And Another From Haiti:

Am I the only one somewhat reluctant to comment on these last posts, given the Edwards’ focus earlier in the day? The Enquirer staff now wants to take this tragedy seriously?

It’s hard to imagine the scenes like the ones in Haiti. We’ve had hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other natural disaters here in the states, but the government was always there (if a bit late sometimes) to step in. What must it be like when there isn’t a strong government with piles of cash available? I seen several big floods here on the Ohio River but the damage was always gone in weeks or months at most. It’s hard to imagine Haiti recovering even years from now.

What? Clinton the Adulterer is in Haiti, delivering supplies? What a distraction! What an egotistical jerk!

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Sorry, Karen. The sanctimony of the three posts today about he-who-shall-not-be named is upsetting.

If the writer were flying into Gaza, much of the description would be the same, but the narrative would read completely differently.

Maybe Americans need to consider being less selective about the human suffering they elect to profess to care about.

Not to diminish the plight of the Haitians, but there are thousands dying across the world every week, not through acts of God, but through actions of the US government.

Not to be snarky here, but I just heard/read that 20,000 US troops are expected to be in Haiti by Sunday.
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As an American, I am proud that we can respond so quickly.
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As a US Taxpayer, I am wondering…Why, exactly, was it going to take us 18 months to get 30,000 troops to Afghanistan?
Just askin’….

It’s the training. Most Americans who carry guns have learnt how to interact with black people over several generations.

With Moslems it is different. It is, after all, less than ten years since 9/11.

::smiling::
Give me a minute to wrap my head around that one, Abdullah…;)

Nicely written overview of Donna Brazile’s experience.
Thanks for sharing it. Readers of Daily Kos have been supporting a group called Shelter Box USA. They send containers that have tents and other supplies to assist at least 10 people for over a month. The boxes are $1000 each but are real life savers. Kos readers have sent over $80,000 to Shelter Box. It is great seeing the videos of the boxes arriving.
My hope, as with others, is that we continue to support and understand the poverty in Haiti that exists now and did before the earthquake. I would be most happy if we can help them to become self sufficient and have a liveable society.

I think adbullah is being 99 percent snarky, but he or she is right about training as a major difference in the ability to deploy troops for different missions. You can throw a lot of desk jockeys and or non-combat trained or ready troops in to an aid mission. You simply can’t do that with a combat mission.

There are so many heros in Haiti …and they are the citizens!!! who have chanted religious songs from day one; who lift their hands up to the heavens when they are rescued days after being buried—young kids; adults–They all are examples of how to embrace life and tragedies—and I doubt that there is one person reading this whose life has ever encountered
such a devastating shove!!! God bless. Give and give generously…if it means one less meal to us…it does not matter!!!

The account is Minyon Moore’s, not Donna Brazile’s. I don’t know whether Brazile was present on the trip or not.

No, you’re not the only one.
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The orgy of gossip masquerading as concern yesterday was beyond unseemly, and has cheapened the blog and dulled the effect of subsequent posts on Haiti.
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They don’t really understand how tawdry they appear, I think.

The people of Haiti are resilient because they are poor! They have no resources which are sought after by the world.
They are holed up in hovels and have been led by dictators who decimated the country and left in its place a shell of a banana republic, a washed out rat hole.

I find the pictures of the poor, injured and/or orphaned children unbearable. While I know that adults are also impacted by this disaster, I do hope that the children are provided loads of mental health support in addition to food and shelter.
I can only imagine what those poor little (children) hearts have been forced to hold in. The whole thing is totally heart wrenching!

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/technology-savvy-nigerian-criminals-are-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

square thanks for clarifying for me. It still was a nicely written piece.

Well put.

I knew someone who had been a missionary in South America. He told me that though the people he brought the holy spirit to were poor they were still happy. Their poverty was immense but they smiled alot.
My response was BS. Affluent countries need to assist 3rd and 4th world countries to come out of their grinding poverty. Malnutrition, lack of education, and trying to survive day to day is the enemy of a free society. Instead of taking advantage of poverty (see Marianas), we need to see that our corporations do not exploit the poverty. Financial aid is good, volunteers on the ground are good, but we also need to make sure people have worthwhile opportunities to bring themselves out of poverty.

