The Musk Administration is now talking openly about destroying Social Security and Medicare in addition to starving people in third world countries dependent on US food grown by US farmers who are also being left high and dry by the government. And here we are driving around Argentina. It feels a bit weird to be fiddling while watching the country I thought was a bulwark for decency get shredded to loud cheers of support from the people. But here we are.
We use Starlink and very good it is too but my revulsion at what is happening in the US causes me to look at my receiver rather as though it were Rosemary’s Baby.
Meanwhile Congress is writing a budget to give tax cuts to…Musk. And it looks as though there is no leader ready willing or able to stop this.
They used to tell us that most Americans were not saving enough for retirement so we got steady jobs with pensions and planned a retirement strategy. Pensions, savings and social security. Now an unelected billionaire is upending our lives. And worse than that will destroy people barely scraping by on Medicare and Social Security. And no one seems to care. I find it baffling.
I got a message from a friend worried about not only social security but veterans benefits. America is doing nothing while President Musk attacks veteran health care. To me this is unimaginable. And yet Republicans who own Congress, the courts and half the governorships say nothing. Democrats can’t tout their achievements so I don’t expect much from them in this crisis.
Layne points out we can’t live any more cheaply than in South America a region which is also largely out of the aim of world wide war mongering but I feel awkward writing about this, our relatively carefree existence at a time when so much is not just going wrong but is being torn down at home.
No one approves of fraud and waste but when Musk fires government inspectors and uses unskilled labor to carry out a facsimile of forensic auditing I wonder at the lack of protest.
I have no idea how to proceed. Layne wants to carry on as long as we can; she’s a Jew and has no desire to live under a white Christian Nationalist dictatorship. I don’t know if we should pack up and go back to Britain to settle in a place I’ve not lived in for forty years, or stay here or return to the US to join a protest that must surely develop.
I can’t say I’ve been a fan of the leadership of the country over the years. I was glad to see a black President but Obama struck me as beholden to big business and the Democratic Leadership Council which I have despised since NAFTA brought it to light. But to see a President threatening opponents, calling protests illegal and ignoring court orders leads me to think we have moved into a new age of authoritarian anarchy that is not for me. And the worst of it is there are millions of Americans cheering this on. Once Trump goes, if he ever does, they will still be there.
I have no interest in trans gender stuff or book banning or telling women to have children. I want peace order and certainty and I expect a change of government every now and again to keep the ship of state hewing a steady course. I’d like more money spent to help the poor and incapable, as in a country of 320 million you can’t expect everyone to be on the ball and managing their lives. And until now with lots of failures the country has done a passable job of this. If the government provides support for the needy and incompetent I can see no better use of my tax money. Supporting veterans any way they need help seems obvious but firing park rangers and meteorologists to balance the national budget seems ludicrous. And attacking social security, a self contained pension fund accusing it of vast fraud seems like a crime to me, and no one I know elected Musk and his statements are made with no figures to back them up, no checking or discussion. People are just getting fired on a private citizen’s whim.
I find this betrayal by the nation I have cherished to be deeply unsettling. I know my history and I know what comes next. We are being undermined by Russia (what the hell would Ronald Reagan say about that?!) and never have I heard Trump say sorry or admit he was wrong. There’s something wrong there as the stock market tanks and business leaders panic.
While I appreciate this old fashioned page not written by AI, advertising free and so forth is a balm in these times I felt the need to say I am not traveling untroubled. I look at the countries we travel through to try to understand, not just to look at nature or make a buck off social media. At the same time my secure home base has been thrown into confusion and I feel adrift. My favorite quote about the 1933 take over in Germany is from the British Ambassador in Berlin sent to the Foreign Office in London.
Sir Horace Rumbold was later credited with being ahead of his time in anticipating the horrors to come but his warnings fell on deaf ears. He died in 1941. His description of the new regime in 1933 resembles rather too closely for comfort the Christian Nationalism of our own Secretary of Defense and assistant director of the FBI:
Rumbold concluded by giving stark warnings for the future of international relations:
Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary, found Rumbold's descriptions to be "definitely disquieting".[8]Ralph Wigram, an official in the Foreign Office, gave Winston Churchill a copy of this despatch in the middle of March 1936.[9] After Rumbold's death, Lord Vansittart said of him that "little escaped him, and his warnings [about Nazi Germany] were clearer than anything that we got later".[10] Walter Laqueurconcurred by claiming that Rumbold's "prophetic" insights explained the Third Reich better than the expert opinions that were later issued from the OSS.[11]
If my words sound hysterical I draw your attention to the cabinet of billionaires and the appointment of people not fit to serve in high office. How to cope with what is to come is made more complicated for me by the fact that Layne and I have choices. What is the correct choice I’m sure I don’t know and this causes me stress. I wish you well but now more than ever the Chinese curse said to be: “May you live in interesting times” seems to apply.
