Hurricane Katrina

If you havent been keeping up with news
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
1 million people evacuated
100 billion dollars in damages estimated
and a chance that the city of New Orleans will sink

Discussing this with a friend, she made an interesting sarcastic comment, which gave me some serious thought.

will other countries send aid?

begin rant:
As much as the world likes the bitch how the US doesnt send aid, and dont quote me (i might be wrong on this), I personally dont remeber anything but a bunch of "damn we're sorry" for 9/11, I find it ironic that the "world goverment" can bitch about US charity. Since when does charity become mandatory. Likewise, I find that a lot negative hate around the world for the US are coming from the same countries that complain that we dont contribute enough to these relief funds. Like all mass media, the negative is always shown in the spotlight. In fact the US is usually the one that pays off the largest portion of relief. I would rather spend that money and get homeless people off our streets.

Its not that im being nationalistic, but i get tired of the ironical hate we get when dealing with anonymous persons outside of our country.

 

the main question here is, do i really care about somebody in new orleans?

do i care about anyone in america? a 1st world country? a country with alot of money to be able to take care of itself?

hmmmmmmmmmm

no

now do i care about africa, a continent that has to be one of the most fucked up in the world's history and is poor as fuck? maybe...........

 

Well it really has nothing to do with whether you care or not, but world politics. Personal charity has nothing to do with this. Just the fact that our goverment spends hundreds and millions of dollars on relief funds, only for other countrys who dont spend as much, complain that its only a small percentile of our budget. Its as if america can do nothing right in the eyes of these certain countries. Then a reverse situation happens and all we get is a whole bunch of "Oh we're sorry" ummm ya heres some more "sorry".

 

For my book I hope that a hurricane, tornado, wildfires, mud slides, extreme heat, earchquakes & whatever else mother nature can throw @ Mr. Bush's ranch., it would make me really happy. Since one of the main factors for all these climate change is due to crazy amount of burning of oill.

On the charity side forget the U.S. the goverment should pay for it since it has the money compare to the rest of the world. & besides how often has the U.S. actually have been charitable to the rest of the world when diaster hits them & we barely hear about it on the news..

Ever since the republicans or to be more exact the religious right have taken over the goverment. The media has been doing a crap ass job of covering news that matter instead of things that just distracts us.

 

[ QUOTE ]
kungfusmurf said:

Ever since the republicans or to be more exact the religious right have taken over the goverment. The media has been doing a crap ass job of covering news that matter instead of things that just distracts us.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. If other countries send aid, I doubt I'd hear or read about it.


Alex: I don't remember specifics. After 9/11, there was quite a bit of world sympathy. The Afghanistan invasion was expected, too. After that, with Iraq and whatnot, any sympathy was (I believe, rightfully) gone.

 

well thats what i was saying
we get a bunch of world "sympathy" (thank you for the cards)

whereas US "sympathy" for other countries = pay our relief funds $$$

just the ethics seem bent. But ya as smurf says, the media controls what is important and in order of importance. I just feel screwed as a nation, where taxpayers dollars contribute to a mandatory relief fund or other nations will bitch at us for not pay even more than the most.

 

Hey guys i just cracked a beer to salute neh ahhhhleeeans so why dont ya join me?

 

You also have to consider that the US projects its military might over the largest portion of the world. Our military covers far more foreign ground than Russia or China. We involve ourselves in the affairs of a huge amount of nations. A certain amount of responsibility comes with that. You can't just park your navy at someones back door, never help out, and expect them not to hate you. In fact, if you park you navy at enough different people's back door they will begin to resent you anyway.

 

damn that sucks i have to go around that area since i'm riding a bus on sunday. since i'm moving to Long beach, Ca from Tampa,Fl

 

Hmm.. world aid??
Well, there was "Marshal aid" in back years, but what was the reason for that? To get Europe on its feet at the cost of Soviet Union. To get Europe on USA's side.

Usa has never really given any aid for any other countries. No, it has mainly only hurt other countries. Why did USA re-elected Bush? He rises oil prices, continues pointless wars although he has already achieved his goal: getting Hussein.

Fucking weird country, I tell you, fucking weird. Consumes the oil most and yet makes it harder to get. And 9/11, what could other countries would have been able to do? Send some peanuts for US goverment which senators and other politicians would have used for buying some hamburgers for themselves...

 

[ QUOTE ]
Usa has never really given any aid for any other countries. No, it has mainly only hurt other countries.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that our country has hurt other countries, but it's not like we don't ever give aid! We give a lot of aid to a lot of different countries!

I do admit that it's easier to notice the bad things we've done than to acknowledge the good things, but we're not all bad over here. =) Some of us are trying.

[ QUOTE ]
Why did USA re-elected Bush?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know. At least I'm kind of relieved that it's only half the country that re-elected him. It's also the part of the country that's the least educated, statistically (but then again statistics can be used to prove anything really)...

Anyway yea, it's sad about the Hurricane. I hope that they are able to pull together down there.

I do agree with you in a way Alex, but then there are 'haves' and 'have-nots' in this world, right? I kind of think it's only fair for the 'haves' to give a little more than the 'have-nots' right?

And it's pretty easy to conclude that the Us is the 'havingist of the haves' =P

Peace.

 

It's funny. Everyone on VFDC is talking about things on this macro/global scale while I've been down here dealing with things on this micro/sublocal scale. I run a restaurant right off the LSU campus in Baton Rouge, some 72 miles down I-10 from New Orleans...just a couple weeks ago I was worrying that my head wasn't in the game enough and I wasn't prepared for the busy fall semester and the LSU home games that come with it. We are typically twice as busy on those seven weekends vis a vis a normal weekend, which are themselves twice as busy as weekdays, which are fairly busy by anyone's standards to begin with. Enter Hurricane Katrina. Baton Rouge got some wind. 70mph gusts. Lots of big old trees have been felled and parts of the city will be out of power for a week. Minor inconvenience and a day off, correct?

Nope. New Orleans is fucked. The parishes (if you remember middle school, Louisiana has parishes rather than county's) adjacent to New Orleans which house many of the people who work in NOLA are either likewise fucked or simply out of power and only habitable after a good deal of inconvenience. Meanwhile they are living here & a few other cities. Parents have moved into the apartments of their collegebound children. The PMAC (where LSU plays it's basketball & where I saw KISS play in 1979) is housing refugees. This afternoon I got a call from someone who asked if I could cater for 600...we are a 60 seat 24 hour diner...600 is eight hours work I told him...he wouldn't go below 300 and I wouldn't go above 100. As it is we've been dealing with gameday business Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday. I don't know when this is going to end or how things are going to be and it's starting to look like Baton Rouge just permanently grew by 100,000 & they're spitting distance away hungry for omelets. I need to hire like, 15 more people for maybe a week/maybe forever and it pisses me off that I can't use this penchant for work and abundant energy in the direction of helping my neighbors because just keeping Louie's afloat has suddenly begun to require 12 hours per at minimum. Every day.

And the bitching or itch to just pisses me off more. This morning two women sat at the counter. I couldn't keep my eyes off one of them. Reddish eyebrows. Red enough for me to cheat a look at her business when my mind drifted off the tickets. She wore one of those tank tops and had no problems squeezing them together or raising her arms over her head after she caught me looking. She had nice arms. Thirty five year old woman yoga arms. No ring. Her biological clock ticked loudly enough for me to hear her getting slammed by me in the ladies room. Another day perhaps. Somewhere else perhaps. Her friend started bitching.
"I just want my life back."
I recognized the friend. A regular. Nice ring. Fat one. A good life indeed.
"Aren't you from here?"
"Yeah. My power's out though. My next door neighbor's is on. My house is lit by street lights and I've got no power." boofuckinghoo
"At least you don't live in New Orleans."

Louisiana is gonna look different on maps from now on. The footprint of the boot will be different. The toe severed. The laces wrong. Maybe the city will recover. Maybe we'll all learn a little bit more about what it means to be in a community of humans. Maybe we'll just be self-serving pricks whining about not being able to tivo Survivor. We'll see.

 

i agree with you fully.

 

Very touching message, Sanjuro. I agree with you...

 

Bullshit Alert!

Phoenix Death:

Your concern for the victims of the hurricane is well-placed. Your jingoist rant is not.

Here are some facts for you:

The U.S. government gives less money in foreign aid per capita than any other modern nation on the planet.

Of the piddling amount that we do give in foreign aid the two largest recipients are:

1. Israel (So they can keep their "Occupied Territories")

2. Egypt (So we can keep there less-Israeli-hostile, Authoritarian gov't in place)

These two are not the neediest countries in the world. The neediest would be in Africa, or Bangledesh or Haiti, or South America, etc.

Furthermore, when wealthy nations face disasters, they don't require handouts from other nations. They can fix their own problems.

Imagine if a meteor hit Bill Gates' guest house. Would he need to go around, hat in hand asking for spare change to fix it?

