When the world is upside down

We are not the first to experience a world turned upside dowm.

We are not the first to see our most cherished vales, the lodestars we have followed our entire lives, trampled upon, dismissed, and violated in the most horrendous manner imaginable.

Think back to what many people must have been thinking and feeling in Germany in the 1930’s as the Nazi Party gained in strength and its Leader become Chancellor of Germany (on January 30, 1933) and an absolute dictator following the Reichstag fire (on February 27) and passage by the Reichstag of theEnabling Act(on March 23, 1933).

There were undoubtedly millions of rational people who did not succumb to the Nazi virus which infected growing numbers of tge population as tge Nazi Party became the Nazi state.

Imagine what other thinking Europeans thought as reason was swept aside by the mass emotions manipulated and directed by Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels, his propaganda minister.

Undoubtedly many reacted in horror, much as many are reacting to the latest outrages by Amrrica’s 47th president since his inauguration on January 20, 2025.

Undoubtedly many Europeans reacted with outrage over the Nazis’ actions and assumption of dictatorial oowers.

But they reacted too late, a# did the French and the British at and after Munich (September 1938).

Everyone assumed they had more time, much more time.

But then time ran out, much more quickly than anyone had thought possible.

It seems that the majority of people including business leaders and elected representatives have reacted to the fascist challenge of Trump and his Republican supporters with what Timothy Snyder in his primer On Tyranny terms “anticipatory obedience”.
It feels like tge fascists are in power, and tgat for the moment at least they have triumphed.

Acquiescence is the norm.

Aside from a few intellectuals, no one seems to take the warnings of experts on fascism and authoritarian rule seriously.

Instead we face the brilliance of the fascist propagandists who have reduced public discourse to a kind of vaudeville act and what Neil Postman described in Amusing Ourselves to Death

Elon Musk and the Third Reich

BACKGROUND

1) Jim Tankersley and Christopher F. Schuetze, “Musk Says Germany Has ‘Too Much of a Focus on Past Guilt’;
His comments to the hard-right Alternative for Germany party escalated efforts by the billionaire to influence the country’s election for chancellor next month,” New York Times, January 27, 2025 (Updated 1:26 p.m. ET);

Trump violates WTO agreements in imposing tariffs on Colombia , other countries

BACKGROUND

See,

1) Genevieve Glatsky, Simon Romero and Annie Correal, “Trump Hits Colombia With Tariffs in Feud Over Military Deportation Flights; Gustavo Petro said on X that the United States should not treat Colombian migrants as criminals and that he had already turned away U.S. military flights carrying deportees,” New York Times, January 26, 2025 (Updated 4:00 p.m. ET);

Building the fascist state: Elon Musk takes sole control of the new Department of

BACKGROUND

1) “VAdam Gabbatt, Vivek Ramaswamy quits ‘Doge’ cost-cutting program leaving Musk in charge; Tech entrepreneur, who may run for governor of Ohio, reportedly clashed with billionaire SpaceX CEO,” The Guardian, January 21, 2025 (5 09.28 EST);”

2) James Crisp, “Inside Musk’s White House power grab, Billionaire pushes ahead with plans to infiltrate all parts of Trump’s administration after axing of his co-leader at Doge, The Telegraph, January 22, 2025 (3:00pm GMT);

3)Iker Seisdedos, “Musk amplía su poder en la Casa Blanca tras provocar una escisión en el trumpismo; La renuncia de Vivek Ramaswamy deja en solitario al dueño de Tesla, que se ha enfrentado a Bannon, al frente del departamento encargado de adelgazar la Administración estadounidense,” El País, el 22 de enero 2025 (23:40 EST);

4)Iker Seisdedos, “Musk expands his power in the White House after provoking a split in Trumpism; The resignation of Vivek Ramaswamy leaves the owner of Tesla, who has faced Bannon, alone at the head of the department in charge of slimming down the US Administration,” El País, January 22, 2025 (23:40 EST);

Elon Musk is brilliant in many ways. He is a visionary not only of space travel but also of but also of the dystopian future he and other billionaires envision, a world controlled by them. A world with governmental processes of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires.

He understand how the control of information and the flow of information can shape governments and indeed the world. In purely short-term economic terms the acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion dollars make no sense. Viewed from the larger perspective of building the information infrastructure for gaining control of government and eventually the world, the acquisition seems absolutely brilliant. Its value cannot be measured by its stock-price. Rather its value can only be measured by its helping to elect the president of the United States,Donald Trunp and the forging of a close bon between the president and Elon Musk.

The bond has already led to the concentration of great power and influence in the hands of Musk. Musk is a brilliant strategist, which has enabked hi to become the richest an in the world,

Now, withthe departure of Vivek Ramaswamy from the new Department of_Nusk has acquired unmatched power to acess and use not only secret and confidential information about and held by the government, but also detailed information about the information architecture of major U.S. companies and other companies operating in the United States.

Together with Donald Trump’s grantubg of temporary security clearance for access totop secret and the most restiected “compartmentalized”intelligence in the U.S. government, Musk and Trump have or soon will have access to information thay can use to vanquish all opponents, and eventually (sooner than you think) control what we think of as a ‘free press””free speech”.

