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It's difficult to face the day happy and productive when you wake up to find that once again, the supreme court has decided that corporations have all the same rights as people. Rich, powerful people.
That ruling seems minor compared to the power-grabbing disaster that the US military seems to be making of the situation in Haiti. Enough has come out over the last few days that it seems pretty clear that rather than attempting to distribute aid and move rapidly to save lives, the US is walling itself and it's aid supplies up for fear of looters or sudden attacks by mobs of maddened Haitians.
To date, there has been a bit of lotting (duh), but no mobs of maddened Haitians. If the US keeps up current behavior, though, I'd expect the desparate mob to start getting violent. Undernourished, over-exposed, possibly injured, and desperate -- if that's not a set-up for a tragedy, I'm not sure what is.
The first thing that made me really worry about our efforts in Haiti, by the way? That whole business about turning away planes bearing docs and medical equipment, ostensibly because of air-scheduling and runway space issues. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong -- I'd LOVE to be wrong -- but hasn't the US military had the ability, training and supplies-wise, to very speedily build runways since world war two? So regardless of the misguided notion that security was more important to a country devestated by an earthquake than WATER, perhaps, just perhaps, some of those soldiers on the ground could have been alleviating the logistical bottleneck?
That ruling seems minor compared to the power-grabbing disaster that the US military seems to be making of the situation in Haiti. Enough has come out over the last few days that it seems pretty clear that rather than attempting to distribute aid and move rapidly to save lives, the US is walling itself and it's aid supplies up for fear of looters or sudden attacks by mobs of maddened Haitians.
To date, there has been a bit of lotting (duh), but no mobs of maddened Haitians. If the US keeps up current behavior, though, I'd expect the desparate mob to start getting violent. Undernourished, over-exposed, possibly injured, and desperate -- if that's not a set-up for a tragedy, I'm not sure what is.
The first thing that made me really worry about our efforts in Haiti, by the way? That whole business about turning away planes bearing docs and medical equipment, ostensibly because of air-scheduling and runway space issues. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong -- I'd LOVE to be wrong -- but hasn't the US military had the ability, training and supplies-wise, to very speedily build runways since world war two? So regardless of the misguided notion that security was more important to a country devestated by an earthquake than WATER, perhaps, just perhaps, some of those soldiers on the ground could have been alleviating the logistical bottleneck?
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Date: 2010-01-22 09:53 am (UTC)From:I wish there was a better way that people would actually follow.
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Date: 2010-01-22 09:54 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 11:54 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 11:53 pm (UTC)From: