W-w-w-w-w-w-wipeout!

StruckingFuggle · Post by **StruckingFuggle** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 9:12 pm

According to the harshly pragmatic view of some of the posters on this forum, that would be a fair assessment.

Like who? I have a fair feeling that's a stab at the people who advocate 'maybe we shouldn't just go breed willy-nilly and fill up the earth', and then I'd like to say, at least speaking for myself, I've never said that humany worth is a sort of zero-sum aggregate thing where more people = individuals are worth less individually ... I guess I kind of assumed, or at least said (if Target==That, Reply==This) ... but I'd hate to really assume.

YH · Post by YH » Mon Jan 03, 2005 9:14 pm

If you don't mind me asking, Deacon, when, where and why did you grow up in Mexico City and Guatemala, anyways? Was it voluntary, or was it the parents' decision, etc? Not that you need to put your life story here or anything, I'm hoping that maybe it will help me more with understanding your POV and your reasoning behind all this.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:05 pm

My mom grew up as a missionary kid in and around Guadalajara, Mexico, until about grade 9. Years later, my parents were part of a specialty furniture import/export business, and I lived in Guadalajara from age 3 to age 4, about the span of a year. Later, when I was 6, my dad took a job with the DOJ (DEA specifically), and we moved around quite a bit. When I was 11, we moved to Guatemala City, Guatemala, as part of my dad's job. He put in to go down there; they did not force him to go or anything. My parents wanted to help expand our horizons and take in other cultures, and they were waiting for a spot in San Antonio to open up anyway, so we went. My mom, being a (former, now) nurse, volunteered her services at the city dump, helping out at the medical clinic (protestant Christian ministries) there that served the population that called the dump their home, about as many people as died in the tsunami. I joined her as often as I could. It was an eye-opening experience. Moved when I was 14 to Mexico City, again a voluntary move on the part of my parents, before we moved to San Antonio when during the summer of '97 when I was 16 (I turned 17 that fall). All this time I've had relatives that lived about an hour outside of Guadalajara, as one of my mom's sisters married a guy down there, and we've often visited, including visiting his folks, which live way the hell out in the middle of nowhere (and make GREAT food).

It certainly did broaden horizons, open eyes, helped us get a taste of other cultures and lifestyles, contrast and compare lives of the common US suburbanite kid and that of a common situation growing up in 3rd world countries. It's not the same. One thing it DID do, however, was also harden my perceptions of "poverty" and "need", motivation, "opportunities", etc. It helped purge a lot of the fairy tale bullshit you're fed in the US about other countries, other cultures, what's "fair", the good points and bad points of both popular US culture and other cultures around the world. In Mexico City, especially, as I attended school and was friends with people from literally all over the world (though mainly relatively wealthy kids, fathers located in Mexico City to (help) run businesses, etc), I was exposed to many different schools of thought, especially from Asia (Hong Kong, one from mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan). Lots of good things from other parts of the world, and lots of bad things, too.

Herr Doktor! · Post by **Herr Doktor!** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 9:23 am

... which is, I'll admit, quite an interesting life. But given this polycultural and rather international upbringing, how do you justify defending some of the most chauvinist or selfish US foreign relation schemes? I don't quite understand...

Gowerlypuff · Post by **Gowerlypuff** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:38 pm

Bush doesn't bat an eyelid at 36Billion because he spent the 5.76Trillion in the treasury without any problems. However, that is irrelevent.

So, so far:
Roughly $2billion ( source ) has been raised so far. That could feed the 5 million homeless for a year. It could pay for schooling and teaching of the children to rebuild what was lost. Not only are people donating money, but there will also be manpower to help rebuild what's been destroyed (I hope). Aid is not just about money, it's about people, too.

But. there are always two ways of looking at things. The amount the US has donated would not keep the US troops that are in iraq there for a week. Bill Gates makes more than that himself in a year, etc etc. It's all about perspective. I have done what I can (I'm a student, so cannot afford a lot anymore). I know that if everyone "did what they could" then the amount raised would be abour 1,000 times this much, but with that, no one here would have any for their own emergencies. You can't ask people to just keep giving. $2Billion used correctly will go a long long way to helping fix what went on here.

Post by **Blaze** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 7:33 pm

Of note, of course, is the fact that the US's financial aid is in addition to deployment of troops and resources which far excedes that of any other country. Countless ships, planes, and helicopters, so on, and so forth. Somebody should tally all that up.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 7:44 pm

(clicky)

Latest interesting news about these poor, sweet people.

Salvation122 · Post by **Salvation122** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:10 am

You guys are just so angry all the time.

bort · Post by **bort** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:20 am

[quote="Herr Doktor!";p="440899"]... which is, I'll admit, quite an interesting life. But given this polycultural and rather international upbringing, how do you justify defending some of the most chauvinist or selfish US foreign relation schemes? I don't quite understand...[/quote]

true internationalism died with the templars.

