All Earthquakes Are Not Equal: Haiti Background
I’ll be lazy and just grab three feature articles from a mainstream “left” site for now. I figure most readers know the outline of the story, but wanted to acknowledge it publicly anyway. The consensus is true enough: the death toll in Haiti’s recent severe earthquake was far higher than it would have been in a wealthier nation. But why is Haiti “the poorest country in the region”? How did it get that way? It was a food-secure, self-sufficient nation not so long ago. We are no more allowed to ask or answer that question publicly than we are allowed to answer truthfully the rhetorical whine “Why do they haaaate us?”
The story begins in 1910, when a U.S. State Department-National City Bank of New York (now called Citibank) consortium bought the Banque National d’Haïti–Haiti’s only commercial bank and its national treasury–in effect transferring Haiti’s debts to the Americans. Five years later, President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to occupy the country in order to keep tabs on “our” investment.
From 1915 to 1934, the U.S. Marines imposed harsh military occupation, murdered Haitians patriots and diverted 40 percent of Haiti’s gross domestic product to U.S. bankers. Haitians were banned from government jobs. Ambitious Haitians were shunted into the puppet military, setting the stage for a half-century of U.S.-backed military dictatorship. […]
Under U.S. influence, Baby Doc virtually eliminated import tariffs for U.S. goods. Soon Haiti was awash predatory agricultural imports dumped by American firms. Domestic rice farmers went bankrupt. A nation that had been agriculturally self-sustaining collapsed. Farms were abandoned. Hundreds of thousands of farmers migrated to the teeming slums of Port-au-Prince.
(note that this forced migration of immiserated peasants to the urban cores is universally described as “progress”)
As Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, points out: “Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.”
Carl Lindskoog — What You’re Not Hearing
From the standpoint of the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Haiti was the perfect candidate for this neoliberal facelift. The entrenched poverty of the Haitian masses could be used to force them into low-paying jobs sewing baseballs and assembling other products.
But USAID had plans for the countryside too. Not only were Haiti’s cities to become exporting bases but so was the countryside, with Haitian agriculture also reshaped along the lines of export-oriented, market-based production. To accomplish this USAID, along with urban industrialists and large landholders, worked to create agro-processing facilities, even while they increased their practice of dumping surplus agricultural products from the U.S. on the Haitian people.
This “aid” from the Americans, along with the structural changes in the countryside predictably forced Haitian peasants who could no longer survive to migrate to the cities, especially Port-au-Prince where the new manufacturing jobs were supposed to be. However, when they got there they found there weren’t nearly enough manufacturing jobs go around. The city became more and more crowded. Slum areas expanded. And to meet the housing needs of the displaced peasants, quickly and cheaply constructed housing was put up, sometimes placing houses right “on top of each other.”
And what does the tame corporate press say? Lindskoog again:
What’s missing is any explanation of why there are so many Haitians living in and around Port-au-Prince and why so many of them are forced to survive on so little. Indeed, even when an explanation is ventured, it is often outrageously false such as a former U.S. diplomat’s testimony on CNN that Port-au-Prince’s overpopulation was due to the fact that Haitians, like most Third World people, know nothing of birth control.
The strategy and the propaganda have remained almost without alteration since the Enclosures of the late 1600s. The peasant has no right to the land because “we” can make “better” use of it; the dispossessed peasantry herded into slums makes a convenient labour pool for the factory owners; any surplus poor people are poor only because they are ignorant, lazy, and breed too much: “there are too many of them.”
Just to be provocative, I’ll add an even more deeply contrarian take on the process, from “anticiv” rhetor Jensen:
[”Civilisation” is] people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life. Thus a Tolowa village five hundred years ago where I live in Tu’nes (meadow long in the Tolowa tongue), now called Crescent City, California, would not have been a city, since the Tolowa ate native salmon, clams, deer, huckleberries, and so on, and had no need to bring in food from outside. Thus, under my definition, the Tolowa, because their way of living was not characterized by the growth of city-states, would not have been civilized. On the other hand, the Aztecs were. Their social structure led inevitably to great city-states like Iztapalapa and Tenochtitlán, the latter of which was, when Europeans first encountered it, far larger than any city in Europe, with a population five times that of London or Seville. Shortly before razing Tenochtitlán and slaughtering or enslaving its inhabitants, the explorer and conquistador Hernando Cortés remarked that it was easily the most beautiful city on earth. Beautiful or not, Tenochtitlán required, as do all cities, the (often forced) importation of food and other resources. The story of any civilization is the story of the rise of city-states, which means it is the story of the funneling of resources toward these centers (in order to sustain them and cause them to grow), which means it is the story of an increasing region of unsustainability surrounded by an increasingly exploited countryside.German Reichskanzler Paul von Hindenburg described the relationship perfectly: “Without colonies no security regarding the acquisition of raw materials, without raw materials no industry, without industry no adequate standard of living and wealth. Therefore, Germans, do we need colonies.”
