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Last updated on June 6th, 2017 at 08:12 am
Blinded by hate, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee hasn’t noticed the overwhelming amount of aid from the US:
“Charity begins at home” is the mean-minded dictum of the right, unwilling to spend on foreigners, unwilling to spend on those outside the family fortress at home, either. But there may be a lot of truth in the old maxim. Countries that tolerate vast wealth gaps are unlikely to concern themselves greatly about the poor even further from their door. Countries that give most – the Nordics – are the ones that have created the most socially equal societies at home first. Can America be anything but unjust in dealing with foreigners when it cares so little about the third world poverty within its own borders?
The US government has ponied up $350 million for tsunami aid, with more promised. Coca-Cola has pledged $10 million; Exxon Mobil, $5 million; Wal-Mart, $2 million; Walt Disney Co., $1 million; Pfizer Inc, thirty-five million dollars.
Amazon’s Red Cross appeal is growing by $3 million per day. The total from non-government contributions has reached $158,285,000, according to Chuck Simmons.
Here’s more from poison Polly:
Charity begins at home because people’s basic good instinct for generosity and decency has to be nurtured by leaders brave enough to take the risk to appeal to altruism, at home and abroad.
Given the numbers cited above – many of which were available to Toynbee before she wrote her column – George W. Bush has obviously “nurtured instincts for generosity and decency”. Polly owes him an apology, wouldn’t you say? Send the lovely woman a note.
(Via contributor J.F. Beck, who points out that so much aid has arrived in the stricken areas that it’s delaying relief operations. Those evil westerners, always sticking it to the poor …)
UPDATE. Max Edwards in the Sydney Morning Herald:
There is one surefire way to get the US government to increase its contribution to tsunami disaster relief to a generous level: simply announce that Halliburton will be given first crack at all the major reconstruction contracts.
UPDATE II. The US response has been incredible, reports the Red Cross:
The donations are coming from everywhere and everyone – including the tourist on the street, said Leslie Gottlieb, of the Red Cross’s New York chapter. She said a tourist passing her office near Lincoln Center stopped in and gave $100.
At CARE USA’s office in Atlanta, “a stranger just walked into the office with a check for $10,000. And our offices around the country are reporting similar experiences,” said Ahuma Adodoadji, director for emergency humanitarian assistance.
UPDATE III. The Dell Foundation has kicked in $3 million, with another million donated by GM. Yahoo collected $1.2 million within 18 hours. Also:
Americans using their credit cards were donating a total of about one million dollars a day to relief organizations through Network for Good, a nonprofit portal for charities created by America Online.
UPDATE IV. Among US military resources involved in aid efforts are six C-130s (carrying bulldozers, HUMVEEs, and the like), three KC-135 Stratotankers (bringing MREs and water), and the USS Fort McHenry (containing more than 10,000 pounds of clothing and food). Six Navy P-3 Orions will shortly join three other Orions already in Thailand on search-and-rescue missions. Eight cargo vessels bearing food and water are en route from Guam and Diego Garcia. Two military forensic teams are due to arrive this weekend.
UPDATE V. The unwillingness to spend on those outside the family continues:
So many gifts for injured troops and their families have poured into Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md., that they have run out of space and are asking well-wishers to give elsewhere.
Overwhelmed by thousands of items like CD and DVD players, quilts, toiletries, clothes and food not to mention huge stacks of prepaid phone cards Walter Reed this week urged people to wait until February or March to send items. An official at the naval hospital requested that contributions be postponed until March.
UPDATE VI. Another decadent capitalist nation gets in on the action:
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has pledged $US500 million in grant aid for the countries badly affected by the tsunami disaster.
UPDATE VII. Josh Chavetz points out that one voice really can make a difference:
Im my radio interview Wednesday night, I said that I thought the Administration was being far too stingy in its pledge of aid to South Asian countries affected by the tsunamis. I’m very glad to see that the Administration has just increased its pledge by an order of magnitude.
