Haiti Earthquake Disaster

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 15 Jan 2010, 19:22

"Just a normal day in Haiti ... nothing to do with the earthquake."

its helped on by the earthquake but the society itself is pretty chaotic and famous for voodoo and african tribal religion

when you have people eating mud before the earthquake its not going to take much before you have easter Island .

There are lots of rich people in africa Ive met a lot of them and if you ask them about poverty they will all tell you its all the wests fault , go to india you find palaces, they spend more on a nuclear weapons programme than it would take to feed all the worlds hungry and again talk to indians and its the wests fault .

two countrys in africa could feed the entire worlds hungry by cutting their arms budget but again its our fault or we should sort it out .

yup stop western companys fishing, but the somalis and africans in general are still going to be poor because their doubling their population every 24 years .

I would stop western corperations fishing but mainly because then you have one less reason for white guilt which is going to kill us soon .

and I may sound harsh but the best chance the haitians have is to understand their on their own, and try to live sustainbly with what they have

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 16 Jan 2010, 07:04

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 16 Jan 2010, 12:05

a sort of visual ad hominum

and its understandable I'm a dark depressing fellow

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 16 Jan 2010, 14:10

Perhaps Aurora is suggesting that only three out of the four are ad hominum.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 16 Jan 2010, 15:36

I remember the original of that poster: it was a brilliant piece of advertising (for those below a certain age, the 4th brain was labelled "Racist").

disabled guy · Post by **disabled guy** » 16 Jan 2010, 16:05

whilst I feel sorry for those involved - i can also see where jonny2mad is coming from and an interesting observation posted on a couple of forums was this :

" any money you like - the FIRST thing that gets rebuilt will be the presidential palace "

i will indeed be interesting to see in say 10 years time if this comes to fruition and if the lot of the average Joe in that country has changed much once the worlds attention has turned to what ever the latest crisis is

it is a simple fact that in ANY disaster - the rich and powerful will look after themselves and the poor will get left to their own devices - it would be exactly the same here if we had a disaster that took out even 50% of our infrastructure -( heck there are many here who cant cope either physically or mentally with anything that disturbs their life pattern - the recent snow was an example )

and IMO throwing money at a situation solves nothing - of the millions that will no doubt be donated - how much of it WILL ever reach the average Haitian ?? - it wont be much - well not for most - after the "admin" costs and middle men ,the corrupt politicos and their cohorts all take their "cut " it wont be much

a better way is to send practical things like bulldozers and other tools + a force to make sure they DONT fall into the hands of the aforementioned parasites , teach the locals how to use them and if needs be defend them , + a stock of materials -then let them get on with rebuilding THEIR country - yes food aid etc as well - but if we just let them sit on their hands - depending on the rest of the world to feed them long term - it will indeed end in disaster for most

as they say give a man a fish and he will eat for a day - teach a man to fish and he will eat most days - there's a difference between sending "practical help" and just chucking money at a situation

ziggy12345 · Post by **ziggy12345** » 16 Jan 2010, 16:25

"give a man a fish and he will eat for a day - teach a man to fish and he will eat most days"

I never liked that saying. It can be extended such as

"Teach all the men to fish and you get over fishing, collapsed fishing stocks and starving people again"

What this country needs more than anything is condoms and birth pills.

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 16 Jan 2010, 16:30

ad hominEm

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 16 Jan 2010, 16:38

Godwin's Law.

Maybe 2mad has common cause with Rush Limbaugh:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ja ... h-limbaugh

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 16 Jan 2010, 17:12

Well I wouldn't have American bases around the world , I went to a number of marches to oppose the Iraq war for example .

Basically I don't think we have any business building up Haiti and I don't think we need go there to teach them anything , I think thats paternalism again and leads to dependence .

Pretty much anything we could teach the Haitians could learn by themselves if they wished .

"Crass remarks were not restricted to rightwing Americans. A senior Haitian diplomat was caught on camera claiming the earthquake would be good for his country and appearing to blame the catastrophe on "witchcraft".

