Haiti's poverty has a number of causes, but to a great extent the country is a victim of its own success. Just over 200 years ago, Haitians carried out the greatest slave revolt in human history, despite terrible losses (150,000 died in their uprising against France, contrasted with 5000 Americans in our revolution).
Some historians contend that Napoleon had to agree to the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States, partly due to France's defeat in Haiti. So if not for Haiti, Americans from Louisiana up to Montana might be French-speaking today.
The freed Haitian slaves refused to rejoin the world economy by returning to the big sugar plantations. Instead, they started to grow food on their own plots of land, recreating the small farms they and their ancestors had known in Africa. Haitians lived through the 19th and 20th centuries as free and independent producers, while third world people elsewhere continued to suffer and die on plantations, as slaves or exploited indentured workers.
Haiti's population therefore grew steadily, from under one-half million at independence to 9 million today. The small farmers divided the land among their children, until the plots were too small to support a family. Pressure on the rural environment increased.
A democratic political system might have carried out the reorganization of agriculture that could have increased productivity, but instead Haiti slipped into the long years of the Duvalier dictatorships (1957-1986), misruled by terrible regimes that enjoyed the full support of the United States.
But Haitians were not done struggling for freedom.
No question the USA-implemented foreign policy is knee-deep in Haiti’s current problem,
as it is in the USA enabling of the current I-P problem,
but the purity of USA enablement of injustice is more crystal clear in the Middle East than in Haiti, since at least Providence had a hand in the latter.
Spreadin freedom in the caribean
link to hondurasoye.files.wordpress.com
Not all outside influence was coercive or negative. The question is always the same: how can the modern world honestly deal with a nation that does not have the institutions to interact on an equal footing? Haiti is much like Africa, and Haitians themselves can be blamed for a good deal of Haiti’s problems. How can we help Haiti without repeating the same old mistakes. Is it wrong for Haitians to live as they wish?
Haiti was US’s first victim of economic sanctions.
I learned this at a conference at Trinity Washington University in September 2009. link to namaw.org
“Death by Sanctions: The Conference to Ban Economic Sanctions.”
One of the speakers at the Conference, Phil Wilayto, taught the assembly that Haiti was the first state upon which the United States imposed economic sanctions:
The US did the same to Iraq.
The US proposes to do the same to Iran.
Here’s an interesting twist: I can be and have been accused of Israel-bashing — guilty as charged. I can’t stand it that Israel is demonizing Iran and seeks its destruction, by sanctions if not by all-out war.
But Israel is not responsible for the devastating impact of economic sanction that still afflicts Haiti; my country and Thomas Jefferson, who considered the Jewish moral code to be “deficient,” is responsible for that.
“But Israel is not responsible for the devastating impact of economic sanction that still afflicts Haiti; my country and Thomas Jefferson, who considered the Jewish moral code to be “deficient,” is responsible for that.”
Thomas Jefferson died almost 200 years ago, and Haiti has been an independent nation for most of that time. The original crime was slavery, but France is on the hook there. I’m still not sure how an island nation of ex-African slaves was supposed to develop the institutions with which to deal with the major powers on an equal footing politically, economically or otherwise.
What do you believe the situation in Haiti would be today if Haiti had developed without outside influence after independence? Would there be massive corruption, crushing poverty, overpopulation or necklacing?
” Is it wrong for Haitians to live as they wish?”
A good question but I find the implication pathetic. No it is not wrong for Haitians to live as they wish. What many have been trying to say is that they have not been allowed to do it.
Why I find the implications pathetic? Because nobody chooses to live in poverty. Nobody chooses to live hungry.
Most Haitians wake up the morning and their first thought is, ” How can I secure some food and water for me and my family today?” It’s really not like some American waking up and trying to decide if they will go to the gym today; although the disparity
in mornings is growing less by the day. Thank you, Wall Street!
Why is Haiti poor?
Ask the IMF:
I remember being astonished during the Clinton years by a U.S. ban on the import of Haitian chicken imposed at the behest of the U.S. Poultry industry lobby but I have been unable to find a reference. I remember it well because it occurred at the same time as a ban on NZ Lamb was invoked, believe it or not, by the U.S. Beef industry.
(Hope my html tags work.)
“But competition is impossible because the US exports pieces – essentially sub-products – of chicken, pork and turkey, which are then sold at very low prices.”
Brewer: Just as North’s comment is bosh with all due respect this makes no sense either.
Apropos North, Duvalier *never* had “the full support of the U.S.,” with the U.S. having completely cut off aid to Papa Doc as early as 1961 because of his ghastliness.
As regards this IMF stuff, the stunted logic is evident: If it is true that the U.S. producers can sell *pieces* of their chicken in Haiti cheaper than the Haitians can sell whole chickens—*if* that is, because given the additional handling, packaging and frozen transport costs involved with peddling U.S. chicken parts to Haiti this seems incredibly dubious—then it is *still* cheaper for Haitians to then sell *their* chicken parts cheaper in Haiti.
