Let me point out the obivous: Being poor and on food stamps here

[cali]

or even being homeless here is not the same thing as what the people of Port-au-Prince are suffering. Not in the same ball park at all. They are facing imminent death without help. And the comparison is not only off base, it's grotesque.

[Jennicut]

1. They are not merely just poor, they are also injured without access to clean water and food

It is a terrible comparison for anyone here to make.

[kentuck]

2. Right now, they need water more than anything.

More than money or food. It is a question of survival. It is immediate. Everything will help in the longer run.

[Dappleganger]

31. Uh, water and food should go hand in hand.

Passed out side-by-side. In tropical conditions it's essential to have both, especially in their fragile condition. MANY of those Haitiens are already undernourished as it is.

[Brickbat]

3. I'm shocked someone made that comparison.

Oh wait; no, I'm not.

[azurnoir]

4. Agreed

being poor and on food stamps in the US could almost be luxury in comparison to what Haitians are going through right now

[blondeatlast]

5. Haiti: little to no potable water, severely substandard infrastructure--on Tuesday of this week.

The earthquake was Wednesday.

Your message needs to repeat.

[liberal N proud]

6. Those who survive face disease and starvation

This is the poorest of the poor being struck with the worst of devastation.

Heart wrenching to think that while we live in the land of plenty, there is so much suffering so close to our shore.

[undeterred]

7. Being homeless anywhere is horrible

and being homeless in the middle of winter in the United States is nothing to trivialize.

[blondeatlast]

8. Who was? Let me at them.

But even the homeless here have access to clean water and sanitary plumbing (in public facilities). Not the case in Port-au-Prince.

My ex=husband is from New Delhi. trust me, poverty is VERY relative--and I'm not at all diminishing the plight of the poor and homeless in the US.

[Raineyb]

24. Try the OP. Sounded like trivialization to me.

:shrug:

[cali]

10. yes, it's terrible, but I'd take my chances being homeless here in Northern Vermont

any fucking day of the week over being on of the millions at imminent risk in Port-au-Prince tonight. Here, I can go to a shelter. There? not so much. That is not fucking trivializing. It's stark reality.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. True. I think, though, the massive scale of the Haitian disaster is something to

consider. Also, you just don't see news reports of suffering homeless people here, so I think people aren't going to have the same visceral reaction to it.

That said my heart goes out to both groups, for we shouldn't be holding a "who's got it worse contest" but rather be looking for ways to help in both situations if we can. :cry:

[zazen]

17. nicely and compassionately put

Unless I missed a post where someone explicitly said they had it as bad as in Haiti (and they'd have to be delusional), I really don't understand the anger at people who raise issues related to identifying and commending the tremendous outpouring of support for the people undergoing this horrific catastrophe, and just raising issues as to why humans don't respond collectively--in such a magnificent way as we've been seeing--to other longer term, largely human-made suffering.

It's not like we're on the ground there, saying, wait, I'm going to stop helping a 7-year-old with a broken leg so I can go raise an issue about why we can't generate support like this for Darfur, for example. If we were, then that'd suck.

But we're on this board posting about other topics. I don't see why examining the emotions that are collectively coming up, while we're in them, to look for ways to connect from that to other disasters down the road, is anything less than compassionate.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. There have been a number of them, and this OP is a response.

"The US is well on its way to looking like Haiti."

"The Obama administration is doing everything to turn us into Haiti."

Etc.

[Dappleganger]

32. +1

[Fire1]

9. Agree. Stupidity at it's finest. n/t

[cali]

12. hey, you little unreccing crew. Want to explain why you think it's a valid comparison?

[whistler162]

27. Mind explaining why you threadjacked!

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. And who is comparing poverty without crisis in the US against poverty

PLUS crisis in Haiti?

Better, compare Haiti today to New Orleans two days after Katrina.

[Arkansas Granny]

14. That reminds me of something my son said after returning from a foreign country.

He told me that he would be ashamed to tell people over there that he had grown up poor after seeing some of the living conditions that he had encountered. What is considered poor in our country is much better than being poor in many countries around the world.

I don't say this to downplay the effects of poverty in this country. I've been there and I know what it's like.

[proudohioan]

16. I've known 2 people who have said the same.

Never having left this country for a third world country, I will take their word for it!

[howard112211]

15. Indeed.

I always wonder about such stuff.

People comparing the Katrina to the Thailand Tsunami or people who compare 9/11 to the Holocaust.

Just strange how some people have no sense of proportion.

edit: I guess on an individual level it doesn't matter much though whether your family gets wiped out by a major catastrophe or
by lack of healthcare in an industrialized nation. Some people do have "shitty biographies" in countries that are overall well off.
There are just alot less of them.

[ThatPoetGuy]

18. You CANNOT quantify suffering.

You know, things in my life have gotten better, but a few years ago I was forced to choose between paying for life-saving surgery and paying for rent, so I wound up recovering from major abdominal surgery while homeless. I had a fifteen-pound lifting limit, and I had to carry a twelve-pound pump that was sucking infected fluids out of my stomach, leaving me with the ability to lift just a few pounds. One night I woke up at 4 a.m. because a strange man was punching me in the face. I wound up giving him my painkillers, and then I couldn't get more for myself. So yeah, recovering from major surgery, without painkillers, while homeless, and at the mercy of crazy people.

And, you know, my situation was far from unique. There are people all over suffering catastrophic changes, catastrophic losses; people living in fear and loneliness, terrified because they don't know where their next meal is going to come from. There are poor people here getting stabbed, or getting sick, and unable to receive anything but the most minimal health care. These people have been discarded.

I agree that no comparisons should be made. You can't justifiably say, "well, your suffering was pretty severe, I'll give it a 7.3." But who the fuck are you to say what's "in the same ball park" or not? A poor woman is dying of bone cancer, and her family has abandoned her. A homeless man who is missing a leg has been stabbed nine times. Are they suffering less than your average Haitian right now?

Past a certain point, "less" and "more" are utterly, unforgivably meaningless.

[cali]

20. you're right and you're wrong.

but the bottom line is that these people are in IMMINENT danger of death and that there are millions of them.

[MadHound]

21. I think that you are trivializing homelessness here

Having been homeless here, I can tell you that your generalizations of it are far off base. People have, and do die from being poor and homeless every single day in this country. Like that young man that was found in his camp last week, dead due to cold.

Suffering is suffering no matter where it occurs. I think that trying to categorize it by where it takes place is cruel and cold hearted.

[cali]

25. yes, people can die from being homeless. 40,000 people have already

been buried in Haiti. 100,000+ are missing or trapped. That's a cold hard fact. It doesn't mean I don't feel great empathy for those here who are homeless or think that more shouldn't be done to help those living in the margins here. What it does mean is that one is a humanitarian crisis writ large.

[MadHound]

33. I recognize that it is a massive humanitarian crisis.

However the homeless problem here in this country is also a humanitarian crisis. The problem is that it isn't writ large, in fact for the most part it's ignored.

Hell, here it is forty eight hours later and we have a decent estimate of how many are dead, injured or trapped in Haiti, yet after decades we have no clear figure of how many people are homeless, much less how many homeless people die each year, at least on a national level.

We do know that in LA the homeless generally die at an average of one a day. Other places that number is larger, or smaller, depending on their homeless population. But as these numbers start adding up, the picture becomes clear, tens of thousands of homeless people die each and every year. Where is the furor for them?

But because all of this is politely kept quiet, this problem continues not to garner any sort of attention. It gets trivialized, much like your post trivializes it.

Tell you what, I've survived being homeless, sixty pounds under weight, desperately hungry, out in the sub zero cold, let's see you get out of your comfy station in life and survive a week like that, then come back and just try to be as trivial towards the plight of the homeless.

Yes, we should help Haitians in their hour of need, but we shouldn't be trivializing our own humanitarian crisis here at home as you did.

[timeforpeace]

22. Shocked, saddened and hurt.

[truedelphi]

23. It's a matter of degrees. And when you live in your car for six months

Facing arrest in certain places, And yet have the strength of character to not feel resentment and strength of character to not start making comparisons like that, let me know.

I will pin a medal on your chest.

Americans always love the poor helpless foreigners. The poor helpless Americans not so much.

And that is where the resentment comes from.

[undeterred]

28. We have elected officials who fight against helping the poor

in our own country or anywhere. Fortunately Obama did not have to get a bill through Congress to offer aid and support to Haiti in this time of crisis.

[truedelphi]

29. I am not saying that this resentment is "just" or fair.

I am offering up the reason for it.

I am willing to bet that right now in Marin or somewhere like it, a matron is packing up her old opera gowns to ship off to Haiti to help clothe the poor and the devastated.

But just two weeks ago, she called the cops on a homeless guy living in his car, because he frightened her by being there (I mean, the car was not a Beamer of a Hummer, for Pete's sake!)

So that is why I answered this OP - the skewed "Charitable" ideology that so many Americans hold on to, as to who is worthy and who isn't.

And for many Americans, this idealogy requires that you must be a foreigner and absolutely devastated, before you are worthy of help. Otherwise, the reasoniing goes, why shouldn't an individual just pull themselves up by the bootstrraps.

[cutlassmama]

35. Exactly

[hfojvt]

30. Obama has pledged $100 million in disaster relief

We regularly spend over $350 Billion on poorer Americans. That's #350,000,000,000 compared to $100,000,000.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/95

[truedelphi]

34. Again as I said in response to person before you,

I am not "justifying" the sentiments of the people who are upset about aiding Haiti.

And part of it is this: the poor in this nation know quite well that many of our PEOPLE (not the government, but the people) in this nation are often appalled by our homeless. Angry at the homeless. Appalled by the unemployed. Angry at the unemployed.

Unless the homeless and unemployed reside in foreign lands. Then they often become a treasured cause.

It makes no sense, but it is how it is. My husband used to counsel students at a University. Several times a year, some students would show up and ask not for counseling, but for him to offer a list of places where they could get free food. The places were few and far between. And those that did catered to the Hispanic poor.

And the alumni had food drives for the poor in foreign nations, but not for those trying to get through college without eating very often.

[tkmorris]

26. And so? Not seeing your point

It could also be said that being poor in Haiti is better than being dead. Does that mean that being poor in Haiti is OK? Nope, and being poor in the U.S. of A. is no great shakes either.

What is it you are trying to say here?