If you aren't subscribed to Robert Reich's Substack account right now, you really are missing out on essential commentary on what is happening in the USA.
Reich was Labour Secretary in one of Clinton's cabinets, serving in high office for four years before returning to academia. He knows Washington from the inside.
His writing is also direct and unambiguous. I don't always agree with his economics, although a great deal of it is at least good enough. What I do like is his commentary. This is from this morning's mail from Reich, in which he is typically forthright:
Today, Musk held forth in the Oval Office, claiming that drastic reductions in the federal workforce were justified because it was rife with fraud.
I've spent more than a dozen years in the federal government, and I can tell you that the vast majority of civil servants I've had the honor of working with are dedicated and hard-working. They are delivering critical services to Americans and protecting them from corporate malfeasance.
For the richest person in the world to be given a bully-pulpit in the Oval Office to impugn their integrity is beyond shameful.
Musk has the integrity of a slug. Since Trump was elected president, Musk's fortune has increased $270 billion. If you think that's an accident, you haven't been paying attention.
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I can certainly recommend his documentary ‘Inequality for All’. He drives a Mini!!
Both Reich and Musk can be correct on this.
It is possible to be a dedicated and hard-working servant of a fraudulent purpose.
There’s a current example in the UK where the people determining that burning wood pellets from Scandinavia is carbon neutral are dedicated civil servants, and no doubt work hard, but towards a fraudulent purpose.
All I’m saying is that it’s possible that both Musk and Reich are correct in what they are saying.
No, that’s not possible
That’s like tax haven employees of banks etc saying they’re doing good work
They can’t, except for the local community where they work, and they know it
In answer to Uncle Roger
The reason why people need to burn wood pellets is because their government has squandered the chance to regulate energy markets that would help people make better choices; squandered the opportunity to invest in existing housing and improve its thermal efficiency and whatnot.
Politicians in this government are funded by those markets they fail to regulate or whose interest they preserve by retarding new green technology . The whole set up has become corrupt and self serving.
Which is no doubt why your water bills are going up as well, because you were told that your taxes paid for it, therefore to cut your tax bill (apparently) the utilities were privatised so that the new owner’s resources would make the improvements you were not prepared to pay for as a tax payer.
The British people can make as many specious excuses as they can about why we are in such a mess – blame immigrants, humane people who care about things (woke), the EU, but at the end of the day their own self-interest has been used against them by greedy bastards posing as purveyors of freedom.
Is that what you are doing Uncle Roger? Making specious arguments about what exactly?
Are you a sucker too? And is making specious arguments just a pathetic exercise in not accepting your own culpability and short sightedness and ignorance?
Seems like it to me. You and many of you have been had. You just cannot deal with it can you?
Thanks
That’s exactly what I meant. It is possible for staff to be working, locally in your example, to fraudulent ends and be dedicated and hard-working at doing that.
Some years ago, I was at a heterodox economics summer school near Erfurt, Germany. We had some trips out, including one to a museum of a company that built… crematoria. Firstly, grand edifices for the necessary rituals around conventional funerals. Later, mechanical, industrial scale systems for the most evil purposes in history: and for the latter, the dedicated, hardworking engineers competed to design the most efficient, highest throughput systems. Yet it didn’t appear, from the records, that there was any particular ethical consideration, neither qualms nor a positive ideology of race hatred.
An even more extreme example than the bankers laundering money in tax havens.
It appears people have the ability to disconnect their actions from consequences.
Their eyes glaze over when the question ‘why are you doing this?’ is asked.
Musk is only making those claims to justify privatising the government.
Musk might be right about fraud or he might not. How do I know. There might or might not be aliens. What makes Musk qualified to investigate fraud? Does he have experience with fraud or anti-fraud?
Identify theft is fraud. Musk is impersonating something that he is not. That is identity theft.
I suppose it was possible to either politely assist people into the gas chambers for their “showers” or use rifle butts.
Is that what you had in mind?
Adolf Eichmann tried to plead that defence. This was about 1961 so people might not recall.
“Work” is defined as expending energy to enact a change in direction or position.
A “hard-working” employee toiling to maintain the status quo is not really involved in “work”, are they?
That’s not fair
Preventative medicine is maintaining the sttaus quo and is of value.
Perhaps a better example is the carbon-accounting being done to ‘justify’ subsidy to DRAX. Private Eye has documented extremely dodgy practice for a while now — a new wheese seems to be misrepresenting virgin canadian woodland sources are non-virgin. This misrepresentation isn’t new. Failure to regulate DRAX properly isn’t new.
