A Poet, A Protestor, and an Outraged Mom: The Fight for Free Speech and the Advance of Autocracy
Humanizing the Times: From January 28 to March 13, 2025
Humanizing the Times is a collection of Substack notes that attempt to view timely matters of the day through the longer and wider lens of the humanities.
Index of What’s in Store
The Persecution of Mahmoud Khalil and the Advance of Autocracy
Refaat Alareer, A Palestinian Poet Armed Only with Poetry and Markers
Ryan Grimm Finds an “Accidental” $400 Million Tesla Contract in the Federal Budget
Quoting Eugene V. Debs
The Persecution of Mahmoud Khalil and the Advance of Autocracy
March 13, 2025
My heart breaks for Noor Abdalla. Her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, was taken away in handcuffs just weeks before she will give birth,an experience she has looked forward to sharing with the love of her life. And all without any charges. In fact, the Trump administration told the Free Press that “the allegation (against Khalil) is not that he was breaking the law.”
Simply put, Khalil's offense was using constitutionally supported rights of free expression and protest to vigorously oppose the killing of tens of thousands of men, women, and children in Gaza, a series of killings that amount to a genocide according to Amnesty International and scholars in the field of genocide studies.
The fallacious reasoning deployed by the Trump administration to justify the arrest and attempt to deport Khalil, a legal resident of the U.S., reveals precisely the kinds of racism the administration would have us believe is no longer present.
Khalil is said to be a Hamas sympathizer because he opposed the Israeli military's documented destruction of countless innocent lives, actions that led the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sign Drop Site News' petition calling for Mahmoud Khalil's release here
The administration is apparently unable to conceive of Palestinians as full-fledged human beings deserving of protection. To passionately protest in defense of Palestinian dignity, therefore, is to passionately defend uncivilized people who are inherently evil, terrorists.
Those who love liberty, namely the right to express oneself freely and those who genuinely believe in the equal worth of all humanity--that we are all made in the image of God or simply that we all share an equal portion of human dignity--ought to be outraged.
Those opposed to autocratic overreach of government ought to be alarmed and activated. For all of our nation's shortcomings, we have created a tradition of honoring the First Amendment as a cornerstone of American liberty. Khalil's arrest is not only an injustice to him and his wife, it threatens all who hold and vocally express views that centers of power do not like.
The mark of a free society is that it allows the citizenry to work through the most controversial disputes, ideas, and arguments through often heated debate, protest, and politics. We cannot allow arresting those who espouse views offensive to power to become normal. If we don't oppose this practice, we ourselves may be power's next targets.
Related Humanities in Revolt articles
Taking Trump Seriously
March 11, 2025
In February, President Trump quoted Napoleon Bonaparte maxim of prizing autocratic power over the law. As I laid out in my analysis of Trump's affinity for autocracy, Bonaparte not only conducted aggressive imperial war but also repressed free expression at home.
Trump's embrace of autocracy becomes clearer by the day. The President has not only ordered immigration agents to abduct and deport a legal resident who has not even been charged with a crime, he is also promising “arrest” many more “students at Columbia and other universities.”
Too many failed to take President Trump seriously. No one should ever laugh when a President with so much executive power renders themselves as a king or expressly identifies with autocratic principles and figures like Napoleon.
As philosopher Cornel West reminds us, it’s the mark of human excellence that we don't laugh when it ain't funny, don't scratch when it doesn't itch, and don't try to fit in and be well adjusted to injustice.
Daring to Dream in a Fatalistic Society
March 6, 2025
The humanities teach us to place our faith in the powers of human creativity, consciousness, and agency rather than the prophets of power and the status quo. Most of those claiming to “predict” the future are actually working to produce it. And they succeed in so far as we accept their narrow conception of human history.
Ralph Nader, an American Treasure
March 5, 2025
You won't find a more astute, cogent, and intellectually consistent analysis of President Trump’s Congressional address and policies than what Ralph Nader, who just turned 91 years old, provides.
