Posted on 12/31/2004 12:56:16 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
INEVITABLY, confronted with a tragedy of unimaginable scale, the human mind looks for someone to blame. In the Dark Ages, disasters were ascribed to the wrath of God. Now, in an odd inversion that we like to think of as progress, they are adduced as evidence of no God.
In the absence of a deity to decry or appease when the earth moves in such devastating fashion, humankind reaches for the next best thing - worldly authority. Authority should have known it was coming. Authority didn't do enough to prevent it. Authority was too preoccupied with its own nefarious priorities to care.
There is plenty of authority to blame for the devastation caused by the Sumatran earthquake this week. Governments in Bangkok, Jakarta and Colombo will shoulder some of it. Governments farther afield will be inculpated for the poverty of their response. Media organisations will be attacked for being too callous and too mawkish. Unsurprisingly, perhaps the most inviting target is the US.
In the past three days I have been impressed by the originality of the latest critiques of the evil Americans. The earthquake and tsunami apparently had something to do with global warming, environmentalists say, caused of course by greedy American motorists. Then there was the rumour that the US military base at Diego Garcia was forewarned of the impending disaster and presumably because of some CIA-approved plot to undermine Islamic movements in Indonesia and Thailand did nothing about it.
To be fair, even the most animated America-hater, though, baulks at the idea of blaming George W. Bush for the destruction and death in southern Asia. But the US is blamed for not responding generously enough to help the victims of the catastrophe. A UN official this week derided Washington's contribution as stingy.
It is a label that fits the general image abroad of greedy, self-absorbed Americans. They neither know nor care much about the woes of the rest of the world, do they? Did the tsunami even get a look-in on US TV news between the holiday schmalz and the football games, I have been sneeringly asked once or twice this week by contemptuous British friends.
The answer is yes, it did. News coverage of the event has been extensive, and for the most part intelligent and mercifully free of the sort of parochialism about holidaymakers that characterises so much of the European press accounts. There have been some lapses -- the New York newspaper that carried on its front page the Manhattan supermodel's harrowing tale of survival as her boyfriend was swept away by a tidal wave. There has perhaps been a little too much "what if it happened here?" alarmist self-absorption.
But for the most part Americans have watched a sobering, heartbreaking tale of unimagined calamity unfold halfway across the world. You get a sense of the heterogeneity of this country when something such as this happens. Every newspaper in every big city has been carrying stories about local Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Thai and Malaysian communities traumatised by the long-distance search for relatives and friends.
Further, in financial terms, it is not at all clear that the US is shirking its responsibilities, pledging an initial $US35 million ($45.1million) in aid, with the prospect of much more to come, and offering military assistance. You can be sure that the private US response will be even more impressive. Don't misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that Americans are any more generous than anyone else -- simply that they, too, are moved to mercy by the plight of others.
But even as we seek to apportion blame when catastrophe strikes, we are gripped too by a kind of fatalism. We stand in awe of nature and feel helpless before its apparently insuperable power. The rising death toll in Southeast Asia seems to mock our pretensions to progress. We may have been to the moon, eradicated smallpox and created eBay, we think, but when the tectonic plates move we are no more secure than were the barefoot citizens of Pompeii.
Yet the truth is not so grim. For centuries, steady progress has been made in the struggle to limit the effects of natural disasters. Last year, an earthquake that measured 6.6 on the Richter scale killed more than 40,000 people in the Iranian city of Bam. In 1989, a more powerful earthquake struck outside San Francisco. The death toll was fewer than 100. Of course there were demographic and geologic differences that contributed to the disparity. Of course there will never be a fail-safe protection against the most destructive efforts of nature. But it is within our reach to build systems that can mitigate their effects.
Years of scientific effort and technological investment have given the world seismic sensors; early warning systems; buildings that can bounce up and down on stilts buried deep in the earth; flood barriers and other techniques. We can discern the outlines of a strategy for preventing, or at least limiting future disasters.
As we contemplate nature's fearful capacity for destruction and our apparent helplessness, we should not forget the greater tragedy that is humankind's potential for self-destruction. It was humanity, not nature, that killed tens of millions in the wars and genocides of the 20th century. Even as we master techniques to protect us from the earth's violence, we perfect new, more effective means of delivering our own.
That can't be right. The geophysics training I got in 1978 from Superman: The Movie clearly showed that nuclear weapons can trigger earthquakes. Lex Luthor, Superman's nemesis, wanted to make the West Coast of California "more valuable between the time you buy it and the time you sell it." To do this, he caused a major earthquake using two missiles he programmed to hit the San Andreas Fault with the intent of causing most of the state to slide into the ocean. As much as I hate to admit it, this science clearly supports your cousin's argument.
Exactly. But Bush wasn't in charge then.
I guess it must be the Chicago water...The lady's
logic is similar to another Chicagoan.,..Jesse, $$$
(the counter) Jackson....He is still counting Ohio votes for our wonderful and congenial President...G,W.Bush...
Excellent point! How many earthquaked happened in the regions where we did underground nuclear testing on a regular basis?
Come to think of it, all that nuking above ground and we didn't even manage to sink the Bikini Atoll.
Forget it. Your suggestion requires thought and a degree of intelligence in order to achieve comprehension. The first is something a liberal is not capable of and the latter is something totally alien to them.
It's all about the emotion, man.
So there you have it -- more proof from the James Bond film "A View to Kill" in which Zorin planned to cause a series of devastating earthquakes along various fault lines in California.
LOL! They're busted again! I haven't seen that movie in so many years I've lost count
Suggest emigration to Kanuckistan...
Your friend watches MUCH too much TV.
Um... why blame Australia? If you read this article (which incidentally was originally published in a British paper I believe), you'll see it's an article talking about how absurd claims that suggest that the tsunami was caused by the US are, and that the US is being unfairly criticised in quite a number of ways.
Did the tsunami even get a look-in on US TV news between the holiday schmalz and the football games, I have been sneeringly asked once or twice this week by contemptuous British friends.
This bozo needs to find a better class of friends. His current buttbuddies make him look real bad.
If she's a MoveOn fan, she's probably a Michael Moore can do no wrong type.
In Moore's movie, he did not get permission, he did not ask, he unilaterally used the video of the USAF Major's burial at Arlington. He did not ask if his family the Major would be offended to know he INVOLUNTARILY appears in that film.
The Army Specialist who lost both arme below the elbow is mad that Moore used his NBC News video and that Moore edited it to convey a message other than what that soldier expressed.
Though the movie made $225 Million (almost a quarter BILLION),....PLUS....DVD sales, DVD/Tape rental, Pay Per View, Cable, Internet Downloads and he got paid for all his campus appearances, those two military folks got NADA, ZERO, ZIP,...not even an empty cheeseburger wrapper from Moore.
Some hero of the left. He's Gordon Gecko of "Greed Is Good" fame.
>> He's Gordon Gecko of "Greed Is Good" fame. <<
That's being too generous. Moore is slime.
Believe me if she is as dumb as she sounds she sure as heck would not understand scientific arguments. The fact is, she doesn't want to understand.
I'm glad Jerry Rivers hasn't jumped in and started emoting.
It goes to reason then that if BUSH/AMERICA is so powerful as to cause the earthquake (9.0!!) and the subsequent tsuanami which has killed over > 100,000 people - and this in a time of PEACE; I would really shudder if BUSH/AMERICA was really pissed and wanted to create harm in the world and take off the kids gloves (and forget about bowing to the piss police at the U.N.).
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