Haiti

[Soundman]

Fucked up place eh?

[Kasu]

http://intsse.com/node/277

Location
Virginia Commonwealth University
907 Floyd Ave Forum Room, VCU Commons
Richmond, VA
United States

Date: February 18, 2010 - 5:30 pm

[Bluestick]

so... the United States caused the earthquake, wants to take over a destroyed airport along with the poorest country in the western hemisphere and the fact that we're sending millions upon millions of dollars in aid means nothing? Huh... I must not know shit about humanitarian efforts. Last time I checked, when a country contributes =>$100,000,000 dollars to a country in need, it generally means we're trying to help them, not take them over.

[Soundman]

Kasu, man, why is the government always trying to occupy places in your mind? Obama is letting illegal immigrants from Haiti seek refuge here in the USA while the devastation is being cleaned up. Sure, he might not know where they are but he isn't actively seeking out Haitians to throw back to Haiti. True, the whole Haiti thing is very, VERY big on the media front. People think you're not a credible celebrity if you're not jumping on the haitian bandwagon. George Clooney has his Telethon, everyone wore Haiti ribbons on their lapels at the Golden globes which everyone knows helps Haiti out a fucking lot >_>

But what I'm getting at is that USA isn't always this big scary monster trying to occupy and take over lands. Haiti got really fucked up, and USA is the closest dudes to really help them.

Those people need actually sources to tell me where they found that information at.

[Kasu]

Haitians dying by the thousands as US escalates military intervention

Quote:

Thousands of Haitians are dying every day for lack of medical care and supplies, according to a leading humanitarian aid group. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced that it is expanding the US military presence in the country, maintaining Washington’s priority of troops over humanitarian aid. The US-based medical aid group Partners in Health has warned that as many as 20,000 Haitians may be dying daily due to infections such as gangrene and sepsis that have set in, as the majority of the injured receive no medical care or are treated in facilities that lack the most basic supplies. “Tens of thousands of earthquake victims need emergency surgical care now!!!,” the organization said in a statement posted on its web site. “The death toll and the incidence of gangrene and other deadly infections will continue to rise unless a massive effort is made to open and staff more operating rooms and to deliver essential equipment and supplies.” The Wall Street Journal reported that the Port-au-Prince General Hospital is continuously besieged by more than 1,000 patients waiting for surgery. “Armed guards in tanks kept out mobs,” the newspaper reported. It added, “At any given moment, thousands of injured, some grievously, wait outside virtually any hospital or clinic, pleading for treatment.” CNN’s Karl Penhaul reported from Port-au-Prince General Hospital, where US paratroopers have taken up positions. He said that Haitians questioned why so many US troops were pouring into the country. “They say they need more food and water and fewer guys with guns,” he reported. He also indicated that American doctors at the hospital seemed mystified by the military presence. “They say there has never been a security problem here at the hospital, but there is a problem of getting supplies in.” He added, “They can get nine helicopters of troops in, but some of the doctors here say if they can do that, then why can’t they also bring with them IV fluids and other much needed supplies.”

Quote:

With the Haitian catastrophe now in its 10th day, it is becoming increasingly clear that the response of the Obama administration and the Pentagon, which have made military occupation of the Caribbean nation its first objective, has deepened the immense suffering of millions of injured, homeless and hungry people. The Pentagon has announced that it is sending 4,000 more troops to Haiti, which will boost the US military occupation force to 16,000. For the first time, a unit that had been slated for deployment by the US Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is being diverted to the Caribbean nation. Meanwhile, a naval encirclement of Haiti’s coastline is growing. The Miami Herald reported Thursday that the US military has also prepared a detention camp at the Guantánamo Bay Navy Base in Cuba—site of the infamous prison where detainees were tortured—to hold up to 1,000 Haitians should they manage to elude the US warships.

Quote:

“With a transition looming in Cuba and challenges in Central America among others, there is a political reason to be—and to be seen to be—a good and strong neighbor.” In other words, Washington is exploiting the tragedy that has been inflicted upon the people of Haiti to assert colonial-style control over the country. Its aim is to reaffirm US imperialist hegemony in the broader region and to suppress any social revolt by the Haitian masses. It is only a matter of time before the horrendous death toll caused by the January 12 earthquake will be augmented by victims shot to death by US occupation forces.

Haiti’s tragedy: A crime of US imperialism

"The immense death and suffering inflicted upon the people of Haiti by the January 12 earthquake has laid bare a massive international crime by US imperialism, which prepared this catastrophe with a century of oppression and is now attempting to exploit the disaster for its own ends."

Bush, Clinton and the crimes of US imperialism in Haiti

"For eight years apiece, Clinton and Bush were directly and deeply involved in a series of political machinations and military interventions that have played a major role in perpetuating the poverty, backwardness and repression in Haiti that have vastly compounded by the disaster that struck that country last Tuesday. Both men have the blood of Haitian workers and peasants on their hands."

The history that “binds” the US and Haiti

"In his statement on the Haitian earthquake Wednesday, President Barack Obama referred to the “long history that binds us together.” Neither he nor the US media, however, have shown any inclination to probe the history of US-Haiti relations and its bearing on present catastrophe confronting the Haitian people.

Rather, the backwardness and poverty that have played a substantial role in driving the death toll into the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands are presented as a natural state of affairs, if not the fault of the Haitians themselves. The United States is portrayed as a selfless benefactor, ready to come to the aid of Haiti with donations, rescue teams, warships and Marines."



I'm sorry, but this is not something "in my mind", this is a fact of reality. This is the raw, ugly truth that you don't want to accept. It's no secret to millions of people all over the world what is going on in Haiti, the American people are being completely blinded by the corporate media, who are doing everything in their power to make America seem like the "heroes", when, it was because of US imperialism throughout the 20th century why Haiti is so miserable n the first place.

They're preventing vital supplies from reaching people who desperately need it. They used warships to surround the island and prevent refugees from escaping to the states. They call people who lost their homes from the earthquake, who dig through rubble to look for sustenance as "looters", and use that to justify military occupation? The people of Haiti need an army of DOCTORS and SUPPLIES, not FUCKING MARINES.

[Bluestick]

All I see is exploit, exploit, exploit.

What the FUCK does the US gain by helping the Haitians. Don't give me one of your fucking Socialist bullshit websites, I want to know your fucking opinion. What the fuck do we gain from taking the poorest country in the western hemisphere, that has roughly the same area of Hawaii? I mean, we're obviously killing hundreds of thousands of them by sending medical and financial aid, along with sustenance. So, tell me, oh wise one, what the fuck do we gain?

EDIT: I also want to see cited sources where the United States has directly or indirectly killed Haitians. Not some fucking socialist bullshit, I want reputable sources.

EDIT2: They say thousands are dying due to lack of medical supplies. We're getting what we can in without any sort of airstrip. Do you have any fucking clue how many more would die if we didn't send shit?

EDIT MOTHER FUCKING 3: I actually read that top quote... You want to know WHY they have tanks guarding those who are getting care? Because if they didn't fucking NOBODY would get medical care. Do you think that we can just wiggle our nose and every fucking doctor that wants to be there will just magically appear? No, they have to be transported there, and since there's no open airport, it takes longer than normal. Do you think doctors WANT to make people wait to receive surgery? No, they fucking don't, but they can't help fifty fucking people at once. The idiocy of what they're saying makes me sick.

[Branncock]

what's a Haitians favorite fps

quake

[Kasu]

Bluestick, I'm sorry but that holds no water, and is nothing but a senseless repetition of right-wing bullshit. The only credible source you're going to get is one that isn't biased by corporate interests, and you won't find that any where else but from the only working class daily analysis on the internet, the world socialist website, who actually know what's going on.

"Now, for an entire week, with the whole world watching, millions of Haitians have been left abandoned without medical care, food, water or shelter, as US military cargo planes have ferried in thousands of soldiers and Marines, and US Naval and Coast Guard vessels have mounted patrols off Haiti’s shores to prevent anyone from trying to escape.

