REMEMBERING WHAT HE DIED FOR

"I've decided what I'm going to do," King preached at one of his last sermons at Ebenezer Baptist Church. "I ain't going to kill nobody in Mississippi ... [and] in Vietnam. I ain't going to study war no more. And you know what? I don't care who doesn't like what I say about it. I don't care who criticizes me in an editorial. I don't care what white person or Negro criticizes me. I'm going to stick with the best. On some positions, cowardice asks the question, ‘is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, ‘is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, ‘is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, ‘is it right?' And there comes a time when a true follower of Jesus Christ must take a stand that's neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take that stand because it is right. Every now and then we sing about it, ‘if you are right, God will fight your battle.' I'm going to stick by the best during these evil times."

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

4 April, 1967:

"In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered...

...A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

 

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death...

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

...These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."

...A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."

__________________________________________________________________________________

George Orwell, 1984

"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed...

...But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied and disregarded. As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important...

...War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recogise their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word "war", therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and has been replaced by something quite different. ..

...A peace  that was truly permanent would be the same as permanent war. This-although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense-is the meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE."

_____________________________

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."   ( President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953)

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

Farewell Address to the Nation (1961)

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

...We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together...

...Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific/technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. 

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight..."

GETTING THE MESSAGE? [and] GOD'S WILL

GETTING THE MESSAGE?

Every so often, a movie comes out of Hollywood that breaks new ground, technically, and sends a message that needs to be heard. Some good examples of this are Ghandi (1983), Dances With Wolves (1990), Amistad (1998), Ali (2002), and this year, Avatar.

What is it, and what is it saying?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)

"Avatar is a 2009 American science fiction epic film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang. The film is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system.[5] Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, while the Na'vi—a race of indigenous humanoids—resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandoran ecosystem. The film's title refers to the genetically engineered bodies used by the film's characters to interact with the Na'vi.

Avatar had been in development since 1994 by Cameron, who wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film.[7] Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Titanic, and the film would have been released in 1999, but according to Cameron, "technology needed to catch up" with his vision of the film.[8][9] In early 2006, Cameron developed the script, as well as the language[10] and culture of the Na'vi. He said sequels would be possible if Avatar was successful,[11] and in response to the film's success, confirmed that there will be another.[12]

The film was released in traditional 2-D, as well as 3-D and IMAX 3D formats. Avatar is officially budgeted at $237 million;[2] other estimates put the cost at $280–310 million to produce and $150 million for marketing.[13][14][15] The film is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of filmmaking technology, for its development of 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking with cameras that were specially designed for the film's production.[16]

Avatar opened on December 18, 2009 to critical acclaim and commercial success. It grossed $27 million on its opening day in the United States and Canada.[17] On its opening weekend, it grossed $77 million in the United States and Canada[18] and $232 million worldwide.[19] Within three weeks of its release, with a worldwide gross of over $1 billion, the film became one of the highest-grossing films of all time worldwide, exceeded only by Cameron's previous film, Titanic."

When your lead author saw it on the big screen a few days ago, I was stunned. Not just from the dazzling 3-D action, stunning scenery and amazing technical effects, but from the overt message it sends. Which is this:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/12-4

Avatar and the Genocides We Will Not See

Cameron's blockbuster half-tells a story we would all prefer to forget

by George Monbiot

Avatar, James Cameron's blockbusting 3-D film, is both profoundly silly and profound. It's profound because, like most films about aliens, it is a metaphor for contact between different human cultures. But in this case the metaphor is conscious and precise: this is the story of European engagement with the native peoples of the Americas. It's profoundly silly because engineering a happy ending demands a plot so stupid and predictable that it rips the heart out of the film. The fate of the native Americans is much closer to the story told in another new film, The Road, in which a remnant population flees in terror as it is hunted to extinction.

But this is a story no one wants to hear, because of the challenge it presents to the way we choose to see ourselves. Europe was massively enriched by the genocides in the Americas; the American nations were founded on them. This is a history we cannot accept.

In his book American Holocaust, the US scholar David Stannard documents the greatest acts of genocide the world has ever experienced(1). In 1492, some 100m native peoples lived in the Americas. By the end of the 19th Century almost all of them had been exterminated. Many died as a result of disease. But the mass extinction was also engineered.

When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they described a world which could scarcely have been more different from their own. Europe was ravaged by war, oppression, slavery, fanaticism, disease and starvation. The populations they encountered were healthy, well-nourished and mostly (with exceptions like the Aztecs and Incas) peacable, democratic and egalitarian. Throughout the Americas the earliest explorers, including Columbus, remarked on the natives' extraordinary hospitality. The conquistadores marvelled at the amazing roads, canals, buildings and art they found, which in some cases outstripped anything they had seen at home. None of this stopped them from destroying everything and everyone they encountered.

The butchery began with Columbus. He slaughtered the native people of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) by unimaginably brutal means. His soldiers tore babies from their mothers and dashed their heads against rocks. They fed their dogs on living children. On one occasion they hung 13 Indians in honour of Christ and the 12 disciples, on a gibbet just low enough for their toes to touch the ground, then disembowelled them and burnt them alive. Columbus ordered all the native people to deliver a certain amount of gold every three months; anyone who failed had his hands cut off. By 1535 the native population of Hispaniola had fallen from 8m to zero: partly as a result of disease, partly as a result of murder, overwork and starvation.

The conquistadores spread this civilising mission across central and south America. When they failed to reveal where their mythical treasures were hidden, the indigenous people were flogged, hanged, drowned, dismembered, ripped apart by dogs, buried alive or burnt. The soldiers cut off women's breasts, sent people back to their villages with their severed hands and noses hung round their necks and hunted Indians with their dogs for sport. But most were killed by enslavement and disease. The Spanish discovered that it was cheaper to work Indians to death and replace them than to keep them alive: the life expectancy in their mines and plantations was three to four months. Within a century of their arrival, around 95% of the population of South and Central America had been destroyed. 

In California during the 18th Century the Spanish systematised this extermination. A Franciscan missionary called Junipero Serra set up a series of "missions": in reality concentration camps using slave labour. The native people were herded in under force of arms and made to work in the fields on one fifth of the calories fed to African-American slaves in the 19th century. They died from overwork, starvation and disease at astonishing rates, and were continually replaced, wiping out the indigenous populations. Junipero Serra, the Eichmann of California, was beatified by the Vatican in 1988. He now requires one more miracle to be pronounced a saint(2).

While the Spanish were mostly driven by the lust for gold, the British who colonised North America wanted land. In New England they surrounded the villages of the native Americans and murdered them as they slept. As genocide spread westwards, it was endorsed at the highest levels. George Washington ordered the total destruction of the homes and land of the Iroquois. Thomas Jefferson declared that his nation's wars with the Indians should be pursued until each tribe "is exterminated or is driven beyond the Mississippi". During the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, troops in Colorado slaughtered unarmed people gathered under a flag of peace, killing children and babies, mutilating all the corpses and keeping their victims' genitals to use as tobacco pouches or to wear on their hats. Theodore Roosevelt called this event "as rightful and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier."

The butchery hasn't yet ended: last month the Guardian reported that Brazilian ranchers in the western Amazon, having slaughtered all the rest, tried to kill the last surviving member of a forest tribe(3). Yet the greatest acts of genocide in history scarcely ruffle our collective conscience. Perhaps this is what would have happened had the Nazis won the second world war: the Holocaust would have been denied, excused or minimised in the same way, even as it continued. The people of the nations responsible - Spain, Britain, the US and others - will tolerate no comparisons, but the final solutions pursued in the Americas were far more successful. Those who commissioned or endorsed them remain national or religious heroes. Those who seek to prompt our memories are ignored or condemned.

This is why the right hates Avatar. In the neocon Weekly Standard, John Podhoretz complains that the film resembles a "revisionist western" in which "the Indians became the good guys and the Americans the bad guys."(4) He says it asks the audience "to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency." Insurgency is an interesting word for an attempt to resist invasion: insurgent, like savage, is what you call someone who has something you want. L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Vatican, condemned the film as "just ... an anti-imperialistic, anti-militaristic parable"(5).

But at least the right knows what it is attacking. In the New York Times the liberal critic Adam Cohen praises Avatar for championing the need to see clearly(6). It reveals, he says, "a well-known principle of totalitarianism and genocide - that it is easiest to oppress those we cannot see". But in a marvellous unconscious irony, he bypasses the crashingly obvious metaphor and talks instead about the light it casts on Nazi and Soviet atrocities. We have all become skilled in the art of not seeing. 

I agree with its rightwing critics that Avatar is crass, mawkish and cliched. But it speaks of a truth more important - and more dangerous - than those contained in a thousand arthouse movies."

Avatar also sends a very strong anti-militaristic message, with strong parallels to the current illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq, which posed no threat to the U.S., or any other country. It was quite interesting when one of the hardened ex-soldiers working for the RDA Corporation, mentions that he had just had seen actions in wars in Venezuela and Nigeria. Two of course very oil-rich nations, which could very well be next on the Imperial radar of the U.S. Especially Venezuela, since it's current freely and fairly elected government has the audacity to use some of it's oil wealth to benefit the poorest people in it, with the aid of a nationalised oil industry. 

Of interest also is the plot line whereby the main character, Jake Sully, a former marine working for the RDA corporation, is hired to serve as a controller of one of the genetically created Avatar bodies, used to interact with the indigenous inhabitants of the planet. He then interacts with this culture, which is very much like all the indigenous cultures on Earth, learns to respect, and eventually love it, and a woman in it. Very much like what occurred in Dances With Wolves. Many instances of this have occurred since the Western Hemispheric genocide began 500 years ago, when soldiers and colonists went over to the indigenous peoples, joined their culture, and even fought to remain in it. Because they recognised it as a healthier alternative to the culture from whence they came.

There are some things about Avatar we at A.P.R. found disagreement with. The most important was that this movie was set in the year 2154, with scientific achievements like human hibernation, and near-light speed space travel to adjacent star systems (which still took several years). Yet the attitudes of the soldiers and members of the RDA Corporation were very much like what you would see in conservative military and corporate personnel in today's U.S.A.

It is our contention at A.P.R., that this is impossible. Humanity will not make it to 2154 with any kind of scientific/technical culture, as long as the bulk of people, and politicians, in the U.S. (and other countries) continues with this kind of mindset. To offset this, James Cameron wrote in his screenplay, that the Earth was ruined, and hence resources from other worlds on other star systems were needed. We don't think humanity will escape massive die-offs from global resource depletion/overpopulation, and catastrophic climate change though, unless massive changes occur in the basic outlooks and political/economic systems of the "developed" nations within 20 years, at most. Incorporating the indigenous cultures basic world-view of the sacredness and inter-relatedness of all the parts of the Earth, and its ecosystems.

The ending of the movie, whereby the indigenous Na'vi, with the aid of a few sympathetic humans, are able to fight off and send packing back into space the corporation and soldiers, was outrageously unrealistic. A large starship, bristling with nuclear missiles and lasers would instead have come to the humans aid, and destroyed the Na'vi. Just as all resistance from the indigenous cultures in the Western Hemisphere was met and destroyed by the sheer numbers and destructive weaponry of the Europeans, our ancestors.

Nevertheless, we highly recommend you see this movie. Because it has an important message, and should remind you of how our countries came to be, in North and South America. And to remind you of the cultures that were almost destroyed (and still are being so, in South America, and Africa).  Cultures that must be protected, and embraced, if humanity is to have any kind of healthy future on this planet.

GOD'S WILL

The heartbreaking earthquake yesterday in Haiti, which may have killed 100,000 or more people, is indeed a cruel event, to this poor country, beset by so many tragedies, political unrest, and massive poverty, in the last several decades.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/jan/13/haiti-earthquake

But this is not the entire story. Why did a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, which has occurred across many areas of the globe, cause so many casualties, and why is Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? For a good explanation why, we have this:

What You're Not Hearing about Haiti (But Should Be)

by Carl Lindskoog

In the hours following Haiti's devastating earthquake, CNN, the New York Times and other major news sources adopted a common interpretation for the severe destruction: the 7.0 earthquake was so devastating because it struck an urban area that was extremely over-populated and extremely poor. Houses "built on top of each other" and constructed by the poor people themselves made for a fragile city. And the country's many years of underdevelopment and political turmoil made the Haitian government ill-prepared to respond to such a disaster.

True enough. But that's not the whole story. What's missing is any explanation of why there are so many Haitians living in and around Port-au-Prince and why so many of them are forced to survive on so little. Indeed, even when an explanation is ventured, it is often outrageously false such as a former U.S. diplomat's testimony on CNN that Port-au-Prince's overpopulation was due to the fact that Haitians, like most Third World people, know nothing of birth control.

It may startle news-hungry Americans to learn that these conditions the American media correctly attributes to magnifying the impact of this tremendous disaster were largely the product of American policies and an American-led development model.

From 1957-1971 Haitians lived under the dark shadow of "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a brutal dictator who enjoyed U.S. backing because he was seen by Americans as a reliable anti-Communist. After his death, Duvalier's son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" became President-for-life at the age of 19 and he ruled Haiti until he was finally overthrown in 1986. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that Baby Doc and the United States government and business community worked together to put Haiti and Haiti's capitol city on track to become what it was on January 12, 2010.

After the coronation of Baby Doc, American planners inside and outside the U.S. government initiated their plan to transform Haiti into the "Taiwan of the Caribbean." This small, poor country situated conveniently close to the United States was instructed to abandon its agricultural past and develop a robust, export-oriented manufacturing sector. This, Duvalier and his allies were told, was the way toward modernization and economic development.

From the standpoint of the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Haiti was the perfect candidate for this neoliberal facelift. The entrenched poverty of the Haitian masses could be used to force them into low-paying jobs sewing baseballs and assembling other products.

But USAID had plans for the countryside too. Not only were Haiti's cities to become exporting bases but so was the countryside, with Haitian agriculture also reshaped along the lines of export-oriented, market-based production. To accomplish this USAID, along with urban industrialists and large landholders, worked to create agro-processing facilities, even while they increased their practice of dumping surplus agricultural products from the U.S. on the Haitian people.

This "aid" from the Americans, along with the structural changes in the countryside predictably forced Haitian peasants who could no longer survive to migrate to the cities, especially Port-au-Prince where the new manufacturing jobs were supposed to be. However, when they got there they found there weren't nearly enough manufacturing jobs go around. The city became more and more crowded. Slum areas expanded. And to meet the housing needs of the displaced peasants, quickly and cheaply constructed housing was put up, sometimes placing houses right "on top of each other."

Before too long, however, American planners and Haitian elites decided that perhaps their development model didn't work so well in Haiti and they abandoned it. The consequences of these American-led changes remain, however.

When on the afternoon and evening of January 12, 2010 Haiti experienced that horrible earthquake and round after round of aftershock the destruction was, no doubt, greatly worsened by the very real over-crowding and poverty of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas. But shocked Americans can do more than shake their heads and, with pity, make a donation. They can confront their own country's responsibility for the conditions in Port-au-Prince that magnified the earthquake's impact, and they can acknowledge America's role in keeping Haiti from achieving meaningful development. To accept the incomplete story of Haiti offered by CNN and the New York Times is to blame Haitians for being the victims of a scheme that was not of their own making. As John Milton wrote, "they who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness."

