Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch – CEPR

Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch – CEPR.

This looks very useful, even if I have an issue with Mark Weisbrot referring, in a recent UK Guardian piece, to Barack Obama as a leftwing president. What?!!! (Mark is a co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research)

Mark Weisbrot

“Not surprisingly, the Obama administration’s closest allies in the hemisphere are rightwing governments such as those of Colombia or Panama, even though Obama himself is not a rightwing politician.” -Mark Weisbrot

That’s a bad sign when someone who is supposed to be a progressive, who has the reputation that Mark has, spouts such nonsense.

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

Thank You!

Just as important as donating, in my view, is your becoming informed. Politicians depend on your ignorance to push through measures that only benefit their partners in business. If they think the people will reject them for their stand on Haiti and imperialism, politicians will soften. Of course, Bending politicians is not easy to accomplish when you don’t have alternatives. They understand that with things they way they are now – with the reality of corporatocracy – people won’t likely push for the more needed, but far more difficult, solution of fighting corporatocracy and bringing in a real, free electoral marketplace in which we aren’t forced to simply choose from among a handful of candidates already approved by the corporatocracy.

We now have a disaster capitalism complex (rather than merely a military industrial complex) in operation. That system has also been referred to, rightly, as socialism for the rich. Watch this YouTube video to see how socialism for the rich, in the way of agricultural subsidies for U.S. rice farmers, has helped to make the current Haiti crisis much worse than it would have been had Haiti’s agricultural sector not been deliberately destroyed by foreigners.

It’s bad enough that uncaring capitalists are willing to exploit suffering people, but these days they actively create problems that will lead to ‘their’ solutions that in turn only lead to more problems for those who are ‘assisted’ or ‘freed’. Consider the medical supplies that Doctors Without Borders could not get in a timely fashion because of the takeover of the Haitian airport by the U.S. military. Why? So that when rioting finally breaks out by starving, desperate (and, yes, angry) Haitians, mainstream, corporate-owned media can push the line that Haiti is out of control and would be better off in the hands of the U.S. and Canada. Not that it’s not there now. But, We might as well formalize it. The Haitians will only riot if forced to. The corporate-owned media wants people to think that rioting and violence is the natural behavior of the Haitians. It serves their purposes. The Haitians would just like to have some water and food for their chidren and themselves, although they can’t be happy about getting that ‘help’ from the same imperial powers who have already raped them repeatedly, as noted by Michael Pirsch, writing in Thailand’s “The Nation.” See “West to blame for Haiti’s present plight.”. Thanks go to Anthony Fenton for providing that link.

Then there’s the turning away of Cuban nurses by the American military there. Can’t have anyone around who is not willing to bow down to uncle Sam and his corporatocracy. They could give others ideas. What a sick bunch! So, I’m not exaggerating when I talk about the way capitalists today go to extremes of depravity and cruelty in carrying out their disaster capitalism plans.

Dissident Voice : Haiti and Media Censorship

Dissident Voice : Haiti and Media Censorship. – William Blum

William Blum

My online comment, in response to William Blum’s above article, follows:

** I am already a WordPress blogger and didn’t appreciate having to register another WordPress name and pass to put in this comment. Come on!

I appreciated William Blum’s comments. Very much. Haiti, and all victims of US imperialism, need all the defending we can give them. Basically, When it comes to corporatocracy and imperialists, It’s them, it’s that minority against us, the people, namely the majority. That doesn’t make the majority righteous. But it does say something about ‘democracy’. We all use the word and believe in it. Clearly, The majority does not mean the same thing when it talks about democracy. Chomsky has clearly explained this. Elites who some time ago steered elite, intellectual culture in a certain direction with their views and prescriptions were very frank in their elucidation of what ‘democracy’ is and should be. We are the rabble, the bewildered herd, etc..

This, from Blum’s article, is a keeper:

“There are numerous examples of terrorists citing American policies as the prime motivation behind their acts, so many that American officials, when discussing the newest terrorist attack, have to tread carefully to avoid mentioning the role of US foreign policy; and journalists typically fail to bring this point home to their reader’s consciousness.”

So, In some ways (hindersome rights and rules that we’ve won, in some places) the elites and (capitalist) special interests have to work harder to make trouble. In other ways, because they have become powerful, they don’t have to work so hard to cause trouble.

I would only add one thing, however. I take Blum’s point about the peace dividend that could await the US, and world, should it disarm. However, How can one nation – let alone one that has made an enemy out of most of the world – disarm in this godless, violent world?

RIP Howard Zinn **

The Lawless United Nations

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Lawyers Question UN Immunity Over Srebrenica. -By Simon Jennings in The Hague (TU No 632, 29-Jan-10)

Stephen Lendman

Law & order governments are bad enough, but here’s the United Nations being used – in a criminal fashion – to protect the criminals who, with American support, have taken control of Haiti. (See Stephen Lendman’s 2007 article titled “UN Peacekeeping Paramilitarism”) European lawyers are trying to take the UN to court over other travesties which the UN may or may not be responsible for. The efforts of those lawyers makes me hope that others might nail the UN for it’s role in the ongoing repression in Haiti. The defense of the UN by Dutch authorities shows what kind of challenge that may be.

Howard Zinn 1922-2010: A Tribute to the Legendary Historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove

Howard Zinn 1922-2010: A Tribute to the Legendary Historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove. -Democracy Now!

Howard and one of his books

Rest In Peace Howard.

Exploitation Nation? Naomi Klein worries Haitians won’t have a role shaping their future | Naomi Klein

Exploitation Nation? Naomi Klein worries Haitians won’t have a role shaping their future | Naomi Klein.

This is from Naomi Klein’s website. After reading The Shock Doctrine, I could attempt to apply that knowledge – the benefit of Naomi’s research – in summing up, in a brief overview, what’s going on in Haiti right now and possibly do a half decent job. It of course depends on my grasp of what she’s relayed, as well as my own ability to communicate well. But Naomi has done that for me.