The Land of the Frazzled, the Home of the Frayed

 The last time I attempted to write something for publication about a younger generation was in the early 1990s, when I wrote a piece for the Pittsburgh City Paper on the supposed youth phenomenon of the time, the Slacker.  I suggested that basically, the so-called Slacker wasn't all that different from the supposed phenomenon of my youth, the hippie.  Both faced a world in which they were expected to fight for jobs they didn't want, doing things they didn't believe in, and therefore forced into a stunted life of quiet desperation.  So, essentially, fuck that.

I mentioned also that the disenchanted youth was a phenomenon beyond those cliches (you wouldn't call Benjamin in The Graduate a hippie), that there were manifestations in the 1950s, 70s and 80s as well.  I quoted Paul Goodman's 1960 book, Growing Up Absurd (which I also had quoted in similar essays I wrote in the mid-1960s, at the end of high school and beginning of college), about a future some young people of the 1950s felt they faced: "During my productive years I will spend eight hours a day doing what is no good."

The de-humanization of the workplace itself is somewhat perennial, but definitely became a widespread oppression in the industrial age.  The delights of working on the factory production line are typically inflated in today's culture.

The Slacker, I wrote in 1993, was responding to a somewhat different but similar set of circumstances as those earlier decades in what I called "the land of the frazzled and the home of the frayed."  A clear culprit was and remains what I elsewhere and earlier called "The Speed of Life."  Technology does not only enable, it demands, and these days it demands relentless speed and total accessibility.

Similarly, the egotistical brutality of the workplace has been around forever, and those new to it are apt to get the brunt of it, and feel it more acutely. In fact I'll never forget the dazed look of a beautiful young woman I knew in college who'd just experienced her first forays into the working world, in the early 1970s.  When faced with a smug employer who demanded to know why he should hire her, she said that the first response that came into her head was: "Because I'm smarter than you."

Even since the 1990s however, the country and the context and circumstances of a young person's daily life have changed a great deal.  In many respects, it's a different world.  But last month when I read an opinion piece in the NYT by Jessica Grose titled (by the editors no doubt) "For Gen Z-ers, Work is Now More Depressing Than Unemployment," I did not feel the sense of displacement I usually do in articles about the social media-obsessed, nose buried in phone, AI dependent young, but a sense of kinship.

Within today's "grim" job market, Grose writes, "the entire process of getting and keeping an entry-level job has become a grueling and dehumanizing ordeal."  She describes a process in which the "first levels" of job application scrutiny is often done now by AI, including interviews on line. (The Guardian goes into more detail about today's Orwellian hiring process.)

Jobs themselves are often micromanaged and otherwise abusive, as well as poorly paid and with negligible benefits. Electronic surveillance has become the slave-driving boss, as has the speed with which computers perform tasks--instead of being "time-saving" they function as employer expectation-raising for the amount of work and the speed with which it is done: a more intense workplace.  

These and other factors result in poorer mental health so that this essay's title is literally true (very unusual for a NYT opinion piece): An annual study of nearly half a million American workers finds that workers under 25 are as unhappy as the unemployed.  When job satisfaction rose for other age groups, it fell for the young.

Some of this, the surveyors suggested, was because the young had higher expectations.  According to me, you can blame social media, media in general and so on, but really, the young always have higher expectations, and they should.  But the experts also agreed that "the workplace is markedly worse."

There are other elements of what these young people face I've thought about, that Grose doesn't mention in this piece.  I already felt a deep compassion for the generation whose lives will eventually be dominated by the effects of the climate distortion caused by and ignored by a determinative proportion (in power more than numbers) of previous generations.

And I can't even conceive of their debt burden from overpriced college education. Although I had seen up close the craziness of top-heavy administrations and futile business models applied to education, just why it all costs so much is beyond my understanding, and I do wonder if my own ability to go to college was an historical anomaly for someone from my background.

Grose begins and ends by referring to prejudices of older generations. "The older generation always discounts the workplace complaints of the younger generation," she begins. "Gen Z-ers don't even deserve this perfunctory slander."

Well, I'm already on record objecting to the over-generalizing and slander of the Baby Boom generation by some younger writers, and the New York Times.  So when Grose ends "Whatever is going to happen for Gen Z-ers as we all live through the A.I. revolution, I hope that their elders approach them with more compassion than disdain," I join in that hope.  For I have no disdain for them, and a lot of compassion, but more than that, I have what I had for my own generation of young and the ones that followed: anger and disdain for the society that persists in exploitation, that does not affirm their hopes and ideals but that grinds them down for their own selfish ends.  

