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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).
A paradigm for reading news and following events that should really become more popular. Triangulation. That grab the same story from several feeds and see what is reported and emphasized and more importantly, what is *not* reported in the story in question.
In our case we have the instance of Hakimullah Mehsud either being allegedly dead or really just doing fine. The answer depends on whether you look at the report from the CBC, or the report from English Al-Jazeera.
The CBC says:
“The militant leader’s death would be an important success for both Pakistan, which has been battling the Pakistani Taliban, and the U.S., which blames Mehsud for a recent deadly bombing against the CIA in Afghanistan.
The army’s disclosure came shortly after Pakistani state television, citing unnamed “official sources,” reported that Mehsud died in Orakzai, an area in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries.
“We have these reports coming to us,” army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. “We are investigating whether it is true or wrong.”
Versus
Al-Jazeera:
“There has been a call to a local television station and Qari Hussein, a senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban, is said to have denied reports of the death of Hakimullah Mehsud,” Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said.
“There is no concrete evidence to suggest that Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, but there is also some suspicion because there has been no video message to prove that he is alive.”
The AFP news agency reported that a senior Taliban spokesman had said that Mehsud was “alive and safe”.
Now, it is hard to evaluate who has a more accurate reports, as who has information about the sources. We have to base much of our news on the veracity of sources that we cannot easily verify.
So is the Taliban leader alive or dead? Who do you believe?
“Afghan President Hamid Karzai suffered another political setback Saturday when his country’s parliament rejected most of the candidates in his second attempt to form a cabinet.
Ten of the 17 nominees were rejected by Afghanistan’s lawmakers. The seven given parliamentary approval included Karzai’s longtime national security adviser, Zalmay Rasoul, who will be foreign minister.”
Are we even surprised anymore about how the farce we call a democracy in Afghanistan? We went to bed with the Warlords and now they want their slice of the rewards. The CIA puppet Kharzi is deadlocked between his ‘international obligations’ and the fact that he needs to punch the tickets of the miscreants that keep in power.
“As well, parliament approved a new justice minister and a new minister — a woman — charged with the Work and Social Affairs/Martyred and Disabled portfolio.”
Well, look some hand-waving and gestures of ‘equal opportunity’ to appease the Western media. The colonial government we are trying to establish in Afghanistan is not even credible right now, will this change anytime soon?
Most likely, not.
Thanks to Jake Tapper from abc’s blog Political Punch for the story.
Pat Robertson on Haiti:
“And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it.
“They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil.
“They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’
“True story.
“And so the Devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’
Wow, way to minimize a natural disaster. The Haitians deserved it for consorting with the devil.
Look no further for an explanation as to why Religion needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Robertson’s handlers issued a ‘clarification’ later:
“[…] His comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed. Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath. […]”
Whoa..good save.
“Two more churches and a Catholic convent school in Malaysia have been targeted by arsonists, amid a row over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims.” – reports Al Jazeera.
Yet another example of the extremes people will embrace to protect their magic men and silly books.
“Four churches in the Kuala Lumpur area have been hit by firebombs since Friday, leaving one badly damaged with its ground floor gutted, and prompting Najib Razak, the prime minister, to promise to crack down on race crime.”
All this for the horrible crime of using the word ‘Allah’. Like it has some sort of special meaning. Well, I guess it does if you are religiously deluded.
People wonder why I take such a strident anti-religious position. A good deal of my animosity springs from incidents such as this. When simply using word can get your church firebombed. This is not rational behaviour.
Human beings have trouble thinking rationally at the best of times. Religion adds fuel to ignorance and rigidity of thinking making incidents like what happened in Malaysia possible.
I have several online newspaper subscriptions but the headline from the UK’s The Independent caught my eye.
//
“Teenagers risk death in internet strangling craze”
What? Is someone target youth maliciously? A stalker, some miscreant after the children.
Hell no.
It is a a toxic meme that has apparently gone viral.
Just check out all the ‘related videos’. How absolutely bug frakking crazy do you need to be to do this sort of stupid shite? Very..and it is spreading, so says the Independent:
“The problem has been increasingly acknowledged in the United States, Canada and France but campaigners warn that Britain is turning a blind eye. The craze is spreading on the internet largely without the knowledge of adults.”
So what is going on? What is the trick?
“Known by a variety of names from funky chicken to space monkey, the “game” involves hyperventilating or squeezing the carotid artery in the neck for a few seconds to achieve a high. Constricting the artery cuts blood flow to the brain; when the pressure is released, the resulting rush of oxygen causes the high. Experts say it is most prevalent among high-achieving adolescents who do not want to get in trouble by taking drugs or drink. The practice is different to autoerotic asphyxiation because it is not done for sexual gratification.”
So choking oneself is being done because all the cool kids are doing it. *sigh* Another not so brilliant moment in the Digital Age.
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