Haiti

As the first anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake approaches, the questions that I asked then (below) remain unasked and unanswered by the Canadian media today. Apparently, as Garrett Hardin famously observed, no one ever dies from over-population. And no one ever dies from Canada's criminally irresponsible foreign aid and immigration policies, which are serving as birth stimulants to those nations--- like Haiti---which are given little incentive to address the root cause of their misery.

It has become a tradition in my community, the island of Dr. David Hypocrite, to hold an annual fundraiser for the Philippines. On the face of it, the income raised by these events to help develop pre-school programs in seven villages in Luzon sounds like an unmitigated good. After all, what could be wrong about helping over a 1,100 children and their families? Actually, a lot. But tell that to people here, who regard attendance at this bazaar almost like a mark of civic responsibility and a gesture of community solidarity. For me, unconditional aid of any kind to nations like the Philippines is an act of criminal irresponsibility and ignorance. The same kind of irresponsibility and ignorance which permits self-righteous environmentalists to birth or sire two or more carbon footprints, but mount the moral high-horse because they recycle their garbage or save paper. Rage compelled me to write the attached diatribe. Distributing it would be what Jack Alpert calls "Pissing in your own soup." I have to live here among the wolves, so the prudent course would be to follow Lenin’s advice that "You then must howl like a wolf." Handing it out to those in attendance would be equivalent to wearing a sandwich board that says "Legalize Pedophilia".

Email from Alison Thompson sent to her parents in Sutherland Shire (Sydney)on 24 January 2010.
Alison is due to receive an Australia Day award. Candobetter knows nothing about Alison; we just published this letter because it came from a reliable source. We would like to know more and to have a picture of Alison if possible.

Hell in Haiti

Hi mum and dad,

I won't be around when they announce my award on January 26th. I am with Sean Penn, Diana Jenkins, Oscar and 15 doctors embedded in the 82 Airborne ( USA) Dante would describe it as hell here. There is no food and water and hundreds dying daily. The aid is all bottlenecked and not reaching here. The other day I assisted with amputation (holding them down) while they used a saw to cut a young boys leg off with no pain killers. Today I went with a strike force and army patrol in hummers into the streets and walked 5 miles through the camps set up on every street corner. Sewage and bodies stench is everywhere. As I attend to a patient 30 people crowd around me and it's hard to breath. I nearly fainted today as the sewage smell went straight down my throat. I went white and dizzy but couldn't sit down as sewage is running through the streets. There is much infection and it feels like the job is too big. No antibiotics anywhere.

...

Are troops what Haiti needs?

In the above news item, "Are Troops what Haiti needs?" Produced by Jesse Freeston, Reporter Ansel Herz says, "At one of the hospitals in Haiti that was not crushed there are basically just a few Haitian doctors there Haitian Red Cross then a team of French doctors probably about seven of them ... They're basically treating like one or two people at a time... They're poorly equipped. They don't have all the supplies that they need. ..There are hundreds of people outside this hospital in tents, waiting for some kind of care, many of them have been there for days." (Ed. There were similar reports on the French news a few days ago, and also that the US forces were more or less controlling the one airport and stopping other nations from helping the Haitians.) Ansel Herz also comments on the hyping of looting themes broadcast by mainstream news in Britain, with pictures showing two men trying to get items out of a collapsed building. He says that he has not seen any looting and that people are trying to find food and are sharing it with each other.

Haiti: There's no such thing as a curse
by

First published, in French at Mondialisation.ca, 15 January 2010
Translated by Sheila Newman

How often do we hear the expression "cursed" in conjunction with Haiti's situation? As if, rather than consider the real political causes, we would rather trust in God. It's easier. Less dangerous.

God doesn't send accounts, after all. God cannot be reelected or not reelected after 4 years. The recent history of Haiti is largely that of a dispossessed country, broken, a country that liberal economics has demolished.

US abolished law stopping foreign-ownership

It wasn't God that landed on the island in 1915 and occupied it for 20 years; it was American marines that allowed Washington to abolish the clause in the Constitution that prevented foreigners from owning businesses in the country. Thousands of inhabitants were dispossessed. Giant plantations were created. Because of an army that was busier fighting its own people than anything else, it was permitted for 1% of the population to own 50% of the resources of the country.

It wasn't God either that supported Duvalier's terrible dictatorship for decades, Duvalier who was more interested in enriching himself than in building a country worthy of the name. It was France and the United States.

A blogsite called "Catholic Dialogue" sounds so extreme in its condemnation of feminism, contraception and women's choice that you wonder if it's actually a joke. The blogsite warns people not to donate to Caritas Haiti because they support condoms, the celebration of Women's International Day and present a 'negative image of the Catholic Church'!

Please DO therefore consider donating to Caritas Haiti. Their site is here. And thanks, Catholic Dialogue, for telling us about them. They have survived the earthquake, I just learned, although their bank did not. They expect to post details of where to send help tomorrow.

The unnamed author of Catholic Dialogue links us to another blog called "SOCON or Bust because Liberalism is killing us" where someone called Pachecho has written:

How the tragic situation of Haiti's overpopulation and poverty came about? There were not always 9m hungry people there. When this once rich and beautiful island was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, it was inhabited by a population of about 100,000 Amerindians, living in a steady state economy. The Amerindians refused to mine gold for the Spanish, so the Spanish imported many thousands of slaves from Africa. The French took the whole island over in 1697 and it remained their most lucrative possession until 1825, despite the inhabitants claiming independence and freedom from slavery under the French Revolution of 1789. At that time there were few Amerindians but about 400,000 African slaves and 100,000 colonists. Added on 17 Jan 2010. Slavery is ongoing in Haiti.

We should never forget that the wealth of the developed world was originally built on the slave trade, until coal and oil became cheaper than slaves. And slaving is still going on in Haiti, as A Crime so Monstrous shows.