HELP WANTED: Oh, Haiti! Estimate of Dead Rising, Is Real Help On The Way?

January 14th, 2010 - by: danny

The Media We Rely on By Saul Landau, filmmaker and author (ZNET):

Last September, Fidel Castro said modern media’s main message was “Buy this, buy that.” After watching CNN International, a network whose founder, Ted Turner, attributed to Fidel the idea of fashioning a global news network, he called such “news” a purveyor of “universal disorientation.”

Mass confusion also derives from priorities. As unemployment grew and war raged, newspaper headlines and TV news shows featured Tiger Woods’ women. Even George Orwell didn’t imagine how incessant visual shock images and audio babble could combine with the blur of newsprint to immerse the public in depths of muddle.

[More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

HELP HAITI, DO IT NOW
FINANCIAL INVESTIGATION BEGINS
TALKING WITH BARNEY FRANK

* * * How to help * * * A list of charitable organizations active in Haiti

• The Web Is Flat — The World Responds To Haiti’s Earthquake Online

Ironically, PBS NewsHour aired this video on Monday, the day before the tragedy struck:

• Despite Years of Crushing Poverty, Hope Grows in Haiti

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The reckoning has started in Haiti, the grim counting of the dead and wounded, the assessment of the extent of the damage. The dead and dying seem to be everywhere and the numbers are catastrophic, possibly even understated. The New York Times reports, “Huge swaths of Port-au-Prince lay in ruins, and thousands of people were feared dead in the rubble.” The Miami Herald calls Haiti a “stunned nation” as the aftershocks continue. Geologists had been sounding the alarm.

“And there was a chilling, if imprecise, prediction in a paper by a group of U.S. geologists presented at the 18th Caribbean Geological Conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in March of 2008. Was this prediction widely reported? Were any preparations undertaken?

I will be discussing all this with Kevin Pina, a Bay area investigative reporter who runs Haiti Information Project Thursday morning on the News Dissector Radio Show at 10 AM on ProgressiveRadioNetwork.com. This is not news you have heard on CNN. Kevin advocates the return of ousted president Jean Bertrand Aristide. He will explain why.

The alarm is everywhere and at least CNN has been focusing on it with a steady stream of reports about condition on the ground, people missing, others dead, prisoners escaping, with frequent calls for compassion and help. Twitter is buzzing with reports and suggestions. Filmmaker John Demme advises that we shouldn’t just focus on the capital since rural areas were devastated too, My email inbox is filled with appeals for assistance. Politicians are speaking out… and response is building from the Administration and across the spectrum, although Fox was more excited about Sarah Palin’s first paid appearance than the news of a disaster in our “neighborhood.”

I was at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Wall Street Summit. He was late to a session hosting New York Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, because there was a Haiti vigil downtown with Al Sharpton, union and political leaders. CNN reported that the NY Yankees are donating a million dollars. Schumer was eloquent in reminding everyone that while this was a natural disaster, it was made worse by years of a man-made disaster that kept Haiti too poor to be able to respond to a crisis like this. It is always the poor who suffer the most! He said that he asked President Obama to order an end to the deportations of Haitians and is proposing some sort of tax break for people to donate. He came from Brooklyn, which has a large Haitian community.

Some buried history from Robert Parry at Consortium News:

• Haiti and America’s Historic Debt

Announcing emergency help for Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, President Barack Obama noted America’s historic ties to the impoverished Caribbean nation, but few Americans understand how important Haiti’s contribution to U.S. history was. In modern times, when Haiti does intrude on U.S. consciousness, it’s usually because of some natural disaster or a violent political upheaval, and the U.S. response is often paternalistic, if not tinged with a racist disdain for the country’s predominantly black population and its seemingly endless failure to escape cycles of crushing poverty.

However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains. [More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

• History of Haiti Filled With Disasters

The latest constantly updated news.

We still don’t know the full impact that literally is affecting millions of people, many of who are traumatized, disoriented, and still digging out. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Haiti’s earthquake, the prime minister told CNN

• First U.S. military aid reaches quake-stricken Haiti

• AP: 16 UN personnel killed, 150 missing in Haiti

U.S., France, China and Dominican Republic are all sending search and rescue teams to Haiti. A U.S. military official says tentative plans are underway for the hospital ship USNS Comfort to dock off the coast of Haiti to assist the sick and wounded.

• Reuters: Tens of thousands feared dead in Haiti quake

Death toll could be 50,000, says President Preval | Poor Haiti ill-equipped to deal with disaster | Haitians dig for survivors with bare hands (Updates with new quotes, Bill Clinton and Lula pleas) | Destruction in the capital called ‘massive and broad’ — (Updates with more details) [More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

• TIME: THIS QUAKE WAS “THE BIG ONE,” EXPERT SAYS

• Haiti Earthquake Photos and Video on Huffington Post

• Please Help Us Says Dr. Paul Farmer’s Organization

Destruction in the capital called ‘massive and broad’ In an urgent email from Port-au-Prince, Louise Ivers, clinical director in Haiti, appealed for assistance from her colleagues in the Central Plateau: “Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS… Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us.”

The earthquake has destroyed much of the already fragile and overburdened infrastructure in the most densely populated part of the country. A massive and immediate international response is needed to provide food, water, shelter, and medical supplies for tens of thousands of people. With our hospitals and our highly trained medical staff in place in Haiti, Partners In Health is already mobilizing resources and preparing plans to bring medical assistance and supplies to areas that have been hardest hit.

• Center for Constitutional Rights: Stop Deportations of Haitians

After yesterday’s earthquake that devastated Haiti and left tens of thousands of casualties in its wake, CCR would like to take a moment and ask you to consider supporting relief efforts in Haiti. Visit our website to find a list of organizations doing relief work–those hardest his in Haiti urgently need our solidarity and support.

As part of the growing national movement to fight against increased immigration enforcement that is separating families, CCR is providing legal support and standing with Jean Montrevil’s family to keep him with his family in the United States. You can take action now to demand Jean’s release and for a system that doesn’t tear families apart.

On December 30th, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Jean Montrevil, a green card-holding immigrant since 1986 who completed a prison term for a non-violent drug offense committed 20 years ago. Jean is a loving father of four, community leader and immigrant rights activist. Thousands of supporters have come forward to demand his release, and in acts of civil disobedience last week, the NYPD arrested 19 clergy and community members.

• Friends Committee On National Legislation: No More Deportations

Here in the United States, the administration should immediately act to halt its deportation of Haitians, release those Haitians currently in detention centers, and give them a way to survive temporarily in this country. The administration can do this by granting Haitians in this country Temporary Protected Status, which would halt deportations and permit Haitians already in the United States to live and work here.

• kos (hisself) — dKOS “Whiny bank execs should donate their bonuses to the Haitian relief effort. Speaking of Haiti, you can donate $10 to the Red Cross recovery efforts by simply texting HAITI to 90999.”

“Then again, if you are a conservative, don’t sweat it. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t give a shit about Haiti, since it produces “zilch, zero, nada”, and it’s all a political ploy by Obama to boost credibility with “light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.”

“And his fellow American Taliban traveler [Pat Robertson] says the Haiti disaster was due to Haiti’s pact with the Devil. Those people were asking for it, being all Satanic and useless.”

The News Dissector