So are the folk who are reporting these numbers complicit, or not doing their oversight/audit job properly? They can’t all be being fooled for such a long time — so the simplest explanation is that they are making their life easy — and certainly not doing their job properly. I suggest doing the wrong thing ‘hard’ is neither here nor there ? Check out Old-Sparky on Private Eye.
Substack is the best source of what’s going on – Reich, Snyder, Krugman, Cox Richardson plus of course Carol Cadwalladr for the U.K. and Russia links.
Carole Cadwalladr recently wrote about the situation in the US on her Substack column:-
https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/it-is-a-coup
It isn’t short, but it does give a view and you can get the general theme from the title
“IT IS A COUP”. In this, she references and quotes Robert Reich.
What is happening is appalling; I like to think that it couldn’t happen elsewhere, but I have a horrible feeling that it could. The US experience could be used as a template for other countries to follow; and we won’t be able to say we weren’t warned!
Agreed
Reference to Musk’s capture of the US treasury system, I believe it’s to build a 21st Century concentration camp. The walls will be digital, and financial, and only the wealthy will be able to buy themselves out. Fall too far down the socioeconomic ladder, you land in the camp with all the economic prisoners.
People have been dreaming about, and suffering financial tyranny for centuries.
Here’s a 1st century encrypted blog about it, written by an exile (a very smart one called John) from the saltmines in Patmos who knew all about living under political, financial, commercial and spiritual tyranny of a decaying imperial colonial power. I don’t take this “apocalyptic” literally, but nevertheless it is still true. It keeps happening, these beasts and idols turn up with monotonous regularity, and we get taken by surprise every time.
Revelation Chapter 13
Contemporary English Version
The Two Beasts
“14 This second beast fooled people on earth by working miracles for the first one. Then it talked them into making an idol in the form of the beast that did not die after being wounded by a sword. 15 It was allowed to put breath into the idol, so it could speak. Everyone who refused to worship the idol of the beast was put to death. 16 All people were forced to put a mark on their right hand or forehead. Whether they were powerful or weak, rich or poor, free people or slaves, 17 they all had to have this mark, or else they could not buy or sell anything. This mark stood for the name of the beast and for the number of its name.
18 You need wisdom to understand the number of the beast! But if you are smart enough, you can figure this out. Its number is 666, and it stands for a person.
Trump/Musk anyone?
If the broligarchy don’t want you to buy or sell, then you can’t buy or sell.
@ Tom B. Your “21st Century concentration camp” hypothesis is not unreasonable. Trump funded by Musk, Vance funded by Thiel. Musk & Thiel both born in S Africa. Worked together on the “PayPal mafia” gig. Thiel states publicly that democracy is not compatible with capitalism. A couple of his dweebs from the Thiel Scholarship Prog are amongst Musk’s six teenage geeks stripping out the data from the Treasury, the DOJ et al. Thiel is a “seasteader”. (And he has our NHS data)9.
Which leads me neatly into the “Network State”, a group of thousands of like minded, free speech (!) individuals who want to live outside what they see as repressive rules within normal countries. They are setting up a new “state”. They only know each other online, but have A Plan. This one starts from the bottom up: find and connect online with others who want to live freely; set your own agenda; develop a power base in the real world; when there are enough of you, start looking for actual territory on which to build your cities. Ultimately, get UN recognition as a State. (I did wonder if that was why Trump wants Greenland, but possibly a step too far, even for me)
You can already buy a “passport” for the Network State; you need $millions, of course. And you have to prove that you’re committed to the ethos.
I don’t think I’ll be invited.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew5rwpw579o
“The BBC can reveal:
MI5 first lied in a court case where the government attempted to block the BBC from reporting on agent X’s wrongdoing – and succeeded in banning us from naming the foreign national
The Security Service then repeated the lie to a specialist court, where the woman attacked with a machete – known by the alias Beth – is seeking answers about MI5’s handling of its agent
It repeated the lie again to a judicial review, where Beth was challenging the specialist court’s decision.
A senior officer said he was legally authorised to tell me X was an agent – so MI5 had not stuck to its policy of not confirming or denying agents’ identities”
These sort of “conscientious civil servants?”
These Trump spectacles are designed to be cut up into small media clips for promotion on twitter and youtube. Quick clips intended to instill “belief perseverance” in government corruption to non questioning viewers. Trump had the bonus of making Musk look junior to political types as at the moment Musk is looking too much in control.
