A Reason Why The Rest Of The World Hates America

Think about this for a second. We lost 2700 some-odd people on 9/11 2001, right? How long did we hear about that? 2 years or so? We rant on and on about it here. The story will not die.

Now what has it been, 4 months since a tsunami took 275000 people? How much do you hear about it now? Not a peep. How many discuss it on here? nadda. Why? Because it happened half way around the world and noone here cares. We liked it for the scare factor and guilt factor. Once that wore off, the Scott Peterson case was in full swing. We dont have time for those petty quarter million dead. Who cares..Did you hear what happened in the Jackson case today? OMG !!...

Its something like that. Can't say I blame you, world...we do kinda suck on some levels.

The Tsunami was not murder, it was a mindless act by a natural force.

The attack on the WTC, and Pentagon was an act of murder. Perpetrated by Human beings, ON Human beings..

That may be the reason..

Still, murder or not, 275,000 dead people on will get you a month on TV here, but 2500 dead americans will get you years and congressional hearings, and the whole 9 yards.

I'm not trivializing 9/11, but rather am sickened by our lack of caring for anyone beyond our borders..(unless they posses WMDs)

Yeah, agreed. If they Tsunami wiped out hundreds of thousands of Americans, that you could bet your grandmother's soul that we would not only be flooded with related media coverage until the end time, but that our government would commit themselves to passing laws that would attempt to prevent such an occurrence in the future-- TO THE EXTENT OF: Research, developement, and deployment of Anti-Tsunami devices being places along all the coasts of America (but only America), making the USGS part of the Department of Homeland Security, using political pressure to make other countries around the world to share their Seismological data with the US as a top priority and if they didn't we'd invade them, the US tie the Tsunami to North Korea and would invade them, etc. etc....

The US is does not care about the well being of the rest of the world unless it jeopardizes the amount of control the US has over the rest of the world. It doesn't take a genius to see that the US Gov't (or should I say specifically the current administration) does not do ANYTHING without an underlying political motivation. They don't do things just because they are good/benevolent to do. Any humanitarian act they the US Gov't appears to commit is always done so for political reasons, whether it be on the Global political stage or the National political stage. It is for this reason why the US is in the crosshairs of so many. Nobody likes when a leader is selfish, rich, and will never assist those in need unless it has something in it for them.


Green

Whens the last time you heard any1 talk about the genocide in Rowanda, or Bosnia. Thats right you dont.

Think about this for a second. We lost 2700 some-odd people on 9/11 2001, right? How long did we hear about that? 2 years or so? We rant on and on about it here. The story will not die.

I would say that your problem is more with the American Media, not the American people. There are still people trying to help out those countries that were devastated. Much like our state of Florida that was hit with an incredible 4 hurricanes in what, 6 to 8 weeks? 100's of thousands of people were affected. And how much did you hear about it a week after it happened. But still, people all over America did what they could to help out, clean up, send relief.

It disgusts me. I don't understand why we don't seem to care, yet we know so many people who are caring souls. Who's to blame? The media? The Government? It is a sad commentary on US citizens as a whole.

Its is the media and the govenrment, and the corporate greed that people hate... the things that make america what it is...

I love Americans, some of my best friends around the world are Americans... but I hate America... big difference...

Also the killing of 2700 people justifies two wars are the subsequent killing of 10's of thousands of innocent cilivians (most in a war completely unrelated to the 9/11 attacks)... also to the world America cares only about America (and subsequently its people get the same attitude and can come across as extremely ignorant... not fault of their own... i know its sad)

Originally posted by spliff4020
Still, murder or not, 275,000 dead people on will get you a month on TV here, but 2500 dead americans will get you years and congressional hearings, and the whole 9 yards.

I'm not trivializing 9/11, but rather am sickened by our lack of caring for anyone beyond our borders..(unless they posses WMDs)

you know i was thinking about this last week , how much damage was done to that part of the world, all those orphan left behind ,some being sold into sex rings. And all we can see over here on the Nightly News is crap about Movie stars dating or well lately the Pope passing on. Its really disgusting. 275,000 is a huge freaken number, but the most we got to hear about it was that supermodel that survived for eight hours hanging on to a tree as opposed to children not even over 8 who did the same thing. its sad when you get old enough taht you realize that The News Media out here is just another outlet for marketing.

I think we have our own world of crap right here, so much in fact, that others problems are trivial to ours.

Sure we care about tsunamis, world hunger, etc etc...but we care more what hits home first.
We got our plates full right here in the USA.

When you have problems at home, do you think about tsunamis or politics?
No, of course not. You think of your problems and how to solve them.
This sounds selfish but "we" come first. Its just human nature.

OH, and by the way, the world doesnt hate the US. The world hates the current US government.

[edit on 12-4-2005 by dgtempe]

Originally posted by dgtempe
I think we have our own world of crap right here, so much in fact, that others problems are trivial to ours.


OH, and by the way, the world doesnt hate the US. The world hates the current US government.

[edit on 12-4-2005 by dgtempe]

Yeah but other countries have their own world of problems too, but they find enough time to worry about other places as well... Alot of the US news networks rarely show anything that isnt related to the US in anyway...

And yeah the world does hate the US, its the people they like (and even then some take their hatred on a personal level), they just hate it MORE now Bush is in charge.

I'd say that's pretty selfish if you think that American's have too many of their own problems to care about the rest of the world. I mean, of course there are always exceptions, but I can't believe that the majority of Americans have problems in their lives so severe that they eclipse the extraordinary loss of life incurred by the Tsumani. Give me a break...or a KitKat.

