US To Withdraw From UNESCO Again (nature.com) 115
The United States will withdraw from UNESCO for the second time in eight years, with the departure taking effect December 31, 2026. The State Department announced the decision yesterday, ending the country's brief two-year return to the Paris-based United Nations science and cultural organization. The US previously withdrew from UNESCO in 2017, cutting off more than 22% of the agency's funding. The American contribution now represents 8% of UNESCO's current $900 million annual budget, making the financial impact less severe than the earlier withdrawal.
Trump's Treasonshit Regime (Score:3, Insightful)
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I think he keeps trying to change the conversation but it's not working.
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Sometimes I think it just should, or have the rest of the world ignore it until it grows up and shows (proper) adult behaviour for at least a few generations.
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You say Zionist, he says Klan. What's the difference?
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As of this post 0,flamebait vs 4 insightful(don't ever change Kosdot, don't ever change. LUL)
Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
$75 Billion allocated for ICE over the next four years.
Cheeto claimed he was going after criminals but it turns that 75% of this group who were kidnapped to El Salvador had criminal records. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/w... [cbsnews.com]
Remind me how arresting the guy doing kitchen prep work makes the country great again?
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The current administration is trying to free-up non-AI impacted jobs for Americans, and trying to force Americans to work those jobs by cutting Medicare and curtailing opportunities for women and minorities (certain Americans are more American than others). They think we can return a society and economy like the 1950s and 60s because they think AI and a cruchy-fascist oligarchy could give us a similar relative advantages vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
But even if they fail or are just wrong, they see fewer
Re: Meanwhile (Score:2)
What if UNESCO used US funding for a hedge fund that profits more from investing in the US asset markets that Trump is boosting, thsn from relying on the US government for help?
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What jobs won't be AI impacted? Robotics will eliminate the vast majority of factory jobs, so what will the under-educated "I shouldn't need to go to college to find work" people do when there just aren't jobs they are educated enough to do? When you need to be worried about "unskilled people who don't speak our language" taking your job, that just shows that YOU don't have skills, so you compete with other "unskilled" people. These are the people who are against having the majority of people go a col
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"What jobs won't be AI impacted?"
picking cotton
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That's a little further down the road, but those jobs will be done by robotics in the next 20 years as well.
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Most restaurant work would be one....
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Robotics as a field is about to surge, and food prep will be one of those things that many people will have a robot in their home for.
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I doubt that in many cases....for instance, I happed to really ENJOY cooking....and prep work is part of it. I learned my knife skills for a good reason.
And for restaurants that are at least a level or two above fast food...they're not going to want everything to be non-human perfect, etc....otherwise why go to any particular restaurant when the full experience would be j
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Worked for North Korea.
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One can't trust what they read, but I read that ICE is projected to outgrow the US Marines soon.
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Well....while it is best to clear out the REALLY bad guys first, anyone here in the US illegally....is a criminal and should be deported according to the laws on the books.
And yes it IS a criminal offense under 8 US code 1325.
And illegal re-entry after deportation is a more serious felony.
I will agree that some sent
Kleptocracy versus idiocracy? (Score:3)
Your second link contradicts your description of the link. Minimal correction is "no criminal records", based on the content of the link. Was that your intention?
However, I'm not sure how much of a legal defense that really is. Since ICE is acting outside of the law, they can just create crimes and criminal records as needed. They don't want to bother on a wholesale level, but if a particular case becomes too problematic, then they'll do it. Of course I'm thinking of the Garcia case, where he was deported,
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Remind me how arresting the guy doing kitchen prep work makes the country great again?
it disincentivizes people entering illegally, and creates more demand for those willing to come legally.
allowing people to skip the line, enter and stay illegally is a disservice to those doing things by the rules.
if the US needs more cheap labor, the US can allow more legal immigration--the US is the #1 immigration destination after all.
and naturalizing illegal immigrants is not popular and always fails to pass.
'murica proving to the rest of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: 'murica proving to the rest of the world (Score:4)
Unreliable is not the word I would use.
Transactional is more like it. Once you understand this, it becomes easier to work with them.
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Not sure about that. My friends who deal with abusive ex spouses with borderline personality disorder beg to differ with you. There is no satisfying people like that, and one person particular has managed to project his own propensities on an entire nation's relationships with other nations. The only way to deal with a person like that is to not deal with them at all.
Re: 'murica proving to the rest of the world (Score:2)
If you don't play politics, will you end up ruled by your inferiors?
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That isn't the same at all.