Chicago

The Chaos-created federal invasion of Chicago is a complex and fast-moving situation.  At the moment I write this, Texas National Guard troops are massing in Chicago, and a federal judge will hear arguments for and against their deployment on Thursday.  Already however an unknown number--but certainly in the hundreds-- of American Gestapo (ICE and other agencies) with military hardware are in the city conducting various operations.  At least one civilian has been killed and others injured by Gestapo arms. (They seem to have targeted clergy.)  Chaos warns that if federal judges don't see things his way he may invoke the Insurrection Act, and on Wednesday accused all Democrats of being insurrectionists.

So almost lost in the shuffle is an event that transpired on Tuesday, September 30 that has been only slowly and not prominently reported nationally. Because so much is happening and is likely to continue happening in Chicago and elsewhere, it is already in danger of being forgotten. But this to me is a Never Forget story.  Wherever it will ultimately be placed in this series of ongoing events, I wanted to make it part of the record I've been keeping on this site of the gathering Chaos dictatorship.

I think Reuters was first to break this story beyond the Chicago media, but the lead paragraphs of Rebecca Schneid's piece in Time Magazine summarizes the events as pretty consistently reported:

At around 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, armed federal agents rappelled from helicopters onto the roof of a five-storey residential apartment in the South Shore of Chicago. The agents worked their way through the building, kicking down doors and throwing flash bang grenades, rounding up adults and screaming children alike, detaining them in zip-ties and arresting dozens, according to witnesses and local reporting.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker accused the federal agents of separating children from their parents, zip-tying their hands, and detaining them in “dark vans” for hours. Videos of the raid show flashbang grenades erupting on the street, followed by residents of the building—children among them—being led to a parking lot across the street. Photos of the aftermath show toys and shoes littering the apartment hallways that were left in the chaos as people were pulled from their beds by the operation that included FBI and Homeland Security agents.

Pritzker condemned the raid and said that he would work with local law enforcement to hold the agents accountable. “Military-style tactics should never be used on children in a functioning democracy,” he said in a statement on Friday. “​​This didn’t happen in a country with an authoritarian regime – it happened here in Chicago. It happened in the United States of America – a country that should be a bastion of freedom, hope, and the rights of our people as guaranteed by the Constitution,” he added.

Other stories reported vast damage left behind by the raid to virtually every apartment in the building, making many unlivable.  Local officials and agencies are working to relocate families now homeless.  It's reported that many are immigrants from Venezuela, though American citizens were also caught in this indiscriminate attack, which can only be described as a military operation previously seen only in foreign countries.

At the behest of Democratic ranking members, the House Committee on Homeland Security and Judiciary launched a congressional investigation. Their statement:

 "According to media reports, armed federal agents in military fatigues approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story, 130-unit apartment building, using flashbang grenades, busting down doors, and pulling men, women and children from their beds. Agents put residents in zip ties and led them to unmarked vans to wait for hours while handcuffed, with children separated from their parents,” the Members wrote.

“Reporting indicates that there were U.S. citizens and military veterans among those dragged out of their apartments in zip ties and detained for hours,” the Members added. “They were not told why they were detained, and they were not allowed to contact attorneys. Residents report significant property damage and having their units ransacked. Doors were blown off hinges and holes left in walls. When returning to their apartments, some residents found their items stolen after federal agents left apartments open.” 

After making 37 arrests during the operation, DHS claimed, without providing any evidence, that neighborhood was a location frequented by Tren de Aragua members. However, law enforcement authorities have not confirmed that any of the people arrested in this raid were members of Tren de Aragua. 

“It is unacceptable that this violent, heavy-handed immigration enforcement operation put families and children at risk and detained U.S. citizens, while traumatizing an entire community.”

A Chicago Sun-Times story, detailing the immediate condemnation by Chicago area Democratic members of Congress, begins this way:

Pertissue Fisher is still recovering from being detained by federal immigration agents who burst into her South Shore apartment building and pulled her and other residents from their beds early Wednesday morning.

An agent put a gun in her face, she said. Another placed her in handcuffs tight enough to leave bruises.

Fisher and other victims of the raid are U.S. citizens, but they were still held for hours.

On October 7, Amnesty International USA issued a statement:

Amnesty International USA condemns the September 30, pre-dawn ICE raid on an apartment building in a historically Black neighborhood in Chicago. According to news reports, federal agents raided the apartment building, broke into homes without warrants in the middle of the night, forcibly removed residents, including children, from their homes, zip-tied their hands, and interrogated them without access to legal counsel. 

“It is shocking that federal agents unlawfully broke into homes, tore residents – including children – from their beds, zip-tied their hands, and interrogated people on the streets,” said Paul O’Brien, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. “This terrifying raid demonstrates the new normal for communities across the United States: increasing militarization under the guise of immigration enforcement in complete disregard for human rights.” 

“Deploying military forces and federal officers with weapons and other equipment into our neighborhoods, creates an atmosphere of intimidation and fear and facilitates the unlawful use of force, arbitrary detention and other human rights violations,” said O’Brien. “Militarized forces should not be roving our communities and snatching away our friends and neighbors. These raids are creating a climate of fear for all of us, especially immigrant and Black, brown, and Indigenous communities. This is not about public safety. It’s a clear expansion of authoritarian practices intended to stoke racism, instill fear across communities and silence dissent, and it must stop.” 

