Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, March 25, 2021

• Facts about Covid-19 features an updated report from the Swiss Policy Research website. 

• A Year of Billionaire Pandemic Gains by Chuck Collins from Institute of Policy Studies. 

• 💥Why COVID Policies Are A War Against Humanity by Neenah Payne from Activist Post. This is a best post. (I only scanned this, but it provides so much good material and so many important links to documentation. I will read it carefully later.) My brief and later (at 6:36 PM CDT) commentary follows: 

Although I have some objections and qualifications regarding this post, I generally approve of the importance of this post. Regarding my objections and qualifications, I object to the sanctification of our "Founding Fathers" in the (38:49m) interview with Vera Sharav. The only member of the Founding Fathers who objected to some of actions of the rest of the ruling class at that time was Jefferson. But he also had slaves which were needed to furnish labor on his plantation. 

 

I also object to her propaganda-like allegations that (at 21:49m) the "same thing happened in Soviet regime and the Chinese regime". She has obviously been fed this information as indoctrination to hate the Soviet Union and Communist China. But what she directly experienced in Nazi Germany and the USA is undoubtedly true.

• Suez Canal Blocked: A “Worst Case Scenario for Global Trade” by Christian Westbrook from his weblog the Ice Age Farmer. (Note: This reminds me of a post earlier this month from U.S. Right To Know entitled "Bill Gates Food Tracker".) My brief commentary follows: 

I don't know if this event is the global trade disrupting event that the author makes of it (with documentation), but it fits within his theory about the coming food crisis, fulfilling the Great Reset agenda, and that we should all plan to localize our food supply. It is the latter that I differ from him. 

 

I see a growing movement of contemporary activists that want to localize our lifestyles to cope with the transnational effort (neoliberalism) to globalize all trade and to supply our daily requirements by major corporations. This development (see also this and this) promises physical and other separations from the neoliberal agenda of advanced capitalist nations as a solution to all of our social problems. This is dead wrong.

 

Not only does it take away from efforts to topple capitalist regimes and replace them with real socialist systems, but it also supplies a wrong solution to most of the major problems confronting us: a world facing a global nuclear war, extreme economic inequality, and the presence of tiny self-serving ruling classes and dictatorial regimes.

• New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato from The Corbett Report.
  
  After 10 Years of Civil War in Syria, US (Quietly) Declares Defeat but Won’t Go Home by Alan Macleod from Mint Press News. My reaction: US forces continue to occupy 1/3 of Syrian territory and bleed the Syrian economy of their precious oil resources. Maybe the ruling class has settled for a nation that is weak and unstable. It looks to me like the ruling class has turned much of its aggressiveness and rage from foreign affairs toward potential activist groups within the USA by promoting policies of surveillance and increasing onerous laws against their civil rights. 
  

• Bogus Claims Of Iran Plan To Attack Washington DC Work To Justify War by Robert Inlakesh from The Last American Vagabond.
  

• Washington's Obsession with China Expands by Brian Berletic, an ex-Marine living with his family in Thailand, from his weblog Land Destroyer Report. (Note: Berletic reveals that the actions by the US government indicate that the primary concern of its foreign policy toward China is motivated by a concern to advance the profits US corporations and other transnational corporations under the control of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.) My reaction: This applies to all policies promoted by the Empire. It is the expression of neofascism (essentially governments corrupted by the promotion of power and profits by the Empire's ruling capitalist classes) which saw the replacement of the fascist nations led by Nazi Germany in the last century with the new US/Anglo/Zionist Empire since then.

• China Hit With Sobering Splash of Reality as Alaskan Talks Melt Under Heat of U.S. Belligerence by Matthew Ehret from Strategic Culture Foundation. My reaction: The first major conference (in Alaska) revealed that the Biden administration is totally committed to the old cold war tactics that were implemented by previous administrations. Although not unexpected, this warmed-over cold war strategy spells doom for the latest would-be Empire.

In the ensuing days of meetings, it should not come as a surprise that very little in the way of serious conflict resolution occurred. In fact, the only solid points of agreement which the U.S. side would permit involved two joint protocols that fall perfectly into alignment with the Malthusian closed system objectives of the Great Reset agenda attempting to reign in a post-nation state world order in the wake of the oncoming economic meltdown.

