to find this comment ridiculous and ignorant (fb, sorry)

[manicinsomniac]

It could well be me who is being ignorant and unreasonable so feel free to say so!

On facebook today one of my friends (well, not a friend but a lady I know) has written:

"I wonder how many foreign countries will send aid for our flood victims."

to which another lady I know has replied:

"I know! We always help others out but nobody helps us."

Seriously? They think other countries should help us, one of the richest first world countries in the world?

My aunt is flooded out. She's had to balance her thousands of pounds worth of antique furniture on bricks and move the whole family to the second and third storey - not quite homelessness is it?! (I do realise there are many people who will find it difficult to recover financially from what has happened to them but we surely can't say our country couldn't provide the resources and help necessary can we?)

Anybody living in a flooded out area (or anywhere really) who can tell me if IABU or not? Her whole tone just seemed really off to me.

I could unfriend. I probably should.

But
a) I'm chicken (it would be noticeable because of a hobby group we're both in which does most of its between meeting communication on fb)

b) If I defriend all such obnoxiousness what can I get all righteously offended about on mn?!

manic

See, this is why I daren't do FB. It seems to me, judging from these threads, that you could discover without any warning that someone you thought was OK is actually a dick. Then you have to work out what to do. Far better not to know the contents of aquaintances minds.

aren't people dim sometimes, as if the scale of the problems some people are sadly currently having in the UK echoes the tsunami or the philipines or something.

some people don't know how lucky we bloomin are in this country - even if your power is off for several days and your house takes months to sort out because its flooded, at least you are not dying from having to drink dirty water etc

OP can you hide her newsfeed?

I'd respond personally, she might not take any notice but I do think that people who are openly ignorant need to be told that they are exactly that and have a few facts and home truths thrown at them. Otherwise they'll go on thinking that they are in the right and that everyone agrees with them.

This is probably why people keep deleting me though

very true newt, it can be scary at times.

pixietrix - yes, probably, if I look at the settings. Good idea.

And we in the US were very grateful for all the help after Katrina. Many people still have never truly recovered, although they have gotten on with things.

Kewcumber, you were asking about the help we received. This may interest you:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina

OP, you can't cure stupid, as we say here. DH and I have a friend who thinks that Rush Limbaugh is the second coming. DH has had to 'unfriend' him on FB because of the vile things he posted as 'news'. I suggest you do the same.

aren't people dim sometimes, as if the scale of the problems some people are sadly currently having in the UK echoes the tsunami or the philipines or something."

If only we could get that message across, the three (publicised) suicides that have happened over the last few days, because their disability benefits and housing allowance had been cut, might not of happened.

I agree that there are some pig ignorant comments around immigration, but there has been a very clever blame campaign fueling them.

unfriend just because they a different opinion , really .

OP if you go on her profile it will show you the unfriend option. Click on that and it will say are you sure and will give you a list I.e block/hide newsfeed/unfriend. Click hide newsfeed and it stops popping up on your screen then but you can still see her statuses when you click/search her name and she can still see yours. I don't normally unfriend they normally unfriend me when I've debated challenged for racist/abusive/homophobic or xenaphobic statuses! . The others that are close to the edge are now hidden from my news feed. It means I can still connect with them but I don't have to see half the drivel the minority post.

I would never unfriend someone because of a simple difference in opinion heartshape I've actually never done it and probably won't this time either.

But it's that picture that has really bothered me, not the comment I originally posted about (I hadn't seen the picture at the time). That's beyond an opinion, it's vile, racist bigotry.

brokenhearted I (just from memory of the discussion aroun it at the budget last year) that the justification of continuing to fund some countries (like India) is that we fund specific things that make sure help goes to those who are most in need.

Whether we ought to do this and instead leave them to petition their own government to spend the money on the poor rather than a space programme is a moot point.

You could argue that America has many poor people and we don;t give them aid (usually) because we believe its a domestic issue not an international aid issue. I suspect because we still feel partly responsible for the huge inequalities in those countries we colonised.

Interesting BBC article on aid to india

""The case for continued UK aid to India is about a third of all the world's poor who live there," says Dr Sumner. "These 450 million poor people are often lower caste and very marginalised."

The debate is sure to continue. But given that the Indian government has debated whether it wants to continue receiving UK aid, the final word on the matter may not come from British shores."

I beleive aid to INdia will ease in 2015 but can;t remember where I read that

Some people do not know they are born.

And facebook seems to be the place where ignorance flourishes without any consequence, sadly.

Anyone who thinks a soggy carpet is a 'disaster' or they are a 'flood victim' needs a dictionary and a sense of proportion.

Although I hear that a group of Ethiopian musicians have been so moved by tales of damp parker knolls and water damaged Skyplus boxes in the recent floods that they are organising a charity record.

Take a look at the comments on Yahoo, under the news items for UK flooding. Most of the comments are along the same lines. Yahoo comments are overwhelmingly to do with "foreigners" taking from the UK in one way or another. So your friend may be stupid, but she is just repeating back what loads of people around her are saying (and prob what she is reading in the DM, so it must be true). Why not talk it through with her.

Dromedary - she's 40 years older than me, treats me like I'm 5, is reeeally tough and scares me shitless. But maybe I should anyway! so not going to

Unless you have actually lost everything in a flood, then I don't think you really should be making snide comments about what people have lost. I had friends and family lose everything in the Queensland floods, and it really was heartbreaking for them. They may have luxury items, but they still also have family heirlooms and photographs. They paid their insurance premiums for years, then the insurance companies decided to try and find loopholes and not pay out. Friends of mine have been living in a tent in their backyard since the floods because the insurance companies won't fix their home. Another friend is still undergoing counselling because the flash flooding came through so quickly she only had time to climb on to the roof of her stables and had to listen to her horses drowning inside until she was rescued by helicopter.

It's not something I want to experience, and I think those that dismiss the feelings of other people are extremely nasty. We should all be thankful when we haven't experienced any sort of crisis, or have survived such things, no matter where we are in the world. If you can afford to help, either monetarily or physically, then help. If not, then shut up and stop denegrating others who don't see borders when it comes to helping out people in a crisis.

YANBU