[extropy-chat] (no subject)

[matus at matus1976.com]

----- Original Message -----
--- Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
>> Why is it easier for people to contribute efforts
>> (money, time, etc)
>> for tragedies caused by a natural disaster than by
>> those caused by war,
>> genocides, deportations, etc?

Because they are manmade.  Helping the victims may
seem to tick off those who made them victims - and
thus, potentially make a victim of the donor.  ...This is not the entire reason, but it is part of it.

   -----------

100,000 people killed is the moderate estimate of the number of people killed by Saddam in the Shiite uprising post Gulf War I.  Whats the death toll in the Sudan now, 370,000?  Why is it that when a wave kills 100,000 people the world clamors over itself to prove its the most helpful, but when a government or a tyrant does it, its 'none of our business'  ANd what business does the NYT have blabbering about everyone ignoring the deaths from Malaria, you wouldnt even know people were dying from Malaria by reading the NYT.  

I really have to wonder what the world would be like if the media covered the murderous tyrants of the world as it does to this tragedy. If we saw relentless video footage of the victims of Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il, if survivors were interviewed daily and newspapers ran front page photos every day of the tortured, beaten, starved or grieving victims of these horrific regimes.  If we saw interviews with victims, videos of distressed starving people with nothing but the clothes on their back (there is plenty enough of that to go around in North Korea, and Burma, and Vietnam, and Laos, etc). Kofi Annan said of this tragedy "This is an unprecedented global catastrophe, and it requires an unprecedented global response. Over the past few days, it has registered deeply in the consciousness and conscience of the world as we seek to grasp the speed, the force and magnitude with which it happened" How is 100,000 dead 'unprecendented'? Have we never had to wrestle with grasping the speed, force, and magnitude in which Pol Pot took power and killed millions of Cambodians, or Saddam's Anfal campaign wiped out 10's of thousands of Kurds. Or Kim Jong Il's rusting factories and barren fields starved millions?  It is absurd and greatly distressing and angering. Why does the media and the international community not care when governments kill hundreds of thousands, but fight over each other to show support and help those in need when a wave or an earthquake does it?

Michael