“Big Brother” has finally arrived. And his name is Elon Musk.

While you all know by now who Elon Musk is, you might not be familiar with “Big Brother.” He is a fictional character in George Orwell’s novel 1984. This book (published in 1949) tells the futuristic story of a totalitarian state in which the ruling party wields complete and total power for its own goals, regardless of the needs of the people, or “proles.” Proles being inferior whose ideas don’t matter. Check out the novel details in Wikipedia.

Currently in Washington DC, Musk and his crew have gained access to data bases in a number of Federal Agencies. This unfettered access, granted by POTUS, has opened up the door to the personal data of all Americans with a Social Security number. People that rely on SS checks, Medicaid, and other government benefits. There doesn’t seem to ANY oversight or transparency to Musk’s goal in all this. I hope those SS checks go out the end of the month, in full.

Equally alarming is the crash and burn Musk is attempting at the USAID agency. He wants to “kill” and dismantle USAID. I wonder if he has a clue that some of the aid this agency provides throughout the world includes $billions in food such as wheat and rice that is grown by American farmers, then sold to and paid for by the government? What will happen to the livelihood of farmers in Kansas, Nebraska, and other states if USAID is dismantled? American jobs are being lost because of this folly.

When Musk and POTUS issued a stop work order and funding to USAID over 600 tons of food in the distribution system came to a halt. Children overseas are dying while some of this food probably rots. This is a disaster and frankly an embarrassment to the United States.

The United States, once a nation that was a beacon of light throughout the world – that light is in the processes of going dark. As the US pulls back from the world and loses our influence and reach, a void will be created that will slowly begin to be filled by other countries – Russia or China.

When we go about living our everyday lives we can become oblivious and miss the fact that we might be living in a historic moment. Unfortunately, that moment now is the drip, drip, drip loss of democracy.

JOHN YOUNG

Stevensville

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom