4 dead / 11 rescued off Miami

sad... and totally careless.

Careless? or Criminal? Time will tell. It's so tragic, just in the past week you have Mali, Miami and Lampedusa. Two of the three migrant boats.

For the first time this year, I've met several people who came to the US decades ago from Cuba by boat and heard their stories. I tried but really couldn't relate, having never been in a situation where I was so willing to risk my life.

I also can't relate to being on the business side of hauling migrants and subjecting them to unreasonable risk to make money.

Of course in this latest case the facts are still to be determined, but one fact is undeniable and that is lives lost that just didn't have to be.

We have a lot of incidents of these in Spain, small boats coming from Africa, every week. Our border with Morocco is the one with the biggest difference in wealth in the entire planet. The whole illegal immigration via small boats is a huge human drama, and a very criminal activity by the gangs that do the trafficking.

I sort of agree with NYCAP123 as I look back at my Ancestors. They came from France to Canada then Louisiana. I am always amazed at their determination.
We have to always look to our past to understand our future.

People trying to get into the US, illegally, won't stop. Nor will profiteers.

It's just sad that human beings die like this.

Nothing will change, or it already would have.

Hi,

Those are just a few of the number taken by the sea recently

Maybe 300 in one go here 10 days ago

Divers hunt for Italy boat dead amid fears more than 300 drowned | euronews, world news

And while it wasn't transporting migrants as such, don't forget the hundreds in Mali, where overloading of cargo was the issue. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/w...es-in-mali-leaving-hundreds-missing.html?_r=0

All three situations involving loss of life and at least in some part overloading. We talk often here about sea-worthiness. Doesn't really matter how worthy a boat is if you otherwise show no regard for human life.

When I was young, we were at the North Carolina coast scheduled to go deep sea fishing. As I was only 3 or so I only know what my parents told me. I'm not sure why they didn't know about the storm coming. Guess even in 40 years things have changed that much. Up and on the chartered fishing boat by 5:00 AM. Out we went in spite of an approaching hurricane. In fact, we stayed until just after noon so the captain could get a full day. When we reached the dock, everyone else was tied and gone. We were in an evacuation zone and immediately got in the car, spending 16 hours making the 270 mile trip home. I hadn't thought about this lately, but the topic of persons putting money over human life reminded me. Fortunately for us, this was a relatively small hurricane.

As long as human beings remain human beings, there will always be hyper-rich, hyper-poor, and everything in between.

Me too. I'd pay more for my groceries if it would end global misery. But it won't. It's so much more complicated than that. This overall issue has to do with so many factors: corporate globalization, unfair and lopsided trade laws, the strength/weakness of the US dollar, tax codes that literally reward US corporations offshoring monies, hedge funds and their offshore tax havens, drug laws, emergence of the Prison Industrial Complex that warehouses illegal immigrants on our dime, state and federal elections as both RNC & DNC work hard to create new voters out of "immigrants", and on, and on, and on...

I mean, one wee sliver of this might be applicable here: how many yacht owners dodge millions in taxes by registering boats in countries they have never set foot in? Those are real dollars that could be here right now.

We have satellite technology that can read serial numbers off of weaponry, in the dark, in the rain, at 60mph. We can't stop a fat, sweaty, dehydrated 40-year old from loping through the desert? Please.

There's profit in the mess.

There's none in a solution.

Look at our Drug War. Look at the existing and looming water crisis'.

Hmm. That's called US Foreign Policy, driven by people that own many of the yachts we all drool over on these pages. Ain't likely to change, especially here, this notion of money driving money. I'd refer back to that whole human being thing.

This country once sold itself as "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"...and then, that message changed to "The Greatest Democracy And Economy In The History Of The World", which is why people will risk their lives to come here.

To butcher a quote from Bill Wilson, we have a part in this whole thing.

Sad thing is that everyone gets so tied up in their political views or statements they feel need to be made to lose sight of the basic issue, the loss of lives. That's the story written-4 people lost lives, 11 others risked theirs. This has recently happened in other parts of the world in greater numbers. It's happened for decades. Families lose family. Children lose parents and parents lose children. Most of us take precautions for our safety. We've never been in a situation where we were willing to put our lives, even the lives of our families, at such risk. We've never felt that level of desperation. When we see stories like this, we should be thankful that we've never personally faced anything like this. I sure am. I personally know some who did and their stories are heartbreaking.

The politics is for another time and place. The lives are the issue for here and the knowledge that each of us may at some point encounter a boat of refugees. At that time I hope if they're in danger or need of rescue, that's all we see. I called a tow boat service regarding a boat in the gulf two weeks ago. Now, I hated their reason for being there. They went out fishing and all got drunk and that led to their other issues. But I put that out of my mind for the moment. All I knew was that we were in 4 to 6 feet with 20 knot winds and it was picking up and here was a disabled boat.

I hope we haven't become desensitized to the loss of lives that occur regularly in the case of refugees at sea or elsewhere or in any other ways.

I've gone through this thread and done my best to remove the political & inflammatory parts of the discussion without deleting the thread entirely.

Gentlemen, please... keep it civil. Nobody here at YF has to the power to fix the worlds problems, so instead of sniping each other about opinions and beliefs, why not just try to do the best with what we have and who we are.

Hense the relevance of Kevin's post.