by Judy Handley | Mar 11, 2025 | 2024 Life Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 70: Book Club, Protest, Indivisible Meeting, and Claude Malhuret
Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High Temp 53, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It was another crazy, busy day. I hosted my book group this morning, spent time getting ready for my Encore Board meeting tomorrow, attended another protest, my fourth in the past few weeks, and ended the day at an Upper Cape Indivisible meeting.
On the national scene, Trump and company were busy continuing to dismantle our federal government today. Yesterday I saw a post on Facebook with the full text of a speech made last week by French senator, Claude Malhuret. It very clearly lays out all that is wrong with what the Trump regime is doing. This morning, a friend sent me a video of the speech. Then when I opened by daily post from Robert Reich, that speech was there in its entirety once again. It is an important read. So, if you have not yet read it, here it is again.
Trump is a traitor, and Europe is now alone: A view from France
Robert Reich, March 11, 2025
From time to time, I bring you views from outside the United States on what we are enduring here. The following is an English translation of a speech made last week by by Claude Malhuret, a French senator who is largely unknown outside France. Malhuret’s words are chillingly relevant to what is now happening in the United States.
Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is slipping, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
Washington has become the court of Nero, an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a jester high on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose higher tariffs on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.
The ‘king of the deal’ is showing what the art of the deal is on his stomach. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down in front of Putin, but Xi Jinping, seeing such a submissiveness, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.
Never in history has a US President capitulated to the enemy. Never has any one of them supported an aggressor against an ally, trampled on the US Constitution, issued so many illegal executive orders, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military senior staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.
This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.
I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.
Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to bend or resign.
Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: confront it.
And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.
The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it.
What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with as its first principle the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the core of the United Nations, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.
“Give me Greenland, Panama, and Canada. You can get Ukraine, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe. He can get Taiwan and the China Sea.”
In the dinners of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, they call this “diplomatic realism.”
So, we are now standing alone. But the idea that Putin cannot be confronted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.
Interest rates at 25 percent, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse, all show that [Russia] is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that it holds out, and of course to impose its presence and that of Europe in any negotiation.
This will be costly. It will be necessary to end the taboo of using frozen Russian assets [and] circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, which includes, of course, the United Kingdom.
Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, prisoners and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.
Finally—and this is the most urgent because it is what will take the most time—we must build a European defense, too-long neglected to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books.
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is a way to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy.
It remains to build it.
It will be necessary to invest massively, strengthen the European Defense Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, harmonize weapons and munitions systems, accelerate the entry into the [European] Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, relaunch the anti-missile defense and satellite programs.
The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed.
Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.
But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.
We must convince public opinion against war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the far right and the far left.
They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defense.
They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of “de Gaulle Zelensky” by a “Ukrainian Pétain” at Putin’s beck and call. The peace of the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.
Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great.
But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken during the past month have finally made the Americans react.
Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, Congress, the Supreme Court, and social networks.
But in American history, the defenders of freedom have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the US who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, find the means for their common defense, and make Europe the power it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.
The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.
Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.
by Judy Handley | Mar 9, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 68: Taking Heart
Date: Sunday, March 9, 2025
Weather: Sunny, Still Windy, Winds 20 SSW; High Temp 42, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Until yesterday, I had never heard of Hannah Arendt and this morning my daily feed from Robert Reich mentioned her name again as the author of THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM. I must find out more about her. But in case you don’t read Robert Reich daily, I have copied today’s post below. It is worth the read.
I spent part of my day cooking dinner for tonight and tomorrow night. Heather and Jed were invited out to dinner tonight, so I fixed dinner and took it over to have with the Sam, Jonah, and Ollie. Tomorrow night is Select Board and Health Board meeting night, my every other Monday night regular dinner with the boys while Heather and Jed are in meetings. Tonight, we had artichokes and matzo ball soup. And tomorrow night we will have tacos. And now for Robert Reich’s post.
Taking Heart by Robert Reich, March 9
It seems like an eternity, but Tuesday marks the seventh week of this despicable regime. Before I post my Sunday cartoon, I’d like to talk about coping with the stresses of this era. A few people I know are coping by remaining in denial. They continue to normalize what’s happening in the familiar terms of Republican versus Democrat, right versus left, conservative versus liberal or progressive.
But they’re deluding themselves. There’s nothing normal about this. We’re in a different world now. Even calling this “Trump 2.0” radically understates what’s happening. The choice is democracy or dictatorship. Self-government or oligarchy. Everyone must choose sides. Not to choose is to accept the forces now in control — to allow Trump to become even more of a dictator and his billionaire backers and cronies to siphon up even more oligarchic wealth and power.
