Hurpa durpa

Really tired of hearing people ask me, "But Kari, what kind of political agenda would the US want to force on Haiti? It just doesn't make sense. It's just a little island." And then they expect me to give them a political 101 on Haiti, as if it's my job. As if the onus is on me to educate them about history and such. These kinds of attitudes are symptomatic of the larger sickness that we have--this imperialistic impulse to get our neighbors to accept the great American way of life. They are also bundled up with the term security as it's been used in the media. For years, Haiti has been portrayed as a hotbed of hostility that's ready to burst at the seams:

"The so-called level of violence in Haiti pales in comparison with violence in at least half the countries in the world. Compare the history of Haiti with that of England, France and the U.S. and Germany. Don't go back to the 1200s. Look back to 1804 and you have more violence in those countries than in Haiti. So the characterization of Haiti as a violent country is a bunch of hogwash. Why is there tension and instability in Haiti? It is simply because in Haiti you have 5 percent of the population controlling 60 percent of the national wealth, while 80 percent live in poverty. If you had such a situation in any other country you'd have a massacre or a civil war but that hasn't happened in Haiti, which speaks to the self-restraint of the Haitian population. The instability of the last 20 to 25 years has been caused essentially by this elite as well as their foreign allies who cannot truly accept the principal of one citizen-one vote because it would mean that they would lose their privileges and influence. They have tried to quench the will of the poor majority of Haiti and tried to change the rules of the game because they've lost in elections. If it were up to the Haitian people (and when I say Haitian people I'm talking about the vast majority of Haitians who are poor) there would be both democracy and stability. If you look at recent history, the Haitian people have chosen to vote rather than to riot. They voted four times in a row for the same political family, the same political leaning, the same agenda. They consistently have picked both democracy and stability."

One popular piece of propaganda the media has used over and over is the lie of looting during times of crises like these. Not only do the repetitions of these mythemes make it easy for people to accept their inherent prejudices without question, but they can distract us and help cause us to ignore that we live under what is rapidly approaching a fascist, corporate controlled government who won't stop at crushing even that "little island" for their own gain.

"[S]uch disasters are generally exploited by states and companies in the vicious and predatory way that Naomi Klein outlines in The Shock Doctrine. Perhaps a lesser known example of this is the way in which in the wake of the tsunami in late 2004, the Indonesian military took the opportunity to ramp up repression in Aceh. A more obvious example is the depraved way in which the Bush administration (and the local Democratic party) effectively ethnically cleansed New Orleans and turned it into a haven for developers and construction firms after Katrina. So, what depraved agenda is going to be more forcefully thrust on Haiti in the middle of this catastrophe? Obviously, there is no danger of Obama allowing any impoverished immigrants into the US on the back of some rickety boats. You might recall that after last year's hurricanes, his administration continued to deport people, even in the middle of urgent legal appeals."

As Lenin pointed out in another post, which I'm too lazy to locate right now, the military really isn't expecting a fight as some of the major networks have claimed. Why expect a fight from people who are already impoverished, and, on top of it, have experienced one of the worst earthquakes in history? A population and consequently their economy is much easier to handle if it's already decimated.