The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1057
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the lotus eases, we talk about the destruction of Haiti, the collapse of the French government and the discovery of a new way of life in the midst of the worst famine in the history of the world.
Transcript
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hello and welcome to the podcast of the lotus eases episode 1057 on the 5th of december 2024
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hope you're all doing well i'm your host harry joined today by josh you're right there josh
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oh thank you there's not another josh hiding behind you there's not although if you could
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find a better josh that would be much appreciated i've been trying to find a better josh for many
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years and also beau all right how you doing otherwise known as ragnar lothbrook at the
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moment and we also behind the desk have a very special guest today that is mickey mouse do you
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want to say hello mickey hello everyone i hope you all had fun with that today we're going to be
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talking about the kenyan killdozer demolishing haiti is this like an international relief effort we've
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just sent in a man with a bulldozer to bulldoze the whole country well as it's about to be
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christmas i wanted to have a nice sort of positive segment and i think the destruction of haiti is
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something we can all get behind it's basically a giant landfill i can't think of any complaints
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we're also going to be talking about the collapse of the french government which will i think we'll
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figure out which collapse this is because it's happened quite a few times and then i'll also talk
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about how everybody hates kemi anything else we'd like to announce before we start gentlemen
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have a nice day yes all right then so let's get on with it okay everyone knows that haiti is not
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the best place to live really i think that's fair to say and particularly since 2021 they've been very
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unstable um not that they were great before and we'll look at that um but in 2021 president um juvenil
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moise i think was assassinated i think that's how you say his name not like he's going to correct me
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he's dead um and they've had a rotation of temporary rulers one of them went to the un and drank from
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the water jug it was brilliant um but what has happened is that armed gangs have sought to fill
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the power vacuum and supposedly they've seized up to 85 percent of the capital porto prince already so
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it's not looking good and let's remind ourselves of what haiti is like here is uh february of 2017 so
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even before the government collapsed they were eating dirt and you can even go all the way back
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to i think this was 2008 um where rising prices um or prices fall and they're eating mud or something
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or other who cares what's the price of mud these days i don't know it grows in the ground i mean well
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it doesn't grow and this suggests that you might actually be able to go to haiti and sell mud to a
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nation value you know that stuff you walk on that dirt well in haiti it's worth something first the
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haitians then we get the eskimos that's right sell the mice uh see what you're up to it's got to be
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dire straits to be eating mud i know that in the siege of leningrad or in mal's great famine mal's
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great leap forward which resulted in a terrible famine um yeah there's certain types of quote-unquote
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mud that you can eat but of course it's it's a horrible thing yeah no it's still i'm being a bit
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facetious here no i think what they do is they mix it with butter and maybe one or two other things
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maybe sprinkle a little bit of salt in there if you want to be fancy with it the thing is it is still
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terrible for you you know you still die slightly less quickly of of starvation apparently when you're
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starving to death it's painful it really hurts it's actually a painful thing you don't just get a bit
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weak and then get drowsy and then full unconscious and die i know it's really really really slow and
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apparently painful to the point where you'll put anything in your stomach things that you know you
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can't digest just to stop the pain to try and that's what they're doing it for is to take away
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the pain from the hunger it's terrible it's a terrible thing so you you see conditions like this
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in haiti of the streets and this is just you know open sewage flowing through the streets lots of
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rubbish it's not exactly uh a modern paradise we can say that and while i was doing research for
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this segment this is a bit of an aside um i noticed that there's a phenomenon of carrying around sticks
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like guns and you actually pointed me to this photo harry um and at first i did think this was
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a rifle and i looked at it and i was like hang on a minute that's a stick yeah you kind of glaze over
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the image the first time and assume oh he's probably holding an ak and then you look and you go wait a
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second he's literally just at least he's practicing good trigger discipline he's got his finger off of
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the trigger there as well what's the you two what's the point of that what is actually happening why
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would anyone do that well obviously there's a photographer right in front of him do you reckon
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he was posing for the camera who knows or does he just walk around like that in the hopes that nobody
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notices but my point in showing this as well is just the conditions of haiti aren't the best and
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there's another stick here there's a lady holding more of a log really than a stick nice yeah she
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looks friendly doesn't she and also there was a marginal case here he was sort of just holding a
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stick but um but it was just a weird thing i observed i have to have to show the world um but
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they do have actual guns and lots of gangs holding them um if i wonder if i can scroll down a bit yeah
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there's um ak's and if you could zoom out a little bit samson um we can see that they've got more
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modern rifles as well and there is a significant gang problem and these gangs are armed so the the
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sticks are slightly misleading but i think that the gangs probably hoover up most of the guns because
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um they look in pretty good nick as far as i'm aware maybe i'm gonna get called out and just like
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no they're not um you know i'm not the biggest we're english yeah exactly you can't expect us to
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know these things i've shot more guns than most englishmen to be fair so there is that i mean you
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only need to shoot one gun for that many i've shot shot every variety not every single gun in
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existence well you have been on holiday where you get to shoot guns and i've shot them here but
