A Hidden Tax on Annuities Lurks in the Health Care Reform Law
By SARA HANSARD
Posted 2:30 PM 03/29/10 Retirement, Economy, Investing, Health Care, Taxes, Insurance
Comments: 278Print E-mail More Text Size A A A The Obama administration is trying to encourage people to buy annuities to ensure that they don't outlive their savings. But a little-noticed provision of the new health care reform law will slap a 3.8% tax on payouts from annuities purchased by high-income earners outside their workplace. And, not surprisingly, the life insurance industry isn't happy about that.
Life insurers, which have sold approximately 15 million so-called "nonqualified" policies containing some $710 billion in assets, hope to get this particular provision of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 repealed. The health care reconciliation bill made amendments that House wanted for the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed into law on March 23.
"This is a countermand to all that this administration has been doing since they took office in encouraging saving for retirement and using annuities as guaranteed lifetime income," says Catherine Weatherford, president and chief executive officer of the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), a Washington, D.C., trade association that represents the annuity industry.
A Plea Fell on Deaf Ears
To help pay for the $940 billion health care reform measure, the administration and congressional Democrats included a 3.8% Medicare payroll tax on single people who earn more than $200,000 a year and couples earning over $250,000 a year. Starting in 2013, the tax will be applied to annuity distributions, interest, dividends, capital gains, rents and royalties. While there are no estimates of how much the annuity portion of the tax may raise, all of the investment taxes are expected to contribute $210 billion over the next 10 years to Treasury's coffers.
"We've got a retirement spike coming," Weatherford says. "Saving for retirement using this vehicle will give them that paycheck for life."
The IRI along with the American Council of Life Insurers, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors and the National Association for Fixed Annuities co-signed a March 24 letter that urged the Senate in vain to leave the annuity provision out of the bill. As defined-benefit pensions continue to vanish from the workplace, "Individual annuities are an important tool used by millions of Americans to accumulate retirement savings and to secure lifetime retirement income," the letter said, noting that 78 million working Americans lack access to a workplace retirement plan.
The 3.8% Medicare tax on income received from individual annuities "would serve as a disincentive to save in a product that uniquely allows an individual to accumulate retirement savings and to guarantee that savings can never be outlived," the letter said, and it concluded: "In today's savings-poor environment, policy-makers need to create incentives for retirement planning."
An Inconsistent Strategy
Insurers also point out that the Obama administration has taken steps to try to promote annuities in other areas. The administration's Middle Class Task Force report issued in January included a call for "promoting the availability of annuities and other forms of guaranteed lifetime income, which transform savings into guaranteed future income, reducing the risks that retirees will outlive their savings or that . . . retirees' living standards will be eroded by investment losses or inflation."
The Labor and Treasury Departments have issued a request for information to look at possible impediments to the use of annuities and other types of lifetime guaranteed income in employer-sponsored plans and Individual Retirement Accounts. In his fiscal 2011 budget, President Obama also included a provision that would make it easier for holders of nonqualified annuities to take partial payouts without having to exchange their annuity contracts.
"The inclusion of annuities in the [Medicare] tax flies in the face of what we're trying to achieve here on lifetime security," comments Alane Dent, vice president of federal affairs for the American Council of Life Insurers.
Maintaining "Favorable Tax Treatment"
The administration disagrees that the tax will discourage people from choosing annuities. In a March 23 letter to the IRI, Michael Mundaca, acting assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, said the tax is "not a proposal that is designed to or should discourage individuals from saving through purchasing annuities." The tax "does nothing to alter the favorable tax treatment of annuities inherent in deferring taxation of annuity earnings until annuity payments are made and then treating a portion of each payment as a return of the previously taxed funds used to purchase the annuity," he wrote.
Mundaca also noted that the tax applies only when an annuitant's income exceeds the $200,000 or $250,000 annual threshold.
But nonqualified annuities aren't typically sold to low-income people, say Diane Boyle, director of federal government relations for the National Association of Insurance Financial Advisors. Such plans usually aren't suitable for lower-income earners, who may not have the funds to purchase annuities, she says. Moreover, the income threshold "isn't that high for areas like Washington, New York and [Philadelphia]," where two-earner middle-income couples easily make that much, she adds.
"The financing of health care reform should not be paid for on the backs of individuals who are planning their retirement," Boyle says. Even if it affects only high-income people, "It does have a chilling effect any time you begin taxing lifetime income," the IRI's Weatherford says.
Coming Back for More?
Complicating the tax is that while it's fashioned as a tax primarily on annuity payouts from nonqualified plans, income from employer-sponsored plans such as 401(k)s will also be hit. While annuity income on qualified plans above the threshold amounts won't be subject to the 3.8% tax, all annuity income, including income from qualified plans, is considered in calculating income to meet the tax threshold, Dent of the American Council of Life Insurers explains.
And the insurance industry fears that this won't be the last time it's eyed for new tax proposals. "We're concerned this is a Congress that is looking for ways to finance different initiatives and programs," Boyle says. "They're looking at all areas of the tax code to find revenue. It's concerning that they're finding it in investments and programs that are designed to assist people with their long-term financing for retirement."
Weatherford pledges to try to get the tax repealed: "We think this is so important, we are going to continue to work with this administration and Congress to see if we can look toward repeal of this provision."
Tagged: annuities, health care reform, Life Insurance, payroll tax
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/9CkD7k
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Scientists Say F.D.A. Ignored Radiation Warnings
Scientists Say F.D.A. Ignored Radiation Warnings
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: March 28, 2010
. WASHINGTON — Urgent warnings by government experts about the risks of routinely using powerful CT scans to screen patients for colon cancer were brushed aside by the Food and Drug Administration, according to agency documents and interviews with agency scientists.