UPDATE VIII. Perhaps those caring Nordic governments Polly adores aren’t so caring after all:
Scandinavians are fuming at their governments’ initial lax response to the tsunami disaster as hopes dimmed for thousands of foreign tourists, mostly Europeans, still missing days after the wall of water hit.
Swedish tabloids were the harshest critics of the Government. “She went to the theatre,” said Aftonbladet, referring to the Foreign Minister, Laila Freivalds, saying she waited 30 hours after the initial report of the disaster to go to her office.
- The same lot who bray ‘US out of Asia” cry “where are they?” when the dirty work needs to be done. Secondly, no doubt Ms. Toynbee will write a piece comdemning Islamic nations, chiefly amongst them, oil producing nations, who having taken advantage of record oil prices, must have some cash to spare. Then again, maybe not, its far easier to criticise the US.Posted by Nic on 2005 01 01 at 08:53 PM • permalink
- I’ve said it before on this site but it looks as though I need to say it again because the Left is really revelling in this deceitful, hate-fest.
*In 2003 the United States were responsible for 40% of all international aid.
*60% of all food aid comes from the United States.
*The United States is the largest donor to UNICEF.
*The United States is the largest donor to the ICRC.
*The United States is the largest donor to the UNHCR.
*Ironically, the United States is the largest donor to the U.N. Relief Co-ordinator’s Office, the head of which, Jan Egeland, was the idiot who ignited this issue in the first place!
*Even America’s ‘evil’ Corporations donated 13.5 billion dollars to charity in 2003. McDonalds being one of the most generous and well-known, helping millions of families in dozens of countries around the world.
Have any of these arseholes ever heard of the Marshall Plan???
- Yes, Brian, it’s sad that the idiots can’t tell the difference between development assistance and emergency aid which is above and beyond that.
The loony left will seize any statistic in order to deride the Great Satan.
I still haven’t seen any statistical data with respect to relief monies from wealthy nations like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia etc etc. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
- Since you asked, here ya go: Linkage
About 2/5 of the way down, a 5-page sidebar with details on donations by country.
As of this post:
China: 520 million yuan ($63 million), a sharp increase from its initial offer of 20 million yuan.
Egypt: Egyptian Red Crescent Society sending a plane with 500,000 Egyptian pounds ($81,000) worth of medicine and other aid as initial step.
Kuwait: Pledged aid supplies worth $2 million, sent $100,000 immediate aid.
Qatar: Sent urgent relief aid worth $10 million.
Saudi Arabia: Pledged $10 million aid package—$5 million of food, tents and medicine to be distributed via Saudi Red Crescent, $5 million for international aid groups such as the Red Cross and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
United Arab Emirates: Pledged $2 million in aid; its Red Crescent society to provide food, blankets and clothing.In addition, only 7 states have pledged to donate more than $25 million. They break down as follows:
Australia, $27 million + other assistance
Britain, $28.9 million + other assistance
China, $63 million
European Union, $42 million
Japan, $30 million + other assistance
Spain, $68 million + other assistance
US, $350 million + other assistance
- Polly Toynbee is always claiming that Scandinavian countries are wonderful. Usually she just makes up the facts to support it and gets cross if anyone uncovers her ignorance/deceit.
Of course in this instance the Swedes have been extremely generous and are worthy of congratulation but to try and suggest their is a correlation between left wing politics a charitble donation is nonsense.
The sentence in her article that really demonstrates just how devoid of common decency Polly Toynbee is this-
“Social democracy and global cooperation are struggling under the tsunami of US neoconservatism. ”
- With the emergency help for the Tsunami victims Bush is demonstratively avoiding cooperation with the UN. Instead he is relying on a hastily forged emergency alliance with India, Japan and Australia.
The last time he tried to do the right thing (in order to do the right thing), the UN was a losing proposition. Seems like President Bush learned something from the Iraq War, eh? And who says he’s stupid?