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anyway you may be familiar with general barbecue um i'm not no you don't know general barbecue
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no what rock do you live under you'll be surprised you'll be surprised to learn that's not his
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christian name because you guess how he got it he wasn't christened barbecue no okay that would be a
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hell of a christen his real name is jimmy cherizier i think um but he's called general barbecue and he is
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um alleged to be the most powerful man in haiti now and he is a gang leader um and a very violent one
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it seems but um that was march of 2024 and he also said that he would take part in talks if invited
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um but warns that foreign forces will be treated as invaders and this is called foreshadowing
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so there have been some new developments as well this is somewhat old news this is march of 2024
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but um child recruitment in haitian gangs is apparently at 70 percent um amid rising violence
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and poverty this is unicef talking about this and apparently half of um the country's armed gang
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members are now children so we're getting some proper central african behavior here and not only
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that but the children who aren't in gangs are also being displaced and with 21 000 haitians being
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displaced in just two weeks i think there are only 12 million people in the country as well
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so that's a pretty high percentage well i don't know i think that it's just the places where the
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gang violence is going on you just can't stay there can you okay so yeah so there's lots of
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shootings and there's not a mass movement of people across to the dominican republic or anything
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well it's not necessarily the dominican republic they're going because they built a big wall
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um it's other places although no walls do work oh okay a friend of mine recently went on holiday
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to the dominican republic and said he had a lovely time but there is still quite a lot of crime that
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goes on there and that it is mainly committed by haitians i'm not surprised so general barbecue in
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his strategic genius um recently um carried out a raid and that resulted in 28 of his gang members
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getting shot and uh do you know what genius strategic move he did before carrying out this
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surprise raid he announced it he announced it on social media my enemies don't have twitter
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i don't think he posted it on twitter tick tock then i don't know yeah sorry why only general
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barbecue as well why not make himself field marshal barbecue
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admiral barbecue yeah hi admiral admiral of the fleet barbecue does he i bet he's a great party
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though i'm guessing he immolates people burns people is that why he's called barbecue you are about to
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explain the origins of his name i've not actually looked into it well i mean i'm only guessing that
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yeah he probably has cooked and eaten people or at least cooked them i've heard it mickey mouse is
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confirming yes um but but it could also be that he he is a mean host you know he's very good
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uh cooking up a barbecue and he's gained a reputation who knows just don't ask what the
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meat is that's true so going back to october of 2023 um the united nations um voted in favor of an
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initiative which a kenyan-led security force would keep the country as stable as possible on behalf of
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the un and kenya sent over 400 um police officers and as of recently a further 600 so a thousand
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kenyan police officers to haiti which isn't a big country in the first place to help the
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domestic forces uh police the streets because obviously it's not going too well and uh now i'm
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gonna have to go on a little aside and talk about the killdozer because of course that's what you all
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want to hear about isn't it really you're all here for the killdozer i know thank you the opening music
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that's true yeah but we've got some killdozer action oh we've got some killdozer action
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so just to give you a quick rundown um the person you need to know in the killdozer story is marvin
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hemeyer who owned a muffler shop in granby colorado and his troubles began when a concrete factory was
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approved next to his business which blocked off access to his muffler shop as well as cutting off
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the sewage services and he opposed the construction and appealed the building and wanted new access
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roads to get to his shop but unfortunately the local authorities ignored all of his efforts
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and then he basically said well if that's what you're going to do over the course of 18 months he
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transformed a bulldozer into an armored vehicle with steel reinforced concrete and bulletproof glass
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and placed external cameras on the outside of what has now been known as the killdozer
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um to be able to see outside of his basically a tank man you know like a sort of uh ad hoc tank
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and then on the 4th of june 2004 he used the killdozer to demolish 13 buildings linked to those who had
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harmed him including the concrete factory and the city council building and the swat teams tried to
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intervene but um the the killdozer couldn't be stopped and uh the rampage only ended when his
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vehicle got stuck in the foundation of a basement and it couldn't move out of there and then
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eventually he took his own life while he was stuck in the killdozer apparently it's very hot in there
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as well i believe and no other lives were lost in the incident i think he'd sealed himself in there
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because it was he knew going in this was the last thing he was ever going to do and his final words
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were sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things which is quite a a good last word but here's
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a little clip of it look there you can see it in action demolishing a building other than himself i
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like that there were no fatalities it's like terminator 2 when he's under orders not to
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actually kill anyone no i don't approve of killing people no right yeah controversial i know but what
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a moderate you are i know for a complete amateur job well it wasn't that much obviously knew welding
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very well um to create something like that with external cameras and things
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it was really impressive and i mean it looks quite cool as well look at all the steam coming
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off of it as well but this is obviously entered into the public consciousness people refer to him
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as the last american folk hero that's other people definitely not me i would i would never advocate
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for this sort of action it reminds me somewhat of that man who uh hijacked a plane um that had been
