be re-embodied and to actually understand that all these really difficult experiences I was having were composite — there were all these different pieces of things smashed together.”
The socialization we received as children often wounds us by instilling biases that create narratives that stunt our growth. As Owens wrote, unlearning biases, seeking to heal the wounds within us, and letting go of our attachment to ‘being good’ is not easy to do. It will be hard, but it is the only way to truly grow as a person and build more holistic and healthier communities.
Part of understanding our own narratives requires us to understand not just our biases but also our strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and especially our limitations. For disabled people, understanding our limitations is forced on us by the nature of our disability, thus we must consider our limitations in order to navigate a day without causing painful flare-ups or other frustrating and/or painful reactions within our bodies.
When I do trainings about disability or about trans issues, I often ask participants to step into our shoes for a day. To imagine themselves living the narrative disabled and/or trans people often face. I may use myself as an example or a friend may assist me and offer up their narrative. We then walk the participants through our stories, and through that, we can build a shared empathy. That empathy becomes the foundation for further dialogue.
NAVIGATING A DAY
So how do I navigate a day as a disabled trans and queer person? The first step for me is analyzing my energy. I do this partly based on how I feel and some of my vitals, but I must also carefully analyze each step I take. I must analyze the words I say and who I share my story with — where I must assess the risk level with sharing based on where I am, who is present, and whether there is a safe way to exit if the situation turns toxic or too exhausting to continue.
Before I get ahead of myself, I’ll start with how I pace my actions to avoid painful flare-ups that can leave me bedridden. I start this practice when I am still in bed.
I open up the Visible app and log my sleep and vitals — this app was made for disabled people by disabled people and uses a mathematical formula based on research to calculate a score between 1 and 5 for my stability for the day. It does this by detecting the pulse in my finger and the minute changes in skin coloration from the blood flow in my finger. Today rates me a three and suggests I pace myself gently today. To simplify this analyzing, I use spoon theory, where each spoon represents energy required to do a task.
I slowly sit up to take my morning/day meds for the day. I keep a cup of water by my bed for this purpose. Cetaphil Face Cleanser sits by my bed, so I can do a dry bath. I rub it on my face and neck and a few other areas and wipe it away, which uses up half a spoon. I can’t do my whole body as that would be one too many spoons, so I leave it at that.
I pet my cats and slowly stand — if I stand too quickly I become lightheaded and may pass out — then I grab my mobility device (cane, arm crutches, rollator, or wheelchair) and navigate to the bathroom to use the toilet, dress for the day, and brush my teeth. This takes half a spoon. I have now used up one spoon simply waking up and washing up for the day.
After the bathroom, I prepare a cup of tea and select a morning snack. I return to my bedroom and assess my energy levels again. Preparing for the day has used two spoons, and I have only five today. On other days I might have six spoons, but I generally sleep and stay in bed all day to prepare for six spoon days.
Since I only have three spoons left, I boot up my computer to write, check email, check Discord and/or Signal chats, and listen to music. This will use up two spoons. That leaves my final spoon for my cats, where I feed them and play with them and clean their litter boxes.
When it is time for bed, I will take my night meds, wash up in bathroom, and read or play puzzles on my phone with its blue-light filter on until I fall asleep. This is half a spoon that I often forget to account for throughout my day.
If I plan to leave the house, I must rest the day before to prepare for a six spoon day, where five spoons is used to leave the house, go to my destination, do the activity or appointment at my destination, and return home to recover and care for my cats. Thus I only have one spoon for washing up, cat time, and eating.
If I take a shower, I will lose up to two spoons, which is why I schedule showers for a day where I do not need to leave the house. On days I must leave the house, I resort to a dry bath using Cetaphil cleanser and Rinse and Clear shampoo/conditioner.
Sometimes I must use up spoons I simply don’t have. When I push myself like this, those spoons come from future days, meaning I will crash. A crash describes how the body, overcome with fatigue from lack of sufficient energy or from intense pain will resort to forced rest, where one simply can’t get up do to an activity. On those days I have no choice but to rest as my body will not be responsive to much else. Crashes can last days, and for some disabled people can cause a backslides in their pacing and/or healing journeys.
By walking through what navigating my life is like and inviting others to do the same, where we endeavor to keep an open mind, to actively listen, we can lay a foundation for further dialogue and understanding. It’s part of how we rebuild our internal narratives.
SPOON THEORY
Since I have evaluated how I navigate my day using ‘spoons,’ let’s discuss what exactly spoon theory is.
It was developed by Christine Miserandino, when she spoke to a friend in early 2000s about her Lupus. She decided on spoons to illustrate to her friend the difficulties of navigating through a day. She asked her friend to describe how she walked through a day, but Christine would gently interrupt and share how each task cost either a full spoon or half a spoon — brushing her teeth, showering, leaving the bed and dressing, making breakfast or tea, eating breakfast, cleaning up after breakfast, preparing to leave, getting in the vehicle, the act of driving, leaving the vehicle, entering the destination, etc.
Since she had limited spoons it meant each time she left the house, she had to carefully evaluate whether she had energy for anything else. The friend was stunned because just describing her own day and using Christine’s limited spoons meant the friend wouldn’t make it through the day safely.
Christine shared this theory at the 2010 Lupus Conference and in various blog posts. Many disabled people caught wind of it, and soon ‘spoonies’ became a term some disabled people decided to call themselves.
Many disabilities can eat up a person’s energy, which makes navigating the tasks in a day difficult. The spoon theory has become a useful tool in discussing energy-limited diseases and how we navigate them. In a way, it offers abled-bodied people a glimpse into the lives of disabled people, and that can assist in fostering empathy.
Using spoon theory can build a narrative that describes disability in a relatable way. This can help with unlearning biases about what disabled people can or can’t do. Often, abled-bodied (nondisabled) people unconsciously react to disabled people by speaking and behaving as if they know more than disabled people about the disabled person’s own limitations and needs. Spoon theory helps break down that bias to reveal the truth of the disabled person’s experience, which can help open dialogue between us and others.
PACING AND ABLEIST NARRATIVES
When I attempt to describe the above to people, some people will ask why I just don’t push through and overcome this. Our culture teaches us from a young age that the only way to success is through pushing oneself hard, to not give up, to see the body as a tool to force into the mold one needs to succeed. Except that’s not how bodies function; the body isn’t a machine but a living organism that can easily break down due to illness, injury, insufficient nutrition or oxygen, allergies, etc.
Overcoming one’s own body pushes the consequences overextending ourselves to a future date, where our bodies will retaliate and force us to rest. Some people term this burn-out, which is a lovely term that encompasses not just a physical crash but also an emotional and/or mental crash.
That’s another phenomenon that people do not realize is possible — we can crash due to being overwhelmed from emotions or heavy mental activity. For example, many a friend, who worked on their PhD, admit to feeling burnt out by the time they finish. They often did little physical activity but intense mental activities, so they share frustration and confusion with me on why they feel burnt out. Part of that frustration stems from the narrative society and/or our parents built that dismisses the impact heavy mental activities have on a person’s wellbeing and health. We may be unaware this narrative exists within us, but recovering from burnout often can’t progress until we unlearn that biased narrative.
Our brain uses twenty percent of our body’s energy, and when we are engaged in a cognitive activity this can increase energy usage between five to seven percent depending on the task. We often forget how our brain is the most energy-taxing organ in our body. So when it is heavily used without must rest, our brains can decide enough is enough and force us into resting because not enough energy exists to execute the cognitive activity.
For abled-bodied — as in non-disabled people — many are in denial about these realities. They simply do not wish to acknowledge their bodies have limits, that they might someday end up disabled. The narrative about disability being bad stems from society’s classifying disabled people as a disposable class. Even if a person may not be taught directly this history, these narratives of disabled people as ‘less than’ can still be instilled in a person just by navigating their capitalist society’s productivity norms.
Marta Russel writes in Capitalism and Disability about the origin of disability as a disposable class:
“With the advent of capitalism, people were no longer tied to the land, but they were forced to find work that would pay a wage — or starve; and as production became industrialized people’s bodies were increasingly valued for their ability to function like machines.
Bosses could push non-disabled workers to produce at ever increasing rates of speed. Factory discipline, time-keeping and production norms broke with the slower, more self-determined and flexible work pattern into which many disabled people had been integrated.’ As work became more rationalized, requiring precise mechanical movements of the body, repeated in quicker succession, impaired persons — the deaf or blind, and those with mobility difficulties — were seen as — and, without job accommodations to meet their impairments, were — less ‘fit’ to do the tasks required of factory workers, and were increasingly excluded from paid employment…”
This focus on production shifted the values of society more toward who is productive versus who is not productive. It built a narrative around this ideology and socialized it into the workforce through job trainings, various educational experiences, and how we are taught about the world in childhood by parental figures and educators.
In turn, these narratives built a negative connotation around disability. Russell continues:
… as a result, disabled persons came to be regarded as a social problem and a justification emerged for segregating them out of mainstream life and into a variety of institutions, including workhouses, asylums, prisons, colonies and special schools…
.. being categorized as ‘disabled’, however, and the subsequent impoverishment that so many face when struggling to survive on disability benefits, serves another class function: it generates a very realistic fear among workers of becoming disabled. At base, the inadequate safety net is a product of the owning class’s fear of losing full control of what they do with the means of production; the American work ethic is a mechanism of social control that ensures capitalists a reliable work force for making profits. If workers were provided with a social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, labour would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment. American business retains its power over the working-class through a fear of destitution that would be weakened if the safety net were to actually become safe.”
Within capitalist societies, this narrative of disposable classes unconsciously influences how we react to limitations, to disabled people in general, and to witnessing someone experiencing hardships.
People often may not realize how much historical views, events, and ideologies can influence our interactions and how we are socialized today. These unconscious biases and unexamined narratives influence how we react to other people, to situations, and how we navigate our days.
Disability, due to how capitalism prioritizes production, has been labeled ‘disposable,’ and capitalism often uses it as a fear tactic to control the workforce. This bias then becomes embedded within the narratives people unconsciously build about themselves and other people. in turn, those narratives can often be painted over the person we interact with, thus failing to see the person as they actually are.
In the case of that gaming group, several members, who engaged in ableist microaggressions, had failed to examine their own biases about limitations, disabled people, and narratives of productivity. So when I presented them with my marginalized experience that directly contradicted their unexamined narratives, they choose to react defensively rather than meeting me halfway to build understanding.
Understanding often fails when these biased narratives, especially denial of one’s limitations, turns a person too defensive and retaliatory. Often in these cases, the person who tried to hold them accountable is punished for speaking up. This breaks down trust within the group, impedes understanding, and seeds the group with negative narratives surrounding conflict, limitations, and accountability.
Yet, we cannot fully realize our own potentials without assessing our limitations and examining the narratives we tell ourselves. Our bodies are not limitless energy sources no matter how carefully we care for it, and anyone can become ill or injured at any time, which can limit oneself further. The idea society taught us of “overcoming our limitations” sets an impossible standard that often injuries people in attempts to reach that perfect state. It is far healthier to find ways to work around our limitations, while respecting what our bodies have to tell us.
Pacing is the term used to describe how one works within their limitations, while respecting what truths our bodies may share about such limitations. For those of us with energy-limited diseases, we must learn the art of pacing, but this concept isn’t unique to disabled people.
Everyone needs to pace themselves in order to navigate a day, but they may not realize that is what it is. When people craft schedules and determine what they will work on in a day and what they save for another day — that’s the start of pacing work. The next step is facing one’s limitations and factoring our health and wellbeing into planning.
However, if the person is in denial about their limitation, if they have attached themselves to society’s perfection ideal, they increase the risk of burnout, injury, and/or illness. It also blocks understanding of other people, thus breaking attempts at dialogue.
Part of unlearning that harmful narrative of denial about limitations involves addressing the narratives we build about ourselves and other people. We cannot build healthier communities if we are unable to address the unexamined narratives and biases that poison our waters.
The narratives we tell ourselves play a major role in all we think and do, so it is crucial to examine them if we are to build empathy and dialogue with one another. This takes effort and work to allow oneself to be held accountable for harms done, and to unlearn inaccurate and biased narratives. This journey isn’t easy to do, but then building truly loving and healthy communities is never easy.
To end on a hopeful note, Amanda Leduc, a disabled author, writes:
“If society is used to not seeing disabled people in stories, society becomes used to not seeing disabled people in real life. If society is used to not seeing disabled people in real life, society will continue to build a world that makes it exceedingly difficult for disabled people to participate in said world, thus perpetuating the problem. In this world, there is no need for a wheelchair ramp because hardly anyone who wins an award will need one to get onstage. But what if we took it for granted that anyone, regardless of ability, might be able to achieve [that award], and built our stages and our environments accordingly?
It is time for us to tell different stories.”
#accountability #biases #buildingCommunity #chronicIllness #communication #disability #disabilityJustice #disabled #empathyBuilding #health #laborHistory #mentalHealth #narratives #oppression #stereotypes
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Narratives, Pacing, and Conundrum of Ableism
The day starts cold, the wind brisk, and the pain I feel simmers at the usual 5 out of 10 pain scale. It is rare for it to drop below 5, even with pain meds like Tynelol, but after awhile, the body grows accustomed to the pain, making it an annoying background noise at best. Other days it consumes my awareness like a furious tornado, and that is when I know the flare-up has started.
When it comes to being disabled, I’m hyperaware of many different factors, which I have to be to navigate a world that is often not accessible and a minefield of ableism. To avoid the minefield, I hyperanalyze the words I say, and will try different communication styles.
This can prove exhausting over time because I am a human being not a programmable robot. Thus when I am upset, I tend toward very direct language to describe why I’m upset and my exact emotions.
NARRATIVES WE TELL OURSELVES
The narrative I tell myself has its roots in how I was socialized growing up, the experiences I’ve had throughout my life, the oppression I’ve faced, the healing and good things I’ve done, and the harmful things I’ve done. No one person is ever perfect, but some may feel that drive to be perfect, to set impossible standards. I have spent many an hour examining the narratives I tell myself in order to unlearn the biased and unhealthy narratives that impede communication and empathy.
Some of the narratives we hold derive from societal narratives. For example, we live in a culture that villianizes neurodivergent communication and thinking styles, thus being direct can be viewed as ‘aggressive,’ ‘too emotional,’ and/or ‘illogical.’ Even if we provide logical and rational thoughts, because of the ‘directness’ the content of our words is ignored in favor of how the neurotypical, non-disabled person perceived our tone. A story is written in their head that superimposes over us, and thus we cease to be a person. Tone-policing is one way this retaliation to our words can manifest, through the critiques of our ‘tone’ and dismissing of the content of our words.
When we interact with one another, we build stories of ourselves and those people in our head. If we are not conscious of this act, the stories built often are riddled with stereotypes about various groups of people rather than based on who the person actually is. These stories — or narratives — are also influenced by the culture within which we live, our upbringing, societal norms, community norms, and how we’re educated and by whom and various historical events.
Humans are a story-telling species. We love to share stories with one another, and through this sharing of stories, we create community and a sense of safety. Building community can also go awry the same way our story-telling may — the biases that society socialized into us can contaminate the community-building if left unchecked. Unlearning our biases is a life-long practice and not easy to do, but if we are to build authentic, accessible, inclusive, and loving communities then the work of unlearning biases must be done.
It takes effort and practice to meditate on the stories we build of others and the places in which we exist. By meditating on the stories we craft, we can carefully edit the biases and untrue narratives and replace with more accurate evidence based on what is shared with us, what we witness, and knowledge we’ve gained. This skill must be taught and practiced, and even then, it is still possible to run awry of biases that sneak in periodically, especially if we have not yet admitted or discovered the bias within ourselves.
However, when people’s biases are confronted, regardless of how — whether directly or subtly — defensiveness may rear up to blockade communication and retaliate against whoever confronted us.
As a disabled trans queer person, I have learned that confronting people on their biases and microaggressions can cause this defensiveness, where they cease to see me as a person. Instead, a story is built up for them to defeat, which in turn dismisses my words in order to preserve their view of themself as a ‘good person.’
It is this attachment to ‘being a good person’ that can stifle our growth and ability to build community with others. Lama Rod Owens in Love and Rage: the Path of Liberation through Anger writes:
“We’ve learned how to pack everything away, because we’re really invested in being good people. You may say, “I am a good person. I am not a misogynist. I am not transphobic. I’m a good person.” Sometimes being a good person or my attachment to being a good person actually gets in the way of me looking at all the rough spots, at all the shadows that I’m working with.”
That story all of us have built of ourselves is often riddled with unconscious biases, especially if we are unwilling to acknowledge those biases exist.
For example, in a gaming community I frequented, a member would consistently ignore what I shared about obstacles I faced due to the systems within our society and within communities. In response, this person would say: “The only obstacle is yourself, and you can overcome anything!”
Except this is a denial of everything I’d shared about obstacles outside my control. When I confronted the person to attempt a dialog about how hurtful this ableist microaggression was, the person became defensive and retaliated. Other people jumped in to join sides and it transformed into a battleground instead of being a simple dialog. In the end, the harm caused by that person’s words ends up brushed aside as the dialogue becomes about their feeling uncomfortable at being held accountable.
When another person seeks to hold us accountable, they are trusting us with the knowledge of their hurt, and they are sharing hope that healing and growth can still occur. Being held accountable isn’t meant to be an attack or to label someone as ‘bad,’ but meant to build community and dialogue for healing. Conflict will happen in any community, but if the conflict is brushed aside to keep the illusion of ‘peace and harmony’ than those harmed are further wounded by this lack of empathy and care. The narratives the group has built around accountability become an impediment to their growth and empathy.
In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. Thom writes:
“‘The first step: Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Part of the reason one may fall into seeing it as an accusation or attack is this attachment to ‘being a good person.’ In the case of that gaming group, the person refused to accept my experience because it collided with what they thought ‘being a good person’ is. I had disrupted their story of their own self, and instead of sitting with that uncomfortable feelings and working through it, the person lashed out instead.
The attachment we have to ‘being a good person’ often is the root of our defensiveness. Other roots may be wounds a person has that they are in denial about or are in the process of healing, or roots in how they are socialized.
So when defensiveness happens, it places those harmed in an impossible position — how do we hold dialogue with the other person without placing ourselves in danger of being hurt further? If the other person will not meet us halfway by enacting Thom’s steps, then healing cannot happen. That wound between me and the other person causes a rift, that can easily become impassable.
Lama Rod Owens writes:
“Look at how the narratives keep us from actually doing the really important work of liberation within our own experience. It’s not supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be really uncomfortable. If it were easy and fun, everyone would be doing it.”
“People come to me and say, “Oh, this practice that you gave me, it hasn’t helped me feel good.” I get that, because when I started my practice, it didn’t feel good either. I felt as if I was suffering more. I wasn’t. I was finally paying attention to how I’ve always felt. It’s really not fun, but it definitely gets better. It gets better because I learned how to get really curious about my experience. I learned how to be re-embodied and to actually understand that all these really difficult experiences I was having were composite — there were all these different pieces of things smashed together.”
The socialization we received as children often wounds us by instilling biases that create narratives that stunt our growth. As Owens wrote, unlearning biases, seeking to heal the wounds within us, and letting go of our attachment to ‘being good’ is not easy to do. It will be hard, but it is the only way to truly grow as a person and build more holistic and healthier communities.
Part of understanding our own narratives requires us to understand not just our biases but also our strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and especially our limitations. For disabled people, understanding our limitations is forced on us by the nature of our disability, thus we must consider our limitations in order to navigate a day without causing painful flare-ups or other frustrating and/or painful reactions within our bodies.
When I do trainings about disability or about trans issues, I often ask participants to step into our shoes for a day. To imagine themselves living the narrative disabled and/or trans people often face. I may use myself as an example or a friend may assist me and offer up their narrative. We then walk the participants through our stories, and through that, we can build a shared empathy. That empathy becomes the foundation for further dialogue.
NAVIGATING A DAY
So how do I navigate a day as a disabled trans and queer person? The first step for me is analyzing my energy. I do this partly based on how I feel and some of my vitals, but I must also carefully analyze each step I take. I must analyze the words I say and who I share my story with — where I must assess the risk level with sharing based on where I am, who is present, and whether there is a safe way to exit if the situation turns toxic or too exhausting to continue.
Before I get ahead of myself, I’ll start with how I pace my actions to avoid painful flare-ups that can leave me bedridden. I start this practice when I am still in bed.
I open up the Visible app and log my sleep and vitals — this app was made for disabled people by disabled people and uses a mathematical formula based on research to calculate a score between 1 and 5 for my stability for the day. It does this by detecting the pulse in my finger and the minute changes in skin coloration from the blood flow in my finger. Today rates me a three and suggests I pace myself gently today. To simplify this analyzing, I use spoon theory, where each spoon represents energy required to do a task.
I slowly sit up to take my morning/day meds for the day. I keep a cup of water by my bed for this purpose. Cetaphil Face Cleanser sits by my bed, so I can do a dry bath. I rub it on my face and neck and a few other areas and wipe it away, which uses up half a spoon. I can’t do my whole body as that would be one too many spoons, so I leave it at that.
I pet my cats and slowly stand — if I stand too quickly I become lightheaded and may pass out — then I grab my mobility device (cane, arm crutches, rollator, or wheelchair) and navigate to the bathroom to use the toilet, dress for the day, and brush my teeth. This takes half a spoon. I have now used up one spoon simply waking up and washing up for the day.
After the bathroom, I prepare a cup of tea and select a morning snack. I return to my bedroom and assess my energy levels again. Preparing for the day has used two spoons, and I have only five today. On other days I might have six spoons, but I generally sleep and stay in bed all day to prepare for six spoon days.
Since I only have three spoons left, I boot up my computer to write, check email, check Discord and/or Signal chats, and listen to music. This will use up two spoons. That leaves my final spoon for my cats, where I feed them and play with them and clean their litter boxes.
When it is time for bed, I will take my night meds, wash up in bathroom, and read or play puzzles on my phone with its blue-light filter on until I fall asleep. This is half a spoon that I often forget to account for throughout my day.
If I plan to leave the house, I must rest the day before to prepare for a six spoon day, where five spoons is used to leave the house, go to my destination, do the activity or appointment at my destination, and return home to recover and care for my cats. Thus I only have one spoon for washing up, cat time, and eating.
If I take a shower, I will lose up to two spoons, which is why I schedule showers for a day where I do not need to leave the house. On days I must leave the house, I resort to a dry bath using Cetaphil cleanser and Rinse and Clear shampoo/conditioner.
Sometimes I must use up spoons I simply don’t have. When I push myself like this, those spoons come from future days, meaning I will crash. A crash describes how the body, overcome with fatigue from lack of sufficient energy or from intense pain will resort to forced rest, where one simply can’t get up do to an activity. On those days I have no choice but to rest as my body will not be responsive to much else. Crashes can last days, and for some disabled people can cause a backslides in their pacing and/or healing journeys.
By walking through what navigating my life is like and inviting others to do the same, where we endeavor to keep an open mind, to actively listen, we can lay a foundation for further dialogue and understanding. It’s part of how we rebuild our internal narratives.
SPOON THEORY
Since I have evaluated how I navigate my day using ‘spoons,’ let’s discuss what exactly spoon theory is.
It was developed by Christine Miserandino, when she spoke to a friend in early 2000s about her Lupus. She decided on spoons to illustrate to her friend the difficulties of navigating through a day. She asked her friend to describe how she walked through a day, but Christine would gently interrupt and share how each task cost either a full spoon or half a spoon — brushing her teeth, showering, leaving the bed and dressing, making breakfast or tea, eating breakfast, cleaning up after breakfast, preparing to leave, getting in the vehicle, the act of driving, leaving the vehicle, entering the destination, etc.
Since she had limited spoons it meant each time she left the house, she had to carefully evaluate whether she had energy for anything else. The friend was stunned because just describing her own day and using Christine’s limited spoons meant the friend wouldn’t make it through the day safely.
Christine shared this theory at the 2010 Lupus Conference and in various blog posts. Many disabled people caught wind of it, and soon ‘spoonies’ became a term some disabled people decided to call themselves.
Many disabilities can eat up a person’s energy, which makes navigating the tasks in a day difficult. The spoon theory has become a useful tool in discussing energy-limited diseases and how we navigate them. In a way, it offers abled-bodied people a glimpse into the lives of disabled people, and that can assist in fostering empathy.
Using spoon theory can build a narrative that describes disability in a relatable way. This can help with unlearning biases about what disabled people can or can’t do. Often, abled-bodied (nondisabled) people unconsciously react to disabled people by speaking and behaving as if they know more than disabled people about the disabled person’s own limitations and needs. Spoon theory helps break down that bias to reveal the truth of the disabled person’s experience, which can help open dialogue between us and others.
PACING AND ABLEIST NARRATIVES
When I attempt to describe the above to people, some people will ask why I just don’t push through and overcome this. Our culture teaches us from a young age that the only way to success is through pushing oneself hard, to not give up, to see the body as a tool to force into the mold one needs to succeed. Except that’s not how bodies function; the body isn’t a machine but a living organism that can easily break down due to illness, injury, insufficient nutrition or oxygen, allergies, etc.
Overcoming one’s own body pushes the consequences overextending ourselves to a future date, where our bodies will retaliate and force us to rest. Some people term this burn-out, which is a lovely term that encompasses not just a physical crash but also an emotional and/or mental crash.
That’s another phenomenon that people do not realize is possible — we can crash due to being overwhelmed from emotions or heavy mental activity. For example, many a friend, who worked on their PhD, admit to feeling burnt out by the time they finish. They often did little physical activity but intense mental activities, so they share frustration and confusion with me on why they feel burnt out. Part of that frustration stems from the narrative society and/or our parents built that dismisses the impact heavy mental activities have on a person’s wellbeing and health. We may be unaware this narrative exists within us, but recovering from burnout often can’t progress until we unlearn that biased narrative.
Our brain uses twenty percent of our body’s energy, and when we are engaged in a cognitive activity this can increase energy usage between five to seven percent depending on the task. We often forget how our brain is the most energy-taxing organ in our body. So when it is heavily used without must rest, our brains can decide enough is enough and force us into resting because not enough energy exists to execute the cognitive activity.
For abled-bodied — as in non-disabled people — many are in denial about these realities. They simply do not wish to acknowledge their bodies have limits, that they might someday end up disabled. The narrative about disability being bad stems from society’s classifying disabled people as a disposable class. Even if a person may not be taught directly this history, these narratives of disabled people as ‘less than’ can still be instilled in a person just by navigating their capitalist society’s productivity norms.
Marta Russel writes in Capitalism and Disability about the origin of disability as a disposable class:
“With the advent of capitalism, people were no longer tied to the land, but they were forced to find work that would pay a wage — or starve; and as production became industrialized people’s bodies were increasingly valued for their ability to function like machines.
Bosses could push non-disabled workers to produce at ever increasing rates of speed. Factory discipline, time-keeping and production norms broke with the slower, more self-determined and flexible work pattern into which many disabled people had been integrated.’ As work became more rationalized, requiring precise mechanical movements of the body, repeated in quicker succession, impaired persons — the deaf or blind, and those with mobility difficulties — were seen as — and, without job accommodations to meet their impairments, were — less ‘fit’ to do the tasks required of factory workers, and were increasingly excluded from paid employment…”
This focus on production shifted the values of society more toward who is productive versus who is not productive. It built a narrative around this ideology and socialized it into the workforce through job trainings, various educational experiences, and how we are taught about the world in childhood by parental figures and educators.
In turn, these narratives built a negative connotation around disability. Russell continues:
… as a result, disabled persons came to be regarded as a social problem and a justification emerged for segregating them out of mainstream life and into a variety of institutions, including workhouses, asylums, prisons, colonies and special schools…
.. being categorized as ‘disabled’, however, and the subsequent impoverishment that so many face when struggling to survive on disability benefits, serves another class function: it generates a very realistic fear among workers of becoming disabled. At base, the inadequate safety net is a product of the owning class’s fear of losing full control of what they do with the means of production; the American work ethic is a mechanism of social control that ensures capitalists a reliable work force for making profits. If workers were provided with a social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, labour would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment. American business retains its power over the working-class through a fear of destitution that would be weakened if the safety net were to actually become safe.”
Within capitalist societies, this narrative of disposable classes unconsciously influences how we react to limitations, to disabled people in general, and to witnessing someone experiencing hardships.
People often may not realize how much historical views, events, and ideologies can influence our interactions and how we are socialized today. These unconscious biases and unexamined narratives influence how we react to other people, to situations, and how we navigate our days.
Disability, due to how capitalism prioritizes production, has been labeled ‘disposable,’ and capitalism often uses it as a fear tactic to control the workforce. This bias then becomes embedded within the narratives people unconsciously build about themselves and other people. in turn, those narratives can often be painted over the person we interact with, thus failing to see the person as they actually are.
In the case of that gaming group, several members, who engaged in ableist microaggressions, had failed to examine their own biases about limitations, disabled people, and narratives of productivity. So when I presented them with my marginalized experience that directly contradicted their unexamined narratives, they choose to react defensively rather than meeting me halfway to build understanding.
Understanding often fails when these biased narratives, especially denial of one’s limitations, turns a person too defensive and retaliatory. Often in these cases, the person who tried to hold them accountable is punished for speaking up. This breaks down trust within the group, impedes understanding, and seeds the group with negative narratives surrounding conflict, limitations, and accountability.
Yet, we cannot fully realize our own potentials without assessing our limitations and examining the narratives we tell ourselves. Our bodies are not limitless energy sources no matter how carefully we care for it, and anyone can become ill or injured at any time, which can limit oneself further. The idea society taught us of “overcoming our limitations” sets an impossible standard that often injuries people in attempts to reach that perfect state. It is far healthier to find ways to work around our limitations, while respecting what our bodies have to tell us.
Pacing is the term used to describe how one works within their limitations, while respecting what truths our bodies may share about such limitations. For those of us with energy-limited diseases, we must learn the art of pacing, but this concept isn’t unique to disabled people.
Everyone needs to pace themselves in order to navigate a day, but they may not realize that is what it is. When people craft schedules and determine what they will work on in a day and what they save for another day — that’s the start of pacing work. The next step is facing one’s limitations and factoring our health and wellbeing into planning.
However, if the person is in denial about their limitation, if they have attached themselves to society’s perfection ideal, they increase the risk of burnout, injury, and/or illness. It also blocks understanding of other people, thus breaking attempts at dialogue.
Part of unlearning that harmful narrative of denial about limitations involves addressing the narratives we build about ourselves and other people. We cannot build healthier communities if we are unable to address the unexamined narratives and biases that poison our waters.
The narratives we tell ourselves play a major role in all we think and do, so it is crucial to examine them if we are to build empathy and dialogue with one another. This takes effort and work to allow oneself to be held accountable for harms done, and to unlearn inaccurate and biased narratives. This journey isn’t easy to do, but then building truly loving and healthy communities is never easy.
To end on a hopeful note, Amanda Leduc, a disabled author, writes:
“If society is used to not seeing disabled people in stories, society becomes used to not seeing disabled people in real life. If society is used to not seeing disabled people in real life, society will continue to build a world that makes it exceedingly difficult for disabled people to participate in said world, thus perpetuating the problem. In this world, there is no need for a wheelchair ramp because hardly anyone who wins an award will need one to get onstage. But what if we took it for granted that anyone, regardless of ability, might be able to achieve [that award], and built our stages and our environments accordingly?
It is time for us to tell different stories.”
#accountability #biases #buildingCommunity #communication #disability #disabilityJustice #disabled #empathyBuilding #laborHistory #narratives #oppression #stereotypes
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Narratives, Pacing, and Conundrum of Ableism
The day starts cold, the wind brisk, and the pain I feel simmers at the usual 5 out of 10 pain scale. It is rare for it to drop below 5, even with pain meds like Tynelol, but after awhile, the body grows accustomed to the pain, making it an annoying background noise at best. Other days it consumes my awareness like a furious tornado, and that is when I know the flare-up has started.
When it comes to being disabled, I’m hyperaware of many different factors, which I have to be to navigate a world that is often not accessible and a minefield of ableism. To avoid the minefield, I hyperanalyze the words I say, and will try different communication styles.
This can prove exhausting over time because I am a human being not a programmable robot. Thus when I am upset, I tend toward very direct language to describe why I’m upset and my exact emotions.
NARRATIVES WE TELL OURSELVES
The narrative I tell myself has its roots in how I was socialized growing up, the experiences I’ve had throughout my life, the oppression I’ve faced, the healing and good things I’ve done, and the harmful things I’ve done. No one person is ever perfect, but some may feel that drive to be perfect, to set impossible standards. I have spent many an hour examining the narratives I tell myself in order to unlearn the biased and unhealthy narratives that impede communication and empathy.
Some of the narratives we hold derive from societal narratives. For example, we live in a culture that villianizes neurodivergent communication and thinking styles, thus being direct can be viewed as ‘aggressive,’ ‘too emotional,’ and/or ‘illogical.’ Even if we provide logical and rational thoughts, because of the ‘directness’ the content of our words is ignored in favor of how the neurotypical, non-disabled person perceived our tone. A story is written in their head that superimposes over us, and thus we cease to be a person. Tone-policing is one way this retaliation to our words can manifest, through the critiques of our ‘tone’ and dismissing of the content of our words.
When we interact with one another, we build stories of ourselves and those people in our head. If we are not conscious of this act, the stories built often are riddled with stereotypes about various groups of people rather than based on who the person actually is. These stories — or narratives — are also influenced by the culture within which we live, our upbringing, societal norms, community norms, and how we’re educated and by whom and various historical events.
Humans are a story-telling species. We love to share stories with one another, and through this sharing of stories, we create community and a sense of safety. Building community can also go awry the same way our story-telling may — the biases that society socialized into us can contaminate the community-building if left unchecked. Unlearning our biases is a life-long practice and not easy to do, but if we are to build authentic, accessible, inclusive, and loving communities then the work of unlearning biases must be done.
It takes effort and practice to meditate on the stories we build of others and the places in which we exist. By meditating on the stories we craft, we can carefully edit the biases and untrue narratives and replace with more accurate evidence based on what is shared with us, what we witness, and knowledge we’ve gained. This skill must be taught and practiced, and even then, it is still possible to run awry of biases that sneak in periodically, especially if we have not yet admitted or discovered the bias within ourselves.
However, when people’s biases are confronted, regardless of how — whether directly or subtly — defensiveness may rear up to blockade communication and retaliate against whoever confronted us.
As a disabled trans queer person, I have learned that confronting people on their biases and microaggressions can cause this defensiveness, where they cease to see me as a person. Instead, a story is built up for them to defeat, which in turn dismisses my words in order to preserve their view of themself as a ‘good person.’
It is this attachment to ‘being a good person’ that can stifle our growth and ability to build community with others. Lama Rod Owens in Love and Rage: the Path of Liberation through Anger writes:
“We’ve learned how to pack everything away, because we’re really invested in being good people. You may say, “I am a good person. I am not a misogynist. I am not transphobic. I’m a good person.” Sometimes being a good person or my attachment to being a good person actually gets in the way of me looking at all the rough spots, at all the shadows that I’m working with.”
That story all of us have built of ourselves is often riddled with unconscious biases, especially if we are unwilling to acknowledge those biases exist.
For example, in a gaming community I frequented, a member would consistently ignore what I shared about obstacles I faced due to the systems within our society and within communities. In response, this person would say: “The only obstacle is yourself, and you can overcome anything!”
