The foreign aid question and many other issues of where and how governments spend money reflects the fact that a recent survey suggests 42% of the citizens in this nation have not traveled abroad and half of them don't ever plan to leave the USA. Recalls the expression from before World War Two that most Americans had never been more 200 miles from where they were born.
North America is not an island but a large continent where people from all over the world came, drove off the indigenous peoples, and made lives for themselves. Our ability as a nation to help other nations in multiple ways is more than a nice gesture. In human terms it is a responsibility. Lacking this emotional perception means we are now killing as many people as the worst terrorists--using hunger and disease instead of bombs and bullets.
The current US federal administration is focused on how to enrich its political leadership and concurrently stay out of jail. If half of that energy went into helping both Americans and the world, solutions to problems would be obvious and implemented.
Living and working outside the USA has taught many of us more about the planet than what we learned academically.
There is another side to this story, and there are other, more transparent ways to help people and save lives around the globe without secretly promoting various political and social agendas that many Americans are opposed to.
So well said. An an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and USAID did a lot to save lives and prevent people in hopeless situations from doing desperate things to survive and protect their families. In the long game, USAID was probably the best bang for the buck we could make because dealing with the consequences of desperation is extremely costly. More than a ballroom which will inevitably be an embarrassing one.
The foreign aid question and many other issues of where and how governments spend money reflects the fact that a recent survey suggests 42% of the citizens in this nation have not traveled abroad and half of them don't ever plan to leave the USA. Recalls the expression from before World War Two that most Americans had never been more 200 miles from where they were born.
North America is not an island but a large continent where people from all over the world came, drove off the indigenous peoples, and made lives for themselves. Our ability as a nation to help other nations in multiple ways is more than a nice gesture. In human terms it is a responsibility. Lacking this emotional perception means we are now killing as many people as the worst terrorists--using hunger and disease instead of bombs and bullets.
The current US federal administration is focused on how to enrich its political leadership and concurrently stay out of jail. If half of that energy went into helping both Americans and the world, solutions to problems would be obvious and implemented.
Living and working outside the USA has taught many of us more about the planet than what we learned academically.
There is another side to this story, and there are other, more transparent ways to help people and save lives around the globe without secretly promoting various political and social agendas that many Americans are opposed to.
So well said. An an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and USAID did a lot to save lives and prevent people in hopeless situations from doing desperate things to survive and protect their families. In the long game, USAID was probably the best bang for the buck we could make because dealing with the consequences of desperation is extremely costly. More than a ballroom which will inevitably be an embarrassing one.
Oh my heart hurts
Not!
I so appreciate your analyses, Peter, and this one especially hit me hard.