Human Earthquake rocks San Francisco Juneteenth in the Fillmore--NEXT: Berkeley Juneteenth, Sunday, June 21, 2015

On this day, June 13, 2015, I pass the baton to the next generation to continue our struggle until liberation is done. I say to you take the baton and continue our fight for eternity until we are in the seat of God. In the spirit of my teacher Sun Ra, discipline is the key, not freedom, discipline.

Marvin X says all young brothers and sisters must listen to the Sun Ra lectures given at the University of California, Berkeley, 1971, see Youtube and/or www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
As per 2015, no one can equal the philosophical thought of Master Teacher Sun Ra. For sure the UC Berkeley lectures are not enough to encompass the vision of Sun Ran, with whom Marvin X was a student and artistic associate. "Master Sun Ra taught me many things. Some I recounted recently at the University of Chicago. I was so honored to perform a concert with the surviving members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, leader Marshall Allen, 91 years old, and Danny Thompson, a youngster but in fact the enforcer of the Arkestra!

 

 

 

Dear Friends, Supporters, and Programming Editors:

 

Regarding the attached media releases, please consider promoting and covering the Berkeley Juneteenth Festival taking place on Sunday, June 21, 2015, from 11am-7pm, in the city of Berkeley     

 

2015 participants, please note on your social sites your performance at the Berkeley Juneteenth Festival.

 

We are accepting vendor applications up to the day of the event.

 

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

 

Delores Nochi Cooper

Publicity Chair

Berkeley Juneteenth Association, Inc.

FYI, Marvin X will 

speak/read and autograph books 

at Berkeley Juneteenth. 

Look for his booth near Alcatraz and Harmon Streets.

Marvin X rocked the Sacramento Black Book Fair--Sacramento will never be the same--better "ax" somebody! He's on fire with truth!
He is a truth talker supreme
His friends have joined the ancestors:
Amiri Baraka
Sun Ra
Eldridge Cleaver
Huey Newton
Mae Mallory
Queen Mother Moore
Sam Napier
Lil Bobby Hutton
John Huggins
Alprintice Bunchy Carter

San Francisco Juneteenth, 
June 13, 2015

 The living legend Fillmore Slim who always taught brothers to keep their day job, cause pimpin' ain't easy. Marvin X quoted Fillmore in the Mythology of Pussy and Dick, the 18 page pamphlet on deconstructing the male/female crisis of those suffering from the addiction to white supremacy mythology, especially the patriarchal mythology that says women are chattel property (personal property) of men.

According to Marvin X, marriage laws cannot transcend natural laws as per the birds and bees. Let's be honest, men are predators by nature, they seek to conquer and control, i.e., dominate, rule. But if truth be told, and it must, the patriarchal mythology must be cast into the dustbin of history. History itself must be cast into the dustbin and replaced with the Sun Ra Mythology of Mystery or My story/her story, for sure, no more history (his  story).

Distinguished persons at Academy of da Corner; brother seeking manhood training. Since he's already read Mythology of Pussy and Dick, Marvin gave him a copy of Drs. Nathan and Julia Hare's Crisis in Black Sexual Politics. Marvin X considers this collection of essays by a variety of writers an excellent followup to Mythology of Pussy and Dick. Here is a list of contributors: Nathan Hare, Julia Hare, Haki Madhubuti, Na'im Akbar, Maulana Karenga, Joseph Scott, James Stewart, Harold Cruse, Robert Staples, Jawanza Kunjufu, John Henrik Clarke, Bebe Moore Campbell, Alex Swan, et al.
Other brothers are retired judge Corbett, also a San Francisco State University student warrior, along with SFSU student/warrior Terri Collings, GM of KPOO Radio, the People's station in San Francisco.
Marvin X can go on KPOO anytime anyday and speak his truth as long as he desires.  Ancestor Joe Rudolph founded KPOO and when he joined the ancestors, left behind an institution for eternity, KPOO. All praise due Joe Rudolph, who taught Marvin X how to talk on the radio. In his last conversation with Marvin X, Joe called Marvin X over to a tree in Oakland's Mosswood Park. He whispered in Marvin's ear: "Marvin, ain't gonna be no mo' like us, is it?" Marvin X responded, "No, Joe, ain't no mo' like us."

