The best, long-term protection against catastrophe
The world is coming to Haiti’s aid in the wake of the devastating 7.0 earthquake, with America leading the way. As we always do. President Obama has pledged $100 million in U.S. government aid — and you can be sure it will be met with inestimable amounts of private charity on top of that. Because that is how we roll.
How best to help Haiti in the long run? The long-suffering island nation has been wracked by poverty and corruption for decades. Scholars have written endless documents on the failure of foreign aid to lift the country up.
Jim Roberts wisely says that among the things to remember while helping Haiti, the “U.S. must be prepared to insist that the Haiti government work closely with the U.S. to insure that corruption does not infect the humanitarian assistance flowing to Haiti. Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue. Congress should immediately begin work on a package of assistance, trade, and reconstruction efforts needed to put Haiti on its feet and open the way for deep and lasting democratic reforms. The U.S. should implement a strong and vigorous public diplomacy effort to counter the negative propaganda certain to emanate from the Castro-Chavez camp. Such an effort will also demonstrate that the U.S.’s involvement in the Caribbean remains a powerful force for good in the Americas and around the globe.”
The best, long-term protection against catastrophe is economic growth.
As the late, great UC Berkeley political science professor Aaron Wildavsky argued, freedom, wealth, and resilience put nations in the best position to weather and rebound from disasters seen or unforeseen. Wealthier is healthier:
A strategy of resilience [as opposed to anticipation] requires reliance on experience with adverse consequences once they occur in order to develop a capacity to learn from the harm and bounce back. Resilience, therefore, requires the accumulation of large amounts of generalizable resources, such as organizational capacity, knowledge, wealth, energy, and communication, that can be used to craft solutions to problems that the people involved did not know would occur. Thus, a strategy of resilience requires much less predictive capacity but much more growth, not only in wealth but also in knowledge. Hence it is not surprising that systems, like capitalism, based on incessant and decentralized trial and error accumulate the most resources. Strong evidence from around the world demonstrates that such societies are richer and produce healthier people and a more vibrant natural environment.
***
More on worldwide relief efforts. Keep the Haitians in your prayers:
Planes carrying teams from China and France, Spain and the United States landed at Port-au-Prince’s airport with searchers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies — with more promised from around the globe.
It took six hours to unload a Chinese plane because the airport lacked the needed equipment — a hint of possible bottlenecks ahead as a global response brings a stream of relief flights to the airport, itself damaged by Tuesday’s magnitude-7 earthquake.
Search and rescue squads from Virginia and Iceland arrived Wednesday and some groups — from Cuba’s government and Doctors Without Borders — used staff already in the country to treat victims immediately after the quake.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that “tens of thousands, we fear, are dead” and said United States and the world must do everything possible to help Haiti surmount its “cycle of hope and despair.”
The U.S. dispatched troops and ships along with aid to Haiti, and other nations were joining the effort to help the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, where the international Red Cross estimated 3 million people — a third of the population — may need emergency relief.
In the streets of the capital, survivors set up camps amid piles of salvaged goods, including food scavenged from the rubble.
***
A case of resilience in action from commenter Flyoverman:
A case in point. During their June 2008 flood Cedar Rapids, Iowa lost 75% of their 16 million gallon a day water capacity. On the same day that the FEMA rep showed up and promised 600,000 liters of bottled water (@160,000 gallons), the local firemen figured out on their own how to the cross connect the hydrants where two neighboring small towns’ boundries came close to Cedar Rapids.
This totally unplanned piece of brilliance allowed their towns’ water to flow into the Cedar Rapids system. This gave Cedar Rapids an additional 3-4 million gallons of water per day, increasing their capacity to 50% and provided needed backup, if CR’s the last pumping station failed.
Resilience in action.
***
Lessons from Africa from Dambisa Moyo…
In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse—much worse.
In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth.
In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer. Provocatively drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the “need” for more aid.
Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world’s poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty—without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance.
Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions.
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What a devastating event for those poor people. They are in my prayers.
I will be interested to see the list of countries that step up to the plate, and even more interested to see the list of those that do not.
U.S. must be prepared to insist that the Haiti government work closely with the U.S. to insure that corruption does not infect…
Hey Haiti, you have a speck of sawdust in your eye.
Right; because ‘insisting’ has done so well for the UN.
This administration believes in corruption, because, its worked so well.