As Duscany says, as night follows day whenever and wherever disaster strikes before even the last body in the rubble goes cold you’re gonna find some “Progressives” who are gonna find a way to blame it all on the U.S., or at least blame it for something related. And of course nowhere are you gonna find one word of the mountain of money and support this country has *given* over the years, such as officially given Haiti over the decades, not to mention the incredible generosity over that period of *private* U.S. citizens towards Haiti with both their monetary and their on-the-ground charitable efforts.
Would love to hear anyone tell me of even one country that has done more for Haiti over the decades. Just one. Even on a per capita basis say. Indeed, what about Cuba for instance? Much closer, and the great great alleged friend of the poverty stricken everywhere? No, no … Castro was too bush torturing homosexuals and lavishing what he wrung out of his poor on his generals.
And I just love the Progressive logic you see in these things too: When the U.S. imposes a *ban* on doing business with another country, then all that country’s woes are said to stem from that ban. Very hilarious again especially coming from good old Castro and a whole bunch of other Leftists too as well who, when talking otherwise, say they believe in Lenin’s idea which is that letting capitalists trade with you means you will be *exploited.*
But then when the U.S. *does* trade with another country—even in the fairest and most straightforward way imaginable as it does with Haiti such merely offering these chicken parts for sale—ah, somehow the U.S. is the culprit *again*.
Lord knows I disagree with a whole bunch of what the U.S. has done and is doing around the world. But given that of all places the U.S. may well have done more for Haitians on a per capita basis than for any other countries’ citizens on *earth* (except maybe for the Israelis), to then see the U.S. denounced for what it has supposedly done evilly to Haiti, that’s a hatred to me that couldn’t be more revealing as being phony.
I.e., the by-now-beyond-commonplace practice of people cheaply attempting to advertise their own self-assessed moral superiority by endless denunciations of the Great Satan which is the U.S.
Pathetic coming from the Iranians, worse coming from others given they ought to know how tired it now sounds.
As a New Zealander I can attest that the U.S. does not play fair in international trade. Note the example I gave of New Zealand Lamb. That is just one example. U.S. agriculture enjoys huge subsidies and tax breaks which means, in effect, that much primary produce is “dumped” on international markets.
Import of Haitian chicken pieces to the U.S. was banned due to lobbying by the U.S. poultry industry while the IMF issued loan guarantees to Haiti on condition they practice free trade. To those of us who try to trade with America, this type hypocrisy has been the subject of ridicule for decades. The barriers are high and numerous – many based on bogus hygiene or safety issues or in the case of NZ Lamb, blatantly anti-competitive.
Perhaps the term “dumping” is unfamiliar to you. It is the practice of selling at lower than the cost of production in order to take advantage of tax breaks or subsidies and it is illegal. That is precisely what the U.S. poultry industry is doing with its exports to small countries like Haiti. The E.U. used to do it all the time to freeze out NZ butter.
Suggest you take a look along the chain of chicken production. You will find massive tax breaks and subsidies that go into the production of grain (about $8 billion) alone, the primary overhead of the Poultry industry. These are not available to Haitian producers.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Brewer:
Interesting discussion. Firstly ought to acknowledge however that it was this James North character and not you who made the grand sweeping implication that it has been the U.S. that has made Haiti poor which, in its sweepingness, is what got me pissed off. Of course I don’t deny that as to this or that instance the U.S. may well have done wrong by Haiti. (Although I doubt that it has done any worse such wrongs than many others.)
Secondly, agreed, except in extenuating circumstances perhaps trade barriers, subsidies and etc. are wrong wrong wrong and bad bad bad.
However….
It’s deceptive to look at such situations as you did by exclusively considering the idea that … because the U.S. gov’t subsidized its own farmers, it therefore screwed other farmers.” And that’s because the governments of those *other* farmers were totally free to enact whatever trade barriers or institute whatever subsidies for its own farmers as the U.S. did for its own.
And indeed you went beyond merely considering same and essentially condemned the U.S. morally for it. However you want to slice it though that position comes down not only to the arguable idea that (A) every government owes the citizens of other countries the obligation to not help its own compete against them, but also that (B) somehow for some reason that alleged obligation on the part of the U.S. to Haitian chicken farmers was somehow *greater* than *Haiti’s* obligation was to it’s *own.*
Lastly, and apropos your comment “[a]s a New Zealander I can attest that the U.S. does not play fair in international trade,” I can only think you’re a very young Kiwi. In historical terms and up until only 10-15 years ago I think (and certainly throughout its crucial formative years when it was getting rich), New Zealand was renown for its subsidies to its Ag producers, who of course in New Zealand was the equivalent of subsidizing a huge percent of *all* its workers.
As this Harvard paper says “[a]t their peak in 1984, [New Zealand] subsidies amounted to 30 percent of total agricultural output.”
link to cid.harvard.edu
*30%*!!
As bad as America’s subsidies and unfair trade policies and acts have been—and they’ve never been all that remarkably bad in comparison to many if not most others—I doubt that it’s ever come within any light years even of this kind of mass subsidization that New Zealand practiced with such a huge percentage of its workforce almost from the start of its modern existence. Nowhere near.
As I say, you must be a young Kiwi, but you’re right in that your country is indeed absolutely leading the way today and for the last decade if not longer in truly free and fair trade. Got rich first otherwise, but, still, was a very tough and brave thing it did otherwise and the world ought to follow its lead, including the U.S. just as much as anyone.
As it happens I am, in the eyes of my grandchildren at least, a very old Kiwi.
You are correct in that primary production was heavily subsidized until 26 years ago. I was very active in the political party that changed all that. We thought it was to be a World-wide trend that would restore our economy which, at the time and contrary to your assertion, bankrupt.
Unfortunately the U.S. and Europe did not follow suit and our exports to your country have to run a gauntlet of trumped up regulations imposed at the behest of various lobbies in the U.S. The most risible was the Lamb quota which was invoked, not by U.S. sheep farmers but by the Beef lobby. The EU does the same to Dairy exports. It is only since developing new markets in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America that the New Zealand economy has reached some sort of equilibrium.
You do not seem to have taken the point that the WTO and the IMF prohibit agricultural subsidies in vulnerable states such as Haiti yet turn a blind eye to 286 billion dollars worth in the U.S. (which should disqualify the U.S. from exporting any primary produce as any such activity is “dumping”). In short, it is not the case that “*other* farmers were totally free to enact whatever trade barriers”
It is this statement with which I take issue:
There is nothing fair about exporting chicken parts which is profitable only because the U.S. taxpayer pays part of the costs of production. It is not only unfair trade, it is illegal under WTO rules.
Correction:
“which was, at the time and contrary to your assertion, bankrupt.”
Well, since you are an older Kiwi even though your heart’s obviously been in the right place personally one could still observe a certain piquancy in what you’re saying. I.e., from the outset New Zealand plays like no one else plays according to one set of rules until it gets rich and until circumstances change so that it can stay rich by playing at another, at which point it dumps its old rules and turns around and starts tarring and feathering everyone else who is still following the old ones as being hopelessly immoral and eternally condemned.
Nice work if you can get it….
Secondly, the absolute entirety of your comments are just utterly shot through with what are nothing more than *your* characterizations of things which you nevertheless state as fact. E.g., what regulations have been “trumped up,” what “blind eyes” have been turned, what’s “unfair” or even “illegal.”
Show me a WTO ruling saying that the U.S.’s subsidies to its chicken farmers is illegal, for instance, and that’s something else. Same goes for your characterization that this chicken business in Haiti is “dumping”; that is, show me that without its subsidies it wouldn’t be profitable for the U.S. chix producers to sell to Haiti.
You can’t do either.
And indeed it goes even further and gets closer to the heart of the matter which is you taking this complicated matter and trying to make it a simple one so as to try to make your alleged moral point when you previously and telling talked about how U.S. producers taking advantage of “tax breaks” was “illegal.” After all one’s man’s tax “break” is another man’s still-onerous tax obligation. What, after all, is a “tax break” for you? Taxing at any rate less than yours? Taxing at anything less than 98% of profits? 99%?
It *is* complex and it isn’t the nice simple black and white morality play you make it out to be.
What *is* simple however is the point I made originally and which still stands despite your erroneous characterizations otherwise which is that if Haiti found the actions of the U.S. chicken producers to be exploitative it had the absolute right and power to ban such U.S. producers, or impose tariffs, or grant subsidies to its own farmers, and yet it apparently did not a single one of those things. So that however much you want to argue that for some reason the U.S. gov’t owes a duty not to help its own farmers so as to help Haitian farmers, whatever the Haitian farmer’s plight is the overwhelming blame still lies not with the U.S. but with Haiti.
And yet I see not a speck of blame from you going in that direction. Not a speck.
Again, contrary to the implication which you state as fact nobody but nobody has a gun to Haiti’s head to be a member of either the WTO or the IMF as you imply. Neither can tell Haiti jack-squat if it didn’t want to listen. It could walk away from both in a heartbeat.
But of course it doesn’t because it gets shitloads of benefits from same otherwise, which benefits you of course don’t mention because it interferes with your narrative about the evil U.S. (And now the evil WTO and the evil IMF too.)
Yet another example of the same kind of logic that condemns the U.S. when it prohibits trade with other nations, and condemns it when it allows such trade. The IMF—largely American money—lends absolute boatloads of money to shitholes that absolutely nobody else would even look at. And, sensibly enough, and irrefutably showing it’s a good thing for them, these places take it. (And take it, and take it, and take it.)
And yet … once again and as always, this *too* is evil on the part of the U.S.
