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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! From Nixon to Sarah Palin
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
From Nixon to Sarah Palin
What’s happened to the Republican Party? What’s happened to populism? Read Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair on the life and death of Nixonland, and the class politics of the war over Sarah Palin. ALSO in our new subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter, read Serge Halimi on how Russia gave Georgia and the U.S.a well-deserved black eye. PLUS Carrie Dann’s wonderful first-hand account of the fight of the Western Shoshone to reclaim their land. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories September 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Conn Hallinan Peter Morici Joanne Mariner Laura Tate Kagel / Chuck Spinney September 9, 2008 Michael Colby Chellis Glendinning Vijay Prashad Jeffery R. Webber/ David Michael Green Brian J. Foley John Ross Pierre M. Sprey / Nicole Colson Marc Gardner William S. Lind Website of the Day
September 8, 2008 Mike Whitney Tariq Ali Pam Martens Bill Quigley Malini Johar Schueller / Robert Jensen Uri Avnery Win McCormack Howard Lisnoff Maria C. Khoury Website of the Day September 6 / 7, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Linn Washington, Jr. Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Nancy Kurshan William Blum Michael Winship Fred Gardner Nikolas Kozloff Wajahat Ali Robert Fantina Karyn Strickler David Yearsley Richard Rhames James L. Secor Missy Beattie Eric Patton Ben Terrall Thom Rutledge Dan Bacher David Macaray Jane Stillwater Grady Harper Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 5, 2008 Elizabeth Walters Bill Quigley Alan Farago Dave Lindorff Ira Glunts Peter Morici Deepak Tripathi Manuel Garcia, Jr. Michael Donnelly Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day September 4, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Andy Worthington Osama Dawoud Stephen Lendman Fidel Castro Website of the Day September 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Sen. Mike Gravel Vijay Prashad Nikolas Kozloff Ralph Nader Howard Lisnoff Steve Early / Cal Winslow Shepherd Bliss Bill Quigley Website of the Day
September 2, 2008 Marjorie Cohn Jonathan Cook Robert Weitzel Corey D. B. Walker John Ross Eric Walberg Judith Scherr Richard Morse B. R. Gowani Michael Greenberg Website of the Day September 1, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff C. G. Estabrook Manuel Garcia, Jr. David Macaray B. R. Gowani Saul Landau Charles Orloski Gloria La Riva Website of the Day August 30 / 31, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Bill Quigley Jeffrey St. Clair Andy Worthington Deepak Tripathi Stanley Howard Dave Lindorff Wajahat Ali Robert Fantina Josh Schlossberg Benjamin Dangl Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Suzan Mazur Rev. Jim Rigby David Yearsely Serge Quadruppani B.R. Gowani Richard Rhames Poets' Basement Website of the Day
August 29, 2008 Mike Whitney Brian Cloughley David Ker Thomson Joanne Mariner Neve Gordon Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Michael Donnelly August 28, 2008 Judy Gumbo Albert Paul Cantor Saul Landau / Andy Worthington Ben Terrall Leonard Peltier Niranjan Ramakrishnan Donna J. Volatile Website of the Day
August 27, 2008 Anthony DiMaggio Jordan Flaherty Ralph Nader Melissa Checker Bob Sommer Cynthia McKinney Ali Khan M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Dave Lindorff David Macaray Website of the Day
August 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Michael D. Yates Paul Craig Roberts Andy Worthington Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Huwaida Arraf Joseph Grosso Sheldon Richman Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day August 25, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook James McEnteer Uri Avnery Will Potter Robert Jensen Stephen Lendman Wajahat Ali Carl Finamore Website of the Day August 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patty O'Grady Nicole Colson Steve Conn Deepak Trapathi Robert Fantina Jonathan M. Feldman Joshua Frank Osama Qashoo Howard Lisnoff David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Christopher Brauchli Alan Farago Michael Winship Richard Rhames David Rosen Patrick B. Barr Jamie Newlin Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 22, 2008 Boris Kagarlitsky Laura Carlsen Bob Barr Marwan Bishara Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. Charles Mostoller Sumbul Ali-Karamali Keith Rosenthal John F. Miglio Website of the Day August 21, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It Ralph Nader Joanne Mariner Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Rostam Purzal Anthony Papa Website of the Day August 20, 2008 Michael Neumann Ray McGovern Eric Walberg Fidaa Abed Daniel Haack Mike Whitney Website of the Day August 19, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Deepak Tripathi Marwan Bishara Saul Landau William S. Lind Martha Rosenberg James Brittain Pratyush Chandra David Macaray Website of the Day |
