Author: Tom H. Hastings

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Opinion Viewpoint

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency

Elon Musk (Photo: Frédéric Legrand | Dreamstime.com)

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are partnering to create a new U.S. government agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Musk underwrote the Trump campaign with $200 million in donations (AP estimate) and his own brand of buying votes.

Supposedly, the acronym comes from Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, the Doge. Whatever. When Heather Cox Richardson says the name of the pending Musk/Ramaswamy agency, she pronounces it doggy. She’s authoritative enough for me. 

So yes, Musk paid for his new appointment, which represent a colossal conflict of interest, as that agency reportedly, avowedly, will shut down many regulations that currently govern aspects of Musk’s enormous U.S. government contracts. Getting his new powers involved corruption — a person really isn’t supposed to pay to acquire powers in the U.S. federal government. Can there be a shred of doubt that corruption won’t feature in nullifying EPA regulations on SpaceX, Tesla, and other Musk holdings?

But that is just toxic foreplay. Musk and Ramaswamy tell Forbes they will cut some $2 trillion in U.S. federal spending (sparing all the contracts with Musk-owned corporations, no doubt). What do they intend to defund?

They will get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which tells us, “We protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and take action against companies that break the law.” Thanks, Elon, for planning to deep-six this one.

Goodbye, Department of Education. Populist demagogues like Trump have railed against such an unwanted department for decades, clearly tired of spending funds on schools that serve marginalized communities 

DOGE will get really vicious with organizations like Planned Parenthood, which averages approximately $50 million a year in federal funding. Reproductive help for women is almost certainly taking that hit.

Musk will make headlines when he and Ramaswamy end the $535 million federal support for public radio and TV. They actually called that “unauthorized spending,” even though Congress authorized it. You may not get public TV — so long, Sesame Street — but you will get a full display of gaslighting. 

The Veterans Administration healthcare funding is targeted by Musk — interesting, a white South African deciding the U.S. military veterans should stop getting healthcare.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposed “austerity” measures on some poor countries that were not managing to repay loans and the impacts were severe, with poverty increased and government services decreased, even eliminated. The targeted countries — such as Greece, Kenya, and many more — reacted with cries of extreme pain and many of those harmful punishing policies were curtailed. 

Musk says his DOGE will inflict hardship. Many Americans will lose their jobs, both inside the government and outside. The government contracts with many companies and when DOGE decides those contracts are not going to be honored, the losses will be severe in some quarters. Add to that the rising consumer prices that are widely predicted from Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China (and possibly everyone else), and the American lifestyle may be in for the biggest shock since 1929.

When Trump was desperately seeking votes from retirees and those who love them, he promised not to cut Social Security, and even added that he would stop the practice of the IRS taxing Social Security. We will see if Musk lets him keep that promise. 

It is astonishing that, in a roaring Biden-Harris economy that is benefiting literally every class of Americans, Trump garnered more votes than Harris and will throw wrenches into many of the gears of that economy, if Musk succeeds. 

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University. His views, however, are not those of any institution.

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Opinion The Last Word

Public Health 101: Guns

Photo: Joe | Unsplash

A Texas “gun enthusiast,” Francisco Oropeza, 39, was firing off his AR-15 in his yard Friday night, April 30th, about 40 miles from Houston. He was known to be touchy, so, despite the noise and danger, no one approached him. Finally, after 11 p.m., his neighbor did. He said something like, “Hey, man, can you not do that? We’ve got an infant in here trying to sleep.”

So, in America, what does a righteous gun owner do when his rights, his dignity, and his command over his own property are threatened by such outrageous demands? Of course, Oropeza marches to the offending neighbor’s home and bravely stands up for his Second Amendment rights. He shoots most of the family dead — five of them, including an 8-year old. Two smaller children were saved by their mothers shielding them with their bodies, and of course that was just an extra affront to the intrepid rifle owner, who shot both women dead. As of this writing, Oropeza is apparently surrounded by law enforcement.

So it goes. There is nothing to be done in our fair land. In Texas, it’s particularly sensitive. That’s where Trump did his kickoff rally to honor those who tried to overthrow the U.S. government when he lost the election. He did it in Waco, naturally, where, exactly 30 years ago, right-wing religious cult members — the Branch Davidians — were killed in a stupid ATF raid that was then marked by the militia members bombing the Oklahoma City federal office building on the Waco siege anniversary. Trump played on all this, either with his speech or with imagery on a big screen behind him. At least one preacher calls Trump “anointed of God … the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”

Alllllrighty, then.

Trump repeated much of his message at the recent National Rifle Association convention, telling the gun rights crowd, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Yeah, you da man, Trump. I’m betting Oropeza heard you loud and clear.

As did Ettore Lacchei, of Antioch, Illinois, who approached his neighbor doing some leaf-blowing in his own yard in the late afternoon. Lacchei didn’t get the neighbor to immediately stop, so he naturally assumed control of the situation by shooting his neighbor dead in the head. That was April 12th.

Most of us have heard of young Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old Black kid who was supposed to go to a Kansas City, Missouri, house he didn’t know and pick up his younger brothers. He knocked on the door, but it wasn’t the right house. An elderly white man, Andrew Lester, who, according to his grandson, had become increasingly devoted to Trump, didn’t risk opening the door to this skinny kid. He courageously shot the boy in the head right through the glass and then shot him again in the arm as he lay bleeding. Miraculously, Yarl is still alive. Lester explained that he was afraid due to “the size of the male” and described his victim — er, the threatening Black male — as “around six feet tall.” Yeah, um, Ralph is 5-feet-eight and 140 pounds.

The Gun Violence Archive notes where mass shootings happen but no one died, and it seems that, so far this year, Jasper, Texas teens hold that record at a party where 11 were shot but everyone survived. Should we assume the shooter was highly trained and only meant to wound partygoers? Guns, alcohol, and teens. What could go wrong?

What happens, politically, when these routine mass murders committed quite often by MAGA followers, and certainly almost always by NRA believers, are considered by our illustrious elected officials?

We are told most frequently that, in the wake of such tragedy, now is not the appropriate time to talk of change; it’s time for thoughts and prayers. Of course there is no let up to these killings committed by the Proud Boys who defend unlimited gun rights, so I suppose we just deal with an ongoing tsunami of thoughts and prayers and perpetually postpone actual change.

Sometimes some pesky mothers and others do the legwork to get new gun laws passed, as they did in my state of Oregon, but, as always, the alert lawyers from the NRA, sport shooting groups, etc., come to the rescue and those new gun laws are stopped, usually overturned, since we have a Second Amendment to protect access to combat weaponry.

And everyone knows it’s impossible to repeal an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, right? Well, there was that one time … the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment. But that was special because the 18th Amendment was Prohibition. Repealing the Second Amendment? Want to try? We know how to deal with such betrayal. Lock and load.

America: where all attempts to curb access to guns are shot down. Should we raise a glass to that? And I suppose we should stop calling children who are murdered anything but our expression for war casualties who happen to be 4, 5, 6 years old, “collateral damage.” If it’s good enough for Vietnamese children, Afghan children, Iraqi children — good enough for your children, right?

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, PeaceVoice senior editor, and on occasion an expert witness for the defense of civil resisters in court.

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Opinion The Last Word

Hypocrisy in High Places

Where is a budget that is of the people, by the people, for the people? (Photo: Jj Gouin | Dreamstime.com)

Most folks are honest; this tricks them into a belief in the bedrock honesty of others, especially those who make bold public statements. How could someone lie in a public statement? Most folks know they would not want to live with that embarrassment when the truth inevitably came out. And yet we get fooled again. And again. George Santos claimed his mother died in the 9/11 attacks. She did not. He claimed his grandparents survived the European holocaust. As we all know, his shenanigans have been extraordinary.

From Trump’s incessant and continuing lies to the fictions spun up on Fox News, we are awash in a gaslighting culture from the right that cannot seem to stop its relentless daily “flooding the zone.” But this is the chop on the surface; what about the current underneath? Where does the political left join the political right in framing profits as patriotism, bloodshed as glory, immiseration as inspiration?

Here we are in yet another crisis of our own making (well, made by the people we freely elected), the debt ceiling debacle. At the actual nut of the problem is the military budget. Why? Because it seems to be literally more sacred than the money the government takes out of your paycheck for your retirement, Social Security. Just ponder the headlines. Forbes: “Republicans Plan To Cut Social Security — Will Voters Let Them?” Time magazine: “How Biden Got Republicans To Run Away From Their History of Pushing Social Security and Medicare Cuts.” The fight is on, even as your paycheck shows the deductions made to the Social Security fund. That is your money, not Congress’ to play around with. And yet it’s a public debate now.

On the other hand, find me the politicians who are calling for cuts to the biggest budget item by far in the pool of your tax dollars that we do give Congress the right to divide as they see fit, discretionary spending. That would be the Pentagon budget, of course. There is pretty much radio silence on that topic. Where there are minor quibbles it’s usually about how much to increase it, not whether it should be cut.

Back in the day, Ronald Reagan’s head of his Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman, in an interview in The Atlantic, talked about the defense contractors and noted, “The hogs are really feeding now.” Fast forward to today and those hogs are breeding and feeding, gorging on your tax dollars, and yet the Pentagon is so reckless and eager to spend that they cannot pass an audit, year after year. So the bloated Pentagon budget, some $816 billion officially, is far more than every hostile foreign power combined, and yet in reality is much more than that, since military costs are also absorbed into other budgets, such as Veterans Affairs, Dept. of Energy, and NASA, amongst others.

Into all this comes the fatuous self-inflicted threat of a default to the U.S. full faith and credit because Republicans won’t honor past expenses they voted to make. If a dad does that he’s a deadbeat dad. If a contractor does that to a subcontractor, expect a lien. Do that to a neighbor nice enough to sell you an appliance that you never paid for and he’s going to see you in small claims court. Deadbeat Republicans never met a weapons system they wouldn’t vote for but now that the bill is here they want to dip out. Gullible Democrats also voted for those military boondoggles but at least they want to honor those debts.

Republicans are, as usual, aiming to cut programs that really serve human needs, but the budgets they seek to eliminate are so small the Pentagon would regard them as rounding errors. They want to cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)? No food for poor kids! More caviar for Raytheon war profiteer executives!

It is long past time to really pare down the DoD budget. We should not have sophisticated weaponry all over the Earth, under the seas, and in space while families are living in tents in the snow on sidewalks and while healthcare is still not available to all. Can we unite for peace and prosperity?

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, PeaceVoice senior editor, and on occasion an expert witness for the defense of civil resisters in court.

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Opinion The Last Word

Zero-Sum Hummers

Photo: Calazonesflics | Dreamstime.com

I adore my hummingbirds, arguably the best in-close flyers in the world, with reaction times so fast they zip in next to angry defensive bees to score a sip of sugar water despite the bees coming at them in a bee fury that would dissuade virtually any other critter, including me.

Two feeders full of sugar water hang not 40 inches from me, just outside my home office window. Who needs Netflix when I can turn to the Hummingbird Channel?

A tiny hummer can dart backwards and hover, waiting a human heartbeat for the bee to either peel off or charge toward it, and if the bee is serious, the bird might wheel and bug out or might zigzag into another port of the feeder to see what the bee will do then.

Of course during that human heartbeat the little hummer’s heart beats some 200 times. They must perceive even the quickest human or bee as operating in slo-mo. No bee has ever caught any hummer at my feeders.

Watching the bird feeders is observing nature as an endless metaphor for our human foibles. Like humans, hummingbirds fall for the zero-sum approach to sharing with others. They seem to be convinced that whatever sips another hummer can take means that much less for them. Classic zero-sum thinking.

There are two feeders with four ports on each. Eight hummingbirds could easily share those. They never do. They expend enormous energy chasing one another in wild aerial acrobatics that make the Blue Angels look staid and clumsy.

I guess their little brains can’t seem to learn what should be obvious. Human beings are at the top of the intelligence pyramid because we learn so much, so quickly, and advance so easily. We wouldn’t fall for the same sort of wasteful error that the hummingbirds do.

Um, yeah.

We barely survived four years of a regime led by the quintessential zero-sum thinker, Donald Trump, who reminds me of a hog guarding a rotting carcass, chasing off other scavengers to keep all that delicious filth for himself. No matter what the comparator, he boasted that he was at the top, smarter about national defense than “his” generals, more intelligent than the U.S. intelligence services, more able to brilliantly analyze the “China flu” problem than world-renowned virologists, and just generally a “very stable genius.”

But we can all fall into similar — if less world-stagey — logic traps. Overcoming our amygdala reaction to seeing someone else doing well is our daily challenge.

My zero-sum white man reaction to immigrants or refugees coming into “my” country might be, “You will not replace us!”

My evidence-based response would be closer to, “Welcome. Like any ecosystem, our diversity is our strength. Work, study, learn, be productive, pay taxes, create a future for your family here. Help us repair and improve our nation’s image around the world. We are glad to make this your new homeland.”

My zero-sum white man reaction to a person of color, possibly an immigrant, being hired by my employer might be, “Stealing our jobs! I gotta figure out how to undermine this one.”

My evidenced-based response would be more like, “Welcome. The most successful work teams are those that can operate well in a complex world economy. Let’s learn from each other and perform at our top potential.”

The hummers are fun to watch chasing each other. It’s like an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, with Elmer Fudd chasing him and Daffy, and the perspective showing a long hallway with many doors and all of them suddenly popping out of random doors with no idea of how they got there. The hummers go streaking past my window, then suddenly sprint downward from above my window, and it’s pure entertainment for me.

But our human zero-sum analysis tendencies have a more malevolent outcome and show us often at our worst. From white nationalists to Vladimir Putin to anyone who feels like someone else’s misfortune is their gain, those stories are ugly.

Can we show that we are even smarter than a bird that weighs about the same as a penny? One wonders.

Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict resolution degree programs at Portland State University, PeaceVoice senior editor, and on occasion an expert court witness for the defense of civil resisters.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Happy Tax Day

(Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)

Yes, it’s That Day.

Show of hands — who loves paying their federal taxes? No one?

Okay, let’s hear why not. Warning: I’m going to fact-check you.

Rancher: My taxes go to support welfare mothers and I work for a living. It’s not fair. 

Fact-check: First, thank you for your hard work. In truth, however, just eight percent of our income taxes go to the social safety net for people in poverty and many of the recipients are poor rural working folks. And let’s be fair, farm subsidies, including cattle ranchers, could be considered another form of welfare, that is, pay for no work in many cases, given out in massive amounts above and beyond any other administration by Trump, seemingly to consolidate support from rural voters. 

Senior citizen: My taxes go to support education but my kids are all adults. Why should my taxes support other people’s kids?

Young single person with no kids: My objection exactly!

Married couple without children: We decided not to have kids, so this is our protest too.

Fact-check: Fair enough. I suppose we could eliminate education from the federal budget. That would lower your income taxes by approximately three percent. While we are at it, perhaps we should eliminate the portion of the taxes that go to things many people never use? There are millions of Americans who oppose vaccines, so perhaps no funding for them. Millions of Americans do not fly, so why make them pay for the Federal Aviation Administration’s $18 billion? We could go on …

Veteran: I served, so why should I pay taxes when others didn’t serve?

Fact-check: Good question. We do have to acknowledge that the military budget is huge, by far the largest government agency funded by our income taxes, with about 22 percent of your tax dollars paying for the current military and another 15 percent paying for a combination of the national debt due to military spending and veterans’ benefits. And others serve as well, wouldn’t you agree? The dangers you faced were terrible, as shown by the 18,571 active duty military who died between 2006-2021. Domestically, those numbers are only rivaled by delivery drivers, although in terms of fatalities per 100,000 workers, loggers have a far more dangerous job than military members or police. 

Jeff Bezos: I don’t personally pay taxes, hahahaha.

Fact-check: Yeah, the rest of us underwrite your lavish lifestyle. Across the board, the very wealthy pay just 8.2 percent income taxes, but Jeff, we know you’re trying to humble brag about your amazing scam, so we looked into it and you paid a bit less than one percent tax rate, not zero. Of course the average taxpayer, whose income actually decreased during the last portion of the Trump years, is stuck at around 14 percent, nearly double what most rich people pay.

Right-to-Lifer: I object to my taxes being used to slaughter babies.

Fact-check: Well, again, fair point. In this case, to remedy that objection, we would need to eliminate the Pentagon budget. The civilians, including babies, killed by U.S. military actions in the Global War on Terror amount to at least 387,000 people, and that doesn’t count the civilians killed by other militaries we subsidize and supply, such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. 

Okay, I know everyone’s happy now! Get back to work!
Dr. Tom H. Hastings is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, PeaceVoice Senior Editor, and on occasion an expert witness for the defense of civil resisters in court.