My wife Elyse and I have recently returned from a 16-day vacation in Europe. We spent the first week of the trip on a group tour of Ireland - some highlights of which included walking along the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, attending an Irish folk music recital in a cathedral in the city of Cork, and strolling through the streets and parks of the capital city of Dublin. We then split the second week into roughly equal halves between two of our favorite European cities - first, in London, we enjoyed high tea at Fortnum and Mason, and saw John Lithgow in an incredible play, “Giant”, in the famed West End theatre district; then, in Paris, we visited with close friends for three days, joining them on brief excursions to various places of cultural and historical interest, most of which we had not previously known about.
Without question, the most memorable experience we shared with our Parisian friends was a day-long visit to the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, a 45-minute drive outside of Paris, where Vincent van Gogh spent the last few months of his life, before committing suicide at the tragically young age of 37. The town features numerous memorials of the painter’s brief but impactful sojourn there - among the most moving of them is his gravesite, situated in a cemetery high up on a hill overlooking the town, and alongside the wheat field that van Gogh captured so brilliantly in one of his last works.
I can still recall the overwhelming feeling of peace that enveloped me as we walked along the path out of the cemetery and across from the wheat field. I remember thinking, with an admittedly naive sense of wonder, how different things might be if only the world at large could know the utter peacefulness of this secluded place.
My reverie was quickly cut short, however, as the glaring contrast between the two vastly different spheres of geography - the one I was in at that moment, and the one I would be returning home to in a few days - slowly seeped back into my awareness.
That glaring contrast grew even more unbearably sharp just a few days later, when we returned home from our trip to a cascade of disturbing news reports: the long-anticipated outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran; the United States’ bombing of Furdow and several other nuclear facilities in Iran; the assassinations of a Minnesota state legislator and her spouse (plus the failed attempted assassinations of one of her legislative colleagues and his spouse); the vicious physical assaults on several Democratic officeholders challenging the speech and actions of Trump administration officials (Senator Alex Padilla attempting to ask a question of Secretary Kristi Noem at a Department of Homeland Security press conference, and New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander seeking to protect a man from seizure by ICE agents at an immigration courthouse); and most recently, the enactment into law of Trump’s grossly misnamed “Big Beautiful Bill”, which will wreak enormous harm upon millions of Americans who depend on Medicaid to pay for their medical expenses and the SNAP program to provide affordable food for them and their families.
Thus, the glaring contrast - some much needed peace and tranquility on vacation, then home to continued disruption and violence.
This essay is my way of getting myself back on track - permitting our vacation to slip away into its appropriate place in memory, adjusting my sensibilities after the abrupt hard landing into the violent swirl of current events, and recalibrating my focus upon where we’re heading and what we might be able to do about it.
More on this recalibration in the next issue. In the meantime, I hope that all of you are having a good summer, or at least as good a one as is possible under the present circumstances. Please take care of yourselves, everyone.
AfterWords
Early in May, when my wife and I were up to our necks in last-minute plans and arrangements prior to leaving on vacation, I came across this thought-provoking essay by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, with the ominous title “The Rise of End Times Fascism”, published in the print edition of The Guardian on April 13th. I gave it a quick read before our trip, and then put it aside for a more careful reading after the trip. I’ve been re-reading and reflecting further upon it since we got back, and I’m deeply impressed by Klein’s and Taylor’s profound analysis and alarming interpretation of the background factors that may well be contributing to the worldwide movements toward authoritarianism that we’ve been witnessing these last few years.
I’ve placed a few notable excerpts below, and you can read the full article here.
Inspired by a warped reading of the political philosopher Albert Hirschman, figures [such as the Silicon Valley investor Peter] Thiel have been championing what they call “exit” – the principle that those with means have the right to walk away from the obligations of citizenship, especially taxes and burdensome regulation. Retooling and rebranding the old ambitions and privileges of empires, they dream of splintering governments and carving up the world into hyper-capitalist, democracy-free havens under the sole control of the supremely wealthy, protected by private mercenaries, serviced by AI robots and financed by cryptocurrencies.
[These] high-tech private domains are essentially fortressed escape pods, designed for the select few to take advantage of every possible luxury and opportunity for human optimization, giving them and their children an edge in an increasingly barbarous future. To put it bluntly, the most powerful people in the world are preparing for the end of the world, an end they themselves are frenetically accelerating.
Alive to our era of genuine existential danger – from climate breakdown to nuclear war to sky-rocketing inequality and unregulated AI – but financially and ideologically committed to deepening those threats, contemporary far-right movements lack any credible vision for a hopeful future.
It is terrifying in its wickedness, yes. But it also opens up powerful possibilities for resistance. To bet against the future on this scale – to bank on your bunker – is to betray, on the most basic level, our duties to one another, to the children we love, and to every other life form with whom we share a planetary home. This is a belief system that is genocidal at its core and treasonous to the wonder and beauty of this world. We are convinced that the more people understand the extent to which the right has succumbed to the Armageddon complex, the more they will be willing to fight back, realizing that absolutely everything is now on the line.
Our opponents know full well that we are entering an age of emergency, but have responded by embracing lethal yet self-serving delusions. Having bought into various apartheid fantasies of bunkered safety, they are choosing to let the Earth burn. Our task is to build a wide and deep movement, as spiritual as it is political, strong enough to stop these unhinged traitors. A movement rooted in a steadfast commitment to one another, across our many differences and divides, and to this miraculous, singular planet.
Naomi Klein is a very thoughtful writer, thank you for pointing us to her work.
As it happens I recently listened to a podcast interview with her husband Avi Lewis, which I'd recommend to your readers too. It can be found among others here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb6CazUVA0wbo9IFrQjL8jvC7sZqS7Wpb
Some of the others are excellent – Naomi Klein and Molly Crabapple in particular.