Illinois Governor JB Pritzker spoke at a news conference Monday afternoon, August 25, addressing reports President Trump is planning to send the military to Chicago.
Here are excerpts from his remarks, edited for length, followed by a link to the full text:
Milton Mayer was born on August 24, 1908. He was a journalist, scholar, moral philosopher, terrific writer — and a Quaker.
A Jewish Quaker.
A southerner Jewish Quaker.
He wrote some of the most potent, challenging, memorable Quaker essays and books of the past century. He was also funny.
He and his work deserve to be remembered and re-examined now, 39 years after his death in 1986. Not only because of the excellent writing, but because his over-arching subject, which was facing/surviving authoritarian/totalitarian government — is now our over-arching crisis.
He predicted this rise, warned of it, analyzed its coming and impact in his lifetime. And he tracked how ordinary people reacted, resisted, or reinforced tyranny.
Mayer’s story was told in a probing summary essay by a top Quaker historian, H. Larry Ingle, in the journal, Quaker Theology. Here is Ingle’s incisive sketch:
Milton Mayer, Quaker Hedgehog
A Review and Profile, by H. Larry Ingle
Reprinted from Quaker Theology #8, 2003
Oxford-educated political scientist Isaiah Berlin, in his minor classic “The Hedgehog and the Fox” (1953), divided people into two groups, those who understood one big thing like the hedgehog and those, like the fox, who knew many things.
Milton Mayer
The subject of this essay was a hedgehog who throughout his life concerned himself with one common theme, the threat of state authority over the individual; this threat emerged, he insisted, because individuals permitted it by not resisting the state’s encroachments.
During the current period, a time of mounting concern about civil liberties and individual rights, especially in the face of mounting governmental authority, it is wise to consider one of the best known Friends of the twentieth century. I write of Milton Mayer (1908-86), now mostly forgotten but well worth recalling because he illustrated a significant, continuing, and newly-timely strain in Quaker thinking.
A newspaperman and magazine columnist, Mayer wrote and edited numerous books and turned out reams of personal essays for the Progressive, a journal that carried his byline for nearly forty years. His best known and most important book was his study of ten average Germans from 1933 to 1945, They Thought They Were Free, a work he published a decade after the war when he lived in Germany and interviewed residents of that defeated nation.
No one has done a biographical study of Mayer, although he left numerous references to his personal experiences in his essays and books, so it is only a matter of digging out the factual details to put his life into context.
Born in Chicago of a German Jewish father and an English-born mother, Mayer was educated in the public schools of the city where he reminded readers constantly, he received a classical education with a heavy emphasis on Latin and languages; he graduated from Englewood High School. His Reform Jewish family was well enough off that young Milton visited Germany probably after World War I.
His self-composed entry in Who’s Who in America for 1984 refers only to his being a student at the University of Chicago from 1925 to 1928, without mentioning that he did not earn a degree. Mayer apparently left the University the year before the thirty-year-old Robert Maynard Hutchins became president in 1929. He told the Saturday Evening Post in 1942 that he was “placed on permanent probation in 1928 for throwing beer bottles out a dormitory window, ‘failing, however, to hit the dean.’” (“Keeping Posted, March 28, 1942) Their lives would be intertwined until Hutchins’s death in 1977, and Mayer’s widow would oversee the publication of a biography her husband had penned of his friend. This unorthodox study, Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir, published in 1993 by the University of California Press, offers insights into the genesis of Mayer’s development that are absent from his other writings.
After leaving the University, Mayer worked as a reporter for the Chicago Evening Post for nine years and married his first wife Bertha Tepper; the couple had two daughters. They were divorced in 1945, and two years later he married Jane Scully, who would become well-known as “Baby” or, after protests from feminists, “Ms. Baby,” to readers of his magazine columns. These details come from the Who’s Who entry, but the Hutchins biography reveals that Mayer had gone to work for William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago American sometime during the early 1930s, covering the University of Chicago from which position he met Hutchins.
