real nice.
go down to the crumbling third world country under the guise of salvation (whatever that meant at the time), and then try to smuggle a bunch of children into the dominicanRepublic to sell on the black market.
i discovered this story on news hour, where the slant was partially biased toward neutrality (if that's possible), in that key details were left aside to make it sound like things were more up in the air. sort of like, "this is what we know, and this is all we know. we won't say anything else that might incriminate." but world focus had a lot more details, and it doesn't look that great for these bible beaters.
what the baptists referred to as "spiriting away" the "orphans" to a better life comes across more like kidnapping when you look at the details...
exhibit A: many of the children had families (some even still had living parents) to take care of them. one of the girls even says she was telling her captors that she was not an orphan and she wanted to go back to her parents, and was told in response that they were only taking her to the DR for a vacation. another child was wearing a sweater clearly marked with symbols used by the rescue workers to indicate that he was not an orphan.
exhibit B: these children were being kept in a shelter that could be called squalid even in comparison to what they were living in in the immediate wake of the earthquake. this is your salvation?
exhibit C: the children were not fed (not even a baby so young that she was not yet weaned from milk) while in the "care" of these particular good samaritans.
exhibit D: let's forget that the border patrol stated for the record that these children were being taken to the DR to be sold at 10 grand a head. we'll forget that because this statement was not qualified, and might simply be an assumption based on past incidents. let's talk about first world entitlement.
even if these children were being "adopted" and taken to a "better" life in the states, you can't just assume that children in poor or developing countries are public domain like so many soiled couches on college town curbs.
you can't just go down there and pick out one you think is real cute and take him home.
they're not just growing on trees down there, or falling off an assembly line. they have parents and families, too.
and you have to check these details out before you just stuff them in your carry-on and head home.
beyond this idiotic notion that undernourished brown babies are fashion accessories to prove that you were really there like a henna tattoo, or a puka shell necklace, who the fuck told us that our life is so much better?
scant days after the earthquake hit, some family in washington state had "adopted" some haitian siblings, and brought them back to the states. at this point in time people were still digging screaming victims from rubble with their bare hands. most rescue workers hadn't even hit the shore yet, and these kids were being "rescued" to a life where suddenly, rather than a mat on the floor and bare feet, they had boxsprings and mattresses and down comforters, and nikes in every color.
is this a better life?
a better chance at a good education, sure. a better chance at growing up healthy, maybe (we'll see how this healthcare thing pans out).
but there are serious faults in our lifestyle that we overlook. namely down comforters and nikes in every color.
a child in haiti would be beside herself if you gave her $100, but when she comes here and learns that $100 is just a pair of designer jeans for this year's back to school wardrobe, what have we done to her?
parents could put their children through the best schools in haiti with what the average american parent spent on one child's xmas haul last year.
the american hero is a farce, the american lifestyle is deeply flawed in its own right, and these so called pious good samaritans we've sent down there are nothing but selfish, entitled a-holes with no common sense, whether you think they are criminals or misguided do gooders...
if they thought they were doing the right thing, they have to live with the fact that all that religious dedication and they still have no idea what "the right thing" means. if they had criminal intent, they have to live with that the rest of their lives, in or out of prison.
at this point, i only have one question for these idiots:
where is your god now?
...chocolate rain!
1 comment:
You managed to get national dark chocolate day in there somewhere.
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