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Monday, January 18, 2010

Can we not agree that no one should be politicizing the Haitian earthquake?

From the blog: "POLITICS FROM THE EYES OF AN EBONY MOM"

Haiti is No Hurricane Katrina

Posted on January 14, 2010 by musesofamom

Over the past few days we have looked at the utter devastation of the island of Haiti. The images are heartbreaking, but we are heartened by the response of our government. President Obama’s response has been swift, coordinated and aggressive. He said that Haiti is our neighbor and we are here to help them. In spite of our country’s best efforts we still have detractors like Rush Limbaugh use this opportunity to inject race into the situation. Limbaugh said, “This will play right into Obama’s hands. Humanitarian, compassionate. They’ll use this to, to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in, in this country. It’s made-to-order for him. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there.” The other disturbing thing about this tragedy is the constant comparisons between the Haitian earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. This is truly like comparing apples to oranges. Haiti is our neighbor it is not a state. Katrina happened in the United States and we were unable to help our own citizens. The effort in Louisiana was flawed on every level: local, state and federal. We found it incomprehensible that we were hearing US citizens being referred to as “refugees.” We had a president who initially was disengaged and FEMA who was ill-equipped and unprepared to deal with the crisis, but this was an internal problem. These were our citizens and we were responsible for their well-being. Haitians are not our citizens they are our neighbors and we are doing everything to help them, but please stop comparing this disaster to Katrina they are two very different situations.

Original link here:
http://ebonymompolitics.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/haiti-is-no-hurricane-katrina/

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You wouldn't think Rush Limbaugh or any other "Right-winger" would want to politicize the Haitian earthquake anyway, Katrina comparison or no, for two reasons: 1) It's almost unthinkable to do so, since it is a horrific natural catastrophe and 2) The case can be made, I think, that the US is responding far better to this disaster, as "Ebony Mom" states above, to Haiti's troubles off our shore than we did to a disaster in one of our own major cities, in our own country.

"Ebony Mom" also points out that the Fox "News" network ignored the Haitian earthquake in it's coverage of world news (link here: http://ebonymompolitics.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/fox-news-top-shows-ignore-the-haiti-catastrophe/) and Glenn Beck also wanted to politicize the horrible tragedy that is Haiti right now, on his show (link: http://ebonymompolitics.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/glenn-beck-says-president-obama-is-%e2%80%9cdividing-the-nation%e2%80%9d-by-reacting-so-quickly-to-haiti/)

Then, not to be outdone in both the politicization or "I'm a ranting, raving lunatic" arena, "Venezualan President Hugo Chavez claimed yesterday that the US is trying to occupy Haiti "undercover"."

Then, "Former President George W. Bush weighed in on the matter (I can hardly believe I'm saying this) and denied that President Obama is "'politicizing' Haiti".

So, finally, I ask you: "Can't we all just get along?"

2 comments:

The Observer said...

I do not know why you didn't get a million amens on this.

Mo Rage said...

From your lips to God's ears.

But the answer is apathy.

Don't bother me now. NASCAR is on.