"Why the US Owes Haiti Billions - The Briefest History"
and Greg Palast, in the starkest of terms, describes BARACK OBAMA's COMPLICITY in America's parasitic GUTTING of Haiti, both before this recent earthquake, and in the by now de riguer Olympian ALOOFNESS of the "he made it big" former constitutional law professor turned US president:
"History of Haiti's [US & European created] Holocaust"
by Gregg Palast, Jan 17, 2010
NEWER still -
#3. In the "It takes one, to know one" catagory, FRANCE complains about America's MILITARY OCCUPTIONIST presence in Haiti... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/18/french-minister-rips-us-t_n_427366.html
Hillary Clinton INADVERTENTLY SUPPORTS France's claims, when Ms. Clinton tries to explain:
< U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday the U.S. government had no intention of taking power from Haitian officials. "We are working to back them up, but not to supplant them," she said. >
The Problem with this statement by our current Secretary of State, is that you can read A DOZEN current US "news" articles about Haiti..... and NEVER once COME ACROSS _ONE_ SINGLE MENTION of ANY competent (much less empowered or responsible) Hatian minister or cabinet level government official....! "HECKUVA JOB WELL DONE, Ms. Clinton!"
#4. Finally, a decent, current exposition of THE UNITED STATES' ROLE in the CURRENT __DICTATOR COUP GOVERNMENT(s) in Haiti - David Swanson reports on:
What Bush did to Haiti:
The February 29, 2004 Coup D'Etat INSTIGATED BY the Bush Administration
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17036
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The following will be a difficult post to write here at DemNationUSA, (in fact, in this first draft, we're just THROWING good 'stuff against the wall), because when you start talking about "DISASTER CAPITALISM" and international big bankers & predatory financing; or about "ECONOMIC HIT MEN," and the notion that some of America's foreign policy, business & financial "leaders"
**actually want to wreck** the economies of foreign, smaller "3rd world" countries, it is easy to veer off in to "conspiracy theory."
Fortunately, several excellent articles this weekend have brought the past years' writings of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" (goggle books preview here), and Catherine Austin Fitts' reports on "the tapeworm economy" (aka "the squid" economy)...
...into current-events context, with the DESTRUCTION, DEVASTATION, and TOTAL LACK OF LEADERSHIP or any disaster RELIEF INFRASTRUCTURE in Haiti:
"Is Haiti's trauma - bodies lying in streets and mass graves, no power for hospitals, no warehouses stocked with basic foodstuffs for emergency relief - the result of an incompetent and barbaric people overwhelmed by a massive natural disaster, OR DID AMERICAN ECONOMIC SABOTAGE have a role to play in Haiti's COMPLETE LACK OF a COUNTRY-WIDE competent police force & disaster recovery program?"
- Much as President Bush selected an INCOMPETENT Neo-Con HACK of a lawyer, Michael "Heckuva Job, Brownie!" Brown, to head America's multi-billion dollar, life-and-death FEMA disaster relief agency, prior to New Orleans' flooding (_after_ Hurricane Katrina had passed), which deadly flooding highlighted WHAT A PREDATORY, RUTHLESS, cynical, and DESPICABLE CHOICE it was that President Bush made in selecting such an unqualified hack to be the nation's FEMA "last line of defense" disaster relief administrator...
- Just as PRESIDENT OBAMA has STACKED his administration with NOTHING BUT Financial FAILURES, FRAUDSTERS, economic PREDATORS, and DICTATOR loving Neo-Con DEMAGOGUE hacks, playing right out of the Neo-Con New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal playbook: "BANRUPTCY and BAILOUT BONUSES are 'PROFITS'!", "economic sabotage is Genius Economic Planning!" "War is Peace!" and "DICTATORSHIP is democracy on the march!"