Cruelty Free Chocolate and Just Trade
March 4, 2025
We are right to critically examine the decisions those in political power make. But we shouldn't forget the ethical implications of our routine consumer choices.
Consider the fact that many children continue to be exploited to cultivate the cocoa in the treats we eat everyday and during our holidays (Easter is coming up soon). This is before we explore the cruelty inherent in our use of animals and their various biproducts in the food we eat. Then there's the question of ownership: are working people owners of the companies we patronage? The usual answer is, no.
While a case can be made for lowering ethical standards when we buy essential goods—like fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains—it's difficult to make a case for buying unethically produced desserts. Especially when you truly comprehend the pain and suffering of those exploited to please our sweet tooth.
The alternative to simply not buying such indulgences, is directing our purchasing power to companies committed to ethical practices. We all know that "money talks" in a consumer society such as ours. With that in mind, we should try and support companies that embrace third-party certification of their ingredients and supply chains. Third party certifiers such as “Fair Trade” and “Rainforest Alliance” evaluate the supply chain companies rely on. The Food Empowerment Project is another organization committed to helping consumers know which companies are committed to environmentally sustainability, worker dignity, and cruelty-free production. When a company works with organizations like these, we know they are making a good faith effort to ensure the treats we give ourselves and loved ones are made by people being compensated for their labor and treated with basic dignity.
In 2020, two brothers created Trupo Treats, a small company committed to making cruelty-free versions of childhood favorite candy bars. Trupo bars are free of animal ingredients (vegan) and get their cacao beans directly from a cooperative grower in Peru committed to sustainable and environmental practices. The Food Empowerment Project lists their brand as one meeting basic transparency requirements about the sourcing of their chocolate.
To date the company has made an amazing vegan version of the snickers bar and a rice crispy chocolate bar. They're currently doing a Kickstarter for their latest rollouts: vegan versions of the Kitkat bar, Twix, Milky Way, and Take 5. If you'd like to support their ethical endeavor, see the link below. (I have no financial stake in their company. I'm just passionate about ethical consumption and supporting small businesses committed to standing up against human exploitation and animal cruelty.)
Help Trupo Treats with its KickStarter campaign here.
Refaat Alareer, A Palestinian Poet Armed Only with Poetry and Markers
March 3, 2025
If the Israeli military had not killed poet and literature professor, Refaat Alareer, on December 6, 2023, we would almost be exactly the same age. The only reason he is dead and I remain living is that he lived in Gaza and I live in Florida.
His task, wrote susan abulhawa, was to “master the language (English) of the empire that oppressed him.” Refaat believed that people like me and you living outside of Gaza “might love” Palestinians if only we could “see what was happening” to them. And so he wrote to teach people like me living in places where, whatever risks I may face, I would never be executed in my home via indiscriminate bombing.
I would never have to sift through debris to salvage a favorite book as Refaat did following yet another a sacrilegious bombing, this one claiming not only human beings but also books. Refaat saved a copy of “Gulliver's Travels.”
Like many of you, I continue to be frustrated, disheartened and frankly embarrassed by the limitations on my agency to end the killing in Gaza. But I can and am now reading Refaat Alareer. It's the very least I can do. And perhaps abulhawa is right to say, “Refaat did not die, he multiplied!”
New York Governor Intervenes to Remove College Job Posting
March 2, 2025
Evidence that attacking academic freedom is increasingly a bipartisan undertaking: New York's governor intervened to force the removal of a Palestinian studies job posting.
“The job posting at Hunter College had called for a historian 'who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to settler-colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality,' according to screenshots published by the New York Post, which first reported the job announcement.”
“Following the coverage, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, ordered the City University of New York school to remove the posting 'and conduct a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom,' her office said in a statement.”
Logical and ethical consistency requires a rejection of the insertion of partisan politics in higher education. In defending academic freedom we also defend the principle of free expression and the practice of democratic discourse.
As Robert Shibley, special counsel for campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said, “She’s setting a terrible precedent. Involving politicians directly in the process will only further politicize hiring decisions and will undermine academic freedom in public universities across the country.”