 

Eric Zuesse agrees with Ehret in his latest article.

• Newly discovered eyewitness account puts NIST in a corner on WTC 7 explosions by Craig McKee from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. My reaction: The truth is closing in on the lies that government officials, under the direction of ruling class players, told about 9/11, but there are still so many other lies to  deal with.

• Haiti: The United Nations and the US-Backed Regime of Terror by Pierre Michel Chéry from Internationalist 360°.

Haiti is heading for days of great misfortune. Haitians, for the most part, are increasingly convinced that the United Nations considers them as enemies to be eliminated. We are no longer in the conspiratorial scenarios in which Haitians were seen as prime targets by resentful Western leaders, thirsting for revenge for the 1803 defeat of the French generals at Saint-Domingue. For those readers who think it is inconceivable to claim that the United Nations intends to establish a regime of terror in Haiti, let them think again by looking at what has happened or is still happening in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iraq, Libya, Syria and, above all, in Egypt, where the arrival of the Muslim Brotherhood to power democratically led to a military coup and a very bloody repression (1).

The United Nations is trying to establish a regime of terror in Haiti. To prove it, ....

Haiti “Reconstruction”: Luxury Hotels, Sweat Shops and Deregulation for the Foreign Corporate Elite

Click here to access article by Julie Lévesque from Global Research.

This article provides one more illustration of capitalist players acting like predators on others who are desperate due to a misfortune. Many of Haiti's population remain in dire conditions from their devastating earthquake of 2010. After much hoopla in US media about their plight and massive donor campaigns to help out the victims, what has mostly happened, and very quietly, is that capitalist predators have moved in to take advantage of the most desperate workers on the earth. The author provides all the depressing details.

The international community is not helping rebuild Haiti. It is improving colonialism in Haiti with its companies, using the country’s population as slave labor to boost profits. The startling difference between the slow reconstruction efforts for Haitians as opposed to the rapid rise of the luxury hotel industry shows that in Haiti, the foreigners come first. Sadly white supremacy and slavery are still alive and well in the “pearl of the Antilles”.

Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti

Click here to access article by Adam Tomes from CounterFire (UK).

Hillary Clinton & right-wing Pres. Michel Martelly in 2011

Tomes provides us with a book review of a recently published book by this title authored by Jeb Sprague. It is a very disconcerting story of transnational capitalists and their ongoing rape of a country founded by African slaves who successfully fought for independence from France. It is a neo-colonial story of managed elections, corruption, paramilitaries, exploitation, etc. 

Sprague’s book is very detailed, very analytical and incredibly eye-opening. As a newcomer to the modern history of Haiti, the reader feels enmeshed in the story from below, in the story of Fanmi Lavalas. The reader leaves feeling both angry and enlightened, but the wider story is the tale of how transnational elites support democracy only where it fits their interpretation of it, and that the use of paramilitarism has been an effective method of control used to disenfranchise the popular classes. The observations here can cast light on struggles elsewhere, such as those in Venezuela, Bolivia and Honduras.

See also this, this, this, and this for more information.

As mining conglomerates target Haiti, Latin America rises against them

Click here to access article by Roger Annis and Kim Ives from International Viewpoint. 

In Haiti, U.S. and Canadian gold mining companies are rubbing their hands over the riches that they believe await them. A recent study by Haiti Grassroots Watch estimates up to $20 billion, at gold’s current price of $1,600 an ounce, lies in the ground [1].

So it’s no coincidence that Washington has used its proxy, the Organization of American States (OAS), to illegally install a compliant regime – that of President Michel Martelly – whose operative watchword is: “Haiti is open for business.” Washington and Ottawa, which represent most of the international mining firms in the Americas, are adopting an increasingly interventionist response throughout the continent.

The article contains a lot of interesting revelations regarding recent political changes in Haiti engineered by Western elites to further the plundering of Haiti's valuable resources.

From Syria to Haiti: Another showcase of Western hypocrisy

Click here to access article from RT (Russia). 

The recent return of the infamous Baby Doc Duvalier to Haiti provides a dramatic lesson in the hypocrisy of Western "humanitarian" interventions in other countries.

While the free western nations are falling over each other in their indignation over human right violations in Syria, they neatly look the other way when a former dictator is walking free while UN troops look on and stay ‘neutral’.