Cross International Haiti Relief
Live Northwest of Houston. Every twenty years, a hurricane, but days of warning, and 75 miles from the ocean, the wind is a lot lower than at the coast.
Probably the most seismically stable place on Earth.
Republican governor, two Republican senators (granted, Kay Barely is more a country club George Bush Republican), Republican AG willing to fight
health care, er, Marxist medicine.Sure, Katrina refugees and illegals mean more of a murder rate than is optimal, but if you avoid the wrong places, you’re generally ok.
No state income tax.
Maybe.
But how can you have economic growth in places where the corruption is so endemic, and the people so jaded and cynical as a result (does anybody really think that any material abundance or financial prosperity found in Haiti has anything to do with working harder to get ahead, having a better idea, or providing better service?) that there’s no conceivable way of rooting it out short of re-colonization?
And who wants to colonize Haiti?
There are certain places in the world that are fiscal black holes. Haiti is one of them. Any money transferred across the event horizon that is the Haitian border just disappears.
Humanitarian aid, yes — provided that we administer it directly. Aside from that, any of our funds earmarked as being for Haiti should be spent to beef up our Coast Guard along the Florida coast.
Is Obama STILL planning on TAXING charitable contributions?
Is anyone still wondering how disconnected Obama is from reality?
US Government: Do as I say, not as I do.
Could work.
A case in point. During their June 2008 flood Cedar Rapids, Iowa lost 75% of their 16 million gallon a day water capacity. On the same day that the FEMA rep showed up and promised 600,000 liters of bottled water (@160,000 gallons), the local firemen figured out on their own how to the cross connect the hydrants where two neighboring small towns’ boundries came close to Cedar Rapids.
This totally unplanned piece of brilliance allowed their towns’ water to flow into the Cedar Rapids system. This gave Cedar Rapids an additional 3-4 million gallons of water per day, increasing their capacity to 50% and provided needed backup, if CR’s the last pumping station failed.
Resilience in action.
I hate hearing about how Obama is pledging money. First of all can he make such pledges? Does the approval need to go through legislature? Also, Obama’s handling of relief money means that this money will be pocketed by various crooks. I don’t trust him or anyone associated with him. That being said, it is a very good act to send troops there because the civil breakdown in Haiti is likely going to cause more deaths and misery than what the quake managed to achieve thus far. I wish there was someone in charge who could actually direct relief efforts. probably more than anything else, what is needed is a police force that can enforce local order and to establish a supply of drinking water. It may sound insensitive, but this quake might wind up improving Haitian life in the long run. That of course depends on the availability of responsible leadership.
You could rebuild the whole danged place with $100 million U.S. dollars. Stabilize the citizens with medical help, food, water and temporary shelters. I would caution our govn’t and charities sending huge amounts of money to their govn’t to dole out. The long and sordid history of their leaders abusing power is extensive and bloody. Our generosity often ends up in Swiss bank accounts with one name on it. Let’s pray that out of this misery something good emerges for Haiti and it’s people.
In sending aid, we are walking a tightrope. While immediate relief should be unconditional, extended reconstruction must come with strings attached to prevent that aid from going to waste by a corrupt government.
All these governments are looking more for a photo op than to actually help. I fear so is Obama. A picture of his management skills in a Chicago low income housing area shows just how capable he is. If anyone thinks that helping Haitians with food and water is impossible, they should be reminded of what US was able to accomplish in East Berlin during the Russian blockade. Our technological capabilites are no less now, but our leadership sucks.
vinny and nbarry, we seem to be on the same track. I hope the charities begging for money will buy the items and send them on to Haiti. From the sounds of things there is nothing to buy by private citizens anyway. This could trigger wild inflation for any available goods and that won’t help. A few there will end up wealthy but the people will remain in abject poverty.
If only Obama and Congress knew this.
Since the US and private charities step up to the plate when help is needed internationally, why do we fund the grossly corrupt UN?
I suggest we stop all UN funding and hire private US companies on a needed basis to perform our charitable work. This eliminates the huge UN fraud, saving charitable dollars, puts resources back into the US economy and gives the world a first hand view of the good that the US taxpayers perform for the world. Currently just the opposite is true with the UN being the “visibility” of charity.
