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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to make a bitchy response to this fb status

164 replies

SwanseaSlapper · 26/08/2010 22:09

"We have Troops fighting a war without proper equipment..... Yet we donate millions to other countries before helping our own first. 99% of people on facebook won't have the guts to copy and repost this. WILL YOU, I thought charity began at home!!!"

It just offends me.

OP posts:
ThatVikRinA22 · 26/08/2010 23:12

didnt see this thread - just started one having had this circulated on my status

i DID comment!

BeerTricksPotter · 26/08/2010 23:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

clemetteattlee · 26/08/2010 23:15

My cousin's fiance is in Pakistan doing relief work for the flood (he was travelling, got stranded and is now working with the Red Cross). As Tippy says, I would assume more people on facebook would have family/friends in Pakistan than would have family in the armed services, simply because of the numbers involved.

VirginonRidiculous · 26/08/2010 23:16

Agree with BeerTricks

MmeLindt · 26/08/2010 23:35

TippyChooks
I did not mean to offend anyone, merely point out that many British citizens (and I don't know why you wrote "Brits" - I was not implying that citizens of Pakistani decent are not Brits) will have a friend or family member in the Armed Forces.

I have no idea how many Brits of Pakistani decent still have family back home, or who have been affected by the flooding.

Just that we tend to be more attentive to news that we know will affect someone we know personally.

fedupofnamechanging · 26/08/2010 23:48

Given that the troops have been sent abroad by the British govt, the govt has a duty to ensure they are properly equipped.

The govt has done nothing but tell us how skint the country is. That being the case, I believe that British taxpayers money should be spent here. I do not think the govt should be making cuts to benefits and public services while continuing to give money to people overseas.

If we were not in dire financial straits and had more cash than we needed, then of course some of it should go abroad.

Individuals should donate to charities if they want to, but the govt should not do so, when they are cutting from essential services let, right and centre.

sugarray · 26/08/2010 23:52

I posted this on the other thread too, but...

Hate facebook cut and paste bollox. I think we should give aid to other countries that need it, and we do often. We NEED our army to keep us Safe and who the hell do some of you think distributes that aid??? errrr our forces!?!

My husbands company donated a million pounds worth of medical supplys to haiti, only for it to be sent back by the red cross as nobody was able to distribute it! The army stepped in and did the job! So I'd say they are both just as importan

BarmyArmy · 26/08/2010 23:54

midori1999 - you can tell your DH he is wrong.

And as for it being "hugely over exaggerated[sic] by the press, tbh", the media have no idea just what a parlous state our forces were in in 2003.

laloue · 26/08/2010 23:56

thank god, just left idiotic fb row with narrow minded, jingoistic, relatives over exact same status update I said I felt it was heartless and lacking humanity...got nuked for not supporting "our boys"...which wasn't my point! Utterly aerated and frustrated and dreading seeing them in RL now!

clemetteattlee · 26/08/2010 23:56

I think midori's OH is in the armed forces (but I could be wrong)

MmeLindt · 26/08/2010 23:56

Karma
As I understand it, the foreign aid budget is completely seperate to the domestic services budget.

And I do not see it that way at all.

Yes, it is hard for people in UK at the moment but they are not starving, there are not millions of people in immediate danger of dying of cholera.

I think it is right that the government apportion part of the foreign aid budget for relief work in Pakistan.

clemetteattlee · 27/08/2010 00:01

Dear government, please give all of my money that you currently spend on Trident nuclear weapons to people who are dying in developing countries.
PS The stuff you are planning on spending on "free schools", could you please use that to keep my local sure start centre open and generally stop making my friends redundant.

fedupofnamechanging · 27/08/2010 00:06

I know we are not starving, but there are people here having a very hard time. I think that taxes are raised for the purpose of financing Britain and that should come first. If we have any left over then I am happy to see it go abroad.
Don't think these budgets should be seperate. We either have money or we don't. I think that if the British population was asked to choose between having fewer cuts/job losses here and not giving money as foreign aid or giving the money but having more cuts to essential services, I honestly think that that most people would choose to give up foreign aid.

I think it would be lovely to be able to do everything but I just don't think Britain is up to it at the moment.

colditz · 27/08/2010 00:10

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

clemetteattlee · 27/08/2010 00:10

But karma, the current government is making cuts to essential services, whilst spending more on non-essential ones here in Britain. I think/hope that you are wrong about most people choosing to give up foreign aid.

colditz · 27/08/2010 00:18

karma, where is this "us" and "them" attitude coming from?

