$40 Mill for the Prez's Party -- $15 Mill for the Homeless, Sick & Dying

There's a great deal of "let me help by doing figuratively nothing" thinking on the Internet as a result of the tens of thousands dead and millions made homeless as a result of the earthquake and resulting tsunami. What am I criticizing? Posts like this, and I've run across this exact same post -- almost in the exact same order -- on about a dozen blogs now.

Don't get me wrong. I like this guy's blog. He is often a brilliantly funny writer. But this sort of post is worse than nothing, because it gives the poster a sense that he's done something altruistic, when he's actually done nothing useful at all -- just recycled information already made available in hundreds of locations already.

Are you a blogger and you'd like to help? Actually go and give money to those relief organizations. Don't just post links and feel as if you've done something. This is one situation where passing along information is doing nothing. I don't consider that this blog entry, for example, will help anyone actually suffering out there. But when I open my wallet after my next paycheck and send something, that'll help.

In the days after September 11, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo collected millions upon millions from the American public at an amazing speedy rate. Why aren't we doing that now? Because we weren't attacked? BECAUSE IT'S NOT US?

And ... why not just let our government send relief?

Well, our government isn't sending troops as relief workers. They're needed to die so we can secure our oil companies' profits over in Iraq.

And it's sending money, but it isn't really sending money. Yes, we're sending $15 million, but did you happen to notice we're spending $40 million on the President's inauguration? And that's not even the funds we'll be spending on His Excellency's security.

So if it's going to come from somewhere, it's got to come from the American people. But of course, it won't. I don't have faith in the American populace finding enough compassion within themselves to do anything massively considerable. We're more concerned about our own daily lives.

And as for those idiot neocons in the White House who claim to believe in Jesus Christ, let me outright post part of the passage of Scripture I mentioned on Christmas:

I was hungry and you gave me no meal, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was homeless and you gave me no bed, I was shivering and you gave me no clothes, sick and in prison, and you never visited. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

I honestly am not sure if I believe Christ was Lord, but it's amazingly galling that people who confess to believe in His teachings are so blatantly ignoring such a central lesson of their faith when there are, at one whack, millions of hungry, thirsty, homeless, shivering, sick people out there.

Never before has our leaders' hypocrisy been painted in such bright, primary colors.