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Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Contributor: In an era that celebrates cruelty, embrace subversive kindness
In 1925, 25,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Never before had so many men in white sheets descended on the nation's capital, their 'invisible empire' becoming visible. The Klan's far-flung ranks are estimated to have numbered 4 million. Fourteen years later, a pro-Nazi rally at New York's Madison Square Garden drew 20,000. The hosting organization, the German American Bund, actively supported Hitler and his 'leader principle,' or Führerprinzip, by which a single leader has absolute power. Though not explicitly pro-Hitler, the isolationist America First Committee was also surging. In 1941, America First found a spokesperson in the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, who accused Jews of conspiring to lead the U.S. into World War II. Fascism almost 'happened here,' to riff on the title of Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel 'It Can't Happen Here,' about the anti-democratic forces threatening America in the lead-up to the Second World War. Why didn't it? Well, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and Germany declared war on the United States. These events spurred the public to support the war effort. Then, when American troops went overseas, they witnessed firsthand what fascist regimes were doing to civilians on the streets and in concentration camps, and Americans wrote home about the atrocities. The press and film industry also exposed the brutality. Americans generally didn't like what they saw, and protofascist movements in the U.S. were forced underground. Now murmurs from the sewer can be heard again. Not just on social media but in public discourse. It looks as if the decades of relatively stable democracy following the war were not a change in our history but a temporary interlude. And I fear that a critical guardrail is gone. If Americans were once revolted by the aesthetics of fascism, in today's era of mass content consumption, many now appear to be entertained. How else to explain the 94,000 likes of a video, posted by the White House's official X account, of migrants being chained without due process and put on an airplane? The post included a caption bearing the hashtag '#ASMR,' referring to the pleasurable response to auditory or visual stimuli — implying that some in the audience would be soothed by seeing such cruelty. It would be more apt to caption the video '#TorturePorn.' And how to explain the 32,000 likes of a posed photo of Rep. Riley Moore ( in which the congressman is giving thumbs up outside a cell at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, where individuals are being held indefinitely after being detained in the U.S. without due process? If I had any doubts about my compatriots' appetite for human suffering, these were put to rest with the news that the Department of Homeland Security is considering a reality show in which immigrants compete for U.S. citizenship. While Secretary Kristi Noem has not yet approved the program, the fact that a producer would even float such a dehumanizing premise speaks to the public's appetite for exploitation. The American people apparently do not merely rely on migrants to pick our crops and build our homes; we also expect to be entertained by their struggles. What is there to do when swaths of the public are no longer horrified, but rather titillated, by the imagery of the far right? What hope is there when the prospect of ICE agents storming workplaces and neighborhoods makes so many people giddy? I believe the answer is to promote images of hospitality — that is, images of people embracing prisoners and welcoming those who hail from foreign lands. The antidote to an aesthetics of exploitation is an aesthetics of encounter. The late Pope Francis emblematized the latter. Only two days after the congressman went viral for his thumbs up against a cell block, the pontiff marked Holy Thursday by visiting the Regina Coeli prison in Rome. There he spoke with inmates, prayed with them and blew kisses. If not for his ailing health, he said, he'd have washed inmates' feet, as he's done in the past in accordance with tradition. An American priest, Father James Martin, noted the stark contrast between the West Virginia lawmaker and the pontiff, two Catholics making very different uses of photo opportunities with prisoners. Martin asked in a post on X: 'Which way would Jesus, who was imprisoned, prefer?' Of course, many of us outside the church have our own images and memories of fraternity bridging divides. Having long served in the United State Foreign Service, I was privileged to meet countless people from around the world. Even when we did not share a language, we shared meals. Even when we had no common past, we were able to find common goals. I find myself returning to these experiences and musing about their quiet radicality. There is something powerful about people of different tribes coming together to share a laugh, break