nearly trump hair

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RT tells it.

[I honestly tried to make him look a little less hideous. It was too much for me.]

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Chris Floyd tells it.

This policy is what the Nobel Peace Laureate — the first African-American president in history — is now perpetuating in the only nation to liberate itself from slavery. But of course, the most important thing is not the dispossessed in Haiti, nor the innocent people in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan being killed, day after day, by the Laureate's bombs, bullets and assassins. No, the main thing is — he's not John McCain! And we must put aside these trifles, these heaps of corpses, and rally around the prez to "defend our gains and regroup for a progressive counter-offensive in 2012!" The best is yet to come!

If you go down and read the Lendman piece in last night's nukequake post, along with this one, you might be shocked out of your groupthink "progressivism" for maybe even up to an hour....

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love, 99
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just asking

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I don't care how many times I look at him, I cannot get "Moon Over Parador" out of my mind.

How was Libya doing under the rule of Gaddafi? How bad did the people have it? Were they oppressed as we now commonly accept as fact? Let us look at the facts for a moment.

Before the chaos erupted, Libya had a lower incarceration rate than the Czech republic. It ranked 61st. Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate of all of Africa. Libya had the highest life expectancy of all of Africa. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished. In response to the rising food prices around the world, the government of Libya abolished ALL taxes on food.

People in Libya were rich. Libya had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of all of Africa. The government took care to ensure that everyone in the country shared in the wealth. Libya had the highest Human Development Index of any country on the continent. The wealth was distributed equally. In Libya, a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.

How does Libya get so rich? The answer is oil. The country has a lot of oil, and does not allow foreign corporations to steal the resources while the population starves, unlike countries like Nigeria, a country that is basically run by Shell.

Is that so?

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Extra credit....

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Keiser Report from Beirut... Max talks to two-time Pulitzer prize winner Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, who very obviously won both for having memorized US foreign policy shtick, executing it flawlessly, while having an Arab name.

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AP reports and I stripped of mindfucks:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 34-year-old car has been sold for nearly $2.5 million at an auction to raise money for a low-income housing project.

ISNA's report Tuesday doesn't identify the buyer, but quotes the individual's lawyer, Mamoud Isari, as saying the buyer plans to build a museum and exhibit the car.

The 1977 white Peugeot sedan was put up for auction in January in a move by the president to [help] fulfill a campaign promise to put a roof over the head of every Iranian.

It shouldn't even irk me anymore that they can't even report something as innocuous as this without wording such that it besmirches him. Do you ever wonder how bad faith actors can just keep it up? I mean, I'm told that bloodlines are very important to the controllers. They've bred out morals. Not just some morals. All. All gone.

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love, 99
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i need to bring something to your attention

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I am not so sure that anyone in Libya was really that unhappy.... I'm trying mightily to stay off the pushbutton revolution circuit, not fall for it and not knock myself out to sniff down every last whiff of evidence to present to you that things are NOT as they seem to those in consensus trance, those listening to the bleatings from headlines anywhere and any way they seep into any aspect of consciousness... usually functionally subliminally. I want to remind you that we are no longer a nation of people who will leap to discern this sort of thing. I want to confess to you that one of my favorite sites has so bitten into this Spreading Democracy 2.0 crap that I cannot even bear to click-in to look at the blather... from a really intelligent bunch....

Don't mistake my avoidance of losing my cookies for apathy, that's all.

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Give the money to WikiLeaks for blowing the whistle and for causing the controllers to start pushing buttons to distract us utterly from WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, before our heads stop spinning.

The celeb-studded shows were part of the extravagant lifestyle of the dictator's sons, whose splashy parties and out-of-control spending have angered their countrymen, many of whom wallow in poverty as the Gadhafi clan benefits from the country's oil riches.

Yeah, well, if they think ousting their goofball dictator and his over-the-top sons is going to improve things, they're in for a shock.

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love, 99
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predators and prey

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It is not enough to riot and revolt, people need to keep at it until the danger of the wrong changes moving in has passed. This would be why movement leaders need to be clear on the goal before they urge people to the streets. Yes, sometimes the people don't wait for enlightened leadership to emerge, and sometimes I wonder if enlightened leadership is even possible anymore, those tending toward it being either completely disinclined to leadership or not enlightened in fact, but more corruptible power freaks is the norm. It's the norm that needs overturning. This means the people have to lose their default settings along with their patience for tyrants.