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: March 28, 2010
. WASHINGTON — Urgent warnings by government experts about the risks of routinely using powerful CT scans to screen patients for colon cancer were brushed aside by the Food and Drug Administration, according to agency documents and interviews with agency scientists.
Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’
Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_america_yearning_for_fascism_20100329/
Posted on Mar 29, 2010
By Chris Hedges
The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.
“We are ruled not by two parties but one party,” Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. “It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded.”
The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die.
The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.
The longer we appeal to the Democrats, who are servants of corporate interests, the more stupid and ineffectual we become. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and they are right. Only 25 percent of those polled said the government can be trusted to protect the interests of the American people. If we do not embrace this outrage and distrust as our own it will be expressed through a terrifying right-wing backlash.
“It is time for us to stop talking about right and left,” McKinney told me. “The old political paradigm that serves the interests of the people who put us in this predicament will not be the paradigm that gets us out of this. I am a child of the South. Janet Napolitano tells me I need to be afraid of people who are labeled white supremacists but I was raised around white supremacists. I am not afraid of white supremacists. I am concerned about my own government. The Patriot Act did not come from the white supremacists, it came from the White House and Congress. Citizens United did not come from white supremacists, it came from the Supreme Court. Our problem is a problem of governance. I am willing to reach across traditional barriers that have been skillfully constructed by people who benefit from the way the system is organized.”
We are bound to a party that has betrayed every principle we claim to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy, to a demand for quality and affordable public education, to a concern for the jobs of the working class. And the hatred expressed within right-wing movements for the college-educated elite, who created or at least did nothing to halt the financial debacle, is not misplaced. Our educated elite, wallowing in self-righteousness, wasted its time in the boutique activism of political correctness as tens of millions of workers lost their jobs. The shouting of racist and bigoted words at black and gay members of Congress, the spitting on a black member of the House, the tossing of bricks through the windows of legislators’ offices, are part of the language of rebellion. It is as much a revolt against the educated elite as it is against the government. The blame lies with us. We created the monster.
When someone like Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when she says “Don’t Retreat, Instead—RELOAD!” there are desperate people cleaning their weapons who listen. When Christian fascists stand in the pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist, there are messianic believers who listen. When a Republican lawmaker shouts “baby killer” at Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, there are violent extremists who see the mission of saving the unborn as a sacred duty. They have little left to lose. We made sure of that. And the violence they inflict is an expression of the violence they endure.
These movements are not yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate violence. But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who has written about the origins of Nazism, “In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented.” It is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous. If we do not immediately reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will become a full-blown conflagration.
Left unchecked, the hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined by this largely white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for African-Americans. The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to the press. Our continued impotence and cowardice, our refusal to articulate this anger and stand up in open defiance to the Democrats and the Republicans, will see us swept aside for an age of terror and blood.
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_america_yearning_for_fascism_20100329/
Posted on Mar 29, 2010
By Chris Hedges
The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.
“We are ruled not by two parties but one party,” Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. “It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded.”
The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die.
The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.
The longer we appeal to the Democrats, who are servants of corporate interests, the more stupid and ineffectual we become. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and they are right. Only 25 percent of those polled said the government can be trusted to protect the interests of the American people. If we do not embrace this outrage and distrust as our own it will be expressed through a terrifying right-wing backlash.
“It is time for us to stop talking about right and left,” McKinney told me. “The old political paradigm that serves the interests of the people who put us in this predicament will not be the paradigm that gets us out of this. I am a child of the South. Janet Napolitano tells me I need to be afraid of people who are labeled white supremacists but I was raised around white supremacists. I am not afraid of white supremacists. I am concerned about my own government. The Patriot Act did not come from the white supremacists, it came from the White House and Congress. Citizens United did not come from white supremacists, it came from the Supreme Court. Our problem is a problem of governance. I am willing to reach across traditional barriers that have been skillfully constructed by people who benefit from the way the system is organized.”
We are bound to a party that has betrayed every principle we claim to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy, to a demand for quality and affordable public education, to a concern for the jobs of the working class. And the hatred expressed within right-wing movements for the college-educated elite, who created or at least did nothing to halt the financial debacle, is not misplaced. Our educated elite, wallowing in self-righteousness, wasted its time in the boutique activism of political correctness as tens of millions of workers lost their jobs. The shouting of racist and bigoted words at black and gay members of Congress, the spitting on a black member of the House, the tossing of bricks through the windows of legislators’ offices, are part of the language of rebellion. It is as much a revolt against the educated elite as it is against the government. The blame lies with us. We created the monster.
When someone like Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when she says “Don’t Retreat, Instead—RELOAD!” there are desperate people cleaning their weapons who listen. When Christian fascists stand in the pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist, there are messianic believers who listen. When a Republican lawmaker shouts “baby killer” at Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, there are violent extremists who see the mission of saving the unborn as a sacred duty. They have little left to lose. We made sure of that. And the violence they inflict is an expression of the violence they endure.
These movements are not yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate violence. But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who has written about the origins of Nazism, “In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented.” It is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous. If we do not immediately reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will become a full-blown conflagration.
Left unchecked, the hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined by this largely white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for African-Americans. The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to the press. Our continued impotence and cowardice, our refusal to articulate this anger and stand up in open defiance to the Democrats and the Republicans, will see us swept aside for an age of terror and blood.
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
That underwear drawer is starting to look like a better and better idea all the time.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/21480
SEIU pushing for federalization of our 401(k) savings accounts
The Underwear Drawer
By Tim Dunkin Monday, March 29, 2010
I remember once when I was a wee lad, my mother was telling me about the evils of Communism. This was at a point when the Soviet Union was still extant, Ronald Reagan was our President, and everyone who had any sense knew where the lines were drawn, and which side they should be on. Because I was so young, one way that she used to explain it to me was this, “The government can just come in and take your money from you, and it doesn’t matter what you think about it.” Even at my young age, this struck me as quite unjust.
