Au Contraire, Booman-It Is What We MAKE It

Posted by Arthur Gilroy | Jan 18, 2010 | 10 |

In the very first reply to a comment on his Haiti post It Is What It Is, Booman wrote:

China might be willing and able to establish a de facto protectorate in the Caribbean, but we would never allow it if we could do it ourselves.

LORD, Booman!!!

In the immortal words of Tonto to the Lone Ranger as they were besieged by Indians and had nowhere to run:

Who “we“, white man?

I pinned what was about to happen last week.

Read on for more.
From just a couple of days ago.

I can’t wait until our realpolitik guys start to loose news stories about CHAOS IN HAITI!!! and WE MUST INTERVENE NOW!!!

Bet on it.

Any day now.

Aaaaany day now. [Note-it’s already started. AG]

What a perfect place for an anti-Chavez/anti-Cuba/anti-Colombia setup.

Watch.

Why…it’s just across the street from Guantanamo, General!!!

When does that lease expire again?

And the spiritual descendants of Dr. Strangelove are, as usual, all over it.

One good thing might come of this, however.

Maybe the money push to take back Cuba so’s it can be once again made into a freefire offshore Las Vegas Southeast will simmer down.

They’ll have virgin territory to work with, now.

Watch.

Come one, come all!!!

See the Pierre the Haitian Donkey Boy and his Harem right here at the Trump Harrah’s Port au Prince Casino and Docking Bay!!!

Seen this one? Brought to you by the shameless Fox News people? Prime propagators of the great plastic “What Happens In Las Vegas Stays in Las Vegas” myth?

Cruise-Goers Still Enjoying Haiti, Despite Widespread Devastation

Royal Caribbean cruise line defended its decision to proceed with docking its ships at a private vacation resort 85 miles from destroyed Haiti capital Port-au-Prince.

Ahead of unloading its Monday haul of sun-kissed vacationers on private beach Labadee, Royal Caribbean pointed to the fact that ships were dropping off aid and bolstering the economy, as well as fulfilling promised routes to passengers.

—snip—

“It was not a tough decision once we established that Labadee was not affected by the earthquake,” Goldstein told The Miami Herald.

—snip—

Critics of the decision said it was insensitive given the proximity of the devastation. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, injured, or made homeless within 60 miles of the tropical paradise tourists are still enjoying.

One passenger called the decision to go ahead with the scheduled Haitian stop abhorrent and indicative of “a lack of compassion for their fellow man.”

“I understand that if you have paid for a cruise you will want to visit the ports, and Labadee is very beautiful … but that should not stand in the way of decency and, for decency’s sake, the ships should stay away, at least until all those loved ones have been buried and put to rest and the people given food, water and shelter,” wrote another cruise-goer on blog CruiseCritic.com.

“Any argument about boosting the economy through a few tips doesn’t hold up when hundreds of thousands of people lie dead and dying in the streets just a couple of hours away,” said another irate blogger.

Not all vacationers feel the same way, if other postings on the forum are an indication of wider thought.

“Don’t you see that depriving these people of employment is the last thing we should be doing right now?! Go, enjoy, and tip generously,” said one post.

“I feel empathy and sympathy for the people affected. I however, feel no ‘guilt.’ It’s not my fault, nor will my not going ashore make any difference to those that have been affected by the earthquake. Guilt makes it about you,” wrote another tourist as her ship was pulling into view of the Haitian port.

Royal Caribbean updated its leased Labadee haven with a roller coaster, zipline, and pier last year to the tune of $55 million. According to the company, the resort provides work for around 500 people in the local tourist industry.

—snip—

A press release issued by the American cruise line said it would be donating $1 million to Haitian relief and would continue to ferry supplies to be handed out by charities Food for the Poor, the Pan American Development Foundation, and the Solano Foundation. A system for passengers to donate cash has also been set up on the ships.

“It was not a tough decision once we established that Labadee was not affected by the earthquake,” eh?

I’ll bet it wasn’t.

Lemme see. Irv.

$55 mil in the Labadee site already.

A couple mil profit from every ship we dock there.

What’s the lowest round number the we can get away with as a reparation payment? (Not that we’ll have to actually come through with it, don’tcha know. Wink wink, nudge nudge. That kinda stuff can always be…leveraged.)

Whadda ya say?

A Mil?

OK Irv. I’m on it.

“Hello…Associated Press?”

Like dat.

I can see it now.

Labadee DisneyBase

Come visit Gitmo South!!!

Tour the fortifications!!!

Enjoy the screams of the animatronic political prisoners!!!

Watch as our brave men, women (and others) in uniform man their drone stations!!!

Tip the harmless natives!!!

Take a local Zombie tour!!!

America at its best!!!

Lord.

Will it ever end?

And if it does…at what cost to the innocent?

You and me included.

Bet on it.

Later…

About The Author

Arthur Gilroy

Born. Still working on it.

10 Comments

Arthur Gilroy on January 18, 2010 at 3:11 pm

Send ’em to the most reliable Haitian aid group you can find.

Really.

AG
Arthur Gilroy on January 18, 2010 at 7:08 pm

From Crooks + Liars. On Link TV last night. Vid here.

C+I: Haiti was a nation of farmers, but thanks to the strings attached to U.S. aid, government policies made profitable farming impossible. So the farmers were pushed to the cities to provide a cheap manufacturing labor force. All those people you see on the TV in their shattered shantytowns? We helped put them there. With exploitative loans and yes, even a classic CIA-backed coup, we helped create this mess.

Here’s Naomi Klein, the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” speaking Wednesday night at the Ethical Culture Society to warn us against it happening again:

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NK: But as I write about in The Shock Doctrine, crises are often used now as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.

And I just want to pause for a second and read you something, which is pretty extraordinary. I just put this up on my website. The headline is “Haiti: Stop Them Before They Shock Again.” This went up a few hours ago, three hours ago, I believe, on the Heritage Foundation website.

“Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the image of the United States in the region.” And then goes on.

Now, I don’t know whether things are improving or not, because it took the Heritage Foundation thirteen days before they issued thirty-two free market solutions for Hurricane Katrina. We put that document up on our website, as well. It was close down the housing projects, turn the Gulf Coast into a tax-free free enterprise zone, get rid of the labor laws that forces contractors to pay a living wage. Yeah, so it took them thirteen days before they did that in the case of Katrina. In the case of Haiti, they didn’t even wait twenty-four hours.

Now, why I say I don’t know whether it’s improving or not is that two hours ago they took this down. So somebody told them that it wasn’t couth. And then they put up something that was much more delicate. Fortunately, the investigative reporters at Democracy Now! managed to find that earlier document in a Google cache. But what you’ll find now is a much gentler “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti.” And buried down there, it says, “Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue.”

But the point is, we need to make sure that the aid that goes to Haiti is, one, grants, not loans. This is absolutely crucial. This is an already heavily indebted country. This is a disaster that, as Amy said, on the one hand is nature, is, you know, an earthquake; on the other hand is the creation, is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises–natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn’t be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations. And this is not a conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again.

Yup.

Precisely.

AG
Oui on January 18, 2010 at 8:12 pm

.
It started in 1804 when the African slaves were “granted” their independence from France, it was an exemplary colonial run island. Now the same French under Sarkozy are fussing again about slots at Port-au-Prince International airport run under supervision of the Yanks.

Napoleon - 2010

Haiti donors summit January 25 in Montreal, Canada

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Oui on January 18, 2010 at 8:47 pm

.

“Doomsday Clock” Moves One Minute Away From Midnight

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
BooMan on January 19, 2010 at 9:12 am

Of course it won’t end, AG. But it’s not all crap.
- Arthur Gilroy on January 19, 2010 at 10:13 am
  
  To call what is happening both in Haiti and in the U.S. “crap” is to shamefully diminish the importance of life and death. None of it is crap. Especially to the people who suffer because of the execrably selfish attitudes that have been force-fed into the American psyche by the corporations that wish to use us as the prime consumers of their economic imperialist spoils.
  
  Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State, stated his foreign policy view as the “Pottery Barn rule.” That is – “if you break it, you own it.”
  
  Hmmmm….
  
  I have always been willing to give Colin Powell a break…I thought (and still believe) that he was an honest military man along the lines of Dwight Eisenhower who got caught up in politics because he wanted to do the right thing for the American people. He tried to act as a moderating influence on the BushCo regime and perhaps succeeded to some degree before he got shoved aside in the greed-driven race for oil money and power in the Middle East.
  
  But that statement?
  
  I doubt that he meant it is this way but if seen through the reverse glasses of say a Donald Rumsfeld it means that once you break a country by the imposition of severe economic imperialist policies then you do “own it”, and can thus do whatever you damned well want to do with it.
  
  Which is what is happening right now in Haiti.
  
  Bet on it.
  
  It’s not all crap?
  
  You bet your ass it’s not.
  
  What term would you be using if there were 200,000 uncollected dead moldering outside of your house?
  
  Would you say “Crap!” and impotently stamp your rhetorical foot?
  
  I hope not.
  
  Have you read the on-the-spot reports from the Haitian musician Richard Morse about what is really being done there?
  
  No?
  
  Here.
  
  Read a few.
  
  I See No Evidence of a Government Presence Here
  
  In spite of my no interview policy I went to Carrefour Feuille on foot with a CBS team. The smell of bodies is prevalent @ Gerard Church.
  
  After St Gerard Church we went to Carrefour Feuille. There were three dump trucks marked CNE doing nothing. No international presence.
  
  A journalist receiving a ride from a UN vehicle was dropped off at Canape Vert. “We are prohibited from taking to the Oloffson”!
  
  The Oloffson is a “RED ZONE” How can the UN help the people of Carrefour Feuille, if they are prohibited from coming to the neighborhood?
  
  If the UN can’t help poor people, then what are they doing in Haiti!
  
  Gas stations want police security before they open their pumps. I have only seen four uniformed policemen since the earthquake.
  