 Juneteenth visitors at X's Academy of da Corner Tent

 Oh, the Mythology of Pussy and Dick. I am so thankful I am out of the box of Western patriarchal sexual suppression. I love my body and all bodies in their natural state of beauty and truth. Once you leave America, you see other people are not as sexually repressed as Americans, Black and White. Americans are sick with sexual repression and totally confused about their sexual identity, when gender is, yes, the ultimate decision in gender identity formation. Traditionally, gender identity formation is established in womanhood and manhood training rituals. In the absence of manhood and womanhood training rites and rituals, there is gender identity confusion leading to madness.

But Kujichagulia says, "If you think I'm just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring!" FYI, Marvin X loves the physicality and spirituality of the Black African Goddess of the Universe. Somebody better say ACHE! up in here!

For sure, I have transcended the western mythology of sexual repression that so many North American Africans are addicted to as a result of White supremacy socialization. 

Dr. Nathan Hare says there is addiction to white supremacy type I and type II: Yes, I am addicted to type II. Call me Filthy McNasty! But passion is the nature of the poet. I shall not deny passion. See my Parable of Creativity and Sexuality.

Russian woman joins Marvin X Fan Club at 

Fillmore Juneteenth, 2015

 

A Russian woman came by Academy of da Corner, Fillmore Juneteenth,  and when she saw the Master Poet (USA's Rumi, says Bob Holmsn), (Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland, Ishmael Reed), collating his Mythology, she told him I did that for thirty years as a job. When Marvin playfully doubted her, she said let me show you, and she sat down to collate several copies of his MOPD, until he was convinced she knew what she was doing. Then she departed.

 Fillmore Slim, singer, manager of women, with his protege Gangsta Brown

Marvin X supports these brothers in what they do of righteousness! When they showed up at his Tenderloin Black Radical Book Fair with original narratives of their life travels, Dr. Julia Hare told them to not feel guilty about their pimping life because, "We have ecclesiastical pimps as well."

Marvin X 

will perform and autograph books 

at Berkeley Juneteenth

Sunday, June 21, 2015

be there or be square

 

 

 

Dear Friends, Supporters, and Programming Editors:

 

Regarding the attached media releases, please consider promoting and covering the Berkeley Juneteenth Festival taking place on Sunday, June 21, 2015, from 11am-7pm, in the city of Berkeley     

 

2015 participants, please note on your social sites your performance at the Berkeley Juneteenth Festival.

 

We are accepting vendor applications up to the day of the event.

 

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

 

Delores Nochi Cooper

Publicity Chair

Berkeley Juneteenth Association, Inc.

FYI, Marvin X will speak and autograph books at Berkeley Juneteenth. Look for his booth!

Marvin X is on fire. 

Let him wake up your city

Most recently Marvin X rocked the University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference

then 

the University of California, Merced

Professor McMillan's Theatre and Social Justice class

then

The Sacramento Black Book Fair

then

San Francisco Juneteenth Festival in the Fillmore

up next

the Berkeley Juneteenth Festival

then

the Oakland Juneteenth in North Oakland at the Youth Center

Book Marvin X as a speaker at your event

Must have a freedom of speech clause in contract

including honorarium, travel, lodging, food

510-200-41654 

Will speak and read coast to coast

especially in the Dirty South, Midwest, East coast

Oakland Police murder man for sleeping in car while black with gun in seat

Oakland: More than a hundred gather for vigil for 30-year-old shot, killed by police

By David DeBolt ddebolt@bayareanewsgroup.com

Posted:   06/12/2015

 

More than 100 people gathered in Oakland on June 12, 2015, for a evening vigil at Lakeshore Avenue and Lake Park, the site where police shot and killed 30-year-old Demouria Hogg. (David DeBolt/Bay Area News Group)

 

OAKLAND -- More than a hundred people gathered Friday evening on Lakeshore Avenue at the site of where police shot and killed 30-year-old Demouria Hogg. 

