The horror in Haiti is beyond anything we can imagine in the U.S., but this apocalyptic catastrophe has something in common with Hurricane Katrina; in both cases, a terrible natural disaster was made infinitely worse by human negligence and incompetence. How many thousands of Haitians could have survived the earthquake if the country weren't crippled by chronic poverty, shoddy infrastructure, environmental degradation and a host of other ills that have plagued Haiti for centuries?
Many Americans are rushing to send relief and expressing compassion for the devastated nation. But some influential public figures have done just the opposite. Pat Robertson has stated that Haiti brought this tragedy on itself through "a pact with the devil," while Rush Limbaugh derides the notion that we should provide any further aid to Haiti because, he says, "We've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax."
Limbaugh apparently thinks that we've already done more than our share for Haiti. It's a shame to see him use his massive platform to perpetuate this idea, because the reality is that much of what we have done in the name of "aiding" Haiti has in fact been far from helpful.
As Tracy Kidder notes in a New York Times op-ed, many of the projects undertaken ostensibly on behalf of the Haitian people "seem designed to serve not impoverished Haitians but the interests of the people administering the projects."
Consider, for example, the food aid we send to Haiti. Aljazeera's Inside USA program ran a report last July called The Politics of Rice that explains how seemingly good intentions can have disastrous implications:
Twenty years ago, Haiti produced enough rice to feed its population. Importing rice from other countries like the US was unheard of.
Today, the country of less than 10 million people is the third largest importer of US rice in the world - 75 per cent of the rice eaten in Haiti is shipped in from the US.Great for farmers in places like Arkansas and Missouri but devastating for farmers in the Artibonite valley, which used to be Haiti's rice bowl.
In short, it has been our government's policy to encourage Haitians to give up farming in rural areas and move to crowded cities like Port-Au-Prince to work in sweatshops manufacturing cheap garments for the U.S. and other markets.
The logic behind this policy is that it's more "efficient" for U.S. agribiz to produce rice than the small Haitian farmers, and that working in a sweatshop gives Haitians a way to participate in the global economy.
Unfortunately, this approach to "aid" has compelled thousands of Haitians to migrate to overcrowded slums and work in miserable conditions. It also left them vulnerable to fluctuations in the global food supply recently, when rising fuel costs and droughts drove up the price of rice.
Annie Leonard, the environmental activist who created the Story of Stuff video and has a superb book by the same name coming out March 9th, documents the terrible consequences of this misguided philosophy in her book:
...global rice prices tripled over a few months in early 2008, leaving thousands of Haitians simply unable to afford this staple food. The newspaper ran haunting images of Haitians who had resorted to eating dirt pies, held together with bits of lard or butter, in order to have some substance in their stomachs.
Had we devoted our resources to "supporting farmers in developing sustainable farming practices, rather than investing in infrastructure and policies favoring garment factories and export processing," Annie concluded, "a drought in Australia would not have made people starve in Haiti, half a planet away."
Haiti lies in ruins and we have played a role in fostering the conditions that helped reduce this troubled nation to rubble. Now's the time to make amends for decades--if not centuries--of neglect and exploitation. Find out here how you can help.
Originally published on The Green Fork
Follow Kerry Trueman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kerrytrueman
Norman Lear: A Letter to Pat Robertson
Remember me? I'm one of those people for the American way. You credited us with being the cause of 9/11. Now, leave it to you, you old son of a gun, to remind us of the pact the people of Haiti made with the Devil.
Huff TV: Arianna: Pat Robertson Gives Religion A Bad Name With His Disaster Comments
Arianna joined The Nation's Ari Melber and former evangelist Frank Schaeffer on The Joy Behar Show Thursday. The panel weighed in on evangelist Pat Robertson's...
Corporations have apparently controlled much of America's government for a long time.
And lesser countries around the globe have good reason to refer to us as 'the great satan'. Unbridled capitalism is to blame.
Rated 3.6 out of 5.0
Sri Lankan TROOPS serving in Haitin under a United Nations Peacekeeping Mission, raped women and girls some as young as 7 years old. 200 ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqPmFSCapC0
It's desperately poor.
It just suffered a catastrophic earthquake.
What most don't know.
The *other* regime change during the
Bush administration. Ordered by the U.S.
Aided by the UN.
Video:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/513.html
Fun part is, we went down to Haiti in '94 to RESTORE Aristide in the first place. If you don't care about the lives we've destroyed, think about the military spending we wasted back then if we were just going to undo that progress ten years later.
Again, blaming America for starting WW's I &II isn't right either.
Rational (not exploitative) economic policy would invest dollars into these megaslums before disaster hits instead of, if you take the US for example, building a massive surplus of housing that is now useless when it could have been investing in areas that help humans not mega-profits.
Could it be because this fact is incompatible with the middle class liberal narrative of greedy and rich whites and noble oppressed indigenous population?
The fact is that Haiti is a failed state. In large part due to the actions of Haitians themselves. Embezzlement, misappropriation and outright theft of billions dollars of aid and national income is an integral part of that paradigm.
