He's opened a terrorist factory is what he's done. This is going to radicalize piles of people.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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And that's the point. The capitalist system is eating itself and we're living in the demagogue phase of anacyclosis cycle. Buckle up, strengthen your communities. We only have each other to keep on surviving the dark times ahead.
Fuck president musk he's a murder.
Just so we don't have to rely on The Telegraph alone.
The real death panels were the oligarchs we made along the way.
Time to start massive person loss lawsuits. Just overload them with hundreds a day.
So, I have to ask - why is America responsible for these people in the first place? Why aren't their governments supplying oxygen for this woman?
The point of USAID is (was?) to project soft power, it's got nothing to do with responsibility.
Previous administrations figured it was worthwhile to run these aid programs. Good PR, or a vehicle/cover for more nefarious activities. People came to rely on it, and it getting pulled suddenly upsets things. The article does mention Thai hospitals picking up some of the slack, but presumably they aren't set up to take on all of the patients overnight, so inevitably the abruptness of the change leads to tragedies.
In the narrow sense of independent individuals/states, you are correct. A country does not have a responsibility to run foreign aid programs. However, once you do, you enter into a agreement that involves some responsibility because now others are relying on you to fulfill your commitment.
Put simply, say you want to climb up a ladder and need someone to help, say, keep their finger on a button that prevents the ladder from toppling over. I have no responsibility to help you. However, to be nice I agree to help you. I press the button down and you climb up. Now say I change my mind and I want to go do something else. I now have a responsibility to tell you so you can safely come down and find another solution. What the US is doing now is shouting up at you while you're on the ladder and saying "hey, I changed my mind. Sorry, but I actually have no responsibility to help you out"
This is a good point, well articulated and I agree with you.
When I say "it has nothing to do with responsibility" I'm thinking of what motivates the USA to provide this aid. Maybe I'm a cynic but I don't believe they would ever spend money in a foreign nation simply because it's the responsible thing to do.
But yeah, they are responsible for multiple reasons, as the ladder analogy explains, and as another commenter mentioned, for the part the USA and other privileged nations have played in creating the problems these aid programs are addressing, through colonialism and climate change. The USA specifically also did immeasurable damage to this part of the world going to war with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Thanks for being a reasonable person here on Lemmy. Weird that I have to thank people for just having adult discussion, but here we are.
You must not have been online for very long. There's a ton of bad actors that pose these sort of questions as a challenge rather than actually asking to learn more. Its a bit less common on Lemmy than other social platforms but, you still run into them. That's why you'll run into downvotes and aggressive responses. Its a shame that things are like this, but until these bad actors disappear, we'll continue to see this sort of thing. To add to eatCasserol's answer, other peer nations to the US also provide similar forms of foreign aid for similar reasons. The US actually provides less as a percent of GDP (actual numbers are higher though, is my understanding). So this isn't an exclusively unique US thing.
I've been online since 1995 in some way or another.
But Lemmy is uniquely fanatical about this shit. Lemmy and other bits of the fediverse are just in that position right now -- they're on the very edge of the norm, so the people you run into are always on the edge of their respective things too. I'd say most people on the fediverse would be considered early-early adopters. We're not even in the regular "early adopter" stage yet.
I recommend you check out reddit if you want to see "fanatical". I put it in quotes because there's a damn good reason: Reddit has a significant number of "conservative" bad actors. They post absolute nonsense and try to assert its true, or ask "questions" (stuff like is racism really bad or other questions to bring up controversial ideas, and try to brigade and assert extreme views are normal). I feel lemmy is still not popular enough for companies to try to swarm it with bots and influence people, but if it grows, that will become a problem.
Lemmy was already swarmed with bots during the election cycle. If you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't have known. Hundreds of 'can't vote for harris because of palestine' bots rose up, convinced people voting for her was just as evil as being an actual nazi, and then as soon as election was over, the accounts all disappeared. I was only following like 13 of them, but all 13 vanished overnight.
Lemmy is absolutely popular enough (and easy enough to automate) that it's being astroturfed.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen here, but i feel the extents is hugely different compared to reddit. Trump subreddits and /r/conservative are constant trash and show up on all. Either I don't see communities that consistently spew propaganda, and disinformation here, or its just not as bad here.