The vigil organized by the Anti Police-Terror Project drew family, friends and supporters to the busy shopping district along Lakeshore Avenue at Lake Park Avenue for a peaceful protest.

Organizers took over the intersection at 6:30 p.m. and traffic on Lakeshore Avenue came to standstill and the Interstate 580 westbound off-ramp was backed up as protesters locked arms around a makeshift replica of the vehicle Hogg was found sleeping in. 

Once attendees took the street, they had a moment of silence for Hogg. Activists planned on blocking the intersection until sundown.

 

More than 100 people gathered in Oakland on June 12, 2015, for a evening vigil on Lakeshore Avenue and Lake Park, the site where police shot and killed 30-year-old Demouria Hogg. (David DeBolt/Bay Area News Group)

 

"This is where they murdered him, this is the street we'll hold," said activist Cat Brooks.

 Attendees heard from Hogg's family and relatives of other people killed in officer-involved shootings.

They're demanding that police release any footage that captured the shooting and police or coroners reports. Relatives also demand that an independent investigator be brought in to investigate the fatal shooting.

"It's disturbing someone could be asleep in their car, and the only action officers can take is to kill (somebody)," said Brianna Gibson, 23, of Oakland, with the Oakland Chapter of Black Youth Project.

As the street takeover began, organizers worked as traffic control to direct drivers on the off-ramp to turn right and not left toward Lakeshore Avenue. Oakland Police directed motorists from I-580 to take Wesley Avenue soon after. About a dozen officers were on standby near the vigil.
There were no arrests as of 7:30 p.m.

Hogg, a father of three, was killed June 6 after a standoff with police. City firefighters called police to the area about 7:30 a.m. after seeing Hogg passed out behind the wheel of a BMW, with a loaded handgun sitting on the passenger seat, police said.
Over the next hour, police tried to wake Hogg by using a loudspeaker, breaking out the car's windows, and ordering him to surrender. When police approached the car to apprehend him, a female officer shot him twice, authorities have said. He was pronounced dead at Highland Hospital.
An attorney for the officer said she fired because Hogg reached for the pistol next to him. The police department has not identified the officer, who has been with the department for a little more than a year.
Hogg's family and family friend and activist Brooks have questioned the shooting, and called for police to release more information. Hogg was recently living in Hayward but has ties to Oakland.
His family said he wasn't a violent person and carried a gun for protection. He has been wanted since April on a parole violation and has served five years in prison after his conviction for drug possession and being an accessory to a felony, records show.

Staff writer Katrina Cameron contributed to this report. David DeBolt covers breaking news. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.

Kentucky poets stop by Academy of da Corner

These poets from the University of Lexington, Kentucky, stopped by Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, and gave a performance. They are in the Bay to perform. Marvin X was happy to meet people from his father's land, Kentucky. "We grew up eating rice, not grits!" the  Master poet said.

Roots of the Black Activist Tradition by Dr. Muhammad Ahmad (aka, Max Stanford)

Deeper Roots of the Black Activist Tradition

“Know Your Local History”

by Dr. Muhammad Ahmad, aka, Max Stanford

One of the principles of community organizing is for the organizer to walk the area he/she plans to organize. In canvasing the community, one finds out who are the bridge leaders the ones making organic connections between people in various strata or positions in society as well as those who are in organizations, institutions, those who are able to obtain resources, have connections with the local or regional power structure (the movers and shakers).

If at all possible, the organizers and their organizations or networks try to obtain research or a history of the community concerned.

The next aspect for the organizers is for them to decide what element of the community is most progressive, or receptive to the message upon which the social movement is based. 

Then, they want to target that sector for their primary (re-education and mobilizing effort.) Within the analysis of the community, the organizers should assess the broad middle strata of where the people’s consciousness or mood is at.

Third, the organizers should analyze the various reactionary sectors, forces and/or organizational leaders, etc., who oppose progressive social change and the reason for their opposition.
Fourth is to “root in” or as Walter Rodney would say, “Grounding with my Brothers.” And of course, we also say, “Groundings with My Sisters.”

Fifth, is initiating a process which uproots and exposes opportunists reactionaries and racist opposition of all forms. This takes a mass re-education of people by the masses of the people or “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”

Now how does this enter into the deep roots of the Back Activist Tradition in knowing your local history? Often the light or spark of developing an endless self-educational process for a young person in the community is stimulated by an elder or elders who nurture young people through athletics, cultural forms or various civic activities or by an older peer. In every community there have been “unsung heroes and sheroes”, who have dedicated a lifetime to developing and contributing to the advancement of the community.

Forty or fifty plus years ago, a young person had various immediate positive role models. But with the contracting of the pool of unskilled or semi-skilled labor, combined with the 47 year assault of chemical warfare on the African American community, the African-American family has been devastated and the social ethos or traditional positive values of the community have been temporarily destroyed.

The once, all strata, African-American community has now become diversified, based on economic income. Many of the positive role models are no longer in the traditional lower working class African-American communities. Many have moved to the suburbs in order to raise their children and grandchildren in better schools and in a safe environment.

In an economy based on electronic production, employment is not longer expanding. This is reinforced by the racist financial monopoly capitalist system's labor pool, which is shrinking and uses the destructive drug culture which funnels African-American youth into prison. 

This also keeps the white middle class (BA’s, MA’s, PhD’s), mental health, social workers, parole/probation officers, hospital workers, medical doctors, pharmacy workers, etc., and a large section of the white workers (police, prison guards, security personnel) and industrial workers related to prisons, prison construction, and maintenance employed. All of this is related to monitoring, maintaining and controlling the lumpenized African-American underclass.
 
Thus the United States of America has evolved into the Fourth Reich. (A Democratic Fascist Police State).

In the Inner City (Urban poor underclass), African-American community, the concept or image of a decent hard-working class person (mentality) has been marginalized and replaced by the 24/7 electronic media psychological propaganda warfare blitz (offensive) of the successful gangster/pimp/prostitute.

This is illusionary, because in reality it may bring “fast money to an individual,” but leads to massive death and destruction of the African-American community. Through the gangster hip-hop culture comes the socialization that creates the “school-to-prison pipeline.” It negates positive “self-consciousness” of African-Americans long struggle for human rights, self reliance and self-determination. Seeking the “knowledge of self”, “African-African-American history” becomes a “no-no”, because to aspire to be a freedom fighter might lead to the transformation of self and dis-engage one from the “self destructive genocidal process.

Thus the positive role models of the 60s and 70s are marginalized for the 21st century electronic based generation.           
                                      
The existence of positive role models are very seldom projected in terms of educating African-American youth by the establishment. Each generation of African-American youth are thrust into the present contradictions of the racist monopoly finance capitalist system without any understanding of what in the past led to what they are facing now and how to struggle to advance the movement forward for their liberation.

This is due to the historical discontinuity that is forced on our community by the oppressive system.
The racist system negates the history of African-Americans 24/7, thru the negation of “national consciousness” or resistance of the African-American people to their oppression.

Each upsurge is social psychologically repressed by replacing the positive images or knowledge of self of the previous movement and personalities that attempted to uplift the community; replacing them with negative images, personalities or culture.

With the destruction of the African-American family due to the state policy of the welfare system, chemical warfare and the racist, anti-Black electronic media on a 24/7 basis; the socialization process in the African-American community is no longer the same as it has been since the end of slavery.

Due to the overseas expansion of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs; reducing Black workers both male and female to low-paying jobs which cause African-American parents to work two or three jobs just to maintain, often they have to work different shifts with no health benefits or retirement, which causes the traditional African-American family to continuously be destroyed.