bread or simply recognize their shared humanity. Understanding this, I've tried, as a novelist, to write scenes of communion to combat those of violence. As a thriller about infiltrating a white supremacist militia, my next book does not shy away from exposing neo-Nazis' dark libido. But nor does it skimp on expressing hope for peace, celebrating characters who cross racial and cultural lines to become friends and even lovers. At a time when simply by bearing witness to the news each day, Americans mass-consume what amounts to torture porn, we all have a duty to capture and recreate small moments of encounter. Because encounters transform us from the inside out. Francis put it poetically when he wrote that we must resist 'the temptation to build a culture of walls,' whether in our hearts or on our lands. For those 'who raise walls will end up as slaves within the very walls they have built,' he said, and will be 'left without horizons.' Otho Eskin, a playwright and retired diplomat, is the author of the forthcoming novel 'Black Sun Rising.' If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
In an era that celebrates cruelty, embrace subversive kindness
In 1925, 25,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Never before had so many men in white sheets descended on the nation's capital, their 'invisible empire' becoming visible. The Klan's far-flung ranks are estimated to have numbered 4 million. Fourteen years later, a pro-Nazi rally at New York's Madison Square Garden drew 20,000. The hosting organization, the German American Bund, actively supported Hitler and his 'leader principle,' or Führerprinzip, by which a single leader has absolute power. Though not explicitly pro-Hitler, the isolationist America First Committee was also surging. In 1941, America First found a spokesperson in the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, who accused Jews of conspiring to lead the U.S. into World War II. Fascism almost 'happened here,' to riff on the title of Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel 'It Can't Happen Here,' about the anti-democratic forces threatening America in the lead-up to the Second World War. Why didn't it? Well, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and Germany declared war on the United States. These events spurred the public to support the war effort. Then, when American troops went overseas, they witnessed firsthand what fascist regimes were doing to civilians on the streets and in concentration camps, and Americans wrote home about the atrocities. The press and film industry also exposed the brutality. Americans generally didn't like what they saw, and protofascist movements in the U.S. were forced underground. Now murmurs from the sewer can be heard again. Not just on social media but in public discourse. It looks as if the decades of relatively stable democracy following the war were not a change in our history but a temporary interlude. And I fear that a critical guardrail is gone. If Americans were once revolted by the aesthetics of fascism, in today's era of mass content consumption, many now appear to be entertained. How else to explain the 94,000 likes of a video, posted by the White House's official X account, of migrants being chained without due process and put on an airplane? The post included a caption bearing the hashtag '#ASMR,' referring to the pleasurable response to auditory or visual stimuli — implying that some in the audience would be soothed by seeing such cruelty. It would be more apt to caption the video '#TorturePorn.' And how to explain the 32,000 likes of a posed photo of Rep. Riley Moore ( in which the congressman is giving thumbs up outside a cell at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, where individuals are being held indefinitely after being detained in the U.S. without due process? If I had any doubts about my compatriots' appetite for human suffering, these were put to rest with the news that the Department of Homeland Security is considering a reality show in which immigrants compete for U.S. citizenship. While Secretary Kristi Noem has not yet approved the program, the fact that a producer would even float such a dehumanizing premise speaks to the public's appetite for exploitation. The American people apparently do not merely rely on migrants to pick our crops and build our homes; we also expect to be entertained by their struggles. What is there to do when swaths of the public are no longer horrified, but rather titillated, by the imagery of the far right? What hope is there when the prospect of ICE agents storming workplaces and neighborhoods makes so many people giddy? I believe the answer is to promote images of hospitality — that is, images of people embracing prisoners and welcoming those who hail from foreign lands. The antidote to an aesthetics of exploitation is an aesthetics of encounter. The late Pope Francis emblematized the latter. Only two days after the congressman went viral for his thumbs up against a cell block, the pontiff marked Holy Thursday by visiting the Regina Coeli prison in Rome. There