What Is A Kleptocracy? (We are all in jeopardy and its no quiz show.)

[Above photo: Built on the hill overlooking medieval Guimeras in 1401 by the Duke of Braganca, it houses magnificent and immense tapestries relating to Portugal’s various attempts to conquer N. Africa. Eh, you suggest a little baseboard heating?]

7 February 2025

We’ve had repeated snowfall over the past 2 weeks. And it’s snowing again! However, just a flurry this time. A large blizzard is expected on Sunday. While I enjoy the ease and comfort of the tropics and the mild climate of Berkeley, snow excites me, even when I don’t go out in it . Shoveling a passage to the street this morning so I could move my car there and allow the plough guy to clear our lot felt surreal. A little warmth and all this heavy stuff blocking my way would turn to water and drain down the street.

I have another virus, complete with a racking cough and cold sores and exhaustion. Following my Christmas Covid, I wonder if my system is gradually shutting down as I steadily ascend in age. I’m not pleased with the state of things in my body at the moment, however, I’m still planning a cross-country ski getaway in NH or VT with Harold.

Nor pleased with the body politic. It is alarming, what passes for governance in DC now. I think that it will be important to save anger for strategic postings, not simply the hysterical rant I feel like shouting right now. We are likely going to have a surveillance state soon.

It is ironic that I have been following and empathizing with my students and Burmese friends re. the hideous events that have transpired in the past 4 years (1 February 2021) since the coup and now find myself receiving care and condolence from them. They couldn’t talk substantially in public tea shops for decades. The stranger(s) next to them were likely spies. I wonder how soon before we experience that, albeit electronically, previously so unimaginable here.

The suspension of USAID and PEPFAR funding (the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief) are devastating to the developing world, including to our own credibility and relationships there. China will surely seize the opportunity to fill the vacuum. An estimated 26 million people are alive, especially in Africa, because of PEPFAR programs, George W’s brilliant idea and for which reason alone we must treat him with some respect. We can expect the HIV prevalence to increase dramatically, as well as maternal-child transmission and an immense new group of AIDS orphans. Malawi still has at least two coffin-makers in every small village.

It is stunning when a small bunny in the open, surprised by a wolf, say, freezes, hoping against hope to look like a rock or a bush. Fight-fly-swim-flee-freeze, a menu of responses to extreme danger. One doesn’t make a wolf nicer by being nice to them, however. It just assures them an easier, more rapid dining experience.

It is curious, because if you or I took our [extremely young] helpers into the inner workings of the Treasury department, we’d be arrested in a minute. Rightly so. Isn’t ATF part of Treasury? Why is the Musk walking free?

Morality, as defined by Kohlberg many years ago, comes in 3 stages. Simplified, in Stage 1 I won’t do something bad because I might get caught. It is where many toddlers function, including the current Toddler-in-Chief. Most of us hang around Stage 2—I want to fit in. I want to think of myself as a trustworthy person. I want the approval of my peers. I want to live in a society where people follow the rules, with occasional minor dips into Stage 1 (Was that conference in Marseilles really a fully tax-deductible business expense, even if I only attended 1 of 5 days? Who will know?) Stage 3 is for extraordinary circumstances where I will disregard the law to pursue a higher good: My child is starving. I cannot see how to get food any other way, so I shall steal a loaf of bread. Or, this person is trying to plant a bomb; I’ll attempt to kill him.

Our Constitution clearly isn’t going to protect us in our current situation, since the arbiters of it are the current Supreme Court. Sociopaths, except monarchs, weren’t a consideration when it was written. I hope our Democratic leaders and the powerful people in a position to oppose this wild and unconstitutional dismantling of not just our government but of our democracy will do their best to move quickly to apprehend and constrain the dismantlers. While we cannot descend to their depths, we must not remain constrained by the same laws, rules, and, even, scruples to which we’d adhere if we had mutually agreed upon them.

They are not striving to make America stronger, “Great Again!”, or work better for the mass of its people. They are tearing it apart, our international friends and potential allies are being alienated from us, and the country is becoming a vector of hatred, greed, and unrestrained threats in the world, which clearly will lead to enemies and weakness, if not collapse.

Earlier, it was easy to feel lulled into “Oh, that’s just the way he is.” Or, now, “My head is spinning. I feel hopeless.”

It is clear what they are doing, establishing a kleptocracy, the rule of a few rich robbers. Just recall how long ago the Bolshevik Revolution was and how every subsequent generation in Russia has suffered under the yoke of authoritarianism, despite the many and courageous who have tried to throw it off. We need our own Alexy Navalny, quickly.

Arrest them, before it is too late!