They can just take what they want from you, even though it’s yours? Even though you worked for it? In my juvenile way of thinking, I formulated what I thought would be the perfect way to keep this from happening, which would be to hide the money in a place where nobody would ever want to look for it. So I blurted out to her, “I’d hide my money in my dirty underwear drawer!”
Looking back on it – and this is one of those odd things from childhood that you sometimes recall, but are never quite sure why – I sort of laugh at the childishness of the response. Sure. Hide it in your dirty underwear drawer. Whatever kid, like that would work.
Yet, one cannot really laugh at the sentiment itself. After all, it is fundamentally unjust to use the police powers of the state to hold a gun to somebody’s head and rob them of their hard-earned wealth and savings, especially when you intend to distribute that money to people who refused to work hard themselves. And this is, when you get right down to it, what government-run health care, TARP, Porkulus, cap’n’trade, and the rest of the big government agenda are all about. Taking money away from those who earned it – those who worked and sweated and went to school and gave years of their lives to some company or to their own business and delayed gratifying their wants and desires – and giving it to those who can’t be bothered with little things like “personal responsibility” or “gainful employment.”
Marxism, Wealth redistribution
Let’s face it, this is what the Obama agenda will do. The plans that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of their gang have for us are pure Marxism, pure wealth redistribution designed to entice ever greater numbers of Americans into dependency upon the government for their support. This, in turn, guarantees an ever-expanding pool of voters through whom “democratic socialism” can be more firmly implemented, until we finally reach a point, such as Sweden is at now, where the nation has been so thoroughly socialized that even when the “Conservative” Party has a rare opportunity to lead the nation, they dare not touch any of the “entitlements” for fear of electoral backlash. Obama and Co. are merely the “democratic” wing of the Marxist movement, using ballots bought with tax monies stolen from the productive classes to secure their power, rather than the bullets of overt revolution.
And steal from the productive classes they are doing. ObamaCare, which does not “officially” begin to operate until 2014, will begin this year to collect the massive tax increases needed to fund it. So, the productive classes get hit with a double whammy – higher taxes and the unconstitutional mandate to purchase health insurance from Obama’s cronies in the insurance industry at inflated prices (what else do you think will happen when insurance companies are guaranteed an oligopoly over a captive consumer base?) or pay a huge fine. And just wait until they get cap’n’trade pushed through, and your energy prices (and taxes) go up. And just wait until they start raising taxes to service our ever-increasing debt. And don’t forget that the Bush tax cuts expire this year, and won’t be renewed – a golden opportunity to raise taxes without voting to do so. Oh, and did I mention that Obama and the Dems have quietly rolled back all of the welfare reform that the Republicans had forced onto Clinton back in the 1990s? Get ready to pay for more lazy bums on welfare, too.
Federalization of our 401(k) savings accounts
And now it looks like the Democrat coalition is getting serious about coming after your savings, too. MoneyNews reported recently that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – a public-sector union which provides a lot of monetary and manpower support to the advancement of the Obama agenda – is working with other left-wing groups to push for the federalization of our 401(k) savings accounts. The idea, apparently, is to roll everyone’s retirement accounts into a federally-controlled retirement program, similar in many ways to Social Security. This way, everybody who retired get their “fair share,” even though they hadn’t bothered to put anything back during all the years that they could have.
This plan is, of course, just another wealth redistribution program. As Ross Eisenbrey, a union wonk cited by the article, notes, “The failure is broad and deep. It’s not just a few people falling through the cracks: most of us already are in the ravine. Three in 10 have only a 401(k) or similar savings plan, and the rest of us are totally out of luck.” Hence, the obvious answer is to take from that 30%, and redistribute it to the other 70%. Because, as we all know, the only reason that 30% had savings in their 401(k)s is because of “luck.” It had nothing to do with, you know, “hard work,” or “foresight,” or “financial wisdom.” It’s all about luck. They had it, “the rest of us” didn’t, and that’s just unfair and needs to be rectified by theft and the threat of government violence. That’s what is in the works when you decide to federalize something had by 30%, and roll it all together into a program that will be accessed by 100% when they retire.
Oh, and guess what, once your money goes in, it stays in. Benefits can only be accessed when you retire. Until then, it’s in a government “lockbox” that you can’t touch. At least with current private plans, you can get your money if you need it, even though you may pay an early withdrawal penalty. With this federalized plan, you are flat out of luck, should you ever have a life-changing event that would require you to have to come up with a large sum of money at once. Sorry bub, can’t have you stealing your money back from the proletarians who need what you worked hard to earn.
Social Security – it’s a lockbox full of little white slips of paper that say “IOU” on them
And I think we can all see this coming: said “lockbox” will be anything but. Just look at Social Security – it’s a lockbox full of little white slips of paper that say “IOU” on them. Originally, Social Security was intended to be set apart from the rest of the federal budget – money goes in, and it is paid out to retirees (never mind that it was all a Ponzi scheme to begin with). It wasn’t supposed to be touched for other spending. We see how well that worked out. There’s no reason to think that this new federalized “savings program,” if ever implemented, wouldn’t go the same way. Our 401(k)s (and other savings, most likely, as the program is “expanded” to “encompass more needs,” such as the need for your savings accounts with your banks, which are also largely under federal control already) will just end up providing hundreds of billions of dollars available for more big-government spending, while sparing Congress the political hit accrued from actually having to vote to raise taxes to get revenue.
By hook or by crook (mostly by crook), they are bound and determined to get their hands on our hard-earned money.
That underwear drawer is starting to look like a better and better idea all the time.
