Change You Must Believe In

 The time change was- what- a week ago? Maybe two? I don't know, but you- like me- probably spent a few days saying stuff like, "Ok, it's 9:00 o'clock, but it's really 10:00 o'clock because of that stupid, fucking time change... Talk about an exercise in futility! Most of us probably do that, at least for a couple of days each fall or spring. 

Ever since the regime change last January, do you also find yourself confused when you hear or read about the government alphabet agencies we are all so familiar with? It's been 9 months, and I still find myself initially thinking that it's good thing when I hear that familiar government agencies are saying this or doing that. A gummy, big-toothed guy gets murdered in Utah, for example. Well, the FBI is on the case! A good thing, right? No. It's not that FBI from a year ago. It's this FBI... Oh...no...

Whether you thought a government agency was good or bad in the past, the regime change this past January set the clocks back on all of them, possibly for forever and certainly for the worse. There are no good government agencies when the government is bad. Some fell by the wayside and some just became mean or meaner. 

Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been around for ages. Most people probably didn't know of them or give them a second thought because they weren't out in the streets of the US like military invaders, when we were back in normal times. Now they are busting heads and tear-gassing children as they hunt down busboys, roofers and maids who may or may not have committed the civil infraction of entering this country illegally. 

Everyone feared the IRS before, but most of that was by design. I've dealt with them in my past, and they were more than willing to work with me for my transgressions. They didn't beat me or waterboard me because I *forgot* to file a 1099 on some work I did. They did their job professionally and put me on a payment plan, and eventually that was that. Around tax time every year the papers were full of stories of people who were off by pennies on their tax returns and the IRS pursued them to the hilt and ruined their lives for such treachery. Yikes. Before the internet, that was media click bait designed to instill a little fear into anyone thinking they could cheat on taxes. I can't say one way or the other whether it was IRS policy to leak these horror stories for a purpose, but I do know the media loves to rouse us rabble! Perhaps it was both. 

The IRS has no teeth now. Staff and funding have been cut. Free tax filing services no longer exist. If you need help, you have to pay people who paid Trump, to help you file your taxes. And the big fish in America's ponds- the millionaires, billionaires and corporations- they are now protected from the prying eyes of the IRS. I don't know why these assholes clamor for tax cuts still. I guess they are used to it. Were they able to put "congressional bribes" before for a tax deduction on their returns? I don't know, but if so, they don't need to now. BTW, when is congress going to realize they trumped themselves out of a job. He won't need them in a few more months or weeks when he finally becomes "The Decider". Well, story for another day, I reckon. 

Time changes, regime changes- we get used to them after a while. That's America. That's how we do. And that's a goddamn shame.