COLOSSAL AND DANGEROUS STUPIDITY IN EUROPE AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS

Dr. Common Good

Let me just start with Europe. If the 400,000-plus American military members who perished in WWII could see the recent, ignorant and nauseous behavior of Trump, his chief minion JD Vance, and his flack Pete Hegseth in Europe, their souls would surely rebel. The United States once fought to defend Europe – and ultimately ourselves – from Nazi tyranny. Now, Trump caves in the most obsequious way to Putin, accepting his casus belli for invading Ukraine, and more or less giving him all that he demands before even beginning any negotiation to end the war. On top of that, Trump has thus far excluded Europe, and even Ukraine, from such discussions, even though (must I repeat the obvious?) it is Europe and Ukraine that have the most at stake. But he prefers to have his own cozy tête-à-tête with the dictator he wants to be. That is thoughtless, contemptible behavior towards our allies of more than 80 years, and demonstrates yet again his astounding ignorance of history and his sociopathic lack of decency. Neville Chamberlain looks like a visionary and tough guy compared to Trump. And the so-called Republicans in Congress who could put the brakes on some of this have abdicated their roles so profoundly it defies understanding, other than to acknowledge its rank cowardice.

Then there is JD Vance, the callow, undeservedly pompous little Trump spokesperson, lecturing Europe on true democracy and on their “real” problems. Nauseating. The countries who are at the front line of any further Russian incursion being told that their real problems were not Russia, or China, but from within – i.e., their attempt to exercise some control over pro-Nazi hate speech, and illegal immigrants. To rub that in their face, his only direct meeting in Germany was with the extremist right-wing AfD party. There’s more. Adding yet another layer of preposterous ignorance to all of this, so-called Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified Vance’s comments in a CBS interview by saying that “free speech was not used to conduct a genocide,” a sentiment soon echoed by Vance who doubled-down, repeating that indeed free speech didn’t cause the Holocaust.

The ignorance and arrogance of these comments is just staggering. Speech, and public speech, did indeed foment antisemitism and contribute to the Holocaust. Who, I ask, was Joseph Goebbels? What was his role? Do you, JD Vance, or Marco Rubio, not know this? Public speech is often used in this way. There are too many examples to list, but just think of what happened in mass radio broadcasts before the Rwandan genocide of 1994. That, too, was “free speech.” And right here, we saw Trump’s own public words that egged on the violent January 6 insurrection. There is just no question that public speech can be used to legitimize hatred and violence, and Europe – especially Germany – has every right and reason to be concerned about this. But Vance, for all his ivy-league law school education clearly has no worldly experience or plain common sense, only blind ambition. And Rubio? He should know better. He does have experience. But time after time, Rubio has shown that he has no courage whatsoever. He can be blown around like a cheap kite. And so it goes.

Let’s move from the Europe debacle to our foreign aid role, specifically USAID. Now we have Elon Musk, the unelected, Trump hatchet-man, reveling in his unchecked (and illegal) ability to chop away at government functions as he sees fit, never mind that he has almost $4 billion in contracts with federal agencies, which by itself is a disqualifying conflict of interest, and notwithstanding the fact that he has no knowledge of federal government, and no experience with the complexities of foreign affairs. So, on a whim, he decided to run USAID “through the wood chipper.” USAID is the primary agency managing our foreign assistance programs to the poorest and most needy of populations, whether through disaster and humanitarian relief, HIV/AIDS and other disease prevention efforts, the promotion of education, support for human rights, or support for climate change mitigation. The entire USAID budget is less than 1% of the total US budget, and yet USAID plays an essential role in maintaining positive relationships around the world, and, among other things, in preventing crisis situations from becoming generators of hostility or even terrorism. Sure, USAID has been criticized over the years for how it performs its mission. But those are typically critiques of the “how,” not of the “what.” Only fools would deny the importance of what has often been called “soft power.” Even in the sense of pure realpolitik, in a world where China, as one example, is all over the globe supporting development projects, the presence of some countervailing options is necessary. Dr. Common Good has seen this up close. For the US, USAID has provided much of that soft power capability, for relatively little cost to the American taxpayer. So where is all the “criminality” that Musk alleges? He has shown us nothing, and while cavorting in his impish playground, has gutted an essential element of US foreign relations. All the “America firsters” out there should know, by the way, that weakening our web of alliances and ties to the global world out there actually weakens the US. No country can stand on its own.

