By WAYNE HEIMER
As an observer of some antiquity, today’s fuss over the Trump Administration’s effort to corral the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grant expenditures strikes a familiar, if distant, chord.
I was a college student at Colorado State College (now the University of Northern Colorado) in the early 1960s. At that time, all incoming students had to take a humanities course, a year-long class that was a sort of history of western civilization that integrated western history with art, literature, government, and all things human.
Like many others with a natural science bent, I looked skeptically at the year-long course. Still, it was required and opened my eyes to a world of stuff I hadn’t considered. I did the best I could with it as a matter of obligation. At that time, my college was just emerging from its history as a teacher-training institution. I guess the idea was to graduate students with a broader approach than their specific major focuses. I now wish I had taken the courses more seriously.
In studying the humanities, we were assigned several influential novels as required reading. These included Orwell’s “1984,” Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” and Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Carson’s “Silent Spring” was also in the mix.
Today’s dust up over USAID reminds me of another assigned social critique of the day, “The Ugly American” by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer.
Burdick and Lederer were primarily interested in the foreign policy of the day with respect to Southeast Asia. At that time, the USA and the USSR (now Russia) were engaged in what we call the Cold War. Both sides were trying to gain influence with emerging, unaffiliated nations. Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America, where former colonies were emerging as nation states, were all up for grabs.
The USSR seemed to be‘kicking the USA’s butt in many of these contests, and Burdick and Lederer wrote “The Ugly American” as a critique of America’s approach to gaining influence in these emerging nations. Their basic argument was that the US was falling behind because it did not respect the local cultures of the countries where it was trying to gain influence.
Their criticism in ”The Ugly American” was that the USA had a rather high-handed (perhaps cultural missionary) approach to transplanting American democratic values to the emerging nations without recognizing the already-existent cultures. Burdick and Lederer argued the USSR was succeeding where the USA was failing due to greater appreciation for the cultural background of emerging nations.
Looking back over the failures of that time, one may now note the prevailing cultures where US foreign aid wasn’t working were inherently more culturally communistic, or group-identity oriented than the democratic individualism the USA was trying to sell via foreign aid. That is, most local cultures had a tradition of tribal identity which focused more on the group than the individual. The individualism of democracy was a new idea. The group orientation of‘communism fit more naturally.
If this were so, the USA was dealt a losing hand to start with, and “The Ugly American” (which has had influence far beyond its moment, more in the USA than abroad) pointed out specific instances where the hand had been played badly.
Today’s controversy over USAID pushing allegedly contemporary American values like atheism in Nepal, or transgender comic books in Peru is too reminiscent of the failed foreign aid fiascos of 60 years ago.
If there’s a new wrinkle, it is that 60 years ago, the State Department took its high-handed approach to transplanting general democratic ideals into cultures where the established norms didn’t resonate with our way of thinking. Today’s flip side is that we have non-governmental organizations with specific agendas (LGBTQ interests, for instance) securing foreign aid grant money from USAID to promote their particular perspectives. Granted, these individual grants are relatively small in comparison to overall foreign aid budget, but the mistake is the same as highlighted 60 years ago, pushing countercultural values.
The present kerfuffle over how foreign aid gets spent is whether it is appropriate for NGOs to promote exporting their specific cultural goals using taxpayer money.
What used to be foreign aid to encourage democracy has been transformed into second order promotion of options available to individuals in a democracy as though the available options espoused by NGOs are national values in the US. Where the specific interests of NGOs are not compatible with existing cultural norms (say the LGBTQ agenda in primarily Catholic or Islamic countries), foreign aid may be doing more harm than good.
We, through the zealous outreach of missionary NGOs for optional American values are just as ugly (and probably even less likely to further US interests) than were the Ugly Americans of the Cold War.
Wayne E. Heimer is old, but keeps trying to rationalize today’s events with his exposure to the Humanities during his undergraduate college days.
The endless flow of money out of the United States under the premise of saving the world is more often than not corruption, and at the minimum incompetence. There is a debt crisis and we are sending money to people who hate us. And Bitcoin makes it easy! Create a multitude of shell corporations coupled with clever manipulation of the block chain, and pow! Annuity for life and a trust and heritance for the ex wives and bastard children. We are putting Rome to shame.
Bravo! Bravo!
Thank you Wayne, a well-done intro into where the USAID/NGO’s roots came from. There are many organizations/groups within the USAID that do nothing more than take our $Taxpayer’s$ money and we as Americans don’t even know where it goes due to the inherited structure of secrecy that’s been built-in by the un-elected bureaucrats running this runaway group. President Trump wants to get rid of it rather quickly and he’s doing it with a sledge-hammer instead of a scalpel …
Bravo! Bravo!