24k, rather than send money to various (likely fraudulent) charities, I would be more in favor of congress allocating funds for army presence there and to help rebuild water supply and ground condition such as a functional airport. One charity that I would trust with money is the red cross. They always have a presence in disaster areas. Others are suspect.
why is haiti such a pit? the dominican republic has at least moved into the 20th century, why not haiti? will giving taxpayer money to haiti actually help haiti, or will it go into the same bank in switzerland that handles baby doc’s and aristead’s money? the problems start at the people level, and the people need to say “no mas, no mas.”
Prediction: More people will have died in Haiti in one day than will die from global warming in the next 100 years.
Puffed-up self-important people like Al Gore and Barack Obama jet around the world lecturing me on my carbon footprint while third world building standards are criminally insufficient. Not a word about that.
BTW, they had to pass a law in California to protect architects and engineers from lawsuits for rendering assistance in disaster emergencies.
Port-au-Prince? More like Port-o-Potty.
What the Obama cultists (Democrats) don’t understand is this: if we are taxed more with their health care scam (and their hidden agenda to bankrupt our country and lower us to third world status), then less of our money will go to charity here and abroad.
Another idea to consider might be to cut off aid entirely (not the emergency aid going on right now, but general foreign aid). Without foreign aid propping them up, many corrupt governments throughout the world would likely fall. That may provide the best opportunity for genuine reform.
Addiction-bad habit? Many of us have been asking that question for years; some people have been asking that since 1945.
How much aid will be stolen we may never know but UN officials did well doing bad with the Food for Oil program. Ted Turner of CNN shame pledged one billion dollars to the UN and I think it is time he paid up.
vinny #17
I agree – the joke of the UN is on the American taxpayer. Since our soldiers are going to be involved there for some time (from the sounds of it) they can do more good by maintaining security and directing rebuilding of infrastructure.
By the way, what’s with the 82nd Airborne being deployed instead of National Guard troops from here? Seems to me the NG would be more fitting and fully trained in the area of need there?
I’d like a nation by nation breakdown of offered quake emergency assistance in bucks and manpower. Ought make interesting reading, especially from Haiti’s _other_ neighbors.
“Teach a man to fish…” will be a long hard slough with Haiti. There’s a lot of the New Orleans socialism mentality ingrained there, complicated by deep religious and cultural mindsets imposed by their cramped proximity on that island. (Something the Domininan Republic wisely nipped in the bud long ago). Outside of making Haiti a U.S. commonwealth (a lot of US blacks wouldn’t mind our “devotion” contributions for poor nations going that deep either), good luck with social engineering that society to prosperity.
Anyone, another goodie lesson-of-the-day at class texted in from school from my niece; i.e. “The quake and tidal waves makes anything terrorists do “look like nothing” so we should all be far more worried about the environment and going green than ‘hurting’ people around the world.” Her class was already told that soliders and sailors are at their very best “helping and feeding” victims. Sorry, but is there someting a little crooked with that picture — like only being an International Rescue is the only reason to justify having a military?
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Slightly OT, but you would think that any responsible government would stop all UN funding, stop issuing new visas and put troops on our southern border during this time of terrorism and financial crisis.
I don’t mind emergency relief in a time of disaster as long as we can afford it and the money is responsibly distributed in ways that will actually help those in need (obviously it needs to be the opposite of the so called stimulus package).
Blackstone#22
I’ve been against foreign aid since becoming an adult and witnessing the increase in huge populations that cannot sustain themselves without it. Emergency aid is one thing, but it’s become the career of choice for many governments – much like welfare here.
As I said on another thread…where is the Haitian “leadership”? They fled their crumbling palace. Where are they? I bet they are not even in Haiti. Don’t let them come back.
What happened AZ? All I see is gobbly-gook in #28.
AZ Neanderthal
Easy for you to say…
I not only want to see who is coming to the aid of Haiti I want to know how much they are donating in aid…we’ve set the mark at 100 Million…let’s see who comes even remotely close to our generosity!
Somebody ought to check up on AZ Neanderthal. Maybe passed out on the keyboard.
Sorry about #28–un attended keyboard while baby sitting
“The U.S. should implement a strong and vigorous public diplomacy effort to counter the negative propaganda certain to emanate from the Castro-Chavez camp.”
That should read, “… the Castro – Chavez – Michael Mooore – Sean Penn – Danny Glover – Matt Damon – (insert any of the other Socialist/Communist anti-American Hollywood elitist here) camp.”