Green

Well, did i say i didnt care?
Did i say we shouldnt care? no.

What i said is fact of life, whether it sounds mean and selfish or not.

I helped tsunami victims by giving them $50.00 big deal! right? I doubt if that helped anyone at all, but i tried as many of you did. We are not selfish people. We give what we can. What else can be expected?
The truth hurts and this is the truth. Humans by nature take care of their own first.

Originally posted by dgtempe
Well, did i say i didnt care?
Did i say we shouldnt care? no.

What i said is fact of life, whether it sounds mean and selfish or not.

I helped tsunami victims by giving them $50.00 big deal! right? I doubt if that helped anyone at all, but i tried as many of you did. We are not selfish people. We give what we can. What else can be expected?
The truth hurts and this is the truth. Humans by nature take care of their own first.

No you didn't say those words, but:

You implied that the majority of Americans have problems of such greater importance that any catastrophe which befalls our fellow man outside of our country, now matter HOW life-obliterative, will always be seen as less important, "trivial", and insignificant. You say this is a fact of life, I say you are wrong. I say this is a social pandemic of apathy that feeds the very fires of conflict which we are supposedly trying to put out at the same time. It's a bigger problem than you think, and saying "just deal with it because it's a fact of life" shows that not only are you fully infected, but you lack the ethical conviction of an genuinely honorable human being.

We have wars and terrorism and genocide and racism and sexism and so on because of this problem!

I hope you realize I'm not just talking about the American reaction to the Tsunami, but of the general disregard of empathetic understanding that so many people exhibit. Just because hundreds of thousands of people die on the other side of the world doesn't mean they are less important than hundreds of thousands of people dying in our country! No, you didn't say not to care, but I say this "distancing" is a breach of the moral code by which we all so strongly believe in and supposedly live our lives by.

Now you may ask, "how can we possibly mourn and care about every single person who dies, or every single person who get's the sh_t beat out of them, etc.?"... but one doesn't have to take it to that extreme. As far as the general reaction to the Tsunami by the American people, I would say that it is very commendable. We have helped them as much as we can short of actually going over there and physically helping. It is the response of President Bush that pisses me off, because half of our country looks up to him for leadership! When these numbskulls see President Bush giving an initial $15 million in aid for relief, and then they see his inauguration will cost $40 million (his INAUGURATION), at the very least they feel justified in blowing it (the tsunami disaster) off with a simply "damn, that sucks."

At some point humanity will come to realize that while we all have families, countries, cultures, races, genders (or should I just say DIFFERENCES), we can no longer afford to be separated by any of them.

We only tend to change our modes of acceptance when the oppressed group starts to fight for itself, and we are starting to see this with homosexuality (among other things). And while it is a "fact of life" that humans are very slow to learn from history, that is no excuse for avoiding change. Are we just a bunch of idiots who go with the flow our entire lives, making the same mistakes and fighting the same battles our parents, grandparents, etc., fought, letting history kick our a$$ again and again?

If we can learn lessons on a small-every-day scale, why can't we learn lessons on a larger scale?

Why can't we avoid making the same mistake twice when we know exactly what will happen?



Green

[edit on 13-4-2005 by Greenwall]

oops

[edit on 13-4-2005 by Greenwall]

You implied that the majority of Americans have problems of such greater importance that any catastrophe which befalls our fellow man outside of our country, now matter HOW life-obliterative, will always be seen as less important, "trivial", and insignificant. You say this is a fact of life, I say you are wrong. I say this is a social pandemic of apathy that feeds the very fires of conflict which we are supposedly trying to put out at the same time. It's a bigger problem than you think, and saying "just deal with it because it's a fact of life" shows that not only are you fully infected, but you lack the ethical conviction of an genuinely honorable human being.

I'm not trying to speak for dgtempe, but I think the point was, when your neigborhood, community, town, etc. is also devastated by some loss, it is difficult to worry about the other side of the world. Your immediate concern is to take care of things at home. How many foreign countries helped out the U.S. with the raging fires in the Southwest last year, or the Hurricanes that hit Florida, of the Flooding in the Southeast, or the many Tornadoes that devestate the Midwest. I ask because I never hear of a foreign country offering aid to say Fargo, ND that was nearly destroyed because of a flood, or the town of Barnveld, WI that was nearly wiped off the map by a Tornado.

I think a lot of Americans have to 'pick their battles' when it comes to which significant losses need attending to. losses at home have impact as well. I'm not in any way trying to belittle the impact of the Tsunami as I believe a lot of Americans did would they could to help out.

Greenwalling is better than stonewalling.

"Oops" indeed, wait to you get an octuplet post, that would really be steamrolling.


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Muckwa, I understand what you are saying, but I don't believe that is all djembetlkflsaadf was saying.

I also feel you didn't grasp what I was saying, lol.

When the Tsunami occured, most Americans were not getting over personal or nearby disasters of their own. Thousands of tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, murders, etc. did not happen to American citizens at the same time as the Tsunami, so using the "we have plenty of things on our own plate to deal with" excuse is not applicable.

And doesn't Fargo flood like every spring anyway? They should just move the damn city.


Green

If you would like to do something simple to help out, check out either of these threads, and their associated links -

www.sportztawk.com...

www.belowtopsecret.com...

When the Tsunami occured, most Americans were not getting over personal or nearby disasters of their own. Thousands of tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, murders, etc. did not happen to American citizens at the same time as the Tsunami, so using the "we have plenty of things on our own plate to deal with" excuse is not applicable.

Greenwall, I get your point.

And doesn't Fargo flood like every spring anyway? They should just move the damn city.

AGREED!