I'm having some ugly thoughts and i want your input.
Am I the only one who wonders if the US could maybe be exaggerating the amount of monetary donations to Haiti being made by us? Between 8pm last night and 8am this morning the amount jumped from $5mil in txtd donations to the red cross to $8mil; I'm not saying it's impossible but isn't that an awful lot of overnight donation texting going on?? Plus, the media seems to be very "let's-all-pat-ourselves-on-the-back-because-america-is-sooo-fucking-awesome". Not to underscore everything that people are doing; it's truly *wonderful*. But let's be honest, texting donations to the red cross hardly makes us a nation of saints but that seems to be the angle the US is going for right now, like we're using it to prove to the world that we're more humanitarian than everyone else, that we're not as bad as everyone thinks we are. These thoughts totally depress me, but I can't help but wonder.
I can't be the ONLY one who's thought about this. I mean, padding the numbers to make the nation feel good about itself during a recession and also convince the rest of the world that we're all selfless do-gooders wouldn't be a totally crazy scenario, would it?
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How about the fact that we really aren't Haiti's Bff after all? Food for thought...
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-2
i made a similar post on facebook and posted that link and a couple people found it really offensive and think that i neglected my "social reponsibility" by posting it. i don't get it; what's my social responsibility to facebook, to not publicly state my feelings and thoughts if other people aren't going to like them?
facebook ain't no hipmama.
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius"--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
i make the mistake of assuming that the rest of the world is as open-minded and curious about learning the truth as the people here are and...yeah, it rarely turns into an rational, intelligent discussion like i intend it to. it usually just ends up with people thinking i'm an asshole. eh well.
But I know that I'm only the best kind of female asshole. And so are you, prolly....
I feel a little lost in the Haiti news- I don't get a paper and we don't have T.V.....and I've gotten really out of touch, aka hardly even remember to listen to NPR half the time. I just can't deal with the media. I do read the NY Times on days I'm on campus because my college gives out free copies.
The news really sends part of my head for a loop.
The news about Haiti astounded me. So much death. It makes it hard for me to watch the "drama" of it on tv. "Drama" about death makes me angry. I've really grown to hate the media over the years to the point where I can really only tolerate the smallest shred of it. I get really, really REALLY pissed off, disgusted, depressed, etc.
I got the vibe from reading a Time mag thing online that there is a lot of emphasis being put on the positive spin we in the U.S. are making of the catastrophe by being do-gooders. Some of the articles I was reading seemed to be profiling the Haitian people...I got a little sick with the coverage of it- it's hard for me to see things that aren't done carefully or tastefully when it comes to major catastrophes. It kind of echos of Katrina in my head- people stranded, etc. etc. Me sitting here, feeling helpless- I'll do what I can but I'm not about to sit around watching it. I can imagine.
But I don't think you're an asshole Phoenix, if that makes you feel better.
I'd just like to reiterate "fuck facebook- friends don't let friends fucking facebook" (whew that's alliteration for ya!)
I'm just as disgusted. I can't watch the shit the media is spewing. I've also been reading how the US troops basically commandeered the airport and refused to let other countries land their planes. It's all so much bullshit.that said, i did in fact donate $5 to Yele via phone, it was more than I could afford but I did it because it was the only thing I felt I *could* do, which makes me think a lot of ppl that normally wouldn't, might have. So, the numbers might now be too far off.
facebook is not hipmama. i don't usually engage in political type discussions on facebook, except with my radical women of color friends. i didn't see your status, phoenix, until this morning or i would have chimed in to support you. As far as I am concerned you WERE doing your social responsibility - we should always question our media and our government. However, some people have a different definition than i do-- to say the least!!!
America's record vis a vis Haiti is ATROCIOUS. HORRIBLE. I have little faith that it will necessarily get better.....Have you read Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein? It's about how neo-liberal IMF types come in after disaters and require that countries restructure and privatize everything, etc etc. You'd find it interesting, I think. Klein has already said that she believes this will almost certainly happen in Haiti....ugh.
One of my friends posted a fb note on "progressive link on Haiti" - hopefully you'll find some stuff in there interesting.
Another bloggy friend of mine had a rant on how we should just turn our TVs off, which I agreed with. Disaster/poverty porn? And advertisers/networks making money off of it? No thanks. (not that I watch mainstream media news but whatever)
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. -- Emily Dickinson
You want to do what you think is right and what matters to you, and if other people don't like it, as my father would have said, they can go fuck themselves. -- Amy Bloom
Yeh, the US gov't and media are pretty much full of shit. I think there's also HELLA coverage of this situation to distract us from the health care bill fiasco.
and all the pictures and commentary about our "brave troops" bringing food and water and "maintaining order" (as if Haitians are incapable of creating order themselves? They need us Amerikans in our matching outfits telling them where to go and what to do....argh).
Here's a not-quite-on-the-money (but not too far off) song about how we use our smiling military:
until last night. i ain't going to lie, i cried my fuckin eyes out. i actually didn't know it was that bad until yesterday at work people were talking all day about what they can do, asking if we'd join them, this sort of thing, so i went home and looked at the web site of a major network news.
but yes, i did see the sappiness and the rah rah ness of it all. i too hate sentimentality and drama about real life tragedy, it's what got under my skin most about the coverage about 9/11. skewing facts and repeating lies bothered me, but not like the background music did, and no one seemed to be talking about it.
i'd like to think we americans are good for a bit more than texting 10 bucks from our electronic gadgets because it's quick and easy. i'd like to think that we'd expect more of ourselves.
that said, when i did watch news, i watched it from a lot of different countries, and every one seemed to be patting themselves on the back for all they're doing in haiti and painting themselves as indispensable. maybe people are more apt to fork over some cash when their ego's being fed. so to that end, it would be counter productive to point out that their poverty is why they were so vulnerable to a natural disaster, and that poverty is essentially our fault.
oh and another thing i noticed, in the few days after the quake when i wasn't really reading about this, just glancing over headlines and blurbs, world leaders were giving statements, reporters were quoting hillary clinton, obama, sarkozy, gordon brown... and the WORLD BANK!! yes, the president of the world bank is now a world leader. i guess it's sort of a no brainer, but to me it was something out of a sci fi movie.
The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cHaiti Earthquake Reactionswww.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorHealth Care Crisis
it's a good thing we have people like rachel maddow to tell us how to think about this disaster.
seriously dont bother listening to the mainstream media .it's all bullshit. There is a group of high school kids from my city that are there in haiti right now that have been there since the quake and nothing has been done to get them out. The media here is saying that they are safe and fine but recently an email came out that the pastor they were there with sent detailing the robberies and the food and fuel shortages and saying they feared they would run out of food soon. I can't imagine how i would feel if they were my kids. So fuck the media. all they care about is keeping us placid so we never stop to wonder what is really going on
Nikkei
but I'm not willing to blindly believe anything without proof.
Glamorous
Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. ~Austin O'Malley
Let me clarify my earlier comment. I guess it's possible that 3 million dollars were donated in less than one day, but I'm not willing to believe it unless there is an accounting of every donation made.
If gifts are generally $10 a piece then 3 million dollars comes from just 300,000 people. The US population is just over 300 million. That's just 1% of the population. (And some undoubtedly gave more than once.) When you compare that to American Idol vote totals, its seems pretty reasonable to me.
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i read that earlier today. so that makes sense too, maybe america is self-aggrandizing to obscure the truth about our role in haiti's state of poverty. i'm just feeling really glum about the fact that it seems like the US is using this indescribable tragedy to give itself some good press. i feel like i'm being a negative asshole on one hand, but on the other hand it's like...i'm not going to fucking lie to myself and pretend it's all a warm fuzzy miracle that we're helping. we SHOULD be helping.