Amnesty International USA demands a full independent investigation into the unlawful raid and calls for immediate accountability. Congress must immediately stop funding ICE and hold ICE and other federal agencies accountable for their lawlessness and abuses.  

“The government has an obligation to uphold the rule of law and ensure that nobody is above the law,” said O’Brien. “These raids are an attack on human rights and a threat to everybody in the U.S.  Federal officials who committed human rights violations during the raids, including those with command responsibility, must be held accountable.” 

I personally have not been back to Chicago in decades, but the South Side is where I spent the most time in the city.  I went to college with many students from "Chicagoland" and still have old friends and relatives in Chicago.  My thoughts and feelings are with them, and with Chicago in this perilous time.

But all of this goes beyond Chicago. In his Substack post, Paul Krugman called it "State Terrorism, American Style."  "We didn’t expect America to become a country where masked secret policemen smash down your door in the middle of the night and take you away. Yet that’s where we are."  He concludes:

"And don’t expect the attacks to be limited to immigrants. A recent White House memo directs the FBI to investigate groups as potential domestic terrorists based on incredibly expansive criteria, including “anti-capitalism” and “anti-Christianity” views. This would basically empower going after any kind of dissent. "   

Shape of Things To Come

 

Defining the Darkness

 

The 6-3 Supreme Court decision announced Monday permitting racial profiling by federal police has tipped this majority over from the Republican Supreme Court to the Fascist Supreme Court. Disguised as a procedural matter, it may not be the final say on the subject, but it certainly looks like it basically will be.

That news got swamped by the latest Epstein revelations.  But don't be deceived.  The Epstein scandal won't derail Chaos.  What's happening is bigger than the current President.  Behind him is a v.p. who is in many ways worse.  And it's all becoming institutional, meant to survive any one person. White supremacy is being institutionalized in government, the federal police and the armed forces.

Trying to give us a little hope, some prominent commentators are emphasizing the political weakness of Boss Chaos, reflected in absurdly one-sided poll numbers.  They suggest he is much sicker than the White House admits and can't go on much longer.  But none of that matters at least in the short term with a Fascist Supreme Court shredding basic rights affirmed by law and prior court decisions, and enabling the worst excesses of a dictator.

The failing economy, the anxiety over vaccines and other federal health insanity, even the disgusting Epstein scandal--none of that will stop this ongoing consolidation of crime boss power, as long as the Supreme Fascist Court backs it, and the cowardly Congressional majority continue to offer their behinds. 

The pattern we're seeing is resistance by ordinary people and institutional cowardice and codependence--institutions run by the wealthy and powerful.  Which perhaps should not be a surprise since that's how oligarchy works.  

The dictatorship is consolidating, the Dark Age has begun. Maybe it can be stopped--this is a big country that's used to being better.  But let's not deceive ourselves.  It can only be stopped if elections are fair.  And the longer this tyranny, destruction and chaos goes on, the more damage, and the harder it will be to repair, and the more time it will take.  Even slowing it down even a little may help, which is why Chicago's stand, and Boston's, and George Mason University's, are important.    

Chaos and...

 1. Chaos and the Courts

Chaos developed his current approach to everything as a mostly failed real estate developer and business investor.  His priority was always the big gesture to make the biggest headlines.  He cared more about the flashy announcement of a business he started or took over to "save," understanding that when the business failed (as it almost always did), it would be a less prominent story.  He loudly developed flashy buildings and projects that years later failed more quietly, ending in receivership or bankruptcy--mere back page business stories.

His approach to courts and the justice system was the same.  He would announce a huge law suit, often in response to someone calling him out.  Or if he was sued, he would counter-sue for a much larger amount.  He seldom won any of these cases, but that was a more boring story than his flamboyant anger and aggressive assertions.  And the court decision was always much later, when few remembered the original story anyway.  By then he was on to something else that was bigger and brighter.

As President, he is all about attention-getting gestures, including his approach to the courts. He cares only about his assertions, not the decisions against him.  Which is why he stacked up so many defeats challenging various results of the 2020 election.

These days he is losing pretty consistently in federal courts that decide what he's doing or has done is or was illegal.  But really he doesn't care.  He got the attention. He doesn't care that the courts found cancelling Harvard grants was illegal.  That was a story months ago. The chaos it created has already happened. He takes full advantage of the slow process of justice.  It just can't keep up with him.  So sending troops to Los Angeles was illegal?  That's yesterday's news.  Today he's busy using the military to murder people on the high seas.

 Other actions that the justice system (or what's left of it) is likely to stop, such as the malicious prosecution of officeholders he doesn't like for mortgage fraud.  He announces investigations, but then what?  Nobody is going to let it go by that reportedly at least three of his cabinet heads are probably guilty of exactly what he's charging.  But sorting all this out  takes time.  In the meantime, he's created the headlines, the distraction and the chaos he wants more than anything.

There is one big exception.  The federal Court of Appeals declared most of his tariffs illegal, a fact almost no has doubted for months, but the decision was finally just rendered, after the American economy has gone into a decline it may take a long time to reverse, and the world economy is thrown into chaos.  He's appealed to the Supreme Court, and his hysterical rhetoric about this decision indicates how serious it would be if the current decision is upheld. Other decisions of impact would include forbidding his militarizing American cities, and his asserting control over the Fed.

How likely is the Republican majority S Court to hold these thin lines?  A dynamic is being revealed that is profoundly uncomfortable for the Supremes.  While public confidence in the SC is at an all time low, the frustration in most of the federal judiciary is mounting.  It's getting to be evident that nearly all federal judges line up against six members of the Supremes.  Nobody really knows what impact this might have.

2. Chaos and Health

The disastrous Senate hearing Thursday where health secretary Kennedy Jr. was grilled, and during which he called the former CDC head, scientists and Senators liars, dramatized the chaos currently roiling US health and medical systems.  The most proximate expression of chaos is the upcoming updated Covid vaccine, due to be available this month, but nobody knows if it actually will be, who will be able to get it, and what insurance will cover it.  This remains a dynamic that changes from day to day, especially as some states test the limits of what they can do to bypass the federal breakdown.

That Chaos contradicts himself all the time in Orwellian fashion is not new, but the paradox of the Covid vaccine has always been striking.  In his first term, when he was merely a Dictator Wannabe, he was all over the place as the Covid pandemic began.  A scientific ignoramus who recommended lethal remedies, he nevertheless allowed the Warp Speed project to proceed, a fast tracked process to discover, make and distribute life-saving vaccines.  

He later denigrated the vaccine while still (as late as last month) claiming credit for creating it.  But he knowingly appointed Kennedy Jr. who has recently become very aggressive in his vaccine opposition--the anti-vaxer in chief.  At the Thursday hearing K Jr denied that over a million Americans died from Covid, and claimed that more people died from the vaccine than the disease.  And yet...

On Wednesday, the CEO of Pfizer, one of the two largest manufacturers of Covid vaccines, made a slyly brilliant statement.  He said that indeed Chaos should get his coveted Nobel Prize--for Operation Warp Speed. 

So that led to the prime theatre of the absurd moment of Thursdays Senate hearing.  After Kennedy Jr. fulminated on the lethal dangers of the Covid vaccines, Republican Senator (and doctor) Bill Cassidy asked him if he agreed that Chaos should get the Nobel for enabling the effort to develop the vaccines, K Jr. said "Absolutely."

That we're living in Doctor Strangeloveland cannot obscure the health dangers Americans are facing, entirely without necessity, simply from the current chaos that reaches into every pharmacy, doctor's office, hospital and insurance company (including Medicare).  In particular danger are us old folks and vulnerable children.  This is what sliding into the Dark Ages looks like, accompanied by unnecessary anxiety and bewildered laughter.

But there is resistance as well, even from Republicans.  Most Americans, including most Chaos voters, support vaccines.  Also on Thursday, Susan Monarez, the CDC director Chaos fired at K Jrs behest, said that she was willing to testify under oath to what K Jr said she had lied about.  Senate Republicans aren't likely to allow that, but if they do, it might get really interesting.

Theatre of Cruelty

 It used to be said of the Republican party, we know what they are against.  What are they for? Now we know what they are for: suffering, sickness and death.  It is the party of cruelty, operating from the theatre called the White House.

Consider the most blatant example: the cancellation of global programs under the USAID agency.  Here is how Stephanie Nolen's reporting begins in the New York Times:

"Starting Wednesday afternoon, a wave of emails went out from the State Department in Washington around the world, landing in inboxes for refugee camps, tuberculosis clinics, polio vaccination projects and thousands of other organizations that received crucial funding from the United States for lifesaving work.

"This award is being terminated for convenience and the interest of the U.S government," they began.

The cancelled contracts include support for the UNICEF program to immunize against polio, a project that operates the only source of water for a quarter million people escaping warfare in crowded camps, several projects countering malnutrition, and two contracts that would have paid for malaria tests, bed nets that protect against malaria-bearing mosquitoes and malaria treatments that would have protected more than 53 million people.  Plus the projects that got the most attention: cancellation of an HIV protection program and one that tracks Ebola infections.

Nearly all the cancelled monies were to support projects in Africa, furthering the racism that is the bottom line for nearly everything the Chaos administration is doing.

 "People will die," said the executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, "but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut."

So the suffering and death--the Rs hope--will not be televised.  

