Merged USAID: is it really a bunch of crazy leftists? / Trump Was Absolutely Right to Shut Down USAID

[zooterkin]

If everything you know about USAID is the glamorized picture of an institution allegedly serving only to help poor people in need all around the world, you have a distorted idea of what it actually is.
Do you have any specific objections to the Granma articles that you dismiss out of hand as propaganda because they don't support your distorted view of the world, your idealization of the pre-Trump USA and its institutions?




'BUT IT'S CUBA, SO IT MUST BE PROPAGANDA!!! IT'S USAID, SO IT MUST BE GOOD!!!'

No-one is claiming that USAID is a universal force for good. What is unacceptable is the way it is being dealt with. Baby and bathwater come to mind.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Since Musk and his Muskrats are so heroically preoccupied trying to save the nation from itself, surely to avoid distraction his various businesses should be shut down for 90 days while he concentrates on the vital job in hand.

When he gets them back again in 3 months he may well find his entire supply chain is now working on other jobs and plenty of his workforce have moved on. But that's just the cost of sorting out the national budget, right? Selfless devotion to duty.

Seriously, is it in any way normal in America for a business being investigated for fraud to be closed down for 3 months while investigators look for any evidence? It looks to this outsider to be a blatant case of deliberate wrecking.

Step 1: punishment.
Step 2: look for evidence of wrongdoing.
Step 3: there is no step 3.

 

[Norman Alexander]

If Ziggurat is talking about Galaxy Brain Musk, then he received his citizenship under false pretences, being an illegal immigrant for many years and never disclosing it.

In most countries, lying about your eligibility for citizenship is automatically grounds for revokation.

What about his techbros? Are they all citizens?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

What about his techbros? Are they all citizens?

When a list of names was revealed I noticed that one appears to be a Canadian. Didn't notice the rest.

 

[dann]

No-one is claiming that USAID is a universal force for good. What is unacceptable is the way it is being dealt with. Baby and bathwater come to mind.

I never claimed that USAID was dealt with in an appropriate manner.
What do you think of dismissing Cuban articles about USAID as propaganda even though they refer to facts?
If Puppycow had merely claimed that USAID also occasionally helps feed the poor and the hungry, I wouldn't have objected to that. Maybe it does. With Marco Rubio as the new Secretary of State, I am sure that at least some of its programs will not only be allowed to continue but may even be ramped up. He appears to be very well aware that USAID is not mainly about altruism and charity:

Rubio’s years of strong support for USAID stand in contrast to his sudden criticism of the aid agency (CNN, Feb 5, 2025)
“We don’t have to give foreign aid. We do so because it furthers our national interest. That’s why we give foreign aid. Now obviously there’s a component to foreign aid that’s humanitarian in scope, and that’s important too,” he said in February 2013.
(...)
But Rubio also suggested there were portions of USAID’s funding that he supports.
“There are things that we do through USAID that we should continue to do, that makes sense. And we’ll have to decide is that better through the State Department, or is that better through something, a reformed USAID? That’s the process we’re working through,” he said

See?! What do you think Marco Rubio would like USAID to continue to do?!!

ETA: By they way, notice that, unlike many other posts in this thread, my posts have been answering the question:
USAID: is it really a bunch of crazy leftists?
My answer is: No, it definitely isn't!

 

[Darat]

If Ziggurat is talking about Galaxy Brain Musk, then he received his citizenship under false pretences, being an illegal immigrant for many years and never disclosing it.

In most countries, lying about your eligibility for citizenship is automatically grounds for revocation.

Same as the 1st lady. I wonder if Trump will notice she's gone back to her home land? Or perhaps he can visit her in Guantanamo Bay?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I never claimed that USAID was dealt with in an appropriate manner.

No. You're getting worked up over posts from people who probably agree with you one hundred percent.

What do you think of dismissing Cuban articles about USAID as propaganda even though they refer to facts?
If Puppycow had merely claimed that USAID also occasionally helps feed the poor and the hungry, I wouldn't have objected to that. Maybe it does. With Marco Rubio as the new Secretary of State, I am sure that at least some of its programs will not only be allowed to continue but may even be ramped up. He appears to be very well aware that USAID is not mainly about altruism and charity:

See?! What do you think Marco Rubio would like USAID to continue to do?!!

ETA: By they way, notice that, unlike many other posts in this thread, my posts have been answering the question:
USAID: is it really a bunch of crazy leftists?
My answer is: No, it definitely isn't!

I doubt anyone here thinks USAID or any other US federal organization is all sunshine and roses and rainbows, and I highly doubt the OP's thread title was intended the way you interpreted it.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

In other news, Donald Dump announces plans to steal billions from USAID:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-makes-unsubstantiated-claim-billions-stolen-usaid-2025-02-06/

 

[Puppycow]

Do you have any specific objections to the Granma articles that you dismiss out of hand as propaganda because they don't support your distorted view of the world, your idealization of the pre-Trump USA and its institutions?

Well, for starters, it says right there at the top of the page "OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA".
But I don't really know much about what they are saying myself, so I'm hesitant to attempt to debate you about any of it.
There's a lot of Cuban Americans in the USA who fled Cuba and many of them have pretty strong opinions about Castro. They know more about him than I do.

 

[johnny karate]

In other news, Donald Dump announces plans to steal billions from USAID:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-makes-unsubstantiated-claim-billions-stolen-usaid-2025-02-06/

Addendum:

We have a foreign-born person rummaging through sensitive government data who has business interests with a foreign power hostile to U.S. interests, hasn’t received the proper security clearances, and has a personal interest in undermining the agency he is currently dismantling, all based on lies and conspiracy theories.

And this is fine with “America first” Trump supporters.

 

[dann]

Well, for starters, it says right there at the top of the page "OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA".

So nothing more needs to be said, and there is no reason to read anymore, right? You already know everything worth knowing.

But I don't really know much about what they are saying myself, so I'm hesitant to attempt to debate you about any of it.

I don't think you know anything at all about what they're saying, and yet you call it propaganda because that's what you've heard people say.

There's a lot of Cuban Americans in the USA who fled Cuba and many of them have pretty strong opinions about Castro. They know more about him than I do.

There are a lot of Americans in Cuba who fled the USA, and most of them have very strong opinions about Trump and previous U.S. presidents.
But there's no reason whatsoever to find out what those presidents said and did, right? One can just rely on their opinions the same way you seem to rely on those who "have pretty strong opinions about Castro," who, by the way, was replaced several years ago by somebody whose name you probably don't even know.
This quotation was not from one of the Americans who now live in Cuba:

"We pumped dozens of stories about Cuban atrocities, Cuban rapists [to the media]… We ran [faked] photographs that made almost every newspaper in the country… We didn’t know of one single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure, raw, false propaganda to create an illusion of communists eating babies for breakfast."

You should read up on skepticism. It doesn't usually recommend believing people who say the things you'd like to believe. You know, like Trump voters ...
By the way, are you aware that Cuban expatriates living in the USA who have strong opinions about U.S. American politics that go against the grain tend to keep those opinions to themselves because they won't run the risk of being deported? I know one Cuban who was deported because he wouldn't condemn Castro.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Shouldn't we cut funding to Tesla? I mean, waste is waste.

Everyone knows that this would make sense. Also, everyone knows that DOGE is not about waste or fraud. DOGE is a money and power grab from the people to Musk and Trump. EVERYONE knows this, even MAGA.

 

[Ziggurat]

No-one is claiming that USAID is a universal force for good. What is unacceptable is the way it is being dealt with. Baby and bathwater come to mind.

I'm not really sympathetic to this argument, because nobody ever seems to drain the bathwater at all, and the justification always seems to be that there's a baby in there. If people were actually draining the bathwater without throwing out the baby, then I'd say yeah, that's the way to do it. But it just never happens. So... sorry, baby, but that bathwater has to go one way or another. And if this is the only way it goes, then it still goes.

 

[JayUtah]

And if this is the only way it goes, then it still goes.

And there are people who aren't persuaded by the argument that the baby is not worth saving. You'd get a lot more traction for the notion that deep, decisive cuts are the right answer if the decision-makers didn't have such nakedly political motives.

 

[Ziggurat]

And there are people who aren't persuaded by the argument that the baby is not worth saving.

Sure. You know how we decide what to do when there are conflicting opinions? The issue gets decided by politicians we elect.

Trump won the election. He and his supporters don't need to convince you, you need to convince them.

