The Chaos and destruction being attempted and achieved in Washington cannot even be measured, though clearly the damage to the United States government is greater than any outside enemy has ever achieved. This post is about the pattern of some of it.
In understanding something so vast that is being attempted so quickly, citing a similar framework from relatively recent history may be helpful in understanding how it works, what it's about and what the consequences include.
My previous post on this page includes an account of the research I did back in the 1970s on the Hollywood Blacklist of the late 1940s to the early 1960s. On another blog, I have posted versions of the two articles that resulted, one on the Blacklist generally, and another on Children of the Blacklist.
In one of these I quote David Garfield, son of the famous movie actor John Garfield who was blacklisted. He felt that the end of his father's career and especially the sudden loss of friends broke his heart, and was what killed him. I asked David Garfield in 1975 if he thought the Blacklist could return. "Sure," he said, "and it would happen in exactly the same way. Whatever the issue. The networks would line up as they did, the studios--everything."
He was referring to the fact that while Republican members of Congress instigated investigations and sent people to jail, it was the studios and the networks who actually blacklisted actors, writers, directors and so on, and ended their livelihoods. Educational institutions, from local school boards to universities, also blacklisted teachers for their political views and associations. It wasn't just the government. It was businesses, other institutions and individuals.
But perhaps the key phrase in Garfield's prediction is "Whatever the issue." Because it doesn't have to be the now quaint issue of anti-communism and fear of Soviet influence in the Cold War. After all, at least one of today's Chaos administration appointees was on the Russian payroll to push their anti-American propaganda, and others follow that line and that playbook. No--it can be other issues, just as inflammatory.
Today the executive branch of the federal government, beginning with the President, is currently on a blitzkrieg of ending the careers and at least attempting to end the livelihoods of federal employees at all levels, because they initiated or more often simply administered duly constituted government programs to encourage diversity, equity and inclusion--policies pursued by successive administrations, including the one that resulted from the 2016 election. The effect is the same: these people are suddenly losing their jobs in public service, not for incompetence but because they did their jobs.
The ugliness is not far from the surface, for in these cases as well as many others in which DEI is not directly involved, these employees being attacked and terrorized are mostly women and people of color, or both. Such a subtext was part of the Hollywood Blacklist as well: most victims were Jews.
Viciousness characterized the Blacklist of yore, and viciousness is part of what's going on now. Admiral Linda Fagan, Commandant of the US Coast Guard and the first woman to head a branch of the US military, was in a line to have a ceremonial photo taken with the new President at an Inaugural Ball when she was informed she was being fired. Fagan was confirmed for that post in 2022 by unanimous consent in the Senate. Prominent among the reasons cited for her dismissal was "excessive focus" on DEI.
She was given 60 days to leave her official residence but on February 4, the acting secretary of Homeland Security ordered her evicted with three hours notice. This after a distinguished career that began in 1985.
It's also very likely she was fired (and treated like dirt) because of who she was: a woman. The new Secretary of Defense (the sex offender and fall-down drunk) is on record as being against women in the military. A purge of women and people of color in high Pentagon positions was expected, and this appears to be the first shot.
At the height of the Hollywood Blacklist, people (including Academy Award winners) were blacklisted for attending a meeting for civil rights, or publicly supporting a blacklisted friend, or criticizing the Blacklist itself. Today people are being fired, reassigned and otherwise intimidated for even attending a seminar on DEI, including those held under the 2016-2020 administration.
At the forefront of executing this purge and this reversal (as well as related destruction of the federal government's ability to function for the American people) is Elon Musk. Musk's Nazi grandparents reportedly left Germany for South Africa expressly because of the apartheid regime--because they liked it. Musk' has reportedly never repudiated this, and his mother is on record with frequent racist statements. Musk's own racism is becoming increasingly overt. After a Musk complaint the Chaos administration just froze all aid to today's non-apartheid South Africa because Musk thinks white landowners are being mistreated.
Another indicator of what this is all about is the saga so far of a previously unknown 25 year old techie named Marko Elez. As one of Musk's digital minions, he was identified by Josh Marshall and other reporters of not only being prominent in those who accessed the Treasury Department's previously sacrosanct computer records on virtually everybody in the country, but in actually rewriting some of the base code. Then some of his inflammatory posts surfaced, including this one: "For the record, I was racist before it was cool."
He quickly resigned, until the new vp spoke up in his behalf and Musk rehired him.
But just as the Hollywood Blacklist and the public mood that surrounded it was enforced and aggravated by entities outside government, the same is happening right now. Some of the most powerful US-based corporations, including Google, are announcing that they are dumping their diversity policies and programs. So are educational institutions at all levels.
One of the few to at least pretend they are continuing their diversity policies was the National Football League in an announcement by its commissioner. While at the same time, he approved if not initiated a highly visible change: the end zone of every recent Super Bowl displayed this message spelled out on the ground: End Racism. That message will not appear in the Super Bowl this Sunday, which King Chaos deigns to attend.
So that's where that is--from End Racism to "I was racist before it was cool." To make it cool requires the capitulation if not the enthusiasm of institutions and individuals way beyond the Chaos administration.
That was one of the dangers of the Blacklist era, and one of the sources of power for those who made their careers on it. And that's one of the lessons that transfers to this moment, and the new blacklist.
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