#1. MaxKeiser.com - Uses a HuffingtonPost.com headline, and picture, to wonder if THE GHOULISH American press/media is ONCE AGAIN WHIPPING UP a DRUMBEAT of SCORN, CONTEMPT, and DERISION for the people of Haiti... as the SAME American "major media" ghouls WHIPPED UP attitudes of CONDEMNATION for New Orleans flooding survivors, the American media making "LOOTING!" headlines their lede & focus
- AS IF there was ANY reason to let a BUILDING THAT has ALREADY BEEN DEMOLISHED see its perishable groceries spoil, unused, when local residents could obtain at least a day's worth of food and water from buildings and contents THAT ARE 100% DESTROYED in the first place?!
Here, psychologist Pavel Somov explains to the ghoulish American "IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS" media that, in traumatic natural disasters where VICTIMS LIVES ARE AT RISK, "LOOTING" is a term that makes THE PROPERTY RIGHTS of people who are not even in the vicinity, MORE "precious" than the 'RIGHT TO SURVIVE' needs of disaster victims - the metaphor might be CONCENTRATION CAMP GUARDS _shooting_ a prisoner, for "stealing" a slice of bread?
A notion - focusing on "looting" and "lawlessness" might be a case of those knowing they will have a meal today, pouring scorn & derision on those who may not - seconded by psychologist Pavel Somov at Huffington Post -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pavel-somov/haiti-lawlessness-motive_b_426197.html
Max Keiser's website is even more explicitly points out the American press-media's GHOULISH PRE-OCCUPTION with "looting" -
MaxKeiser.com: "A Race Against OMINOUS INDICATIONS"
#2. Devastating Earthquakes & Disaster Capitalism:
Creating Debtor Nation Poverty in Haiti
Buzzflash editor's blog, Jan. 17, 2010
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/10283
< ...As Naomi Klein points out, Haiti is the poster child for "Disaster Capitalism" in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti's poverty is not an accident. The U.S. and West have supported corrupt rulers there for decades, with recent intermittent "experiments" in "democracy." But make no mistake; Haiti is kept on a short leash by the prosperous nations of the West.
Like many third world countries, Haiti continues to be a victim of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, who force loans (debt) on third world nations that end up ruining their sustainable agrarian economies and forcing them -- through the terms of the loan -- to buy products from the West, thus further increasing unemployment, squalid urbanization, and poverty in the debtor country: in this case, Haiti. >
In a word, America's "FREE MARKET" 'Neo-Conservatives' and Southern neo-segregationists Right-Wingers ("neo-Confederates") STILL BELIEVE IN ECONOMIC SLAVERY, and, after SABOTAGING democracy in Haiti, and thus SABOTAGING Haiti's own home-grown agrarian economy, the "geniuses" behind America's "foreign policy" - and behind America's Haiti policy in particular - can point to a country that is SO RUINED, that it DOES NOT HAVE EMERGENCY GENERATORS for HOSPITALS, DOES NOT HAVE a NATIONAL POLICE FORCE to COORDINATE DISASTER RELIEF, and does not have warehouses full of emergency supplies.
"HECKUVA JOB WELL DONE, Brownie!"
....America's 'conservative' "capitalists" and Economic Hit Men can point to yet ANOTHER DESTROYED 21st century economy, and can now point (with undisquised glee) to BODIES ROTTING IN THE STREETS, nightime gunfire, and lynch-mobs... Praise Jesus!
#3. In the nick of time (because we couldn't really do a post on America's premeditated SABOTAGE of Haiti's economy with only two current specific documenting articles), Huffington Post blogger Bill Quigley spells it all out for us -
"Why the US Owes Haiti BILLIONS - The briefest history"-----------------------------------------
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/why-the-us-owes-haiti-bil_b_426260.html
The US has worked to break Haiti for over 200 years. We owe Haiti. Not charity. We owe Haiti as a matter of justice. Reparations. And not the $100 million promised by President Obama either - that is Powerball money. The US owes Haiti Billions - with a big B.
The US has worked for centuries to break Haiti. The US has used Haiti like a plantation. The US helped bleed the country economically since it freed itself, repeatedly invaded the country militarily, supported dictators who abused the people, used the country as a dumping ground for our own economic advantage, ruined their roads and agriculture, and toppled popularly elected officials. The US has even used Haiti like the old plantation owner and slipped over there repeatedly for sexual recreation.