Spending Time with Birds
February 28, 2025
Another beautiful and generative essay by Bill Davidson. As we find ourselves waking each morning to news of yet another portioning of political grotesquerie—of selfish and smallminded men laying hands on the levers of power like petulant and impudent adolescents—we are reminded there are creatures just outside our window, ready to teach us the beauty in life and how to live well.
“Blue Jays are a living metaphor for the delicate art of being fully present in one’s nature, even - or especially - in its most vulnerable forms. There is strength in vulnerability. It creates an opening for us to invite love into our lives. This requires us to be like a Blue Jay - Willing to be seen in all our bright plumage, ready to defend what matters, yet capable of softening into moments of exquisite gentleness.”
Ryan Grimm Finds an “Accidental” $400 Million Tesla Contract in the Federal Budget
February 28, 2025
Strangely enough Elon Musk’s “DOGE” didn't discover this potential $400 million dollar waste. It took Drop Site News’ Ryan Grim and other journalists at NPR to figure out the Trump administration had changed a $400k Tesla contract with the State Department under the Biden administration to a $400 million contract after Trump's inauguration.
Charges Dropped Against Brianna Boston
February 23, 2025
The charges against Lakeland, Florida woman, Brianna Boston have been dropped two months after being arrested for threatening “a mass shooting or an act of terrorism.”
Boston allegedly told an agent for her insurer, BlueCross and BlueShield, “‘Delay, deny, depose.’ You people are next.”
Boston's husband organized a GoFundMe campaign that brought in over $102,000 for her legal defense. The crowd sourced support enabled the family to fend off the charges.
The health insurance company requested that the charges against Boston be dropped and praised her as a “good customer.” The State Attorney's Office subsequently dropped the charges, on Valentine's Day.
The case against Boston was weak from the start given First Amendment protections and the absence of any direct, clear threats against anyone in particular.
Many onlookers viewed Boston's arrest as more than an accidental overreach, but also a warning to those emboldened to forcefully condemn the companies responsible for gatekeeping vital healthcare services from often desperate families
Arrest Suspected “Illegal” Immigrants Without a Warrant
February 7, 2025
The State of Florida is expanding policing powers to permit state troopers to freely interrogate people they suspect of being in the country illegally. They are also empowered to “arrest without warrant” those they believe have illegally entered the country.
These expanded powers greatly increase the risk of people's civil rights being violated. State Troopers are essentially being deputized to determine who belongs and who doesn't. This will only intensify an already growing climate of fear. A free society ought not tolerate casually intrusive policing. Citizens of a democratic society ought to bristle at the thought of being subjected to warrantless scrutiny of citizenship status based on, what, appearance and accent?
As a step-father to a boy with Hispanic heritage, I am sickened at the thought that he—or anyone else's child—would potentially be subjected to “warrantless” interrogation because of his appearance, if of driving age. Let's just state the obvious: this policy change is an endorsement of racial profiling.
J. S. Mill Against Hereditary Creeds
February 7, 2025
In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill reminded us of the dangers of allowing our most cherished beliefs to be transformed into “hereditary creeds.” A hereditary creed is a passively and uncritically adopted belief, something we gain the way we might numbly gain an old and undiscussed family heirloom. Where did it come from? What was its original purpose? What went in to its making? What made it good at the time and how does it remain good and relevant today? Hereditary creeds are immune to such enlivening questions, and as such the belief becomes enervated. Elsewhere in his work Mill describes such a belief as a “dead dogma.”
“…when the mind is no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise its vital powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed with the necessity of realizing it in consciousness, or testing it by personal experience, until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human being.”
Mill gives the example of Christianity, an example that remains as relevant, today, as during his lifetime. Yet those of us committed to the pursuit of truth and personal integrity will find that his criticism speaks equally to all of us regardless of our religious beliefs.
