I think that might be the last Brooks column I can bear to read. The guy's work actually subtracts from the sum total of the world's knowledge.

From any humane perspective they are hateful and cruel far in excess of any possible excuse. As 'pragmatic' technocrats, I'm sure they see themselves as only as hateful and cruel as they need to be. In their inhuman hearts, no amount of hatred or cruelty is ever enough.

Is that an Onion Op-Ed or did Brooks actually write that column for the NY Times?
Frankly, I thought it was impossible to muster that much arrogance, ignorance and insensitivity into a 750-word column.

Next week from Brooks: "Why aren't Haitians more grateful to America?''

It's nice to see that David Brooks and Pat Robertson have the same theory about what's wrong with Haiti.

Monsters: they're real and they've all crawled out from under the bed.

I made two donations to Partners in Health.

I saw a part of 60 minutes tonight, and while I do not have the language or medical skills that are really needed, I sure would be able to organize those supplies so the doctors are not digging through boxes.

They also said that these doctors ran out of alcohol, so they were using vodka. They also had a regular hack saw for amputations, just like in the civil war.

everyone: please give!

Even with an understanding of our media/political culture that predicts the behavior we are seeing; that is completely ahistorical and narcissistic narratives, Or the use of a disaster to advocate for U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of another country, It is still jarring to see it.

I mean, I feel mortified if I make an inaccurate statement on my blog for 4-5 readers. If I were turning in a national column, or on TV, I would be mortified to say the things these people are saying that are so easily put to pasture with Google.

Another takeaway is just how careless and ignorant the powerful can afford to be about the weak and small. I mean Americans in general now (I am one), from a Haitian perspective, we have figured heavily in their history dating all the way back to the very beginning of our country's birth as a political entity. From an American perspective, we barely know they exist, are generally too lazy to learn any of its history, and feel free to speculate wildly about why the country is so destitute.

In my exchange with NE, I mentioned that elites always look to use whatever they can to forward their agenda. The following nugget can be found on Lenin's Tomb quoting the Heritage Foundation.

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 public image of the United States in the region…

While on the ground in Haiti, the U.S. military can also interrupt the nightly flights of cocaine to Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast and counter the ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to destabilize the island of Hispaniola. This U.S. military presence, which should also include a large contingent of U.S. Coast Guard assets, can also prevent any large-scale movement by Haitians to take to the sea in rickety watercraft to try to enter the U.S. illegally.

Meanwhile, the U.S. must be prepared to insist that the Haiti government work closely with the U.S. to insure that corruption does not infect the humanitarian assistance flowing to Haiti. Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-opportunity-knocks.html

I realize in reading the Rothkopf article that I don't presently know enough about the last 20 years of Haitian history, which puts me in the weird position of knowing more about the decade around the 1915 invasion. Which is stupid, so does anyone have anything to recommend on the last 20 years there?

The Brooks article really shouldn't surprise me, because he has nothing but self-satisfaction between his ears, but it is a real stinker even for him. The only thing good about it that I can say is that it reminded me that Samuel Huntington is dead, which did cheer me up. There is nothing more sickening than rich people who preach about "no excuses" policies and "tough, measurable demands" for the poor.

Oops, on another thread Nell had already recommended and linked to an article by the author of the book which from my search looks to be probably the best book on recent Haitian history: Peter Hallward's Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment (Verso 2008). The article Nell linked was excellent, and it sounds like the book is too.

Another good source, less trenchantly left-wing but not just an apologia for neoliberal exploitation, is Robert Fatton's Haiti's Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy.

Disclaimer: I haven't read either one, but the huffy reaction of the usual suspects makes me think they're worthwhile.

@Rupa Shah: Thanks so much for your link in a previous thread to Danny Schechter's very forthright piece on the fubar'ed U.S.-U.N. relief effort and beyond. I was really glad I followed your pointer, but I almost didn't; a couple of words to give an idea of the author and topic greatly increase the odds of readers making use of your finds. Thanks again; I think it's one of the more important articles written since the quake.

And I thought, everyone reads all the links I provide!! Silly me....
No, seriously Nell, there are two writers I regularly read at http://www.zmag.org/znet.
Danny Schechter, he is a real progressive ( may be he calls himself a socialist! I have met him personally and discussed some issues specially healthcare) and he writes, not only about what ails the country but how to change it and the other is Prof Paul Street ( quoted often by commenter Tony at ATR ). He is great too. Their articles appear regularly at ZNet, worth giving a try.

