In the US, any terror attack sends the media into a frenzy of fear mongering and as a result people here tend to be in a state of permanent fear. But as I have said many times before, Americans don’t seem to realize that people in other countries seem to be made of sterner stuff than those who live in the ‘home of the brave’ and take these awful acts in stride. It is not that they minimize the tragedies but that they don’t let themselves be paralyzed by them.
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The White House budget director Mick Mulvaney is a rabid tea partier and so it should be no surprise that the budget proposals that he unveiled this week consist of everything desired in the fevered dreams of the US oligarchs: massive tax cuts for the wealthy, deep and wide cuts in programs that benefit the poor and middle class, and increases in defense spending.
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That Americans are woefully ignorant about world geography is well known. My first experience with this was when I first came to the US for graduate studies. When I told people that I was from Sri Lanka, most people had never heard of it. That was not surprising since this was before the various vicious ethnic and political conflicts in that country had brought it greater notoriety. When you add to that the fact that the country was known as Ceylon before 1971, the lack of awareness was perfectly understandable.
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Seth Meyers has the videotape of Trump’s prediction during the campaign and also tells us of the preparations being made for the five-nation trip by White House officials and foreign leaders because of Trump’s ignorance, unwillingness and/or inability to learn, and short attention span. The whole process reminds me of the perpetual nervousness of parents of an uncontrollable, bad-tempered toddler, wondering when he will throw a tantrum or otherwise embarrass them.
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