inspired

from Democracy Now:

Gaza Residents Donate to Haiti Relief Effort

Aid contributions for Haiti continue to pour in from around the world. On Sunday, a group of Palestinians in Gaza offered to send donations.

Jamal Al-Khudari of the Committee Against the Siege on Gaza: “We are sending donations, because, as Palestinian people, we suffered a lot, and we, the Palestinian people, feel more than other people of the world with the suffering of the people in Haiti. We suffer a lot, and we feel their suffering. That is why we decided to donate from the center of suffering, from the besieged Gaza.”

Things that help me remember to breathe deeper

folding warm clothes pancakes. my mama talking to the dogs in a silly voice. sunday. washing my face. tweets from @fatbellybella. remembering compliments. anticipating smiles. losing followers on twitter when i talk about real things. surrounding myself with music.

If Humanity is Sacred, Trying to Survive Should Never be a Crime

WE MUST NOT CRIMINALIZE ACTS OF SURVIVAL BY THE VICTIMS OF THIS TRAGEDY

(SADLY, THIS WAS A COMMON NARRATIVE IN THE AFTERMATH OF KATRINA. in the words of a description of the South End Press Collective Anthology, What Lies Beneath, w a foreward by radical feminist and abolitionist scholar Joy James: 'In August 2005, thousands of New Orleans residents—overwhelmingly poor, largely people of color, the majority black—were left to face one of the worst “natural” disasters in US history on their own. They were left to die in prisons, in nursing homes, and on the street. Survivors were criminalized as “looters” for struggling to obtain food, water, diapers, medicine, and other essentials of life that no one else could or would provide. )"

i have taken out some exerpts from the following pieces and pasted them below

US Policy in Haiti over Decades Laying Foundation for such Severe Devastation

and

Haiti faces Dangers of (Worsened) Disaster Capitalism

BILL QUIGLEY: Yeah. The trauma that this causes affects the elected officials, the police, the fire, everybody through. And ultimately, you know, until order is restored—and “order” meaning a just order is restored—people break into small groups, family groups, neighborhood groups and that to try to care for each other. The police are just as bewildered and traumatized as everybody else. And I want to say, one of the big worries that we have about Haiti is this, you know, sending in the military, that there is this real sense that you can’t actually start to feed people, you can’t actually share water with people, until you have people there with machine guns to prevent, you know, these—the worries of folks. And there’s an actual fear of the victims by people who are coming. They’re afraid of the people, when in fact the people are the most resilient, cooperative, generous folks who have already survived on their own. And this sort of militarization and scaredness—you know, scariness of the people there is something that’s common to all disasters. And we can talk some more about that in a bit, but it’s a very eerie sense of what’s happening there.

NAOMI KLEIN:

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 crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.And I just want to pause for a second and read you something, which is pretty extraordinary. I just put this up on my website. The headline is “Haiti: Stop Them Before They Shock Again.” This went up a few hours ago, three hours ago, I believe, on the Heritage Foundation website.

“Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S. 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 image of the United States in the region.” And then goes on.

Now, I don’t know whether things are improving or not, because it took the Heritage Foundation thirteen days before they issued thirty-two free market solutions for Hurricane Katrina. We put that document up on our website, as well. It was close down the housing projects, turn the Gulf Coast into a tax-free free enterprise zone, get rid of the labor laws that forces contractors to pay a living wage. Yeah, so it took them thirteen days before they did that in the case of Katrina. In the case of Haiti, they didn’t even wait twenty-four hours.

Now, why I say I don’t know whether it’s improving or not is that two hours ago they took this down. So somebody told them that it wasn’t couth. And then they put up something that was much more delicate. Fortunately, the investigative reporters at Democracy Now! managed to find that earlier document in a Google cache. But what you’ll find now is a much gentler “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti.” And buried down there, it says, “Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue.”

But the point is, we need to make sure that the aid that goes to Haiti is, one, grants, not loans. This is absolutely crucial. This is an already heavily indebted country. This is a disaster that, as Amy said, on the one hand is nature, is, you know, an earthquake; on the other hand is the creation, is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises—natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn’t be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations. And this is not a conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again.

haiti we remember you

here is a poem from stacie, on this inspiring blog skinned knees.wings.blueprints.:


Haiti, I remember you.

They call this an earthquake

But I remember you.

How we paralyzed your rebellions

Forced you to pay twenty-one billion dollars to France

For reclaiming your own freedom.

Haiti, how many ways you have paid for us.

And now, when your buildings crumble as the earth beneath you ruptures

Violently once again

Our reporters talk of your construction standards

Your dire poverty

Your “proclivity” for rebellion

Removes us from your history.

But I remember you Haiti.

I remember the Arawak people

The sugar cane fields

The Code Noir

Touissant in prison.

How it took 22 years and several failed attempts at re-enslavement

For France to recognize your independence

How it took the U.S. thirty-seven more, and later

with it’s own turn to master you, a nineteen year occupation

to control your people and pillage your resources

How, unsatiated, we backed Trujillo as he massacred your peasants

Helped install Papa Doc Duvalier and trained his notorious army

Overthrew Aristide not once, but twice. And now,

We will offer you “Aid”

Benevolently and bereft of history.

But I remember you, Haiti.

I remember the fault line

where the Spanish, French, and U.S. plates collide

For your bodies, your sugar, your coffee, your submission.

And I know this is no more natural than Katrina

because I live here on the San Andreas

and they say the big one is coming.

But Haiti, you are the Maldives, and I

Am the Netherlands.

And you are still paying debt to my banks

While I harbor your war criminals.

It is not much Haiti, but I remember.

-Stacie Szmonko

Voting

In conversation this past week with a friend who was a field organizer for the Obama campaign. She told me about a conference call that occurred between all of the Pennsylvania teams when one of the branches posted a sign in their office window that said "FELONS CAN VOTE." In Pennsylvania convicted Felons can vote for local, state and national office. After a huge amount of negative media press the branch was reprimanded by the "Obama for America" headquarters for putting up the sign. Sad but not surprising that the campaign wouldn't want an office to publicize this information to encourage people to register to vote (although I'm sure they were excited to get the votes) because of the stigma of jail time and incarceration. Made me think about the notion of the Obama campaign as an uninclusive movement and what kinds of movements I want to be part of. It is difficult to make things inclusive and celebratory of all but also so so worth it. Elana posted this article on the face book and now I have been really thinking about voting rights and who can vote. WHAT AN INSANE THING TO EXIST AS A STATE LAW especially in this time when *CYNICAL ALERT* voting barely means anything anyway.
Here is the article about felony voting in Washington State

RB and Aviva attempt to broaden their horizons by engaging for the first time with the game of Football

Aviva to RB: why are multiple games on at once, and doesnt that mean you have to choose between watching the saints and the falcons (who are currently playing the team they lost their dogfighting player to?!?) is that even right? so confusing, sports are. where is dave zirin when i need him>!>!?~??~

AT: YESSSS. and y'all should be proud, i learned what this is all about:
well kind of. something about some dude changing the game by being really fast and on the left side and blind spot and then you have to put a big guy somewhere to stop him?

nah WAY more important is that i know that the saints are 12-0 right now.

should have gotten a fleur-de-lis tattoo instead of those stupid dots.

"narrative" caught my eye

ew ew EW:

from Thomas Friedman's op-ed column in the NYT:

"The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.

Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving."