Haiti's Poor: Dying For the Devil's Protection

Haiti's sad history speaks to the power of guilty projections and fear-based perceptions. That country's unexpected birth as a Free Black republic at a time when most Africans in the Americas were captive slaves is its only curse, but a curse which haunts to this day.

The reason men like Thomas Jefferson rejected manumission despite their denouncement of slavery was palpable fear. Fear that the slaves who had endured such cruel oppression would seek restitution in blood. The Haitian revolution made real those haunting fears, terrors which lurk in the American psyche, just as every peasant revolt in Europe conjured the horrors of the bloody French jacqueries five centuries after 1358.

It was fear of Haiti's poor that led its light-skinned rich to trade their country's future for French protection, a deal that would prove a true Faustian bargain. Now that fear of delayed black vengeance is once again causing needless suffering and heartbreaking death.



So why, after all this time, have the needed supplies not arrived? Again, that insidious fear of the poor and exploited black: "Violence in Haiti as residents fight to survive", says Johannesburg World News; "Violence in Haiti Hindering Aid Effort" trumpets the Associated Press; "Violence grows in Desperate Haiti" cries Sphere News. But how justified is the fear and our collective inaction. (Putting aside just how foraging for food comes to be criminal looting.)

Here's what those actually on the ground are reporting:
From the Guardian: The myth of Haiti's lawless streets. "To withhold aid because of the 'security situation' is a miserable excuse for agencies' failure to deliver desperately needed help."

Army Lt. Gen. Ken Keen of the U.S. Southern Command: "I must say, all the places U.S. forces have gone thus far have been very calm. [ ] Post-earthquake security problems are not impeding the U.S. military's humanitarian efforts." Apparently Lt. Generals do not tremble at the thought of facing dark-skinned jacqueries! That does not mean his mission is wholly benevolent.

"So send in the marines, okay?"
The Washington Post: "Haiti's elite spared from much of the devastation." "Through decades of coups, hurricanes, embargoes and economic collapse, members of the wily and powerful business elite of Haiti have learned the art of survival in one of the most chaotic countries on Earth -- and they might come out on top again."

From the WSW: "US military operations block relief efforts in Haiti"
"The US troop build-up is proceeding, citing as justification fears of possible “looting” by Haitians desperate for food and water—with the New York Times writing that “the threat of mass looting seems to increase by the day.” However, there have been no reports of violence against aid personnel.

Doctors Without Borders issued a statement yesterday protesting the US military’s continuing refusal to allow its planes to land at the Port-au-Prince airport. It quoted Loris De Filippi, the coordinator at Choscal hospital in the Cité Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince: “they are begging us there in front of the hospital. It’s a very unacceptable situation. What we are trying to do is to expand our capacity to answer these calls. But we need supplies to get to the airport—and we don’t know why the planes are being redirected.”

So on top of being slandered by our Limbaughs and Robertsons Haiti's poor must perish so the rich can feel safe and secure. It's enough to turn the stomach to remember it was the same landed brown elite who first strained to join the Great Egalitarian Revolution.

The Palin Pick and the Plot to End America

The Alaskan Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Even right-leaning pundits like "Morning Joe" were taken aback by Sarah Palin's apparent inability to name a single magazine or newspaper that informed her worldview. The assumption of most is that she must not read anything noteworthy. I doubt that is the case. She may indeed read Time or People on occasion but that is not what shapes her opinions, at least not the opinions of those who have propelled her to national prominence.

By in large, the forces behind Governor Palin view their roles through the prism of the Great Commission. They seek power not to represent the interests of those who elect them but to convert the country and then the entire world to Corporate Christendom. They have their own schools, businesses, radio and T.V. networks and news publications all dedicated to "the mission"--as described by the Sky/Angel Corporation

Our Vision:
To provide a global communications platform as an instrument of unity to equip the Body of Christ to fulfill the Great Commission.

Our Mission: To build and operate a global communications system as the most effective means of assuring that the Gospel will penetrate every nation, culture and people.

That is not to say they are merely Bible-thumping fanatics. They are much more dangerous than that because their ethics begin and end with that purpose. They feel no compunction against lying, cheating or stealing and those who disagree are conveniently dismissed as "non-Christians."

Ultimately, the Palinites see themselves as keepers of both the Christian heritage of the first century and our 17th century Puritans. They offer faint praise for the nation's Founders. For them democracy is the cause of all world problems because humans must be ruled solely by the "natural" laws of God. Palin Puritans see themselves as having been betrayed by the Bill of Rights and a Constitution flawed by a loophole created by America's original "liberals".

Pat Robertson: "The Constitution of the United States is a marvelous document for self- government by Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christians and atheistic people, they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society."

This is where we get to the really scary part. Remember how Sarah Palin winked at Charlie Gibson when she spoke about "why we hold elections"? The ascendancy of the Christian Right has coincided with their control of our voting machinery. As I have harped on for the last five years- the key executives in charge of the three largest voting machine companies in America are ardent supporters of radical Reconstructionism and right wing Christian Fundamentalism.

But it gets worse: Among the Palinites are those pushing for the destruction of the U.S. economy. "Reconstructionists celebrate economic and constitutional crises as opportunity. Howard Phillips, founder of the U.S. Taxpayers-turned-American Constitution Party, has anticipated that U.S. economic distress could eventually trigger a right-wing Christian revolution and takeover of government." See “Power Preying,” Adele M. Stain, Mother Jones, Nov/Dec 1995. Phillips observed that “The death of the Weimar Republic, the opportunity for the National Socialists to come up in the ‘20s, was the result of the fact that the people were hurt economically.”

Yesterday John McCain appeared to divulge what the right-wing Xtians have promised him with the Palin pick:



Do not laugh at Sarah Palin. She's as funny as the Spanish Inquisition. Here is what she told her Republican opponent after their debate for governor: "Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers, and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures, and policies, and I'm amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, 'Does any of this really matter?' "

We're about to find out.

Oh- and about what Palin reads... apparently "The New American", a magazine put out by the John Birch Society.

(courtesy of the Associated Press)