Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – January 26, 2025
By Tony Wikrent
Scott Ritter [via Naked Capitalism 01-25-2025]
...I’ll take this moment to remind President Trump that one of the “crimes” I was accused of committing by the Ukrainian government which put me on their State Department-funded death lists, was to claim that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was a direct result of NATO expansion.
Which is, of course, the same assessment put forward by President Trump.
If you were an average American citizen, Mr. President, your name would be on that list.
Now is your chance to stand up in defense of the average American citizen and shut these lists down while terminating all connectivity between the US and Ukrainian governments which target US citizens for speaking out against Ukrainian propaganda talking points.
“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” you wrote, “an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference.”
You promised to defend this right.
Prove it with action, not just words.
Strategic Political Economy
”a way for those who want something from Trump to transfer money directly to him”
Heather Cox Richardson, January 20, 2025 [Letters from an American]
The tone for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States at noon today was set on Friday, when Trump, who once trashed cryptocurrency as “based on thin air,” launched his own cryptocurrency. By Sunday morning it had made more than $50 billion on paper. Felix Salmon of Axios reported that “a financial asset that didn’t exist on Friday afternoon—now accounts for about 89% of Donald Trump’s net worth.”
As Salmon noted, “The emoluments clause of the Constitution,” which prohibits any person holding a government office from accepting any gift or title from a foreign leader or government, “written in 1787, hardly envisaged a world where a president could conjure billions of dollars of wealth out of nowhere just by endorsing a meme.” Salmon also pointed out that there is no way to track the purchases of this coin, meaning it will be a way for those who want something from Trump to transfer money directly to him.
Former Trump official Anthony Scaramucci posted that “anyone in the world can essentially deposit money” into the bank account of the president of the United States….
Walter Schaub, former head of the Office of Government Ethics under Trump in his first administration, who left after criticizing Trump’s unwillingness to divest himself of his businesses, wrote to CNN: “America voted for corruption, and that’s what Trump is delivering…. Trump’s corruption and naked profiteering is so open, extreme and pervasive this time around that to comment on any one aspect of it would be to lose the forest for the trees. The very idea of government ethics is now a smoldering crater.”
The Land of Greater Fools: America as a big con.
Hamilton Nolan, January 21, 2025 [How Things Work]
Watching Trump launch a crypto coin days before his own inauguration that instantly made him billions of dollars richer is kind of impressive, in the way that you might be impressed by watching the planes strike the twin towers on 9/11. People said this was bad, yes. But do you understand the level of corruption that is on full display here? This is—I don’t want to be hyperbolic here—a level of public corruption that is, let’s conservatively say, one thousand times worse than the Watergate scandal. That was just an instance of a paranoid president trying to steal secrets from his political opponents and then covering it up. This, on the other hand, is the president-elect of the United States of America putting out a big bucket that says “BRIBE ME” right before he takes office. Anyone can now buy an imaginary “coin” and the money will go directly into the pockets of the Trump family, as they run the United States government. That is what happened here. Donald Trump’s net worth went up by tens of billions of dollars in one day. In one day! The day before his inauguration! Out of thin air! And then his fucking wife made a coin, too! This is not even the same as the Trump family launching a business, building hotels that wealthy interests might stay in to try to curry favor. There is no business here. This is just saying, “Give the president money and we’ll give you this token we made up.” It is a tip jar that sits on the desk of the Oval Office. You almost have to laugh. The way that I know that people have not quite internalized how outrageous this is is that everyone is not still talking about it, right this minute.
Imagine a grainy undercover FBI sting video of a crooked politician being handed a paper bag full of money. Now imagine that the bag contains ten billion dollars. Now imagine the camera pulling back and the guy taking the bag also controls the FBI. That’s what is happening, my friends. It is not hidden. It is the opposite of hidden. Boldness is the way of the wise crook. Hiding things implies that you think that they are wrong.