  The UN has odd politics about where they go and what they do. They ignored the corruption during both elections last year…
  
  If the UN can’t go to where THE PEOPLE need their help then what are they doing here?
  
  If the UN can’t gain the trust of the Haitians after four years then what are they doing here? Carrefour Feuille is a zone of destruction.
  
  The fact that I haven’t seen an international presence in this area tell me that others are following the lead of the UN.
  
  The UN is not permitted in this neighborhood. I have so many journalist here they sleep on the lawn. None of them are armed! Safe?
  
  Violence is at as minimum considering the current state of desperation, hunger, thirst, lack of medical attention.
  
  People here need medical attention. They die when they don’t get it. Military/Civillian isn’t the issue. Medical supplies & Dr’s!
  
  Blocking roads with bodies is what it sometimes takes to get help, They’re not doing it 4 aesthetic reasons.
  
  No one is going to attack Dr’s that are trying to help. I can get you anywhere you need to be…safely
  
  UN is not staying out of my neighborhood 4 reasons of security. It’s just some kind of warped politics.
  
  I believe this is being treated as a military operatio which is perhaps why certain planes aren’t permitted to land @ PauP airport.
  
  Suppose that exactly this was happening in your suburb outside of Philadelphia.
  
  Would this be your response then?
  
  “Of course it won’t end, AG. But it’s not all crap.”
  
  I think not.
  
  With an infant child in your care?
  
  I think not.
  
  And…watch.
  
  It is coming to your neighborhood eventually.
  
  Karma is a bitch, Booman.
  
  We will be paid back eventually.
  
  Malcolm X was right on the money.
  
  Referring to JFK’s assassination as having been in retaliation for the many attempts on Fidel Castro’s life, “He never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon,” Malcolm X said after a speech on Dec. 4, 1963.
  
  Foresight of the kind that JFK lacked might be a very good thing right now. He was born rich. What could happen to him!!!???
  
  Well…in terms of the way a vast number of human beings live on this planet your “riches” compare to theirs at exactly the same percentage as the Kennedy fortune compares to yours.
  
  If you listen real close, Booman…why you kin hear that flock of chickens ‘a gearin’ up right now.
  
  Bet on it.
  
  Eventually we will do the-straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back thing.
  
  Vietnam?
  
  The Middle East?
  
  The Caribbean?
  
  Africa?
  
  Black America?
  
  The Native Americans?
  
  he karma is getting heavy.
  
  Really heavy.
  
  Someday that karmic load is going to flush.
  
  And when it does?
  
  “Crap” will be what’s for dinner here.
  
  For real.
  
  Bet on that as well.
  
  AG
  - BooMan on January 19, 2010 at 10:35 am
    
    America does everything big. When we’re needed, really needed, we have a great track record. On the other hand, we have a habit, as you point out, of making ourselves needed where we’re not. Our record on that is a great big epic failure, time and time again.
    
    Here we have a chance to do something big and do it right. Will we? Of course not. But we can do it in a mutually beneficial way, or we can be assholes, once again.
    
    But don’t fall into the pattern of thinking that just because Congress and our business community wants to get paid that we’re doing something evil. Evil is in the details. Sometimes, evil is in the warped politics of well-meaning regulations.
    - Arthur Gilroy on January 19, 2010 at 10:42 am
      
      When we’re needed, really needed, we have a great track record.
      
      Yeah?
      
      Since when?
      
      WWII?
      
      Yer livin’ in the past, Booman.
      
      The system is rotted out.
      
      Top to bottom.
      
      It’s just a matter of time, now.
      
      Sorry…
      
      AG
      - Arthur Gilroy on January 19, 2010 at 10:56 am
        
        P.S. If the RatPubs retake the White House in 2012…and their strong rebound so far this year suggests at least an even money chance that they will do so…then it’s going to be time to head for the hills, Booman.
        
        Take your child; move to to some relatively sane country like Denmark or Holland and hope for the best.
        
        If that’s what happens…I’m gonna.
        
        See ya in Aarhus or Groningen or one ‘a them other joints.
        
        You know..someplace where things actually work?
        
        Bet on it.
        
        I wanted to take public transportation from NYC to Bethlehem PA Saturday next. 90 miles is all. I looked it up. No trains, one 10AM-ish bus.
        
        Deep.
        
        In Holland there’d be a train every 20 minutes.
        
        And it would run on time.
        
        Obama’s task is not only difficult but next to impossible, and…Surprise!!!…he’s failing at it.
        
        2012 tells the tale.
        
        If of course we make it that far.
        
        Watch.
        
        AG
      - BooMan on January 19, 2010 at 11:31 am
        
        How about Tsunami relief?
        
        You notice how Europe turned out? It’s nice. So is Japan. They’ve got a lot of things figured out. And the Leninist assholes are confined to coffee shops where they belong. Where we were needed, really needed, we did well and can still do well. We can do well in Haiti. Buck up, Arthur. He’s not Lincoln and he’s not FDR, but in a lot of ways he’s better than either of them. What can a good, smart person do with a rotting system? Watch. We shall see.

Au Contraire, Booman-It Is What We MAKE It

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Arthur Gilroy

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