The absence of any concerted rescue effort is not an accident, nor is the agonizingly slow arrival of food, water and medicine in far from adequate quantities merely a matter of logistics. The claim that the US military, which was able to pour a quarter of a million troops into Iraq and conquer Baghdad within barely two weeks, could not rush water, food and supplies to traumatized earthquake survivors 700 miles from the US mainland is a contemptible lie.

What is involved is a deliberate and sinister policy characterized by a gross indifference to human life that borders on the genocidal.

Within the Obama administration and the American ruling elite, definite calculations were made. What was the use of saving injured members of an impoverished and chronically unemployed population that US capitalism has long treated as surplus labor? Why dig people out of the rubble only to have to provide them with medical care when Washington is attempting to ration health care within the US itself?

Even as people were still being pulled out alive from demolished buildings, US and UN officials insisted that further rescue operations were hopeless.

At the very least, saving lives has not been the priority of the US intervention in Haiti. Wherever rescue and relief have come into conflict with the primary focus of Washington’s efforts—the military occupation of the country—they have taken a back seat.

The cargo planes that are bringing in US military personnel and supplies, it should be noted, fly back empty. There is no desire to bring injured Haitians, who will die without medical care or face the amputation of their limbs for lack of medical supplies, back to the US where they could be healed and their lives saved."


And read this:

"Clinton has praised the government of President Réne Préval for its subservience to Washington’s demands. He has spoken of Haiti coming out of the earthquake better than before, treating the mass carnage and social disaster as little more than a speed-bump on the road to progress, which is to be measured in increased US investment.

This is Washington’s real and malignant purpose. It aims to exploit the country’s tragedy in order to impose more direct colonial control and create conditions for US firms to make massive profits by exploiting virtual slave labor working for starvation wages.

At the same time, it is reasserting its domination in an area that it long regarded as its “own backyard,” the birthplace of Yankee imperialism. Facing growing challenges from its economic rivals in Europe and China for trade and investment in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a deterioration of its influence over the states of the region, Washington is utilizing military force to pursue its interests."



It couldn't be put any more clearly. Read it. If you disagree, read it again. If not, then fuck you.

And I know they use the word exploit a lot, but that's precisely what the US ruling elite are best at doing, and which they plan to do to an even greater extent in the coming decade.

[Bluestick]

All that is a regurgitation of what you're reading from the webmasters that you worship. You still didn't answer my question, and you still don't look at the fact that the US is donating at least $100,000,000 in relief, as well as sending medical supplies that would otherwise not be there. The reason troops are being shipped into the country is because the population of 10,000,000 is starting to riot, and left uncontrolled, will do nothing more than cause more death.

You're telling me that if there were no soldiers over there, that everything would be rainbows and bunnies? No, it fucking wouldn't. Anyone who attempted to get medical supplies would just be killed trying to get them. Then again, in the mind of an ideologue, everyone will just say, "You need meds? O'tay! <3" and then go have a massive orgie to help repopulate the country.

EDIT: Fuck this, I'm getting someone who's a little more knowledgeable in this kind of shit to come talk to you about this.

[Kasu]

"The corporate-controlled US media has played a particularly odious role in supporting this process. It has glorified the role of the US military, while deliberately concealing the obstructions that the US occupation forces have placed in the way of rescue and aid work.

At the same time, it has sensationalized stories about “looters”—for the most part, hungry people searching through the rubble for some means of sustenance—in order to provide a pretext for the massive military response. The real criminals under these conditions are not the so-called looters, but the hoarders—those who defend private, profit-making control of vitally needed supplies and those who withhold them from the hungry and homeless people.

The crimes being carried out against the Haitian people are inseparable from the assault on the conditions of the working class and the oppressed masses all over the world, which is driven by the economic crisis of capitalism. The rescue of Haiti’s workers and oppressed from the conditions created by over a century of oppression can be achieved only by uniting their struggle with that of workers in the United States and across the globe to put an end to the profit system."

Quote:

EDIT: Fuck this, I'm getting someone who's a little more knowledgeable in this kind of shit to come talk to you about this.

