Kleptocracy Rising

[Above photo:  The entrance to a wealthy Roman’s home in Conimbriga, Portugal, a timely reminder that money only gets you so far.]

3 March 2025

What is happening now in our country is suffocating. However, we have to breathe what air we can find and rise up.   The revenge bus, those of us shouting “Told you so.”, only goes to the dump and back. It is a terrifying time, noting that it apparently took Hitler only 53 days to dismember the German Democratic Republic. DT is trying to break that record.

A chainsaw is an apt metaphor for EM’s operation. If you want to save money by making government more efficient, you analyze the various elements to discover what is actually inefficient, not simply close down entire agencies.

Cutting off USAID means condemning millions of children and their parents to starvation and more. Stopping funding for PEPFAR will condemn pregnant HIV-positive mothers, who were probably given the virus by their galivanting husbands, to give birth to HIV-positive infants and for children and adults to no longer receive life-saving anti-retroviral medications. Nuclear inspectors, cancer research, early warning systems for hurricanes and on and on. It will mean hundreds of thousands out of work and overburdened, ineffective government. Jeez, the IRS returns $12 for $1 spent when auditing wealthy tax cheats, so why cut those services in the name of efficiency? In a totally different category, either a surrender or a re-alignment, given your understanding, is closing off our crypto-surveillance of Russia? Let’s cozy up to the samovar, eh?

It’s nothing about efficiency. It is all about cowing the American public with a show of overwhelming, if illegal, force and restructuring government to funnel money to the super-rich. Kleptocracy, a la Russia, is the main course being prepared in the White House kitchen. Loveless and insecure schoolyard bullies will feast on it.  Those who oppose them, and their families, are in potential danger, given the repeated endorsement of violence by DT.  I do wish some members of the GOP would demonstrate the spine of Liz Cheney and Adam Kissinger’s, however. Bubba Schumer should not be on TV representing the Democrats; none will follow him.

When I had lung cancer, one of my many crazed chemo-brain fantasies was to form a cadre of terminally ill but like-minded people to assassinate those who endangered our democracy. Even then they were scheming. It would be a dreadful thing to initiate a cycle of violence, then or now, and it would be totally counterproductive. It is surprising to me how quickly my mind turns to violence in this situation, however. I suspect that I am not alone.

I just fired a contractor whose brother was fixing rotten sills on my front windows. It was a one-man job but I was paying for two. After 3 days work they’d cut off and refaced only 2 of 6 sills, working a few hours a day and disappearing. A promise to come and work an entire day to finish off the job was demolished when the brother showed up at 1 on a Monday, so drunk he couldn’t finish a sentence. Then I discovered that a box of my bits, one of which he’d used, had vanished and, a few nights of restless sleep caused me to end the entire debacle.

I hate dishonesty. I don’t cheat on my taxes, although knowing where they are now likely to go may change that. But interpersonal dishonesty infuriates me.  We had one of these experiences when we had a kitchen redone. Poki, thankfully, went over the billing and found time-stamped receipts when the carpenters had charged us as being on the job from 8-5 but they actually were on their way to work, stopping at a hardware store 45 minutes away from us at 11AM. And more of the same. This cannot be of interest to anyone except myself, but I need to write it down and send it out—self-exorcism.

I am looking at hiking with a small group in southern France next September, following the route of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes. We won’t sleep outside, rather in BnBs with stables, as we’ll want to bring along at least one donkey for the full experience. We may use a van to transport our luggage or we may hire a number of donkeys. I loved the name Stevenson gave his: Modestine.  He seemed to have invented the sleeping bag; his was a sack of waxed canvass lined with sheepskins. It likely weighed about 60 pounds but kept him snug when living rough. The woman assembling the trip is a professor of French literature and a lively soul. Afterward, I’ll slip over the Pyrenees and visit my sister-in-law and nephews near Porto.

Ari is training her Border Collie, Storm, walking 10 miles per day so the dog won’t tear things up. She is becoming very knowledgeable about dog training and sheep, such an interesting turn for this city creature. I can’t wait to see how the 12 sheep on our island fared this winter. I expect the meadow to be remarkably verdant, what with the grazing and fertilizing. Ari has the patience of Job with this dog. Smart, sweet, and very athletic, Storm has a mind of her own and is not easy to bend to another’s will. I couldn’t do it; it is way beyond my patience.

I’m trying to think of catchy slogans for a placard I’ll carry in the soon-approaching mass protests. “Serve not Steal”. “Democracy not Kleptocracy”. “SOS” or “Save Our Ship”.  “On Life Support”.

In a push to complete my memoir, I’ve signed up once again for the 4 day writers’ workshop, Black Fly Retreat, at the Schoodic Institute near Acadia. I need nudges but I am making progress. It isn’t turning out to be what I’d imagined, a collection of interesting experiences. It is more an internal monologue, a description of my inner world and the experiences are only placeholders. But sometimes it just feels like an indulgence and boring. We’ll see.

Call and write your congressperson, local and national. The louder the uproar, the better. And there will be a huge MAGA backlash as the cuts will hit red states more than blue. The leaders of this destruction all have more money than they can spend so why take it from working people?  I assume all the destroyers’ mothers had sour milk. Or sour personalities.