US and the Arms Trade Treaty

“In the last two years, I have found myself making fewer and fewer statements about Mr. Trump’s volatile behavior and policies. I see them as mindless stands of grandiosity no longer worth commenting on. However, I cannot help but publicly express my outrage at his announcement at the NRA annual convention that he is pulling the US out of the UN Arms Trade Treaty, saying that it is “an assault” on Americans’ “constitutional right to bear arms”.

The Treaty, signed in 2013 by President Obama, was never ratified by the US Senate controlled by Republicans, so Mr. Trump’s gesture is a symbolic one, mostly to rally his base – something Mr. Trump cares more about than truly governing this country. But since the aim of the Treaty is to crack down on illicit trading in small arms that fuels violence in many troubled countries in the world, the real danger of Mr. Trump’s position is that it sends a chilling message that the US no longer cares about minimizing terrorism and armed conflicts. Specifically, it ignores the fact that the “security threat” created by refugee caravans heading toward our Southern border is mainly caused by thugs and gangs armed largely with contraband US-made weapons.

We are already the biggest seller of weapons in the global arms trade. Mr. Trump once bragged about how that contributes to the “creation of jobs” in the US. His latest gesture is another example of the potential danger he can create to world peace.”

(Published in the Gazette Times, Corvallis, May 6, 2019)

The Hoax of Science

(Music by P Simon; new lyrics by Chinh Le, December 2017)

"Hello darkness, MY old friend, it’s time for ME to tweet again,

Because a vision softly is creeping from the Fox News  Ihave been watching,

And the vision that was planted in MY brain still remains: 

“Confront the Hoax of Science”.

In restless dreams I walk alone, MY eyes are glued to MY cell phone,

Gonna watch all those cable news, gotta save folks from the fake news,

“Make AMErica Great Again”, “ ‘MErica First again” - I proclaim!

So, expose the Hoax of Science.

And in the naked light I saw 10,000 people, millions more,

People shouting: “No more immigrants”, people shouting: “Bring us back the Khan”. 

People carrying signs “Build a Wall !”,  “Buy more guns to create more jobs”,

And shut off the Hoax of Science.

Fools - say  I- you do not know, science like a cancer grows.

Life is just another TV show, you’ve got to deal your enemy a blow,

Words like “fetus” and “diversity” must be erased. “Evidence-based”

Is just a Hoax of Science.

The trickle down economy is fantastic for you and ME;

CO2 is good for Mother Earth, Coal and Oil will bring our own rebirth,

If things don’t turn out MY way, there’re others to blame, and to shame

Their wicked Hoax of Science.

And the people bow to ME, to their neon God – that’s ME!

Hail to the greatest genius– that’s ME! And to my new code of Morality!

Re-write history in the glory of MY Fantasies; MY Realities will lay the new laws of Science.

The moral leadership we've lost

“For many years to come, we will remember Judge Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation battle, with each one of us processing facts and beliefs within the echo chambers of our own mindset and emotions. I know that for me, what will stick in my mind is the vivid video of the President of the United States poking fun at a victim of sexual assault, to the cheers and applauses of his supporters wearing their “Make America Great Again” red hats. If this is one of the things that make America great again, I am ready to trade our “God Bless America” with “Oh God, please have mercy on America”.Even if many of us did not vote for Mr. Trump, we as a nation bear the common responsibility of what our country now stands for.

On that same week, on the other side of the world, the Nobel Peace prize was awarded to two extra-ordinary individuals who have personally dealt with the most inhumane crimes of gender violence. They remind us of what our humanity can be capable of: resilience and compassion.

America will continue to flex its economic and military muscles for the foreseeable future. But for now, I am wrestling with the thought whether we even deserve a leadership role in the world.”

 (Published on line in the Gazette Times, Oct 9^th2018)

Implications of a new anti-immigrant policy

President Trump is about to enact another change in federal immigration policy that can negatively impact many lives. Current practices define as “public charge” immigrants who benefit from cash-based assistance (“welfare checks”) and can make them ineligible to eventual US citizenship. Under the new proposal, legal immigrants who are already living here could be denied a “green card” and future permanent residency if they or a member of their families use Medicaid, food stamps, Children’s Health Insurance Program, low-income tax credits, and a broad array of state and federal social services. 

Such a policy change, which could become permanent this year, would pressure thousands of immigrants to drop out of our health system, like prenatal care, immunizations, nutritional programs, birth control, and other mental health and medical services.  Preventing any segment of our population from accessing health care when it is most needed undermines basic public health and would increase future costs to society. 

Most immigrants work hard, pay taxes, are healthier, and have a lower crime rate than average Americans. Our own National Academy of Sciences recently reported that, within one generation of being here, the immigrant population contributes significantly more to our national wealth than it draws from public services. However, those who oppose immigrants consider them as a drain on taxpayer-funded benefits that should go to US citizens. This view of “America First” takes a myopic view of what America is, badly disguises the darker side of our tribalism, and makes no economic and medical sense.

(Submitted on Aug 6, published on Aug 15, 2018 in the Gazette-Times, Corvallis)

Don't Blame Others

In the hallway of the TựQuang pagoda in Montreal hangs a quotation from its head monk, Thích Tâm Châu: “Điều mình không ưa, chớnên trách người”(Don’t blame others for the things you don’t like”). For many years now, I try to live by those simple words of wisdom, and it helps. 

Consider this: Blaming others seldom solves inter-personal problems. It only builds resentment and anger, those same feelings that make us unhappy, more stressed out, and lead us to behavior and actions we may later regret. It takes away the notion of shared responsibility. Not blaming others allows us to understand how we may have contributed to our own problem, to reassess our weaknesses and strengths, and to affect positive changes.

We now have a leader who consumes his waking hours not just blaming, but even vilifying others for things he does not like: public scrutiny, staff “disloyalty”, and past policy “failures”.  Crimes are blamed on immigrants and other minorities, not on the failure of our institutions or agencies. Trade deficits are blamed on other countries, ignoring that we too play the same game of subsidies and tax credits to protect our own farmers and corporations. We import more because, more than any other society, we have an insatiable hunger for material goods, from cheap toys and luxuries we don’t need and buy on credit. Perhaps minimizing our national trade deficit abroad has a simple starting point right within our homes: want less, buy less, consume less, waste less.  I know that things are not that simple, and economists may disagree with me, but I still believe that no foreign countries force us to buy anything. The final choice is ours. Don’t blame others.

Those for whom frugality and humility are not virtues but signs of weakness may also find the above quotation too simplistic to be useful. Neither would they realize that self-grandiosity is not only blinding, but also dangerous. He who communicates and governs with impulsive and vindictive tweets in the dark of the night or the wee hours of the morning would do well to heed another Buddhist advice: “Your worse enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.”

Chinh Le

(A shorter version of this letter was published in the Gazette Times, Corvallis, June 21, 2018)