We cannot help our poorest and most worthy, but we pledge to help other nations

in time of disaster, just like we helped Hatti......thousands will die in America because of Tebaggers eliminating funding for transplants and those most at need for help, yet our Government pledges to help yet another Foreign nation....


Throw what you want, I want all of our folks who can not help themselves GET HELP FIRST.

I just got told that because I have a car, I am in the "Global Elite".

Never mind that I LIVE in my car....

I share your frustration... it is truly insane!

I have no problem with our sending aid to the impoverished of other countries and coolant to the nuke plant in Japan and supplies and humanitarian aid to war/disaster torn places, it makes sense to me. But my neighbors should not be going hungry or living in their cars or on the street. That makes no sense to me. And the current budget proposals that strip money to the most desperate really piss me off. It seems to me we have been moving backwards here for far too long. The oh so comfortable need to start feeling uncomfortable.

I was just laughed at for making a "big deal" out of the suffering from living in my car. After all, if I have a car, then I am in the "Global Elite".

Stuff like that causes such despair.

Words like yours help take some of the sting out.

Thank you. :pals:

I think you need and deserve better than you have. "Greatest country in the world" indeed. I was raised to believe that, my parents believed that. They are both gone now, they would be so saddened by our backwards march. :-(

:hug:

see Katrina...

Also the technical help when it comes to that reactor is kind of important for you and me as well.

Like it or not nations do this all the time...

You're absolutely right... we poor folk of the US should just stand aside...

What would be logical is if you all would provide the means for us to have an easy exit, so you could be rid of us.

I have no problem deploying them to assist with search and rescue or other efforts that our military is readily prepared to deliver. In terms of rebuilding $$, no way, given we can not even prevent a mass exodus of our own poor and fragile into the streets with no social safety net for most.

and DMATS are on alert too

Our government seems to routinely pledge money it doesn't deliver.

The United States is engaged in imperialism in Haiti and has been for 2 centuries. Haiti has never been free from capitalist rule.

Even on aid to Africa, Bush's claims do not stand up to scrutiny. The president has made foreign aid a priority of his administration, nearly tripling the overall budget for foreign assistance from where it stood in 2000. And many in his administration, like former speechwriter Michael Gerson, as well as aid advocates in Congress, like Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, have increased conservatives' interest in Africa. But the administration has spent much of the aid money on unilaterally created programs that neither learn from existing efforts nor respond effectively to Africans' real needs.

And it shows. One of the White House's major aid initiatives, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), has wasted much of its funds on scientifically questionable programs designed to please American religious conservatives. Though studies show that only a comprehensive approach, including condom distribution, sexual education, and antiretrovirals, could reduce HIV, the White House insisted that PEPFAR spend one-third of its behavioral prevention budget on programs that promote abstinence until marriage. It also refused to let PEPFAR money go for programs like needle exchanges and aggressive condom promotion. Recipient nations had to sign an American pledge vowing to oppose prostitution, even though prostitutes are major carriers of HIV in Africa, and signing the pledge could scare PEPFAR recipients out of helping sex workers. Virtually no other major multinational donor agreed with PEPFAR's strategy. Even the administration's own inspector general responsible for overseeing aid couldn't prove that its methods had worked. (As a footnote, Randall Tobias, the administration official responsible for overseeing AIDS programs, including the prostitution pledge, resigned after his number was discovered on the D.C. Madam's infamous call lists.)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/25/opinion/main3873641.shtml

control in Africa even if it helps somewhat control aids or at least slow down the spreading of the disease.

and work camps. Not exactly what we all thought we were donating to fund.

yet, when you understand economic hit men, much of our aid has had heavy strings attached to it and tends to serve the best interests of US businesses.

However, it does seem odd and somewhat like a hard slap in the face to hear that we have funds to send to aid others while we, the people of this country, are drying out, dying out, failing, losing everything, squeezing every last penny, deciding between one necessity and another, etc., etc.

So, I agree with the OP with a heavy heart. Are they laughing when they offer the aid while we watch in shock at what they are taking away from us, more and more, every single day? Is this some sort of cruel joke? Are we the punchline?

minds.

And isn't that actually worse?

Sapphire Blue used to regularly post a speech by Elie Wiesel that he gave at Clinton's White House...

"The Perils of Indifference"
transcript http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/wiesel.htm
Audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLsi1OV8GA0


I'm thinking its time to repost it... what do you think?

You're right. We probably don't even exist to them in their busy world of power and money. How could I imagine getting even some laughter as acknowledgment of the unwashed.

Yes, that speech looks like a good one for a repost.

And, if *we* have compassion and empathy.. if we FEEL something.. we automagically assume that others do, also.

I have come to the point of thinking that this is not at all the case. I don't think they ever consider the consequences to us, so laughing wouldn't ever come up.

A while back, there was a report that poor people "read" the emotions of others, and more affluent people don't. IN my experience, that is true.

Tragic, but true.

However, it applies to the middleclass as well as the rich... they are comfortable, and think they are islands unto themselves, and can't "read" others.

Not silly at all.... :yourock:

We are the pinata.

And presently, it is Big Oils turn to take a whack and see how much they can get out of us.

Thanks for a good description!

:hug:

Teabaggers block. Leftists help.

underwhelming.

1. Foreign aid helps the US balance of trade, because that aid will be spent on items that the US sends. If it weren't for foreign 'aid,' the balance of trade would be even worse.

2. Money was not sent to Haiti. It was promised; it's been held up in the Senate ever since. One republican senator didn't like a small portion of the expenditures, so the money has not been received by Haiti.

3. There should be no either or; if taxation was done properly, and the safety net was in place, there would be none of the zero-sum stuff that is currently the deal. Instead, the Rethuglicans are destroying what is left of the social safety net, and that is insane. There will be a reckoning.

It doesn't sound compassionate, but it is simply because I'm severely annoyed at the sheer, utter, short-sighted stupidity and incomprehensible greed and lack of empathy of the ruling clique.

It bothers me beyond any comprehension that anyone in the richest country on earth, the one that consumes 25% of the world's output for 5% of the population, anyone should be living in cars or go to bed hungry.

It leaves me so infuriated,in fact, that if I give in to it, I become inarticulate.

Much of the money is spent on US Corporations that "sub-contract" at a nice little profit and usually is purchased from US Government contractors (more private corporations)...and that's assuming the promised aid is truly delivered.