Yeah, you're a fucking retard.

Quote:

Those people need actually sources to tell me where they found that information at.

In the articles they name the sources numerous times.

[Bluestick]

Kasu wrote:

"The corporate-controlled US media has played a particularly odious role in supporting this process. It has glorified the role of the US military, while deliberately concealing the obstructions that the US occupation forces have placed in the way of rescue and aid work. At the same time, it has sensationalized stories about “looters”—for the most part, hungry people searching through the rubble for some means of sustenance—in order to provide a pretext for the massive military response. The real criminals under these conditions are not the so-called looters, but the hoarders—those who defend private, profit-making control of vitally needed supplies and those who withhold them from the hungry and homeless people. The crimes being carried out against the Haitian people are inseparable from the assault on the conditions of the working class and the oppressed masses all over the world, which is driven by the economic crisis of capitalism. The rescue of Haiti’s workers and oppressed from the conditions created by over a century of oppression can be achieved only by uniting their struggle with that of workers in the United States and across the globe to put an end to the profit system." Quote: EDIT: Fuck this, I'm getting someone who's a little more knowledgeable in this kind of shit to come talk to you about this. Yeah, you're a fucking retard.

I don't argue against that. The same shit happened after Katrina. You still can't argue that some people are, indeed, looting. Arguing otherwise is fucking retarded.

Because you think all I read is Fox News.

Why? Because I'm not a brainwashed, ideologue? Last time I checked, a free market economy, or a mixed economy, if you will, has been the single most successful way of using money.


EDIT: Have you ever stopped and thought about this? Every time you post something from WSW, or any other fucking socialist website, I look at it the same way you would if I posted something from Fox News?

[Soundman]

Hey, if you're trying to prove something, insulting people won't help, Kasu.

[Linden]

Haiti was a shit place before the earthquake..Besides, we all know that if America helps, America expects the favor back.

Haiti needed an earthquake..They were popping babies without thinking if they could give it what it needs. I just hope that enough died so that everyone left has enough food and water. Now France and Quebec will be getting a shitload of immigrants that don't necessarily have any education and as for those who do, the poor system won't recognize their diplomas..

Everyone starts caring about haiti when they don't have food, water and a place to stay..the only difference now is that they don't have there mobiles, computers and other electronics and a place to stay. They probably have more to eat now then before..

[Kasu]

"Hey, if you're trying to prove something, insulting people won't help."

Quote:

Last time I checked, a free market economy, or a mixed economy, if you will, has been the single most successful way of using money.

Because, he always has to drag "Von Mises" into every argument, and turn it into a debate about the glories of the free market. This isn't some academic exercise over half-baked petty-bourgeois conceptions, this is a matter of life or death for millions of people.

Quote:

Haiti was a shit place before the earthquake..Besides, we all know that if America helps, America expects the favor back. Haiti needed an earthquake..They were popping babies without thinking if they could give it what it needs. I just hope that enough died so that everyone left has enough food and water. Now France and Quebec will be getting a shitload of immigrants that don't necessarily have any education and as for those who do, the poor system won't recognize their diplomas.. Everyone starts caring about haiti when they don't have food, water and a place to stay..the only difference now is that they don't have there mobiles, computers and other electronics and a place to stay. They probably have more to eat now then before..

This is the most daunting display of darkness, ignorance, and savagery I have ever seen.

[Soundman]

What? @Linden

To Kasu, even though I said your name, that was because you were the last to post when I wrote that. It goes out to the both of you.

Also to Bluestick, this is a topic about Haiti.

[Bluestick]

Kasu wrote:

Because, he always has to drag "Von Mises" into every argument, and turn it into a debate about the glories of the free market. This isn't some academic exercise over half-baked petty-bourgeois conceptions, this is a matter of life or death for millions of people.

Anyone smell the hypocrisy here? All Kasu ever does is regurgitate the shit he reads about the 'glories of a socialist economy'.

Alright, soundman, I'll stop. It just pisses me off that all fucking Kasu ever does is troll with his shitty socialist arguments.