The children of low income African-American families are forced to be raised on fast food (McDonald’s, etc.) and are baby-sat by the T.V. (racist anti-Black propaganda).

From eating habits, which transform the traditional structure of the African-American family where the family congregated at dinner time to social life and social morays, there is a social disconnect between them and their historical lineage.

Therefore, it is imperative that a new cultural, political, historical re-education process be initiated. Such an effort should not come from the traditional established institutions of this society because their initial orientation was and often is an anti-African-American liberation style.

For the overall local African-American community to heal and center itself in a positive direction it should know about its leadership, past and present in order to prepare its future leadership properly. Local Freedom Schools that are outside of the establishment need to be created.

Often, due to the years of chemical warfare against our community, many of our children are raising themselves. There was also a generation of parents who lack parenting skills to prepare their children for the future because many are parents before completing their adolescent years; were thrust into an economic, social and cultural crisis, while lacking basic survival skills.

Let me say at this point, at no time can one say ‘It’s their fault’. Our people (African-Americans) are victims of a vulturistic, capitalistic system which wages psychological war against African- Americans to break the “esprit de core” (or moral fiber), the will to resist and to crush the “national consciousness” that we are captives of war. This is done to derail African-Americans from realizing that the right reactionaries of the system are preparing to eliminate African-Americans.
We are being conditioned for self destruction, reduced to be only consumers and producers of products produced by “slave labor” behind the walls of “21st century slavery.”

When that slave labor can be replaced by robots as we self-destruct and go behind the walls (upstate), eventually, we will never come back. We will gradually disappear as a people.

All Americans are being programmed (numbed to allow), to accept the elimination of the African-American people. There is a continuous, gradual, silent genocide occurring.  This is why all layers of the African-American community need to be re-educated or go thru a new cultural revolution that will prepare us to resist, arrest and counter our destruction.

Since those immediate positive role models are no longer there, then the historical positive role models can act as a substitute in re-establishing a positive self-esteem in our community, as example to emulate.

“What we are likely witnessing is a situation in which it is no longer possible for the capitalist class in crisis to rule the people of the United States in the old way. A process is underway that involves the withering away of liberal democracy and arrival of a not-so friendly fascist order meant to bolster capitalism through a resort to authoritarian discipline. How far this process goes depends on political events and the efforts of the ongoing economic crisis on public consciousness.”

So by knowing your local history one can pass on the baton to another, of each one, teach one, creating a continuous or a revivalist liberation movement for our survival and self-determination in the 21st century.
The problem of the 21st century is still “the problem of the color line”.

Black Lives Matter! We Will Win!

4/16/15                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 


Dr. Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford, Jr.) has been involved in the struggle for self-determination, justice and equality since 1960 (55 years) and has taught at the college/university level for 27 years. Comments, inquiries, communication can be made through: ahmadjr1993@gmail.com

    “Mass Migration in the Stage of Electronics,” Rally Comrades/The Voice of the League Revolutionaries for a New America, Volume 25, Edition 2 March-April 2015, p. 1
    Henry Heller, “The Nazi Threat in the United States: Imported or Homegrown?” Monthly Review, Volume 66, Number 12, April 2015, p. 56

How ISIS gets its ice and how it melts

We are getting an idea of ISIS' greatest asset and Achilles' heel

Natasha Bertrand

Business Insider

June 12, 2015

The Islamic State is one of the most well-funded terrorist organizations in history thanks to the tax base it has managed to establish in its vast swaths of conquered territory in Iraq and Syria.

Islamic State fighters at the Baiji oil refinery.

Running operations to maintain this tax base, however, may prove unsustainable for ISIS in the long run.The militants are quickly racking up more expenses than they can cover, and their oil revenues have been cut by nearly two-thirds due to US airstrikes on oil refineries and the low price of crude, Indira Lakshmanan of Bloomberg reported.The US has tried to cut off ISIS' sources of revenue with little success, however: The group has compensated by levying hefty taxes on salaries and businesses, in some cases demanding residents and companies pay them as much as 20% of their income or revenue — 50% if they are employed by the Iraqi government, the New York Times reported.