The Frankenstein of Unregulated Capitalism Has Its Monster: How Total Greed Syndrome warps reality
Jim Stewartson, January 21, 2025
I’ve said this before, but I have never been more convinced, if we are to keep a capitalist system at all, we must turn it completely upside down and tax billionaires out of existence. And while that may sound extreme, just wait until things really get rolling with the Fourth Reich.
The destruction of the environment will accelerate as the actual President yells about how “liquid gold” from “drill baby drill” will create a “Golden Age.” The information environment will be completely controlled by the fascist, illiberal state and its corporate extensions, like the former Twitter and Facebook. Racism, misogyny, and antisemitism will bloom and result in state-sanctioned violence. “Deportations” will end up as concentration camps. Women will suffer more. Trans people will be persecuted. The economy will crash. Wars will break out.
If we survive this four years and there is an attempt at another election, there may well be enough horror, pain, and tragedy built up to make the drastic changes to correct the cancer-ridden husk that remains of the government.
The Chevron ruling which seized the regulatory power of the administrative state for the Judiciary Branch, was the ultimate result of Citizens United. The corrosive money SCOTUS allowed to flow into the election system from that case ate its way all the way down to the bone, eliminating the central reason we have a government — protection.
But to psychopaths, our well-being is absolutely meaningless, unless we make it too expensive for them to keep taking protections, and rights, away from us. And I mean really expensive. TGS is a hell of a drug….
Lydia Moynihan, 22/01/2025 [Defend Democracy Press]
Global power shift
China’s overlapping tech-industrial ecosystems
[High Capacity, via Naked Capitalism 01-24-2025]
Gaza / Palestine / Israel
'This is Ethnic Cleansing': Trump's Idea for Jordan and Egypt to Take Gazans Triggers Outrage
Eloise Goldsmith, January 26, 2025 [CommonDreams]
Speaking to reporters Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to see most of the population of war-torn Gaza be relocated to Jordan and Egypt, a plan that a number of observers said was tantamount to ethnic cleansing. Trump made the remarks the same day that he lifted a Biden-era hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.
"I'd like Egypt to take people. And I'd like Jordan to take people," Trump said, according to the Financial Times. "You're talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing."
Oligarchy
Where Have the Good Oligarchs Gone? The so-called 'left,' the actual Left, and oligarchs
Thomas Neuburger, January 24, 2025 [God’s Spies]
The Left — the actual Left — is ideologically and permanently opposed to Rule by the Rich. The distinction above is important, and without the utter destruction of the Oligarch class, its actual dismantlement, real self-rule in the U.S. will be hope unfulfilled, a “stretch goal” in corporate-speak, not something we’ll ever have back.
[Daily Mail, via Naked Capitalism 01-23-2025]
The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics
Amazon closing all Quebec warehouses, laying off more than 1,700 workers
[CTV, via Naked Capitalism 01-23-2025]
2024 US home sales hit lowest level in nearly 30 years with ownership increasingly out of reach
[Associated Press, via Naked Capitalism 01-25-2025]
Nicole Bardasz, January 17, 2025 [More Perfect Union, via Naked Capitalism 01-25-2025]
Restoring balance to the economy
How to Take Heart From What Really Worked in the First Resistance
Theda Skocpol, January 24, 2025 [The New Republic]
Marches and lawsuits are fine, but the real wins over MAGA last time were powered by grassroots activists pushing from thousands of districts across the country.
Disrupting mainstream economics
[New Left Review, via Naked Capitalism 01-25-2025]
Anthony L: “On Stiglitz on Rawls.”
Taking a step back from immediate policy questions, Stiglitz has recently published a new book that seeks to reconstruct economic policy from first principles. ‘What kind of economic system is most conducive to a good society?’ is the central question of The Road to Freedom – its title a clear riposte to Hayek, who in The Road to Serfdom (1944) famously warned of the authoritarian danger posed by even modest levels of government intervention. Stiglitz’s book is not only an attack on the neoliberal faith in free markets, but an attempt to reclaim the ideal of freedom back from the right. This is a variation on a familiar argument – namely, that the market provides only ‘negative’ freedom, not ‘positive’ freedom: the capacities or resources we might need to put our otherwise merely formal freedom to use.