Quote:

bourgeoisie.

RIGHT FUCKING THERE. You don't watch SHIT to make an opinion, using that word alone shows your fucking determined socialist bullshit. It wouldn't fucking matter if someone said that the cure for cancer would be impossible through socialism, your one-track mind wouldn't comprehend a world where socialism isn't the end-all to the world.

[Kasu]

Quote:

I look at it the same way you would if I posted something from Fox News?

When I read something from Fox News, I analyze it according to a working class marxist perspective. I actually read it though, and then form an opinion of it, just as I watch Fox news almost every day to get an idea of the discussion going on within the right-wing section of the bourgeoisie.

Quote:

RIGHT FUCKING THERE. You don't watch SHIT to make an opinion, using that word alone shows your fucking determined socialist bullshit. It wouldn't fucking matter if someone said that the cure for cancer would be impossible through socialism, your one-track mind wouldn't comprehend a world where socialism isn't the end-all to the world.

Your blindness is exulted by your political exasperation. It isn't socialist mythology that society is divided up into two classes, it's rooted in objective reality. Your rejection of materialism and your Christian background goes hand-in-hand with your denial of classes, and by default, reality.

It's an objective truth that the corporate-controlled media reflect the discussion and ideals of the ruling class, who own and sponsor those very same media outlets. It's also an objective truth that these bourgeois ideals are diametrically opposed to the historic interests of the international working class, which must reject those ideals before it can seize political power and resume the spiral of progress opened up in the early days of the Enlightenment.

Finally, it's an objective truth that Capitalism is a doomed system, it produces the very same things that will lead to its own destruction, it digs its own grave. Socialism is not some utopian alternative to the "evil" capitalism, it flows naturally from it. By the own internal logic of capitalism itself, socialism must inevitably follow. Again, as Feudalism gave way to capitalism, capitalism must and will give way to socialism. That is a historical inevitability, not a dream.

[Linden]

All I'm saying is that it was a shit place before and still is.

I went to Haiti in December on an organized trip to see how they lived. They have Computers, mobiles and all that stuff..oh and very cold showers but they can barely eat! Most males will try to hit on the girls that came with us asking them to get married for the sole purpose to move away from Haiti. Another thing I noticed was that they had plenty of children with really poor parents that could barely feed them.


They were really really nice people but I felt nothing when the small village we visited came down.

[Kasu]

Indifference to human suffering, social and cultural backwardness, all the prerequisites for a new fascist movement.

[bw]

Whoever wrote that knows very little about the history of Haiti.

[Kasu]

Right. Why do you think they have electronic devices but hardly any food, decent housing, or anything? Why do you think they have so many kids? Didn't you pay attention in biology when they said organisms that have fewer chance of surviving tend to have higher quantities of offspring?

Why do you think the conditions are so bad in the first place? Again, it's not a mystery, simply study the history of Haiti and its relation with the US. The socialists aren't making it up.

[bw]

Anyone saying the US is the reason why Haiti is impoverished knows nothing about Haiti. The US invaded Haiti in the early 1900s and installed their own puppet government but Haiti was run to the ground by their own elected official. If anything the US was responsible for 'the decline' of Haiti by not being involved with it.

If you want more evidence look at the Dominican Republic.

[blue42]

dasfdadsfasdd

[bw]

If there's any exploitation going on here, it's the Socialist party exploiting a natural disaster to further their own agenda.

Typical of all political parties.

[Rob]

Bluestick wrote:

All that is a regurgitation of what you're reading from the webmasters that you worship.

quoted for truth... kasu sometimes it seems like you mindlessly agree everything the wsws says. it isn't healthy to just believe everything they write about. haven't you heard the phrase "always take everything with a grain of salt"?

whenever you want to show your opinion you usually just post some long, usually very biased article with no statistics or facts, that no one on this website has the time to read. what i'd recommend is paraphrasing the article before you copy and paste it. therefore, we can have somewhat of an idea what the article is saying before we decide if its worth spending all the time to read it.