Another coping mechanism that’s just as dangerous is giving up — succumbing to cynicism, believing everything is hopeless. Those in this defeatist camp think nothing can prevent us from an apocalypse — the end of America, the termination of civilization, the death of the planet. They’ve stopped reading or listening to the news. They’ve turned their backs on activism. But defeatism is exactly what Trump, Vance, Musk, and Putin want us to feel. They’d like nothing better than for us to give up, so they can have it all. Cynicism and hopelessness play into their fetid hands. It’s also a self-fulfilling prophesy. If we believe we’re doomed, we’re doomed. The reality is that Trump, Vance, and Musk have done truly terrible things over the past seven weeks that are already hurting millions of people.But the regime has not extinguished hope or resolve. To the contrary, it is igniting activism. It’s fueling courage. I see it all around me, as I’m sure you do as well. Let me share with you my six coping mechanisms.
First, I’ve stopped listening to Trump and even stopped trying to analyze his warped psyche. I already know he’s spouting nothing but lies. And by now I’m familiar with his malignant narcissism.
Second, I no longer pay attention to the politicians, media personalities, political operatives, and pundits who are treating what’s happening as a variation on normal partisan politics. They’re tiresome and wrong.
Instead, I’m seeking out voices who understand the stakes, who give me reasons for hope and practical ideas for what you and I can do. I’ve already shared some of them with you and will share more this week. Some are voices from the past — people who lived through Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin, or through Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” or Pol Pot’s “killing fields.” Some are keen observers of what occurred (Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism) or historians (William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany provides a chilling account that echoes today).
Fourth, I’m interacting with people whose average age is a half-century younger than mine — my students at Berkeley and my colleagues at Inequality Media. Their energy, humor, and commitment continue to buoy my spirits.
Fifth, I’m relishing my friendships and holding my loved ones tight.
Finally, I’m writing this daily letter to you in hope that it helps you cope in all these ways — and inspires you to even more activism, resistance, rebellion, good trouble, and peaceful civil disobedience. These are familiar terms to those of us who remember the struggles over civil rights and the Vietnam War. They are as relevant for what we’re going through now as they were then.
In other words, one of the best way of coping with this nightmare is to fight it.
Keep calling the White House: 1-202-456-1414 (switchboard). 1-202-456-1111 (comments). Jam it.
Keep calling your senators and representatives. The Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121. The switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate or House office you request.
Organize and mobilize for down ballot elections this year, and for House and Senate elections next year.
Protect the vulnerable in your community: undocumented workers. LGBTQ+ people. Vocal anti-Trumpers who may need protection from Trump vigilantes. Refugees from Ukraine. Others who need your help.
I’m sure you’ve found additional ways of fighting back. Please share them with us in today’s comments. Take heart. We will get through this and be stronger for it.
by Judy Handley | Mar 8, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 67: Lies
Date: Saturday, March 8, 2025
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Still Windy, Winds 15-25 W; High Temp 42, Low 28 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
The plans I had for today fell apart, so I just took the time to catch up on email communications and things around the house. I call that a catch-up day. I didn’t finish the job, so tomorrow will be more of the same. But I did have a lot of time to think, and guess where my thinking took me. Yes, right to the political mess in which we find ourselves. One of the things that bothers me the most is the constant lying. And today I saw a quote on my Facebook feed from Millionaires Quotes that I thought kind of nailed it.
“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.” -Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was an American and German historian and philosopher and one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century. But when I looked that quote to see if it was valid, I found that it cannot be tracked down by scholars as a direct quote of hers. However, according to the same scholars the quote does capture her thinking. According to The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, the closest quote of hers in content is from an interview with Roger Errera in 1974, in what turned out to be Arendt’s last public interview. She spoke about the importance of a free press in an era of mass manipulation of truth and public lying.
“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
–Hannah Arendt (14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975)
Today the public lies are running rampant. How do we deal with this?
by Judy Handley | Mar 7, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 66: Stand Up for Science
Date: Friday, March 7, 2025
Weather: Sunny and Very Windy, Winds 25-30 NW; High Temp 42, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
A few hundred people gathered in Marina Park in Woods Hole this afternoon to Stand Up for Science. The Cape Cod Times reported 600 were in attendance, but I have no idea if that number is accurate. All I know is that there was a seat of scientists and people who support science in attendance.
And we were not alone. As President and CEO of Woods Hole Research Center, Max Holmes, reminded us in his remarks, there were Stand Up for Science rallies all over the US and around the world today. Hundreds gathered in the Boston Commons, with smaller gatherings in Philadelphia, in Chicago, in Atlanta, and on and on. But the largest gathering of thousands was in Washington, DC. Obviously, many people in this country believe in the absolute necessity of keeping science alive.
