The Philippine’s is a place of geographical, political, fiscal and meteorological interest. It has a vast population of very poor people, scrounging out a living on the metaphorical “dollar-a-day” bull-shit cited by utopian inspired Westerners trying to do a good thing.
What if the crappy excuses for homes that millions live in were built to British Standard? Maybe we’d pay more for our t-shirts! Imagine the uproar! “I’m writing to my MP!” It’s my human right that someone else on the other side of the world lives like a rat to ensure I live like a King.
What if we as Westerners were less concerned with cheap “goods” than a liveable wage – you know – a wage WHERE PEOPLE CAN ACTUALLY LIVE and NOT JUST GET BY?
Oh yes, it’s a job, isn’t it? A job created by multi-nationals and governments to GIVE US cheap clothes – the whining, price- obsessed bastards that we are! “Well, at least they have a job!” we pathetically cry! REALLY!! Are you taking the proverbial and actual piss!
Well, at least during the worst storm in recorded history, they’ll be safe in their factory…..! Safe as what? Philippino housing for the poor! Oh, maybe they can rush to their own personal houses! Did I say “houses”, aww shucks… I mean shacks! You know, the kind of shacks built to withstand a Philippino Super-Storm, named Haiyan! “But…” I hear the wealthy (i.e. Westerner) cry, “…there’s not a lot one can do about a Super-Storm, I mean, it’s a Super-Storm…!” Nothing? NOTHING? Really? REALLY??
How about building houses like the safe hotels that the rich book into when a storm hits? Oh yeah, the rich have access to such wonders!
How about the West stop having a pity party for disaster and start doing something BEFORE not AFTER? How about less collection more action. By collection, I mean your pathetic pennies put into a tin as you go into “your” supermarket of choice – BECAUSE THEY HAVE REALLY CHEAP AVACODO’S.
I know, how about we stop living cheaply and start living. Living in such a way that we do not see disaster relief as a humanitarian act, but GET IN THE FACE OF GOVERNMENT to stop cheap living. How about we stop thinking, “At least they’ve got a job,” to “Gosh, if this person is educated [as they should be, as is their right], maybe they have it within themselves to find the cure for Cancer!” How many Nobel Peace Prize winners are [not] found in Third World factories, Sweat Shops, and crappy shanty towns (“Western viewers may find the following scenes upsetting” – well my heart bleeds for you)!
The only “Act of God” coming is the one on injustice. Global capitalism, cheap labour, poor housing, faceless people…..people made in the image of God….For God’s sake! The storm was bad, but imagine it in Croydon, or Manchester, or Chicago! GO ON, IMAGINE!
This storm is not an act of God, as some would like to neatly argue. Get your arse down to the Philippine’s and see for yourself: the disaster here is entirely man made. Greed, poverty, capitalist interest and sheer de-humanisation are the real causes. Mud slides are caused by de-forestation, which is caused by unaccountable commercial interest, which is caused by global capitalism, which is caused by the free-market economy of the West. And we have the balls to worry about our pensions!
Dammit! What was the Philippino word for pension again…. anyone…..?
Act of God! Piffle. Let’s be honest: The storm may be a phenomenon of nature, but much [most] of this disaster is an Act of Man!
Gralefrit Theology 
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