"In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot." Czeslaw Milosz, Polish Poet
September 20, 2017
By: Linda Case Gibbons
He's not the kind of guy who ignores the elephant in the room.
He feeds it peanuts.
This week, in what was basically a meeting of the "World Family," the president addressed the United Nations about family business, Islamic terrorism, nuclear war, and yes, the shortcomings of the U.N. and some of its member countries.
They were serious topics, and he didn't pull any punches.
First he praised our country's generosity. Then he saluted the U.N.'s humanitarian efforts. And then he kicked butt. Just as he did with NATO.
No other president told NATO allies to pay up, but when Trump told them, they did.
No other president tackled the thorn the United Nations has been in America's side for years: the abusive attitude shown by its members toward their host country, the behavior of its delegates, protected by diplomatic immunity. And the cost.
No one took it on. Except Trump.
"The United States is one of 193 countries in the United Nations," he said, "and yet we pay 22 percent of the entire budget and more. In fact we pay far more than anybody realizes.
"In the meantime, we believe that no nation should have to bear a disproportionate share of the burden, militarily or financially."
He was right about NATO, and he's right about the U.N.
"The United Nations has such great potential," candidate Trump said, "but now it is just a special 'club' for people to get together, talk, and have a good time."
With everyday Americans picking up the tab.
The organization for which Eleanor Roosevelt so heartily advocated, has changed. A recent report disclosed that one delegate on a third world "peacekeeping mission" booked a hotel room costing $1,000 a night. And, as the president observed, "It is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that government with egregious human rights records sit on the Human Rights Council."
Like Iraq. And Cuba.
It's time for some changes.
As always, Trump said in his address to the U.N. what Americans were thinking. The politicians in Washington didn't like it. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba's delegates didn't, either. But Americans? They loved it.
Nicolas Maduro has "inflicted terrible pain and suffering on his people by "imposing a failed ideology that has produced poverty and misery everywhere it has been tried," the president said. He was referring to Bernie's favorite political system, the one that has destroyed Venezuela.
He singled out North Korea as a country "responsible for the starvation deaths of millions of North Koreans, and for the imprisonment, torture, killing and oppression of countless more."
He restated that the U.S. will not lift sanctions on the Cuban government, "until it makes fundamental reforms." And said, of Iran, "It is far past time for the nations of the world to confront another reckless regime, one that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing death to America, destruction to Israel."
It's nothing Obama would say, and certainly not John Kerry. CNN and the Liberal media parsed the president's words, and wrung their hands. Hillary called his speech "dark and dangerous."
And why wouldn't she? The speech was about what is really happening, in the real world, the one in which real Americans, not Hillary, or Obama, live. So yes, we live in dark times. But the president's message was hopeful, because he, unlike Hillary and Obama, is doing something about it. Draining whatever swamp you drain, is always hopeful.
As for the words Trump used, they were the ones FDR would have spoken in his Fireside Chats, when he, like Trump, explained and included the American people in what was happening, to their economy during the Great Depression, and to their lives during World War II.
It's what the job of being president is all about. Something Hillary and Obama never got a handle on.
But, alas. In a world where some people protest a cotton plant display in Hobby Lobby because it is "insensitive toward blacks," and where an the president, as an aggrieved party, has the burden to "prove" to the media and the intelligence community, that he's been wiretapped by the previous administration, it's hard to win.
And yet, Trump did win. His speech was nothing short of magnificent. Because he always says what Americans are thinking.
Hold the line, America.