Oh, excuse me, I forgot…..we are discussing the left here, aren’t we?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 01 01 at 11:56 PM • permalink
- I sent my polite little note to Ms Toynbee, but I fear that it will make as much sense to her as trying to explain quantum mechanics to the cat.
The Grauniad is a disgrace.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 01 02 at 01:34 AM • permalink
- “Can America be anything but unjust in dealing with foreigners when it cares so little about the third world poverty within its own borders?”
BWAHAHAHA!
As an Indian immigrant in America said when asked why he came here, “I wanted to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”
What a pig-ignorant bitch.
- Yes, it’s very nice to sit in your office and point the finger at everyone else, isn’t it? Even better if you can tie that in with a bit of trendy ‘US bashing’ just to please the crowds. I wonder what Miss Toynbee has done to make a difference?Posted by AdventureGirl on 2005 01 02 at 02:56 AM • permalink
- Here’s de deal. Toynbee’s article and its ilk, not the actual facts demonstrated here, will be the Leftist media party line for the foreseeable future. As long as someone is willing and courageous enough to “speak easily disproven lies to power,” the lies that make the administration look the worst will be the ones most repeated.
- “Third world poverty” Oh my god, someone needs to put Polly in a sack and dump her in Botswana, or better yet, Banda Aceh. Let her see what real Third World poverty and suffering are like. Of course it won’t happen; she’ll get to squat in her own complacency while her minders crowd around patting her on the back and congratulating her. I contrast her viciousness and uncharitable stupidity with the reports I saw last night on the News World International channel about the extremely generous British response to this disaster. I wonder how much Polly forked over.Posted by Andrea Harris on 2005 01 02 at 04:01 AM • permalink
- Okay, let’s get straight what it is that socialists like Toynbee are interested in as distinct from what they’re not interested in. Included in the latter are all the causes they declare for, which I will sum up under the general title “the downtrodden.”
Please note that the boundaries of the reference of that word are almost infinitely flexible, and are dependant in any given instance on what is included in the other category: what socialists are interested in.
What socialists are interested in is “equality,” where “equality’” equals forcible taking (the more forcible the better) from those that have (the content of “having” is also surprisingly variable—another story) and redistributing it to those who don’t have.
Moral lesson: Toynbee is exploiting the tsunami monster in order to do what she likes best: fingerpointing and scapegoating others. N.B.: one function of scapegoating from early history on is to remove an evil from off oneself by putting it on someone else.
Actually, socialists like her are at bottom cowards. By that I mean that she apparently needs the “charity” cover to hide behind in order to do her malice-envy-and-spite gig, and still look clean after she’s heaved the dirt. Were she indeed brave in her endeavor, she would have just come out and said: “I hate Americans, I hate all sorts of people who have something that someone else doesn’t have, and that’s because I hate, period. No object to the verb, just I hate.”
But she doesn’t have the guts, so we’re treated to all sorts of alibis from her and other lefty self-righteous types for their interminable vigilance on the lookout for how to exploit someone’s bad luck to justify more hate spew.
Because, you see, the adage “tell me what you hate and I’ll tell you what you are” (cf. Freudian psychologist Theodor Reik) works here as well: like a heat-seeking missile her spleen will unerringly pursue precisely the enemy whose evil and hatred (as she sees it) most thoroughly reflects—and unmasks—her own.
Posted by Michael McCanles on 2005 01 02 at 04:16 AM • permalink
- My email to Polly:
Because of your inestimable good fortune to be born in a country in
which you will be taken care of despite your many flaws and insufficiencies, you will never starve. However, neither will you create jobs, economy, or value to your fellow human. Were the world
populated only with such as you, misery would be complete and widespread. Can you not see how growing wealth helps the poor?There was nothing America could have done to prevent the tsunami, but
capitalism’s blessings are being showered on the sufferers now.
[statistics of copious aid]What have you done? What at the most could you ever dream of doing?
What wealth have you created to give away? How many employees have you hired?