By refusing to give, you are watching people die. You are watching children die. You are watching their mothers die.

Could you stand in your living room, and watch a four year old child lie in the street and shit his last breathe out with cholera because you "don't feel we're doing very well at the moment"?

Why is it different when you can't see them? It's still happening you know! Are you so blind, so blinkered, so inutterably selfish that you cannot see your children's faces in the faces of those pakistani children?

fedupofnamechanging · 27/08/2010 00:22

clemetteattlee I agree with you regarding govt spending on non essentials. The govt should not be spending this way as it has a duty to be doing all it can to save money before cutting essentials. Unfortunately I do think it means cutting foreign aid too.

Perhaps if the govt made fewer cuts, and increased our sense of job security, we would feel able to donate more money directly to charities. I think the current climate makes people hang on to whatever money they may have and charities do suffer. However, it is not the responsibility of the govt to donate that money for us while simultaneously making life here harder

MmeLindt · 27/08/2010 00:25

Karma
No man is an island.

And no country is alone in this world.

We are pretty damned privileged, those of us Earth-dwellers who live in Western Europe.

Even the "normal" living conditions in the rural villages before the floods would have been extremely primitive in comparison to our luxurious lifestyles.

Of course it is hard to give up services that we have become accustomed to. And it is unfair that some of our friends and family are going to lose their jobs. But they will not starve. They will not (normally) be homeless. We have a Welfare State that will scoop up the desolate and the destitute and provide basic services.

My DH has a saying, "Wir jammern auf sehr hohem Niveau", which was originally from Helmut Kohl, iirc. It means that we complain from a position of great privilege.

colditz · 27/08/2010 00:32

karma, did you read my post or do you prefer not to be reminded that inaction means death for small children?

fedupofnamechanging · 27/08/2010 00:37

colditz I would love for Britain to be able to fix the worlds problems, but it cannot. Tax is raised for the purpose of supporting this country and my priority is my childrens future. That means I want there to be properly funded schools, healthcare etc. That is what my DH is working his arse off to pay for. If there are cuts and job losses then it is our families who will suffer. If it comes to a choice then I choose my families wellbeing over someone elses.

If the govt could save money by not cutting things that we need, then I would be happy to see money sent abroad. I do not think this is going to happen though.

fedupofnamechanging · 27/08/2010 00:41

MmeLindt We have a welfare state because peoples taxes pay for it. If we increase unemployment, where does this money come from?
colditz Please give me a chance to reply before getting sarky

BitOfFun · 27/08/2010 00:44

These sort of statuses are as bad as those crappy texts you sometimes get about angels etc asking you to resend them to your fwend and ten others. It's a chain letter basically, and best left to teenagers.

BarmyArmy · 27/08/2010 00:55

clemetteattlee - that may be so...nevertheless, he is wrong.

A small example - in 2003, after I had deployed to the Middle East to take part in Op Telic (Gulf War II), we were informed that all respirators (gas masks) had to be tested, in order to check that they were fully functional.

Mine was never tested. Because so many of them failed the tests, it was decided it would be better to say that they had never been tested, rather than allow them to be used, knowing they had failed.

The tip of the iceberg...

BarmyArmy · 27/08/2010 00:59

colditz - what an incredible over-reaction of yours to karmabeliever!?!

You really think that such emotional blackmail is the way to get people to contribute?

Let her make her own choices and live with them, as you have with yours.

LadyRabbit · 27/08/2010 01:04

karma I don't mean to weigh in with the flaming, but clearly you have never witnessed Third World poverty first hand. And I mean the 'usual' poverty experienced there, never mind what happens to exceptionally fragile nations when they are hit by natural disaster.

We don't know we're f*ing born in this country. Our version of poverty has a safety net, no matter that it is under strain, it still exists and no child need die from disease or famine in the UK. Even if there are job losses, even if there are NHS cuts, benefit cuts, school funding cuts - that we even have these things and that everyone is entitled to use them is nothing short of a miracle.

Sorry, I really don't mean to attack you personally as I can see you are coming from the place of wanting to look after your own, and that's understandable, but Pakistan and Haiti (which is speedily being forgotten) are so off the scale in terms of destruction and widespread disaster that to begrudge a proportion of our taxes going towards helping these nations is just mean and churlish.