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Three people were shot dead as protesters fought police outside Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha's office on Friday during a rally to demand the government resign over corruption allegations. ...

This would be the prime reason no one in the United States wants to get out there to demand the resignation of our corrupt government. Fat people find it safer to use sophistry to avoid risk than to eliminate it. The harder it is to reconcile such an attitude with facts, the more superior the tone of the sophistry becomes. When the facts keep heaping up—despite the most elaborate and finely-wrought sophistry, complete with experts—the tone turns shrill, lots of sanctimony gets thrown in for good measure, and polemics turn to hard and heavy shit-slinging. If none of that works, it gets still louder, loftier on one side and lower on the other, by turns, and yet less amenable to even short lulls. We couldn't be lucky enough to have another civil war... let alone another revolution.

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love, 99
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another pile up

[click image — listing important points from Cablegate]

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I don't know if this will turn into my usual mode. It too is NOT helpful for people trying to search for things here... or link to something here... but almost everything is linked via the untracked URL shorteners on TwitFace these days anyway and there just isn't any way around the fact that even the longest and most precise documentations of things amount to ephemera SO much more quickly than ever before and searching anything anywhere has its good days and its bad days in any case and since I'm not piling it up and then posting it, but rather posting it and then piling it up, you can still get yer daily hits of protective mindfucks in titrated blasts.... The great part about being me is I can just do it how I do it when I do it and keep open for that little flaw in the fabric to use conditions to enhance the possibilities for everyone....

Reminder....

Well, who among us is going to CHECK?

Probably impossible to maintain empire without the Big Pharma....

Theater....

Tony who?

RIGHT HERE....

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The very existence of the Department of Homeland Security is due in large part to Senator Lieberman. Dating back to the first days after 9/11, he has been an instrumental architect of the very way we work to keep America safe from the evolving threats we face in the 21st century. Senator Lieberman's tireless, nonpartisan efforts have truly made our country more secure, and he has my personal thanks. I wish him the very best in his upcoming retirement, and I look forward to continuing to work with him to secure our country over the next two years.

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Today's Keiser Report....

How much more last millennium can you get?

Gaiavores' dream....

Keystone Kops....

How that hopey/changey thing is working out in the Gulf....

But we can still make fashion statements....

More Lieberman loss lamentation....

Awwwww....

They mindfuck cops too....

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Reports emanating from Central Somalia yesterday indicate that a unit of United States forces descended in an area called Gaan, 18 kilometres north of Haradhere, a former base of the notorious Somali pirates and a current stronghold of Al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist movement opposing the government.

The marines are said to have used a helicopter to reach the remote location.

According to Shabelle, a broadcaster in Mogadishu, five armed soldiers descended from the chopper and immediately handcuffed three Somali youth that were next to a vehicle being repaired following a breakdown.

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I'm looking forward to a time when I'm not on a secret watch, search, harass, detain, interrogate, delay, annoy and stress list. —Jacob Appelbaum

Churchill Club forum on Why WikiLeaks Matters... video, nearly two hours....

Tsarion on Energy Vampires... video, hour and a half....

Not being a dope about the Baby Doc thing....

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love, 99
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no, wait — crash jp morgan — buy silver — send it to haiti

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Let's get real, eh?

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love, 99
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now i can go back to liking him for trying to help — UPDATED

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What a relief.

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UPDATE:

I TAKE IT BACK. Now I think I'm stuck forever not liking him at all.

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just sayin'

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Since I'm taking the link to Sean Penn speaking cogently against Wyclef Jean's candidacy outta my sidebar, I thought I ought to post it for everyone to be reminded of what heart and sense look like. I'm not whistling Dixie.

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ANOTHER one

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Pardon me, but... well... that might NOT have been food poisoning. It could be the rapid succession of monumentally—apocalyptically—awful big old fat hairy duhs rolling down the pike lately.

WHO was not dirt certain of this before the ground stopped shaking?