These are not program budgets that were just trimmed a little.  Though the amounts are not huge, they represent the financial lifeblood of these projects and in many cases the groups that manage and deliver them. So not only aid but the infrastructure for future aid is being summarily destroyed.  They amount to 90% of the USAID programs, and this on top of the cutoff of funds that left food grown by American farmers rotting on the docks instead of on its way to feed the desperately hungry, and the mass firings of USAID personnel in Washington, who were given 15 minutes to clean out their desks and vacate the building.

These programs add up to a small dent in the federal budget.  The US spends about $20 billion a year on all humanitarian and health projects. Comrade Musk can make more than that in a day.  Of course, this is not his money we're talking about, since he doesn't pay taxes.

This at a time when the global effort to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and greatly limit tropical diseases is one of the unsung successes of our time.  Many of these programs are in war-torn areas, where there are no available alternatives.  Only those individuals with exceptional dedication and courage have been capable of the relentless tasks involved in saving and bettering lives.  Now their efforts are dishonored and their work vaporized in a moment. And who else suffers?

Black lives.  Babies.  Old People. Women. 

Update 3/3: Pro Publica has added its reporting on the impact of cancelled programs, quoting local authorities who estimate the resulting deaths as in the hundreds of thousands. Talking Points Memo reports that a USAID health official, now placed on leave, has released a series of memos with the details of cancelled programs and impacts, many either previously unknown or contrary to public statements and assurances to federal court judges made by the Chaos administration.

The Chaos administration and their angry white male billionaires and mere millionaires are ignorantly but also maliciously targeting those same vulnerable populations in the United States.  The Republican budget plan to slash support for Medicaid, and its threats against Medicare and Social Security will attack the health and lives of the old and disabled.

The Chaos chief of health, currently backtracking on his callous disregard for a child's death from measles, is threatening the same populations plus children with anti-immunization rhetoric and the beginning of the disappearance of federal support for them.  For instance, the yearly meeting of scientists to discuss formulations for next year's flu vaccine was cancelled.

At the turn of this century, measles was declared eradicated from the United States.  Now there is a measles epidemic, because of doubts fostered about vaccines and the resulting lack of immunizations.  There is at this moment a strong epidemic of flu across the US, with hospitals overrun with seriously ill patients. The chief reason for it is that too many people did not get their flu shots.  Measles kills children, flu kills old people.

Even the apparently patternless firings of federal employees, which is cruel enough in its execution and lack of real rationale, hits the most vulnerable the hardest.

PBS pulled together some research about federal employees with very interesting results.  See how you would answer these questions:

What proportion of federal employees work in Washington?

How much has the "bloated" federal workforce grown since the 1960s?

What agency has the most employees?

What is the job category with the most employees?

Some eighty percent of federal employees do not work in Washington (or near it in VA and MD).  Only twenty percent do.

The federal workforce has grown--well, not at all--since the 1960s. It's always been around 2 million employees.  It's varied from 1.8 to the current 2.2 to 2.4 million.

The agency with the most employees is the Veterans Administration, and the job category with the most employees is: nurses.  Not exactly bureaucratic pencil-pushers.

Slashes of the federal workforce hurts communities all over the country.  Most conspicuously, in National Parks, Forests and Monuments, which is why there are  protests in all those places. But veterans hospitals and services--already struggling to meet the needs--will be hurt, as will wounded and disabled veterans and PTSD programs.

The idea we're supposed to buy is that one completely ignorant but very wealthy and reportedly drug-addicted white man and his equally clueless techboys can instantly--in minutes-- discern waste even without knowing a damn thing about what these people do or why their work is vital.  But waste isn't really the point anyway.  

Here's some other facts not covered in the PBS piece. About 20% of federal workers identify themselves as black, which is higher than the proportion of blacks in the general population (but as 60% of federal employees, whites are also overrepresented, as are Asian Americans..  Latinos at 10% are underrepresented from their 20% of the population.)  

Blacks hold 18% of senior executive level jobs in the federal government, and 11% everywhere else. That's a significant if not huge difference.  Whites hold 60% of those positions among federal employees, but 75% as a whole.  Disabled workers are also overrepresented in federal jobs versus the general job market.

The percentage of women employees is slightly less in federal government than all jobs, both under 50% of the total. However, women do better in so-called independent agencies.  For example, about 65% of employees of the Social Security administration are women.  Across the board it seems they hold something like 40% of supervisory positions or less, but at Social Security, 62% of supervisors are women. By amazing coincidence, half of Social Security workers are reportedly to be fired. 

Though these numbers are not wildly out of proportion with the rest of the American workforce, I've observed that government employment on all levels has helped to raise the standard of living and status of minorities and women at least since the 1960s.  The federal government especially but also city governments, mostly through merit-based employment (Civil Service tests, or example) and some affirmative action or at least less prejudice, seemed to me to have been the earliest in offering secure and well paying work to minorities and women, as well as the disabled and the older working population.  Government jobs (including the Post Office) I believe were a major pathway to the middle class for minorities as well as white working class families, especially with the decline of manufacturing jobs.