Here is the briefest history of some of the major US efforts to break Haiti...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/why-the-us-owes-haiti-bil_b_426260.html
The BACK-STORY to America's MURDEROUSLY PREDATORY "coups & Economic Hit-men" assault on HAITI, HONDURAS, and EVERYWHERE the hate-mongering "American" Neo-Con demagogues can incite the American people to declare economic war on smaller countries:
#4. A similar "DESTROY national Economies through TOO MUCH CHEAP CREDIT" assault on Greece,
(exactly the tactics outlined in John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hitman")
now has American, London, and European bankers "ADVISING" Greece to make STEEP AUSTERITY CUTS in the Greek government's financial (social) spending - "EXPERT" advice that the people of Greece catagorically REJECT as - being the "advice" of, not merely SERIALLY FAILED "financial advisors," but the "advice" of LEECHES, LIARS, and premeditated FRAUDS, and THIEVES:
Greece defies Europe as EMU crisis turns deadly serious
[Greece govt. Defies Europe's big bankers, & US dominated World Bank & IMF]
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 13 Dec 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6804156/Greece-defies-Europe-as-EMU-crisis-turns-deadly-serious.html
< Euroland's revolt has begun. Greece has become the first country on the distressed fringes of Europe's monetary union to defy Brussels and reject the Dark Age leech-cure of wage deflation. >
#5. The "Neo-Conservative," 'American' DICTATOR-LOVING DEMAGOGUES (at the NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Time & Newsweek magazines; Weakley Standard, TNR, Fox "news," and most other US "major media" outlets), allied with the US government and Big-Business, have supported a COUP in HONDURAS that is KILLING Hondurans, and especially taking WOMEN's PROGRESS BACKWARDS by several decades, as CATHOLIC CHURCH LEADERS CONSPIRE with Honduran business & coup leaders (and the US CIA) to IMPOSE DRACONIAN, medieval "abortion is murder" laws (outlawing even the "morning after pill") and other means to comodify and deny human rights to Honduran men & women:
"Honduran Coup VIOLATES Women's HUMAN RIGHTS" -
- and - Honduran coup oppenents being systematically murdered - http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2278/1/
#6. Our own previous post, "After selling Iceland consumers, investors, and citizens BILLIONS of dollars of FRAUDULENT "financial securities"
LONDON BANKERS are now USING WAR-on-TERROR TACTICS, to EXTORT BILLIONS of dollars from Icelanders to force them to PAY IN FULL Iceland's unknowing purchases of London's FRAUDULENT, toxic "securities" sales!
http://democraticnationusa.blogspot.com/2010/01/goddamn-sachs-chairman-blankfein-admits.html
#7. Current Harvard Professor, and former Harvard College Dean Harry R. Lewis outlines - the DESTRUCTION wrought, not only on Harvard's (multibillion dollar) endowment, but the COMPLETE and total DESTRUCTION, of Russia's post-Cold War (post- Communism) economy, by the Rubinite/Summers/Harvard Neo-Con cabal, all through the 1990s:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-r-lewis/larry-summers-robert-rubi_b_419224.htmlMuch of the details of Professor Lewis' recent article about the ABJECT CORRUPTION and PREMEDITATED, nation-gutting ECONOMIC DESTRUCTION of the Rubin-Summers "economics crew," is foreshadowed in earlier reports by Catherine Austin Fitts at her Solari report (www.Solari.com) and among hundreds of others reports on the American "economic experts" overseeing the WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION of Russia's post-Communistm economy -
< Harvard's board is intertwined with the shadow elite of Wedel's Chapter 5: the team of experts who disastrously advised the Russian government on capitalism in the 1990s. Engaged by the U.S. to show the Russians how the West controls corruption, the advisers ["advisers"] became models of what to avoid.
