The most unfathomable part of the decline and fall of the US is the relative passivity of the US citizenry. Do you not see what is happening, and how serious it is? How unsustainable it is? How what you are losing daily - allies, reputation, investment, braintrusts, expertise, rule of law, infrastructure- is not something that comes back after the midterms (I seriously doubt that midterms will happen, and even if they do, this situation is not sustainable for another 18 months, so stop kidding yourselves).
The people who are ignoring this are most often, people who only go to right wing "news" sources and know nothing of what is really happening and when told about it, refuse to believe it and label it "fake news". You can't fix stupid.
The keyword is "trying". That they have to actively ignore it shows they >can't< ignore it. There will come a tipping point. When, where and how IDK, but it's coming.
True for much of the population, but also there are those who feel that any "news" interferes with their all-important music, telereality shows and/or soap operas.
Frankly, it's become too much to comprehend with the daily onslaught of tragic and depressing news coming out of the WH and the mouths of trumps loyalists. I write my representatives daily via resistbot and want to do more, but what? What else can I do?
Go to protests if you can, whenever you can. The next really big one is June 14. If there is no protest where you are, organize one. Don't just write your reps, call them. Demand town halls and go. Donate if you can. All this especially if you live in a red district and/or state.
Keep doing what you’re doing! That’s what the other side wants, for us to be overwhelmed by all their chaos. Don’t give in! Take a break but come back at it.
Democracy doesn't work if the losers of elections still demand to rule. It's complicated because we definitely have a baseline of rights in this republic, and we should always have the freedom to express our political opinions. But the mandate to rule? No.
So, some passivity in the face of lost elections is the price of living in a civilized democracy.
I wish this was true. Listen to Democrats and party allies and you'll find the entire political class is in the delusion (ot intentionally gaslighting) that we still have a democracy. The failure to understand the gravity of this situation isn't coming just from the right wing FOX viewers.
People are standing up in many ways, and we'll all have an opportunity to protest nationwide on June 14th when there will be No Kings marches everywhere except Washington DC.
As has been said many times, too many don't pay attention until it affects them. And then, they blame the wrong people. Lack of empathy is a signature characteristic of Republicans.
It is weird, but many people cannot afford any "luxury" like flying somewhere for a vacation, so the FAA events are not important to them. The same with the proposed tax of EV auto's (at least here in TX). Only when people are directly affected will they care and how much depends on how affected they are - who will lose healthcare or money for food?
You can’t put a pin on when it started, but we collectively have un-educated ourselves on what government does for us. Passivity and assumption that it is there for us play hand in hand with this.
Americans have been trained for at least half a century to see politics as basically just another form of pro wrestling, in which everything's fake and everyone's just as lying and corrupt and selfish as everyone else. IOW, what Trump and Musk are doing right now is what they've been told their whole lives is how all the federal government works. So it doesn't register as much.
It's, honestly, possibly a bigger problem than anything the politicians, pundits, and rich people are doing in terms of fixing our current problems. You can always fix your problems - countries have crawled out of holes that were so, so, so much worse than the one we have now - but it's pretty hard to do when your average citizen is the guy whose total political aspirations amount to being the guy at the bar sagely intoning "I TOLD you they were all corrupt, maaaann!!!" before taking another bong hit.
Midterms will happen; Trump isn't competent enough to prevent that, and it would probably be impossible anyway because of the federated nature of our elections system. State and local politicians don't want their competence in administering elections called into question, and do not want to have to answer to angry voters.
But the rest of your post is spot on. In a sane country Trump's poll numbers would be in the low 20s or even teens. But our country has been so spoiled for so long—and in particular so conditioned to believe that government is bad and that foreign policy doesn't matter—that it has no concept of what underpins the dominant and hegemonic position in the world that we've enjoyed for so long. They think it's all because of backyard barbecues and nuclear bombs.
So of course they don't understand the damage Trump is doing and how he has—in a matter of months—already unwound a world order built over 75 years. And they won't, until it begins imposing upon their way of life.
While simultaneously buddying up with the people who funded 9/11 and supported bin Laden and Hamas so we can sell some guns and get a free airplane. Hurry call now before price increases and supply chain break down limit availability.
That sense of hopelessness is exactly what dictators in general and the Orange Scourge in particular want us to feel.
You can tell us "it's useless, give it up!" all you like, I for one will not oblige. I'll go to my grave fighting this tooth and nail as best I can. Freedom isn't free, we have to fight for it. And fight we will.
It's a great reminder of the imperative that we continue to Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
The next nationwide rally is June 14, yes >that< June 14, be there or be square!
Let's ruin Chump's B'day. We need 3.5% or the population, or around 12,000,000 people to be present. So bring all your friends and families. Spread the word as far and wide as possible. Let's all get out there with a Howard Beale spirit and yell "We're as mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore!".
this is an express goal of Project 2025 and the execrable Russell Vought. He wants US public servants to wake up in the morning with an upset stomach at the prospect of going to work, because he and his minions will have made things so uncertain and so negative. And Project 2025 did not even mention Musk and his insane levels of random destructiveness.
Alas, they have been succeeding in their horrible plan. They don't want government to success, they want to provide it fails - so they can wrap it up and cart it away, except for the parts they can sell off to their friends to profit from.
My observation is that the average citizen doesn't see government workers in their daily lives, everything just magically works and anyone with advanced education who attains a stable job is gaming the system - maybe because their own employment may be unstable or low-paying, or they just don't want to pay taxes (who actually likes it?).
I think they believe the president and his cabinet are out there actually operating the government themselves and the workers are just trying to confound them (so-called deep state).
Some of the public will only learn when they expect something like FEMA or NTSB to come into their problem and no one shows up. Then it's too late.
Americans are a very docile people. We can't stop our kids from getting gunned down at school, how are we going to stop and authoritarian government? Not with phone calls and postcards, that's for sure.
I think the people ignoring what's happening are the ones watching TikTok videos all day. China had the right idea when it exported TikTok to the world.
Don’t equate impotency with passivity. If Congress and the courts are powerless (or unwilling) to do anything, what effect is citizens carrying signs going to have?
The courts are acting! And boy are they acting! It is the Supreme Court that is messing things up! And citizens with signs make a difference! Always have! The more out there with the signs, the more impact.
Great heartfelt observations, both the hopeful and the pessimistic. Bottom line is like that simplistic principle of theology: do right with compassion for one person one day at a time. We can all do at least this and be proud of our contribution, so long as we do not hide our lights under the proverbial barrel.
Yes. . . WE HaVe N0 BaNaNaS. . . or VeRRy FeW. . .BUT F0RTUNaTeLY WE aRe SEEing M0Re PeOPLE WaKing UP & STANding UP eVeRY daY. . MaKing SigNs, SEEing THE SiGNs, MaKing CaLLs, CaLLing 0uT Lies, SCaMMeRs, ReC0GNiZiNg PRoPaGaNda & P0RNaGRaPHs. . . => I am BEC0MiNg a LiTTLe H0peFuLL. .
When in 1988, my spouse was choosing attorney positions to start his career, we both felt the FDA was the best choice. He would have to make few compromises and stay on the side of the angels. He’s gone now from the FDA and, alas, life, but we both never questioned his choice and always slept well. What this administration is doing to its proud, professional, brilliant patriotic people is to weep (and protest).