And after conquering Mosul in June 2014, ISIS imposed a "protection" tax on every Iraqi Christian who refused to convert to Islam. Christians who refused to pay would not receive the protection of ISIS gunmen and could either leave or be killed.

All in all, ISIS takes in an estimated $1 million every day from extortion and taxation, according to analysts at the nonprofit RAND Corporation.

"ISIS makes most of its money from plunder," Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider in May. "We're seeing that over and over again. They go from one town to the next and knock over a bank or several banks and go house to house and extract whatever is of value."

"It's a racket," Schanzer said. "And that's how ISIS continues to survive and thrive."

And after conquering Mosul in June 2014, ISIS imposed a "protection" tax on every Iraqi Christian who refused to convert to Islam. Christians who refused to pay would not receive the protection of ISIS gunmen and could either leave or be killed.

All in all, ISIS takes in an estimated $1 million every day from extortion and taxation, according to analysts at the nonprofit RAND Corporation.

How Bill Clinton stole billions in Haitian Relief Money

CLINTON’S CRIMINAL INDUSTRIAL ZONE – Stolen Haitian Relief Money-Added COMMENTARY By Haitian-Truth

July 10, 2012

by Stephen Lendman Tuesday Jul 10th, 2012 12:47 AM
Haiti
Stolen Haitian Relief Money
by Stephen Lendman
Following Haiti’s catastrophic January 12, 2010 earthquake, billions of dollars in relief aid were raised. Suffering Haitians got virtually none of it.

Hundreds of thousands remain homeless. A cholera emergency still exists. On June 19, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent said:
“There is a significant probability of a major cholera emergency in Haiti in the coming months but resources have been severely diminished.”

Increased numbers of cases were reported in the Artibonite, Nord-Ouest, Nord-Est, Ouest, Gonave island, and homeless camps in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) estimates another 170,000 new cases by end of 2012.

Haiti’s problems are severe. Deep poverty, deprivation, and unemployment torment millions. Earthquake devastation compounded them. Little relief came. It was stolen for commercial development.

It’s common practice to divert relief aid to private developers. In 2004, a second tsunami struck Sri Lanka. The first one took 250,000 lives and left 2.5 million homeless throughout the region.
Coastal areas were scrubbed clean. Everything was gone. Sri Lankans living there lost everything. New rules prohibited rebuilding homes where they once stood. Buffer zone restrictions insured it.
Beaches were off-limits to people who once lived there. Displaced Sri Lankans were shoved into temporary grim inland camps. Soldiers prevented them from coming home.

At issue was developing coastal areas for profit. Luxury destinations were planned. Formerly occupied land was sold to commercial buyers. Privatization was the new game.

Displaced residents were entirely left out. What they lost, they never got back. Land grab money making became policy.

Tsunami victims in other ravaged countries suffered the same fate. The pattern repeated everywhere. People were prohibited from rebuilding where they once lived.

What nature wrought, corporate developers and corrupt politicians compounded by stealing their land for profit.

New Orleans Katrina victims suffered the same way. Blank became beautiful. Erased communities were replaced with upscale condos and other high-profit projects on choice city real estate.

Residents who once lived there were forced out. Politicians conspired with developers to assure they didn’t come back.

History not only rhymes, as Mark Twain once said, a lot of times it repeats. Haitians now suffer like Sri Lankans, other East Asian tsunami victims, and Katrina displaced New Orleans residents.

Haitians are no strangers to adversity and anguish. For over 500 years, they suffered severe oppression, slavery, despotism, colonization, reparations, embargoes, sanctions, deep poverty, starvation, unrepayable debt, and natural calamities.
They included destructive hurricanes and numerous magnitude 7.0 or greater regional earthquakes.
The last major one came in 1946. A magnitude 8.1 quake struck adjacent Dominican Republic. Haiti was also affected. Earlier catastrophic ones were in 1751 and 1770. Both devastated Port-au-Prince. In 1842 Cap-Haitien was destroyed.