D-Mac · Post by **D-Mac** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 6:27 am

[quote="Gowerlypuff";p="440926"]Bush doesn't bat an eyelid at 36Billion because he spent the 5.76Trillion in the treasury without any problems. However, that is irrelevent. [/quote]

Troll.

I think Deacon's expirience has showed him a lot of the hypocracy involved with impoverished nations. Lots of people get down on the US for stinginess, but you need to look at the problem practically. There are other places money is needed, espicially since Bush "spent the 5.76 Trillion in the treasury."

Poverty is a real heart breaker. What's worse is giving money, maybe enough money to help solve the crisis, and then being berated for not spending enough by people who don't spend as much as you do.

I recall a charity thread about this very topic, albeit sans tsunami.

That said, I'm officially back from winter vacation.

The Coyote Kid · Post by **The Coyote Kid** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 8:42 am

Apparently my secretary hasn't been getting me my messages, as I didn't realize that this thread was still active, otherwise I would have responded. I had to dig back through the last few days to find out what all has been said on the matter.

So, where to start.

First off, I think some of you need to read this:

Stingy Americans?: U.N. Offical's Comment Hits Nerve of American Charity

The most important part is this piece:

"Americans last year gave an estimated $241 billion to charitable causes - domestic and foreign - according to a study by Giving USA Foundation. That's up from $234 billion in 2002. The foundation did not break down how much was for domestic causes and how much for foreign."

Here's another:

Insolent U.N. offical calls massive outpouring of U.S. aid "stingy"

It's a commentary, not an actual news story, but I think it fits well in this discussion. Now on to addressing specific people:

You're right, Canada did absolutely nothing at all to help out the USA. Certainly hundreds of us didn't open up our very homes to American strangers after their flights were redirected into Canada. No no.

If you're talking about financial aid, well... nobody ever really gives financial aid to Western nations when they have a crisis like this, given that, you know, we're the richest part of the world. We can handle our own crises, financially. But tremendous aid and support of other kinds was given to the USA after 9/11 and fuck you for suggesting that it wasn't. It's not our fault your idiot president squandered the world's goodwill through is insane machinations.

I assume the first portion of your statement is sarcasm. As I said before when I made that comment, I seriously wanted to know what other countries did to help us. I wasn't being sarcastic or cynical or anything of that nature.

And no, I wasn't referring to financial aid. As you said, generally we have enough money to rebuild things. However, I do wonder how much of the money that was donated to the fund for the families of 9/11 victims came from foreigners. And you say tremendous aid and support of "other kinds" was given to the USA. Can you be more specific? That's what I was really looking for. And since I had never heard of that happening, I don't think I was in the wrong in suggestion that other countries didn't give us any kind of help. And sorry, but once again, saying "Oh we're sorry you've been attacked. Good luck rebuilding." doesn't count for anything.

Now, back to the subject at hand... If someone could link me to anywhere where the UN singled out the USA as being stingy, that'd be great. If you're bitching about how a NY Times columnist wrote about the USA's lack of generosity when its contributions were sitting at just 35 million, well, for a nation of 300 million people with the highest per capita gross income of any large developed nation, 35 million was very low at that point. He later rescinded his statement somewhat once the USA upped its donation levels to be more in line with those of the rest of the developed world.

The UN didn't single us out for being stingy. It was Jan Egeland, the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, who made the comment about us being stingy (see the link above for quotes). And it wasn't just us, it was pretty much the entire Western world. Now, if Canada and the EU and anyone else who felt that comment included them doesn't want to respond to it, then that's their perogative. However, that doesn't mean that they don't have the right to do so and that doesn't mean we, America, do not have the right to do so either.

This man is a representative of the UN. And he also represents the UN in this very situation. This isn't just any UN lacky. This is the guy who's in charge of the UN's end of dealing with this disaster. He was misquoted? That's bullshit. He backpeddled to cover his own ass, and he did a poor job of it. The fact of the matter remains that this persumptious little shit took it upon himself to berate half the world, half the world that is giving a whole fuck load of money in order to help these people, and he deserves to have his ass reamed over this fiasco for the rest of his career. Not only has he made himself look like a massive fool, but he's just given more ammo to the people who are anti-UN.

YH does have a point that it's rather telling that the thread on this subject wasn't directed toward the tragedy or what could be done to help so much as it was all about Americans getting hyper-defensive about how generous they are based upon a misquoted statement by a UN official and an old article from one single newspaper.

And in what way is it telling? And telling of what?

Seriously, 150 000 people are likely dead and we're applauding people who manage to be a little eloquently defensive about USA generosity? This is exactly the sort of egotism that so often pisses the rest of the world off.

And I should give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks of my egotism because...? Just about everyone in the U.N. hates us anyway. They would hate us to our fucking graves. We could become exactly like the rest of Europe or the Middle East or Asia or wherever and it wouldn't be enough for them. It's never enough. They'd rather have us dead than exist. So fuck 'em.