And so, who have you helped? How have you made the world a better place? Do not include those on whom you’ve showered your bile, venom and sanctimoniousness.
What you call social justice, confiscating earnings to give to non-earners, seems a lot like an injustice. A free world is better than an equal world at gunpoint.
Posted by Bleeding heart conservative on 2005 01 02 at 04:21 AM • permalink
- On a more pleasant level to add to Tim’s posting:
“It’s a great problem to have,” he added.In Bethesda, gifts fill an office and its back room, a classroom and a warehouse.
At Walter Reed, a 40-by-60-foot storage room nearly filled to its 12-foot ceiling with gifts from across the country. Another office is filled with letters, many of them with phone cards.
The naval center, which began running out of space around Thanksgiving, has “bins upon bins upon bins of phone cards…
Awash in a surplus of free phone minutes, both facilities are urging people to stop sending the cards.
Posted by Mike SC USA on 2005 01 02 at 04:25 AM • permalink
- The USA and its citizens are being vilified by the press because it is fashionable in their social circle. We need to forgive them the way Jesus did when he said �Father forgive them, for they no not what they do.�
Not a “Politically Correct” statement, tough, get over it! Lets move on and continue to do what is right. We are a great nation and the hope of the world.
- I have two problems with Josh Chafetz inclusion on this issue.
1) The implication that his ill-informed statement changed the amount pledged by the administration.
2) The ill-informed statement itself.
There is certainly wisdom in not rushing to pledge a large amount just for diplomatic effect. It seems smart to survey the landscape to see what will be needed and wait before providing an overwhelming pledge while providing other countries a realistic goal in their attempts to beat a perceived �low� U.S. pledge. The net effect is to forgo a pat on the back in favor of what�s really required – MORE MONEY. The U.S. has traditionally provided relief in ways only it can via military and other assets that are far more important, in many cases, than cold hard cash. I�m sure the U.S. will also be instrumental in providing a future advance tsunami warning system for the affected sector of the world.
The U.S. has always been a generous nation with a long list of beneficiaries of its compassion. It should not, at this juncture, have to put all its gifts on the table in an attempt to appease the numerous unapprised critics.
- At the risk of being called even more of a racist for asking this question:
Did anyone else notice the huge outpouring of support for this disaster when among the dead were a few thousand dead vacationing Europeans, when comparable (and in some cases on-going and preventable) disasters involving strictly dark-skinned folks in developing countries are largely ignored?
Before you flame me (and if you feel the need, use the link in my sig, don’t clutter Tim’s site), keep in mind that the single most recognizable face the media has made in a disaster that has killed 120,000 Southeast Asian people is a two year-old Swedish toddler.
Meanwhile three-times this many have died in Darfur with little fanfare in a manmade disaster that could be stopped at any time.
Something to think about.
Posted by Confederate Yankee on 2005 01 02 at 06:29 AM • permalink
- If you give a buck to a street bum, he doesn’t compare what you give him against your net worth and then admonish you for not giving him more.
Street panhandlers, even the pros, aren’t quite that dishonest.
However, institutional panhandlers—like those at the UN and the International Red Cross—have no such problem. They’re dishonest enough not to be bashful about their ingratitude. That’s because their concern isn’t about relieving the suffering of the victims in Southeast Asia. It’s about using the suffering of those victims as a club to beat the giver senseless with guilt, in this case the most generous giver in the history of mankind—the United States of America.
Indeed, it’s about making the giver suffer for not being a victim, said status—in the minds of such egalitarians—making the giver morally responsible for the plights of the victims. This is their noble ideal of sacrifice, which—whether religious or secular—is rooted in nothing more than a hateful, spiteful envy.
This is one American who isn’t buying the con of their altruist creed. To them and their creed I say: Go to hell.
Steven Brockerman, MS
11072 S. Rochester Ave.
#1553
South Jordan, UT 80495
801-576-6439
writeby@comcast.net
- A copy of what I sent to Ms. Toynbee:
“Ms. Toynbee, you are allowing your dislike for Bush to interfere with your intellect.”I just hate it when that happens!
