American Jews & Foreign Aid

One thing I did learn at a University of Washington colloquy last night on American Jews and foreign aid was the USA has agreed to get nonmilitary foreign aid up to .07 % of our budget, and ten years after this treaty we are at less than .02%  The speaker gave examples of what we already know, that is foreign aid is usually harmful, if not counterproductive.  Nonetheless, we were criticized for not being at the full funding.  Ahem, if we do poorly at less than .02%, we are going to do better with 3.5 times the money?

To be fair, the speakers advised a better way of getting the money where it can do good.  They compared 50 years ago with today, and found things worse.  Yes, we know that.  Every decade or so we are treated to an admission of failure, and then an explanation of how it can be done right.  In a decade we'll be hearing criticism of the present efforts, which will fail too.  Sometimes results reveal intentions.

Not that they do not have their facts straight.  The people of these benighted lands are not stupid.  The problem is they are so beset with debt, compliments of leaders who agree to whimsical projects which cannot pay off and cannot be paid off, that the governments are essentially kleptocracies, tributary satrapies.  And should you make any money in a kleptocracy, the government is designed to steal it.  Why make anything nice if it will only be stolen.  Vast swathes of USA citizens will spend the next 30 year at least, possibly 200, pondering precisely this question.  (Regarding your money in MFGlobal, we'll get back to you in six months. It's complicated.)

The speakers noted we flood a country with "free food" which ruins the local farmers.  The farmers are reduced to native handicrafts and textiles to live.  We forbid the importation of their native handicrafts and textiles to the USA.  We are not nice.

One speaker noted just how tricky it is to get charity right, a theme I have been arguing for a while.  Where matters are balanced, and benefit to one necessarily disadvantages the other, relatively speaking.  Only free trade offers equal opportunity, and growth without distortion and imbalance.

You can easily observe what USA does overseas by watching what our government does here.  Look at all the people trapped for life in student loans or home loans.  Look at small farmers run out of business as big farmers get subsidies.  Look at "free" medicines loaded with lifetime disabilities.

One conversant shared that her people in Haiti reported that Haitians don't want shelter or food or public transport, they want jobs.  Sigh, any third rate merchant can tell you that.  Why are there not jobs?  Because there is no freedom.  If you make anything nice in Haiti, it will be stolen by the kleptocrats.  If you try to make change, you will be crushed by the USA-backed powers that be. Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Signs of hope are reported: USAID is now funneling more money through organizations, such as the speakers on the stage.  Here again, the NGOs admit the failure, and say, more government, and just better oversight and just get the right people....  Nonsense.  No matter what configuration we see, he who pays the piper calls the tune.  The new arrangements will fail as badly as the old.

In communism you are so directed that you'll never produce anything good.  In capitalism you are free to initiate but you are so regulated that whatever you make is forfeit to the state. (Regarding your money in MFGlobal, we'll get back to you in six months. It's complicated.) Those who benefit from this system emphasize the 'free" in that last sentence, and ignore the rest.  Those who benefit from the system think you should be killed if you disagree.  The president has a list of people he can kill without any warning or warrant.

Now that seems rash to say, but pause and reflect on the harshness of a regime that has a list of citizens, for whatever reason, it can kill without warning or warrant, extrajudicially.  Note the killings have started, and our system has not, perhaps it cannot, protect USA citizens before the murders start. If congress and the courts cannot or will not respond to the executive murdering citizens at will, then the system has irretrievably failed.  That Obama has not been impeached for this crime, and then tried for murder is a victory for those who manage the comic-book narrative USA citizens consume. Seven of eight Republican candidates want more of the same, and more.  If the democrats claim they will end it, remember Obama's promises to do so, which got him elected.  Waiting...!

Like the Reformation, the bloody conflicts around the world are over turf, and revenue, not religion.  Semites, Jew and Arab alike, have long contended over their lands.  USA exploits that.  We foment and exploit the map we were handed in victory after WWII.  Now vast swathes of humanity want a better way.  The British beat the French, Spanish and Germans (who wants what Russia has....?) in the empire game because they, relatively speaking, shared power and wealth with those they colonized.  With USA as the exception, usually this meant negotiated independence eventually.

China has on offer to the world a better deal than the USA.  The Chinese seem to have learned from their erstwhile overlords it's better to share than to take it all.  Growing economies are more stable than deteriorating economies. Where China shows up there is a new railroad and jobs, with China sharing the risk on investments and the locals sharing the wealth.  Whereas the USA's top three puppets in the last decade have been hanged, gunned down and raped and beaten to death in that order.  Lemme see, railroad or atrocity, railroad or atrocity....  hmmm... inquiring minds world wide ponder the options.

The Arabs may have more than one wife, and they have married both USA and China.  Israel is married to the USA, something at which the world wonders.  People believe it is a matter of Jewish influence on USA politics.  Step back, way back.  Look... on balance does it not seem far more likely it is USA politics directing Israel?

Over a thousand years ago the Jews thrived under Moslems while China was resplendent in its Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty.  Then the barbarians showed up, looking for real estate and loot in the name of Christianity.

The innovation of the United States was an attempt to get it right.  We were doing quite well, but sadly we got off track.  It is no longer working.  Perhaps we can arrive at a restoration of USA freedom.  Our first task is to withdraw our forces, both arms and aid, from the world.  People worry what evils will fill the vacuum of American withdrawal.  Well, it truly cannot get worse.  In any event, it is the problem of people newly free to sort out their freedom.  We did it. And they are all as smart as we are.

After we return home, what experience the people of the world have with USA be in the form of small businesses who come to trade, on mutually beneficial terms, not looking down the barrel of a gun.  Not isolationism, but free trade.  And there is no bar to individuals still offering aid, not that people who trade freely need aid.  Free markets never need bailing out.

I was likely the only Christian in a room of some 200 Jews. The event was uninteresting.  No new ideas.  No challenging thoughts or propositions. That was a first for me, as I have always had at least three opinions on a topic even if there are only two Jewish discussants. Last night was total agreement on status quo. Judaism cannot survive sterility.  It seems to me it is time for Israel to divorce the USA and marry China.  Its security depends on it, better to be allied with a power that constrains Iran in friendship than one which provokes Iran in enmity.

In the USA, Israel's best friends are politicians and Christians whose support is directly linked to a belief in a heresy that claims death is avoided and heaven awaits for those who endure an event in which 2/3rds of the Jews are destroyed.  Nice friends, they. These are not the brightest segments of our society, and they get mean if disappointed. Anti-Jewish sentiment is hard to gauge, which makes it all the more dangerous.

China has no such emotional engagement with Israel or Jews, for the Chinese can match the Jews in length and breadth and depth of experience and culture, and for that matter cosmology.  Israel does not capture the Chinese imagination as it does the Christian's, which is a much safer relationship.  And the Chinese aid on offer comports more closely with the Bible than USA aid on offer.  The Chinese sense of social justice is something the Jews would exercise far more amenably under Chinese hegemony than USA hegemony.

This is not to say the Chinese cannot be every bit as wicked as the USA, it is just to say look at the results.  USA need not be wicked at all, and we are better suited to lead by example rather than leash and whip.  Our democracy permits too few people to arrogate power unto themselves. (Regarding your money in MFGlobal, we'll get back to you in six months. It's complicated.)

The USA needs to work out some internal contradictions.  The world can go on nicely without our tutelage.  Time for USA to come home.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post