What you have to understand is the scope of the transactions are quite narrow. Trump's policy is actually very Washingtonian, it does not embrace entanglement and relationships at all.
Its you give me this, I'll give you that, and none of this speaks to whatever we may be haggling over a week from now. It is more like you walk into the hardware store, the guy is asking $0.30 a fascener and you say tell you what I need a bunch of these I'll give you $50 for all of them right now. H
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Not really. If one partly unilaterally breaks agreements, there is no sense in negotiating new agreements. Some level of trust is required.
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Unreliable is not the word I would use.
Transactional is more like it. Once you understand this, it becomes easier to work with them.
Almost every international relationship has been transactional. Aside from "oh, your tiny nation just suffered a massive natural disaster... we're going to send some folks and supplies to help you out", virtually everything has been.
What's happened with the Trump administration is "every last drop of blood from the stone" transactional. It's sort of "with the old deal the US would gain 5 units of benefit and its partner would gain 5 units of benefit" is replaced by "with the new deal the US will gain 6
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Transactional is more like it. Once you understand this, it becomes easier to work with them.
American politicians will make decisions that make no sense from a transactional perspective because it gets them more votes. Also, they may be bribed to make bad decisions.
Best to understand American policy as, "America always does that right thing, after all alternatives have been exhausted."
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Unreliable is not the word I would use.
Transactional is more like it. Once you understand this, it becomes easier to work with them.
Nah. Transactional implies a level of coherence and planning that is clearly absent in the current administration.
Re:'murica proving to the rest of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
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This.
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So there is such a thing as a stupid question. Every nation must negotiate for their own interests. How many deals have been signed?
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To stall. This means Trumps stupidity tax will hit them later, which gives them time to make deals with other countries. At least that is what the EU is doing :D
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but his reneging on the deal with he struck Canada and Mexico in his last term and his statements about not honouring the commitments America has to NATO have underscored the fact the any deal he is willing to strike is not worth the paper that its written on.
Just like Hitler who wrote in Mein Kampf that he would never be held to any commitment he made on foreign affairs. Neither is Trumpskyy.
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Similar to a Trump university diploma. How can MAGA still not see the problem?
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MAGA is sold on the destruction of the country. All the damage is easily spun as virtue.
It will only change when a critical mass of MAGA are personally harmed seriously enough. The plan is for there to be an unsurmountable hold on power before that happens.
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The problem for him (and the people of the US) is that America will loose out when everyone else is striking deals without them (and sticking to them).
People are stupid in unique ways. They will continue to do business and Trump will do his thing and his cronies will slurp up the mess. Yes, America will fall, but Trump and his cronies will profit mightily from the fall. What is the problem? Everything is working exactly as planned and everyone is happy to go along with it. *shrug*
(why is everyone so happy to go along with a compromised leadership? it is blindly fucking obvious that Israel has our legislators by the balls (literally) and yet everyone just
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Foreign policy wonks have taken to describing the US as "agreement incapable", because to my knowledge just since the turn of the century there isn't a single major treaty or agreement that the country hasn't violated.
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The rest of the world has been looking at America that way since at least the first Trump administration. China has been pushing that narrative in trade negotiations, painting itself as the stable, fair, non-judgemental partner.
At this point I think until something happens to basically wipe out the Republicans as a political force, that perception of the US isn't going to change. At best we might get 4 years of moderate stability.
By the way, that might also be why the Democrats are so useless. In the pursui
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Transactional doesn't mean anything without consistency. To my mind the worst damage this administration is doing is to themselves in the longer term. What's the point of making any concessions for a deal at all if it will just not honor it? By defanging any oversight, and make itself its own enforcer, other parties really have no foundation upon which to assume that negotiated terms mean anything at all..
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(whoops, replied to the wrong post .. meant the one below)
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At a certain point you have to stop subsidizing your billionaires with trillions of dollars in tax cuts that directly blow up that deficit.
-FIFY
Ordinarily we get 8 years of Democrats (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of people reading this who own houses right now won't be owning them in the next 4 or 5 years. Your mortgage your property to pay for medicine or food and then the bank will take it when you can't make the payments.
Based on what we know about the Epstein list (Score:1)
Re: Ordinarily we get 8 years of Democrats (Score:3)
What if you opened up public land to free camping and used sovereign wealth fund profits to fund garbage service?
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One of the dirty little secrets is that most public land isn't there to preserve it for public use, it's there because private interests don't want to have to pay taxes on land they will be valuable someday but which isn't valuable yet today. So the government hangs on to it and then when it gets to be valuable sells it to the private interests for pennies on the dollar.
