All animals are equal
some more than other thou
While it was a cool morning Miley really wasn’t into our walk today. She really isn’t feeling well and has barely eaten in the last day or so. When we got home I gave her a bath in hopes it would make her feel better but to no avail. At least she’s still drinking water. We’ll see if she bounces back once again.
I was thinking of George Orwell again today. It wasn’t the 1984 type of double speak coming from the Dear Leader about putting on controls on drug prices (a socialist move if I have ever seen one – good thing we didn’t elect Kamala!) or the latest disappearing of people off the streets by men in black with their faces covered (supposedly ICE agents but who could tell?). No, it was Animal Farm I was thinking about. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” As the administration has removed protected status from people from Haiti, Chad, Afghanistan, and Iraq they now paid for a chartered flight and given expedited status to a new set of refugees - White South Africans (Afrikaners) because they have lost their status. Notice anything about the groups having their protected status removed versus that new class of refugees? In other racist news Trump fired the Librarian of Congress (a black woman) and replaced her with one of his white lawyers because lawyers are librarians, right?
So I’ve been thinking about the people who have been put into positions of power in our government. Almost without exception they have no expertise and are unqualified for the job they have been selected for. The all have one thing in common – they are lickspittles for the President. There is one other common trait many have – the president saw them on TV. Specifically on Fox. There are 23 Fox broadcasters who have been appointed to high positions, including cabinet secretaries like the secretary of defense. 23. Apparently when Trump isn’t playing golf, and proving he can sign his name and showing it to everyone, he watches a lot of TV. He keeps close tabs on his favorite propaganda outlet – Fox. (He watches Turner Classic Movies too – Escape from Alcatraz was on the night before he said he wanted to reopen Alcatraz after it was closed 63 years ago because it was too expensive to operate.)
Fox is where he gets his senior staff. It’s also where his staff appears daily. The Secretary of the Interior now posts a weekly clip from a Fox interview with him on the “This week in Interior” news feed to all employees. It’s disgusting. The Interior Secretary is overseeing the dismantling of agencies like the National Park Service and singing the praises of the Dear Leader. I’m sure the same thing is happening across the entire government in all agencies – Fox news clips of your senior leader expressing their gratitude to have the pleasure of serving the greatest president in American history. Did I mention it is disgusting?
Why would you put sycophants who are unqualified into senior leadership positions? Then you force the most experienced and competent civil servants to retire, or you catch them in a reduction of force action. You destroy expertise whether it is in biologist, researchers, nuclear engineers, food inspectors, you name it, and to what end? These actions are right out of the authoritarian playbook – remove opposition and destroy expertise that could challenge you. The other reason I see for doing this – putting TV personalities into important jobs – is because they have no powerbase like a politician does so they pose no challenge to the slavish following garnered by the “king”. How do you think this will end?
The propaganda coming from the government whether on TV, radio, or even podcast feeds is never ending. You do realize that we, the taxpayers, a funding this insanity. Never have we ever had anything like this in our country. Never! Not in my 60 plus years of awareness of what is going on around me anyway.
I hope that this finds you all well and not falling into the nihilism that would be so easy to adopt as a stance in your life in 2025 America. I’m fighting it every day. Hold those you love close. Be kind to those you meet when you’re out and about, even those with red hats. They have fallen prey to the siren call of a carnival barker and deserve your sympathy, and, a little pity as well.