Air traffic control has not been well since Reagan fired them all. It never recovered. Covid doubled down on that. Cuts everywhere now. And here we are. How did Reagan EVER get an airport named after him??
I wonder if the number of people who choose not to fly because of the air traffic control situation will cause the airlines to freak out? I for one am rethinking a flight this summer. The situation freaks me out!
I rarely fly, and this makes me less likely to, unless it's a dire emergency. Given the drop in tourists from all over the world to the US, maybe the reduction in flights will help just a bit.
On top of that, the FAA and air traffic control have been underfunded for many years. Congress didn’t make them a budget priority and chose to divert funds elsewhere.
The PATCO members took an oath never to go on strike. They went on strike. Reagan did the right thing; made the union illegal and fired all of its members. It took ATC ten years to recover, but it recovered.
“At least some high-level federal workers accept lower pay than they could make elsewhere because they feel that they’re doing something that matters. No doubt that’s only a relatively small subset of the federal work force, but it’s surely an important subset, people who are doing especially crucial jobs.”
“No doubt?”
A pretty big, unflattering assumption. I have worked in a number of govt and private environments. Most workers were at least as dedicated and proud of their jobs as private sector workers.
Agree. This is an unusually direct elitist statement, unwitting no doubt, by Krugman. Phrased differently, he states that only a small subset of high-level federal workers accept lower pay because they feel they are doing something that matters. This means that lower-level workers are less concerned that their work is important, and certainly means that these workers are not crucial. C’mon Paul.
He has mentioned in the past that the pay disparity between public and private sectors is increases higher up the ladder. And it decreases to negligible levels lower down the ladder. Indeed, the second graphic in this post shows better pay in Federal positions for those without a degree than the private sector.
perhaps, but that does not mean that lower-level public employees do not take job satisfaction from doing something useful and not just to make the boss more moolah.
No! It most certainly doesn't! However, it's not as big a factor as for those high level jobs. Why settle for $125,000 or $250,000 annually if you can rake in $1,000,000 on Wall St.? That's the difference.
Helicopter flies sideways into a landing jet, cue a bunch more crashes over the next few months. Suddenly flying is unsafe, pick your reason, doesn't matter. The public in fear demands that something be done. Solution: reins must be handed over to AI in order to make American skies safe again.
Never fear, Musk's got this solved.
Problem. Reaction. Solution. Stranglehold. Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Thrice is enemy action. How many plane crashes are we up to now?
From most people's perspective, these plane crashes are legit and this is a brand new novel problem that's just begging for an immediate miracle solution--that, like any well timed dialectic, will arrive fully fledged and ready for production just in the nick of time.
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How it all fits together: I did not write this:
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“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” -Peter Thiel
Elon Musk copted and Peter Thiel founded a company that became PayPal.
Other executives at PayPal went on to found or lead other huge tech companies including YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Affirm, and many VC firms.
This group became known as the PayPal mafia because they basically controlled Silicon Valley.
Peter Thiel mentored a young JD Vance and helped him get set up in his first VC firm.
Peter Thiel and the PayPal mafia funded JD Vance's successful Senate run. Amazing because he had absolutely zero political experience.
Thiel and Musk all but forced Trump to choose JD Vance as VP in exchange for funding his presidential campaign.
The three of them, plus a lot of other tech billionaires subscribe to an ideology called the Dark Enlightenment espoused by this super weird, creepy dude: Curtis Yarvin aka Mencius Moldbug.
Yarvin preaches that the media and academia represent "The Cathedral" that secretly controls power and must be dismantled.
He advocates for a corporate run, monarchy, led by a CEO-Dictator. If Trump is gone from office, perhaps by Vance organizing a 25th Amendment removal due to claims about Trump’s cognitive decline, Vance moves in and that process begins.
Remember, it was just a couple of years ago when Musk said Trump was too old to even be a CEO, let alone the president.
Yarvin says that Democracy is an "outdated software" and openly opposes it and that:
- Government agencies should be dismantled and The U.S. should be broken up into "patchworks" controlled by tech oligarchs.
- That the elite tech billionaires should rule because they have the intelligence to "fix" society
- That the "masses are asses" too dumb to govern themselves.
The strategy is to gut the government via R.A.G.E - Retire All Govt Employees to make government incapable of operating.
Then to replace government with private corporations.
To eliminate elections because they are "obsolete"
To use distraction and chaos to prevent public resistance.
Trump is their useful tool to be disposed of as soon as they can wrest control.
This is why Elon wears a black MAGA hat. They are not Trump supporters, they are "Dark MAGA"
This isn't a hypothetical. The plan is already in motion:
- Musk, Thiel, and their network are actively dismantling democratic institutions.
- JD Vance, the “MAGA heir,” is being positioned to help implement this transition.
- The public is too distracted to realize what’s happening.
- If successful, democracy in America will be permanently replaced by a corporate-run authoritarian state.
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Time code: 4:30 Vance: "Accept that This entire thing is going to fall in on itself. And so the task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be conserved and so when the inevitable collapse of the country comes ensure that conservatives can help --> build back <-- the country."
Mr. Harari, thinking about all this, puts it this way: “Utopia and dystopia depends on your values.” … The useless class he describes is uniquely vulnerable. “If a century ago you mounted a revolution against exploitation, you knew that when bad comes to worse, they can’t shoot all of us because they need us,” he said, citing army service and factory work. —Yuval Noah Harari, WEF Second in Command
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DOGE equals RAGE (Retire All Government Employees), and is the unholy design of Curtis Yarvin which Musk is executing in order to gut the government and replace it with spiderweb oligarch corporate AI fueled feudalism—A new “software model” for world control.
I'm sorry that I can't stomach reading all the arsonist manifestos etc. But a key question is who pays for all this? Are the 'asses masses' still expected to pay taxes while the CEO class does not? That has to stop. Dems should campaign on zero taxes from those making less than 100k. Let's see how that flies.
Also, if Universities are closed, who will train the tech workers? They can't all learn on the job.
They're way passed that their technology and control systems are far beyond what we have access to. Here is the second in command of the WEF explaining this:
Mr. Harari, thinking about all this, puts it this way: “Utopia and dystopia depends on your values.” … The useless class he describes is uniquely vulnerable. “If a century ago you mounted a revolution against exploitation, you knew that when bad comes to worse, they can’t shoot all of us because they need us,” he said, citing army service and factory work.
The big political and economic question of the 21st century is: what do we need so many humans for. … The elite doesn’t need you. There is nothing you can do that is beneficial to the political or economic system. Now it is becoming less clear why the ruling elite would not just kill the new useless class. “You’re totally expendable,” he told the audience. … “We don’t need you. But we are nice, so we’ll take care of you.” —Source (worth reading in full): https://archive.is/rWLoO —Yuval Noah Harari
Free speech (getting the word out) is the first answer. The reason for the censorship is to gag us like a kidnapping victim so we cannot sound the alarm and threaten their plans. As for 2A:
Give up your free speech at your peril. Once they are able to silence you, the game is over. The loss of all of your other freedoms will follow shortly after. Anyone that advocates to censor you, or to unmask your anonymity is your adversary. Treat them like one - no matter what else they say.
But why is it so vital and necessary for the combined monolithic apparatus of government, corporations, and NGOs, to brute force censor everyone while decimating the careers and reputations of the dissenters? Here is why:
The reason the First Amendment is prime directive order 1, is because it is the most important freedom we have for the same reason it is the first target an adversary subverts, disrupts, and destroys during a crime, a war, or a takeover—preventing a target from assembling, communicating, and organizing a response to an assault grants an enormous advantage to the aggressors.
The Second Amendment is second because it is the remedy for anyone trying to subvert the First.
(And before anyone asks, the Bill Of Rights was originally a part of the Constitution but were taken out at that last minute in order to create the Bill of Rights - in their order of importance.)
I scratch my head every day on this one...why don't the Dems advocate for 0 taxes for less than xyz? In fact, why am I paying taxes for this crap?? How can we get everyone to just STOP PAYING TAXES!! (I know - I have entered a dream world). But it would be fun to watch the Dems make the proposal. I think I will ask my Congress folk to do just that.
A Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which is no longer used by the way) for individuals is not a terrible idea... Once the strong get to strong everyone with less wealth and power becomes their prey until everything has been gobbled up and merged into one giant unstoppable monolith.
The way around that is to never let them get that powerful in the first place which is what the Anti-Trust Act was created for but lobbing (bribery) and regulatory capture has gutted it completely since...and capitalism will devolve into single juggarnaut ala BlackRock as a result. In fact it's already happened:
Everyone on the planet should watch that. It's as eye popping as anything can be and unless we arm ourselves with the knowledge needed to stop it, it will chain and then doom us all.
The hubris of the mega-rich is they believe they are very smart and entitled to control everything because they accumulated a lot of cash. The truth is that they usually inherited wealth and were simply raveningly greedy.
We should never make the mistake of confusing the outcome of this all-encompassing conflict with the struggle to win it—it is the struggle itself that holds all of the meaning, and that is where our true personal victory lies. Nothing in our life has ever been about whether we win or lose, it has only ever been about how we conduct ourselves during these trials and tribulations.
Anne, life's a journey, not a destination.
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"It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in. no matter the odds or consequences.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move. Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world:
The RAGE thing is interesting; I wonder if the name "DOGE" is a subtle tribute, given the phonic similarity? I don't doubt that it's a reference to the idiotic crypto thing, but maybe that's not the only reference.
If you believe they're terrible at stuff you don't understand their game.
Trump is an ignorant buffoon but he's very good at knowing which levers a mob boss can pull.
The chaotic damage to the US, the EU, and NATO are meant to directly benefit Putin, and if any parts of Trumpland also benefit from (say) buying our national parks on the cheap he's OK with that--as long as he gets a taste.
I think you have a point, but there is no way they expected to be so obviously and acutely ineffective immediately upon taking office. If they could have looked less like clowns while doing it, they would have. But they are clowns. They really have no idea what they're doing when it comes to anything but manipulation of the media and the public.
And that's not nothing! It may very well be all that they need to destroy liberalism and democracy. But if they had shown the ability to do this stuff in a way that wasn't a complete and utter failure politically, I'd be much more afraid of their long goal.
As you sow, so shall you reap. “Government” has been the enemy —of the wealthy, because it regulates and collects taxes, causing them to make less money. The wealthy created think tanks, made alliances with religious groups, and financed “citizen” groups like the Tea Party to convince the non-wealthy that “Government” was their enemy, too. We didn’t dig this hole we’re in overnight.
You are right about the Right’s antigovernment agenda: Hate government, and leave governance of your lives to us. Govern so as not to need “taxes” but run the control systems through “profits” instead. Let death rates rise by gutting health care systems for anyone unable to pay us enough to get “care.” Demand selective population policies - pronatalism for those who accept our rule and the racism and gender repression that comes with it. But rising infant and maternal mortality and repressive racist immigration and voting policies to limit the potential population of resistance.
But don’t ignore the Left’s singular focus on seeing government only as a tool of redistribution and not as the basis for creating both populations and prosperity. Redistribution implies a division into “taxpayers” and “beneficiaries” that is easily exploited to serve Red Team vs Blue Team politics while dividing sentiments among those whose benefits are more cloaked in myths and rhetoric as “earned” and “merited” (often by their conventional privileges of race, gender and age).
So the real question is what kind of society do we actually want to rebuild in the wreckage we are seeing the RAGE of the broliarchy creating?
'Govern so as not to need “taxes” but run the control systems through “profits” instead.'
It occurred to me today that a big part of the reason businesses and the wealthy like tax cuts so much is not just that they get to keep more of their own money, it's that other people get to keep more of their own money, and then the private sector can take it from them, rather than the government.
And take it they do. Tax cuts never increase savings rates, do they? The economy as constructed is basically a machine to hoover as many dollars out of your bank account as are in there, no matter how many there happen to be.
Not only as a tool of redistribution - a tool of >regulation<. You don't put the fox in charge of the hen house - which is what all of St. Reagan's deregulation did, providing for ever growing power of the oligarchy. And redistribution is happening anyway - but in the opposite direction - from the poor to the rich. What does that imply?
That “privatization” is working as intended to build up profits and wreck public services while allowing the myths of “government is inefficient” and “government is the problem” and “government is not on our side” to flourish among the voters who still have any say left in our corporatized democracy.
you neglected to say that the GoP has blocked increases in funds earmarked for the FAA modernization and personnel for many years -- and of course Duffy blamed Biden for the current state of affairs
The other thing is that it will be very difficult to recruit people in the future because it has been demonstrated quite abundantly, that a federal job is only an election away from a humiliating firing spree. Among all the other things to fix, we have to take this kind of power away from the Executive. How can we not? We have a substantial part of the American Polity made up of berserkers. We have to find ways to insulate a functioning government from a Mad King.
Many amendments! We have to take DOJ and the Inspectors General out from under the Executive and turn them into free-standing independent and coequal branches of the government. Maybe any 2 of the 5 branches can call snap elections to replace a dysfunctional branch.
“I was struck by Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, declaring that “patriotic controllers are going to stay on and continue to serve the country.” This from an administration that has taken self-dealing to levels unimagined in our nation’s history.”
As Sinclair Lewis has famously said, “when fascism comes to America, it will be draped in a flag, and carrying a cross!”
Clearly Lewis was quite the clairvoyant man! And calling MAGA out for “self-dealing” on a scale never imagined before, is quite the understatement, or at the very least; a very “diplomatic” interpretation.
This grift is unimaginable, only because no one else is depraved enough to even go down this road, even though many of us imagined just this, before Trump was elected. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears!
Seriously, he has a fake media company (TMTG) being propped up by Wall Street cronies, all of whom have been given special access to the president. He started a crypto company that’s raked in millions, and had a dinner for those spending at least $5 million in crypto coins. He’s extorted law firms and the MSM for millions. He’s weaponized the DOJ and FBI.
He’s destroyed the rule of law, and is now taking $400 million Jets that will be gifted to his Presidential library when his term ends. And to add insult to injury, he’s already completed over 30 deals with Middle Eastern kleptocrats and dictators, that will rake in tens of billions for his family’s business empire. And this doesn’t even include all the patronage to hotels and golf resorts by corporations, special interest groups and foreign governments.
And to think about all of the Biden Crime Family’s grift we heard about for four straight years, as nauseam: Hunter’s laptop. Burisma. And the $6 billion from China. Furthermore, Hunter never held a position in government, unlike Kushner and Ivanka, who made out like bandits:
$1 billion from Qatar in Trump’s fist administration for the Kushner family’s 666 Fifth Ave property that was about to default on its loan sending the Kushner’s into bankruptcy.
$2 billion for Kushner from the Saudi’s at the end of the first administration.