WHO outta that pack of Cub Scouts had any doubt when Bubba and Dubya were sent?

FUCK! If I had not taken the bodhisattva vow, I'd be puking with frustration right now.

Are you hearin' me about that waking up thing?

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nuthin from nuthin is nuthin

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Big of them....
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the space lizards' disguises are melting off

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You have yer pick of all manner of awful stuff in yesterday's broadcast of Democracy Now!, it seems. I'm going to watch it while I try to put together some lunch here in my postage stamp.

Bought one of those prepaid cell phones yesterday and I guess I only have it half working... so I'm also trying to program this sucker to function for me. Sat next to my snoring dad all morning. Scary apnea thing, and he was completely out of it the whole time, so I just sat there and tried to read the instructions for the itty bitty cell phone thing to the beat of his outrageously dysrhythmic inhalations... and the cacophony of aides and senile deaf people out in the hall. Lovely, I know. Makes me glad my father is sleeping through most of it.....
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PARTICULARLY THIS SEGMENT....
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mastering the americas — UPDATED

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Updated to add links in last paragraph....

The kidnapping of Haiti
by John Pilger
28 January 2010

The theft of Haiti has been swift and crude. On 22 January, the United States secured “formal approval” from the United Nations to take over all air and sea ports in Haiti, and to “secure” roads. No Haitian signed the agreement, which has no basis in law. Power rules in an American naval blockade and the arrival of 13,000 marines, special forces, spooks and mercenaries, none with humanitarian relief training.

The airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now an American military base and relief flights have been re-routed to the Dominican Republic. All flights stopped for three hours for the arrival of Hillary Clinton. Critically injured Haitians waited unaided as 800 American residents in Haiti were fed, watered and evacuated. Six days passed before the US Air Force dropped bottled water to people suffering thirst and dehydration.

The first TV reports played a critical role, giving the impression of widespread criminal mayhem. Matt Frei, the BBC reporter dispatched from Washington, seemed on the point of hyperventilation as he brayed about the “violence” and need for “security”. In spite of the demonstrable dignity of the earthquake victims, and evidence of citizens’ groups toiling unaided to rescue people, and even an American general’s assessment that the violence in Haiti was considerably less than before the earthquake, Frei claimed that “looting is the only industry” and “the dignity of Haiti’s past is long forgotten.” Thus, a history of unerring US violence and exploitation in Haiti was consigned to the victims. “There’s no doubt,” reported Frei in the aftermath of America’s bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003, “that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East... is now increasingly tied up with military power.”

In a sense, he was right. Never before in so-called peacetime have human relations been as militarised by rapacious power. Never before has an American president subordinated his government to the military establishment of his discredited predecessor, as Barack Obama has done. In pursuing George W. Bush’s policy of war and domination, Obama has sought from Congress an unprecedented military budget in excess of $700 billion. He has become, in effect, the spokesman for a military coup.

For the people of Haiti the implications are clear, if grotesque. With US troops in control of their country, Obama has appointed George W. Bush to the “relief effort”: a parody surely lifted from Graham Greene’s The Comedians, set in Papa Doc’s Haiti. As president, Bush’s relief effort following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 amounted to an ethnic cleansing of many of New Orleans’ black population. In 2004, he ordered the kidnapping of the democratically-elected prime minister of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and exiled him in Africa. The popular Aristide had had the temerity to legislate modest reforms, such as a minimum wage for those who toil in Haiti’s sweatshops.

When I was last in Haiti, I watched very young girls stooped in front of whirring, hissing, binding machines at the Port-au-Prince Superior Baseball Plant. Many had swollen eyes and lacerated arms. I produced a camera and was thrown out. Haiti is where America makes the equipment for its hallowed national game, for next to nothing. Haiti is where Walt Disney contractors make Mickey Mouse pjamas, for next to nothing. The US controls Haiti’s sugar, bauxite and sisal. Rice-growing was replaced by imported American rice, driving people into the cities and towns and jerry-built housing. Years after year, Haiti was invaded by US marines, infamous for atrocities that have been their specialty from the Philippines to Afghanistan.

