Fractured Narrative: Haitian Calm, American Cynicism

[Demeter]

http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1903-fractured-narrative-haitian-calm-american-cynicism.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+empire_burlesque+%28Empire+Burlesque+-+Chris+Floyd%29

...Barack Obama's cynicism in placing George W. Bush, of all people, as a figurehead of America's "abiding commitment" to Haiti is jaw-dropping. Not only did Bush preside over one of the most colossally inept and destructive responses to a natural disaster in modern times -- while also inflicting the unnatural disaster of mass murder in Iraq -- it was his administration that engineered the latest coup in Haiti, saddling it with an unpopular, powerless government that simply collapsed in the earthquake. Choosing Bush to spearhead relief for Haiti is like hiring Ted Bundy as a grief counselor for murder victims.

Bush's co-figurehead, Bill Clinton, is hardly a better choice, of course. As we noted here earlier this week, it was Clinton who imposed a brutal economic and political stranglehold on Haiti as his "condition" for restoring the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1996 -- after Aristide had been ousted earlier in a coup engineered by the first President George Bush.

Both of these ex-presidents bear great responsibility for creating the conditions of dire poverty, ill health, corruption and political instability that have made the effects of this natural disaster so much worse. Yet these are the men whom Obama has made the public face of America's humanitarian mission.

In the short run, I suppose it doesn't matter. Obama was bound to pick some hidebound Establishment figure anyway, so why not these two? Maybe Bush and Clinton can squeeze a few extra relief dollars out of the bloated plutocrats they run with -- and Clinton can also work the celebs who still like to bask in the afterglow of his former imperial power. If the prominence they have gained by immoral means can provide immediate relief to those whom they have so grievously afflicted, then so be it.

But in the long run, their selection as the symbols of America's altruistic concern for Haiti's wellbeing certainly does not augur well for any genuine reconfiguration of Haiti's crippling political and economic arrangements. On the contrary; it signals pretty clearly that the imperial gaming of Haiti will go on.

[Bragi]

1. I certainly agree on Bush

Less so on Clinton, not for partisan reasons, but because Clinton, through the UN, has established some credentials in trying to help Haiti. The Bush appointment was stunningly awful, though.

I know that Clinton has been working for some time to resuscitate Bush's reputation (e.g. their joint appearance last year in Toronto) but I presume he is doing this for money. However, I do not see why Obama would even consider naming a vilified war criminal to co-chair a humanitarian relief effort.

(And do note my sig line below!)

[Dogmudgeon]

2. He must mean his OWN cynicism

The press is, indeed, beside itself that the Haitians have not gone feral, but Floyd is indulging his own hunger for stink by using a major natural disaster to hone his "progressive cred"; and in no small part to justify his decade-plus-old animus (that's the recherche word for "pretentious hatred") toward Clinton.

Earlier this week, it was just Limbaugh making hay out of this. It didn't take long for the lefter-than-thou contingent to up the ante, did it?

--d!