30 trademarks for Ivanka when Xi visited Mara a Lago during Trump’s first administration.
Bottom line, the grifts and audacity of the Trump Criminal Enterprise knows no bottom! And yet, here we are! IMHO…:)
Since you mentioned Sinclair Lewis, I highly recommend everyone read his 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here. So much of it appears to be the playbook for Project 2025. Parts of it gave me the chills. It took me a little while to figure out who the "Minute Men" of Lewis's book are in our current political climate. But the more I read about ICE and DHS grabbing people off the street, the more it seems that they are the Minute Men.
The statements about highly educated federal workers finding meaning in their work and appreciating their job security also applies to higher ed. But now that tenure and freedom of expression are threatened whose going to pursue low paying positions for faculy?
Yikes. Anyone who holds the feet of workers to the fire with the cry "You promised!" must also hold to the fire the feet of those at the top who break the oath to give care for those who work for us. Akin to JP Morgan strike breaking. Unions are good for workers. Period and amen. Reagan was wrong.
Nobody can be allowed to shut down aviation in the US; that's why the members of that union had to agree never to strike. Reagan was right to fire them and ban that union.
Plus, as a federal employee, you get the chance to suddenly not be paid for a while, usually because Republicans refuse to do anything sensible. Now, of course, you may be asked to essentially reverse the whole mission you have been doing for low pay for years because you believed in it.
That is something that comes out of the libertarian playbook: painting civil servants as useless paper pushers, who only serve to make our lives difficult.
In reality, civil servants in Europe are: police, firemen, and first responders that keep you safe, doctors that keep you alive, court judges and prosecutors that uphold the law, forest guards that maintain your nature, food inspectors that keep your food safe, postmen that deliver your mail...
Try to live without any of those groups at your own peril.
There is a problem with libertarianism as freedom. Because there is individual freedom and there's collective freedom. Both are necessary for there to be true freedom. Libertarians only look at individual freedom, as if one individual could live free in a utopian world where they would not need anyone else.
Of course, that freedom ends when they get mugged on the street, and there is no law enforcement to protect them, when they are born with a disease that no insurance company will pay for, and there is no state to assist them, when companies decide to sell rotten meat and there is no agency to prevent them, when someone violates your copyright or your patents and you need someone to keep them off the market, when the market crashes, and you need the state to rescue the financial system and restart the economy, when there is a natural calamity, and someone has to help the victims remake their lives.
You are a libertarian when you are lucky enough that the community needs you more than you need the community. But that can change at a moment's notice, and suddenly your freedom is contingent on the existence of a strong state, and suddenly you find that all those tax dollars you complained about are actually very useful.
The profound ignorance of Conservative Republicans is astounding. Logic says that if a population is growing, so too must the government just to keep up with necessary services to maintain the peace and success of our nation.
The Buearocracy is being attacked by the idiocracy.
For years I insisted that any Republican revolutionary insanity refrain from harming the neutral Buearocrats, and instead they have attacked them.
I will warn again; Republicans are attempting to provoke war while they have control of the military.
The attitude of right-wing politicians and their followers is always driven by prejudice. The right objects to paying taxes, of course, and insists that “government” is “too big”. But rather than conducting careful research and analysis that may or may not support their belies, the right predictably demeans the worth and work ethic of government employees.
Some years ago, I attended a public forum on an initiated measure to cut taxes in North Dakota. The primary advocate began his speech with a joke. “What’s orange, has 4 doors and sleeps 6”. His answer, “a state highway department service truck”. There were a few uncomfortable chuckles. (Having worked on a road construction crew during college, my thought was, “I’d like to see that asshole working out in the North Dakota weather.”)
That initiative failed but the sentiment persists. The no-nothings support their antipathy towards government with prejudice.
The people and politicians who keep insisting that the "government" can't do anything well, they then try to prove it by undercutting the government agencies so that they can't function well. Sure, OK, but how do they expect the government to be effective and string enough to stand up to mega corporations, to stand up against bank fraud by large banks, etc., how do they expect to be able to field an exceptional military force?
It seems that the current administration is going beyond the usual in that they don't want to protect anyone against big corporations and they don't want to prevent corruption. In fact they want to encourage it, as demonstrated today by the announcement that the FBI office that investigates government fraud and corruption (especially corruption in the Congress) is being dismantled.
I was a fed for nearly 22 years. I can't say I loved every minute of it, or that I was never discouraged or even dismissed (not from job but from respect), BUT, I loved almost every minute of it! Believe it or not, not all of us are motivated solely by money! I got to travel, I got to weigh in, I got to help people, I got to learn new things, I got to work with other highly motivated and dedicated federal employees in agencies across the government. I have no regrets. I only experienced one hard setback in my career, but I still managed to make a go of it. I cannot imagine what my colleagues are experiencing now. We didn't go into public service to get rich or wield power over others; we went into it to help our country and our people thrive. We got into it out of love for country and our shared vision that we could help make things better. And, of course, many of us were glad to have a job that provided "enough": enough stability, enough income, enough to build a life for ourselves as well as any other good we might do.
The most unfathomable part of the decline and fall of the US is the relative passivity of the US citizenry. Do you not see what is happening, and how serious it is? How unsustainable it is? How what you are losing daily - allies, reputation, investment, braintrusts, expertise, rule of law, infrastructure- is not something that comes back after the midterms (I seriously doubt that midterms will happen, and even if they do, this situation is not sustainable for another 18 months, so stop kidding yourselves).
The people who are ignoring this are most often, people who only go to right wing "news" sources and know nothing of what is really happening and when told about it, refuse to believe it and label it "fake news". You can't fix stupid.
I also know some highly-educated, liberal-leaning people who have told me they are "trying not to pay too much attention to what's going on". SMH.
The keyword is "trying". That they have to actively ignore it shows they >can't< ignore it. There will come a tipping point. When, where and how IDK, but it's coming.
True for much of the population, but also there are those who feel that any "news" interferes with their all-important music, telereality shows and/or soap operas.
Those who are unlikely to ever bother to vote.
We can afford to write those off.
Frankly, it's become too much to comprehend with the daily onslaught of tragic and depressing news coming out of the WH and the mouths of trumps loyalists. I write my representatives daily via resistbot and want to do more, but what? What else can I do?
Go to protests if you can, whenever you can. The next really big one is June 14. If there is no protest where you are, organize one. Don't just write your reps, call them. Demand town halls and go. Donate if you can. All this especially if you live in a red district and/or state.
Keep doing what you’re doing! That’s what the other side wants, for us to be overwhelmed by all their chaos. Don’t give in! Take a break but come back at it.
I hate that we’re all waiting for June 14!
Me, too. Too long a break.
Other countries "fix stupid". It's call free education accessible to all...
And rules to stop media from dumping deceit into viewers' heads.
Democracy doesn't work if the losers of elections still demand to rule. It's complicated because we definitely have a baseline of rights in this republic, and we should always have the freedom to express our political opinions. But the mandate to rule? No.
So, some passivity in the face of lost elections is the price of living in a civilized democracy.
I wish this was true. Listen to Democrats and party allies and you'll find the entire political class is in the delusion (ot intentionally gaslighting) that we still have a democracy. The failure to understand the gravity of this situation isn't coming just from the right wing FOX viewers.