Bill Clinton is another comedian, having got himself appointed the UN’s man in Haiti. Once fawned upon by the BBC as “Mr. Nice Guy... bringing democracy back to a sad and troubled land”, Clinton is Haiti’s most notorious privateer, demanding de-regulation of the economy for the benefit of the sweatshop barons. Lately, he has been promoting a $55m deal to turn the north of Haiti into an American-annexed “tourist playground”.

Not for tourists is the US building its fifth biggest embassy in Port-au-Prince. Oil was found in Haiti’s waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington’s “rollback” plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela’s abundant oil reserves and sabotage of the growing regional cooperation that has given millions their first taste of an economic and social justice long denied by US-sponsored regimes.

The first rollback success came last year with the coup against President Jose Manuel Zelaya in Honduras who also dared advocate a minimum wage and that the rich pay tax. Obama’s secret support for the illegal regime carries a clear warning to vulnerable governments in central America. Last October, the regime in Colombia, long bankrolled by Washington and supported by death squads, handed the US seven military bases to, according to US air force documents, “combat anti-US governments in the region”.

Media propaganda has laid the ground for what may well be Obama’s next war. On 14 December, researchers at the University of West England published first findings of a ten-year study of the BBC’s reporting of Venezuela. Of 304 BBC reports, only three mentioned any of the historic reforms of the Chavez government, while the majority denigrated Chavez’s extraordinary democratic record, at one point comparing him to Hitler.

Such distortion and its attendant servitude to western power are rife across the Anglo-American corporate media. People who struggle for a better life, or for life itself, from Venezuela to Honduras to Haiti, deserve our support.

I'm not posting about the supposed demonstrations against Chavez because, while I'm sure there are some, maybe even sizable, especially from the comfortable who aren't liking this sharing thing much at all, I believe the captions on many of the photographs have been changed to make pro-Chavez marchers seem to us to be anti-Chavez marchers, and until I have the space to look into it more deeply, I ain't falling for it. He is wildly popular, and way more democratic than anything they've known in my lifetime, and we are so clearly back in the coup business for real and with no impediments that I'm just not falling for it.

We are behind the Iron Curtain now, for real, and for good... unless... oh... never mind....
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listen UP!

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Do you suppose for a split second all 12,000 of those nurses who immediately volunteered were DEMOCRATS?

What do you suppose was the HITCH for the White House?

DO YOU STILL WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS FUCKING PINBALL GAME PARTY POLEMICIZING?

Or do you want your country back?

Do you want a sane and safe world?

WAKE UP!
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I'm not usually this heavily into repetition, but there is a crucial insight to be had here:

The world is a transitory abode,
not a permanent abode.
And the people in it
are of two sorts:
one who sells his soul
and ruins it,
and one who ransoms his soul
and frees it.
—Counsels of Ḥaḍrat 'Alī
[translated by Thomas Cleary]

One needs to take the lesson from the world, stop oneself and look at it from the heterodox mind, realize that all the people who have come within one's sphere over the course of a lifetime, while maybe even seeming to fall under the headings provided by the orthodoxy, don't really fit in that orthodoxy. Not really. They have vastly more nuanced and non-stereotypical qualities... even if those aren't being communicated directly out their mouths, you can tell if you stop to take stock of their humanity, their quirks, their interactions with and opinions of their family and friends, the causes or lack thereof that get whatever doses of their attention, how they are with animals... all sorts of things. The world is right here teaching you a trillion percent more than the orthodoxies of society ever even touch on. EVER. This massively popular mental error is made almost mandatory by how little time most of us feel we have to just cover the basics of existence, I know, but, well, we can't let that excuse us. No. Nope. We cannot, even if we do. Isn't it uncomfortable enough for you even yet that you could continue to ignore this?
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a quick refresher course

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1995 interview with Michael Parenti, another of my heroes... well worth a listen.
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cynthia should be president

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Haiti 2010: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux
by Cynthia McKinney
19 January 2010

President Obama's response to the tragedy in Haiti has been robust in military deployment and puny in what the Haitians need most: food; first responders and their specialized equipment; doctors and medical facilities and equipment; and engineers, heavy equipment, and heavy movers. Sadly, President Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton, and thousands of Marines and U.S. soldiers. By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and many others are already on the ground working—saving lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians willing to relocate to Africa.