Except this is a denial of everything I’d shared about obstacles outside my control. When I confronted the person to attempt a dialog about how hurtful this ableist microaggression was, the person became defensive and retaliated. Other people jumped in to join sides and it transformed into a battleground instead of being a simple dialog. In the end, the harm caused by that person’s words ends up brushed aside as the dialogue becomes about their feeling uncomfortable at being held accountable.
When another person seeks to hold us accountable, they are trusting us with the knowledge of their hurt, and they are sharing hope that healing and growth can still occur. Being held accountable isn’t meant to be an attack or to label someone as ‘bad,’ but meant to build community and dialogue for healing. Conflict will happen in any community, but if the conflict is brushed aside to keep the illusion of ‘peace and harmony’ than those harmed are further wounded by this lack of empathy and care. The narratives the group has built around accountability become an impediment to their growth and empathy.
In the Beyond Survival Anthology, Kai Cheng Thom’s essay called ‘What to Do when You’ve Been Abusive,’ has a list of steps to assist people on that journey toward accountability and healing. Thom writes:
“‘The first step: Learn to Listen When Someone Says You Have Hurt Them.’ When one has been abusive, the very first — and one of the most difficult — skills of holding oneself accountable is learning to simply listen to the person or people whom one has harmed:
- Listening without becoming defensive.
- Listening without trying to equivocate or make excuses.
- Listening without minimizing or denying the extent of the harm.
- Listening without trying to make oneself the center of the story being told.
When someone, particularly a partner or loved one, tells you that you have hurt or abused them, it can be easy to understand this as an accusation or attack…”
Part of the reason one may fall into seeing it as an accusation or attack is this attachment to ‘being a good person.’ In the case of that gaming group, the person refused to accept my experience because it collided with what they thought ‘being a good person’ is. I had disrupted their story of their own self, and instead of sitting with that uncomfortable feelings and working through it, the person lashed out instead.
The attachment we have to ‘being a good person’ often is the root of our defensiveness. Other roots may be wounds a person has that they are in denial about or are in the process of healing, or roots in how they are socialized.
So when defensiveness happens, it places those harmed in an impossible position — how do we hold dialogue with the other person without placing ourselves in danger of being hurt further? If the other person will not meet us halfway by enacting Thom’s steps, then healing cannot happen. That wound between me and the other person causes a rift, that can easily become impassable.
Lama Rod Owens writes:
“Look at how the narratives keep us from actually doing the really important work of liberation within our own experience. It’s not supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be really uncomfortable. If it were easy and fun, everyone would be doing it.”
“People come to me and say, “Oh, this practice that you gave me, it hasn’t helped me feel good.” I get that, because when I started my practice, it didn’t feel good either. I felt as if I was suffering more. I wasn’t. I was finally paying attention to how I’ve always felt. It’s really not fun, but it definitely gets better. It gets better because I learned how to get really curious about my experience. I learned how to be re-embodied and to actually understand that all these really difficult experiences I was having were composite — there were all these different pieces of things smashed together.”
The socialization we received as children often wounds us by instilling biases that create narratives that stunt our growth. As Owens wrote, unlearning biases, seeking to heal the wounds within us, and letting go of our attachment to ‘being good’ is not easy to do. It will be hard, but it is the only way to truly grow as a person and build more holistic and healthier communities.
Part of understanding our own narratives requires us to understand not just our biases but also our strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and especially our limitations. For disabled people, understanding our limitations is forced on us by the nature of our disability, thus we must consider our limitations in order to navigate a day without causing painful flare-ups or other frustrating and/or painful reactions within our bodies.
When I do trainings about disability or about trans issues, I often ask participants to step into our shoes for a day. To imagine themselves living the narrative disabled and/or trans people often face. I may use myself as an example or a friend may assist me and offer up their narrative. We then walk the participants through our stories, and through that, we can build a shared empathy. That empathy becomes the foundation for further dialogue.
NAVIGATING A DAY
So how do I navigate a day as a disabled trans and queer person? The first step for me is analyzing my energy. I do this partly based on how I feel and some of my vitals, but I must also carefully analyze each step I take. I must analyze the words I say and who I share my story with — where I must assess the risk level with sharing based on where I am, who is present, and whether there is a safe way to exit if the situation turns toxic or too exhausting to continue.
Before I get ahead of myself, I’ll start with how I pace my actions to avoid painful flare-ups that can leave me bedridden. I start this practice when I am still in bed.
I open up the Visible app and log my sleep and vitals — this app was made for disabled people by disabled people and uses a mathematical formula based on research to calculate a score between 1 and 5 for my stability for the day. It does this by detecting the pulse in my finger and the minute changes in skin coloration from the blood flow in my finger. Today rates me a three and suggests I pace myself gently today. To simplify this analyzing, I use spoon theory, where each spoon represents energy required to do a task.
I slowly sit up to take my morning/day meds for the day. I keep a cup of water by my bed for this purpose. Cetaphil Face Cleanser sits by my bed, so I can do a dry bath. I rub it on my face and neck and a few other areas and wipe it away, which uses up half a spoon. I can’t do my whole body as that would be one too many spoons, so I leave it at that.
I pet my cats and slowly stand — if I stand too quickly I become lightheaded and may pass out — then I grab my mobility device (cane, arm crutches, rollator, or wheelchair) and navigate to the bathroom to use the toilet, dress for the day, and brush my teeth. This takes half a spoon. I have now used up one spoon simply waking up and washing up for the day.
After the bathroom, I prepare a cup of tea and select a morning snack. I return to my bedroom and assess my energy levels again. Preparing for the day has used two spoons, and I have only five today. On other days I might have six spoons, but I generally sleep and stay in bed all day to prepare for six spoon days.
Since I only have three spoons left, I boot up my computer to write, check email, check Discord and/or Signal chats, and listen to music. This will use up two spoons. That leaves my final spoon for my cats, where I feed them and play with them and clean their litter boxes.
When it is time for bed, I will take my night meds, wash up in bathroom, and read or play puzzles on my phone with its blue-light filter on until I fall asleep. This is half a spoon that I often forget to account for throughout my day.
If I plan to leave the house, I must rest the day before to prepare for a six spoon day, where five spoons is used to leave the house, go to my destination, do the activity or appointment at my destination, and return home to recover and care for my cats. Thus I only have one spoon for washing up, cat time, and eating.
If I take a shower, I will lose up to two spoons, which is why I schedule showers for a day where I do not need to leave the house. On days I must leave the house, I resort to a dry bath using Cetaphil cleanser and Rinse and Clear shampoo/conditioner.
Sometimes I must use up spoons I simply don’t have. When I push myself like this, those spoons come from future days, meaning I will crash. A crash describes how the body, overcome with fatigue from lack of sufficient energy or from intense pain will resort to forced rest, where one simply can’t get up do to an activity. On those days I have no choice but to rest as my body will not be responsive to much else. Crashes can last days, and for some disabled people can cause a backslides in their pacing and/or healing journeys.
By walking through what navigating my life is like and inviting others to do the same, where we endeavor to keep an open mind, to actively listen, we can lay a foundation for further dialogue and understanding. It’s part of how we rebuild our internal narratives.
SPOON THEORY
Since I have evaluated how I navigate my day using ‘spoons,’ let’s discuss what exactly spoon theory is.
It was developed by Christine Miserandino, when she spoke to a friend in early 2000s about her Lupus. She decided on spoons to illustrate to her friend the difficulties of navigating through a day. She asked her friend to describe how she walked through a day, but Christine would gently interrupt and share how each task cost either a full spoon or half a spoon — brushing her teeth, showering, leaving the bed and dressing, making breakfast or tea, eating breakfast, cleaning up after breakfast, preparing to leave, getting in the vehicle, the act of driving, leaving the vehicle, entering the destination, etc.
Since she had limited spoons it meant each time she left the house, she had to carefully evaluate whether she had energy for anything else. The friend was stunned because just describing her own day and using Christine’s limited spoons meant the friend wouldn’t make it through the day safely.
Christine shared this theory at the 2010 Lupus Conference and in various blog posts. Many disabled people caught wind of it, and soon ‘spoonies’ became a term some disabled people decided to call themselves.
Many disabilities can eat up a person’s energy, which makes navigating the tasks in a day difficult. The spoon theory has become a useful tool in discussing energy-limited diseases and how we navigate them. In a way, it offers abled-bodied people a glimpse into the lives of disabled people, and that can assist in fostering empathy.
Using spoon theory can build a narrative that describes disability in a relatable way. This can help with unlearning biases about what disabled people can or can’t do. Often, abled-bodied (nondisabled) people unconsciously react to disabled people by speaking and behaving as if they know more than disabled people about the disabled person’s own limitations and needs. Spoon theory helps break down that bias to reveal the truth of the disabled person’s experience, which can help open dialogue between us and others.
PACING AND ABLEIST NARRATIVES
When I attempt to describe the above to people, some people will ask why I just don’t push through and overcome this. Our culture teaches us from a young age that the only way to success is through pushing oneself hard, to not give up, to see the body as a tool to force into the mold one needs to succeed. Except that’s not how bodies function; the body isn’t a machine but a living organism that can easily break down due to illness, injury, insufficient nutrition or oxygen, allergies, etc.
Overcoming one’s own body pushes the consequences overextending ourselves to a future date, where our bodies will retaliate and force us to rest. Some people term this burn-out, which is a lovely term that encompasses not just a physical crash but also an emotional and/or mental crash.
That’s another phenomenon that people do not realize is possible — we can crash due to being overwhelmed from emotions or heavy mental activity. For example, many a friend, who worked on their PhD, admit to feeling burnt out by the time they finish. They often did little physical activity but intense mental activities, so they share frustration and confusion with me on why they feel burnt out. Part of that frustration stems from the narrative society and/or our parents built that dismisses the impact heavy mental activities have on a person’s wellbeing and health. We may be unaware this narrative exists within us, but recovering from burnout often can’t progress until we unlearn that biased narrative.
Our brain uses twenty percent of our body’s energy, and when we are engaged in a cognitive activity this can increase energy usage between five to seven percent depending on the task. We often forget how our brain is the most energy-taxing organ in our body. So when it is heavily used without must rest, our brains can decide enough is enough and force us into resting because not enough energy exists to execute the cognitive activity.
For abled-bodied — as in non-disabled people — many are in denial about these realities. They simply do not wish to acknowledge their bodies have limits, that they might someday end up disabled. The narrative about disability being bad stems from society’s classifying disabled people as a disposable class. Even if a person may not be taught directly this history, these narratives of disabled people as ‘less than’ can still be instilled in a person just by navigating their capitalist society’s productivity norms.
Marta Russel writes in Capitalism and Disability about the origin of disability as a disposable class:
“With the advent of capitalism, people were no longer tied to the land, but they were forced to find work that would pay a wage — or starve; and as production became industrialized people’s bodies were increasingly valued for their ability to function like machines.
Bosses could push non-disabled workers to produce at ever increasing rates of speed. Factory discipline, time-keeping and production norms broke with the slower, more self-determined and flexible work pattern into which many disabled people had been integrated.’ As work became more rationalized, requiring precise mechanical movements of the body, repeated in quicker succession, impaired persons — the deaf or blind, and those with mobility difficulties — were seen as — and, without job accommodations to meet their impairments, were — less ‘fit’ to do the tasks required of factory workers, and were increasingly excluded from paid employment…”
This focus on production shifted the values of society more toward who is productive versus who is not productive. It built a narrative around this ideology and socialized it into the workforce through job trainings, various educational experiences, and how we are taught about the world in childhood by parental figures and educators.
In turn, these narratives built a negative connotation around disability. Russell continues:
… as a result, disabled persons came to be regarded as a social problem and a justification emerged for segregating them out of mainstream life and into a variety of institutions, including workhouses, asylums, prisons, colonies and special schools…
.. being categorized as ‘disabled’, however, and the subsequent impoverishment that so many face when struggling to survive on disability benefits, serves another class function: it generates a very realistic fear among workers of becoming disabled. At base, the inadequate safety net is a product of the owning class’s fear of losing full control of what they do with the means of production; the American work ethic is a mechanism of social control that ensures capitalists a reliable work force for making profits. If workers were provided with a social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, disability, and old age, labour would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment. American business retains its power over the working-class through a fear of destitution that would be weakened if the safety net were to actually become safe.”
Within capitalist societies, this narrative of disposable classes unconsciously influences how we react to limitations, to disabled people in general, and to witnessing someone experiencing hardships.
People often may not realize how much historical views, events, and ideologies can influence our interactions and how we are socialized today. These unconscious biases and unexamined narratives influence how we react to other people, to situations, and how we navigate our days.
Disability, due to how capitalism prioritizes production, has been labeled ‘disposable,’ and capitalism often uses it as a fear tactic to control the workforce. This bias then becomes embedded within the narratives people unconsciously build about themselves and other people. in turn, those narratives can often be painted over the person we interact with, thus failing to see the person as they actually are.
In the case of that gaming group, several members, who engaged in ableist microaggressions, had failed to examine their own biases about limitations, disabled people, and narratives of productivity. So when I presented them with my marginalized experience that directly contradicted their unexamined narratives, they choose to react defensively rather than meeting me halfway to build understanding.
Understanding often fails when these biased narratives, especially denial of one’s limitations, turns a person too defensive and retaliatory. Often in these cases, the person who tried to hold them accountable is punished for speaking up. This breaks down trust within the group, impedes understanding, and seeds the group with negative narratives surrounding conflict, limitations, and accountability.
Yet, we cannot fully realize our own potentials without assessing our limitations and examining the narratives we tell ourselves. Our bodies are not limitless energy sources no matter how carefully we care for it, and anyone can become ill or injured at any time, which can limit oneself further. The idea society taught us of “overcoming our limitations” sets an impossible standard that often injuries people in attempts to reach that perfect state. It is far healthier to find ways to work around our limitations, while respecting what our bodies have to tell us.
Pacing is the term used to describe how one works within their limitations, while respecting what truths our bodies may share about such limitations. For those of us with energy-limited diseases, we must learn the art of pacing, but this concept isn’t unique to disabled people.
Everyone needs to pace themselves in order to navigate a day, but they may not realize that is what it is. When people craft schedules and determine what they will work on in a day and what they save for another day — that’s the start of pacing work. The next step is facing one’s limitations and factoring our health and wellbeing into planning.
However, if the person is in denial about their limitation, if they have attached themselves to society’s perfection ideal, they increase the risk of burnout, injury, and/or illness. It also blocks understanding of other people, thus breaking attempts at dialogue.
Part of unlearning that harmful narrative of denial about limitations involves addressing the narratives we build about ourselves and other people. We cannot build healthier communities if we are unable to address the unexamined narratives and biases that poison our waters.
The narratives we tell ourselves play a major role in all we think and do, so it is crucial to examine them if we are to build empathy and dialogue with one another. This takes effort and work to allow oneself to be held accountable for harms done, and to unlearn inaccurate and biased narratives. This journey isn’t easy to do, but then building truly loving and healthy communities is never easy.
To end on a hopeful note, Amanda Leduc, a disabled author, writes:
“If society is used to not seeing disabled people in stories, society becomes used to not seeing disabled people in real life. If society is used to not seeing disabled people in real life, society will continue to build a world that makes it exceedingly difficult for disabled people to participate in said world, thus perpetuating the problem. In this world, there is no need for a wheelchair ramp because hardly anyone who wins an award will need one to get onstage. But what if we took it for granted that anyone, regardless of ability, might be able to achieve [that award], and built our stages and our environments accordingly?
It is time for us to tell different stories.”
#accountability #biases #buildingCommunity #chronicIllness #communication #disability #disabilityJustice #disabled #empathyBuilding #health #laborHistory #mentalHealth #narratives #oppression #stereotypes
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#StitchIt, Don’t ditch it: Resisting #FastFashion through #VisibleMending
Kaja Šeruga
Fri, June 13, 2025"Once a month between April and October, a group of stitchers takes to the streets of #EdinburghScotland, making themselves comfortable on camping chairs decorated with hand-embroidered banners inviting people to #stitchitdontditchit. Equipped with sewing baskets and mending skills, they repair their garments in public and teach interested passers-by how to do the same.
"The #EdinburghStreetStitchers, as they call themselves, are part of a growing movement that is reclaiming the ancient art of mending. Historically, mending was done in private and in ways that concealed, rather than announced, the repair. Choosing instead to mend visibly—whether through the color of the stitching or by doing it in a public location—is a statement and a conversation starter, Reasons to be Cheerful says.
" 'You are clearly stating that you have kept this from a #landfill,' says Kate Sekules, a mender who teaches fashion history at the Pratt Institute in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, and is pursuing a PhD in the history and theory of mending. 'It’s also got the advantage of making everything you own unique and special. And when you’ve invested time and energy and thought and craft into your clothing, you value it so much more.'
"Inspired by the global #StreetStitching movement, the former pharmacist Mary Morton started the #Edinburgh group in 2022, three years after a discussion with her son sent her down a rabbit hole of research and learning about the #ClimateCrisis. 'At the end of all of that, I was absolutely horrified. I thought, ‘What can I do about it?' she recalls.
"Volunteering at the #SHRUBCooperative, which is working to reduce waste in Edinburgh, she learned about the high carbon impact of textiles—producing a kilogram of fabric releases 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases on average. 'I’ve always done a bit of sewing, so I thought teaching people how to sew and repair their garments was something I could do to help,' says Morton. She started teaching sewing at the cooperative’s #ZeroWaste Hub, but quickly realized she was preaching to the choir. 'I wanted to do something to reach out to the broader community and make them aware of the situation,' she says.
"The term 'fast fashion' was coined by the New York Times in 1989 to describe Zara’s business model, which turned a designer’s idea into a garment available to consumers in only 15 days. Today’s ultra-fast fashion retailers have further accelerated the pace of production: #Shein, for example, has created 52 micro-seasons per year and adds up to 10,000 items to its website each day. With plummeting prices and a rising throwaway culture, by 2014, people were buying 60 percent more clothes than at the turn of the millennium, and keeping them for only half as long.
"Today the fashion industry is responsible for 92 million metric tons of #TextileWaste annually, and the dyeing and finishing of textiles causes 20 percent of industrial #WaterPollution. Due to energy-intensive production and long supply chains, the apparel industry is responsible for eight percent to 10 percent of global #CarbonEmissions—more than aviation and shipping combined.
"The quiet, simple act of mending can go a long way toward reducing these impacts: According to research by the climate action NGO WRAP, 82 percent of repaired garments prevent the purchase of a new one, and extending the life of an item of clothing by only nine months reduces its carbon, water and waste footprint by a total of 20 percent to 30 percent.
" 'One of the other big benefits is to #NormalizeMending again,' says Morton. For most of human history, textiles were time-consuming to produce and expensive to buy, so mending them was second nature, says Sekules. Repairs were often visible out of necessity, since matching thread to existing fabric was a costly and often impossible proposition. One of the oldest extant examples of visible mending is a 2,000-year-old Egyptian tunic in the Whitworth Geller’s collection in Manchester, England, though the practice is far older than that. Over millennia people across the world developed their own distinct techniques of darning, embroidery and appliqué, using colorful patches or designs to hide holes and stains. 'It was made to seem deliberate, because it was a shameful sign of poverty to look as if you’ve been mended,' says Sekules.
"As mending fell out of favor in Europe and the U.S. in the late 20th century, the skills associated with it were also lost over time. 'As far as we can tell it used to be passed down the maternal line since time immemorial,' says Sekules. 'Then we forgot about it—culturally, it was just no longer a skillset we needed.'
"In recent years a growing opposition to fast fashion has coalesced under the umbrella of #SlowFashion, a movement championing quality over quantity and responsible use of resources. 'People are becoming more aware that the way we produce is harmful to people and the environment,' says Sam Bennett, maker, researcher and one-half of the duo behind Repair Shop, which takes mending commissions and offers online and in-person mending workshops. 'It’s a smaller, quieter form of #activism that I think is really exciting.'
"The resurgence of mending coincided with early Instagram, with visible mending especially well-suited to such a visual medium, and menders like Celia Pym and Tom van Deijnen started to document their mends on the platform in 2014. 'Those posts and popularity then allowed for people to create public workshops, publish books and so on,' says Bennett, who is working on a timeline documenting how mending skills have been passed on over the past 300 years. Much of the skill-sharing has also moved to virtual spaces, which makes it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. But while they serve their purpose, online workshops don’t have quite the same magic, says Bennett: 'It really started with community and sitting side by side with someone. And I think that in the end, that is still the most successful way to learn.'
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/stitch-don-rsquo-t-ditch-153005359.html
#SolarPunkSunday #VisibleRepair #VisibleMending #Mending #FiberArts #Crafting #DIY #MakeAndMend #RepairDontBuy #ResistFastFashion #BuildingCommunity
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#StitchIt, Don’t ditch it: Resisting #FastFashion through #VisibleMending
Kaja Šeruga
Fri, June 13, 2025"Once a month between April and October, a group of stitchers takes to the streets of #EdinburghScotland, making themselves comfortable on camping chairs decorated with hand-embroidered banners inviting people to #stitchitdontditchit. Equipped with sewing baskets and mending skills, they repair their garments in public and teach interested passers-by how to do the same.
"The #EdinburghStreetStitchers, as they call themselves, are part of a growing movement that is reclaiming the ancient art of mending. Historically, mending was done in private and in ways that concealed, rather than announced, the repair. Choosing instead to mend visibly—whether through the color of the stitching or by doing it in a public location—is a statement and a conversation starter, Reasons to be Cheerful says.
" 'You are clearly stating that you have kept this from a #landfill,' says Kate Sekules, a mender who teaches fashion history at the Pratt Institute in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, and is pursuing a PhD in the history and theory of mending. 'It’s also got the advantage of making everything you own unique and special. And when you’ve invested time and energy and thought and craft into your clothing, you value it so much more.'
"Inspired by the global #StreetStitching movement, the former pharmacist Mary Morton started the #Edinburgh group in 2022, three years after a discussion with her son sent her down a rabbit hole of research and learning about the #ClimateCrisis. 'At the end of all of that, I was absolutely horrified. I thought, ‘What can I do about it?' she recalls.
"Volunteering at the #SHRUBCooperative, which is working to reduce waste in Edinburgh, she learned about the high carbon impact of textiles—producing a kilogram of fabric releases 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases on average. 'I’ve always done a bit of sewing, so I thought teaching people how to sew and repair their garments was something I could do to help,' says Morton. She started teaching sewing at the cooperative’s #ZeroWaste Hub, but quickly realized she was preaching to the choir. 'I wanted to do something to reach out to the broader community and make them aware of the situation,' she says.
"The term 'fast fashion' was coined by the New York Times in 1989 to describe Zara’s business model, which turned a designer’s idea into a garment available to consumers in only 15 days. Today’s ultra-fast fashion retailers have further accelerated the pace of production: #Shein, for example, has created 52 micro-seasons per year and adds up to 10,000 items to its website each day. With plummeting prices and a rising throwaway culture, by 2014, people were buying 60 percent more clothes than at the turn of the millennium, and keeping them for only half as long.
"Today the fashion industry is responsible for 92 million metric tons of #TextileWaste annually, and the dyeing and finishing of textiles causes 20 percent of industrial #WaterPollution. Due to energy-intensive production and long supply chains, the apparel industry is responsible for eight percent to 10 percent of global #CarbonEmissions—more than aviation and shipping combined.
"The quiet, simple act of mending can go a long way toward reducing these impacts: According to research by the climate action NGO WRAP, 82 percent of repaired garments prevent the purchase of a new one, and extending the life of an item of clothing by only nine months reduces its carbon, water and waste footprint by a total of 20 percent to 30 percent.
" 'One of the other big benefits is to #NormalizeMending again,' says Morton. For most of human history, textiles were time-consuming to produce and expensive to buy, so mending them was second nature, says Sekules. Repairs were often visible out of necessity, since matching thread to existing fabric was a costly and often impossible proposition. One of the oldest extant examples of visible mending is a 2,000-year-old Egyptian tunic in the Whitworth Geller’s collection in Manchester, England, though the practice is far older than that. Over millennia people across the world developed their own distinct techniques of darning, embroidery and appliqué, using colorful patches or designs to hide holes and stains. 'It was made to seem deliberate, because it was a shameful sign of poverty to look as if you’ve been mended,' says Sekules.
"As mending fell out of favor in Europe and the U.S. in the late 20th century, the skills associated with it were also lost over time. 'As far as we can tell it used to be passed down the maternal line since time immemorial,' says Sekules. 'Then we forgot about it—culturally, it was just no longer a skillset we needed.'
"In recent years a growing opposition to fast fashion has coalesced under the umbrella of #SlowFashion, a movement championing quality over quantity and responsible use of resources. 'People are becoming more aware that the way we produce is harmful to people and the environment,' says Sam Bennett, maker, researcher and one-half of the duo behind Repair Shop, which takes mending commissions and offers online and in-person mending workshops. 'It’s a smaller, quieter form of #activism that I think is really exciting.'
"The resurgence of mending coincided with early Instagram, with visible mending especially well-suited to such a visual medium, and menders like Celia Pym and Tom van Deijnen started to document their mends on the platform in 2014. 'Those posts and popularity then allowed for people to create public workshops, publish books and so on,' says Bennett, who is working on a timeline documenting how mending skills have been passed on over the past 300 years. Much of the skill-sharing has also moved to virtual spaces, which makes it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. But while they serve their purpose, online workshops don’t have quite the same magic, says Bennett: 'It really started with community and sitting side by side with someone. And I think that in the end, that is still the most successful way to learn.'
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/stitch-don-rsquo-t-ditch-153005359.html
#SolarPunkSunday #VisibleRepair #VisibleMending #Mending #FiberArts #Crafting #DIY #MakeAndMend #RepairDontBuy #ResistFastFashion #BuildingCommunity
-
#StitchIt, Don’t ditch it: Resisting #FastFashion through #VisibleMending
Kaja Šeruga
Fri, June 13, 2025"Once a month between April and October, a group of stitchers takes to the streets of #EdinburghScotland, making themselves comfortable on camping chairs decorated with hand-embroidered banners inviting people to #stitchitdontditchit. Equipped with sewing baskets and mending skills, they repair their garments in public and teach interested passers-by how to do the same.
"The #EdinburghStreetStitchers, as they call themselves, are part of a growing movement that is reclaiming the ancient art of mending. Historically, mending was done in private and in ways that concealed, rather than announced, the repair. Choosing instead to mend visibly—whether through the color of the stitching or by doing it in a public location—is a statement and a conversation starter, Reasons to be Cheerful says.
" 'You are clearly stating that you have kept this from a #landfill,' says Kate Sekules, a mender who teaches fashion history at the Pratt Institute in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, and is pursuing a PhD in the history and theory of mending. 'It’s also got the advantage of making everything you own unique and special. And when you’ve invested time and energy and thought and craft into your clothing, you value it so much more.'
"Inspired by the global #StreetStitching movement, the former pharmacist Mary Morton started the #Edinburgh group in 2022, three years after a discussion with her son sent her down a rabbit hole of research and learning about the #ClimateCrisis. 'At the end of all of that, I was absolutely horrified. I thought, ‘What can I do about it?' she recalls.
"Volunteering at the #SHRUBCooperative, which is working to reduce waste in Edinburgh, she learned about the high carbon impact of textiles—producing a kilogram of fabric releases 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases on average. 'I’ve always done a bit of sewing, so I thought teaching people how to sew and repair their garments was something I could do to help,' says Morton. She started teaching sewing at the cooperative’s #ZeroWaste Hub, but quickly realized she was preaching to the choir. 'I wanted to do something to reach out to the broader community and make them aware of the situation,' she says.
"The term 'fast fashion' was coined by the New York Times in 1989 to describe Zara’s business model, which turned a designer’s idea into a garment available to consumers in only 15 days. Today’s ultra-fast fashion retailers have further accelerated the pace of production: #Shein, for example, has created 52 micro-seasons per year and adds up to 10,000 items to its website each day. With plummeting prices and a rising throwaway culture, by 2014, people were buying 60 percent more clothes than at the turn of the millennium, and keeping them for only half as long.
"Today the fashion industry is responsible for 92 million metric tons of #TextileWaste annually, and the dyeing and finishing of textiles causes 20 percent of industrial #WaterPollution. Due to energy-intensive production and long supply chains, the apparel industry is responsible for eight percent to 10 percent of global #CarbonEmissions—more than aviation and shipping combined.
"The quiet, simple act of mending can go a long way toward reducing these impacts: According to research by the climate action NGO WRAP, 82 percent of repaired garments prevent the purchase of a new one, and extending the life of an item of clothing by only nine months reduces its carbon, water and waste footprint by a total of 20 percent to 30 percent.
" 'One of the other big benefits is to #NormalizeMending again,' says Morton. For most of human history, textiles were time-consuming to produce and expensive to buy, so mending them was second nature, says Sekules. Repairs were often visible out of necessity, since matching thread to existing fabric was a costly and often impossible proposition. One of the oldest extant examples of visible mending is a 2,000-year-old Egyptian tunic in the Whitworth Geller’s collection in Manchester, England, though the practice is far older than that. Over millennia people across the world developed their own distinct techniques of darning, embroidery and appliqué, using colorful patches or designs to hide holes and stains. 'It was made to seem deliberate, because it was a shameful sign of poverty to look as if you’ve been mended,' says Sekules.
"As mending fell out of favor in Europe and the U.S. in the late 20th century, the skills associated with it were also lost over time. 'As far as we can tell it used to be passed down the maternal line since time immemorial,' says Sekules. 'Then we forgot about it—culturally, it was just no longer a skillset we needed.'
"In recent years a growing opposition to fast fashion has coalesced under the umbrella of #SlowFashion, a movement championing quality over quantity and responsible use of resources. 'People are becoming more aware that the way we produce is harmful to people and the environment,' says Sam Bennett, maker, researcher and one-half of the duo behind Repair Shop, which takes mending commissions and offers online and in-person mending workshops. 'It’s a smaller, quieter form of #activism that I think is really exciting.'
"The resurgence of mending coincided with early Instagram, with visible mending especially well-suited to such a visual medium, and menders like Celia Pym and Tom van Deijnen started to document their mends on the platform in 2014. 'Those posts and popularity then allowed for people to create public workshops, publish books and so on,' says Bennett, who is working on a timeline documenting how mending skills have been passed on over the past 300 years. Much of the skill-sharing has also moved to virtual spaces, which makes it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. But while they serve their purpose, online workshops don’t have quite the same magic, says Bennett: 'It really started with community and sitting side by side with someone. And I think that in the end, that is still the most successful way to learn.'
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/stitch-don-rsquo-t-ditch-153005359.html
#SolarPunkSunday #VisibleRepair #VisibleMending #Mending #FiberArts #Crafting #DIY #MakeAndMend #RepairDontBuy #ResistFastFashion #BuildingCommunity
-
#StitchIt, Don’t ditch it: Resisting #FastFashion through #VisibleMending
Kaja Šeruga
Fri, June 13, 2025"Once a month between April and October, a group of stitchers takes to the streets of #EdinburghScotland, making themselves comfortable on camping chairs decorated with hand-embroidered banners inviting people to #stitchitdontditchit. Equipped with sewing baskets and mending skills, they repair their garments in public and teach interested passers-by how to do the same.
"The #EdinburghStreetStitchers, as they call themselves, are part of a growing movement that is reclaiming the ancient art of mending. Historically, mending was done in private and in ways that concealed, rather than announced, the repair. Choosing instead to mend visibly—whether through the color of the stitching or by doing it in a public location—is a statement and a conversation starter, Reasons to be Cheerful says.
" 'You are clearly stating that you have kept this from a #landfill,' says Kate Sekules, a mender who teaches fashion history at the Pratt Institute in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, and is pursuing a PhD in the history and theory of mending. 'It’s also got the advantage of making everything you own unique and special. And when you’ve invested time and energy and thought and craft into your clothing, you value it so much more.'
"Inspired by the global #StreetStitching movement, the former pharmacist Mary Morton started the #Edinburgh group in 2022, three years after a discussion with her son sent her down a rabbit hole of research and learning about the #ClimateCrisis. 'At the end of all of that, I was absolutely horrified. I thought, ‘What can I do about it?' she recalls.
"Volunteering at the #SHRUBCooperative, which is working to reduce waste in Edinburgh, she learned about the high carbon impact of textiles—producing a kilogram of fabric releases 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases on average. 'I’ve always done a bit of sewing, so I thought teaching people how to sew and repair their garments was something I could do to help,' says Morton. She started teaching sewing at the cooperative’s #ZeroWaste Hub, but quickly realized she was preaching to the choir. 'I wanted to do something to reach out to the broader community and make them aware of the situation,' she says.
"The term 'fast fashion' was coined by the New York Times in 1989 to describe Zara’s business model, which turned a designer’s idea into a garment available to consumers in only 15 days. Today’s ultra-fast fashion retailers have further accelerated the pace of production: #Shein, for example, has created 52 micro-seasons per year and adds up to 10,000 items to its website each day. With plummeting prices and a rising throwaway culture, by 2014, people were buying 60 percent more clothes than at the turn of the millennium, and keeping them for only half as long.
"Today the fashion industry is responsible for 92 million metric tons of #TextileWaste annually, and the dyeing and finishing of textiles causes 20 percent of industrial #WaterPollution. Due to energy-intensive production and long supply chains, the apparel industry is responsible for eight percent to 10 percent of global #CarbonEmissions—more than aviation and shipping combined.
"The quiet, simple act of mending can go a long way toward reducing these impacts: According to research by the climate action NGO WRAP, 82 percent of repaired garments prevent the purchase of a new one, and extending the life of an item of clothing by only nine months reduces its carbon, water and waste footprint by a total of 20 percent to 30 percent.
" 'One of the other big benefits is to #NormalizeMending again,' says Morton. For most of human history, textiles were time-consuming to produce and expensive to buy, so mending them was second nature, says Sekules. Repairs were often visible out of necessity, since matching thread to existing fabric was a costly and often impossible proposition. One of the oldest extant examples of visible mending is a 2,000-year-old Egyptian tunic in the Whitworth Geller’s collection in Manchester, England, though the practice is far older than that. Over millennia people across the world developed their own distinct techniques of darning, embroidery and appliqué, using colorful patches or designs to hide holes and stains. 'It was made to seem deliberate, because it was a shameful sign of poverty to look as if you’ve been mended,' says Sekules.
"As mending fell out of favor in Europe and the U.S. in the late 20th century, the skills associated with it were also lost over time. 'As far as we can tell it used to be passed down the maternal line since time immemorial,' says Sekules. 'Then we forgot about it—culturally, it was just no longer a skillset we needed.'
"In recent years a growing opposition to fast fashion has coalesced under the umbrella of #SlowFashion, a movement championing quality over quantity and responsible use of resources. 'People are becoming more aware that the way we produce is harmful to people and the environment,' says Sam Bennett, maker, researcher and one-half of the duo behind Repair Shop, which takes mending commissions and offers online and in-person mending workshops. 'It’s a smaller, quieter form of #activism that I think is really exciting.'
"The resurgence of mending coincided with early Instagram, with visible mending especially well-suited to such a visual medium, and menders like Celia Pym and Tom van Deijnen started to document their mends on the platform in 2014. 'Those posts and popularity then allowed for people to create public workshops, publish books and so on,' says Bennett, who is working on a timeline documenting how mending skills have been passed on over the past 300 years. Much of the skill-sharing has also moved to virtual spaces, which makes it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. But while they serve their purpose, online workshops don’t have quite the same magic, says Bennett: 'It really started with community and sitting side by side with someone. And I think that in the end, that is still the most successful way to learn.'
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/stitch-don-rsquo-t-ditch-153005359.html
#SolarPunkSunday #VisibleRepair #VisibleMending #Mending #FiberArts #Crafting #DIY #MakeAndMend #RepairDontBuy #ResistFastFashion #BuildingCommunity
-
#StitchIt, Don’t ditch it: Resisting #FastFashion through #VisibleMending
Kaja Šeruga
Fri, June 13, 2025"Once a month between April and October, a group of stitchers takes to the streets of #EdinburghScotland, making themselves comfortable on camping chairs decorated with hand-embroidered banners inviting people to #stitchitdontditchit. Equipped with sewing baskets and mending skills, they repair their garments in public and teach interested passers-by how to do the same.
"The #EdinburghStreetStitchers, as they call themselves, are part of a growing movement that is reclaiming the ancient art of mending. Historically, mending was done in private and in ways that concealed, rather than announced, the repair. Choosing instead to mend visibly—whether through the color of the stitching or by doing it in a public location—is a statement and a conversation starter, Reasons to be Cheerful says.
" 'You are clearly stating that you have kept this from a #landfill,' says Kate Sekules, a mender who teaches fashion history at the Pratt Institute in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, and is pursuing a PhD in the history and theory of mending. 'It’s also got the advantage of making everything you own unique and special. And when you’ve invested time and energy and thought and craft into your clothing, you value it so much more.'
"Inspired by the global #StreetStitching movement, the former pharmacist Mary Morton started the #Edinburgh group in 2022, three years after a discussion with her son sent her down a rabbit hole of research and learning about the #ClimateCrisis. 'At the end of all of that, I was absolutely horrified. I thought, ‘What can I do about it?' she recalls.
"Volunteering at the #SHRUBCooperative, which is working to reduce waste in Edinburgh, she learned about the high carbon impact of textiles—producing a kilogram of fabric releases 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases on average. 'I’ve always done a bit of sewing, so I thought teaching people how to sew and repair their garments was something I could do to help,' says Morton. She started teaching sewing at the cooperative’s #ZeroWaste Hub, but quickly realized she was preaching to the choir. 'I wanted to do something to reach out to the broader community and make them aware of the situation,' she says.
"The term 'fast fashion' was coined by the New York Times in 1989 to describe Zara’s business model, which turned a designer’s idea into a garment available to consumers in only 15 days. Today’s ultra-fast fashion retailers have further accelerated the pace of production: #Shein, for example, has created 52 micro-seasons per year and adds up to 10,000 items to its website each day. With plummeting prices and a rising throwaway culture, by 2014, people were buying 60 percent more clothes than at the turn of the millennium, and keeping them for only half as long.
"Today the fashion industry is responsible for 92 million metric tons of #TextileWaste annually, and the dyeing and finishing of textiles causes 20 percent of industrial #WaterPollution. Due to energy-intensive production and long supply chains, the apparel industry is responsible for eight percent to 10 percent of global #CarbonEmissions—more than aviation and shipping combined.
"The quiet, simple act of mending can go a long way toward reducing these impacts: According to research by the climate action NGO WRAP, 82 percent of repaired garments prevent the purchase of a new one, and extending the life of an item of clothing by only nine months reduces its carbon, water and waste footprint by a total of 20 percent to 30 percent.
" 'One of the other big benefits is to #NormalizeMending again,' says Morton. For most of human history, textiles were time-consuming to produce and expensive to buy, so mending them was second nature, says Sekules. Repairs were often visible out of necessity, since matching thread to existing fabric was a costly and often impossible proposition. One of the oldest extant examples of visible mending is a 2,000-year-old Egyptian tunic in the Whitworth Geller’s collection in Manchester, England, though the practice is far older than that. Over millennia people across the world developed their own distinct techniques of darning, embroidery and appliqué, using colorful patches or designs to hide holes and stains. 'It was made to seem deliberate, because it was a shameful sign of poverty to look as if you’ve been mended,' says Sekules.
"As mending fell out of favor in Europe and the U.S. in the late 20th century, the skills associated with it were also lost over time. 'As far as we can tell it used to be passed down the maternal line since time immemorial,' says Sekules. 'Then we forgot about it—culturally, it was just no longer a skillset we needed.'
"In recent years a growing opposition to fast fashion has coalesced under the umbrella of #SlowFashion, a movement championing quality over quantity and responsible use of resources. 'People are becoming more aware that the way we produce is harmful to people and the environment,' says Sam Bennett, maker, researcher and one-half of the duo behind Repair Shop, which takes mending commissions and offers online and in-person mending workshops. 'It’s a smaller, quieter form of #activism that I think is really exciting.'
"The resurgence of mending coincided with early Instagram, with visible mending especially well-suited to such a visual medium, and menders like Celia Pym and Tom van Deijnen started to document their mends on the platform in 2014. 'Those posts and popularity then allowed for people to create public workshops, publish books and so on,' says Bennett, who is working on a timeline documenting how mending skills have been passed on over the past 300 years. Much of the skill-sharing has also moved to virtual spaces, which makes it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. But while they serve their purpose, online workshops don’t have quite the same magic, says Bennett: 'It really started with community and sitting side by side with someone. And I think that in the end, that is still the most successful way to learn.'
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/stitch-don-rsquo-t-ditch-153005359.html
#SolarPunkSunday #VisibleRepair #VisibleMending #Mending #FiberArts #Crafting #DIY #MakeAndMend #RepairDontBuy #ResistFastFashion #BuildingCommunity
-
Men of the Mic: Legendary Hams Who Built the Community
2,179 words, 12 minutes read time.
There’s something timeless and quietly powerful about a man at a desk, microphone in hand, patiently tuning across the bands for a distant voice. It’s more than just a hobby; for many, amateur radio is a testament to curiosity, craftsmanship, and the deep desire to connect. Over the last century, countless men have sat at their radios, some unknown beyond their local nets, others rising to legendary status. Their stories still ripple through our repeaters and field days, inspiring the next wave of men who will pick up a mic and join this global fraternity.
If you’re a man eyeing your first license or dreaming of building your own shack, this journey through the lives of legendary hams will be more than history — it’s a roadmap, showing how technical skill, generosity, and camaraderie have always been the bedrock of amateur radio. And by understanding the men who built this community, you’ll find your own place among them one day.
The Founding Fathers of Ham Radio
It’s impossible to appreciate amateur radio’s rich tapestry without tipping our hats to the men who quite literally invented the medium. Their stories are the origin myths of our shared obsession.
Hiram Percy Maxim, whose call sign W1AW still echoes daily as the flagship station of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), was far more than a hobbyist. An engineer and inventor, Maxim was the quintessential tinkerer, a man who found beauty in complex gears and wires. In 1914, he founded the ARRL to organize a chaotic landscape of independent amateurs, many of them teenagers stringing wire from their parents’ rooftops. By setting standards for relaying messages across the nation, Maxim didn’t just build an organization — he fostered the first large-scale brotherhood of radio amateurs.
His creation of the “Wouff Hong,” a whimsical yet stern device supposedly used to enforce good operating practices, underlines his belief that with the freedom of the airwaves came responsibility. When today’s operators remind each other to maintain discipline on the bands, they’re echoing Maxim’s century-old ethic.
Long before Maxim, of course, came the men whose breakthroughs made radio possible. Samuel Morse, though best known for the code that bears his name, was also a relentless promoter of long-distance communication. Guglielmo Marconi took that spark and pushed it across oceans, becoming arguably the first “amateur” by experimenting well outside established commercial infrastructure. When Marconi’s signal crossed the Atlantic in 1901, it was less an engineered certainty and more a daring gamble — the sort of risk every good ham instinctively understands.
Even Hugo Gernsback, remembered by many as the father of science fiction, played a vital role. His radio magazines educated thousands of young men who would become the first true amateurs, laying the groundwork for the clubs and societies we rely on today.
Engineers, Innovators, and Celebrity Operators
What is it about men who build things with their hands that so often draws them to amateur radio? Perhaps it’s the perfect blend of theory and practical tinkering. The hobby attracts those who yearn to know not just that something works, but precisely why and how.
Take Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. Before he revolutionized personal computing, Woz was WV6VLY, fascinated by radio circuits and pushing RF signals into the ether from his California home. Even after his Apple success, he remained an advocate for ham radio’s power to teach electronics in a hands-on way that books alone never could.
Then there’s Bob Moog, whose name is synonymous with the synthesizer. Lesser known is that Moog was K2AMH, a dedicated operator who found joy in both music and radio frequency design. The careful balancing of voltages in an oscillator isn’t far removed from tuning a VFO. For men like Moog, amateur radio was as much a canvas as a utility.
Joseph Taylor, K1JT, stands at a fascinating crossroads. Already a Nobel laureate in physics for his work on pulsars, Taylor turned his brilliance to the amateur bands by developing WSJT, the software suite behind modes like FT8. These digital modes have revolutionized weak-signal work, letting hams complete contacts on bands once thought impractical. Taylor’s example shows how intellectual curiosity doesn’t stop at professional borders — sometimes, the professor wants to come home and see if he can snag a new country on 6 meters just like the rest of us.
Ray Dolby, of Dolby noise reduction fame, shared similar passions, holding an amateur license. It’s a telling pattern: men who push technical frontiers in their day jobs often retreat to the shack not just to relax, but to keep exploring. They’re proof that whether you’re designing world-changing technologies or soldering a kit on your workbench, the same thrill of discovery pulses through every good ham.
Ham Radio in Space and the Competitive Spirit
Few stories better capture the adventurous spirit of ham radio than those of operators who quite literally took it out of this world. In 1983, Owen Garriott, W5LFL, made the first amateur radio contacts from space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. His casual QSOs from orbit to operators below were historic, proving the technology and launching the entire concept of “space stations on the air.” Garriott was followed by countless astronauts and cosmonauts, many of whom held amateur licenses before ever donning a flight suit.
Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was himself a licensed operator (UA1LO), though most of his radio work was symbolic rather than operational. Still, there’s something profoundly moving in knowing that the men pushing humanity’s boundaries into orbit were often the same kids who once wound coils and trimmed antennas in their garages.
On Earth, that same pioneering spirit shows up in the fiercely contested world of radio sport. John Scott Redd, K0DQ, is a perfect example. A retired U.S. Navy vice admiral, he also happens to be a contesting legend, having won world championships in nearly every major DX contest. Men like Redd demonstrate that ham radio is as much a test of skill and endurance as any traditional sport — requiring strategy, technical acumen, and the unshakeable nerve to dig signals out of the noise when the clock is ticking.
Humanitarians, Educators, and Global Connectors
While it’s easy to be drawn to the technical marvels and competitive highs, some of amateur radio’s greatest men are remembered not for their rigs or contest scores, but for their compassion and commitment to public service.
Consider Marshall D. Moran, 9N1MM, an American Jesuit priest who became Nepal’s first ham operator. Arriving in the 1940s, Moran soon realized his modest station was the only reliable link between Kathmandu and the outside world. Countless climbers and trekkers owe their lives to the emergency traffic he relayed. In remote Himalayan villages, the reassuring crackle of 9N1MM on the air meant help was on the way.
Leslie R. Mitchell, G3BHK, similarly wove amateur radio into a global network of goodwill by founding Jamboree-On-The-Air (JOTA), the worldwide event that connects Scouts through amateur radio every October. Since its start in 1957, millions of young men have spoken to their first foreign friends over a radio Mitchell’s inspiration helped set up. In a world growing ever more polarized, these simple conversations — about hobbies, school, or what it’s like to camp under different stars — remind us that radio can be the ultimate bridge.
Early Experimenters and Broadcasting Pioneers
Long before the airwaves became crowded with thousands of daily QSOs, early experimenters were learning the hard way how to coax electrons into carrying voices.
Charles “Doc” Herrold of San Jose, California, was building primitive radio transmitters by 1909, predating even the first commercial broadcast stations. Herrold’s Sunday night shows were informal affairs, often just reading local news, but his enthusiasm laid crucial groundwork. Similarly, Charles E. Apgar, a mild-mannered insurance executive by day, used his home-built equipment to record clandestine German naval transmissions during World War I, helping break codes and ultimately saving ships.
These stories are worth retelling not only for their technical firsts but because they showcase amateur radio’s classic DNA: curious men, tinkering alone or with a handful of buddies, accidentally changing the world.
Kings, Anchormen, and Hollywood’s Quiet Operators
If amateur radio has a secret, it’s how often it lurks in the lives of men we wouldn’t expect. Walter Cronkite, whose authoritative baritone narrated America’s triumphs and tragedies, was also KB2GSD. Cronkite once narrated an ARRL film, famously concluding, “Amateur radio: what a wonderful hobby.” Coming from the most trusted man in journalism, it was an endorsement money couldn’t buy.
King Hussein of Jordan, JY1, was not content to be a figurehead. He operated regularly, chatting with common hams across the globe, reportedly insisting they drop the royal titles and just call him “Hussein.” And then there’s Marlon Brando, KE6PZH, who set up a radio on his private Tahitian island, reportedly making contacts to New Zealand just for the pleasure of breaking through the static.
Whether it’s Hollywood icons or heads of state, these men found in amateur radio the same satisfaction we all do: the joy of sending a signal into the dark and hearing a voice come back.
What These Men Teach Us
So why dwell on these stories? Because they prove again and again that amateur radio is more than a pastime. It’s a proving ground for technical skill, a sanctuary for curiosity, and, perhaps most importantly, a forge for character.
Every one of these legendary operators — whether Nobel physicist, pioneering priest, or retired sailor — shared the same humble beginnings as any newcomer. They struggled with code speed, burned fingers on soldering irons, fought RF feedback, and cursed propagation when their signals vanished into the ether. They became legends not by starting with extraordinary talent, but by pursuing their interest with steady, masculine resolve.
Their legacies tell us that the best hams aren’t defined by their equipment or QSL card collections, but by their willingness to serve, teach, and open the mic to strangers. This is the true brotherhood of amateur radio, and it’s as alive on your local repeater as in the halls of the ARRL.
A Word to the Men Still Considering Their License
If you’re reading this and still on the fence about getting your license, let these stories be your push. You don’t need a PhD, a palace, or even a fancy rig to join this fraternity. All you need is the spark that drove Maxim, the patience that guided Taylor, and the generosity that marked Moran’s every QSO.
Start by listening. Grab a cheap scanner, or tune into online SDRs. Visit a local club — you’ll find men who were once exactly where you are now, and who will be delighted to help you along. When you’re ready, pick up a study guide. Don’t worry if the material looks intimidating. Remember: every Nobel laureate and king we mentioned once puzzled over the same resistor color codes and license manuals.
Above all, understand that by stepping into this world, you’re joining a continuum stretching back more than a century — a line of men who built not just circuits and antennas, but a global brotherhood.
Wrapping Up: Join the Conversation
Amateur radio is richer for the men who made it their passion, and it waits for you to add your voice. If these stories of legendary hams have sparked something in you — if you find your mind drifting to DXpeditions, contest pileups, or late-night chats with faraway strangers — don’t let it fade. Take the first step.
Before you go, we’ve got even more stories waiting. This is the first of a special two-part series. Next week, we’ll shine the spotlight on the incredible “Women of the Mic: Legendary Hams Who Built the Community.” Don’t miss it — subscribe to our newsletter so you’ll be the first to know when it drops. Let’s keep exploring this amazing brotherhood (and sisterhood) together!
Also, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Who are the operators that inspire you? Have you had a mentor, or perhaps a memorable first contact that set your course? Drop a comment below and join our growing community of men exploring what’s possible over the air. And if you want more stories like this, sign up for our newsletter. Together, we’ll keep this brotherhood strong for the next century of men at the mic.
D. Bryan King
Sources
- ARRL – Ham Radio History (founder Hiram Percy Maxim & Wouff Hong)
- Ham Radio Prep – Famous Ham Radio Operators (Wozniak, Owen Garriott, Joseph Taylor)
- NOFARS – Famous Amateur Radio Operators (Maxim, Taylor, Moog, Cronkite, Atkins)
- NewHams.info – Famous Hams list including Vermilya, Moog, Beverage, etc.
- Red Pitaya – Famous hams like Yuri Gagarin, Les Hamilton, John Sculley
- KB6NU – Top figures: Morse, Marconi, Maxim, Gernsback, Taylor, Collins, Heathkit, Wayne Green
- EarlyRadioHistory – Pioneering amateurs 1900–1917 (Herrold, Apgar) :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}
- Wikipedia – Marshall D. Moran, first ham in Nepal, humanitarian operator
- Wikipedia – John Scott Redd, contesting legend and CQ Hall of Fame
- Wikipedia – Leslie R. Mitchell, founder of Jamboree‑On‑The‑Air (JOTA)
- Wikipedia – Charles “Doc” Herrold, radio broadcaster pioneer :
- Wikipedia – Charles E. Apgar, early wireless experimenter and recorder
- HFUnderground – Famous hams including cosmonauts, royalty, dignitaries
- Oxley Region ARC – Celebrity hams (Brando, Tim Allen, Hughes, Dolby, Priscilla Presley)
- WIRED – Why ham radio endures, mentions King Hussein, Marlon Brando, Gagarin :contentReference[oaicite:15]{index=15}
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Lax Laws in Indonesia Turn Blind Eye To Animal Trafficking
When Indonesian prosecutors went after the leader of an illegal wildlife syndicate operating near the Malacca Strait, they relied on the country’s then relatively new 2019 Quarantine Act to seek a prison sentence.
After being connected to the illegal smuggling of four lion cubs, a leopard, and 58 species of Indian Star tortoises from Malaysia to Indonesia, Irawan Shia received a four-year prison sentence and fine of IDR 1 billion (USD$65,468). If the fine is not paid, the replacement is three months imprisonment.
The sentence was the biggest ever handed out, but falls far short of what it could have been had Indonesia brought its laws in line with global conventions.
Illegal #wildlife #crime is rampant in #Indonesia, from #birds to #orangutans, to coral. #Trafficking online is worth $852.6mil USD per year. Indonesia is weak in response. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #extinction @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2024/11/03/indonesias-lax-laws-fail-to-crack-down-on-rampant-animal-trafficking/
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterOriginally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
Illegal trading of wildlife is rampant in Indonesia, from bird species and orangutans, to coral specimens. Wildlife traffickers using online platforms have found a new marketplace.
Environmental crime is the world’s third largest illegal trade, according to INTERPOL. It’s worth more than USD$20 billion a year but remains overlooked and under-prosecuted. In Indonesia, illegal trade of wildlife costs the economy an estimated USD$852,4 million every year, and according to INTERPOL it’s growing at between 5-7 percent per year.
Despite the numbers, Indonesia is falling short in its response to wildlife trafficking. Observers have called for better criminal investigations and more suitable punishments for the offenders as well as an upgrade to the legislative frameworks tackling these criminal activities.
Due to its lucrative nature and extensive markets, it is almost impossible for criminals to act individually when trafficking wildlife. Similar to drugs and human trafficking, illegal trade of wildlife requires a multitude of criminal networks with individuals holding various duties in committing the crime. Poachers, brokers, intermediaries, exporters-importers, wholesale traders, and retailers are all present in the chain of criminal enterprises.
The involvement of organised crime actors, other crime groups, officials, authorities, and militias in the different stages of wildlife trafficking complicates the state’s intervention to tackle an offence considered a nested complex crime. Because of this, the illegal trade of wildlife is generally considered to be transnational organised crime, requiring a matched response.
For example, the United Nations Conventions against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), in tackling transnational organised crime enables governments to criminalise participation, introduce liability for legal persons, undertake special investigation techniques and cooperate internationally. There are programmes for law enforcement agencies to effectively collaborate in combating these crimes, such as collecting, exchange and analysis of information on the nature of organised crime and training and technical assistance.
But Indonesia has yet to adopt these initiatives in its own regulations. Despite ratifying UNTOC in 2009, the primary foundation of Indonesia’s response to illegal trade of wildlife lies in its Conservation of Biological Natural Resources and their Ecosystems Law. This more than 30-year old law is not suited to combating today’s rampant wildlife trafficking.
For instance, the maximum criminal sentence of five years’ imprisonment and fines of up to IDR 100 million (USD$6,548) are far too lenient compared to the harm caused by the illegal wildlife trade. Indonesian law fails to regulate the involvement of corporations in the illicit trade of protected floras and faunas as it only criminalises individual offenders. Subsequently, it does not equip law enforcement agencies with the necessary powers to investigate and prosecute if such crimes have cross-border characteristics and involve syndicates.
The possibility of using technology to stop wildlife trafficking is yet to be regulated. Even though the government’s claims that Indonesia has succeeded in replenishing and restoring endangered species, the law remains insufficient to comprehensively react to the evolving nature of wildlife trafficking.
Despite being recorded as the biggest verdict of a wildlife-smuggling case, Shia’s prison time does not even reach the maximum term under the 1990 Conservation Law, which various observers considered too lenient. The Quarantine Act is not specifically designed to combat wildlife trafficking as it demands the complete documents for fauna coming to Indonesia. If the offenders could provide such paperwork, the possibility of prosecuting traffickers using this law would be off the table.
Being unable to consider it an organised crime, law enforcement agencies rarely proceed with wildlife trafficking cases until the very top of its business chain. Even though the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommends a complete analysis on the potential money laundering risks relating to the illegal wildlife trade, convictions haven’t gone beyond the leaders and their couriers.
The fact that money laundering and other high-ranking corrupt officers were never present in Shia’s trial reiterates the fragmented strategy of pursuing wildlife trafficking syndicates.
Indonesia’s approach to legislating against wildlife trafficking is threatening its ambition to remain a biodiversity hotspot in Southeast Asia as more endangered species come closer to extinction.
Anugerah Rizki Akbari is a PhD Candidate at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society, Leiden Law School, Universiteit Leiden. He also holds a non-permanent position as lecturer at Department of Criminology, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia. His research interests are crime, criminal law, and criminal justice. He can be found on Twitter @anugerahrizki. A.R. Akbari declares no conflict of interest and did not receive special funding in any form.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
ENDS
Read more about deforestation and ecocide in the palm oil industry
Mountain Cuscus Phalanger carmelitae
The Mountain #Cuscus are fascinating and shy creatures who live in Papua New Guinea and #WestPapua. Thick, dark, woolly fur covers most of their bodies, while their bellies are white. The Mountain Cuscus…
Deforestation and Mining Threaten Rare Species at Lake Poso
New #research highlights how #deforestation for #mining, and oil #palmoil expansion are pushing rare species of #wildlife at #Indonesia’s #LakePoso to the brink. This unique ecosystem, home to critically endangered #fish and other…
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
The Andean condor Vultur gryphus is one of the largest flying #birds in the world, with a wingspan of up to 3.3 metres and a body weight of up to 15 kilograms. These…
Support Helps Gorilla and Human Child Resilience
Young gorillas often suffer horrific events in their childhood: the death of their mother or father due to poachers, kidnapping and rough handling for the illegal pet trade. A study of 250 gorillas…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,392 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#birds #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottMeat #BoycottPalmOil #bushmeat #corruption #crime #deforestation #extinction #illegal #illegalPetTrade #Indonesia #Indonesian #Malaysia #orangutans #PalmOil #palmOilDeforestation #poaching #trafficking #wildlife
-
Lax Laws in Indonesia Turn Blind Eye To Animal Trafficking
When Indonesian prosecutors went after the leader of an illegal wildlife syndicate operating near the Malacca Strait, they relied on the country’s then relatively new 2019 Quarantine Act to seek a prison sentence.
After being connected to the illegal smuggling of four lion cubs, a leopard, and 58 species of Indian Star tortoises from Malaysia to Indonesia, Irawan Shia received a four-year prison sentence and fine of IDR 1 billion (USD$65,468). If the fine is not paid, the replacement is three months imprisonment.
The sentence was the biggest ever handed out, but falls far short of what it could have been had Indonesia brought its laws in line with global conventions.
Illegal #wildlife #crime is rampant in #Indonesia, from #birds to #orangutans, to coral. #Trafficking online is worth $852.6mil USD per year. Indonesia is weak in response. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #extinction @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2024/11/03/indonesias-lax-laws-fail-to-crack-down-on-rampant-animal-trafficking/
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterOriginally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
Illegal trading of wildlife is rampant in Indonesia, from bird species and orangutans, to coral specimens. Wildlife traffickers using online platforms have found a new marketplace.
Environmental crime is the world’s third largest illegal trade, according to INTERPOL. It’s worth more than USD$20 billion a year but remains overlooked and under-prosecuted. In Indonesia, illegal trade of wildlife costs the economy an estimated USD$852,4 million every year, and according to INTERPOL it’s growing at between 5-7 percent per year.
Despite the numbers, Indonesia is falling short in its response to wildlife trafficking. Observers have called for better criminal investigations and more suitable punishments for the offenders as well as an upgrade to the legislative frameworks tackling these criminal activities.
Due to its lucrative nature and extensive markets, it is almost impossible for criminals to act individually when trafficking wildlife. Similar to drugs and human trafficking, illegal trade of wildlife requires a multitude of criminal networks with individuals holding various duties in committing the crime. Poachers, brokers, intermediaries, exporters-importers, wholesale traders, and retailers are all present in the chain of criminal enterprises.
The involvement of organised crime actors, other crime groups, officials, authorities, and militias in the different stages of wildlife trafficking complicates the state’s intervention to tackle an offence considered a nested complex crime. Because of this, the illegal trade of wildlife is generally considered to be transnational organised crime, requiring a matched response.
For example, the United Nations Conventions against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), in tackling transnational organised crime enables governments to criminalise participation, introduce liability for legal persons, undertake special investigation techniques and cooperate internationally. There are programmes for law enforcement agencies to effectively collaborate in combating these crimes, such as collecting, exchange and analysis of information on the nature of organised crime and training and technical assistance.
But Indonesia has yet to adopt these initiatives in its own regulations. Despite ratifying UNTOC in 2009, the primary foundation of Indonesia’s response to illegal trade of wildlife lies in its Conservation of Biological Natural Resources and their Ecosystems Law. This more than 30-year old law is not suited to combating today’s rampant wildlife trafficking.
For instance, the maximum criminal sentence of five years’ imprisonment and fines of up to IDR 100 million (USD$6,548) are far too lenient compared to the harm caused by the illegal wildlife trade. Indonesian law fails to regulate the involvement of corporations in the illicit trade of protected floras and faunas as it only criminalises individual offenders. Subsequently, it does not equip law enforcement agencies with the necessary powers to investigate and prosecute if such crimes have cross-border characteristics and involve syndicates.
The possibility of using technology to stop wildlife trafficking is yet to be regulated. Even though the government’s claims that Indonesia has succeeded in replenishing and restoring endangered species, the law remains insufficient to comprehensively react to the evolving nature of wildlife trafficking.
Despite being recorded as the biggest verdict of a wildlife-smuggling case, Shia’s prison time does not even reach the maximum term under the 1990 Conservation Law, which various observers considered too lenient. The Quarantine Act is not specifically designed to combat wildlife trafficking as it demands the complete documents for fauna coming to Indonesia. If the offenders could provide such paperwork, the possibility of prosecuting traffickers using this law would be off the table.
Being unable to consider it an organised crime, law enforcement agencies rarely proceed with wildlife trafficking cases until the very top of its business chain. Even though the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommends a complete analysis on the potential money laundering risks relating to the illegal wildlife trade, convictions haven’t gone beyond the leaders and their couriers.
The fact that money laundering and other high-ranking corrupt officers were never present in Shia’s trial reiterates the fragmented strategy of pursuing wildlife trafficking syndicates.
Indonesia’s approach to legislating against wildlife trafficking is threatening its ambition to remain a biodiversity hotspot in Southeast Asia as more endangered species come closer to extinction.
Anugerah Rizki Akbari is a PhD Candidate at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society, Leiden Law School, Universiteit Leiden. He also holds a non-permanent position as lecturer at Department of Criminology, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia. His research interests are crime, criminal law, and criminal justice. He can be found on Twitter @anugerahrizki. A.R. Akbari declares no conflict of interest and did not receive special funding in any form.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
ENDS
Read more about deforestation and ecocide in the palm oil industry
Mountain Cuscus Phalanger carmelitae
The Mountain #Cuscus are fascinating and shy creatures who live in Papua New Guinea and #WestPapua. Thick, dark, woolly fur covers most of their bodies, while their bellies are white. The Mountain Cuscus…
Deforestation and Mining Threaten Rare Species at Lake Poso
New #research highlights how #deforestation for #mining, and oil #palmoil expansion are pushing rare species of #wildlife at #Indonesia’s #LakePoso to the brink. This unique ecosystem, home to critically endangered #fish and other…
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
The Andean condor Vultur gryphus is one of the largest flying #birds in the world, with a wingspan of up to 3.3 metres and a body weight of up to 15 kilograms. These…
Support Helps Gorilla and Human Child Resilience
Young gorillas often suffer horrific events in their childhood: the death of their mother or father due to poachers, kidnapping and rough handling for the illegal pet trade. A study of 250 gorillas…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,392 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#birds #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottMeat #BoycottPalmOil #bushmeat #corruption #crime #deforestation #extinction #illegal #illegalPetTrade #Indonesia #Indonesian #Malaysia #orangutans #PalmOil #palmOilDeforestation #poaching #trafficking #wildlife
-
Lax Laws in Indonesia Turn Blind Eye To Animal Trafficking
When Indonesian prosecutors went after the leader of an illegal wildlife syndicate operating near the Malacca Strait, they relied on the country’s then relatively new 2019 Quarantine Act to seek a prison sentence.
After being connected to the illegal smuggling of four lion cubs, a leopard, and 58 species of Indian Star tortoises from Malaysia to Indonesia, Irawan Shia received a four-year prison sentence and fine of IDR 1 billion (USD$65,468). If the fine is not paid, the replacement is three months imprisonment.
The sentence was the biggest ever handed out, but falls far short of what it could have been had Indonesia brought its laws in line with global conventions.
Illegal #wildlife #crime is rampant in #Indonesia, from #birds to #orangutans, to coral. #Trafficking online is worth $852.6mil USD per year. Indonesia is weak in response. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #extinction @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2024/11/03/indonesias-lax-laws-fail-to-crack-down-on-rampant-animal-trafficking/
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterOriginally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
Illegal trading of wildlife is rampant in Indonesia, from bird species and orangutans, to coral specimens. Wildlife traffickers using online platforms have found a new marketplace.
Environmental crime is the world’s third largest illegal trade, according to INTERPOL. It’s worth more than USD$20 billion a year but remains overlooked and under-prosecuted. In Indonesia, illegal trade of wildlife costs the economy an estimated USD$852,4 million every year, and according to INTERPOL it’s growing at between 5-7 percent per year.
Despite the numbers, Indonesia is falling short in its response to wildlife trafficking. Observers have called for better criminal investigations and more suitable punishments for the offenders as well as an upgrade to the legislative frameworks tackling these criminal activities.
Due to its lucrative nature and extensive markets, it is almost impossible for criminals to act individually when trafficking wildlife. Similar to drugs and human trafficking, illegal trade of wildlife requires a multitude of criminal networks with individuals holding various duties in committing the crime. Poachers, brokers, intermediaries, exporters-importers, wholesale traders, and retailers are all present in the chain of criminal enterprises.
The involvement of organised crime actors, other crime groups, officials, authorities, and militias in the different stages of wildlife trafficking complicates the state’s intervention to tackle an offence considered a nested complex crime. Because of this, the illegal trade of wildlife is generally considered to be transnational organised crime, requiring a matched response.
For example, the United Nations Conventions against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), in tackling transnational organised crime enables governments to criminalise participation, introduce liability for legal persons, undertake special investigation techniques and cooperate internationally. There are programmes for law enforcement agencies to effectively collaborate in combating these crimes, such as collecting, exchange and analysis of information on the nature of organised crime and training and technical assistance.
But Indonesia has yet to adopt these initiatives in its own regulations. Despite ratifying UNTOC in 2009, the primary foundation of Indonesia’s response to illegal trade of wildlife lies in its Conservation of Biological Natural Resources and their Ecosystems Law. This more than 30-year old law is not suited to combating today’s rampant wildlife trafficking.
For instance, the maximum criminal sentence of five years’ imprisonment and fines of up to IDR 100 million (USD$6,548) are far too lenient compared to the harm caused by the illegal wildlife trade. Indonesian law fails to regulate the involvement of corporations in the illicit trade of protected floras and faunas as it only criminalises individual offenders. Subsequently, it does not equip law enforcement agencies with the necessary powers to investigate and prosecute if such crimes have cross-border characteristics and involve syndicates.
The possibility of using technology to stop wildlife trafficking is yet to be regulated. Even though the government’s claims that Indonesia has succeeded in replenishing and restoring endangered species, the law remains insufficient to comprehensively react to the evolving nature of wildlife trafficking.
Despite being recorded as the biggest verdict of a wildlife-smuggling case, Shia’s prison time does not even reach the maximum term under the 1990 Conservation Law, which various observers considered too lenient. The Quarantine Act is not specifically designed to combat wildlife trafficking as it demands the complete documents for fauna coming to Indonesia. If the offenders could provide such paperwork, the possibility of prosecuting traffickers using this law would be off the table.
Being unable to consider it an organised crime, law enforcement agencies rarely proceed with wildlife trafficking cases until the very top of its business chain. Even though the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommends a complete analysis on the potential money laundering risks relating to the illegal wildlife trade, convictions haven’t gone beyond the leaders and their couriers.
The fact that money laundering and other high-ranking corrupt officers were never present in Shia’s trial reiterates the fragmented strategy of pursuing wildlife trafficking syndicates.
Indonesia’s approach to legislating against wildlife trafficking is threatening its ambition to remain a biodiversity hotspot in Southeast Asia as more endangered species come closer to extinction.
Anugerah Rizki Akbari is a PhD Candidate at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society, Leiden Law School, Universiteit Leiden. He also holds a non-permanent position as lecturer at Department of Criminology, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia. His research interests are crime, criminal law, and criminal justice. He can be found on Twitter @anugerahrizki. A.R. Akbari declares no conflict of interest and did not receive special funding in any form.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
ENDS
Read more about deforestation and ecocide in the palm oil industry
Mountain Cuscus Phalanger carmelitae
The Mountain #Cuscus are fascinating and shy creatures who live in Papua New Guinea and #WestPapua. Thick, dark, woolly fur covers most of their bodies, while their bellies are white. The Mountain Cuscus…
Deforestation and Mining Threaten Rare Species at Lake Poso
New #research highlights how #deforestation for #mining, and oil #palmoil expansion are pushing rare species of #wildlife at #Indonesia’s #LakePoso to the brink. This unique ecosystem, home to critically endangered #fish and other…
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
The Andean condor Vultur gryphus is one of the largest flying #birds in the world, with a wingspan of up to 3.3 metres and a body weight of up to 15 kilograms. These…
Support Helps Gorilla and Human Child Resilience
Young gorillas often suffer horrific events in their childhood: the death of their mother or father due to poachers, kidnapping and rough handling for the illegal pet trade. A study of 250 gorillas…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,392 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#birds #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottMeat #BoycottPalmOil #bushmeat #corruption #crime #deforestation #extinction #illegal #illegalPetTrade #Indonesia #Indonesian #Malaysia #orangutans #PalmOil #palmOilDeforestation #poaching #trafficking #wildlife
-
Lax Laws in Indonesia Turn Blind Eye To Animal Trafficking
When Indonesian prosecutors went after the leader of an illegal wildlife syndicate operating near the Malacca Strait, they relied on the country’s then relatively new 2019 Quarantine Act to seek a prison sentence.
After being connected to the illegal smuggling of four lion cubs, a leopard, and 58 species of Indian Star tortoises from Malaysia to Indonesia, Irawan Shia received a four-year prison sentence and fine of IDR 1 billion (USD$65,468). If the fine is not paid, the replacement is three months imprisonment.
The sentence was the biggest ever handed out, but falls far short of what it could have been had Indonesia brought its laws in line with global conventions.
Illegal #wildlife #crime is rampant in #Indonesia, from #birds to #orangutans, to coral. #Trafficking online is worth $852.6mil USD per year. Indonesia is weak in response. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife #extinction @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2024/11/03/indonesias-lax-laws-fail-to-crack-down-on-rampant-animal-trafficking/
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterOriginally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
Illegal trading of wildlife is rampant in Indonesia, from bird species and orangutans, to coral specimens. Wildlife traffickers using online platforms have found a new marketplace.
Environmental crime is the world’s third largest illegal trade, according to INTERPOL. It’s worth more than USD$20 billion a year but remains overlooked and under-prosecuted. In Indonesia, illegal trade of wildlife costs the economy an estimated USD$852,4 million every year, and according to INTERPOL it’s growing at between 5-7 percent per year.
Despite the numbers, Indonesia is falling short in its response to wildlife trafficking. Observers have called for better criminal investigations and more suitable punishments for the offenders as well as an upgrade to the legislative frameworks tackling these criminal activities.
Due to its lucrative nature and extensive markets, it is almost impossible for criminals to act individually when trafficking wildlife. Similar to drugs and human trafficking, illegal trade of wildlife requires a multitude of criminal networks with individuals holding various duties in committing the crime. Poachers, brokers, intermediaries, exporters-importers, wholesale traders, and retailers are all present in the chain of criminal enterprises.
The involvement of organised crime actors, other crime groups, officials, authorities, and militias in the different stages of wildlife trafficking complicates the state’s intervention to tackle an offence considered a nested complex crime. Because of this, the illegal trade of wildlife is generally considered to be transnational organised crime, requiring a matched response.
For example, the United Nations Conventions against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), in tackling transnational organised crime enables governments to criminalise participation, introduce liability for legal persons, undertake special investigation techniques and cooperate internationally. There are programmes for law enforcement agencies to effectively collaborate in combating these crimes, such as collecting, exchange and analysis of information on the nature of organised crime and training and technical assistance.
But Indonesia has yet to adopt these initiatives in its own regulations. Despite ratifying UNTOC in 2009, the primary foundation of Indonesia’s response to illegal trade of wildlife lies in its Conservation of Biological Natural Resources and their Ecosystems Law. This more than 30-year old law is not suited to combating today’s rampant wildlife trafficking.
For instance, the maximum criminal sentence of five years’ imprisonment and fines of up to IDR 100 million (USD$6,548) are far too lenient compared to the harm caused by the illegal wildlife trade. Indonesian law fails to regulate the involvement of corporations in the illicit trade of protected floras and faunas as it only criminalises individual offenders. Subsequently, it does not equip law enforcement agencies with the necessary powers to investigate and prosecute if such crimes have cross-border characteristics and involve syndicates.
The possibility of using technology to stop wildlife trafficking is yet to be regulated. Even though the government’s claims that Indonesia has succeeded in replenishing and restoring endangered species, the law remains insufficient to comprehensively react to the evolving nature of wildlife trafficking.
Despite being recorded as the biggest verdict of a wildlife-smuggling case, Shia’s prison time does not even reach the maximum term under the 1990 Conservation Law, which various observers considered too lenient. The Quarantine Act is not specifically designed to combat wildlife trafficking as it demands the complete documents for fauna coming to Indonesia. If the offenders could provide such paperwork, the possibility of prosecuting traffickers using this law would be off the table.
Being unable to consider it an organised crime, law enforcement agencies rarely proceed with wildlife trafficking cases until the very top of its business chain. Even though the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommends a complete analysis on the potential money laundering risks relating to the illegal wildlife trade, convictions haven’t gone beyond the leaders and their couriers.
The fact that money laundering and other high-ranking corrupt officers were never present in Shia’s trial reiterates the fragmented strategy of pursuing wildlife trafficking syndicates.
Indonesia’s approach to legislating against wildlife trafficking is threatening its ambition to remain a biodiversity hotspot in Southeast Asia as more endangered species come closer to extinction.
Anugerah Rizki Akbari is a PhD Candidate at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society, Leiden Law School, Universiteit Leiden. He also holds a non-permanent position as lecturer at Department of Criminology, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia. His research interests are crime, criminal law, and criminal justice. He can be found on Twitter @anugerahrizki. A.R. Akbari declares no conflict of interest and did not receive special funding in any form.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™, written by Anugerah Rizki Akbari. Read the original article here.
ENDS
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Latest Writings (and some shares)
The Questions
Again, the moon comes up in the night
Again, the stars
They stir up in me some questions
Without letting me know
Where the answers might be
Nor is the sky helpful
Soon it will be dawn
And the most useless guy to ask
When it comes to such questions
Will be there, giving life to us
But not the kind of life we are seeking.
“Embrace yourself fully before you embrace anyone else or not.”
“How helpless we are to take care of even our loved ones when karma comes hard at them.”
“I know I know. But then I start getting doubts.”
“Woh female ka mere paas sirf email hai.”
“One of the advantages of being a theist is that one can leave the bloody work of revolutions to God, trusting he will bring them about in his own inimitable ways, and rest comfortably in one’s drawing room, reading The Motorcycle Diaries.”
“The cause of suffering is not desire but the gap, irrespective of whether the gap is real or imaginary, between expectation and reality. The funny thing is that in actual reality there are no gaps. So, the gap is always between expectation and imagined reality. Because expectation sets in ONLY when you falsely imagine a gap between that which you are or where you are and that which you want or where you want to be. All in all, it is such a ludicrous situation that I cannot fathom why creation exists at all? Just to annoy us to no end with no good purpose served thereby? And yet we suffer not just alone but along with the rest if mankind.”
“Life is the ultimate physician. It will not leave you alone until you are cured of the malady called ignorance.”
No Loneliness
I am never alone
Never ever alone
I who love words
And bask always
In their company.
“The only bitterness I have is toward myself that I made so many mistakes in life. And yet in the midst of that bitterness, there is an inner peace.”
The Poetic Soul
Yedo teliyani baadha
Yedo teerani daaham
Yedo vedinche tapana
Yedo leni santhrupti
Yedo satyam grahincalekapothunna anay avedana
Yedo prapanchani uddarinche korika
Ila vivarinchutu pothay inka ennenno cheppochu
“Our ontology is not exhausted by our biology and psychology.”–DSR
People Are Too Awake
Where’s a soporific when one needs one
Be it the company of Plato or Nisargadatta
That dullens the pain of this dreary day
Where the sun beats down mercilessly
Though the trees seem to love him
And those with solar rooftops
Me, I prefer the moon and the stars
When stern duty is not calling me
To prove myself worthy to a cause
Life seems all too superfluous
Though none with me agrees
They’re too busy living to think or feel.
The Wild Goose Chase of Self-improvement
Self-help books to motivational speakers to life coaches abound. From Dale Carnegie to Napoleon Hill to Tony Robbins to Jordan Peterson to the Stoics.
This malady afflicts even the spiritually inclined, who keep polishing the mirror of their mind so that they may better see the reflection of the Truth in it.
This, in my opinion, is a largely mistaken enterprise, and if we foolishly undertake it, that will be nothing short of a Sisyphean burden.
Why?
Because the mind or our personality is the shadow of our real original nature, and we are too busy either trying to sharpen the shadow so that we understand the contours of “ourselves” better or getting aghast every time the shadow falls on the gutter.
This world can contain only our shadow.
Nay, this whole world is our own shadow.
Forget the shadow.
Rest blissful in your own original nature, O Sat-Chit-Ananda.
“The winds of heaven mix for ever”
Whatever heavens there be or not
Methinks it for sure is here with me
As I sit idly and let the hours pass by
So that the night’s wait is not long
Should the day decide to tarry a bit
And in this idleness, I find now here
Those who wait for retirement to find.
Neither the sound of a car passing by
Nor an emotion seeking attention
Disturbs me in my idyllic idleness
Everything seems just right, in place
Cars passing by and the needy emotions.
My Silly Heart
I keep thinking
Many years down the line
When the moon is full
And the stars are shining bright
And she in her balcony
Amidst flowers in bloom
She will remember me
And for a fleeting moment
She will wonder
If she made a mistake.
“Cha, this world is full of women. God is a big teaser.”
“Sometimes I think there is something to Islam and its theory of burqas. That way, when I meet her on the road again, I will not recognize her and no old wounds will be reopened.”
“I have started to laugh now. Enlightenment is just round the corner. Summa iru is too easy, far too easy. Everytime, I venture into the territory of thoughts and feelings, her memory will come on strong and with it loads of pain, so in no time I will be convinced summa iru is so much better. Yaaaay.”
“By the time you discover love is truth and truth is love, it may be too late, dear.”
“Blame your mother. She made you addicted to love.”
Summa Iru
Do not ask why
There may be a reason
In her mind
There may be a reason
In your mind
But the world goes on
Not as per our reasons
But as per God’s will.
Besides, dear Sam,
This very looking for reasons
Is what keeps alive
Both the mind and heart
And who can be at peace
Whose mind and heart are at play.
Nevertheless
One thinks about her
And perhaps she thinks about me
Giving scope
For some more mischief in this world.
“Roxette sang ‘It must have been love’. I sing ‘It must have been desire’. The world drama gets underway due to confusion over the blurring of the two.”
Pablo Neruda, Nah I Will Not Write Any Sad Lines Anymore
Neruda, Neruda, Neruda
How you suffered, you poor thing
And wrote many a sad line
If you were alive, I would come
To sit beside you and share in your sorrow
But in the end, I would point out
Irrespective of whether you would get it or not
That if you had known love
You would have crossed the sea of sorrow
And of course you would protest, saying
It is precisely because of that
You were now suffering
Then I would gently say
Why you went in search of love
When there was no hatred in you?
“God has to run the life histories of both the murdered and the murderer down to the minutest and last detail so that they meet at the appointed hour.”
Reinterpreting the Vedic Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice)
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad begins (1.1.1) by reinterpreting the Vedic Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) not as a physical ritual, but as a meditation where the cosmos itself is viewed as a sacrificial horse. It symbolizes the identification of the individual with the universal, using the horse’s body to represent time, space, and the elements.
Symbolism of the Sacrificial Horse (1.1.1):
• Head: The Dawn
• Eye: The Sun
• Vital Force: The Air
• Mouth: Fire (Vaisvanara)
• Body/Time: The Year
• Back/Belly: Heaven and Sky
• Hoof/Footing: Earth
• Veins/Bones/Flesh: Rivers/Stars/Clouds
Key Philosophical Aspects:
• Meditation over Ritual: The Upanishad converts a physical act into a meditation, aiming to transform every object into the Universal Subject.
• The Cause of Duality: The horse sacrifice represents the desire for material prosperity, which arises from the ignorance of our non-dual nature with Brahman.
• Creation as Desire: The text explains that in the beginning, there was only “Death” or “Hunger” (a creative desire), which manifested as the universe.
• Identity with the Divine: The one who understands this symbolic sacrifice (as in 1.2.7) conquers further death, meaning they realize their true identity with the absolute, and death cannot overcome them.
The text implies that the material world and its rituals (the sacrifice) are transient. The true goal is to understand that the sacrificer, the sacrifice, and the deity are ultimately one (the Absolute).
On Friendship by Francis Bacon
“A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body, and it is not much otherwise in the mind: you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.”
Full essay here:
https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/baconf/friends.htm
“In the wickedness of another might lie a lot of good for us, though our puny brains cannot understand that often.”
“A friend puts us to sleep. The enemy awakens us.”
“A Ramana Maharshi does not need a Nisargadatta Maharaj as a friend. But you and I, we need each other for many things in life.”
Shunyam, Shunyam, Sarvam Shunyam
This void at the core
That infects all existence
Including mine
Which mocks all
Who think deep enough
And feel long enough
Cannot be filled
And so, we are screwed
If the void is real.
“If I could, I would. Both personally and otherwise. But I just do not know how.”
“Stop reading. Silence is speaking.”
“The word is meant for the ear. But somehow my heart keeps eavesdropping.”
The Merry-Go-Round
An ache
The never goes away
In all our lives
I wonder how they smile
Despite this
I wonder how they cry
Despite this
This merry-go-round
Who gets on, who gets off
Unconcerned
Is the merry-go-round.
Revisiting the Past
These words
That promise much
Much understanding
Both for me and her
She who read my letter
Many decades back
And thought she understood me
Little did she understand
I did not understand myself.
“Silence also seems to be of different kinds.”
“I find it strange when people say God resides in our hearts because space itself resides in God.”
“That which moves the rivers and earth, moves me also.”
The Sad Part about Marriage as a Legal Institution
That marriage exists as a legal institution is a sad commentary on human nature.
Look at it this way.
If there is love, where is the need for legal guarantees.
Now, I know some will think I am being naive because practically speaking, even if love does not change, the needs may change and people cannot live together any longer. Again, no problem, part on good terms.
Now, in both the above scenarios, the property or financial or livelihood issues can and will be taken care of easily enough because both parties are decent.
The problem comes I think when people fall out of love and it leads to acrimony.
But, even in such a case, it will be far easier to separate than if the couple were legally wedded because then it will lead to a long and messy divorce if it is not mutual.
But, what about property, or financial or livelihood issues in this scenario if the couple are not legally wedded.
I do not think just for that thing one should erect a legal institution called marriage and complicate matters for everyone concerned because one can find a creative solution to these issues.
Plus, think of the vast burden that would be reduced for those less well-to-do parents who incur huge debt to perform the wedding ceremony.
Can love ever be legalized?
“Funnily, people are more bothered about whether someone is walking-the-talk rather than about what the talk is. If you understand the full implications of what I am saying here, you would have understood a lot.”
“We should learn to look at all people as different kinds of trees, without superimposing on them some ‘I’ or personality, or a so-called ‘ghost in the machine’ as Gilbert Ryle would characterize it. Then we can see the thoughts, feelings, words, actions as the different fruits on the people-trees, exposed to and responding to the changing weather patterns. After we all are part of nature, sprung from the earth and into which we will dissolve.”
“Psychiatrists are unaware that Advaita is the correct antipsychotic.”
“My mind wants to cease existing. My heart wants to experience the rainbows.”
“Stop and smell the roses”
“Stop and smell the roses” is an idiom advising to slow down, relax, and appreciate life’s beauty, rather than rushing through it. It emphasizes mindfulness, gratitude, and finding joy in small, daily moments instead of solely chasing goals or worrying about work.
Meaning and Key Takeaways:
• Slow Down: It is a gentle reminder to take a break from a frantic, busy schedule.
• Appreciate the Moment: It encourages being present and noticing the pleasant things around you.
• Enjoy the Process: It serves as a reminder to find happiness during the journey, not just at the destination.
• Self-Care: The phrase suggests that resting and recharging prevents burnout.
Origins:
While the exact origin is unclear, the phrase is often associated with professional golfer Walter Hagen (who encouraged golfers to “stop and smell the roses” between shots) and was famously featured in the 1974 song “Stop and Smell the Roses ” by Mac Davis.
How to Practice It:
• Be Mindful: Focus your attention on your immediate surroundings.
• Practice Gratitude: Count your blessings every day.
• Reduce Stress: Actively avoid letting work-related worries dominate your life.
The Malaise
There’s a malaise deep down
In all our minds and hearts
That neither knowledge can cleanse
Nor can our all too human love
Yet we keep searching for those two
This tussle between the outer and inner
Will be our undoing one day
And when we collapse in despair
Where neither our karma can kill us
Nor our knowledge and love save us
We might at last learn to laugh heartily
Seeing how comic the condition is
Of all us humans on this earth
And at long last might start to think
We can last the night even now
Because our laughter might allow us
To bear whatever pains be our lot
Till the light might dawn at dawn.
“There is nothing wrong with you. That is what is wrong with you.”
“Svadharma, too, is ultimately Svadrama, in that it is playing out the role of a dream character who is part of this cosmic drama — and as a poet said, ‘Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die’.”
The Disconnect Between Me and the World
The world is interested in the economy, society, politics, history, religion, and sports.
I am interested in political philosophy, psychology, philosophy, poetry, literature, arts, and spirituality.
Hence the disconnect.
Hearing a Different Drummer
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
This famous quote by Henry David Thoreau (from his 1854 book Walden) encourages individual nonconformity, self-reliance, and following one’s own path rather than societal expectations.
Key Aspects of Thoreau’s “Different Drummer” Philosophy:
• Individualism & Nonconformity: The quote advocates for being true to oneself and ignoring peer pressure or conventional standards.
• Context in Walden: It is found in the “Conclusion” chapter of Walden, where Thoreau explains his decision to leave the woods and encourages others to pursue their own unique, unconventional lives.
• Self-Reliance: It emphasizes listening to one’s internal convictions (“the music which he hears”) over the opinions of others.
• Interpretation: The “different drummer” is interpreted as an inner voice, passion, or calling that differs from the mainstream “beat” of society.
The phrase is widely used today to encourage being unique, original, and independent.
“Be materialistic if you want to be, but be so in a light, cool, bindaas, zany, nonchalant, innocent, devil-may-care attitude sense, but not in a heavy, in-your-face, flaunty, gawdy, flashy, show-offish, status-seeking, richer-than-thou way.”
“Forget Buddha. Tell me what is your suffering?”
The Five Senses
Every eye judges me
Well, not every eye.
Every ear misunderstands me
Well, not every ear.
Every tongue defames me
Well, not every tongue.
Every nose smells me out
Well, not every nose.
Every hand avoids the touch
Well, not every hand.
Pablo Neruda, Today I Indeed Will Write Even Sadder Lines Than You
You knew what you wanted
And it was her, whoever she was;
I, too, have wanted many a she
Whether each of those she’s
Wanted me or not, and at the end
After having forsaken love for truth
I find I have neither truth nor love
What I have are just these
These words, these lines
In which again people see in them
Not truth or love but merely mistakes.
“Very few get me. Most get to me.”
“I wonder how many are lucky to find what they look for. I wonder how many are lucky to not find what they look for.”
“What would the great DiMaggio do?”
In Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago asks “what would the great DiMaggio do?” to find the strength to endure immense physical pain and isolation, using the baseball legend as a model of resilience. DiMaggio represents playing through injury—specifically bone spurs—symbolizing fighting through suffering to achieve excellence and survival.
What “The Great DiMaggio” Symbolizes to Santiago:
• Perseverance Over Pain: Santiago’s hands are cut and cramped, yet he tells himself, “I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing… They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand”.
• Mental Toughness: Even when facing impossible odds (sharks eating his catch), Santiago draws inspiration from DiMaggio’s “painful condition” (bone spurs) yet still playing, reminding himself to remain a “champion” in his own field of fishing.
• Excellence and Duty: For Santiago, DiMaggio is a, “model of strength and commitment,” a hero who does his job with excellence regardless of circumstances.
In summary, DiMaggio represents the unwavering commitment to duty and the endurance of pain, prompting Santiago to say, “I think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today”.
“Johns Hopkins, a businessman in Baltimore, funded the JH School of Medicine for those weak in body and the JH University for those strong in mind, as he himself put it. But, for me the least preferred spot on earth is a hospital, be it as a patient or as a doctor, and the most preferred spot is a university, be it as a student or as a professor.”
“The differences between castes, such as they may be, are not so much due to differences in ability as much as due to differences in what they love.”
“A poet’s job is not to tell the truth but to make you fall in love with the truth.”
from Robert Frost’s poem “Two Tramps in Mud Time” (https://allpoetry.com/Two-Tramps-In-Mud-Time)
The last stanza reads:
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.
Key Aspects of the Quote:
Meaning: Frost argues against separating love (avocation) from necessity (vocation/work).
Philosophy: He believes true fulfillment comes only when passion and work are united.
Context: The poem contrasts the speaker’s pleasurable, yet necessary, labor of splitting wood with the serious, paid labor needed by the tramps, ultimately aiming to align his love for the task with the necessity of doing it.
The phrase emphasizes holistic living—combining what you love with what you must do.
The Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography
What I Have Lived For
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness–that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what–at last–I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
Hopkins’ most famous dropout
Gertrude Stein’s brief tenure as a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine is often treated as mere literary trivia, but her four years in Baltimore helped set the stage for an unconventional, extraordinary life.
https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2026/spring/gertrude-stein-at-jhu/
Pablo Neruda, I, Too, Write the Saddest Lines Tonight, But…
Yes, Neruda,
I, too, am writing them now
You pined for your love
Without taking a name
Well, all that is fine and good
But you never wrote
In that poem of yours
What love was
Is it merely pining
Like you would have us conclude
And if pining were it
Isn’t everyone pining
For someone or something
In what way your pining was different
That you needed to write about it?
Aren’t you also fooling us
In some way
That such pining has some merit.
Did you spend your life pining away
I hope not.
But tonight I write
About a different kind of pining
One where one’s pining
Is not one’s own pining
But one’s pining
About the pining of others.
The difficulty is not that it is difficult. The difficulty is that we are interested in things other than what he is talking about in the book or at least not sufficiently interested in those matters because our focus is on ourselves as body-mind and consequentially on this world with which we need to interact to serve the purposes of our body-mind…and by that I do not mean only our base or gross desires but also this “thirst” to gain more and more knowledge of this world, be it through natural sciences but also about our own selves in the form of our feelings, emotions, the societies we have built, the “history” that we think we have been through, the future that seems to lie ahead of us, etc., because we are psychophysical organisms or we think we are that, but as Ramana Maharshi pointed out, “Knowledge of duality is ignorance” because duality is unreal and so knowledge of unreality can only be ignorance…understanding this we should live our lives as best as we can doing our svadharma because there is a gap been intellectual understanding and the realization, and it is in that gap our lives will have to be led in such a manner that the gap closes or more correctly we will realize one day that the gap also was merely an imaginary gap…
No Jana, No Dukhi
Which ganja-smoking bloke in which Himalayan cave came up with this prayer or moral ideal (if you ask me, it is nonsense) of “Sarve jana sukhino bhavantu” I do not know, but I do know that he must have been a ganja smoker.
I mean under which possible metaphysical, religious, philosophical. political, social, psychological Weltanschauung can such a state of affairs be brought or has it ever been brought about or has anyone ever put forward a theory or model that can bring it about?
So, as long as jana exist, there will be both sukhis and dukhis, if only sometimes for the simple reason that I will be become a dukhi if I see someone else more sukhi than me.
The only way there will be no dukhi is if there are no jana.
And, if you think about it, strangely enough, spirituality is taking you to that space where you become sukhi by realizing there is no sarve jana but ONLY YOU.
“The source of suffering is NOT what is MISSING from your life, including enlightenment, but what you DO NOT WANT to be MISSING from your life, including enlightenment. Understanding this IS enlightenment.”
“Gender discrimination, caste discrimination, class discrimination, racial discrimination, and ideological discrimination, etc., are all symptoms of one and only one disease.”
“Narayana Murthy thinks he is wise because he has learned the art of ignoring his subconscious mind, which is why he said that thing about the 72 hours. Now, when Sudha Murty got to know that Murthy is going around claiming he is wise, she suppressed her smirk and putting her tongue in her cheek, she wrote for Times of India a column titled, “Yes, he is wise”. This episode is very instructive for us lesser mortals on many things…from the intelligence level of the bourgeois capitalists and their wives, the dynamics of marriage in India, the status of women in Indian society, the standards of journalism in India, the level of public discourse in India, how impotent Arnab Goswami is in certain matters, the awful stupidity that the Infosys employees had to put up with over the years, etc. — too many to enumerate, but I think you get the picture. Nevertheless, as a true desh bhakt I cannot but point out gleefully that Narayana Murthy is now retired, and I do not think Sudha Murty can do much damage as the Chairman of Infosys Foundation. Jai Hind.”
“Fathers are our enemies. Based on their vast experience of married life, they never have a heartfelt conversation with us about what a lot of trouble a woman is, and we end up committing the same mistake they did.”
“You are mistaken. Women do not use reason. They will either cry or slap you.”
Questions to Ask Yourself to Know if You Have Nailed the Concept of Non-doership
1. Am i spontaneous in my reactions?
2. Have I stopped overthinking?
3. Do I worry less than usual?
4. Do i feel less anxious?
5. Am i less afraid?
6. I feel less fearful of the future?
7. I regret the past less?
8. I smile more often?
9. I love others more these days?
10. Others irritate me less?
11. I live these days by the philosophy of Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)?
12. I am happier these days?
If your answers are no to any one of the above such questions, then, dear non-doer who is thinking you are the doer, you have some more work to do.
But then if you ask me if I am not the doer then why are you asking me to do anything, then I will have to say that it will cost you a lot if I have to teach you that—maybe you will need to forgo your vacations for next 5 years to afford my fees.
“The noise is the loudest when she is silent.”
Urgently Hiring: Translator Needed — from English to Silence
The ideal candidate has a master’s degree in Silence — PhD is desirable but not a requirement.
He/she will have a youthful of experience, though we strongly discourage women from applying since our past experience tells us that they find the job too demanding.
Hours of work: The noisy part of the day.
Husbands are strongly encouraged to apply since they know the art of listening better than most.
Salary Expectation: Send us a selfie rather than a voice note.
Location: The World.
Hiring Company: Maya, a conglomerate of all the companies.
Apply @ [email protected]
“Definition of God: That supreme power which can convert in a jiffy emptiness into pain.”
“Does anyone have God’s email ID? I want to write him an email with subject ‘Are you mad?'”
“Definition of a Woman: The magical alchemical potion that converts mard into dard.”
“Emotions are perhaps the counterpart in the heart of the thoughts in the mind, both of which are responses to the desires that our being harbours beneath the mind and heart.”
Seize the day | Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
“Seize the day my friend” is an iconic dialogue from the 2011 film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, delivered by Laila (Katrina Kaif) to Arjun (Hrithik Roshan). The scene highlights the importance of living in the present, enjoying life’s small joys, and not waiting for the future to live, encapsulated by Laila’s line: “Pehle is din ko puri tarah jiyo, phir 40 ke bare me sochna”.
Key Context & Related Lines:
The Context: Laila tells this to Arjun when he says he will retire after 40, questioning him on how he knows he will even live that long.
Related Dialogue: “Insaan ko dibbe mein sirf tab hona chahiye jab woh mar chuka ho” (A person should remain in a box only once he is dead).
Significance: The phrase summarizes the film’s theme (YOLO – You Only Live Once), prompting a shift from work-centric stress to experiencing life.
This philosophy, heavily influenced by Laila’s character, encourages Arjun to overcome his fear of missing out on money and instead focus on finding happiness in the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvOF0qn_r_0
The Four Yogas
As Sankaracharya pointed out, action is NOT opposed to ignorance, only “knowledge” counters ignorance.
And, the problem is ONLY ignorance, ignorance that you are the bound entity called body-mind.
Hence, any amount of karma will not bestow moksha.
So, the only yoga that works ultimately is Jnana Yoga — sravana-manana-nididhyasana.
Rest of the yogas – karma, bhakti and meditation – are merely preparatory or purify and concentrate the mind so that one can then understand Jnana Yoga more easily.
So, how can one tell if other yogas still need to be practiced? They may be needed ONLY if you find that you are not getting “intellectually” what Jnana Yoga is trying to teach.
Nevertheless, one could still deploy all the yogas in one’s daily life.
But, paradoxically, only one who knows Jnana Yoga correctly can practice the other yogas better.
For instance, what is karma yoga ultimately? As Ramana Maharshi pointed out, “kartrutva-bhava rahita karma is karma yoga”, that is, action done without the sense of doership is karma yoga. But only through Jnana Yoga you come to know you are not the doer.
When it comes to Bhakti Yoga, unless you know what is God, you will fall in love with the wrong bloke, and only Jnana Yoga teaches you what exactly God is — see the two verse I will share below from Upadesa Saram of Ramana Maharshi.
And, unless one has understood from Jnana Yoga that there is no distance between you and the Truth (Tat Tvam Asi), then you will be “trying” to (at least subconsciously) some place or state called moksha, and that sets up a restlessness to get there and that disturbs the peace and stillness in meditation because any “desire” be it even “desire” for moksha generates thoughts…remember the chain — ignorance—desires–thoughts—speech and other bodily actions…
from Upadesa Saram
Verse 5
Ether, fire, air, water, earth,
Sun, moon and living beings
Worship of these,
Regarded all as forms of His,
Is perfect worship of the Lord.
Verse 8
Than contemplation with Duality,
the “He is me” (Non-dual) type
of contemplation without Duality,
is considered by Sruti to be more purifying or holy.
Verse 5 and 8, which are part of Bhakti Yoga section In Upadesa Saram, can be done only if one understands why what they are saying is true, and only Jnana Yoga lets you know why they are true.
“Although I am not caught in the rat race, I seem to be caught in some other race, though I know not what race.”
“The ego stays alive as long as you do not fall in love either with a woman or with the idea of liberation or with both.”
Purushulandu punya purushulu veraya ani Vemana rasaadu.
But, I feel he missed a trick by not adding another line to his uppu kappurambu poem:
Kaani, purushulandu ye purushulu veru kaadayya
Maybe he understood that truth, though I cannot be sure, but somehow, he failed to point that out.
Thereby I feel he did a great disservice because now Brahmins are going around deluded, thinking memu Dalitula nunchi veraya.
“That there are no words to name somethings is perhaps a good thing.”
Life Is a Meaningless Farce???
“I had a day to go and I went with it. There was no plan. There was an outline, one which I could follow, floating, gently. There was no goal, no prey to be caught. I was not a circling raptor, a vulture, a shark, a big cat poised to spring. I was not on my guard. This was something else. I was on a journey. On my way home, I thought. I was traveling on an open ticket, with no itinerary. I journeyed through the minutiae of the streets in a universe replete with minor incidents, a host of objects and occurrences and sensations all crowded together in my memory.”
Gosh, to hit upon that! I just couldn’t believe how much these passages expressed this way of living that had something to do with experiencing time — this term “being present” — but it took no effort. How amazing it was! It was a beautiful way to live in the world. And I knew it would go away, too. I have to try to remember it. I have to try to live this way. The degree of freshness to the world around me and the amazement and the beauty of it was something I got to be in!
Read full interview with Bob Odenkirk here:
A friend shared:
“The world will trouble you so long as any part of you belongs to the world.
It is only if you belong entirely to the DIVINE that you can become free”
Sri Aurobindo 🪷
I replied:
So, how do you plan to “belong entirely to the DIVINE”?
Now, I am not asking that in any skeptical way.
My opinion is that to “belong entirely to the DIVINE” one has to basically be silent.
I am not sure how being “silent” can be pulled off by people who are still working.
At the same time, I am not sure how even people like me who work only 1 hr/day can also pull off being silent.
I think one has to really be wanting liberation desperately that one will go after it almost single-mindedly — I will give a few quotes of Nisargadatta below, which sort of speak to this, but before that let me share my own insights into this.
I basically realized that it is not that difficult to keep just the body alive. And, what is this world and all its feverish activity but the various ways to keep the mind and heart not only alive but also somehow happy and joyous. So, I sort of said at one point, “Just keep the body alive, and forget the mind and heart.” In my case, where I am hardly working and even that work, I do from home, and I am single and I almost never visit anyone nor anyone visits me that much, I perhaps could somehow pull it off. But, here, too, a person like J. Krishnamurti will create some doubt in your mind because he keeps saying, “to be is to be related”, and moreover Nididhyasana is best done in the midst of all the relationships in this world and while “living” in the world.
But I find myself somehow pulled into online interactions, though these days since I have deleted almost all my social media accounts, only WhatsApp keeps me engaged, and the occasional phone call.
So, it is a bit unclear how to spend one’s day. Hence, I have decided that perhaps Maharshi’s advice to spend 1-2 hrs a day in meditation and spend the rest of the day anyway might be the middle path I am looking for because in that case, I can follow my svadharma, though not in the field work involving livelihood but other “work” whereby I pursue literature, arts and philosophy, which not only satisfy my svadharma of the intellectual life but also would contribute directly or indirectly to purifying the obstacles (which you, too, are somehow focused on with you turn to Abhidharma), and in the process somewhere down the road maybe a more radical inward turn could take place.
Maybe we can also use the advice given by WB Yeats in his poem “Down By the Salley Gardens”, though that advice was given in the context of romantic love between two humans, but I do not see why the same advice cannot be followed when it comes to the relation between our individual soul and the divine because love, even of the romantic kind is to “belong entirely to one’s beloved”, and all that Aurobindo seems to be saying is let your beloved be the DIVINE, so love has to be there but in what proportion one loves the various objects one’s love could vary.
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs;
from I Am That: Dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do not see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream itself.
The desire to find the self will be surely fulfilled, provided you want nothing else. But you must be honest with yourself and really want nothing else. If in the meantime you want many other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser and cease being torn between contradictory urges. Go within, without swerving, without ever looking outward.
Try to be, only to be. The all-important word is ‘try’. Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions. Don’t ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no failure. What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must really have had surfeit of being the person you are, now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistance against the unnecessary is the secret of success.
“When love comes calling, be prepared to lose everything. Because to hold on to love, you have to let go of your hold on everything else.”
“I have been kicked around since I was born by words.”
“Love is a pleasure that conceals the pain.”
“Love’s only task is to make you aware how far you are from it.”
“Something strange is going on in this world of love. Our parents loved us. Our siblings loved us. Our teachers loved us. Our friends loved us. Our colleagues loved us. Sometimes the boss loved us. Sometimes the wife loved us. Our children loved us. Even the janitor loved us. At the end of it all, we are still searching. Wanting perfect love? But, did the others, the parents, the siblings, the teachers, the friends, the colleagues, the boss, the wife, the children, the janitor get that perfect love from us? Are we here on earth only to leave one other forever dissatisfied?’-
What’s This Reaching Out?
What’s this reaching out
That is happening all the time
In all climes, reaching out for what
To possess a smile, to set free a pain
To win the Nobel or become Noble
To bring about World Peace
To dress the neighbour’s wound
Most often we do not know
What wounds a neighbour has.
The Ignorance
Sometimes I wonder
If I have in me
That which love wants.
And I also wonder
If love has
That which I want.
“What gives philosophers sleepless nights is emotion because try as they might they just cannot account for it in their neat overarching theories.”
“When it comes to us humans, probably there is something like optimal distance even in love, but when it comes to God, one has to go all the way, otherwise one can never reach him.”
“When you can love the girl in mini-skirt who has a cute smile but do not exclude the guy in the unemployment line from the ambit of your love, then consider that you are beginning to understand life.”
“Every generation talks of love in its own way, writes songs in its own way, makes movies in its own way, writes novels in its own way, writes poetry in its own way, creates art and music in its own way, and yet every generation keeps missing the mark by and large. O, the pity of it, it makes me cry.”
Being Gen Z
My Brahmin friend
Yes, I gotta mention his caste
Since Gen Z, too,
Has not forgotten caste,
Thinks I am not as cool as Gen Z
I know he has read history
He has read DD Kosambi
And keeps mentioning
Some Brahmin king Pushyamitra
I am surprised then
He has not heard of Romeo and Juliet
O lover of Che Guevara
And to an extent Marx
Know that love is as old as the hills
Nay older than the hills
If some Greek philosopher
Is to be believed, who said
Eros and Eris are the two forces
That give rise to this world
So, don’t give me this Gen Z bullshit.
“Keeping Quiet”
Now, people will start wondering why is the guy who is saying “Just keep quiet” is not keeping quiet.
Without confusing all you people by saying things like, “It depends on what you mean by ‘quiet'”, let me put things more simply.
You cannot get to quietude by “trying” to be quiet, because that very attempt and trying is the unquietude.
Instead, just keep saying, writing and doing things that will allow you to get to quietude.
Because after all, one will soon get tired of shouting and fall silent.
Maybe that is why the Bhagavad Gita says, “Action is better than inaction.”
So, keep shouting instead of keeping quiet when the urge to shout is there inside.
“The world is the fashion parade of Brahman.”
Quote of the day by Christina Rossetti:
‘Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun’ ;
lessons on productivity from British poet –
The Economic Times https://share.google/sTSRqKdlMyTJnJh2C
Why Should We Imagine Sisyphus Happy?
Explaining Camus’ Famous Quote | TheCollector
https://share.google/ZcxfGM9HXVIqDjvpt
From The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling — https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_eastwest.htm
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
Kipling’s justly famous ‘Ballad of East and West’, in which an English officer and an Afghan horse-thief Kamal discover friendship by respecting one another’s courage and chivalry. The ballad tells how, when Kamal the border thief steals a prize bay mare, the Colonel’s son (not named) follows them into enemy territory.
When his own horse collapses from exhaustion the Colonel’s son, having lost a pistol to Kamal and being threatened with the prospect of making a meal for the jackals and crows, ‘lightly’ responds by promising vengeance:
…Do good to bird and beast’
But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast’ .
His jesting defiance wins the tribute: ‘May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath’ from Kamal, and the Colonel’s son responds in kind:
Take up the mare and keep her – by God she has carried a man.
Kamal instead gives back the mare with the ‘lifter’s dower’ of his own jewelled accoutrements, and when the Colonel’s son in return offers him the gift of his remaining pistol Kamal, not to be outdone in generosity, whistles up his ’only son’ to be the companion and fellow-soldier of the Englishman. The two young men return to ‘Fort Bukloh’ and: ‘the boy who last night was ‘a Border-thief’ is now ‘a man of the Guides.’
One Way of Looking at Some Things
“To love truth and see the truth in love — these are the only two worthwhile goals in life.”
“Love is in the air but the problem is we have stopped breathing.”
“No two pairs of eyes can see the same world.”
“All worlds are relative to the one who sees.”
“To know and yet not know is the anguish.”
“The very need for love is the lie, and yet we cannot seem to go beyond the need for love.”
“God keeps appearing in our life as the sunrise, the smile, the love, and sometimes as the sunset, the smirk, the separation, and we keep thinking they are just sunrises, smiles, loves, sunsets, smirks, and separations.”
“Sometimes he who knows too much, understands very little.”
“Knowledge keeps adding to the doubt.”
“All fear prevents the flowering.”
“Everybody fears everyone in this world. Hence so many contracts, including the wedding vows.”
“When love itself needs to be reaffirmed from time to time, what fulfillment can we expect in this world.”
“Aristotle said ‘Man is a social animal’. But as long as we remain a social animal, the animal in us also will live on.”
“He who is afraid of hatred cannot understand what love is.”
The Dream Analogy and Castes
Remember the dream analogy.
The waking world is also a dream.
The dream characters of Brahmins and Reddys are NOT real…they are just dream characters.
Only the dreamer is real.
And the dreamer can dream up even 10 castes, why only 4 castes.
“Is one ever NOT in love? Only the object(s) of one’s love keeps changing. Find out what you love truly and deeply.”
“In the depths, and at the very foundations, of every body of knowledge, every romantic love, every one-night stand, every relationship, every extra-marital affair, every mode of thinking, every emotion, every sadness, every failure, every success, every joy, every betrayal, every criticism, every praise, every blame, every shame, every envy, every guilt, every remorse, every destruction, every hate, every deceit, every judgement, every forgiving, every kindness, every sympathy, every empathy, every compassion, every doubt, Truth and Love await to receive you with open arms.”
Apollonian and Dionysian Dichotomoy
Apollonian and Dionysian are philosophical concepts from Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872) representing the duality between order/reason (Apollo) and chaos/emotion (Dionysus). Apollonian represents structure, logic, and individualism, while Dionysian represents ecstasy, intoxication, and unity. Nietzsche argued that great art arises from the synthesis of these opposing forces.
Key Aspects of the Apollonian and Dionysian Dichotomy:
Apollonian (Order and Form): Associated with Apollo, the god of light, music, and reason. It embodies principles of moderation, clarity, beauty, and individuality. It relates to structured arts like sculpture and epic poetry, creating a “beautiful illusion” that makes existence bearable.
Dionysian (Chaos and Unity): Associated with Dionysus, the god of wine, ritual, and madness. It embodies irrationality, intense emotion, unbridled passion, and the dissolution of the individual into a collective, chaotic whole. It relates to art forms like music, which break down individual barriers.
Nietzsche’s Perspective: Nietzsche believed Greek culture reached its peak by balancing these two forces, notably in Athenian tragedy, which combined structured dialogue (Apollonian) with musical chorus (Dionysian). He argued that a, overemphasis on the Apollonian (rationality) since Socrates led to the decline of art and cultural vitality, calling for a return to a healthy tension between the two.
Application: These terms are used to analyze art, psychology, and personality, describing a person’s tendency toward control (Apollonian) or passion and spontaneity (Dionysian).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQzyb5fgrQ
“No Brahmin could have taught the Bhagavad Gita.”
Why
Because the Brahmin (and by this I do not mean merely Brahmin by birth but in the sense in which Krishna himself describes in Gita that one’s caste is determined by one’s guna and karma, and not by birth, which point even Buddhism talks about in a whole chapter in Dhammapada as to who is a Brahmana) is one characterized by Sattva Guna, which in turn is characterized by Happiness and knowledge.
The field of karma and action is the domain of Rajas.
Hence, the Brahmin will struggle to understand the metaphysics of action, which only a Kshatriya like Krishna could fathom. The Brahmin, with his knowledge, might be able to invent better bows and arrows, and the art of archery, etc. The Brahmin might even be able to say why Kurukshetra is necessary, etc., given his political understanding. But he will be struggling to connect action and duty and karma drama happening in the physical world to the metaphysical world of soul and moksha.
That is why Vedas make a sharp distinction between action (Karma Kanda of yajnas, sacrifices, etc.) and knowledge (Jnana Kanda of Upanishads), the two clear demarcations in Vedas, the so-called apara vidya and para vidya, which has led to the Varnashrama Dharma.
Krishna comes and blurs the distinction between apara vidya and para vidya, saying that both can take you to moksha.
Karma Yoga road also takes you to the same destination as the road of Jnana Yoga, is what Krishna pointed out.
The Brahmin is dwelling in the world of knowledge and wisdom, and the kshatriya like Krishna is dwelling in the thick of action or you could say applied knowledge. So, only Krishna is in the best position to understand the mysteries of action and karma.
In the modern world, these Brahmins would be people like professors, researchers, consultants, etc.
“It is not the path that is important but the traveller. Because every path takes you to the truth, but the traveller may like to take rest, or fear the hardships on the path, or want to switch paths, etc.”
“Ultimately, our love for others helps us much more than it helps others.”
“Marx says it’s the bourgeois. Maharshi says it’s you.”
The Secret Few Know
You can try
But you ain’t gonna succeed
Better give up
Why, you ask
Surely, you can fail
Only when you try to succeed.
“Only when you are at ease to be sitting with even a murderer and allowing him to tell his side of the story can you be said to be enlightened to a large extent.”
“Among all the castes it is the Brahmin who is the coward. Why? He lives in constant fear that even the shadow of the Dalit will eclipse the light of knowledge in his being.”
“Always assign at least a tiny corner to doubt in the impressive edifice of your knowledge and wisdom.”
“Hell is your underemployed and unmarried friend with access to WhatsApp.”
“Ghar waapsi karna chahta hoon. Lekin kitna bi sonchoo ya dhoondoon pata hi nahi lag raa ghar ka pataa.”
“Gandhi is supposed to have said, ‘My life is my message.’ I, not being so profound, can only say, ‘My life is my joke’.”
“One kind of bad karma, there are many kinds mind you, is when people start laughing more at you than at your jokes.”
“It is so sad that till now I have recognized instantly every friend I have met no matter how long it was since we last met.”
“In friendship there is a giving without any expectation and a receiving without any obligation.”
‘Sometimes freedom throws itself around your arms as unrequited love.’
‘She was wearing the rose in her hair, and I was brushing off the snow from my jacket.’
“The longing for the home is the cause for all the strife in this world. To feel at home anywhere and everywhere is freedom.”
“When you set aside the mind and heart, you reach that state of aloneness that is also oneness in which there can be no loneliness.”
“This is the mistake we keep making that we seek the truth with our mind and love with our heart, without realizing that only when we set aside the mind and heart will we find the truth and love that we seek.”
Sambhavami Yuge Yuge: Thoughts While Reading Some Diaries
Sometimes a boy from Argentina
Is the antidote
If you ask “For what?”
Then you are part of the problem.
“Every day the sun arrives and with it some smiles, and those make us dance and dance till our feet ache.”
#faith #Family #Life #Love #Poem #Poetry #Quotations #Quotes #Truth #Writing -
Wednesday Reads: Can We Still Prevent A Trump Dictatorship?
Good Morning!!
We are in deep trouble as a country. Trump hasn’t even been in the White House for 100 days, and he has made rapid progress toward turning us into a dictatorship. I think Congressional Democrats are beginning to wake up, but not nearly quickly enough. Too many of these elected Democrats still aren’t taking the danger seriously enough. In my opinion, they should calling press conferences at least every few days to explain how Trump is destroying our government.
There’s an excellent piece in The Atlantic by executive editor Adrienne LaFrance (gift link): A Ticking Clock on American Freedom. It’s later than you think, but it’s not too late.
Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time.
Maria Ressa
People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a “slide,” but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country’s democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.
Shortly after Trump was reelected last fall, I called Ressa to ask her how she thought Americans should prepare for his return. She told me then that she worried about a failure of imagination. She knew that the speed of the destruction of institutions—one of the first steps an authoritarian takes to solidify and centralize power—would surprise people here, even those paying the closest attention. Ressa splits her time between Manila and New York, and she repeatedly warned me to be ready for everything to happen quickly. When we spoke again weeks after his inauguration, Ressa was shaken. President Trump was moving faster than even she had anticipated.
I heard something similar recently from Garry Kasparov, the Russian dissident and chess grand master. To him, the situation was obvious. America is running out of time, he told me. As Kasparov wrote recently in this magazine, “If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too.”
The chorus of people who have lived through democratic ruin will all tell you the same thing: Do not make the mistake of assuming you still have time. Put another way: You think you can wait and see, and keep democracy intact? Wanna bet? Those who have seen democracy wrecked in their home country are sometimes derided as overly pessimistic—and it’s understandable that they’d have a sense of inevitability about the dangers of autocracy. But that gloomy worldview does not make their warnings any less credible: Unless Trump’s power is checked, and soon, things will get much worse very quickly. When people lose their freedoms, it can take a generation or more to claw them back—and that’s if you’re lucky.
Trump’s methods clearly mirror those of authoritarian leaders in other countries.
The Trump administration’s breakneck pace is obviously no accident. While citizens are busy processing their shock over any one shattered norm or disregarded law, Trump is already on to the next one. This is the playbook authoritarians have used all over the world: First the leader removes those with expertise and independent thinking from the government and replaces them with leaders who are arrogant, ignorant, and extremely loyal. Next he takes steps to centralize his power and claim unprecedented authority. Along the way, he conducts an all-out assault on the truth so that the truth tellers are distrusted, corruption becomes the norm, and questioning him becomes impossible. The Constitution bends and then finally breaks. This is what tyrants do. Trump is doing it now in the United States.
Philippines, it took about six months under Duterte for democratic institutions to crumble. In the
Rodrigo Duterte
United States, the overreach in executive power and the destruction of federal agencies that Ressa told me she figured would have kept Trump busy through, say, the end of the summer were carried out in the first 30 days of his presidency. Even so, what people don’t always realize is that a dictator doesn’t seize control all at once. “The death of democracy happens by a thousand cuts,” Ressa told me recently. “And you don’t realize how badly you’re bleeding until it’s too late.” Another thing the people who have lived under authoritarian rule will tell you: It’s not just that it can get worse. It will.
Americans who are waiting for Trump to cross some imaginary red line neglect the fact that they have more leverage to defend American democracy today than they will tomorrow, or next week, or next month. While people are still debating whether to call it authoritarianism or fascism, Trump is seizing control of one independent agency after another. (And for what it’s worth, the smartest scholars I know have told me that what Trump is trying to do in America is now textbook fascism—beyond the authoritarian impulses of his first term. Take, for example, his administration’s rigid ideological purity tests, or the extreme overreach of government into freedom of scientific and academic inquiry.)
Between the time I write this sentence and the moment when this story will be published, the federal government will lose hundreds more qualified, ethical civil servants. Soon, even higher numbers of principled people in positions of power will be fired or will resign. More positions will be left vacant or filled by people without standards or scruples. The government’s attacks against other checks on power—the press, the judiciary—will worsen. Enormous pressure will be exerted on people to stay silent. And silence is a form of consent.
This article is essential reading. I hope you’ll use the gift link to read the rest at The Atlantic.
Dave Davies of NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed political science Professor Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die: Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump.
In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats’ warnings that American democracy was in jeopardy if Donald Trump was elected failed to persuade a majority of voters. Our guest, Steven Levitsky, says there’s plenty of reason to worry about our democracy now….
In a new article for the journal Foreign Affairs, Levitsky and co-author Lucan A. Way write, quote, “U.S. democracy will likely break down during the Second Trump administration in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for a liberal democracy – full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties,” unquote. We’ve invited Levitsky here to explain the threats he sees to democracy and to talk about dramatic developments in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Harvard University.
DAVIES: You note in this article that Freedom House, which is a nonprofit that’s been around for a long time, which produces an annual global freedom index, has reduced the United States’ rating. It has slipped from 2014 to 2021. How much? Where are we now, and where did we used to be?
Steven Levitsky
LEVITSKY: Freedom House’s scores range from zero, which is the most authoritarian to a hundred, which is the most democratic. I think a couple of Scandinavian countries get scores of 99 or 100. The U.S. for many years was in the low 90s, which put it broadly on par with other Western democracies like the U.K. and Italy and Canada and Japan. But it slipped in the last decade, from Trump’s first victory to Trump’s second victory, from the low 90s to 83, which placed us below Argentina. And in a tie with Romania and Panama. So we’re still above what scholars would consider a democracy, but now in the very low-quality democracy range, comparable, again, to Panama, Romania and Argentina.
DAVIES: And does Freedom House explain its demotion? Why? Why did this happen?
LEVITSKY: Oh, yeah. Freedom House has annual reports for every country – the rise in political violence, political threats, threats against politicians, refusal to accept the results of a democratic election in 2020, an effort to use violence to block a peaceful transfer of power are all listed among the reasons for why the United States has fallen. I should say that even in the first four months of the Trump administration, it’s quite certain that what’s happening on the ground in the United States is likely to bring the U.S. score down quite a bit.
DAVIES: You say that the danger here is not that the United States will become a classic dictatorship with sham elections, you know, opposition leaders arrested, exiled or killed. What kind of autocracy might we become?
LEVITSKY: I think the most likely outcome is a slide into what Lucan Way and I call competitive authoritarianism. These are regimes that constitutionally continue to be democracies. There is a Constitution. There are regular elections, a legislature and importantly, the opposition is legal, above ground and competes for power. So from a distance, if you squint, it looks like a democracy, but the problem is that systematic coming (ph) abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. This is the kind of regime that we saw in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. It’s subsequently become a full-on dictatorship. It’s what we see in Turkey under Erdogan. It’s what we see in El Salvador. It’s what we see in Hungary today. Most new autocracies that have emerged in the 21st century have been led by elected leaders and fall into this category of competitive authoritarianism. It’s kind of a hybrid regime.
DAVIES: So free and fair elections lead us to a leader which takes us in a different direction?
LEVITSKY: Right. And because the leader is usually freely and fairly elected, he has a certain legitimacy that allows him to say, hey, how can you say I’m an authoritarian if I was freely and fairly elected? So citizens are often slow to realize that their country is descending into authoritarianism.
You can read the rest of the interview or listen to it at the NPR link.
Jamelle Bouie writes at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Wants You to Think Resistance Is Futile. It Is Not.
The American constitutional system is built on the theory that the self-interest of lawmakers can be as much of a defense against tyranny as any given law or institution.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Our Constitution is nothing more than a “parchment barrier” if not backed by the self-interest and ambition of those tasked with leading the nation.
One of the most striking dynamics in these first months of the second Trump administration was the extent to which so many politicians seemed to lack the ambition to directly challenge the president. There was a sense that the smart path was to embrace the apparent “vibe shift” of the 2024 presidential election and accommodate oneself to the new order.
But events have moved the vibe in the other direction. Ambition is making a comeback.
Last week, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador, where he met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a victim of the Trump administration’s removal program under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act….
Abrego Garcia is one of the men trapped in this black zone. Despite his protected legal status, he was arrested, detained, accused of gang activity and removed from the United States. At no point did the government prove its case against Abrego Garcia, who has been moved to a lower-security prison, nor did he have a chance to defend himself in a court of law or before an immigration judge. As one of Abrego Garcia’s representatives in the United States Senate, Van Hollen met with him to both confirm his safety and highlight the injustice of his removal.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen
“This case is not just about one man,” Van Hollen said at a news conference following his visit. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.” [….]
The goal of Van Hollen’s journey to El Salvador — during which he was stopped by Salvadoran soldiers and turned away from the prison itself — was to bring attention to Abrego Garcia and invite greater scrutiny of the administration’s removal program and its disregard for due process. It was a success. And that success has inspired other Democrats to make the same trip, in hopes of turning more attention to the administration’s removal program and putting more pressure on the White House to obey the law.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is reportedly organizing a trip to El Salvador, and a group of House Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California arrived on Monday. “While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Representative Garcia said in a statement. “That is why we’re here, to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”
“We are demanding the Trump administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States,” Garcia added.
All of this negative attention has had an effect. It’s not just that the president’s overall approval rating has dipped into the low 40s — although it has — but that he’s losing his strong advantage on immigration as well. Fifty percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a recent poll from Quinnipiac University, and a new Reuters poll shows Trump slightly underwater on the issue with a 45 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
These lawmakers are getting positive attention for standing up to Trump, and their actions are waking up Americans who may not have been paying enough attention to Trump’s illegal and cruel deportations.
A group of Congress people traveled to Louisiana yesterday to meet with university students who have been kidnapped and held without charges. CNN: Congressional delegation visits Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in Louisiana detention centers.
A delegation of congressional members traveled to Louisiana Tuesday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk and inspect conditions at the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities where the two remain in custody.
It’s the first time a congressional delegation has met with Khalil or Ozturk.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, and Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student, have been in ICE custody for more than a month after being arrested near their homes by federal agents.
The Democrat delegation, led by Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana traveled to Jena, where Khalil is being held, and then two hours south to Basile, where Ozturk is detained. The group included Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Sen. Ed Markey.
Mahmoud Khalil
The facilities were clean but “chilly” according to Carter, who said detainees complained of cold temperatures at night, making it difficult to sleep. Carter said the facilities appeared to have been cleaned prior to their visit and that conditions appeared to be “fine” while they visited.
Following the visit, lawmakers said the detainees they met with also complained about a lack of medical care, food and religious accommodations.
“I really worry that this administration is ushering in a new era of McCarthyism. And unless Congress and unless the American people stand up and push back, they will succeed,” McGovern said during a press conference after the visits.
Markey accused the Trump administration of wanting to “make an example” out of Khalil and Ozturk in an effort to chill free speech. Markey also said ICE had intentionally transferred them to Louisiana for political reasons.
Through the Trump administration, ICE feels “they have a right to take people from across our country, and to put them into facilities like this here in Louisiana,” Markey said. “And why did they do that? They have done that in order to go to the single most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States of America.”
Again, these Congress people received positive media coverage. As Jamelle Bouie wrote (see above article), perhaps their ambition has led them to publicly oppose Trump’s dictatorial actions.
David Atkins at Washington Monthly: Democrats Need to Make Republicans Fear the Consequences of Attempting a Dictatorship.
Imagine that you were a high-ranking official in Donald Trump’s administration. Imagine that you believed in the Dark Enlightenment dream of dismantling liberal democracy itself—of “killing the woke mind virus,” ending birthright citizenship, and using federal power to suppress dissent. Now imagine you’re openly defying the Supreme Court, declaring that protest aids and abets terrorism, directing the FBI and IRS to target political enemies, and seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act on flimsy pretexts. What would stop you?
Certainly not impeachment. Not with a compliant Republican Congress. Not with a conservative media ecosystem ready to justify any abuse of power as a patriotic necessity. The only thing that might give you pause is the possibility that Democrats would regain control and then do to you what you’ve done to them.
That fear of reciprocal power and legal accountability was once enough to preserve American political norms. It was the logic of mutually assured destruction: if you break democracy now, they’ll break you later. That’s how informal guardrails were enforced, even through dark chapters like Watergate or Iran-Contra. But those norms no longer hold because no one believes Democrats will retaliate.
This is the context for the quiet battle raging within the Democratic Party leadership. A few anonymous but influential centrists are urging party leaders to soft-pedal Trump’s detention of legal residents in foreign internment camps and pivot to kitchen-table economics instead. Even as constituents demand action and donors grow restless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries still signal caution, urging patience and restraint…..
Rumeysa Ozturk
There have been some bright spots. Senator Cory Booker broke Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record in a marathon floor speech denouncing Trump’s abuses. Senator Chris Van Hollen forced a meeting with abducted U.S. resident Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, delivering proof of life and drawing global attention. Senator Chris Murphy’s rhetoric has been sharp and effective. House Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (along with her “anti-oligarchy tour” partner Senator Bernie Sanders), Jasmine Crockett, and Robert Garcia have been doing excellent work. Their energy and determination carry the tacit message that those who broke the law and tried to impose an authoritarian regime on the U.S. will face appropriate justice at the end of the day. Representative Jamie Raskin was explicit about warning El Salvador’s leader: “Look, President Bukele—who’s declared himself a dictator—and the other tyrants, dictators, autocrats of the world have to understand that the Trump administration is not going to last forever,” Raskin said. “We’re going to restore strong democracy to America, and we will remember who stood up for democracy in America and who tried to drive us down towards dictatorship and autocracy.”
But these have been exceptions rather than the rule. Most Democrats in leadership and positions of power have stayed quiet—avoiding press conferences, shunning symbolic actions, and allowing business to continue as if the country weren’t barreling toward authoritarianism.
When pressed, party leaders often respond that they can do little substantively. That protests are performative. That voters are tired of drama. But that’s not the point. The point isn’t what Democrats can do today. It’s what they’re signaling they’re willing to do when they return to power.
If Trump and his allies face no meaningful consequences, they have no reason to stop. If Republicans don’t believe that Democrats will act with equal force to protect democracy—legally, aggressively, unapologetically—then there’s no deterrent to further escalation.
Click the link to read the rest.
One more from Toby Buckle at Liberal Currents: Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So.
Throughout the Trump era I’ve been firmly in the camp unaffectionately dismissed as ‘alarmist’ by most commentators. Put simply: It is that bad. Liberal democracy is in danger. Fascism is a reasonable term for what we’re fighting.
For veteran ‘alarmists’ this is a strange moment. People are at a loss. It seems wrong, given all that is at stake, to say “I told you so”. I’ve felt that discomfort. For the longest time I avoided saying that. It felt . . . petty, childish, gauche, it just wasn’t the done thing. One of the big political awakenings I’ve had over the last year, and particularly since Trump’s 2024 victory, is realizing that it’s OK to say “called it”. More than OK. Even if it feels awkward, it’s actually important, perhaps necessary, that we do.
My view has not been, to put it mildly, the mainstream position. You’re allowed, with a certain amount of resentment, to say it today. But that wasn’t always the case. I recall first voicing it as the antecedents of Trump, the tea party and growing white supremacy, started to arise. Obama’s “the fever will break” seemed hopelessly naive to me. The press treated them either as legitimate libertarians or an eccentric curiosity, not a threat. To the activist left, what would become the Bernie movement, they were a joke—the punchline to a Jon Stewart monologue. Nothing more. When Trump first rode the elevator down to announce his candidacy, it was entertainment, not omen.
If you saw in any of this a threat to liberal democracy writ large, much less one that could actually succeed, you were looked at with the kind of caution usually reserved for the guy screaming about aliens on the subway. Trump’s election in 2016 was a shock to people who insisted it could never happen. But those most complacent before quickly found their way back to complacency after. For a certain type—specifically, the type who has a column in legacy media despite never having written an interesting or original paragraph in their lives—smug condescension became the order of the day: yes, Trump is bad, but dear me those liberals are being hysterical. As late as the last election they were writing pieces with titles like “A Trump Dictatorship Won’t Happen” or “No, Trump won’t destroy our democracy.” Even after the election, as the scale of the incoming lawlessness became clear, we were dismissed: “Trump Is Testing Our Constitutional System. It’s Working Fine” respected legal commentator Noah Feldman told us—the legal rationale for his actions was very flimsy. Courts would strike it all down. And certainly the administration would not ignore a court order.
One thing I’ve always wondered about the anti-alarmists during this decade was, to put it bluntly, weren’t they worried about looking stupid? The path we were on seemed clear enough to me, but I didn’t know the future. I always stressed that my predictions were one of any number of possible outcomes. They didn’t. What I was saying was dismissed, not just as unlikely, but impossible. Did they not want to hedge their bets even a bit? And it’s not as if the liberal democratic collapse happened all at once. The last decade has been a steady drum beat of them being wrong, again and again. Yet it never shook them.
Read more at Liberal Currents.
I have been fearful of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies since the 2016 campaign and so have most Sky Dancers. It does feel sometimes that people who didn’t see it are stupid, but I’m willing to welcome people who are beginning to change their minds to the resistance. We need as many resisters as possible. Trump’s polls are dropping now, as more people begin to see what he’s really up to–and it isn’t about bringing down grocery prices. I want to believe there is still hope for our democracy. Lately, it looks like some Democratic leaders are ready to fight back. Some of that fight must have come from seeing the protests all over the country. Now we need a few Republicans to grow spines and stand up to Trump.
That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#AbregoGarcia #Autocracy #ChrisVanHollen #CoryBooker #dictatorship #GaryKasparov #MahmoudKhalil #MariaRessa #Philippines #RodrigoDuterte #RumeysaOzturk #StevenLevitsky
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#NewsFromTheFront
Weekly update from your anarchist comrades in #NES
20.01.25-26.01.25Also available on https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/category/war-updates/
## NES ##
# WEARETISHREEN ACTION DAYS
To support resistance in Tishreen Dam, the internationalist commune called for days of action on January 25th and 26th. 10 years ago, on these dates, the city of Kobane was liberated from the attacks of ISIS. Today, the attacks of Turkish forces are still ongoing. For more than 2 weeks civilian convoys have been arriving to maintain a vigil in Tishreen dam. The vigil is continually attacked by drones, with 18 civilians killed and over a 100 injured. Important representatives of the autonomous administration of North-East Syria who joined the vigil also got injured in those attacks, as well as some internationalists who also went there to support the resistance.
# INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUSPEND OPERATIONS IN NES
International organizations providing humanitarian help have suspended their programs in northeastern Syria without providing a timeline for the suspension. This follows an executive order signed by the new U.S. President Donald Trump, which temporarily halts all U.S. foreign aid programs for 90 days. Several international organizations operating in northeastern Syria have informed their staff that program implementation will be paused pending a review by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The executive order signed by Trump states that all heads of departments and agencies responsible for U.S. foreign development assistance programs must immediately suspend new commitments and the disbursement of development aid funds.
# RELEASE OF SYRIAN FAMILIES FROM AL-HOL
66 Syrian families currently in the al-Hol camp will be allowed to return to their home. Al-Hol camp hosts families of ISIS fighters, mostly women and children captured during the operations that brought the islamic caliphate to an end. This is the first time that detainees from Syria in al-Hol camp are allowed to leave the camp. Date for return of these families has not yet been disclosed. Talks about return of other Syrian and Iraqi families detained in the camp are on going. This announcement came together with a call to UNHCR and Red Cross to assist the camp administration to ensure the return of those families, as well as a call for the international community to take responsibility for foreign detainees.
## SYRIA ##
# HTS MOVES SOUTH AND EAST
The Military Operations forces, linked to the transitional government of HTS, took control of a corridor along the M5 in southern Syria until the city of Daraa and the border with Jordan. This move divided the territory under control of the southern operations room in the Daraa region and the Druze defense forces in Suweyda region. They also sent military forces east of the coast cities, taking control of the oil and gas fields in the region of southern Raqqa. Since the fall of the regime those areas were under control of SDF, that deployed there to prevent ISIS expansion. This transfer of control was coordinated between SDF, HTS and the international coalition, but some media outlets spread false information of clashes between HTS and SDF that SDF denied.
#ASAAD AL-SHIBANI IN DAVOS FORUM
The Foreign Minister of Syria's transitional government, Assad al Shibani, joined the World Economic Forum held yearly in Davos, Switzerland. He met with important political figures, including an interview with Tony Blair and a meeting with Masrour Barzani, PM of the KRG. Shibani called to lift the economical sanctions on Syria. He invited foreign investment to Syria and stated their intentions to privitise state-run companies. Those are clear indicators of their will to apply a neo-liberal economical agenda in exchange for acceptance as legitimate government of Syria. Shibani also called for the SDF to disband, claiming they have no longer justification to exist since his government is promising to protect the rights of kurds and other minorities.
#ISRAEL MILITARY BASE IN QUNEITRA
Israel army continue their operations to expand their occupation in southern Syria. Recently they started the construction of military base in Quneitra countryside, southern Syria. In some areas where recently deployed forces of the Military Operations, connected to the transitional government of HTS, videos with both military forces deploying together had been recorded. It is not clear how much this operations are coordinated.
## ANALYSIS ##
As HTS government consolidates it's position, asserting their diplomatic influence and expanding their military presence over Syria, their position on the autonomous self-administration starts to be more aggressive. Recent military deployments on the gas and oil fields south of Raqqa were used by some media to claim military advances over SDF, exploiting also ethnic tensions and resentments that may arab nationalists still hold against Kurds. It is not clear how much it was a mistake or disinformation of some media, or how much it was an intentional move to portray the transitional government as strong and decisive against separatism. Assad al-Shibani, FM of the HTS government who recently got his PhD from an Istanbul private university, is calling to disband SDF in the (in)famous World Economic Forum of Davos, while announcing a full embracement of neoliberal economical agenda for Syria.
Al-Sharaa, 'de facto' president of Syria, is also making declarations like "The Kurdish People's Protection Units alone did not respond to our call to restrict weapons to the authorities". Those statements dismiss not just the ongoing negotiations with SDF, but also how other armed groups also rejected his calls to reorganize the monopoly of violence under direct control of a centralized state. As SDF makes diplomatic moves to consolidate it's position and strength in the negotiation table, HTS seems to be more inclined to accelerate tensions towards confrontation, knowing they will have full support of Turkey for any military action against SDF. Turkish state media have a long history of fabricated news, and now already twice they spread false information of alleged car bombs going to Aleppo from SDF areas, indicating their readiness to create excuses to justify attacks on SDF.
Let's not lie, the situation in NES looks difficult. Still, the resistance in Tishreen is an example of the determination to resist against the invasion, to defend the advances of the revolution. We also remember how 10 years ago, 26th of January of 2015, YPG and YPJ announced the liberation of Kobane from the attacks of ISIS. We should not forget that, because at that time it looked much darker than today. And here we are, the revolution did not just defeat the caliphate, but have been also a key element to the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It is also making impossible for Turkey to consolidate it's imperial aspirations in Syria and in Kurdistan. Revolutions are not the easy way, we know that, but difficulties won't deter us to pursue our dreams of freedom and liberation.
Revolutionary greetings! 🖤
#Syria #Rojava #Revolution #DefendRojava #DAANES #SDF #Anarchy #Anarchism #Comrades #Tishreen #Internationalism #InternationalistCommune #Kobane #feminism #ISIS #RedCross #HTS #Davos #Israel
-
#NewsFromTheFront
Weekly update from your anarchist comrades in #NES
20.01.25-26.01.25Also available on https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/category/war-updates/
## NES ##
# WEARETISHREEN ACTION DAYS
To support resistance in Tishreen Dam, the internationalist commune called for days of action on January 25th and 26th. 10 years ago, on these dates, the city of Kobane was liberated from the attacks of ISIS. Today, the attacks of Turkish forces are still ongoing. For more than 2 weeks civilian convoys have been arriving to maintain a vigil in Tishreen dam. The vigil is continually attacked by drones, with 18 civilians killed and over a 100 injured. Important representatives of the autonomous administration of North-East Syria who joined the vigil also got injured in those attacks, as well as some internationalists who also went there to support the resistance.
# INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUSPEND OPERATIONS IN NES
International organizations providing humanitarian help have suspended their programs in northeastern Syria without providing a timeline for the suspension. This follows an executive order signed by the new U.S. President Donald Trump, which temporarily halts all U.S. foreign aid programs for 90 days. Several international organizations operating in northeastern Syria have informed their staff that program implementation will be paused pending a review by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The executive order signed by Trump states that all heads of departments and agencies responsible for U.S. foreign development assistance programs must immediately suspend new commitments and the disbursement of development aid funds.
# RELEASE OF SYRIAN FAMILIES FROM AL-HOL
66 Syrian families currently in the al-Hol camp will be allowed to return to their home. Al-Hol camp hosts families of ISIS fighters, mostly women and children captured during the operations that brought the islamic caliphate to an end. This is the first time that detainees from Syria in al-Hol camp are allowed to leave the camp. Date for return of these families has not yet been disclosed. Talks about return of other Syrian and Iraqi families detained in the camp are on going. This announcement came together with a call to UNHCR and Red Cross to assist the camp administration to ensure the return of those families, as well as a call for the international community to take responsibility for foreign detainees.
## SYRIA ##
# HTS MOVES SOUTH AND EAST
The Military Operations forces, linked to the transitional government of HTS, took control of a corridor along the M5 in southern Syria until the city of Daraa and the border with Jordan. This move divided the territory under control of the southern operations room in the Daraa region and the Druze defense forces in Suweyda region. They also sent military forces east of the coast cities, taking control of the oil and gas fields in the region of southern Raqqa. Since the fall of the regime those areas were under control of SDF, that deployed there to prevent ISIS expansion. This transfer of control was coordinated between SDF, HTS and the international coalition, but some media outlets spread false information of clashes between HTS and SDF that SDF denied.
#ASAAD AL-SHIBANI IN DAVOS FORUM
The Foreign Minister of Syria's transitional government, Assad al Shibani, joined the World Economic Forum held yearly in Davos, Switzerland. He met with important political figures, including an interview with Tony Blair and a meeting with Masrour Barzani, PM of the KRG. Shibani called to lift the economical sanctions on Syria. He invited foreign investment to Syria and stated their intentions to privitise state-run companies. Those are clear indicators of their will to apply a neo-liberal economical agenda in exchange for acceptance as legitimate government of Syria. Shibani also called for the SDF to disband, claiming they have no longer justification to exist since his government is promising to protect the rights of kurds and other minorities.