Haiti seems like a textbook case of the processes we are discussing or debating on the recent thread.
The complicity of the US corporate media in “blackwashing” this history (erasing all the Anglo influence and culpability from Haiti’s story) is indescribably vile, but when isn’t it?
Razer:
I’ve published a number of excellent links over the last day or so.
Ted Rall: Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-13
He explains in some detail why Haitians are so broke (How the US banks looted their treasury).
History Commons fills i the fll timeline: History of US Interventions, US-Haiti (1804-2005)
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=haiti
From Guardian UK: “Our role in Haiti’s plight”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight
…and the fellow I transcribe/archive news and commentary for, who spent his Korean war navy time in the Caribbean on Batista’s Cuba, has done a couple of sitreps since yesterday. http://www.archive.org/details/tth_100114 http://www.archive.org/details/tth_100113
The commentator (Travus T. Hipp, Cabale News Service) has talked about Batista’s Cuba quite often, and the reasons for Haiti’s utter impoverishment sound quite similar to what might have been the outcome if Fidel Castro and his band not won their revolution.
Another good web resource on US foreign policy towards Haiti and the rest of the world is “Making The World Safe For Hypocrisy” http://mtwsfh.blogspot.com/
14 January 2010, 9:54 pmSam:
Hi is this Stan Goff writing, how can I get in touch with you I have some specific questions about getting involved in Haiti in the upcoming year.
thanks a lot
15 January 2010, 12:48 am(Boer) Tom:
Have a look at Kevin Pina’s documentaries (Haiti, The Untold Story and Kill the Bandits) - he documents how the (RCMP-trained) Haitian national police engage in mass killings. The HNP, and other thugs e.g. released from prisons during the start of the 2004 coup, have been implicated in mass rapes in Haiti since February 29, 2004. He also shows the mass-terror campaign of the UN/MINUSTAH, including footage of them shooting babies in the face, in the parents’ own shacks. Also, Canada supported the ‘04 coup - the then foreign minister admitted to working with former police-chief/cocaine trader Guy Phillipe. Also, certain western countries then tried to shrug off responsibility, by holding a census in ‘06, which showed the disaster in Haiti relative to the ‘03 census, whose existence they denied, by calling the ‘06 census ‘the first census in 24 years‘ - the UN uses the ‘03 census in several documents prior to ‘06, e.g. this one. Given that kind of treatment, the failure of any response to the earthquake was practically guaranteed.
15 January 2010, 12:25 pmmyrisa:
“Without colonies no security regarding the acquisition of raw materials, without raw materials no industry, without industry no adequate standard of living and wealth. Therefore, Germans, do we need colonies.”
True, but only given a particular form of appropriation and distribution of surplus value within the capitalist centers and the development of the class struggle within them.
15 January 2010, 12:48 pmRazer:
Speaking of colonies…
From this morning’s news report:
“Good Luck With That! Italy claims it is going to take over the government operations in Somalia, it’s old colony, including a Coast Guard to do anti-Somali-piracy patrols on the coast that European MAFIA RELATED nuclear waste dumpers use. Do you suppose the dumping will stop? (ROTFLM M/F AO!)”
The commentary topic is: Haiti Aftermath - Charities, NGOs, And Scams… Now More Than Ever, “Follow The Money” http://www.archive.org/details/tth_100115
15 January 2010, 3:13 pmKim Sky:
Partners in Health — please consider donating to “Partners in Health” — doctors for the poor
http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti or http://pih.org/inforesources/news/Haiti_Earthquake.html
[if you don’t know their story, one of the very most inspiring stories of our times — wiki Paul Farmer
in fact this story should be added to the post: The arts of the possible ]
Also, just heard an interview on Rachael Maddow Show, where they detailed that the donate via cell phone funds are not released for 90 days!!!
Scary — the fears of riots, the military presence — Clinton and Bush — “heading” up the relief efforts is out and out provocative!!! Aid, for the most part not yet visible on the scene, as the disaster is so HUGE, troops running around will terrify the population, and with the loss of life on such a scale — who would not be down right angry!
From wsws.org — “For its part, the White House has responded with hypocritical and sanctimonious declarations, along with a pittance of aid. President Obama declared, in his latest public statement pledging $100 million to Haitian relief, that assistance to Haiti is a top priority of his administration. The actual figures give the lie to this preposterous claim. The $100 million US pledge amounts to barely one hour’s spending for the US war machine—and less than some of the bonuses being paid out this month to Wall Street bankers and speculators.”
15 January 2010, 3:37 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
Oooooooooooops, I think I just did. I really wanted to post an entire,
fabulous comment about Smedley (Smedly) Butler’s actions and his words concerning his actions. And I wanted to do something that would be
timely and relevant about how THOUSANDS of female USA military servicemembers are sexually assaulted EACH YEaR, percentage-wise
very often by their own fellow military servicemembers.
But then the earthquake in Haiti happened and by golllllllly,
my brain was invaded by HELP HAITI WE NEED TO HELP HAITI THEY NEED
US WE ARE NEEDED THERE HELP THEM HELP THEM TIME IS EVAPORATING
QUICKLY HELP HELP HELP HAITI HAITI HAITI.
One for you all today, maybe more some other time:
Distraction.
Timothy R. Anderson
15 January 2010, 3:46 pmm.c.:
Haiti is right across the way from Cuba. When Castro kicked out Batista in ‘58? US elites were worried about a possible domino effect in the region. The Dominican Republic was a firm represive US ally, so the western part of the island had to be kept off balance & behind the 8-ball socioeconomicaly wise. Pat Robertson was wrong. The US govt. was the one who made the deal with the devil….
15 January 2010, 5:23 pmDeAnander:
More detailed rundown on Aid to Haiti, NGO’s etc from Mark Schuller.
Not to flog a dead horse or anything, but it is hard to escape the food security/autarky/land-rights issue. It just keeps coming.
Once again, agrarians didn’t just voluntarily flock to the city. They wuz pushed. And not — no matter how smarmily and how often it’s repeated — “for their own good,” but for the good of comprador export ag.
15 January 2010, 9:14 pmDeAnander:
Meanwhile the US continues its petty, mindless vendetta against Cuba…
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/15-6
15 January 2010, 9:17 pmnasrudin:
Maybe time for a re-read of Stan’s “Hideous Dream: a soldier’s memoir of the US invasion of Haiti.”
16 January 2010, 12:55 pmxenia:
By now, I have read this detail many times yet I still shudder:
“Haiti is forced to pay 150 million gold francs to France to “compensate” French plantation slave-owners for their “financial losses.” The amount demanded by the French represents more than twice the value of the entire country’s net worth. In exchange, France agrees to recognize Haiti’s independence. Years later, the amount is reduced to 90 million gold francs, however it will take Haiti close to 100 years to pay off this debt and only with the help of high interest loans to French banks.”
Endebted for several generations because they dared to abolish slavery!
16 January 2010, 2:04 pmKim Sky:
Friday: 40,000 bodies buried
Below Quotes From: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/hait-j16.shtml
Haitian officials reported Friday that 40,000 bodies have already been buried, many of them in common landfill-style mass graves. They estimate that there are 100,000 corpses still to be recovered. In some areas the number of dead is so overwhelming that bodies have been piled up and burned.
With time running out for many of the earthquake’s victims, both those trapped in the rubble and those who have suffered internal injuries, multiple fractures and severe wounds that are going untreated, the so-called bottle neck impeding the flow of aid amounts to a death sentence.
The deployment of troops has taken priority over the distribution of aid. As the Miami Herald reported Friday, “US air-cargo traffic was grounded to give the military airlift priority to bring moving equipment and the first 100 of a planned 900-paratrooper deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division from North Carolina.”
UNICEF, which has massed relief supplies in Panama, sent a plane full of medical kits, blankets and tents, but was denied permission to land and forced to return to Panama.
Initial rescue operations were noticeably focused on aiding US citizens and other foreign nationals. Search and rescue teams brought in from the US and France focused their initial efforts on the flattened four-star Hotel Montana, a watering hole for the Haitian ruling elite and foreign visitors, and the United Nations peacekeeping mission’s headquarters. Haitians were left to dig for their loved-ones and neighbors using their bare hands and pieces of rubble.
The first to be evacuated from the damaged Port-au-Prince airport, which has been taken over by American military controllers, were US citizens.
Haitians are conscious that the lives of foreigners are given more value than their own. “They were furious, though not surprised, that they were left to themselves to dig out the trapped, haul off the dead, beg for help for the dying,” reported the Los Angeles Times.
There are increasing reports of anger among the earthquake’s survivors over the delay in aid. Gunfire has also been reported, along with looting by young men armed with machetes. International officials warn that the longer the situation continues, the greater the chances it will turn into mass revolt.
Kim Boldue, the acting chief of the UN Mission, said that “the risk of having social unrest very soon” made it imperative that relief supplies begin arriving.
16 January 2010, 2:45 pmStan:
Just a note on urbanization’s unique archtecture in peruipheral nations. Bidonville is the Haitian name for those shantytowns that spring up along steep hillsides (I’ve seen this all over the world). It is a direct result of peasants being pushed by force or economics (same thing in the end) off the land. Earthquakes, floods, mudslides, rockslides, and hurricanes (or heavy rains) inevitably cause these communities to literally collapse. Mike Davis’ work on urbanization around the world is definitely worth a look.
16 January 2010, 7:50 pmDeAnander:
Bush and Clinton “leading” a Haitian aid effort?
Wow, the US did such a good job with its own much smaller disaster (NOLA, Katrina) that it now steps up posing as the expert and saviour?
Or are there a whole lot of elite Anglo wonks and rentiers thinking “nice Caribbean waterfront real estate, if only it weren’t overrun by all those untidy poor Black people”… just like they were in NOLA?
They didn’t let the UNICEF plane land with material aid? Sound familiar? Remember the NGO and volunteer aid efforts that were turned away by US forces in NOLA? And that it was a higher priority to get troops (Blackwater mercs no less) on the ground than food, tents, or doctors?
Why do I have this strange feeling of deja vu?
17 January 2010, 12:36 amDa Buffalo Amongst Wolves:
DeAnander, the refusals happen in the US too, by proxy.
Here’s an experience I recounted recently for a friend who thought the American Red Cross was a good recipient for emergency donations:
Denise XXXXXXXXXX: They helped me out in the 89 quake and a friend in Malibu which the place she was renting burnt to the ground. The help was immediate..
[Redacted for brevity]
Look, The Red Cross charged for coffee at the Battle of the Bulge during WWII. That is NOT a myth…
But if you think that’s just so much history, They were NOWHERE around Watsonville CA after the Loma Prieta earthquake, and when tractor trucks from the East tried delivering food to their operations HQ they TURNED IT DOWN and actually attempted to have the CHP intervene and prevent delivery to the locals BY locals.
I watched that UP CLOSE and personal because I was part of a local communications crew (radio op) who actually had to guide the trucks into Watsonville with no assistance due to that Red Cross refusal and attempt at obstruction.
Perfectly GOOD, phylactically inspect food delivered by refrigerated truck… and they wouldn’t take it.
I could go into the reasons why… such as interfering with the donations of MAJOR AMERICAN CORPORATIONS who get to write off their surplus production…
I don’t know if you remember that poster from the 60s that showed an Indian man sitting cross-legged in front of an open C.A.R.E. box with BABY RUTH bars, but that’s the way these ‘name’ organizations work.
CARE also shipped high heel shoes to India because some shoe factory needed the write off.
But what would one expect from an organization (CARE) under the authority of USAID, one of the main conduits for covert CIA operations in the world today.
John Deere delivered gas powered tractors… and no one in India had access to gasoline, all the farm equipment used diesel
In Afghanistan, Bechtel built building in an attempt at US funded reconstruction that, due to electrical infrastructure non-existence were too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. No one wanted to use them, but Bechtel and all their employees got paid!
I *DO* go on… But I won’t here…
Suffice it to say… “follow the money”… Most of which will most likely move through disaster areas via ‘militarized’ logistical channels now. An eexample of how that works… Sam Farr, my local congresscritter, who claimed he did not vote to fund the Iraq war, sponsored the Civilian Reconstruction Act that ‘Pentagonized’ construction contractors who worked with the the US military’s ‘blow it up and build it again’ Iraq ‘reconstruction’ policy. It was a payoff to the California construction industry who donate HUGE amounts of money to California’s politicians as well.
Expect to see similar with Haiti.
17 January 2010, 1:27 amStan:
Look to the churches. No “overhead” costs aside from shipping (most churches have a presence there) to receive and distribute supplies (not money). Ours (UMC) unfortunately lost its rep there (killed in the earthquake). They are putting together tried-and-true relief packets (bulk materials, sewing kits, school kits, Layette [infant-care] kits, health kits, cleaning supplies, birthing and bedding kits).
