The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

About 300 swimmers plunged into the Chicago River on Sunday morning for the first organized open-water swim in almost a century as spectators lined the Dearborn and Clark Street bridges and the Riverwalk.

“Reclaiming our river not only creates a recreational space for residents and visitors, but it also puts us on the map, along with other global destinations, where open-water swims have become part of city culture,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said at the 7 a.m. start.

Participants who were swimming the 2-mile course started first, with those doing the 1-mile swim following.

“This is a celebration,” said Doug McConnell, founder of A Long Swim, which organized Sunday’s event. “The city has done such a remarkable job over the generations to make sure that this water is swimmable, that the recreation opportunities are what they are.”

McConnell was happy to see Sunday’s swim happen. Last year, the city of Chicago denied a permit request for the event, citing safety concerns, and the event relocated to Lake Michigan.

Liz Dillmann, 60, of Aurora has been swimming for 50 years. She said she swam competitively in Australia growing up and still competes in the U.S. Masters, swimming four times a week in a pool.

“It has never been done in our lifetime,” Dillmann said as she watched the first group of swimmers get into the Chicago River. “So I’m just hoping for a clean, good swim, not too cold.”  [snip]

Event organizers said the Chicago River is now at its cleanest levels on record, the result of a concerted effort to clean up, improve wastewater management and push for stricter water-quality standards.

Maintaining the health of waterways in urban areas contributes to the public health and wellness of cities, and it reduces extreme heat risks from climate change, said Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River.

The advocacy group, founded in 1979, has long worked to protect and restore the Chicago River, for example pushing for discharge from water treatment plants to be disinfected before being released into the river, Frisbie said.

“Swimmable cities are livable cities, and so we’ve literally been working on this for the last 46 years,” she said... (our emphasis)

It's a struggle to find "the good" these days, but being able to do this after nearly 100 years of pollution and steady population growth has to be celebrated.  Yes, in the City of Chicago, that ungovernable Democratic hellhole, as the Malignant Fascist would have you believe. 

The bad:

The government’s unprecedented deportations of immigrants; use of Ice to unjustly detain people in detention centers fraught with human rights abuses; intimidation of judges, law firms and universities; and assaults on the fundamental principles of liberal democracy are prompting historians who specialize in fascism to leave the country.

And significant backlash against gender equality is under way. The idea that women’s bodies are state resources for sustaining population appears to be re-emerging; the Trump administration is encouraging traditional roles by rolling back workplace equity, restricting reproductive rights and policing gender identity.

A woman’s “most glorious duty is to give children to her people and nation, children who can continue the line of generations and who guarantee the immortality of the nation”, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist, told an audience of women in 1933. Racially selective population growth was core to the agenda of such nationalist, fascist regimes as Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Italy. The only path to honor for most women was birthing children, formalized through financial rewards and medals for prolific mothers.

Similarly, the Trump administration touts pronatalist rewards, such as a $1,000 government-funded investment account for new babies, and has discussed others, including a “National Medal of Motherhood” for women with six children. While vice-president JD Vance cried: “I want more babies in the United States of America” at an anti-abortion rally in early 2025, Republicans in Congress plotted eliminating federal tax credits for daycare and other supports that enable women’s workforce participation – an effort to control women’s social roles.

The administration’s policies suggest its goal is not only population growth but specifically more white births. By rolling back reproductive rights more drastically than at any point in the last 50 years, the Trump administration has set the stage for worsening maternal mortality – especially for Black women, who die in childbirth at nearly three-and-a-half times the rate of white women. It has also demonstrated hostility to people of color, tearing immigrant families apart, curtailing immigration and ordering an end to birthright citizenship.

Fascist pronatalist policy depends on the veneer of white, Christian “family values” – a strategy that echoes Scholtz-Klink’s work as Nazi Germany’s proto-influencer, promoting a sweet, soft life of “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” (“children, kitchen, church”). When interviewed, Scholtz-Klink insisted to Koonz that she and her female colleagues had nothing to do with concentration camps, genocide or political doctrine – that they barely even knew about those things. Instead, Scholtz-Klink made domestic and reproductive duty feel prestigious, rather than peremptory, helping “the Nazi party make ordinary women feel valued in a way that other women in more liberal parties didn’t”, Koonz says... (our emphasis)

For more contemporary references, see "Project 2025" and the American family, or simply the fascists' claptrap about "Christian" martyrs and saving "the civilization... the West...", below.

The ugly:

President Donald Trump and prominent members of his “Make America Great Again” movement were paying tribute Sunday to Charlie Kirk, praising the slain political conservative activist as a singular force whose work they must now advance.

The memorial service for Kirk, whom Trump credits with playing a pivotal role in his 2024 election victory, drew tens of thousands of mourners, including Vice President JD Vance, other senior administration officials and young conservatives shaped by the 31-year-old firebrand.

“For Charlie, we will remember that it is better to stand on our feet defending the United States of America and defending the truth than it is to die on our knees,” Vance said. “My friends, for Charlie, we must remember that he is a hero to the United States of America. And he is a martyr for the Christian faith.”

Speakers highlighted Kirk’s profound faith and his strong belief that young conservatives need to get married, build families and pass on their values to keep building their movement. They also repeatedly told conservative activists, sometimes in confrontational tones, that the best way to honor Kirk was doubling down on his mission to move American politics further to the right.

“You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal,” said deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. “You have no idea the dragon you have awakened, you have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic.”

Kirk’s assassination at a Sept. 10 appearance on a Utah college campus has become a singular moment for the modern-day conservative movement. It also has set off a fierce debate about violence, decency and free speech in an era of deep political division.

The shooting has stirred fear among some Americans that Trump is trying to harness outrage over the killing as justification to suppress the voices of his critics and political opponents...  (our emphasis)

Trump.  Vance.  Miller.  Martyrdom.  The "dragon" awakened.  The 63,000 capacity stadium was filled.  The ugly speaks for itself. (More here. And here.)