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Post by Julian on Nov 25, 2010 11:40:26 GMT -5
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/25/apathy-in-haiti-electionApathy rules as Haiti approaches 'crucial' presidential electionOk, yes, there's the general cynicism that they're all as bad as each other... but is it Apathy or Irrelevance when confronted by more pressing concerns like basic survival. Lack of enthusiasm partly stems from the wearying daily scrabble for clean water, decent food and dignity. In the capital some 1.5m are homeless. Unemployment is estimated at 90%.
Many lost identity documents in the earthquake and cannot vote. Those who can wonder if it is wise to do so during the cholera outbreak. The disease is not spread by person-to-person contact and there will be hand sanitisers at polling stations, but with more than 1,300 dead, and widespread ignorance about the bacteria's transmission, queuing with strangers does not appeal. ...and yet, a pisspoor turnout, with many people unable to vote, and also with the fear of death and joke candidates is still expected to have about 40% of turnout, - a figure higher than any of the turnouts for the US midterms for the last 30 to 40 years...
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Post by Julian on Nov 25, 2010 11:43:31 GMT -5
not to mention 5% of their country was killed in an Earthquake not that long ago and millions of people have been living in tents ever since.
A better headline might've been. Twats at home in comfort, concerned about low voter turnout in disaster zone.
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Post by wolfgangravenna on Nov 25, 2010 11:50:16 GMT -5
Did anyone give this article writer a "Marlow's hierarchy of needs" before he wrote this article?
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Post by Julian on Nov 25, 2010 15:11:06 GMT -5
It's Maslow from memory, and yeah, I agree. It's rudimentary and doesn't always fit, but when a vital piece is missing, it really shows. I think from skimming the article that the writer was sympathetic to their plight, but should've been a lot more scathing of the other commentary.
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Post by tolpuddlemartyr on Nov 25, 2010 15:44:13 GMT -5
Yeah, voting in a first world country - which involves catching a well maintained bus along well-paved mostly safe streets to vote at the local primary school aint quite the same deal as battling through a cholera-infected zone of anarchy to get to a voting booth while taking time off from the little things like scrabbling to find clean water and edible food. Priorities, y'know.
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Post by Julian on Nov 25, 2010 17:28:57 GMT -5
And I believe I heard motivation mentioned - it's ever so important to mull over who should get to live in what's left of the presidential palace, when you haven't eaten in days, the whole country smells like a latrine, and you could shit yourself to death in hours if you drink unboiled water.
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Post by wolfgangravenna on Nov 25, 2010 17:57:58 GMT -5
And I believe I heard motivation mentioned - it's ever so important to mull over who should get to live in what's left of the presidential palace, when you haven't eaten in days, the whole country smells like a latrine, and you could shit yourself to death in hours if you drink unboiled water. To be fair, at least they have the right to choose what brand of corruption they can have. I mean, weren't a lot of funds to fix the Quake damaged misused by their government? I mean, it's like they get the choice only capitalism can afford, and Corruption is a commodity, right?
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Post by ltfred on Nov 26, 2010 22:02:34 GMT -5
And, as Haiti's unimaginable, centuries-long, foreign-enforced planned poverty continues, the first-world, industrialised state known as New Zealand has recieved millions in foreign aid after an estimated one one-hundred-thousandth of the number of Haitians killed in the Earthquake (with deaths continuing to the present) were killed in a mining accident.
The section of the international community responsible for aid is launching an open and aggressive war on statistical relevence and efficient allocation of scarce resources. The media is encouraging them.
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Post by scotsgit on Nov 27, 2010 10:55:01 GMT -5
Yeah, voting in a first world country - which involves catching a well maintained bus along well-paved mostly safe streets to vote at the local primary school aint quite the same deal as battling through a cholera-infected zone of anarchy to get to a voting booth while taking time off from the little things like scrabbling to find clean water and edible food. Priorities, y'know. Then again, The Grauniad has always given me the impression that it lives on another planet: About 15 years ago it had an article about how, and this was news to them, some people work at night - it was then followed by piece of patronising claptrap about how the rest of humanity should do this as well...... Edit: This is also the same newspaper that was loudly cheering when Pol Pot came to power and went on about how he was 'one of the people' and that this was the 'dawn of a new era for Cambodia'. Then, when the murderous bastard was swept from power, they then did an about face and start lambasting other papers such as The Times and The Glasgow Herald (which had opposed him) for raising The Grauniad's support of one of the worst people since Hitler, claiming they'd always opposed him....
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Post by wolfgangravenna on Nov 27, 2010 13:05:53 GMT -5
Hrm...I wonder how Haiti got into this debt...Petro Dollars or IMF loans...?
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Post by ironbite on Nov 27, 2010 13:17:46 GMT -5
I'd think the Earthquake that happened there would have something to do with their debt.
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Post by wolfgangravenna on Nov 27, 2010 14:16:19 GMT -5
I'd think the Earthquake that happened there would have something to do with their debt. They were in debt before the earthquake.
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Post by Julian on Nov 27, 2010 14:42:34 GMT -5
Massively. In fact corruption this year barely rates on the radar.
Haiti has always been desperately poor and exploited by Western interests.
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Post by wolfgangravenna on Nov 27, 2010 15:22:28 GMT -5
Massively. In fact corruption this year barely rates on the radar. Haiti has always been desperately poor and exploited by Western interests. Do you know HOW they got into debt? Where they one of the nations that accept Petro Dollars and was just left behind when the market crashed, or did they accept a loan from the IMF a few years before natural resources dropped dramatically in price thanks to OPEC? Or is this one of those "horribly off since independence" kind of things...?
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Post by ltfred on Nov 27, 2010 19:59:46 GMT -5
Or is this one of those "horribly off since independence" kind of things...? Haiti was the first non-white nation in the world to win it's independence, in 1804 and at the end of a long and incredibly bloody war with France (note: there are no native Haitians, Columbus murdered them all. The population are former French slaves). The French were willing to give up what they declared to be their land by the right of skin colour, in return for just compensation. Haiti finished paying it off in the 1970s. The Haitian revolutionaries, declaring the same radical beliefs as the American revolutionaries, were merrily betrayed by them, right from the start. The US has invaded Haiti several dozen times, writing (in the 1920s) a constitution deliberately designed to saboutage the Haitian economy and to keep pro-US elites in charge. The US (and Mother Theresa) backed a crazy voodo-mass murdering duo called the Duvaliers, and the US deposed the first elected leader of Haiti for being too good. America has declared that the massive debts incurred by the secret police forces of their puppet in crack downs on the local populace to be owed by all Haitians. It is for this reason that, to this day, Haiti continues to give aid to the United States, in net terms.
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