Health care crisis
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
Decentralized Social Media Is the Only Alternative to the Tech Oligarchy
[404 Media, via Naked Capitalism 01-23-2025]
Trump orders release of JFK, RFK and MLK assassination records
[AP, via Naked Capitalism 01-24-2025]
Creating new economic potential - science and technology
In a first, oxygen and rocket fuel made using artificial photosynthesis in space
January 20, 2025 [interestingengineering.com]
For the first time, Chinese astronauts have reportedly demonstrated artificial photosynthesis technology in orbit.
They have successfully conducted experiments that mimic photosynthesis, converting carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and rocket fuel ingredients.
This development is a major step towards long-term space exploration, as it demonstrates the potential for producing essential resources in space.
Demystifying Jared Isaacman, Trump’s NASA nominee
[Space News, via Naked Capitalism 01-23-2025]
Democrats' political malpractice
Peter Laarman, January 16, 2025 [Los Angeles Progressive]
Yes, the Democrats will someday come to be ashamed of and to regret their shameless support for the disgusting and xenophobic Laken Riley Act, as Michelle Goldberg predicts….
This might be a good time to recall where the politics of accommodation can take us. And no, I am not thinking here of German elites accommodating themselves to Hitler. I have in mind the 1870s and 1880s in this country, when far too many former friends of abolition democracy were only too willing to oblige White Southern determination to keep the old order in place. In this case, the Northerners, many of them former Abolitionists, enjoyed a preponderance of power but chose to cede it for the sake of national “reconciliation” at the expense of Black people.
I realize that for the analogy to work, the elements gaining power today would need to be every bit as morally reprehensible as the South’s racist “Redeemers” and the terrorists who presided over the Jim Crow regime. And today’s accommodators would have to be as dishonorable as the craven Northern accommodators of that same era. Are they? Is it fair to compare a weak-kneed 2025 Democratic response to Trumpism to the weak-kneed (and sometimes corrupt) 1875 Northern accommodation of violent insurrectionists?….
Diehard Southerners used to proclaim “The South Will Rise Again!” They don’t proclaim it now, because they don’t have to. It’s clear enough that the Old White South has risen, more than once, and always with a vengeance. First in the abandonment of Reconstruction; then in Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” fueled by White backlash to the civil rights movement; and finally with the triumph of Trumpism in the wake of Obama’s presidency. Each of these risings has been leavened by a White evangelical Christianity that also has its roots in the South’s humiliation of 1865….
Historian Richard Slotkin recently published an impressive summation of his work, addressing the theme of regeneration through violence that has animated all of his writing about US history for the past half century. Slotkin’s new volume, A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America, ends with a chapter that envisions Donald Trump as the last Confederate president and notes that today’s ongoing culture wars “are not simply quarrels about issues like abortion and gun safety. They are disagreements about the fundamental character of American nationality and the purposes of the American nation-state.”
Several themes explored by Slotkin are highly relevant to what many are calling the latest “realignment” in US political history. I will mention just three.
Plutocratic populism
Slotkin notes how the South’s dominant political class of the 1840s and 1850s—the major planters—was able to keep yeoman farmers and small-scale planters in line. These dominators fashioned an ideology “assigning the highest value and power to the holders of wealth, which poor or working-class white people will accept as long as their superiority to nonwhite people is guaranteed.”….
Immigration as a Black-adjacent threat to democracy
Writing in 1877, Nation publisher E.L. Godkin, once a stalwart Abolitionist, echoed Southern “Redeemer” politicians’ condemnation of Blackness.…
Slotkin notes that the turncoat Godkin was hardly alone in lumping immigrants and Blacks together as undesirables. Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell also compared immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe to Black people and Indians: “beaten men from beaten races, representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.” Real Americans of Anglo-Saxon stock, Lowell argued in 1890, cannot expect to live freely alongside such inferior breeds. The un-American elements must therefore be barred from entering the country or else barred from participating in politics: precisely the “solution” that the Jim Crow states had by then put into practice in relation to the supposed menace of African American enfranchisement….
