This is not meant to be a politcal flame thread, so lets not go into that when you answer.
It seems like natural disaters are always occuring and wars are always being fought, but in America, we hear very little about it. At least thats the way it seems to me.
However, I have been hearing about this Tsunami for weeks and weeks non-stop. Is it just me, or does America care about this incident more than others and if it does, why?
Has anyone else noticed this?
It’s hard for Americans to relate to people starving because they can’t afford to eat and there’s no supply chain set up for it anyway, or at least hard enough that they don’t give to those kinds of charities so regularly. Other popular charity situations are similar.
However, when a natural disaster comes around totally unexpected and wipes out civilization for hundreds of miles I think it strikes a chord with people who have been through earthquakes, tornados and hurricanes, all of which we have plenty of here in the states, all of which will also make someone who once had everything lose it all and become destitute.
The first key to charity is empathy (in this case because people have been in that situation before), and because of that, this is my take on it.
The marketing can’t hurt either, I think the news caught onto it so hard because it was an earth-changing event… literally the spin changed. After that, I think it’s there because people want follow-ups after giving money and the news is there to tell the people what they want to know (sometimes).
Excellent explanation shbaz 
well, i think more people could donate to the relief funds, and as far as the american governments donation, people seem to think it is a pretty fair sum, however, if you compare it to the daily cost of the occupation of iraq, it’s pretty insignificant, and i know they could use alot more. people need to see beyond their own borders. this massive natural disaster could have just as easily happen to us, or anyone. i heard someone compare this to the hurricane in florida, and say ’ did you see any countries reaching out to us financially? '. wow. first of all, we were quite capable of taking care of it ourselves, and second, it’s not even remotely on the same scale. the loss of life from the tsunami was immense, and so were the damages. this ‘us and them’ attitude sucks, and one response that i saw that really pissed me off was from anne coultier, a g.o.p. propagandist who announced that she felt the tsunami was god, punishing the muslims. there’s some objective reporting for you. one would hope that this offensive attitude would be confined to this one stupid individual, but unfortunately it isn’t, and i have heard the same claim from other radical fundamentalists. by the same logic, you could take the megatsunami event from a few decades ago that occured where nobody was around save a few animals, and conclude that god was punishing the flora and fauna of that region. anyway, many americans are taking an isolated stance in the world it seems, and they only have sympathy for other americans.
Every disaster that kills people and makes them with nothing is a tragedy and tragedys should signal people to donate and care for those affected. Why do you think we should not help people?
nobody here has said that, Kansas
well, in my opinion, i think that its mainly because of the massive scale of the disaster…
the death toll wound up being near ~125,000 people and affected aroung eight nations in two continents.
Regards,
~Delta
Well said shbaz.
Delta, actaully someone did say that, though not as harshly.
It seems like natural disaters are always occuring and wars are always being fought, but in America, we hear very little about it. At least thats the way it seems to me.
well a US Nimitz class Aircraft carrier is out there and has been suppling food and water for the victums.
sigh. You must read as well as you write.
What I’m doing here is asking a simple question, with no opinion one way or the other.
Maybe if you ignore Kansas, he won’t say stupid things anymore. 
Modron: I believe that dante asked that politics not be brought into this.
Well, I’m not THAT wise. This was discussed on another board sometime back, and one guy’s post enlightened me to what perhaps most donaters were thinking.
Live Steam Forums - off-topic post
Sorry I struck a bad cord for you guys. Since I went thru 3 hurricanes and was without power for almost 10 days I can only imagine what it must be like to not have a roof over my head, a grocery or 7-Eleven down the street, fresh water to drink or even a nice place to take a crap. I don’t think there is a single person on this board that even in their worst times could come close to having absolutely nothing. And as a matter of fact my brother and I are involved with helping people here in Florida that also need help.
If you read the thread you’ll see a little bit of everything though…
I think this is a good question you are asking Dante. I don’t think it’s entirely possible to keep politics out of such discussions though. The scale of aid and donations was, quite rightly, on a massive scale. However, there are many other places in the world where people have lost their homes, are dying of starvation as a result of natural and man made disasters - but without the same level of publicity or aid.
This is a quote from Oxfam:
With any attempt to define an actual famine, it must be remembered that many, many people in the world today exist in a state of chronic malnutrition. The World Heath Organisation believes that more than 100 million children are moderately to severely malnourished. Oxfam estimates that 18 million people worldwide die of hunger every year.
i think there are several reasons :
All that said i think that if the tsunami happend in africa west coast, or in north korea where there aren’t tourists or nice governements, even if it has killed 10times more people, we wouldn’t have done anything. Millions of people are killed in africa by wars and aids. But we don’t do anything because they aren’t ‘nice’ people… This is really hypocrit. But i hope that it will lead to more fair charity for the next years
dittohead
#1 This is a political topic regardless.
#2 I was not being overly political.
#3 Don’t have a cow every time somone makes some allusion to a republican.
#4 You ain’t my mama.
All about Modron
Forum Monkey
Joined: 14 Aug 2003
Total posts: 6666
Arghhhh… Modron has turned into the devil’s bigger brother! j/k
I think politics can be brought in as long as it doesn’t end up as a flame war.
Unfortunately the chances of that are about 70-30 against.
Alex[/b]
All about Modron
Forum Monkey
Joined: 14 Aug 2003
Total posts: 6666
Arghhhh… Modron has turned into the devil’s bigger brother! j/k
I think politics can be brought in as long as it doesn’t end up as a flame war.
Unfortunately the chances of that are about 70-30 against.
Alex
Carnivore - forum monkey
Joined: 29 Mar 2003
Total posts: 666
[0.18% of total / 0.96 posts per day]
Does this mean me and Modron are brothers? 
politics is in our daily lives…might as well try to avoid talking about the weather.
Please don’t turn this topic into a political flame war people. I don’t want to have to lock my first topic.
And BTW, shbaz, great reply. I agree 100%.
BgDM
no, flaming is not neccesary, however, for the record, we have been through this before. dittohead thinks that anything remotely resembling politics, here in the off topic subforum, should not be permitted. theeth among others did not agree, so, to continualy harp on people every time they mention something resembling politics is not appropriate, and gives people the wrong impression about this subforum. if cree were here, he would back me up on this. anyway, back to the tsunami.