My First and Last Thoughts on Haiti

[laguera25]

Roomie has gone to dispose of the trash and bring home a pizza, and so here I sit, listening To Rammstein and reading page after page of LJ responses to the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. I haven't said anything about it because there is no amount of gum-flapping that I could do that would improve the miserable, inhuman lot of the survivors. Well-wishes and sympathy are useful tools for making bystanders feel better about themselves when tragedy strikes("We're not rubber-necking and gorging ourselves on vicarious misery, we're commiserating), but they don't matter a tinker's damn to a person shitting into a bucket while their mother bloats and rots nearby. The people of Haiti need help, not pity. They need food and water, doctors and blankets, and since I can provide none of these things, I'm not going to insult them by saying anything but this:

I'm sorry. I wish we as a species weren't so utterly inept. I wish our abilities would, for once, exceed our intentions. I wish the aid you so desperately need wasn't stuck in limbo because the logistics of the relief effort are being run by peons. I wish we were as good at running a relief effort as we are at creating the need for one. I wish Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh and any other privileged asshole who would deny you aid because you don't "deserve" it could be airlifted into Port-au-Prince and left there to face the victims. I wish life were kinder, or fairer. I wish it were more beautiful. I wish it were less painful.

Godspeed, Haiti.