Trade shoes? What shoes?

Americans are the most generous people the world over. Over the course of world history, there has been no other nation that has provided its blood and treasure to free and aid people of all races and creeds. We are, as President Reagan paraphrased from scripture, that "shining city on a hill." That is why people will leave everything behind and risk their lives to seek our shores.

As late as 1981, the South China Sea saw many people still trickling out of Vietnam, taking to the open seas in an overcrowded and barely seaworthy junk in hopes of being picked up by the U.S. Seventh Fleet. For those who did finally make it, there were just as many who didn't.

Poverty, oppression and hopelessness leads one quickly down the road of desperation. Now add to this trifecta of human subjugation - a once-in-a-lifetime 7.0 earthquake. Haiti is about the poorest country in the world and yet sits in our own backyard, one hour south of Miami.

Are we to collectively ignore their suffering? As the most prosperous nation on the planet, don't we have an ethical and moral obligation to come to their aid?

Some of the disparaging comments in the Opinion Poll last Sunday certainly lacked empathy, given the grand scope of additional anguish and devastation brought on by the quake.

The underlying articulation was we should take care of our own poor first. The fact is, we do. Recently, an additional soup kitchen opened on Thursday nights in Shamokin.

The typical "poor" American has a color TV and a VCR. They have a car, a cell phone, microwave and a refrigerator, and whether they have health insurance or not, they are able to obtain medical care when needed. Try to find this in places like Haiti or Cuba, Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan or North Korea. It is safe to presume that no one is lacking in shelter in the Susquehanna Valley by choice, or eating mud cakes laced with salt or participating in food riots to survive.

Despite all our material wealth, poverty still thrives among some of us - a spiritual paucity, if you will, that seems to be metastasizing with the times.

It would be a good bet that those who refuse to help probably have never traversed the landscape that is the Third World. There is a very good reason why the "Third World" is labeled as such. Ever wonder why it's not called the Second World? Because there is no comparison; it isn't even close.

Take the earthquake in San Francisco in 1989. It, too, was 7.0, and there were 68 killed and the damage nothing close to that suffered in Haiti. The island nation has the misfortune to be located directly in a geological fault zone, making it susceptible to earthquakes. Its location in the Caribbean Sea also puts it in the cross-hairs for frequent hurricanes.

Decades of government corruption along with environmental degradation and poverty only compounds the problems. Life there is a daily struggle against starvation, disease and death.

What initially draws you in like a magnet when you first arrive in any Third World country is the stench. You can't escape it. It's like the entire country needs one huge air-freshener - and that's on a good day. Add to that 150,000 rotting corpses with many more dying of untreated, yet preventable, infections amid tons of debris, and even the involuntary act of breathing becomes laborious.

Sanitation, which most of us living in the West take for granted, and in the Third World is negligible at best, becomes non-existent, creating a Category 5 opportunity for diseases.

Even more disturbing is Haiti lacks the prevailing infrastructure that would enable survivors to respond to cries for help coming from within the ruins. 

Our efforts in Haiti are spearheaded by the U.S. military But it is the private organizations like Catholic Relief Services, the International Red Cross and Food for the Poor that are most effective.

They have been embedded for years and not only know the people, but the countryside, too. These are the organizations that can use your help.

Being hungry and homeless is never a good thing despite what people who've never been homeless and hungry may say. We should not expect accolades or even simple gratitude for doing the right thing, but, we can, Michelle Obama notwithstanding, feel proud of our country and our fellow countrymen who are willing to aid all victims from any natural or man-made disaster from the Berlin Air Lift to Haiti.

(Maresca, a local freelance writer, composes "Talking Points" for each Sunday edition.)

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