Clergy and missionaries are not disaster-specific payrolls (missionaries generally have very low pay), and lay volunteers go on their own dime.
They have established lines of communication and accountability on the ground, not parachuted in for one event. That’s the trick on NGOs too, having an established presence in Haiti. Do the homework, and don’t let perfection be a preventative standard. Please.
It’s important to critique the disaster-pimps, but I hope folks will find a relief charity that works for them and help out how they can. This is an indescribable disaster that can easily morph into cholera epidemics, etc.
When Katrina hit, the Red Cross’ response was equally shameful. Ad hoc volunteers (like Veterans For Peace’s local chapters, and a lot of heroic individuals) arrived more quickly, were more relevant, and established personal relaitonships with the local folk.
17 January 2010, 8:05 amLisa:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/
Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen
January 17th, 2010
In sub-Saharan Africa alone some 15,000 children die every day from poverty-related diseases. Yet still the governments are required to pay out some $US30 million every day to the World Bank, IMF, and rich creditor nations. Every $US1 that’s given to that region in aid, $US1.50 goes out to cover debt repayments (source: The Debt Threat: How Debt is Destroying the Developing World). I have been thinking about that in the light of the current situation in Haiti, the poorest nation in the western hemisphere and a nation that has been burdened with debt since the time it escaped the chains of slavery. This blog looks into these sorts of issues.
17 January 2010, 4:51 pmStan:
No doubt. Debt is one of the chief instruments of the devil imho. In every system. That’s why the concept of Jubilee is so fundamentally radical.
17 January 2010, 4:57 pmDeAnander:
Speaking of Debt… What the US Owes Haiti
18 January 2010, 2:23 amDeAnander:
OK, my outrage-o-meter just pegged. bent needle. blown fuses.
BoingBoing reports:
This goes way beyond “bad taste.”
I’m not sure we even have a word for it.
I’m not sure it was that much better before the earthquake — in terms of the brutal poverty, political suppression, and general festering injustice and suffering right next door to that little tourist playpen with its armed guards at the gate [oh gawd, is that the future of us all? to be one side or the other of barbed wire and armed guards? starving with the poor or pigging out on industrial junk food with the clueless?] … but under the present circumstances, with bodies being bulldozed into mass graves, it’s even more… whatever it is. obscene? well yes, maybe that’s the word we do have for it.
my own personal definition of obscenity has for many years been “the ostentatious flaunting of power-over-others.” the vast preponderance of pornography is obscene not because it shows Nekkidness or depicts sexual acts (however sordid and banal that depiction may be) but because it flaunts and (in its production) enacts (not to mention luridly magnifies and fetishises) men’s power over women under patriarchy, Anglo power over PoC (esp WoC) under racism, etc. SUV’s are obscene because they flaunt the power of the industrial affluent minority to waste the world’s resources, and the power of the driver of the ultra-heavy “urban assault vehicle” to maim and kill others while remaining untouched. a swaggering display of power-over is obscene, whether it be the wearing of body parts of murdered foes, the production and collecting of lynching postcards, Wolf Blitzer drooling over the destructive force of US munitions as Iraqi cities are pulverised on TV, or… rich people frolicking in the lovely Caribbean waters a stone’s throw from some of the most grinding poverty on Earth, poverty created and maintained by the banking/finance elite of those same nations that the rich people come from, poverty that in its own small way contributes to the affluence of the frolickers.
Meanwhile the US government has commandeered the Haitian airports and is diverting aircraft carrying aid supplies so that it can maintain “security” for US VIPs like the Clintons. Medecins Sans Frontieres is not amused by the 24 hour delay in delivery of their field hospital and necessary supplies, which had to travel from neighbouring DR by truck.
Photo ops for US pols take precedence over people dying in the streets.
19 January 2010, 3:28 amStan:
Labadie has long been a stop-off for cruise ships (up the coast from Cap Haitien). Only they tell the cruise passengers it’s “Fantasy Island,” never telling them they’re in Haiti.
19 January 2010, 7:58 amMichael Anderson:
Looks like business as usual:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4723&updaterx=2010-01-18+22%3A42%3A32
Bill Clinton and Dubya are obscene enough by themselves. Together they make a mockery of everything decent and humane.
19 January 2010, 10:41 amMichael Anderson:
PS—I am, once again, ashamed to have to be labeled an “American”. Damned, we are…
19 January 2010, 10:44 amRazer:
Here a story from Der Spiegel that ticked me:
“…flights from Homestead AFB outside Miami of aid (for Haiti) were delayed several hours yesterday while the secret service shut down operations so that Vice President Biden could arrive to “thank the rescue workers and to pose for photos with them.”