Kudos to Richard for moving into the medium of Youtube. I don’t use twitter, are Richards videos chopped up and re-posted around social media at all?
To the last question, not right now. But we have plans to do that soon. We need to to do so. And we will have the time.
It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis. Written in mid-1930s, chillingly prescient today.
* The rise of a popular politician aided by a volunteer militia and the church;
through to
* The takeover by an even more deranged vice-president.
If “you” haven’t read it yet, not only do I recommend it, but also recommend recommending it to everybody you can.
I read it a while ago.
It is worth reading.
its also worth reading Sarah Kendzior although she is very bleak these days: https://substack.com/home/post/p-151676252
Yes it is and Thank you – her book ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ is a must-read.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump hasn’t already given Musk a total pardon for any felony or fraud he might have committed, or even will do. Imagine the wave of pardons when the next election happens?
I’ve followed Robert Reich since before the election and fully support your views. He’s taking a hell of a risk writing what he does. Another one I’d recommend is Joyce Vance who was a state Attorney General and doesn’t pull her punches.
Since your post, MSNBC reports that …
Elon Musk shutting down agencies and firing civil servants that were investigating Musk’s own companies.
https://youtu.be/gESbfgDRozw?si=EOCUKCgzgSfxsjWU
Also, Dem Rep. Greg Casar pointed out that Elon Musk is getting paid $8 million per day due to his government contracts.
https://youtu.be/vbN2pkAFN2Q?si=DBcOt4VNsOjLVwa-
There are plenty of liberals competently ‘commenting’. The problem is that while we’ve been ‘commenting’, the opposition has been ‘doing’. Infiltrating, undermining, corrupting & hijacking every position of power & influence, all the ‘checks & balances’, that might be used to oppose them. In the US, upon which we’ve allowed ourselves to become economically, militarily & politically dependent, the levers & buttons of government & the law have been disconnected. Pull them or push them & nothing happens. It’s as though the engine of state has been completely re-wired & someone else has the controls. And it’s hard to see them being relinquished any time soon…
Christina Pagel who some of you may remember as a great commentator during Covid has done a very useful analysis of the mass of initiatives from the Trump coup. It helps clarify what they are all for. All out of Heritage Foundations Project 2025.
https://substack.com/@chrischirp/note/c-93169802?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=qshi
Im not convinced that the mass of Americans have a clue about whats going on. Only those paying attention to sources like substack and a few other braver commentators are telling it like it is. They all probably just think its changes to the administration that won’t affect them.
As those who have studied international development will know, state institutions and the rule of law are the hardest things to build and the most crucial to a successful country, society and economy. When destroyed or undermined, countries rapidly decay and it’s just as hard to rebuild them. They are what stop autocrats and oligarchs from taking over which is why they are so keen to destroy them. Putin’s Russia is already there along with Lukashenko’s Belarus. Modi’s India, Orban’s Hungary heading that way.
Whatever complaints we have about our system we are a long way from that. Though given the chance, it’s what Reform would do.
I recommend reading her piece.
In a little bit of a panic about world affairs if I’m honest. This is a blatant fascist takeover and I don’t know what to do about it. People I’ve been telling seem disinterested, or are being blatantly stupid. The opus dei, have just essentially gained power of the most powerful nation on earth. And people have zero clue about that organization, or it’s clandestine operations. People need to wake up and smell the coffee! That organisation was involved with Franco’s falangist party and are a danger wherever they hold power.
What the heck have Opus Dei got to do with this? I don’t like them, but I see no obvious link.
I suppose there ought to be a analogue of ‘Godwin’s Law’ in relation to Opus Dei…. But if we’re airing conspiracy theories, my current favourite is this: that Trump, who spent 4 years claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him, stole it back in 2024, & that all the chaos & mayhem we’ve seen since has simply been a massive distraction from that. It’s a ridiculous notion, of course…. But I cannot shake it…
Err well… Quite a lot since you ask. Such as the heritage foundation and their project 2025. The members who wrote it are all members of opus dei. As is JD Vance and Tom Homan. I’m not sure how much of it you could call “conspiracy” when it’s actually happening. Considering what the Opus Dei gets up to and some of the misdeeds of their members. Who wants an organization that were fully in support of Hitler and Franco, near the reigns of power?
Politely, stop being silly.
They are not all members of Opus Dei.