Carol Bergman

 

It's strange that  the world would allow this to happen to us.

-a Gaza survivor

 

The huge death toll led soldiers less to question the purpose of the war than to feel deeper solidarity with those who endured it with them. 

 

-Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918

 

 

The Russian bombing in Kyiv has intensified this week and I've been worrying about Ukrainian friends still working in the city. The fighting in Sudan has eased somewhat and the truce between India and Pakistan is holding, for now. The Israeli bombing of civilians in Gaza continues. And it's Memorial Day today in the United States as I write; we are honoring our soldiers, those who were killed, and those who survived. The day demands different music, not my usual John Coltrane or Keith Jarrett, but Beethoven or Bach's B Minor Mass. And a long walk and talk in the sunshine with friends.

 

I once asked my Neo-Freudian psychoanalyst mother, a refugee from a genocide, if she thought that war and its preamble—hatred  and violent aggression—is baked into our DNA. Freud believed that the commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is all the evidence we need: we descend from murderers whose love of murder was in their blood. Our unconscious does not believe in its own death and we act as though we are immortal. A UN worker I know agrees with this assessment of the human species as fatalistically war mongering. But he has seen too many wars, and the consequences of those wars. Several former soldiers I know have segued to humanitarian work after their deployments. What explains their choice?

 

My husband was in the US Navy—the Seventh Fleet—but bristles when he hears, "Thank you for your service." He was on active duty two years and in the reserves for six. In boot camp, he had difficulty obeying orders without questioning those orders, not his place as an enlisted man. He was too young and too undereducated to understand geopolitics, the military-industrial complex, or American foreign policy. But he was, somehow, resisting military swagger. I am grateful he did not see combat. Instead, he saw the world. On his ship—at sea for two years—he befriended Americans from the heartland, young men he never would have met otherwise. Perhaps all high school graduates should serve in the military, or a domestic Peace Corps, to broaden hearts and minds. 

 

I refuse to lose hope in the possibility of ceasefires between warring nations, within nations, and within this nation where I was born and raised.  I refuse to lose hope in the evolution of the American sub-species. Though we have devolved in our current iteration, the opportunity to evolve as a people, as a nation, lies before us, beckoning.

 

 

 

If people decide to emigrate, they will have their reasons. For most, it is not an easy decision or any easy process. It is best to show understanding and solidarity. People will have things to offer from various positions. We will have to work together. .. I am incredibly fortunate to have such choices. 

 

-Timothy Snyder, 1:54 am, 4/5/25

Yale Daily News

 

 

Timothy Snyder, Yale historian, author of On Tyranny and On Freedom moved his family to Toronto last summer. The University of Toronto offered him safe haven, space and freedom to continue his work without constraint. Jason Stanley and Marci Shore, two other Yale historians, will also de-camp to the University of Toronto.

 

I have read Snyder's good-bye letter in the Yale Daily News with attention. The word "obfuscation" comes to mind. Also the words: "the fear factor." From one sentence to the next there are shifts and shadows. To paraphrase: No, this has nothing to do with Trump 2.0. Yes, I'll continue lecturing in the United States and continue my important global work. And so on.

 

I suppose there is another way—or  more than one way—to understand what is happening:

 

1.    Universities all over the world are recruiting American academics with gusto, a new brain drain.

2.    The academics in exile are similar to the Russian dissidents who now live and work abroad.

3.    The academics in exile echo the governments in exile during World War II. When the "war" is over, they will return to the United States. Hopefully.

 

I felt the fear factor the other day myself when the Authors Guild, host of my website and blog, sent around a petition to sign after Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights in the Library of Congress was fired. The Guild portrayed the termination as serious, another "power grab" by the administration, and a threat to writers.

 

After wrestling with my hesitation to sign, for no other reason than an amorphous fear factor, I added my signature to the petition. My hesitation surprised and concerned me. Then I remembered a cousin of mine telling me that she never signed anything, a caution handed down from our Holocaust survivor ancestors. The Nazis used lists for their round-ups and deportations to the death camps.  This is an inter-generational trauma that will not quit. Nonetheless, it must be resisted.

 

Though stunned and saddened by Snyder's exile, I understand.  He's a high profile professor who may find himself in someone's deranged crosshairs if he remains in the United States, or he might be forced to self-censor to protect his family even though he has challenged his readers not to "obey in advance." 

 

Snyder has asked for solidarity. I pledge mine for the duration.

 

 

 

There is no such thing as toxic masculinity. There is cruelty, there is criminal behavior, there's abuse of power. But if you do any of those things, you are not masculine. That is anti-masculine. The far right, just to be political, conflating masculinity with coarseness and cruelty, that could not be less masculine.

