Stingy Americans?: U.N. official's comment hits nerve

He_Who_Is_Steve said:
It's like when you cheat on a girl...years after, you're discussing what you should have for dinner, and you say "I want McDonald's." She then counters with, "Hey, remember how you cheated on me? Yeah, we're going to Chili's."
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Yup :) Life sucks don't it? :naughty:
 
I think its rediculous to call people who donate money stingy. If anything, you should call the people who don't donate, stingy.

I mean... this is akin to you walking on the streets of your town, seeing a needy homeless person, and stopping to give him twenty dollars. He in turn, tells you that you could have given more, and that you're an awful person for not doing so. What counts, is that you gave money to begin with.

I treat this commentary by the UN guy to be the same thing... "You didn't give this much or this much, so you're an awful, self serving nation, and it would have been better if you didn't give anything!"

I think all the countries that fall into the 'rich countries' category should be offended by the comment.
 
Sprafa said:
I loved gh0st not even thinking to acknowledge he made a mistake.
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What mistake? The US generalization from the CNN article? Already acknowledged. If you're talking about Iraq, I dont view that as a mistake. Frankly the discussion on it has gotten a little tired on these forums.

Raziaar said:
I think its rediculous to call people who donate money stingy. If anything, you should call the people who don't donate, stingy.

I mean... this is akin to you walking on the streets of your town, seeing a needy homeless person, and stopping to give him twenty dollars. He in turn, tells you that you could have given more, and that you're an awful person for not doing so. What counts, is that you gave money to begin with.

I treat this commentary by the UN guy to be the same thing... "You didn't give this much or this much, so you're an awful, self serving nation, and it would have been better if you didn't give anything!"

I think all the countries that fall into the 'rich countries' category should be offended by the comment.
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This is EXACTLY what Im trying to say.
 
look, i think people have gone way over the top on one minor comment which might not even be directed at the U.S, maybe its countries such as Japan?, UK? and even if it is at the U.S. Who cares? Well obviously many people do but they obviously need to find better usage of their time :D
 
Considering the US could happily say "go screw yourselves, we're big and nasty" and refuse to ever give aid, it could certainly be worse. Anyway, as said, the UN official never actually labelled America in name (generalising the west as a whole), and considering that the disaster will require billions in aid, it really does make the odd million sound pathetic. That said, fifteen million will repair one lone town. No difference? It sure as hell makes a difference to the people who used to live there before forty trillion gallons of water splattered their homes, thanks very much. There's no law saying "give all money upfront". Hell, there isn't even a law saying "give money". It's something that's done because there's an international community, even if people refuse to acknowledge it sometimes.

'Course, we could rewind the clock a hundred years or so, where the developed world would respond to such a horrific incident by a) ignoring it or b) taking advantage of the moment to invade and cause further hardship. Yep, Imperial Britain, host to so many lovely memories...
 
Despite what I said about thinking that the rich countries should be offended by the comment that they just aren't generous enough, I do think all these rich countries could afford to give more. Listening to the news, i'm kind of shocked how little is being donated by each of the countries. Millions? No... millions aren't enough from the global community, we need many billions. Hell, the Iraq war is costing hundreds of billions of dollars, the combined monetary donations of all these rich countries could indeed be at least a fraction of something such as that. Less than half a billion dollars so far pledged in aid by all these rich countries... yeesh, thats crazy.

But, still... I stand by the fact that you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you(not literally, its a figure of speech).
 
For once, gh0st we agree (ironically I believe, I've said that before, but sssshhhh) in a way. Of course the US could give morwe and perhaps should give more but it was still stupid and ungrateful of this representative to call the US contribution "stingy." Not only is that somewhat unfair, it's just asking for trouble.
The biggest problem I personally have with this is that, whilst the US is being branded stingy for pledging $35m, my own govt is doing pretty much F*ck All; a suburb of Next To Nothing. God save the Queen.
 
i think we should lock down the US and only talk to britan
 
el Chi said:
For once, gh0st we agree (ironically I believe, I've said that before, but sssshhhh) in a way. Of course the US could give morwe and perhaps should give more but it was still stupid and ungrateful of this representative to call the US contribution "stingy." Not only is that somewhat unfair, it's just asking for trouble.
The biggest problem I personally have with this is that, whilst the US is being branded stingy for pledging $35m (soon to be $1 billion), my own govt is doing pretty much F*ck All; a suburb of Next To Nothing. God save the Queen.
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Corrected. :thumbs:
 
Anyone else hear that France is giving 146k? Thought that was pretty...interesting.
 
