Tuesday, May 06, 2008

We bitch way too much

As Americans, we bitch and complain way too much. Even with a shitty President and a shitty economy, we don't know how good we have it until something horrible happens elsewhere in the world.

Take Hurricane Katrina for example. The whole country, and the south in particular, raised hell because no one did anything to protect New Orleans when they knew it would someday happen. When it did happen, we were appaled at the lack of response on both state and federal levels. At least 1,836 people dies because of Katrina.

Now, you've all seen the news story about Cyclone Nargis that hit Burma. A cyclone is basically a hurricane. A meteorologist would say there are differences, but you and I both know that they're very similar. 22,000 people are confirmed dead with another 41,000 people missing. Those numbers will go up. Think about that for a minute. Twenty Two Thousand.

Yes, our country has seen better days, I'll admit that. However, even with the slow response of the goverenment, ONLY 1,836 people died in Katrina. At least the people in Katrina had houses that didn't fold up and become shrapnel in winds over 75 mph. At least the folks in Katrina weren't so god damned poor that they had to cram their entire families in those piss-poor shacks just to have some kind of a roof over their heads.

We consider Katrina to be one of this country's worst natural disasters. The Indian/Burmese region has lost at least 470,000 people to cyclones in the last 35 years or so, and that's just the total from FOUR cyclones. That's not even counting the tsunami in 2004. In fact, on the list of the 10 worst natural disasters in history, none of them are in the United States.

25,000 people died of starvation every day in 2003. That's over nine million dead in a single year. Think about that, and then tell me that we as a country have a reason to bitch.