Like George W. said to the woman who told him that she was working three jobs just to make ends meet, “Isn’t that uniquely American.”  And that was coming from someone who never worked a day in his life.  The one job he did try to hold—selling airline food—they had to let him go.  He wasn’t cutting the mustard, so to speak.

Wait’ll the students of Iowan universities start demanding a reduction in tuition or some kind of pay for their help.  You’ll have yourself another business opporunity:  Placement for Disaster Aid Workers.  (Brownie, you’re doing a helluva job.)

That along with Krispy Kreme donuts and Work Clothes from China with a masculine logo.  Or Barbara Bush’s gift of 30,000 dollars to the Katrina fund as long as they spent it on educational software produced by her nitwit son, Marvin, in his company in Waltham, MA.

By the way, how much are they paying you to monitor these sites and throwing your anti-American Gahbahge?  Or is it that you just don’t you like Americans, and soon to dislike Haitians.

Where will you be in your emergency?

“It shouldn’t go unnoticed the New Orleans and Haiti disasters concern mostly black people while Iowa is mostly white.”

Now that you mention it…

But is anybody saying that, because they are BLACK, they don’t deserve our help? I’m not.

In New Orleans, anyway, lots of people were put off when they heard, “because we are black, we DEMAND your help.”

Haitians are too busy cleaning up to play the race card.

“...say exactly what you mean: That people are on their own.”

OK. People are on their own. For example… the Iowans.

By rfidler, February 12 at 7:09 pm #

Your hearing is excellent. Breathe into a paper bag, you’ll be fine.

—————————————————————-

What a low-life, pitting the suffering of one group of victims of a natural disaster against another group for political gain.  It shouldn’t go unnoticed the New Orleans and Haiti disasters concern mostly black people while Iowa is mostly white.
You should start a business franchise:
Nero Rfidler’s Bait & Tackle Shops.

When are you people going to strap on a pair and come right out and say exactly what you mean: That people are on their own.” 

This message was implied by your master, George W. Bush, flying over New Orleans at 30,000 feet five days after Katrina struck.

All I can say is that greed and pettiness are cruel masters.  You should grow up and put away childish things.

Either that or wear a paper bag over your head.

Your hearing is excellent. Breathe into a paper bag, you’ll be fine.

I hear a right-wing talking point coming on.

It’s giving me agita.

garth:

Katrina proves RAE’s point.

The people of New Orleans grew comfortable being “helpees” over the years by embracing the culture of minority victimhood. They fully expected, no, DEMANDED, that everybody but themselves bail them out of the mess they found themselves in through no fault of their own. “Where’s my check?”

Now, move up river a few hundred miles. How much whining did you hear from Iowans when half their state got washed away and FEMA and $2000 unrestricted checks (remember lap dances and plasma tvs?) were nowhere to be found?

If you don’t want Haiti to remain a shit hole, don’t give them fish, give them fishing poles.

“... the helpee becomes very comfortable with the help being provided. At some point the helpee assumes the free support as a RIGHT and takes it for granted.

Not long after discovering that, the helpers begin to feel used. Resentment builds. Support is withdrawn.”
————————————————————
So much for the right-wing, conservative bull-shit about charity being the only Constitutionally acceptable means for social good.

What do we do when the rains come here in the good ole US of A.  When this commission gets through and millions are thrown in the street, and Social Security and Medicare are eliminated so that stuffed welfare cheats on Wall Street and Corporate board rooms can have their losses in bad bets paid off, what do we do then? 

We’ll become a big Haiti as evidenced by the reaction to Katrina, and who will come to our aid?
Listening to the mindless chatter on C-SPAN this morning about budget deficits and debt and the right-wing answers to these problems, the average American is never even going to know the truth about what hit him.
We should pass Go and go directly to WWIII.

rfidler,
  Thank you. I hope for many more art work done. Artists are a driven lot.  You are kind.

It certainly is a strangeness about us humans - this quirk of our nature that goes something like this:

Someone has a misfortune.

Neighbors (the helpers) rush to assist. They provide food, shelter and whatever else is needed. It feels good for both helper and helpee!

So good, in fact, that the helpee becomes very comfortable with the help being provided. At some point the helpee assumes the free support as a RIGHT and takes it for granted.

Not long after discovering that, the helpers begin to feel used. Resentment builds. Support is withdrawn.

The helpees feel let down and abandoned. They become angry.

Hard feelings all ‘round.

I’m not saying it happens this way in every case, but it happens often enough to make for big problems whether between next door neighbors, or countries far apart.

Haiti is now and will continue to receive MASSIVE free support. I have no problem with that. But the population WILL come to take it for granted and who knows what problems that will generate.

I suggest that we, the helpers, soon begin to transform our assistance from direct to indirect. Steadily withdraw the services of foreign police, troops, medics, and NGOs while expecting and supporting the Haitians to pick up the ball to replace them with their own.

Yes… continue to assist with (provide) infrastructural MATERIALS for housing, transportation, utilities, hospitals, agricultural, etc. but REQUIRE the Haitians to do most of the planning and building. It’s their country and they NEED to be in control of every stage of its reconstruction.

We, at the earliest possible moment, NEED to stop providing the fish and require them to fish for themselves. If we don’t, we’ll regret it, big time.

And, if they botch it - if they rebuild a national SLUM, that’s their business, not ours.

Two cents, please.

Nice try keeponkeepin,

Amy isn’t that hard to interpret…..
you are putting words in her mouth….

She puts her life on the line every day of her life!!

To Rfidler,
Yes I have absolutly enough of this world, the whole day, from every where in the world, body bags full of human pain and starving people are coming tru my pass tru hatchway, I can do nothing for them, they have to change this situation them selfs or die, I know it sounds misserable, but this beautiful worls of us is killed every day little bid more, and we are the on lookers by this all.

Amy: You make an eloquent case to show that trying to help Haiti always has negative consequences.

Are you trying to say it is time to leave it alone? I don’t think so. You are really appearing to me to be saying that the people of Haiti, because they could not avoid being exploited, now deserve to be fed,clothed, housed, and protected by all who exploited their past weakness.

So, I want to lead a call for a band of wealthy (who else?) who will pay for the sins of those who led the exploitation. But, first please tell me:  How much money, leadership, and control is needed until comes the time when we have reached your goal? Or some point where we can stop feeling guilty for having caused all of the failures, to be reached.

The Episcopal church back in the 1960’s felt so guilty that it wanted to pay ‘reparations’ to every American black victim. I think they had a hard time deciding which black slave owner should be disqualified, along with which successful blacks with income above some - to be determined threshold of eligibility- should collect none, part or all of the standard payment. They also discovered that the fund raisers wanted to be paid forever too!

If Haitians had not been able to grow their population, would the problem today be different? What can we do to avoid paying out so much, only to find that somehow the money ends up in the wrong hands, and the population expands again to more than replace the lost 250,000 souls?

Already, the bandits and charlatans have developed ways to steal all they can in Haiti and sell it for whatever the market can pay. Do you expect me to ask people to pay for money to get to their customers, so they can pay more for what others are trying to give to them?

Please advise! Or accept the fact that Jesus told us the poor shall always be with us, but we can pray for their need for relief from the tyranny endemic to any population that can’t educate leaders much less avoid excessive reproduction.

johannes:

Fine sentiments.
How has the weather been over in Europe this year.
Our east coast is getting hammered with snow.

Haîti forgive us,
Not my words, every person is responceble for his deads, every men or woman must live his live, in his way.

Every human nows that you can not live without rules and value, but if a religion is giving you a free cart to miss behave, and make children every where, with out taking any responsibility, no I am not my brothers keeper.

But I regret this mis fortune of this people, and also in the past.

NYC:

Happy birthday. And many more.

On Feb.4,2010 I completed a piece of art to mark my
7 0th birthday, coming at the end of this month.  The text on the xerographic,is approximately, after “Marking My 7 0th - 17 1/2 leap year birthday
In memory of Howard Zinn (he was right in ‘You Can’t
  Be Neutral on A Moving Train’, his autobio
...
With apology to the people of the world for present and post policies of the U.S. gov’t.”  I have made several on paper, 11"X17”, color.  Sanda

John Kace:

Who do you think is by far the greatest contributor in the relief effort right now? What would it take for you to be satisfied with the US’s effort?

And I don’t think a bricklayer would be much good at resetting/amputating a broken leg.

First things first.

RAE:

You make way too much sense to be posting on truthdig.

John Kase: “I imagine they need carpenters and wood, and brick-layers and bricks.”

If I lived there and was about to rebuild my home the LAST materials I’d be thinking of would be bricks.

My next home would be:

(a) not near any other building

(b) not much higher than ground level

(c) made of something really flexible and light

Clearly even reinforced concrete is no match for that kind of shaking but I’ll bet not many trees were affected. My next home would be made of bamboo, rubber, or something similar, built into the ground with very little exposure to the elements. Let the ground shake and winds blow.