In 1991, Lawrence Summers became chief economist of the World Bank, moving to the Treasury Department in 1993. When Robert Rubin became Treasury Secretary in 1995, Summers became his Deputy Secretary, later succeeding him as Secretary.
In 1992, Andrei Shleifer, a Harvard professor and a close friend of Summers since Shleifer's college days at Harvard, became head of a Harvard project that directed U.S. government money for the development of the Russian economy. Tens of millions of dollars in noncompetitive U.S. contracts flowed to Harvard for Shleifer's Russian work, and his team directed the distribution of hundreds of millions more. Through the mid-1990s, complaints accumulated in Washington about self-dealing and improper investing by the Harvard team, and by mid-1997, the Harvard contracts had been canceled and the FBI had taken up the case. For two years it was before a federal grand jury.
In September, 2000, the government sued Harvard, Shleifer, and others, claiming that Shleifer was lining his own pockets and those of his wife, hedge fund manager Nancy Zimmerman--formerly a vice president at Goldman Sachs under Rubin.
Soon after, when Summers became a candidate for the Harvard presidency, Shleifer lobbied hard for him in Cambridge. Rubin assured the Fellows that the abrasiveness Summers had exhibited at Treasury was a thing of the past. They named him president--in spite of what was already known about his [Larry Summers'] enabling role in the malodorous Russian affair, and the implausibility of a personality metamorphosis.
Summers did not recuse himself from the lawsuit until more than three months after his selection as president, and even then used his influence to protect Shleifer. The Fellows--including Rubin, whom Summers added to the Corporation--fought the case for years, spending upwards of $10M on lawyers. But in 2005 a federal judge found Shleifer to have conspired to defraud the government and held Harvard liable as well. To settle the civil claims, Shleifer paid the government $2M and Harvard paid $26.5M; Zimmerman's company had already paid $1.5M. Shleifer denied all wrongdoing, and Harvard disclosed nothing about any response of its own--a departure from its handling of misconduct by faculty farther from the center of power.
Summers remained close to Shleifer, yet claimed in a February 2006 faculty meeting to know too little about the scandal to have formed an opinion about it. This prevarication brought a gasp from the assembled faculty and solidified faculty opposition to the Summers presidency.
Rubin is now gone from his leadership role and his board membership at Citigroup, hauling away $126M from a firm that was $65B poorer than when he joined it, with 75,000 fewer jobs. But he remains on the Harvard board, in spite of the financial meltdowns at both Citigroup and Harvard and his poor oversight of the problematic president he persuaded Harvard to hire.
The Rubin network remains alive and well in the [Emanuel/Obama] White House, including not just Summers but several other Rubin protégés. Among the strangest of these power loops is that the well-connected Nancy Zimmerman has turned up as a member of Summers's economic policy brain trust.
The modern power elites thrive by forgetting any regrettable past..... >
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-r-lewis/larry-summers-robert-rubi_b_419224.html
- "Financial coup d'Etat" - http://solari.com/blog/?p=2058
#8. Postscript: Long before Naomi Klein wrote "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" there was a TEXTBOOK example of "Disaster 'Capitalism'" in America's recent history: the 1927 GREAT MISSISSIPPI FLOOD, where Mississippi businessmen, plantation owners, and bankers, _stole_ disaster relief intended for Black (African-American) flooding victims, and actually used sheriff's deputies, hired guns, boy scouts (!), and US National Guard troops, to ROUND UP Black share-croppers (farm workers) to FORCE them to work repairing flood-ravaged levees - under gunpoint, for no pay, for weeks on end.
When one Black worker (after a 24 hour shift) REFUSED to heed the chain-gang orders from an "enforcer," that laborer was murdered - shot and killed on the spot on the doorsteps of his own home. There were many other such murders by disaster empowered White business owners and their hired guns throughout the months long flood crisis, with businessmen HIJACKING the federal disaster supplies intended for flood victims, and selling them at extortionate rates for "capitalist" "profits" to the survivors -
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/timeline/timeline2.html