People are standing up in many ways, and we'll all have an opportunity to protest nationwide on June 14th when there will be No Kings marches everywhere except Washington DC.
https://www.nokings.org/?SQF_SOURCE=indivisible
As has been said many times, too many don't pay attention until it affects them. And then, they blame the wrong people. Lack of empathy is a signature characteristic of Republicans.
It is weird, but many people cannot afford any "luxury" like flying somewhere for a vacation, so the FAA events are not important to them. The same with the proposed tax of EV auto's (at least here in TX). Only when people are directly affected will they care and how much depends on how affected they are - who will lose healthcare or money for food?
You can’t put a pin on when it started, but we collectively have un-educated ourselves on what government does for us. Passivity and assumption that it is there for us play hand in hand with this.
Both the passivity and the assumption are dissipating with every egregious abuse by the Orange Scourge and his minions.
Reality sucks. Swipe left.
That’s the way the world ends. Literally. Our beautiful minds über alles.
Americans have been trained for at least half a century to see politics as basically just another form of pro wrestling, in which everything's fake and everyone's just as lying and corrupt and selfish as everyone else. IOW, what Trump and Musk are doing right now is what they've been told their whole lives is how all the federal government works. So it doesn't register as much.
It's, honestly, possibly a bigger problem than anything the politicians, pundits, and rich people are doing in terms of fixing our current problems. You can always fix your problems - countries have crawled out of holes that were so, so, so much worse than the one we have now - but it's pretty hard to do when your average citizen is the guy whose total political aspirations amount to being the guy at the bar sagely intoning "I TOLD you they were all corrupt, maaaann!!!" before taking another bong hit.
I would like to know where this establishment that lets you smoke weed at the bar is!
I will gladly go there and get high as hell and defend technocracy. Just to break the mold.
Midterms will happen; Trump isn't competent enough to prevent that, and it would probably be impossible anyway because of the federated nature of our elections system. State and local politicians don't want their competence in administering elections called into question, and do not want to have to answer to angry voters.
But the rest of your post is spot on. In a sane country Trump's poll numbers would be in the low 20s or even teens. But our country has been so spoiled for so long—and in particular so conditioned to believe that government is bad and that foreign policy doesn't matter—that it has no concept of what underpins the dominant and hegemonic position in the world that we've enjoyed for so long. They think it's all because of backyard barbecues and nuclear bombs.
So of course they don't understand the damage Trump is doing and how he has—in a matter of months—already unwound a world order built over 75 years. And they won't, until it begins imposing upon their way of life.
While simultaneously buddying up with the people who funded 9/11 and supported bin Laden and Hamas so we can sell some guns and get a free airplane. Hurry call now before price increases and supply chain break down limit availability.
That sense of hopelessness is exactly what dictators in general and the Orange Scourge in particular want us to feel.
You can tell us "it's useless, give it up!" all you like, I for one will not oblige. I'll go to my grave fighting this tooth and nail as best I can. Freedom isn't free, we have to fight for it. And fight we will.
It's a great reminder of the imperative that we continue to Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
The next nationwide rally is June 14, yes >that< June 14, be there or be square!
Let's ruin Chump's B'day. We need 3.5% or the population, or around 12,000,000 people to be present. So bring all your friends and families. Spread the word as far and wide as possible. Let's all get out there with a Howard Beale spirit and yell "We're as mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore!".
https://www.nokings.org/
this is an express goal of Project 2025 and the execrable Russell Vought. He wants US public servants to wake up in the morning with an upset stomach at the prospect of going to work, because he and his minions will have made things so uncertain and so negative. And Project 2025 did not even mention Musk and his insane levels of random destructiveness.
Alas, they have been succeeding in their horrible plan. They don't want government to success, they want to provide it fails - so they can wrap it up and cart it away, except for the parts they can sell off to their friends to profit from.
My observation is that the average citizen doesn't see government workers in their daily lives, everything just magically works and anyone with advanced education who attains a stable job is gaming the system - maybe because their own employment may be unstable or low-paying, or they just don't want to pay taxes (who actually likes it?).
I think they believe the president and his cabinet are out there actually operating the government themselves and the workers are just trying to confound them (so-called deep state).
Some of the public will only learn when they expect something like FEMA or NTSB to come into their problem and no one shows up. Then it's too late.
Americans are a very docile people. We can't stop our kids from getting gunned down at school, how are we going to stop and authoritarian government? Not with phone calls and postcards, that's for sure.
That's an interesting comment. A nation that won't protect its children from guns is hardly going to work very hard to protect the country.
I think the people ignoring what's happening are the ones watching TikTok videos all day. China had the right idea when it exported TikTok to the world.
Don’t equate impotency with passivity. If Congress and the courts are powerless (or unwilling) to do anything, what effect is citizens carrying signs going to have?
The courts are acting! And boy are they acting! It is the Supreme Court that is messing things up! And citizens with signs make a difference! Always have! The more out there with the signs, the more impact.
F i R S T, T R Y it.
D 0 U B T A F T E R T H a T ,
if N o T H i n g W 0 R K s . . .
D o N ‘ T S C U T T L E T R Y i n g
B e F 0 R e Y 0 u ‘ V e T R i e D
Great heartfelt observations, both the hopeful and the pessimistic. Bottom line is like that simplistic principle of theology: do right with compassion for one person one day at a time. We can all do at least this and be proud of our contribution, so long as we do not hide our lights under the proverbial barrel.
--r.c.c.
General strike NOW
Yes. . . WE HaVe N0 BaNaNaS. . . or VeRRy FeW. . .BUT F0RTUNaTeLY WE aRe SEEing M0Re PeOPLE WaKing UP & STANding UP eVeRY daY. . MaKing SigNs, SEEing THE SiGNs, MaKing CaLLs, CaLLing 0uT Lies, SCaMMeRs, ReC0GNiZiNg PRoPaGaNda & P0RNaGRaPHs. . . => I am BEC0MiNg a LiTTLe H0peFuLL. .
When in 1988, my spouse was choosing attorney positions to start his career, we both felt the FDA was the best choice. He would have to make few compromises and stay on the side of the angels. He’s gone now from the FDA and, alas, life, but we both never questioned his choice and always slept well. What this administration is doing to its proud, professional, brilliant patriotic people is to weep (and protest).
Air traffic control has not been well since Reagan fired them all. It never recovered. Covid doubled down on that. Cuts everywhere now. And here we are. How did Reagan EVER get an airport named after him??
Nothing has been the same since Reagan. Every thing is worse because of him.
Trumpkopf represents the nadir of the "Reagan Revolution".
Absolutely. There is no Trumpkof without Reagan.
Indeed. Even the phrase represented by "MAGA" originates with St. Reagan.
Agree. Absolutely. Reagan, and "Citizens United" are the worst things ever to happen to America.
Maybe add Newt Gingrich?
Yeah, and now we can add a majority of the tech bros, too.
And Mitch McConnell. There's a special place in hell reserved for Mitch.
I wonder if the number of people who choose not to fly because of the air traffic control situation will cause the airlines to freak out? I for one am rethinking a flight this summer. The situation freaks me out!
I rarely fly, and this makes me less likely to, unless it's a dire emergency. Given the drop in tourists from all over the world to the US, maybe the reduction in flights will help just a bit.
If there had to be one named after him it is fitting that it is the one where military aircraft run into civilian flights.
St. Reagan became the very heart of GOP propaganda ever since he perfected it.
On top of that, the FAA and air traffic control have been underfunded for many years. Congress didn’t make them a budget priority and chose to divert funds elsewhere.