George Roper
http://gmscorner.blogspot.com
A blog for everyone with a good heart
- Max Edwards is a perfect example of what I call “cynical ignorance.” The modern no-nothing. A more obvious American example is Hunter Thompson. A steady diet of pot or booze, combined with fluffnoid news sources like MTV or CBS.Posted by Kevin Murphy on 2005 01 02 at 08:17 AM • permalink
- Dorian: I believe Tim was being sarcastic when he included Chafetz’s statement.
Confederate Yankee: no, I haven’t noticed that. I assume the “outpouring of support” you refer to is what is coming from the professional media. Though to tell you the truth, all the news reports, even from CNN, are focusing on the people in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia, though of course they are sprinkled with interviews with European tourists and their affected family members. I think the problem is the lack of journalists either speaking the local languages or having access to native translators, who might be either dead or occupied with finding their own family members, so it is hard to interview native people. Also the native people are, to put it mildly, a little too busy to be giving interviews to tv news reporters.
Really, it is a little early—if there will ever be a good time—to fling about accusations of racism tpwards anyone, even the hated news media. I think it’s perfectly normal for each country’s news agency, and government officials, to focus on their fellow citizens. To give an example, Sweden lost what, two to three thousand citizens who were vacationing over there? That’s about as many people as were killed in the US in the World Trade Center attack. The US has a population of some 280 million or so. Sweden has a population of about nine million. That’s a heavy loss.
PS: don’t invite flame attacks here, whether “offsite” or no. There’s no reason to be deliberately provocative.
Posted by Andrea Harris on 2005 01 02 at 08:26 AM • permalink
- GM Roper: there is no reason to put your url in your comment. If you want to advertise your blog, buy a blog ad. Or you can simply go to your profile (the link is at the bottom of the comment page under the form) and enter the url in the relevant field. It will make your posting name a clickable link to your blog.Posted by Andrea Harris on 2005 01 02 at 08:28 AM • permalink
- Polly crackers laments how wealth has exploded on Labour’s watch and suggests a 50% tax rate for the rich as a cure for class poverty.
Why stop at 50% Polly, just take the lot? After all, charity begins at home.
- I need to remember next time not to breathe directly into the mouthpiece on my phone
josh chavetz, mouth-breather
- Mean-minded dictum?
Since when is it spelled with “tum”?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 01 02 at 09:21 AM • permalink
- Here is another article discussing American Corporate contributions.
Thought it might give some more context to American contributions (note it is from Thursday).
Posted by Carrick Talmadge on 2005 01 02 at 09:32 AM • permalink
- Crackers Polly wrote “Charity begins at home because people’s basic good instinct for generosity and decency has to be nurtured by leaders brave enough to take the risk to appeal to altruism, at home and abroad.”
How brave do you have to be to appeal to altruism? What exactly does anyone risk by doing so? I can’t think of anything except this: being accused of being all talk and no action.
Oh wait, that describes Polly to a T.
As Tom Lehrer said satirically 40 years ago in the intro to “The Folk Song Army”, “It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffee-house or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on. The nicest thing about a protest song is that it makes you feel so good.”
- The comments of Chavetz and simiar from others really do sum up the thinking for me: it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. Despite any amount of good done by the US, they’re not getting the symbolism or mannerisms right. That seems to be a big problem for Chavetz and his ilk.
Yankee: I think in this case the money and help can really do something positive and immediate. It’s a natural disaster that can be hugely mitigated by outside help. Not so easy in war zones.
The view here in Australia has been predominantly of misery and suffering of locals (they’re our neighbours) – not tourists, although of course that’s news too (my son just spoke to a school friend who was separated from family and extremely lucky to have been plucked out by a motorcyclist and taken to higher ground). I think the concept of only caring because a few whities are involved has become less accurate over the years.
