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| 5/25 |
| 2005/9/2-3 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:39434 Activity:nil |
9/1 Germany on Katrina:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372425,00.html
\_ America on Katrina:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/lead-religious-right-group-promotes.html
\_ I find this article to be just as tasteless as what it's
complaining about.
"It's not the American people's fault that the storm hit
and they couldn't have stopped it. The Germans, on the
other hand, could have done a lot to prevent World War
II. And yet, care packages still rained down from US
troops. Trittin's know-it-all stance is therefore not
only tasteless, it is also historically blind." |
| 5/25 |
|
| service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372425,00.html Feedback ---- GERMAN CALLOUSNESS Kicking Hurricane Victims While They're Down By Claus Christian Malzahn Hurricane Katrina has cost the lives of hundreds and devastated the US Gu lf Coast. But instead of aid donations and sympathy, the Americans have heard little more than a haughty "I told you so" from Germany. It's anot her low point for trans-Atlantic relations -- and set off by a German mi nister. Zoom AP Hurricane Katrina was, says one German minister, America's own fault. For the record: German Chancellor Gerhard Schrder offered his condolence s to US President George W Bush for the Hurricane Katrina disaster that has hit the Gulf Coast. Both he and his fellow Germans, Schrder wrote, feel "great sympathy for the fate of those people affected by the hurri cane." No pledges of aid money, no annou ncements of immediate help -- although finally, two days later, the Germ an interior minister did manage to come out with a hesitant offer of ass istance. And let's be honest, the crisis region this time around isn't i n the Third World, but is in the United States of America. There really isn't much of a need for German helpers -- experienced as they may be fr om aid missions from Kosovo to Afghanistan -- because the American autho rities are already doing as much as can be done. Nevertheless, German aid money delivered to American aid agencies would s urely be welcome on the other side of the Atlantic. But apparently, peop le over here believe that the Americans over there don't really need hel p Strange. The same people who normally spend their time pointing their holier-than-thou fingers at the ghettos and slums in the US, the same o nes who describe America as an out-of-control capitalist monster, are no w, when the Americans could really use a bit of help, oddly quiet. Cold and malicious Apparently the Americans had it coming: "The American president has close d his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes su ch as Katrina -- in other words, disasters caused by a lack of climate p rotection measures -- can visit on his country." None ot her than Jrgen Trittin, Germany's minister of the environment. Zoom DDP German Minister of the Environment Jrgen Trittin. At a moment when the dead on the Gulf Coast are still being counted, the German minister of the environment could think of nothing better to do t han -- in an essay published Tuesday in the center-left daily Frankfurte r Rundschau -- to blame the US itself for the catastrophe. The piece is 493 words long, and not a single one of them is wasted to express any so rt of sympathy for the victims of the storm. The worst of it is that Tri ttin isn't alone with his cold, malicious tenor. The coverage from much of the German media tends in the same direction: If Bush had only listen ed to Uncle Trittin and signed the Kyoto Protocol, then this never would have happened. Trittin's article is a slap in the face to all the victims. Let 's just assume that the environment minister is right, that there is a d irect relationship between greenhouse gases and Hurricane Katrina. Even still this would hardly be the time for yet another round of America bas hing and finger pointing. Three years ago, just before the US election, former Minister of Justice Hertha Dubler Gmelin compared US President G eorge W Bush to Adolf Hitler. This time, with German elections looming, the environment minister is using a natural catastrophe as an excuse to once again campaign with subtle anti-Americanism and to unabashedly pat himself on the back. A "Kyoto Two" is "desperately needed" screamed the headline over his insensitive attack. Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In-Box ev eryday. There are scientists and Nobel Prize winners who see the problem of globa l warming totally different than Trittin. Many consider the fight agains t AIDS, hunger and malaria as higher priorities than a reduction of carb on dioxide output. Last year, some of these experts jointly published th e "Copenhagen Consensus," in which they outlined the greatest problems f acing the world. And believe it or not, the scientists are not on the payroll of the Texas oil industry. Right now, the situation cal ls for empathy with the people in the American south who are suffering t he after effects of the massive storm. It's not the American people's fault that the storm hit and they couldn't have stopped it. The Germans, on the other hand, could have done a lot to prevent World War II. And yet, care packages still rained down from U S troops. Trittin's know-it-all stance is therefore not only tasteless, it is also historically blind. nach oben ---- International > NEWSLETTER Please take a moment to complete this required one-time registration proc ess and subscribe to the SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL newsletter as e-mail. Hurricane Aftermath: 'Katrina' and America's Race Problems SPIEGEL ONLINE SPIEGEL BLOG The SPIEGEL Blog offers a quick take on the day's news and other blips th at cross our radar. |
| americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/lead-religious-right-group-promotes.html com by John Aravosis & friends "Peppered with obscenity" - Concerned Women for America "A particularly angry activist" - Family Research Council "Bunch of wackos" - Rush Limbaugh Shop AMERICAblog! Now that I'm working on the blog full-time, this is my principal source of income. Or feel free to use snail mail: John Aravosis, PO Box 21831, Wash, DC 20009 Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure! American Family Association's propaganda orga n AgapePress. It's one thing when some nutjob says this, it's another wh en the American Family Association, one of the LARGEST and most powerful groups of the radical right, gives those nutjobs air time. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way . Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin commo n to the city. The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Chri stians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual ev ent known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" even t scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt. N ew Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the wit chcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now ," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again." "It's time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won' t have to deal with that wickedness," he says. Believers, he says, are God's "authorized representatives on the face of the Earth" and should say they "don't want unrighteous men in office," for example. In addition, he says Christians should not hesitate to vo ice their opinions about such things as abortion, prayer, and homosexua l marriage. "We don't want a Supreme Court that is going to say it's al l right to kill little boys and girls, ... it's all right to take praye r out of schools, and it's all right to legalize sodomy, opening the do or for same-sex marriage and all of that. US politics overall with a particular focus on the Bush Administration, t he radical right, and gay civil rights. John Aravosis is a Washington DC-based writer and political consultant, s pecializing in using the Internet for political advocacy. John has a joint law degree and masters in foreign service from Georgetow n, where he studied under former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. John's policy experience includes stints in the US Senate, the World Bank , and the Children's Defense Fund. John is also an occasional TV pundit, having appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, A BCNews World News Tonight, CNN, Court TV, and more. John speaks five lan guages and has visited or worked in 28 countries. Michael Giltz Michael is a freelance writer based in New York City who covers politics, sports, religion and especially pop culture (including movies, music, b ooks, theater, TV, and DVDs). He's written more than one thousand review s, features, opinion columns and cover stories for The Advocate, the New York Post, Entertainment Weekly, Premiere, New York magazine, Out, The Weekly Standard, Disney Adventures, In Theatre, USA Today, the Denver Po st and many others. As an expert on politics and pop culture, Michael Giltz has appeared on T V in Germany, the Basque region, MSNBC and other cable channels. For rad io, he's appeared on NPR in Boston, and other local and nationally syndi cated radio shows including Sirius Satellite Radio's gay and sports chan nels. |