Haiti's despair tops out

by shergald
Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 11:05:37 AM EST

For the poorest country in the Western hemisphere to get hit with this catastrophe is unjust. Where are the Gods?

A video of this unfolding tragedy:



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A sampling,

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CIA World Factbook

Military branches:
no regular military forces - small Coast Guard; the regular Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH) - Army, Navy, and Air Force - have been demobilized but still exist on paper until or unless they are constitutionally abolished (2009)

Impression of the Island, Haiti before the quake ...

In March 2004, Aristide was airlifted out of the country by the U.S.
Bush's Policy Returns the Predators to Haiti

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

by Oui on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 07:19:32 AM EST
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The U.S. Air Force is in control of the Port-au-Prince airport, the function of control tower, runway lights and basic logistics have been restored. Difficulty is to priortize incoming flights. An aircraft with international journalists and television crews was able to land, a plane with 8 rescue teams from The Netherlands totaling 60 persons, fully self-supporting, was diverted to Curacao, a nearby Caribbean island of The Netherlands north of Venezuela. After a one day delay, the group have been rescheduled for landing early Friday morning. Their estimate is the rescue mission wll continue for 7 more days with a chance of locating survivors. USAR

Urban Search And Rescue (USAR)
Response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

by Oui on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 07:20:36 AM EST
indeed economic miseries on top of political chaos now complete with enormous tragedy caused by earthquake. what are the difficulties in making a sort of Marhsall plan for such places like Haiti?

I think IMF and WB should be held responsible for perpetuation of poverty and misery in some places where they could work but did not wanted (maybe they would love to work in Afghanistan or Somalia but it's hardly possible).

by FarEasterner (avdavydov@yandex.ru) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:22:47 AM EST
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If there are more morons like David Brooks anywhere near policymaking in our government, no wonder U.S. foreign policy has been a wasteland creating a greater mess with any intervention worldwide these past 100 years.

    "The first of those truths is that we don't know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not."

This is the same ignorance expecting the development in Afghanistan to follow the example of Vietnam. To have a chance of development, the people need to be literate and well educated. Socialism and Communism have done a better job in many nations than the "liberal economies" in Africa and South America that were being looted by the former colonial democracies of the West. The arrogance matches the ignorance in these statements. His remark "the world has spent trillions of dollars" is false. Perhaps nations like Iraq, Iran, India, Korea, Vietnam and China do profit from being civilized for thousands of years. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are connected by a common border. Haiti has a link to the great civilization "The United States of America" and a history of cruel dictators, the Dominican Republic has been a protectorate of the socialists of France. The proof lies in the pudding.

Literacy rate per country from CIA Factbook: Afghanistan (28%) - Albania (99%) - Iran (77%) - Indonesia (90%) - Vietnam (90%) ; Haiti (53%) - Domincan Republic (87%).

Cross-posted from BooMan's fp story with excellent comment by -- Frank Schnittger

Haitians Are Resilient
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Great stuff, I fully agree with your comment.

True the people of Port-au-Prince are poor and have suffered greatly. One thing that we can observe today, while grieving the loss of a home and family members, none are mad or frustrated by their government and lack and speed of relief. They had no expectations from historical reference and do not realize they are missing support. The Haitians are fully self-reliant for the few possessions they have. The nation was already covered by multiple relief organizations including the United Nations. Their infants were bought by the wealthy Westerner ... many parents who came to Haiti for adoption died in the quake. Dutch couple and their two adopted children missing in Port-au-Prince

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

by Oui on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 02:10:35 PM EST
Time to send in the EU battlegroups.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Mon Jan 18th, 2010 at 03:42:51 AM EST
For the poorest country in the Western hemisphere to get hit with this catastrophe is unjust. Where are the Gods?
That is why the likes of Pat Robertson say the things they say.

When you believe against all evidence that there is a personal God that cares and something awful happens, you go into all kinds of contortions - such as blaming the victims of random acts of nature - to safeguard the Personal God That Cares from the evidence.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 18th, 2010 at 06:30:30 AM EST
Also - and this is not an unimportant point - Pat Robertson is an asshole. And (another not unimportant point) he panders to the asshole demographic.

There are far more benign ways of dealing with cognitive dissonance (such as ignoring it) than blaming the victims. That he chooses to avail himself of one of the most harmful resolution to his cognitive dissonance imaginable therefore implies a personal moral failing that many who believe in a personal and caring god do not suffer from.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 20th, 2010 at 05:19:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yeah, some people resolve this particular cognitive dissonance by going into Christian Existentialism. But I doubt Kierkegaard is widely read among Christian fundamentalists.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 20th, 2010 at 05:37:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I doubt Kierkegaard is widely read. Full stop.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 20th, 2010 at 07:11:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I've read some Kierkegaard. His writing felt very dated and did not inspire to more reading. I sort of had to backwards-engineer the questions he was addressing, and the questions framings felt trapped in the specifics of his time and place.

So I am not surprised if few reads him.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Jan 20th, 2010 at 07:19:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I had much the same impression. But then again, the philosophical problems that he is normally advertised as addressing are largely irrelevant to the brand of philosophy that I subscribe to. So I don't know whether I'm the best judge of whether his questions are contrived.

Also, I didn't read a whole lot of it. His style rubbed me the wrong way.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 20th, 2010 at 07:51:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
He was read quite a bit in the 60s when existentialism was more in vogue with young people.

by shergald on Fri Jan 22nd, 2010 at 08:18:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Check out this video at 1m35s.

"I read Kierkegaard"

"In that case, you can smoke"

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jan 23rd, 2010 at 05:30:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
THe plural Gods should have told you that the phrase was just a manner of speaking about natural acts such as this earthquake that cause untold deaths and injuries to a people already burdened by poverty.

by shergald on Fri Jan 22nd, 2010 at 08:17:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]


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