You'd get a lot more traction for the notion that deep, decisive cuts are the right answer if the decision-makers didn't have such nakedly political motives.

Dude. So much of what USAID does is nakedly political.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

So nothing more needs to be said, and there is no reason to read anymore, right? You already know everything worth knowing.

You know, this is not really the right forum for strawmen and angry knee-jerk outbursts. We have Twitter for that.
Asking for better sources than (literally!) communist propaganda is just critical thinking. You'd get the same reaction here if you treated putin, Drumpf, or Musk as objective sources. It's not about automatically dismissing Cubans as a source, it's about striving for reliability and critical thinking.

 

[JayUtah]

Sure. You know how we decide what to do when there are conflicting opinions? The issue gets decided by politicians we elect.

This seems to move the goalposts. If your framing is that one person's baby is another person's bathwater, then we disagree fundamentally on whether the baby-bathwater analogy applies. If we stipulate that there exist funding avenues that would be repugnant to everyone, then it's a short trip from there to the notion that some funding avenues are deemed by everyone to be both pleasant and necessary. That's the baby. Unless your premise is that there is no actual baby, then the analogy teaches us to err on the side of restraint no matter what our predilection may be.

Dude. So much of what USAID does is nakedly political.

Hm. A day or so ago you were adamant that neither you nor your critics knew enough about USAID to speak intelligently about what it does. I wonder what changed that now provides you with a sufficiently encyclopedic understanding to make this statement. Tell you what: let's go in both directions.

Is USAID supposed to be political in the partisan sense? If it's supposed to reflect a policy preference—specifically the executive administration's legitimate preference and not Congress's—then it shouldn't be surprising that its current constitution reflects the preferences of the outgoing administration. And it would mean that a long line of former administrations (including Donald Trump's first) have managed to redirect the agency's focus without the hair-on-fire exercise Elon Musk has set in motion.

Is USAID supposed to be apolitical, non-partisan, or otherwise impervious to the President's policy preferences? Under that premise it would make sense to eliminate any expenditure that seems to serve a partisan interest, regardless of the President's party affiliation. An alternative would be to compromise on issues that are necessarily partisan and allow some of both. If the goal is to depoliticize the agency entirely, then that exercise cannot be reliably undertaken by agents of one party only. Otherwise you just risk applying a partisan perspective under the false flag of neutral reform. Congressional Democrats have expressed an interest in subjecting Musk's activities to bipartisan review, but the Republicans refused.

Each of these premises is compatible with an overall desire to remove waste and corruption. That's the undisputed bathwater. But still that's more honestly accomplished with bipartisan oversight. Telling us that elections have consequences is incompatible with any assurance that the winning party's efforts should be considered objectively trustworthy.

 

[thaiboxerken]

If any of Musk's and Trump's actions were about waste, fraud or abuse, they would not have eliminated oversight before becoming the overseers.

Also, one has to realize that naZiggy isn't having a discussion in good faith. He's here to shill for The Party. It's vranyo.

 

[TragicMonkey]

This part is kind of funny, though: amongst USAID's purchases are...surplus crops from American farmers. They send the food as aid to other countries. But now, of course, they won't; the foreigners won't get the food, and those American farmers (repeat: American farmers) will not get the money. Instead, their surplus crops will...lower the value of all their other crops. I guess that's the price of "pwning the libs", red states.

 

[Ziggurat]

This seems to move the goalposts. If your framing is that one person's baby is another person's bathwater

Nope, not my framing at all. You are very much missing the point.

If we stipulate that there exist funding avenues that would be repugnant to everyone, then it's a short trip from there to the notion that some funding avenues are deemed by everyone to be both pleasant and necessary.

I wouldn't say necessary, but I'll stipulate some of their spending is desirable. Zooterkin used the baby/bathwater analogy to object to cuts in USAID despite agreeing that some spending was undesirable. The point of my twist on his analogy is that nobody was cutting that undesirable funding in a way that would satisfy him. So I'd rather have it cut imperfectly than not cut at all. Because that's the choice I was actually offered. Nobody offered the clean, tidy trimming that he wants.

Hm. A day or so ago you were adamant that neither you nor your critics knew enough about USAID to speak intelligently about what it does.

Didn't say that either. I was adamant that a lot of their spending is opaque. Never said all of it was.