A Time for Seriousness

Iran, ICE, political violence, science and potential growth

Welcome, June 22, 2025

In this issue: 1) Trump wavering on Israel’s bombing of Iran and just war ethics, 2) I.C.E. and the military on our streets, 3) surging political violence, 4) the war on biomedical science and public health, 4) a closing note on the US economic situation and the power of the people.

I. Standing on the mudslide of Netanyahu's high moral ground.

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8:00 P.M. Update: Bombs were dropped. The U.S. is now at war with Iran and all its allies. I considered deleting the whole section on this. I haven’t changed my mind on any point. So, for posterity, here we go. To the seventh generation! Put the women in charge.

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Why think about bombing Iran? Domestic politics? The “Israel lobby”? The Christian Zionism in the republican Party, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)? The Christian Zionists believe that an Armageddon like war in the region would pave the way for the return to earth of Jesus Christ as it ushers in the triumphant eschatology or end times.

The word given to us, we mere plebiscite, is that Israel is a democracy, and we always support democracies. It is the only one in the area. But, Ukraine…

What could go wrong with our dropping a 30,000-pound bomb –the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP)? Who came up with this name? Only the US has the aircraft that can deploy it. Will it bring new terrorist attacks on civilians around the world? Are we planning for sufficient renewed bombing of US troops stationed at military bases and personnel all around the region of Iran? According to Richard Haass, that is 40,000 U.S. troops.

Netanyahu has declared that Iran is weeks away from obtaining a nuclear weapon. As he has since the 1990s (McFaul's World), the US intelligence community disagrees. Netanyahu has provided no evidence. He has produced a magic marker poster that looks like a mediocre high school project.

I(Getty Images, Mario Tama)

If U.S. intelligence is not enough, maybe what the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated, “We did not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.”

This much we know from McFaul’s World.

“Today, the Iranian government is in a much weaker position than last week. And more broadly, after successful Israeli campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah, the regime in Tehran has never been in a weaker position. To stay in power, they may need to cut a deal now. Before attacking Iran, Trump must at least test out that proposition, and do so over weeks and months, not hours and days. He might be able to get an even better deal, such as keeping all enrichment activity out of Iran (see Phil Gordon’s creative ideas for how here).”

What we know from too much US military engagement in regime change is that the forces that come to power after the old regime is ousted are frequently worse than the first, or at best, not able to govern, leading to anarchy and long-drawn-out bloody civil wars. More than 35 armed conflicts are raging on the African Continent right now, according to the Geneva Academy. Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Asia has 21, Europe has 7, and Latin America has 6. On war as a solution to conflict, try this -- “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again.” I’m going with the attribution for the Scottish King Robert the Bruce in 1314 at the battle of Bannockburn.

Gentlemen, this is an essay for another day, but haven’t we learned yet that blood and guts spilled on sacred ground is, well, stupid and unutterably costly in human treasure? I’m a Christian Realist in the mode of Reinhold Niebuhr, but come on! Blood and guts spilled begets more blood and guts spilled for future generations. So does stealing land and cultural genocide.

II. I.C.E.

How appropriate is that acronym? A moniker that makes our blood run cold.

Terrorism is the use of violence to achieve political aims.

Terrorism by any other name still looks like masked men with battle fatigues handcuffing anyone they choose to. Terrorism is when US soldiers on American soil intimidate people exercising their First Amendment rights.

Fred Wellman's America's Dirty War cites International attorney Rick Hein as he describes the horror show of Trump’s, and we all imagine, Steven Miller’s design as modeled on the “Dirty War” of kidnappings and disappearances in Argentina.

“Regardless, the chilling use of masked governmental agents to inflict chaos, cruelty, conflict, and confrontation, which is a feature of Trump’s enforcement activities, was absent during the Obama and Biden administrations, while their administrations’ efforts were actually more effective and efficient than Trump’s masked thugs. These continued activities constitute the clearest signal yet that enforcement is not Trump’s main goal. Rather, the chaos, cruelty, conflict, and confrontation are. Trump’s Dirty War rages on.”

III. Surging violence and its acceptance. Is that a stage of grief? Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance.

What is happening? A political assassination of Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the shooting of Minnesota Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

For a full explanation, Hardworking Hope, see the section on “NAR - A new movement on an old theme in a barn in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.”

A few Republican politicians felt compelled to use these deaths and traumatic injuries as fodder for electoral politics. One implication was that Boelter was motivated to kill because he was a Marxist. [?] All of the republican commentators who took cheap shots, taking what they thought of as advantage of grief, shock, and rage, blamed Boelter as being far left.

One of the central tenets of Christianity is reconciliation. Reconciliation, i.e., returning to compatibility. Cambridge University Press Academic Dictionary defines it as– I love this – making friends again.

IV. War on science

“The majority of terminated grants have focused on public health and diversity. The most common keywords found in terminated grant abstracts include “cell,” “training,” “students,” “biomedical,” “community,” and “disparities.” Toll of NIH funding cuts 68% of those cuts come from Harvard and Columbia.

