Summary
The Trump administration has canceled 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts, including critical programs that provide lifesaving therapeutic food to malnourished children.
Mana Nutrition’s CEO reports that ready-to-ship boxes of peanut paste that could save approximately 300,000 children are now stranded in a Georgia warehouse.
Despite Secretary of State Rubio’s claims that “lifesaving humanitarian assistance” would be spared, numerous essential health programs have been terminated, including those preventing diseases like polio, HIV, and Ebola.
These cuts contradict claims about targeting “wokeness” or “waste,” instead showing a reckless abandonment of America’s global humanitarian commitments.
These trash humans got where they are by not caring about anyone but themselves. Their fans are mainly made up of people just like them. Therefore nothing horrible they do will convince most of their followers.
These cuts contradict claims about targeting “wokeness” or “waste,” instead showing a reckless abandonment of America’s global humanitarian commitments.
How is this a contradiction? What did you think they meant?
If Musk and Trump dislike wokeness so much, they should just go to sleep, and let others handle the statecraft.
I don’t think the title could be any more clickbaity.
“Musk’s purges suddenly take a horrific turn—and wreck an ugly MAGA lie”
<Unpopular person doing unpopular thing> causing <emotionally charged adjective> UNSPECIFIED event that <emotionally charged verb describing destruction> of <emotionally charged adjective> UNSPECIFIED lie of <unpopular movement [on lemmy]>
Yeah I had to downvote it on the principal of clickbait articles.
It’s the title of the article. The person posting the article here didn’t chose the article title. They could have found an alternative source with a better headline, but if we start doing that we’re going to miss out on some important news because some people are lazy or some news isn’t covered everywhere, I’m guessing.
Even from a very cynical POV, this money was soft power. It was an investment to sell other products to the world.
Why do you think the world doesn’t eat north korean burgers or watch russian blockbusters?
And not to mention that the food … it’s not bought from all over the world, a ton of the money was used to buy from farmers in the USA.
Outside of the ruling class in Russia, I don’t think there is much of an audience for their blockbuster “hilarious falls from 8th story windows”.
Step 1: Get rid of USAID
Step 2: Cut all food stamps
Step 3: Most US farmers go out of bussiness
Step 4: Rich people buy up all farm land
Step 5: Food prices skyrocket due to monopolies and mismanagement and the rich get to become feudal lords.
Step 6: We feed the billionaires to the wood chipper and have French Revolution: American-style.
step 7: use wood chipper output as fertilizer for our crops in the community garden
Woah, woah, woah, woah!
You can’t feed the billionaires to the wood chippers!
You gotta feed them to the pig farms so they finally do something useful with their worthless lives.
I think in the interest of efficiency we need to just skip ahead to step 6.
Step 6 - Let 2/3 of the earth population die, replace most jobs with automation and AI. Keep the 1/3 of the population remaning as slaves and distraction. Enjoy the utlimate victory of capitalism.
2030 will be a fun year.
US workers : I know it’s mighty easy to say from a distance, but now is the time for disobedience
The best time for protest and disobedience was weeks ago. The second best time is now.
Stay cool. It is going to hit the violent right wing especially hard. They will eventually figure it out since, in most cases, their people hold every positions of power from the dog catchers to the White house. The, “Hey look, something shiny over there”, will get old, even for those morons.
Do not stay cool! Why are you tempering yourself when your own government is being taken apart before your eyes?
There’s nothing within the established American political framework that can be done to stop this dismantling by any number of citizens. There’s literally no legal way to get Trump out of office that doesn’t involve the GOP turning on him now. And I’m not holding out hope that they spontaneously grow a conscience.
There’s no ability to recall your representative from congress, no petition that can force the dissolution of the executive branch. The constitution is an ancient, flawed basis of governance that’s showing its age. By design, you have to wait 2 years for the next election to change leadership. That’s it. And God help you if those elections are stolen.
If you’re arguing in favor of a civil war to purge bad actors or the Balkanization of the country then be honest. But to pretend any number of peaceful (or violent) protests will get America back to normal is naive. The only way to recall these officials is with a guillotine, and you’re entering entirely new waters there.
So we roll over and die?
I never said that, I just want people to be honest about what they’re getting into as they ramp up resistance. It’s a very different mindset, you have to be expecting the nuclear option and plan accordingly
So I’m glad you said this, I’ve been having a hard time the past week because I don’t see any way out of our current situation beyond what you have just described and it’s been stressing me because I’ve both felt alone in my conclusions and not wanted to ask my friends, family, and coworkers if I’m way out of bounds because I don’t want to make this time harder on them than I know it already is.
Granted I still don’t feel great about the potentiality of losing my life in such events but I’m grateful to you for making me feel less alone right now. Cheers!
Appreciate that it’s getting through to some people. Its frustrating to think about but even more frustrating that people can’t call a spade a spade. The writing has been on the wall for years and our paralyzed inertia has taken us over the cliff. Willing that inertia to take us back is less than pointless.
It’s scary but also liberating in a way. We’re as close right now to restoring the Roman Republic as we are the American Republic. Whatever comes out will be a blank skate and you get to write your own part onto it, whatever that may be.
Crazy things do happen, nobody really knows how any story ends. Trump was a few inches from having this timeline dissolve in pink mist less than a year ago. Maybe some important people will explode in a Tesla fireball accident.
Keep your head up 🍻
General strike with clear, specific demands would work. Easier said than done, especially since most workers in the US aren’t already organized; but it would probably work. It would probably even work if all current major unions striked (a lot of union members are “conservative” though, so if it was seen as political rather than practical, it could break solidarity).
Would that stop them from causing damage unopposed right now? Sure. But how do you think that would end? Are there any meaningful demands that could be conceded to save what’s left of the constitution? Trump was pushing for live fire on protesters in his last administration, and the cooler heads that kept that from happening are gone.
The cat’s out of the bag. The executive branch has been purged of anyone disloyal; there are private military contractors wandering DC who have been unilaterally deputized; career military officials who could be threats are getting tossed. The last opportunity to keep peaceful continuity with the first 248 years of America ended on January 19th.
Fascist dictators don’t get to step down and return to a private life. We’ve never seen one leave office alive.
Will resistance to this oppression end well for the American people? Will foreign intervention topple the cult of personality? Or will our grandchildren be watching the coronation of President Trump III either way?
Who knows? But it’s inconceivable that we’ll be back to normal in 2/4/8 years. This election was a seminal moment, there will be a definite before and after. The question is how stark the difference will be.
Americans are cowards. Even us Canadians are largely the same in that regard. We just keep letting this stuff happen because we think we’re being clever and most of us are so fucking brain-dead that imagining a better world is next to impossible.
I suspect it’s at least partly due to the fact that both the US and Canada are too fucking large. Frankly speaking someone in California has to put in a decent amount of work to get to DC, this means that California can be more easily ignored by the Feds. The fact of the matter is that there isn’t much folks can do short of attacking federal agents, simply because there’s no way for most regions to put pressure on the Congress or the President. Even our so called representatives are almost always in DC or their isolated little shithole communities.
Except that California’s GDP is insane. It’s also the home of all the tech billionaires. We live in an age where communication is no longer really affected by distance, and even still that’s why so many governments have representatives, and if you don’t like them there are options much of the time. Americans are great at constantly reinforcing the systems they claim to hate.
Also, plenty of right-wingers in economically barren states get representation and are listened to because they make a fuss(ok it’s more like a temper-tantrum, but it does the job).
When it comes for putting pressure on folks we are still instinctually led by in person tendencies. It’s the whole “you wouldn’t say that in person” thing, if a politician fears being tard, feathered, and hanged then they tend to be a lot more amiable to the common folks.
Also these ain’t mutually exclusive things, frankly speaking I think every House district should have a home office where the representative is forced to live and operate out of where they can do votes and seat meetings. This puts them well within stabbing distance of those they should be representing, it would also allow better tracking of whomst they meet with. If they need to present a bill or meet in person they can take a train, should help get a proper rail network established.
If this seems like it’d be hard on the geriatrics, that’s the point. If they can’t handle the stress of it all and drop dead that’s a feature not a flaw, they could drop out at any time.
While I still think it’s not a very strong excuse, the distance thing, I do very much agree with the rest.
Don’t count on that. When fascism’s failures become apparent, it doesn’t retreat into self-reflection. It finds another boogeyman to refocus the efforts of its followers. If it deviated from this just a bit, then it would quickly become apparent that they have no idea how to solve any actual problem.
humanitarian commitments
Don’t you know, “humanitarian” falls under their “woke” umbrella.
These people think they’re some kind of special above other humans. Musk literally believes everything is a simulation and only he is real.
Guys, is it woke to have compassion, empathy, and value humanism?
In their eyes, yes it is.
They will kill anyone, even kids, not even for money, but for spite and optics. This will be the worst fascist cycle in history
Isn’t humanitarian just some new gender? Sounds woke AF…
I don’t know what’s worse, being Sleepy or Being woke
Wait, it’s not vegetarian, pescatarian, humanitarian?
Musks eyes are currently bloodshot from all the ketamine and cocaine he has taken, that’s why he’s wearing shades
It’s that damn “sin of empathy” again!
Cancelling contracts already in progress. The epitome of “efficiency”.
Refusing to pay people and honor contracts has been Trump’s MO for decades.
In a lot of these cases, the money has already been paid for these contracts*. “Cutting” them isn’t even saving any money, because the money has already been spent.
Yep, they’ll get the government sued and lose so much more money through litigation and actually losing the law suits.
