Daily Kos

US tsunami generosity breathtaking NOT!

by Paolo

Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 02:25:54 PM PDT

from Reuters and no doubt elsewhere...

Dec 27, 2004 -- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States expects to initially pledge $4 million in aid for victims of the devastating tsunami in Asia and has already released $100,000 to each of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, an official said on Monday.

"We are talking to the Red Cross about covering $4 million of a more than $6 million appeal they have made for emergency aid," said the State Department official, who asked not to be named.

-- http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=362910

[too disgusted to make the blockquote thang]

Let's see, 160 gazillion dollars to "liberate" (cough) Iraq and all of $4 million for the tsunami victims. <sarcasm>I'm real proud to be an American. </sarcasm>

Where's all that "giving" and "Christian spirit" I hear so much about from Bush & Co?

Honestly, the most interesting thing I read lately was about the "Christians" who love Christmas (little baby Jeepers and the 3 Wide Men, pace Wm Gaddis) and Easter (paging Mel Gibson!) but ignore Jesus's real revolutionary preaching, which is what got him crucified to begin with.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1224-08.htm


"Nicene Christianity is the religion of Christmas and Easter, the celebration of a Jesus who is either too young or too much in agony to shock us with his revolutionary rhetoric. The adult Christ who calls his followers to renounce wealth, power and violence is passed over in favor of the gurgling baby and the screaming victim. As such, Nicene Christianity is easily conscripted into a religion of convenience, with believers worshipping a gagged and glorified savior who has nothing to say about how we use our money or whether or not we go to war."

[thanks to Left I on the News, http://lefti.blogspot.com/ ]

No doubt if someone tried that now he'd be thrown in Gitmo and tortured along with the rest of the "terrorists."

Well bah humbug... never too early to get ready for next Xmas...

Yeah, and while I'm at it, where's this "merciful God" in Sumatra then? </rant>

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Permalink | 20 comments

  •  wow. so little. just mean. n/t (none / 1)

    by Liberation Learning on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 02:20:43 PM PDT

    •  Recommended! (none / 0)

      It's been about four years since I last checked, but the annual aid to Israel and to Egypt was $4 billion each.

      I think we can pony up a little more than a lousy $4 million.  This disaster will probably cost billions and billions, not just in disaster relief but also in rebuilding and in lost revenues from no tourism and commerce.

      Susan (my cat)

      by SusanHu on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 03:35:22 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

  •  Incredible (none / 1)

    isn't it? I had the same reaction - a combination of rage and shame, that our government was giving $100,000 to India? Who's kidding who?

    When the US offered Castro $50,000 after a hurricane hit Cuba, he told George to keep it.

    Does anyone know where, and to whom, we can complain that this is woefully inadequate?

    by compass rose on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 02:23:02 PM PDT

  •  Let's donate directly (none / 0)

    Likely Kos community can outdo the USA.

    Tsunami Relief: Red Cross/Red Crescent
    http://www.ifrc.org/helpnow/donate/donate_response.asp

    Servers are slow now, but keep trying. People from around the world are stepping up.

    We should too.

    "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde

    by greendem on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 02:53:12 PM PDT

  •  Canada (none / 1)

    Canada's initial contribution is only $1 million. I'll definitely be writing and calling my government officials. I don't understand why countries are being so "stingy", as one UN official put it.

    As for the US:

    The Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, in an April report to lawmakers, said total foreign assistance -- excluding the costs of reconstruction in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion -- was larger in the 2003 and 2004 budgets than in any two-year period since the mid-1980s.

    "The 0.2 percent of U.S. gross national product represented by foreign aid obligations the past two years, however, is among the smallest amounts in the last half-century. The United States is the largest international economic aid donor in dollar terms but is the smallest contributor among the major donor governments when calculated as a percent of gross national income," said the report, which is posted on the U.S. State Department's Web site.

    Egeland said that in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, politicians 'believe that they are burdening the taxpayers too much and that the taxpayers want to give less. That's not true. They want to give more."

    At a White House briefing Monday in Crawford, Texas, CNN asked spokesman Trent Duffy about the "stingy" remark. He said he thinks the United States is "the largest contributor to international relief and aid efforts not only through the government, but through charitable organizations. The American people are very giving, so we'll continue to be that and we'll be a leading partner in this effort that lies ahead."

    "I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats." - Eckhart Tolle

    by catnip on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 02:56:14 PM PDT

  •  I cannot find it right now (none / 0)

    but somewhere this afternoon I read that we would give 10 million more "later," whatever that means.

    by msdove on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 03:05:18 PM PDT

  •  My beef with this... (none / 0)

    is how damn long it took us to even issue condolences, and even longer to promise aid money.  What the hell does the Preznit DO with his time??  Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that this guy spends more time on vacay that anyone in modern times.

    It is inexcusable, in my opinion, for Georgie to have sat on his frickin thumbs down in good ol' Crawford when he should have had the decency to respond IMMEDIATELY to what was obviously a catastrophe of ghastly proportions.

    I truly believe this guy is a genuine psychopath: he has no true feelings for fellow human beings, and has no conscience.  At all.

    YEE-HAW is not a foreign policy.

    by molls on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 03:37:57 PM PDT

  •  that and a quarter (none / 0)

    will buy you a vacation house in Hawaii.

    This is going to take billions of dollars and 10s of thousands of people to help prevent a major cholera and/or typhoid outbreak. Too little too late and it has barely even been 48 hours.

    Bush hates America, but no more so than he hates himself and everything else, he's the most hate-filled hater of all haters.

    McCain is a Chode.

    by dnamj on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 04:00:43 PM PDT

  •  Australia $10 Million (none / 0)

    I laughed when I heard the pathetic amount the US Govt was donating. Australia has already pledged $10 Millon and that is just an initial amount. It's really bad when you are being out spent by John Howard.

    by Laren on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 04:02:47 PM PDT

  •  ummm... (none / 1)

    Isn't Bush's inauguration going to cost $40 million?  I think i'm going to puke.

    "The only way Democrats will win elections is if we stand up for what we believe in" ~ Howard Dean

    by the awful truth on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 05:04:10 PM PDT

  •  You'd think a country (none / 0)

    that has actually suffered from a tsunami, such as the U.S. (1964) would show a little more generosity...

    PSoTD is more than letters, but not quite yet a word.

    by PSoTD on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 05:34:00 PM PDT

  •  I cringed when I heard. . . (none / 0)

    . . .the official announcement that we would be providing all "appropriate" aid. WTF? I knew right away that they weren't pulling out the big bucks.

    Apparently, being generous would be "inappropriate".

    What would Gandhi do? "The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty."

    by Robespierrette on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 05:50:03 PM PDT

  •  Larry King Live (none / 0)

    Larry King just asked these questions:

    There are many minor earthquakes occurring all the time.  Are there tsunamis occurring all the time?

    (No.)

    So, even though there's more water than land in the world, there aren't as many tsunamis?

    (Right.)

    So there aren't tsunamis occurring out in the middle of the Atlantic?

    (No.... you dumb fuck ... no, the scientist didn't really say that, but I'm sure he thought it.)

    His last Q to scientist:  Is this the forerunner of other events?

    (Long pause ... well ...)

    Susan (my cat)

    by SusanHu on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 06:00:47 PM PDT

  •  shepard smith on fox news at noon today... (none / 0)

    made a caustic comment..."how much will we be expected to help", as in, how much will the u.s. have to pay? for this little disaster.   this was before the death toll was upped from 20m to 25 m, and it will likely go to 40 or 50.  

    cold hearted bastards...

    by tw on Mon Dec 27, 2004 at 07:17:10 PM PDT

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