Haiti: Open For Busines

Click to access articles, Part 1 and Part 2, from IPS News Service. 

Chalmers, who heads the Haitian Platform for Alternative Development, deplores what he calls incredible “short-sightedness” and lack of vision.

“They are betting Haiti’s future on slave labour,” he said. “I think it is more than just an error. It’s a crime, because in general assembly industry factories don’t bring development, they don’t bring prosperity, and they won’t help us get out our current situation.”

These two articles will give you a progress report on the US taxpayer handout to US corporations to exploit Haitian labor, all in the name of post-earthquake aid spearheaded by the Clintons. But, of course, it is only more of the same disaster capitalism that corporations pursue all over the world. 

A Pulled Scoop Shows U.S. Fought to Keep Haitian Wages Down

Click here to access article by Ryan Chittum from Columbia Journalism Review.

This article illustrates why WikiLeaks is such a problem for the US ruling class. The leaks reveal to US citizens the dirty details of the ongoing class war against all working people everywhere. The targeted group in this example are Haitian workers.

Two years ago, Haiti unanimously passed a law sharply raising its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour. That doesn’t sound like much (and it isn’t), but it was two and a half times the then-minimum of 24 cents an hour.

This infuriated American corporations like Hanes and Levi Strauss that pay Haitians slave wages to sew their clothes. They said they would only fork over a seven-cent-an-hour increase, and they got the State Department involved.

Martelly-Clinton Seal Deal for Next Wave of Disaster Capitalism in Haiti

Click here to access article by Kanya D’Almeida from UpSide Down World.

Now that Haiti has disappeared from US mainstream media, we see the reconstruction of Haiti proceeding according to the neo-liberal agenda: providing US and other Western corporations with low-cost sweatshop industrial labor and mono-crop agriculture for export while preserving the appearance of "democracy" by managing their elections. This article provides all the details.

Despite months of outrage from scores of human rights, research and advocacy organisations in and around Haiti regarding the legitimacy, mandate and professionalism of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) - which arbitrarily banned the hugely popular Fanmi Lavalas (FL) party from contesting, causing tens of thousands of urban working class Haitians to boycott the polls - Clinton happily accepted the results and, alluding to Martelly’s election slogan ‘Tet Kale’, assured him that the U.S. was behind him "all the way".

Roger Annis, a journalist with the grassroots weekly Haiti Liberte, wrote this week that Martelly’s 6 million dollar campaign cost was largely financed by what the president-elect refers to as his "friends in the U.S.", marking today’s commitment by the two heads of state to preserve their relationship as the logical next-step in the U.S.’s age-old practice of profiting immensely from "aid and development assistance" to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

US Tries to Block Aristide Return, Derail Democracy

by Murphy Woodhouse from Americas Program. 

South Africa, Aristide’s home for most of his exile, has been under intense pressure to prevent the immensely popular former president from leaving the country. President Obama called South African President Jacob Zuma personally on Tuesday and expressed his “deep concerns” about Aristide’s return. According to the Miami Herald, Obama’s call, as well as a call from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, did not change the South African government’s decision to not interfere with Aristide’s return.

The US, as usual, is trying to protect corporate interests in Haiti. See this, this, and this.

Haiti: Washington’s Cynical Campaign to Keep Aristide in South Africa

by Glen Ford from Voltaire. 

If diplomacy is a form of lying, then the United States’ efforts to delay indefinitely the return to Haiti of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is a triumph of the most foul diplomacy.

One Year After Haiti Earthquake, Corporations Profit While People Suffer

by Jordan Flaherty from Dissident Voice. 

Now that mainstream media's spotlight is off Haiti and all the grand efforts of Western philanthropy to help in their recovery from last year's earthquake disaster, we now learn what is really happening with these efforts.

...it’s not just corporations who have been guilty of profiting from Haitian suffering. A recent report from the Disaster Accountability Project (DAP) describes a “significant lack of transparency in the disaster-relief/aid community,” and finds that many relief organizations have left donations for Haiti in their bank accounts, earning interest rather than helping the people of Haiti. DAP director, Ben Smilowitz, notes that “the fact that nearly half of the donated dollars still sit in the bank accounts of relief and aid groups does not match the urgency of their own fundraising and marketing efforts and donors’ intentions, nor does it covey the urgency of the situation on the ground.”

See also this from Mother Jones.

Miami Rice: The Business of Disaster in Haiti

by Beverly Bell and Tory Field from Toward Freedom. 

As we file this article, Port-au-Prince is thick with the smoke of burning tires and with gunfire. Towns throughout the country, along with the national airport, are shut down due to demonstrations. Many are angry over the government’s announcement on Tuesday night of which two presidential candidates made the run-offs: Jude Célestin from the widely hated ruling party of President René Préval and the far-right Mirlande Manigat. This is another obvious manipulation of what had already been a brazenly fraudulent election. A democratic vote is one more thing that has been taken from the marginalized Haitian majority, compounding their many losses since the earthquake of January 12.

What is at stake in Haiti? What interests underlie the grab for power in the country? One answer is the large amount of aid and development dollars that are circulating. Among those benefiting handsomely from the disaster aid are U.S. corporations who have accessed U.S. government contracts. Below is the tale of one U.S. corporation and its subsidiaries, who have received contracts which involve both a conflict of interest and harm to one of Haiti’s largest and most vulnerable social sectors, small farmers.

It is business as usual in Haiti with American and other corporations continuing their rape and plunder of this tragedy-ridden country to satisfy their addiction to profit.

Silent Coup in Haiti

by Darren Ell from Unside Down World (original source from The Dominion (Canada). 

Get the latest update on events in Haiti and learn how the power elite's in the US, Canada, and France are continuing to manage the political events in this tragedy-ridden country. The reporter discussed "the crisis of democracy" with "some key political on the ground in Haiti and abroad."

I was particularly interested in their responses to this question:

Is it fair to say that the international community does not want to see democracy in Haiti? And if so, why, especially considering Haiti’s great need and the sums of money promised for reconstruction by the international community?

US military enforces attacks on Haitian unions Pt2 (8:18m video)

from Real News Network. This is continuation of the interview with Didier Dominique who claims that there is a deliberate US policy to weaken Haitian farming to create a pool of cheap textile labor.

US military enforces attacks on Haitian unions--part 1 (10:99m video)

from Real News Network. Paul Jay interviews Didier Dominique who is a trade unionist and a prominent spokesperson for Batay Ouvriye. BATAY OUVRIYE  is an organization that regroups factory unions and committees, workers’ associations and militants, all struggling in Haiti for the construction of an independent, combative and democratic union movement, and to organize wage-workers, self-employed workers as well as the unemployed for the defense of their rights.

For $10 Billion of "Promises" Haiti Surrenders its Sovereignty

posted at Global Research, original source at  Haïti Liberté. It appears to me that the same interests that destroyed Haiti's agriculture will now be directing the aid packages.

It was fitting that the Mar. 31 "International Donors Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti" was held in the Trusteeship Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York. At the event, Haitian President René Préval in effect turned over the keys to Haiti to a consortium of foreign banks and governments, which will decide how (to use the conference's principal slogan) to "build back better" the country devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

With cheap food imports, Haiti can't feed itself

from the Washington Post. Hillary Clinton apologizes for her support of neo-liberal policies that have devastated Haiti's agriculture!

Decades of inexpensive imports - especially rice from the U.S. - punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.

Mercenaries Circling Haiti

from Common Dreams.

Patrick Elie, the former Minister of Defence in Haiti, told Anthony Fenton of the Inter Press Service that "these guys are like vultures coming to grab the loot over this disaster, and probably money that might have been injected into the Haitian economy is just going to be grabbed by these companies and I'm sure they are not the only these mercenary companies but also other companies like Haliburton or these other ones that always come on the heels of the troops."

The aid racket

from Socialist Worker. 

Ashley Smith documents how the NGOs in Haiti have provided the means for the U.S. government to circumvent the Haitian state and impose neoliberal polices.

Angry demonstrators demand Sarkozy to pay up and return Aristide to Haiti

by Kevin Pina from Haiti Action.

Aristide was forced out of the country in a coup ten months later on Feb. 29, 2004 and flown to the former French colony of the Central African Republic. Although the main author of the coup is still seen as the administration of George W. Bush, Haitians have never forgotten the role that France played in supporting the opposition movement to Aristide and their demands that he resign.