[Bret L]

Not Supposed To Say It, But…Had It With Haiti?

By Athena Kerry

"Call me cold-hearted, but I really could not be sicker of the Haiti coverage that seems to have taken over every media source on my planet.

When I first heard about the earthquake I was in the car and it was a
brief headline on NPR, I had charitable thoughts, like “Oh, how
terrible!” and “Maybe I should give blood”.

It wasn’t until the following day that I began to get restless—when I
couldn’t find a single other piece of news on the air, all of my
favorite blogs were asking for my donations, and I heard Obama’s
incredibly arrogant speech dedicating $100 million (which he later
referred to as an “investment”—ha!) from our bankrupt coffers.
[Remarks by the President on Recovery Efforts in Haiti, January 14,
2010]

I’d like to take this opportunity comment on President Obama’s speech.

*

First of all, he thanks the members of his National Security
team for standing with him and announces that the Haitian earthquake
is to be "the top priority for their departments and agencies right
now."

Really? We’re at war. We had an attempted terrorist attack less than a
month ago. We can’t even sort out airport security and yet a natural
disaster in a country that has never had any link to America is the
“top priority” for Obama’s National Security team?

What’s wrong with this picture?

*

Obama went on to say that he has “no higher priority than the
safety of American citizens"—but I can only surmise that he restricts
his definition of citizens to American citizens actually in Haiti.

How else can he explain the flinging open of our borders to illegal
Haitians already here, and offering up south Florida as the
sacrificial lamb in some voodoo ceremony to appease the incredible
hubris of the American political class?

*

Obama cites “common humanity” as one of the main reasons for his
commitment to help. But what does that even mean?

He’s speaking on behalf of the American government, not the American
system of private charities. He’s supposed to be thinking about the
national interest, not knee-jerk sentimentality.

*

Ever heart-warming, Obama reiterates that Americans’ “hearts go
out” to the Haitians, and later he says that, despite their many
struggles with slavery and natural disasters in the past, their “faith
has been unwavering”.

Whatever happened to our prayers going out to people in need? What
good are our hearts? Is the term “heart” now synonymous with “wallet”?

I know, I know, you might think that Obama’s terminology is just a
cowardly way of getting around the Political Incorrectness of
America’s Christian culture.

But to continue by saying that Haitians’ “faith has been unwavering”
lays bare a more dangerous issue. Surely Obama doesn’t mean the
Haitians’ faith in corruption, violence and voodoo, which is what
Haiti has been mostly committed to since it threw off the French? He
clearly doesn’t mean education, work-ethic and planning ahead. If that
were true, the fallout in Port-au-Prince would resemble that of the
Bay Area in 1989 when, during the 3rd game of the World Series, a 6.9-
magnitude quake killed only 63 people.

Talking heads could argue that the Bay Area and Port-au-Prince are
apples and oranges because of Haiti’s poverty. But whose fault is
that? The Haitians have not been victims of slavery since they won
independence from the French in 1804. San Francisco’s first colonizing
mission was established only 28 years before.

The fact is, Obama isn’t referring to faith in Christianity either.
He’s referring to faith in America’s bullet-in-foot aid.

Finally, I come to the only clip of Obama’s speech that I actually
heard on that first day in the car. It was this small clip which
initially stunned me:

“After suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must
cause some to look up and ask ‘have we somehow been forsaken?’ To the
people of Haiti we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be
forsaken, you will not be forgotten.”

Is it just me—or is Obama equating the American government (or really,
himself) directly with God?

Is there any other way to interpret this? I don’t see one.

For those readers who may be horrified by my callousness about human
suffering, I offer this final thought.

This Sunday, I attended mass at my hometown parish. Before the
collection, our priest explained that the second collection was
dedicated to Catholic Relief Services, which was funneling money and
help to Haiti. He described a convent which had been struck by the
earthquake, much of it turned to rubble and with many resulting
casualties. However, because the convent was a boarding school for
children, many of whom were still in the buildings or unable to find
their families, the nuns refused to leave. Our money would be
channeled to help this particular circumstance. [Salesians recount
tragedy in Haiti, Catholic News Agency, January 16, 2010]

I do have some hesitations about dealing with the Catholic Charities
network. But this is the kind of giving that I can believe in. We
donate voluntarily, from our own pockets, to people with whom we have
a common interest. [U.S. Churches Look for Own in Haiti, Wall Street
Journal, January 17, 2010] It is a classic example of the generosity
that has always characterized Americans: we are compassionate, we are
charitable and we give quietly—and effectively.

Obama’s embarrassment of a speech goes against all of that. He trades
compassion for catharsis, personal charity for giving away other
people’s money, and quiet giving for grandiose public statements.

Now who’s making a pact with the devil?"


http://www.vdare.com/kerry/100118_haiti.htm