Today, beware the Ides of March

I have been really absorbed in substack, the Contrarian, and various thinkers who are educated people. I have really enjoyed and learned from Paul Krugman’s posts, and Robert Reich. And my favorite is Andrew Weissmann. I have enjoyed the posts by Robert Hubbell, also. People who are deeply cultured, and well-informed, and who think clearly and carefully about each issue. Every day I read Heather Cox Richardson first. Context is so important!

I am really worried about the government shut-down. It closely follows the model of Hitler’s destruction of the Weimar Republic in Germany. I believe DT wants to destroy the government and set up a dictatorship. I do not understand why the Republican Congressional reps are trying to give away their power to help him do this. I am grateful for the lawyers and judges who are trying to uphold the law. I am appalled at the hubris of a president who shutters the State Department, and destroys the attempt at diplomatic relations and attempts to eliminate diplomats, as well as judges and heads of agencies. The brutality of the coup and the blitzkrieg with which it has been enabled, is really terrifying. I cannot see how we are going to get past the Ides of March, but I am sending a postcard to the occupant of the White House. I am praying. Perhaps that is the most important thing I am doing, besides letters and posts and emails to the Congressional reps, just to pray for our country, for the courageous men and women of honor who are trying to uphold the rule of law. For those who are trying to protect the Constitution from the wrecking ball of Musk and his people, and DT. May God help us, and somehow, help us to preserve the nation.

Techtonic plates in Government

Substack has been very helpful in offering us people who have been kicked off the WaPO and the NYT. People who have expertise and informed opinions are what I feel the deepest need for. There is a mountain of toxic waste building up in cyberspace.

This morning there is a substantive conversation between Paul Krugman and Kim Schappelle, called “From Orban to Trump, part II.” They are discussing the way we are being manipulated and turned from democracy to autocracy. One of the scary parts is how each inroad makes return to full democratic function less possible. We have to keep staying aware and pushing back. In my opinion the right-wing under DT is attempting to destroy the government. I think a lot of people think he is just trying to maneuver and build a kleptocracy, but I think he truly wants to be a dictator, and has henchmen who want to help him do it. The Project 2025 agenda is being executed very clearly. There is a lot of distraction, and smaller but significant issues, losses. and moral injury to important people who are being fired without cause, to take away responsibility and accountability from each agency!

What I think is happening is that DT is orchestrating the chaos, talking wildly, not substantively, to distract people from the main issue we face. If the Congress fails to refund the government on 3/14, we have been erased as a democracy, and the Constitution lies fallow. Trump the dictator takes over. The corporate taxes are due 3/15. The personal taxes are due 4/15. Trump and his henchmen are simply going to empty the coffers and put our tax money to their own uses. Including transferring wealth and power to Russia, which is already probably almost done, through the computers they have forced the State Department to open to Russia, and close to Ukraine. None of our allies can trust us, as long as this is the situation. DOGE has locks and surveillance keys on the computers of the IRS, and the Treasury. They have taken away as much oversight as possible for each of the agencies, and reduced the power of the supposedly “in charge” heads.

How can we put appropriate pressure on DT and these treasonous people? Not pay the taxes. If we all do not pay the taxes, and Congress then says that we can impeach him, we can get the government back. This is a huge long-shot.

A reflection on blooming

I have been thinking that it would be good to share short reflections on very meaningful things I have forgotten, but once knew. This story in Kitchen Table Wisdom, by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, called Remembering, is about a woman who sees herself as selfish and ruthless.
Rachel starts the story with “What we do to survive is often different from what we need to do in order to live.”

I find this really a profound story for now, as the world melts and shrinks, and what we thought were safe walls begin to crumble like a sandcastle at high tide, or in a time of such dryness that it is impossible for the grains of sand to hold together: things fall apart.
At her birthday party on zoom, Rachel reminded me that when we met, I told her I am a medieval Catholic in a postmodern world. I just heard a talk about St. Therese of Lisieux, who is named a doctor of the church, for her “little way”. I had read her book “Journey of a Soul” just before meeting Rachel. She died of tuberculosis in a Carmelite convent in France, when she was 24. But the book has helped many others on their spiritual journeys, which so often are like the book of Exodus— we wander in the desert for 40 years before we get to a sense of belonging and coherence, although we may have glimpses as we go. St. Therese was a model of studying one’s own feelings and coming to terms with them and how they affect our actions, while trusting in a loving God. It is that trusting in a benevolent source of love and energy which most helps me have hope, in spite of things falling apart. The person speaking about St. Therese said she maintained a “non-adversarial stance” toward difficult, damaged and disturbed people, often people who were in chronic pain, and bitter and angry, small-minded but struggling to “be good”.
This is a lot like the virtue of “detaching with love” — to not take personally a person’s cruelty and stupidity, but to try to hold in compassion, these difficult people. It is not naive. It also helps us face our own poverty and imperfection, to try to hold ourselves in this same compassion toward ourselves. This is a very Buddhist kind of thinking, and helpful to me now. “May all beings be free of suffering.” Perennial wisdom.
The story is great, as the woman begins to bud, and bloom, as she is healing and learning to have compassion for herself.