Whining Complainers: Foreign Version
How much money did Pakistan send us after Katrina?
Draven: Good question. I would like to know about this also.
As I said below, the problem is that George Bush does not like brown people.
Say it over and over and over, like a mindless montra. Of course, many only need say it once to belive it. Morons.
Too bad the Poobahs and Muckity Mucks who do the most complaining are seldom in position to have to be rescued. Maybe a little gratitude would seep in…
Good one! My pal was at “Windows on the World Restaurant” atop the WTC in the first bombing—a group had to walk down 100+ floors. Scary & not fun, but do-able. As they emerged into sunlight they were in fair shape - except one member who came out gasping, staggering and clutching his throat.
For extra credit: guess who dozens of reporters & cameras instantly pounced on?
Posted by Oink
10/11/2005 at 10:01 AM
Okay, you say the world is in $100 Quingagooglezillion debt. Well, I can top that! It is in 101 Quingagooglezillion debt!
See, I can be just like a national gummint trying to outbid the next guy!
Whoo hoo!
OCM—That’s what the German Gov’t said in the period after WW1.
Can you pronounce ”Sieg Heil”?
Posted by Oink
10/11/2005 at 11:01 AM
All right, first things first. The initial $500,000 was NOT a pledge, it was money delivered directly to Pakistan. There’s a big difference. That half million came out of discretionary funds budgeted and allocated for things like this. Any other money has to be appropriated by Congress. We had the same crap after the tsunami. Note that we’re already on scene with physical aid, rescue workers, searchers, helicopters, food and supplies. Where are their Islamic brothers? Their worst enemy, India, is helping them. Where are the mooselimbs? Where is the U fucking N? Hello? Hello?
As much as those limey “newspapers” claim to know about the U.S. they know sweet fuck all about how things work. Any excuse to bash is looked on as a windfall and they’re right there, disregarding facts in favor of their favorite passtime.
Fuck ‘em all.
Please God, PUUUHHHHLLLLLEEEEEAAASSSSEEEEEE!!!! Let us see a photo of Osama’s crushed and bloodied corpse being dragged out from under the rubble!!!!
Oh, if only my prayers like this got answered!!!!!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_germanhyperinflation.html
OCM; Read what really happens during a hyperinflation. Finally, the currency is disregarded & the economy goes back to barter. In Germany between the wars it paved Hitler’s road for sure.
Stink: Thoughtful. It’s also true that if Moslem countries took in Palestinians there wouldn’t be a problem.
Posted by Oink
10/11/2005 at 02:39 PM
Without denigrating to a discussion about fiat money…
simply, we shouldn’t be sending them OUR money without directly being able to have our say in whether or not the money is sent. If we aren’t the world’s police force, then we sure as hell aren’t the world’s disater recovery team.
True, Draven, and the corruption in Pakistan—how could it top the New Orleans standard?
Posted by Oink
10/11/2005 at 06:08 PM
Oink: They won’t take in the displaced Arabs who were run out of Jordan and now call themselves Palestinians. If they took them in and allowed them to meld into their own societies they’d just turn on their hosts as they did in Jordan. Also, keeping them in the condition that they are in puts pressure on Israel that they couldn’t do with their laughable armies from 1948 to the present. But you already knew all that, didn’t you?
Draven: We help out in disaster situations because that’s what we do. Nobody else is up to the massive logistics movement that we are capable of. Geeze, even the Canadian DART team had to wait for the Russian airlift capacity to free up so that they could send their DART team to the tsunami region.
Look at the clusterfuck the UN made of it two weeks after the incident when they finally arrived. Then consider that OXFAM had to pay a 300% duty tax to get their 4WD vehicles in to help get supplies to remote villages. If they didn’t pay it they’d lose the vehicles to the storage charges that had accrued to customs. There’s a racket for you. Go help them and they charge for the privilege.
We’ll see if the amounts pledged ever get sent to the disaster areas. Lots of times pledges are just so much hot air.
At the risk of repeating myself....Where’s the UN? holding meetings to decide where to hold conferences to create committees to discuss meetings and conferences to decide how much to ask us to send them so that they can skim the usual percentage, I suppose.
I wasn’t always jaded, it’s just what experience and observation has taught me.
STIN: I’m right there with ya, buddy! 100% truth!
Stink: Yes, that’s what we do. And we’re about it in the whole world..
I doubt if any of the victims had a chance to vote thus:
____ Food
____ Nuke
Posted by Oink
10/11/2005 at 07:47 PM
Yeah, we live in mud huts but we’ve got nukes.
There really is something wrong with that picture.
Who wants to send money to people that hate ya?
Posted by piccalo
10/11/2005 at 08:00 PM
piccalo: Not me! Only one person I know of:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Posted by Oink
10/11/2005 at 08:18 PM
Help? yes. Send money? NO. We send enough money to the Useless Nitwits. Let them send it to the Pkais instead of lining their own purses or the purses of ‘scientists’ following the religion of an unproven theory.
Yeah, one would think that the UN would be able to find some good use for the money they made above the table on the oil for fraud program. They got a commission on something like 10 Billion dollars worth...or is that what they skimmed? I get the numbers mixed up. Then there was the under-the-table money. Yeah. Nobody should have to pay dues for quite a while after that windfall.
1. It’s the “Superman Syndrome”. Here comes Daddy to pull them out of the
YET AGAIN. Notwithstanding Oink’s New Testament quotation, leaving them to sort out their own solutions would be the best medicine. As Kipling wrote (I have bolded the relevant bits):
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.2. The WORST thing to do is send money with no accountability. Large amounts of money attracts corruption like
attracts flies. Everywhere in the world, not just the Third World (NOLA). Sometimes the most corrupt are the government.
You’ll note that Jesse Jackson is up to his figurative hips in NOLA. There’s certainly money to be garnered there, you can tell by which flies are gathering. As I’ve said before, that noise you hear is not rain, it’s the Louisiana politicians salivating. Where’s the Sharp-one? I expect to hear that he’s there too.
Thanks for the verse, DWMF, I really must read more Kipling.
Why not start by reading this?
Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden, 1899
Take up the White Man’s burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
-----------------------------------------------
“This famous poem, written by Britain’s imperial poet, was a response to the American take over of the Phillipines after the Spanish-American War. “The entire piece of
is reproduced below.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html
Posted by Oink
10/12/2005 at 08:45 AM
DWMF: Social Darwinism? Then Eugenics next?
I’ll assume you and StinK don’t really mean what you seem to be saying.
not funny
Posted by Oink
10/12/2005 at 08:48 AM
My favorite Kipling is “Tommy” it’s not that I haven’t read any, it’s just that I need to read more. I like it. Of course, I also like Robert Service poems. Need to read more of his too.
I didn’t know the history of “White Man’s Burden”. Interesting.
I don’t see where I’m supporting or promoting “Social Darwinism”. Please enlighten.
StinK—Free Markets, Check and Balances in our Constitution, Representative Democracy—all of these things have one virtue: They Work! They protect us from our own nature, which tends to exploit and enslave others.
They are not our best nature—that is determined by how we treat our families and the parking lot attendant. Darwinian Evolution is a plain fact. But it does not, the same as all facts, tell us shit about how we should act, behave, conduct ourselves as individuals!
The quoted poem by Kipling is correct as Public Policy, insofar as people should bear responsibility for their own decisions, mistakes, choices. As an individual, if we treat people in that way ... we go to hell.
Social Darwism, Eugenics, are all part of the worst of human nature. I’m not saying that you or the person who posted the poem endorse it. But whenever someone tells me that people in disasters should be left to sink or swim—I want to reach for my pistol. I know the history of those movements. P.S. I feel the same about those who fret about Satanism and Witchcraft—they’ve done more evil than all the Satanists and Witches in history.
Posted by Oink
10/12/2005 at 10:13 AM
Oink, I have to reply. My point is not to be a heartless bastard and let them sink or swim, as you put it. I am no Fascist, as you seem to have concluded.
In fact you brush close to my own view in your first paragraph in answer to StinKerr. Until there is a complete political and moral revolution in Africa - free markets, rule of law not beholden to the powers that be, basic freedoms, entrepreneurial spirit, a political establishment which lives up to standards of probity and truthfulness - we shall forever be chasing round and round the same old tree.
Handing African governments money on a plate removes the obligation for them to mature into decent, responsible societies. The money that is earned by the sweat of one’s own brow is worth far more than any handout. This is true for countries as well as individuals. I know it’s a harsh lesson, but there’s no getting round it.
You might have noticed I didn’t include representational democracy in my list above. This is because I think certain foundations have to laid before universal suffrage. It took England over 300 years to learn these lessons, in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. It took so long because they had to work it out for themselves.
I fear that for these lessons to take hold, the African nations will have to undergo the same process. Any shortcuts or easy food & money is doing them a grave disservice, and would even undo what good had been done already.
What I write here has already been expounded by Moeletsi Mbeki. He says that the only secure path out of this cycle of dependency is through the private enterprise of the Africans themselves, in this article and many others. I remember posting a similar link before. You may have been away at the time.
P.S. I do realise that it’s Pakistan/Asia that suffered this time. It’s just that the previous discussion on this subject was about Africa. The same arguments apply.
I think we mostly agree, with my above stated objections to peronal “scientific” belief systems, which always seem to include the speaker in the favored group. Africa? I think the Statute of Limitations for Colonialism has expired. Packing $sand down a rat-hole of corruption—not the answer.
Right, our European history includes all the crimes and follies Africa is committing.
The comments under the YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK subject heading apply. One generation must sacrifice itself to hard work and saving.
Posted by Oink
10/16/2005 at 08:50 PM
So we’re friends again.
I wrote somewhere on another blog several months ago (I think it was Chrenkoff), that this is also about freedom:
1. Freedom to innovate.
2. Freedom to take risks.
3. Freedom to keep the rewards of your endeavours.You need only 5% of the population to be of the gettupango persuasion for a society to be able to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. But everyone must have the opportunity, or you’ll never get your 5%.
This is why I take such a great interest in Iraq these days. It is a “Great Experiment”. Its success or failure will have repercussions for centuries. Sorry to sound portentious.
My guess is that they’d be killing each other in tribal warfare, just as they always have and selling their captives to the Arabs, just as they always did.
If the white man had stayed out then the entire continent would look like the bushmen of the Kalahari.
There are Commandments to help the poor.
There is no Commandment to be a sucker. Nor a stumblebum.Posted by Oink
10/17/2005 at 09:05 AM
Sure OCM. And I bet you think that the Native American tribes would have reached the moon first if left alone, too.
Whatever the “natives” were, or were not doing, they would have preferred to continue
-ing it up all by themselves. If they want our technology or our help, they can ask. Otherwise, on a personal basis, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit those in prison, admonish the sinner ... etc. (cf. “Corporal Works of Mercy")
Posted by Oink
10/17/2005 at 09:50 AM
Another bunch that would still be fighting among tribes and enslaving captives.
You need to delve into some non PC history, OCM. Those Native Americans were pretty vicious, the women were the worst. They’d keep a captive alive and screaming a lot longer than the captive would want.
OCM - read about Congo-Brazzaville. I rest my case.
Good link, DWMF. So much of this stuff flies under the radar. There seems to also be an attempt to keep the Oil for Fraud investigation under the radar. It’s just too big to ignore but they seem to be doing their damndest to ignore it.
10/12/2005 at 06:28 AM
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