patrick.net

You know people are going to think ill of you, for thinking that.
But it goes along the lines of what I was thinking the other day.

Haiti is like an aging sibling that wasn't as successful as the other. Then one day that sibling gets sick and homeless and needs money and help. Do you or can you, just turn your back and tell your brother, "Well this is what you get for wasting your life, or not being productive."?

Or more in this case, why did they build so much with out any steel?

This disaster is one thing, but for that country to build so much with out any reinforcement steel, was the real crime here.

One of my band mates asked us over the week end, "What are yall doing for the relief?"

I personally feel that what is the most single important thing of all is rescue equipment.
The Army core of Engineers has two stations that are less than 120 miles from POP.
Puerto Rico and in Guantanamo Cuba, we should have had Normandy beach style invasion the very next day before the sun rose, with Caterpillars, bull dozers, Front end loaders, road scrapers, you name it. They were in need excavation equipment and earth movers.

We dropped the ball seriously on this, just like our government always responds as an after thought, we don't act on promises until the news has circulated the presidents promises for a week or two then we start to mosey on over and asses the damage. Long after any would be survivors are long dead.

Now human nature tells me, the lazy f@cksticks in this economy, lay and wait for these disasters. This where they get rich. CNN is touting 200 million has been raised. Which means Haiti should feel blessed after the administration and operating costs of these charity organizations gets their "PAY", "WAGES", "CUT" (what ever they like to call it) if they see 20 million.

I just don't feel charitable enough to line the pocket of a bunch of Liberal shitheads that will eventually pass along a small fraction of my donation.

Do I feel bad about the tragedy? Terrible, do I really believe any thing I contribute will trump the bureaucracy and red tape and fraud, that bound to entrenched in the relief effort?

Not as long we've got Katie Couric sleeping in a rubbish bin to bring us the latest breaking gore news from the island. There's enough bleeding hearts to fill the coffers of these charities and Haiti will be just a bad off or worse when all is said and done.

As far as tax dollars going to relief. That just might be the only money ear marked for the cause that more than 10% of actually will go to feeding them.

Tenouncetrout says

Or more in this case, why did they build so much with out any steel?

While it's understandable that regular houses would be built without steel re-enforcements, but Hospitals? Schools? Larger Apartment buildings? Stores? Hotels? Very few buildings remain intact due to the fact almost none of them bothered to use steel re-enforced concrete. The entire infrustruture in the capital collapsed, compared to the 1989 San Franscisco quake, coming in at 7.1 on the scale, only 62 people died. This clearly shows how much less damage would have been done to a city with better building pratices.

The presidental palace was built before 1918, so it's understandable how it faired, but I sure they could have retrofited it some to hold up better than it did.

I saw on the news that donating via cell phone means that the money won't get to them for 3 months due to billing cycles.

I think that the world has a responsibility to help out - and many countries are stepping up. If we had a disaster of that magnitude, they should help us too.

We need to give them a hand up - not a hand out. And it needs to be a coordinated effort, with an end-date.

Ellie the Army is just arriving, Aid is a political dog an pony show.

It's a waiting game, the longer they wait, the less people there will be to help. Either they died or moved on else were before they do die.

It’s time to more concerned with ourselves, and less about others that never have and most likely never will give a damn about us.

Thank you Captain Isolationist.

FWIW, I don't think we should do more than our fair share. Seeing as we outspend the world on military crap to keep our influence profile world-dominating, that share is pretty big though!

I agree that intervening in Haiti is going to be tough to actually change anything for the better. Haiti has the land area of the state of Hawaii but 8X the population. If Hawaii had EIGHT MILLION more people they'd be eating mud pies there too.

We've spent billions of dollars mucking around with the independent states to our south, and yielded trillions of dollars in benefits since the Monroe Doctrine was first promulgated.

General Smedley Butler said

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

It's bad form to knock over governments and rape their people, and then not help them out when we can.

And aside from appearances, this country is not broke. We just have a lot of very wealthy people and a lot of financially stressed people (and these two facts are not unrelated).

Tenouncetrout says

Or more in this case, why did they build so much with out any steel?

Haiti is on the ass end of the island they share with the Dominican Republic. It is way, way, way overpopulated. 10 million people, over 1.5 people per acre. There's no capital formation, economic opportunity for wealth creation, and no doubt endemic corruption keeps the system that way.

Wikipedia says 80% of college graduates have emigrated to the US, two thirds of the people are forced into agriculture on the rather rocky end of the island, and 1% of the population owns 50% of the wealth.

Haiti is basically one of those Island Economy notional examples you find in economics texts.

To answer your question, steel and other solid construction practices cost foreign exchange, something the 10 million people of Haiti don't have the power to create, other than being a charity case.

First, I'll comment that anyone donating to earthquake victims needs to beware of scams. There are probably more scams via website, phone number and text message than there are real aid organizations.

If anyone wants to help in Haiti, check with your local churches. Many have missionary establishments in Haiti, including the remote villages, and (to the best of my knowledge) almost all of the money will go directly to the island itself. I know some folks here object to religious charities, but food, blankets and medical supplies have no religious affiliation. The Red Cross also seems fairly efficient.

My church has missionaries in Haiti. As Troy says, it is suicidally overpopulated, especially in the "cities" (in quotes because their cities are enormous sprawling slums). Without continuous international aid, the country would collapse. That is significant, because when people are starving and accustomed to violence and corruption, they start looking at those AK-47's and M-16's for an answer. The Dominican Republic is just down the road.

The real problem here is that we get countries addicted to foreign aid in the first place. They quickly become unsustainable without the free money. Instead of focusing effort on building a better country, they simply start breeding faster, resulting in a progressively increasing aid burden. Aid also introduces massive corruption, because the money and goods are flowing through a few choke points that are vulnerable to cheats, gangsters and military coups.

