Ah, it’s good to be rich and tasteless: Sixty miles from Haiti‘s devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks. The 4,370-berth Independence of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean International, disembarked at the heavily guarded resort of Labadee on the…
Showing all posts tagged Haiti
Review of The Road
Last night I watched the new film, The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy’s award winning book and directed by Australian John Hillcoat (here’s his diary): It’s a terrifying vision of a post-apocalyptic world where cannibalism thrives. We are never told why the planet is destroyed (nuclear holocaust/environmental catastrophe?) but it doesn’t matter. The grim vision…
The failures in Haiti are (mostly) man-made
Reporter Greg Palast loves to skewer establishment journalism and its seeming unwillingness to challenge the existing power structure. Here’s Palast on Haiti’s trauma and the reasons the rescue mission has been shambolic and most victims remain unfed six days after the earthquake: 1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately.…
Gaza is a man-made disaster, eyewitness account
During the recent Gaza Freedom March, I became good friends with Nitin Sawhney, a research affiliate at MIT. He’s currently in Gaza and writing a fascinating blog about his experiences. There’s much to digest but here’s something from the latest post: The devastating events of the recent earthquake in Haiti linger in my mind as…
Haiti isn’t poor because of God’s will
While the American media patronises the people of Haiti and refuses to provide any context for the country’s poverty, Patrick Cockburn offers some perspective: The US-run aid effort for Haiti is beginning to look chillingly similar to the criminally slow and disorganized US government support for New Orleans after it was devastated by hurricane Katrina…
Haiti is not another experiment on the neo-liberal highway
Naomi Klein speaks in New York a few days ago and gives a necessary perspective on the crisis in Haiti: 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…
The empire strikes again in Haiti
Haiti is the poorest country in its region with a long history of US meddling and pillage. Here’s why.
Haiti and Gaza, a comparison
Israeli peace group Gush Shalom publishes the following ad in Haaretz today: In far-away Haiti A terrible disaster Has occured. Within a few hours An Israeli aid mission Was organized. In near-by Gaza Hundreds of houses Lie in ruins. The inhabitants do not ask For an aid mission. Only that the Israeli government Stops preventing…