On the second day of Christmas, an undersea earthquake generated huge tsunamis. Inured as we have become to death in these recent years of terrorism and war, the number of dead across the Bay of Bengal is shocking. As I write this, the toll stands around 120,000, with predictions that the number could double through disease and lack of clean water and food.
The widespread grief naturally calls to mind our own grief of September 11, 2001. Although this is a natural tragedy rather than an act of hate, it’s a natural tragedy of enormous proportion. If we succeed in preventing the predicted deaths by disease and deprivation, the loss of life from the tsunamis will still be equal to a month of September 11ths.
September 11th comes to mind not only from the sense of national tragedy, but also from the sense of international unity. So much of the planet rallied to America’s side on September 11th, we now have the opportunity to reciprocate.
On the third day of Christmas, the U.S. government pledged $15 million to aid the victims of the disaster. Although the death toll estimates were then around 50,000, the size of the contribution was rightly called “stingy� by a UN official. The Bush administration quickly bumped the figure up to $35 million.
Hundreds of thousands of dead, millions in donations; the numbers without context are hard to grasp. I did some Googling and found some other things we spend $35 million on.
The Allentown (PA) Morning Call reports St. Luke’s Hospital there is planning a $35 million addition.
The Biloxi (MS) Sun Herald says Mississippi Beef Processors are defaulting on a $35 million state-backed loan.
In Harlingen, Texas, the Valley Morning Star says the families of two dead Border Patrol agents and a wounded sheriff’s deputy want $35 million in damages from the city of Harlingen in the wake of a 1998 shooting spree with a city-owned gun by the son of a city police detective.
The Jerusalem Post reports that American frozen-food magnate David Merage has pledged $35 million to develop the Negev desert in southern Israel.
The Portland (ME) Press Herald says the Forest Society of Maine has raised $35 million to purchase 47,000 acres of forest and obtain conservation easements on another 282,000 acres.
The New York Times reports that in the mid-1980s, the Air Force planned to spend $35 million on each F/A-22 Raptor fighter jet. (The F/A-22 program may be cancelled and each jet now costs $258 million. What’s an extra $223 million per plane?)
According to NBC News, the Pentagon spends $35 million every four hours in Iraq.
This is America’s great moment, a chance for the world’s richest nation, whose president self-righteously sermonizes about democracy and morality, to step up and reclaim some of the good will gained on September 11th and since squandered with a brutal and unnecessary war in Iraq. Instead, George Bush again exhibits his close-fisted, small-minded, mean-spirited nature.
Fortunately, in this crisis Americans can take action independent of our hidebound government and we’re doing it. By noon Wednesday, the American Red Cross had received $18 million in contributions. (Cash donations are better than clothes or food.) Amazon.com, which sold 32 items per second in the days before Christmas, raised $3 million through an appeal on its homepage.
A spokesperson for B’nai B’rith International said donations were coming it at 30 to the hour and the web page at Catholic Relief Services crashed from too much traffic – a testament to Catholics’ generosity, technical ineptitude or both.
Jars next to the cash register in countless bars, coffee shops and convenience stores provide low-tech opportunities for Americans to bypass the White House and show South Asia what we’re all about.
Happy New Year.
© Mark Floegel, 2004
One Comment
Amount of money spent each year on bubble gum $2 Billion
Amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States: $8 billion
Amount of money spent annually on perfumes in Europe and the United States: $12 billion
Amount of money spent each year on pet food in Europe and the United States: $17 billion
Amount of money spent each year on militaries worldwide $780 billion
Combined wealth of the world’s richest 225 people $1 trillion
Combined annual income of the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people $1 trillion
Amount of money that we are sending to help Tsunami people – $350 million.
Talk about strange accounting practices, first Bush says $20 million, then $35 million, now $350 million (Uh?) – smells like a Karl Rove advice and the news broke right after the yearly Dick & Regis touchdown ball in Times Square. Its ironic that the same person that asks us “who wants to be a millionaire was standing net to Powell announcing the $350 million package. Anyway, Today’s newspaper said over 1 million people are affected by this end of the year horror. So basically our government is giving $350 to each person “Now go buy yourself a burro and a boat Pancho boy or is it Xing Tao? Colin, no no I mean Condy I need Help, spellcheck this please”. Toady affairs is right…
I like how gaia worshipers keep comparing how mother nature is really the bomb when she wants to since she has really overshadowed the crazy people that struck the towers. The hippies might be a point there, but hey really let’s cut the bs, If you want to worry about an even bigger problem that this latest natural disaster think about this one: the tidal wave of capitalism which has an even bigger toll on the disenfranchised people of the world than any natural event please (even though global warming appears to be a close match, and ha ha guess who is the culprit of Global Warming? the poor? no guess again).
Yes dear friends, it is about money and power. Ever since the beginning of time the struggle has been between the haves and the have nots. Not until there is a fair distribution of earth’s resources among all of its citizens will there be a permanent solution to our societal ailements. I wish I could be an optimist about this but I think that pesimism is a civic responsibility. Pandora’s box was opened with the industrial revolution, the cover was completely broken of its hinges and we are way past the point of no return. I recently heard Middlebury resident scholar Bill McKibben state that if we were to give to all 6+ billion people in the world the quality of life or a drunken redneck family in the appalachians -coors light six pack and marlboro reds included- we would still need five planets; and we all know that we don’t want to live like rednecks even though we might drink like them ocassionally.
What a mess! so what can we do now other than bend over and kiss our ass goodbye? a selective neutering campaing? a 20 year reunion of the “we are the world” celebrity christmas carolers? A unified brainwashing efforts to convince our youngsters that there is no need for ten barbie dolls? I have no idea, but we could start by accepting that we are addicted to our lifestyles and trying to identify what stuff we really need and what stuff we should give away. Let’s just pray that it’s not to late or that we are able to live and die before the mmm hits the fan on this side of the planet. Happy new year.