Burma Cyclone Tragedy versus Katrinagate
It’s tempting to compare the immeasurable tragedy in Burma/Myanmar to the New Orleans devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. After all there are plenty of parallels.
Both were natural tragedies (“Acts of God” if you prefer) which caused untold loss of life and massive homelessness. (Yes I know the deaths in Myanmar were many many times higher than the deaths in New Orleans. I’m taking some leeway…)
And both tragedies were made immeasurably worse by the pathetic spastic “response” of a useless corrupt festering government.
But let’s be fair to the dictatorship in Myanmar. There’s at least one crucial difference between these two tragedies: the junta in Myanmar has warned against profiteering from the misery. There’ll be no Disaster Capitalism here, thank you very much. If you want to pull that kind of sleazy amoral shit, go to America.
This means: Blackwater — stay the fuck away.
cross-posted at Bring It On!
Labels: Blackwater New Orleans Katrina, Burma Myanmar cyclone, Disaster Capitalism, profiteer Myanmar
posted by Tom Harper @ 5:50 PM
11 Comments:
You hit the nail on the head. It's pretty bad when one dictatorship snubs it's nose at another dictatorship as if to say "we're not going to stoop to your level."
I wonder if Laura Bush feels that the Cyclone only affected the 'poor' Burmese more because they were more vulnerable?
Was the Burmese dictator strumming a git-tar while thousands of people died? That would make an even eerier comparison.
Vice: Maybe it's time for Tom DeLay to make a trip to Burma so he can tell millions of refugees "come on, boys, isn't this kind of fun?" And Barbara Bush can reiterate how her "beautiful mind" doesn't have room for such trivia.
Lew: Yeah, that would be a nice touch. That, and showing him looking out the window of his private plane as it's flying over the devastation.
I wonder what pastor Hagee has to say about this.
And let's hope the dictator (or whatever the fuck he is) of Myanmar has given up golf in the wake of this all. ;-)
Wow, there must be a lot of homosexual activity in Burma to have caused all this destruction.
But Tom, how can you have forgotten those images of Bush strolling past the devastation, how many lives were touched by those rolled-up sleeves?
Carlos makes a great point about Hagee.
Carlos, Kip: No doubt Hagee is ecstatic over this. Thousands of dark-skinned non-Christian furriners killed by an Act of God -- and that's just a little taste of the Rapture that's approaching.
Randal: Even if they aren't gay or abortion-loving, they worship a false idol. And that's enough to bring on the wrath of The Lord.
Your overall point is right on. However, the Junta's troops have apparently been taking a bunch of disaster-relief rice, other food and items for themselves. Presumably, the generals don't have to feed the population, but do have to feed the troops. So to the extent the troops rip off the disaster victims, the generals can save themselves some money.
It's mind boggling that these cretins can be so selfish and inhuman.
I notice Bush and Cheney aren't up for taking the generals out, however. No oil there, I reckon.
S.W.: No doubt, a backward Third World junta is worse than our government when it comes to handling a disaster. But still, with the similarities between "the Greatest Country in the World" and a 3rd world backwater police state -- this should be a complete embarrassment to Bush and all the cronies he's hired.
Yes, if Burma had oil they'd be receiving a lot more help from the West (or at least the wealthiest 1% of the Burmese population would be getting "helped").
Both countries don't want no foreigners pokin' around their bidness. Also, both countries are dictatorships, so............
Ron: Yup, the two countries have a lot in common.
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