And likewise thanks for actually being curious and posing the question in good faith! We need more adult discussions.
They are not responsible per se, although you could claim rich countries have a responsibility towards poorer countries to help out. However, the way they stopped funding these projects, abruptly and without warning, means that other funders can't step in in time and charities organizing this help have no way to find solutions before people die. It is unnecessarily harmful.
As a sidenote, many issues charities are trying to help with are caused by climate change (for which richer countries are responsible in larger part) or past colonialism/exploitation by these richer countries, so they do have a responsibility.
This is all general stuff and not specific to this example..
It's good of you to ask. And that's the point, right? Trump and Musk didn't ask. They don't know why USAID has existed for so long, and has had massive support from people across the political spectrum. They don't know what damage is going to be caused by shutting it down, because they don't care if people die.
This is how are the two of them operate. If they don't like something, they tried to destroy it, and they never question whether it's necessary or what new problems are going to emerge as a result of their destruction. Again, it's because they don't care about the people whose lives they are destroying.
Finally, you suggested that other governments should be providing their own people with oxygen. That would be great. Except some of those governments aren't. So what are we supposed to do? Do we scratch our backs and watch people die? I think we can't do that, but what actions are good for short-term and medium-term and long-term stability is a very interesting global public policy question. Are you seriously willing to discuss it? If you're not, why did you ask?
Do we scratch our backs and watch people die? I think we can't do that, but what actions are good for short-term and medium-term and long-term stability is a very interesting global public policy question. Are you seriously willing to discuss it? If you're not, why did you ask?
We scratch our backs and watch people die every day. It's a matter of how deeply you want to get into it. And I asked for my own curiosity, and have been discussing it. Your question about why I'd ask seems pretty bad faith in itself. As if asking a question is a problem in and of itself. Why does it matter to you why I asked?
Hell, we scratch our backs and actively kill people every day as a country, so it's clear as a nation we don't actually care unless it benefits us in some way, no? America has never just simply been a benevolent country. We couldn't afford to even if we wanted. We can't even solve our own local homeless crisis.
So why are these places receiving our money, when our own people can't even get their own health care? Why aren't their nations providing it? And if their nations can't provide it, who else other than us is providing assistance?
People ask questions to educate themselves. You should stop being so judgemental.
so it's clear as a nation we don't actually care unless it benefits us in some way
That’s the “stability” part of the argument you zipped by and ignored in the comment you replied to.
Trump/musk/republicans are undermining and outright removing US controlled support abroad. Doesn’t matter which one, USAID or NATO or whatever. I’m not here to argue the morality of our influence, but I’ll point out the consequences of removing it. The US spending abroad is a relief valve for countries that might otherwise become unstable and affect our interests in that country or in a neighboring country that would be affected by conflict. Want to see instability? Make people hungry and let them die of diseases that they know can be treated. Another reason - the US military budget is so huge and we have bases worldwide and offer defense services and materiel to the host country. That frees up money in that country to take care of itself and be beholden to the US.
All of these things give us favorable trade agreements, rights to exploit resources, and political influence worldwide.
What this dumpster fire of an administration is doing is removing all the carrots - the US spending that promotes soft power and stability all over the world - and is relying on nothing but the strength of the military threat.
I fully expect growing world instability thanks to trump’s actions. Small conflicts growing into bigger ones. Migration and starvation. Loss of soft power, economic and political partners shift alliances away from the US. All of this is going to hurt our economic outlook and increase costs to the US and the citizens. It will bite us in the ass, leave us hanging out on our own, and cost far more than maintaining thr soft power.
Both musk and trump are sheltered dictators, none of this matters to them, we can be in economic ruin and they’ll be kings.
That’s the “stability” part of the argument you zipped by and ignored in the comment you replied to.
Sorry, too busy defending myself from people who are clearly chomping at the bit to have me misspeak so they can attack me like you're doing.
I get that you might be mad over it, but directing it at me isn't going to do anything; I'm literally just asking to educate myself. ffs
Lol, so you’re one of those people that claims they’re being “attacked” when someone has a discussion with you and you feel like you’re being challenged in the slightest? Whatever man, I’m not mad about any of this, I offered reasoning for a position and no more.