Fear and Consequences

 

image courtesy of https://nara.getarchive.net

I've been struggling with writing something coherent for the last week or so. I've drafted a few things, scribbled ideas, even tried outlines based on photos and eventually tossed out more than I would like to admit. Nothing has been noteworthy. It took until today for me to finally understand. This block isn't due to lack of ideas or stimulation... it is due to not feeling safe. In the weeks since the inauguration, I've watched things change that I assumed would never change. Seeing authoritarianism take hold so quickly is terrifying. 

I worry because in my family we make use of many government programs. My job is funded by a Federal grant from USDA. Uncertainty is falling like rain on all of us. I worry because we are all connected. I've seen the consequences of Trump's first presidency on the migrant labor in New York State. The dairy industries and apple industries were hit incredibly hard.

Last night I read a short story from Max Brooks called "Hunger". It can be found in Harlan Ellison's recently published Last Dangerous Visions. The story is simple. It is a blackmail letter written from China to the president of the United States. It outlines how the war with China will be lost without firing a shot. How it will really end. Not with missiles flying but through starvation. 

Why mention this story here? When I was a kid in the third grade gifted program in Miami (1980), we were challenged each morning to look for creative solutions to the world problems of the time. Russia had invaded Afghanistan. Hostages were being held in Iran. From the perspective of a kid growing up in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this was just one military action after another. How are you supposed to find a creative solution to nuclear missiles? How is a third grader supposed to find a peaceful resolution to religious fanaticism and holy war?  

The reason I bring up the story "Hunger" by Max Brooks is that it deals with the very things we discussed... as children. Asymmetric warfare. Guerilla warfare. Changing tactics on grand scale. We all knew that the days of fighting face to face were over. As kids, we sat around a circle and walked through ideas like purchasing the land of a country one wanted to conquer. Skip the war. Some folks suggested changing from bombs to books. Other kids suggested just going for all out nuclear war. One of the ideas put forth was chilling. Cut off a warring country's source of food. It hearkens back to siege warfare. What hadn't occurred to any of us yet were the changes that would come in the way of genetically modified seed, courtesy of Monsanto.

In the fictional (just barely) story from Brooks, he points out the irony of 80% of the US agriculture using GM seeds from Monsanto, which was subsequently sold to Bayer. As he points out, Bayer is a German company. But what is to stop Bayer from selling to a nation that might not be so friendly? What happens to national security when you can't grow crops? Who controls the seed? Who owns the land? Like I said, this is fiction.... but before you shrug it off... you should know read this blurb from Amazon's page on Brooks: "Brooks holds dual fellowships at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Modern War Institute at West Point."

Project 2025 isn't fiction. '1984' wasn't written to be an instruction manual. The changes that are happening in this deluge are insane. So, yeah, I am scared. I am scared for my family, my friends and the people I don't know. Unless you are a billionaire, your world is about to get so much harder. 

The last time Trump was in office we saw COVID kill over a million people in the US (over 7 million worldwide). All because he made wearing a mask political. We had a chance to end the spread in the first year of the pandemic. Instead it became politicized misinformation. Now we have H5N1, bird flu which is has been found in dairy cattle for the last year. Sure, pasteurization kills H5N1 in milk... except the anti-vaxxers are also the same folks who like raw unpasteurized milk. And now that RFK is up for his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services... I dont expect anyone to say no. Congress is happy to kiss the ring and rubber stamp every nomination Trump sends.  

After writing all of this, I am at a loss. Where do you look when everything seems to be falling apart? There is nothing I could write that someone more adept at writing about politics hasn't written. PhDs will spend the next two or three decades explaining this chaos and the results on democracy. 

Which brings me back to being afraid. When I realized that my fears are not unfounded.... that they are shared by more than half the country and most of the rest of the world... I am left wondering how on earth do we get out of this mess? Everyone in power seems to have decided that this tantrum throwing baby should be in charge of everything. There is no plan except to watch Rome burn.