Aid agencies, NGO’s are being outed for their role as agents of Western financial captial at any cost who feed of the misery caused by their masters. Christian Aid is one such example. Following the 2004 coup against President Aristide of Haiti, Christian Aid issued a position statement in which it colluded with the lies of the US and France that Aristide resigned when in fact he was kidnapped and dumped in the Central African Republic. The paper went on to present Aristide’s government as a corrupt bunch of thugs whilst completing ignoring the fact that he won two elections with over 75% of the vote. They continued to ignore the violence committed by the UN forces following the removal of Aristide plus the systematic terrorising of Lavalas supporters. All this done under the disguise of “humanitarian concerns”. After assisting in the destruction of an elected government by bleeding it dry it then calls for aid to rebuild the very structures it has prevented from developing by the elected government. The people, in this case Haitians then become the objects of NGO industry which is based on the premise that there is a disaster or a conflict which enables them to step in and “save” the situation. This in turn is driven by adverts of helpless hapless people with no agency as victims of something that is disconnected from the financiers of the NGO’s themselves and Western financial interests.

Governments view humanitarian aid as a strategic battleground where their military forces can operate alongside doctors, to the great displeasure of the doctors. Multilateral organisations, such as the European Union, finance largescale programmes; the UN funds peacekeeping operations. All these players flood the poorest countries, overlap and fail to coordinate with each other, creating chaos rather than order.

Governments and multilateral organisations cannot allow voluntary organisations to have a monopoly on solidarity and generosity. So humanitarian work has become a world of populist politicians; tired, concerned professionals; international funders caught in a bureaucratic, financial rationale; and suspicious or blasé donors who prefer local causes. The circus follows the show – the misfortune of others – a media product in ever greater demand.

The media is busy reporting endless tragedies in Haiti - floods, hurricanes, collapsing schools. What they do not report is what iis behind these disasters. Why is it when the hurricane hits Haiti, thousands die yet in neighbouring Dominican Republic the numbers are in their tens and twenties? The $1 million Haiti pays back in debt payments every week which the West refuses to write off but is happy to spend millions on UN peacekeepers and the huge overhead costs of NGO’s and humanitarian aid thereby maintaining it’s control and occupation of the country.

In Haiti: Racism & Poverty, John Maxwell makes some comparisons between the amount of money paid out in bonus payments to Wall St bankers $18 billion - double Haiti’s GDP (8 million people).

The chairman of Goldman took home more than $70 million and his lieutenants – as Zoellick once was – $40 million or more, each.
It should be clear that someone like Robert Zoellick is likely to be totally bemused by Haiti when his entertainment allowance could probably feed the entire population for a day or two. It is not hard to understand that Mr Zoellick cannot understand why Haiti needs debt relief.

One million dollars a week would feed everybody in Haiti even if only at a very basic level – at least they would not have to eat earth patties. Instead the Haitians export this money to pay the salaries of such as Zoellick

But debt relief is too simple and at the same time to complicated to process. There are NGOs to rebuild what Western governments and multinationals destroy and NGOs to prop up the regimes that the US and multinationals wish to keep in place to maintain their financial interests and NGOs to spread the deceit that is charitable capitalism….

The aid industry is central to the current globalisation of ideology. Global capitalism must launder the profits from its exploitation. The harsh demands of this unregulated world – child labour, increased production, unpaid overtime – must be disguised. The huge number of people who suffer from these forms of social violence are rarely identified as victims. Governments, businesses and donors are paying a moral tax, trying to claim they are part of a moral humanity, through their pledges of morality, pseudo-transparency and charity.

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“Obama!”Bush exclaimed… “Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours — that’s one impressive lady.”
The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, “who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president’s hand.”
Bush then offered some to Obama, who recalled: “Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.”
[continue…]

Really? That’s nuts. Does Bush have a squirt of anti-bacterial cream after shaking Jeb’s hand?

Anyone regularly reading this blog will by now have a fairly good idea of the long hard struggle faced by the African LGBTI community against homophobic bigots, even in South African where LGBTI rights are enshrined in the constitution and where same-sex marriage became a reality in 2006. However we often imagine that things are much easier in the US and I guess relatively they are but there the recent passing of Proposition 8 [a constitutional amendment in California which bans same-sex marriage] is a wake up call that all is far from being OK.

The title of this post comes from Pam’s House Blend who thought of using the word “hysterical” but thought it “too serious a topic for snark“. But that depends how you interpret the word “hysterical” - as in “hysterically roll on the floor funny”or as in “hysterical psychoneurotic - marked by excessive or uncontrollable emotion - mad frenzied raving; “a mob of hysterical vigilantes”. Taking this interpretation the use of the word is very appropriate.