SEIU pushing for federalization of our 401(k) savings accounts
The Underwear Drawer
By Tim Dunkin Monday, March 29, 2010
I remember once when I was a wee lad, my mother was telling me about the evils of Communism. This was at a point when the Soviet Union was still extant, Ronald Reagan was our President, and everyone who had any sense knew where the lines were drawn, and which side they should be on. Because I was so young, one way that she used to explain it to me was this, “The government can just come in and take your money from you, and it doesn’t matter what you think about it.” Even at my young age, this struck me as quite unjust.
They can just take what they want from you, even though it’s yours? Even though you worked for it? In my juvenile way of thinking, I formulated what I thought would be the perfect way to keep this from happening, which would be to hide the money in a place where nobody would ever want to look for it. So I blurted out to her, “I’d hide my money in my dirty underwear drawer!”
Looking back on it – and this is one of those odd things from childhood that you sometimes recall, but are never quite sure why – I sort of laugh at the childishness of the response. Sure. Hide it in your dirty underwear drawer. Whatever kid, like that would work.
Yet, one cannot really laugh at the sentiment itself. After all, it is fundamentally unjust to use the police powers of the state to hold a gun to somebody’s head and rob them of their hard-earned wealth and savings, especially when you intend to distribute that money to people who refused to work hard themselves. And this is, when you get right down to it, what government-run health care, TARP, Porkulus, cap’n’trade, and the rest of the big government agenda are all about. Taking money away from those who earned it – those who worked and sweated and went to school and gave years of their lives to some company or to their own business and delayed gratifying their wants and desires – and giving it to those who can’t be bothered with little things like “personal responsibility” or “gainful employment.”
Marxism, Wealth redistribution
Let’s face it, this is what the Obama agenda will do. The plans that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of their gang have for us are pure Marxism, pure wealth redistribution designed to entice ever greater numbers of Americans into dependency upon the government for their support. This, in turn, guarantees an ever-expanding pool of voters through whom “democratic socialism” can be more firmly implemented, until we finally reach a point, such as Sweden is at now, where the nation has been so thoroughly socialized that even when the “Conservative” Party has a rare opportunity to lead the nation, they dare not touch any of the “entitlements” for fear of electoral backlash. Obama and Co. are merely the “democratic” wing of the Marxist movement, using ballots bought with tax monies stolen from the productive classes to secure their power, rather than the bullets of overt revolution.
And steal from the productive classes they are doing. ObamaCare, which does not “officially” begin to operate until 2014, will begin this year to collect the massive tax increases needed to fund it. So, the productive classes get hit with a double whammy – higher taxes and the unconstitutional mandate to purchase health insurance from Obama’s cronies in the insurance industry at inflated prices (what else do you think will happen when insurance companies are guaranteed an oligopoly over a captive consumer base?) or pay a huge fine. And just wait until they get cap’n’trade pushed through, and your energy prices (and taxes) go up. And just wait until they start raising taxes to service our ever-increasing debt. And don’t forget that the Bush tax cuts expire this year, and won’t be renewed – a golden opportunity to raise taxes without voting to do so. Oh, and did I mention that Obama and the Dems have quietly rolled back all of the welfare reform that the Republicans had forced onto Clinton back in the 1990s? Get ready to pay for more lazy bums on welfare, too.
Federalization of our 401(k) savings accounts
And now it looks like the Democrat coalition is getting serious about coming after your savings, too. MoneyNews reported recently that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – a public-sector union which provides a lot of monetary and manpower support to the advancement of the Obama agenda – is working with other left-wing groups to push for the federalization of our 401(k) savings accounts. The idea, apparently, is to roll everyone’s retirement accounts into a federally-controlled retirement program, similar in many ways to Social Security. This way, everybody who retired get their “fair share,” even though they hadn’t bothered to put anything back during all the years that they could have.
This plan is, of course, just another wealth redistribution program. As Ross Eisenbrey, a union wonk cited by the article, notes, “The failure is broad and deep. It’s not just a few people falling through the cracks: most of us already are in the ravine. Three in 10 have only a 401(k) or similar savings plan, and the rest of us are totally out of luck.” Hence, the obvious answer is to take from that 30%, and redistribute it to the other 70%. Because, as we all know, the only reason that 30% had savings in their 401(k)s is because of “luck.” It had nothing to do with, you know, “hard work,” or “foresight,” or “financial wisdom.” It’s all about luck. They had it, “the rest of us” didn’t, and that’s just unfair and needs to be rectified by theft and the threat of government violence. That’s what is in the works when you decide to federalize something had by 30%, and roll it all together into a program that will be accessed by 100% when they retire.
Oh, and guess what, once your money goes in, it stays in. Benefits can only be accessed when you retire. Until then, it’s in a government “lockbox” that you can’t touch. At least with current private plans, you can get your money if you need it, even though you may pay an early withdrawal penalty. With this federalized plan, you are flat out of luck, should you ever have a life-changing event that would require you to have to come up with a large sum of money at once. Sorry bub, can’t have you stealing your money back from the proletarians who need what you worked hard to earn.
Social Security – it’s a lockbox full of little white slips of paper that say “IOU” on them
And I think we can all see this coming: said “lockbox” will be anything but. Just look at Social Security – it’s a lockbox full of little white slips of paper that say “IOU” on them. Originally, Social Security was intended to be set apart from the rest of the federal budget – money goes in, and it is paid out to retirees (never mind that it was all a Ponzi scheme to begin with). It wasn’t supposed to be touched for other spending. We see how well that worked out. There’s no reason to think that this new federalized “savings program,” if ever implemented, wouldn’t go the same way. Our 401(k)s (and other savings, most likely, as the program is “expanded” to “encompass more needs,” such as the need for your savings accounts with your banks, which are also largely under federal control already) will just end up providing hundreds of billions of dollars available for more big-government spending, while sparing Congress the political hit accrued from actually having to vote to raise taxes to get revenue.
