Fear, pain and hunger: The dire impact of shutting down USAID in Africa, leaving a vacuum for China and Russia

[BCP1928]

If every developed country has been giving money to establish food security and economic stability in Africa, for 40 or 50 years, then why hasn't it worked yet?

It is working, even in the face of climate change and regional wars sparked by competing Western interests. I might add that many of those people whose culture you despise are Catholics, and the biggest single recipient of USAID money was Catholic Relief Services, who were running some seriously effective development programs with it.

 

[Landon Caeli]

It is working, even in the face of climate change and regional wars sparked by competing Western interests.

Which Western countries are causing the most problems over there, and what's the story? Most people are probably unfamiliar with why you're blaming some Western countries.

 

[BCP1928]

Which Western countries are causing the most problems over there, and what's the story? Most people are probably unfamiliar with why you're blaming some Western countries.

Not countries, companies. Excluding oil and mineral exploitation, probably Cargill is the worst offender.

It’s Juneteenth, but these American companies are still profiting from slavery (commentary)

Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 where an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were freed, marking the official end of slavery in the Confederacy – two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and six months before the 13th Amendment to the Constitution finally banned slavery...

news.mongabay.com

 

[Lukaris]

Some report that Cargill is evil while others indicate something else.

How Nestlé and Cargill Support Sustainable Farming

Nestlé is working with Cargill to support cocoa farming families & create low emissions fertiliser with circular bioeconomy trial to reach net zero goals

sustainabilitymag.com

 

[Bradskii]

In case you didn’t know, our pets rely on us for their every need. How incredibly unkind it is to ridicule someone for caring for their pets in a proper manner.

How is it possible to misconstrue such as simple point as was being made? Really, how did you manage to do that?

...In the meantime, we have grown adults around the world who lack the capacity to produce a fruitful culture/ society.

You tell me who's in the wrong.

You are. Without any doubt whatsoever.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar​

On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher’s little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: “No one has died” because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis​

Higher levels of USAID funding—primarily directed toward LMICs, particularly African countries—were associated with a 15% reduction in age-standardised all-cause mortality (risk ratio [RR] 0·85, 95% CI 0·78–0·93) and a 32% reduction in under-five mortality (RR 0·68, 0·57–0·80). ... Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14 051 750 (uncertainty interval 8 475 990–19 662 191) additional all-age deaths, including 4 537 157 (3 124 796–5 910 791) in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030.

 

[Fantine]

Essentialsaltes, this is what happen when conservative churches call empathy a "sin."

Is empathy a sin? Some conservative Christians argue it can be

Those Christians claim empathy can manipulate people into accepting what they see as sins, like abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights.

www.pbs.org

Empathy is usually regarded as a virtue, a key to human decency and kindness. And yet, with increasing momentum, voices on the Christian right are preaching that it has become a vice.

For them, empathy is a cudgel for the left: It can manipulate caring people into accepting all manner of sins according to a conservative Christian perspective, including abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, illegal immigration and certain views on social and racial justice.

What would Jesus say? Here's what Pope Leo has said about nominally "Christian" churches preaching callous disregard for human suffering:

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-10's
/pope-leo-faith-cannot-be-separated-from-love-for-the-poor.html

Through God's grace, we have been given an American leader of the global Catholic Church to counteract the bad judgment of American voters, who have endangered not only our country but the entire world with their misguided presidential choice. May he stay strong. May true Christians recognize that empathy and conpassion are the ways of Jesus, and cruelty and callousness are inspired by the Prince of Darkness.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Essentialsaltes, this is what happen when conservative churches call empathy a "sin."

While true, ordinarily that would mean as much as conservative churches calling premarital sex or tattoos a 'sin'. It has no effect on people's lives.

But rich conservative political figures (in and out of the church) have anathematized taxes to the extent that some of these churches have been co-opted in this way. And now the rich anti-tax people and the newly anti-empathy churches are largely unified in a political party that holds the reins of government.

We may laugh at the soybean farmers who have voted against their own financial interest, but people dying for lack of a tiny fraction of government spending isn't funny.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Essentialsaltes, this is what happen when conservative churches call empathy a "sin."