Although without all the government su
Re: Ordinarily we get 8 years of Democrats (Score:2)
Why isn't garbage funded from property taxes/the city?
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There is one party and that party is Greed. The Republicans are one face of Greed while the Democrats are the other face of Greed. Sure, the Democrats, in some ways, are a less painful form of Greed. They at least pay lip service to their morals. But honestly, it does not matter how lose our money, we will lose our money regardless of Republican or Democrat. And you are happy to support Greed, as long as it looks pretty on the surface. Whatever.
It's About Time.... (Score:4, Insightful)
UNESCO hasn't done any real "science" in years anyway, and generally seems to be a waste of taxpayer money. Anything spedifically useful we can provide specific grants for.
Ferret
Re: It's About Time.... (Score:2)
UNESCO has been taken over by the hateful woke ( which large non-profit organisations haven't ? ).
A pox on both their houses.
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UNESCO stands for the "United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization"
and was founded after WW2 to promote peace through international cooperation in education, science, and culture.
UNESCO sites include Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty.
Yes, this. UNESCO doesn't "do" science, it promotes international cooperation in science. About twenty years ago, when George W. Bush was President, I went to UNESCO headquarters in Paris for the "Third Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts and Islands," convened by something called the " Global Ocean Forum [globaloceanforum.com]," led by the late Dr. Biliana Cicin-Sain. At that point in time, the Forum was hosted at the Gerard J. Mangone Center for Marine Policy at the University of Delaware.
That was an age when the US saw value
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It's good that you demonstrated all you know about an orgnaisation is based on one word in the organisation's title. And in interpreting that one word you used a no-true-scottsman fallacy.
Thank god we have you there to determine what "real "science"" is, and that you give no fucks about the far larger cultural mission of the organisation.
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UNESCO hasn't done any real "science" in years anyway
That is not and has never been the purpose of UNESCO, it is not a research institute.
Multi-general funding and GDP based formulas (Score:2)
I do not mind the international organizations, though their funding allocations need to be reset given the change in relative GDP and population numbers since WWII ended in 1945.
Funding of these NGOs should be more evenly balanced between countries.
The cries about US moving away from the past funding levels it did is largely the diplomatic and media class complaining about less jobs, less 5 star international conferences, less news events to write about and overall less demand for diplomats.
Trump is an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump has no idea what he's doing.
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Where is the +1 "Terrifying thought" mod when you need it?
By trying to distract us from the Epstein saga... (Score:1)
...constantly, isn't he drawing more attention to it?
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It'll be interesting to see how much that changes if Trump pisses off Rupert Murdoch enough.
F MAGAnderthals! (Score:2)
F MAGAnderthals!
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That's probably an insult for the Neanderthals.
The US (Score:5, Insightful)
I think all international organisation are now realising:
The US is entirely unreliable, especially when it comes to funding.
I wouldn't bank on any of their promises or budgets any more. They've totally lost all credibility.
And especially where anything humanitarian is concerned, I'd be treating them as a minor player just because of their variable attitude and flakiness now.
I'd rather concentrate on those nations providing 5% reliably than one providing 8% but could disappear at any moment. And the longer this continues, the more it will be the way those organisations operate.
The US held - rightly or not - some position of authority in these organisations and could quite well use the "what am I paying you for" lines with some justification (though always over-egged). Now it's just a partner the same as everyone else, but far more flaky and unpredictable.
It's lovely to see them throw away so much influence so very quickly.
Re: The US (Score:2, Interesting)
Since all those countries don't trust us then they are more than welcome to use their own tax money to cover the difference. The only thing these countries want is for the US to pay for everything so they don't.
Re: The US (Score:2)
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Exactly this!
As to all the comments about 'extraordinary privilege' as the dollar trade goes..
yeah well so is enjoying navigating seas largely free of piracy, having a ready source of weapons that actually work if you get invaded (even if you do have to "buy" them), being part of peace umbrella that is ONLY credible because of US power.
By all means lets see the EU or anyone else deliver this stuff on its own.
The real problem is Donald Trump lacks the courage to provide the demonstration that is evidently re
Anything UN related is a waste of US $$$ (Score:1, Flamebait)
good, but (Score:2)
Good, since UNESCO is captured by dictatorial anti-US regimes.
But why is this in /.?
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Good, since UNESCO is captured by dictatorial anti-US regimes.
But why is this in /.?
