Haiti

[HavenSeeker]

Good Evening,

Just thought I'd post a little about a growing problem resulting from the Haiti earthquakes. What happened there was horrific, and they do need our support, but please don't forget about your local charities too!

As soon as I saw the news, I knew we'd have some problems. When something like Haiti happens, it tends to create a "donations vacuum," sucking away the little help that was going to local charities in the first place.

I've seen it first-hand, including Katrina and the Tsunami. The local food banks we supply run so low on food, they sometimes have to close. All the blankets and coats that might go to the homeless here are now being diverted to Haiti. Etc, etc.

My point is, we do need to help Haiti, but still help local charities as well. If you normally drop a couple dollars in a Salvation Army bucket, or bring some canned goods to a crisis center, continue to do that. I know it’s tough in these economic times, but there are people who have much less than we do, and still give much more.

--HavenSeeker

[Vashnik]

A little late of a post, but here it is anyways.
The state that Haiti is in, is in no way more important than our own homeland. Its great that we're helping out, but as HavenSeeker has mentioned before, Haiti has created a donation vacuum. I have seen advertisements "requesting" $10 donations from everyone (obviously from the ones viewing the advertisment), and its not from the American Red Cross. If you ask me, its a little selfish. For one, Haiti may have been extremely effected by an earthquake, but for the love of all thats still sane, you can get enough money from $1 donations from everyone to support Haiti. Requesting $10 (in this current economical state) is taking away from charities (for those that aren't struggling as much) and taking away from ability to stay current on bills (which almost always effects your credit score not to mention that it can, in some cases, cause your life to crumble: lose house, transportation, etc). Not to sound selfish or anything, but I'm not going to sacrifice losing my house to support something that's already being supported by our government (we just sent troops to Haiti for relief support), which is coming out of our taxes. Out taxes are now being used to help Haiti, so why throw in $10 more dollars that could help 10 charities that ask for $1.
For those of you who know what AVON is, they're donating 50¢ for every certain item purchase (don't remember the item right off the top of my head) to Haiti relief efforts. You know how many people buy from AVON? I'm sure its quite a lot of people, maybe more than enough. If its one thing, people are more capable of parting with 50¢ than they are with $10. I personally get a little skeptical when people ask me for money for a general cause, and I don't know what its actually being used for. When a disaster strikes, you can bet that there will be scams popping up like pests, and I bet you Haiti's disaster spawned quite a few. I'll give my money to something I know is legit, like the American Red Cross.

[Arimi]

The whole situation pisses me off. I understand they need help, and everyone in the UN is putting ahand of help in... great. But yea they are sending our tax money over there, money we paid, money that was supposed to help our country get out of debt. Money that is supposed to be help people in our homeland. They were warned that their structure of their homes were jacked up and very dangerous. They were warned a quake would be coming. They chose to turn a blind eye to all of it, and what do they get? Money that we need in order to keep from going completely under. Why? Because governments and celebraties like to use these kinds of situations for publicity stunts. Its a sad truth. I would be more supportive of all of this, had it not been a "you were fn warned" situation.

I mean lets look at the bible for instance. You have the story of Noah and his ark, yes? Ok everyone was warned there would be a great flood, and that all of the earth would be covered. They were told to prepare, Noah even tried to board people on his boat. What did these people do? They said "no, you must be wrong, let us stay in our ignorant bliss, we shall be fine", and what happened... they all fn drowned thats what. Does anyone hear the story of the Ark and feel sorry for these people? No. Go into a Sunday school and listen to what the brutally honest children have to say about the lost ones. "They were being silly and didn't listen, so they died. It's their fault."

Anyways, enough ranting I am sure you all get my point.

[Purplepeanutbutter]

What happened in Haiti was terrible, and although we shouldn't forget other charities, its probably not a good idea to start berating the people there for not listening to warnings. Looking at the whole scale of events, it was warned that there could be a major quake (and there may even be a more major quake to come) but Haiti is poor and so they're hardly likely to have enough money to pay top architects to make their buildings earthquake safe. Also, its a personal opinion that $10 is too much, that's about.. just over £5? In my opinion that is hardly anything. If the government is raising your taxes, that's another matter, but if they aren't, they are doing the humane thing to help a destroyed country in need. The US has the largest economy in the world, I think its important that they show aid to neighbouring countries. But that's my opinion and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

[Arimi]

What happened in Haiti was terrible, and although we shouldn't forget other charities, its probably not a good idea to start berating the people there for not listening to warnings. Looking at the whole scale of events, it was warned that there could be a major quake (and there may even be a more major quake to come) but Haiti is poor and so they're hardly likely to have enough money to pay top architects to make their buildings earthquake safe. Also, its a personal opinion that $10 is too much, that's about.. just over £5? In my opinion that is hardly anything. If the government is raising your taxes, that's another matter, but if they aren't, they are doing the humane thing to help a destroyed country in need. The US has the largest economy in the world, I think its important that they show aid to neighbouring countries. But that's my opinion and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