The United States, on the day after the tragedy struck, confirmed that an entire Marine Expeditionary Force was being considered "to help restore order," when the "disorder" had been caused by an earthquake striking Haiti; not since 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860, and 1887 had Haiti experienced an earthquake. But, I remember the bogus reports of chaos and violence the led to the deployment of military assets, including Blackwater, in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One Katrina survivor noted that the people needed food and shelter and the U.S. government sent men with guns. Much to my disquiet, it seems, here we go again. From the very beginning, U.S. assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.

On Day Two of the tragedy, a C-130 plane with a military assessment team landed in Haiti, with the rest of the team expected to land soon thereafter. The stated purpose of this team was to determine what military resources were needed.

An Air Force special operations team was also expected to land to provide air traffic control. Now, the reports are that the U.S. is not allowing assistance in, shades of Hurricane Katrina, all over again.

On President Obama's orders military aircraft "flew over the island, mapping the destruction." So, the first U.S. contribution to the humanitarian relief needed in Haiti were reconnaissance drones whose staffing are more accustomed to looking for hidden weapon sites and surface-to-air missile batteries than wrecked infrastructure. The scope of the U.S. response soon became clear: aircraft carrer, Marine transport ship, four C-140 airlifts, and evacuations to Guantanamo. By the end of Day Two, according to the Washington Post report, the United States had evacuated to Guantanamo Bay about eight [8] severely injured patients, in addition to U.S. Embassy staffers, who had been "designated as priorities by the U.S. Ambassador and his staff."

On Day Three we learned that other U.S. ships, including destroyers, were moving toward Haiti. Interestingly, the Washington Post reported that the standing task force that coordinates the U.S. response to mass migration events from Cuba or Haiti was monitoring events, but had not yet ramped up its operations. That tidbit was interesting in and of itself, that those two countries are attended to by a standing task force, but the treatment of their nationals is vastly different, with Cubans being awarded immediate acceptance from the U.S. government, and by contrast, internment for Haitian nationals.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson IV reassured Americans, "Our focus right now is to prevent that, and we are going to work with the Defense Department, the State Department, FEMA and all the agencies of the federal government to minimize the risk of Haitians who want to flee their country," Watson said. "We want to provide them those relief supplies so they can live in Haiti."

By the end of Day Four, the U.S. reportedly had evacuated over 800 U.S. nationals.

For those of us who have been following events in Haiti before the tragic earthquake, it is worth noting that several items have caused deep concern:

1. The continued exile of Haiti's democratically-elected and well-loved, yet twice-removed former priest, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide;

2. The unexplained continued occupation of the country by United Nations troops who have killed innocent Haitians and are hardly there for "security" (I've personally seen them on the roads that only lead to Haiti's sparsely-populated areas teeming with beautiful beaches);

3. U.S. construction of its fifth-largest embassy in the world in Port-au-Prince, Haiti;

4. Mining and port licenses and contracts, including the privatization of Haiti's deep water ports, because certain off-shore oil and transshipment arrangements would not be possible inside the U.S. for environmental and other considerations; and

5. Extensive foreign NGO presence in Haiti that could be rendered unnecessary if, instead, appropriate U.S. and other government policy allowed the Haitian people some modicum of political and economic self-determination.

Therefore, we note here the writings of Ms. Marguerite Laurent, whom I met in her capacity as attorney for ousted President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ms. Laurent reminds us of Haiti's offshore oil and other mineral riches and recent revivial of an old idea to use Haiti and an oil refinery to be built there as a transshipment terminal for U.S. supertankers. Ms. Laurent, also known as Ezili Danto of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), writes:

There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.

There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti's deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports. This is detailed in a paper about the Dunn Plantation at Fort Liberte in Haiti.

Ezili's HLLN underlines these two papers on Haiti's oil resources and the works of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin in order to provide a view one will not find in the mainstream media nor anywhere else as to the economic and strategic reasons the US has constructed its fifth largest embassy in the world - fifth only besides the US embassy in China, Iraq, Iran and Germany - in tiny Haiti, post the 2004 Haiti Bush regime change.