But angry white supremacist and misogynist billionaires and the angry white males that elected them don't like these trends.  They don't want black and women supervisors.  They want fewer black faces in their television commercials.

Then there are the unions representing federal government workers, which the Chaos administration is also attacking. The decimation of labor unions that followed from the loss of manufacturing jobs was a major factor in severing the white working class from the Democratic party.  Any weakening of any unions furthers that separation, and limits a major source of money and votes for Democrats.  So politics is part of this, too.  

But the casual cruelty, the disrespect and disdain, the callous disregard, and even the sadism are the clearest features of all these policies, including the planned deportations and bungling rendition of immigrants and refugees, who just happen to be primarily people of color, and include lots of women, children and old people. We even see this in the attitudes toward Ukraine and Gaza, and the casual imperialism that values nothing else, like the real estate developer's attitude towards land and forest life, or a community's life.

"People will die..."  "...for convenience."

 This is the most inhuman side of human behavior.  It is seen mostly in times of acute danger and stress.  There are pockets of stress in the US, such as in the rural areas most affected by opioid addiction, and the underlying if unacknowledged dread of climate distortion, but there is no real accounting for this cruelty in high places, except itself. 

But thanks to them, suffering and death will increase in this country and around the world, especially among the most vulnerable. We were fighting the good fight to limit it, and now we're not.  The theatre of cruelty deliberately prevents it, with not even an attempt to justify these actions--compounding the contempt.    "...and the interest of the United States government."  So now the United States will own it. 

Fighting Back

 

The moves go on, the blitzkreig isn't over, but the counter-moves have begun.  There are now court cases too numerous to track in process, and the ones that have been decided have almost all gone against the Chaos administration.  Three went against them in just 90 minutes on Tuesday.  The independent watchdog agency Office of Special Counsel found that the firing of the government employees of several agencies who sued were illegal. 

Musk has been slowed if not stymied by resistance within the administration as well, and has quietly rehired key personnel, and corrected erroneous cuts he was bragging about last week.  At least 21 technology staffers of the agency Musk took over have resigned over dangerous intrusions they were told to make into sensitive information on government computers, as well as in protest of the Chaos efforts to "dismantle critical public services."  It's not for nothing that columnist Eugene Robinson calls him "the Lord High Executioner" of the Chaos kingdom.

Republican members of Congress in multiple states faced hostile crowds at town hall meetings, and a group of conservative Republicans is on record opposing the Muskovite massacres and other Chaos acts that attempt to lay waste to the Constitution.

Voices are finally being raised, including eloquent ones, from Kamala Harris at the NAACP awards to Jane Fonda at the SAG awards. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut is gaining attention for his direct words about each Chaos outrage.  And so far, western Europe is standing up to Chaos and his shameful and cynical show of betraying Ukraine.

And people are active again: fired government workers besieging congressional offices, citizens demonstrating at court houses, federal buildings--and Tesla dealerships. Their pointed signs (as shown here in excellent photos on Lost Coast Outpost of a Eureka, CA demo) simply show that the essence of what's going on is not being missed.

The Chaos poll numbers are down and approval for their actions and policies way way way down.  Prices are going up, especially groceries, especially eggs (so cutting government monitoring of Bird Flu probably not a good idea, though there's evidence also that the egg industry (surprise! surprise!) is using it as an excuse to jack up prices), and everyone--economists, public polls--expect inflation to go up. 

The Chaos admin may have counted on a greater time lag between their actions and the reactions and consequences but  they are already starting to happen.  Of course Chaos will make countermoves as well as splashy diversionary ones, and there's much more conflict to come.  But that people are being emboldened and especially galvanized into resistance communities are good signs, and one that until recently looked like they might not appear.

One of the court cases just beginning is aimed to show that the whole anti-DEI campaign is illegal as well as immoral and racist.  But that insidious effort continues well beyond the Chaos government.  Possibly in an institution where it would be least expected: none other than MSNBC.

  In putative economy and on-air redesigning, the new MSNBC chief has managed a Muskovite massacre of staff and several longtime on-air hosts, with the hosts axed and many of the staff members being people of color.  This has not escaped the notice of Rachel Maddow, who condemned it on her show.  "It is indefensible," she said, "and I do not defend it."

When they took these actions--especially the axing of Joy Reid, one of the most interesting faces and voices on television, but also the demotion of Alex Wagner, another super smart and dynamic TV presence--they must have known that Rachel would be very unhappy, and decided they could do without the most-watched face of their network.  So savor the Rachel show because I have a feeling it's not going to be on MSNBC much longer--by her choice.

Heil Fire

 Let's just say what every MAGA minion knows and applauds: General Charles Brown, Jr. was fired as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he is black, just as Admiral Lisa Franchetti was fired as Chief of Naval Operations because she is a woman, just as Admiral Linda Fagan was previously fired as head of the Coast Guard because she is a woman.

These firings begin to create the opportunity that every dictator needs--refashioning the military to be only and absolutely loyal to the dictator. But whatever contributing factors are involved, these specific firings are about judging people on the basis of their race and gender.  

It is obviously not about competence, especially since the people making the decisions are without it.  All of these officers had long and varied experience, and long and distinguished records.  Like many of the changes being made, the appointment of the named replacement as chair of the Joint Chiefs is on its face illegal.

The current Chaos administration seems guided by some familiar principles: racism, imperialism and crony capitalism.  Its methods include lies (both Big and little), absolute loyalty, bullying, arrogance and inducing chaos.

A familiar pattern, though it is ahistorical in this sense: this was a country at peace, a country that was measurably prosperous, and a country that was working pretty well, with problems of a scale that democratic processes should be able to address.  In other words, unlike the onset of most tyrannical dictatorships, there was no extreme crisis that precipitated the kind of extreme changes that are still being implemented. 

The plans to do all this were open to public knowledge.  I knew them, Kamala Harris talked about them (though apparently not enough.)  There may be a certain amount of buyers' remorse out there now, and we are all in shock, but nobody should be surprised.  Project 2025 published their plans.  These people made speeches.  

Things weren't perfect but there were just two people running, and one of them was always going to do this, and--despite some general denials--pretty much said so.  Only ignorance--much of it willful ignorance-- led to the apparent results of the 2024 presidential election, and likely its influence on other elections, particularly for the Senate.  Ignorance, and a background of unacknowledged fear and denial.

This is Not Dictator's Day

 I awoke from yet another nightmare with an image forming: tiny figures smashing the supports under the huge building that houses us all.  The building itself appears undamaged.  But eventually it won't take much to bring it down.

King Chaos is an increasingly emboldened dictator, following the Hitler model perfectly.  Even with known and unknown individual acts of courage if not effectiveness, the bulwark of bureaucracy is quaking. The courts are starting to weaken.  Billionaires and megacorporations are stampeding into line, including Jeff Bezos' Amazon which offered tens of millions for Melania's "documentary" that no one else would even touch. By coincidence no doubt, Bezos' Washington Post has nixed a paid advertisement campaign to "Fire Musk." 

Virtually everything Chaos is doing is either illegal, un-Constitutional or corrupt, when it's not all three. 

Prince Chaos of Musk and his minions are soon to get their greedy eyes on personal data of millions of Americans kept in the data depths of Treasury and Social Security.  Some eager beavers fired Nuclear Security Administration staff overseeing the nuclear arsenal without knowing what they do.  They are now trying to hire them back, but they reportedly didn't keep contact information.  Weren't they going to pay these people?  What about their pensions?  All of this is monstrous.

At schools for the children of American military personnel at NATO headquarters in Belgium, teachers were frantically trying to obey new Defense department censorship by axing Black History month and anything vaguely to do with rainbows.  While stripping shelves of now forbidden books.  Says the New York Times report: "And teachers have been taking down their Black history month displays and nixing plans for women’s history month, after a Jan. 31 email from the acting under secretary for defense that said such celebrations “divide the force.” 

Another Times piece suggests there is apparently an under 30 generation for whom the "I was racist before it was cool" guy is a hero.  Orange is the new Green.

Another aspect familiar from a certain period of all too recent but also all too distant German history is the policy of imperialism emerging from the Chaos administration.  It's hard not to see Prince Chaos behind this, whispering about how we can use all those trace minerals to build more AI and rule the world somehow, or at least get to Mars (where do you think all the money will eventually go that they are supposedly saving from firing people and slashing medical care for the poor and the old--besides directly into the billionaires' pockets?)

The deathly irony of the white supremacist administration officially assuming power on the Martin Luther King Day holiday is now joined by the multiple instances of abuse of power and rank corruption made routine by the current occupant of the Oval Office, bringing a new degree of shame to the Presidency this day is supposed to celebrate.

Super Bowl of Racism and the New Blacklist

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.

What a "blacklist" means at minimum is an absolute ban on hiring those listed, or the firing of those employed.  Moreover associating with those blacklisted could cause suspicion and result in loss of employment.  

In one of these articles 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 top administration officials, beginning with the President, are 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. 

The Blacklist was similar to the postwar purges of government employees and the notorious loyalty oaths, associated with McCarthyism but largely propelled by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover beginning at about the same time, in the late 1940s, and also reaching fruition in the 1950s.  The idea was to rid America of Soviet Communist subversion, but in practice was applied to ideology and positions on issues that had nothing to do with the Cold War but were simply those opposed by the most conservative elements, eager to make toxic any support of them.  They were also used to repudiate the policies and directions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which made them more political than patriotic.  In the guise of anti-communism, these efforts filtered down to state and local governments, assisted by businesses who profited on widening the definition of subversive as much as possible.