Preparing an article for that paper, he read Hutchins’s 1935 commencement address to the graduates at the University, and his life was changed. In words that Mayer would echo and re-echo, again and again, Hutchins told his auditors that they faced a life that would corrupt them, tempting them to become safe, sound, agreeable, and inoffensive, giving them habits of timidity. “Believe me,” Hutchins pointedly warned, “you are closer to the truth now than you will ever be again.” (Mayer: 1993, 3-5) . . . .
The headline in The New Republic (TNR) on August 2 was dire: “Trump’s Domestic Use of Military Set to Get Worse, Leaked Memo Shows,” it blared.
Well, maybe.
TNR said it had been leaked a confidential memo from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The memo listed talking points for top DHS staff to parrot at a July 21 meeting at the Pentagon, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and two top generals.
From the ICE Recruiting Website
The session’s ostensible goal was to ratchet up support among the military brass for a nationwide blitz of military-backed incursions into “sanctuary cities” and other targeted locales, a la the recent ICE sweeps that brought several thousand national Guard troops and several hundred Marines into Los Angeles.
The memo outlined the “itinerary” (aka agenda) for the meeting, which was getting to better coordination of the agencies’ activities in “defense of the homeland.”
“Participants listed comprise the very top levels of both agencies, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine (an Air Force general and former CIA Associate director) and NORTHCOM Commander Gregory Guillot (another Air Force general). Staff include Phil Hegseth (Pete Hegseth’s younger brother, and DHS liaison —aka go-between— with the Pentagon) and acting ICE commissioner [Todd] Lyons. . . .
“Due to the sensitive nature of the meeting, minimal written policy or background information can be provided in this briefing memo,” it said.
Experts [that TNR’s Greg Sargent] spoke with were surprised at how bluntly [the memo] suggested [Homeland Security] pressure the Defense Department for more military involvement in immigration enforcement, and alluded to potential tension between top officials at both agencies over this imperative, and even possible resistance to it by Pentagon officials. The memo said aligning both agencies this way “is a priority of POTUS,” meaning Trump. . . .
More concretely, the memo said that DHS hoped to secure “a verbal agreement to find places where DoD can detail personnel within ICE and CBP (and vice-versa) to increase information sharing, and specifically support nationwide operational planning capabilities.”
Among the memo’s talking points for the DHS officials . . . are . . . references [to] attacks on DHS officers and Central and South American cartels and gangs, noting that they’ve been designated terrorist organizations.
“That puts this threat on the same plain [sic] as having Al Qaeda or ISIS cells and fighters operating freely inside America,” the memo says. . . .”
TNR also quoted several anti-Trump think tank observers who saw in this memo a scheme for nationwide domestic deployment of the military. But while this is clearly a priority for POTUS and Hegseth, the memo can also be read as something quite different, such as damage control.
This possibility more than leaked out. It practically squirted from between the memo’s lines. About the recent “joint” military operations in L.A, it acknowledged:
“It hasn’t been perfect, and we’re still working through best practices together, but I think it’s a good indicator of the type of operations (and resistance) we’re going to be working through for years to come.”
The L.A. “occupation” — not perfect? Who knew?
Really: all it did was help spark a record-breaking nationwide wave of June 14 protests.
Then it produced stacks of poll results showing deep public revulsion against the snatching of overwhelmingly peaceable, working people by masked agents in unmarked cars for deportation to foreign torture prisons with no warrants, bail or due process.
Then the manhandling of members of Congress for trying to do lawful oversight, not to mention building open air concentration camps in broiling summer swamps and deserts
For starters.
What career-conscious general wouldn’t want to scramble right onto that bandwagon?
Instead, maybe Phil Hegseth, in his interagency liaising, had been getting some inklings of that old Pentagon standby, interservice rivalry.
Hegseth taking aim — But nope, Pete, not this time.
After all, what did the epic L. A. Confrontation turn into? Following a few rowdy nights in a handful of downtown blocks, it left hundreds of Marines, reputedly the toughest of American warfighters, doing long tours in summer heat as security guards for buildings which were conspicuously not under attack.