Made more sense than most of the trolls.
azn; you didn’t know your babysitting charge was really a gubmint agent and #28 is their encrypted code informing the one of your blog writings.
ot; why is the one taxing the banks which paid back the tarp, while fannie, freddie, citi, gmac, chrysler, and gm weren’t called on the carpet? why not aig and tax cheat gietner?
Now that’s funny!!! As a Grandma, I can totally relate!
That’s Funny (and how true).
I read a WSJ article by Dambisa Moyo remarking on how foreign aid has destroyed Africa – her book “Dead Aid” is on my wishlist. If only our congresscritters would read it. Over 1 trillion contributed to aid in Africa and yet the wages haven’t increased since the 1970′s.
This huge airlift of supplies into Haiti logistically is a nightmare. Fox was reporting that U.S. military has taken over the airport and is halting planes coming in because there are too many and the runways are jammed with aircraft. I would think medical, food, water and tents are all that are needed until they treat the injured and bury the dead? And, they have 18 reporters there – or is that from all news sources combined?
Az, I was about to ask if you had a cat.
Hand-outs kill incentive and self-reliance. Kill ‘em with kindness saddles you with victims and dependents to the end of time. Sometimes it takes tough love to break bad habits. Teach/force a man to fish…
If we don’t do this with cases as Haiti, we’ll be back this way when the next storm or quake comes, zero change. The countries most hard-won from virtually nothing by their own pop tend to be the stablest and prosperous. Aside ours (for now) Taiwan is on top of my list, who’s a great example for Palestians too to follow to lift themselves from cancerous hate and squalor.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
“The quake and tidal waves makes anything terrorists do “look like nothing” so we should all be far more worried about the environment and going green than ‘hurting’ people around the world.” What a supid thing for a teacher to teach her students. So if a Nuke is set off over say, Manhattan and the death toll is in the Millions. Will that be as deadly as an earth quake? The military is there to fight for us, not to be used as a labor force. These libs are so delusional.
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HI ARIZONANEANDERTHAL–#28. I’m glad things are O.K. at your house–most of your posts seem clearly thought out and carefully typed!
***
Before getting the correct story–the following thoughts crossed my mind:
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AN just passed out after the 10th. Jose Cuervo “painkiller” shot necessary for a conservative to read or watch the daily AMERICAN PRAVDA “MSM” news. His head is rocking on the keyboard.
***
AN’s M1 Garrand rifle fell on the keyboard and went off–instant keyboard death. And tough on the family, bystanders, and houses a mile away. A whole new “electrical noise” problem.
***
AN’s really bright pit bull, cougar, or rattlesnake decided to start commenting and is a really bad typist.
***
AN’s roof collapsed on his keyboard when too much GLOBULL WARMING (aka snow) overloaded it.
***
AN just sent Snoopy’s NEW BATTLE PLAN–in code–to Scott Brown in Taxachusetts to give him the win on 17 January. The Great Pumpkin provided the encrypting algorithm. Apologies to the Royal Guardsmen.
***
Keep up the good work!
***
John Bibb
***
Whew! I thought I was going to have to buy Rosetta Stone to brush up on Klingon.
This could be a teachable moment for school kids- Haiti and the Domenican Republic: same island, same earthquake, different results. Compare and contrast.
I wonder if any liberal teacher (almost but not quite redundant) could be completely honest in the exercise.
We will see a huge influx of refugees as well. But, wait…isn’t that how we acquired those social organizations like MS-13?
SpeakEasy
It would be a great teachable moment for students, but I mirror your concern that most teachers would not treat the subject with true comparison and contrast. Perhaps around the dinner table discussing one on one with your children and cutting out the middle man?
24KLady, Oh I certainly would – if I had any children. You can be sure I will be discussing it with the younger people at work. I will certainly learn some things myself in the process.
The best way to help Haiti is not to help it.
Tell the Haitians to clean up their own stratospheric levels of corruption and build better infrastructure.
Every dime sent to Haiti goes to prolong corruption and laziness.
Yep, capitalism and meritocracy with a dash of morality, duty and honor.
Nope, he hates America, period.
I lived in Haiti as a missionary kid from 1982-1989. I have firsthand knowledge of how horrible a place it is, and how corrupt its rulers have been.