Unfortunately, before the tragedy struck, and despite pleading to the Administration by Haiti activists inside the United States, President Obama failed to stop the deportation of Haitians inside the United States and failed to grant TPS, temporary protected status, to Haitians inside the U.S. in peril of being deported due to visa expirations. That was corrected on Day Three of Haiti's earthquake tragedy with the January 15, 2010 announcement that Haiti would join Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, El Salvador, and Sudan as a country granted TPS by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

President Obama's appointment of President Bush to the Haiti relief effort is a swift left jab to the face, in my opinion. After President Bush's performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the fact that still today, Hurricane Katrina survivors who want to return still have not been provided a way back home, the appointment might augur well for fundraising activities, but I doubt that it bodes well for the Haitian people. Afterall, the coup against and the kidnapping of President Aristide occurred under the watch of a Bush Presidency.

Finally, those with an appreciation of French literature know that among France's most beloved authors are Alexandre Dumas, son of a Haitian slave, and Victor Hugo who wrote: "Haiti est une lumiere." [Haiti is a light.] Indeed, Haiti for millions is a light: light into the methodology and evil of slavery; light into a successful slave rebellion, light into nationhood and notions of liberty, the rights of man, and of human dignity. Haiti is a light. And an example that makes the enemies of black liberation tremble. It is precisely because of Haiti's light into the evil genius of some individuals who wield power over others and man's ability, through unity and purpose, to overcome that evil, that some segments of the world have been at war with Haiti ever since 1804, the year of Haiti's creation as a Republic.

I'm not surprised at "Reverend" Pat Robertson's racist vitriol. Robertson's comments mirror, exactly, statements made by Napoleon's Cabinet when the Haitians defeated them. But in 2010, Robertson's statements reveal much more: Haitians are not the only ones who know their importance to the struggle against hatred, imperialism, and European domination.

This pesky, persistent, stubbornly non-Western, proudly African people of this piece of land that we call Haiti know their history and they know that they militarily defeated the ruling world empire of the day, Napoleon's France, and the global elite at that time who supported him. They know that they defeated the armies of England and Spain.

Haitians know that they used their status as a free state to help liberate Latin Americans from Spain, by funding and fighting alongside Simon Bolivar; their example inspired their still-enslaved African brothers and sisters on the American mainland; and before Haitians were even free, they fought against the British inside the U.S. during its war of independence and won a decisive battle in Savannah, Georgia, where I have visited the statue commemorating that victory.

Haitians know that France imposed reparations on them for being free, and Haiti paid them in full, but that President Aristide called for France to give that money back ($21 billion in 2003 dollars).

Haitians know that their "brother," then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied to the world upon the kidnapping and second ouster of their President. (Sadly, it wouldn't be the last time that Secretary of State Colin Powell would lie to the world.) Haitians know, all-too-well, that high-ranking blacks in the United States are capable of helping them and of betraying them.

Haitians know, too, that the United States has installed its political proxies and even its own soldiers onto Haitian soil when the U.S. felt it was necessary. All in an effort to control the indomitable Haitian spirit that directs much-needed light to the rest of the oppressed world.

While the tears of the people of Haiti swell in my own eyes, and I remember their tremendous capacity for love, my broken heart and wet eyes don't dampen my ability to understand the grave danger that now faces my friends in Haiti.

I shudder to think that the "rollback" policies believed in by some foreign policy advisors to President Obama could use a prolonged U.S. military presence in Haiti as a springboard for rollback of areas in Latin America that have liberated themselves from U.S. neo-colonial domination. I would hate to think that this would even be attempted under the Presidency of Barack Obama. All of us must have our eyes wide open on Haiti and other parts of the world now dripping in blood as a result of the relentless onward march of the U.S. military machine.