Trading, not trading, lending, not lending, giving, not giving, no matter what, it’s the same old same old, always and forever, no matter what it does it’s always gotta be that the U.S. is at least the principal evil worth mentioning, if not—as your narrative so characteristically suggests—the only evil.
Ridiculous.
To Brewer and Sin Nombre:
Thank you both for your very enlightening arguments on the issue of Haiti’s poverty. Your ideas helped me a lot particularly in proving some ideas in developing capacity for Urban Development Planning. I tried to read all the related links you suggested regarding the issues and this is what I can surmise from all said information:
1) Population. I don’t agree that population results to widespread poverty, because basically poverty is the result of poor individual’s productivity. In fact if every labor force is highly productive , population will serve as multiplier also;
2) Trade liberalization. Ideally this concept is good and expected to bring benefit to the consumers, as well as producers who use imported production resources. However, on a country that is not technologically capable of adjusting to the new economically liberalized regime, definitely like Haiti agriculture, the countryside will definitely collapse, and people will flock towards the urban centers hoping for availability of basic services and employment opportunities;
3) Production subsidy. The effect of subsidy to another country’s economy is supposedly not an problem if the affected country is capable of ‘economics of complementation’ where it left-out products that failed to compete with same produces, and specialized production of certain lines where it gains economic advantage over other competitors in the global market. Likewise, this is justifiable for a country like USA having a vast production resources particularly such as farm lands, that the world market cannot contain or absorb its output. This subsidy is better that foolishly artificially creating shortages by destroying harvests;
4) Urban migration. This is a factual experience worldwide, the rural folks due to prevailing poverty setting in rural communities, were continuously attracted to the development potentials of the urban centers particularly cities. This problem is even more heightened by the highly advocated global focus on the issues on urban poverty, and principles such as ‘right to the city’ (thanks to the generosity of the UN).
5) US led production modernization. This is also supposedly ideal because the Americans were looking forward using American model, to modernize the Haiti backwater economy by installing and stimulating export oriented market economy. However, the trouble is that the agricultural backbone was dispensed into backroom that it failed to achieve sustainability.
The way I look at your arguments both of you have valuable points of contentions on those above mentioned issues. I also strongly agree that one significant cause of Haiti poverty is the natural diminution of agrarian resources due to continued subdivisions by inheritance, until such time the farm sizes went below the economics of scale. This is also true to many Asian countries whose farm holdings are relatively small. But I believe the greater cause among all mentioned, was that despite of all well intended efforts of the US and all other foreign economic institutions such as IMF and WB, the people of Haiti in general was not technologically or intellectually readied to handle the gargantuan task of reorienting and readjusting its local economic structures and dynamics towards the global market economic settings. That is why it totally failed to survive the onslaught of imports from highly efficient producers in the global market.
One more, basing on one NY report, the emphasizeds focus on microprojects, due to generous abundance of NGOs in the country could have had reached saturation point where everyone becomes a producer and retailer. Having no apparent compensating presence of consumers from the services, industrial, and employment sector, by virtue of excessive market competition, the whole economic segment also collapsed. I think this was a tell-tale mark of some incompetence in macro-economics planning…
Thanks a lot!
I regret that time constraints prohibit a comprehensive reply so here are a few links that illustrate the depth of feeling outside the U.S. in regards to agricultural subsidies. I shall post in two parts to avoid the spam filter.
U.S. Blocks WTO Investigation of Subsidies
link to californiafarmer.com
Australia may fight US rise in farm subsidies
Australia will consider lodging a complaint with the world trade umpire after the United States Congress backed new laws boosting subsidies to American farmers by almost $A100 billion over the next decade.
link to theage.com.au
EU joins WTO complaint against U.S. corn subsidies – Business – International Herald Tribune
Published: Monday, January 22, 2007
The European Union, Australia, Argentina and Brazil have joined Canada in a complaint against the United States over what they claim are illegal government handouts to American corn growers, trade officials said Monday.
link to nytimes.com
Part 2:
Canada Requests WTO Panel on U.S. Agricultural Subsidies
The Honourable David Emerson, Minister of International Trade, and the Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, today announced that the Government of Canada has requested that a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel be established on the issue of U.S. agricultural subsidies.
“We remain concerned that the U.S. is providing agricultural subsidies in breach of its WTO commitments,” said Minister Emerson. “Requesting a dispute settlement panel reinforces our efforts in the Doha negotiations toward reducing trade-distorting U.S. subsidies.”
link to international.gc.ca
Rich countries spend billions subsidizing their agricultural sector, leading to chronic overproduction and dumping surpluses on global markets. Poor countries demand reform of this trade practice that impoverishes small-scale farmers while enriching large agri-business.
link to globalpolicy.org
US farm subsidies clash with WTO leadership
It is expected that WTO will soon come up with a conclusion, which can, based on previous verdicts, only lead to a condemnation of the country that always strives to take the leading role in free trade issues.
As soon as the bill has been passed the world can no longer accept a US leadership in the WTO. And comments from the US government or industry leaders regarding foul play by other countries cannot be taken serious anymore.