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 social media posts surfaced, including this one: "For the record, I was racist before it was cool."

He quickly resigned, until the new vp spoke up on 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.

According to Plan

 

Update 1/29: I'm not going to devote an entire post to this but it should be noted that this was literally (and in both senses) a day of Chaos throughout the United States. It is when the possible extent of the White House order to stop federal spending became clear--especially when the Medicaid portal that handles all payments including pay to medical workers went down for all 50 states--that state governments and people around the country went ballistic. Every imaginable program could be affected, and the finances of individual states could collapse. No external enemy could do so much damage so quickly.

 Many news outlets noted that "confusion" resulted, and the Washington Post used the word "chaos." This is the latest in a series of blatantly illegal and unconstitutional orders, apart from the written order itself being nonsense.  A federal judge late in the day stopped it temporarily, while a number of states officially took it to court, and the White House started backing away.

The story isn't over, and this blog isn't a newspaper so I leave it to you to follow it.  But the potential of today was and is for a terminal constitutional crisis.  There are some weapons that Democrats in Congress can use to maybe frustrate the administration, but the fact is that if Chaos insists on this--or any other of his huge power grabs--he can go all the way, including defying a Supreme Court decision.  Because the only remedy the Constitution provides for this lawlessness is impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate.  And especially in these early days, how likely is that?...And by the way, who would that put into power?

Saturday:

Just after the November election, Margaret Atwood was asked what she thought of it.  "They elected him," she said, of the US.  "Now we'll see how they like it."

How do you like it so far?  Because not even a week into his term, it's all going according to plan.  Chaos freed his violent seditionist convicted felons, including leaders of national white supremacist gangs, so he's got a loyal infrastructure for a new version of brownshirt thugs that created chaos in Germany, or the blackshirts that did the same in Italy in the 1930s.  He's wiped the federal database of all information related to the insurrection crimes.  It never happened. Orwell, anyone?

He's installed a fall-down, blackout drunk and sexual predator to head the Pentagon and get rid of everyone not declaring fealty to Chaos, with the hope of a new military of white male supremacists who will just follow orders.  He's ordering active military troops to the border with a legally questionable mission.  He suddenly fired Inspector Generals of a number of agencies, while his other incompetent appointees are fanning out to spawn Chaos across the federal government, and therefore the country and the world.

He has ordered diversity programs of the federal government stopped cold, and sent home anyone engaged in them. His minions insist federal employees spy on each other and turn in anyone insufficiently zealous in their devotion to Chaos--it's back to the fifties for Washington, except it's the fifties of East Germany, and the Kremlin on the Potomac.

He's sealed the borders to any immigrants from anywhere, unless perhaps Musk wants a few.  His raids into immigrant communities were postponed when the news media found out about them in advance, because he wants them to be a viral surprise. His immigration enforcer is the guy who designed family separations the last time around.  How are those kids doing? 

He's making friends around the world by cutting off foreign aid and reneging on promised programs that these countries have planned for and allocated their own resources. He's threatened such traditional enemies as Canada, Mexico and Denmark, prompting the president of Denmark to warn him to keep his mitts off Greenland and inspiring him to be the first in international diplomacy to in these very words tell the president of the US to fuck off. 

He's promised economic Chaos on February 1 by forecasting tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China--which happen to be the three countries that supply this country with the most and most necessary goods that American industries and businesses depend on, not to mention people.  Companies that sell these things to Americans seldom have as good an excuse to raise prices than this.  If it all comes to pass, the only question is how long it will take the ripple effects to cripple the US economy, or at least cause major Chaos. Canada has already promised an immediate set of targeted reprisals if he follows through. 

He's visited the sites of recent natural disasters, after again withdrawing from the Paris Accords and otherwise deep-sixing efforts to address the very climate crisis that contributed to them, and will continue to amp up future natural disasters.  He gives the governor of California a hug and promises aid, and then goes to North Carolina to announce that California aid won't be coming unless the state changes how it runs its elections--another little precedent broken. Then he threatens to completely close down the federal agency that responds to these disasters.

Update 1/28: Chaos freezes on funds throughout the US government and abroad now include ongoing programs to monitor and address bird flu and a host of communicable diseases in other countries that have the potential of becoming pandemics.

Thanks to this domestic blitzkrieg, few have even noticed that Chaos is back in business with his son in law to build a luxury hotel in Serbia.  He's also busy promoting cryptocurrency and blockchains to make himself billions.  If his tariff and other efforts don't cause an economic depression, cryptocurrency is certainly up to the job of creating financial catastrophe overnight.

And on a completely unrelated matter, there's an article in the Atlantic detailing how Hitler dismantled democracy in Germany as elected head of the country--in 53 days.