“All Christians believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and those who are ill-used by the world; that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; that they should judge not, lest they be judged; that they should swear not at all; that they should love their neighbor as themselves; that if one take their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that they should take no thought for the morrow; that if they would be perfect they should sell all that they have and give it to the poor. They are not insincere when they say that they believe these things. They do believe them, as people believe what they have always heard lauded and never discussed. But in the sense of that living belief which regulates conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the point to which it is usual to act upon them. The doctrines in their integrity are serviceable to pelt adversaries with; and it is understood that they are to be put forward (when possible) as the reasons for whatever people do that they think laudable. But any one who reminded them that the maxims require an infinity of things which they never even think of doing, would gain nothing but to be classed among those very unpopular characters who affect to be better than other people. The doctrines have no hold on ordinary believers--are not a power in their minds. They have an habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads from the words to the things signified, and forces the mind to take them in, and to make them conform to the formula.”
As the Buddha expressed, doing wrong is easy while doing right is difficult. So, too, is thinking rightly. The origin of poor action is, after all, mistaken thought. None of us are sparred from the kind of ideological inconsistency Mill has identified here. Each of us finds it easier to disparage others for their hypocrisy and logical inconsistency. This does not mean we are not entitled to identify the errors others make in their thinking or behavior. Far from it. Mill’s solution to cold, lifeless ideology is robust and free discussion of all ideas. But this must not simply be those “for” pitted against those “against.” We should all challenge ourselves to critically examine especially those beliefs and values we most cherish. For it is in the interrogation of our cherished beliefs that we revitalize and sustain them.
Violent Crime Put in Perspective
February 6, 2025
My response to someone in the Subtack community who endorsed President Trump’s aggressive deportation policy on grounds that it was necessary to prevent violent crime.
One of the problems with how we discuss the issue of immigration is that many people have mistaken notions of the prevalence of and threats posed by violent crime in the U.S.
First of all, violent crime has fallen dramatically over the last few decades. In 1991 there were 758 violent crimes per 100,000, that number has fallen by more than 50%. In 2022, there were about 21,000 homicides or 6 homicides for every 100,000. In 1990 there were 9 homicides for every 100,000 people.
I’d like to see these numbers fall further. We can get some ideas about how to drop them by looking at the countries that have significantly lower rates of homicide. Switzerland, Korea, Italy, Norway, and Spain each have a homicide rate of less than 1 per 100,000. That means our homicide is at least ten times higher than each of these countries. We might look at their gun laws, for example. I’d certainly rather see gun laws adjusted before violating people’s human rights to live safely (including safely incarcerated).
The bigger issue here seems to be fear. People are afraid, afraid of death in particular. But most of the people advocating for the disregard for human rights to export U.S. held violent criminals aren’t likely to be murdered by anyone in the U.S.. They are much more likely to die from the leading killers in the U.S. such as heart disease and cancer, each killing more than half-a-million people annually. In fact, about 46,000 people kill themselves in the U.S. each year, far higher than the number of people killed by others.
So my take is that we ought to get our priorities straight. For me that looks like consistently honoring the inherent dignity of all persons and, at the same time, prioritizing our resources to address the greatest threats to human wellbeing and life. And if we did this we’d probably be looking a lot more at dietary health, lifestyle choices, and mental wellbeing to increase not only life expectancy but also quality of life in the U.S.
Deporting Americans to El Salvador?
February 4, 2025
On February 4th, President Trump's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, secured an agreement with El Salvador's president to accept “deportees from the U.S. of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States” (Associated Press).
It's difficult to conceive of a more flagrantly immoral program than giving over our own incarcerated population to a country that is so much poorer than our own and which has such an abysmal record of honoring the basic rights of the incarcerated. A rich nation’s use of its disadvantaged neighbor to take on such a burden and responsibility is unfair for the prisoners and the would-be jailer, the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. In 2023, US News ranked El Salvador 84th out of 87 countries in quality of life.