Death.Trap said:
Anyone else hear that France is giving 146k? Thought that was pretty...interesting.
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Japans giving nearly 35 million dollars... France is giving just that much? If anythings stingy, thats practically pocket change.

The fact that our government was so swift to empty our own emergency funding for other countries, so quick to send troops, and so quick to give a billion dollars (and that doesnt even start the US contribution from private charities and our own citizens) really shows something.
 
and the fact as in a nother thread, the money has gone up to 100 million and the huge amounts of food and supplies we are sendnig over

damn cheap americans
 
Yeh it's great that he actually said America was stingy in that article.

OH SNAP!
 
^Ben said:
Yeh it's great that he actually said America was stingy in that article.
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Youre about 50 replies late. It doesnt matter anyway, its a reference to western countries, including the US.
 
sometimes i wonder how much they would give us, if we were in need :O
 
Kapitan Helion said:
And i think this is where i say... Ignorance
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I hope you're not referring to me, as I was talking about the US sending ships and weapons to England prior to our entering the war.
 
Stingy? How about we spend this money in America to fix our own problems first. Then we'll see how stingy they want to call us when they get nothing. We are putting other nations ahead of our own and we are called stingy? Get real you arrogant prick.
 
seinfeldrules said:
Stingy? How about we spend this money in America to fix our own problems first. Then we'll see how stingy they want to call us when they get nothing. We are putting other nations ahead of our own and we are called stingy? Get real you arrogant prick.
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read the whole thread seinfeldrules, he wasnt talking directly about americans ..all western countries ..and his comments were speculative because at the time it wasnt decided yet how much was to be donated
 
Eg. said:
obivously the world is jealous that we are so rich, and evil doers are causing natural disasters to make us spend more money

seriously, we should stop handing out moeny for 1 year and see how much they need us
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A rather childish claim don't you think? Especially considering the UK is currently the single biggest donating country...

Thank god our governments don't think like that.
 
Uh okay. So just becuase a country only donates 0.1***% of their total yearly profits, they get harrassed to give more.

Go pull off that crap to people who don't care about the world..

/edit Wow I just defended America for the first time. I feel funny.
 
We're mean because $35 million dollars isn't a lot of money :rolleyes:
 
When the British public gave more than that in the first day :O
 
The US has given more aide to foreign countries in the last 4 years than every other nation on the planet combined.

Trust me, the 35 million is just the start.
 
I wonder how much the 'enlightened' Canadians gave. I wonder if Stern donated 30% of his income as he feels the US should do...
 
read the whole thread seinfeldrules, he wasnt talking directly about americans ..all western countries ..and his comments were speculative because at the time it wasnt decided yet how much was to be donated
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Thats crap, it was clear who he was talking about. He isnt the only one either, people say this all the time.
 
Raziaar said:
And that number will only steadily get higher and higher as more funds become available, I am certain. I know people just 'love' bashing the US, but seriously, this is not the time. We're doing what we can to help, that should be commended.
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They don't care when they right time is to bash us, they take every opportunity they can get.
 
It must really suck to be a UN representitive or something like that.

