30 January 2010
Ansel Herz is putting together video reports from Haiti utilizing the 'man on the street' interview. The 'man on the street' interview is worth watching on those rare occasions when you trust that the interviewer is not searching for people who state a certain opinion or looking for the generic uninformed person. People's wish for ongoing US military presence and the return of Aristide would seem to be in contradiction, but they are stated here by different people. What comes through clearly in these interviews, including his previous video, is a strong 'anyone but Preval and the UN' sentiment, suggesting, amongst other things, that the UN is taking the rap for doing little but help violently repress the Lavalas party, an ambition that is shared by leaders in the US, France, and Canada.
21 January 2010
The Dems losing a filibuster-proof majority would be very upsetting if only they had done a damn thing with a filibuster-proof majority, or if there was any indication that they were going to do a damn thing with a filibuster-proof majority. It's like someone complains that their subscription to the gym ended when they never went to the gym and don't know where their sweatpants are. The credit card legislation was bipartisan as was Obama's 700 billion dollar defense budget for the Afghan escalation. The Dems doing nothing with a filibuster-proof majority is better than W. and Cheney with 51, but nothing changes now in practicality. Health care bill? You have stock in a hospital company? They're completely ignoring what the public wants. I'm also sick of "What Obama should do, he needs to hang with a new crowd, Obama ought to.." If his speaking abilities are the only thing that allows you to tell him apart from the crooks in his cabinet, then maybe you were believing the speeches a little too much.
16 January 2010
Cathédrale Sainte Trinité is destroyed
Somehow the Hotel Oloffson of Graham Greene's The Comedians is still standing but much of the city's turn of the century gingerbread architecture is surely destroyed, and the people of Jacmel, birthplace of the poet Rene Depestre, are in grave danger at the moment amid the ruins of the 19th Century townhouses there.
A severe blow to art in our hemisphere is the destruction of Port-au-Prince's Episcopalian Cathédrale Sainte Trinité, which was decorated in the 1950s with murals by Philomé Obin, Wilson Bigaud, and Castera Bazile.
Drop the water now!
With all the money being donated to Haitian relief from people around the world, the failure to deliver clean water to the Haitian people through air drops is appalling and absolutely inexcusable.
"It seems to me that (air drops of water)'s a formula for contributing to chaos rather than preventing it," says Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "Without having any structure on the ground, in terms of distribution, that an air drop is simply going to lead to riots as people go after that stuff."
We're at the point where concerns of riots over water should be trumped by the fact that thousands are dying for lack of clean water. The Air Force is saying that it will be two days before it can distribute water if all goes as planned.
"The urgency was growing..: On a back street in Port-au-Prince, about a half dozen young men ripped water pipes off walls to suck out the small amount of water trapped inside.
"This is very, very bad, but I am too thirsty," said Pierre Louis Delmar.
..."And soon, it will be too late in any case.
"Beyond three or four days without water, they'll be pretty ill," said Dr. Michael VanRooyen of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in Boston. "Around three days would be where you would see people start to succumb."
"The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed … there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid," said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
"What we saw instead was discussion about, 'Well we've got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.' And anytime I hear that, my head turns red."
"In the first two days after Tuesday evening's quake, "we saw national media in, but we didn't see Air Force airplanes taking in food and water," Honore said. Nor were military doctors on the ground treating the injured, he said.
"..A rapid response unit such as the 82nd Airborne Division can deploy within 18 hours of an order to go, said retired general Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff."
Whatever the intentions behind the original decision not to air drop, in light of "a coordination failure among military operations and humanitarian agencies" the decision has to be changed.
You may be wondering, where is the Haitian government? Where are the Haitian doctors? The main medical school started by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was closed down during the coup in which US Marines flew him out of the country, during which Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch confirmed that systematic human rights abuses took place in the presence of UN peacekeepers. The practice of dispensing aid to NGOs rather than the Haitian government was accelerated in the past decade by the Bush administration's determination not to give any money to the Aristide government. The Haitian oligarchy has never paid taxes despite the fact that their profits constitute an overwhelming percentage of the GDP. The US, France, and Canada instigated an international embargo against Haiti up to the past few years over falsified charges relating to legislative elections. The country is still paying off debt accrued by the US-backed Duvalier dictatorship, almost all of which was embezzled.
Amid the total absence of government institutions and health provisions, the 95th anniversary of the first US military occupation in Haiti will bring a new US occupation for an undetermined length of time, bringing a soldiers-to-civilians ratio higher than the current US occupation of Afghanistan. There will apparently be no unconditional provision of the world's donations of water, food, and medicine, so Haitians will have to accept this occupation in order for the survivors to eat and receive emergency medical aid.
The "hearts and minds" of Haitians will process the facts of their misery much more clearly than anything I can surmise. Aristide says he wants to return to the country, but the US military's control of the airport has already been accompanied by the US State Department's statement "the last thing that we need is to have someone land and put an additional burden in an already-stressed situation," despite the fact that Secretary Clinton is landing there. A Haitian presidential election year looms in which President Preval can't run for reelection, Aristide's Lavalas party has been forced in to exile and assassinated by the Haitian National Police amid the presence of the UN, and the continued presence of the US military is likely. Though it's unclear whether the constitutional prohibition of three terms applies to someone who has begun two coup-shortened terms already, Aristide has a legal right to enter Haiti and should do so to see to it that the will of the Haitian people and the compassion of people around the world is acted upon.
Bay kou bliye, pote mak sonje. The giver of the blow forgets, the bearer of the scar remembers.
"It seems to me that (air drops of water)'s a formula for contributing to chaos rather than preventing it," says Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "Without having any structure on the ground, in terms of distribution, that an air drop is simply going to lead to riots as people go after that stuff."
We're at the point where concerns of riots over water should be trumped by the fact that thousands are dying for lack of clean water. The Air Force is saying that it will be two days before it can distribute water if all goes as planned.
"The urgency was growing..: On a back street in Port-au-Prince, about a half dozen young men ripped water pipes off walls to suck out the small amount of water trapped inside.
"This is very, very bad, but I am too thirsty," said Pierre Louis Delmar.
..."And soon, it will be too late in any case.
"Beyond three or four days without water, they'll be pretty ill," said Dr. Michael VanRooyen of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in Boston. "Around three days would be where you would see people start to succumb."
"The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed … there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid," said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
"What we saw instead was discussion about, 'Well we've got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.' And anytime I hear that, my head turns red."
"In the first two days after Tuesday evening's quake, "we saw national media in, but we didn't see Air Force airplanes taking in food and water," Honore said. Nor were military doctors on the ground treating the injured, he said.
"..A rapid response unit such as the 82nd Airborne Division can deploy within 18 hours of an order to go, said retired general Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff."
Whatever the intentions behind the original decision not to air drop, in light of "a coordination failure among military operations and humanitarian agencies" the decision has to be changed.
You may be wondering, where is the Haitian government? Where are the Haitian doctors? The main medical school started by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was closed down during the coup in which US Marines flew him out of the country, during which Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch confirmed that systematic human rights abuses took place in the presence of UN peacekeepers. The practice of dispensing aid to NGOs rather than the Haitian government was accelerated in the past decade by the Bush administration's determination not to give any money to the Aristide government. The Haitian oligarchy has never paid taxes despite the fact that their profits constitute an overwhelming percentage of the GDP. The US, France, and Canada instigated an international embargo against Haiti up to the past few years over falsified charges relating to legislative elections. The country is still paying off debt accrued by the US-backed Duvalier dictatorship, almost all of which was embezzled.
Amid the total absence of government institutions and health provisions, the 95th anniversary of the first US military occupation in Haiti will bring a new US occupation for an undetermined length of time, bringing a soldiers-to-civilians ratio higher than the current US occupation of Afghanistan. There will apparently be no unconditional provision of the world's donations of water, food, and medicine, so Haitians will have to accept this occupation in order for the survivors to eat and receive emergency medical aid.
The "hearts and minds" of Haitians will process the facts of their misery much more clearly than anything I can surmise. Aristide says he wants to return to the country, but the US military's control of the airport has already been accompanied by the US State Department's statement "the last thing that we need is to have someone land and put an additional burden in an already-stressed situation," despite the fact that Secretary Clinton is landing there. A Haitian presidential election year looms in which President Preval can't run for reelection, Aristide's Lavalas party has been forced in to exile and assassinated by the Haitian National Police amid the presence of the UN, and the continued presence of the US military is likely. Though it's unclear whether the constitutional prohibition of three terms applies to someone who has begun two coup-shortened terms already, Aristide has a legal right to enter Haiti and should do so to see to it that the will of the Haitian people and the compassion of people around the world is acted upon.
Bay kou bliye, pote mak sonje. The giver of the blow forgets, the bearer of the scar remembers.
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