Thursday, September 01, 2005

What kind of sacrifices to make

This is a good idea from DailyKos.
Right now, with the humanitarian situation on the Gulf Coast already worse than imaginable, anyone who can - anyone with any human decency - must be called upon to make a sacrifice and help out our fellow men and women.

So here's my proposal. I don't even think it'll be that painful. I'm just not going to be giving any holiday gifts when December comes around this year. Instead, I'm going to give whatever I might have spent on presents to hurricane relief efforts instead. Goodness knows that the Gulf Coast refugees need it more than anyone I know needs a new video game or handbag.

Any thoughts on ways we can make a few sacrifices for our fellow Americans who were victims of the flood in Louisiana and Mississippi?

4 comments:

Gonzalo said...

Cool. Then you can give that money to me and I'll make sure my sister get's it. (She lives/lived down in New Orleans) Thanks Elaine :-)

Elaine said...

Yeah, is your sister okay, by the way? I was wondering what they are going to do about colleges. I heard elementary students and high schoolers are going to be enrolled in schools all over the country, a lot in Houston. That must be such a difficult disruption to life.

Will, I guess the truth is I'm abivalent about gifts too, so that's why I liked that thing on Kos. It also just suggests how little sacrifice Americans have had to make these last several years when holding off on buying gifts for the holidays becomes a sacrifice.

Elaine said...

I think states like France also value the role of government more, in part because they have smaller and more homogenous societies, but more glaringly because the political atmosphere here has become so anti-government. I don't think many of us even appreciate how radical the philosophy advanced in the last 20-years by Right interests has become that some of the most non-controversial and necessary roles of government, like disaster prevention and relief, have been attacked. Of course, the same people who subscribe to such radical ideas don't mind bailing out savings and loans or airlines with government money, so they're kind of fair weather "starve the beast"ers.

Elaine said...

I read that report from juancole.com. The situation is both sad and unacceptable. The fact that the stranded people have to call into a radio station to try to get rescue operations to them alone is just unacceptable.