A Port-au-Prince, des amputations par milliers... Keeping the bastards honest in Haiti (as the profitable smell of. Is the U.S. doomed to forsake Haiti once more? - The Globe and M. Haitians," François (Papa Doc) Duvalier self-servingly said in 1966, "have a destiny to suffer. " For millions of his countrymen, it seemed a good enough answer, maybe the best. And just as it was during his murderous reign of terror, it may be the closest the Haitian people come to settling on an explanation for the unspeakable pain their country is experiencing today. Superstition, animism, voodoo - call it what you may - continues to condition how Haitians view the world and their place in it.
Papa Doc conveniently drew on this belief system to cast as predetermined the nature of his own election and inauguration and even the assassination of John Kennedy - all took place on the 22nd day of the month. The particularisms of Haitian culture have also long split the global community - and especially the superpower most equipped to help its impoverished Caribbean neighbour - on how to help the country get its act together. In the middle of all of this stands Barack Obama. -The Best Place- How to fix Port-au-Prince. From above, much of Port-au-Prince looks more like a great grey beach of crumbled concrete than the bustling port city of 2.8 million people that it once was and will be again. Entire city blocks have collapsed upon themselves, the streets that bisected them now filled with the rubble of people's homes and apartments.
The shattered hospitals are in as much of need of help as the sick and wounded streaming toward them. The offices of some international organizations - the people who usually help to rebuild after a disaster such as Tuesday's devastating earthquake - also were destroyed, and aid workers are among the missing and dead. There is no water or electricity, and the airport is only partly operational. Haitians may still be coming to grips with what hit them, but it's a relief worker's nightmare.
With as many as 45,000 people believed to be dead, it's hard to imagine that eventually life will return to something approaching normal in Port-au-Prince. If Anderson Cooper Can’t Win After an Earthquake, When Can He Wi. Earlier this week, CNN came under scrutiny by media watchbirds for participating in the epic story that is the aftermath of last week's devastating Haiti earthquake. After Anderson Cooper saved a child on-camera, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta put his medical skills to use operating on a girl whose life was in danger, critics like Poynter's Bob Steele accused them of "muddling the journalistic reporting.
" Mediaite wondered whether they had become, rather than reported, the story. But in truth, this is what Cooper and CNN do best. Their network leaders have made a conscious decision not to inject opinion into their shows to compete with cable news champion Fox News, or even MSNBC. But what they can do to add drama to otherwise staid news reporting is to give viewers actual drama, actual emotional and visceral responses from empathetic reporters. So how has he done these past few weeks, during the aftermath of the Haiti quake? Disasters are CNN's bread and butter, for Cooper more than anyone. Things to Remember While Helping Haiti | The Foundry: Conservati. RaceWire.org: the ColorLines Blog on Race and Politics. Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Aga. Readers of the The Shock Doctrine know that the Heritage Foundation has been one of the leading advocates of exploiting disasters to push through their unpopular pro-corporate policies.
From this document, they're at it again, not even waiting one day to use the devastating earthquake in Haiti to push for their so-called reforms. The following quote was hastily yanked by the Heritage Foundation and replaced with a more diplomatic quote, but their first instinct is revealing: "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. " Naomi Klein: How Not to Exploit Disasters - Newsweek.com.