Empathy is essential — and yet we’re not built for constant bombardment with the suffering of others that the media delivers so relentlessly. Yes, suffering is worldwide, and it is horrible, and all too much of it is preventable. But we end up getting desensitized to it due to the frequency of it…I have no solution.
It is a genocide. Trump and Netanyahu enjoy the cruelty, but they also want to turn that land into a resort, as Trump said, and this is how they are doing it. And ethnic cleansing is also being attempted in the US -- stripped of all Constitutional rights. When they ask us what we would have done 100 yrs ago when Hitler was ravaging Europe and exterminating the Jews -- we should ask what we are doing *now.* Netanyahu and Trump are best buddies and are engineering this. We feel helpless and overwhelmed and scared and frozen. Trump is now trying to criminalize mental illness. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-condemns-trump-executive-order-targeting-disabled-and-unhoused-people No one is safe.
By the way, I say all this as a Jewish person. I was at synagogue last night and my reform (= more liberal) rabbi *sort of* did a "both sides" thing. I almost walked out. I thought about speaking to him after the service, but I knew I would end up either yelling, breaking down in tears, or both. I don't mind doing either of those things, but I know that no one would come to my defense -- there would be no comfort, no allies -- and I have no way to deal with this when I'd get home -- no one to call, who would get it. Anyone I would talk to would tell me that I should have kept quiet, because "you can't change people," blah blah blah.
I was initially deeply offended when people referred to "concentration camps" being used to imprison immigrants (and others) in 2025. I was also deeply offended and angry when current leaders were compared to Hitler. I told people to go to a Holocaust museum, then come out and tell me that this is the same thing! I am no longer deeply offended. There is food to feed these people, there are ways to arrest people (if warranted) and treat them humanely. None of that is what is currently happening.
Empathy is essential — and yet we’re not built for constant bombardment with the suffering of others that the media delivers so relentlessly. Yes, suffering is worldwide, and it is horrible, and all too much of it is preventable. But we end up getting desensitized to it due to the frequency of it…I have no solution.
It is a genocide. Trump and Netanyahu enjoy the cruelty, but they also want to turn that land into a resort, as Trump said, and this is how they are doing it. And ethnic cleansing is also being attempted in the US -- stripped of all Constitutional rights. When they ask us what we would have done 100 yrs ago when Hitler was ravaging Europe and exterminating the Jews -- we should ask what we are doing *now.* Netanyahu and Trump are best buddies and are engineering this. We feel helpless and overwhelmed and scared and frozen. Trump is now trying to criminalize mental illness. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-condemns-trump-executive-order-targeting-disabled-and-unhoused-people No one is safe.
By the way, I say all this as a Jewish person. I was at synagogue last night and my reform (= more liberal) rabbi *sort of* did a "both sides" thing. I almost walked out. I thought about speaking to him after the service, but I knew I would end up either yelling, breaking down in tears, or both. I don't mind doing either of those things, but I know that no one would come to my defense -- there would be no comfort, no allies -- and I have no way to deal with this when I'd get home -- no one to call, who would get it. Anyone I would talk to would tell me that I should have kept quiet, because "you can't change people," blah blah blah.
I was initially deeply offended when people referred to "concentration camps" being used to imprison immigrants (and others) in 2025. I was also deeply offended and angry when current leaders were compared to Hitler. I told people to go to a Holocaust museum, then come out and tell me that this is the same thing! I am no longer deeply offended. There is food to feed these people, there are ways to arrest people (if warranted) and treat them humanely. None of that is what is currently happening.