The US has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world. Based on NYC in the 70's I don't think it's stretching to say the US would have as high crime or higher than the DR with a similar weak police force. More than likely much worse given the very high level of drug use in the States. In fact, I expect there would be similar violence as there is just across the border on Mexico, not pretty to say the least.
- Thread starter Frank the Tank
- Start date
Trujillo's Grandson Seeks To Set Record Straight About El Jefe
The US has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world. Based on NYC in the 70's I don't think it's stretching to say the US would have as high crime or higher than the DR with a similar weak police force. More than likely much worse given the very high level of drug use in the States. In fact, I expect there would be similar violence as there is just across the border on Mexico, not pretty to say the least.
A person does not have to live in a city like NYC or L A, they can live in Seattle or Portland OR where there is less crime. Chip it is NOT THE POLICE that allows crime to flourish in the DR!!! Dominicans allow crime to flourish in the DR because they "BABY IT" when crime is hungry Dominicans feed it, when crime is bored Dominicans play games with it, when crime is lonely Dominicans hug it.
Chip remember this if you forget anything I have stated in this post, these police officers are Dominican 1ST before anything!!! Blood on the leaves, Blood on the ROOT!!!
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I think we are on the same page there. I've been there too, D.C. being my hometown and all, and I too think the holocaust was a horrible, perverse, and unexplainable crime of war. What I was pointing out is, that unfortunately not all mass killings have been as well documented as the holocaust (perhaps with the only exception of the atomic bombing of Japan, which happened shortly after the holocaust). Greek, Romans, etc, carried over terrible massacres while imposing their empires. Dictators all over the developing world kill millions in a few years. Spaniards killed millions in America in a short span of time. Of course, there were no historians there to document it. And if there were, they did not want to, or didn't live to write about it. Now we know about that just because when fear subsided, we connected the dots and got the whole picture.
Naturally, this does not excuse what happened during WWII, it just tells us that horror is part of our nature, and not related to race, religion, country of origin or form of government. Of course, many people will always try to relate horrors to a particular group of people in order to hurt others in the same group who are otherwise innocent, and do this hardly ever with noble or oblivious intentions.
aranoid:Actually, it's more like saying my teenage daughters are well behaved because I rape their friends and throw their friends' families in a dark hole if they don't.
Or maybe that is what the PROPAGANDA MACHINE want you to believe...Do you still believe that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction"? And that SH was directly involved with 911?
Considering how many innocent human beings lost their lives on the MONSTROUS FABRICATIONS of certain SHAMELESS individuals, the phrase "evil monster" may have to be reserved for someone different from SH (not that SH was a saint)....
Many cultures have only lived under the mano dura so to speak and that is the way the culture has evolved. The middle east countries are prime examples. The Dr shares many aspects of this also. The fact that the police usually shoot criminals and most civilians have guns and will shoot criminals tells you that the people do not like crime. The corruption that is in place affords it, but I wouldnt say it is considered okay by any means.
Hitler practically ended that by either forcing much of the intellectual elite into exile or murdering them. Germany managed to prosper after the second world war because it was in the US' security interest that it did, leading Washington to pour billions of dollars into it. I think the only way you can attribute the German Wirtschaftswunder to Hitler is by saying that it wouldn't have happened hadn't he caused WWII.
Partially true but there were a lot of "Arian" scientists left who went to the States after the war. The USA benefited quite a bit from them and just to name one, Wernher von Braun.
The Marshall Plan was for most of West Europe not just Germany but as we can see now the Germans did the most and the best with it didn't they?
LOL-yes the old days are gone and I am gone too. The DR will always be a part of me since I am from there but the DR does not hold me bound to it anymore. The last vestiges of this relationship lie in DR1 and my calls to the country for some business and family stuff. I changed my tune and it's true the downtrodden does affect me. I no longer blame the poor for their poverty. They as us all are products of the environment. If you begin life with alot, it is expected you will do alot. That's the norm and if you begin with very little, you will get out very little.
Are there exceptions? Yes but those are only exceptions. There was a time in America when the opposite prevailed but even the American Dream is on the rocks. The DR is a nation of endemically poor people and the DR naysayers and gov't officials who state the contrary. The old days of DR1 are gone. I matured and I left the DR. I feel truly sad for the DR poor and the vicissitudes they endure on a daily basis. It was no longer conscionable for me to live so well and to see others live so miserably. I do what I can.
Life in South Florida is very comfortable. It is very clean and it has that feel of a DR that only exists in the collective memories of the DR old who can remember a clean, safe and orderly DR. That DR I doubt will ever return. There are those who call for a return of Trujillo. I also hold to that fantasy of a strongman who enacts discipline, respect and safety upon the unruly masses but it is just a dream. The DR may be irrevocably changed for ever. It may be a perpetual Horacio Vazquez loop in which every party in power will enact weak laws and be dominated by foreign lenders.
In the end you must live where you feel safe and alive. If the DR does it for you then move there or stay there. I feel at home in South Florida and NYC in a way that towards the last days in the DR I did not. Coral Gables is beautiful. South Florida is completely hispanicized and the Cuban populace is quite conservative. The life here is very comfortable. The food is great and the women beautiful. The ecological beauties are well taken care of and there is a true concern for the environment. Those who care for the ecology of the DR do not have the power to protect it. The Constanza region is being deforested massively. Rich folks want their CAOBA and PINO and don't care how they get it. Most of my immediate family lives here now so why care about anything else.
At least for me the misery, poverty, crime, sludge and slime that is within the DR is just too much. Yes there are nice spots and things to do but you can't get away from the fact that the DR just has too many massive problems. Golo or Tourist Watcher is pro-DR. He lives there but you read his posts and realize the DR is truly screwed up. I'd rather be here in CG, Dade County, etc. Why suffer all those ills? I have the DR in DR1. That's as much DR as I need. The DR in DR1 is all I need. I enjoy the DR from the safe confines of the NET,LOL!
I can't solve the poverty within the DR and seeing it constantly is truly depressing. Poverty in South Florida is middle class in the DR. Overtown is a ghetto and the DR poor wish they could live as well. So, yes my friend those days are dead and gone. Golo writes insightful posts and I enjoy the wealth of information he offers with the breadth of details he offers. He corroborates everything with names, people and places as to situate the events he describes in clear concrete terms. So yes our battles are over. I can hardly even remember them now, LOL!!!
P.S. Having FPL is a thousand times better than having some 50,000 buck or more setup. Tell us about it. I like others dealing with these problems than myself. LOL!!! Listening to For Your Eyes Only as I write, hahahaha-
That's my new tag- I enjoy the DR in DR1. LOL---- no need to be there!!!
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It is very rare that someone admits that they have grown up and have moved on in such a respectful and insightful way. I love the DR very much but each time I feel less and less enthused to return. The poverty just breaks my heart. I just don't see any way out except for a revolution but I doubt very much that would ever happen on a grand scale. The populace seem satisfied to be beaten down and robbed by the politicians and the law. I am too much of a fighter to accept that and sit by and watch, so, as a foreigner, I always have a way out other than hopping on a yola.
Really liked the Horatio Vasquez reference. Spot on. Perhaps history is repeating although all these international lenders might have something to say if a strongman were to attempt to seize power. I think 1955 was the zenith of the country and was downhill from there. Funny thing, people are still talking about and prattering on about all the crimes and and bad of the era of El Jefe as if things today are a paradise and nirvana. 50 years later, is it really any better? Crime and drugs are rampant. The politicos have taken corruption to unimaginable levels. The police are inept, the peso has lost most of it's purchasing power and good luck with reliable electric. The ostriches need to get their heads out of the sand and look around the pueblo. Denial is not just a big river in Egypt.
Some day dominicans will understand they are not more successful because they live in a different country. Some day dominicans will see that life is not about living off other people's sweat, the same sweat they are not willing to shed in their homeland. Some day dominicans will know that true accomplishment comes through leaving a mark in other people's life for the better, and not driving a jeepeta. Failing to understand that is pretty much failing in life.
I will always say that dominicans abroad who think they made it in life, and who like to tell those left behind about the greatness of their new life, showing off their borrowed success, are little short of traitors to their kind.
