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Rather than trying to retrain his country’s citizens so that they gain mastery over the processes that will dominate the future, Trump is trying to keep them anchored to a dying industrial past.
The surest way to lose power is to use too much of it. This is a lesson that the United States under President Donald Trump may soon be getting, as he seeks to leverage what he believes to be the existing strengths of his country into ensuring the regaining of its dominance... .
Where is the bravery in taking away a crying child from a frantic mother, or any trace of freedom in the manner in which fearful migrants into the US have been herded into chicken coops?
Ironically, should Trump persist in his tariff war on Mexico, the resulting economic slowdown there will lead to a sharp increase in those trying to cross over to the US side. That may result in yet more brutality by the US Department of Homeland Security towards the migrants.
While there is little doubt that several of the barbs thrown Donald Trump’s way by his political rivals are unmerited, he seems by some of his actions to have sought to convert the US into a contra-idealistic country where only money talks and all else is silent.
The latest to get the message that friendship needs to be accompanied by a dollar price tag is Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been told to reduce his country’s trade deficit with the US “or else”.
There is a descriptive term for those who give their favours only for hard cash, and it is seldom used in polite company. To make such a principle the bedrock of policy is to do immense harm to the future of US global influence.
What a lot has changed in the US. Rewind to those who reported on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. They were honoured—and rightly so—for exposing that crime.
These crimes have been buried amidst the chatter raised in US and West European media about the atrocities (both real and imaginary) committed by nations not allied to the US, the way Saudi Arabia or the UAE are as they mow through the Yemeni population unhindered.
Preaching is easy. What is difficult is practice, and until the declared ideals of countries which incessantly preach to others about human rights are followed by them in practice, they will not be taken seriously.
At different ends of the guilt spectrum, a William Calley and a Julian Assange show up the hypocrisy of those “human rights warriors” who regard themselves as beyond the reach of the standards they prescribe for other countries.
Western human rights defenders turn violators i.mdnalapat.com/tsg020619
