Damage Control

Damage Control

From United Nations Founder to Admonished Offender

Source: The Economist

From this…

"U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt first suggested using the name United Nations...The text of the "Declaration by United Nations" was drafted by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins...Establishment...On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco... fifty nations represented at the conference signed the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June" - Wiki History of the United Nations, with corroboration from the United Nations > Home > About the UN > History of the United Nations & United States Department of State > Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs > The Formation of the United Nations, 1945

To This…

United Nation Global Alerts & Condemnations of recent U.S developments

​● "U.N. Human Rights Chief Condemns ‘Ugly’ Tone of U.S. Election": "The head of the United Nations Human Rights Office challenged the rhetoric...[that] had resurrected the 'ugly phantom of racial and religious division'”...Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, rued that...'enthusiastic support for torture,' [& condemned] 'hateful slander”' leveled at foreigners" - Time

​● “'Dangerous’ for Global Stability, U.N. Rights Chief Says”: " United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, focused attention…comments about deporting undocumented immigrants, barring Muslims from entering the country and employing torture tactics...[saying that] 'would be dangerous from an international point of view'...Mr. al-Hussein emphasized that his office tried to stay out of politics, but he added that if an election could lead to an increased use of torture or to the persecution of 'vulnerable communities in a way that suggests that they may well be deprived of their human rights, then I think it is incumbent to say so.'...Mr. al-Hussein’s comments echoed a statement he delivered in The Hague last month in which he condemned 'populists, demagogues and political fantasists' who exploited economic hardship and social tensions to fan racial and religious prejudice...Those politicians, he said, share with the Islamic State a fondness for 'half-truths and oversimplification.'...Mr. al-Hussein said that he had no intention of toning down his remarks, given what he described as the prevailing permissive environment in which political leaders felt able to deliver speeches that moved beyond freedom of expression to incitement....'When you fan resentment and seek as a political leader to pin blame on a specific community for deeper problems, real problems, this is highly regrettable,' Mr. al-Hussein said. 'There are very real fears that are being stoked and exploited, and this is the point that I was trying to make.'...The high commissioner set those concerns in the context of a growing 'mean spiritedness' of international political discourse...[Further,] Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general, said in May that he was 'outraged by racism and hatred, especially when voiced by politicians and would-be leaders,'” - NYTimes.com

​● “US Election 2016: Top UN official condemns Trump”: "The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned the policies... equating them to bigotry...he singled out the...support of torture and...policies towards Muslims. 'Bigotry is not proof of strong leadership,' Mr Hussein said."...[adding] 'Hate speech, incitement and marginalisation of the 'other' are not a tittering form of entertainment, or a respectable vehicle for political profit,'...[further referencing] 'enthusiastic support for torture (...) inflicting intolerable pain on people, in order to force them to deliver or invent information that they may not have.'" - BBC News

Economist Corroborative Articles

​● “The debasing of American politics”

​● “With these hands": "a self-described sexual predator…has violated…America”:

​● “The politics of sexual assault": It's not just the powerful”

​● “The evangelical vote": "Absalom’s revenge”

Source: The Economist, October 15th-21st 2016 issue/cover “The debasing of American politics”

New York Times Op-Ed Assessment of Global Impact of "Economist's debased American politics" > from NYT National Enterprise Reporter, National Book Award & Pulitzer Prize winner Timothy Egan

​● “Burning Down the House” "Donald Trump is now in a tear-the-country-down rage. Day after day, he rips at the last remaining threads of decency holding this nation together...He’s made America vile. He’s got angel-voiced children yelling ‘bitch’ and flipping the bird at rallies. He’s got young athletes chanting ‘build a wall’ at Latino kids on the other side. He’s made it O.K. to bully and fat-shame. He’s normalized perversion, bragging about how an aging man with his sense of entitlement can walk in on naked women...

Here’s his lesson for young minds: If you’re rich and boorish enough, you can get away with anything. Get away with sexual assault…not paying taxes…never telling the truth…flirting with treason…stiffing people who work for you, while you take yours…mocking the disabled, veterans and families of war heroes...Trump has made compassion suspect. Don’t reach out to starving refugees — they’re killers in disguise. Don’t give to a charity that won’t reward you in some way. Don’t pay taxes that build roads and offer relief to those washed away in a hurricane. That’s a sucker’s game. We’re not all in this together. Taxes are for stupid people...Every sexual predator now has a defender at the top…

"He’s destroyed whatever moral standing leading Christian conservatives had...Take solace in one of the small acts of courage breaking out in recent days: a group of students at Liberty University telling their Trump-supporting president, Jerry Falwell Jr., to practice what the school preaches...Trump is 'actively promoting the very things that we Christians ought to oppose,' the students wrote. These young people, at least, are smart enough to see what Trump is doing to their world"…

It will take many people like those students, and like the first lady, Michelle Obama, a model of decency and class, to repair the awful damage Trump has done...In a powerful speech Thursday, the nation’s most respected public figure scorned the 'hurtful, hateful language' of Trump and its effect on children: 'The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything to a woman. It’s cruel. It’s frightening…

"So it has come to this: The core lessons that bind a civilized society are in play ...They may be gone forever...But now, in the final days of a horrid campaign, an unshackled Trump is more national threat than punch line. He’s determined to cause lasting damage...He’s trying to destroy the country, as well. Civility, always a tenuous thing, cannot be quickly restored in a society that has learned to hate in public, at full throttle".

Epilog: The determination “to cause lasting damage”, even globally so, has been a devastating attack on American Honor, Values, Ideals, Dignity, Respect &, in words that apply from a recent speech by First Lady Michelle Obama, "setting a bad example for our...entire world. Because for so long, America has been a model for countries across the globe...how can we maintain our moral authority in the world? How can we continue to be a beacon of freedom and justice and human dignity?... we as Americans, we as decent human beings can come together and declare that enough is enough, and we do not tolerate this kind of behavior in this country...we have the power to show...that America's greatness comes from recognizing the innate dignity and worth of all our people...that here in America, we reject hatred and fear and in difficult times, we don't discard our highest ideals. No, we rise up to meet them. We rise up to perfect our union. We rise up to defend our blessings of liberty. We rise up to embody the values of equality and opportunity and sacrifice that have always made this country the greatest nation on Earth...That is who we are. And don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Hope is important." 1 "It is my deepest hope that the people of this country will demonstrate their profound understanding of human dignity and human rights.” 2

Footnotes:

1 First Lady Michelle Obama speech “transcript...released by the White House Office of the First Lady”

2 Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, U.N. high commissioner for human rights