This will be us
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Last night there was an article that we, The United States of America, had 550 tons of food that was to go to starving children and families all over the world. Instead, it sat in a warehouse where it expired and now “we” were going to pay $180,000 to have it burned up.
It’s not like the administration didn’t know about it. A reporter had been to South Sudan months ago and had told of the desperate need for food, and medicine that would keep clinics open and people from starving. He made the point of saying that he knew where this food was stored and begged Secretary of State Rubio to release it. He made the talk show circuit and identified two warehouses where food for these people was being held – rotting.
So why? What’s the point? Is it cruelty?
Do you remember the book The Ugly American?
It was first published in 1958 and was a fictionalized account of U.S. blunders in SE Asia. The one that stuck with me was a story about the U.S. shipping bags of food and as they were being off loaded a fellow came up to each bag with a stencil and spray painted each bag with what the stencil said. It was in a language the people couldn’t read. What it said was “Gift from the people of North Vietnam” or the equivalent.
Wherever there is conflict there is starving and cruelty. And there is incompetence, greed, and stupidity.
We, Americans, use to push through all that and try to help. Now? This administration? I don’t know what to say. It is shameful. What happened to Marco Rubio? I watched him go from pretty rationale – although I disagreed on many of his stances – to some kind of robot who repeats cruel policies, and does so with a certain arrogance. US aid had been dispensed around the world through the aptly named USAID. It did a great job. Were there problems? Well, yeah. When you are shipping food and supplies to starving sick people who are in the middle of a war zone there are problems. People steal the supplies and sell them on the black market. That happens. But more often than not, the right people get the food and supplies.
This administration under the direction of Elon Musk and aided by Donald Trump repeated Russian propaganda points saying USAID was a Ponzi scheme. This is also the call of the far right and people like Stephen Miller. A guy whose life work seems to be to inflict as much pain and suffering as cruelly as possible.
So they shut down USAID and its functions were supposed to be taken over by The State Department. You can make the argument that aid is a function of diplomacy and therefore State should handle it. Okay, I get that, but they didn’t. As 550 tons of food rotting can attest to.
I read my alumni magazine today and there was a small article announcing how the university was having to scale back its global health efforts that it did through its nonprofit affiliate. This work had been going on for fifty years. Improving health and saving lives around the world cut back 80% due to the termination of $800 million in USAID grants. This has resulted in the loss of 2,200 jobs and 1,975 positions in 44 countries and 247 positions in the U.S. Yeah. Tell me, how does this make America great?
What in the actual fuck is wrong with these people. My current fantasy is to have the biggest bonfire ever and feed Miller, Rubio, Bondi and the rest of them into the roaring flames one by one, saving the orange asshat for last. And, with him I’d make him do the hokey pokey until all his appendages are burnt off and then throw is flabby torso in with the rest of them.
Once we rid ourselves of these self serving Republicans, the cost of resetting up these programs will probably double. Then, they dare to all themselves Christians.
Mario Rubio and his ilk seem to have gone through some kind of Trump machine that replaces their brains with a copy of Trumps agenda with Trump speak.
What I can’t understand is why there isn’t a rumble happening in the Democratic and Progressive’s parties preparing for the midterms. I want to feel the earth move under my feet with a plan to do away with these Nazi’s once and for all.