We encourage everyone to donate funds, supplies, or even aid, if you are able to get there, to help in their search, recovery, and rebuilding efforts.

Finally, one of America's leading right-wing luminaries has put this tragedy in perspective, and offered some unique and incisive commentary on it for our edification:   http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/01/13-14

PFAW Condemns Pat Robertson’s Comments on Haiti Earthquake

Religious Right Leader says Haiti “swore a pact to the devil”

WASHINGTON - January 13 - People For the American Way President Michael B. Keegan today condemned a statement made by Religious Right leader Pat Robertson (VIDEO), who said that the nation of Haiti has been cursed ever since it “swore a pact to the Devil.”

In discussing the earthquake, which the UN says has killed thousands of people, Robertson said:

"And you know Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the Devil said "OK, it's a deal." And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island is Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc.. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. Uh, they need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God and out of this tragedy. I'm optimistic something good may come."

Michael B. Keegan, president of People For the American Way, issued the following statement:

“Pat Robertson’s comments about the victims of this earthquake are reprehensible. Unfortunately, they fit right in with his history of mean spirited attacks accusing his opponents of causing natural disasters and terrorism. To blame the victims of this disaster for what they’ve been through is appalling. Regrettably, Pat Robertson can’t be written off as an eccentric aberration of the right-wing—he’s still a leading figure in the conservative movement."

“At a time when our attention should be focused on helping the victims of this disaster, Robertson’s comments are beyond the pale.”

###

People For the American Way is dedicated to making the promise of America real for every American: Equality. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. The right to seek justice in a court of law. The right to cast a vote that counts. The American Way. Our vision is a vibrantly diverse democratic society in which everyone is treated equally under the law, given the freedom and opportunity to pursue their dreams, and encouraged to participate in our nation’s civic and political life. Our America respects diversity, nurtures creativity and combats hatred and bigotry.  Cheers.

WRANGELLMANIA [and] WHAT DO WE CALL THIS?

WRANGELLMANIA

Your lead editor had a four day break starting New Year's eve, last week. We decided there would be no better way to spend it than to go spend time skiing and exploring with the best friend of the Alaska Progressive Review, Erik, who joins us in some of our outings.

He has a nice little cabin on a 10 acre plot, off the Old Edgarton Highway, near Copper Center. It sits on a bluff above the Copper River, with an incredible view of the river valley, giving way to the volcanoes of the Wrangell Mountains, which are protected in Wrangell/St. Elias National Park.

We had grandiose plans of flying around in Erik's Super Cub, but the weather turned unfavourable. It was too cold, below about -24C (-10F), the fabric covering the plane can crack.  On all three days we were there, the temperature stayed below that, so we were shut out from flying.

Oh well, it's such a beautiful area, we weren't too unhappy. 

This is the view looking north from the bluff to the Copper River below. 3661 metre Mt. Drum, an active volcano, would be visible further back, but for the low clouds. We were glad they were there, as without them, instead of about the -29C temperatures we were getting, it could easily have dropped to -40 to -45C. Which makes a big difference in the amount of face protection, and layering needed to be comfortable and safe, moving for hours out in that. 

Once it does warm up, the Super Cub will be up and flying. These amazing little planes can land and take off in very short distances, enabling access to places not possible with larger float or ski planes.

Erik's cabin has a nice outhouse. You might notice that there is no door.

That's because it has the nicest view I've ever seen from one. It was hard not to want to stay and enjoy the view whilst answering the call. But since it was around -29C or about -20F, there was some incentive to make it quick.

We spent New Year's Eve at the Tonsina Lodge, a nice bar/restaurant owned by a Russian couple. But frequented by locals, a few of whom know Erik. We played pool, then at midnight, got to light off some fireworks given out by the bartender. Unfortunately, poor old Homer is not too crazy about them. He and Mattie had to stay in my car, and after the fireworks were over, all 37 kg of him was wrapped up in a tight ball by the gas pedal and clutch.

One of our aims for the weekend was to ski straight from the cabin, down to the Copper River, and toward the Dadina River. Erik had seen a cabin up that flying around once, and we wanted to see how accessible and far that might be.  

So, friday morning, we lit out from the cabin. It was about -27C when we left. We had to stay on the rim of the bluff for about 6 km or so. 

This is because there is a snowmachine trail that drops down a ravine in the bluff to the Copper River. Otherwise, it's just too steep to go straight down the bluff, and there's no path to the river, bushwhacking to it through the Taiga would be a chore.  This is Erik on the way back up, you can see that it is too steep and narrow for skiing on, unless we put climbing skins on our skis. Which we did not have. So, we just took off our skis for the trip down, and back up. 

 It took about 90 minutes to ski the 6-8 km along the bluff, then drop down the ravine, and get onto the river. I was a little uneasy about the river ice. The Copper flows fast here in summer. And this winter hasn't been real cold. But we listened for the sound of running water, and couldn't hear any. Thus, we reckoned that the ice was at least 25 cm thick, and that there were no snow-covered leads lying in wait on our route. Of course, Mattie and Homer went ahead of us too. So, we made it across just fine. When we got to near the Dadina River comes in, it was time for a food/water break. So, we took a short break on the other side of this jumbled mass of ice. It was then we realized, it's quite a bit colder on the river, than in the woods adjacent, and certainly than higher up on the bluff. Homer and Mattie both were hopping a bit, their feet were cold. And, our hands and feet were getting cold too. We think it was probably about -33C (-28F) down on the river. One thing always to keep in mind during winter traveling in Alaska is that cold air always drains down rivers, just like water. In the absence of any opposing winds from weather systems, there will always be at least a light down-river drainage wind. And, if the general wind flow is aligned with this, it will be much stronger. At temperatures of minus 20C and colder, this can be a serious safety issue. We were all getting cold at our food/water stop, and the day was getting along. It was after 1400 hours by the time we were refueled. Time to start heading back. It was a nice five hour/30 KM day. Which was pretty slow, since we had to walk part of it, up and down the ravine, and break trail, on the river.

On the agenda for the next day, Saturday, was a drive to the little town of McCarthy, which lies at the end of a 120 km road from Kenny Lake, the nearest "town" to Erik's cabin. The part of this road from Chitina, to McCarthy, used to be the bed for the railroad that delivered copper ore from the mines of Kennecott, out to the world. Thus it is very narrow. The plan was to park near McCarthy, then ski up the 13 km to the "ghost" town of Kennecott, where the old mines and town, which were abandoned in 1938, are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennecott,_Alaska. 48 km from McCarthy, we were warned that there was "overflow" on the road. This is when groundwater seeps up and constantly freezes, building up a large mass of ice. Blocking trails often, leading to cursing and groaning sometimes when backcountry skiing.

This big mass was at least 15-20cm thick over the road, but slightly spongy. So, Erik gunned the A.P.R.'s trusty 4WD Ford Escape, and just as we neared it, let off the gas. We just glided right across. A bit of a relief, as the ice sloped down toward a drop-off on the south side of the road there. There were very few people to be found in McCarthy for the winter, it is mostly a summer tourist destination. But Erik had a pilot friend to visit briefly there. We put our skis on, and started up the trail around 1400 hours, a little later than we wanted. Since by 1600, it is almost dark. 

The trail up from McCarthy was a nice, fairly wide one, packed down by snowmachine traffic. Ideal for a fast trip. Kennecott lies near the mountains in the far distance. It was a steady, but not real steep 10 km ascent up. 

By the time we got up to the mines and buildings,  it was almost dark. There are actually private residences mixed in, just before the mines, and a few of them had smoke coming out their chimneys. So a few hardy people must overwinter there. It was about -28C (-18F) for our ski, so I got iced up pretty good, working hard on our fast ascent.

