this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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politics

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Summary

The Trump administration has canceled 90% of USAID's foreign aid contracts, including critical programs that provide lifesaving therapeutic food to malnourished children.

Mana Nutrition's CEO reports that ready-to-ship boxes of peanut paste that could save approximately 300,000 children are now stranded in a Georgia warehouse.

Despite Secretary of State Rubio's claims that "lifesaving humanitarian assistance" would be spared, numerous essential health programs have been terminated, including those preventing diseases like polio, HIV, and Ebola.

These cuts contradict claims about targeting "wokeness" or "waste," instead showing a reckless abandonment of America's global humanitarian commitments.

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 132 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

humanitarian commitments

Don't you know, "humanitarian" falls under their "woke" umbrella.

These people think they're some kind of special above other humans. Musk literally believes everything is a simulation and only he is real.

Guys, is it woke to have compassion, empathy, and value humanism?

In their eyes, yes it is.

[–] Hellinabucket@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Isn't humanitarian just some new gender? Sounds woke AF..

[–] proper@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

I don’t know what’s worse, being Sleepy or Being woke

[–] Infinite@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago

Wait, it's not vegetarian, pescatarian, humanitarian?

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 7 points 2 weeks ago

Musks eyes are currently bloodshot from all the ketamine and cocaine he has taken, that's why he's wearing shades

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[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 107 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Step 1: Get rid of USAID

Step 2: Cut all food stamps

Step 3: Most US farmers go out of bussiness

Step 4: Rich people buy up all farm land

Step 5: Food prices skyrocket due to monopolies and mismanagement and the rich get to become feudal lords.

[–] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 49 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Step 6: We feed the billionaires to the wood chipper and have French Revolution: American-style.

[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago

I think in the interest of efficiency we need to just skip ahead to step 6.

[–] SPRUNT@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Woah, woah, woah, woah!

You can't feed the billionaires to the wood chippers!

You gotta feed them to the pig farms so they finally do something useful with their worthless lives.

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[–] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Step 6 - Let 2/3 of the earth population die, replace most jobs with automation and AI. Keep the 1/3 of the population remaning as slaves and distraction. Enjoy the utlimate victory of capitalism.

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[–] JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 90 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Cancelling contracts already in progress. The epitome of "efficiency".

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 38 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Yep, they'll get the government sued and lose so much more money through litigation and actually losing the law suits.

But of course, they don't care, for all their talk about deficits and taxes they know it's not their money in the end.

Unless some genius lawyer manages to somehow make Musk personally liable, of course, because none of this Doge stuff looks set up properly, so if the US ever does get back to some sort of rule of law, people will get in trouble for breaking all sorts of laws.

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Trump's admin has already shown that you can't really sue the federal government into compliance if there isn't anyone to enforce it. Sure, those countries and companies and people can sue the US for breach of contract. The government will laugh in their face and not pay, simple as that. Trump literally made his millions doing exactly this.

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It just shows that efficiency isn't what this is about. It's about destruction.

[–] JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 weeks ago

Destruction Of Government Enterprise

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[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Refusing to pay people and honor contracts has been Trump's MO for decades.

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In a lot of these cases, the money has already been paid for these contracts*. "Cutting" them isn't even saving any money, because the money has already been spent.

[–] notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world 60 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't think the title could be any more clickbaity.

"Musk’s purges suddenly take a horrific turn—and wreck an ugly MAGA lie"

causing UNSPECIFIED event that of UNSPECIFIED lie of <unpopular movement [on lemmy]>

[–] ChillPenguin@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah I had to downvote it on the principal of clickbait articles.

[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

It's the title of the article. The person posting the article here didn't chose the article title. They could have found an alternative source with a better headline, but if we start doing that we're going to miss out on some important news because some people are lazy or some news isn't covered everywhere, I'm guessing.

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 51 points 2 weeks ago (19 children)

US workers : I know it's mighty easy to say from a distance, but now is the time for disobedience

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 28 points 2 weeks ago

The best time for protest and disobedience was weeks ago. The second best time is now.

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[–] Klnsfw@lemmynsfw.com 48 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Even from a very cynical POV, this money was soft power. It was an investment to sell other products to the world.

Why do you think the world doesn't eat north korean burgers or watch russian blockbusters?