Troy says

Tenouncetrout says

Or more in this case, why did they build so much with out any steel?

Haiti is on the ass end of the island they share with the Dominican Republic. It is way, way, way overpopulated. 10 million people, over 1.5 people per acre. There’s no capital formation, economic opportunity for wealth creation, and no doubt endemic corruption keeps the system that way.
Wikipedia says 80% of college graduates have emigrated to the US, two thirds of the people are forced into agriculture on the rather rocky end of the island, and 1% of the population owns 50% of the wealth.
Haiti is basically one of those Island Economy notional examples you find in economics texts.
To answer your question, steel and other solid construction practices cost foreign exchange, something the 10 million people of Haiti don’t have the power to create, other than being a charity case.

And hasn't been a real Nation, in the sense that safety and the well being of the subjects under the sovereigns rule, is ever considered since the 1800's. Since then it's been the guy with the biggest Machette rules, and every one else can burn the forest and make charcoal for all they cared.

Which that's all fine and dandy, but it really frosts my nuggets when our government pretends to give a rip about the oppression that the Red Curtain posed from Cuba.
Meanwhile here it is a week later, and here comes the freakin US Calvary, and that's with a Black man being the American president.

Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

i'm from the caribbean and i've spent time in gonave plt... you'll really sound very mean. haiti has a very unique history. do you'll have food at night? for most haitians its not that good.
you'll are lucky to live the lives you do and i dont know about you... but i certainly did not choose which country i was to be born into.
nothing gives you the right to a better life than anyone else, so if you are more fortunate you should be grateful enough to say thanks and try to give as much as you can to others.
that's just basic morals. how can you'll be so mean? it is not haiti's fault that they are where they are ... all humans and organisms do the best they can. haitians did the best they could... they do not have life as easy as you.
usa is in a recession..they were born into a recession and have never came out. it really hurts to read what you'll think.. but yea everyone has the right to different opinions.

Look don't be ill at us for living in America. Do you know how much money the United way still has from the Tsunami left over? A lot, there's enough to build some infrastructure and possibly improve their quality of life. But that's not what they do, they make their money from people feeling better about them selves by giving a man a fish, not teaching them how to catch a fish, but just feeding them a fish today because they are hungry.

Since these donations were earmarked for the Tsunami relief effort they can't legally spend it else where, and since they aren't "Peace Corps" they aren't in the business in improving the quality of life after the disasters.

Is that our fault?

Many of Haitis problems I don't under stand, when people have nothing they have nothing to lose. Why they let Papa Duc and Baby Duc obsond with their Treasury and many more after them, instead of stringing the bastard up in the town square and making an example of him. Is a mystery to me. It's not like 10's of thousands of Haitians weren't prepared to brave the Florida straights for certain doom, to flea their plight. They wouldn't have been the first peasants to over throw a Tyrant.

And incase you didn't catch my sentiment from my post, I am very upset that it took a whole goddamn week for America to show with helicopters. I don't understand why we have large earth moving equiptment in at least to bases with in 140 miles from Port of Prince and we didn't have those large machines on the beach by the next morning while CNN and FOX news was pontificating the damage and construction. I don't get why we are masters at sending the media to disaster areas with in hours but we can't get official decision makers with proper provisions until days after the last hopeful survivors have surly perished.

This episode gives more insight to the Idiot culture that has Wasington in a strangle hold. We're debating fantasy bullshit, like mans implentation in GLobal warming, while we don't do a damn thing to prepare and be ready on a seconds notice for global Catastrophes.

Oceans will rise, Land will crumble beneath the city streets and the roofs will give way on the heads of a metropolis somewhere. Instead of making our selves prepared for real threats and disasters we're in a deal lock with fantasy debates that are designed to politicize energy prices to fund alternative energy sources, while we still wait for federal mandates to do invest and develop alternative energy sources.

Meanwhile the Earth is a violent turbulent place, with no mercy for the ill prepared.

You'd think that now especially after the last decade of global disasters and catastrophes our military and disaster relief teams would be somewhere prepared for a seconds notice to react and deliver relief with in hours if not minutes.

But no we're still playing grab ass, and don't move an inch until our Pig men have assesed political benefit of their actions or lack there of. And they can spin the hell out of why they acted slowly. While we point fingers and blame those that are complacent and just fed up with the whole damn Dog and Pony show.

Sure blame me I'm the Ass hole here, aren't I?

i really never meant to say that you are an asshole Tenouncetrout, and if this is what you felt I really apologize for what I said.

I can not comment much on how long it took America to respond. I can say that it is good that they did respond and that I feel grateful to them for doing so.

Haiti...like everywhere in the world has a unique history... its not always easy for people to be aware of what is being done to them when they are lied to and when they have no access to alternative information.

It's always easy to judge a people.. but I really believe that each of us does the best that we can at any given time.

jales says

its not always easy for people to be aware of what is being done to them when they are lied to and when they have no access to alternative information.

That's how we elect presidents.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/25/news/international/haiti_giving/index.htm

Thank god, people are coming to there senses. At least I had the forethought to say who gives a shit before I parted with any of my money.

It is important to help, but I think the problem is that aid is being diverted to Haiti because the disaster has become "high profile"; because it is popular.
Hunger persists all over the world. Here in the US alone something like 36 million people in the US face hunger every year and in the same time period 100 billion pounds of food go to waste.
http://www.soundvision.com/Info/poor/statistics.asp

Charity was supposed to start at home. Problem is, it isn't a popular topic. It doesn't get airtime.

Also, scams abound during disasters. Scammers trying to leech the donations for themselves. The Red Cross is one such scamming outfit: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/30/eveningnews/main516886.shtml
(of course ymmv, depeding on the chapter. There are good eggs and bad eggs.)