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left unattended from an airport no one was in it and then spent two hours flying it around and doing
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loop-de-loops in it oh yeah speaking to the air traffic control explaining i think if i remember the
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story correctly that he had applied for these sorts of jobs and positions uh before but been denied them
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over and over again probably off of the basis of dei hiring practices what it was a long time ago
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harry but dei has been in place a long time in america and then decided to fly himself into the
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ground and take his own life that way it reminds me deliberate yeah okay yeah the account thank you
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has got a video on that as well actually okay well you can see that lots of people vary um this this is
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obviously a variation of the gadsden flag and there's another one here um don't make me do unreasonable
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things and people share this as well as memes like this one trump makes killdozer secretary of
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housing and urban development this is of course a bit of commentary on the fact that lots of trump
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appointees are out to destroy the department they've been appointed head of um and fair enough good thing
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really and there's even in development a game that is being produced that samson told me about
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uh this morning that i didn't know but apparently quarter four of 2025 mark it on your calendars
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um but anyway enough of this setup onto the kenyan killdozer because that's why we're all here right
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so the kenyan police launched a surprise attack on barbecue and what they did was they took their very
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own killdozer to his headquarters and their killdozer has a flamethrower mounted on the front
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which is pretty cool so here's the only video i've been able to find online of it
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it does look like a bulldozer if it's got the thing there
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um there's another vehicle here that it's being filmed from but this is supposedly general barbecue's
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with flamethrowers on their way to cook general barbecue
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i've seen pictures on the inside of the original one
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to be fair i don't think american SWAT teams are equivalent to haitian gang members
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there are lots of uh articles here talking about them demolishing his gang headquarters
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um but he's still on the large still grilling to this day
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you literally have a big boss bad guy called general barbecue
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and at the end of the level he manages to get away after you've stormed his base
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they could just cover the real life stories that come out of haiti
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he ran for president of haiti years ago or tried to
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and didn't win or he's blocked from being able to do it but
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well he's he's what like some kind of rapper and singer
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maybe they can go over get him to sing some soulful music to them
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so um the associated press and many others have been reporting
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um that this was sort of the last hurrah in the current efforts
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the kenyan-led efforts to capture barbecue or kill barbecue
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the un-backed mission that supports haiti's understaffed police department
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and gangs now control 85 percent of the capital
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doctors without borders announced it was suspending critical care in porto prince
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as it accused police of targeting its staff and patients
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so that's another um complex aspect to the narrative
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um it's the first time the aid group has stopped working with new patients
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since it began operating in haiti more than 30 years ago
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so it might get even worse in haiti than it already was as well
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and in fact it's got so bad that the un has evacuated its staff from haiti
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because the gang's control is basically almost total
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so general barbecue is sort of on the way to becoming the de facto ruler of haiti
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i mean as long as they don't try and invade the dominican republic or anything
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i don't really care all that much about the well-being of a load of haiti
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well i would rather them live in a more civilized way
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because macron has claimed it was the haitians who killed haiti
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every so often macron comes out with something that makes me go like
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would be considered too disabled to be eligible for the death penalty in the united states
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someone at this level will struggle to understand cause and effect of basic things
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as well as participate in american society at all
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around one in six haitians are intelligent enough to qualify as this
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and he said this is the level of intelligence of poor urban areas in america
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so the biden administration obviously when they were
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in haiti on how to leave haiti and come to the united states
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and they have a population of around 12 million
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that you're unable to understand cause and effect
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so without any exaggeration that is sort of the level of a beast or something
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if you're if you're 67 then you probably won't be able to read or write
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even a sheepdog can understand cause and effect right
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three quarters of a million of them came in just
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so it could be that there are even more than that
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bore by the surrounding countries that they emigrate to
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i don't agree that they should be allowed into these countries in the first place
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i think there's also a point of concern that if haiti fails and there's just waves upon waves of
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and the final thing i wanted to end on is that now there is a critical mass of haitians in america
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they're now trying to install themselves into the foundation myth of the united states
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we have been building america from the very beginning
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and my family's story is just one thread in that tapestry
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and you don't want it coming to your neighbourhood
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i demand a christmas version of the intro and outro music
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recognises the first permanent non-native settler
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as long as i've got a decent barbecue sauce to go with it
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general barbecue announced on his fortnite server
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your fedoras afterwards all right it was all the
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in uni you would know if assault subcontinental