Further, they were backing up several times their number of national guard troops, already sweating in the same unmolested area.
These in turn were running cover for the facilities’ regular security details, whose biggest threat likely came from stumbling over some of the other defenders.
That is, the Siege of L. A. was not exactly a clash for the ages, set to yield many Medals of Honor. (Not even any Purple Hearts, unless they’re now awarding them for Extreme Ennui, or Boredom Above and Beyond . . .)
No wonder the memo’s DHS talking points sound like the delegation was all but begging the generals to lend them real soldiers to teach the burgeoning ICE squads some tricks of the trade — err, “best practices” — other than handling zip ties and fracturing families.
And frankly, their asking to set up such arrangements only on a “verbal agreement” basis, skipping such bureaucratic/legal niceties as written orders, reinforces TNR’s suspicion about resistance from the uniformed branches.
Why would the generals resist? Well, for one thing, there’s this matter of a law, about not using the military domestically, or against U. S. citizens; plus an oath, which the brass all take, to the Constitution rather than His Putative Highness, POTUS.
True, Hegseth is busy tossing out generals and admirals who want to stick to these hoary notions; but the academies and service command schools have been teaching them for a lot longer than he’s been around, so it takes time to bend or replace them all.
Similar codes are in place at the other military academies
For that matter, every commanding general — whatever their combat specialty, is also a PR specialist, carefully guarding and polishing their service’s public image. While the military generally ranks high in polls of public trust, that confidence has been declining since the Iraq-Afghanistan wars, and recruiting has been tough:
So the brass in 2025 are even more sensitive than usual.
To be sure, they aren’t afraid to fight. But are they keen to become another target of the reaction against ICE sweeps with secret police tactics, the new gulags, and deportations to foreign torture prisons, without some very good reason?
Beyond seeking “new ideas for how the two departments can better plan for national security and illegal immigration,” the memo added this:
The U.S. military leadership (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and NORTHCOM) need to feel – for the first time – the urgency of the homeland defense mission. They need to understand the threat, what’s at stake, and the political importance the administration has placed on this issue.”
We don’t yet know how the July 21 meeting turned out. Surely the Hegseth brothers will keep pushing for their national, gloves-off-masks-on crusade. And maybe POTUS will have a brainstorm in the golf cart and order an invasion of Boston to divert media attention from the Epstein files.
But in the meantime, are the generals feeling the urgency yet?
So yesterday I’m scrolling through the New York Times, and then up pops this big ad:
If I was writing copy for that ad, the statue would be pointing at the reader and the bold bright headline would thunder “BERLIN WANTS YOU!”
But that message still got through, especially if one clicked a link to more pages, vividly extolling not only Brain City’s intellectual heft and (pardon my foul language) “diversity”, but also all the ways the German government was prepared to smooth the way to residency, work permits and cultural adjustments for brainy persons at loose ends or seeking a “career reboot,” especially after some hiccup or mishap in their previous company or, um, previous country.
Berlin, eh?? I scrolled through the stirring pages . . . .
Hmm. If I was younger, I mused… or if I was a scientist . . . After all I have some German ancestry, though I know no details . . . And there have been some bothersome upheavals hereabouts of late — I believe the Germans even have a term for it — kulturkampf — which can fairly be translated as culture wars.
So I was intrigued; at least I was until I looked past the ad and asked other questions about the city. Hmmm: a high percentage of women scholars and researchers? Good. But especially given my age, what about its weather?
Hmmm. winters, colder than here in central Carolina. Not so good. And summers, recently getting noticeably hotter — yeah, welcome to the club. But a caveat, with points to them for full disclosure: A/C, it seems, is not yet really a thing for the sturdy Berliners.
Well, different strokes, and all that; but I’m pretty well settled in the they’ll-get-my-HVAC-when-they-pry-it-from-my-cool-dead-fingersfaction.
And so much for Berlin, though it was a refreshing armchair daydream.
At least it was until this morning’s scrolling, when I got to the local, shriveled but surviving daily rag, the News and Observer. There I was stopped by another startling bold headline:
EDUCATION Duke to start layoffs in August after nearly 600 employees take voluntary buyouts
Nearly 600 employees at Duke University have accepted voluntary buyouts under a program initiated this spring amid significant threats to the university’s funding under the Trump administration, according to an email sent to faculty and staff on Friday. Now, per the email, the university will make involuntary layoffs across campus in August.
“We determined that an involuntary reduction in force is necessary only after careful consideration and extensive consultation with leadership across Duke,” read the message from Duke Executive Vice President Daniel Ennis, Provost Alec Gallimore and School of Medicine dean Mary Klotman. Ahead of the layoffs, all university units will be asked to identify further non-personnel budget cuts they can implement, which will “determine the scale of” the layoffs.
The message added that “fewer employees will be affected” by the layoffs given the “high number” of employees — 599, to be exact — who participated in the voluntary buyouts. More than 250 faculty are also considering offers for voluntary retirement incentives, per the message.
“We recognize and are sorry for the impact these changes will have on our colleagues,” Ennis, Gallimore and Klotman wrote. Employees who are laid off will be notified between Aug. 5-19, per their message.
Friday’s announcement comes as Duke faces threats to its finances as the Trump administration has made major cuts to research funding [NOTE: other reports put the Duke research cuts at more than $400 million.]
Duke faces threats to its finances as the Trump administration has made major cuts to research funding and implemented policies affecting other university operations, such as increasing the tax rate on the endowments of Duke and other colleges. . . . [In] late April, as the university told faculty it sought to cut as much as 10% of its budget, or roughly $350 million, the university announced it would offer buyouts to staff. Those efforts were furthered by another round of buyouts for faculty, announced last month. “While the challenges before us are difficult, we are confident we can navigate them as a community and maintain exceptional support for our students, our world-renowned research and our core values,” Friday’s message read.
One of the country’s top research universities with a major health system, Duke employs more than 48,000 people across the Durham university. It is the Triangle’s largest employer and the second-largest private employer in North Carolina, behind only Walmart.
[Wow. Second only to Walmart?]
Duke isn’t the only local university grappling with the impacts of funding threats, though its buyouts and upcoming layoffs appear to be the most drastic response of schools in the Triangle. Salaries, hiring and other spending in the UNC System, which includes major research universities like UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University, are currently restricted under a directive from system President Peter Hans enacted last month. [NOTE: other sources estimate cuts at non-Duke NC schools to be well over $100 million; more layoffs among them are expected.]
Now, for myself: I never attended or worked for Duke. But I live nearby, and am in frequent contact with—its medical system. Or should I say, its (formerly) world-renowned and globally-recognized medical center, which has taken a big body blow in the current shearing. (And maybe that’s why my last visit to their ER was so long & lonely. And maybe that’s why they had the A/C down to frigid levels, to winnow out some of the homeless folks taking shelter there from the downpours of a rainy night. And maybe that’s why when I called last week to schedule a routine checkup, the first available date was April 2026. Whuzzup??)
On a second look, there was that forbidden diversity word again and again, and toward the end another incendiary, straight-out banned, getchew and your bad self in big trouble (& not the good kind) term: “welcoming . . .” Plus another very sketchy one . . . . “Cosmopolitanism”:
[Personal videos] provide insight into the diversity, excellence, interdisciplinarity and cosmopolitanism of the science metropolis Berlin. . . .
The basis for this top-class exchange is the high density of research institutions in the city – with four universities, seven universities of applied sciences, three art colleges, 25 State-recognised private universities, around 70 non-university research institutions, unique research alliances such as the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) or Berlin Research 50 (BR50) and numerous start-up centres. At a total of eleven Berlin locations of the future, cutting-edge research and industry are also working together to develop products and high-tech solutions for tomorrow.
