ALCATRAZ ~ It is not that we have no choice. But to choose requires conscious awareness of the situation as well as the alternatives and some ideas about how to achieve them. Some folks have difficulty making decisions and would rather have someone in authority make decisions for us. I think it was Theodore Adorno, … More Due Process vs Dictatorship
When I first heard “The Deep State” mentioned, it caught my attention. The possible implications of the term were many. Former senior analyst for Congress, Mike Lofgren had discussed it on Bill Moyers’ website, posted in 2014. As I mentioned in a 2018 blog post, “The Deeper Deep State,” Lofgren was apparently the first to use the … More Three Cheers for the “Deep State”
DISCLAIMER: This essay does not refer to “The Oath Keepers,” the extremist “anti-government American far-right organization associated with the white supremacy and militia movements.” Those who keep their oath to defend the U.S. Constitution by becoming whistleblowers in the era of Trumpery are the heroes referenced here. Most Americans have complained about the “faceless bureaucrats“ … More Keepers of the Oath: Honor Confronts Trumpery
Trust. Who do you know that you know you can always trust? How much does it matter to you? Do you trust your money to buy today’s value next year? Probably not. You know that several presidents have taken “executive action” to tweak the official calculation of inflation to make it look smaller than the … More Cascading Consequences of Terminating Trust
Wake up call for federal employees: In the era of Trumpery, life is really lived on the edge of insolvency and pain. Forty percent of the American people cannot cover a single $1,000- emergency. Most federal employees, though slightly better paid than their counterparts in private industry, live maybe a couple of paychecks ahead. The … More Messy Democracy vs. Painful Plutocracy
“I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” ~ Anonymous When does authority end? Well, authority ends when people believe that it no longer exists. That is because authority is not a thing one possesses; authority is a relationship in which the members of a system acknowledge the holder of power as legitimate. Power … More The End of Authority
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 