Trump opens highly sensitive intelligence to anyone he wants, bypassing existiing procedures

BACKGROUND

See,

1) Hugh Canon, “Donald Trump Orders Security Clearances to Be Given to Whomever He Wants; Newsweek, January 21, 2025 (Updated at 4:34 PM EST);

2) Steve Benen, “Maddow Blog: The problem(s) with Trump’s executive order on disclosing ‘sensitive’ information, MSNBC.com, January 21, 2025
(10:13 a.m EST);

3) President Donald Trump, The White House, “Memorandum to the White House Counsel, Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel,” January 20, 2025;;

Text of tge Memorandum

MEMORANDUM TO THE WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL
SUBJECT: Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security
Clearances for Executive Office of the President
Personnel
January 20, 2025

MEMORANDUM TO THE WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL
SUBJECT: Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security
Clearances for Executive Office of the President
Personnel

The Executive Office of the President requires qualified and trusted personnel to execute its mandate on behalf of the American people. There is a backlog created by the Biden Administration in the processing of security clearances of individuals hired to work in the Executive Office of the President. Because of this backlog and the bureaucratic process and broken security clearance process, individuals who have not timely received the appropriate clearances are ineligible for access to the White House complex, infrastructure, and technology and are therefore unable to perform the duties for which they were hired. This is unacceptable.

Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order:

1. The White House Counsel to provide the White House Security Office and Acting Chief Security Officer with a list of personnel that are hereby immediately granted interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances for a period not to exceed six months; and

2. That these individuals shall be immediately granted access to the facilities and technology necessary to perform the duties of the office to which they have been hired; and

3. The White House Counsel, as my designee, may supplement this list as necessary; and

4. The White House Counsel, as my designee, shall have the authority to revoke the interim clearance of any individual as necessary.

Commentary

It did not take long for the new pto-Russian president of the United States o bypass strict legal procedures for the granting of top security clearance to officials in the government.

Under tge new rules as dictated by Trump, “interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances” are to be issued to anyone Trump wants.

As Hugh Canon in his Newsweek article points out, this means that such a security clearance could be grant, effective immediately, to Vladimir Putin if Trump so directs.

Now, it is highly unlikely that Trumpnwould make such a transparent move. It is not unlikely, however, that such a clearance could be granted to a lower-ranking official who has not been vetted who would make such information available to Putin’s intelligence services.

Trump asserts tgat he has tge authority to contrave requirements for the granting of security clearances set forth in the laws of tge United States.

Is this true?

Trump argues further that he has the authority ubder the Constitution to decide who gets a security clearance, and to override existing laws in order tondo so.

Again, is this true?

Groups interested in safeguarding U.S. national security should be in court tonight seeking a Temporary Restraing Order to prevent Trump from giving away the crown jewels of our intelligence while Washinton and journalists sleep.

The decaying U.N. Charter-based international order presages increasing anarchy and war raising the threat of an end of mankind

BACKGROUND

1) Yaroslav Trofimov, “In a New Age of Empire, Great Powers Aim to Carve Up the Planet; After World War II, nations pledged to create a more equal and law-abiding world. Now Russia, China and the U.S. are returning to an older model in which powerful countries impose their will,” Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2025 (9:00 p.m. ET);

Yaroslav Trofimov of the wall Street Journal has written a balanced and thought-proking essay on the decay of the U.N. Cater-based international order built on the cornerstone of the United Nations Carter, Article 2 paragraph 4, which prohibits “the threat or use of force” against “the territorial integrity or political independence” of any state.

We are talking about ibternational law and the U.N. Charter, nottgec ill-defined “rules-based international order”, a term which has come into voguecin recent years.

The vague term, introduced in 2008 by an Australian leader, does not require intellectual rigor or detailed knowlege of international law, allows leaders to violate fundamental norms of international law while still maintaining their support for “rules- based international irder”.

In short, tge term does not require an absolute commitment to uphold and maintain tge legally binding commitments of international law.

What Trofimov describes is not the advent of a “new international order” but the decay of an existing international legal order which took over a century and two World Wars to construct.

What promises replace it if its decay continues is not a “new international order” but an old international anarchy which Trofimov right points out.

The confused thinking of those in the so-called “Global South” doesn’t withstand tge slightest serious scrutiny.

But because we lack statesmen and women of vision in key leadership roles, leaders in the West have failed to mount a strong defense of the existing international legal order.

They fail to make the case, time and time again, for tge maintenance and stregthening of tge U.N. Charter-based international legal order, in part due to ignorance and deficient education, and in part simply because they wish to remain free to violate international law and supplor friedds and allies to violate its norms. Tge U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 is a glaring example of this phenomenon, while U.S. military support of Israel as it committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza provides a more recent example.

Political leaders now speak openly if reaching a peace settlement with Russia that leaves it in control of Ukrainian territory conquered by military force,despite peremptory norm of international law which prohibit such an outcome.