In a country where most everyone wants to go to college and thinks they are right and smart. It sure is hard to raise a child. I cant imagine what it would be like in Haiti right now. I imagine they need carpenters and wood, and brick-layers and bricks. Seems like there are plenty of shovel ready jobs. Why arent we the US leading by example and doing the right thing? A Friend in need is a Friend in deed. Whats happened to this country is sad.

“Haiti’s first democratically elected president was Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest committed to the poor.”

Give me a fucking break!!!

Aristide was a charlatan committed to Aristide!

Since Patty O’700club talks to the “Big Guy” at least monthly, you’d think he’d put in a good word for the folks down there and pull off some of those loaves & fishes stunts that worked so good back in the day! Oh, and pope “Ack-Ack” Benny; where’s he been while all those good members of the flock have been catching hell ‘cause of that deal they made to lose France? Meanwhile, has anybody seen “W”? Wasn’t he supposed to pull off some magic with “Slick Willie” to help out the folks what with his Katrina expertise. I know ‘ol Georgie couldn’t chance going down there with all those dreadful UN folks lurking around. Hell, he might get renditioned ala Eichmann to face war crimes. Oh, well; I’ll just send a few more bucks to RAM & Docs Without Borders and hope for the best.

When does Amy Goodman come to terms with her fetishized blather?
Undeveloped population explosion is EVERYWHERE! Instead of using her
meager power to focus on strategic positions….she’s a little girl putting her
finger in the dyke. Haiti is a reflection of poor people EVERYWHERE. There is no
infrastructure. The idea that the planet can tolerate the future costs of cultures
which do little more than multiply misery by adding more children is insane.
Moreover…when the RICHEST nation in world history refuses to face its own
problems, ie heath/emergency care is EXPENSIVE! it belies all reason. The fact is
even larger natural disasters will come and the ignorant horde trying to
overturn Roe vs Wade have just been given a blank corporate check by the Bush
Supreme Court. The center of the wheel is about to fly of the rails and dear Amy
& her happy non-warriors are going to have to broadcast from the Palestinian
detention camps cause the corporate neo-fascists are gonna create whatever
climate they desire. Remember the Patriot Act? The hope is to change
Washington….the folks running the show have never listened to anything but
the judge who says: “Do you swear to tell the whole truth & nothing but the
truth?” Look at Obama’s promises….all hat no cattle.Action…no more words
should be the call AMY!

“For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last, not always by the chief offenders, but paid by someone.” ~ James Anthony Froude (1818 – 94), British historian, novelist and biographer

I often wonder if the USA will pay for its misdeeds overseas (not just in Haiti) by the loss of its standing as a “great power”, and perhaps end up an economic, political and social shambles ... maybe even occupied partially or wholly by foreign “peacekeeping” troops ...

Amy Goodman,

Thank you for being the conscience of what’s left of America.

On the McLaughlin show on PBS about two weeks ago, Monica Crowley and Pat Buchanan said that Aristide slipped out of the country with 900 million dollars.  This was unchallenged by the left on the show, Eleanor What’s-her-face and Mortimer Zuckerman of U.S. News and World Report.

I went to a Swampscott Town Council meeting about 40 years ago where Mortimer representing Boston Properties wanted to tear down the New Ocean House and build a high rise condominium. 
The 300 units, he assured the residents, Doctors and Lawyers, would not add to the traffic along Fisherman’s Beach.

As the wimpy group was about to go for it, Gerhardt Neumann, the Vice President of GE and a major employer of the engineers and scientists of Swampscott and the surrounding area spoke up in a stern Germnan accent.  He said “This sight with its proposed height will block my view of the ocean.”

Mort, a man who suffered fools badly as proclaimed about him in a puff piece in the Boston Globe article, looked demoralized.

Zuckerman’s condos were never built.

It’s all about power.  We have to take it back.

They need birth control more than anything else.

They have multiplied their population ten fold since the beginning of the last century.

“The G-7 finance ministers met in Canada this week and announced the forgiveness of the bilateral debt between member states and Haiti.”

Nice gesture. Even nicer would have been to cancel the Winter Olympic GAMES and divert to Haiti the BILLIONS being spent on what is essentially a “field day” convention for those who think that devoting your life to being 1/100 of a second faster than anyone else IS A WORTHWHILE GOAL IN LIFE!

The priorities of the millions of money-grubbers on this planet are rather badly screwed up, wouldn’t you say?

Unfortunatly Amy,  good reporters like you are
always preaching to the choir.

Those screwball cable and network newscasters
are really on the verge of down rite criminal.