{"id":16092,"date":"2025-02-20T21:47:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T05:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16092"},"modified":"2025-11-15T23:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T07:09:21","slug":"issue-of-the-week-hunger-disease-human-rights-economic-opportunity-war-population-environment-personal-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16092","title":{"rendered":"Issue of the Week: Hunger, Disease, Human Rights, Economic Opportunity, War, Population, Environment, Personal Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Back to News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
People waiting for food in Sudan last year.Credit…Moises Saman\/Magnum Photos, NY Times, 2.21.25<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The End Of Civilization As We Knew It, Part Twenty-Seven<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We remind again as we did in our last post that we have no partisan motivations in our work and commentary. We have supported the policies of, and been supported by, countless members of both major US political parties for decades. We have praised, parsed, critiqued and raised alarm about the policies of all. Our one concern is to serve humanity and all life, as best we see it, with consistent universal values and intellectual and moral integrity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the first 100 days of the Trump restoration come to an end, it is impossible to list all the actions, chaos and consequences of what has occurred. In sum, it has appeared to be what The New York Times editorial said in the February 9 Sunday edition–the attempted creation of a “king or god-emperor”<\/a>–the very things the American Revolution was fought against to create a democratic republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A republic, if you can keep it” as Ben Franklin famously enjoined at the moment it was created, a reminder we have noted before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All things most important to the freedom and decency of America<\/a> seem to be being gutted for the sake of what in effect is an autocracy of the super-rich, ruled by one (or two–how will that work out?). The next level of trillion dollar tax cuts (again, like in the last Trump administartion, the begining cause of the inflation that followed his defeat by Biden and in turn helped his return) are promised to the rich, while the programs for the middle class on down are decimated to “save” money for priority number one. Inequality times infinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump won in the closest popular vote since Nixon in 1968 (barely) and yet he and his agents constantly act as if he won by acclamation. As we noted before, The Wall Street Journal reported just after the election, if the Democratic voters who stayed home had voted, Trump would have been trounced. As we pointed out before, the reason they stayed home was alienation from the party that used to stand for economically delivering for them. The majority of Trump voters did so in the hope that the cost of living would be lowered–not for ripping up the critical services delivered by the government, and the rules of the constitution. In fact inflation has gone up in the last month and will continue to do so with the policies occurring and stated to come. That has always been and will be political death, no matter how things are at the moment and may be for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of what is occurring is even greater on the world stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re not going to address here existential issues such as Ukraine, where even many Republican senators expressed outrage at Trump’s saying that Ukraine was responsible for starting the war and one of the most courageous people in modern history leading their defense, Zelensky, is a dictator. In the harshest terms, they made clear the only dictator in this situation is Putin, a brutal killer, whose agression started the war, which will not end with Ukraine (more targets will follow) if Ukraine is not strongly supported. Which will end up meaning world war no matter how much Trump uses the word “peace” (remember “Peace In Our Time” by Chamberlain after he met and made a deal with Hitler, which Hitler promptly broke?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsflash, September 1, 1939, Polish dictatorship invades Germany. American soldiers don’t save the world but are suckers fighting the Nazis who are the victims of the aggression of all the nations of Europe and beyond. Oh wait, it was the other way around, with the Manifest Destiny of the Nazis to rule the world, along with the fascist Italians and fascist Japanese, an alliance that would have lasted about as long as Hitler’s deal with Stalin was useful to him before he invaded Russia. Stalingrad and Normandy barely saved the day, but what if the Nazis had completed their nearly successful effort to build an atomic bomb first?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US will either excercise global leadership in the international rules based system as it has since World War Two (yes, with terrible mistakes sometimes, but mainly in defeating fascism and Soviet communist tyranny and providing the stability of caring by giving more than any nation in history to feed, clothe, fight disease and so on for those most in need) or the vaccuum will be filled–by Russia and China and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, we’ll be back to this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, we focus on the unprecedented damage being caused globally by effectively shutting down U.S.A.I.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The label of foreign aid has always been an easy target. Until it’s broken down to what it does. The large majority of Americans support helping the hungry children of the world and fighting disease and helping those most in need–who make up an enormous portion of the planet’s population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s what U.S.A.I.D. does. And without even a full understanding of this by most Americans, they support by 60% the continuation of U.S.A.I.D. and its work in the newest Washington Post-Ipsos poll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever since President Kennedy started it, every president and congress of both parties have strongly supported and expanded it. Because feeding starving kids and supporting US national security have always been strongly supported by the American people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millions of lives are at stake literally. And unless U.S.A.I.D. is fully restored immediately, enormous numbers of people will die and be maimed for life in various ways. America will go from being loved to hated more than ever in many places, and even if one is heartless, Einstein is not required to do the strategic calculus. Others will step in. We know who they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We defer now to the Guest Essay in The New York Times posted late tonight, by Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former U.S.A.I.D. official in the Obama and Biden administrations. He outlines the complete destruction and damage being done by the U.S.A.I.D freeze as we write. He lists facts, not ideological opinions, that are irrefutable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We Are Seeing Complete Destruction\u2019: The Damage Done by the U.S.A.I.D. Freeze<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feb. 21, 2025, The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Listen to this article \u00b7 17:04 min Learn more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n