… One thing is very clear: By accepting the new subsidy rule the US has lost its credibility as WTO leader and as guardian of free and fair trade.
link to worldpoultry.net
zamaaz:
Very interesting, smart comments on your part. Thank you.
Looking back over my exchanges with Brewer I see that I didn’t pay close enough attention to his comment that what he really objected to was an initial statement of mine blithely saying that U.S. chicken producers were operating oh-so-fairly. I was just automatically thinking “fairness” in terms of both U.S. and Haitian chicken producers having at least the right to have their governments subsidize them and etc. He of course was talking just purely and simply whether U.S. producers do so without gov’t subsidies and etc. and in this sense he’s absolutely right.
I’ll also further grant him that even factoring in that producers in both countries have the theoretical right to have their gov’ts protect them, of course having the gov’t of the U.S. protecting you means a cosmic deal more than having that of Haiti protect you given the realities of the situation. What just bothers me of some arguments about this stuff is the vague implication that the U.S. is especially culpable in the world doing these kinds of things, or, worse, and as North implied, solely to blame for the plight of the Haitians without a glimmer of looking at whether the Haitians themselves bear any responsibility.
I.e., an extreme and indeed even absolute tendentiousness, always always always finding ways to blame whatever horror is at issue on the U.S., and indeed solely and exclusively on the U.S.
I will say though that you raised what I think is a very important point that also gives strength if not totally validates Brewer’s talk about the WTO and the World Bank when you note that “trade liberalization” for some developing countries, esp. those with limited goods or services to sell, is a problem. As Brewer’s point somewhat went to, it would be bad enough for a rich developed country that wasn’t protectionist to go about insisting that poor little countries like Haiti couldn’t protect itself just because Haiti is in essence a new country economically speaking. But then, when the rich developed countries *are* protectionist and they *still* so insist that can really stink.
Of course even though it can seem to wholly stink there’s some validity in that it’s hardly “fair” that the producers and workers in the developed countries suddenly have to start competing with countries where the wages are paid in pennies. But at least *some* more consideration should be given to allowing the developing countries more protectionist policies than they are getting from the IMF for instance. Their holier-than-thou stance can be ugly.
In any event is an interesting subject, and interesting too showing some fault lines amongst the readers of this blog otherwise hidden when talking exclusively about the Mideast. Echoes of Weiss writing for The American Conservative…. Given their agreements on the ME, both sides oughta be reminded that there may be lots more common ground between them on other issues too. Just as Brewer appears to be a Progressive and denounces American protectionism, and non-Progressive me denounces American protectionism just as bloody much, if not more. Our Ag subsidies are obscene, and do do terrible damage to other poor countries, not to mention American taxpayers and consumers.
looky here we have a fan of Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. Great fiction!!!
Lookey here, a guy who is not only unable to argue substantively, but can’t even get a drive-by guilt-by-association slur right since there is none.
Oh I am so sorry that you think this was a slur. I thought that it would be a badge of honor. As for substantive argument I am sorry again there was nothing substantive to argue with unless you think that your ranting is actually making some intelligent argument and sense.
Private Islamic Relief USA has launched a $1 million appeal to help the victims, and is preparing to deploy an emergency team to the island nation; Israel claims to be dispatching a 4-man
team relief of its own; Obama has already dispensed over 6 thousand American soldiers and navy relief package and a US aircraft carrier of help for Haiti.
Let’s keep tabs on this PR effort by all these agencies. Will it reach par New Orleans hurricane relief?
Imagine if Israel was hit by an earth quake. The US Congress would divert billions
to help. Yes or no? Check out the annual cash diversion to Israel sans any natural
storm or earthquake–makes you feel good about your country?
The USA private donations to help the world far exceeds any other country’s help, even proportionately. The USA is, after all, composed of mostly Christian citizens.
Ooops did charitable reality fly in the face of official US politics?
“The USA private donations to help the world far exceeds any other country’s help, even proportionately.”
Citizen, are you sure about that? Here’s an interesting link to a long (and I believe well researched) article, that addresses U.S. and foreign aid assistance:
link to globalissues.org
Here’s a quote (sorry, don’t know how to do quotes using tags on this forum software):
“Adelman, further above noted that the US is “clearly the most generous on earth in public—but especially in private—giving”, yet the CGD suggests otherwise, saying that the US does not close the gap with most other rich countries; “The US gives 13c/day/person in government aid….American’s private giving—another 5c/day—is high by international standards but does not close the gap with most other rich countries. Norway gives $1.02/day in public aid and 24c/day in private aid” per person. (These numbers will change of course, year by year, but the point here is that Adelman’s assertion—one that many seem to have—is not quite right.)”
Also, here’s another link (2005) regarding aid called “Are we stingy? How well does foreign aid add up?”