Oh yeah, a strong man is the solution, sure. The country needs someome to have the b@lls we don't have to do things right for ourselves. Exactly what the dominicans abroad look for over there. I have to laugh about it. People forget that no great country was founded on one man's strength, but rather on a collective will to change things. But those people think "collective" means the others, not them. DR would be a very different country (and much better by now), if all those who decided to leave had stayed and worked as hard here as they did wherever they went to. But that's not cool. Cool is wearing a NY Yankees hat and sending a tank full of second-hand items so people think they are rich, poisoning their minds because they can never know the ugly truth about their real life, and thus perpetuating and enhancing the evil cycle....Oh yes, it's much better to walk on a clean street full of people who hate you just for being there, than to use the garbage cans on the streets where your family lives. Because if you use the garbage can here, people will think you're a pendejo and that's bad for picking up chicks. Those are the people who make me sad, not the poor in DR.
I will always say that dominicans abroad who think they made it in life, and who like to tell those left behind about the greatness of their new life, showing off their borrowed success, are little short of traitors to their kind.
Oh yeah, a strong man is the solution, sure. The country needs someome to have the b@lls we don't have to do things right for ourselves. Exactly what the dominicans abroad look for over there. I have to laugh about it. People forget that no great country was founded on one man's strength, but rather on a collective will to change things. But those people think "collective" means the others, not them. DR would be a very different country (and much better by now), if all those who decided to leave had stayed and worked as hard here as they did wherever they went to. But that's not cool. Cool is wearing a NY Yankees hat and sending a tank full of second-hand items so people think they are rich, poisoning their minds because they can never know the ugly truth about their real life, and thus perpetuating and enhancing the evil cycle....Oh yes, it's much better to walk on a clean street full of people who hate you just for being there, than to use the garbage cans on the streets where your family lives. Because if you use the garbage can here, people will think you're a pendejo and that's bad for picking up chicks. Those are the people who make me sad, not the poor in DR.
"Poverty in the US is middle class in the DR"
As usual OC you are over the top good grief. I appreciate your hate for all things Dominican, who know maybe even for yourself but this quote just takes the cake.
As opposed to having to hear from "experts" who live abroad about the DR I can tell you a middle class living existence here on RD40-50k combined household income is far superior to living in the US with the same amount of income. The last I checked the poverty level income for a family of 5 was less than US40k. Furthermore, if one has only 20k income with which to live in the States they would have to live in government subsidized housing, use foodstamps and send one's kids to schools to the worst public schools in existence. It goes without saying that in the projects one's kids are going to get exposed to drugs, sex and prostitution at an early age. Here in the DR 20k is enough to send one's kid to a private Christian school and live in a nice area with very little crime and very little exposure to drug use. There is no comparison.
As usual OC you are over the top good grief. I appreciate your hate for all things Dominican, who know maybe even for yourself but this quote just takes the cake.
As opposed to having to hear from "experts" who live abroad about the DR I can tell you a middle class living existence here on RD40-50k combined household income is far superior to living in the US with the same amount of income. The last I checked the poverty level income for a family of 5 was less than US40k. Furthermore, if one has only 20k income with which to live in the States they would have to live in government subsidized housing, use foodstamps and send one's kids to schools to the worst public schools in existence. It goes without saying that in the projects one's kids are going to get exposed to drugs, sex and prostitution at an early age. Here in the DR 20k is enough to send one's kid to a private Christian school and live in a nice area with very little crime and very little exposure to drug use. There is no comparison.
60 years ago most people lived in small wooden homes with dirt floors, no electricity since there were few electric circuits. Most women had to go down to the river the take water in buckets, wash their clothes in the rivers too. Food was cooked in open pits called fogones, people ate what they produced in their own land. The fastest mode of accessible transportation for most people was either a horse or a donkey, letrines was the only thing known for a bathroom and to wipe the bottom, it was done with either newspaper or a wooden stick.
Look around today.
Much has changed for the better, lets not ignore that or even that much of the positive changes took place from the late 1980s to early 1990s. Any expat that has been for at least since then can attest to this.
But, much still has to be done and too much was undone.
Look around today.
Much has changed for the better, lets not ignore that or even that much of the positive changes took place from the late 1980s to early 1990s. Any expat that has been for at least since then can attest to this.
But, much still has to be done and too much was undone.
For a different look at The Era of Trujillo than one might get in other places
Fundaci?n Rafael L. Trujillo M.
Fundaci?n Rafael L. Trujillo M.