We didn't spend too much time exploring in Kennecott, since it was almost dark. But it was very beautiful and peaceful there, and the old wood-fired powerplant and mine buildings were interesting. Sometime in February or March, when the days or longer, and it's warmer, we'll go back, and into the back-country behind, and around there. Some beautiful routes around glaciers and through canyons are accesible by ski from Kennecott.

It was a shame having to leave sunday, after having such good times skiing and exploring the area. But we decided to at least get a short 10 km run in on the bluff that day, before heading back to the World. It stayed cloudy, and about -28C, so we couldn't see the Wrangell volcanoes, but were not too sorry, since we'd rather run in -28C than -40C any day. That area is truly beautiful, and we will be doing some real, multi-day back-country ski trips around it later this winter, when we have longer days.

WHAT DO WE CALL THIS?

I found this article the other day, describing the Senate's version of the health-care "reform" legislation. Give it a read, and we'll offer our commentary on it.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/04-14

Federal Enforcement To Be Used Against You, But Not To Protect You From The Insurance Companies

by Jon Walker

There is no better proof that the Senate bill is a massive giveaway to the health care industry than the radically different enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate and the new insurance regulations. This Senate bill will force you to buy insurance from only private insurance companies. It will use the power of the federal government in the form of the IRS to make sure you buy private health insurance.

While the Senate bill will technically put some new regulations on the books, it will not use the power of the federal government to make sure the health insurance companies are following them. Enforcement of new regulations is left completely up to the states, which, for the most part, have an extremely poor track record at this function.

This Senate bill will use the power of the federal government to force you to buy a very expensive product, but it refuses to use the power of the federal government to ensure this product meets even minimum standards of quality. It uses the sledge hammer of federal power to force middle class families to hand their money over to private insurance corporations, but handles the extremely powerful insurance companies with the soft kid gloves by leaving regulation enforcement up to the states. The imbalance of power between middle class consumers and insurance companies produced by this bill is shocking.

The House bill uses the power of the federal government in three ways to hold the insurance companies honest. It creates a national exchange with a national insurance regulation enforcement mechanism. It creates a national public health insurance option to serve as a check and benchmark for the private insurance companies. And, finally, it repeals the health insurance companies’ anti-trust exemption. These tools help put regular Americans on a more even footing against the private insurance companies.


It is both immoral and financially reckless to do what the Senate bill does. It uses the power of the federal government to force people to buy private insurance and gives the private insurance companies hundreds of billions in federal funds. Yet it does not use the power of the federal government to police the insurance companies to make sure they are not wasting the billions in federal funds they receive, or abusing their millions of federally mandated customers.

No one left, right, or center should accept this system which puts regular people in such a weak position compared to the private corporations with which they are force to do business. Attempts to justify the individual mandate by comparing it to Swiss, Dutch, or Belgian health care ignores the reality of those systems. Not other country forces people into such a powerless, subservient position compared to private companies. The Senate bill does not create social contract guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for everyone in exchange for mandating the buying of health insurance. It just forces people to buy a poor-quality product from an extremely wasteful, predatory, and poorly regulated industry.

© 2010 FireDogLake

OK, having read the above article, now take a look at these commonly agreed upon:

Early Warning Signs of Fascism



Powerful and Continuing Nationalism


Disdain For Human Rights


Identification of Enemies as a unifying cause


Supremacy of the military


Rampant Sexism


Controlled Mass Media


Obsession With National Security


Religion and Government Intertwined


Corporate Power Protected


Labor Power Suppressed


Disdain For Intellectuals & and the Arts


Obsession With Crime & Punishment


Rampant Cronyism & Corruption


Fraudulent Elections

Remember, Benito Mussolini defined fascism as the marriage of corporate interests with the state, held by force, against any opposition. Where do you think the U.S. lies now, according to these signs and definitions. Are you alarmed? WE ARE.  Cheers.