Penning Thoughts

What is going on in Washington? The man in our White House, the President of the United States, appears to be taking over the entire government, acting by fiat, as he signs and signs and signs “executive orders” with great flare, and through which he is claiming control of nearly every sector of our federal government.

Civil service workers, the literal backbone of operations for our country, are being fired by the tens of thousands, often at the behest of a very wealthy man, Elon Musk, who - with no experience in how they operate - has said of our federal departments, “I think we do need to delete entire agencies.”

His first target, the Agency for International Development, was a small, but extremely effective in spreading the goodwill of the United States across the globe. Over the years we’ve seen photos of huge food bags, emblazoned, “USA”, being unloaded from aircraft and ships in small and large ports alike. Since its shuttering, our country’s glow of good is gone, as food stocks and medical supplies from AID have been, in many cases, stranded on docks and airfields, left to spoil.

Food trucks from another agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, have been turned back, while on their way to Ohio distribution centers for transit to local food banks serving children, families and senior citizens.

In the midst of the president’s purge of the workforce, you may envision federal men and women in lush offices with cushy jobs, but they actually work for relatively lower wagers than their counterparts in private business and take on their tasks in drab offices painted institutional green.

You also may think of these folks as just wasting your tax dollars, but consider this:

The well-oiled machine that keeps (kept?) our highways maintained, our air and water clean, our food safe to eat, our medicine safe to consume, our airways safe for planes to navigate, our weather watched and predicted, our parks pristine and accessible, our factories and workplaces free of dangerous conditions or equipment, our veterans and Social Security recipients paid, and our mail hand-delivered directly to us - six days a week - has been attacked and shrunken every day since Donald Trump was sworn in on January 20.

Consider also that your federal government even springs into action in times of physical threats and assaults by rescuing and supporting us, whenever or wherever we’re attacked by a force of nature in a hurricane or tornado or earthquake or fire or landslide or flood or severe snowstorm; or by a man made disaster in a chemical leak or refinery fire or mine explosion or dam burst or train derailment or exposure to buried hazardous material. That’s what federal workers do, or perhaps used to do, if they’re one of the thousands the president and Musk have summarily fired in the past few months. They’re a nice kicking ball, but these real people provide/(provided?) real services to you and me.

In the short span of three months our new-former president has fired tens of thousands of civil servants, at the direction of one very rich multi-billionaire, who said of his handiwork, “I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind,” saying the departments are, “… kind of like a weed, if we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back.”

A weed: your mail carrier? The TSA worker protecting you at the airport? The local FBI agents, helping your police keep crime in check? The National Weather Service agent at the airport, watching the skies to help the weather folks on local radio, tv and the newspaper let us know, when bad weather is coming? The U.S. Department of Agriculture farm extension agent who’s there to help educate local farmers and schoolchildren, alike?

And outside our borders, where we have been respected as the leading world power, will you stand idly by, while he trashes alliances with European and Asian nations that for decades have been based on mutual trust and cooperation under the umbrella of U.S. military power and development assistance in bilateral and multilateral pacts that have kept the world safe from worldwide war throughout 80 years?

Today, so many Republican leaders are fearful that if they disagree with or criticize any of the president’s outrageous actions, Trump will find someone to run against them and they’ll lose their seat in Congress. These elected House and Senate Republicans tell reporters (“off the record”) that they hate the actions Trump has taken - destroying government agencies, siding with Russia (Russia!?) - but they’re afraid to speak out.

Forget about You, Congressman-Senator, what about US? What about the country you swore preserve and protect under our Constitution? Is it all really about you? If you care about us at all, then stop this man from ruling by fiat, by “executive action,” ignoring the laws you passed and even mocking the judges and courts that have the final say in disputes.

Will you allow this man, acting as a dictator, actually become one? Corey Booker stood for 25 hours in the Senate and told us where he stands.

Are you, and your job, all about you, and saving your seat in Congress?

Will you stand up for America?

Or for You?