Re: DOGE: Oops! Sudden Switch from Ecstasy to Compassion

February 18, 2025

Until sometime yesterday afternoon I was in a near-continuous state of inner ecstasy as I contemplated the ongoing extraordinary deflation of the administrative state balloon, thanks to DOGE. Day after day, one rogue agency or other bloated federal construct investigated and drained!

Hmmm. I rub my hands together, eager. Where are we as of this morning?

https://dogegov.com/dogeclock

But then, something happened to me late yesterday. All of a sudden, I noticed myself focusing on the spreading consequences of these extreme cuts to the average Joe. Not the ones making $500K a year who live in large houses in DC that are now massively devaluing, as their owners desperately try to sell the house, find a criminal defense attorney that is not overbooked, and get out of town.

No. I found myself focusing on the workers in factories, the secretaries and nurses aides and teachers and garage mechanics, and so on. How the fallout from this undoubtedly exciting sudden, drastic shift in the economic/sociological landscape hits them. Hits the ones who don’t have the leisure to focus on Making America Great Again, but are preoccupied with day-to-day survival —  a roof over their heads, not too much debt, gas for the car that they’re still paying for, health insurance hopefully, and enough more and more costly food to feed their families.

Focusing on the workers in any federal agency, 1500 of them, say, or 15,000, who find out tomorrow whether or not they will be the ones to be cut. Can you imagine their anxiety? Workers who, like so many people in this unhealthy-in-body, -mind, -soul culture, rely on fast and processed food and medications for body and mind and soul to stave off dying. To keep their bodies and minds with some semblance of functionality in this increasingly chaotic atmosphere.

What about them?

Oh yes, many will be able to collect unemployment for, what is it, 9 months? (Or will that too, be cut?) That will help, for those who remain functional enough to have time to seek employment elsewhere, either where they live now or somewhere new. But how many companies will be actually hiring in this uncertain atmosphere? And how many people will be competing for just one job? Just imagine! Increasingly chaotic human flows, from one state to another; and I’m not talking about immigrants, but about those who have lived on this great land for generations!

And how many, in their desperation, will resort to crime?

This is not to say that I’m now against the DOGE phenomenon, for I know damn well that it’s utterly necessary. And that for it to be successful, it has to be done as quickly as possible, before the deep state enemy can shift out of PTSD and organize.

I remember,  years ago, hearing about the SES, Senior Executive Services, how it fostered the continuity and stability of the administrative state by moving top executives, who were immune from being fired, from agency to agency, with no cut in exorbitant pay and lots of corruption everywhere.

I was appalled. It was one of my first indications of how the federal government had become an unaccountable monster.

Obviously, Trump knew about it. On the very day he was inaugurated, January 20, this:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-accountability-for-career-senior-executives/

Then there’s the phenomenon that obviously, simply will not change, given human nature. Namely: whoever gets a job in any hierarchical organization, aims to go up the ladder, to become “more successful,” i.e., to gain more money, power, reputation. How is this accomplished? Mainly, by figuring out new programs “under them”, for which they hire new people “under them.” Thus, it’s inevitable. Any hierarchical human structure, in order to be successful according to our current materialist value system, tends to expand. Period.

Obviously, the solution is to shift from Capricornian hierarchies to Aquarian nodal networks, with independent entrepreneurial individuals. And primal, death/rebirth Pluto HAS now entered Aquarius.

But the problem with that, and it’s huge, folks, huge! is this: in order to work on your own, you have to unleash your creativity, discover your passion, and then be willing to trust — to forge ahead without assurance, without knowing for sure — the reach of both your mysterious higher self and the equally mysterious universe! (Hint: the one is a fractal of the other!)

It’s not easy to trust your self. To follow your dreams and press them into action. Will you “make it”? You have to start  small. You have to network with others in the same fragile boat. Through ups and downs, good days and bad days, often (usually?) depending on circumstances outside your control. How to plan when the future is so uncertain? Forget that big car. Forget that second home. Forget that expensive vacation. Just concentrate on survival: having a roof over your head,  food to feed your kids.

The big difference between entrepreneurs and lackeys in the administrative state? They are following their own counsel, have their own mind; they have not sold (or snatched back!) their soul. In short, they are FREE: Each of us a SOVEREIGN SOUL AT ONE WITH ALL. 

Let’s face it: Most people do not trust, either themselves or the universe. They have been indoctrinated to trust the government, or their employer, to keep those paychecks coming.

Well, I guess it’s time for all of us to find out just how much we can open to both our mysterious capacity for full-on aliveness, as well as our compassion for one another. Because, except for the oligarchs, we are all in that same fragile boat.