September 10, 2008 An Urgent Call for HelpHaiti and the HurricanesBy PAUL FARMER I am writing from Mirebalais, the place where our organization was born, having just returned from Gonaïves—perhaps the city hit hardest by Hurricane Hanna, which, hard on the heels of Fay and Gustave, drenched the deforested mountains of Haiti and led to massive flooding and mudslides in Northern and Central Haiti. A friend of mine said this morning: "I am 61 years old, born and raised in Hinche. I have never seen it under water." Gonaïves, with 300,000 souls, is in far worse shape, as you'll see from the pictures here. The floodwaters in Hinche are dropping, but as of 5 p.m. last night, when we left Gonaïves, the city was still under water. And hurricanes Ike and Josephine are heading this way as I write. The need is enormous. After 25 years spent working in Haiti and having grown up in Florida, I can honestly say that I have never seen anything as painful as what I just witnessed in Gonaïves—except in that very same city, four years ago. Again, you know that 2004 was an especially brutal year, and those who work with PIH know why: the coup in Haiti and what would become Hurricane Jeanne. Everyone knows that Katrina killed 1,500 in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast, but very few outside of our circles know that what was then Tropical Storm Jeanne, which did not even make landfall in Haiti, killed an estimated 2,000 in Gonaïves alone. Logging on this morning from Mirebalais, I see that Ophelia has circulated the essay I wrote about what are, essentially, unnatural disasters. We're faced with another round of death and obliteration. Haiti's naked mountains promise many more unnatural disasters. We know that a massive reforestation program and public works to keep cities safer are what's needed in the medium and long terms. But there's a lot we can do in the short term to help out with disaster relief. None of us regard PIH as a disaster-relief organization. Together, we've built PIH—meaning the network of locally directed organizations working in 10 countries—to serve a different cause. We wanted to attack poverty and inequality and bring the fruits of modernity—healthcare, education, etcetera—to people marginalized by adverse social forces. It seemed likely, as reports came in this week, that many other institutions and organizations would be far better able to respond to the after-effects of storms and floods. I'd been told, as the American Airlines flight passed over flooded Gonaïves, that the city was cut off from outside help, but even as I heard this, I knew that our own colleagues were there, volunteering what meager resources we had on hand, and a few hours later I was there too. I was hoping that we'd find that the city was receiving the expert attention of organizations trained to do disaster relief. So imagine my surprise, yesterday, when I discovered that very little in the way of help had reached Gonaïves or the other flooded towns along the coast. Although it's not true that Gonaïves cannot be reached by vehicle, it is true that the city center is still under water, and that the road into the city is well and truly flooded. Between Pont Sonde—the only way to the coast, since the major bridge between Port-au-Prince and Gonaïves is out, as is that to the north—and the flooded city, we saw not a single first-aid station or proper temporary shelter. We saw, rather, people stranded on the tops of their houses or wading through waist-deep water; we saw thousands in an on-foot exodus south toward Saint-Marc. A speedy, determined relief effort could save the lives of tens of thousands of Haitians in Gonaïves and all along the flooded coast. The people of that city and others have been stranded without food or water or shelter for three days and it's simply not true that they cannot be reached. When I called to say as much to friends working with the U.S. government and with disaster-relief organizations based in Port-au-Prince, it became clear that, as of yesterday, there's not a lot of accurate information leaving Gonaïves, although estimates of hundreds of deaths are not hyperbolic. We had no cell phone coverage there and had to wait until last night to call people in Port-au-Prince. One sympathetic American friend, following up on our distress calls about a lack of relief, told me this morning the retort she'd heard from an expert employed by a UN-affiliated health organization: "Three days without water is nothing. People in Southern Haiti affected by Gustave went ten days without water." No human can go ten days without water. Food, perhaps. But not water. So we can expect that the people you see in these photographs, which I took by borrowing the digital camera of a ZL employee from Gonaïves (whose family, like all those you see, lost everything), are at great risk of falling ill with water-borne illnesses. There is also a lot of dead livestock floating down the streets of the