Anybody who is mocking Pat Robertson for his recent remarks on Haiti simply doesn’t understand what kind of place Haiti is. I have seen depravity there like nowhere else. The Roman Catholic church is intertwined so thoroughly with the religion of voodoo that they are indistinguishable. The Haitian people are fatalistic and hopeless.
This earthquake has broken my heart. For the average Haitian, life is desperate enough.
OK, I’ll ask it. Where in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize the President or Congress to give money to another country, no matter how noble the purpose. Answer – NOWHERE!
Private money? No problem. Americans are first in the world with charity. Use of the military to extract U.S. citizens? Sure. But that is it. No taxpayer money should be given. Of course, this is assuming the U.S. Constitution is relevent anymore. It isn’t.
Haiti has 80%+ abject poverty as a means of creating income for the government by humanitarian donations from other countries. These poverty stricken Hatians are the ‘employees’ of their government, so to speak, and the aid coming in is the compensation that the people will never see.
Another way to look at it is the people are the prostitutes, and their government the pimps.
Dictatorial Socialism in action and on display for all to see. And we continue to elect politicians that identify with like policies that move us closer to the same.
That is the problem that prevents them from rising up and taking control of their lives. The international aid to pre quake Haiti is over one billion dollars in the last decade but little is accomplished. While Haiti has little in natural resources there are more than just a few countries with great natural resources that are also poor due to the fatalistic view of their people.
We can and should help Haiti in this crisis and I have-but any long term solution is strictly up to them.
/sarc/ Well Obama could take over Haiti (like everything else he is taking over), declare Haiti the 57th state & he will have voters for life. And if it doesn’t work out, he can blame bush for getting involved.
/sarc/
FIFY
The Hatian earthquake is hurricane Katrina times 50. You have a people who sole existance is based on charitable contributions/welfare. They have no idea how to fend for themselves. Instead of liberals (as in New Orleans), you have dictators in Haiti. The corruption is in both places. Haiti’s economy is soley based on foreign aid, as they don’t produce anything of value other than a little coffee. Meanwhile, the other half of the island is a Caribbean resort destination – what Haiti could be with the right leadership. Haiti could be prosperous with tourists dollars, if there was something to visit. Sad, sad situation.
I hate to say it, but Haiti is the world’s Katrina. Wonder how they’ll blame this one on Bush?
Have you noticed on the news that many, many of the dead were people from the US and other countries who were there on aid work of some kind? Doctors, nurses, students, missionary volunteers. What a shame.
As I read the comments here, I am in tears. I would never in a million years would have thought there would be such cruel comments.
We, Haitisbabies, have not “begged” for one dime for ourselves. We have friends and families on the ground who happen to run charitable organizations themselves. They are giving all they have to help – EVERY LAST DIME – without complaint. Their despair in their writing is evident. Their tasks, overwhelming.
It is easy to be snide and call for shoring up our Florida border when you sit there with your $500+ computer and 50″ big screen TV tossing out more food than these people will eat in a week – if they can find food at all.
My heart is breaking because “Port-a-Potty” is loaded with good people trying to raise families under impossible conditions in good times.
I think I have just added a lot of people to my troll list.
I DO “BEG” ONE THING, DO NOT SEND US FUNDS. I WOULD RATHER YOU NOT – KEEP THEM – WE DON’T WANT THEM.
Soap – private donations from individuals to relief organizations such as yours are the only help that these people could possibly get.
Perhaps the greater frustration coming from posters here is the inability of a government to give to a corrupt government with the hopes of helping people of great need. Seldom does it ever flow to the least among them.
Angry Haitians block roads with corpses: witness
Thu Jan 14, 2010 6:31pm EST
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Angry Haitians set up roadblocks with corpses in Port-au-Prince to protest at the delay in emergency aid reaching them after a devastating earthquake, an eyewitness said,
World | Natural Disasters
Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for TIME magazine, said he saw at least two downtown roadblocks formed with bodies of earthquake victims and rocks.
“They are starting to block the roads with bodies, it’s getting ugly out there, people are fed up with getting no help,” he told Reuters.
I guess now we know why 3rd world countries are 3rd world countries.
Soap, I have read over $1 BILLION dollars has been given to Haiti over the years. Obviously the money was not spent on building a responsible infrastructure. It was wasted. At what point do the Haitians take responsibility for their own destiny?