So, on this remembrance of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I note that it was the U.S. government's own illegal Operation Lantern Spike that snuffed out the promise and light of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Every plane of humanitarian assistance that is turned away by the U.S. military (so far from CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, Médecins Sans Frontieres, Brazil, France, Italy, and even the U.S. Red Cross)—as was done in the wake of Hurricane Katrina—and the expected arrival on this very day of up to 10,000 U.S. troops, are lasting reminders of the existential threat that now looms over the valiant, proud people and the Republic of Haiti.
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chumps' change

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Most scandalously, US commanders have repeatedly turned away flights bringing medical equipment and emergency supplies from organisations such as the World Food Programme and Médecins Sans Frontières, in order to give priority to landing troops. Despite the remarkable patience and solidarity on the streets and the relatively small scale of looting, the aim is said to be to ensure security and avoid “another Somalia” – a reference to the US military’s “Black Hawk Down” humiliation in 1993. It’s an approach that certainly chimes with well-established traditions of keeping Haiti under control.

In the last couple of days, another motivation has become clearer as the US has launched a full-scale naval blockade of Haiti to prevent a seaborne exodus by refugees seeking sanctuary in the United States from the desperate aftermath of disaster. So while Welsh firefighters and Cuban doctors have been getting on with the job of saving lives this week, the 82nd Airborne Division was busy parachuting into the ruins of Haiti’s presidential palace.

There’s no doubt that more Haitians have died as a result of these shockingly perverse priorities. As Patrick Elie, former defence minister in the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide – twice overthrown with US support – put it: “We don’t need soldiers, there’s no war here.” It’s hardly surprising if Haitians such as Elie, or French and Venezuelan leaders, have talked about the threat of a new US occupation, given the scale of the takeover.

Their criticisms have been dismissed as kneejerk anti-Americanism at a time when the US military is regarded as the only force that can provide the logistical backup for the relief effort. In the context of Haiti’s gruesome history of invasion and exploitation by the US and European colonial powers, though, that is a truly asinine response. For while last week’s earthquake was a natural disaster, the scale of the human catastrophe it has unleashed is man-made.

Jesus fuck.
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laugh while you cry — UPDATED

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There are too many pigs in our media. There are too many pigs in our country. Everyone's in an uproar over this tragedy, from the UFO people accusing the United States of causing the earthquake in our population reduction operation to those of us the most concerned that this not be another excuse for instituting still more brutal conditions. Here, though we may not have needed the help, Matt Taibbi cleans David Brooks' clock in a way that makes me laugh as the knife of reality is sticking in my chest.
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Oh, no.

NOLA 2.0
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REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL
Haiti is putting the spirit of cooperation to the test
(Taken from CubaDebate)

THE news arriving from Haiti paints a picture of the tremendous chaos that was to be expected given the exceptional situation created by the disaster.

Initial surprise, shock, commotion, the desire in the most remote corners of the Earth to provide immediate aid. What to send and how to do so to a corner of the Caribbean, from China, India, Vietnam and other nations located tens of thousands of kilometers away? The magnitude of the earthquake and the country’s poverty instantly generated ideas of imagined needs, which give rise to all kinds of promises that they then try to deliver by any possible means.

We Cubans understood that the most important thing at that point was to save lives, and we are trained not just to confront catastrophes such as this one, but also natural disasters related to health.

Hundreds of Cuban doctors were there, plus a significant number of young, working-class Haitians who have become well-trained healthcare professionals, a task in which we have cooperated for many years with that neighboring sister nation. Some of our compatriots were on vacation, while others of Haitian origin were training or studying in Cuba.

The destruction caused by the earthquake exceeded all calculations; the humble adobe and mud homes – in a city with almost two million inhabitants – were unable to withstand it. Solidly constructed governmental buildings collapsed; whole blocks of houses crashed down upon their inhabitants who, at that time – as night was falling – were inside their homes and were buried, dead or alive, under the ruins. The streets full of people crying out for help. The MINUSTAH – the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti – the government and police were left leaderless or without headquarters. In the first moments, the main task of those institutions – incorporating thousands of people – was to find out who was still alive and where they were.

The immediate decision of our selfless doctors working in Haiti, as well as the young Haitian healthcare specialists who graduated in Cuba, was to communicate with each other, learn of each other’s fate and find out what resources were available to assist the Haitian people in the midst of that tragedy.