Heather spoke to the gathering in Woods Hole representing the Falmouth Select Board and her 28 years as a student and employee in Woods Hole. It was certainly another ‘proud mama’ moment
!
The keynote speaker was John Holdren, former President of Woods Hole Research Center and Senior Science Advisor to President Obama. There were other scientists who spoke, plus a sprinkling of politicians. US Representative Bill Keating and Thomas Moakley, who is our newest and youngest State Representative, both spoke to the group. I don’t remember who said that those of us in Woods Hole might have the windiest conditions for any of the rallies today, but whoever said that, I think they might have been right. Starting around 11 am, the wind ramped up to 25-30 miles an hour with higher gusts. Thankfully the temperature was in the 40’s, so it was cold, but not freezing.
The scientific institutions in Woods Hole have 2,000 employees. One of those institutions is NOAA. I know specifics the weather today thanks to NOAA. I learned tonight that a week or so ago there were not enough NOAA employees to send up weather balloons in Alaska. The data gathered by these weather balloons is needed to forecast the weather accurately. Today in Albany, New York, and in Gray, Maine, again, there were not enough NOAA employees to send up those balloons. That is just one little, but very essential task being affected by the DOGE reduction in staffing. And I read that on Monday, more cuts are expected to NOAA nationwide. What kind of disaster is going to have to happen to make it clear that these indiscriminate government cuts have got to stop? My sign today said, SCIENCE—Defend not Defund. Defend is what we all need to do.
Midge Frieswyk and I went to the rally together, and Christina Brodie joined us. We all came back to my house afterwards, where we had planned to just have tea. But when I realized none of us had eaten lunch, I served dinner leftovers as an impromptu lunch. It was easy and stress free, and I think all three of us appreciated the time together to decompress and process together what is happening in our world these days.
I can’t end without relaying one more little tidbit of information. Today the AP released a list 26,000 documents and photos that the Defense department is going to delete from websites due to their connection to DEI in some way. But one of the items is a photo of the Enola Gay, the first plane to drop an atomic bomb. What does that have to do with DEI? They searched for the word ‘gay’ and that is why it is being deleted. A famous plane named for the pilot’s mother is being deleted from a website because of its name. This seems unbelievable, but it is true. What is next?
by Judy Handley | Mar 6, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 65: Wonderful Visit with Friends
Date: Thursday, March 6, 2025
Weather: Sun, Clouds, Fog, Rain, Winds10 S to 20 WNW; High Temp 52, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
The weather threw a little bit of everything at us today. I spent much of my day in Dedham, near Boston, where it is sometimes cloudy, sometimes party sunny. But when I left the Cape this morning and returned late this afternoon, it was overcast and foggy, with rain was sprinkled in here and there.
I was in Dedham visiting with good friends, Helaine and Alan Kanegsberg, this afternoon. Alan and I have back-to-back birthdays that we sometimes celebrated together, so I made a surprise visit to deliver a birthday cake to Alan. We had a long overdue visit, making it even more special.
And tonight, Heather, Jed, and boys took me out to a birthday dinner at Shipwrecked. I tried an Asian avocado salad that was really good along with sushi. Thank you, Goldstones!
by Judy Handley | Mar 5, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 64: Birthday Surprises
Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Rain Late, Winds 20 SSW; High Temp 52, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It’s my birthday and it started off with a wonderful surprise. Justin called early to wish me a happy birthday. As we were finishing up, he told me to make sure I check my email for a little surprise. I love surprises, so we hung up and I checked. There was an email from Ticketmaster announcing that I have 2 tickets to a Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan Outlaw concert on September 7 in Mansfield, near Boston. The only item I have on my bucket list is a Willie Nelson concert, so you can only imagine how excited I was. I felt like a teenager because I actually squealed in delight and called Justin right back to thank him. He knows I love Willie Nelson, and I only hope he can make it to September! Thank you, Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco.
Getting the ticket that included Bob Dylan, I decided I would give myself a birthday treat and go see the movie about him, A Complete Unknown starring Timothée Chalamet. I am familiar with him as Paul Atreides in Dune, so seeing him in such a different role was interesting. He was so convincing in this role that I totally thought I was watching Bob Dylan, not an actor. Plus, I loved the music. I was talking on the phone with Christina Brodie about Encore business this afternoon when I mentioned I was going to the movie tonight. She said she and Warren would love to go with me and even invited me to dinner before the movie. Warren even went out and got little chocolate decadent individual cakes so I would have a birthday cake with a candle. Thank you, Christina and Warren.
As I announced last night, Heather had an emergency Select Board meeting tonight, so we are doing a birthday dinner tomorrow night. But I stopped by on my way home from the movie just to say hello. I was greeted by the Goldstone’s singing Happy Birthday and presenting me with another birthday cake. It was a great day.