                                                                                 

-Scott Galloway, on The View 4/11/25

 

 

I don't think the guy who owns the Jeep spray painted  top to bottom with "patriotic" graffiti is a swimmer. If he is a swimmer, I might have noticed his "patriotic" tattoos in the sauna—I am sure he is covered with them—and  I would have talked to him. Probably. On the other hand, that Jeep looks a bit BOLD in a celebratory aggressive way. And, of course, I know who the guy voted for because the name of that PERSON is in BOLD letters woven into the "patriotic" symbols. All of it red, white and blue. God Bless. America.

 

 I've only had one unpleasant encounter in the pool with a buff and beautiful tattooed guy since Covid restrictions were relaxed and we began our laps two to a lane again. Sometimes the buff and beautiful guys with wide wingspans aren't as considerate as the formerly competitive women swimmers with wide wingspans, of which I am one. I try to reserve a lane for a time when women I know swim, thus no unpleasant encounters, but this is not always possible. I don't anticipate or assume trouble, I try to relax. And certainly, of late, the guys with big trucks and celebratory jeeps and wide buff wingspans are a bit friendlier, probably because they are feeling better about themselves—acknowledged , respected, and in power in DC. What's a feminist to make of all this? I will read Scott Galloway's book, Notes on Being a Man (November release) to clarify my ideas.  I think Galloway is "right on the money," as Joyce Vance would say, but he's a complex thinker—and an excellent speaker—and I want to make sure I understand him.

 

If you were around in 2003 during the Iraq war, you might have noticed all the Jeeps and Humvees on the roads in your 'hood blasting music. Were all the owners returning soldiers? I don't think so. I never noticed any women or trans women driving these vehicles, but I may be wrong. Let's say I am not wrong, let's say I'm right on the money. Why buy a Jeep or a Humvee for daily use, like taking the kids to school or going to the supermarket? I remember saying to my husband, "We're all at war now, which is what Pope Francis said, more or less. He said we were witnessing a Third World War "in small pieces." Wars can also be domestic, among our neighbors, between our neighbors, within ourselves.

 

And here we are, here I am, in the once-great United States of America where there is suddenly so much dis-unity, struggle and pain that graffiti on a jeep in the parking lot of my gym inspires a blog post. Please keep in mind that though I'm not a pundit, I'm just a person, I do know one thing for certain: none of us can remain innocent or detached  for long in this time of deep division and catastrophic cruelty. Every family, every person, will be impacted in some way.

 

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
  a branchless trunk, and what I most regret

is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

 

― Federico García-Lorca,  1898-1936

 

  

The 6-year-old twin boys are sitting on their parents' laps, their legs dangling to the wooden floor. They jump up whenever Anna Librada Georges asks them to follow the claps and stomps of a simplified flamenco routine. The 9-year-old girls sitting next to me are best friends; their parents have dropped them off.  Hands go up as soon as Anna asks a question.

 

"Did you know that we can listen with our eyes?"  she asks as she introduces her guitarist and explains that they communicate constantly, albeit nonverbally.

 

Anna, bi-lingual and bi-cultural, is also a psychotherapist. The daughter of an immigrant from Spain, she is tuned into children in an unusual way—through the language of the dance she has been studying for many years, both in Spain and the United States. It's an ancient improvisational art form based on lament, or jondo, a deep song. And today, it has a healing, unifying power as the adults in the room encourage their children to participate and try to relax themselves. I can feel the bands of worry and despair loosen.

 

"Let us ask for connection to our people," Anna continues as she repeats the simplified flamenco routine so we can all practice.  Now what we are doing feels like a deflection, or an escape, a strange thought, but a pleasant one. It is easy to forget what has transpired in the United States, to wake in the morning in momentary forgetfulness, at least, until reality crushes again. So here we are, and here is Anna, up from DC to revive our spirits, the adults on their feet next to the carefree children, and we are all clapping and stomping. My husband, is feeling very carefree. He has been a flamenco aficionado since  I met him, if not before. I wish we were dressed more flamboyantly for the occasion, but no matter, we are into it, connected through music and dance.

 

"It's a scary and unsettling time," Anna tells me in a phone interview after the event. "I tell my clients—some of whom have lost their jobs—that we need to stay connected, we have to listen to each other and we have to believe each other."

 

Anna's husband, Jack, a former United States Navy diver and photographer, now works as a Public Affairs Officer for the Navy. He's a federal worker who is witnessing first-hand the daily disruptions. When I ask if he works at the Pentagon, there is a beat before Anna says, "Not in the actual building. He's elsewhere."

 

"And will you be deployed again?"

 

"It's always possible."

 

I mention that my husband was in the Navy, though I was never a "Navy wife," and my husband was not a career officer; he was discharged before we moved to London. But Anna starts to chat more confidingly about the unsettled military life. Jack and Anna are raising two daughters, nearly 10 and 14 now; they are already world travelers.

 

Writing in my journal the day after my interview with Anna, I reflect on children dancing joyously, how they are our future, how we must continue to protect and nurture them, and to take care of ourselves during this trying time.

 

On 16 November 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity