January 16, 2010

It is terrible what happened in Haiti. Those poor people get all the bad breaks from life and Mother Nature. It seems that whenever there is a hurricane in the Caribbean it finds Haiti and throws life's manure at them.

They live in a corrupt, therefore very poor country. They have no infrastructure, they have no middle class.

There is an upper class that is wealthy and there are the poor people. And the poor people either don't know what to do to help their situation or just simply don't want to.

And that brings me to the Caribbean mentality.

I have been visiting the Caribbean for about eighteen years now, and came to the conclusion that the constant heat effects people's behavior.

The people I came across all have this slo mo attitude to life. Why should I rush to do anything when it can be done tomorrow just the same!

I visited several islands and found the same attitude everywhere. It is not laziness it is just that there is no point to rush to do anything.

Haiti is a beautiful part of Hispaniola. It could be a vacation paradise with opportunities to create work and make money for the population. But they ran the country to the ground with crime and political instability.

And now, when disaster struck they are sitting around waiting for the world to come to their aid. They are expecting the world to rise as one and offer billions of dollars to rebuild their country. The country they never cared about, the country they systematically ruined.

Haiti has the distinction of being the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and probably the third poorest in the world. This is not a proud position to be in. Haiti achieved all this on its own. They had corrupt governments one after the other but the people did nothing to change their life.

Now those poor people are sitting around waiting for the world to come and help them out.

The pictures one sees on television are heart wrenching. The dead and the injured lying side by side. One can not help but feel sorry for them.

But there are a lots of men just seem to be walking around. Why those men don't take the initiative and help out with cleanup, restoring order, helping to distribute water and food and a million other things.

I am surprised it took two days for machete wielding gangs to come to life. I expected them to be visible practically immediately after the earthquake.

I am 100% convinced that the help the world is providing now will not find its target. It will be squandered by bureaucracy, thieves and corrupt governments.

Just to start at home. The charities in this country spend the better part of every donated dollar on so called administration. From the Red Cross on to all the others I don't trust any one of them. And I am sure the other countries are not any better either.

All these telethons that are being organized now are for show. Why the stars just don't get together and give their millions for help.

Why Madonna only gave $250,000? She couldn't afford any more? Maybe we should have telethon for her then when this is over. How much Oprah gave?

The stars get together because this is a very nice tax deduction for them. Should I be moved to tears because George Clooney says so?

I don't think so!

The billions given to Haiti will disappear just as the billions of bailout money the US government gave disappeared.

Ten years from now Haiti will be the same as a week ago except the buildings will be in better shape. And they will still hate the Americans.

I find it very interesting that the US government can spring to action so fast when there is a foreign country in need of humanitarian help.

Where was the US government when Katrina hit in 2005?

Four and a half years later some areas of New Orleans still look like a war zone. There are people who still can not return to their homes because reconstruction bogged down in bureaucratic quagmire.

Yes, it was a different administration then but it was still the American government. Try to explain to those people who still can not live in their homes why their government is jumping to help the Haitians so fast while it is still dragging its feet with their own citizens.

The answer is very simple. Helping others is good foreign policy, it is good public relations and it looks good in the eye of the world. Helping your own doesn't mean anything. Those people are here already, they are not going anywhere, they will remain Americans no matter what.

Mr. Obama and all past and future presidents should learn that charity starts at home!