Two quotes come to mind, cliché at this point; strong, yet strongly understated. Quote number one: The horror. The horror. Quote number two: Oh, the humanity. I just can’t conceive the devastation and loss of life over there in Asia where the earthquake hit. I just can’t conceive how much horror and sadness such devastation has born. The newspapers make comparisons to New York after 9/11, walls of pictures of missing people. And New York, post-9/11 was truly horrible. As massive and unfathomable as that loss was, the enormity of tragedy in Asia right now is beyond scope. The walls of pictures in Asia are dead, drowned faces, no hope of finding life, only hope of confirming death. The horror. The horror. I’m a patriot. I love this country. But I am disgusted right now with the pittance of support we have offered. At first we choked up a whole fifteen million dollars, money that could have bought some fortunate person a summer mansion on Montauk, less money than some actors earn for their role in one movie. Then, in shame, our country more than doubled the aid to 35 million dollars. That’s shit. This country is spending somewhere around one hundred and thirty million dollars every single day on the War in Iraq. And here is the greatest single natural disaster in our recorded history, and 35 million dollars is all the help we have to offer. Are you fucking kidding me? Shame on us. Forgive any hint of political rant as this is not my style, but America has a responsibility to the world. We have a fucking responsibility. It’s not Us and Them. It’s Us. It’s just Us. The whole world is Us, goddammit. Oh, the fucking humanity.
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i’m sure that the media may have misled all of us. i find it hard to believe that we Americans are going to let these victims be denyed aid and support. there has been a forceful movement to gather supplies and have them shipped over to the many hundreds if not thousands of areas affected. thats one area where the actual dollars mean alot. the distribution. i hope that the little islands and areas where the media is not flying over in there helicopters are not forgotten. keep in mind also that this disaster affected a small geographical are of sri lanka and india as well as other larger land masses. the better part of these larger countries were left unscathed and should be more than available to assist in the recovery operation. so much cannot be said for the small little islands that do not get much above sea level. i dont think we have seen or heard much about those places.
Nav
I agree that this is definitely the worst event that has occured in our lifetime and that everyone in the world should be doing their part to pitch in and do what we can to the people who have lost everything. However, our first offering, and second for that matter will certainly not be the last, nor will they likely end up amounting to a high percentage of what the final amount ends up being from us. Let’s not forget get that MOST of the significant charities that will be involved in this mess are either US based or are significantly funded by US $$$. Since WWII began the US has consistently been the world leader in international aid. Colin Powell said yesterday that in the last 4 years alone, the US has accounted for 40% of all aid GIVEN out worldwide. Once again we gave without being asked, and once again we will bear the financial burden of someone else’s mess even though we technically don’t have to do shit. It does not make sense for us to just come out and say here is 100 million…1 billion dollars in aid until we assess what is needed and where…. and who else is going to help us help them and what resources are they going to committ. I do not think that we are showing any lack of compassion here. What about that piece of shit called France??? Do you know what they have given? Are you ready for this….$136,000…NO I am not missing any digits ONE HUNDERED THIRTY SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS. For a complete breakdown of pledges as of 5.15pm 12-29 go to this link
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142815,00.html
JJ,
The article you cite says that France has given $20 million so far.
ky
looks like they changed the initial amount ken.
http://instapundit.com/archives/020125.php
still, france sucks
That is very odd Ken. When I posted this it said $136,000 and I verified that same figure in a Yahoo news article, yet I can no longer find that article either…WTF?
As if Jacques Chirac himself read my entry yesterday, France (out of pure embarrassment) has upped their pledge to 42 million Euros.
US increase aid to 350 million http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20041231/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/tsunami_us
Some of that $350 million should go towards an advanced warning system like they have in Hawaii, where once in a while all the tourists (and everyone else) are evacuated when earthquake activity is detected, so if there is subsequently a tsunami (so far they’ve all been smaller than anticipated in Hawaii) property might get washed away, but nobody dies. Remember, the 24-hour weather channel probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives this summer in Florida. Thrity years ago, there would have been massive loss of life (see hurricane Hugo, if I’m not mistaken).