The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1057
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 30 minutes
Words per Minute
182.19858
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