So I imagine everyone has heard about that cyclone that devastated Myanmar (Burma) over the weekend. I heard on the news this morning that there were something like 15,000 dead or missing. Wow. I heard on NPR yesterday that the Myanmar government wasn't doing much to help out their people, and because they are so wary of outsiders they were not immediately willing to accept outside aid. Now that's pretty bad--every government has a responsibility to take care of its citizens. That's sort of the point of government. But the capper for me was seeing Laura Bush hold a press conference and chastise the Myanmar government for letting its people down in the wake of the storm. Apparently the Bush Administration doesn't think the Myanmar government is acting fast enough or giving enough back to the poor people whose lives were destroyed in this storm. Sound familiar?
I'm all for learning from mistakes, and if the Bush administration came out and said, "Learn from us, don't do what we did. You have to help these people out, even if they ARE poor," then I'd be a little more okay with it. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think the Bush administration wants to again act like the world's parent (all the while advocating small government) and pull the old "do as I say, not as I do" line, which is crap. I get really frustrated when I see people complaining about or getting mad at something someone else does when the person getting mad does the same thing. Its like an inversion of the Golden Rule: instead of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," its "don't get pissed about other people doing thing you do too." Let some other country call them out. Ask some other country to call them out. Then you can agree with them. But don't do it yourself. At the very least, get someone other than a Bush to do it.
I'm all for learning from mistakes, and if the Bush administration came out and said, "Learn from us, don't do what we did. You have to help these people out, even if they ARE poor," then I'd be a little more okay with it. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think the Bush administration wants to again act like the world's parent (all the while advocating small government) and pull the old "do as I say, not as I do" line, which is crap. I get really frustrated when I see people complaining about or getting mad at something someone else does when the person getting mad does the same thing. Its like an inversion of the Golden Rule: instead of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," its "don't get pissed about other people doing thing you do too." Let some other country call them out. Ask some other country to call them out. Then you can agree with them. But don't do it yourself. At the very least, get someone other than a Bush to do it.
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