Monthly Archives: February 2017

Have you ever been to a developing country? One where you can’t drink the water, the roads are full of potholes, the air reeks of car emissions and pollution, tree branches and fields are littered with plastic bags, trash piles up on street corners, you can’t afford to go to the doctor, public schools are atrocious, corruption is endemic, but at least you see people in police or military uniform everywhere?

In many developing countries, government investment in public services is almost zero, and government regulations of the environment or business activities are non-existent. The only real use of government spending is to build up the military and the police forces to protect the elite. Call it choosing growth over sustainability, if you like. But the effect is that only the rich, who can afford huge 4X4s, expensive private schools and hospitals, bottled water and cronyism can thrive.

And that’s basically Mr. Trump and the GOP’s vision of America. I suggest you get vaccinated, travel abroad, and then come back and see if you can stomach making America Great Again.

I hope that when people around the world look at what Trump is doing and saying, instead of the hate and ignorance, they’ll see the enormous outcry of support for Muslims’ humanity from average Americans at protests and on social media, including the massive support shown by Jewish Americans (despite the animus you’re supposed to believe exists between Jews and Muslims). Of course, Americans could have shown similar concern when we were bombing, droning and killing innocent Muslims throughout the Obama administration.

Nevertheless, I do hope that the world sees the protests in our streets, campuses, at airports, and on social media against the Trump administration’s policies and actions. In my own little social media bubble, I have read countless stories shared by my American friends of Jewish, Iranian, Arab, Latin American, European, and Asian backgrounds about their own families’ courageous journeys to America as refugees and immigrants during times of political violence or severe economic turmoil.

That is the America I hope the world is watching. They are the people that make me proud to be American.

I have also been very impressed by the many Germans  who — usually so reluctant to discuss their own country’s shameful past — have been sounding the alarm about how easy it is for a people and their nation to take a nose dive into the abyss.