John Steck wrote the following to show what helpful chaps those noble,
cuddly generous Yanks are:-
<<Who's aircraft carriers will show
up at the next tsunami to provide medial assistance and clean water? Who
will cover the $27B USD shells out ever year in financial aid?
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp >>
I looked at the link. From page one of John's quoted website:-
<<Some donate many dollars, but are low on GNI percent
Some interesting observations can be made about the amount of aid. For
example:
a.. USA's aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP has almost always been
lower than any other industrialized nation in the world, though
paradoxically since 2000, their dollar amount has been the highest. (Only
since 2004 have they move up from last place, by one.) >>
OK John, as far as trade related aid goes (widely criticised for distorting
global politics and further impoverishing the poorest while propping up
military dictatorships etc) the US is biggest, but you're still the meanest
in $ per capita. In terms of pushing other nations around, and engendering
resentment, the US is still in a class of its own - again, the US is still
the biggest and the meanest. I'm not saying that any other nation, given the
same power and culture and basket case mega economy would do any better, but
they couldn't do much worse
J.S.
<<Our enemies (inside and out)
eat from our open hands as they curse our collective name. The rage comes
from having to live with that reality>>
No it doesn't. This is a huge lie spoon fed to, and lapped up by, the
aforementioned simple minded. How can any intelligent, educated,
historically aware person countenance it? Even if you have been told this
lie all your life, surely this doesn't mean that you are no longer capable
of seeing through it? If you were a Tibetan activist in a Chinese prison,
would you not feel just a tad ungrateful that China was building roads and
railways though your country at great financial cost to them - all you would
have lost would be your country, your freedom, your soul and sometimes your
life. Hey, they even feed you from their open hands (but probably not
enough)! Do you understand the analogy?
Shall we stop this thread now? Remember it started with the news that they
were looking to convert a Segway into a mobile machine gun platform. It
struck me that this was beating ploughshares into swords - not a
particularly Christian act from a country whose President claims he talks to
God...