city. The stench is overwhelming. We are familiar with a lot of the Haitian officials charged with responding to this tragedy, which is, agreed, widespread. They showed up in Gonaïves: the district health commissioner, who is from the city and felt lucky to have avoided drowning; the coordinator of the government's disaster response; nurses and doctors we've known over the years. They are doing the best they can with scant supplies. They are tired, thirsty themselves, hoarse-throated. Even Haiti's newly-appointed Prime Minister, on her first day on the job, showed up this morning in Mirebalais, keeping a promise she made many months ago, long before she was directly involved in politics. She now has to install a new government, perhaps this afternoon, and respond to multiple disasters at once. These people, who are trying to help their fellow Haitians, deserve our help. This is an appeal to staff, family, friends, and readers. Our co-workers in Haiti are already contributing what services and supplies they can. We will withdraw from Gonaïves (as soon as we get the information we need regarding urgent supplies and as soon as we see more evidence of the mainstream disaster-relief organizations) to Saint-Marc and Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite, where we will run the hospitals and health centers with our colleagues in the Ministry of Health; we will help organize food and some clothing for people in Gonaïves and refugees being brought in today from Gonaïves. Mirebalais is going to be under a good deal of stress. As many of you know, the city's hospital is not really functioning (in January, local protests about the hospital led to its closing, with patients evacuated to Cange, Boucan Carre, and LaColline). To my knowledge, at least 15,000 are expected to arrive here today—and they will come with nothing. They'll need water, food, and shelter immediately, and the Mayor of Mirebalais, with whom we met this morning, is looking for dry spaces for them (maybe schools, etc) but there's no bedding or mosquito nets or cots that I know of. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter is to arrive in Gonaïves tomorrow with water and supplies, but by report last night's attempt to dock a UN vessel and distribute food was not successful because of "fear of crowd control" (this was from an American friend in Port-au-Prince, so I can't confirm anything other than what I saw: no widespread distribution of water or food or tents or tarps or anything). Since ZL is, like all the PIH sister organizations, nimble, we can do a lot by pooling small donations from friends and family members and helping ZL respond in real time to requests from those coordinating the relief efforts. We'll need to source things like tetanus vaccine (withdrawn from Gonaïves some months ago because of concerns over quality of a certain batch; I don't know the details), first-aid supplies, oral-rehydration packs, and of course food, cooking oil, and fuel. Again, I know that conventional disaster-relief organizations have greater experience in logistics, and am expecting they'll have kits prepared for precisely these needs, but as of today these supplies are conspicuous by their absence. Problems with "crowd control," refugees, and short tempers will only increase as the days go by—especially if more rain falls, as is predicted. Over 20 years ago, someone explained to me that "wet poverty is worse than dry poverty." I wasn't then sure what that meant, but had a pretty good idea of the misery endured by those living through the rainy season in houses that, as the Haitians say, "can fool the sun but not the rain." I've repeated the maxim often enough to merit teasing from my students, but the Haitians find it neither amusing nor over-used. Trying to sleep in wet clothes, on a muddy floor, is high on the list of degradingly uncomfortable activities. It's better to simply give up and wait until daylight. Surveying the devastation in Gonaïves, and the wretched population on roofs or wading through the streets or carrying bundles out of the city, we knew that these floods and the lack of effective response are not so much about the unruly forces of nature. Many of you on the Haiti team recall that we've long been based in a squatter settlement formed by the floodwaters of the Artibonite; that we spent years rebuilding lean-tos and shacks that didn't even fool the sun; you'll remember our co-worker's mother swept away in a flash flood; or you've been part of a team of health workers watching helplessly as an ambulance is swept downstream before their eyes. The world is waking up to these threats, but Haitians have long been pulling all-nighters as rainstorms keep them up rather than lull them to sleep. Please give generously to ZL's efforts to intervene immediately, and share this with friends and family who might give even small amounts via the PIH website. Paul Farmer is co-founder of Partners in Health and has lived and worked extensively in Haiti.
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