General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt is almost certain that the Ebola outbreak in DRC and Uganda would have been detected much
sooner if only Trump and Musk had not decided to dismantle USAID, and with it an early warning and prevention system. Now there are 10 more countries at risk of an outbreak and the World Cup is coming here in June. F*ck Trump and F*ck Musk.
Melon
(1,739 posts)Which we no longer contribute to. Not USAID. The world Health Org should have caught it which we cut funding to earlier this year.
OGBuzz
(666 posts)Melon
(1,739 posts)TRacking, identifying, and responding to outbreaks.
OGBuzz
(666 posts)these outbreaks early on. Either way, cutting funding for WHO and dismantling USAID was not smart.
littlemissmartypants
(34,462 posts)No organization operates in a vacuum. Who do you think WHO gets data from?
chouchou
(3,328 posts)pat_k
(13,902 posts)It is beyond comprehension.
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
chouchou
(3,328 posts)Figarosmom
(13,527 posts)Initech
(109,299 posts)AverageOldGuy
(4,191 posts)Musk is a white supremacist South African. Musk was born in 1971. Apartheid was dismantled 1990-1994. Thus, Musk grew up under apartheid and no doubt is convinced that apartheid was correct, in the same way that my Mississippi cousins really have no problem with the Jim Crow laws and "keeping the n####rs in their place."
USAID would not work in apartheid South Africa, but quickly moved into post-apartheid SAfrica.
With this background, ti's a simple matter to understand why, when Musk and DOGE got the green light from Trump, the FIRST thing he did was wipe out USAID -- abolish the agency, remove all funding, stop all programs, leave food destined for USAID recipient countries rotting on the docks in New Orleans. Musk had been carrying this grudge for decades and Trump gave him the freedom to get revenge.
It's no wonder then that Musk moved quickly -- abolishing all USAID medical programs, closing hospitals and clinics; getting rid of local medical personnel; cancelling all shipment of vaccines including the Ebola vaccine.
So -- Musk and Trump are responsible for what will soon be an epidemic of Ebola in Sub-Saharan Africa, but, hey, who gives a shit if a few million Blacks died of Ebola and another few million are disabled for life? After all, they are just Black people -- let 'em die in Africa and we don't have to worry about them emigrating to the US.
Right?
Listen -- I was born in 1944 in a tiny crossroads cotton picking town in SW Mississippi, on the Louisiana line. At age 18 -- 1962 -- I left and did not return. In 1956 -- two years after Brown v. Board of Education was decided, I was 12. The pastor in our SOUTHERN Baptist church preached a sermon in which he declared "The idea that black boys should go to the same school as our little white girls is the most vile lie Satan has ever put on this earth." And the congregation shouted "AMEN!!!" and rose to their feet in applause. Even at age 12, I knew something was wrong, which is why I left in 1962.
What was going on in the American South was APARTHEID just as evil as that in South Africa. That's why Musk destroyed USAID. That's why the John Roberts Klan --- oops! -- meant to say "the Roberts' Court" -- has destroyed the Voting Rights Act and will soon destroy the Civil Rights Act.
The ONLY question remaining is this: What will we who do not agree with this desecration of America do? Will we: (1) accept it and hope for the best, or (2) work our asses off to resists, to not comply, and to defeat them at the ballot box, or, (3) when the ballot box doesn't work, will we resort to a "Second Amendment solution" ? This is serious. This is where we are.
Skittles
(172,965 posts)Disaffected
(6,588 posts)one of the commentators, I suppose caught up in the excitement of the events, gushed that Musk was a "great humanitarian".
nilram
(3,566 posts)As much as 70% of foreign hotel bookings are being canceled. So I guess we're 70% safer from transmissible disease?