UPDATE: 3:55 PM
What's Wrong With This Picture -More Guns, More Troops while aid trickles to those suffering. If soldiers appear in heavy duty battle gear what are the people of Haiti supposed to conclude that it is an INVASION or an over concern with security rather than alleviating suffering. The longer aid takes to get to people the more deaths there will be and more resentment and anger against these occupying forces
HAITI: Food, Aid and Automatic Weapons ?? Why Would They Need to Shoot People Who Have Next to Nothing ?
UPDATE: 2:09 PM
Don't just donate first check out the organization to make sure they are legit.
Salon.com post an article about scammers &CON-ARTIST on the internet during a time of crisis and disaster relief.
Cashing in on crisis
Facebook scams, text-messaging hoaxes and the unscrupulous ways natural disaster gets exploited for profit By Paul Hiebert
If you and I wanted to start a profitable scam organization, what would be the best way of going about it?
First, you have to get pictures for the emotional component. In Thailand, people would take pictures of existing projects, then pretend it was their own. Since it's all illegal anyway, some people simply steal pictures. Second, you're probably going to advertise zero percent spending on overhead with 100 percent of the proceeds going to disaster victims. Third, you're going to pick a name for your organization that's almost identical to a well-known one, like Child Relief Foundation instead of Child Relief Fund, just so it sounds right. Fourth, you're going to post a few what I call "happy stories" — past successes, personal stories of transformation and so on. And last, a Donate Now button.
A legitimate Web site can look really similar to a fraudulent one. A good way to avoid scams is to find out if the organization existed prior to the disaster. If they did, chances are they're authentic.
First a video about the Slave Revolt in Haiti- After defeating the French army and winning their freedom (Self-Reliance) the French insisted Haiti pay reparations to France which they did until 1947. The world stood by and even defended the French why because the Black slaves had done the unthinkable by rising up against their oppressors.
From a legal perspective this would create an historical precedent so others who are wronged as the French thought they were could argue for reparations. For instance Britain could have insisted on massive reparations from the American colonists who stole British Crown land. And the Native Americans who had a strong case to make that these upstart Europeans rather than just live together and share the land the Europeans stole the land while committing Genocide . So Native Americans like the French should have been paid "Reparations" by these European conquerors and mass murderers. The peoples of India for instance rose up against the British rulers who stole the whole of India from its peoples who had been there for over five thousand years . In the ensuing war millions died in the 1840s . The revisionist British history most of us were taught in schools and universities was that the insurgents in India were an ungrateful bunch and that it was an uprising of only a couple of thousand as opposed to the reality of several million who rose up to fight for their freedom. They lost and Britain continued til 1948 to rule India claiming Britain was entitled to rule over India as it was God's Will. So the British should have been made to pay reparations to the peoples of India for all the wealth they had stolen from the peoples of India. Or the conservatives would argue that firstly that India had no right to become a sovereign nation since they were not white Europeans and so once freed from Britain the Indian government should have paid reparations to the British??? The pro-Colonialist such as the Americans these days still have the same view of the world so that the sovereignty of other nations is a lot of nonsense???
Slave Revolt -Haiti
From news reports we get mixed messages and contradictory reports about the situation in Haiti. Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson and Glenn Beck believe America should not help out the Haitian people after all they are not American and they have nothing that America can use. Others just think that it is a commendable quality for people to want to reach out when others are in need and lack the where with all to fend for themselves. This is called human compassion and altruism two things Conservatives hate . They believe it should all be a matter of survival of the fittest. Note its the only time conservatives and the Religious Right in the US and Canada ever invoke Evolution and Charles Darwin even if it is a bastardization of Evolution theory.
The other reports we get is that there is rampant violence in Haiti and so the US & UN are sending in more troops armed to the teeth than they are handing out food and water.Maybe they want Haiti to be more like the Dominican Republic with resorts and Golf courses and gated communities while a large segment of the people of that country are kept in abject poverty which is how Neoconservatives, the Religious Right and neoliberals prefer. Since they believe there are those who are entitled to the good things in life and those who must work for as little pay as possible.
Other reports have said there is some violence but nothing as bad as other "journalist" with their own conservative agenda are making it out to be .
VIOLENCE IN HAITI
Aftershock rattles Haiti, but aid flow ramps up Reuters Jan. 20,2010
LOCALIZED VIOLENCE
Landline telephones in Port-au-Prince were still down, but two wireless networks had spotty service, said U.S. Federal Communications Commission officials helping with the relief.
While military escorts are needed to deliver relief, the United Nations said security problems were mainly in areas considered "high risk" before the disaster.
"I have seen no indications that leads me to believe that the security situation is deteriorating," said General Floriano Peixoto, chief of the Brazilian U.N. peacekeeping contingent.