Remember: Whenever we get stuck, just notice how nature does it. Her aliveness courses through, no matter what. Dropping into the ground and waiting patiently, gathering energy, during frozen winters; rising up from roots to trunks to branches to leaves, waving to the heavens during the bloom of summer.

We’re dropping into the ground during this frozen winter. Spring, and then summer, follows; then winter, then spring again . . . There is no end to seasonality in our human lives.

Let us drop into that larger, fuller self that exists both below and above the administrative state which has managed to hold us in its vice grip for far too long.

 

Cultural shocks; interpersonal sweetness. Which is more real?

February 17, 2025

Another winter storm two nights ago, with this time, about five inches, which turned icy yesterday. Tried to walk puppy Scampi at around 8 AM, but he balked, decided 10° was too cold, and salt on roads kept getting into his paws.

So I took him home and started out by myself, to Aldi’s, going out of my way to get a good walk in before I got there. Part of the journey was the usual thrill, for me, feeling my 82-year-old body respond so wonderfully to the rhythms of  life-long daily fast walks. At least on those surfaces that were not icy. When possible, I chose to walk on quiet, cleared roads, rather than on sidewalks, many of which remain unshoveled. Which made me wonder, are the houses that don’t shovel their walks rentals?

On the homestretch to Aldi’s, I found myself on a block-long unshoveled sidewalk only two feet wide and bordering very busy 3RD Street (St Rte 46). On the other side of a chain link fence that cut off half the sidewalk loomed the tall walls of a ghastly dark building under construction  — another car wash! I read somewhere that they are all the rage right now with investors. Lots of profit, very little maintenance, and no need for workers. Who can beat that? Gross.

So there I was, slowly and carefully stomping my way over the narrow icy portion of the unshoveled walk that the chain link fence did provide, cars, pickups and giant 18-wheelers whizzing by, within inches. Had I fallen, and part of me land outside the narrow space I was trying to walk on, it would have been all over.

Which brought to mind, once again, how I am protected. Over and over again, all my life; no matter how foolish my choices — and today, yes, it would have been wise to go the other way, make a long detour to Aldi’s rather than take my chances on that one scary block — yes; it’s as if I walk inside a soft, loving cushion.

Meanwhile, one motorist, who had not bothered to clear the right side of either her front window, or her side front window, nearly ran me over as she was turning right at a crossroads with me there and about to cross the street in front of her. Luckily, I noticed the condition of her windows, and knew she would not stop.

I notice, these days, that just about just about everybody seems, not just distracted, but at least mildly frantic.

Yet, in the midst of constant culture shocks that we are all undergoing, as federal fraud, waste and corruption get exposed in the glaring light of DOGE, drying up all sorts of grants to DEI nonsense, to states and localities, academia, hospitals, etc., putting thousands upon thousands out of work and desperate, I notice that a bunch of Bloomingtonians are getting together next Sunday to go over new bills before the Indiana state legislature. 3-5 PM at the Unitarian Universalist church. I’ll be there.

I notice that the event is being put on by prominent Democrats. Of course. Bloomington is an academic town, dominated by Democrats.

I used to be a Democrat.

In the wake of the last four puzzling years, who still calls him or herself a Democrat?

What will I call myself at this meeting. Will I come out? Or will I maintain my usual secret judgmental silence. It will be an interesting experience.

Not that I’m now a Republican. But I do very much appreciate the DJT blitzkrieg.

Back to this morning: at Aldi’s, as I was walking up and down the aisles, I couldn’t help but notice that the shelves were  full as usual; that, obviously, supply chains haven’t (yet?) been affected by Trump’s blitzkrieg. Blew me away, actually, how resilient the overall system is. Or, well, kinda. For example, have you noticed that searches for criminal attorneys are way way up in the DC area? And this, just today:

 

At Aldi’s, when done shopping, I remembered that I only had cash with me, so could not check myself out. Oops! Casting about (only three workers are on shift at any point during an Aldi day), I found an Aldi worker unpacking boxes, who said she’d stop to check me out. As I was pushing my cart to her check out station with my few, carefully chosen, non-seed oil, unprocessed items, an old bearded man, with his cart full to the brim of processed stuff, suddenly appeared, going in the same direction, ahead of me. I went “Oops!” interrupting my flow; he noticed me; graciously indicated for me to go first.

Then, my transaction complete, I turned and thanked him again for allowing me to go ahead. “Just a random act of kindness,” he responded, with a shy grin.

“Thank you again!  I’ll pay it forward.”

Grateful for the kind encounter, I walked out, shouldering newly heavy backpack that would help ground and stabilize me on the ice, and proceeded to continue on my exceedingly dangerous walk home.