WI 1848 Forward: February 2025

Friday, February 28, 2025

Do you think the " politicians " have figured out what the billionaires are REALLY afraid about? I don't!

What is your "one" word guess ... and it is not "entitlements"!

Do you think the " politicians " have figured out what the billionaires are REALLY afraid about?

Thursday, February 20, 2025

Reflect: The Ugly American - Irony

Reflect: The Ugly American - 1958 Irony 2025

"The Ugly American" The history of a phrase tells us much about the collapse of US foreign policy Dan Gardner Feb 04, 2025

In the form of a novel, Lederer and Burdick were making a policy argument — that the United States was doing foreign affairs in south-east Asia all wrong. Set aside smug superiority, they urged. Stop lecturing. Be curious. Learn. Be helpful. Make a real difference. That is how — to borrow a phrase from a later era — America will win hearts and minds.

And keep the Communists out.

...

The controversy wasn’t limited to foreign policy circles, however. The Saturday Evening Post — the magazine of middle America — serialized the novel. The Ugly American became a huge bestseller, eventually selling more than four million copies.

A young senator by the name of John F. Kennedy was particularly taken with the novel. He bought copies to give to every one of his colleagues in the Senate.

When Kennedy became president in 1961, he created the Peace Corps to advance the vision of Lederer and Burdick. He also collected the various foreign aid programs developed under Dwight Eisenhower and consolidated them into a new agency called the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID.