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December 30, 2004 at 3:07 am #110062mynameisdougbMember
Don’t blame all of the USA, our voice is getting smaller and smaller it seems, atleast to me. But I live near Los Angeles, so the voice of our town might be small because the voice of the actors seems to be laughed upon. The ironic thing about America is that the greediest people get the most attention, because its entertainment. It leaves the willing out in the cold.
December 30, 2004 at 3:12 am #110047TigerbladeParticipantQuote:quote:Originally posted by gossipingraeyeah, 35 million is more than enough for this country to give in our situation. im glad it goes to a good cause, but dealing with our country is top priority for this country. deal with it.
i dont know what exactly would be an “adequate” amount, I dont know how much the world expects America to give. I do know that $35 million is what we’ve been able to give at the moment, its what we’ve been able to summon up thus far. if more money is made available somehow, i’m sure that money will make its way to the relief as well. however, that initial 35M came from our own disaster relief fund. should something catastrophic happen here (which we’ve seen is very possible), we have no way of dealing with that. the loss in asia and all the affected countries is terrible, but if we send every dollar we have abroad, we have no contingency fund if anything happens in the US.
it sounds harsh, but taking care of Number 1 is a priority. we do appreciate the aid given in the wake of 9/11, and we are forever grateful. we intend to reciprocate as needed and as we are able. however, that depends on a key phrase: “as we are able.” right now we are sending all we are able to send. that said, there’s really nothing more to discuss once you understand America does care, and is responding.December 30, 2004 at 3:21 am #110036DavidParticipantQuote:quote:Originally posted by DJHyperbyteQuote:quote:Originally posted by gossipingraefor real, rusted tight, where was your head with this post? I don’t have much to add, for everything was already mentioned.
So you just posted to insult rustedtight? Great purpose!
Quite frankly, I don’t have any problems seeing where rustedtight her point of view comes from. America doesn’t have any problems spending millions of dollars and hundreds of lives on a war with another country, but when it comes to helping a country everyone keeps quiet?
Of course it’s not a competition, I don’t think rustedtight posted those figures to show how much better Australia is than the USA, I think she posted those figures to back her initial statement up: Why doesn’t a country with such a size send amounts of money with nine digits, instead of eight?
This is why: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
We have already spent enough money we don’t have! And quite frankly, I’m somewhat annoyed that someone accuses the USA of “not giving a damn,” I could see that point of view if we gave only 1mil, or even 10mil, but 30 million dollars is “not giving a damn?” I find that to be pretty unjustified with the current state of out economy and the war.
We have always gave to countries in need, yet the second we try to “do” anything, we are accused of being “big bad arsehole Americans!” It’s never the British or the French, it’s those Americans, who “don’t do enough” and “try to do too much.”
December 30, 2004 at 3:56 am #110067gossipingraeMembertiger, david, and doug…you are all right. I don’t see how everyone complains that we do nothing for anyone else but our own, but who do they run to when trouble strikes at their territory? that’s right. the united states.
tiger, you are not harsh. our country is our top priority. bottom line. besides, even if we did more to help the eastern countries, someone else would cry that we don’t do enough for the USA. we can’t win in situations like this.
December 30, 2004 at 4:24 am #110019detn8rParticipant“No more blood for oil we have our own battles to fight on our own soil” – Eminem. So The United States (not to be confused with representing the whole of “America”) thinks because they are the super power of the world, they can choose only what they believe to be the most in need to spend it’s citizens tax dollars? You all complain about the United States deficit that Bush has left on your economy, yet you re-elect the man? You complain that you do not have enough money to feed your poor, but you find the money to build bigger bombs for wars that should not even be wars “We have money for wars, but can’t feed the poor” – Kanye West.
You say your country is your top priority? Why is it, you have more money and more men and women fighting to liberate another country, than trying to find the man (people) responsible for the tragic September 11th episode? It seems to be, Rae that you are eating your own words when it comes to being hypocritical.
The United States is the ‘power’ of the world, no matter which way you look at it. They are supposed to be the power the rest of the countries look up to. You say it is not a contest, but why is it, that it looks to be.. how the United States is trying to compare with other countries like Australia (who, by note is one of the countries that choose not to participate in the war in Iraq)? Are they trying to send a message that, we are better than you.. and no matter what you do (in this case, contribute money), we will beat you? Sure, that probably pissed off every person reading this from the US, but that is my opinion.. The United States needs to set the bar for other countries to follow, as they do in wars.
Your government has no more tax money left? Be the good citizen with an envelope and go door to door collecting money personally from people to donate to Red Cross. As for being a Canadian, I know I will be doing so.
With all this said, there is no way you can put a price tag on a human being. There is definitely no price tag to put on a natural disaster.. no amount of money is ever enough.
December 30, 2004 at 4:50 am #110068gossipingraeMemberdid I ever say bush put us in a deficit? no, because he didn’t. the economy sucks because clinton left it that way, and bush had to clean it up. it didn’t help that that our country was attacked, and we lost lives. people who survived the attacks on sept. 11 lost their jobs. and it’s not their fault. duh, no wonder we lost jobs in this country…sept. 11 is one of the reasons.
did I say we don’t have money to feed the poor? no. I said we need to handle the problems in our country, the homeless being one of them.
sure, thousands of people in the east are left homeless, and there is a fund to help them rebuild from this tragedy. the USA stepped up and helped with what we could. we can’t just drop our problems and help out another country. we are already creating a more safe iraq for those people. we are working to make our country safe. like I said, the USA is top priority to many americans, whether any other country thinks that is ridiculous.
so why is this being hypocritical? it isn’t.
i don’t have time to go out and collect money door-to-door and ship it off to sri lanka. I use prayers. that does more than money, in my opinion.
we did what we can. stop badgering us.
December 30, 2004 at 5:10 am #110022twistedmetalMemberPut it this way, gossipingrae: be glad that you do not represent your country in this discussion and in any openings the USA would ever make world wide. Your statements on the Bigblueball are enough for any from another country to understand what rustedtight ment when she said “USA, Why dont you care?”
Clinton may have sucked your enonomy to make it thirsty, but be assured that is was Bush who made her dry.
December 30, 2004 at 5:15 am #110032CharlesMemberOk. In reality, no money can be spent on this from the United States anyway. Because of Bush’s no-tax, but spend anyway policies, there is no real money to be spent on anything. Our congress sits there and borrows it all and adds it to their little credit card so the future of the US can pay it off later. So sure, the US can be as nice as they want and bill themselves and their children as many millions of dollars as they want to help pay for disaster, but the money itself isn’t going to be worth anything if we just charge it to our credit card. I think we should stop shovelling this crap around like the US can pay for everyone all the time. The US cannot even pay for itself. (Try about $25,000 per citizen. I don’t think that is a reasonable tax, for anyone.)
Ok, if the US is so rich, which I assume we arrive to this conclusion through GDP, then the US is responsible for approx. 21% of the world’s GDP. Yet we paid 40% of last year’s relief aid!? We are hardly greedy, it seems as if the other nations of this world are not keeping up with their “duty,” or does that double standard not apply?
PS. Only 3% of our GDP goes to military expenditures det. This puts as in 37th among world countries. I think that is pretty good considering we are fighting two wars, no?
December 30, 2004 at 5:26 am #110020detn8rParticipantThe basic statement here, is that the United States needs to pull it’s head out of it’s ass and set it’s priorities straight. The people in Asia need the money NOW. We are not arguing that the United States doesn’t pay for the most world relief, we are saying it can’t live up to its “40 something percent” it shelled out last year. Why do you think people are pissed off? You think the Asians care, you think Australians, Canadians or hell.. even the British that their prime minister is an American ass kisser?
The United States way of dealing with stress? “CHARGE IT!” – “HIRE ANOTHER ASSHOLE”
December 30, 2004 at 5:34 am #110037DavidParticipantQuote:quote:Originally posted by detn8rThe basic statement here, is that the United States needs to pull it’s head out of it’s ass and set it’s priorities straight. The people in Asia need the money NOW. We are not arguing that the United States doesn’t pay for the most world relief, we are saying it can’t live up to its “40 something percent” it shelled out last year. Why do you think people are pissed off? You think the Asians care, you think Australians, Canadians or hell.. even the British that their prime minister is an American ass kisser?
The United States way of dealing with stress? “CHARGE IT!” – “HIRE ANOTHER ASSHOLE”
The point is that we already provide more relief than our GDP/economy can handle. So – you think that because we haven’t payed enough, we should pay more, but other countries shouldn’t? Maybe OTHER countries should provide more relief instead of so much from the US – since we are already in so much debt and have other issues..
We are the big bad stupid Americans until someone needs something.
