(8:00PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
DONATE TO HAITI RELIEF c/o Dr w/o Borders
Our friend TheMomCat is flying into Haiti, probably even as I type this. I wish I was with her. I wish I could have used this fat useless brain I was given to go to Medical School and be, like her, A Doctor Without Borders. I want to help. I could do things anyway, I know I could, even if it is clearing rubble.
Lady Libertine, aka Sally Panic has worked with refugees and given me a great source for overview on the lands from which they hail. You can tab through different sections at the top, and the page turner is in the upper right hand corner.
http://www.cal.org/co/haiti/hh…
Haiti is the asshole of the Western Hemisphere, and basically we just don’t care here. Instead we travel to the Dominican Republic and try not to notice the armed militias on the walls dividing the two, not think about the slums just beyond the Vacation Condos.
Haiti / Dominican Republic:
Haiti / Dominican Republic:
And when Haitians come to our shores for relief?
WE TURN THEM BACK.
Little relief is sent there after hurricanes, and now their meager homes were totally demolished by a major Earthquake. At least that got some attention from the World.
I’m looking at the images and the bobble heads, and thinking to myself, “On one hand it is good that they care and are sending aid, yet in a few short weeks, will these people be delegated back down the memory hole, while they eat dirt to try and survive?”
I guess being from Detroit, I can never look at the Ren Cen and not think of the slums just blocks off. Living in affluent Northville, I could not look at the Bistros and flashy Racetrack, without knowing the stable hands were living in decaying trailer parks, just down the road a ways.
When an old friend came back from the Dominican Republic years ago, and spoke of the Haiti border, I had to ask her how it didn’t bug her. Like most Americans she was too busy having fun to worry about it. In fact, she didn’t want to think about it and bogart her buzz. She fluffed it off to, “Well they could have this too, obviously the DR people managed to do it. Its their choice to live like that.”
People are clueless about the layers of exploitation that create the class of abject poverty.
Haiti is a slum because centuries of Westerners have turned our heads to Dictators like Papa Doc keeping an Elitist Power structure built on the blood and backs of the People.
I honor TMC for going and doing the DIRECT ACTIONS our government and the world have so long failed to do. I wish I was with her.
Now if only we could help the place free itself.
But that will take more than Doctors.
That will take an awakening.
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My prayers are with TMC.
I hope LL writes a more extensive essay on the people there.
that she will be safe while there.
Haiti has always been treated as some non-consequential little “speck” and has always been poor and has suffered. And, unfortunately, and as always, the good ole’ U.S. has had its hand in its deprivation right down the line.
Thank you for this, Diane G.!
Direct donation links to Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health, and the Red Cross HERE.
and it’s right down the block from the world’s richest nation. That the people of Haiti have suffered for so long even before the earthquake, and that we in the US have done so little to help our neighbor, is a disgrace. But then again, we have so many of our own that we haven’t lifted a finger for, either.
Awesome!
I’m praying and giving money to help the Haitians. I saw what the ‘Reverand’ Pat said about Haiti. What an A@@@
to take advantage of them for some resort beach front property. God I hope he bank of the bank of south and the oas pitch in quick before this happens.
I already linked to this in another essay, but I don’t think it hurts to point it out again.
Haiti was the first and richest Republic in the caribean. Along came US imperialists demanding they eliminate their tariffs on rice and sugar. They then took over the cash crops and land, drove farmers into cities, and pluged the country into poverty. Sound familiar? It is the exact same track they put us on. Haiti needs to take the help. Kick everybody the hell out, and take their land, country, and economy back. Screw the US.
I want join up at wwl but keep getting rejected.
Will you please send me an email at [email protected] telling me exactly what I need to do create a user account at wwl.
I want to join up with you and possibly inky and others over there.
Thanks.