While Haiti isn’t on most American’s radar, until a disaster strikes, we’ve been screwing the country for the last hundred or so years.
In fact, our “help” has actually caused many of the conditions that made this earthquake even more deadly.
For a great synopsis of our history, read this piece from the St. Petersburg Times site- but especially pay attention to this part:
Nor was that the only time U.S. policy undercut gains made by U.S. aid.
Before 1950, Haiti produced most of its own food. But after the International Monetary Fund persuaded it to reduce import tariffs in the ’80s, U.S. rice poured into the country and put many rice farms out of business. Today, three-fourths of Haiti’s rice comes from the United States.
Greg pointed me to some other great articles- but, I’m going to let him sum them up in comments.
Here is our discussion on the issues- and how reactive solutions aren’t solving problems in third world nations.
Enjoy!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
The Haitians are in a constant state of forced anorexia, and according to Esrati and Hunter Morning Show, it is the fault of American companies. Of course, like so many theories originating from these shockmeisters, it is wrong, from the company that Dave mentioned (Nestle is headquartered in Switzerland) to the basic theory of agriculture imports. Fact is, using your theory, Dave and Greg, there should be gangs of machete wielding thugs roaming the area of Wayne and Wyoming. The US imports more agriculture than any country in the world ($1 billion from China alone) and yet, our agriculture has never been more productive (the US exports eight times more agriculture to Beijing than it brings in). Agriculture does not flourish in voodoo reinforced kleptocracies, which Haiti most assuredly is, nor do farmers prosper in areas that ignore property rights. If all 10,000 charitable agencies operating in Haiti left today, the dysfunctional Haitian culture would ensure mass starvation. Yeah, the US occupied Haiti several times in our shared history, but American troops still occupy Germany and Japan without the third world aftermath. But we all understand the inclination of leftists to want to blame the US for any international calamity. What the Haitians really need is a free market, but two centuries of a toxic culture may be impossible to undo……………..
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
@IceBandit – ignore us, go look at what David Brooks says about Haiti: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html
And I guess you don’t know about Nestlé’s impact in Sub-Saharan Africa where they provided formula that needed clean water to make- and weaned babies off their mommas- only to suffer….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott
Yep- free markets solve all problems- just like they have here.
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
It was still late in the disastrous Carter administration, but the Old Bandito had a smile on his face and a song in his heart. For he, in a miracle almost on par with the parting of the Red Sea, was able to go six months without being under the influence of the Demon Rum or John Barleycorn. Filled with an almost messianic fervor, the Old Bandito somehow got the idea that it was his duty to save all the drunken miscreants of Detroit. Let the history record the Old Bandito’s efforts as a failure, not only because of the sheer number of Motor City inebrianats (at the time, it was the urinating, barfing and passing out on the sidewalk center of the universe) , but also because, by and large, drunks in Motown did not want to be saved. Not all dysfunction can be cured, and that goes for nations as well as people. Dominicans, who as Greg noted share the island with Haiti, have a hard-edged policy about their neighbor; they frankly don’t tolerate Haitians. As far as the basket case that is Africa, sub-saharian and otherwise, the Old Bandito’s guess is that babies on that continent who never come in contact with Nestle products fare far worse than those who do. The problem isn’t Nestle David, but the international left’s unending search for a corporate boogeyman. You’re probably right David, a free market would probably not turn Haitians into gentlemen farmers. But that is not the fault of markets, for they will only avail themselves to those with the freedom, the patience and the gumption to exploit them; traits Haitians seem to be historically lacking………..
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
Yep- free markets solve all problems- just like they have here. (David Esrati)
Well, dear David, where did you get the idea that the US has a free market in any area from agriculture to the US toy industry whose demise you lamented last week. Remember a couple of years ago, when gasoline was around the $4 a gallon mark, that the geniuses in Washington decided that ethanol was going to be the next big thing? Farm subsidies for corn were implemented, and giant distilleries popped up all around the midwest to produce this wonderous elixir. Of course, as with just about every government plan, this turned into a bust of historic proportion. Gas prices fell, and the lack of corn for human consumption caused prices for all foodstuffs to skyrocket with the greatest impact felt in the third world. The Old Bandito sure is happy he wasn’t in Chiapas during the “tortilla riots” of last year. Meanwhile, these giant distilleries sit unused, some only partially completed. Don’t count on the media (other than bloggers) to chronicle this sorry episode, and don’t expect anyone in Washington to face a news camera and say “boy, we were wrong on this one.” And as for toys, recent government regs concerning testing for minute amounts of lead not only put the small toy producers out of business, but has caused such groups as Goodwill to get out of the used toy business. So from farm subsidies that incentivize corn that will never be eaten to the filling of landfills with teddy bears, the dark and deleterious hand of government never stops. Free markets, David? Certainly not here; we prosper in spite of government rather than because of it……………
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
Well Bandito at least you give a good go and as always you seem to denigrate the DC decisions much like D&G, but never offer any solutions. My question to you is “What do you want Government to do?”