#ISRAEL MILITARY BASE IN QUNEITRA
Israel army continue their operations to expand their occupation in southern Syria. Recently they started the construction of military base in Quneitra countryside, southern Syria. In some areas where recently deployed forces of the Military Operations, connected to the transitional government of HTS, videos with both military forces deploying together had been recorded. It is not clear how much this operations are coordinated.
## ANALYSIS ##
As HTS government consolidates it's position, asserting their diplomatic influence and expanding their military presence over Syria, their position on the autonomous self-administration starts to be more aggressive. Recent military deployments on the gas and oil fields south of Raqqa were used by some media to claim military advances over SDF, exploiting also ethnic tensions and resentments that may arab nationalists still hold against Kurds. It is not clear how much it was a mistake or disinformation of some media, or how much it was an intentional move to portray the transitional government as strong and decisive against separatism. Assad al-Shibani, FM of the HTS government who recently got his PhD from an Istanbul private university, is calling to disband SDF in the (in)famous World Economic Forum of Davos, while announcing a full embracement of neoliberal economical agenda for Syria.
Al-Sharaa, 'de facto' president of Syria, is also making declarations like "The Kurdish People's Protection Units alone did not respond to our call to restrict weapons to the authorities". Those statements dismiss not just the ongoing negotiations with SDF, but also how other armed groups also rejected his calls to reorganize the monopoly of violence under direct control of a centralized state. As SDF makes diplomatic moves to consolidate it's position and strength in the negotiation table, HTS seems to be more inclined to accelerate tensions towards confrontation, knowing they will have full support of Turkey for any military action against SDF. Turkish state media have a long history of fabricated news, and now already twice they spread false information of alleged car bombs going to Aleppo from SDF areas, indicating their readiness to create excuses to justify attacks on SDF.
Let's not lie, the situation in NES looks difficult. Still, the resistance in Tishreen is an example of the determination to resist against the invasion, to defend the advances of the revolution. We also remember how 10 years ago, 26th of January of 2015, YPG and YPJ announced the liberation of Kobane from the attacks of ISIS. We should not forget that, because at that time it looked much darker than today. And here we are, the revolution did not just defeat the caliphate, but have been also a key element to the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It is also making impossible for Turkey to consolidate it's imperial aspirations in Syria and in Kurdistan. Revolutions are not the easy way, we know that, but difficulties won't deter us to pursue our dreams of freedom and liberation.
Revolutionary greetings! 🖤
#Syria #Rojava #Revolution #DefendRojava #DAANES #SDF #Anarchy #Anarchism #Comrades #Tishreen #Internationalism #InternationalistCommune #Kobane #feminism #ISIS #RedCross #HTS #Davos #Israel
-
#NewsFromTheFront
Weekly update from your anarchist comrades in #NES
20.01.25-26.01.25Also available on https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/category/war-updates/
## NES ##
# WEARETISHREEN ACTION DAYS
To support resistance in Tishreen Dam, the internationalist commune called for days of action on January 25th and 26th. 10 years ago, on these dates, the city of Kobane was liberated from the attacks of ISIS. Today, the attacks of Turkish forces are still ongoing. For more than 2 weeks civilian convoys have been arriving to maintain a vigil in Tishreen dam. The vigil is continually attacked by drones, with 18 civilians killed and over a 100 injured. Important representatives of the autonomous administration of North-East Syria who joined the vigil also got injured in those attacks, as well as some internationalists who also went there to support the resistance.
# INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUSPEND OPERATIONS IN NES
International organizations providing humanitarian help have suspended their programs in northeastern Syria without providing a timeline for the suspension. This follows an executive order signed by the new U.S. President Donald Trump, which temporarily halts all U.S. foreign aid programs for 90 days. Several international organizations operating in northeastern Syria have informed their staff that program implementation will be paused pending a review by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The executive order signed by Trump states that all heads of departments and agencies responsible for U.S. foreign development assistance programs must immediately suspend new commitments and the disbursement of development aid funds.
# RELEASE OF SYRIAN FAMILIES FROM AL-HOL
66 Syrian families currently in the al-Hol camp will be allowed to return to their home. Al-Hol camp hosts families of ISIS fighters, mostly women and children captured during the operations that brought the islamic caliphate to an end. This is the first time that detainees from Syria in al-Hol camp are allowed to leave the camp. Date for return of these families has not yet been disclosed. Talks about return of other Syrian and Iraqi families detained in the camp are on going. This announcement came together with a call to UNHCR and Red Cross to assist the camp administration to ensure the return of those families, as well as a call for the international community to take responsibility for foreign detainees.
## SYRIA ##
# HTS MOVES SOUTH AND EAST
The Military Operations forces, linked to the transitional government of HTS, took control of a corridor along the M5 in southern Syria until the city of Daraa and the border with Jordan. This move divided the territory under control of the southern operations room in the Daraa region and the Druze defense forces in Suweyda region. They also sent military forces east of the coast cities, taking control of the oil and gas fields in the region of southern Raqqa. Since the fall of the regime those areas were under control of SDF, that deployed there to prevent ISIS expansion. This transfer of control was coordinated between SDF, HTS and the international coalition, but some media outlets spread false information of clashes between HTS and SDF that SDF denied.
#ASAAD AL-SHIBANI IN DAVOS FORUM
The Foreign Minister of Syria's transitional government, Assad al Shibani, joined the World Economic Forum held yearly in Davos, Switzerland. He met with important political figures, including an interview with Tony Blair and a meeting with Masrour Barzani, PM of the KRG. Shibani called to lift the economical sanctions on Syria. He invited foreign investment to Syria and stated their intentions to privitise state-run companies. Those are clear indicators of their will to apply a neo-liberal economical agenda in exchange for acceptance as legitimate government of Syria. Shibani also called for the SDF to disband, claiming they have no longer justification to exist since his government is promising to protect the rights of kurds and other minorities.
#ISRAEL MILITARY BASE IN QUNEITRA
Israel army continue their operations to expand their occupation in southern Syria. Recently they started the construction of military base in Quneitra countryside, southern Syria. In some areas where recently deployed forces of the Military Operations, connected to the transitional government of HTS, videos with both military forces deploying together had been recorded. It is not clear how much this operations are coordinated.
## ANALYSIS ##
As HTS government consolidates it's position, asserting their diplomatic influence and expanding their military presence over Syria, their position on the autonomous self-administration starts to be more aggressive. Recent military deployments on the gas and oil fields south of Raqqa were used by some media to claim military advances over SDF, exploiting also ethnic tensions and resentments that may arab nationalists still hold against Kurds. It is not clear how much it was a mistake or disinformation of some media, or how much it was an intentional move to portray the transitional government as strong and decisive against separatism. Assad al-Shibani, FM of the HTS government who recently got his PhD from an Istanbul private university, is calling to disband SDF in the (in)famous World Economic Forum of Davos, while announcing a full embracement of neoliberal economical agenda for Syria.
Al-Sharaa, 'de facto' president of Syria, is also making declarations like "The Kurdish People's Protection Units alone did not respond to our call to restrict weapons to the authorities". Those statements dismiss not just the ongoing negotiations with SDF, but also how other armed groups also rejected his calls to reorganize the monopoly of violence under direct control of a centralized state. As SDF makes diplomatic moves to consolidate it's position and strength in the negotiation table, HTS seems to be more inclined to accelerate tensions towards confrontation, knowing they will have full support of Turkey for any military action against SDF. Turkish state media have a long history of fabricated news, and now already twice they spread false information of alleged car bombs going to Aleppo from SDF areas, indicating their readiness to create excuses to justify attacks on SDF.
Let's not lie, the situation in NES looks difficult. Still, the resistance in Tishreen is an example of the determination to resist against the invasion, to defend the advances of the revolution. We also remember how 10 years ago, 26th of January of 2015, YPG and YPJ announced the liberation of Kobane from the attacks of ISIS. We should not forget that, because at that time it looked much darker than today. And here we are, the revolution did not just defeat the caliphate, but have been also a key element to the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It is also making impossible for Turkey to consolidate it's imperial aspirations in Syria and in Kurdistan. Revolutions are not the easy way, we know that, but difficulties won't deter us to pursue our dreams of freedom and liberation.
Revolutionary greetings! 🖤
#Syria #Rojava #Revolution #DefendRojava #DAANES #SDF #Anarchy #Anarchism #Comrades #Tishreen #Internationalism #InternationalistCommune #Kobane #feminism #ISIS #RedCross #HTS #Davos #Israel
-
#NewsFromTheFront
Weekly update from your anarchist comrades in #NES
20.01.25-26.01.25Also available on https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/category/war-updates/
## NES ##
# WEARETISHREEN ACTION DAYS
To support resistance in Tishreen Dam, the internationalist commune called for days of action on January 25th and 26th. 10 years ago, on these dates, the city of Kobane was liberated from the attacks of ISIS. Today, the attacks of Turkish forces are still ongoing. For more than 2 weeks civilian convoys have been arriving to maintain a vigil in Tishreen dam. The vigil is continually attacked by drones, with 18 civilians killed and over a 100 injured. Important representatives of the autonomous administration of North-East Syria who joined the vigil also got injured in those attacks, as well as some internationalists who also went there to support the resistance.
# INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUSPEND OPERATIONS IN NES
International organizations providing humanitarian help have suspended their programs in northeastern Syria without providing a timeline for the suspension. This follows an executive order signed by the new U.S. President Donald Trump, which temporarily halts all U.S. foreign aid programs for 90 days. Several international organizations operating in northeastern Syria have informed their staff that program implementation will be paused pending a review by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The executive order signed by Trump states that all heads of departments and agencies responsible for U.S. foreign development assistance programs must immediately suspend new commitments and the disbursement of development aid funds.
# RELEASE OF SYRIAN FAMILIES FROM AL-HOL
66 Syrian families currently in the al-Hol camp will be allowed to return to their home. Al-Hol camp hosts families of ISIS fighters, mostly women and children captured during the operations that brought the islamic caliphate to an end. This is the first time that detainees from Syria in al-Hol camp are allowed to leave the camp. Date for return of these families has not yet been disclosed. Talks about return of other Syrian and Iraqi families detained in the camp are on going. This announcement came together with a call to UNHCR and Red Cross to assist the camp administration to ensure the return of those families, as well as a call for the international community to take responsibility for foreign detainees.
## SYRIA ##
# HTS MOVES SOUTH AND EAST
The Military Operations forces, linked to the transitional government of HTS, took control of a corridor along the M5 in southern Syria until the city of Daraa and the border with Jordan. This move divided the territory under control of the southern operations room in the Daraa region and the Druze defense forces in Suweyda region. They also sent military forces east of the coast cities, taking control of the oil and gas fields in the region of southern Raqqa. Since the fall of the regime those areas were under control of SDF, that deployed there to prevent ISIS expansion. This transfer of control was coordinated between SDF, HTS and the international coalition, but some media outlets spread false information of clashes between HTS and SDF that SDF denied.
#ASAAD AL-SHIBANI IN DAVOS FORUM
The Foreign Minister of Syria's transitional government, Assad al Shibani, joined the World Economic Forum held yearly in Davos, Switzerland. He met with important political figures, including an interview with Tony Blair and a meeting with Masrour Barzani, PM of the KRG. Shibani called to lift the economical sanctions on Syria. He invited foreign investment to Syria and stated their intentions to privitise state-run companies. Those are clear indicators of their will to apply a neo-liberal economical agenda in exchange for acceptance as legitimate government of Syria. Shibani also called for the SDF to disband, claiming they have no longer justification to exist since his government is promising to protect the rights of kurds and other minorities.
#ISRAEL MILITARY BASE IN QUNEITRA
Israel army continue their operations to expand their occupation in southern Syria. Recently they started the construction of military base in Quneitra countryside, southern Syria. In some areas where recently deployed forces of the Military Operations, connected to the transitional government of HTS, videos with both military forces deploying together had been recorded. It is not clear how much this operations are coordinated.
## ANALYSIS ##
As HTS government consolidates it's position, asserting their diplomatic influence and expanding their military presence over Syria, their position on the autonomous self-administration starts to be more aggressive. Recent military deployments on the gas and oil fields south of Raqqa were used by some media to claim military advances over SDF, exploiting also ethnic tensions and resentments that may arab nationalists still hold against Kurds. It is not clear how much it was a mistake or disinformation of some media, or how much it was an intentional move to portray the transitional government as strong and decisive against separatism. Assad al-Shibani, FM of the HTS government who recently got his PhD from an Istanbul private university, is calling to disband SDF in the (in)famous World Economic Forum of Davos, while announcing a full embracement of neoliberal economical agenda for Syria.
Al-Sharaa, 'de facto' president of Syria, is also making declarations like "The Kurdish People's Protection Units alone did not respond to our call to restrict weapons to the authorities". Those statements dismiss not just the ongoing negotiations with SDF, but also how other armed groups also rejected his calls to reorganize the monopoly of violence under direct control of a centralized state. As SDF makes diplomatic moves to consolidate it's position and strength in the negotiation table, HTS seems to be more inclined to accelerate tensions towards confrontation, knowing they will have full support of Turkey for any military action against SDF. Turkish state media have a long history of fabricated news, and now already twice they spread false information of alleged car bombs going to Aleppo from SDF areas, indicating their readiness to create excuses to justify attacks on SDF.
Let's not lie, the situation in NES looks difficult. Still, the resistance in Tishreen is an example of the determination to resist against the invasion, to defend the advances of the revolution. We also remember how 10 years ago, 26th of January of 2015, YPG and YPJ announced the liberation of Kobane from the attacks of ISIS. We should not forget that, because at that time it looked much darker than today. And here we are, the revolution did not just defeat the caliphate, but have been also a key element to the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It is also making impossible for Turkey to consolidate it's imperial aspirations in Syria and in Kurdistan. Revolutions are not the easy way, we know that, but difficulties won't deter us to pursue our dreams of freedom and liberation.
Revolutionary greetings! 🖤
#Syria #Rojava #Revolution #DefendRojava #DAANES #SDF #Anarchy #Anarchism #Comrades #Tishreen #Internationalism #InternationalistCommune #Kobane #feminism #ISIS #RedCross #HTS #Davos #Israel
-
#NewsFromTheFront
Weekly update from your anarchist comrades in #NES
20.01.25-26.01.25Also available on https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/category/war-updates/
## NES ##
# WEARETISHREEN ACTION DAYS
To support resistance in Tishreen Dam, the internationalist commune called for days of action on January 25th and 26th. 10 years ago, on these dates, the city of Kobane was liberated from the attacks of ISIS. Today, the attacks of Turkish forces are still ongoing. For more than 2 weeks civilian convoys have been arriving to maintain a vigil in Tishreen dam. The vigil is continually attacked by drones, with 18 civilians killed and over a 100 injured. Important representatives of the autonomous administration of North-East Syria who joined the vigil also got injured in those attacks, as well as some internationalists who also went there to support the resistance.
# INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUSPEND OPERATIONS IN NES
International organizations providing humanitarian help have suspended their programs in northeastern Syria without providing a timeline for the suspension. This follows an executive order signed by the new U.S. President Donald Trump, which temporarily halts all U.S. foreign aid programs for 90 days. Several international organizations operating in northeastern Syria have informed their staff that program implementation will be paused pending a review by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The executive order signed by Trump states that all heads of departments and agencies responsible for U.S. foreign development assistance programs must immediately suspend new commitments and the disbursement of development aid funds.
# RELEASE OF SYRIAN FAMILIES FROM AL-HOL
66 Syrian families currently in the al-Hol camp will be allowed to return to their home. Al-Hol camp hosts families of ISIS fighters, mostly women and children captured during the operations that brought the islamic caliphate to an end. This is the first time that detainees from Syria in al-Hol camp are allowed to leave the camp. Date for return of these families has not yet been disclosed. Talks about return of other Syrian and Iraqi families detained in the camp are on going. This announcement came together with a call to UNHCR and Red Cross to assist the camp administration to ensure the return of those families, as well as a call for the international community to take responsibility for foreign detainees.
## SYRIA ##
# HTS MOVES SOUTH AND EAST
The Military Operations forces, linked to the transitional government of HTS, took control of a corridor along the M5 in southern Syria until the city of Daraa and the border with Jordan. This move divided the territory under control of the southern operations room in the Daraa region and the Druze defense forces in Suweyda region. They also sent military forces east of the coast cities, taking control of the oil and gas fields in the region of southern Raqqa. Since the fall of the regime those areas were under control of SDF, that deployed there to prevent ISIS expansion. This transfer of control was coordinated between SDF, HTS and the international coalition, but some media outlets spread false information of clashes between HTS and SDF that SDF denied.
#ASAAD AL-SHIBANI IN DAVOS FORUM
The Foreign Minister of Syria's transitional government, Assad al Shibani, joined the World Economic Forum held yearly in Davos, Switzerland. He met with important political figures, including an interview with Tony Blair and a meeting with Masrour Barzani, PM of the KRG. Shibani called to lift the economical sanctions on Syria. He invited foreign investment to Syria and stated their intentions to privitise state-run companies. Those are clear indicators of their will to apply a neo-liberal economical agenda in exchange for acceptance as legitimate government of Syria. Shibani also called for the SDF to disband, claiming they have no longer justification to exist since his government is promising to protect the rights of kurds and other minorities.
#ISRAEL MILITARY BASE IN QUNEITRA
Israel army continue their operations to expand their occupation in southern Syria. Recently they started the construction of military base in Quneitra countryside, southern Syria. In some areas where recently deployed forces of the Military Operations, connected to the transitional government of HTS, videos with both military forces deploying together had been recorded. It is not clear how much this operations are coordinated.
## ANALYSIS ##
As HTS government consolidates it's position, asserting their diplomatic influence and expanding their military presence over Syria, their position on the autonomous self-administration starts to be more aggressive. Recent military deployments on the gas and oil fields south of Raqqa were used by some media to claim military advances over SDF, exploiting also ethnic tensions and resentments that may arab nationalists still hold against Kurds. It is not clear how much it was a mistake or disinformation of some media, or how much it was an intentional move to portray the transitional government as strong and decisive against separatism. Assad al-Shibani, FM of the HTS government who recently got his PhD from an Istanbul private university, is calling to disband SDF in the (in)famous World Economic Forum of Davos, while announcing a full embracement of neoliberal economical agenda for Syria.
Al-Sharaa, 'de facto' president of Syria, is also making declarations like "The Kurdish People's Protection Units alone did not respond to our call to restrict weapons to the authorities". Those statements dismiss not just the ongoing negotiations with SDF, but also how other armed groups also rejected his calls to reorganize the monopoly of violence under direct control of a centralized state. As SDF makes diplomatic moves to consolidate it's position and strength in the negotiation table, HTS seems to be more inclined to accelerate tensions towards confrontation, knowing they will have full support of Turkey for any military action against SDF. Turkish state media have a long history of fabricated news, and now already twice they spread false information of alleged car bombs going to Aleppo from SDF areas, indicating their readiness to create excuses to justify attacks on SDF.
Let's not lie, the situation in NES looks difficult. Still, the resistance in Tishreen is an example of the determination to resist against the invasion, to defend the advances of the revolution. We also remember how 10 years ago, 26th of January of 2015, YPG and YPJ announced the liberation of Kobane from the attacks of ISIS. We should not forget that, because at that time it looked much darker than today. And here we are, the revolution did not just defeat the caliphate, but have been also a key element to the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It is also making impossible for Turkey to consolidate it's imperial aspirations in Syria and in Kurdistan. Revolutions are not the easy way, we know that, but difficulties won't deter us to pursue our dreams of freedom and liberation.
Revolutionary greetings! 🖤
#Syria #Rojava #Revolution #DefendRojava #DAANES #SDF #Anarchy #Anarchism #Comrades #Tishreen #Internationalism #InternationalistCommune #Kobane #feminism #ISIS #RedCross #HTS #Davos #Israel
-
Merkel’s “Heresy”: Did Poland Help Trigger Ukraine’s War?
Merkel’s “Heresy”: Did Poland Help Trigger Ukraine’s War?
By Uriel Araujo
Angela Merkel’s recent claim that Poland and the Baltic states bear some responsibility for the conflict in Ukraine has caused an uproar. Still, her point — rooted in realist geopolitics — complements Mearsheimer’s warnings about NATO’s expansion. Behind the backlash lies a bigger issue about Europe’s independence, energy politics, and America’s influence on the continent.
In an interview last week, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Poland and the Baltic states share some responsibility for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. She has been under a lot of criticism over this. Her argument, however, deserves some attention.
Merkel recalled that in June 2021, amid the Minsk II accords discussions, she and French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a new EU-wide dialogue with Moscow. The aim was to engage Russia directly, thus seeking to de-escalate tensions.
However, Merkel said, that initiative was blocked at the European Council level — “mainly” by “the Baltic states”, but “Poland was also against it.” These countries feared the EU would adopt a softer stance toward the Kremlin, undermining a “common policy towards Russia.” Merkel concluded that their refusal encouraged Putin to take the path that led to the military campaign in Ukraine.
The backlash in Western media has been intense. But if one looks beyond the noise, Merkel’s point is not absurd at all. It must be understood as a part of a larger picture. The point is, as a matter of fact, consistent with a broader realist understanding of European security, and echoes the warnings of scholars such as John Mearsheimer.
The University of Chicago professor has long argued that NATO’s post-Cold War expansion eastward created a classic security dilemma, leaving Russia feeling cornered and threatened. From that viewpoint, the former German leader’s 2021 initiative — blocked by Warsaw and the Baltic capitals — could have offered one last diplomatic window before the war.
Merkel’s critics in Poland might want to recall another part of the story: the battle over Nord Stream. This pipeline, connecting Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, also symbolized Merkel’s policy of “Wandel durch Handel” — change through trade. It was about ensuring Europe’s energy security and lowering costs, a win-win project for both Berlin and Moscow. Yet Washington, viewing it as a threat to its influence and liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, relentlessly sabotaged it. As I wrote back in 2021, American interests were simple enough: it is about maintaining leverage over Europe and preventing Moscow from gaining more influence there.
It is all forgotten History now, but German lawmakers even called for countersanctions against the US over Washington’s interference back then. Berlin’s efforts to preserve a pragmatic energy partnership with Russia were systematically undermined — by Washington and Warsaw.
Poland has long campaigned against Nord Stream, hoping to position itself as a future gas hub through the Baltic Pipe which links Poland’s coast to Norwegian gas fields through Denmark. As I noted at the time, the Polish aspirations, with 10 bcm annual capacity, were hardly a viable alternative to the over 55 bcm capacity of Nord Stream 2 (around five times greater).
Back to 2025, the Nord Stream issue is once again in the spotlight. Poland is now refusing to cooperate with German authorities investigating the 2022 pipeline explosions. Prime Minister Donald Tusk even declared that “the problem of Europe… and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built.” No wonder Berlin is exasperated, when Warsaw’s concerns seem to be all about maintaining its political narrative against Germany and Russia.
This latest dispute reflects a deeper fault line in Europe. Merkel’s Germany had pursued energy interdependence with Russia to stabilize relations; Poland, conversely, sought to weaken that link and align fully with Washington. One may recall that when President Biden waved most sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in mid-2021, Warsaw reacted furiously, accusing Washington of betrayal and calling for a more aggressively anti-Russian approach.
The United States, for its part, has consistently shifted the burden of the “Ukrainian issue” onto Europe. Washington repeatedly manipulates Europe into dealing with American made crises. Thus far, the pattern is clear: Washington encourages confrontation with Russia, reaps profits through more expensive LNG exports and arms sales, and lets Europeans pay the economic and political price.
Meanwhile, Poland is emerging as a nuclear flashpoint. Warsaw has declared its ambition to host nuclear weapons, further escalating tensions. This underreported development transforms Poland into a potential frontline in any future confrontation.
Merkel’s recent comments, then, must be seen in context. Her critics in Eastern Europe accuse her of “appeasement”; her defenders see in her a pragmatic realist. When she proposed a new dialogue in 2021, she was acting on a simple insight: peace in Europe is impossible without Russia. That might sound naïve today, but it remains true. The refusal by Poland and the Baltic states to support that diplomatic effort told Moscow that Europe was incapable of speaking independently.
Understanding the complex Russo-Ukrainian conflict requires examining its multiple causes. Structural and conjunctural factors converged: NATO expansion, failed diplomacy, energy geopolitics, and domestic politics within Ukraine. As I’ve argued, Kyiv also faces ethnopolitical unresolved civil-right issues that complicate the picture — but that is a topic for another day.
Merkel’s remarks are, in essence, an appeal to remember what was lost: the possibility of a Europe capable of managing its own security dialogue with Moscow. Whether that window could have prevented the ongoing war, is open for debate. But her critics should at least admit that she is pointing to a hard truth. Europe’s tragedy has a lot to do with its subordination to American interests.
In other words, whether one “likes Putin” or not, the crisis in Ukraine did not emerge from nowhere. It was over a decade in the making, fuelled by ideological blindness and a blatant refusal to confront uncomfortable realities. Merkel, for all her flaws, is one of the few European politicians still willing to say it out loud. And the point she is making is in fact just the tip of the iceberg.
Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
7 Courses in 1 – Diploma in Business Management
#EU #Europe #EuropeanCouncil #Geopolitics #Germany #NATO #Russia #TheBaltics #Ukraine
-
Merkel’s “Heresy”: Did Poland Help Trigger Ukraine’s War?
Merkel’s “Heresy”: Did Poland Help Trigger Ukraine’s War?
By Uriel Araujo
Angela Merkel’s recent claim that Poland and the Baltic states bear some responsibility for the conflict in Ukraine has caused an uproar. Still, her point — rooted in realist geopolitics — complements Mearsheimer’s warnings about NATO’s expansion. Behind the backlash lies a bigger issue about Europe’s independence, energy politics, and America’s influence on the continent.
In an interview last week, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Poland and the Baltic states share some responsibility for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. She has been under a lot of criticism over this. Her argument, however, deserves some attention.
Merkel recalled that in June 2021, amid the Minsk II accords discussions, she and French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a new EU-wide dialogue with Moscow. The aim was to engage Russia directly, thus seeking to de-escalate tensions.
However, Merkel said, that initiative was blocked at the European Council level — “mainly” by “the Baltic states”, but “Poland was also against it.” These countries feared the EU would adopt a softer stance toward the Kremlin, undermining a “common policy towards Russia.” Merkel concluded that their refusal encouraged Putin to take the path that led to the military campaign in Ukraine.
The backlash in Western media has been intense. But if one looks beyond the noise, Merkel’s point is not absurd at all. It must be understood as a part of a larger picture. The point is, as a matter of fact, consistent with a broader realist understanding of European security, and echoes the warnings of scholars such as John Mearsheimer.
The University of Chicago professor has long argued that NATO’s post-Cold War expansion eastward created a classic security dilemma, leaving Russia feeling cornered and threatened. From that viewpoint, the former German leader’s 2021 initiative — blocked by Warsaw and the Baltic capitals — could have offered one last diplomatic window before the war.
Merkel’s critics in Poland might want to recall another part of the story: the battle over Nord Stream. This pipeline, connecting Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, also symbolized Merkel’s policy of “Wandel durch Handel” — change through trade. It was about ensuring Europe’s energy security and lowering costs, a win-win project for both Berlin and Moscow. Yet Washington, viewing it as a threat to its influence and liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, relentlessly sabotaged it. As I wrote back in 2021, American interests were simple enough: it is about maintaining leverage over Europe and preventing Moscow from gaining more influence there.
It is all forgotten History now, but German lawmakers even called for countersanctions against the US over Washington’s interference back then. Berlin’s efforts to preserve a pragmatic energy partnership with Russia were systematically undermined — by Washington and Warsaw.
Poland has long campaigned against Nord Stream, hoping to position itself as a future gas hub through the Baltic Pipe which links Poland’s coast to Norwegian gas fields through Denmark. As I noted at the time, the Polish aspirations, with 10 bcm annual capacity, were hardly a viable alternative to the over 55 bcm capacity of Nord Stream 2 (around five times greater).
Back to 2025, the Nord Stream issue is once again in the spotlight. Poland is now refusing to cooperate with German authorities investigating the 2022 pipeline explosions. Prime Minister Donald Tusk even declared that “the problem of Europe… and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built.” No wonder Berlin is exasperated, when Warsaw’s concerns seem to be all about maintaining its political narrative against Germany and Russia.
This latest dispute reflects a deeper fault line in Europe. Merkel’s Germany had pursued energy interdependence with Russia to stabilize relations; Poland, conversely, sought to weaken that link and align fully with Washington. One may recall that when President Biden waved most sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in mid-2021, Warsaw reacted furiously, accusing Washington of betrayal and calling for a more aggressively anti-Russian approach.
The United States, for its part, has consistently shifted the burden of the “Ukrainian issue” onto Europe. Washington repeatedly manipulates Europe into dealing with American made crises. Thus far, the pattern is clear: Washington encourages confrontation with Russia, reaps profits through more expensive LNG exports and arms sales, and lets Europeans pay the economic and political price.
Meanwhile, Poland is emerging as a nuclear flashpoint. Warsaw has declared its ambition to host nuclear weapons, further escalating tensions. This underreported development transforms Poland into a potential frontline in any future confrontation.
Merkel’s recent comments, then, must be seen in context. Her critics in Eastern Europe accuse her of “appeasement”; her defenders see in her a pragmatic realist. When she proposed a new dialogue in 2021, she was acting on a simple insight: peace in Europe is impossible without Russia. That might sound naïve today, but it remains true. The refusal by Poland and the Baltic states to support that diplomatic effort told Moscow that Europe was incapable of speaking independently.
Understanding the complex Russo-Ukrainian conflict requires examining its multiple causes. Structural and conjunctural factors converged: NATO expansion, failed diplomacy, energy geopolitics, and domestic politics within Ukraine. As I’ve argued, Kyiv also faces ethnopolitical unresolved civil-right issues that complicate the picture — but that is a topic for another day.
Merkel’s remarks are, in essence, an appeal to remember what was lost: the possibility of a Europe capable of managing its own security dialogue with Moscow. Whether that window could have prevented the ongoing war, is open for debate. But her critics should at least admit that she is pointing to a hard truth. Europe’s tragedy has a lot to do with its subordination to American interests.
In other words, whether one “likes Putin” or not, the crisis in Ukraine did not emerge from nowhere. It was over a decade in the making, fuelled by ideological blindness and a blatant refusal to confront uncomfortable realities. Merkel, for all her flaws, is one of the few European politicians still willing to say it out loud. And the point she is making is in fact just the tip of the iceberg.
Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
7 Courses in 1 – Diploma in Business Management
#EU #Europe #EuropeanCouncil #Geopolitics #Germany #NATO #Russia #TheBaltics #Ukraine
-
Merkel’s “Heresy”: Did Poland Help Trigger Ukraine’s War?
Merkel’s “Heresy”: Did Poland Help Trigger Ukraine’s War?
By Uriel Araujo
Angela Merkel’s recent claim that Poland and the Baltic states bear some responsibility for the conflict in Ukraine has caused an uproar. Still, her point — rooted in realist geopolitics — complements Mearsheimer’s warnings about NATO’s expansion. Behind the backlash lies a bigger issue about Europe’s independence, energy politics, and America’s influence on the continent.
In an interview last week, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Poland and the Baltic states share some responsibility for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. She has been under a lot of criticism over this. Her argument, however, deserves some attention.
Merkel recalled that in June 2021, amid the Minsk II accords discussions, she and French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a new EU-wide dialogue with Moscow. The aim was to engage Russia directly, thus seeking to de-escalate tensions.
However, Merkel said, that initiative was blocked at the European Council level — “mainly” by “the Baltic states”, but “Poland was also against it.” These countries feared the EU would adopt a softer stance toward the Kremlin, undermining a “common policy towards Russia.” Merkel concluded that their refusal encouraged Putin to take the path that led to the military campaign in Ukraine.
The backlash in Western media has been intense. But if one looks beyond the noise, Merkel’s point is not absurd at all. It must be understood as a part of a larger picture. The point is, as a matter of fact, consistent with a broader realist understanding of European security, and echoes the warnings of scholars such as John Mearsheimer.
The University of Chicago professor has long argued that NATO’s post-Cold War expansion eastward created a classic security dilemma, leaving Russia feeling cornered and threatened. From that viewpoint, the former German leader’s 2021 initiative — blocked by Warsaw and the Baltic capitals — could have offered one last diplomatic window before the war.
Merkel’s critics in Poland might want to recall another part of the story: the battle over Nord Stream. This pipeline, connecting Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, also symbolized Merkel’s policy of “Wandel durch Handel” — change through trade. It was about ensuring Europe’s energy security and lowering costs, a win-win project for both Berlin and Moscow. Yet Washington, viewing it as a threat to its influence and liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, relentlessly sabotaged it. As I wrote back in 2021, American interests were simple enough: it is about maintaining leverage over Europe and preventing Moscow from gaining more influence there.
It is all forgotten History now, but German lawmakers even called for countersanctions against the US over Washington’s interference back then. Berlin’s efforts to preserve a pragmatic energy partnership with Russia were systematically undermined — by Washington and Warsaw.
Poland has long campaigned against Nord Stream, hoping to position itself as a future gas hub through the Baltic Pipe which links Poland’s coast to Norwegian gas fields through Denmark. As I noted at the time, the Polish aspirations, with 10 bcm annual capacity, were hardly a viable alternative to the over 55 bcm capacity of Nord Stream 2 (around five times greater).
Back to 2025, the Nord Stream issue is once again in the spotlight. Poland is now refusing to cooperate with German authorities investigating the 2022 pipeline explosions. Prime Minister Donald Tusk even declared that “the problem of Europe… and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built.” No wonder Berlin is exasperated, when Warsaw’s concerns seem to be all about maintaining its political narrative against Germany and Russia.
This latest dispute reflects a deeper fault line in Europe. Merkel’s Germany had pursued energy interdependence with Russia to stabilize relations; Poland, conversely, sought to weaken that link and align fully with Washington. One may recall that when President Biden waved most sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in mid-2021, Warsaw reacted furiously, accusing Washington of betrayal and calling for a more aggressively anti-Russian approach.
The United States, for its part, has consistently shifted the burden of the “Ukrainian issue” onto Europe. Washington repeatedly manipulates Europe into dealing with American made crises. Thus far, the pattern is clear: Washington encourages confrontation with Russia, reaps profits through more expensive LNG exports and arms sales, and lets Europeans pay the economic and political price.
Meanwhile, Poland is emerging as a nuclear flashpoint. Warsaw has declared its ambition to host nuclear weapons, further escalating tensions. This underreported development transforms Poland into a potential frontline in any future confrontation.
Merkel’s recent comments, then, must be seen in context. Her critics in Eastern Europe accuse her of “appeasement”; her defenders see in her a pragmatic realist. When she proposed a new dialogue in 2021, she was acting on a simple insight: peace in Europe is impossible without Russia. That might sound naïve today, but it remains true. The refusal by Poland and the Baltic states to support that diplomatic effort told Moscow that Europe was incapable of speaking independently.
Understanding the complex Russo-Ukrainian conflict requires examining its multiple causes. Structural and conjunctural factors converged: NATO expansion, failed diplomacy, energy geopolitics, and domestic politics within Ukraine. As I’ve argued, Kyiv also faces ethnopolitical unresolved civil-right issues that complicate the picture — but that is a topic for another day.
