Haiti

I am back. I think that I posted last on Friday. Obviously, I do not recall. Oh well, no bother. January 2010 is off the books and we are into February. I am not sure if that is good or bad. I guess, it just is, and has been for as long as I have lived. I can take little notice of what came before my existence, assuming that I do exist at this point in time.

I see where Quincy Jones went back into the studio, after the Grammys, with a bunch of singing stars to re-record "We Are The World". Twenty five years later they redo the whole thing, sans Michael Jackson, to raise money/awareness for Haiti. Last time, it was a response to Bob Geldof and the British music scene doing "Do They Know It's Christmas" at the end of 1984 in response to famine in Ethiopia.

The saddest part of all of this is that I am left to wonder if it makes any difference. That is not to say we should do nothing to help the Haitians. I am not going off on a screed here, though. Ethiopia was different. Famine is an act of man/politics. There was "enough" food for the Ethiopian people (it may not have been plentiful and there may have been shortages), their rulers withheld food from areas that were fighting with the government forces. Ethiopians starved other Ethiopians. Again, it does not mean you shut these people off, it does mean you have to think hard of how to best help them.

It was not done in Ethiopia as food was confiscated by the government and not handed out to those who needed it. Again, famine is a political act. The late Sam Kinnison may have had it correct. The solution to that problem was not food, but a number of U-Hauls. It may have been necessary to point out that they lived on SAND and crops do not grow in sand. Use the U-Hauls to move the people to where the food was.

Now, on to Haiti. It is the same thing. Impoverished people waylaid by an earthquake. Slab concrete construction making for a great "crush" during an earthquake. Of course, if not an earthquake, a hurricane or three would have been in the forecast.

It seems to me that the Haitians are fatalists. They accept their fates, much like those in New Orleans. This is what fascinates me the most. The two are similar. Both are dirt, or is that mud, poor. Both come from similar French roots. Both residents seem resigned to their fates in life. Fate struck both of them, and will continue to do so.

Haitians seem to live for the moment without regard to a long term. Denuding your country to burn wood so that you can live and eat now is a great example of that mindset. I am not commenting on how that mindset came to be. Let's be honest here. They did not so much earn their independence from France by revolt but by paying off the French in the most usurous fashion. What did they get for their payment? Shit all and generations of indentured servitude.

Again, I am not saying to not help Haiti. I am saying that I do not know how much help beyond the immediate can be provided to them with their current mindset. Like New Orleans it could be a case of good money for bad results. I find it to be a real quandry here. How do you help a nation that seems to accept whatever befalls it and seemingly does nothing to change things? The attitude is one of "this is the way it is", a sort of quiet resignation. No amount of money or rebuilding, I think in this case it is merely building, can do that.

Just some food for thought. Ciao!