No. Well guess what? America is the Bill Gates of nations. Don't let those pictures of the poor homeless people in Louisiana and Missippi fool you. We just prefer to keep our emormous wealth in as few hands as possible.

And finally, the rest of the world supported the U.S. after 9/11 and a U.N. force representing many nations invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban goverment. Remember that?

The reason that the rest of the world is unhappy with America now has more to do with our having concocted a littany of phoney justifications so we could conquer Iraq and have control of all that precious, precious petroleum (and for other reasons which I don't have the energy to get into now).

Sorry I'm so blunt here, but this is the internet and I don't have the energy or desire to sugarcoat my stylin' rebuttal.

 

Re: Bullshit Alert!

[ QUOTE ]
The U.S. government gives less money in foreign aid per capita than any other modern nation on the planet.

[/ QUOTE ]

"per capita" is the typical whiny things i get tired of listening to, like i said before, the numerical sum is still larger than any other country (not a piddling amount), and i rather see the money going back into our country and fixing our own countries problem first.

[ QUOTE ]
And finally, the rest of the world supported the U.S. after 9/11 and a U.N. force representing many nations invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban goverment. Remember that?

[/ QUOTE ]

if you call invading people, relief . . . .

I know why countries are angry with the US, but the relief money that gets sent out seems like it doesnt count for anything. Furthermore, the countries that are angry with the US "demands" that the US should give up more because they like to use that "per capita" bullshit.

 

Round 2

[ QUOTE ]
PhoenixDth said:


As much as the world likes the bitch how the US doesnt send aid, and dont quote me (i might be wrong on this), I personally dont remeber anything but a bunch of "damn we're sorry" for 9/11,

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
if you call invading people, relief . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't call invading people relief. I was only pointing out there was a lot of sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11 and that this was expressed in part by nations contributing troops and a little money to the effort in Afghanistan.

[ QUOTE ]
I find it ironic that the "world goverment" can bitch about US charity. Since when does charity become mandatory.

[/ QUOTE ]

What "world goverment" are you talking about? Do you mean the U.N? Is there a specific example of bitching that you're talking about here?


[ QUOTE ]
Likewise, I find that a lot negative hate around the world for the US are coming from the same countries that complain that we dont contribute enough to these relief funds.

[/ QUOTE ]

If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's when a nation sends "negative hate" in the direction of my homeland. Why can't nations find a way to be positive when they're being hateful?

Did you ever think that maybe some of the people who complain about U.S. stinginess are unhappy because they believe that a more generous U.S. could do more than any other nation in terms of reducing hunger, disease, and poverty if only there were the political will to do so?

[ QUOTE ]
In fact the US is usually the one that pays off the largest portion of relief.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've taken another flight of fancy here. Here are the numbers for Tsunami relief (the most recent and largest international crisis I could think of):

1. Australia $819,900,000
2. Germany $653,000,000
3. Japan $500,000,000
4. United States $350,000,000

These are in absolute amounts, not the per capita amounts that you find so "whiny." But, nice guy that I am I'll provide the per capita amount as well. The total per capita U.S. goverment contribution to tsunami relief comes to....................................................about $1.38!

A dollar and thirty eight cents per citizen. Wow. That's giving till it hurts.

[ QUOTE ]
I would rather spend that money and get homeless people off our streets.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not an either/or proposition. We as a nation need not be so stingy at home or abroad. I am pretty certain that the U.S. also spends the least on aid the poor within the country as well. It's pretty fucked up...

[ QUOTE ]
Its not that im being nationalistic,

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, but you are being nationalistic. You are defending your country in a knee-jerk fashion, oblivious to the facts that nullify most of your arguments. If that's not being nationalistic, I don't know what is.

[ QUOTE ]
but i get tired of the ironical hate we get when dealing with anonymous persons outside of our country.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ironical hate is perhaps the one thing I loathe more than negative hate.

[ QUOTE ]
"per capita" is the typical whiny things i get tired of listening to, like i said before, the numerical sum is still larger than any other country (not a piddling amount).

[/ QUOTE ]

Alright. "Per capita" statistics make you angry. How about the monetary value of foreign aid as a percentage of gross national product? Would those numbers be okay, or are do you consider those "whiny" statistics as well?

For the record, as a percentage of GNP, the U.S. comes across looking much worse.

Check out this Bad-Ass Chart!

Note that as a percentage of GNP, the Danish government gives %1100 the amount of America's contributions. This statistic is also misleading because despite the fact that there are far needier nations on the planet, the majority of U.S. foreign aid goes to Israel and Egypt and their not-so-humanitarian governments.