Brazilian peacekeepers have helped Haitian police recapture some of the 4,000 prison inmates who escaped after the quake.
To speed the arrival of aid and stem looting and violence, the U.N. Security Council has unanimously agreed to temporarily add 2,000 U.N. troops and 1,500 police to the 9,000-member peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
Around 12,000 U.S. military personnel are on the ground in Haiti and on ships offshore including the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, which arrived on Wednesday to provide essential capacity for complex surgeries.
Mixed Messages
"MTV's 'Hope For Haiti' Telethon Takes A Cue From Past All-Star Relief Efforts
Benefits for Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and the Asian tsunami similarly called on celebs to help raise money." By Jayson Rodriguez, Jan.20,2010
George Clooney and Wyclef Jean have been burning the midnight oil, working furiously to raise funds and secure participants for the "Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief" telethon, presented by MTV Networks on Friday at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
The undertaking is expected to be one of the biggest charitable efforts ever. All proceeds from the telecast will be split among five relief organizations actively operating in Haiti: Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF and Wyclef's Yele Haiti foundation.
"Hope for Haiti" is the latest in a line of all-star charity events, following in the footsteps of the September 11 fundraiser "America: A Tribute to Heroes" and "Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast," which benefited the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
Some real not-revisionist American style of history about Haiti. Americans in general seem to have an aversion to real history but prefer the American made up myths especially about their own history. For example the US has always been on the side of human rights and justice . Tell that to native Americans or to the Mexicans or the peoples of various South and Central American countries or to the people of the Philippines or of Vietnam, Cambodia , Indonesia, Burma or Iraq or Cuba or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iran and on and on..
Bill Fletcher, The Black Commentator on Haiti Thom Hartman
Democracy Now! Haiti /Aristide & American Interference
Haiti 1804-2004: Tens of Thousands Mark Bicentennial of Haitian Revolution
Born out of a slave revolt, Haiti became an independent nation on Jan. 1, 1804. Yesterday thousands celebrated the anniversary but the nation remains deeply divided over the future of the country and of President Jean Bertrand-Aristide.
DUVALIER another American backed dictator. Dictators good Democracy bad according to the way America treated Haiti over the last 200 years or so. The brutal dictator Duvalier ruled Haiti and terrorized Haitians backed by the US government for most of his time in power from 1957-1971. So this is not ancient history. America's fear was that Haiti might move to the left and tax the wealthy or American industries or do crazy stuff like put money into public schooling or a Universal Healthcare plan or allow for a free press or freedom of speech even for those on the left. These were the things Aristide was in favor of so the US got rid of him.
History Of Haiti at Traveling Haiti.com
US occupation 1915-1934
The occupation by the United States had several effects on Haiti. An early period of unrest culminated in a 1918 rebellion by up to 40,000 former cacos and other disgruntled people. The scale of the uprising overwhelmed the Gendarmerie, but marine reinforcements helped put down the revolt at the estimated cost of 2,000 Haitian lives. Thereafter, order prevailed to a degree that most Haitians had never witnessed. The order, however, was imposed largely by white foreigners with deep-seated racial prejudices and a disdain for the notion of self-determination by inhabitants of less-developed nations. These attitudes particularly dismayed the mulatto elite, who had heretofore believed in their innate superiority over the black masses. The whites from North America, however, did not distinguish among Haitians, regardless of their skin tone, level of education, or sophistication. This intolerance caused indignation, resentment, and eventually a racial pride that was reflected in the work of a new generation of Haitian historians, ethnologists, writers, artists, and others, many of whom later became active in politics and government. Still, as Haitians united in their reaction to the racism of the occupying forces, the mulatto elite managed to dominate the country's bureaucracy and to strengthen its role in national affairs.
and:
The occupation of Haiti continued after World War I, despite the embarrassment that it caused Woodrow Wilson at the Paris peace conference in 1919 and the scrutiny of a congressional inquiry in 1922. By 1930 President Herbert Hoover had become concerned about the effects of the occupation, particularly after a December 1929 incident in Les Cayes in which marines killed at least ten Haitian peasants during a march to protest local economic conditions. Hoover appointed two commissions to study the situation. A former governor general of the Philippines, W. Cameron Forbes, headed the more prominent of the two. The Forbes Commission praised the material improvements that the United States administration had wrought, but it criticized the exclusion of Haitians from positions of real authority in the government and the constabulary, which had come to be known as the Garde d'Haïti. In more general terms, the commission further asserted that "the social forces that created [instability] still remain--poverty, ignorance, and the lack of a tradition or desire for orderly free government."
and so it goes,
GORD.
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