he spoke with inmates, prayed with them and blew kisses. If not for his ailing health, he said, he'd have washed inmates' feet, as he's done in the past in accordance with tradition. An American priest, Father James Martin, noted the stark contrast between the West Virginia lawmaker and the pontiff, two Catholics making very different uses of photo opportunities with prisoners. Martin asked in a post on X: 'Which way would Jesus, who was imprisoned, prefer?' Of course, many of us outside the church have our own images and memories of fraternity bridging divides. Having long served in the United State Foreign Service, I was privileged to meet countless people from around the world. Even when we did not share a language, we shared meals. Even when we had no common past, we were able to find common goals. I find myself returning to these experiences and musing about their quiet radicality. There is something powerful about people of different tribes coming together to share a laugh, break bread or simply recognize their shared humanity. Understanding this, I've tried, as a novelist, to write scenes of communion to combat those of violence. As a thriller about infiltrating a white supremacist militia, my next book does not shy away from exposing neo-Nazis' dark libido. But nor does it skimp on expressing hope for peace, celebrating characters who cross racial and cultural lines to become friends and even lovers. At a time when simply by bearing witness to the news each day, Americans mass-consume what amounts to torture porn, we all have a duty to capture and recreate small moments of encounter. Because encounters transform us from the inside out. Francis put it poetically when he wrote that we must resist 'the temptation to build a culture of walls,' whether in our hearts or on our lands. For those 'who raise walls will end up as slaves within the very walls they have built,' he said, and will be 'left without horizons.' Otho Eskin, a playwright and retired diplomat, is the author of the forthcoming novel 'Black Sun Rising.'
Chicago Tribune
28-04-2025
- Health
- Chicago Tribune
Letters: Robert F. Kennedy's stance on autism denies people their humanity
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is promoting the anachronistic premise that to be autistic is to be inflicted with a disease worse than death itself, which marginalizes autistic people as not worthy of humanity. This rhetoric and his plans to create an 'autism registry' set the stage for eugenics: the practice of eliminating 'undesirable' traits in our population. Furthermore, Kennedy's naming of David Geier as head of his new autism research — a man without a medical license who continues to promote the debunked theory that vaccines lead to autism — undermines the work of actual doctors doing autism research and will endanger the autism community. Autism isn't a disease to be cured; it's a neurotype central to the person's being. It's how the brain is wired at birth, not something acquired along the way. A 'cure' for an autistic person would mean a reset to their mind and would take away the essence of who they are. In a world designed for neurotypical folks, autism comes with challenges, and for some families, those challenges feel insurmountable. There are parents drowning in the inability to find adequate services for their children, managing expensive health care and worrying about their kids' futures. The answer is not to eradicate autism. If we start arguing that autistic children with high levels of need should not have existed, should we wish that any child with significant needs is a mistake that should be erased? Or should we find value in every single human being and aim for therapies that foster growth, mindsets that embrace differences and a world that includes all? Instead of a 'cure,' we need a robust system of support to help all children along the spectrum grow in a dignified way. Instead of discredited claims that vaccines lead to autism, we need more education about autism so we stop treating it as a fate worse than measles or polio. Instead of leaders saying autistic children aren't worthy because they'll never pay taxes or they need assistance using the bathroom, we need a narrative that finds value in every person. Kennedy needs to shift away from trying to erase autistic people and instead focus on the actual tragedies that our kids face today, such as gun violence, pediatric cancer, childhood poverty, and inadequate health care and services. — Alice Froemling, South Elgin Trump's brave efforts Regarding the letter representing more than 100 members of our region's rabbinic community 'Using Jewish fear' (April 22): Let me state, coming from the observant Jewish community, that I unequivocally support President Donald Trump's courageous efforts to curtail antisemitism on our university campuses and to remove miscreants, such as Mahmoud Khalil, from our country whose very presence constitutes an assault upon decent society. I don't think any Chicagoland rabbis lost any sleep when President Harry Truman had German American Bund leader Fritz Kuhn