Another good article and to some extent, what role the media plays in how it portrays the tragedy....
"Please Don’t Superdome Haiti (update)"
Michelle Chen
here
http://www.racewire.org/archives/2010/01/please_dont_superdome_haiti.html

Here's a short column by Rob Baril, a Haitian board member of Grassroots International, that lays out in simple and concrete terms the program of bottom-up development that is the only way out of the disastrous dependence fostered by the "international community".

The program is also spelled out very directly in a recent letter from Camille Chalmers, a leader of PAPDA, an alliance of rural popular organizations.

Did you know that the IMF this week actually conditioned disaster relief funds on freezing public sector wages and raising electricity rates? A hundred thousand bodies on the ground is not enough to induce even a figleaf gesture, this week only, of unconditional, actually humanitarian support.

People to people solidarity ties are the alternative to letting our corrupt, financier-run government speak for us in this brutally high-handed way.

Like everythong posted at this site, this is great information.

Thank you.

MADRE is an organization that people who read A Tiny Revolution might like to check out, not only for the Haiti relief effort, but for it's human rights efforts worldwide.

Those seeking a very small non-profit that works in Haiti (set up by my cousin) can see helpinghandsforhaiti.com.

They are a very small organization and aren't doing emergency assistance to people right now, though they seem to have distributed their supplies. They have been doing work in Haiti for 20 years on their small scale. (It doesn't take a vast organization to do some good.) No waste, no corruption, and I'd bet everything I have that every dollar helps someone who really needs it.

Why do I have doubts about the motives behind our military's relief operation in Haiti? It really makes me feel very unpatriotic.
"The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?"
by Michel Chossudovsky
here
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17000

Ah, Chossudovsky, now there's a man who understands the ways of empire.

Rupa Shah, you know by now that patriotism is

(1) the first refuge of the scoundrel, and
(2) part of a strategy of divide-and-conquer used against the world's poor.

Don't feel bad when your conscience speaks. There's no reason to accept the lines for "us" and "them" that have been drawn for us.

The San Andreas Fault runs south of Los Angeles, across Central America, across the Gulf of Mexico between Florida and Cuba and into the Carribean. Haiti and LA suffer from the same earthquake problems. Nothing to do with voodoo.

Save the Oocytes
I do want to trust our govt but I just can't help not trusting them ( with all the lies, all the time). And then, I can not help feeling bad about it because one is supposed to be able to trust one's elected officials and not doubt their actions. See, it is a mess. But will try, not to feel guilty about it!

Mike Meyer
I left a short note for you on Datesman's post ( I saw that first ).
I am quite sure, Mr Brooks does not know what Voodoo Religion is or that Haitians have been practising it since late 18th century. Like great figures borrowed things from Mr Schwarz and Prof Chazelle centuries ago, Haitians certainly did not borrow Voodoo from Mr Brooks!

Mike Meyer How dare you contradict wikipedia!

That fault must go through my head too, cuz i don't get it.

I was listening to NPR today and heard this interview. It is worth listening to. The doctor was upset about rumours of there not being adequate security and safety. He had been walking all over at night and the people were waiting "patiently" in spite of staggering suffering.
here
http://www.hereandnow.org/

"Doctor in Haiti Tells of Makeshift Medical Care Amid Aftershocks"
Medical supplies are in short supply in Haiti, while power and communications remain unreliable. We talk about the situation with Dr. Evan Lyon, who’s working at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince for the organization, Partners in Health.

ps this was today's programme i.e the 20th of Jan.

Rupa Shah

Thanks much for that clip. Now I can actually refer people to a source after they scoff at the suggestion that the media reports of looting might not be accurate. I have been struck by how strongly inclined people are to believe that.

An excellent rebuke to ignorant Op-Ed by David Brooks.......
"An Open Letter to David Brooks on Haiti"
here
http://www.truthout.org/an-open-letter-david-brooks-haiti56199

Another excellent article by Danny Schechter who tells it like it is.......
"The Disaster Within The Disaster: Its Time To Investigate the Aid Fiasco"
here
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23683

Kurt Vonnegut, in one of his last published essays, summarizing the conquest of the New World by the Europeans, whom he characterized as "sea pirates", said something along the lines of "One advantage the sea pirates had is that no one could believe how greedy and cruel they were until it was too late."

Vonnegut may not have read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, of course.