I want Government to be a counterbalance outside forces that unduly cause the common AMERICAN harm, whether it be Corporate Propaganda or Enemies of America’s Freedom.
For instance lets try this question. If a person has a recurring sinus condition is it better to load them up on Claritan or tell them to use the Neti Pot first? It has taken my 40 years of Sinus infections and Pill popping to come to the realization that a homeopathic method is much more effective. Now do you think the makers of Claritan or Neti Pots would dominate in a Free Market Solution? Take a look at Norway and its response to infections and you may get a clue that not all Free Market Solutions are the best ones, just the best marketed and well funded.
I will try to offer some salient points that link the Haitian response as we compare the Food Dumping orchestrated by the Western Aid societies that is directly counter to the teach a man to fish argument. Mexico bought into this dumping and in effect drove its own farmers out of business, as did Haiti. But when that aid goes away, can the population support itself? No. Russia had enough pride and Nationalism to recognize the problem when they see it.
Because we have monoculture and lazy farmers that continue to get subsidies to grow the same crop we got a STUPID response from the government as gas prices elevated – Ethanol, which is unsustainable at any price as the inputs of energy and water to create it should only be done on a local level aka MOONSHINE.
Cheap Energy is what drives all these market solutions and I expect Government to provide education on what the decline in Cheap Energy will do to the American and world economies.
Because America subsidizes the Agricultural industry – America can probably starve ( as you so eloquently point out by our trade surplus with China in that area) as well as bomb the rest of the World into submission. God Bless America!
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
I lived in Haiti from 1998 – 2000 and love the country dearly. Here’s something I sent out a couple of days ago.
Watching too much TV re. Haiti made me depressed and sick. This op-ed on the other hand is just what the doctor ordered and offers some hope for Haiti. Haiti is a nation of resistance and resilience. Were this not the case, it would not exist. Despite what Pat Robertson and other misguided zealots may say, the Haitian people did not deserve this. They will pick up the pieces and begin the long, long, long, hard, hard, hard task of rebuilding.
Haiti won’t be the same, but it will recover.
Don’t Give Up on Haiti
By Amy Wilentz
January 15, 2010
Almost since its inception, outsiders have proclaimed Haiti doomed. In the wake of its 1791 slave rebellion, which led, in 1804, to independence from France and the establishment of the world’s first black republic, observers were convinced the island nation would not survive. The sin of the triumphant Haitians was not only their blackness. Even worse, while many professed Christianity, the great majority followed traditional African practices, or voodoo.
More recently, doomsayers have focused on Haiti’s corrupt leadership, on its environmental disasters and its failure to find a good fit with globalization. And yet, the country has limped on, defiantly resilient. With Tuesday’s devastating earthquake, Haiti’s inevitable demise is again being heralded, most egregiously by fundamentalist minister Pat Robertson, who declared the earthquake evidence that Haiti was under a curse because it had made “a deal with the devil” to get out from under French rule. Well, Robertson is an unvarnished speaker, let’s put it that way. But he is not the only one who thinks like this.
As Paul Farmer, the doctor and international humanitarian, has written, even the media, which should know better, have helped “to perpetuate a series of peculiarly potent myths about Haiti and Haitians.” Robertson, in other words, is saying out loud what many have been thinking, without knowing why. I have at least seven e-mails in my in-box from well-meaning friends using the word “cursed” in the subject line or text.
Not surprisingly, Haitians often feel this way too, and never more than right now. It’s a kind of brainwashing: They’ve been hearing they are cursed for so long that they believe it. Also, it’s hard to feel proud of your historical legacy when your family is buried under the rubble of a slum and your presidential palace, symbol of Haiti’s patrimoine, looks more like a deflated pan of muffins than a shining beacon to the nation and to the oppressed everywhere.
One doesn’t have to think back too far, though, to a time when things were better. It’s no wonder Haitians often long for the days before globalization, when Haiti’s farmers did not have to compete with cheaper produce from abroad, when the countryside was more or less self-sufficient, when people were not starving. I’m not saying Haiti was a tropical paradise, but when I started going there in 1986, at least there was a local economy of sorts, and poverty hadn’t pushed peasants to cut down all their trees. There was dirt to farm and a vibrant culture. There was the coumbite, a get-together in which Haitians sang and helped each other till the earth, bring in the harvest, roof a house. You can still find this kind of life in some spots in Haiti.
