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To be proud to be Dutch for once...

32 replies

pointythings · 25/01/2017 13:14

In response to Donald Trump's predictable scrapping of aid to NGOs who provide sexual health services internationally, the Dutch minister for international development has announced she is setting up an international fund to replace this money. She is in talks with counterparts across the world. Today I am proud to be Dutch. Someone is standing up to the Republicans' culture of misogyny at last...

I hope it will be possible to donate money - I will be so in thete.

OP posts:
NorksAkimbo72 · 25/01/2017 16:18

Stripey I'm a US/UK citizen, who did not vote for Trump. Your generalisation about liberals going straight to insults leads me to believe that you weren't paying a lot of attention during the election season...there were plenty of insults from both sides (libtard, anyone?). Unfortunately, using words like misogynist and racist when referring to Trump isn't really an insult...he has shown us who he is time and time again, and though I'm not a big fan of labels, it's pretty safe to say that people are calling a spade a spade in his case.
I think there will be quite a few threads that will call Trump out on the decisions he's making. Your counterpoints are more than welcome, I'm sure...I actually think it would be helpful to know why people voted for him. Thick skin and solid arguments will help you! 😉

DotForShort · 25/01/2017 16:22

That is great. Well done to that minister.

I hope the Dutch will be intelligent enough to reject Geert Wilders. It's very worrying that he has surged in the polls.

TheMysteriousJackelope · 25/01/2017 18:01

Stripey Here is some political discourse for you.
Betsy DeVos to be appointed as secretary of education. A woman who was not educated in public schools, whose children were not educated in public schools, who destroyed the school system in Detroit, who has no background in education, who has tens of millions in private charter schools and who wants tax payer money handed over to for-profit charter school companies on a nationwide basis. The Corinthian and ITT scandals have shown there is insufficient oversight of the private education system in the US yet she wants to fling billions of tax payer dollars into the black hole of private education. Not only is she unqualified she is too incompetent to have a vision of what a good public education system should be or to form a plan to improve things. She merely wants to shirk her responsibilities by paying her friends to do her job for her. As a finishing touch my 14 year old did a better job at answering the questions on standardized testing than she did, and apparently she thinks schools should have guns on site in case of invasion by grizzly bears.

Puzder, former CEO of Hardee's/Carl's Jnr. a company notorious for its franchisees not paying wages and overtime to employees. Either he doesn't care about that or he is too incompetent to adequately police the people carrying his company's name - terrible qualities to have in the new Head of the Department of Labor. He also wants to severely restrict changes to the minimum wage.

Pruitt - A lawyer who has repeatedly sued the EPA is now in charge of the EPA. He wishes to reduce federal oversight on environmental protection.

Trump has already made changes that will cost low income home buyers $500 a year in insurance charges.

Trump has stated, on record, that he is going to get jobs back into the US by cutting 75% of the regulations on businesses. Given that most business regulation concerns fair treatment of employees, employee safety, and environmental protection you can imagine what these new jobs will be like - unsafe, under paid, with long term health effects due to pollution and exposure to unhealthy working conditions.

Trump flat out lied about the number of people at his inauguration. That he is willing to lie about such a stupid thing says a lot about his ethical values, his low opinion of the intelligence of the American people, and his compulsive need to be 'the best' no matter what. The attendance at his celebration was comparable to that of most other presidents (with the exception of President Obama's first inauguration). There was no need to lie to make himself look good, he already looked good.

A son in law appointed as a 'special advisor', being in charge of the GSA - the landlord for his new flagship hotel, claiming that he will get out of all foreign deals while dramatically expanding his new golf course in Scotland and having an Asian business partner at his inauguration ball who stated he was there because he wanted a business relationship with the new President, government employees instructed to not talk to each other directly and not to talk to the press - tactics similar to those used by President Erdogan.

Trump's ethics are so screwed up he doesn't know he's being unethical. He thinks that whatever he does is OK purely because he is doing it. That appointing a bunch of incompetent, inexperienced, unethical people to his cabinet is fine because as they know him personally that makes them 'the best'.

TheMysteriousJackelope · 25/01/2017 18:12

In my limited experience Dutch people are great.

It is also perfectly OK to be proud of your country or what your countrymen and women have achieved. What is not OK is to think other countries and their citizens are inferior because of their place of birth and/or residence.

pointythings · 25/01/2017 18:40

Jackelope I couldn't agree more. I'm not a flag waver and I really hope Wilders fails to end up in government (again). I tend to look at the good things about every country, not lose myself in futile comparison. It's just nice that it's a Dutch politician who has come up with this, And I hope she pushes it through and makes it work. Women around the world deserve better than to have politicians play Russian roulette with their bodies.

OP posts:
TheNiffler · 26/01/2017 12:13

Jackelope, could I steal your previous post please?

TheMysteriousJackelope · 26/01/2017 16:44

TheNiffler Yes, that would be fine with me.

There's also appointing Kennedy (who has led an anti-vaccination campaign) to head up a panel investigating the safety of the US vaccination program. Investigating alternative vaccine schedules is a good idea but it should be done by someone who is as impartial as possible.

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