By hook or by crook (mostly by crook), they are bound and determined to get their hands on our hard-earned money.
That underwear drawer is starting to look like a better and better idea all the time.
IPCC/CRU Self-Deception Through Groupthink
Rationalizing poor decisions, Having an illusion of invulnerability, Maintaining an illusion of unanimity
IPCC/CRU Self-Deception Through Groupthink
By Dr. Tim Ball Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Few understand the extent of corrupted science produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Data was altered, or completely ignored and research deliberately directed to prove their claim that humans were causing global warming.
IPCC/CRU Self-Deception Through Groupthink
By Dr. Tim Ball Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Few understand the extent of corrupted science produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Data was altered, or completely ignored and research deliberately directed to prove their claim that humans were causing global warming.
Haiti Post-Quake - Devastation, Depravation, Exploitation & Oppression
Haiti Post-Quake - Devastation, Depravation,
Exploitation & Oppression
By Stephen Lendman
3-29-10
Two and half months post-quake, the major media mostly ignore Haiti, the calamitous conditions on the ground, and the growing desperation of millions forced to largely endure on their own - out of sight, mind, the concern of world leaders, and UN, USAID and other aid organizations diverting most of the $700 million + donated to contractors and profiteering NGOs.
A March 11 New York Times editorial titled, "Haiti, Two Months Later," tried to have it both ways, citing relief effort failures, yet praising the US, UN, foreign countries, and aid organizations for:
"dispatch(ing) tents, tarps, food, water, medicine and doctors as they should. They have done a lot of good, particularly the United States, which rushed supplies, a troop force....and a hospital ship. Many lives were saved."
Unmentioned was the thousands of US combat troops obstructing aid, getting none to the most impoverished neighborhoods, and amounts to emergency shelters have been woefully inadequate, making calamitous conditions worse.
A March 25 Times editorial titled, "Haiti's Misery," in fact, admitted it, stating:
"The emergency in Haiti isn't over. It's getting worse, as the outside world's attention fades away....(Yet) Misery rages like a fever in the hundreds of camps sheltering hundreds of thousands of....people left homeless....The dreaded rains have swamped tents and ragged stick-and-tarp huts. They have turned walkways into mud lakes (exacerbating the problem of) cooking food, washing clothes, staying clean and avoiding disease."
It's the plight of around 1.3 million with no shelter, proper sanitation, clean water, enough food, or medical care. On March 4, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised concerns about a potential deadly malaria outbreak, besides numerous other diseases now spreading. On March 5, Partners in Health (PIH) called conditions on the ground "shameful....shocking, inhumane and rapidly deteriorating."
Daily they worsen, placing millions of Haitians in grave peril of calamitous depravation, deadly diseases, greater pain and suffering, and potential mass deaths because imperial plans for Haiti are to plunder it for profit and control, not help desperately needy people, many of whom will suffer, then die.
Haiti is open for business. What was no longer exists. Reconstruction will be profit-driven, replacing former neighborhoods with gentrified ones, corporate ventures, and other upscale projects - poor Haitians being dispossessed, exploited, neglected, abandoned, and oppressed if they resist, especially if they interfere with planned plundering of Haiti's oil and other resources.
On March 24, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton visited Port-au-Prince with Rene Preval, feigned concern, and participated in staged refugee camp photo-ops. Haitians reacted angrily, especially at Bush for ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, exiling him to South Africa, and preventing his return, now more than ever when he's needed.
Protestors outside the national palace burned tires and an American flag, shouting: "Return Aristide! Down with Preval! Down with Bush! The Miami Herald described the Champ de Mars refugee camp visit saying:
"Quake survivors screamed at the three leaders, shouting details of the losses they suffered....Others took a moment to criticize their own president's leadership. 'President Preval has never come to see us before,' screamed Myrlande Saint-Louis, who lives in the Place Mosolee camp the presidents visited. 'Now because Bush is here he comes. Now he wants to see us!' "
The trip served two purposes:
-- to increase interest for a March 31 New York international investment conference expected to approve an $11.5 billion package to solidify corporate control of the country, and
-- for Preval to resolve land issues obstructing quake survivor relocations from areas wanted for commercial redevelopment, so Haitians have to go, willingly or by force.
Haitians are on their own, women and children most vulnerable, according to Amnesty International (AI). A March 25 report said:
"Sexual violence is widely present in the camps where some of Haiti's most vulnerable live. It was already a major concern (pre-quake) but the situation in which displaced people are living exposes women and girls to even greater risks."
Most victims AI interviewed were minors. "One eight-year-old girl was raped when alone in her tent at night. (A) 15-year-old was raped when she went out of the camp to urinate....There are no shelters in the country where victims of sexual violence can be protected and have access to services."
From March 4 - 25, AI assessed conditions in quake struck areas, in particular, human rights abuses affecting women and children. It reported mass displacement, makeshift camps on "every plot of empty land, public or private, and in every space, square and football pitch." Even a golf course and secondary roads were used.
Within the camps, security is non-existant, except for scattered ad hoc efforts, leaving women and girls most vulnerable as well as everyone to theft or assaults that might cost them their lives.
AI visited camps with no emergency shelter, food, sanitation, water or medical care, saying:
"Living conditions in these camps are dire and the majority of inhabitants are deeply frustrated with the Haitian authorities and international agencies" showing no concern for their condition.
The Latin American Solidarity Coalition's (LASC) Assessment on the Ground Pre-Quake
LASC (lasolidarity.org) "is an association of national and local US-based grassroots Latin American and Caribbean solidarity groups (for) a truly progressive Latin America solidarity movement....in support of the people of Latin America struggling for justice and a better future for their countries free of economic, military and cultural imperialism."
From December 28, 2009 - January 7, 2010 (five days before the quake), its 11-member delegation visited Haiti to investigate UN Blue Helmet (MINUSTAH) human rights abuses. On returning, it published a report titled, "Haiti: An Oppressed State," its highlights reviewed below.
LASC met with over 70 individuals and organization representatives in Port-au-Prince and two of its most impoverished neighborhoods, Cite Soleil and Bel Air. It also spent two days in Jacmel visiting sustainable development projects.
Testimonies from MINUSTAH-inflicted violence victims were gotten, including people whose family members were murdered. Virtually everyone:
-- demanded Aristide's return;
-- called MINUSTAH a repressive, criminal force;
-- said international aid hasn't reached the poor, but instead has been diverted to predatory NGOs, prison building, or stolen by corrupt politicians; and
-- believed economic development is exploitive, not providing a living wage, or benefitting poor Haitians productively.
The story is long, painful and familiar. "For over 200 years (and 300 before that), the US, France, and Western Europe (actively) ble(d) and exploit(ed) Haitians and prevent(ed) the only nation born of a slave revolt from becoming successful." It endured "military invasions, economic embargoes, gunboat blockades, trade barriers, diplomatic quarantines, subsidized armed subversions, US-armed black dictators, and finally, two US-supported coups against" its only beloved leader since liberation, twice democratically elected overwhelmingly, now exiled, and kept from returning.
Repeatedly people said:
"We want Preval to send President Aristide a passport. If Obama wants that to happen it will, because Preval takes his orders from the powerful nations." Representing hope, Aristide "values social justice and would be an inspiration to the grassroots majority. When he was president, there were more jobs, healthcare and education for our children." No longer since 2004 or Preval's 2006 election.
"They don't hear our demands for better education, healthcare, better roads, and an end to malnutrition. Where does the international aid go? We don't see it. Preval is weak and corrupt. We want him to listen to us. We want the return of Aristide, and Preval should change and not exclude Lavalas."
Preval was complicit in the 2004 coup, then allied with the Washington-installed interim Latortue government to prevent Aristide's return after a more people-oriented 1996 - 2001 first term.
Post-quake, he's been pathetic, inept, and indifferent to his peoples' plight - largely invisible, out of sight, silent, and on the sidelines when he's most needed. Public anger toward him is palpable. For one Haitian, he's "the devil and we don't want him" any more. His prospects for a third term are likely nil - he himself saying in a radio interview, "I don't do politics, okey?" Former opposition figure, Evans Paul, accused him of "single-handedly show(ing) the Haitian people that he cannot lead them."
MINUSTAH, the Problem, Not the Solution
It was established on June 1, 2004 for an initial six month renewable period to "promote interaction with the Haitian authorities as partners," operating under the following mandate:
-- "in support of the Transitional Government, to ensure a secure and stable environment within which the constitutional and political process in Haiti can take place;
-- to assist with the restoration and maintenance of the rule of law, public safety and public order....;
-- to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence; and
-- to promote and protect human rights, particularly of women and children among other responsibilities."
In fact, for the first time in UN history, a Blue Helmet force supported a coup d'etat regime, allied with imperial forces, prevented a democratically leader from returning, and systematically committed human rights abuses, including, persecutions, violence, rape, and cold-blooded murder.
Haiti Liberte journalist Yves Pierre Louis said:
"Since 2004, the only human rights violations are by the UN. In Cite Soleil, they break into houses and kill people. They shot into a protest by students. At Jean Juste's funeral, the UN shot a mourner. People from the Central Plateau were demonstrating for electricity and the UN killed two of them. They commit rape and sexual abuse. They steal peasants' goats....They are protecting the elites by terrorizing the population."
Another Cite Soleil resident said "Now that there are no bandits, the UN are the bandits. If they search you and find jewelry, they steal it. They make women take off their clothes to humiliate them."
Other accounts accused UN forces of shooting up a market, killing and wounding people there, Nigerian soldiers beating a man so severely he nearly died, and no investigations conducted of these or other incidents when demanded.
The case of human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine is shocking and disturbing. After announcing his 2007 Senate candidacy and participating in sit-ins denouncing UN human rights violations, he was disappeared without a trace.
Lavalas organizer Rene Civil said "The occupation is killing and humiliating the people. At any time it could explode into a revolt. MINUSTAH has incited the people to be violent. They live and eat well while we are hungry, homeless, and without schools....If not for the UN guns, Haiti would already have its freedom."
Haiti's Dysfunctional Judicial System
LASC investigated four areas:
(1) Lack of Legal Recourse
Victims of MINUSTAH violence are pressured to drop charges. Street vendors in Haiti's informal sector report attacks that are ruining them financially, the police doing nothing to intervene or investigate. When suits are filed, the court system disadvantages the poor, including by transferring venues to distant locations, making it hard and costly for plaintiffs.
(2) Legal Limbo
Although Haitian law requires prisoner court hearings within 48 hours of arrest, delays of three months or longer are common, and according to Amnesty International, fewer than 20% of many thousands of prisoners ever get to trial, leaving innocent victims languishing under horrific confinement for years.
(3) Prison Conditions
Unconscionable describes them because of mistreatment, extreme overcrowding, prisoners forced to sleep in shifts, inadequate poor food, unsafe water, poor sanitation, little or no medical care, and no remediation efforts for change.
(4) Activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine
His prominence was his undoing, LASC speculating that his abductors don't intend to release him. Perhaps he's dead, and efforts to learn the truth have been stonewalled.
Haitian Elections
The most recent April 19, 2009 one to fill 12 open Senate seats was a sham after Haiti's Provisional Election Council (CEP) disqualified Fanmi Lavalas (FL) candidates on procedural grounds. Mass outrage showed up in pre-election polls with only 5% of eligible voters saying they'd participate.
Imagine holding a national election and virtually no one showed up. Because of clear election rigging, FL leaders urged a national boycott. They complied, discrediting the results. LASC testimonies called it a continuation of the 2004 coup, the people given no choice except hand-picked candidates they opposed.
