So Trump has put on another of his White House dog and pony shows in an attempt to humiliate another leader of an allied country with transparent lies. Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, responded with facts and unflappable dignity, making Trump look the fool.
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| Cyril Ramaphosa (Wikipedia) |
There may be a job more stressful than that of air traffic controllers, but it is hard to imagine what that might be. How are people motivated to take on such work in places like Newark or Washington D.C.?
Those are questions currently on the desk of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. He has proposed a massive reconstruction and modernization of the air traffic control system. That is a process that will take at least four years, provided that the necessary billions are made available.
Trump, of course, places the blame for the currently disastrous state of the system on the Biden administration. Unmentioned is that fact that the proposal of Biden's transport secretary, Buttigieg, to massively invest in rebuilding the system was torpedoed by congressional Republicans.
It is also worthwhile to look back to the opportunity that was lost in 1981 when Ronald Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers who had struck for better working conditions. Reagan brought in active military controllers as strike breakers, and did an expert PR job of manipulating media accounts to minimize concerns then about controller job stress. That effectively set the pattern for the subsequent twenty-year development of failed policy and performance.
Duffy, to his credit, cut short the DOGE initiative to include controllers in their firing spree, but the subsequent loss of FAA analysts and support staff cannot be without consequences. That shortsightedness seems due in part to overwhelming emphasis on equipment upgrades while continuing to minimize the centrality of human preparedness and performance.
* A Newark air traffic controller on how it felt when systems went dark (NPR)
A lot of media attention was given to the Signalgate incident where it was revealed that top Administration officials were using an unofficial and possibly insecure chat service to discuss ongoing operations. So far, the only casualty has been the meeting organizer, Mike Waltz, and he has only been shuffled off to the walking wounded job of UN ambassador.
Larger issues of national security vulnerability have gone under the radar. A recent nytimes article gives some hints at what might be usefully considered:
"... The C.I.A. plans to cut more than 1,000 staff positions through attrition over the next few years as the Trump administration shrinks the federal government..."
"... A spokeswoman for the agency did not directly confirm the plan to reduce its size but said in a statement that John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, was 'moving swiftly; to ensure that its work force was responsive to the administration’s national security priorities.'..."
Perhaps we should be reassured that the administration has taken time to set some priorities, though the possibility that those priorities might actually pertain to security seems a little remote.
Cutting a thousand jobs from something as complicated as the intelligence establishment presents some obvious threats to performance and efficiency. However, of even more concern is the immediate outcome of the staff cuts, which is that there will be a multitude of former analysts and operatives out looking for jobs.
It is a good bet that those job-hunters' resumes - complete with pictures - are even now flooding the internet and sparking the interest of corporate recruiters. You can also be sure that those hungry, often disgruntled former agency staffers will come under scrutiny by the foreign intelligence agencies of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. All of whom, of course, have massive capabilities for online surveillance, and plenty of expertise in the cultivation of double agents.
As irritated as those job hunters might be at the course of events, the vast majority are patriots, and have no doubt received special training to alert them to possible threats. Still, it is not inconceivable that one out of that thousand might be tempted by an opportunity for retribution and enrichment. And, after all, that has happened before.
It might be argued that the people let go have been severed from ongoing operations, but of course they took a lot of knowledge with them, and many friendships will continue with active agency staff.
So, recognizing the potential for damage, what might be done? Having dealt itself a crippling blow, the agencies are ill prepared to keep an eye on where all the discards go. Probably the most effective and economical strategy would be just to hire them all back.
The best dissection of Big Pharma I have come across is the recent article by David Armstrong at ProPublica,
In The Price of Remission Armstrong uses his own experience with cancer treatment as a starting point for explaining the complexities of drug development and the exploitation of human misery to make stratospheric profits.
The implications of how RFK Jr. and the DOGE team will make things even worse are not directly dealt with in the article, but they are easily deduced.
It is also worth noting that Big Pharma contributions to politicians are nearly equally divided between the two major parties, with the Republicans having only a slight edge.
Two big exhibits at either end of the Albuquerque Museum.
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| Trevor Martinez, Guitar Highlights, Sandia High School, Grade 12 |
An early futurist take on the development of artificial intelligence was that it would replace the need for human labor and usher in an age of leisure for everyone. At this point the effects on job availability are uncertain, but the rosy glow of the early predictions is fading fast.
For a more realistic view it is worth looking at how things have developed in the social media industry. In that trillion-dollar undertaking the tangible benefits have gone overwhelmingly to the billionaire class. Useful, objective news has been subverted by an avalanche of lies and conspiracy theories. The early promise of the internet to empower ordinary people has been undermined by kowtowing to authoritarianism.
Resistance is still possible. There is still access available to independent initiatives, online and offline. The time to speak up and to act is now.
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Tyrants like Trump always fall – and we can already predict how he will be dethroned
Simon Tisdall in The Guardian