After its worst catastrophe in nearly 170 years, Haitians need food, housing, medical care, clean water, and other vital services, not military forces confronting them repressively. They still do.
US marines are gone. MINUSTAH shock troops remain. For years, they’ve committed murders, kidnappings, extrajudicial detentions, rapes, non-sexual assaults, physical threats, and other type abuses. They’re enforcers for political and corporate crime bosses.

Haiti always was open for profit and exploitation. Earthquake devastation created new opportunities. The country was declared open for business. Washington and other Western predators took full advantage.

So did hundreds of for-profit NGOs. They skim most relief aid donations for themselves. So do corporate developers and other profiteers. They steal private donations and pledged amounts freely. Haiti’s pseudo-government then and now acquiesces.  In January, Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas headlined “Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go – Haiti after the Quake,” saying:
Despite billions in pledged and donated aid, “Haiti looks like the earthquake happened two months ago, not two years.”

Rarely does this news get covered. Over half a million people then remained homeless. They still do. Most debris lay where it fell. Cholera was killing thousands. It’s still out of control because too little is done to stop, control, and treat it.
Instead of relief going to help Haitians, it’s given to profiteering companies and NGOs. Haitians then and now ask where did the money go? It hasn’t helped them.

Washington diverted the largest amount. Instead of helping, it sent in the marines, let contracts for corporate predators, and funded well-connected profiteering NGOs. Haitians got hardly anything. They’re still waiting for desperately needed aid.

Their government got 1% of the money. Little went to Haitian companies or local NGOs. Private companies specializing in disasters got funding. Much of what was pledged never came. It happens every time.

Other funds received weren’t spent. Quigley and Ramanauskas are human rights lawyers. They said:
“Respect, transparency and accountability are the building blocks for human rights.”
“Haitians deserve to know where the money has gone, what the plans are for the money still left, and to be partners in the decision-making for what is to come.”

Once relief aid stops, they’ll be responsible entirely for solving problems so far not even addressed.
On July 5, The New York Times headlined “Earthquake Relief Where Haiti Wasn’t Broken.”
It provided a rare mainstream glimpse at how Haitians have been harmed and cheated.

“On the first anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, in a sleepy corner of northeast Haiti far from the disaster zone, the Haitian government began the process of evicting 366 farmers from a large, fertile tract of land to clear the way for a new industrial park.”

They didn’t “understand why authorities wanted to replace productive agricultural land with factories in a rural country that had trouble feeding itself.”
Many other troubling incidents followed. Haitians are virtually helpless to stop it.

Bill Clinton co-chairs the so-called Haiti recovery commission. He celebrated the Caracol Industrial Park project by “cementing an agreement with the anchor tenant – Sae-A-Trading.” Wife Hillary helped seal the deal.
Sae-A is a South Korean clothing manufacturer. It’s a major supplier for Walmart and other large retailers.

They, like other local manufacturers, want to exploit Haitians lucky to have work no matter how poorly they’re paid and treated. They get below poverty wages. They’re treated little better than slaves.

Two and a half years after the quake, “Haiti remains mired in a humanitarian crisis.” Hundreds of thousands are homeless. They’re largely on their own to survive.

This and other commercial developments benefit profiteers, not Haitians. “Caracol Industrial Park is hardly reconstruction in the strictest sense.”

Its developers downplay labor and environmental concerns. They came to make money, not help Haitians. Sae-A has an odious reputation. It closed its Guatemala factory over troubled labor relations.

The AFL/CIO urged Haiti’s government not to accept them. A detailed memo described “egregious antiunion repression.” It includes “acts of violence and intimidation.” Guatemalan monitor Homero Fuentes called Sae-A “one of the major labor violators.”

Worker Rights Consortium executive director Scott Nova calls the company “a big player in a dirty industry with a track record that suggests a degree of ruthlessness even worse than the norm.”

Other critics expressed concerns about its Guatemalan labor and criminal law violations. Company executives used every dirty tactic imaginable to squeeze out profits. Manufacturing is conducted amidst intimidation, death and other threats on workers.