America is also 13 TRILLION bucks in debt. We are owned by China, we don't have the money to be sending overseas, unless its to pay back China. The media releases what they want you to know after the fact about Haiti, any reporter who brings up the fact they have pushed off aid to keep this crap from even ever happening (which was much cheaper) has been fired. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but the government and media reaction to all of this is being used as Propaganda BS and publicity stunts. Yes we should love our fellow man, and we should help them. We should not help them to the extent in which we are being asked to. All they are going to turn around and do after all this time and money is spent on them, is to go back to the way they lived before. Its just like Katrina, people were warned not to build houses and towns under sea lvl, that this was very dangerous. They were also told to get out before Katrina hit. They built their towns, they stayed, they died, lost homes, were seriously injured. We sent them all the money and resources we had to help them. Now what to they do? THEY REBUILD THEIR FN HOUSES UNDER SEA LEVEL AGAIN!!!!!! I am done taking pity on people who choose to make the same mistakes over and over again, and expect complete strangers to bail them out when sh!t hits the fan. I have lost people I cared about in natural disasters when they chose to stay when they shouldn't have. Yes, we were sad they were gone, but we were very aware that yes it was their fault they stayed. Its like with Cali fires... these people cry on the news that the fire took their home.... WHY THE F DID YOU BUILD YOUR HOUSE NEAR WHERE THERE IS MAJOR FIRES EVERY YEAR? We have alot of Hatians that have moved here to the US over the years. If you talk to them they will even tell you that the poverty isn't as bad as it has been made out in order to get our donations. People have a choice of how they choose to live there. They generally like to point out, "if it was so piss poor you would not have "Hatian Cuisine". " I mean look at a freaking map for G_d's sake

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Haiti&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

They are next to Puerto Rico, one of the biggest tourist areas in the world. When people visit PR they are told not to go to Haiti, because the people chose not to take care of their towns, and that its dangerous due to the fault line. If they sacrificed a little to get their towns in shape, they would get tourists... tourists = money to take care of their country. Of course that goes back to them not accepting help from other countries in order to beautify and make safer their little country. They only take handouts (and EXPECT them, you should see some of the footage) when sh!t hits the fan.

/end rant

[ShinobiRAGE]

Forgive me for not reading everything but the first post since I am a lazy bum. Its simple exploiting chaos, maybe someone said it already, idk.

Also armi, correct if I am wrong, we still are the richest country(USA) since we have the most gold and that is what seems more valuable than a piece a paper

little off-topic, I remember seeing this book at Boarders book store http://www.exploitingchaos.com/

[Arimi]

Forgive me for not reading everything but the first post since I am a lazy bum. Its simple exploiting chaos, maybe someone said it already, idk.

Also armi, correct if I am wrong, we still are the richest country(USA) since we have the most gold and that is what seems more valuable than a piece a paper

little off-topic, I remember seeing this book at Boarders book store http://www.exploitingchaos.com/

So what your saying is, I should try to pay my creditors off in gold? AWESOME!

[ShinobiRAGE]

You have pure gold? lol doubt they would take it though, but maybe just maybe

[Purplepeanutbutter]

This all just highlights the point that long term aid would be a lot more effective than short term i.e. funding for educating people in Haiti in architecture and the like, or something similar.

[Arimi]

This all just highlights the point that long term aid would be a lot more effective than short term i.e. funding for educating people in Haiti in architecture and the like, or something similar.

Would be nice, maybe this time they will take the preventative help. Or you know, move away from a fault line.

[Purplepeanutbutter]

That's a little harsh, San Francisco is on a major fault line too, imagine telling everyone there to move away..
However maybe that's a good idea, next time the earthquake may be underwater and cause a tsunami, and i doubt many people will want to experience that.

[Arimi]

That's a little harsh, San Francisco is on a major fault line too, imagine telling everyone there to move away..
However maybe that's a good idea, next time the earthquake may be underwater and cause a tsunami, and i doubt many people will want to experience that.

I don't give much pity to Cali people when they get hit with quakes either. If you choose to live on a fault line, you choose to suffer the consequences of that action. I have lived in torando alley my whole life, if we get hit by a big one, its our own fault. I don't expect other countries to come rebuild my house for me.

[Purplepeanutbutter]

That's why I'm lucky to live in England.. far away from destructive faults http://dothackportal.com/forums/images/smilies2/smile.png

[ShinobiRAGE]

Well there was 3.5-8 magnitude earthquake in Belvidere, Illinois in the northeast in the US. It maybe be small but raised awareness that its not really no wear near a fault. Worse cites like that or here in NYC, it was not made for earthquake. And people did feel that quake because it was unordinary.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/10/earthquake.fact.check/index.html?iref=allsearch

[Vashnik]

Glad I'm not the only one thats not so caring about the Haitian issue. As I stated before, our military was sent over to Haiti to support them and thus our taxes are being sent over there to support Haiti because our military is over there. They don't need more money from us. Its almost like I tell people begging for money on WoW "Go quest!", well Haitians need to EARN the money, not beg for it. If they had actually shown some kind of attempt in bettering their structures, then maybe it wouldn't be such an issue.

By the way, I also live in a Tornado Alley... and when one comes through, hardly any damage is done. Whatever damage is done, the insurance pays for. We don't go begging for money, even though our city has some corrupt politicians in place and misusing the funds, we still manage to pull through just fine. The only time I remember my city being under a "state of emergency" was that major ice storm that knocked out the entire city's power, and we only received help (through manpower, not donations) from neighboring cities cause our (monopolizing) power company thought they were invincible and decided they wanted to be understaffed. I think that was in 2006. Still haven't been able to figure out why we don't have a second power company, but it's probably cause they're paying other companies to stay out.