American Views Abroad

 
The Lions Club in this neighborhood of Hamburg held its 6th Alstertaler Jazz Meeting yesterday and presented a 5,000 euros check to the US Consul General here. The check is to be passed on to one New Orleans family who lost everything in the flooding. The Jazz Meeting is a popular, well-attended event and the diplomat graciously recalled how the same Lions Club contributed $25,000 to the children of the victims of 9/11 in 2001. It is a strange feeling to be an American abroad and realize it's your country being the recipient of other people's generosity. On one hand, the US is an extraordinarily wealthy country who should be able to take care of its own and the hardship of what happened should have been prevented. The earthquake disaster in Pakistan and Kashmir where the misery of the survivors is being compounded by heavy rain and storms which grounded most relief flights and the fact, as presented in German news recently, that the world seems to have ignored the plight of lost villages and towns to flooding in Guatemala forces you to ask some serious questions about who should get what. On the other hand, there is a need in people to want to give back what they have received. Hamburg has a long tradition of jazz clubs; it knows first-hand the tragedy of floods; it remembers the help it received after the war and the 1962 flood.

Yet, something kept nagging at me. Perhaps it was the uncommonly gorgeous weather northern Europe has had for weeks now that makes the suffering of others far away seem surreal. Perhaps it is the grand coalition being put together in Berlin and how the pie is going to be divided --- what's going to come out of it for everyone. The following article in a San Francisco newspaper struck a chord: Making Ends Meet -- Struggling in Middle Class at
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/16/MNG7EF96GR1.DTL.

The author writes: 'The bigger picture is that the gap between Americans with the highest and lowest incomes is growing. High-wage earners now have so much disposable income that they are pulling up prices for everyone, economists say, and that is stretching middle-income households. Upper income families --- those earning more than 95% of Americans --- went from making $95,737 a year in 1970 to $164,104 in 2001, in constant dollars, a 72% increase. The very wealthiest Americans' income rose even faster. But the median household income rose only 21% in constant dollars between 1970 and 2004.'

What was nagging at me was the feeling that those attendees at the Jazz Meeting instinctively understand this point. There was a long line at the bank here during the worst of the NO flooding and a news channel on the TV there was displaying live scenes of the tragedy. All eyes were glued to it. The lesson learned watching those scenes was crystal clear. This is what happens when you drown the idea of government and what it's really there for --- the people.
- posted by Gloria @ 12:22 PM