There will be more posts to follow on other Trump administration disasters and debacles, including Gaza plans, threats against Panama’s sovereignty, the absurd threats to take Greenland from Denmark, and the ludicrous renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

A DERANGED MADMAN AND A DISGRACE TO THIS COUNTRY

Dr. Common Good

This is going to be a brief post. Donald Trump is absolutely deranged, period. Combine this with ignorance, child-like petulance, greed, and malice, and you have a dangerous recipe. His proposal to take over Gaza, turn it in to a “Riviera,” and just push the Palestinians out is so flat-out crazy that it shouldn’t deserve a response. Except, alas, he is president. It is ethnic cleansing in pursuit of a real estate deal. A complete disgrace to this country and to the global community. A boot-kick in the face to generations of Palestinians who have made Gaza their home, after being kicked out of their first home in Palestine by the Israelis. Oh, and the hardline right-wing Israelis love this, because they can appear even less crazy and inhumane than Trump.

The 25^th amendment needs to be invoked. Trump is too unhinged to carry out the duties of president.

Add to this the actions of his manic sidekick Elon Musk, and his band of junior data crunchers. Musk knows nothing about what federal agencies do, and yet he is out there slashing and eliminating thousands of employees who provide essential government services. His contemptuous treatment of USAID is an outrage. Calling USAID a criminal organization? He knows nothing. This is an agency that has been the bedrock of our foreign assistance programs since 1961, and a key player in spreading goodwill and forming relationships with countries worldwide — which, by the way, is in the US national interest, especially in the current environment of competition with China and others. Those who work for USAID are not in it for the money, but to do something positive for people in the world who are poor, starving, disenfranchised, and in the midst of humanitarian and public health crises. And they do so in the name of the United States, which sends a strong message of good. That is a helluva lot more than I could say for the likes of Trump and Musk, who are in it for themselves and have no concept of public service.

Making America great? Not in any way, shape or form. Making America a disgrace.  

TODAY’S TRUMP LIES AND STUPIDITIES

Dr. Common Good

At Dr. Common Good we will do our best to counter the numerous lies, distortions and flat-out ignorance as these roll in. We can’t address them all, so we’ll pick out what we can. For today’s list:

Trump’s blatant lies about the Panama Canal: At a press conference today, and previously, Trump cited a completely made-up number of “38,000 American workers” who died digging the canal. According to the Smithsonian Institution, somewhere around 6,000 actually died, though the death toll is likely to have been higher than that. Importantly, most of these workers were not American, but Black Caribbean workers from the colonial plantation economies of Jamaica, Barbados and others. On top of that, the Black Caribbeans were segregated in terms of working conditions, pay and benefits. And how did the US acquire control of the canal territory in the first place? Originally, the territory was part of Colombia, but the US backed a group that wanted to secede from Colombia, in part through the use of our naval power (“gunboat diplomacy”). When that territory became Panama, the US signed an agreement in 1903 to build the canal and control the newly established Panama Canal Zone (for 99 years). The canal zone was then handed back to Panama in 1999, via treaty signed under the Carter administration.

Trump’s (and Musk’s) blatant lies about USAID: The fantastical lying about USAID is almost too much to grasp. USAID was established by President Kennedy in 1961 as an outgrowth of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and similar in spirit to the creation of the Peace Corps. It now has offices in some 100 countries and has become a major provider of foreign aid in multiple areas, including disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, poverty relief, technical cooperation on global issues including the environment, socioeconomic development, and health. It is also an important arm of foreign policy and bilateral interests, the primary agency through which the US projects “soft power,” which is critically important for maintaining alliances, for countering global efforts by the Chinese to bring countries into their orbit, and so on. In their absolute ignorance, Trump/Musk charge that it is run by a “bunch of radical lunatics” and that, for example, it sent $50 million in condoms to Hamas.

Trump’s colossal stupidity about a US “Iron Dome” missile defense: Trump has boasted that he wants to build an “Iron Dome” missile defense across the entire US, just like Israel’s missile defense system. This, like almost everything that comes from Trump, reflects his complete ignorance. The Israeli Iron Dome system is designed to defend against short-range missiles and artillery, and it covers a territory that is about the size of New Jersey. Any missile defense system for the US would not be aimed at short range missiles and artillery, but primarily at long range inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which travel into sub-orbital space where they are maneuvered to fire multiple warheads down on their targets. Defending against such weapons, over the entire United States, is an entirely different task than an Iron Dome faces. But of course, Trump has no idea.

Trump’s boast that he has done more in a few days than Biden did in four years: This is such a massive lie that we don’t even want to repeat it and add to its credulity. See the Dr. Common Good blogpost of January 21 for details on Biden’s major accomplishments, which Trump has never come close to matching. Trump is all about show and scams, not real policy change for the betterment of Americans.

And…where is the press? At a press conference today, by the way, Trump spouted several of these and other lies with impunity. Not one journalist challenged him. That has to stop.

DEI – As American as Apple Pie

Dr. Common Good

I am truly fed up with the constant barrage of DEI demonizing and (to borrow a certain person’s language) “DEI derangement syndrome.” Efforts to implement DEI, or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, have become a primary punching bag for the so-called “anti-woke” crusade of the MAGA folk.

And why is that? Like so much of this blowhard rhetoric, the reality is far different than the MAGA media hype. Actor Whoopi Goldberg summed this up passionately and concisely in a retort to Trump press secretary Karin Leavitt’s strident anti-woke comments at her first press conference on Jan 28, at which she asserted, “there will be no wokeness here.” In response, Goldberg said “Let me explain something to you, because without that wokeness, you might not have that job”…”because women were not invited to that table. Women were not invited to many tables in this nation.” “The reason we fought and busted our behinds [was] to make sure that you didn’t have to worry about this. And now to hear you talk about it, and to hear anybody talk about ‘the wokeness,’ the wokeness was put in place for a reason: because Black people couldn’t get into colleges, because women could not get into the colleges they wanted to go to. This is all women, see. This is not Black, Asian women. This is all women. Women were not invited to this party. It was a man’s world, and we busted our a**es to make sure that this was a person’s world. So please, please stop using that phrase and talking about this because you don’t understand what you’re saying.”

QED.

In short, “wokeness” (including DEI efforts) is actually a hyperbolic, pejorative term for what Martin Luther King described as the “arc of justice,” the gradual progress of American society towards the ideals expressed in the founding documents and so many of our most essential statements of American values. In the Declaration of Independence, equality of all is a self-evident truth, the 14^th Amendment guarantees equal justice for all, and principles of equality are enshrined in the 19^th Amendment (women’s right to vote), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, among other laws and Supreme Court decisions. These were all reactions against threats and barriers to those founding principles of equality. The vocal detractors of DEI and related approaches cannot deny the historical truth of those threats and barriers, so what is the real issue?

Disagreement with the MAGA distortions of DEI also comes from another quarter — American business. In late January, 98% of Costco shareholders voted down a proposal to question DEI policies at the company, in a testament to the value of these policies. A recent CNN report (January 31) found that many businesses consider DEI practices, which focus on recruiting strategies and employee training, as a way to broaden the talent pool and qualifications of potential employees. The CNN report also cited a study, based on data from 16 countries and 27,000 employees, showing that DEI initiatives boost profits, reduce employee attrition and increase employee motivation. All of this, of course, makes sense. In a globalized economy, where products and services are often developed for a broad and diverse market, wouldn’t a smart business want its employees to reflect and understand that market?

The anti-DEI, anti-woke and, for that matter, anti- “critical race theory” crusades are, sadly, yet another threat to American progress and essential principles. You may dislike how a particular DEI policy or approach is implemented. Fair enough. Criticize and fix it. But to disparage the basic essence and goals of DEI and related movements, to use them as targets of vitriol and retrograde policy, is not only ignorant but deeply un-American in spirit.

So I say to all those anti-woke and anti-DEI crusaders, don’t wrap your hate and your bigotry in the American flag, because that just won’t fly.