Firstly, we wish to extend once again our sincere condolences to the people and the government of Haiti following the tragic death and massive destruction caused by the earthquake of 12 January 2010

The country of about 9 million people, most of them desperately poor, has struggled with political instability and has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of the buildings were shoddily built and unsafe in normal circumstances.

moladi is geared to provide support and our construction technology to assist Haiti and her people in the reconstruction process that will follow. moladi reinforced walls and stub wall configuration is designed to with stand earthquakes and minimize the damage created by the impact. With the moladi process of formwork construction we are able to utilize the rubble from the collapsed buildings to create new permanent structures – Reducing construction time and cost – stronger than block or brick walls. Very important to eliminate costly ‘tented camps’.
Many Haitians are now unemployed (even before the earthquake), therefore it is vital to create jobs and not simply offer an end product. The need is not only for houses but also for schools shops offices and all the building structures that have been destroyed (90%).

You are welcome to visit our website at http://www.moladi.net

apr, it’s risky for any area – both here and abroad – to rely on one major employer. It’s even worse when that co. seeks lower costs by shutting plants / firing people (think auto plants here), let alone exploit local labor at rock bottom wages and crappy benefits (or none). Diverse economies are the best way. Many regions / countries have natural tourist attractions or unique products to sell, like Vermont maple syrup, Afghan pomegranates, and Indian / Chinese teas. But you’re right, we need to all pitch in and help build economies – and rebuild our own too in the process.
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But no swamp posts today? Are the reporters po’ed at us or what?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-strausskahn/why-we-need-a-marshall-pl_b_432919.html
This is an article on Huffpost suggesting a Marshall Plan for Haiti. It is amazing, after WWII, we went into the devestated countries and rebuilt their infrastructure, banking capabilities, monetary systems, and encouraged the renewal of business entities. For most of those countries, we were rewarded with democratic nations that were self sufficient and customers for our products.
Why do we always take a short outlook for assistance to countries and our own cities and states (Katrina), when natural disasters strike, that do little to make for a stable economy?
We rebuilt Europe due to benevolent self interst. Nothing wrong with that.

Three separate holier than thou posts about Edwards and still nothing about that catastrophic SCOTUS decision? Digby’s reaction:
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NY Times Editorial:
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“With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.
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Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy.”
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Digby:
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“Let me see if I have this straight. The latest Supreme Court ruling will permit previously unavailable millions, if not tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to be spent on American politics. And the Times is calling on the direct beneficiaries of all this spanking new cash to limit their own access to it.
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That’s really funny.
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In a crying-your-eyes-out-for-the-future-of-your-country kind of way.”

Why is it that the US Government, our media, and our celebrities are more concerned for the people in Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan than they are for the people in the United States?
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Don’t get me wrong, I feel terribly for the people of Haiti. I certainly don’t want them to suffer and I hope they can rebuild their country. But why is it always the United States’ responsibility to solve everyone else’s problems?
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It is time for us to focus on the people who live in the United States. Let China, Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and Brazil solve the world’s problems for the next 50 years. We just don’t have the money or the political will to do it anymore.
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Perhaps we could send the United Nations to Europe, sell that property to the highest bidder, and send that cash to Haiti. But let’s bring our soldiers back to the US to rebuild OUR country – not Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan.

choska are you serious? Do you know how many countries are in Haiti assisting them. I want our soldiers home and out of disastrous wars. However, we need poorer nations to progress and become part of an international community that fosters self determination. This is what will kill terrorism. Poverty is a breeding ground for terror.

“Why is it that the US Government, our media, and our celebrities are more concerned for the people in Haiti…?”
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Limiting the discussion to Haiti for the moment, I’d say this provides an answer:
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http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20040309.htm
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Is such historical context the reason why we’re helping is another matter. Other than aid, will lasting policy change empower Haiti, yet another.

Oregon JC:
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I asked Greenwald this, today, but he’s probably too swamped (pardon the pun) to get to it:
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The Austin Court’s Compelling Interest
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Mr. Greenwald:
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I would greatly appreciate it if you would explain whether or not you concur with the Court’s rejection of Austin’s “antidistortion” rationale for the state’s compelling interest in speech restrictions summarized in the majority opinion thus:

To bypass Buckley and Bellotti, the Austin Court identified a new governmental interest in limiting political speech: an antidistortion interest. Austin found a compelling governmental interest in preventing “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” 494 U. S., at 660; see id., at 659 (citing MCFL, 479 U. S., at 257; NCPAC, 470 U. S., at 500–501).

