41–50 of 107 posts
He just had to bring up climate change at the end. Great way to get everyone to miss the point of your post.
Isn't climate change (as a consequence of man-made deforestation) a large part of the problems that face Haiti today? http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002600/a002640/
I am from Somalia, and I have witnessed its decay right to its downfall, including the three days during which the government dispersed and the central bank threw out its stash of local currency in large garbage bins. Haiti will not die. For one, the suffering has been universally afflicted on all Haitians. This will strengthen their bond more than anything. Even if warlords and gangs form their own fiefdoms througho…
An earthquake has no one to blame. The event itself does not, it's true. But there certainly is someone to blame for the shoddy construction standards and grievous lack of preparation. The government is entirely accountable for these things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't climate change (as a consequence of man-made deforestation) a large part of the problems that face Haiti today? http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002600/a002640/
The deforestation depicted in those photos is not the result of climate change, but of ill-advised logging activity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An earthquake has no one to blame. The event itself does not, it's true. But there certainly is someone to blame for the shoddy construction standards and grievous lack of preparation. The government is entirely accountable for these things.
There has been no government, in effect, to date, or worse, a corrupt government that was hurting its own people.
Look, my point is that something could have been done to prepare, and was not. Mahmud's talking like it's a no-fault act of god that's going to bring everyone together in a solidarity of fellow suffering - I'm saying, if I was Haitian and I'd somehow managed to survive this disaster, I'd compare to how other countries deal with this kind of thing and probably be more angry than ever.
Update: I am evidently not stating my point very well. I'm not looking for a scapegoat. I'm trying to raise the possibility that these low expectations of government, this disregard for accountability, and this willingness to dismiss gross negligence and incompetence as somehow inherent in these "other" societies are a big part of the problem.
"No-one to blame" indeed. Let me tell you what would happen to the mayor of a Japanese town if he let this happen and then just shrugged his shoulders and claimed there was "no-one to blame".
I am from Somalia, and I have witnessed its decay right to its downfall, including the three days during which the government dispersed and the central bank threw out its stash of local currency in large garbage bins. Haiti will not die. For one, the suffering has been universally afflicted on all Haitians. This will strengthen their bond more than anything. Even if warlords and gangs form their own fiefdoms througho…
An earthquake has no one to blame. The event itself does not, it's true. But there certainly is someone to blame for the shoddy construction standards and grievous lack of preparation. The government is entirely accountable for these things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't climate change (as a consequence of man-made deforestation) a large part of the problems that face Haiti today? http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002600/a002640/
The deforestation depicted in those photos is not the result of climate change, but of ill-advised logging activity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There has been no government, in effect, to date, or worse, a corrupt government that was hurting its own people.
Well then that's the problem, isn't it? Look, my point is that something could have been done to prepare, and was not. Mahmud's talking like it's a no-fault act of god that's going to bring everyone together in a solidarity of fellow suffering - I'm saying, if I was Haitian and I'd somehow managed to survive this disaster, I'd compare to how other countries deal with this kind of thing and probably be more angry than…
They have been hit with a 7.0 Richter earth quake; even the U.N. and government buildings were floored. Sometimes you just don't have anyone to blame and this is one of those times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There has been no government, in effect, to date, or worse, a corrupt government that was hurting its own people.
Well then that's the problem, isn't it? Look, my point is that something could have been done to prepare, and was not. Mahmud's talking like it's a no-fault act of god that's going to bring everyone together in a solidarity of fellow suffering - I'm saying, if I was Haitian and I'd somehow managed to survive this disaster, I'd compare to how other countries deal with this kind of thing and probably be more angry than…
Civil Order, Access to Water, Food, Jobs, lack of corruption are probably much, much higher on their minds than "Are proper seismic standards being enforced."
I don't suspect the Haitians will be hating their government because earthquake resistance wasn't built into their building code.
Will the USA take on Haiti and make it a second Puerto Rico? I don't think so; for one, it would be expensive; two, all the Haitians would move to the USA as soon as they could; and there are probably other reasons as well.
So my analysis shows that Haiti will remain a barely functioning country as it was before and it will not "end". After all, Bangladesh has it bad every year due to the extensive flooding and naturally occurring arsenic in the groundwater; but they still exist.