H/t Firedog Lake
But this morning, I tipped a little to the ‘covert’ side of why we’re currently doing what(and with which, and to who…) because someone ‘hit’ on a 2008 post of mine quoting William Arkin at the Washington Post’s Early Warning blog (since ‘restructured’).
His article (boilerplate follows, linked on site):
“Fighting the War on Terror in the Caribbean and Central America”)
The state of that posting may point to the current state of our policy on Haiti and the region. Covert.
ALL links in that post are dead and the full text of the article is NLA at the WaPo.
As a matter of fact, there is no reference whatsoever to “Operation Enduring Freedom Caribbean and Central America” that he speaks of ANYWHERE on the Washington Post site or a quick Google NEWS search, although a general Google search turned up some interesting goodies such as USSOUTHCOM Posture 2008 House and Senate Armed Services Committee testimony, and here is a write up on that testimony from Caribbean 360 news service “US Admiral says Caribbean possible terrorist threat”.
The anti-terrorism operation, according to William Arkin of the Post, is stationed at Homestead AFB, current center of US “relief” operations for Haiti.
“Working for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), SOD-G is moving to an airbase in Homestead, Fla., where it will take up contingency counter-terrorism planning responsibilities for the region, seeking to characterize how al Qaeda and other terrorists might exploit drug trafficking routes and patterns or other gaps in American defense to infiltrate into the United States.”
So how long could it be until the US finds “al Qaeda on Haiti”?
Archive.org or my site for links…
BTW, the audio commentary topic to go with todays news is: “January 19 2010 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: You Don’t Get A Headstone - On Mass Death, Mayhem, and Growing Up Under Threat Of Nuclear War “
19 January 2010, 2:41 pmKim Sky:
The question wealth …
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his inauguration day February 7, 1991, began with a mass at the Cathedral.
The first reading was from Isaiah [61: 1-4]
The Sovereign Lord has filled me with his Spirit.
He has chosen me and sent me
To bring good news to the poor,
To heal the broken-hearted,
To announce release to captives
And freedom to those in prison.
He has sent me to proclaim
That the time has come
When the Lord will save his people
And defeat their enemies.
He has sent me to comfort all who mourn,
To give to those who mourn in Zion
Joy and gladness instead of grief,
A song of praise instead of sorrow.
They will be like trees
That the Lord himself has planted.
They will all do what is right,
And God will be praised for what he has done.
They will rebuild cities that have long been in ruins.
The final event of the festivities involved sharing the table with the poor. Aristide’s first breakfast in the palace was not for visiting dignitaries, nor was it for the members of the local Lion’s Clubs: instead, he served breakfast to hundreds of street kids and homeless poor. “Do you feel at home?” asked Aristide, addressing himself to the large crowd. “Is the National Palace your home?”
“Today, I’m here to say to you that you are human beings just as important as anyone else. Rich and poor, we’re all people, and we must love one another. If there’s enough for the rich, then there must be enough for the poor, too. If the National Palace was formerly for the rich, today it’s for the poor.”
19 January 2010, 3:38 pmDeAnander:
Disaster Capitalism [isn’t that perhaps a redundancy?] at work again:
19 January 2010, 5:05 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Razer - they ‘found’ those links quite a while ago - the occupation forces (Haiti’s current occupation started on 29 February 2004) was accusing Lavalas (Aristide’s party) of beheading members of the Haitian National Police, and doing so in an alliance with Haiti’s tiny (3000) Arab minority. Of course, it has generally been the HNP that has done assassinations, e.g. Abdias Jean, (with MINUSTAH - after MINUSTAH assassinated Dred Wilme in Cite Soleil (early 07/lat 06, if memory serves), kidnappings there went up according to the economist, although they don’t tie the matter to the murder, even though MINUSTAH had been accusing Dred Wilme of being behind the kidnappings), and Lavalas has accused them of beheadings. One UN representative repeated the charges against Lavalas, but neither he nor the HNP can supply the names of anyone beheaded by Lavalas. Again, have a look at “Kill the Bandits” and “Haiti, The Untold Story” by Kevin Pina.
19 January 2010, 7:23 pmDeAnander:
More excuses for blaming the victim: Haiti is Overpopulated, say anointed US talking heads.
Haiti is part of the global story of “soil mining” by so-called *efficient* agricultural methods.
The people of Haiti won their freedom from slavery, at great cost in blood and gold (having to pay ransom or extortion money to France in “reparations” to slave-owners for their “lost property” for Chrissakes); but they have been re-enslaved as surely by global finance capital fielding aircraft carriers as they were by European kings fielding wooden ships with iron cannon.
Dare we repeat a well-known statistic: the 5 percent of the global population who dwell in the US and Canada (N America exclusive of Mexico, in other words) consume about 25 percent of the world’s energy resources. And we have the unmitigated gall to say there are too many of *them*?
Oh God, to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust. [Dickens, ‘A Christmas Carol’]
21 January 2010, 1:38 pmyk:
what about these tectonic weapon claims? any thoughts?
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/hugo-chavez-haiti-earthquake-caused-u-s-tectonic-weapon-test-2560844.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17122
21 January 2010, 6:30 pmyk:
disgusting ny times commentator on patriarchy and culture in Haiti:
“Fourth, it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism… replace parts of the local culture with a highly demanding, highly intensive culture of achievement — involving everything from new child-rearing practices to stricter schools to better job performance.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html?em#
22 January 2010, 1:14 amDeAnander:
@yk Oh, that’s Brooks — Dominionist in (thin) disguise
more seriously (and in afterthought) this deserves further unpacking. it illustrates Lakoff’s useful meme about conservatism as the idolatry of the Strict Father.
22 January 2010, 12:51 pmDeAnander:
Does this sound familiar?
[emphasis mine]
Cuba, anyone? The suffering people finally revolted and threw out the exploiting, looting, abusive overclass. And the US responded with non-recognition, horror, terror, trade embargo, and constant attempts to roll back the revolution.
22 January 2010, 1:12 pmStan:
Lincoln agreed to recognize Haiti as part of a stillborn scheme to ship freed slaves there, and to Liberia, after the war.
22 January 2010, 2:24 pmDeAnander:
excellent article from Slate casts a hard, accurate light on the US obsession with “maintaining order” rather then helping, and the underlying neolib/pseudo-Darwinian view of human nature (especially “savage” or “backward” humans!) — and already by graf 2 I, the reader, am thinking this connects so strongly with Rebecca Solnit’s new book _A Paradise Built in Hell_ which is precisely about the resilience and self-organisation, solidarity, altruism of communities in the aftermath of disaster…. And Ben Ehrenreich does mention RS’s book near the end of his article:
hat tip to R Whisnant for Slate article, thanks
23 January 2010, 2:26 amStephen:
I would like to encourage everyone to take 5 minutes, contact your elected officials, and demand that all of Haiti’s debts be forgiven.
We can’t assume that someone else is going to do it.
Maybe we have not because we asked not….?
I put together some quick facts and links to sites that will help you reach out to your officials.
Please take a moment to make a difference and then pass the word on to your corner of the world.
http://forgivehaitisdebt.blogspot.com/
Find us on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000718897346&ref=nf
Onward & Upward !!
24 January 2010, 4:08 pmyk:
Hugo Chavez Did NOT Accuse the U.S. of Causing the Haitian Earthquake:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/media250110.html
24 January 2010, 4:35 pmKim Sky:
Reconstructing Haiti: Government ministers, international bankers and aid agencies gathered in Montreal Monday to discuss plans for reconstructing earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
The plan, worked up at the behest of the UN last year, is aimed at expanding the Haitian economy through the development of free trade zones based on garment sweatshops in which Haitian workers would be paid near-starvation wages.
The initiative was based on a report prepared for the UN last year by Oxford University economics professor Paul Collier. The report perversely cast Haiti’s poverty—the deepest in the Western Hemisphere—as its number one asset in the global capitalist economy.
“Due to its poverty and relatively unregulated labor market, Haiti has labor costs that are fully competitive with China, which is the global benchmark,” Collier wrote.
“…After his election for a second term in 2000, Aristide doubled the minimum wage and banned piece work in the garment factories, provoking fierce opposition from the owners of these enterprises. Andy Apaid, the Haitian-American owner of the largest sweatshops in Haiti and one of the Clintons’ key allies in the new “development” plan, was a key figure in the 2004 coup, which saw Aristide abducted and bundled out of the country by US troops and thousands of Haitians massacred by right-wing death squads.”
ABOVE SOURCE: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/pers-j26.shtml
This makes me want to start a campaign to boycott Alpha Industries, owned by Any Apaid. As for the rest of them, sure would like to find a way to boycott these “Planners”.