Merkel’s remarks are, in essence, an appeal to remember what was lost: the possibility of a Europe capable of managing its own security dialogue with Moscow. Whether that window could have prevented the ongoing war, is open for debate. But her critics should at least admit that she is pointing to a hard truth. Europe’s tragedy has a lot to do with its subordination to American interests.
In other words, whether one “likes Putin” or not, the crisis in Ukraine did not emerge from nowhere. It was over a decade in the making, fuelled by ideological blindness and a blatant refusal to confront uncomfortable realities. Merkel, for all her flaws, is one of the few European politicians still willing to say it out loud. And the point she is making is in fact just the tip of the iceberg.
Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
7 Courses in 1 – Diploma in Business Management
#EU #Europe #EuropeanCouncil #Geopolitics #Germany #NATO #Russia #TheBaltics #Ukraine
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Wednesday Reads: Can We Still Prevent A Trump Dictatorship?
Good Morning!!
We are in deep trouble as a country. Trump hasn’t even been in the White House for 100 days, and he has made rapid progress toward turning us into a dictatorship. I think Congressional Democrats are beginning to wake up, but not nearly quickly enough. Too many of these elected Democrats still aren’t taking the danger seriously enough. In my opinion, they should calling press conferences at least every few days to explain how Trump is destroying our government.
There’s an excellent piece in The Atlantic by executive editor Adrienne LaFrance (gift link): A Ticking Clock on American Freedom. It’s later than you think, but it’s not too late.
Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time.
Maria Ressa
People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a “slide,” but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country’s democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.
Shortly after Trump was reelected last fall, I called Ressa to ask her how she thought Americans should prepare for his return. She told me then that she worried about a failure of imagination. She knew that the speed of the destruction of institutions—one of the first steps an authoritarian takes to solidify and centralize power—would surprise people here, even those paying the closest attention. Ressa splits her time between Manila and New York, and she repeatedly warned me to be ready for everything to happen quickly. When we spoke again weeks after his inauguration, Ressa was shaken. President Trump was moving faster than even she had anticipated.
I heard something similar recently from Garry Kasparov, the Russian dissident and chess grand master. To him, the situation was obvious. America is running out of time, he told me. As Kasparov wrote recently in this magazine, “If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too.”
The chorus of people who have lived through democratic ruin will all tell you the same thing: Do not make the mistake of assuming you still have time. Put another way: You think you can wait and see, and keep democracy intact? Wanna bet? Those who have seen democracy wrecked in their home country are sometimes derided as overly pessimistic—and it’s understandable that they’d have a sense of inevitability about the dangers of autocracy. But that gloomy worldview does not make their warnings any less credible: Unless Trump’s power is checked, and soon, things will get much worse very quickly. When people lose their freedoms, it can take a generation or more to claw them back—and that’s if you’re lucky.
Trump’s methods clearly mirror those of authoritarian leaders in other countries.
The Trump administration’s breakneck pace is obviously no accident. While citizens are busy processing their shock over any one shattered norm or disregarded law, Trump is already on to the next one. This is the playbook authoritarians have used all over the world: First the leader removes those with expertise and independent thinking from the government and replaces them with leaders who are arrogant, ignorant, and extremely loyal. Next he takes steps to centralize his power and claim unprecedented authority. Along the way, he conducts an all-out assault on the truth so that the truth tellers are distrusted, corruption becomes the norm, and questioning him becomes impossible. The Constitution bends and then finally breaks. This is what tyrants do. Trump is doing it now in the United States.
Philippines, it took about six months under Duterte for democratic institutions to crumble. In the
Rodrigo Duterte
United States, the overreach in executive power and the destruction of federal agencies that Ressa told me she figured would have kept Trump busy through, say, the end of the summer were carried out in the first 30 days of his presidency. Even so, what people don’t always realize is that a dictator doesn’t seize control all at once. “The death of democracy happens by a thousand cuts,” Ressa told me recently. “And you don’t realize how badly you’re bleeding until it’s too late.” Another thing the people who have lived under authoritarian rule will tell you: It’s not just that it can get worse. It will.
Americans who are waiting for Trump to cross some imaginary red line neglect the fact that they have more leverage to defend American democracy today than they will tomorrow, or next week, or next month. While people are still debating whether to call it authoritarianism or fascism, Trump is seizing control of one independent agency after another. (And for what it’s worth, the smartest scholars I know have told me that what Trump is trying to do in America is now textbook fascism—beyond the authoritarian impulses of his first term. Take, for example, his administration’s rigid ideological purity tests, or the extreme overreach of government into freedom of scientific and academic inquiry.)
Between the time I write this sentence and the moment when this story will be published, the federal government will lose hundreds more qualified, ethical civil servants. Soon, even higher numbers of principled people in positions of power will be fired or will resign. More positions will be left vacant or filled by people without standards or scruples. The government’s attacks against other checks on power—the press, the judiciary—will worsen. Enormous pressure will be exerted on people to stay silent. And silence is a form of consent.
This article is essential reading. I hope you’ll use the gift link to read the rest at The Atlantic.
Dave Davies of NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed political science Professor Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die: Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump.
In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats’ warnings that American democracy was in jeopardy if Donald Trump was elected failed to persuade a majority of voters. Our guest, Steven Levitsky, says there’s plenty of reason to worry about our democracy now….
In a new article for the journal Foreign Affairs, Levitsky and co-author Lucan A. Way write, quote, “U.S. democracy will likely break down during the Second Trump administration in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for a liberal democracy – full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties,” unquote. We’ve invited Levitsky here to explain the threats he sees to democracy and to talk about dramatic developments in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Harvard University.
DAVIES: You note in this article that Freedom House, which is a nonprofit that’s been around for a long time, which produces an annual global freedom index, has reduced the United States’ rating. It has slipped from 2014 to 2021. How much? Where are we now, and where did we used to be?
Steven Levitsky
LEVITSKY: Freedom House’s scores range from zero, which is the most authoritarian to a hundred, which is the most democratic. I think a couple of Scandinavian countries get scores of 99 or 100. The U.S. for many years was in the low 90s, which put it broadly on par with other Western democracies like the U.K. and Italy and Canada and Japan. But it slipped in the last decade, from Trump’s first victory to Trump’s second victory, from the low 90s to 83, which placed us below Argentina. And in a tie with Romania and Panama. So we’re still above what scholars would consider a democracy, but now in the very low-quality democracy range, comparable, again, to Panama, Romania and Argentina.
DAVIES: And does Freedom House explain its demotion? Why? Why did this happen?
LEVITSKY: Oh, yeah. Freedom House has annual reports for every country – the rise in political violence, political threats, threats against politicians, refusal to accept the results of a democratic election in 2020, an effort to use violence to block a peaceful transfer of power are all listed among the reasons for why the United States has fallen. I should say that even in the first four months of the Trump administration, it’s quite certain that what’s happening on the ground in the United States is likely to bring the U.S. score down quite a bit.
DAVIES: You say that the danger here is not that the United States will become a classic dictatorship with sham elections, you know, opposition leaders arrested, exiled or killed. What kind of autocracy might we become?
LEVITSKY: I think the most likely outcome is a slide into what Lucan Way and I call competitive authoritarianism. These are regimes that constitutionally continue to be democracies. There is a Constitution. There are regular elections, a legislature and importantly, the opposition is legal, above ground and competes for power. So from a distance, if you squint, it looks like a democracy, but the problem is that systematic coming (ph) abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. This is the kind of regime that we saw in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. It’s subsequently become a full-on dictatorship. It’s what we see in Turkey under Erdogan. It’s what we see in El Salvador. It’s what we see in Hungary today. Most new autocracies that have emerged in the 21st century have been led by elected leaders and fall into this category of competitive authoritarianism. It’s kind of a hybrid regime.
DAVIES: So free and fair elections lead us to a leader which takes us in a different direction?
LEVITSKY: Right. And because the leader is usually freely and fairly elected, he has a certain legitimacy that allows him to say, hey, how can you say I’m an authoritarian if I was freely and fairly elected? So citizens are often slow to realize that their country is descending into authoritarianism.
You can read the rest of the interview or listen to it at the NPR link.
Jamelle Bouie writes at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Wants You to Think Resistance Is Futile. It Is Not.
The American constitutional system is built on the theory that the self-interest of lawmakers can be as much of a defense against tyranny as any given law or institution.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Our Constitution is nothing more than a “parchment barrier” if not backed by the self-interest and ambition of those tasked with leading the nation.
One of the most striking dynamics in these first months of the second Trump administration was the extent to which so many politicians seemed to lack the ambition to directly challenge the president. There was a sense that the smart path was to embrace the apparent “vibe shift” of the 2024 presidential election and accommodate oneself to the new order.
But events have moved the vibe in the other direction. Ambition is making a comeback.
Last week, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador, where he met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a victim of the Trump administration’s removal program under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act….
Abrego Garcia is one of the men trapped in this black zone. Despite his protected legal status, he was arrested, detained, accused of gang activity and removed from the United States. At no point did the government prove its case against Abrego Garcia, who has been moved to a lower-security prison, nor did he have a chance to defend himself in a court of law or before an immigration judge. As one of Abrego Garcia’s representatives in the United States Senate, Van Hollen met with him to both confirm his safety and highlight the injustice of his removal.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen
“This case is not just about one man,” Van Hollen said at a news conference following his visit. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.” [….]
The goal of Van Hollen’s journey to El Salvador — during which he was stopped by Salvadoran soldiers and turned away from the prison itself — was to bring attention to Abrego Garcia and invite greater scrutiny of the administration’s removal program and its disregard for due process. It was a success. And that success has inspired other Democrats to make the same trip, in hopes of turning more attention to the administration’s removal program and putting more pressure on the White House to obey the law.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is reportedly organizing a trip to El Salvador, and a group of House Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California arrived on Monday. “While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Representative Garcia said in a statement. “That is why we’re here, to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”
“We are demanding the Trump administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States,” Garcia added.
All of this negative attention has had an effect. It’s not just that the president’s overall approval rating has dipped into the low 40s — although it has — but that he’s losing his strong advantage on immigration as well. Fifty percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a recent poll from Quinnipiac University, and a new Reuters poll shows Trump slightly underwater on the issue with a 45 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
These lawmakers are getting positive attention for standing up to Trump, and their actions are waking up Americans who may not have been paying enough attention to Trump’s illegal and cruel deportations.
A group of Congress people traveled to Louisiana yesterday to meet with university students who have been kidnapped and held without charges. CNN: Congressional delegation visits Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in Louisiana detention centers.
A delegation of congressional members traveled to Louisiana Tuesday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk and inspect conditions at the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities where the two remain in custody.
It’s the first time a congressional delegation has met with Khalil or Ozturk.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, and Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student, have been in ICE custody for more than a month after being arrested near their homes by federal agents.
The Democrat delegation, led by Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana traveled to Jena, where Khalil is being held, and then two hours south to Basile, where Ozturk is detained. The group included Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Sen. Ed Markey.
Mahmoud Khalil
The facilities were clean but “chilly” according to Carter, who said detainees complained of cold temperatures at night, making it difficult to sleep. Carter said the facilities appeared to have been cleaned prior to their visit and that conditions appeared to be “fine” while they visited.
Following the visit, lawmakers said the detainees they met with also complained about a lack of medical care, food and religious accommodations.
“I really worry that this administration is ushering in a new era of McCarthyism. And unless Congress and unless the American people stand up and push back, they will succeed,” McGovern said during a press conference after the visits.
Markey accused the Trump administration of wanting to “make an example” out of Khalil and Ozturk in an effort to chill free speech. Markey also said ICE had intentionally transferred them to Louisiana for political reasons.
Through the Trump administration, ICE feels “they have a right to take people from across our country, and to put them into facilities like this here in Louisiana,” Markey said. “And why did they do that? They have done that in order to go to the single most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States of America.”
Again, these Congress people received positive media coverage. As Jamelle Bouie wrote (see above article), perhaps their ambition has led them to publicly oppose Trump’s dictatorial actions.
David Atkins at Washington Monthly: Democrats Need to Make Republicans Fear the Consequences of Attempting a Dictatorship.
Imagine that you were a high-ranking official in Donald Trump’s administration. Imagine that you believed in the Dark Enlightenment dream of dismantling liberal democracy itself—of “killing the woke mind virus,” ending birthright citizenship, and using federal power to suppress dissent. Now imagine you’re openly defying the Supreme Court, declaring that protest aids and abets terrorism, directing the FBI and IRS to target political enemies, and seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act on flimsy pretexts. What would stop you?
Certainly not impeachment. Not with a compliant Republican Congress. Not with a conservative media ecosystem ready to justify any abuse of power as a patriotic necessity. The only thing that might give you pause is the possibility that Democrats would regain control and then do to you what you’ve done to them.
That fear of reciprocal power and legal accountability was once enough to preserve American political norms. It was the logic of mutually assured destruction: if you break democracy now, they’ll break you later. That’s how informal guardrails were enforced, even through dark chapters like Watergate or Iran-Contra. But those norms no longer hold because no one believes Democrats will retaliate.
This is the context for the quiet battle raging within the Democratic Party leadership. A few anonymous but influential centrists are urging party leaders to soft-pedal Trump’s detention of legal residents in foreign internment camps and pivot to kitchen-table economics instead. Even as constituents demand action and donors grow restless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries still signal caution, urging patience and restraint…..
Rumeysa Ozturk
There have been some bright spots. Senator Cory Booker broke Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record in a marathon floor speech denouncing Trump’s abuses. Senator Chris Van Hollen forced a meeting with abducted U.S. resident Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, delivering proof of life and drawing global attention. Senator Chris Murphy’s rhetoric has been sharp and effective. House Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (along with her “anti-oligarchy tour” partner Senator Bernie Sanders), Jasmine Crockett, and Robert Garcia have been doing excellent work. Their energy and determination carry the tacit message that those who broke the law and tried to impose an authoritarian regime on the U.S. will face appropriate justice at the end of the day. Representative Jamie Raskin was explicit about warning El Salvador’s leader: “Look, President Bukele—who’s declared himself a dictator—and the other tyrants, dictators, autocrats of the world have to understand that the Trump administration is not going to last forever,” Raskin said. “We’re going to restore strong democracy to America, and we will remember who stood up for democracy in America and who tried to drive us down towards dictatorship and autocracy.”
But these have been exceptions rather than the rule. Most Democrats in leadership and positions of power have stayed quiet—avoiding press conferences, shunning symbolic actions, and allowing business to continue as if the country weren’t barreling toward authoritarianism.
When pressed, party leaders often respond that they can do little substantively. That protests are performative. That voters are tired of drama. But that’s not the point. The point isn’t what Democrats can do today. It’s what they’re signaling they’re willing to do when they return to power.
If Trump and his allies face no meaningful consequences, they have no reason to stop. If Republicans don’t believe that Democrats will act with equal force to protect democracy—legally, aggressively, unapologetically—then there’s no deterrent to further escalation.
Click the link to read the rest.
One more from Toby Buckle at Liberal Currents: Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So.
Throughout the Trump era I’ve been firmly in the camp unaffectionately dismissed as ‘alarmist’ by most commentators. Put simply: It is that bad. Liberal democracy is in danger. Fascism is a reasonable term for what we’re fighting.
For veteran ‘alarmists’ this is a strange moment. People are at a loss. It seems wrong, given all that is at stake, to say “I told you so”. I’ve felt that discomfort. For the longest time I avoided saying that. It felt . . . petty, childish, gauche, it just wasn’t the done thing. One of the big political awakenings I’ve had over the last year, and particularly since Trump’s 2024 victory, is realizing that it’s OK to say “called it”. More than OK. Even if it feels awkward, it’s actually important, perhaps necessary, that we do.
My view has not been, to put it mildly, the mainstream position. You’re allowed, with a certain amount of resentment, to say it today. But that wasn’t always the case. I recall first voicing it as the antecedents of Trump, the tea party and growing white supremacy, started to arise. Obama’s “the fever will break” seemed hopelessly naive to me. The press treated them either as legitimate libertarians or an eccentric curiosity, not a threat. To the activist left, what would become the Bernie movement, they were a joke—the punchline to a Jon Stewart monologue. Nothing more. When Trump first rode the elevator down to announce his candidacy, it was entertainment, not omen.
If you saw in any of this a threat to liberal democracy writ large, much less one that could actually succeed, you were looked at with the kind of caution usually reserved for the guy screaming about aliens on the subway. Trump’s election in 2016 was a shock to people who insisted it could never happen. But those most complacent before quickly found their way back to complacency after. For a certain type—specifically, the type who has a column in legacy media despite never having written an interesting or original paragraph in their lives—smug condescension became the order of the day: yes, Trump is bad, but dear me those liberals are being hysterical. As late as the last election they were writing pieces with titles like “A Trump Dictatorship Won’t Happen” or “No, Trump won’t destroy our democracy.” Even after the election, as the scale of the incoming lawlessness became clear, we were dismissed: “Trump Is Testing Our Constitutional System. It’s Working Fine” respected legal commentator Noah Feldman told us—the legal rationale for his actions was very flimsy. Courts would strike it all down. And certainly the administration would not ignore a court order.
One thing I’ve always wondered about the anti-alarmists during this decade was, to put it bluntly, weren’t they worried about looking stupid? The path we were on seemed clear enough to me, but I didn’t know the future. I always stressed that my predictions were one of any number of possible outcomes. They didn’t. What I was saying was dismissed, not just as unlikely, but impossible. Did they not want to hedge their bets even a bit? And it’s not as if the liberal democratic collapse happened all at once. The last decade has been a steady drum beat of them being wrong, again and again. Yet it never shook them.
Read more at Liberal Currents.
I have been fearful of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies since the 2016 campaign and so have most Sky Dancers. It does feel sometimes that people who didn’t see it are stupid, but I’m willing to welcome people who are beginning to change their minds to the resistance. We need as many resisters as possible. Trump’s polls are dropping now, as more people begin to see what he’s really up to–and it isn’t about bringing down grocery prices. I want to believe there is still hope for our democracy. Lately, it looks like some Democratic leaders are ready to fight back. Some of that fight must have come from seeing the protests all over the country. Now we need a few Republicans to grow spines and stand up to Trump.
That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#AbregoGarcia #Autocracy #ChrisVanHollen #CoryBooker #dictatorship #GaryKasparov #MahmoudKhalil #MariaRessa #Philippines #RodrigoDuterte #RumeysaOzturk #StevenLevitsky
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Wednesday Reads: Can We Still Prevent A Trump Dictatorship?
Good Morning!!
We are in deep trouble as a country. Trump hasn’t even been in the White House for 100 days, and he has made rapid progress toward turning us into a dictatorship. I think Congressional Democrats are beginning to wake up, but not nearly quickly enough. Too many of these elected Democrats still aren’t taking the danger seriously enough. In my opinion, they should calling press conferences at least every few days to explain how Trump is destroying our government.
There’s an excellent piece in The Atlantic by executive editor Adrienne LaFrance (gift link): A Ticking Clock on American Freedom. It’s later than you think, but it’s not too late.
Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time.
Maria Ressa
People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a “slide,” but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country’s democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.
Shortly after Trump was reelected last fall, I called Ressa to ask her how she thought Americans should prepare for his return. She told me then that she worried about a failure of imagination. She knew that the speed of the destruction of institutions—one of the first steps an authoritarian takes to solidify and centralize power—would surprise people here, even those paying the closest attention. Ressa splits her time between Manila and New York, and she repeatedly warned me to be ready for everything to happen quickly. When we spoke again weeks after his inauguration, Ressa was shaken. President Trump was moving faster than even she had anticipated.
I heard something similar recently from Garry Kasparov, the Russian dissident and chess grand master. To him, the situation was obvious. America is running out of time, he told me. As Kasparov wrote recently in this magazine, “If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too.”
The chorus of people who have lived through democratic ruin will all tell you the same thing: Do not make the mistake of assuming you still have time. Put another way: You think you can wait and see, and keep democracy intact? Wanna bet? Those who have seen democracy wrecked in their home country are sometimes derided as overly pessimistic—and it’s understandable that they’d have a sense of inevitability about the dangers of autocracy. But that gloomy worldview does not make their warnings any less credible: Unless Trump’s power is checked, and soon, things will get much worse very quickly. When people lose their freedoms, it can take a generation or more to claw them back—and that’s if you’re lucky.
Trump’s methods clearly mirror those of authoritarian leaders in other countries.
The Trump administration’s breakneck pace is obviously no accident. While citizens are busy processing their shock over any one shattered norm or disregarded law, Trump is already on to the next one. This is the playbook authoritarians have used all over the world: First the leader removes those with expertise and independent thinking from the government and replaces them with leaders who are arrogant, ignorant, and extremely loyal. Next he takes steps to centralize his power and claim unprecedented authority. Along the way, he conducts an all-out assault on the truth so that the truth tellers are distrusted, corruption becomes the norm, and questioning him becomes impossible. The Constitution bends and then finally breaks. This is what tyrants do. Trump is doing it now in the United States.
Philippines, it took about six months under Duterte for democratic institutions to crumble. In the
Rodrigo Duterte
United States, the overreach in executive power and the destruction of federal agencies that Ressa told me she figured would have kept Trump busy through, say, the end of the summer were carried out in the first 30 days of his presidency. Even so, what people don’t always realize is that a dictator doesn’t seize control all at once. “The death of democracy happens by a thousand cuts,” Ressa told me recently. “And you don’t realize how badly you’re bleeding until it’s too late.” Another thing the people who have lived under authoritarian rule will tell you: It’s not just that it can get worse. It will.
Americans who are waiting for Trump to cross some imaginary red line neglect the fact that they have more leverage to defend American democracy today than they will tomorrow, or next week, or next month. While people are still debating whether to call it authoritarianism or fascism, Trump is seizing control of one independent agency after another. (And for what it’s worth, the smartest scholars I know have told me that what Trump is trying to do in America is now textbook fascism—beyond the authoritarian impulses of his first term. Take, for example, his administration’s rigid ideological purity tests, or the extreme overreach of government into freedom of scientific and academic inquiry.)
Between the time I write this sentence and the moment when this story will be published, the federal government will lose hundreds more qualified, ethical civil servants. Soon, even higher numbers of principled people in positions of power will be fired or will resign. More positions will be left vacant or filled by people without standards or scruples. The government’s attacks against other checks on power—the press, the judiciary—will worsen. Enormous pressure will be exerted on people to stay silent. And silence is a form of consent.
This article is essential reading. I hope you’ll use the gift link to read the rest at The Atlantic.
Dave Davies of NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed political science Professor Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die: Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump.
In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats’ warnings that American democracy was in jeopardy if Donald Trump was elected failed to persuade a majority of voters. Our guest, Steven Levitsky, says there’s plenty of reason to worry about our democracy now….
In a new article for the journal Foreign Affairs, Levitsky and co-author Lucan A. Way write, quote, “U.S. democracy will likely break down during the Second Trump administration in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for a liberal democracy – full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties,” unquote. We’ve invited Levitsky here to explain the threats he sees to democracy and to talk about dramatic developments in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Harvard University.
DAVIES: You note in this article that Freedom House, which is a nonprofit that’s been around for a long time, which produces an annual global freedom index, has reduced the United States’ rating. It has slipped from 2014 to 2021. How much? Where are we now, and where did we used to be?
Steven Levitsky
LEVITSKY: Freedom House’s scores range from zero, which is the most authoritarian to a hundred, which is the most democratic. I think a couple of Scandinavian countries get scores of 99 or 100. The U.S. for many years was in the low 90s, which put it broadly on par with other Western democracies like the U.K. and Italy and Canada and Japan. But it slipped in the last decade, from Trump’s first victory to Trump’s second victory, from the low 90s to 83, which placed us below Argentina. And in a tie with Romania and Panama. So we’re still above what scholars would consider a democracy, but now in the very low-quality democracy range, comparable, again, to Panama, Romania and Argentina.
DAVIES: And does Freedom House explain its demotion? Why? Why did this happen?
LEVITSKY: Oh, yeah. Freedom House has annual reports for every country – the rise in political violence, political threats, threats against politicians, refusal to accept the results of a democratic election in 2020, an effort to use violence to block a peaceful transfer of power are all listed among the reasons for why the United States has fallen. I should say that even in the first four months of the Trump administration, it’s quite certain that what’s happening on the ground in the United States is likely to bring the U.S. score down quite a bit.
DAVIES: You say that the danger here is not that the United States will become a classic dictatorship with sham elections, you know, opposition leaders arrested, exiled or killed. What kind of autocracy might we become?
LEVITSKY: I think the most likely outcome is a slide into what Lucan Way and I call competitive authoritarianism. These are regimes that constitutionally continue to be democracies. There is a Constitution. There are regular elections, a legislature and importantly, the opposition is legal, above ground and competes for power. So from a distance, if you squint, it looks like a democracy, but the problem is that systematic coming (ph) abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. This is the kind of regime that we saw in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. It’s subsequently become a full-on dictatorship. It’s what we see in Turkey under Erdogan. It’s what we see in El Salvador. It’s what we see in Hungary today. Most new autocracies that have emerged in the 21st century have been led by elected leaders and fall into this category of competitive authoritarianism. It’s kind of a hybrid regime.
DAVIES: So free and fair elections lead us to a leader which takes us in a different direction?
LEVITSKY: Right. And because the leader is usually freely and fairly elected, he has a certain legitimacy that allows him to say, hey, how can you say I’m an authoritarian if I was freely and fairly elected? So citizens are often slow to realize that their country is descending into authoritarianism.
You can read the rest of the interview or listen to it at the NPR link.
Jamelle Bouie writes at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Wants You to Think Resistance Is Futile. It Is Not.
The American constitutional system is built on the theory that the self-interest of lawmakers can be as much of a defense against tyranny as any given law or institution.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Our Constitution is nothing more than a “parchment barrier” if not backed by the self-interest and ambition of those tasked with leading the nation.
One of the most striking dynamics in these first months of the second Trump administration was the extent to which so many politicians seemed to lack the ambition to directly challenge the president. There was a sense that the smart path was to embrace the apparent “vibe shift” of the 2024 presidential election and accommodate oneself to the new order.
But events have moved the vibe in the other direction. Ambition is making a comeback.
Last week, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador, where he met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a victim of the Trump administration’s removal program under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act….
Abrego Garcia is one of the men trapped in this black zone. Despite his protected legal status, he was arrested, detained, accused of gang activity and removed from the United States. At no point did the government prove its case against Abrego Garcia, who has been moved to a lower-security prison, nor did he have a chance to defend himself in a court of law or before an immigration judge. As one of Abrego Garcia’s representatives in the United States Senate, Van Hollen met with him to both confirm his safety and highlight the injustice of his removal.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen
“This case is not just about one man,” Van Hollen said at a news conference following his visit. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.” [….]
The goal of Van Hollen’s journey to El Salvador — during which he was stopped by Salvadoran soldiers and turned away from the prison itself — was to bring attention to Abrego Garcia and invite greater scrutiny of the administration’s removal program and its disregard for due process. It was a success. And that success has inspired other Democrats to make the same trip, in hopes of turning more attention to the administration’s removal program and putting more pressure on the White House to obey the law.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is reportedly organizing a trip to El Salvador, and a group of House Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California arrived on Monday. “While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Representative Garcia said in a statement. “That is why we’re here, to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”
“We are demanding the Trump administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States,” Garcia added.
All of this negative attention has had an effect. It’s not just that the president’s overall approval rating has dipped into the low 40s — although it has — but that he’s losing his strong advantage on immigration as well. Fifty percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a recent poll from Quinnipiac University, and a new Reuters poll shows Trump slightly underwater on the issue with a 45 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
These lawmakers are getting positive attention for standing up to Trump, and their actions are waking up Americans who may not have been paying enough attention to Trump’s illegal and cruel deportations.
A group of Congress people traveled to Louisiana yesterday to meet with university students who have been kidnapped and held without charges. CNN: Congressional delegation visits Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in Louisiana detention centers.
A delegation of congressional members traveled to Louisiana Tuesday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk and inspect conditions at the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities where the two remain in custody.
It’s the first time a congressional delegation has met with Khalil or Ozturk.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, and Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student, have been in ICE custody for more than a month after being arrested near their homes by federal agents.
The Democrat delegation, led by Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana traveled to Jena, where Khalil is being held, and then two hours south to Basile, where Ozturk is detained. The group included Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Sen. Ed Markey.
Mahmoud Khalil
The facilities were clean but “chilly” according to Carter, who said detainees complained of cold temperatures at night, making it difficult to sleep. Carter said the facilities appeared to have been cleaned prior to their visit and that conditions appeared to be “fine” while they visited.
Following the visit, lawmakers said the detainees they met with also complained about a lack of medical care, food and religious accommodations.
“I really worry that this administration is ushering in a new era of McCarthyism. And unless Congress and unless the American people stand up and push back, they will succeed,” McGovern said during a press conference after the visits.
Markey accused the Trump administration of wanting to “make an example” out of Khalil and Ozturk in an effort to chill free speech. Markey also said ICE had intentionally transferred them to Louisiana for political reasons.
Through the Trump administration, ICE feels “they have a right to take people from across our country, and to put them into facilities like this here in Louisiana,” Markey said. “And why did they do that? They have done that in order to go to the single most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States of America.”
Again, these Congress people received positive media coverage. As Jamelle Bouie wrote (see above article), perhaps their ambition has led them to publicly oppose Trump’s dictatorial actions.
David Atkins at Washington Monthly: Democrats Need to Make Republicans Fear the Consequences of Attempting a Dictatorship.
Imagine that you were a high-ranking official in Donald Trump’s administration. Imagine that you believed in the Dark Enlightenment dream of dismantling liberal democracy itself—of “killing the woke mind virus,” ending birthright citizenship, and using federal power to suppress dissent. Now imagine you’re openly defying the Supreme Court, declaring that protest aids and abets terrorism, directing the FBI and IRS to target political enemies, and seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act on flimsy pretexts. What would stop you?
Certainly not impeachment. Not with a compliant Republican Congress. Not with a conservative media ecosystem ready to justify any abuse of power as a patriotic necessity. The only thing that might give you pause is the possibility that Democrats would regain control and then do to you what you’ve done to them.
That fear of reciprocal power and legal accountability was once enough to preserve American political norms. It was the logic of mutually assured destruction: if you break democracy now, they’ll break you later. That’s how informal guardrails were enforced, even through dark chapters like Watergate or Iran-Contra. But those norms no longer hold because no one believes Democrats will retaliate.
This is the context for the quiet battle raging within the Democratic Party leadership. A few anonymous but influential centrists are urging party leaders to soft-pedal Trump’s detention of legal residents in foreign internment camps and pivot to kitchen-table economics instead. Even as constituents demand action and donors grow restless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries still signal caution, urging patience and restraint…..
Rumeysa Ozturk
There have been some bright spots. Senator Cory Booker broke Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record in a marathon floor speech denouncing Trump’s abuses. Senator Chris Van Hollen forced a meeting with abducted U.S. resident Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, delivering proof of life and drawing global attention. Senator Chris Murphy’s rhetoric has been sharp and effective. House Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (along with her “anti-oligarchy tour” partner Senator Bernie Sanders), Jasmine Crockett, and Robert Garcia have been doing excellent work. Their energy and determination carry the tacit message that those who broke the law and tried to impose an authoritarian regime on the U.S. will face appropriate justice at the end of the day. Representative Jamie Raskin was explicit about warning El Salvador’s leader: “Look, President Bukele—who’s declared himself a dictator—and the other tyrants, dictators, autocrats of the world have to understand that the Trump administration is not going to last forever,” Raskin said. “We’re going to restore strong democracy to America, and we will remember who stood up for democracy in America and who tried to drive us down towards dictatorship and autocracy.”
But these have been exceptions rather than the rule. Most Democrats in leadership and positions of power have stayed quiet—avoiding press conferences, shunning symbolic actions, and allowing business to continue as if the country weren’t barreling toward authoritarianism.
When pressed, party leaders often respond that they can do little substantively. That protests are performative. That voters are tired of drama. But that’s not the point. The point isn’t what Democrats can do today. It’s what they’re signaling they’re willing to do when they return to power.
If Trump and his allies face no meaningful consequences, they have no reason to stop. If Republicans don’t believe that Democrats will act with equal force to protect democracy—legally, aggressively, unapologetically—then there’s no deterrent to further escalation.
Click the link to read the rest.
One more from Toby Buckle at Liberal Currents: Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So.
Throughout the Trump era I’ve been firmly in the camp unaffectionately dismissed as ‘alarmist’ by most commentators. Put simply: It is that bad. Liberal democracy is in danger. Fascism is a reasonable term for what we’re fighting.
For veteran ‘alarmists’ this is a strange moment. People are at a loss. It seems wrong, given all that is at stake, to say “I told you so”. I’ve felt that discomfort. For the longest time I avoided saying that. It felt . . . petty, childish, gauche, it just wasn’t the done thing. One of the big political awakenings I’ve had over the last year, and particularly since Trump’s 2024 victory, is realizing that it’s OK to say “called it”. More than OK. Even if it feels awkward, it’s actually important, perhaps necessary, that we do.
My view has not been, to put it mildly, the mainstream position. You’re allowed, with a certain amount of resentment, to say it today. But that wasn’t always the case. I recall first voicing it as the antecedents of Trump, the tea party and growing white supremacy, started to arise. Obama’s “the fever will break” seemed hopelessly naive to me. The press treated them either as legitimate libertarians or an eccentric curiosity, not a threat. To the activist left, what would become the Bernie movement, they were a joke—the punchline to a Jon Stewart monologue. Nothing more. When Trump first rode the elevator down to announce his candidacy, it was entertainment, not omen.
If you saw in any of this a threat to liberal democracy writ large, much less one that could actually succeed, you were looked at with the kind of caution usually reserved for the guy screaming about aliens on the subway. Trump’s election in 2016 was a shock to people who insisted it could never happen. But those most complacent before quickly found their way back to complacency after. For a certain type—specifically, the type who has a column in legacy media despite never having written an interesting or original paragraph in their lives—smug condescension became the order of the day: yes, Trump is bad, but dear me those liberals are being hysterical. As late as the last election they were writing pieces with titles like “A Trump Dictatorship Won’t Happen” or “No, Trump won’t destroy our democracy.” Even after the election, as the scale of the incoming lawlessness became clear, we were dismissed: “Trump Is Testing Our Constitutional System. It’s Working Fine” respected legal commentator Noah Feldman told us—the legal rationale for his actions was very flimsy. Courts would strike it all down. And certainly the administration would not ignore a court order.
One thing I’ve always wondered about the anti-alarmists during this decade was, to put it bluntly, weren’t they worried about looking stupid? The path we were on seemed clear enough to me, but I didn’t know the future. I always stressed that my predictions were one of any number of possible outcomes. They didn’t. What I was saying was dismissed, not just as unlikely, but impossible. Did they not want to hedge their bets even a bit? And it’s not as if the liberal democratic collapse happened all at once. The last decade has been a steady drum beat of them being wrong, again and again. Yet it never shook them.
Read more at Liberal Currents.
I have been fearful of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies since the 2016 campaign and so have most Sky Dancers. It does feel sometimes that people who didn’t see it are stupid, but I’m willing to welcome people who are beginning to change their minds to the resistance. We need as many resisters as possible. Trump’s polls are dropping now, as more people begin to see what he’s really up to–and it isn’t about bringing down grocery prices. I want to believe there is still hope for our democracy. Lately, it looks like some Democratic leaders are ready to fight back. Some of that fight must have come from seeing the protests all over the country. Now we need a few Republicans to grow spines and stand up to Trump.