I am collecting data and reporting from sources. I’ll have a new U.S. Healthcare Systems Digest for you soon. I can guarantee hard work, but I cannot guarantee good news. The destruction of public health is ongoing.

V. Closing comments and the need to be there for each other

First, let’s look at our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Strengths:

· The U.S. is big with a huge, massively well-equipped military and awe-inspiring trained soldiers, airmen and women, sailors and marines.

· The American people, misguided as many of us are, are good people who believe in hard work. We are good people at heart.

· We have the strongest economy in the world (June 21, 2025).

· We have the best educational institutions in the world (January 21, 2025)

Weaknesses:

· Tariffs and the volatile nature of one person setting the policy, who is demonstrably impulsive and emotionally labile. This violates the Constitution, as only Congress has the right to set and change import tariffs. This is a violation of the Separation of Powers. Congress.gov

· Designs on illegal land grabs in violation of NATO alliances: Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal violate the U.N. Charter. Both NATO and the UN condemn Russia’s annexation of Ukraine, and they would both do the same for the above dreams of empire.

· We have U.S. troops in our streets in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act despite the Executive Order. I will let the Brennan Center for Justice explain.

· The disappearance of immigrants is inarguably heinous.

· The embrace of Putin and other oligarchs and autocrats.

· The abandonment of USAID

· Most egregious is the abandonment of Ukraine.

Opportunities:

· It is plausible that there are enough Republicans in Congress to kill the budget items that include draconian cuts and changes to Medicare and Medicaid. That brings with it the opportunity to sustain health in the US as opposed to allowing more sickness and preventable illnesses that make the underlying condition of America less able to meet any given future challenge. Would that we would want to improve our statistics on life expectancy.

· The people have taken to the streets in the largest single-day public protest in U.S. history for the “No Kings” demonstrations. The Guardian reports sources as high as between 4 and 6 million people. The photos are glorious. Doubling those numbers to 8-12 million is the aim. That would reach the 3.5% of the population rule.

“Non-violent protests are twice as likely to succeed in bringing about change as armed conflicts. Those reaching a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change. BBC

Source: The Guardian US News.

Threats:

· What is China’s leadership thinking? Long-term, no doubt.

· What is Taiwan’s leadership thinking? Nervous, no doubt.

· New alliances are being made with our old allies. It feels like a sports draft. America First will end up being America all alone. Watch Five Eyes, the intelligence oversight and review council, is composed of English-speaking countries. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (accessed June 21, 2025). There is discomfort within the alliance presently.

· Worse than that, though, and I will be brief about this today, is losing our democratic republic. The autocratic moves, while not specifically enumerated in this weekly essay, are visible throughout it. Voting rights disputes and lawsuits, education under assault, public health under assault, incompetence in the cabinet, and more.

Going forward — Serious optimism

This is our time in history. Enough with talking about generations, race, ethnicity, economics, and the pettiness of social media. Anti-democratic forces are marching across the globe as they always have. You know the terms by now: autocrats, oligarchs, kleptocracy, fascism.

Do you find yourself wondering about people who want all the power? Power never gives up unless it is forced to surrender. The truth is essential. It is what matters above all in the cause for freedom and the influence of the voices of democracy.

From the American transcendentalists to Gandhi to Martin Luther King, the implementation of truth was used as the greatest weapon against power gone rogue for malevolent purposes.

We are all in this together, and it is only going to become more critical. Price increases from the current administration’s policies and actions will hit us all soon.

I am reminded of my grandparents and parents. My grandparents emigrated from “the old country,” as they all said. They found people who could understand their language or thick accents, married, bought little houses after finding work, and started having children.

Meanwhile, the Gilded Age industrialists, land developers, oil magnates, and corrupt politicians were humming along. Extravagant luxury was the daily experience of the top of society.

They're Back! Do give it a click. You’ll enjoy it.

Multiple, current live-stream dramas show we have not stopped dreaming of this myth of the gilded American dream. Too many Americans dream, “With a little luck, some good planning, and a lot of back-breaking, grueling hard work, I can make it too.”

Americans know how to work hard. Most of us do the work of two or three others and feel burned out. We know how to be generous. We see that generosity in times of weather catastrophes. We know how to be hopeful as well as realistic.

We will get through this together. We have more strengths than weaknesses. Our strengths when we work together and inspire each other those strengths are more than worthy to meet current weaknesses and threats. Opportunity is here. Just as it was in 1776, 1860, the 1930s, 1960s, and 2000s. Americans meet the challenges. Stay woke, readers.

Let that little economic history of the robber barons of the 19^th century into the early 20^th serve only to say I can’t continue writing about the truth without you. Internet, electricity, and even shelter are at issue.

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Substacks cited

June 19, Heather Cox Richardson

Michael McFaul: Questions That Need to Be Answered before Trump Bombs Iran

On Democracy with FP Wellman included an interview with Rick Hein.

Israel, Iran, and Maybe U.S. War (June 19, 2025)