A December 2023 Amnesty International report concluded that El Salvador utilizes “systematic use of torture and other abuse against prisoners in penal centers.” Investigators determined, based on evidence including public statements by political leaders, that “the Salvadoran state has adopted a systematic policy of torture toward all those detained under the state of emergency on suspicion of being gang members. Among the gravest consequences of the application of this policy are the deaths in state custody, some of which show evident signs of violence, while many others are the result of inhumane conditions of imprisonment or denial of medical care and medicine.”
A 2023 State Department report on the country’s human rights noted that those “released from the Izalco and La Esperanza prisons reported a lack of food and potable water and being limited to two tortillas, one spoonful of beans, and one glass of water per day.” Other problems included a lack of ventilation and severe heat.
The answer to the basic ethical question of whether or not we would tolerate being so treated reveals the immorality of the policy. Would the administration seeking to use El Salvador as its jailer ever agree to receive another country's violent criminal population? The answer is clear enough. And this is the same nothing of the idea that US citizens would be sent to prisons outside of the us, a policy that if implemented would be criminal itself.
Digital Repossession?
January 31, 2025
Have we thoughtfully considered the consequences of purchasing cloud-based property? Varofoukais believes technofeudalism is taking the place of capitalism as we have come to know it.
The New Deal and People Powered Political Change
January 28, 2025
In failing to accurately grasp our history, we find ourselves waiting for people in positions of power to remedy the structural problems that most directly and detrimentally impact the weakest among us. In rediscovering the past, we learn that we are indeed the ones we have been waiting for.
We learn that even figures like FDR began his political career calling for cuts to social spending, and his change and policy course was directed not by the whims of fate nor purely his own moral intuition but by masses of people uniting in solidarity to make a demand upon power that they could not refuse.
“In the 1932 elections, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats advocated major government programs to stimulate the economy. Democratic standard-bearer Franklin Delano Roosevelt advocated cutting federal government spending and balancing the Federal budget….
“In the 1932 elections, socialist and communist advocating government intervention to address the growing economic crisis found a more receptive response from voters than in previous years. Norman Thomas's 1932 Socialist candidacy for the presidency pulled nearly 900,000 votes, about three times as many votes as he received four years earlier, and support for William Z foster, the Communist Party candidate, doubled….
“The foundation of Roosevelt's electoral victory in 1932 in the expansion of the new deal in 1935 can be traced to third-party efforts to mobilize workers and communities around an achievable program for change. By the early 1930s, political protest for government relief organized by left-wing organizations for the unemployed and destitute was evident throughout the country. In March 1930, over 1 million people across America participated in the Communist Party-sponsored ‘International Unemployment Day,’ as the depression worsened, protests against joblessness and evictions erupted in cities and towns throughout the country. In the summer of 1932, impoverished World War I veterans, known as the bonus army, descended on Washington, D.C., to demand immediate payment of certificates that had not fully matured” (45-46).
Source: Immanuel Ness, “The Progressive Era: 1896-1932,” in The Encyclopedia of Third Parties, Vol. 1, pp. 37-53
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"They are much more likely to die from the leading killers in the U.S. such as heart disease and cancer, each killing more than half-a-million people annually."
How many of those deaths were actually due to the sociopathic system and the doctors that poison their patients?
https://robc137.substack.com/p/allergic-to-bullshit
PS Frak Cornel West. He ignored the plight of the black caucus of the green party, going along with the clot shots and lockdowns. In an interview with "pasta" Jardula, he played dumb about it and still said the vaccines were safe.
Ok let's say he's an absolute moron. Fine. But don't frakking talk to me like you're pro civil rights when you went along with authoritarian con-vid 1984.
Other assholes that say they're pro civil rights but went along with the con-vid official bullshit.
They also went along with the official stories of 911 too.
-Chris Hedges
-Kshama Sawant
-Matt Taibbi (this ass still denigrates those that question 911)
-Wikileaks/Assange team/Assange (they're supposed to question authority but went along with it?)
-Snowden
Etc.
For bad men to accomplish their purposes it is only necessary that good men do nothing.
https://www.wikispooks.com/wiki/Limited_hangout