A short quote:
“U.S. aid in terms of percentage of U.S. GDP is already the lowest of any industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically in the last three years, its dollar amount has been the highest. And while U.S. aid has increased dramatically in recent years, much of the new disbursements have been related to the war on terror and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Israel and Egypt continue to make their annual claims to the lion’s share of U.S. overseas aid.”
Oops, forgot the link to the second quote: link to salt.claretianpubs.org
Well, here’s a reply to your question, Andre:
link to american.com
Thanks Citizen, for your response. Let me first say that I am highly skeptical of any ‘info’ coming from the American Enterprise Institute. Secondly, my reply was in reference to Foreign aid assistance and not to private domestic donations to e.g. houses of worship and charitable organizations inside the U.S..
With all due respect but you yourself, stated that “the USA private donations to help the world far exceeds any other country’s help, even proportionately.” So far, I could not find any proof in the article you posted, that corroborates your claim.
This articles attempts to answer the question, Andre; it says at quick take inter alia that, e.g., Denmark and Norway are the biggest (proportionately) government givers, but that over three-quarters of total US foreign aid is donated by private
charity, while the citizens of countries such as Denmark and Norway give
mostly though their taxes, that is, via governmental foreign aid.
link to craigbosley.com
As soon as I heard about the Haitian earthquake I knew (as always) it was America’s fault. You just have to keep reading posts and sooner or later someone will make the connection.
Not quite. When it comes to debauching poor nations with charity and handing power off to a friendly oligarch, Canada and Europe are no slouches.
Even if there weren’t a connection between US actions and poverty in Haiti, would it kill you to show some compassion and help a fellow human being in a time of need?
What the heck is wrong with you people? You support wars that rob other nations of their own wealth and resources, but the minute you’re asked to give to a few helpless disaster stricken people you start whining.
I don’t know who you’re talking about. I sent in my check to the American Red Cross International Response Fund fund for Haiti this morning. Even so I still don’t appreciate people so stupid they find a way to blame America for an earthquake in Haiti. Or for not fixing the problem fast enough. Surprising as it is to some, America is not the source of all evil in the world. Nor do we have any control over acts of God.
Pathetic that’s all that comes to mind reading what you wrote Duscany. Show a little bit of humanity even if you don’t know your history.
I can’t help people who think the Haitian earthquake was America’s fault. Basic literacy is a requirement to post here.
And you are literate? Show me one post where anyone wrote that the earthquake was America’s fault. I suppose in your mind literacy means putting words in people’s mouths?
Well, I’ll tell you what literacy doesn’t mean. And that’s calling people pathetic without anything to point to in anything I wrote.
Do you want to help Haiti? Here’s a suggestion that might actually work. First thing we do is bring home all American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, and cancel the $2 billion we give to Egypt each year and the $3 billion to give to Israel. Then we use some of all that extra cash to rebuild Haiti with earthquake resistant housing. Or are you afraid that would unjustly enrich the American construction industry?
Several questions about Haiti to the powers that be:
ONE: If you are so concerned about the catastrophe in Haiti, and feel so sympathetic to the terrible plight of the Haitian people, then why has President Obama promised a mere $100 million in aid, which is barely 1/10 of 1% of what this country spends on its military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq each year? Why has it taken so long for the most powerful country on earth, a mere few hundred miles from Haiti, to deliver the badly needed teams and technology which can remove people from rubble, the fresh water which people so desperately need, the food and medicine and medical personnel so urgently required? And why does the U.S. Coast Guard still insist on turning back any Haitian attempting to seek refuge in the U.S.?
Are you really so concerned? Or are you in fact giving just enough so that America cannot be criticized for its callousness as it was after the tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina? And are you giving this aid in such small amounts and so slowly because you are more concerned to maintain the repressive government authority in Haiti than you are about meeting the urgent and immediate needs of the Haitian people by getting the aid directly to the people and allowing them to collectively organize to distribute it in a time of crisis, when the ordinary authorities are not totally in control? Are you thereby, despite your professions of sympathy and urgency, sacrificing lives to the maintenance of the repressive social order you back in Haiti?
TWO: If you are so concerned about Haitian “political culture,” if you are so desirous of “helping Haitian democracy…” – then tell us WHY you supported a collection of gangsters, military men and proven torturers in their overthrow of the popularly elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 2004? Why did the U.S. armed forces kidnap Aristide, flying him into exile in Africa, against his will? Why did the U.S. support the ban on the political organization led by Aristide – Lavalas – and why does the U.S. still insist on banning this organization and preventing Aristide from returning to Haiti to mobilize this group to help deal with the suffering now going on?
Are you really concerned to “spread democracy”? Or is it really the case that your system is NOT about “spreading democracy,” but creating structures and instruments for capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination?