Those who were at home on vacation in Cuba immediately got ready to leave for Haiti, as did Haitian doctors on specialist courses in our homeland. Other expert Cuban surgeons who have undertaken difficult missions offered to leave along with them. Suffice it to say that, in less than 24 hours, our doctors had already seen hundreds of patients. Today, January 16, just three-and-a-half days after the tragedy, the number of victims who have been seen has risen to several thousand.

At midday today – Saturday – the head of our medical brigade reported, among other data, the following information:

"…the work being done by our compañeros is really commendable. The unanimous opinion is that this puts the earthquake in Pakistan in the shade – there was another severe earthquake there and some of these doctors worked there – in that country; our doctors often saw patients with badly healed fractures and people whose bones had been crushed. But this has surpassed the imaginable: there have been an abundance of amputations, operations have practically been performed in public; the image is one of a war."

"…the Delmas 33 Hospital is now operational; it has three operating rooms, with electrical generators, consultation areas, et cetera, but it is completely full."

"…12 Chilean doctors have joined us; one of them is an anesthesiologist. There are also eight Venezuelan doctors and nine Spanish nuns. Eighteen Spaniards – to whom the UN and Haitian Health Ministry had handed over control of the hospital – were due to arrive, but they lacked emergency resources that hadn’t as yet reached the area, and so they decided to join us and begin working immediately."

"… 32 Haitian resident doctors were sent and six of them were going directly to Carrefour, a place that has been totally devastated. Three Cuban surgical teams who arrived yesterday also traveled with them."

"…we are operating in the following medical facilities at Port-au-Prince:

La Renaissance Hospital.

The Social Security Hospital.

The Peace Hospital.

"…four Comprehensive Diagnostics Centers are already operational".

This information merely gives one idea of the work being undertaken by Cuban medical personnel and those from other countries working with them, who were among the first to arrive in that nation. Our medical personnel are willing to cooperate and join forces with all other healthcare specialists who have been sent to save lives in that sister nation. Haiti could become an example of what humanity can do for itself. The opportunity and means exist, but the will is lacking.

The longer it takes to bury or incinerate the dead and to distribute food and other vital supplies, the higher the risk of epidemics and social violence breaking out.

In Haiti, it will be put to the test how long the spirit of cooperation will endure before egotism, chauvinism, petty interests and contempt for other nations prevail.

Climate change is threatening the whole of humanity. The earthquake in Port-au-Prince, barely three weeks after the Copenhagen conference, reminds us all of how selfishly and arrogantly we behaved there.

Countries are taking a close look at everything that is taking place in Haiti. World opinion and that of the peoples will be increasingly harsher and more implacable.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 16, 2010
7:46 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

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SOUTHCOM
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UPDATE:


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seemingly incongruent imagery

[click image, via Agent BB2]

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I have not wanted to talk about the Haiti quake here because it is, again, being used to generate mass distraction from supremely significant things, but, well, this pretty much takes the cake:

Former President George W. Bush's expected role as co-chair of the U.S. relief efforts in Haiti will mark his re-emergence into the public spotlight for the first time since leaving office a year ago amid controversy and low popularity ratings.

Alongside former President Bill Clinton, Mr. Bush will share responsibility for raising money and keeping attention on the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. The appointment is expected to be made shortly by President Barack Obama.

I chose the image I've come to call "babysattva" here in 99-land not because I think there's anything sattvaësque [sattva means "hero" in Sanskrit] about these fucks, but because they, clearly, have all the probity, all the moral authority, a baby does... and they are putatively going about something to relieve the suffering of Haitians.

Better, actually, they be barred from speaking of Haiti, let alone going there, and especially when most of the rest of this entire world is not only equipped but actually disposed to actually relieve that suffering... and they already ARE doing that.

Fuck. I wish I could snap my fingers and light up the brains of all Americans.
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I don't know if you realize that approximately 75% of the headlines in both the national news and world news sections of Yahoo! and Google have been Haiti quake related since it happened, but this should be a matter of grave concern to you... even more grave concern than the quake victims' misery. I don't want to sound trite, but perhaps you want to reread Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine for the first part of a clue....
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another thing i hold against ban ki moon

[click image]

And, really, when you get right down to it, now that we know what really went on during his presidency, EVERYTHING is Clinton's fault....