I'd say "rasin cookies aren't great," and then CNN's would put "Canadian diplomat says US cookies are 'not great'" on that text crawl on the bottom of the screen. And Larry King would discuss the intricacies of my statement along with the CEO of Keebler or something while they show live footage of a mass of angry protesters throwing rasins at my car.
Then all these people are going to stuff cookies into their mouths by the handful, saying "Canadians hate our cookies huh? Well, we'll eat all the cookies ourselves and see how they like having absolutely no cookies. That'll make them cry."
Only their mouths would be full of cookies so it would sound like "Weh alf eet awuh koofies mafelf," and crumbs would get everywhere and it would make an awful mess.
And then there'd be a thread on the forums where seinfeldrules gets angry and Stern tells him to stop being angry and someone says something about Iraq and I would be very sad because thinking about the 'war on terror' makes me sad/angry.
Sadder/angrier than being pelted with rasins, and it would all be because of a half a sentence of vague criticism directed towards no-one in particular.
 
Mechagodzilla said:
It must really suck to be a UN representitive or something like that.

I'd say "rasin cookies aren't great," and then CNN's would put "Canadian diplomat says US cookies are 'not great'" on that text crawl on the bottom of the screen. And Larry King would discuss the intricacies of my statement along with the CEO of Keebler or something while they show live footage of a mass of angry protesters throwing rasins at my car.
Then all these people are going to stuff cookies into their mouths by the handful, saying "Canadians hate our cookies huh? Well, we'll eat all the cookies ourselves and see how they like having absolutely no cookies. That'll make them cry."
Only their mouths would be full of cookies so it would sound like "Weh alf eet awuh koofies mafelf," and crumbs would get everywhere and it would make an awful mess.
And then there'd be a thread on the forums where seinfeldrules gets angry and Stern tells him to stop being angry and someone says something about Iraq and I would be very sad because thinking about the 'war on terror' makes me sad/angry.
Sadder/angrier than being pelted with rasins, and it would all be because of a half a sentence of vague criticism directed towards no-one in particular.
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This mans on to something my friends.
 
Mechagodzilla said:
It must really suck to be a UN representitive or something like that.

I'd say "rasin cookies aren't great," and then CNN's would put "Canadian diplomat says US cookies are 'not great'" on that text crawl on the bottom of the screen. And Larry King would discuss the intricacies of my statement along with the CEO of Keebler or something while they show live footage of a mass of angry protesters throwing rasins at my car.
Then all these people are going to stuff cookies into their mouths by the handful, saying "Canadians hate our cookies huh? Well, we'll eat all the cookies ourselves and see how they like having absolutely no cookies. That'll make them cry."
Only their mouths would be full of cookies so it would sound like "Weh alf eet awuh koofies mafelf," and crumbs would get everywhere and it would make an awful mess.
And then there'd be a thread on the forums where seinfeldrules gets angry and Stern tells him to stop being angry and someone says something about Iraq and I would be very sad because thinking about the 'war on terror' makes me sad/angry.
Sadder/angrier than being pelted with rasins, and it would all be because of a half a sentence of vague criticism directed towards no-one in particular.
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That was awesome, I dub it best quote of 2004. And yeah, good point.
 
Mechagodzilla said:
It must really suck to be a UN representitive or something like that.

I'd say "rasin cookies aren't great," and then CNN's would put "Canadian diplomat says US cookies are 'not great'" on that text crawl on the bottom of the screen. And Larry King would discuss the intricacies of my statement along with the CEO of Keebler or something while they show live footage of a mass of angry protesters throwing rasins at my car.
Then all these people are going to stuff cookies into their mouths by the handful, saying "Canadians hate our cookies huh? Well, we'll eat all the cookies ourselves and see how they like having absolutely no cookies. That'll make them cry."
Only their mouths would be full of cookies so it would sound like "Weh alf eet awuh koofies mafelf," and crumbs would get everywhere and it would make an awful mess.
And then there'd be a thread on the forums where seinfeldrules gets angry and Stern tells him to stop being angry and someone says something about Iraq and I would be very sad because thinking about the 'war on terror' makes me sad/angry.
Sadder/angrier than being pelted with rasins, and it would all be because of a half a sentence of vague criticism directed towards no-one in particular.
Click to expand...


This is the exact same thing the rest of the world is doing, though, don't you see it? Any subject that is brought up, even if it doesn't have anything initially to do with the united states, all the attention gets focused on the United States, and its negative attention. No matter what the news topic, it usually seems to find a way to get spinned against the United States.
 
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