Is empathy a sin? Some conservative Christians argue it can be

Those Christians claim empathy can manipulate people into accepting what they see as sins, like abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights.

www.pbs.org

What would Jesus say? Here's what Pope Leo has said about nominally "Christian" churches preaching callous disregard for human suffering:

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-10's
/pope-leo-faith-cannot-be-separated-from-love-for-the-poor.html

Through God's grace, we have been given an American leader of the global Catholic Church to counteract the bad judgment of American voters, who have endangered not only our country but the entire world with their misguided presidential choice. May he stay strong. May true Christians recognize that empathy and conpassion are the ways of Jesus, and cruelty and callousness are inspired by the Prince of Darkness.

Does this mean Jesus lacked empathy when he told the woman to go and sin no more?

 

[Bradskii]

Does this mean Jesus lacked empathy when he told the woman to go and sin no more?

Why would you correlate those two things? It makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Fantine]

Does this mean Jesus lacked empathy when he told the woman to go and sin no more?

He saved her life.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Why would you correlate those two things? It makes no sense whatsoever.

Because according to the article, empathy requires accepting and welcoming sinful lifestyles to spare the feelings of others. Therefore, Jesus would have been unempathetic to tell an adulterous women that she should end her affair and remain faithful to her husband. Similarly, it would be unempathetic for a pastor to refuse to officiate a gay wedding.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

He saved her life.

Then he told her to not to continue with her sinful lifestyle and deny her the happiness she received having a relationship with her lover. Not very empathetic is it seeing how Jesus had the audacity to tell another person to change their sinful lifestyle instead of just accepting it. Am I right?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Then he told her to not to continue with her sinful lifestyle and deny her the happiness she received having a relationship with her lover. Not very empathetic is it seeing how Jesus had the audacity to tell another person to change their sinful lifestyle instead of just accepting it. Am I right?

I really don't understand this tack. If there are drug addicts, we encourage them to get clean. If there are starving people in Africa, we don't encourage them to get fed. We feed them. But now we don't.

 

[Bradskii]

Because according to the article, empathy requires accepting and welcoming sinful lifestyles to spare the feelings of others.

Which is so incorrect it's not even wrong. Empathy is simply the ability to understand what someone else is feeling. It doesn't 'require' anything. Especially accepting or rejecting lifestyles. I've never heard such abject nonsense in a long time. And that's saying something being a regular in this forum...

 

[Oompa Loompa]

I really don't understand this tack. If there are drug addicts, we encourage them to get clean. If there are starving people in Africa, we don't encourage them to get fed. We feed them. But now we don't.

I am responding to post 127.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Which is so incorrect it's not even wrong. Empathy is simply the ability to understand what someone else is feeling. It doesn't 'require' anything. Especially accepting or rejecting lifestyles. I've never heard such abject nonsense in a long time. And that's saying something being a regular in this forum...

I agree. I am just responding to post 127. You may need to talk to fantine and ask her why she posted it.

 

[Bradskii]

I agree. I am just responding to post 127. You may need to talk to fantine and ask her why she posted it.

I know why she posted it. But you saying...

'Not very empathetic is it seeing how Jesus had the audacity to tell another person to change their sinful lifestyle instead of just accepting it. Am I right?'

...is completely misunderstanding what empathy is.

 

[Lukaris]

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar​

On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher’s little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: “No one has died” because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis​

Higher levels of USAID funding—primarily directed toward LMICs, particularly African countries—were associated with a 15% reduction in age-standardised all-cause mortality (risk ratio [RR] 0·85, 95% CI 0·78–0·93) and a 32% reduction in under-five mortality (RR 0·68, 0·57–0·80). ... Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14 051 750 (uncertainty interval 8 475 990–19 662 191) additional all-age deaths, including 4 537 157 (3 124 796–5 910 791) in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030.

This whole post is based on a claim that a US foreign aid cut has more impact on human deaths in the Myanmar ( Burma) conflict than the conflict itself. The conflict is said to be ongoing since the post colonial era in 1948. Then a projected worldwide genocide exclusively from US foreign aid expenditures. It inverts the reality of ongoing death & destruction worldwide to the impact of foreign aid spending from one source.

Perspective on Myanmar from above is that US aid expenditure cuts unleash death & destruction across Myanmar. There has been ongoing death & destruction since 1948.

Myanmar conflict - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And it is happening as posts here are made.

Paramotors: Myanmar army's lethal new weapon in civil war

Then the conclusion is that future worldwide famine & deaths will be attributed to foreign aid cuts rather than ongoing human conflicts. This seems more like propaganda.