Nonetheless, Bill and Hillary Clinton welcomed Sae-A with open arms.

Caracol Bay contains Haiti’s most extensive mangrove reserve and valued coral reef. Better suited sites were bypassed. Haiti’s Audubon Society head Arnoud Dupuy called doing so “heresy.”
Environmental considerations were ignored. Despite objections, development went ahead as planned. It includes a heavy fuel oil power plant, a dense housing project, and port on a soon to be lost pristine bay.

Instead of promised “building back better,” profits superseded environmental and people concerns. Local backers and US officials downplayed the enormous damage done.

Haitians won’t be helped. They’ll be ruthlessly exploited for profit. Caracol’s mayor, Landry Colas, wasn’t consulted. He’d have picked a different site, he said.

This one is vast. It comprises nearly a square mile. It’s in Haiti’s north, south of Cap-Haitien. It’s bisected by the Hole of the North River and fed by the Massacre Aquifer.

Land was cleared last year. Small farmers were evicted. The tract resembles “a gravelly lunar landscape. Its perimeter is fenced, and outside the gate, a banner drapes a church, proclaiming ‘Sae-A Loves You.’ ”

It reminds some of Orwell’s “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
Sae-A executives see Caracol Bay as a blank slate to develop and exploit as they wish. Haitians have a much different view. Land chosen has a history of foreign exploitation and agrarian struggle. Peasants alternated between occupation and eviction.

Bill and Hillary Clinton added more. Aggrieved Haitians won’t forget or forgive. The William J. Clinton Foundation and Inter-American Development Bank lured hundreds of potential investors to Haiti.

Big profits were promised. The industrial park was bait. Away from Haiti’s devastated south, it was ideal.

Ravaged areas remain troubled by slow rubble removal, problems securing land, and institutional ones.

Export processing zones aren’t new in Haiti. Choosing the best sites are prioritized. Professor Laurent Dubois calls developing industrial parks a “tired” idea, saying:
“The way I see it, in a deep, long, historical way, Haiti was founded by ex-slaves who overthrew a plantation system and people keep trying to get them to return to some form of plantation.”
“There have been cycles of (these) type project(s), where the idea is that foreign investment will modernize the country. But things have gotten progressively worse for Haitians.”

A local bank manager called developing a garment maquiladora zone a last resort idea. Free land, slave wages, extensive infrastructure development, and other investment incentives lured Sai-A. In return, it’s spending a modest amount.

Environmentalists were shocked that the company would anchor a giant industrial park. Before Haiti’s quake, they designated Caracol Bay to become the country’s first marine protected site.
Development imperils conservation. Haiti’s government chose the site. Washington’s heavy hand made the difference. It has valued soil and water resources. It’s ideal for farming.
Environmental impact studies weren’t done. After the fact, concerns were raised. It was too late. Caracol’s mayor Colas worries that his city will become another Cite Soleil slum.
He added that he feels like he’s being used. Signing ceremony attendees stop by City Hall, he said. They greet him, but there’s no relationship or involvement in planning or deals signed. Foreigners know more about what’s going on than he does, he complained.

Millions of Haitians have known nothing but brutal exploitation and numbing poverty for hundreds of years.

Caracol Bay and other commercial development projects change nothing. Haitian suffering continues.


Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”
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COMMENT: HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG

The industrial development, mentioned in this article, is a truly criminal enterprise that will see a bunch of pirates establishing a manufacturing complex within 700 miles of the Continental United States – a major market.

The destruction of valuable farmland is a major crime.

Haiti has a few thousand square miles of land that could be used for inductrial purposes.

Unfortunately, Haiti does not have a government with any sort of social conscience.

And, some cynics suggest Bill Clinton received a brown bag, or Haliburton case full of fresh American $100 bills.

Whatever the case may be, there should be a reassessment of this entire project.

It must be relocated.

The key operator must be replaced with a better, more socially oriented one.