I understand many have trouble working this reality into their narrative. too bad.
By the way, Haitians are not indigenous to Hispaniola. They were imported. Guess who imported them. Here's a hint: it wasn't poor black people.
If we do it, it will be AMERICAN IMPERIALISM and opposed (violently!!) by everyone else.
If the UN does it it will be riven by the usual utter incompetence and corruption (i.e. what has already occurred for the last couple of decades which brings us to today) and it will accomplish nothing.
What should we do?
1) Let everyone who wants to give their money away to feel good about themselves do so.
2) Pray that some of it does some good.
3) Rely on Darwin to deal with reality.
4) MOST IMPORTANT - DON'T CONTINUE TO BANKRUPT OUR COUNTRY TO FIX SOMETHING WE CAN NOT FIX.
This is not our problem as a country.
Our government needs to mind our own business and cut back on the whole "SAVE THE WORLD USING THE IRS AND THE FEDERAL PRINTING PRESS" routine....
....before a sheet of toilet paper becomes more valuable than a $100 dollar bill and we are living in another Haiti...with snow.
If you think that even your big brain and your toolmaking capabilities would allow you to tough it out and go it alone with no human social structure behind you, be my guest and try it.
Don't bother using Darwin as an excuse for not giving a damn. Some of us have READ Darwin. And even more of us understand that the theory of natural selection has been tweaked and expanded upon since his time, to say nothing of the larger theory of evolution itself.
Try again. This time with fewer cliches.
The silent american was never more apt than it is today.... its pathetic
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-13
"Despite having been bled dry by American bankers and generals, civil disorder prevailed until 1957, when the CIA installed President-for-Life François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Duvalier's brutal Tonton Macoutes paramilitary goon squads murdered at least 30,000 Haitians and drove educated people to flee into exile. ..
Upon Papa Doc's death in 1971, the torch passed to his even more dissolute 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. The U.S., cool to Papa Doc in his later years, quickly warmed back up to his kleptomaniacal playboy heir. As the U.S. poured in arms, trained his army as a supposed anti-communist bulwark against Castro's Cuba, Baby Doc stole an estimated $300 to $800 million from the national treasury, according to Transparency International. The money was placed in personal accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.
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 was agriculturally self-sustaining collapsed. Farms were abandoned. Hundreds of thousands of farmers migrated to teeming slums of Port-au-Prince.
The Duvalier era of 29 years came to an end in 1986 when President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. forces to whisk Baby Doc to exile in France, saving him from a popular uprising."
Apparently you never heard of the Ton Ton Macoute,
or maybe you had relatives who belonged to that organization.
Aristide was elected with 88% of the vote, and ousted by a US-backed coup.
He should be allowed to return so the people of Haiti may decide who should run their government.
There have been multiple theories broadly exemplified in macro approaches (infrastructure), and micro techniques (small loans) and many good ideas in between. Analysis comparing the different approaches for effectiveness shows that they all have spotty records of success. There is no proven method that is preferable.
So anyone saying "if we only".... may be right, just like all the other variations on aid delivery, strategy and management that have preceded the latest proposed improved approach.
In the meantime, we just need to help these people the best we can and leave these ideological (as none are provable) issues aside and focus on just alleviating the misery and talking in abstract.
Have some humility, may we don't know.
and to deny they are establishing and continuing the traditional bad policies,
and to deny that we should oppose those policies,
those denials are not acts of "humility".
And yes humility that we do not actually know how best to delivery developmental aid is a good attribute and sets expectations so aid is not undermined with false hopes.
If one is serious about helping Haitians, then one has to ask how helpful will the aid be, and what kind of aid is offered.
A proper discussion of aid to Haiti MUST include the political dimension as well.
1) Haiti is NOT a democracy, notwithstanding the claims made by the US State Dept.. The overwhelmingly popular political party is not allowed to run for office.
2) The UN troops in Haiti mainly serve to prop up an unpopular corrupt puppet regime, installed by US military intervention. They ignore government backed death squads.
3) Haiti was self-sufficient in food, not so long ago, before its agriculture base was destroyed by US-IMF ‘free trade’ policies. The Clinton plan is for Haiti to remain an export oriented low wage economy, an investors paradise, free of unions and regulations.
What Haiti needs instead is rehabilitation of its agriculture, to be free of having to come up with funds to purchase food on the international market.
For Haitian reconstruction to be successful, a proper election with all political parties needs to be held, and Aristide allowed to return.
And certainly, there should be no demands for repayment of any aid given the Haitians.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9078
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8754
http://www.counterpunch.org/smith01142010.html
http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/5390-haiti-the-unforgiven-country-cries-out.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbTpMCQcTB8
Kind of flies in the face of EVERYTHING Limbaugh said about Haiti and it's politics yesterday! SURPRISE! ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ctAqP3Nx4
3 billion people in China and India really, really want it to end..
Hey, who needs middle class... air conditioning is greatly overrated,
What they really want is to go back to idyllic subsistence rice farming.....