The passing of the amendment was not just because Black voters supported it but they did have a considerable part to play[to make this point clear it should read “relative to their numbers and percentage vote*“] and we as Black people need to step up and own up to the homophobia in our communities whether here in England or Nigeria, Uganda or the US. And as Pam writes it’s not just Prop 8…..

It’s been an strange month to be black and gay in America so far. First there was the gay bashing that killed Michael Sandy in New York, and the disturbing news of Tyrone Garner’s lack of a burial 37 days after his death with the possibility of a pauper’s burial in the end. Those depressing stories were balanced out somewhat yesterday by the news of the New Jersey Supreme Court decision and the fact that a black lesbian couple was among the plaintiffs whose willingness to take a stand yielded that historic moment.

Pam’s hard-line response to the “hysterical” bigots amongst Black people is powerful and particularly addresses the religious bigots that we all know too well in African countries.

When I was growing up, I heard an old legend that if you read the Bible all the way through from beginning to end, it would make you crazy. Now I think what makes you crazy isn’t reading the Bible, but reading it literally and to the exclusion of anything else. That will drive you insane as surely as sitting in a dark room and never allowing any light to enter it would make anyone insane. Let in a little light, and you see enough to make things out. More light than that, and suddenly the way you thought the world around you worked doesn’t make sense anymore. But not enough light and you either have to create stories to explain what you can’t fully see. Or you have to just not see it. With African Americans, it began with the first slaves who were converted to Christianity only to be confronted with the biblical passages that justified and even sanctified their enslavement, and for the sake of sanity had to “not read those parts.”

Also note that in the US like Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe and other African countries, the bigotry stems from the same Victorian puritanical Christianity forced fed on Africans by the colonial rulers and speaks to the “unAfricanness” of Christianity itself. This was a religion brought by white people who claimed Black people were not human but savage animals to be controlled and fed literal interpretations of a bible that was used to confirm their sub-humanness.

I basically concur with his premise that the vehement homophobia expressed by many Blacks stems from a the history of so many Black slaves being converted to Christianity by conservative denominations that stressed biblical literalism, strict Victorian sexual morality that was prevalent during the same period as American slavery, and a reaction against the stereotypes of Blacks as insatiable sexual savages.

We have all had to put up with being at best marginalised and worse excluded and disowned by families, friends and community or forced to live in open and closed closets of hurt and anger. Coming from our own people who have been oppressed and treated like crap for the best part of 500 years - is particularly hard to take. How can people who have been through so much pain because of their Blackness then turn around and inflict the same pain on their sisters and brothers just because they have a different sexual orientation? It is shameful. Black people all over the world are celebrating the fact that a Black man has become President of the US and therefore the most powerful person in the world. Yet they cannot even begin to connect the dots and link that up with their own homophobia they are so blinded with the ink from their bibles.

*Updated with clarification

Technorati: Proposition 8 + USA LGBTI Homophobia

America has it’s first Black Democrat President and I have no doubt the country will be a better place for it. Beyond that I don’t know. Barack Obama’s win unleashes a tsunami of aspirations and expectations not to speak of the rhetoric which has reached new heights of super hyper reality. It is possible America has begun to reclaim itself. We will see….Nonetheless my support for McKinney & Clemente and their vision remains without reservation.

Technorati: Cynthia McKinney Rosa Clemente US ElectionsBarack Obama

“I cant cast a vote but I will feel the consequences” therefore I need to speak my piece.

I read the other day that Toni Morrison will be voting for Obama. A couple of weeks ago it was Alice Walker writing what I described as “driveling bullshit.” and one more example of the mainstreaming of the progressives - Rosa Clemente has a more definitive list here. Obama talks about bringing “fundamental change” but the only fundamental change is his colour and when one looks more closely even his colour is not that fundamental afterall. Obama is intrinsically tied to the mainstream, pro-Zionist war mongering American superstructure. Though disappointing it is not so surprising that so many millions all over the world have been drawn in by Obama who panders to black and white notions of a “post racial” America and world. An imaginary world of convenience particularly for the millions of white people who will vote him into the White House.

These are not truths. Nor do I think it is an accident that the first Black president of the USA will be a Black man who is not historically tied to slavery and the Black American experience. Facts like these are what makes the Obama’s presidency so dangerous because the establishment will use his Blackness to press the notion of a post racial society, of a fairer society, a more just society - all of which are big white lies. He will be held up as a pure example of the lie that is called the American dream along with Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell at the expense of the people in most need. This is already happening as we watch the so called progressives launch a double edged sword of complicity by jumping on the cultist bandwagon of unquestioning worship along with the likes of Powell and Hitchins. Whilst on the other hand silencing the voices of two women of colour who represent the real fundamental change.
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