Saturday, January 16, 2010

Haiti


The way in which the aftermath of the Earthquake has been covered, for the most part has been deplorable. Suffering is maintained as a media commodity. Prefacing this story with that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with no following explanation is feeding into the oppression that the country has been subjected to by other countries. Sure token gestures of aid have been available and supplied but a meaningful effort of assistance other than money has not, to my knowledge, been actuated. It is the same approach that the West has given African countries: funnel some seemingly generous amount of money to a country struggling to get on its own feet and then be annoyed and pseudo-surprised when the money is corrupted, stolen or channeled into obscurity. This has nothing to do with helping out those who need it but maintaining a political construction of generosity to be seen as coming from compassion.

Haiti was the first country to break the chains of slavery in the Western Hemisphere. It is the first country to be run by black African descendants. This created a fear from slave owners in the rest of the countries whose economy was dependent on slave trade and slave labor. Word spread of the successful slave revolution in Haiti around 1790-1803 or so, to other slaves giving them a sense of hope for their own situation and possibly sparking revolts among slaves in the Americas. Having to deal with the new attitude instilled in what they deemed as their property, slave owners reacted in ways that are predictable and personify the worst in human behavior. The folks who ran the countries were either slave owners themselves or did everything in their power to maintain that form of economic foundation, continuing to justify the use and practice of slavery and slave trade. Haiti suffered as a result, from the beginning. It suffered the effects of having to pull itself out of oblivion from day one with no outside help. These people, all of them are the epitome of survivors, of strength of wills and the original freedom fighters.

The same forces are at work today to keep Haiti down. There are obvious parallels to Katrina in imagery and casualty numbers. Similarly to Katrina, the infrastructure to combat such an event was white washed by the ruling elite, preferring to leave fellow humans to fend for themselves in a system that is not only prone but relies on choosing ignorance over effort. Convenience over action. Some association told Haitian leaders two years ago that the fault line that they are sitting on was prime for a quake. This prompted the Mayor of Port Au-Prince to declare that the buildings in his city were not only not quake proof but were dangerous under normal circumstances. How did anyone expect the "poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" to pull themselves up by bootstraps? Bootstraps that have been denied them since their own independence. The talking heads have been blaming Haiti. Blaming the corruption on its dictators. The corruption lies with the global Anglo systemic economic water boarding of good people who because no act of their own threaten the egos and insecurities of the ruling class of its neighbors. To blame the people of Haiti is to blame the victim. Victims of circumstance. Victims of a system that does not side with truth but with tactics which secure power no matter what needs to be done to achieve such ends.

Two figures of the kinds of people you wonder how they can sleep at night with all of the hateful rhetoric that they spew from orifices that are easily confused with other parts of their body by appearance and exiting content, they are jumping on this disaster as a way to hate and fear monger even harder. You have the now notorious comment by Pat Robertson. As a blogger for the Huffington Post called him, he is, "a PR nightmare for God", and he gives religion a bad name and is the reason why people who actually care about others and not use that front as a way to receive misappropriated donations to save their souls are skeptical about religion in general. These kinds of people are the embodiment of ignorance and because of this do not realize that they turn more people off to organized religion than they do convert people or as the see them, donors. It is not a congregation for these folks it is a watered down board of trustees who are by no means involved with the decision making processes and go along with whatever is being said or done by the organization's who they are supporting, figurehead.

It is the same people who would support the kind of self-promotional ignorant hate filled speech of Rush Limbaugh. The secular equivalent of Robertson, Limbaugh is in the same boat for turning away people with the capacity for independent thought from the Conservative cause. This pharmaceutical saturated narcissistic xenophobe is telling the ignorant band of people who take his thoughts seriously, probably one in the same who listen to Robertson or Sarah Palin, that because the U.S has given the token gesture of financial support to Haiti that they should not give any more money to these people and let them suffer in their own circumstances. This Ronald Reagan loving, capitalism infatuated attitude leads to such ignorant and compassionate absent rhetoric that it mirrors the attitudes of slave owners and I have no doubt that Rush Limbaugh, and Robertson would have no problem coming up with an excuse based on ignorance to argue for slavery and be the first to own slaves if they were given the chance.

It is comments like these two that make me actually with that there is a Hell. If there was, the hypocrisy and fear based deception that is everything that the teachings of Jesus goes directly against that these two figureheads employ would land them in Hell's quarters for sure. The very fear that they have within themselves, the idea of eternal suffering and this fear that they claim to be acting in reverse of out of love, this fear is exactly what they deserve to experience. Eternal suffering is almost too good for these kinds of people. Their rhetoric has consequences far reaching and perpetuates the very fear that they harbor which fuels their own ignorance.

It is unfortunate in the wake of this disaster that energy and time is wasted on these kinds of people. Maybe that is their plan after all, a distraction of the issue at hand. By saying such things, they are vying for attention and the media, being what it is, gives it to them. They like the fact that they get those who are not ignorant enough to take their words at face value, upset. Should I feel like I have fallen into that trap? Maybe, but to let this idea of reverse psychology keep me or anyone else from calling out these kinds of people would be to somehow legitimize it.

Here is a link to Jay Smooth's thoughts on the subject on the ILL DOCTRINE.
He has already posted links to organizations that people can donate too. If you are able, pitch in. Spread the word, RESIST IGNORANCE, EMBRACE COMPASSION AND LOVE!!!

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