But of course, they don’t care, for all their talk about deficits and taxes they know it’s not their money in the end.
Unless some genius lawyer manages to somehow make Musk personally liable, of course, because none of this Doge stuff looks set up properly, so if the US ever does get back to some sort of rule of law, people will get in trouble for breaking all sorts of laws.
Trump’s admin has already shown that you can’t really sue the federal government into compliance if there isn’t anyone to enforce it. Sure, those countries and companies and people can sue the US for breach of contract. The government will laugh in their face and not pay, simple as that. Trump literally made his millions doing exactly this.
It’s shocking to me that people have this notion of the judicial branch being magical wizards that can issue a sacred ruling that teleports bad guys to prison. That’s not even in their job description.
They interpret the law and the executive enforces it. If the executive doesn’t care to enforce their rulings then they might as well be running legal theory channels on YouTube
It just shows that efficiency isn’t what this is about. It’s about destruction.
Destruction Of Government Enterprise
Destruction is why Krasnov was selected.
Elon “I love killing poor children” Musk
Considering his history as a white, South African, he probably is pretty delighted that he gets to make poor black babies starve there.
You are all a sacrifice I’m willing to make to save a buck
Not gonna change until it wrecks a few million maga lives.
A bad decision at so many levels. It’s inhumane and they are loosing a soft power of being the good guys. Then, we will hear from western propaganda that it’s China who is “buying” Africa’s favors by providing humanitarian help.
Just help others for the sake of it, it’s not that difficult.
and wreck an ugly MAGA lie
The problem is that MAGA people either don’t know about the problem, don’t care about the problem, or would actively harm foreigners (or American minorities, for that matter) if it put even a penny in their pocket or made them feel superior.
Only the people that already know the republicans are lying their pants off know it’s a lie, a fact worsened by corporate news media and social media firms censoring the virality of anything that could hurt the far-right.
There’s always another believable lie. Some other reason why.
My wife’s best friend has a conservative brother that got fired under DOGE shenanigans. 6-figure job that they relocated him to Germany to do. Now he doesn’t know if they’re even going to help him with relocating back to the U.S.
He says this is just a normal pendulum swing in life/politics, and it’s a reaction to liberal overreach. …? Not an ounce of ire toward the people who actually did this to him.
Many just straight up don’t believe you when you tell or even show them. They think you’re brainwashed so they don’t take you seriously. They just believe Big Brother loves them and would never lie to them.
If only the “pro-life” Trump voters actually cared about the lives of children.
“‘The unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”
~David Barnhart
The only reason pro choice exists is because the republican party found the perfect groups to advocate for and against. It makes their constituents feel all warm and fuzzy to say they’re pro life, while they’re given an equally convenient group to hate. Trans people make up just slightly less than one percent of the US population and the odds of one of their constituents will actually meet a trans person are significantly lower than them meeting that nice middle class gay/black Christian protestant couple who sometimes invites them over for supper after church on Sundays.
They only care about the control using children as an excuse. Woman and abortion, privacy and csam ect.
The Dems should make some mention about this on the Sunday morning shows, if they were smart about it.
No one dumb and selfish enough to vote for Trump will care about the suffering of people outside the US.
I mean yes, but the Democratic voting base will. Then promising to restore international aid would probably secure a good number of first and second generation immigrants’ votes.
I personally know Christians who voted for Trump (yeah I know, but bear with me) that would care very much, as they actually do missionary work overseas to help the kind of people that would be affected by this cancellation.
lemmy guess, single-issue voters
lemmy guess, single-issue voters
No, according to one of them they thought the country needed fixing, and he’s the one to do it. Wrong direction, pricing, that sort of thing.
I think they were religiously anti-woke, but didn’t want to come out and say it straight.
Funny enough, they were one of those who does missionary work. I plan on asking them again after the USAID changes filters down and affects people more forcefully.
No, according to one of them they thought the country needed fixing, and he’s the one to do it.
People who think a person who handled COVID like trump did is an is the right person to manage a “crisis” he worked hard contributing to?!:D
I personally know Christians who voted for Trump (yeah I know, but bear with me) that would care very much, as they actually do missionary work overseas to help the kind of people that would be affected by this cancellation.
This comment is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
lemmy guess, single-issue voters
Any response from you about my mentioning how some Christians also care? …
that was the question:D
I noticed you edited your comment, removing you quoting of my license, which is what I was asking about, you responding to the license, and not to the comment.
I appreciate the edit.
P.S. Love the user name. Nice play on words with Dune involved.
this license thing is funny and all, but if you get distracted from the conversation if someone accidentally pulls it in a quote then it’s quite counterproductive. we’ve now had 3 posts revolving around it, and still no answer to the original question.
Are you implying they care about the suffering of people within the US? Because they verifiably do not…
No, that’s literally not what they implied. You’re unironically doing the “so you hate waffles?” thing.
