Point One: $100 Million - Are You Kidding Me?
President Obama promised $100 million in aid to Haiti on January 14, 2009. A Kentucky couple won $128 million in a Powerball lottery on December 24, 2009. The richest nation in the history of the world is giving Powerball money to a neighbor with tens of thousands of deaths already?
Point Two: Have You Ever Been Without Water?
Hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti have had no access to clean water since the quake hit. Have you ever been in a place that has no water? Have you ever felt the raw fear in the gut when you are not sure where your next drink of water is going to come from? People can live without food for a long time. Without water? A very short time. In hot conditions people can become dehydrated in an hour. Lack of water puts you into shock and starts breaking down the body right away. People can die within hours if they are exposed to heat without water.
Point Three: Half the People in Haiti are Kids and They Were Hungry Before the Quake
Over half the population of Haiti is 15 years old or younger. And they were hungry before the quake. A great friend, Pere Jean-Juste, explained to me that most of the people of Haiti wake every day not knowing how they will eat dinner that day. So there are no reserves, no soup kitchens, no pantries, nothing for most. Hunger started immediately.
Point Four: A Toxic Stew of Death is Brewing
Take hundreds of thousands of people. Shock them with a major earthquake and dozens of aftershocks. Take away their homes and put them out in the open. Take away all water and food and medical care. Sit them out in the open for days with scorching temperatures. Surround them with tens of thousands of decaying bodies. People have to drink. So they are drinking bad water. They are getting sick. There is no place to go. What happens next?
Point Five: Aid is Sitting at the Airport
While millions suffer, humanitarian aid is sitting at the Port au Prince airport. Why? People are afraid to give it out for fear of provoking riots. Which is worse?
Point Six: Haiti is Facing A Crisis Beyond Our Worst Nightmares
"I think it is going to be worse than anyone still understands." Richard Dubin, vice president of Haiti shipping lines told the New York Times. He is so right. Unless there is a major urgent change in the global response, the world may look back and envy those tens of thousands who died in the quake.
Wake up world!
Caroline Gluck: Dispatch from the Ground in Haiti
The needs in Haiti now are enormous, as most basic services just aren't functioning. At the best of times, daily life in Haiti for the 80% or so of the population, who have to live on less than two dollars a day, is a daily struggle.
Yes Morgan1,
Unfortunately, most Americans are not watching the international satellite channels, which are covering how other countries responded very quickly with sending doctors. Our MSM seem intent on making excuses for the wait time, militarization of the airport, fear of riots & the like. I hope the situation improves, but so far it does not look promising.
Ask AG Holder & the top dogs in the defense & intelligence(?) right wing, religious(?) fundie Copulating Christians(?); the Fellowship & their boys at the cat house on C St & Rash Lamebrain to be sure if the USA still is a free country.
As far as the Haitians go, they're a victim of their own culture, a system brought not only from France, but from Africa. And I'm sorry, but my generation practiced birth control---one or two kids per couple. Not multiple births every twenty years, setting the scenario for a crisis like the present one.
I used to live there; it's been sad to see it go downhill so far. And now this....
This nationalist behavior is understandable, but with deadly consequences here. And no one is talking about it, only going on and on about lack of infrastructure.
Honestly people, we need to exercise some intelligent filtering of these rumors.
Can you imagine the outcry if the US didn't wait for some of it's citizens who were making their way to the airport, and another aftershock resulted in their deaths? Or they starved to death, or died of thirst? Or got cholera, or some other infection?
Get a grip! Of course nations had to get as many of their aid workers out as they possibly could! Governments are first and foremost charged with protecting the lives of their own citizens.
Barak Obama is just arranging "window-dressing" curtains.
Of course, compared to pom-pom son's Karina (U. S. City Collapse)...
"It's Much More Robust"! Chicago boys have no clue!
To anyone wishing to donate for relief please do not use a credit card to do so.