“"When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak out. You have to say something; you have to do something."

-John Lewis (1940-2020) - American civil rights activist.

This is not the time to be silent here in America, with democracy in mortal danger. It is time for us to stand up publicly, to defend democracy against the imminent threat of oligarchy. The worst thing we can do is to be silent, to say nothing about what is happening before our eyes. Most Republicans are happy to sit back in government and do nothing, while President Trump and his colleagues permanently damage the federal government, and violate the constitution more blatantly every day. The Democratic Party or the Independents are not doing enough either – with a few notable exceptions. Independent Senator (Vermont) Bernie Sanders and Democratic Representative (New York) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) are currently on a major political tour of the United States, titled ‘Fight Autocracy’. They were not expecting the turnout they are getting across the country. A week ago, I attended another local protest in my hometown of San Diego County, and I was thrilled to be there, along with others who are not content to sit back and do nothing about the corruption going on in Washington, DC. When I heard that Bernie Sanders and AOC were coming to Los Angeles, it was an easy decision to attend this special event!

Fight Autocracy

On April 12th, my wife and I took the train to downtown Los Angeles (Union Station) early in the morning. After a short walk to Gloria Molina Park, we entered through security gates. We didn’t need to be there so early, as local politicians and guest speakers from various unions were on stage throughout the morning. We went out to find food after a while, as there were long lines waiting for the catering trucks and portable toilets. We were very lucky, as we found a food court near the park, and had a nice lunch before returning.

The main events really began at one o’clock in the evening, when Joan Baez took the stage. She opened with the country song “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” and the crowd cheered wildly as she sang new lyrics saying “I won’t let no white supremacists turn me around” and “I won’t let those ugly billionaires turn me around.” She followed with “There But For Fortune,” as well as a stirring cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Baez expressed her disdain for the Trump administration last month when she appeared on John Mulaney’s “Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney” and said, “Our democracy is on fire!”

Singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers then took the stage, singing “Different Kind of World,” “Light On” and “Alaska.” Baez returned to the stage and sang “America the Beautiful” together.

Neil Young got his turn before AOC and Sanders, coming out with his electric guitar and mouth organ, singing “Take America back” to the crowd while playing power chords on his guitar. Young performed “Rainbow of Colors,” “Take America back,” again, and at the end of his set sang “Rockin’ in the Free World” with Baez.

AOC and Bernie

Then it was time for AOC to take the stage. She didn’t mince her words, calling it a scary time. “We’re seeing neighbors, students, and friends losing their jobs; they’re being harassed and even kidnapped by the government.” She also said that power, greed, and corruption are taking over the country like never before.

When Bernie Sanders took the stage, we were all excited. He told us that there were 36,000 of us in attendance, which Trump and Musk wouldn’t want to see. “This is an era where the Republican party has become a cult, giving in to Trump’s every whim,” Sanders told us, adding that the Trump administration is now “planning how they can give $1.1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthy.” He also said that these are very dangerous times, and that our response will have a significant impact, not just on us, but on future generations. He said a few other things that really struck me. “I’m no longer saying we’re moving towards oligarchy, I’m saying we’re now living in an oligarchic society.” He also said “In our democracy, we need to stop billionaires being able to buy elections!”

Conclusion

Those are just a few examples of what AOC and Bernie Sanders had to say, but I tried to convey the essence of their speeches. I can’t explain the emotions to you, either. But we were up and down, laughing and crying, and emotions ran through all of us present. But overall, it was an inspiring experience for all of us who attended this rally. We are not alone, and we are not powerless. But we all need to stand up every time we see the government doing something wrong, and oppose it in every legal way we can. In particular, when we have the opportunity to vote in the midterm elections next year, it is our critical duty to use that power to throw Trump's cronies out of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and to put new representatives and senators in power – people who will fight for us, not for the oligarchs.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have created an advisory agency outside the United States government that will advise Trump on how to cut a significant amount of spending from the federal budget. Musk initially thought he could cut $2 trillion, but later admitted that it would be a smaller amount. But cutting a significant amount – an amount that would make a big difference – will not be easy. To understand this, it is necessary to explain a few things about the US federal budget.

U.S.A. Federal Budget

The federal government has a budget of $6.75 trillion for 2024. The budget is divided into two parts: mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Mandatory spending cannot be cut, as Trump himself has declared, no matter how big or small it is. In that category, programs such as: health (Medicare and others): 28%; Social Security: 21%; defense: 18% and repayment of the national debt: 14%. That’s 81% of the federal budget, or nearly $5.5 trillion of the $6.75 trillion. Even if you cut everything in the discretionary budget (veteran benefits, transportation, agriculture, unemployment benefits, housing assistance, and more), you’d only cut $1.25 trillion. But it wouldn’t be realistic to cut everything discretionary.

We don’t know much about Musk’s intentions when it comes to cutting back. Incidentally, Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate and tech billionaire, was originally Musk’s partner, but he’s leaving that position to run for governor in Ohio. But there are other tech stars like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen working with Musk at D.O.G.E. There’s no shortage of smart people, no doubt!

D.O.G.E. Plans

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that the main focus would be “reductions in the number of employees across the federal bureaucracy.” Otherwise, however, the story is shrouded in secrecy. It’s no wonder that federal employees are wary of the uncertainty surrounding their careers. It’s easy to believe that those same employees are in a state of awe and fear, especially when you consider what Musk did to Twitter after buying it—namely, laying off 80% of its employees.

On the other hand, however, as other industry leaders have discovered, there are significant differences between government and industry. Cutting or even changing any aspect of government—from headcount to budget to the rules pages in the federal register—is a thankless task.

The challenges facing D.O.G.E.

In any case, it won’t be easy for Musk and his employees at D.O.G.E. achieve its objective. Here are a few difficulties they will face:

Another Challenge!

This is not the first time that federal spending has been cut. In the past 50 years, annual federal spending has only been cut five times, and no reduction has been greater than 8%. Those cuts have occurred in special cases – after the 2008-9 financial crisis, and after the 2020-2023 pandemic. Even in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan himself, who created a commission to reduce federal spending and instructed its members to “work like a bloodhound without ceasing,” spending increased every year.

Conclusion

The United States Congress is in charge of spending. On the one hand, its members say that government spending needs to be cut, but on the other (and for good reason!) they are not willing to cut spending in their own constituencies.

This puts D.O.G.E. in trouble, and they are gradually learning the hard truth in that department. Musk recently said that a $2 trillion cut would be the best case scenario, and while he would try to achieve that goal, they are more likely to reach $1 trillion. D.O.G.E. has been putting its own employees in federal operations for quite some time, to gain a deeper understanding of their operations and inefficiencies.

Musk and D.O.G.E. aim to have the task completed by July 4, 2026. That way, if legislation is needed, Congress will have six months to pass it. When you consider how large and complex the U.S. government is, they’re going to need every minute of that time in D.O.G.E. for this massive and complex task!

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When we arrived in California years ago, we had never seen a motorway or freeway before, except on television. The Dublin to Naas dual carriageway was the closest thing we had to an Irish highway at the time.

I was terrified of them and tried my best to stay clear of them. I was successful at first, but that quickly ended when I accidentally drove up an on-ramp. There was nothing to do but go with the flow and then we were on the freeway! I had a death grip on the steering wheel and was bent over it. I was sweating! I stayed in the slow lane and kept driving. We knew we had to drive out on an off-ramp as soon as we could or we would end up in San Francisco.

Finally, I managed to escape the freeway at a place called ‘Pacific Palisades’. You may recognize the name because it is now a household name around the world.

In those early days we thought we were in Heaven on Earth. The weather was perfect every day and there was a culture of convenience. Unfortunately, it was short-lived, and our honeymoon came to an abrupt end one day when there was an earthquake. We had the TV on and the news reporter quickly ducked under the news desk. Our building was rocking back and forth but it remained intact. You would think the shaking would never stop, but eventually it did.

It rained a lot during our first winter living in Los Angeles, resulting in landslides and mudslides and the destruction of several homes.

Although there had been some significant damage from wildfires in our early days in California, things got worse over time. Wildfires are more frequent and dangerous today than ever before. Global warming probably has something to do with it. We lived on the edge of the woods for many years, completely unaware of the dangers of fire. We bought a house by the ocean twenty-five years ago so that we could be closer to our workplaces, and we are there still. We didn’t realize at the time that there was a big advantage to that – wildfires are rare here, because the mountains are not close to us. There was a terrible wildfire in this county (San Diego) in 2003, and many of my colleagues lost their homes in that wildfire – the ‘Cedar Fire’. My son and I had to drive by that wildfire on our way home from a road trip. It was terrifying to be so close to flames that touched the sky itself. The air was hot and there was a strong smell of burning. We could also hear the roar of the fire. When you see and hear a fire that big and so close, you have a new understanding of the danger, scale and scope of a fire. That understanding stays with you forever.

No doubt, you saw the fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena on TV, and you heard all the news about it. The fires are tearing apart and destroying everything in their path, small, medium or large, and those suburbs are right in the way. Between Pacific Palisades and Altadena, more than 12,000 buildings have burned to the ground so far. At least 25 people have died so far. It is a terrible disaster that has affected many families, and it will be very difficult for them for many years to come.

There are two main reasons for these terrible fires. First of all, we have been suffering from a drought for the past 8 months. Therefore, all the vegetation is very dry. Secondly, the dry desert winds (‘Santa Anas’) have been blowing in their wake for the past week, at high speeds of up to 160 km per hour. In such climatic conditions, it only takes one spark to ignite a fire and that is exactly what happened in these cases.

It is always difficult to deal with disasters of this magnitude as they occur, and although the fire crew was on the scene quite quickly, and although firefighting aircraft were dropping relentlessly, various problems soon became apparent. The fire crew does not have sufficient resources, due to the fact that its budget allocation has been cut year after year. In addition, some of the fire hydrants further up the mountains dried up, so that water was not available to firefighters at a critical time. The residential water system is not designed to cope with such demands being placed on it. Many investigations will be conducted to discuss and understand these issues to see what we can do to improve matters.

There are currently 8 fires burning in the region, and thousands of firefighters are working hard to put them out. Firefighters have come from all over to help – from California, other states in the United States, Canada and Mexico. FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is on the ground providing care, advice and financial assistance to victims of the disaster. Hundreds of police (LAPD) and National Guardsmen are patrolling the area, preventing crime.

It is a very difficult time for those who have lost family members or friends. It is not easy for those who are now homeless, especially those who were burned out of their homes. Almost 100,000 people are currently under evacuation orders, and it is very difficult for them to find shelter. It will take a long time to clean up, and many years to rebuild.

But the reality is that Southern California is under constant threat from natural disasters, including earthquakes. The landslides, floods, and mudslides are likely to get worse over time. This will increase the challenges we face and make it more dangerous to live here. While it is Heaven on Earth most of the time, it is Hell on Earth at other times!

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