That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#AbregoGarcia #Autocracy #ChrisVanHollen #CoryBooker #dictatorship #GaryKasparov #MahmoudKhalil #MariaRessa #Philippines #RodrigoDuterte #RumeysaOzturk #StevenLevitsky
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Wednesday Reads: Can We Still Prevent A Trump Dictatorship?
Good Morning!!
We are in deep trouble as a country. Trump hasn’t even been in the White House for 100 days, and he has made rapid progress toward turning us into a dictatorship. I think Congressional Democrats are beginning to wake up, but not nearly quickly enough. Too many of these elected Democrats still aren’t taking the danger seriously enough. In my opinion, they should calling press conferences at least every few days to explain how Trump is destroying our government.
There’s an excellent piece in The Atlantic by executive editor Adrienne LaFrance (gift link): A Ticking Clock on American Freedom. It’s later than you think, but it’s not too late.
Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time.
Maria Ressa
People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a “slide,” but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country’s democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.
Shortly after Trump was reelected last fall, I called Ressa to ask her how she thought Americans should prepare for his return. She told me then that she worried about a failure of imagination. She knew that the speed of the destruction of institutions—one of the first steps an authoritarian takes to solidify and centralize power—would surprise people here, even those paying the closest attention. Ressa splits her time between Manila and New York, and she repeatedly warned me to be ready for everything to happen quickly. When we spoke again weeks after his inauguration, Ressa was shaken. President Trump was moving faster than even she had anticipated.
I heard something similar recently from Garry Kasparov, the Russian dissident and chess grand master. To him, the situation was obvious. America is running out of time, he told me. As Kasparov wrote recently in this magazine, “If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too.”
The chorus of people who have lived through democratic ruin will all tell you the same thing: Do not make the mistake of assuming you still have time. Put another way: You think you can wait and see, and keep democracy intact? Wanna bet? Those who have seen democracy wrecked in their home country are sometimes derided as overly pessimistic—and it’s understandable that they’d have a sense of inevitability about the dangers of autocracy. But that gloomy worldview does not make their warnings any less credible: Unless Trump’s power is checked, and soon, things will get much worse very quickly. When people lose their freedoms, it can take a generation or more to claw them back—and that’s if you’re lucky.
Trump’s methods clearly mirror those of authoritarian leaders in other countries.
The Trump administration’s breakneck pace is obviously no accident. While citizens are busy processing their shock over any one shattered norm or disregarded law, Trump is already on to the next one. This is the playbook authoritarians have used all over the world: First the leader removes those with expertise and independent thinking from the government and replaces them with leaders who are arrogant, ignorant, and extremely loyal. Next he takes steps to centralize his power and claim unprecedented authority. Along the way, he conducts an all-out assault on the truth so that the truth tellers are distrusted, corruption becomes the norm, and questioning him becomes impossible. The Constitution bends and then finally breaks. This is what tyrants do. Trump is doing it now in the United States.
Philippines, it took about six months under Duterte for democratic institutions to crumble. In the
Rodrigo Duterte
United States, the overreach in executive power and the destruction of federal agencies that Ressa told me she figured would have kept Trump busy through, say, the end of the summer were carried out in the first 30 days of his presidency. Even so, what people don’t always realize is that a dictator doesn’t seize control all at once. “The death of democracy happens by a thousand cuts,” Ressa told me recently. “And you don’t realize how badly you’re bleeding until it’s too late.” Another thing the people who have lived under authoritarian rule will tell you: It’s not just that it can get worse. It will.
Americans who are waiting for Trump to cross some imaginary red line neglect the fact that they have more leverage to defend American democracy today than they will tomorrow, or next week, or next month. While people are still debating whether to call it authoritarianism or fascism, Trump is seizing control of one independent agency after another. (And for what it’s worth, the smartest scholars I know have told me that what Trump is trying to do in America is now textbook fascism—beyond the authoritarian impulses of his first term. Take, for example, his administration’s rigid ideological purity tests, or the extreme overreach of government into freedom of scientific and academic inquiry.)
Between the time I write this sentence and the moment when this story will be published, the federal government will lose hundreds more qualified, ethical civil servants. Soon, even higher numbers of principled people in positions of power will be fired or will resign. More positions will be left vacant or filled by people without standards or scruples. The government’s attacks against other checks on power—the press, the judiciary—will worsen. Enormous pressure will be exerted on people to stay silent. And silence is a form of consent.
This article is essential reading. I hope you’ll use the gift link to read the rest at The Atlantic.
Dave Davies of NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed political science Professor Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die: Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump.
In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats’ warnings that American democracy was in jeopardy if Donald Trump was elected failed to persuade a majority of voters. Our guest, Steven Levitsky, says there’s plenty of reason to worry about our democracy now….
In a new article for the journal Foreign Affairs, Levitsky and co-author Lucan A. Way write, quote, “U.S. democracy will likely break down during the Second Trump administration in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for a liberal democracy – full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties,” unquote. We’ve invited Levitsky here to explain the threats he sees to democracy and to talk about dramatic developments in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Harvard University.
DAVIES: You note in this article that Freedom House, which is a nonprofit that’s been around for a long time, which produces an annual global freedom index, has reduced the United States’ rating. It has slipped from 2014 to 2021. How much? Where are we now, and where did we used to be?
Steven Levitsky
LEVITSKY: Freedom House’s scores range from zero, which is the most authoritarian to a hundred, which is the most democratic. I think a couple of Scandinavian countries get scores of 99 or 100. The U.S. for many years was in the low 90s, which put it broadly on par with other Western democracies like the U.K. and Italy and Canada and Japan. But it slipped in the last decade, from Trump’s first victory to Trump’s second victory, from the low 90s to 83, which placed us below Argentina. And in a tie with Romania and Panama. So we’re still above what scholars would consider a democracy, but now in the very low-quality democracy range, comparable, again, to Panama, Romania and Argentina.
DAVIES: And does Freedom House explain its demotion? Why? Why did this happen?
LEVITSKY: Oh, yeah. Freedom House has annual reports for every country – the rise in political violence, political threats, threats against politicians, refusal to accept the results of a democratic election in 2020, an effort to use violence to block a peaceful transfer of power are all listed among the reasons for why the United States has fallen. I should say that even in the first four months of the Trump administration, it’s quite certain that what’s happening on the ground in the United States is likely to bring the U.S. score down quite a bit.
DAVIES: You say that the danger here is not that the United States will become a classic dictatorship with sham elections, you know, opposition leaders arrested, exiled or killed. What kind of autocracy might we become?
LEVITSKY: I think the most likely outcome is a slide into what Lucan Way and I call competitive authoritarianism. These are regimes that constitutionally continue to be democracies. There is a Constitution. There are regular elections, a legislature and importantly, the opposition is legal, above ground and competes for power. So from a distance, if you squint, it looks like a democracy, but the problem is that systematic coming (ph) abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. This is the kind of regime that we saw in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. It’s subsequently become a full-on dictatorship. It’s what we see in Turkey under Erdogan. It’s what we see in El Salvador. It’s what we see in Hungary today. Most new autocracies that have emerged in the 21st century have been led by elected leaders and fall into this category of competitive authoritarianism. It’s kind of a hybrid regime.
DAVIES: So free and fair elections lead us to a leader which takes us in a different direction?
LEVITSKY: Right. And because the leader is usually freely and fairly elected, he has a certain legitimacy that allows him to say, hey, how can you say I’m an authoritarian if I was freely and fairly elected? So citizens are often slow to realize that their country is descending into authoritarianism.
You can read the rest of the interview or listen to it at the NPR link.
Jamelle Bouie writes at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Wants You to Think Resistance Is Futile. It Is Not.
The American constitutional system is built on the theory that the self-interest of lawmakers can be as much of a defense against tyranny as any given law or institution.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Our Constitution is nothing more than a “parchment barrier” if not backed by the self-interest and ambition of those tasked with leading the nation.
One of the most striking dynamics in these first months of the second Trump administration was the extent to which so many politicians seemed to lack the ambition to directly challenge the president. There was a sense that the smart path was to embrace the apparent “vibe shift” of the 2024 presidential election and accommodate oneself to the new order.
But events have moved the vibe in the other direction. Ambition is making a comeback.
Last week, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador, where he met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a victim of the Trump administration’s removal program under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act….
Abrego Garcia is one of the men trapped in this black zone. Despite his protected legal status, he was arrested, detained, accused of gang activity and removed from the United States. At no point did the government prove its case against Abrego Garcia, who has been moved to a lower-security prison, nor did he have a chance to defend himself in a court of law or before an immigration judge. As one of Abrego Garcia’s representatives in the United States Senate, Van Hollen met with him to both confirm his safety and highlight the injustice of his removal.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen
“This case is not just about one man,” Van Hollen said at a news conference following his visit. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.” [….]
The goal of Van Hollen’s journey to El Salvador — during which he was stopped by Salvadoran soldiers and turned away from the prison itself — was to bring attention to Abrego Garcia and invite greater scrutiny of the administration’s removal program and its disregard for due process. It was a success. And that success has inspired other Democrats to make the same trip, in hopes of turning more attention to the administration’s removal program and putting more pressure on the White House to obey the law.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is reportedly organizing a trip to El Salvador, and a group of House Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California arrived on Monday. “While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Representative Garcia said in a statement. “That is why we’re here, to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”
“We are demanding the Trump administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States,” Garcia added.
All of this negative attention has had an effect. It’s not just that the president’s overall approval rating has dipped into the low 40s — although it has — but that he’s losing his strong advantage on immigration as well. Fifty percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a recent poll from Quinnipiac University, and a new Reuters poll shows Trump slightly underwater on the issue with a 45 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
These lawmakers are getting positive attention for standing up to Trump, and their actions are waking up Americans who may not have been paying enough attention to Trump’s illegal and cruel deportations.
A group of Congress people traveled to Louisiana yesterday to meet with university students who have been kidnapped and held without charges. CNN: Congressional delegation visits Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in Louisiana detention centers.
A delegation of congressional members traveled to Louisiana Tuesday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk and inspect conditions at the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities where the two remain in custody.
It’s the first time a congressional delegation has met with Khalil or Ozturk.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, and Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student, have been in ICE custody for more than a month after being arrested near their homes by federal agents.
The Democrat delegation, led by Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana traveled to Jena, where Khalil is being held, and then two hours south to Basile, where Ozturk is detained. The group included Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Sen. Ed Markey.
Mahmoud Khalil
The facilities were clean but “chilly” according to Carter, who said detainees complained of cold temperatures at night, making it difficult to sleep. Carter said the facilities appeared to have been cleaned prior to their visit and that conditions appeared to be “fine” while they visited.
Following the visit, lawmakers said the detainees they met with also complained about a lack of medical care, food and religious accommodations.
“I really worry that this administration is ushering in a new era of McCarthyism. And unless Congress and unless the American people stand up and push back, they will succeed,” McGovern said during a press conference after the visits.
Markey accused the Trump administration of wanting to “make an example” out of Khalil and Ozturk in an effort to chill free speech. Markey also said ICE had intentionally transferred them to Louisiana for political reasons.
Through the Trump administration, ICE feels “they have a right to take people from across our country, and to put them into facilities like this here in Louisiana,” Markey said. “And why did they do that? They have done that in order to go to the single most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States of America.”
Again, these Congress people received positive media coverage. As Jamelle Bouie wrote (see above article), perhaps their ambition has led them to publicly oppose Trump’s dictatorial actions.
David Atkins at Washington Monthly: Democrats Need to Make Republicans Fear the Consequences of Attempting a Dictatorship.
Imagine that you were a high-ranking official in Donald Trump’s administration. Imagine that you believed in the Dark Enlightenment dream of dismantling liberal democracy itself—of “killing the woke mind virus,” ending birthright citizenship, and using federal power to suppress dissent. Now imagine you’re openly defying the Supreme Court, declaring that protest aids and abets terrorism, directing the FBI and IRS to target political enemies, and seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act on flimsy pretexts. What would stop you?
Certainly not impeachment. Not with a compliant Republican Congress. Not with a conservative media ecosystem ready to justify any abuse of power as a patriotic necessity. The only thing that might give you pause is the possibility that Democrats would regain control and then do to you what you’ve done to them.
That fear of reciprocal power and legal accountability was once enough to preserve American political norms. It was the logic of mutually assured destruction: if you break democracy now, they’ll break you later. That’s how informal guardrails were enforced, even through dark chapters like Watergate or Iran-Contra. But those norms no longer hold because no one believes Democrats will retaliate.
This is the context for the quiet battle raging within the Democratic Party leadership. A few anonymous but influential centrists are urging party leaders to soft-pedal Trump’s detention of legal residents in foreign internment camps and pivot to kitchen-table economics instead. Even as constituents demand action and donors grow restless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries still signal caution, urging patience and restraint…..
Rumeysa Ozturk
There have been some bright spots. Senator Cory Booker broke Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record in a marathon floor speech denouncing Trump’s abuses. Senator Chris Van Hollen forced a meeting with abducted U.S. resident Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, delivering proof of life and drawing global attention. Senator Chris Murphy’s rhetoric has been sharp and effective. House Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (along with her “anti-oligarchy tour” partner Senator Bernie Sanders), Jasmine Crockett, and Robert Garcia have been doing excellent work. Their energy and determination carry the tacit message that those who broke the law and tried to impose an authoritarian regime on the U.S. will face appropriate justice at the end of the day. Representative Jamie Raskin was explicit about warning El Salvador’s leader: “Look, President Bukele—who’s declared himself a dictator—and the other tyrants, dictators, autocrats of the world have to understand that the Trump administration is not going to last forever,” Raskin said. “We’re going to restore strong democracy to America, and we will remember who stood up for democracy in America and who tried to drive us down towards dictatorship and autocracy.”
But these have been exceptions rather than the rule. Most Democrats in leadership and positions of power have stayed quiet—avoiding press conferences, shunning symbolic actions, and allowing business to continue as if the country weren’t barreling toward authoritarianism.
When pressed, party leaders often respond that they can do little substantively. That protests are performative. That voters are tired of drama. But that’s not the point. The point isn’t what Democrats can do today. It’s what they’re signaling they’re willing to do when they return to power.
If Trump and his allies face no meaningful consequences, they have no reason to stop. If Republicans don’t believe that Democrats will act with equal force to protect democracy—legally, aggressively, unapologetically—then there’s no deterrent to further escalation.
Click the link to read the rest.
One more from Toby Buckle at Liberal Currents: Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So.
Throughout the Trump era I’ve been firmly in the camp unaffectionately dismissed as ‘alarmist’ by most commentators. Put simply: It is that bad. Liberal democracy is in danger. Fascism is a reasonable term for what we’re fighting.
For veteran ‘alarmists’ this is a strange moment. People are at a loss. It seems wrong, given all that is at stake, to say “I told you so”. I’ve felt that discomfort. For the longest time I avoided saying that. It felt . . . petty, childish, gauche, it just wasn’t the done thing. One of the big political awakenings I’ve had over the last year, and particularly since Trump’s 2024 victory, is realizing that it’s OK to say “called it”. More than OK. Even if it feels awkward, it’s actually important, perhaps necessary, that we do.
My view has not been, to put it mildly, the mainstream position. You’re allowed, with a certain amount of resentment, to say it today. But that wasn’t always the case. I recall first voicing it as the antecedents of Trump, the tea party and growing white supremacy, started to arise. Obama’s “the fever will break” seemed hopelessly naive to me. The press treated them either as legitimate libertarians or an eccentric curiosity, not a threat. To the activist left, what would become the Bernie movement, they were a joke—the punchline to a Jon Stewart monologue. Nothing more. When Trump first rode the elevator down to announce his candidacy, it was entertainment, not omen.
If you saw in any of this a threat to liberal democracy writ large, much less one that could actually succeed, you were looked at with the kind of caution usually reserved for the guy screaming about aliens on the subway. Trump’s election in 2016 was a shock to people who insisted it could never happen. But those most complacent before quickly found their way back to complacency after. For a certain type—specifically, the type who has a column in legacy media despite never having written an interesting or original paragraph in their lives—smug condescension became the order of the day: yes, Trump is bad, but dear me those liberals are being hysterical. As late as the last election they were writing pieces with titles like “A Trump Dictatorship Won’t Happen” or “No, Trump won’t destroy our democracy.” Even after the election, as the scale of the incoming lawlessness became clear, we were dismissed: “Trump Is Testing Our Constitutional System. It’s Working Fine” respected legal commentator Noah Feldman told us—the legal rationale for his actions was very flimsy. Courts would strike it all down. And certainly the administration would not ignore a court order.
One thing I’ve always wondered about the anti-alarmists during this decade was, to put it bluntly, weren’t they worried about looking stupid? The path we were on seemed clear enough to me, but I didn’t know the future. I always stressed that my predictions were one of any number of possible outcomes. They didn’t. What I was saying was dismissed, not just as unlikely, but impossible. Did they not want to hedge their bets even a bit? And it’s not as if the liberal democratic collapse happened all at once. The last decade has been a steady drum beat of them being wrong, again and again. Yet it never shook them.
Read more at Liberal Currents.
I have been fearful of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies since the 2016 campaign and so have most Sky Dancers. It does feel sometimes that people who didn’t see it are stupid, but I’m willing to welcome people who are beginning to change their minds to the resistance. We need as many resisters as possible. Trump’s polls are dropping now, as more people begin to see what he’s really up to–and it isn’t about bringing down grocery prices. I want to believe there is still hope for our democracy. Lately, it looks like some Democratic leaders are ready to fight back. Some of that fight must have come from seeing the protests all over the country. Now we need a few Republicans to grow spines and stand up to Trump.
That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#AbregoGarcia #Autocracy #ChrisVanHollen #CoryBooker #dictatorship #GaryKasparov #MahmoudKhalil #MariaRessa #Philippines #RodrigoDuterte #RumeysaOzturk #StevenLevitsky
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Wednesday Reads: Can We Still Prevent A Trump Dictatorship?
Good Morning!!
We are in deep trouble as a country. Trump hasn’t even been in the White House for 100 days, and he has made rapid progress toward turning us into a dictatorship. I think Congressional Democrats are beginning to wake up, but not nearly quickly enough. Too many of these elected Democrats still aren’t taking the danger seriously enough. In my opinion, they should calling press conferences at least every few days to explain how Trump is destroying our government.
There’s an excellent piece in The Atlantic by executive editor Adrienne LaFrance (gift link): A Ticking Clock on American Freedom. It’s later than you think, but it’s not too late.
Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time.
Maria Ressa
People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a “slide,” but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country’s democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.
Shortly after Trump was reelected last fall, I called Ressa to ask her how she thought Americans should prepare for his return. She told me then that she worried about a failure of imagination. She knew that the speed of the destruction of institutions—one of the first steps an authoritarian takes to solidify and centralize power—would surprise people here, even those paying the closest attention. Ressa splits her time between Manila and New York, and she repeatedly warned me to be ready for everything to happen quickly. When we spoke again weeks after his inauguration, Ressa was shaken. President Trump was moving faster than even she had anticipated.
I heard something similar recently from Garry Kasparov, the Russian dissident and chess grand master. To him, the situation was obvious. America is running out of time, he told me. As Kasparov wrote recently in this magazine, “If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too.”
The chorus of people who have lived through democratic ruin will all tell you the same thing: Do not make the mistake of assuming you still have time. Put another way: You think you can wait and see, and keep democracy intact? Wanna bet? Those who have seen democracy wrecked in their home country are sometimes derided as overly pessimistic—and it’s understandable that they’d have a sense of inevitability about the dangers of autocracy. But that gloomy worldview does not make their warnings any less credible: Unless Trump’s power is checked, and soon, things will get much worse very quickly. When people lose their freedoms, it can take a generation or more to claw them back—and that’s if you’re lucky.
Trump’s methods clearly mirror those of authoritarian leaders in other countries.
The Trump administration’s breakneck pace is obviously no accident. While citizens are busy processing their shock over any one shattered norm or disregarded law, Trump is already on to the next one. This is the playbook authoritarians have used all over the world: First the leader removes those with expertise and independent thinking from the government and replaces them with leaders who are arrogant, ignorant, and extremely loyal. Next he takes steps to centralize his power and claim unprecedented authority. Along the way, he conducts an all-out assault on the truth so that the truth tellers are distrusted, corruption becomes the norm, and questioning him becomes impossible. The Constitution bends and then finally breaks. This is what tyrants do. Trump is doing it now in the United States.
Philippines, it took about six months under Duterte for democratic institutions to crumble. In the
Rodrigo Duterte
United States, the overreach in executive power and the destruction of federal agencies that Ressa told me she figured would have kept Trump busy through, say, the end of the summer were carried out in the first 30 days of his presidency. Even so, what people don’t always realize is that a dictator doesn’t seize control all at once. “The death of democracy happens by a thousand cuts,” Ressa told me recently. “And you don’t realize how badly you’re bleeding until it’s too late.” Another thing the people who have lived under authoritarian rule will tell you: It’s not just that it can get worse. It will.
Americans who are waiting for Trump to cross some imaginary red line neglect the fact that they have more leverage to defend American democracy today than they will tomorrow, or next week, or next month. While people are still debating whether to call it authoritarianism or fascism, Trump is seizing control of one independent agency after another. (And for what it’s worth, the smartest scholars I know have told me that what Trump is trying to do in America is now textbook fascism—beyond the authoritarian impulses of his first term. Take, for example, his administration’s rigid ideological purity tests, or the extreme overreach of government into freedom of scientific and academic inquiry.)
Between the time I write this sentence and the moment when this story will be published, the federal government will lose hundreds more qualified, ethical civil servants. Soon, even higher numbers of principled people in positions of power will be fired or will resign. More positions will be left vacant or filled by people without standards or scruples. The government’s attacks against other checks on power—the press, the judiciary—will worsen. Enormous pressure will be exerted on people to stay silent. And silence is a form of consent.
This article is essential reading. I hope you’ll use the gift link to read the rest at The Atlantic.
Dave Davies of NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed political science Professor Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die: Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump.
In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats’ warnings that American democracy was in jeopardy if Donald Trump was elected failed to persuade a majority of voters. Our guest, Steven Levitsky, says there’s plenty of reason to worry about our democracy now….
In a new article for the journal Foreign Affairs, Levitsky and co-author Lucan A. Way write, quote, “U.S. democracy will likely break down during the Second Trump administration in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for a liberal democracy – full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties,” unquote. We’ve invited Levitsky here to explain the threats he sees to democracy and to talk about dramatic developments in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Harvard University.
DAVIES: You note in this article that Freedom House, which is a nonprofit that’s been around for a long time, which produces an annual global freedom index, has reduced the United States’ rating. It has slipped from 2014 to 2021. How much? Where are we now, and where did we used to be?
Steven Levitsky
LEVITSKY: Freedom House’s scores range from zero, which is the most authoritarian to a hundred, which is the most democratic. I think a couple of Scandinavian countries get scores of 99 or 100. The U.S. for many years was in the low 90s, which put it broadly on par with other Western democracies like the U.K. and Italy and Canada and Japan. But it slipped in the last decade, from Trump’s first victory to Trump’s second victory, from the low 90s to 83, which placed us below Argentina. And in a tie with Romania and Panama. So we’re still above what scholars would consider a democracy, but now in the very low-quality democracy range, comparable, again, to Panama, Romania and Argentina.
DAVIES: And does Freedom House explain its demotion? Why? Why did this happen?
LEVITSKY: Oh, yeah. Freedom House has annual reports for every country – the rise in political violence, political threats, threats against politicians, refusal to accept the results of a democratic election in 2020, an effort to use violence to block a peaceful transfer of power are all listed among the reasons for why the United States has fallen. I should say that even in the first four months of the Trump administration, it’s quite certain that what’s happening on the ground in the United States is likely to bring the U.S. score down quite a bit.
DAVIES: You say that the danger here is not that the United States will become a classic dictatorship with sham elections, you know, opposition leaders arrested, exiled or killed. What kind of autocracy might we become?
LEVITSKY: I think the most likely outcome is a slide into what Lucan Way and I call competitive authoritarianism. These are regimes that constitutionally continue to be democracies. There is a Constitution. There are regular elections, a legislature and importantly, the opposition is legal, above ground and competes for power. So from a distance, if you squint, it looks like a democracy, but the problem is that systematic coming (ph) abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. This is the kind of regime that we saw in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. It’s subsequently become a full-on dictatorship. It’s what we see in Turkey under Erdogan. It’s what we see in El Salvador. It’s what we see in Hungary today. Most new autocracies that have emerged in the 21st century have been led by elected leaders and fall into this category of competitive authoritarianism. It’s kind of a hybrid regime.
DAVIES: So free and fair elections lead us to a leader which takes us in a different direction?
LEVITSKY: Right. And because the leader is usually freely and fairly elected, he has a certain legitimacy that allows him to say, hey, how can you say I’m an authoritarian if I was freely and fairly elected? So citizens are often slow to realize that their country is descending into authoritarianism.
You can read the rest of the interview or listen to it at the NPR link.
Jamelle Bouie writes at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Wants You to Think Resistance Is Futile. It Is Not.
The American constitutional system is built on the theory that the self-interest of lawmakers can be as much of a defense against tyranny as any given law or institution.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Our Constitution is nothing more than a “parchment barrier” if not backed by the self-interest and ambition of those tasked with leading the nation.
One of the most striking dynamics in these first months of the second Trump administration was the extent to which so many politicians seemed to lack the ambition to directly challenge the president. There was a sense that the smart path was to embrace the apparent “vibe shift” of the 2024 presidential election and accommodate oneself to the new order.
But events have moved the vibe in the other direction. Ambition is making a comeback.
Last week, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador, where he met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a victim of the Trump administration’s removal program under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act….
Abrego Garcia is one of the men trapped in this black zone. Despite his protected legal status, he was arrested, detained, accused of gang activity and removed from the United States. At no point did the government prove its case against Abrego Garcia, who has been moved to a lower-security prison, nor did he have a chance to defend himself in a court of law or before an immigration judge. As one of Abrego Garcia’s representatives in the United States Senate, Van Hollen met with him to both confirm his safety and highlight the injustice of his removal.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen
“This case is not just about one man,” Van Hollen said at a news conference following his visit. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.” [….]
The goal of Van Hollen’s journey to El Salvador — during which he was stopped by Salvadoran soldiers and turned away from the prison itself — was to bring attention to Abrego Garcia and invite greater scrutiny of the administration’s removal program and its disregard for due process. It was a success. And that success has inspired other Democrats to make the same trip, in hopes of turning more attention to the administration’s removal program and putting more pressure on the White House to obey the law.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is reportedly organizing a trip to El Salvador, and a group of House Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California arrived on Monday. “While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Representative Garcia said in a statement. “That is why we’re here, to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”
“We are demanding the Trump administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States,” Garcia added.
All of this negative attention has had an effect. It’s not just that the president’s overall approval rating has dipped into the low 40s — although it has — but that he’s losing his strong advantage on immigration as well. Fifty percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a recent poll from Quinnipiac University, and a new Reuters poll shows Trump slightly underwater on the issue with a 45 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
These lawmakers are getting positive attention for standing up to Trump, and their actions are waking up Americans who may not have been paying enough attention to Trump’s illegal and cruel deportations.
A group of Congress people traveled to Louisiana yesterday to meet with university students who have been kidnapped and held without charges. CNN: Congressional delegation visits Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in Louisiana detention centers.
A delegation of congressional members traveled to Louisiana Tuesday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk and inspect conditions at the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities where the two remain in custody.
It’s the first time a congressional delegation has met with Khalil or Ozturk.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, and Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student, have been in ICE custody for more than a month after being arrested near their homes by federal agents.
The Democrat delegation, led by Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana traveled to Jena, where Khalil is being held, and then two hours south to Basile, where Ozturk is detained. The group included Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Sen. Ed Markey.
Mahmoud Khalil
The facilities were clean but “chilly” according to Carter, who said detainees complained of cold temperatures at night, making it difficult to sleep. Carter said the facilities appeared to have been cleaned prior to their visit and that conditions appeared to be “fine” while they visited.
Following the visit, lawmakers said the detainees they met with also complained about a lack of medical care, food and religious accommodations.
“I really worry that this administration is ushering in a new era of McCarthyism. And unless Congress and unless the American people stand up and push back, they will succeed,” McGovern said during a press conference after the visits.
Markey accused the Trump administration of wanting to “make an example” out of Khalil and Ozturk in an effort to chill free speech. Markey also said ICE had intentionally transferred them to Louisiana for political reasons.
Through the Trump administration, ICE feels “they have a right to take people from across our country, and to put them into facilities like this here in Louisiana,” Markey said. “And why did they do that? They have done that in order to go to the single most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States of America.”
Again, these Congress people received positive media coverage. As Jamelle Bouie wrote (see above article), perhaps their ambition has led them to publicly oppose Trump’s dictatorial actions.
David Atkins at Washington Monthly: Democrats Need to Make Republicans Fear the Consequences of Attempting a Dictatorship.
Imagine that you were a high-ranking official in Donald Trump’s administration. Imagine that you believed in the Dark Enlightenment dream of dismantling liberal democracy itself—of “killing the woke mind virus,” ending birthright citizenship, and using federal power to suppress dissent. Now imagine you’re openly defying the Supreme Court, declaring that protest aids and abets terrorism, directing the FBI and IRS to target political enemies, and seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act on flimsy pretexts. What would stop you?
Certainly not impeachment. Not with a compliant Republican Congress. Not with a conservative media ecosystem ready to justify any abuse of power as a patriotic necessity. The only thing that might give you pause is the possibility that Democrats would regain control and then do to you what you’ve done to them.
That fear of reciprocal power and legal accountability was once enough to preserve American political norms. It was the logic of mutually assured destruction: if you break democracy now, they’ll break you later. That’s how informal guardrails were enforced, even through dark chapters like Watergate or Iran-Contra. But those norms no longer hold because no one believes Democrats will retaliate.
This is the context for the quiet battle raging within the Democratic Party leadership. A few anonymous but influential centrists are urging party leaders to soft-pedal Trump’s detention of legal residents in foreign internment camps and pivot to kitchen-table economics instead. Even as constituents demand action and donors grow restless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries still signal caution, urging patience and restraint…..
Rumeysa Ozturk
There have been some bright spots. Senator Cory Booker broke Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record in a marathon floor speech denouncing Trump’s abuses. Senator Chris Van Hollen forced a meeting with abducted U.S. resident Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, delivering proof of life and drawing global attention. Senator Chris Murphy’s rhetoric has been sharp and effective. House Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (along with her “anti-oligarchy tour” partner Senator Bernie Sanders), Jasmine Crockett, and Robert Garcia have been doing excellent work. Their energy and determination carry the tacit message that those who broke the law and tried to impose an authoritarian regime on the U.S. will face appropriate justice at the end of the day. Representative Jamie Raskin was explicit about warning El Salvador’s leader: “Look, President Bukele—who’s declared himself a dictator—and the other tyrants, dictators, autocrats of the world have to understand that the Trump administration is not going to last forever,” Raskin said. “We’re going to restore strong democracy to America, and we will remember who stood up for democracy in America and who tried to drive us down towards dictatorship and autocracy.”
But these have been exceptions rather than the rule. Most Democrats in leadership and positions of power have stayed quiet—avoiding press conferences, shunning symbolic actions, and allowing business to continue as if the country weren’t barreling toward authoritarianism.
When pressed, party leaders often respond that they can do little substantively. That protests are performative. That voters are tired of drama. But that’s not the point. The point isn’t what Democrats can do today. It’s what they’re signaling they’re willing to do when they return to power.
If Trump and his allies face no meaningful consequences, they have no reason to stop. If Republicans don’t believe that Democrats will act with equal force to protect democracy—legally, aggressively, unapologetically—then there’s no deterrent to further escalation.
Click the link to read the rest.
One more from Toby Buckle at Liberal Currents: Trump ‘Alarmists’ Were Right. We Should Say So.
Throughout the Trump era I’ve been firmly in the camp unaffectionately dismissed as ‘alarmist’ by most commentators. Put simply: It is that bad. Liberal democracy is in danger. Fascism is a reasonable term for what we’re fighting.
For veteran ‘alarmists’ this is a strange moment. People are at a loss. It seems wrong, given all that is at stake, to say “I told you so”. I’ve felt that discomfort. For the longest time I avoided saying that. It felt . . . petty, childish, gauche, it just wasn’t the done thing. One of the big political awakenings I’ve had over the last year, and particularly since Trump’s 2024 victory, is realizing that it’s OK to say “called it”. More than OK. Even if it feels awkward, it’s actually important, perhaps necessary, that we do.
My view has not been, to put it mildly, the mainstream position. You’re allowed, with a certain amount of resentment, to say it today. But that wasn’t always the case. I recall first voicing it as the antecedents of Trump, the tea party and growing white supremacy, started to arise. Obama’s “the fever will break” seemed hopelessly naive to me. The press treated them either as legitimate libertarians or an eccentric curiosity, not a threat. To the activist left, what would become the Bernie movement, they were a joke—the punchline to a Jon Stewart monologue. Nothing more. When Trump first rode the elevator down to announce his candidacy, it was entertainment, not omen.
If you saw in any of this a threat to liberal democracy writ large, much less one that could actually succeed, you were looked at with the kind of caution usually reserved for the guy screaming about aliens on the subway. Trump’s election in 2016 was a shock to people who insisted it could never happen. But those most complacent before quickly found their way back to complacency after. For a certain type—specifically, the type who has a column in legacy media despite never having written an interesting or original paragraph in their lives—smug condescension became the order of the day: yes, Trump is bad, but dear me those liberals are being hysterical. As late as the last election they were writing pieces with titles like “A Trump Dictatorship Won’t Happen” or “No, Trump won’t destroy our democracy.” Even after the election, as the scale of the incoming lawlessness became clear, we were dismissed: “Trump Is Testing Our Constitutional System. It’s Working Fine” respected legal commentator Noah Feldman told us—the legal rationale for his actions was very flimsy. Courts would strike it all down. And certainly the administration would not ignore a court order.
One thing I’ve always wondered about the anti-alarmists during this decade was, to put it bluntly, weren’t they worried about looking stupid? The path we were on seemed clear enough to me, but I didn’t know the future. I always stressed that my predictions were one of any number of possible outcomes. They didn’t. What I was saying was dismissed, not just as unlikely, but impossible. Did they not want to hedge their bets even a bit? And it’s not as if the liberal democratic collapse happened all at once. The last decade has been a steady drum beat of them being wrong, again and again. Yet it never shook them.
Read more at Liberal Currents.
I have been fearful of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies since the 2016 campaign and so have most Sky Dancers. It does feel sometimes that people who didn’t see it are stupid, but I’m willing to welcome people who are beginning to change their minds to the resistance. We need as many resisters as possible. Trump’s polls are dropping now, as more people begin to see what he’s really up to–and it isn’t about bringing down grocery prices. I want to believe there is still hope for our democracy. Lately, it looks like some Democratic leaders are ready to fight back. Some of that fight must have come from seeing the protests all over the country. Now we need a few Republicans to grow spines and stand up to Trump.
That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What’s on your mind?
#AbregoGarcia #Autocracy #ChrisVanHollen #CoryBooker #dictatorship #GaryKasparov #MahmoudKhalil #MariaRessa #Philippines #RodrigoDuterte #RumeysaOzturk #StevenLevitsky