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Thanks for the Canadian Cynic for posting this link on his blog, it is really a neat article in the same realm as Libertarian Island and a proposal for for Libertarians. Apologies for the US centric nature, but our own home grown conservative drones are just less auspicious in their fail.
This story will not make very many people happy. If you happen to believe in left-wing media bias and that Israel is an undeserving oppressed nation (and other farcical notions), please stop reading now. Things will only get worse for you the farther you read into the article.
The story of the Canadian NGO Rights and Democracy has recently received media attention for the firing of three new appointees to the board of directors. As the CBC says:
“Three senior managers at the federal government’s human rights agency who were suspended for publicly declaring their lack of confidence in three Conservative appointees to their organization’s board of directors earlier this year have been fired.”
To understand the how and why this is so particularly egregious requires a fair amount of back story.
“Rights & Democracy, created under Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government to encourage democracy and monitor human rights around the world, has been in turmoil since the Harper government appointed new board members [the ones mentioned in the first quote] last year.
The new members challenged grants being made to three human rights organizations known to be critical of Israel’s human rights record.”
One of things that you do NOT do is criticize Israel (despite the country’s atrocious human rights record), especially if you are in a government funded organization. It appears that these firings stem from this defacto political axiom. Furthermore, if you do have the temerity to question Israeli policy you may be hounded into an early grave:
“Federal opposition politicians and the family of former president Rémy Beauregard, who died in January, are calling for an independent inquiry into the organization. […] Beauregard bore the brunt of the new board members’ outrage over the grants. He died of a heart attack after a stormy board meeting.”
America has great founding principles, I just wish they would remember and take to heart some of the great points about their culture and body politic. Evid3nce makes a brief but poignant video about what the US has potential to be.
Enjoy.
Well other than the largest presence on the ground since the disaster ocurred in Haiti, nowhere I guess (ghosts?).
“One major international news agency’s list of donor nations credited Cuba with sending over 30 doctors to Haiti, whereas the real figure stands at more than 350, including 280 young Haitian doctors who graduated from Cuba. The final figure accounts for a combined total of 930 health professionals in all Cuban medical teams making it the largest medical contingent on the ground.”
This is not just Haiti, Cuba has a history of being among the first responders to crisis situations worldwide.
“Cuban medical teams played a key role in the wake of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and provided the largest contingent of doctors after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. They also stayed the longest among international medical teams treating the victims of the 2006 Indonesian earthquake.
In the Pakistan relief operation the US and Europe dispatched medical teams. Each had a base camp with most doctors deployed for a month. The Cubans, however, deployed seven major base camps, operated 32 field hospitals and stayed for six months.”
Cuba, a nation still in an economic stranglehold enforced the the US, still has the resources to send to other disaster stricken countries around the world. Do they vie for international resources or media time like other NGO’s? Rarely. No, rather they are have been, on many occasions, the first ones on the ground and the last ones to leave stricken areas of the world.
How do they do it? Cuba is a poor island nation, but yet they get it done. There is not glitzy flavour of the day fundraising and the enormous overhead that goes along with such hoopla; they just get there and start helping people to the best of their limited ability.
Do we hear about the outstanding work that Cuban doctors are doing in our filtered and standardized media. Not a peep of course. Being on the official US enemy list makes you magically disappear from positive media coverage.
Cuba sets the gold standard on what effective crisis response should look like. Imagine how much Cuba could achieve if the West were not determined to strangle their nation economically.
The southern offensive against the Taliban in the town of Marjah continues. The cost so far has been twelve civilians from an errant rocket attack.
“But the offensive, known as Operation Moshtarak, was overshadowed on Sunday by the death of 12 Afghan civilians killed when two rockets missed their target and landed on homes in Nad Ali district, where Marjah is located. Nato acknowledged responsibility for the deaths.”
I guess you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. But we are sorry:
“General Stanley McChrystal, the head of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, called the loss of life “regrettable” and said the operation was being conducted with “the protection of Afghan people in mind”.
“We extend our heartfelt sympathies and will ensure we do all we can to avoid future incidents,” he said in a statement on Sunday.”