More than 250,000 people from all over the world teach, research, work and study in the metropolis and are enthusiastic about Berlin. In the words of Brain City Ambassador Nishan Jaint: “The city is open, welcoming and very international. That makes Berlin something special.” (vdo)
Hmm. More to think about. And I bet I’m not the only one in Durham digging up this Brain Cityad again.
No, not by a long shot.
Now, to the last big gotcha question:
Do the Berliners make decent barbecue?)
This “billboard” is meant to be the first of a series in the runup to the June 14 “NO KINGS” protests.
The strategy of the series is to widen the gap between Trump-Hegseth (TH) and many troops, and remind them (and others watching) that their oath is to defund the Constitution (not a wannabe monarch). It also will remind them that domestic deployments (sending troops against U. S. Citizens here in the “homeland”) is both illegal AND a very REAL threat under rule by TH. (The troops have been taught this.)
This approach is based on my eleven years as Director of Quaker House in North Carolina, near Fort Bragg/Liberty. There we counseled dissident troops, and organized well over 150 peace protests, large & small, in the midst of one of the biggest military communities.
In our work we learned early on that to get our messages across, it was CRITICAL that our public witness constantly express “support” and respect for the troops, even while rejecting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
We were surrounded by many troops and veterans who had been brainwashed by Fox News etc. to believe we hated and looked down on soldiers (which we did NOT), and were atheist commies, etc. which we also weren’t.
(Sorry, lefties.)
Just in case you think I’m exaggerating about the attempts to smear us as “troop-haters & Commies”; this was in Smithfield NC, in October 2007.
We DID “support” them, in our Quaker ways, as persons of conscience, many of whom had moral questions about the war and military culture. We worked to help them clarify their personal moral convictions (if they asked), privately and for free. We didn’t try to make them Quakers or pacifists.
The efforts to push us and our work into a polarized frame never stopped (and this was years before MAGA appeared). And our “Yes to the Troops/No to the Wars” pushback was just as steadfast.
It paid off. In the first two years of the Iraq invasion, our vigils in downtown Fayetteville often drew catcalls and one-finger salutes. But then, with the war bogged down and casualties kept mounting, morale shifted and we began to get thumbs up, and even an occasional cheer.
As the war’s cost climbed ever higher, our “Yes to the troops” became more credible, as we weren’t locked into a polarized frame.
In 2025, there are many issues facing conscientious servicemembers. Some surfaced at the West Point commencement last month. While the big media didn’t notice, the thousand graduating cadets watched and listened as West Point Superintendent General Steven Gilland subtly but fiercely denounced Trump’s character to his face as utterly beyond the pale of every section of the academy’s strict honor code. The sitting Commander in Chief would have been booted out of West Point with the first of his multitude of indictments; along with his skeezy Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth (who didn’t even show up).
Hegseth taking aim
But these two “leaders” are also the pair who seem determined to loose the military on the American citizenry, in defiance of the law and the oath those thousand cadets took to defend, not a president but the Constitution.
Hegseth published an entire book about his fixed vision of a real medieval-style crusade to “annihilate” the enemies within (mostly, besides migrants, that would be us).
If that dire push should come to shove, will there be a significant portion of the officer corps and troops who will stand by their oath in the crunch? In real life, coups fail if they don’t keep control of the national military.
Those of us who will be protesting Trump’s vanity parade are more than spectators (or targets): we can evade the ginned-up polarization and appeal to the best in the uniformed ranks. Sure, the military tends to be more conservative than the general population, and extremists are hard at work recruiting there.
But that’s not the end of the story. How we communicate with them could make a difference, maybe a key difference.
Our motto at Quaker House can be adjusted: NO To The COUP. Remember Your Oath. Defend The Constitution. NO To Domestic Deployments.
I have more sign ideas, and will add some soon.
But if you’re on board, you write the next ones. And pass this on.
pVb/h June 14 will be here quick. Get ready. I’ll catch up.
If I was writing copy for that ad, the statue would be pointing at the reader and the bold bright headline would thunder 
In our work we learned early on that to get our messages across, it was CRITICAL that our public witness constantly express “support” and respect for the troops, even while rejecting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