Predatory NGOs
Haiti is called "the Republic of NGOs" for good reason, with over 10,000 in country, according to World Bank estimates, the highest per capital presence worldwide in all sectors of activity and society, many with sizable budgets and very much operating for profit.
LASC repeatedly heard complaints that they "reinforce systems of oppression and exclusion rather than ameliorate the economic and political conditions that lead to poverty and inequality."
Common criticisms were that aid rarely goes for people needs or to grassroots activists who can best use it. In communities like Cite Soleil, residents get nothing - no schools, hospitals, just police stations. Organizations like Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and many others exploit people they claim to serve, especially after disasters like wars, floods, famine, and earthquakes.
A peasant group complained that CARE International dumped cheap rice in the country that destroyed local agriculture, and ultimately Haiti's ability to feed itself. International aid agencies divert funds for high salaries, luxury living, other business ventures, and according to Rene Civil, to co-opt social movement leaders, leaving little for poor Haitians.
After the quake, NGOs scrambled for their share of donations, over $700 million and rising, a bonanza ripe for plunder, so they're lining up for their share, with plenty more expected to come.
The Economy
Pre-quake, Haiti was heavily dependent on foreign interests, especially American, at the expense of worker rights, a fair wage, even a job with mass unemployment or underemployed for the Hemisphere's poorest nation, 80% of its population so deeply impoverished that malnutrition is rampant.
The result is a vulnerable population, most on small, subsistence farms, others easily exploited in corporate-run sweatshops, the kinds Bush and Clinton want more of as well as sweeping privatizations, tourism ventures, port development, free trade zones, and deregulatory freedom creating worker hell. Besides unmentioned resource development, the benefits solely for business, not people.
Haitian oligarchs control local agriculture and industry. Cheap imports, privatizations, poor infrastructure, slave wages, too few jobs, and management co-opted unions control Haiti, exploiting people deprived of their rights.
Conditions in Haiti's sweatshops are instructive. They're inhumane workplaces where employees work for starvation wages, few or no benefits, in unsafe, unfavorable, harsh, and/or hazardous environments with no ability to organize for redress.
In a 1990s report (still relevant now), the National Labor Committee (NLC) explained the dark, "pernicious...US corporate presence in Haiti: that many of the companies profiting from the abuse and exploitation of Haitian workers are among the largest and most successful US corporations: Disney, Wal-Mart, Kmart, JC Penney, Sears, Hanes/Sara Lee and Kellwood," among the many.
NLC asked why can't manufacturers and retailers pay a living wage? Why won't they give independent human rights monitors access to their contractors' plants? Why do they extract the most work for starvation wages? Why is the air heavy with dust and lint with no ventilation to speak of? Why are factories hot, dimly lit and crowded? Why do workers have sad, tired faces?
Why are they forced to work seven days a week (with no overtime pay) to accommodate company order schedules? Why must they work 70 hours a week during the year's hottest season under stifling hot conditions? Why are they treated more like slaves than human beings? Why is none of this reported publicly so consumers can decide whether or not to support these practices by buying or boycotting sweatshop products?
Haitians Explain MINUSTAH violence
An unnamed man said a neighborhood youth disappeared. Many were killed. There's shooting every day. People can't conduct their daily activities safely. They're threatened by MINUSTAH. They enter the area, shoot in the air or randomly at people, terrifying everyone.
Azy Jean Delanio mentioned an August 8, 2005 incident. He was visiting another home when UN soldiers "started shooting and people were just going crazy everywhere so I didn't want to just run because I could get face to face with them and it would be worse for me."
Outside, a soldier pushed him down and shot him in the neck. His partner wanted to get him to a hospital. At first, she couldn't when beaten. Finally, he was treated, asked a lawyer for help, but nothing happened. Since the incident, the bullet is still in his body. He can't walk, care for himself, or afford surgery to correct the problem. He's like many others, victimized by a brutal occupier.
Bernard Maudler discussed a June 22, 2009 incident involving UN forces. They shot him in the legs and feet. He still can't move his toe. He has iron in his leg to fix the bone. He needs medical help to remove it because it's painful. But it's too close to his spine for Doctors Without Borders. They don't have the proper equipment. The bullet entered his stomach causing him cramps.
Jean-Baptist Ristil explained a July 6, 2005 incident. He was sleeping, heard shooting, and went outside to check. Jordanian and Brazilian soldiers were in the street. They had tanks, an MPV, and a helicopter overhead. He heard screams. They were shooting everywhere. He saw a man struck. His mouth was paralyzed. Others were hit. Dead bodies were on the street.
"The same day an old guy was shot and before they killed him, (UN soldiers) put like doo doo fecal from a goat on bread and told him to eat it, and then they killed him."
It was a reprisal raid. MINUSTAH later blamed gangs for the incident.
Marie Therese Gazie discussed a July 6, 2005 incident from 3AM until 12:30 PM. Gangs had nothing to do with it. A "cannon bullet" hit the side of her house and smashed it. Her husband inside was killed. She's now a single mother on her own with three children. She can't afford to send them to school, pay rent, or feed them properly.
Lenene Morice described a December 22, 2006 incident. There was a lot of shooting in the neighborhood. Everyone was screaming. She was by herself, went outside, and was shot in the stomach. With help, she was taken to the hospital, was in pain, spent a month there, couldn't get food down, and thought she wouldn't survive. She was told if she got pregnant again she'd die because of the bullet's location.
Edline Pierre Louis discussed a July 6, 2006 incident. She was sleeping when struck with a bullet in her stomach. At the time, she was seven months pregnant. The baby was prematurely delivered but died. She was the only one hurt. Her other children were screaming but not hit.