[ QUOTE ]
like i said before, the numerical sum is still larger than any other country (not a piddling amount)

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong again. Unless this site is wrong, Japan gives more money than the U.S.

Do the math:
Per capita amount * population= total national contribution

So for the U.S.:

23.33*290,000,000=$6.76 billion

Not a small amount. Now let's check out Japan:

62*127,000,000=$7.87 billion

Japan gives more foreign aid than the U.S. any way you look at it, despite the fact that they have less than half of our population.

I'm sorry if this deflates what was left of your nationalist boner. Maybe a couple hours of FoxNews Jingo-porn will have you ready to go again.

P.S. PhoenixDth, were you born outside the U.S? If so, let me know and I'll stop busting on your prose...

 

Re: Round 2

[ QUOTE ]
SgtRamrod said:

1. Australia $819,900,000
2. Germany $653,000,000
3. Japan $500,000,000
4. United States $350,000,000

These are in absolute amounts, not the per capita amounts that you find so "whiny." But, nice guy that I am I'll provide the per capita amount as well. The total per capita U.S. goverment contribution to tsunami relief comes to....................................................about $1.38!


[/ QUOTE ]

The richest country in the world and yet it gives the least of the "largest" countries in the world.

More about the victims of hurricane:
I watched news and Bush said that people should hang on and that he understands them.
Bullshit, he doesn't understand them, no one can't, their misery... Why ain't t´he mighty US capable of helping its own citizens? They knew about hurricane long before it hit the New Orleans and yet there is chaos going on. The evacuation didn't work out as planned, eh? There should have been a premade plan for rescuing all the victims but there seems to be nothing. That's damn lousy action. If the hurricanes are possible, there should be a premade plan for it.

 

Re: Round 2

[ QUOTE ]
I don't call invading people relief. I was only pointing out there was a lot of sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11 and that this was expressed in part by nations contributing troops and a little money to the effort in Afghanistan.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're still saying relief = war, unless you're pro war that is. There are other ways to solve a problem.

The next couple of section is so nitpicky, but please update your sources. You're only taking one incident to a years financial responsibility . Its really a bent point of view.
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp#Almostallrichnationsfailthisobligation
the US is 24th on that list, but easily numerically double the next highest spender.

In terms of world goverment, yes the nations in the UN are a reference to that.

[ QUOTE ]
Did you ever think that maybe some of the people who complain about U.S. stinginess are unhappy because they believe that a more generous U.S. could do more than any other nation in terms of reducing hunger, disease, and poverty if only there were the political will to do so?


[/ QUOTE ]

One of the most important things someone has ever told me is that, how can you ever help anybody if you cant help yourself. As a personal take on things, I rather see a lot of the internal problems in the US fixed, education for one, medicare another, than foreign aid.

Lets look at your site, the #1 contributor Luxemburg has a child poverty rate of 4.5%, the United States has 22.4%. See what I'm saying about fixing US problems first. Also your "badass chart" was only good untill the year 2000 . . . /versus/images/graemlins/frown.gif

But ya, check out that link i posted up. I think it gives a better sense of financial contribution on a yearly scale. I dont know why you're turning this into a flame war, but its my personal opinion. When i see 22.4% child poverty, and one of the lowest quality public educations offered globally, then our government spend nearly $19 billion on foreign aid last year. Insult to injury is that other countries believe they have a right to tell the US that they arent spending enough, when their media controlled public will hate us anyways. It just gets me riled up a bit.


EDIT: couple more statistics while looking at your site
US statistics
Population below poverty line: 12% (2004 est.) ranked [116th of 130]
Population under $11 a day: 13.6% ranked [3rd of 11]
and a 5.5% unemployment rate
from http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html

So basically 20-30% (not exactly sure where some of those stats might overlap) of the US population is barely making it, or homeless. You can see where the 22.4% child poverty rate is coming from. Just some things to think about, where $19 billion could be going to.

 

Re: Round 2

[ QUOTE ]
US statistics
Population below poverty line: 12% (2004 est.) ranked [116th of 130]
Population under $11 a day: 13.6% ranked [3rd of 11]
and a 5.5% unemployment rate
from http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html



[/ QUOTE ]

Please don't use unemployment rates for any argument. They are completely mis-leading. Canada and the US use the same tactics when trotting out unemployment rates as an indicator of success: It only shows people looking for work, not people who have given up looking or are off unemployment benefits. The difference in the actual number when you take into consideration everything being left out is huge.

GE