In recent years, however, extreme poverty in the countryside has driven huge swaths of the population into Port-au-Prince, looking for a job, a way out, a boat to Florida or the Bahamas, anything. Haiti has traditionally been highly centralized — it modeled itself on France, where there is the metropole (Paris) and les provinces (the rest of the country). In large measure, Port-au-Prince is Haiti, which is why the headlines refer to Haiti’s devastation, though large parts of the country seem not to have been much affected by the quake.
Today, the capital is home to at least a sixth and probably more of the population. The city has spread out like an urban ectoplasm, over hillside and ravine, scattering concrete and asphalt wherever it expands. Country people who moved to town built slanting, uncontrolled favelas to accommodate the new arrivals, slums that now have crashed down to the bottom of the ravines.Haitians will have a lot to consider when they finally can gather themselves up from this awful catastrophe and think again about more abstract things than food, water, shelter and medicine.
When your country is a shambles, it concentrates the mind. When the symbols of state — the National Palace, the justice ministry, the Parliament, the police headquarters — have been reduced to a nonsense pile of broken construction materials, you have to re-imagine your national aspirations. (The United States did this to a degree after 9/11, and think what might have happened if those planes had hit the White House too.) The United States as well as Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, Taiwan, France and others can provide construction and medical material, as well as expert advisors, for building a new Haiti.
We cannot know yet how many who would have participated in constructing that Haiti lie dead beneath what, only days ago, was Port-au-Prince. Every few hours I hear further dispiriting news about who has perished, about who is presumed dead. Friends who lived in apartments near the center of town have remained ominously silent.
There are tens of thousands of victims of this earthquake. Still, it bears remembering that there are also many survivors. Help will come and is already on the way. People are still being pulled alive from the rubble, and Haiti itself will also emerge.. As a Haitian American friend said Wednesday on Twitter: “Don’t get your hopes down.”
The tragedy is tremendous and the threats to life ongoing in a situation in which the ground is still trembling and disease likely. But the capacity of this people for survival and, indeed, for greatness in the worst of conditions has been demonstrated for more than two centuries. These are the descendants of people who overthrew an indecent, inhuman, overpowering slave system. Many of those still alive grew up under a vicious dynasty and rose up to oust it.
It’s entirely likely, therefore, that Haitians once again will put together a national coumbite. With a huge humanitarian effort from their friends, they will rebuild the country — for the better. The will must be there for the world to come to Haiti’s aid and work with the millions of surviving Haitians to rebuild this valuable country.
So many Haitians, including the president, have nowhere to sleep, but they will sleep and get up again tomorrow to face the troubles.
Amy Wilentz is the author of, among other books, “The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier.”She teaches journalism at UC Irvine.
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
Thanks John and here is another author who looked at the issues.
Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of Christian Missions, Orphanages, Fraud, Food Aid and Drug Trafficking; by Dr. Timothy Schwartz; 2008
http://www.amazon.com/Travesty-Haiti-Christian-orphanages-trafficking/dp/1419698036
http://3907.cupe.ca/wp/?p=456
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
My question to you (Ice Bandit) is “What do you want Government to do?” (Greg Hunter)
Well, dear Greg, what the Old Bandito wants government to do can be summarized in two words; not much. But since a large and centralized and runaway government can do just about anything it wants (with the Obama administration as a template) perhaps a more appropriate question would be “what do you want government to be?” And El Bandito’s answer to that question is government should be minimized, minimalized and broke. In the area of drug enforcement alone, the government has dozens of overlapping agencies, each with police powers, with each agency pursuing a criminal investigation in an area that at best should be considered a public health issue. The bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms spends its’ days complicating three legal areas, with the latter being protected by a constitutional amendment. The department of Housing and Urban Devolopment (how’s this for a successful bureau?) is but another example of an expensive and freedom trampling boondoggle we can no longer afford…..
“but (Ice Bandit) never offer any solutions…” (Greg Hunter)
Au contraire, mon freire. El Bandito de Helios is the solution dude. And the solution is a smaller and less intrusive government that respects and protects the citizenry, and values freedom over control. The Founders were right to fear a large goverrmental behemoth, and authored and approved a constitution to limit said state. And we do not receive our rights and freedoms from a state; they are gifts from God upon which no government may impede nor infringe. What you are really saying, dear Greg, is “Ice Bandit offers no solutions that two brainwashed by government morning commentators find palatable…….
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
Well Bandito I would make that deal! Believe me I would take a sword to most of the agencies and bloated bureaucracies. I guess I wanted to pare it down with some thought and consideration but I am at the point that it probably needs to burn to the ground. It appears the elite from NYC and DC are pouring enough fuel on the pyre and we will see if it burns soon. I only participate in the daily bitching to get it off my chest. Much Love!
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
Free market Christianity err insanity….
Brilliant or Bozo?
0 
1
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Bozo:
0 
10
{ 1 trackback }