America is not your bitch you call on whenever you need money. We are willing to help where help is needed. For fucks sake though, get off of our backs when we don't do things like you think we should. Most of you are convieniently forgetting that the 35 million we originally pledged was the entire emergency aid budget for the year. Why don't we see the rest of you wiping out your emergency aid budgets to help those people then when clearence is given through proper channels, coming back with more?

I posted a shortened form of my original argument on my website, and actually got an e-mail response (through another message board) from a guy in the UK. The argument that I made to him was essentially to give me a logical reason why the U.S. should be giving money to anyone. Not a moral reason, but a logical one (moral being "Well, it's the right thing to do.") I put the same challenge before all of our detractors. Give me a logical reason why the U.S. should donate money to the rest of the world, whether it's for a disaster or simply to help a country develop.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the U.S. doesn't owe the rest of the world anything, despite what some of you seem to think.

First off, the majorty of passengers that were redirected to Canada ended up sleeping in the airport. While some Canadians did allow Americans to stay in there house for a day or two I seriously doubt you were one of them. As for the "Fuck you" statement you took what was said way out of context there, so FUCK YOU for trying to slander someone personally. You and I both know what was meant by that statement now quit trying to find reasons to shame someone else to make yourself feel cool. To sit there and say no one ever gives finatial aide to western countries is as silly as your "fuck you" statement. The US, Canada, U.K., and several other of the western nations constantly pump money into the other western countries for many reasons. Hell sometimes the reason is as simple as to help improve that countries market and net worth. Just because the money isn't tagged "Emergency Use Only" doesn't make it any less of a finantial aide. I seriously doubt a friggin penny came out of your pocket in either situation so seriously you should shut your hole...

Thanks. Glad someone understood what I was trying to say.

Of note, of course, is the fact that the US's financial aid is in addition to deployment of troops and resources which far excedes that of any other country. Countless ships, planes, and helicopters, so on, and so forth. Somebody should tally all that up.

Someone should also tally up the ungodly amounts of money that regular, everyday citizens are donating. I heard on the radio that Linkin Park has organized a donation drive. Anyone who reads Megatokyo and visits their new store can see that they've got a link up there for donating. Everyone and their dog is working to get money for these people. Unfortunately, the UN doesn't give a damn about that, and they think that donations only count if they're yanked from the hands of Americans by force through taxes and door-to-door hold ups.

Also, I think someone mentioned something about "Can you even comprehend 150,000 lives?" Yes, actually I can. I found out the population of the city I live in and realized that this tsunami could have wiped out my city five times.

What the fuck do you want? Do you want me to sit here and go "Oh my god oh my god oh my god so many people have died!! So many people!!" That's the most useless thing that someone can do. All you can do is donate some money and hope for the best unless you happen to actually be in a profession or an organization that would allow you to travel over there and lend a direct helping hand.

So, yeah, I think that about covers everyone. Glad to be caught back up.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:53 pm

[quote="The Coyote Kid";p="441192"]And no, I wasn't referring to financial aid.[/quote]
Because every person who had part of their family gutted, had their home damaged, had their place of work disappear...every person affected significantly by 9/11 was independently wealthy. Right? I mean, this is America! Isn't everyone here rich beyond belief, and without ever actually working for it or wisely managing their untold riches?

The Coyote Kid · Post by **The Coyote Kid** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:22 pm

[quote="Deacon";p="441246"][quote="The Coyote Kid";p="441192"]And no, I wasn't referring to financial aid.[/quote]
Because every person who had part of their family gutted, had their home damaged, had their place of work disappear...every person affected significantly by 9/11 was independently wealthy. Right? I mean, this is America! Isn't everyone here rich beyond belief, and without ever actually working for it or wisely managing their untold riches?[/quote]

Of course. It's the American way, after all.

Salvation122 · Post by **Salvation122** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 6:26 pm

[quote="The Coyote Kid";p="441192"]Give me a logical reason why the U.S. should donate money to the rest of the world, whether it's for a disaster or simply to help a country develop.[/quote]
International aid ostensibly helps promote peace and stability, which directly translates into economic gains that the United States could, in theory, benefit from.

That's the main case, anyway. (One should note that a strong imperialist presence could accomplish the same goal.)

CyberEd · Post by **CyberEd** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:16 pm

[quote="The Coyote Kid";p="441192"]a really, REALLY long reply[/quote]
[quote="Deacon";p="441008"]some caricature about Latest interesting news about these poor, sweet people.[/quote]
not quite accurate... the area which was hurt in sri-lanka is inhabited by a poeple who strive for indipendance. they are outlawed by the sri-lanken government. a day after the dissaster Israel sent military SnR experts and medics/doctors, to india sri-lanka and thailand.
Israel sent this type of help to turkey, india and even offered iran help when an earthquake hit there. no opposition from any country was made to that help.
two days after the dissaster however the IDF started landing military planes in thailand and india with necessities such as food and water. being a military plane, in what sri-lanka percieved as hostile area at first the government objected, but soon came too and allowed the aid into the region.
just a wee misunderstanding is all... the media turned it into an antisemite circus - don't believe anything you hear on CNN...

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