Et tu, Brute?
by Volker Weber
I take the liberty to remove comments that do not follow my very simple rules: You need to enter your real name and an email I can respond to. This is hard to get, especially for my fellow countrymen. Sometimes it so happens that I also remove comments to protect the guilty. This comment would have been the only Google hit for this person:
A new comment has been posted on your blog vowe dot net, on entry #6263
(Katrina disaster relief).
http://vowe.net/archives/006263.html
IP Address: 84.131.45.196
Name: xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
Email Address: Michaelt@mailinator.com (yeah, right)
URL:
Comments:
Donating? Why?
Have you forgotten the deliberated insults and the threats shouted from 'gods own country' to 'old europe'? Have you forgotten the 'don't bother us' reactions in the course of the Iraq invasion? Yes, of cause there are some people in trouble. But sorry, I can't donate. I haven't forgotten.
Let me help you a little bit with something that happened 60 years ago. This organisation helped to protect both of my parents from starvation. That was after some "deliberated insults" which put millions and millions of people to death. There are real people behind an organisation like this. People who could forget, people who could donate. Their hearts had not died. As yours has.
Thanks for listening.
Comments
Well said, Volker. Thanks
I cooled down. Thought it over again and calculated a bit.
I already made a donation but it would well seem worth $500 to me to publicly spit in the face of this cold-hearted arrogant german creep.
Since I can't accomplish this I will hand over the money to a U.S. relief fund as a donation instead.
My deepest sympathy and condolescense to all the victims of this desaster, our thoughts and wishes are with you no matter what. A lot of us are still aware that we owe you much more than that.
One should certainly keep a reasonable distance to things like this. Arguably, the U.S. (as a country, an organization) have taken some lonely and disputable decisions, which have caused many innocent people's death. And arguably, last year's tsunami in Indonesia has affected and killed a by far larger number of people (even though the current counts are not yet known).
But first of all, the people who are suffering right now, are not to be taken responisble for the world politics their president/government is pursuing, even if they might have voted for him. Taking this down on them would pretty much put you in the same league with the U.S. government. And second of all, especiall we in Germany do owe a lot to the U.S., still. The U.S. and their world politics have repeatedly stood by the Germans and Germany and without that support Germany would most likely not be what it is today.
All, thank you for your concerns and donations! See Vowe's Katrina disaster relief posting for more...
And see here for a good report on the public reaction to Katrina and the disaster (in German though).
Well put Volker.
Please know that like the conflict you alude to, there are Americans that did not vote for the current administration. In fact, more Americans voted for someone *other* than the current President than voted for him in the first election. Unfortunately, the little thing called the Electorial College allows for that travesty.
I just hope that the IT community can either hold the political fences down, or rise above them.
Good work, keep it up.
Ragnar, der Spiegel Artikel ist so ziemlich das schlechteste was ich in der letzten Zeit gelesen hatte.
Ich finde es richtig zu spenden und zu helfen, wenn Menschen in Not sind.
Ich finde es ebenfalls richtig, Konsequenzen aus solchen Tragödien zu ziehen. Dazu gehört auch, Ursachen zu erkennen und nach Möglichkeit zu beheben. An der Stelle bin ich mal gespannt, ob dies auch von der US Regierung so gesehen wird.
Außerdem: Es ist nicht Aufgabe von Trittin Krokodilstränen zu vergießen, wenn es ihm darum geht, für Umweltschutz und die Einhaltung des Kyoto Protokolls einzutreten. Claus Christian Malzahns Bemerkungen diesbezüglich finde ich jedenfalls nicht angemessen.
Volker,
My hat is off to you sir.
Namaste - the god in me bows to the god in you.
Yes. It's important to remember that the world is made up of individuals.
My respect for you was already very high. It is now even greater.
Forgiving and moving on doesn't mean you have to forget. Not-forgetting is, in fact, required so as not to do stupid things again.
Corruption and demagoguery may well flourish in some places as a result of this disaster. But the human suffering remains real, and the victims are generally innocent (excepting looters, of course).