The earthquake is tragic and PRIVATE aid is warranted for individual Haitians. But it is far past time for Haiti to stop being the poster child for Western Hemisphere. Add me to your troll list. Your post reads like the typical liberal guilt trip.
jjmurphy said:
Soap runs a PRIVATE charitable organization strictly dedicated to Hatians, especially children. Furthermore, Soap understands taxpayer dollars going to dictatorships that never provide to their people. Your comment does not help.
Good for her. Maybe next time she can knock off the liberal rant.
Actor Danny Glover believes that the Haitian earthquake was caused by climate change and global warming:
There you have it from America’s great intellectual Hollyweirdness.
Sorry to see you think WE are cruel but WE are not the people who have kept Haiti destitute for centuries. We ARE the people who have supported aid missions for several generations now. Yes I am sure “Port-a-Potty” is loaded with good people trying to raise families under impossible conditions in good times-we did not cause that problem nor can we fix it. If I were to send my computer, TV and food to Haiti this morning outside of a controlled organization that computer, TV and food would be on the black market this afternoon.
Our Committee on Relief in Haiti will only send food home to house with a strong man. If there is no strong man they feed the family at the mission-if they send it home the thugs take it. That is not our fault and there is little we can do about it but feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the oppressed and mission to them.
The only thing that can change Haiti is the people there–it has nothing to do with us being cruel. Allowing even more unskilled, uneducated people into this country helps neither Haiti or the U.S.-our underemployed class is growing.
In 1900 Galveston was devastated by a hurricane-at least 6,000 people were killed. With in hours those people were organizing themselves to rescue the trapped-dispose of bodies and set safe zones to provide food and water. Galveston had it looters and thugs-Galveston disposed of them too.
Something Haiti and New Orleans should emulate. Sorry you are bitter but we can’t fix Haiti, Bangladesh or Africa. Our Committee on Relief can not be contacted right-we just do not know- now but we will get what we can to them when we can.
yo soapbox; GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES! WE AMERICANS OVER THREW OUR OPPRESSORS IN 1776, WE FOUGHT A WAR IN 1861 AMONGST OURSELVES OVER OUR FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. WE’VE SPENT GAZZILLIONS TRYING TO HELP POOR NATIONS OF ALL RACES AND RELIGIONS, AND THESE NATIONS BY AND LARGE SIT ON THEIR COLLECTIVE ASSES AND SAY, “WE’RE POOR, SEND US MORE.” MEANWHILE, EVERYTHING WE SEND IS HIJACKED BY THE CORRUPT GUBMINT THE PEOPLE TOLERATE. KILL THE TON-TON MACUD, TOSS OUT THE GUBMINT AND DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF.
Ooops, guess I can’t count any better than The One or Greasy Joe.
Well I “inherited” my poor math from them.
With regard to the whole “long-term protection” theme here, it all pretty much comes down to whether Haiti can ever truly become a free nation, or will they be eternally ruled by evil despots, fear, and ignorance. Giving to help at this obvious time of need is of course necessary, as it would be for any nation under similar circumstances; however, we will also be required to rebuild their infrastructure and re-tool them technologically, which will soon fall into disrepair and ruin, only to have to be rebuilt by us once again.
Our wealth exists not so much because we’ve taken it from someplace else, but because we have people who are entrepreneurs who know that wealth is created though producing products that people want, and in the end will be available for most people to buy. It comes from private industry, not a tight-fisted, controlling government.
On the other hand, our own government is heading down the same road that Haiti is on, and is leading us to the same tyrannically corrupt state of being as Haiti. There is no way possible for any sort of encouragement to the Haitian state from the Obama administration to change the status quo in that country, when Barack Obama wants the same sort of tyrannical oligarchy that exists in Haiti.
Haiti is where we are headed–the state of mind and heart where the people are utterly dependent upon others for their very existence. Barack Obama’s goals are to CHANGE America and its people into a needy, fearful state as quickly as possible, with the aim to turn us into a massive Haitian-like, UN-controlled colony. If Obama’s evil agenda is not stopped, then Haiti is our ultimate future.
Indeed. Radicals in our government have been trying to turn the US into a banana republic for the past forty years, and THEY are concerned with THEIR CORRUPTION? It is to laugh…
Looks like Obama will have to apologize to his good buddy Chevez. (What a JACKASS!)