Courage is courageous
25 April 2025
Robert Reich, whose blog I recommend writes:
Jo Ellen Grzyb, a member of this Substack community, noted in response to one of my posts that she’s seeing a lot of the phrase “courage is contagious.” She mentioned Bernie, AOC, Cory Booker, Tim Walz, Jasmine Crockett, and Elizabeth Warren.
She’s right. And in these darkening times, this contagion is critically important.
A staggering 36,000 people attended Bernie and AOC’s rally in Los Angeles; 34,000 attended their rally in Denver. These numbers are unprecedented.
Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of you turned out in your communities to condemn Trump and his regime. In front of the White House, protesters shouted “shame!”
This is the contagion of courage.
Every person who stands up to the Trump regime’s lawlessness and cruelty summons others to do the same.
Every prominent politician who stands up to Trump’s tyranny invites other politicians to stand up to it.
Every institutional leader who defies Trump’s orders encourages other institutional leaders to defy similar orders. More
Jennifer Rubin of The Contrarian discusses three New York prosecutors, Celia Cohen, Andrew Rohrbach and Derek Wikstrom, who quit rather than “apologize” for refusing to carry out a corrupt “Justice” Department deal to dismiss the criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
[A] a prosecutor must abide by the oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States and the rules of professional ethics set by the bar and the courts. The Department has long understood that these duties can and should coexist with the need to follow Department policies and orders. This is to the benefit of all: the courts, defendants, and the public, who can have confidence in the good faith and judgment of line prosecutors; the Department, which retains credibility while still receiving zealous advocacy from its lawyers; and the prosecutors themselves, who can stand in court confident that they are ethically carrying out their duties. Now, the Department has decided that obedience supersedes all else, requiring us to abdicate our legal and ethical obligations in favor of directions from Washington. That is wrong.
Are you connected with the University of Michigan? Please read this letter about UM’s acting as a doormat for President Trump’s bigotry and email UM President Ono at presoff@umich.edu or the UM regents asking them to stand up to Trump’s bullying.
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And here's the one specifically to the Regents under the heading: Veritas & Funding:
Dear Regents:
As a '66 AB graduate of U of M, I'm far removed from the awful decisions you folks are having to make every day. As a proud graduate of what has been known as the Ivy of the Midwest, I am falling back on what's taught on campus in World History courses and in basic finance ones.
1. Appeasement has historically had the opposite of the intended effect; it strengthens tyranny and emboldens tyrants to demand more and more.
2. When balancing a budget, you have to look at losses and gains of every action before choosing a course of action.
As you advise the president of the university to bow to the demands of our national administration, I am hoping that you are considering the loss of international standing that decreases applications, grants for research, funds from tuition and fees, endowments in wills, etc. How will that impact your academic standing and the recommendations of high school counselors to students who aren't prepared to, as this arrogant and determined junior informed parents and counselor that she wasn't prepared to "travel that far to learn to crook her little finger as she sipped tea"?
Most of all, I'm taking what is for me, this bold step of emailing all of you because I need to continue to see you for myself and on behalf of all the students I've encouraged to apply to the U of M, as a beacon of hope and a model of courage and VERITAS.
Respectfully and Hopefully,
Gail L. (Havens) Bienstock,
Class of '66
Just sent this to U of M:
As a proud graduate of the U of M, I learned to value the VERITAS part of that U of M proclamation. I know, without a doubt, that public institutions are more vulnerable to funds being withheld. Balanced against that, however, is what is taught in your World History courses: Appeasing tyrannical "leaders" has always led to them simply demanding more. Beyond that, when your faculty stop being able to determine their own curricula based on cutting edge knowledge, to be awarded grants for true research in all fields you claim to teach, you are no longer that rare university which is considered the Ivy of the Midwest.
For all who claim the U of M as home, past, present and future students, PLEASE stand up to the corrupting demands of this White House and model the academic courage we've all come to expect of you. Finally please share this email with your Board of Regents.
Respectfully and hopefully,Gail Bienstock Class of '66