Doge and the American Chernobyl

People seem to think that a massive cutting back of the federal government by DOGE (the bogus “Department of Government Efficiency” which is not a department, not about government and not concerned with efficiency) might be a good thing, and in fact it would be if that move were not accompanied by the expansion of the control of all aspects of life by private intelligence, private equity, and a new bid for control of space, air, water, earth, and the bodies and minds of all citizens of the earth by a handful of billionaires.

But the cutting back of the government employees who are charged with safety in our over industrialized society is most likely to lead us precisely down the path of the Soviet Union in its final days.

The death knell for that political entity came on 26 April 1986 when the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat (now Ukraine) exploded. That catrastophe continues to this day, and it caused numerous deaths from cancer and other illnesses. Moreover, it dealt the death blow to the ideological and institutional legitimacy of the Soviet Union from which that lumbering beast could not recover.

We do not know what Deep Horizon blowout, or Three Mile Island catastrophe, or other massive incident, perhaps tied to the drive for fracking (the injection of deadly poisons into our water and soil) it will be that will bring us to our knees. At this point, however, I can say with confidence that the Rubicon has already been crossed, that there is no turning back.

We must rebuild from the ground up now, and we cannot wait to find out just how terrible things may be. Blaming Trump or Musk is most certainly not the solution.

Taking stock of our decadent civilization, and taking action, together with friends and neighbors, is the only thing that may save us. The current system, however, is rotten to the core—that is why Elon Musk does not need a chainsaw. He just uses a little push and the whole putrid mass comes tumbling down.

His criminality is no excuse for our indulgence.