27 January 2010, 2:17 pmMichael Anderson:
It seems there MAY be another reason to go into Haiti at this time—-hydrocarbons and minerals. Timing seems to be everything. Link to an article from globalresearch:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17287
The only caveat with this article is that somehow the chimera of “abiotic oil” is raising its head again, which makes me skeptical of Engdahl’s integrity. Abiotic oil is the “theory” that oil is formed deep within the Earth’s crust from heat and pressure and migrates to the surface through fault lines. I don’t believe it. This also serves to discredit Peak Oil, and any efforts at reasonable energy allocation and use. Would seem to serve the powers-that-be…
5 February 2010, 4:41 pmMichael Anderson:
A follow-up to this, from the Oil Drum:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6169
World Oil Capacity to Peak in 2010 Says Petrobras CEO
He oughta know…
5 February 2010, 4:58 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Michael Anderson
7 February 2010, 1:25 pmOn some level, that description is not bad - plankton etc probably do land under the plates, as they shift over the seabed, get cooked up in an anaerobic environment, and get converted into something else, e.g. petroleum - the question is whether it occurs in fault-line rich areas, and if so, at levels comparable to more stable oil-rich zones, and how the regeneration rate compares to a human lifetime. If it is 1000 years (which I’ve read somewhere is the time scale for removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere into under the continental plates), then it is neither abiotic, nor does it contradict peak oil - maybe in 1000-5000 years we get new oil, if there are any of us left…
Michael Anderson:
@ Tom; I read in a report on FTW awhile back that there has been, publicly, less than 10 barrels of abiotic oil produced, for all the underground hoopla over it. If Russian scientists discovered it 50 years ago, then why is Russia past its second peak already (2007)? Have they not figured out how to crack the Earth’s crust yet?
Is THAT next???
I think we’ll know in maybe 50 years if there’ll be many, or any, of us left(!)
The approach to Haiti, if the hydrocarbons premise turns out to be true, would be consistent with oil company practices, i.e. in Iraq—the wars and sanctions have effectively kept the oil IN THE GROUND, like a deposit in the bank, and prevented Iraq from reaching its production peak until the industrialized West was ready with appropriate controls—our “gangsters for capitalism’. to quote Snedley Butler. There is a report from the 1970’s, declassified by the CIA, that talks about Russian oil production peaking in the mid-eighties (which it DID), but one of the subtopics in the report was telling—they talked about Russia pumping oil at full speed (which they did,because oil was their only real export), whereas the West “practices conservation”.
I think it’s in HOW the West “practices” conservation that is a big factor in how the rest of the world is getting buggered.
Thanks…your facts and figures are always appreciated, even by those of us who have to struggle with them!
7 February 2010, 4:13 pm(Boer) Tom:
@Michael Anderson
9 February 2010, 7:17 amThanks for the kind words.
I’ve got a bit of a project going, to do a localized greenhouse-effect in a spreadsheet, and it needs some thorough criticism (I’m a nasty person who uses undue sarcasm, often to the point of losing all clarity) - I don’t have what I’ve done online yet, but if I’m going to bother with it any further, I need some (very critical) proof-readers who’ll ask the relevant (and embarrassing) questions. Would you have about a week to tear it apart piecemeal? I’d set up a blog in that case…
(Boer) Tom:
@all re global warming
9 February 2010, 7:29 amI owe an apology - here I reduced global warming to an integration - the problem is quite a bit more complicated, and does not readily reduce to an integration…
Michael Anderson:
@ Tom;
OK—I’ll give it a try
9 February 2010, 7:06 pmMichael Anderson:
@ Tom…..email maa@peak.org
9 February 2010, 7:07 pmDeAnander:
Disaster Capitalism at work again. Glen Ford calls it imho accurately:
US Attempts to Erase Haitian Nationhood — Black Agenda Report
10 February 2010, 4:21 pmStan:
Amen.
10 February 2010, 5:16 pmDeAnander:
I want to mention some people who really are trying to help Haitians with autarky and self-determination via appropriate tech:(hat tip gmoke at EuroTrib)
17 February 2010, 12:55 amDeAnander:
And once again it all comes down to land and food.
3 March 2010, 3:12 amStan:
Thanks for this, De. One of the most informative and accurate assessments I’ve seen, including from the left, since the earthquake.
3 March 2010, 7:02 amCyril Smith:
some of my friends who work in haiti were also victimized by that terrible earthquake. i was very thankful that they only suffered minor scratches.
21 April 2010, 7:39 am