Americans skeak openly of imposing punitive tariffs that violate the most fundamental norms of the World Trade Organization Charter (formerly known as the Havanna Charter.

Trfimov is correct in pointing out how tge world is soirally toward a state of international anarchy.

The implications are grave. We no longer live in tge 19th-century world of tge Concert of Europe. It is absurd to speak if a alance of power in a world of 200 xountries where oerps 10 and a growing number possess nuclear weapons.

The United Nations was created in 8; December 1945, only months after the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Founders of tge U.N. understood what we have forgotten, that moden weapons of mass destruction made allnall-outbwarlike World War II unthinkable. Soon it became clear that the use of these weapons could end human life on earth.

Still our contemporary political leaders allow crazed mikitary leaders and scientists to invest hundreds of billiins of dollars in space-based and other programs to enable one country or another ton”win” a nuclear conflict.

Cinfirming thustorical fact tgat man when hus brain is seized by viions ofvwar can be infinitely stupid.

The Founders of tbe United Natiins, having recently experienced tge devastation of World War II which destroyed Europe and cost some 50 million lives, resokved to change the course of history by creating new institutions for tge maintenance og international peace and security.

Russia, China, and Iran want to change all that

Tell us more, gentlemen , how that is likely tonwork out.

Will it save the planet from the worst effects of global warming? Will it prevent tge use of ever more terrible biological and other weapons, assisted in their design by artificial intelligence?

Where are the leaders who will articulate these considerations?

Where are tge eloquent leaders who have learned from hidpstory, and who can persuade our populations and pokitical elites that international law and tge United Nations Charter are the only tools we have to ensure tge survival of tge human race?

We need to be building them up and not tearing them down,

And we need leaders who get that.

Trumpworld: Let me out of here!

I don’t want to live in Trumpworld.

I don’t want acts of corruption and his latest efforts to hollow out the institutions of our democracy and the valuesto spend the next fouer years reading and hearing about the latest acts of corruption and his latest efforts to hollow out the institutions of our democracy and the values of our culture.

Trump has corrupted America/ It is like an ongoing trainwreck. I don’t want to watch as it unfolds.

I am interested in fighting and defeating the growth of fascism in America and in the world.

That’s what the current Go Fund Me Appeal is about, which you can see by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page.

Donations will go to a newly established Rescue Democracy Fund. Contribute and become a member of the Rescue America movement. We need to join forces and come together as a movement. The fund will support the writing and publication of books and articles which have as an important goal the unmasking and defeat of fascism in the United States, and the support beyond subscriptions to the Trenchant Observations newsletter and its author.

Together, we have the power–to defeat the growing power–or at least that is our ope–of “Techno-Fascism” in the United States. It is Fascism because there is no other word for it. “Authoritarianism” is much too soft a term, which the evidence suggests does not penetrate the ideological and information bubble of Republicans and other Trump supporters.

It is Techno-Fascism because the billionaires who accumulated immense wealth and power through the unregulated growth of the Internet and Surveillance Capitalism have joined forces with the fascist movement of Donald Trump and the Republicans. Through their control of the flow of information and their mastery of propaganda, they have in effect seized control of the government, which has now become part of their power matrix. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world now has demonstrated that he now has the the power to kill a bipartisan bill approved by the 435 elected representatives of Congress.

President Joe Biden explicitly warned us of these developments in his final freewill address on January 15, 2025.

Germans who lived through the Third Reich told us that the phenomenon of Adolf Hitler and Nazism could happen anyplace Naively, we comforted ourselves with the belief that it was a specifically German phenomenon, a product of German history and culture. We failed to pay attention to the development of fascism in other countries, content in the belief that It can’t happen here,the title of Sinclair Lewis’s fabulous novel about the the triumph of fascism in the U.S. (1935).

Well, it has happened here.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote the famous American philosopher George Santayana in The Life of Reason (1905).

Sadly, we have not been able to remember the Nazi past, or the rise and history of fascism in other countries. Even when we saw it, as in Argentina and Chile in the 1970’s, we were too naive to call it by its rightful name: FASCISM.

It is not clear how or whether we will defeat Techno-Fascism in the U.S.and elsewhere. But it is absolutely clear that we will not succeed if we don’t try.

And it is equally clear that our starting point must be to recuse the concept of Truth from it many assaults.

The Rescue Democaacy movement begins there, supporting the publication of books and articles which preserve the truth of recent history, the facts, in the face of massive propaganda efforts by the Republicans to rewrite recent and newt-so-recent history, auxh as the history of what really happened on January 6, 2021.

The title of this essay expresses my feeing: “Trumpworld: Let me out of here!”

Yet surely at a deeper level of our being we also feel the urgency of fighting Trumpworld, of enaging in the battle to rescue all that we hold dear. Undoubtedly the people who lived in Europe furing World War II wanted to secape the hell their world had become.But they did not give up. Tehy stood up to fascism, against very long odds in 1940, but in the end triumphed and saved our civilization from the barbarism that threatened it

We must do the same

And we must begin by launching a fearsome battle to rescue and safeguard the truth,

We must record the truth, and remind people every day of the truth.