What I wonder is if those 12 people’s families really understand what is going on? I mean do they really fathom the strategic importance of what Western forces are doing in their country? Do they think the Taliban is evil and must be banished by force of arms from their area? Or are they just devastated that they have lost family members and will blame whomever caused their deaths?
The fighting has been raging across Afghanistan for years, what guarantee is there that this will not happen again? Why of course let us put our faith in government in a box…and other nifty statements that do not address the endemic problems of Afghanistan.
“Afghan officials say they have a “government-in-a-box” ready to sweep in and set up institutional services and security that will ensure the Taliban do not return to areas captured by US-led forces.”
Somehow I get the feeling this is the same old rhetoric repackaged for this media cycle.
When all is said and done in Haiti will things change? Or will the status quo remain? Media Lens has done a excellent job at giving a short historical primer about Haiti and Western intervention within the small island nation.
“In September 2008, Dan Beeton of the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research told us:”Media coverage of floods and other natural disasters in Haiti consistently overlooks the human-made contribution to those disasters. In Haiti’s case, this is the endemic poverty, the lack of infrastructure, lack of adequate health care, and lack of social spending that has resulted in so many people living in shacks and make-shift housing, and most of the population in poverty. But Haiti’s poverty is a legacy of impoverishment, a result of centuries of economic looting of the country by France, the U.S., and of odious debt owed to creditors like the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank. Haiti has never been allowed to pursue an economic development strategy of its own choosing, and recent decades of IMF-mandated policies have left the country more impoverished than ever.” (Email to Media Lens, September 9, 2008)”
The short form is that, we have chosen profit over people in Haiti. The results are obvious, endemic poverty, economic ruin, desperate people.
“Aristide’s balancing of the budget and “trimming of a bloated bureaucracy” led to a “stunning success” that made White House planners “extremely uncomfortable”. The view of a US official “with extensive experience of Haiti” summed up the reality beneath US rhetoric. Aristide, slum priest, grass-roots activist, exponent of Liberation Theology, “represents everything that CIA, DOD and FBI think they have been trying to protect this country against for the past 50 years“. (Quoted, Paul Quinn-Judge, ‘US reported to intercept Aristide calls,’ Boston Globe, September 8, 1994)”
Yet another grim legacy written in unnecessary human suffering. When we are blind to history, when our media institutions promote, rather than banish, lies and approved truth we lose an important part of our character; our empathy and compassion. Our motivations to help others are not activated because the suffering is cloaked in the twin grey falsehoods of nationalistic myth and self-serving rationalizations.
We owe Haiti much more than emergency aid. We owe them their country and their right to self-determination.
Ah, cue the outrage. We certainly cannot have seven (7!) year old children traipsing around in a carnival role which is being described by the media as “sexy”. I’m curious as to why it is culturally acceptable for mature females to prance around during Carnival topless but not children.
I mean, speculating from Puritan North America it would be easy to categorize the whole affair as an exercise in lewd, hyper sexual ribaldry. But is it a fair analysis? The BBC’s article weighs in:
“The Rio de Janeiro state Council for the Defence of Children and Adolescents suggested it would only “increase the treatment of children as sexual objects in Brazilian society”.
Whoa…there we go, objectifying people is bad. Whoops! Hang on…
“We’re not against kids participating in Carnival; it’s part of Brazilian culture,” the council’s director, Carlos Nicodemos, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency.
“What we can’t allow is putting a seven-year-old girl in a role that traditionally has a very sexual focus.”
Oh, I get it, it is okay to objectify older females.
But this is right out…
Hmm… her protective father says the following:
“Any man who looks at a seven-year-old girl and feels any sort of excitement should go see a doctor,” her father, Marco Lira, told AP.
Way to go Dad! People just need to realize that objectifying women starts at a later age and that putting a child in a stereotypical ‘sexy’ role is all about the dance and the carnival and not an iota of anything else.
Check.
Another victory against the Patriarchy for sure.
Update: Fire has ravaged the floats this year (2011).
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…