Well, now it will at least be free of authoritarian US regimes. Also wondering why this is /. material
Fuck the UN (Score:2)
What little good they do is far outweighed by how they support terror and tyranny.
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What's the weather like in St. Peterburg this morning, comrade?
Is Lakhta tower's basement comfortable?
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"...it's worse. It's a zionist or worse still, a Jew."
Critcizing zionists from underneath your Klan hood is a bad look.
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Now do Israel.
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Judaism and support for "Greater Israel" are not the same thing.
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You want to be frugal with government? Start here. https://www.cfr.org/article/us... [cfr.org]
Re:Bye, UNESCO. It’s Not Us; It’s You. (Score:5, Insightful)
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You are dumb. Palestinian misery might be solvable (lol) by one person, but it certainly isn't being caused by that person (despite that one person willingly helping).
The Palestinians will die and global leadership will enjoy their privileges while it happens, all while talking about how horrible genocide is and how it couldn't happen TODAY like it did previously.
Palestinians do not matter. You do not matter. I do not matter. The only thing that matters is the power and the pursuit of power. The Palestinian
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Palestinian misery might be solvable (lol) by one person, but it certainly isn't being caused by that person (despite that one person willingly helping).
I think it's pretty clear that Israel would not go as far as blindside even the Americans and keep pushing that hard if it was not for Netanyahu knowing he is personally in deep sh** otherwise. He serves the most fanatic of his government quite well like that, so they are happy to follow, but it's mostly him driving this...
Re: Bye, UNESCO. It’s Not Us; It’s You (Score:2)
Remember when Reagan put us at a then-unthinkable $6 trillion in debt and it just bankrupted the Soviet Union? What if the dollar is the hub currency of international trade and the private sector's preferred unit of final settlement, and since the US stock market keeps setting record new highs, and has well outpaced inflation, will likely remain there for seven generations, at least?
Re: Bye, UNESCO. It’s Not Us; It’s You (Score:4, Interesting)
The dollar is losing its cachet as the currency of international trade. Shutting three of the major oil exporter in the world, Venezuela, Iran and Russia, out of the SWIFT system (and to add injury to insult stealing the money they had in it) has created entirely new systems of exchange. For example Saudi Arabia (not sanctioned) is now selling petroleum to China, Brasil and India using national currencies rather than dollars. The US has complained, but has been ignored.
Re: Bye, UNESCO. It’s Not Us; It’s Yo (Score:1)
Please show us how BRICS has been doing damage to the dollar.
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They don't need to try; MAGA policy is doing it without their involvement.
"Dollar Weakness: Worst Half-Year Since 1973
U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), measuring the dollar against a basket of major currencies, dropped from around 109 in January 2025 to 97 by early July — a decline of roughly 10–11%, its steepest first-half loss since 1973
In July, the dollar bounced back about 1.
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Losing the role as a major international trading currency is the ONLY way to ever fix US trade imbalance, it was only possible because the rest of the world needed more and more dollars for US-external trade, once that is gone, there is no growing external need for US dollars, and the trade "imbalance" will fix itself by making everything more expensive for US customers.
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"...is the ONLY way to ever fix US trade imbalance"
What does it mean to "fix" a trade imbalance? Doesn't there first need to be a problem?
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Welcome to poverty and Third World status, then?
Re:Bye, UNESCO. It’s Not Us; It’s You. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah UNESCO membership...not really relevent to that. Cheaper than USA support for Israel. Cheaper than ICE, which works against (commoner) American economic interests. That debt is mostly about the "defense" budget (which mainly protects corporate interests such as oil), billionaires and corporations not paying their fair share of taxes, and servicing the existing debt. Do some research before posting again.
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We are $36T+ in debt
Yeah UNESCO membership...not really relevent to that.
I keep seeing this play out over and over... "that is just a drop in the bucket", "it is not really a relevant amount when speaking of the whole", and yet here we are, getting deeper and deeper into debt. Just like that one chocolate chip cookie or that one soda is not relevant to your diet... but it is. You can drown in debt made entirely of irrelevancies. One drop of water is not an issue. 30 billion drops of water are an issue. Each irrelevancy that you quote places a greater burden until one single stra
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"The US taxpayers shouldn't have their money wasted on this or any other corrupt foreign agency."
They shouldn't have their money wasted on Donald Trump playing golf either.
"Once our spending problems are fixed we can look into non-essential external aid."
Aren't tax breaks for the rich the epitome of "non-essential external aid"? Isn't "non-essential external aid" the cause of our debt? How about we claw back the trillions of "non-essential external aid" we just provided to billionaires first?