Pilots - Work One Day For Haiti Challenge

[waka]

I don't have blinders on, you do. You think your $10 bucks is going to make a difference when in reality the Haitian people won't see a dime of it any time soon. If you want some immediate relief for Haiti support the U.S.military humanitarian effort. That's their best hope.

I have blinders? OK, fine. Your opinion is duly noted. Now, (as I did) feel free to post links to some actual references instead of just talking out of your ass. Wow! Never mind. Since you were so correct about China and Russia, and you were so in context with Al Qaeda, I'll just go ahead and take your words as gospel.

hmmmm, supporting the US military's humanitarian effort? As in through your taxes? According to you and Mach80, I already do. I am fine with that. However, I am not the one that is just making stuff up or merely regurgitating excuses that has been spoon fed to me for not donating to NGO's. Whether or not you donate your money to charitable organizations is your business. However, don't mindlessly minimize the efficacy of donations from those who do......especially when you have zero real world understanding or knowledge on the subject.

Continue with your vacuum world of shallow politics if it makes you feel better. The earthquake victims in Haiti couldn't care less about your political views (or anyone's), nor should they.

The U.S. and Americans are portrayed around the world as ignorant, self-serving, intrusive evil capitalists. Yet we are ALWAYS the first on the scene when anyone, anywhere needs help. We give more and more often than any other country on the planet, but we're the bad guys. I'm tired of it. If that's too political for you, too damn bad.

You and your ilk has everything to do with that portrayal. Well, I will give you one thing. At least you know yourself.

 

[PA44Jockey]

I don't have blinders on, you do. You think your $10 bucks is going to make a difference when in reality the Haitian people won't see a dime of it any time soon. If you want some immediate relief for Haiti support the U.S.military humanitarian effort. That's their best hope.

So when your house burns down, or is destroyed by a tornado, she we just look at you as your neighbors and say, well, I pay taxes therefor you need to direct your attention to the government for help? Or would you rather me bring over some food, gift cards so you children can buy clothes, maybe a mattress to sleep on?

So if nobody pitched in, what would our military be carrying over to Haiti? There are a great number of organizations in the US that are taking donations to provide FOOD, Hospital supplies, Generators and so on. All that will be transported by the US Military and other private companies over to Haiti.

I am glad to see that UPS pilots have signed up to donate their time and pay for transport flights to and from Haiti.

 

[Twasilew]

What a bunch of cheap, pathetic weasels some of you people are. Human beings are suffering and dying and your response is "I've paid my taxes and that is enough". The 100 million that the government has given to Haiti amounts to a whopping 35 cents per American. So It's laughable that you feel you've already "paid your fair share".

If you have the means to donate, please do. If you do not have the means right now, then at least support those that do. If you have nothing better to say than to knock down those that are trying to help in any way that they can...then how about doing us all a favor and shut the F..k up.

What makes America great is how we react and help others in time of need. My most memorable missions in the military have been humanitarian relief. Imagine...using our power and resources to SAVE LIVES. I'd give anything to be flying missions there right now.

 

[crxpilot]

Anyone who cannot show compassion and charity at a time like this is despicable at best.

 

[JFReservist]

Sorry for the Thread Creep

.....

 

[SFR]

Well maybe someday we'll figure all this out, try to put an end to all our doubt, try to find a way to make things better now.... Maybe someday we'll live our lives outloud and be better off somehow....someday...

 

[aewanabe]

What a bunch of cheap, pathetic weasels some of you people are. Human beings are suffering and dying and your response is "I've paid my taxes and that is enough". The 100 million that the government has given to Haiti amounts to a whopping 35 cents per American. So It's laughable that you feel you've already "paid your fair share".

If you have the means to donate, please do. If you do not have the means right now, then at least support those that do. If you have nothing better to say than to knock down those that are trying to help in any way that they can...then how about doing us all a favor and shut the F..k up.

What makes America great is how we react and help others in time of need. My most memorable missions in the military have been humanitarian relief. Imagine...using our power and resources to SAVE LIVES. I'd give anything to be flying missions there right now.

I've got nothing to add. Great post.

 

[C-150ETOPS]

Did anyone help out us during Katrina ? Just wondering...

I remember watching a CH47 with Indonesian markings dropping sandbags after Katrina.

I don't know if it had a US Army crew that "Shanghai'd" it out of Ft Rucker, but it was there on TV. Nobody seemed to noticed it.

In the end, did we really need any help? How many Sam's Club, Costco's, Walmarts did a normal weekend of business after Katrina? How many C-130's, CH47's, CH53's sat around the static flightlines at airshows around the country right after Katrina?

(Before anyone gets the wrong idea, post Katrina N.O. 9/10 Nagin and Landreau, 1/10 Bush)

 

[waveflyer]

We are all interconnected.

Remember- it's not what we get that will make us happy- it's what we give. If you're trying to justify not giving even $10- think about how you feel- are you angry about your taxes? Angry? Think about how happy you are- and realize where the ultimate blame for that lies. It's $10- no matter how much you may pay in taxes- the suffering in Haiti is real- and if you can't find a way to feel it- and give $10 intelligently- your personal problems are greater than any of us can help with. Selfishness is a hell of a devil.

Open your hearts.

 

[Mach 80]

This column from the WSJ is right on:

It's been a week since Port-au-Prince was destroyed by an earthquake. In the days ahead, Haitians will undergo another trauma as rescue efforts struggle, and often fail, to keep pace with unfolding emergencies. After that—and most disastrously of all—will be the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians from themselves.
"Haiti needs a new version of the Marshall Plan—now," writes Andres Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald, by way of complaining that the hundreds of millions currently being pledged are miserly. Economist Jeffrey Sachs proposes to spend between $10 and $15 billion dollars on a five-year development program. "The obvious way for Washington to cover this new funding," he writes, "is by introducing special taxes on Wall Street bonuses." In a New York Times op-ed, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush profess to want to help Haiti "become its best." Some job they did of that when they were actually in office.

All this works to salve the consciences of people whose dimly benign intention is to "do something." It's a potential bonanza for the misery professionals of aid agencies and NGOs, never mind that their livelihoods depend on the very poverty whose end they claim to seek. And it allows the Jeff Sachses of the world to preen as latter-day saints.





For actual Haitians, however, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity. It will benefit the well-connected at the expense of the truly needy, divert resources from where they are needed most, and crowd out local enterprise. And it will foster the very culture of dependence the country so desperately needs to break.

How do I know this? It helps to read a 2006 report from the National Academy of Public Administration, usefully titled "Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed." The report summarizes a mass of documents from various aid agencies describing their lengthy records of non-accomplishment in the country.

Here, for example, is the World Bank—now about to throw another $100 million at Haiti—on what it achieved in the country between 1986 and 2002: "The outcome of World Bank assistance programs is rated unsatisfactory (if not highly so), the institutional development impact, negligible, and the sustainability of the few benefits that have accrued, unlikely."

Why was that? The Bank noted that "Haiti has dysfunctional budgetary, financial or procurement systems, making financial and aid management impossible." It observed that "the government did not exhibit ownership by taking the initiative for formulating and implementing [its] assistance program." Tellingly, it also acknowledged the "total mismatch between levels of foreign aid and government capacity to absorb it," another way of saying that the more foreign donors spent on Haiti, the more the funds went astray.

But this still fails to get at the real problem of aid to Haiti, which has less to do with Haiti than it does with the effects of aid itself. "The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape," James Shikwati, a Kenyan economist, told Der Spiegel in 2005. "For God's sake, please just stop."

Take something as seemingly straightforward as food aid. "At some point," Mr. Shikwati explains, "this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unscrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the U.N.'s World Food Program."

Mr. Sachs has blasted these arguments as "shockingly misguided." Then again, Mr. Shikwati and others like Kenya's John Githongo and Zambia's Dambisa Moyo have had the benefit of seeing first hand how the aid industry wrecked their countries. That the industry typically does so in connivance with the same local governments that have led their people to ruin only serves to help keep those elites in power, perpetuating the toxic circle of dependence and misrule that's been the bane of countries like Haiti for generations.

A better approach recognizes the real humanity of Haitians by treating them—once the immediate and essential tasks of rescue are over—as people capable of making responsible choices. Haiti has some of the weakest property protections in the world, as well as some of the most burdensome business regulations. In 2007, it received 10 times as much in aid ($701 million) as it did in foreign investment.

Reversing those figures is a task for Haitians alone, which the outside world can help by desisting from trying to kill them with kindness. Anything short of that and the hell that has now been visited on this sad country will come to seem like merely its first circle.