THREE: If your army is now the main vehicle you are using to deliver aid, then please inform us as to how this army will be different than the one you used to invade, occupy and dominate Haiti from 1915 to 1934? How will it act differently than that army did, when it militarily suppressed the Caco uprising of peasants, an uprising which demanded an end to the occupation and, in some cases, more equitable agricultural relations in Haiti’s countryside? How will it act differently than the army which enslaved Haitian people to work on its projects and bases, and which then forced a constitution, and a new ruling elite, down Haiti’s throat during that occupation? And how will it be different than the one which gave assistance and training to the military of the hated tyrants Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier? Indeed, how will it be different than the army that now rages through Afghanistan and Iraq, kicking down doors and killing from the air, and imprisoning and torturing people without charges by the thousand in prisons like Bagram?
Will your army really be used only for aid and assistance? Or is it really the case that the army that defends and fights for your system will, in the guise of delivering aid, actually suppress the will and efforts of the Haitian people to deal with this crisis and their overall situation, and will carry out this suppression with maximum brutality and no mercy whatsoever, in order to further dominate them?
FOUR: If you are so sympathetic about how Haiti has been deforested and turned into an ecological disaster area, how its agriculture has been ruined, how it now has half of its population in a city where in some sections unemployment runs as high as 90% (!), then how did it come to be that it was the U.S. itself which insisted that the Haitian peasantry do away with its huge and valuable pig population back in the 1980s, due to some supposed threat to the U.S. pig population…and how did it happen that U.S. agribusiness during that same period dumped surplus rice into Haiti at below cost, and thereby severely crippled and in some senses ruined Haitian rice growers? And why does Bill Clinton’s much-praised plan for Haiti, which we are told will bring hope to Haitians, actually involve setting up sweatshops in which Haitians will be paid 38 cents a day?!?
Do you really want to aid Haitians in developing self-sufficiency? Or is it really the case that America decided in the early 1980s to crush any elements of the economy in scores of oppressed countries, Haiti among them, which might be a basis for self-sufficiency, and to do so in a way that made the economies of these nations even more dependent on the needs and actions of the U.S. imperialist economic system, and that your plans now entail even more fully using the brutal and terrible impoverishment of the Haitian people as a way to pile up even higher profits?
FIVE: If you are so overwhelmingly concerned to just help Haiti, and criticize those who would speak of the U.S. role in creating the conditions that have made this disaster so much worse than it had to be, then why do you grant a megaphone to certifiably insane ignoramuses like Pat Robertson who claim that Haitians made a pact with the devil, or to vicious morons like Rush Limbaugh who stirs up hate and resentment against Haitians among his audience? Why do you have your think tanks like the Heritage Foundation write up ideas for using this disaster to even further take over and reshape the Haitian economy to imperialist needs, and then hurriedly have them remove this blueprint from their website once they are discovered? (Listen to Naomi Klein on Democracy Now!, 1/14/10) Why do your hired slime-merchants like David Brooks of the New York Times spout off about how the reason for Haiti’s suffering is that its “culture” is inferior to that of the country which first, in 1804, isolated Haiti and put vicious economic sanctions on it for daring to rise up and overthrow slavery and French colonial domination (and this policy was the brainchild of that great American “father of democracy” Thomas Jefferson)…inferior to the country which invaded Haiti and occupied it and plundered it, backing tyrants and overthrowing (twice) popularly elected presidents…inferior, in other words, to the “culture” of the imperialist system for which Brooks so slavishly propagandizes?
Or are you in fact concerned only that some political explanations – those which point to the actions of your system – not be allowed out, but that other political explanations – those which blame the Haitian people and absolve American imperialism – be circulated 24/7?
SIX: If you are so eager for people to give to charity and want people to believe that such charity is more important than and should even trump mobilizing politically to fight for aid, then please explain how it came to be that the tons and tons of aid collected by people in 2008 to aid Haitians hit by a series of four hurricanes sat in a warehouse in New York for months, with food and medicine literally rotting there, as government officials shirked responsibility and went back on promises? Please, dear sirs and madames, explain how this won’t be like so many other crises where the huge efforts of people to assist are channeled into ways that dissipate their feelings of solidarity, where governments make huge promises which then are never delivered, once the TV arc lights go away?
Or is this in fact just one more crisis for your system to snake its way through, distracting people from the root causes, taking their highest aspirations and channeling them into harmless dead ends, as your system continues to create conditions and preserve social relations which make the cost in human lives of such crises far beyond what they need to be?
Wow, VR. That was an extremely well written response. I agree with everything you’ve said in such a better way than I ever could. Much respect!
Thank you VR. I absolutely agree with everything you wrote. Very well said.
“Or is this in fact just one more crisis for your system to snake its way through” Yesterday I heard an interview on the BBC with some Republican politician from Florida who suggested that Haiti should become a “UN protectorate”. The “Shock Doctrine” at work.
Reports are saying that the US military is restricting the movement of aid into Haiti until they have “established security.”
VR:
“why do you grant a megaphone to certifiably insane ignoramuses like Pat Robertson who claim that Haitians made a pact with the devil.”
