AMERICA HAS BONES TO PICK WITH REX T’S DINOSAUR VALUES

WHEN TRUMP’S EYES ARE SMILING, EVERYONE WEEPS By Ilene Proctor A seductively strong siren call of inhumanity was blown out by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's speech to State Department employees last week With eyes as cold as an dead dinosaur Rex Tillerson spoke : "How does this administration's policy of 'America First' fit into our foreign policy?" His answer was a bloodless statement of realpolitik. US diplomats "really have to understand, in each country or each region of the world that we're dealing with, what are our national security interests and what are our economic prosperity interests." Only then, if possible, should "we .advocate and advance our values." Time was when freedom and human dignity were proud fundamental American ideals. . But for dictator-aspiring Trump’s world view, these aren't 'America First' principles we ought to expect. "If you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably can't achieve our national security goals," he avowed. Human rights promotion sounds nice in the abstract, but sometimes "it really creates obstacles" to achieving US interests. Gone are the days when aspiring democracies and oppressed people everywhere look to the United States for hope. Not in Trumpty Dumbtee bottom-feeding world is America's defense of liberty the greatest asset we have. 2017, our dignity and ethics are a dangling participle, merely an afterthought tucked into a press release, when convenient. As morals go, so goeth America’s reputation.