Help is even being offered from across the ocean, as over two dozen countries have stepped forward to offer financial and material support to the American people.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Whatever help we may want from the international community now or in the future, we want to make sure that this help is tailored to help our people to help themselves.
True, other countries are helping us. Germany is determined to provide substantial help. So are the Netherlands and other states. But a day will come when we have to count on our own resources.
But the Americans have no extra money. They have their own problems. They can provide financial assistance for two, three, four, or six months at most.
I think, like many others, I realized that only the massive introduction of American support in one form or another, could possibly bring about a rehabilitation of the economies of those countries within a reasonable time.
You try and help something, and later on it bites you, so it's a hard decision, but as a country, as a nation, people need our help.
Help is dangerous because it exists outside the human economy: the only payment for help is gratitude.
There's been a deliberate and systematic effort to convey to countries around the world, friends and foes, that if they cross the United States there's a price to pay.
When you're supported by millions all over the world, you can either go nuts, or try to feed off the goodwill.
The American way is to not need help, but to help.
We do foreign assistance for altruistic reasons, certainly for humanitarian reasons, of course. But the main reason we do foreign assistance is we do it in the American national interest.