Powerful Writing on an Important Subject
Here’s something a gentleman by the name of Eleazar David Melendez wrote, expressing how and why he believes Puerto Rico’s death toll of about 3,000 from Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 ought to be the biggest strike against President Donald Trump. If you know someone who writes with more power and conviction, I hope you’ll make an introduction.
They did not die in the hurricane, Mr. President.
They died in pain, at home, of kidney failure unable to access the dialysis clinic for weeks.
They died, gasping for hours near the end, when the oxygen tank they needed to breathe gave out.
They died in the dark and the heat of unsanitary ICU units, of burns or gunshot wounds received before the hurricane that they almost certainly would have survived otherwise.
They died, burning up with fever, of leptospirosis from being in bodily contact with flood waters during the effort to save their neighbors.
They died in fear and confusion after being forced to go off their regular medication.
They died of heat stroke.
They died of diseases of antiquity, in a crisis of neglect unworthy of the greatest, wealthiest and most powerful nation in human history.
They died. But we lived. And we remember.
Wow. It certainly is true that the majority of deaths on Puerto Rico occurred following the hurricanes, largely due to inadequate health care and the admitted failures of the Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA). Those pointing out that these were preventable deaths, the result of a U.S. president who openly disdains the island and its inhabitants, have a strong argument.
Craig,
Puerto Rico’s ill’s are not due to the “wicked” US, or the President.
The writer is neither “powerful” or a person of conviction. The author is a typical whining leftist critic, blaming the US for their ills of their own creation.
Natural disasters like a hurricane, are very traumatic and Puerto Rica is exceedingly fortunate to has received assistance from such a generous nation as the US.
Obviously, in your outrage and hand-wringing indignation you missed the line about “gunshot wounds received before the hurricane”.
In what way is President trump responsible for “”gunshot wounds received before the hurricane” ?
In reality, Puerto Rico is an island suffering from institutionalized corruption, dysfunction, political and administrative incompetence.
Although, thanks to the US, the Island isn’t as bad as Haiti or other devastatingly chaotic third world nations, to depict Puerto Rico’s form as stemming from the US is just plain dishonest.
The President is right to “tell it how it is”. If these corrupt “hell on earth nations” don;t like such a description, or it offend the politically correct sensitivities of a bunch of ‘chardonnay leftists’ in affluent Santa Barbara, well,.. too bad, who rare cares!
Recently I saw a documentary bewailing the state of poverty in some third world nation, complaining of government neglect.
The rode into the town was bestrewn with years of rubbish. High unemployment ensured boredom and poverty. A lack of “western aid” was said to be the cause. Much hand wringing by the narrator.
No-one stated the obvious, which was why the local people didn’t stop waiting for the “government” or the West, why didn’t hey just get off their collective backsides and clean up the trash themselves ?
It’s their village, not mine. It’s their rubbish not mine. It’s their home, not mine.
I’m sick of the whining from people around the world waiting for someone else to take care of the problems created by themselves.
After WW2, the people (mostly women) of Germany rebuilt their devastated nation with American aid. They Rebuilt the nation from the rubble with their own hands.
The didn’t sit around complaining the US President looked after them like spoiled children.