Flags fly at half-staff around the Washington Monument. I made this image years ago after one of the Presidents from my young life died. But it seems like a fitting symbol for what has happened to the United States of America. The country I grew up with, at a time when it inspired the world and was seen as a beacon of goodness (albeit slightly flawed, and sometimes bigtime flawed; but this was usually seen as an aberration,) is now deceased.

For a short time I grew up in post-post-war Europe, in Vienna, and I was very fortunate that my dad would frequently pile five of us in to a small BMW, and we drove all over Europe. He had diplomatic status, so we also took a handful of trips behind the Iron Curtain. I met lots of people. The wraith of the Second World War was very tangible and deeply perceived in all those places. The notion of another Nazi party arising was abhorrent to all from north to south, west to east. No one wanted another conflagration like the war, no one wanted to impose the kind of suffering that had been experienced by millions, and the hope was that people might not fear their neighbors so much as we began to see each other as a species instead of a clump of territories. This was palpable even to an 8-year-old.

The U.S. landed the first men on the moon while I was in Austria. This also had an effect of inspiring millions of scientists and engineers, and cheering the populace everywhere. As I was attending the American International School at the time, I was among a group of Americans and Austrians who got the see the astronauts up close, riding around several times in the Spanish Riding School. They looked a bit tired from all the parades. People in the streets of the city would enthusiastically nod their approval at the idea that the U.S. represented a positive agent for change in the world.

Not many years later, and sooner than I wold have expected, the Iron Curtain fell. This opened up many new opportunities for countries on both sides to coalesce and began the creation of a stronger Europe, allied with the beacon of light in the world; the United States. I thought that maybe Humanity had grown up a bit. Alas.

Only days ago the administration announced in no uncertain terms that the U.S. would no longer stand with our longtime allies, some of which have been there since the American Revolution. We've announced punitive economic actions aimed at even our closest neighbors, and threatened openly to take over other countries. We've completely switched our stance on Ukraine, sided with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Belarus, declining to support a resolution marking the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Federal employees have been laid off, fired, and pushed out of government. Told they did a shitty job. Aid programs are withering, and some are probably not going to make it. That means many, many people will suffer; the poor, the sick, veterans who served honorably, Native Americans, anyone trying to get a job or who doesn't have one and yet still has that nasty habit of wanting to have a little food every day and to not die in a ditch or from any of the epidemics floating around. Our rulers are systematically demolishing the very basic structures that keep the country from falling in to chaos. It is much easier to destroy than to create. I'm not sure we will ever be able to rebuild to original specs.

Oh, and we're sending "undesirable people" to other countries for imprisonment or repatriation (they're not really trying very hard to repatriate) and those countries obligingly have been building work camps for them. This is documented by reputable news agencies in Panama, at least, several other South American countries, and even India has volunteered to receive them. Plus we've beefed up Gitmo. Super.

Bear in mind, Dachau, the first concentration camp, outside Berlin, was up and running in slightly less than two months after Hitler was named Führer. Academics, scientists, doctors, opposition politicians and those with "dangerous ideas" were the first to go to the camps. Millions would follow. Soon there was the problem that they weren't able to kill people fast enough using traditional methods, so they upgraded to the gas chambers and the crematoria. All the media came under the control of the Nazi party. Those who were lucky enough managed to flee. The military underwent frequent purges (translation: generals killed by firing squads and replaced by loyalists.) By 1935 the armed forces of Germany voluntarily changed their oath of service, now pledging allegiance only to Adolph Hitler.

There are reports of workers in this country who are afraid to go to their workplace because ICE might show up and disappear them, from a practical standpoint, forever. I can not get behind that, or many of the other cruel and self-serving ideals this crop of people subscibes to. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I'm reasonably safe, for now, from the scheiss sturm that will be the fallout of all this. But I'm damned concerned. Frankly, I'm wondering how long it will be before I have to grab my briefcase, put on a tie, and go stand in front of a line of tanks.

One last thought: a Constitutional crisis doesn't start when the courts or legislatures push back against the infraction. The infraction is the genesis of the crisis. If a murder is committed, the infraction is the murder, not the trial. No one says, "there could be a murder here" pending the murderer's first appearance in court. The crime is the initial act. We are many crimes in to the game, and we know who the perpetrator is. We're in the crisis.

Bigly.