denaturalized and deported during World War II. Frankly, I find the opposition to our president's policies in this regard, from the non-Orthodox camp, to be a case of advancing liberal interests over Jewish interests. That has never served the Jewish community well. — David L. Blatt, Chicago Liberals fail to learn All our lives, we're told to learn from history or it will repeat itself. Here's the thing. Fascists are learning from history. Liberals aren't. That's why the fascists are winning. In the 1960s, student protests for a more just society and an end to the Vietnam war had this tangible result: the election and reelection of Richard Nixon. The protests inspired the average American to embrace law and order. The result was only a prolonging of the war. Democrat Hubert Humphrey would have ended the war. Certainly, Democrat George McGovern would have. But the peace movement failed to elect them and only worked against their goals. In 2024, there was a student revolt against the brutality of Israel against the people of Gaza. Some of these student protests did hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to their colleges. These kids didn't save a single Gazan life. Didn't feed a single Gazan child. Didn't fund a single Gazan hospital. Didn't stop a single Israeli bomb. These performative protests didn't require these kids to give up a single moment of their privilege; they didn't require sacrifice. These protests allowed the kids to feel good with the laziest possible behavior. There was only one tangible result: the election of Donald Trump. These kids didn't care that Trump was the most anti-Muslim and pro-Benjamin Netanyahu candidate out there. The fascists are learning from history. The fascists have learned how to win elections. The fascists have learned how to take over a government. Meanwhile, liberals take the same impotent, feel-good actions they always have. Liberals have learned nothing from history, and except possibly for gay marriage, they haven't had a significant victory in my lifetime. — Amy Crider, Chicago Spending on Americans In a letter to the editor ('Government spending,' April 23), the writer expresses the sentiment that the government 'needs to control its spending.' He also mentions that he and his wife live on Social Security and modest pensions. Per U.S. Treasury data, the largest portion of government spending goes to Social Security (22% of our expenditures), followed by 14% for interest, 13% for Medicare, 13% for national defense and so on. We all want government to control its spending, except for the part that is spent on us. Then it's a different story. — Joan Coghlan, Wheaton What government does In response to Larry Craig's letter 'Government spending,' I can only say that Craig does not seem to know the first thing about what the government actually does. He says the debt problem is a spending problem, and yes, perhaps there is some overspending by the government. But overall, what our government does (or did, now that Elon Musk and President Donald Trump have slashed almost everything without any thought) is really extraordinary. Unfortunately, the work our government does is not always evident, but we will soon see that things such as feeding hungry children; providing preschool for low-income kids; funding scientific research; keeping our air and water clean; predicting severe weather; staffing Social Security offices and the Internal Revenue Service; standing up for due process, freedom of the press and our right to peacefully protest; and so much more, are essential to our way of life here in this country. Yes, taxes can be a burden, but they are necessary for maintaining a diverse and free society. Maybe we should be lowering taxes for middle-class Americans and raising them for the hundreds of American billionaires who have made their wealth in our free and prosperous country. Craig thinks government spending is the problem, but we will all find out just how difficult life will be without government spending. — Judy Weik, Oak Park GOP and Social Security On April 18, Joe O'Donnell asked readers in his letter 'Fear from Democrats' to find a quote where any Republican says, 'We want to cut Social Security.' Elon Musk called Social Security 'the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,' and his Department of Government Efficiency team is currently making cuts at the Social Security Administration. In its budget proposal, the 2024 congressional Republican Study Committee called for $1.5 trillion in cuts to Social Security benefits over 10 years and a raising of the Social Security retirement age. In 2024, 71 Republicans in the House and 20 Republican senators voted against the Social Security Fairness Act. In 2023, 217 Republicans voted to cut Social Security, and Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott proposed a plan to put Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the chopping block every five years. Project 2025 has called for cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age. Republicans are constantly trying to cut Social Security.