Valorized violence and mainstreamed misogyny….
“Heritage, not hate” is how the Southern Way of Life is still marketed today. This gloss helps to sell millions of insecure White men on the idea that stamping out the transgender menace and restoring traditional male authority in the household constitutes a noble cause. Raw misogyny masquerades as gallantry in this framing—i.e., the proper way to love women is to control them. Yale-educated JD Vance is proving himself especially adept at suggesting that independent, educated women (and trans youth) need to be put in their place for their own good. Trump, of course, is a bit clumsier, vowing to protect women “whether the women like it or not.”….
Trump’s transactional regime
Lambert Strether, January 21, 2025 [Naked Capitalism]
Here is the list. I took it from the Whitehouse.gov page on “Presidential Actions.” ….
Executive Orders:
- Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness (order)
- Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists (order)
- Reforming The Federal Hiring Process And Restoring Merit To Government Service (order)
- Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing (order)
- Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government (order)
- Establishing And Implementing The President’s “Department Of Government Efficiency” (order)
- America First Policy Directive To The Secretary Of State (order)
- Protecting The United States From Foreign Terrorists And Other National Security And Public Safety Threats (order)
- Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential (order)
- Protecting The American People Against Invasion (order)
- Reevaluating And Realigning United States Foreign Aid (order)
- Declaring a National Energy Emergency (order)
- Restoring The Death Penalty And Protecting Public Safety (order)
- Securing Our Borders (order)
- Protecting The Meaning And Value Of American Citizenship (order)
- Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program (order)
- Unleashing American Energy (order)
- Clarifying The Military’s Role In Protecting The Territorial Integrity Of The United States (order)
- Holding Former Government Officials Accountable For Election Interference And Improper Disclosure Of Sensitive Governmental Information (order)
- Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce (order)
- Withdrawing The United States From The World Health Organization (order)
- Application Of Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act To TikTok (order)
- Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements (order)
- Ending The Weaponization Of The Federal Government (order)
- Restoring Freedom Of Speech And Ending Federal Censorship (order)
- Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders And Actions (order)
Proclamations:
- Guaranteeing The States Protection Against Invasion (proclamation)
- Declaring A National Emergency At The Southern Border Of The United States (proclamation)
- Granting Pardons And Commutation Of Sentences For Certain Offenses Relating To The Events At Or Near The United States Capitol On January 6, 2021 (proclamation)
- Flying The Flag Of The United States At Full-Staff On Inauguration Day (proclamation)
Memoranda:
- The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Tax Deal (Global Tax Deal) (memorandum)
- Organization of the National Security Council and Subcommittees (memorandum)
- Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects (memorandum)
- Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives (memorandum)
- Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture (memorandum)
- Putting People Over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California (memorandum)
- America First Trade Policy (memorandum)
- Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel (memorandum)
- Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis (memorandum)
- Hiring Freeze (memorandum)
- Regulatory Freeze Pending Review (memorandum)
- Return to In-Person Work (memorandum)
Announcements:
- President Trump Designates Chairmen and Acting Chairmen (announcement)
- President Trump Announces Acting Cabinet and Cabinet-Level Positions (announcement)
- President Trump Announces Sub-Cabinet Appointments (announcement)
- President Trump Announces Cabinet and Cabinet Level Appointments (announcement)
Executive Action Reaction: Day 3: Explaining what Donald Trump is up to
Prospect Staff January 23, 2025 [The American Prospect]
The effort to overhaul birthright citizenship is now stalled thanks to U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour in Washington state, a Reagan appointee who did not hold back in his contempt for this jurisprudential malpractice….
Meanwhile, Coughenour said there was a “strong likelihood” that the executive order was unconstitutional on the merits, citing past cases that confirmed the birthright citizenship grant in the 14h Amendment. In a hearing today, he was far more direct. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made? … Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.”
This is a temporary restraining order, granted for 14 days as the case plays out. But it’s not exactly good for Trump that the judge labeled this the easiest decision he’s ever had to make.