Here is the actual text of Austin:

they are justified by a compelling state interest: preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption in the political arena by reducing the threat that huge corporate treasuries, which are amassed with the aid of favorable state laws and have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas, will be used to influence unfairly election outcomes

As an aside, do you find it interesting that the Court did not choose to include the highlighted passage “huge corporate treasuries, which are amassed with the aid of favorable state laws”, literally excising it from its citation?
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The Majority rejects Austin on a number of grounds. It appears to deliberately misinterpret the exclusion of media corporations, as if the nature of the business of dissemination of speech was somehow indistinguishable to the Justices. But perhaps most interesting is that it denies that Austin applies solely to the very “huge corporate treasuries” of which Austin sought to restrict the distorting influence:

Austin interferes with the “open marketplace” of ideas protected by the First Amendment.
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It permits the Government to ban the political speech of millions of associations of citizens.
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Most of these are small corporations without large amounts of wealth. See Supp.Brief for Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America as Amicus Curiae 1, 3 (96% of the 3 million businesses that belong to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce have fewer than 100 employees);
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This fact belies the Government’s argument that the statute is justified on the ground that it prevents the “distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth.” Austin, 494
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U. S., at 660. It is not even aimed at amassed wealth.

The Court relies upon seemingly irrelevant finding of facts with respect to the percentage of firms not in possession of massed fortunes (helpfully provided by the Chamber of Commerce) to conclude that the intent of the Austin court was to deprive any corporation of its First Amendment rights. It asserts that Austin applies equally to all firms, from the largest oil company to the dry-cleaners on the corner.
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Yet, strangely enough, the Court also prefers Buckley to Austin:

But Buckley rejected the premise that the Government has an interest “in equalizing the relative ability of individuals and groups to influence the outcome of elections.”

If the Court finds that Austin is over-broad in its equal applicability to corporations large and small, then why would it need to cite Buckley’s rejection of the constitutionality of statutes’ equalization of influencing ability?
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Why or why not do you concur with the Majority’s opinion with respect to its rejection of Austin? Do you find the Court’s reasoning sound?
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Thanks so much in advance for your response, Mr. Greenwald, it is greatly appreciated.
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—stuart_zechman
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I wish Lovely Bride Esq. would weigh in, but she’s busy.

Yes, I’m serious. I recognize that there are other countries helping in Haiti. But why should we join them?

You say that poverty is a breeding ground for terror, and I agree, but we don’t have the resources to eliminate poverty in the world. We don’t have the resources, either monetary, intellectual, or moral, to eliminate poverty in the United States. How can we possibly do it in the rest of the world?

More to your point, we’ve spent the last 50 years as the world’s leader in attempting to help poorer nations progress and become part of an international community. What has our good will and good actions bought us except for 9/11?

It is time for us to focus on using US tax dollars to improve the lives of US citizens. If China or Brazil wants to try being the world’s nurse or the world’s cop then let them. As we have seen time and again there is no upside for us in helping other countries, and we have real suffering here.

If US citizens want to send money to Haiti, then they should. I sent $100 myself. But US tax dollars should be spent on US citizens. (BTW, anyone want to explain to me why tax dollars from one State should be spent on the citizens of another State?)

SZ, please post any response you get. GG comment threads are too overwhelming to keep up with. I checked my email this a.m. and a friend had this sent this:
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_bi_ge/us_campaign_finance_ceos
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Things getting stranger by the day on that shore.

BTW, I only just managed to read GG’s post. Intriguing perspective. While I think congress is bought and paid for to the point that any hope of doing the people’s business (or merely addressing American problems in any constructive fashion) is nigh to impossible, IMO, things will get much worse going FWD. The NYT pt. about asking congress to cut off their own funds (thru which they’re elected immortals) is laughable. Any would-be reversals/corrections will inevitably lead back to this pt, which is still pretty f’ed. Overton window will obviously exclude heretical positions like 100% pub. financing.

The US gave $350 million when the tsunami occurred
about 5-6 years ago and the devastation was not near as great and vast or vile….though it was horrible. Thus far, Obama has pledged $100 million and many, many funds are coming from private donors. I am proud of our help and always remember that biblical verse “Yeah but for the sake of God, go I”. How can we NOT HELP OUT?

Now, if you want to talk about taking the money spent on wars to improve our security, to seal our borders and to improve our infrastructure, I am with you..

Hey, so, are you guys just taking a break from reporting all the news that’s going on?
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We kinda have some big stuff going on here and there hasn’t been a new post all day.

JC:
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This guy comes out and quotes the dissent, which is what I was trying to elicit from Greenwald:

Justice Stevens: “So let us be clear: Neither Austin nor McConnell held or implied that corporations may be silenced; the FEC is not a “censor”; and in the years since these cases were decided, corporations have continued to play a major role in the national dialogue. Laws such as §203 target a class of communications that is especially likely to corrupt the political process, that is at least one degree removed from the views of individual citizens, and that may not even reflect the views of those who pay for it. Such laws burden political speech, and that is always a serious matter, demanding careful scrutiny. But the majority’s incessant talk of a “ban” aims at a straw man.”

Greenwald didn’t do a terribly thorough job of analysis on the actual decision, and seems to have missed some disturbingly bad arguments being handed down by the Majority, and it perhaps over-relying on first principles.

Forgot the link, read the whole comment:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2010/01/22/citizens_united/permalink/3fc1895fb0bbe8b10319154970e5ae4e.html

Choska-Just because we are helping in Haiti does not mean a lot of us including me do not care about our own country. It also does not mean that the others there do not care about theirs. It also does not mean that the Haiti’s wish that they had no need for help. Poverty is so complex. I only wish it was simply about being poor. I truly think we could fix it. If only it was.

Gosh, chomska, you have a very narrow view of how we should interact with other countries. Imagine if you can what Western Europe would be if we hadn’t intervened with the Marshall Plan. Remember what happened to Poland, Hungary, etc after the Soviets took over. Imagine Germany if we hadn’t carried out the Berlin airlift. Think about Japan if we hadn’t occupied and helped rebuild their country and fostered democracy there. Again, the assistance was done for humanitary reasons but also to strengthen our allies and to make sure we had customers for our goods.
Lets see. You have a problem with your tax money being spent in other states than your own. How about in other counties other than your own, other towns than your own. Why should your neighbors benefit from your tax dollars? Are some of the members of your family using your tax dollars for their benefit?
Ever hear of the common good?

Hey, I’m not saying that charity from individuals is a bad thing. Last year I gave over $1000 to different charities. I’ll probably write another check for Haiti tonight. But that was MY choice. When our government spends money then my choice of where that money goes is taken away.

All I’m saying is that I would prefer a far, far smaller government that didn’t feel empowered to spend billions of dollars on wars, or NASA, or attempting to placate poverty in the world.

Instead, why not have a Federal government that has just enough money to protect our shores by preventing people who mean to do us harm from entering, and also just enough money to prosecute and imprison criminals. We should be able to do that for no more than $100 billion a year – tops.

Everything else, including the FDA and the NIH, we should leave to individuals OR to organizations funded by individuals. For example, if we want an FDA-type organization to monitor the food and drugs sold in the US then that should be funded through donations. I know this sounds like it wouldn’t work, except that an FDA funded by people like me who actually want organic food with accurate labeling would get what they want.

My guess is that limiting the ability of the US to exert power beyond our shores by limiting the size of the Federal government will do a world of good for everyone. If nothing else, the tax dollars could be returned to US citizen so that we can use it for good, rather than to subsidize Halliburton or Archer Daniels Midland.

And, to reiterate, I’d much prefer to see US citizens send $1 billion or more to Haiti. But we can’t because waging war in Iraq, Afghanistan, giving subsidies to corn, sugar, and cotton farmers, and sending $2 billion a year in military aid to Israel is expensive.

SZ, thanks again. Still not nearly as up to speed on this debate as I’d like to be. But, sh!t, I’m more up than this “blog about politics.”
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That commenters pt: “Anyone even rudimentarily familiar with the history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries can see that it can get much, much worse” seems obvious. I’m no less cynical than GG about the system heretofore and though I wouldn’t use the term naive, I’m frankly surprised by his early read on this. Again, what I would be afraid of going FWD is that any correction will only turn the clock back to early Jan. 2009 (i.e. an already failing democracy).
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One can only hope this catalyzes a movement, making the reality Durbin named last year even more obvious for all to see. As is now readily apparent, Nov. 2008 was not quite bad enough to reset the American decline. This decision assures things will get much worse before they get better (the only silver lining is the potential for more dramatic fixes down the road).

Am I bad?!!!! I remember (from my youth) bible quotes but in this case, I remembered the quote wrong…it is “there but for the grace of God…not the sake of God…go I.”

choska: I agree we would save a lot of money and lives if we didn’t get into premptive wars. Too often, particularly in recent history, we have interferred in other countries with less than humanitarian reasons. We need to work on getting rid of the proverbial “waste, fraud and abuse”. But, the government can and does give us useful services.
I guess we will just have to disagree about the good that government can do and what the outcomes might be.

Hiding the text behind a “read more” link is a great way to make sure nobody ever reads this post.