Agree with all points in this article. Tax payer funds should never be used to push Globalist’s sick agenda. 15 minute Gulags, gender dystopia, climate change, fires, famines, plagues, fluoride, one world religion, round up, GMO, fake meat, eat bugs, toxic shots, chem trails, etc. etc. NEED TO STOP! Follow the money.
AND(!!!), what association does Daddy’s Little Princess have with the US-AID and International Republican Institute debacle? Inquiring minds might be interested? Elon’s DOGE Team is doing great, flushing-out the waste … grift … fruad. Much more work and enlightenment left to be done. I applaud their worthy endeavor!
If we spent our hard earned money at home imagine the country we would have. Instead of the one we currently have. Bureaurats have nearly flushed our grandchildren’s country away. Be curious if we can save it.
The United States of America finances the economies of about 75% of the countries of the world. The USA directly defends and protects most of the world except for China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and a few other rogue countries. The USA makes the best high tech products in the world, especially weapons. We have the freest and most creative thinkers in the world.
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Why does everyone else on this globe want to come live in the USA? It’s obvious.
If we need to buy our friends then we don’t need them.
We use money to force our ways on the world so no wonder nobody likes us.
We can help other country’s by other ways than buying politicians as the rich get richer.
Good article. I also wonder about LGTQ protesting in support of groups that kill the same.
As a Gay man who has been “out” since 1983, I have been embarrased by the Gay Alphabet Mafia. It has been over 50 years now since the Stonewall riot that they so cherish, abuse and lie about. The riot drew attention to gays being arrested still for being gay. That does violate rights.. that were not specifically spelled out in the Civil Rights act passed a few years earlier. Since the riot, we got the Civil Rights act amended to include us.
We got all the rights that day.
The Gay Alphabet Mafia is still trying to convince me that I don’t have any rights. This misguided anger comes directly from this government spent $$ on pushing this unfounded hate towards our own government. It’s beyond sad for me. I want to live my life in peace, but I can’t because they/them scream at me that I should be miserable as they/them.
PS, this is for anyone who supports the Gay Alphabet Mafia: Gay marriage is a privilege, not a right. If it were, we would have been lining up to get married. To date; barely 1% of gays has applied to get married in any of the 50 states.
Great article. The events of the past couple of weeks has exposed what many conservatives have long suspected, and what no liberal though would see the light of day. Question is: what did Lisa and Dan know about this? When did they know it? What is their reaction to this revelation? I don’t think I’ve heard anything from either of them.
What about the part where USAID funding is used to overthrow governments around the world? “Democracy promotion” means, “vote for the ambassador’s candidate or we’ll make you suffer under cruel sanctions”.
The real pushback is from the CIA, as they are losing their cover in hundreds of countries around the world. Harder for them to stir up the next war, I guess.
90% of the giveaway programs go to Americans anyway.
I am 73; former Us citizen. Lived in 10 nations. Author is correct. Culture, anthropology and imperial wealth can skew historical predilections and outcomes… after all, America is a young nation… made up of many immigrants who desire individual freedoms. Paradoxical out one of our planet’s history
Further excavation would no doubt reveal that no small part of the USAID flow ended up in the reelection campaign accounts of folks on both sides of the aisle. Will anyone with access take a look?
The cost of USAID is outside the taxpayers purview and paralyses America so as to be unable respond to internal needs. It is unconstitutional. our government is constrained to bring of the American people and for the American people.
My good friend shared with me his experiences with USAID. Here are his recollections:
“USAID has always been a covert manipulative agency within the “intelligence” world of the federal government, funneling money to people and causes in other countries that the CIA, mainly, has directed, usually as a means of fomenting political unrest and dissatisfaction. It’s all done under the guise of “foreign aid.” And it seems from these stories coming out now, that the corruption has become closely aligned with the Democratic Party or at least mostly used by influential Democrats for self-enriching corruption purposes (Clinton style). USAID was the agency that funded my ecological work in Poland in the 1980s. I just thought of them as some federal agency that had tons of money available for scientific collaboration in communist and other problematic regions of the world. I learned of them from another ecologist at Colorado State University who had been receiving funding from them for work he was doing in Pakistan. So, I submitted a proposal and found it accepted/funded with minimal review. The guy responsible for interacting with me was delighted to be able to fund something he thought was scientifically interesting for ecology (or so he said with enthusiasm — I pictured him as some poor sap in an office in Washington DC bored out of his mind). Other then the money, which lasted 3 years, I received only one (or maybe 2) phone calls from someone in Washington asking me a few really dumb “spy questions” (like did you see any military bases while you were there? What were your general impressions of how happy the people are?). More recently, while reading several books about “state crime” and corruption, I read how USAID is the classic federal agency of corruption and maleficence in the CIA’s meddling in foreign affairs. Very interesting to see Musk and Trump focus on it and try to shut it down. Not surprised at all that political judges will try to prevent that from happening. Trump is taking on the CIA directly and forcefully; it’s a very risky business. The Kennedy family learned that the hard way.”
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