The TrumpCoin Cometh: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Grift.
Michel de Cryptadamus, January 21, 2025
...My personal favorite aspect of the TRUMP launch was the contractual terms and conditions on offer over on gettrumpmemes.com. Some back story: the crypto industry has been fighting back against government regulators for years now by attempting to claim that cryptocurrency tokens cannot be “investment contracts” because they are not “contracts”13. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been given to lawyers without consciences to enable them to boldly stroll into courtrooms all across the globe and claim that without a contract between the buyer and seller a crypto token cannot be an “investment contract” and if crypto tokens are not “investment contracts” then the laws that have dutifully protected retail investors from scam artists for almost 100 years do not apply to crypto tokens. In other words: it’s open season on retail chumps who think they can strike it rich by investing in FartCoin….
...Now that doesn’t mean that all of the hundreds of millions the Trump team was able to pocket came from people with Chinese or Singaporean passports. And it definitely doesn’t mean that the $500 million flowing through sketchy Asian crypto exchanges into Trump insiders’ pockets was actually just a way for someone (*cough* TikTok *cough*) to pay a massive bribe in broad daylight to convince Trump that banning large Chinese social media platforms from the American market was a bad idea30. It does, however, mean that the businesses through which all those hundreds of millions of dollars passed on their way to Trump insiders’ pockets were run by people with Chinese or Singaporean passports operating out of a country somewhere on the Eastern half of the Eurasian continent. [UPDATE] Protos pointed out that the hourly trading volumes for TRUMP suggest that it is actually Chinese traders and not just international traders trading on Chinese exchanges driving the TRUMP market.
Bringing back American jobs amirite? ….
Why Donald Trump hates wind power
January 23, 2025 [reve, via Clean Power Roundup]
One of his most frequent arguments against wind power is that wind farms are ugly—and that’s where Trump’s own antipathy began. In 2006, he bought land along the coast in Scotland to build a golf course. Then he learned that an offshore wind farm was planned for the area. Worried about the view, he filed a complaint with the government, describing the wind farm as “an ugly cloud hanging over the future of the great Scottish coastline,” and arguing that the wind farm should be relocated or shouldn’t be built at all.
Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
[Independent, via Naked Capitalism 01-25-2025]
'Unthinkable': Trump FTC Chair Shuts Down Public Comments on Corporate Pricing Tactics
Jake Johnson, January 24, 2025 [CommonDreams]
The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution
The Supreme Court Case That Got Us Here
Arjun Singh, January 24, 2025 [The Lever]
Fifteen years ago, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision ushered in a new era of corporate dominance over American politics.
“Blatantly unconstitutional”: Judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order
[Axios, via Naked Capitalism 01-24-2025]
What to know about the ruling blocking Trump’s order on birthright citizenship
[AP, via Naked Capitalism 01-24-2025]
Jim Stewartson, January 25, 2025
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution created birthright citizenship as part of the abolition of slavery; freed slaves in America were granted citizenship after a bloody Civil War. The 14th Amendment overturned the disgraceful 1857 decision Dred Scott v. Sanford, which held that the Constitution and American citizenship did not extend to Black people.
Nevertheless, in his first week in office, Donald Trump issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship. This was blocked by a judge as “blatantly unconstitutional” but in many ways the order was already successful — because now the “issue” of birthright citizenship is a “debate” obscured by the excuse that it’s about immigration. It isn’t. It’s about starting the process of legalizing slavery, again.
As I have reported, the “Dark Enlightenment” is the PayPal Mafia’s ideological north star, a “hyper-racist,” antidemocratic, pseudo-intellectual framework rationalizing authoritarianism, eugenics, and slavery. Its lead proponent Curtis Yarvin is the troll-like prophet of a movement which has largely captured Silicon Valley and now the US Federal Government. The Vice President, JD Vance, is a follower, as are Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Steve Bannon and many others in positions of influence and power.
