Nihilistically Reckless

What kind of work is "efficient"? What kind is "hardcore"? For that matter: What kind of work counts as work?

Hardcore Shredding and Chipping

What does Elon Musk do all day? According to his rightwing sycophants, Musk is “working with the president to absolutely shred the government.” Working to shred.

And of course Musk spent a proud weekend last month working to chip. As he told his platform X, he forwent a weekend of “great parties” to “feed USAID into a wood chipper.”

We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone [sic] to some great parties. Did that instead.

All of Musk’s shredding and chipping has also ended up sending thousands of babies to the shredder and the wood chipper.

In gutting USAID, Musk’s efficiency task force efficiently deprived pregnant women with HIV of meds that protect their infants from the virus. Hundreds of babies have since been born positive for HIV.

This has been horrible. But relief workers, who had no choice as babies died, clung to the State Department’s assurance that our government would, as our democratically-elected representatives had decided it would, keep offering “life-saving medical treatments for HIV, TB, and malaria.” What else did they have to hope for? With daily medication, the HIV-positive babies could lead healthy and full lives.

Determined expressly to traumatize civil servants, DOGE of course broke the promise. Trump and Musk wiped out nearly the whole of USAID, leaving only 10% of its programs. Some ten thousand grants, contracts and awards—worth almost $60 billion, and including the anti-retrovirals program—dried up.

Musk and Trump have indeed traumatized infants, and the people who care for and love them. There is now no more medicine for babies with HIV. Left untreated, the babies will steadily develop AIDS and die.

Without the medication, they will also be infectious through their short lives. More kids and adults will contract the virus for which the medicine is not available; without it, they will die of AIDS. And on and on.

“All our hopes are wiped out,” says Makele Hailu, who works with HIV-positive children in Ethiopia. “This is just a disaster.”