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 25 points 2 weeks ago

And not to mention that the food ... it's not bought from all over the world, a ton of the money was used to buy from farmers in the USA.

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Outside of the ruling class in Russia, I don't think there is much of an audience for their blockbuster "hilarious falls from 8th story windows".

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[–] barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 35 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Elon "I love killing poor children" Musk

[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

Considering his history as a white, South African, he probably is pretty delighted that he gets to make poor black babies starve there.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 5 points 2 weeks ago

You are all a sacrifice I'm willing to make to save a buck

[–] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

and wreck an ugly MAGA lie

The problem is that MAGA people either don't know about the problem, don't care about the problem, or would actively harm foreigners (or American minorities, for that matter) if it put even a penny in their pocket or made them feel superior.

Only the people that already know the republicans are lying their pants off know it's a lie, a fact worsened by corporate news media and social media firms censoring the virality of anything that could hurt the far-right.

[–] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 weeks ago

There’s always another believable lie. Some other reason why.

My wife’s best friend has a conservative brother that got fired under DOGE shenanigans. 6-figure job that they relocated him to Germany to do. Now he doesn’t know if they’re even going to help him with relocating back to the U.S.

He says this is just a normal pendulum swing in life/politics, and it’s a reaction to liberal overreach. …? Not an ounce of ire toward the people who actually did this to him.

[–] gabbath@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Many just straight up don't believe you when you tell or even show them. They think you're brainwashed so they don't take you seriously. They just believe Big Brother loves them and would never lie to them.

[–] Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 31 points 2 weeks ago

These trash humans got where they are by not caring about anyone but themselves. Their fans are mainly made up of people just like them. Therefore nothing horrible they do will convince most of their followers.

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago

Not gonna change until it wrecks a few million maga lives.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If only the "pro-life" Trump voters actually cared about the lives of children.

[–] Pilferjinx@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

They only care about the control using children as an excuse. Woman and abortion, privacy and csam ect.

[–] lutillian@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago

"'The unborn' are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."

~David Barnhart

The only reason pro choice exists is because the republican party found the perfect groups to advocate for and against. It makes their constituents feel all warm and fuzzy to say they're pro life, while they're given an equally convenient group to hate. Trans people make up just slightly less than one percent of the US population and the odds of one of their constituents will actually meet a trans person are significantly lower than them meeting that nice middle class gay/black Christian protestant couple who sometimes invites them over for supper after church on Sundays.

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The Dems should make some mention about this on the Sunday morning shows, if they were smart about it.

~This~ ~comment~ ~is~ ~licensed~ ~under~ ~CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0~

[–] NewDayRocks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

No one dumb and selfish enough to vote for Trump will care about the suffering of people outside the US.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 9 points 2 weeks ago

I mean yes, but the Democratic voting base will. Then promising to restore international aid would probably secure a good number of first and second generation immigrants' votes.

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

I personally know Christians who voted for Trump (yeah I know, but bear with me) that would care very much, as they actually do missionary work overseas to help the kind of people that would be affected by this cancellation.

~This~ ~comment~ ~is~ ~licensed~ ~under~ ~CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0~

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[–] RedDoozer@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 weeks ago

A bad decision at so many levels. It's inhumane and they are loosing a soft power of being the good guys. Then, we will hear from western propaganda that it's China who is "buying" Africa's favors by providing humanitarian help.

Just help others for the sake of it, it's not that difficult.

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 2 weeks ago

If Musk and Trump dislike wokeness so much, they should just go to sleep, and let others handle the statecraft.

[–] meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz 13 points 2 weeks ago

Musk’s obsession with ‘efficiency’ is costing thousands of lives—this is dystopian governance.

🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱

[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

So what I'm hearing is that peanuts and vitamins are gonna be cheaper?

And all it costs is several thousand lives in countries most Americans couldn't pick out on a map, and a bunch of anxiety for peanut farmers.

What a great deal. Nobody could have made a better, more Christ-like deal.

[–] gabbath@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Also, they won't be cheaper.

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[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 weeks ago

These cuts contradict claims about targeting “wokeness” or “waste,” instead showing a reckless abandonment of America’s global humanitarian commitments.

How is this a contradiction? What did you think they meant?

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