Last night, in a rare 50-50 vote, decided by JD Vance as the tie-breaker, the Senate approved Pete Hegseth, an alcoholic rapist, a christofascist lunatic, and an unqualified Fox News host, to be the Secretary of Defense. Hegseth follows the teachings of Doug Wilson, a “pastor” who says that empathy is Satanic, that women should not vote, and that slavery was actually good….
[TW: For many, Stewartson might be “too polemical.” But a reason I keep repeating the theme of civic republicanism is that a philosophy of governing matter a great, great deal. Should society be organized and governed for the improvement of the lives of ALL people? Who gets to decide what this means? Or are resources scarce society just cannot afford for all people to live free of hunger and privation?
[Stewartson is pointing out that the thinking of the billionaires and oligarchs who have gained control of USA is extremely dangerous. Their thinking goes like this: “We are rich because we are superior. Because we are superior, we know better than you do what is good for society. Because we know better than you do what is good for society, letting you have a say in how and where society is going is pointless. In fact, letting you have a say in how and where society is going is often an obstacle and impediment to what we know should be done. Democracy is a liability, not an asset.”
That’s what the billionaires and oligarchs think; it’s what billionaires and oligarchs have thought for centuries, before and after the American Revolution. At what point since 1776-1782 have oligarchs stopped thinking they know better than anyone how to run society, and democracy is a hindrance to their rule?
There is a final point to this thinking of billionaires and oligarchs: “We’re going to run things, so you should just settle down and enjoy the diversions we give you for your entertainment.” Which is why it’s so telling that Trump is making Linda McMahon, a founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., his Secretary of Education. ]
The Price of Speaking Up in Trump’s America
Parker Molloy, January 24, 2025 [The New Republic]
A bishop asked the president to show mercy to immigrants and scared children. The response tells us everything about the next four years….
Trump himself attacked her on Truth Social, calling her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” and demanding an apology. He told reporters the service was “not too exciting” and that organizers “could do much better.”
But that was just the beginning. Right-wing media launched an all-out assault on Budde that revealed exactly how power plans to deal with dissent in Trump’s second term. Fox News host Greg Gutfeld literally called her “Satan.” His colleague Sean Hannity described it as a “disgraceful prayer full of fearmongering and division.” Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones called Budde’s words “radical leftist.” The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh declared that “hell exists for people like Mariann” and called her “exhibit A for why women should not be pastors, priests, or bishops.”
Even members of Congress got in on the act, with one Republican suggesting that the American-born bishop should be “added to the deportation list.”
Will the Courts Enforce the Constitution Against President Trump?
Erwin Chemerinsky, January 22, 2025 [American Prospect]
If they don’t, the checks and balances that have defined our government since its inception will give way to one-man authoritarian rule.
[TW: An example of “they just don’t get it.” Especially since Chemerinsky for decades has been seen as one of the leading liberal Constitutional lawyers. The entire purpose of the richly funded conservative and libertarian movement for nine decades now is to overthrow the founding philosophy of civic republicanism.]
Practice Your Cursive as a Citizen Archivist and Preserve Thousands of Historic Documents
[Colossal, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 01-24-2025]
“In 2010, the newly established Common Core State Standards program, which outlines skills and knowledge students should acquire between kindergarten and high school, did not include cursive in its English requirements. As a result, many young people can no longer read or write in cursive. But if you can—or are willing to learn—a wealth of historical documents await you in the U.S. National Archives. The federal organization’s Citizen Archivist program is recruiting volunteers to help transcribe thousands of documents in its collection. Records in need of review are categorized into ‘missions,’ like paperwork relating to women in the First World War or submarine patrol reports during the Second World War…. The National Archives also needs people to tag photographs and other materials to help identify people, events, or places. By improving searchability, the archives become more accessible to historians, genealogists, students, and the public. It’s easy to get started: just register and select a document to begin transcribing. There’s no application, and you can contribute as much or as little as you’d like. National Parks Service interpretation planner Joanne Blacoe says, ‘We wanted something that was going to last beyond an anniversary, not just in our own archives but in a place that everybody could access.'”
