Thursday, July 07, 2005

I want to be inspired by America again

I was watching TV the other night, something about the tsunami victims, and a grand vision came to mind rather suddenly. Imagine, that in December, when it happened, that the President of the United States made a special address to Congress, and announced that we were going to war against the disaster... to save everyone there. We would send not just money, but people in the form of the United States military to help them pick up the pieces. Imagine that for a moment. Instead of sending money and forgetting about it, we'd spend money ourselves, hiring contractors and paying the military, bypassing the corruption, and truely help. Nobody would be bitch at Haliburton and Bechtel for sucking up funds in Iraq, since they'd be building new infrastructure to help disaster victims instead of rebuilding stuff that we bombed in a war. Even the corporate barons would love it, because they could get some footholds in the rebuilt disaster areas for new businesses in an emerging market.

I know such a thing is impossible when we have two wars going on (Afganistan and Iraq) simply from a financial and manpower perspective, but regardless of what you think about going to Iraq, it would be nice to see that kind of thing happen - to see the government step up and do something only they could do.

I don't know why I thought of that, maybe I'm just tired of hearing people bicker about Iraq, seeing the pictures of the tsunami again. Maybe is that for once, I would like the rest of the world to point at the United States and not be doing so because they're pissed at some foreign policy of ours. To some, that's probably not important, but maybe it is the first step at truely solving the intertwined problems of terrorism and poverty - fight the sources of such things, not symptoms. Finding actual targets in those two conflicts (terrorism/poverty) is so hard.

Of course, maybe it is just that I want to feel inspired by my country's government again, something that I haven't been for a long time. It did come close when Bush announced his new space travel extended plan, but that's so long term, and it was filled with empty promises and little funding. It is easy to promise things when he's not going to be the man in charge after a few years. Oh well, at least he's trying. Sometimes I think Bush's advisors control him a bit too much. I don't know if that's good or bad.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

err. err. hmm. Ok, our country was founded after killing lots and lots and lots and lots of indians. Then, we had to pay taxes to somebody else for killing the indians ourselves. So hey, lets form our own government, where we don't have to be taxed for going to war with other people, while keeping their land.

In my humble opinion, I think that we should go to war against disasters, overthrow the governments in south Asia, and seperate ourselves from the USA. I'll collect the taxes, you can run the show. I'll pay you half of my cut of the taxes. Afterwords, we'll look like a super-evolved America, especially after we tax "countries" to become "states" in our "union". With Über countries like Japan, Germany, and France in our league, all the other countries will want to fight things that matter, and will join us. America will be too busy super evolving taxes to notice what's happened until too late. That's when we lay the smack down on them. We tax the hell out of their trade. We'll use it to pay for our disaster relief programs, and maybe some of our government costs, as long as you and I have enough filthy lucre.

Or, we could just take the easy route and try to run this country.

Doomtaga

Anonymous said...

Reply to above.

Let’s get politically correct, we killed Native Americans because we were and still are greedy bastards.

Hey why not go to war with everyone, we’re already financing the war with Japanese money…

Anonymous said...

Why not declare war on the weather and be done with it?

Seriously though, i'm pleased to see that there are still people who care about this. We need to look after this world a lot better than we are now, or there'll be plent more disasters where that came from.

Anonymous said...

It's kind of sad. I'm in the military but feel the same way. Most of my lack of pride is from the finger pointing. No matter what happens, America gets involved and then the blaming begins. The only time I even try to defend what I do, is when somebody flat out says it (I guess I mean the wars in general) is wrong. Otherwise it's just a job. But like America (not the military but the government), the people making the comments stay in the safe grey area of half commitment. They make sure they cover the topic but only want to add to it as long as there is a quickly resolved opinion that can be easily withdrawn. I could use something to inspire me too. I think Bush tried but wasn't allowed to handle just what was on his plate.

Anonymous said...

Man i hate when people critcize what we did to the indians we had to we were stronger they were weaker its just how things went back then. The strong survived, if we didnt kill the indians and that is exactly what we did america would just be another 3rd world countrie looking for aid and instead of you being able to critcize something that happend 200 years ago you would be getting killed by an overlord from some neiboring country

Anonymous said...

It's a terrible thing, when you have to wish to be inspired by your own country... But it seems that more and more these days, politicians on all sides are focusing more on their personal agendas rather then doing what is right. No one is accountable for anything, making lying an easy escape from problems.

But, I don't think we can blame the entire tsunami situation on the government right now. As soon as the death toll stopped climbing and the amateur videos stopped coming, media coverage of those affected by the tsunami dropped almost completely. Most Americans have either already forgotten the tragedy or pushed it back in their minds.

The ineptness of the government and our peoples own complacency when dealing with these situations is a real problem.

Anonymous said...

Ok, remember, i'm the president.
Actually, no i'm not, i'm just a fan of bungie.
TheUSPresident.

Anonymous said...

I don't how much you actually know about what we did for the tsunami victims. We did send military aid. We sent an entire Marine Expiditionary Unit. Thats a very serious amount of manpower. We also sent ships from another Expiditionary Strike Group to help with medical supplies. I'm not saying that I disagree completly with what you said, but why didn't we have more of our own military in the southern states helping our own countrymen after the hurricanes? That would of been truly inspiring to me.

Anonymous said...

There will still be plenty of disasters around the world. Just if we react as badly as fema did for Hurricane Katrina then there won't be anyone to even drive the trucks to the damaged areas.

Anonymous said...

Second thought, there won't be any trucks left to drive.