Speaking before an interview on Brazilian TV, Haiti's consul in São Paulo, George Samuel Antoine, said: "This catastrophe is good for us here, it will make us known."

yup they may well be better known for a while and they will get aid but they don't need aid , they need non interference and their own good management .

if they don't have that capacity for their own good management their doomed and will all die, much like the people of Easter Island died, and there isn't much we can do about it .

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 16 Jan 2010, 18:21

jonny2mad wrote:...they need non interference and their own good management .

+1

Treeplanting.

I heard somewhere (poss. on PS?) that in most countries in Africa, if someone plants a tree it automatically belongs to the government (local authority or whatever). Thus completely torpedoing(sp?) any incentive to plant trees: in other words it's not that people there are so thick they can't see the benefits of trees, and have to have it all explained by incoming Europeans, it's a political problem. It's, dare I say it, their political problem. If I were to go to Africa, or Haiti, and start lobbying their govt.s to set up treeplanting, I'd be told s*d orf back where you came from (colonialism etc), and quite right too.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 16 Jan 2010, 19:06

The DEC appeal has now raised 12 million. Haiti owes the IMF $890 million.

The world is a mess, but it isn't the fault of crushed children.

http://one.org/international/actnow/haiti/

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 16 Jan 2010, 19:45

disabled guy wrote:whilst I feel sorry for those involved - i can also see where jonny2mad is coming from and an interesting observation posted on a couple of forums was this :

" any money you like - the FIRST thing that gets rebuilt will be the presidential palace "

i will indeed be interesting to see in say 10 years time if this comes to fruition and if the lot of the average Joe in that country has changed much once the worlds attention has turned to what ever the latest crisis is

it is a simple fact that in ANY disaster - the rich and powerful will look after themselves and the poor will get left to their own devices - it would be exactly the same here if we had a disaster that took out even 50% of our infrastructure -( heck there are many here who cant cope either physically or mentally with anything that disturbs their life pattern - the recent snow was an example )

and IMO throwing money at a situation solves nothing - of the millions that will no doubt be donated - how much of it WILL ever reach the average Haitian ?? - it wont be much - well not for most - after the "admin" costs and middle men ,the corrupt politicos and their cohorts all take their "cut " it wont be much

a better way is to send practical things like bulldozers and other tools + a force to make sure they DONT fall into the hands of the aforementioned parasites , teach the locals how to use them and if needs be defend them , + a stock of materials -then let them get on with rebuilding THEIR country - yes food aid etc as well - but if we just let them sit on their hands - depending on the rest of the world to feed them long term - it will indeed end in disaster for most

as they say give a man a fish and he will eat for a day - teach a man to fish and he will eat most days - there's a difference between sending "practical help" and just chucking money at a situation

I agree with most of the points you have made DG and the situation can probably be best summed up graphically by:

Nevertheless, the world cannot stand by without helping the Haitians to overcome their initial difficulties for say a six to twelve month period.

I can't remember the same level of negativity being shown towards the people of New Orleans, Turkey or Thailand after their recent natural disasters.

Surely we can't blame the impoverished Haitian people for their corrupt and ineffective leaders? To reiterate, they need immediate help in overcoming this unprecedented situation.

Jonny's remarks, on the other hand, are representative of his inherently racist views which he has amply demonstrated in many a previous thread.

As a newcomer, I'd suggest a trawl back through some of his earlier posts before forming an opinion as to his motives.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 16 Jan 2010, 20:39

Indeed, and as an old-commer, we're used to it

Totally_Baffled · Post by **Totally_Baffled** » 16 Jan 2010, 20:40

Did anyone see that programme 'Slumming it' with Kevin Mcloud?

He spent a week in the slums of Mumbai.

Amazingly despite having barely anything of there own - the people were happy, had a strong sense of community. Ironically there was even a millionaire that decided to continue to live in the slums despite his wealth!

So - going back to the Haiti earthquake, lets send the money and at least give them there homes back, even if they were slums by our standards.

They are not asking to have slums replaced by villas, they just want things back to how they were before the natural disaster?

I dont think that is unfair is it?

Im off to post some money anyway...