The PATCO members took an oath never to go on strike. They went on strike. Reagan did the right thing; made the union illegal and fired all of its members. It took ATC ten years to recover, but it recovered.
“At least some high-level federal workers accept lower pay than they could make elsewhere because they feel that they’re doing something that matters. No doubt that’s only a relatively small subset of the federal work force, but it’s surely an important subset, people who are doing especially crucial jobs.”
“No doubt?”
A pretty big, unflattering assumption. I have worked in a number of govt and private environments. Most workers were at least as dedicated and proud of their jobs as private sector workers.
I can vouch for Census, NOAA and NASA employees.
Agree. This is an unusually direct elitist statement, unwitting no doubt, by Krugman. Phrased differently, he states that only a small subset of high-level federal workers accept lower pay because they feel they are doing something that matters. This means that lower-level workers are less concerned that their work is important, and certainly means that these workers are not crucial. C’mon Paul.
He has mentioned in the past that the pay disparity between public and private sectors is increases higher up the ladder. And it decreases to negligible levels lower down the ladder. Indeed, the second graphic in this post shows better pay in Federal positions for those without a degree than the private sector.
perhaps, but that does not mean that lower-level public employees do not take job satisfaction from doing something useful and not just to make the boss more moolah.
No! It most certainly doesn't! However, it's not as big a factor as for those high level jobs. Why settle for $125,000 or $250,000 annually if you can rake in $1,000,000 on Wall St.? That's the difference.
You know the answer, I'm sure: not everyone making 250k is Jonesing for more, and I'd say most of the ones who do aren't at all well.
Exactly!
Helicopter flies sideways into a landing jet, cue a bunch more crashes over the next few months. Suddenly flying is unsafe, pick your reason, doesn't matter. The public in fear demands that something be done. Solution: reins must be handed over to AI in order to make American skies safe again.
Never fear, Musk's got this solved.
Problem. Reaction. Solution. Stranglehold. Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Thrice is enemy action. How many plane crashes are we up to now?
From most people's perspective, these plane crashes are legit and this is a brand new novel problem that's just begging for an immediate miracle solution--that, like any well timed dialectic, will arrive fully fledged and ready for production just in the nick of time.
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How it all fits together: I did not write this:
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“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” -Peter Thiel
Elon Musk copted and Peter Thiel founded a company that became PayPal.
Other executives at PayPal went on to found or lead other huge tech companies including YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Affirm, and many VC firms.
This group became known as the PayPal mafia because they basically controlled Silicon Valley.
Peter Thiel mentored a young JD Vance and helped him get set up in his first VC firm.
Peter Thiel and the PayPal mafia funded JD Vance's successful Senate run. Amazing because he had absolutely zero political experience.
Thiel and Musk all but forced Trump to choose JD Vance as VP in exchange for funding his presidential campaign.
The three of them, plus a lot of other tech billionaires subscribe to an ideology called the Dark Enlightenment espoused by this super weird, creepy dude: Curtis Yarvin aka Mencius Moldbug.
Yarvin preaches that the media and academia represent "The Cathedral" that secretly controls power and must be dismantled.
He advocates for a corporate run, monarchy, led by a CEO-Dictator. If Trump is gone from office, perhaps by Vance organizing a 25th Amendment removal due to claims about Trump’s cognitive decline, Vance moves in and that process begins.
Remember, it was just a couple of years ago when Musk said Trump was too old to even be a CEO, let alone the president.
Yarvin says that Democracy is an "outdated software" and openly opposes it and that:
- Government agencies should be dismantled and The U.S. should be broken up into "patchworks" controlled by tech oligarchs.
- That the elite tech billionaires should rule because they have the intelligence to "fix" society
- That the "masses are asses" too dumb to govern themselves.
The strategy is to gut the government via R.A.G.E - Retire All Govt Employees to make government incapable of operating.
Then to replace government with private corporations.
To eliminate elections because they are "obsolete"
To use distraction and chaos to prevent public resistance.
Trump is their useful tool to be disposed of as soon as they can wrest control.
This is why Elon wears a black MAGA hat. They are not Trump supporters, they are "Dark MAGA"
This isn't a hypothetical. The plan is already in motion:
- Musk, Thiel, and their network are actively dismantling democratic institutions.
- JD Vance, the “MAGA heir,” is being positioned to help implement this transition.
- The public is too distracted to realize what’s happening.
- If successful, democracy in America will be permanently replaced by a corporate-run authoritarian state.
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Time code: 4:30 Vance: "Accept that This entire thing is going to fall in on itself. And so the task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be conserved and so when the inevitable collapse of the country comes ensure that conservatives can help --> build back <-- the country."
Purpose of DOGE: Dismantle Existing System of Governance & Build Back Spiderweb AI Infrastructure: https://old.bitchute.com/video/EUer0GMfzKvl [7:03mins]
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Purpose of DOGE: A Billionaire's Utopia is Our Dystopia Snow Crash Predictive Programming: https://old.bitchute.com/video/PiKR2hqZgiwE [6:33mins]
Mr. Harari, thinking about all this, puts it this way: “Utopia and dystopia depends on your values.” … The useless class he describes is uniquely vulnerable. “If a century ago you mounted a revolution against exploitation, you knew that when bad comes to worse, they can’t shoot all of us because they need us,” he said, citing army service and factory work. —Yuval Noah Harari, WEF Second in Command
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DOGE equals RAGE (Retire All Government Employees), and is the unholy design of Curtis Yarvin which Musk is executing in order to gut the government and replace it with spiderweb oligarch corporate AI fueled feudalism—A new “software model” for world control.
I'm sorry that I can't stomach reading all the arsonist manifestos etc. But a key question is who pays for all this? Are the 'asses masses' still expected to pay taxes while the CEO class does not? That has to stop. Dems should campaign on zero taxes from those making less than 100k. Let's see how that flies.
Also, if Universities are closed, who will train the tech workers? They can't all learn on the job.
They're way passed that their technology and control systems are far beyond what we have access to. Here is the second in command of the WEF explaining this:
Mr. Harari, thinking about all this, puts it this way: “Utopia and dystopia depends on your values.” … The useless class he describes is uniquely vulnerable. “If a century ago you mounted a revolution against exploitation, you knew that when bad comes to worse, they can’t shoot all of us because they need us,” he said, citing army service and factory work.
The big political and economic question of the 21st century is: what do we need so many humans for. … The elite doesn’t need you. There is nothing you can do that is beneficial to the political or economic system. Now it is becoming less clear why the ruling elite would not just kill the new useless class. “You’re totally expendable,” he told the audience. … “We don’t need you. But we are nice, so we’ll take care of you.” —Source (worth reading in full): https://archive.is/rWLoO —Yuval Noah Harari
Tbis still doesn't answer the money question. And. Useless is in the eye of the beholder. 2A may be one answer
Free speech (getting the word out) is the first answer. The reason for the censorship is to gag us like a kidnapping victim so we cannot sound the alarm and threaten their plans. As for 2A:
Give up your free speech at your peril. Once they are able to silence you, the game is over. The loss of all of your other freedoms will follow shortly after. Anyone that advocates to censor you, or to unmask your anonymity is your adversary. Treat them like one - no matter what else they say.
But why is it so vital and necessary for the combined monolithic apparatus of government, corporations, and NGOs, to brute force censor everyone while decimating the careers and reputations of the dissenters? Here is why:
The reason the First Amendment is prime directive order 1, is because it is the most important freedom we have for the same reason it is the first target an adversary subverts, disrupts, and destroys during a crime, a war, or a takeover—preventing a target from assembling, communicating, and organizing a response to an assault grants an enormous advantage to the aggressors.
The Second Amendment is second because it is the remedy for anyone trying to subvert the First.
(And before anyone asks, the Bill Of Rights was originally a part of the Constitution but were taken out at that last minute in order to create the Bill of Rights - in their order of importance.)
I kind of follow you and I don't disagree. But try to pare down your wall of text
AI will replace all the tech workers. That's part of the plan.
I scratch my head every day on this one...why don't the Dems advocate for 0 taxes for less than xyz? In fact, why am I paying taxes for this crap?? How can we get everyone to just STOP PAYING TAXES!! (I know - I have entered a dream world). But it would be fun to watch the Dems make the proposal. I think I will ask my Congress folk to do just that.
When was the last time anyone got OJT?
What's ojt
On The job Training
The take-home message here is that we have to create an enforceable net worth/wealth cap.
A Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which is no longer used by the way) for individuals is not a terrible idea... Once the strong get to strong everyone with less wealth and power becomes their prey until everything has been gobbled up and merged into one giant unstoppable monolith.
The way around that is to never let them get that powerful in the first place which is what the Anti-Trust Act was created for but lobbing (bribery) and regulatory capture has gutted it completely since...and capitalism will devolve into single juggarnaut ala BlackRock as a result. In fact it's already happened:
Orwellian BlackRock CEO Larry Fink: We Are Forcing Behaviors To Change, How? By OWNING Everything!: https://old.bitchute.com/video/ei6QD8ZPl6DU [45mins]
Everyone on the planet should watch that. It's as eye popping as anything can be and unless we arm ourselves with the knowledge needed to stop it, it will chain and then doom us all.
The hubris of the mega-rich is they believe they are very smart and entitled to control everything because they accumulated a lot of cash. The truth is that they usually inherited wealth and were simply raveningly greedy.
They inherited part of it - and used that to steal the rest.
It is the evil of vast generational wealth.
Greedy, unscrupulous, and above the law:
“Justice” is merely a middle class illusion.
The rich know better
The poor know better
Each from opposite directions…
Reading your posts, I am not sure how you get up each morning. Quite dismal.
We should never make the mistake of confusing the outcome of this all-encompassing conflict with the struggle to win it—it is the struggle itself that holds all of the meaning, and that is where our true personal victory lies. Nothing in our life has ever been about whether we win or lose, it has only ever been about how we conduct ourselves during these trials and tribulations.
Anne, life's a journey, not a destination.
--
"It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in. no matter the odds or consequences.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move. Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world:
“No. You move.” —Mark Twain
"Other executives at PayPal went on to found or lead other huge tech companies including YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Affirm, and many VC firms."
Other executives at PayPal named Marc Andreessen - another Moldbug fan.
Thank God they're terrible at stuff.
The RAGE thing is interesting; I wonder if the name "DOGE" is a subtle tribute, given the phonic similarity? I don't doubt that it's a reference to the idiotic crypto thing, but maybe that's not the only reference.
If you believe they're terrible at stuff you don't understand their game.
Trump is an ignorant buffoon but he's very good at knowing which levers a mob boss can pull.
The chaotic damage to the US, the EU, and NATO are meant to directly benefit Putin, and if any parts of Trumpland also benefit from (say) buying our national parks on the cheap he's OK with that--as long as he gets a taste.
I think you have a point, but there is no way they expected to be so obviously and acutely ineffective immediately upon taking office. If they could have looked less like clowns while doing it, they would have. But they are clowns. They really have no idea what they're doing when it comes to anything but manipulation of the media and the public.
And that's not nothing! It may very well be all that they need to destroy liberalism and democracy. But if they had shown the ability to do this stuff in a way that wasn't a complete and utter failure politically, I'd be much more afraid of their long goal.
Don't worry. Mr Thiel has bought a large doomsday exit property in the Southern Hemisphere one gathers.
He'll take Yosemite for his own. Nice view of Half Dome.
As you sow, so shall you reap. “Government” has been the enemy —of the wealthy, because it regulates and collects taxes, causing them to make less money. The wealthy created think tanks, made alliances with religious groups, and financed “citizen” groups like the Tea Party to convince the non-wealthy that “Government” was their enemy, too. We didn’t dig this hole we’re in overnight.
You are right about the Right’s antigovernment agenda: Hate government, and leave governance of your lives to us. Govern so as not to need “taxes” but run the control systems through “profits” instead. Let death rates rise by gutting health care systems for anyone unable to pay us enough to get “care.” Demand selective population policies - pronatalism for those who accept our rule and the racism and gender repression that comes with it. But rising infant and maternal mortality and repressive racist immigration and voting policies to limit the potential population of resistance.
But don’t ignore the Left’s singular focus on seeing government only as a tool of redistribution and not as the basis for creating both populations and prosperity. Redistribution implies a division into “taxpayers” and “beneficiaries” that is easily exploited to serve Red Team vs Blue Team politics while dividing sentiments among those whose benefits are more cloaked in myths and rhetoric as “earned” and “merited” (often by their conventional privileges of race, gender and age).
So the real question is what kind of society do we actually want to rebuild in the wreckage we are seeing the RAGE of the broliarchy creating?
'Govern so as not to need “taxes” but run the control systems through “profits” instead.'
It occurred to me today that a big part of the reason businesses and the wealthy like tax cuts so much is not just that they get to keep more of their own money, it's that other people get to keep more of their own money, and then the private sector can take it from them, rather than the government.
And take it they do. Tax cuts never increase savings rates, do they? The economy as constructed is basically a machine to hoover as many dollars out of your bank account as are in there, no matter how many there happen to be.
Not only as a tool of redistribution - a tool of >regulation<. You don't put the fox in charge of the hen house - which is what all of St. Reagan's deregulation did, providing for ever growing power of the oligarchy. And redistribution is happening anyway - but in the opposite direction - from the poor to the rich. What does that imply?
That “privatization” is working as intended to build up profits and wreck public services while allowing the myths of “government is inefficient” and “government is the problem” and “government is not on our side” to flourish among the voters who still have any say left in our corporatized democracy.
That sounds about right.
Yeah, "citizen" groups like the Tea Party (Koch Bros.) and Proud Boys.
Exactly.
you neglected to say that the GoP has blocked increases in funds earmarked for the FAA modernization and personnel for many years -- and of course Duffy blamed Biden for the current state of affairs
of course-but blame reagan-never
The other thing is that it will be very difficult to recruit people in the future because it has been demonstrated quite abundantly, that a federal job is only an election away from a humiliating firing spree. Among all the other things to fix, we have to take this kind of power away from the Executive. How can we not? We have a substantial part of the American Polity made up of berserkers. We have to find ways to insulate a functioning government from a Mad King.
We'll need a Constitutional amendment to harden the guardrails.
Many amendments! We have to take DOJ and the Inspectors General out from under the Executive and turn them into free-standing independent and coequal branches of the government. Maybe any 2 of the 5 branches can call snap elections to replace a dysfunctional branch.
Oh yes! Absolutely! I was just talking about the very first one we need ;-)
“I was struck by Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, declaring that “patriotic controllers are going to stay on and continue to serve the country.” This from an administration that has taken self-dealing to levels unimagined in our nation’s history.”
As Sinclair Lewis has famously said, “when fascism comes to America, it will be draped in a flag, and carrying a cross!”
Clearly Lewis was quite the clairvoyant man! And calling MAGA out for “self-dealing” on a scale never imagined before, is quite the understatement, or at the very least; a very “diplomatic” interpretation.
This grift is unimaginable, only because no one else is depraved enough to even go down this road, even though many of us imagined just this, before Trump was elected. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears!
Seriously, he has a fake media company (TMTG) being propped up by Wall Street cronies, all of whom have been given special access to the president. He started a crypto company that’s raked in millions, and had a dinner for those spending at least $5 million in crypto coins. He’s extorted law firms and the MSM for millions. He’s weaponized the DOJ and FBI.
He’s destroyed the rule of law, and is now taking $400 million Jets that will be gifted to his Presidential library when his term ends. And to add insult to injury, he’s already completed over 30 deals with Middle Eastern kleptocrats and dictators, that will rake in tens of billions for his family’s business empire. And this doesn’t even include all the patronage to hotels and golf resorts by corporations, special interest groups and foreign governments.
And to think about all of the Biden Crime Family’s grift we heard about for four straight years, as nauseam: Hunter’s laptop. Burisma. And the $6 billion from China. Furthermore, Hunter never held a position in government, unlike Kushner and Ivanka, who made out like bandits:
$1 billion from Qatar in Trump’s fist administration for the Kushner family’s 666 Fifth Ave property that was about to default on its loan sending the Kushner’s into bankruptcy.
$2 billion for Kushner from the Saudi’s at the end of the first administration.
30 trademarks for Ivanka when Xi visited Mara a Lago during Trump’s first administration.
Bottom line, the grifts and audacity of the Trump Criminal Enterprise knows no bottom! And yet, here we are! IMHO…:)
Since you mentioned Sinclair Lewis, I highly recommend everyone read his 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here. So much of it appears to be the playbook for Project 2025. Parts of it gave me the chills. It took me a little while to figure out who the "Minute Men" of Lewis's book are in our current political climate. But the more I read about ICE and DHS grabbing people off the street, the more it seems that they are the Minute Men.
I think you've covered just about everything here, I have nothing to add.
"But her emails!" "Bengazi!". Okay, I had something to add, if not much.
The statements about highly educated federal workers finding meaning in their work and appreciating their job security also applies to higher ed. But now that tenure and freedom of expression are threatened whose going to pursue low paying positions for faculy?
“Faculty” has long been hollowed out by high pay for star celebrity professors and minimum wage zero hour work for adjunct faculty.
And those minimum wage adjuncts are often the best professors!
Reagan started by firing the controller. This is the fruit of his despicable actions.
They took an oath never to strike. They went out on strike anyway. Reagan did the right thing.
Yikes. Anyone who holds the feet of workers to the fire with the cry "You promised!" must also hold to the fire the feet of those at the top who break the oath to give care for those who work for us. Akin to JP Morgan strike breaking. Unions are good for workers. Period and amen. Reagan was wrong.
Nobody can be allowed to shut down aviation in the US; that's why the members of that union had to agree never to strike. Reagan was right to fire them and ban that union.
Plus, as a federal employee, you get the chance to suddenly not be paid for a while, usually because Republicans refuse to do anything sensible. Now, of course, you may be asked to essentially reverse the whole mission you have been doing for low pay for years because you believed in it.
That is something that comes out of the libertarian playbook: painting civil servants as useless paper pushers, who only serve to make our lives difficult.
In reality, civil servants in Europe are: police, firemen, and first responders that keep you safe, doctors that keep you alive, court judges and prosecutors that uphold the law, forest guards that maintain your nature, food inspectors that keep your food safe, postmen that deliver your mail...
Try to live without any of those groups at your own peril.
And teachers, lots and lots of teachers.
Yes, lots and lots of teachers 😃
Libertarian, to be free to do what is best for you, to be all that you can be. All within bounds that are as wide as you deem they need to be.
There is a problem with libertarianism as freedom. Because there is individual freedom and there's collective freedom. Both are necessary for there to be true freedom. Libertarians only look at individual freedom, as if one individual could live free in a utopian world where they would not need anyone else.
Of course, that freedom ends when they get mugged on the street, and there is no law enforcement to protect them, when they are born with a disease that no insurance company will pay for, and there is no state to assist them, when companies decide to sell rotten meat and there is no agency to prevent them, when someone violates your copyright or your patents and you need someone to keep them off the market, when the market crashes, and you need the state to rescue the financial system and restart the economy, when there is a natural calamity, and someone has to help the victims remake their lives.
You are a libertarian when you are lucky enough that the community needs you more than you need the community. But that can change at a moment's notice, and suddenly your freedom is contingent on the existence of a strong state, and suddenly you find that all those tax dollars you complained about are actually very useful.
Other than that libertarians are free to be.
The profound ignorance of Conservative Republicans is astounding. Logic says that if a population is growing, so too must the government just to keep up with necessary services to maintain the peace and success of our nation.
The Buearocracy is being attacked by the idiocracy.
For years I insisted that any Republican revolutionary insanity refrain from harming the neutral Buearocrats, and instead they have attacked them.
I will warn again; Republicans are attempting to provoke war while they have control of the military.
Show them no mercy.
The attitude of right-wing politicians and their followers is always driven by prejudice. The right objects to paying taxes, of course, and insists that “government” is “too big”. But rather than conducting careful research and analysis that may or may not support their belies, the right predictably demeans the worth and work ethic of government employees.
Some years ago, I attended a public forum on an initiated measure to cut taxes in North Dakota. The primary advocate began his speech with a joke. “What’s orange, has 4 doors and sleeps 6”. His answer, “a state highway department service truck”. There were a few uncomfortable chuckles. (Having worked on a road construction crew during college, my thought was, “I’d like to see that asshole working out in the North Dakota weather.”)
That initiative failed but the sentiment persists. The no-nothings support their antipathy towards government with prejudice.
The people and politicians who keep insisting that the "government" can't do anything well, they then try to prove it by undercutting the government agencies so that they can't function well. Sure, OK, but how do they expect the government to be effective and string enough to stand up to mega corporations, to stand up against bank fraud by large banks, etc., how do they expect to be able to field an exceptional military force?
It seems that the current administration is going beyond the usual in that they don't want to protect anyone against big corporations and they don't want to prevent corruption. In fact they want to encourage it, as demonstrated today by the announcement that the FBI office that investigates government fraud and corruption (especially corruption in the Congress) is being dismantled.
I was a fed for nearly 22 years. I can't say I loved every minute of it, or that I was never discouraged or even dismissed (not from job but from respect), BUT, I loved almost every minute of it! Believe it or not, not all of us are motivated solely by money! I got to travel, I got to weigh in, I got to help people, I got to learn new things, I got to work with other highly motivated and dedicated federal employees in agencies across the government. I have no regrets. I only experienced one hard setback in my career, but I still managed to make a go of it. I cannot imagine what my colleagues are experiencing now. We didn't go into public service to get rich or wield power over others; we went into it to help our country and our people thrive. We got into it out of love for country and our shared vision that we could help make things better. And, of course, many of us were glad to have a job that provided "enough": enough stability, enough income, enough to build a life for ourselves as well as any other good we might do.