I don’t know what country your’re from but in the United States the First Amendment permits people like Pat Robininson to embarrass themselves to their heart’s content by offering opinions based on religious fairy tales. By the same token, it also gives Danny Glover the right to ignorantly suggest that God/Gaia/Mother Nature was so pissed at the failure of the Copenhagen summit that he caused the Haitian earthquake to pay us back.
The answer is Duscany that the question is totally rhetorical, because this government does not believe in free speech. In case you were unaware of it, free speech means an equal platform, or, at least this is how it was presented in the original context (I know you probably know nothing about this, but it is not my fault). However, this system will give a national platform to a nut, because they know it will amount to nothing but more prejudicial views in their favor. Outside of this, the idea of free speech in the sense of spouting off in any obscure venue, is just a way to relieve tension for the masses.
So what is your recommendation for preventing opinions you don’t like from being heard by anyone else?
Ignorance comes out of a view that is partly shrouded. Usually, as I observed, our views presented in this debate are generally non-sectarian and political at most, as most of the progressive here would – the adverse US intervention! These are only partials of the total view. Pat Robinson is looking at the Haiti situation but on historical, comparative assessment of current political-economics, and spiritual perspective. As Pat Robinson has referred to the historical occurrence at Ceremony at the Bois Caïman In August 1791. If these were true indeed we cannot simply dismiss this view as of ‘ignoramus.’ People like Christians, who read the holy scriptures would look unto these as ‘other side of reality’.
On the case of dealing with the devil, this is ‘idolatry’ in the Bible (and abominable before the LORD). What happened to Israel after years of warning by the prophets like Jeremiah? Israel nation was divided, and all its people thrown out of the country for decades (Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian conquests). Another one good strong example is the lamentation of Jesus Christ over Jerusalem at the turn of the 1st century, after they rejected Him as the Messiah;
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Luke 13:34-35)
After these words, Israel as nation in desolation, never again for centuries have the chance to live in a regime of prevalent peace all over its lands (from the Greek, Romans, to the Turks, etc.) even among its communities throughout the world… (mine own view)
If you do not believe on this view, look at Israel now and historically…On a christian view like Pat Robinson This is also what happened to Haiti after the Bois Caïman ceremony.
Please correct:
After these words, Israel as nation in desolation, never again for centuries have the chance to live in a regime of prevalent peace all over its lands (from the Greek, Romans, to the Turks, Arabs, etc.) even among its communities in many parts of the world (Nazi Holocaust, Islamic militancy, anti-semitism, etc.)… (mine own view)
If you do not believe on this view, look at Israel now and historically…On a Christian view like Pat Robinson This ‘desolation’(economic, political, etc.) may also what have happened to Haiti until the present after the Bois Caïman ceremony…
I have no recommendations Duscany, I just have a distaste for people passing off uninformed “opinions” as fact. A few years back it used to be called lies and propaganda in some instances, now it is called opinions.
However, I will give you something on anther point you made Duscany, where you mentioned that European countries and others are just as capable and do commit atrocities like the US. That is definitely true, and anyone who disagrees with it does not know history nor what is happening in the present world. It is just that the US as the reigning hegemon thinks it has to outdo everyone else in these atrocities.
VS: ” Are you thereby, despite your professions of sympathy and urgency, sacrificing lives to the maintenance of the repressive social order you back in Haiti?”
I’m always astonished to learn what my politics are from people who know nothing about me. How do you know what I back or not? You’re making up stuff about me, assuming I’m a member of some group you dislike and projecting all their attributes on to me. A shabby intellectual practice typical of a totalitarian mindset, it seems to me.
I beg your pardon, my post above was not addressed to you, it was addressed to the “powers that be.” Now, unless you fit that category you have no quarrel with me. Do try to read what people post a little more carefully, if it was addressed to you I would have hit the “reply” button, I did not – I just posted what my questions were to those in power.
From the time of Haiti’s defeat of Napoleons forces, which had not been defeated to that date, till now, Haiti has been oppressed by Western Imperialism. The land and the people, Haiti, that made the walls of the institution of slavery shake throughout the West and eventually crumble. Made to pay reparations to France for its colonial loss, in essence paying for the system which enslaved them till 1947! Sanctioned by the dominants in the world community, made to endure tyrants set up by foreign interest for exploitation, occupied by the US from 1915 to 1934. Literally destroyed by neoliberal policies and mercilessly hobbled by debt through that damnable system, the deforestation of its land, and deluged by subsidized products from the US and other parts of the world killing its industries. Peppered with sweat shops paying a pittance per day for the likes of WalMart and Disney among others. The removal of it democratically elected leaders because they had the temerity to want a rise in the standard of living for the impoverished people. Now assailed by natural disaster unable to respond on its own because of the oppression and exploitation which has spanned hundreds of years, the atrocities and injustices are too many to list. Fuck Western imperialism, damn you all, I want to be here when I can personally hear your death rattles.
Haiti Didn’t Become a Poor Nation All on Its Own
link to alternet.org
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