One of my local TV stations has a “Question of the day”. Today’s question was “Are you planning to help with the relief effort in Haiti?” – Pretty straight forward question, right? I mean, most people aren’t hopping on planes and aren’t certified relief workers so the questions becomes “Are you giving money or not?”
One person said emphatically “NO Help your fellow American’s first”.
Another said “being on ss i have all i can do to provide heat and food for my family. its about time OTHER countries helped ot not always the good old USA!”
Add this to what Rush Limbaugh said, turning this into an Obama/Race issue, and Pat Robertson saying the Haitians brought this upon themselves because years ago they made a deal with the devil.
I sit here aghast, mouth agape, in shock and disbelief. First, there are between 40,000 to 45,000 AMERICANS living in Haiti. There are an untold number (possibly tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands) dying in the streets, dying under collapsed buildings, dying from an instant lack of medical care for conditions they had before the earthquake. We are talking about human pain and suffering at a level that even the most cynical among us can’t even begin to imagine, even though they claim to.
Imagine if you can that in a mere few seconds your house is gone, you don’t know where your family and friends are, you are injured and bleeding, it looks like you are in a war zone, every building around you, including the hospitals, are gone. There are no building or roads and you can scream all you want for help – nobody is coming to help you.
In this country we do have people suffering. Some have no work, and therefore no money, some are losing their homes, some have no health care. So are these cynics saying that NOW they think we should take care of all Americans and give them health care? And for the person who is suffering on Social Security – Haitians don’t have social security, at least you have that. And where did you get it? From the U.S. government who, at the time that law was passed, thought that all Americans were entitled to it, just like healthcare should be today. But I digress.
It’s not the United States that runs to the rescue of the world, it is Americans. It is people. People like you and me who know what it is like to suffer through what life has served, who should know better than anyone else how much a helping hand can help. Give $10, it’s not going to kill you. But if the surviving Haitian people don’t get money, it will kill them.
Get outside of your own head and your own self-pity, stop being so fucking selfish and help the Haitian people who are living a hell you can’t imagine. Giving in times of need; rallying together and getting the job done; that’s what AMERICANS do. We don’t care what other countries are doing. And we don’t care who else might be responsibility to help. Out of all industrialized nations in this hemisphere, we are the most equiped to offer help. And so we do.
No Agenda - Just personal opinion 