December 30, 2004 at 5:40 am #110033CharlesMemberQuote:quote:Originally posted by detn8rThe basic statement here, is that the United States needs to pull it’s head out of it’s ass and set it’s priorities straight. The people in Asia need the money NOW. We are not arguing that the United States doesn’t pay for the most world relief, we are saying it can’t live up to its “40 something percent” it shelled out last year. Why do you think people are pissed off? You think the Asians care, you think Australians, Canadians or hell.. even the British that their prime minister is an American ass kisser?
The US has 20% of the world purchasing power and fronted 40% of the damn bill last year for relief aid! The US has the messed up priorities, where is the rest of the world’s share? If your point here is that the Asians need the money now, they won’t be getting it from ANY nation immediately. It doesn’t happen immediately. Those expectations are unrealisitic, from any nation. Bush can’t legally say “You! Send money here.” and get away with it. Even the Iraq war wasn’t argued overnight. I am saying the world needs to wake up and realize that when the value of the dollar falls and the US economy fails, which it will soon once that debt gets higher, that 40% of the bill payment will be gone.
Quote:quote:
The United States way of dealing with stress? “CHARGE IT!” – “HIRE ANOTHER ASSHOLE”The rest of the world dealing with stress? “America, butt out!” and then “America you lazy bum, we want money!”
December 30, 2004 at 6:57 am #110048TigerbladeParticipantQuote:quote:Originally posted by DavidWe are the big bad stupid Americans until someone needs something.
and then when we won’t or can’t give them what they want, we’re back to being the big bad stupid Americans.
Quote:quote:Originally posted by detn8rYou say your country is your top priority? Why is it, you have more money and more men and women fighting to liberate another country, than trying to find the man (people) responsible for the tragic September 11th episode? It seems to be, Rae that you are eating your own words when it comes to being hypocritical.
yes, our country is our top priority. the war in iraq, and probably most if not all of our other military commitments, are aimed at making the world safer – which eventually translates to, safer for us.
Quote:quote:Originally posted by CharlesThe US has 20% of the world purchasing power and fronted 40% of the damn bill last year for relief aid!
and you say our priorities are out of order? i’m not going to start pointing fingers, but I dont see other countries pulling twice their weight like that. this whole argument about who gave what is based on the fact that America gave *only* 35 million dollars. only? what other country has the ability to do that on such short notice? we barely have the ability to do that ourselves, but we did anyway. our government is working on ways to increase that amount, to our own detriment. yeah, big bad america indeed. we’re sending our own money which we dont really have in the first place, increasing our own debt to help other nations in their time of need. when America is fronting such a huge chunk of the world bill, other nations that constantly rely on America for money lose their right to bitch. i’ve said before that I dont want to come off as the cocky American, but that’s the way it is sometimes.
December 30, 2004 at 10:28 am #110069gossipingraeMemberQuote:quote:Originally posted by twistedmetalPut it this way, gossipingrae: be glad that you do not represent your country in this discussion and in any openings the USA would ever make world wide. Your statements on the Bigblueball are enough for any from another country to understand what rustedtight ment when she said “USA, Why dont you care?”
i’d be the first to offer to stand up and make a public statement for my country.
Quote:quote:We are the big bad stupid Americans until someone needs something.yep, that’s how it will always be, dave. we all know this, but…
Quote:quote: The basic statement here, is that the United States needs to pull it’s head out of it’s ass and set it’s priorities straight.apparently because our priorities are elsewhere, as n8r has suggested, this makes us horrible.
Quote:quote:You think the Asians care, you think Australians, Canadians or hell.. even the British that their prime minister is an American ass kisser?who DOESN’T kiss america’s ass? every other country’s lips are plastered there because they can’t run to anyone else but the USA, because no one else can afford the money.
oh and tiger, you’re not “cocky american.” you’re proud. don’t be sorry for that.
December 30, 2004 at 3:00 pm #110009Jeff HesterKeymasterOut of curiosity, does anyone know how much the US government spent just in Florida this year with the multiple hurricanes that hit? Wasn’t it somewhere around the billions? I suppose only the government knows how much we have exactly for disaster relief funds. Perhaps everyone can stop pointing fingers and actually make a personal contribution (donate food, supplies, clothing, money) towards the Red Cross or whatever disaster relief organization there is in your country.
December 31, 2004 at 3:19 am #110074cuteb0mberchickMember35 milion dollars was just a starts [/b]and you know thats alot of money already…but the USA is giving more MONEY so you should be thanking the USA not bitching at them.
Quote:quote:It is disappointing that the US has wasted such exorbent amounts of money on Bush’s needless warneedless war? geez Shifter if you were in Bush’s position right now I bet you already put up the WHITE flag.
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