Pierre Jean Bernard described a July 6, 2005 incident when MINUSTAH shot and killed his brother. He wasn't a bandit, had no gun, and never owned one. He was a domestic worker, played casino in the streets, but wasn't involved with gangs. Soldiers claimed they were after bandits, but only hurt civilians going about their activities peacefully.
His brother had four children. They can't go to school or have the basics for daily life. They're victims like their father.
Lumane Etienne discussed a June 7, 2007 incident. Two of her children were going to visit a cousin, were shot in the street and killed. Five others survive, but life is very hard for her with everything going on in Haiti.
Cine Mirlande spoke about two incidents - on October 5 and 15, 2008. On October 5, UN soldiers killed her father. Then on October 15, they killed her eight-year-old son en route to school. The pretext again was going after bandits.
The above incidents describe daily life for poor Haitians, especially in the most impoverished areas. US and MINUSTAH forces are in charge along with repressive Haitian police as brutal as UN paramilitaries. From one day to the next, Haitians aren't sure they'll survive, now more than ever post-quake.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/
http://lendmennews.progressiveradionetwork.org/
Exploitation & Oppression
By Stephen Lendman
3-29-10
Two and half months post-quake, the major media mostly ignore Haiti, the calamitous conditions on the ground, and the growing desperation of millions forced to largely endure on their own - out of sight, mind, the concern of world leaders, and UN, USAID and other aid organizations diverting most of the $700 million + donated to contractors and profiteering NGOs.
A March 11 New York Times editorial titled, "Haiti, Two Months Later," tried to have it both ways, citing relief effort failures, yet praising the US, UN, foreign countries, and aid organizations for:
"dispatch(ing) tents, tarps, food, water, medicine and doctors as they should. They have done a lot of good, particularly the United States, which rushed supplies, a troop force....and a hospital ship. Many lives were saved."
Unmentioned was the thousands of US combat troops obstructing aid, getting none to the most impoverished neighborhoods, and amounts to emergency shelters have been woefully inadequate, making calamitous conditions worse.
A March 25 Times editorial titled, "Haiti's Misery," in fact, admitted it, stating:
"The emergency in Haiti isn't over. It's getting worse, as the outside world's attention fades away....(Yet) Misery rages like a fever in the hundreds of camps sheltering hundreds of thousands of....people left homeless....The dreaded rains have swamped tents and ragged stick-and-tarp huts. They have turned walkways into mud lakes (exacerbating the problem of) cooking food, washing clothes, staying clean and avoiding disease."
It's the plight of around 1.3 million with no shelter, proper sanitation, clean water, enough food, or medical care. On March 4, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised concerns about a potential deadly malaria outbreak, besides numerous other diseases now spreading. On March 5, Partners in Health (PIH) called conditions on the ground "shameful....shocking, inhumane and rapidly deteriorating."
Daily they worsen, placing millions of Haitians in grave peril of calamitous depravation, deadly diseases, greater pain and suffering, and potential mass deaths because imperial plans for Haiti are to plunder it for profit and control, not help desperately needy people, many of whom will suffer, then die.
Haiti is open for business. What was no longer exists. Reconstruction will be profit-driven, replacing former neighborhoods with gentrified ones, corporate ventures, and other upscale projects - poor Haitians being dispossessed, exploited, neglected, abandoned, and oppressed if they resist, especially if they interfere with planned plundering of Haiti's oil and other resources.
On March 24, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton visited Port-au-Prince with Rene Preval, feigned concern, and participated in staged refugee camp photo-ops. Haitians reacted angrily, especially at Bush for ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, exiling him to South Africa, and preventing his return, now more than ever when he's needed.
Protestors outside the national palace burned tires and an American flag, shouting: "Return Aristide! Down with Preval! Down with Bush! The Miami Herald described the Champ de Mars refugee camp visit saying:
"Quake survivors screamed at the three leaders, shouting details of the losses they suffered....Others took a moment to criticize their own president's leadership. 'President Preval has never come to see us before,' screamed Myrlande Saint-Louis, who lives in the Place Mosolee camp the presidents visited. 'Now because Bush is here he comes. Now he wants to see us!' "
The trip served two purposes:
-- to increase interest for a March 31 New York international investment conference expected to approve an $11.5 billion package to solidify corporate control of the country, and
-- for Preval to resolve land issues obstructing quake survivor relocations from areas wanted for commercial redevelopment, so Haitians have to go, willingly or by force.
Haitians are on their own, women and children most vulnerable, according to Amnesty International (AI). A March 25 report said:
"Sexual violence is widely present in the camps where some of Haiti's most vulnerable live. It was already a major concern (pre-quake) but the situation in which displaced people are living exposes women and girls to even greater risks."
Most victims AI interviewed were minors. "One eight-year-old girl was raped when alone in her tent at night. (A) 15-year-old was raped when she went out of the camp to urinate....There are no shelters in the country where victims of sexual violence can be protected and have access to services."
From March 4 - 25, AI assessed conditions in quake struck areas, in particular, human rights abuses affecting women and children. It reported mass displacement, makeshift camps on "every plot of empty land, public or private, and in every space, square and football pitch." Even a golf course and secondary roads were used.
Within the camps, security is non-existant, except for scattered ad hoc efforts, leaving women and girls most vulnerable as well as everyone to theft or assaults that might cost them their lives.
AI visited camps with no emergency shelter, food, sanitation, water or medical care, saying:
"Living conditions in these camps are dire and the majority of inhabitants are deeply frustrated with the Haitian authorities and international agencies" showing no concern for their condition.
The Latin American Solidarity Coalition's (LASC) Assessment on the Ground Pre-Quake
LASC (lasolidarity.org) "is an association of national and local US-based grassroots Latin American and Caribbean solidarity groups (for) a truly progressive Latin America solidarity movement....in support of the people of Latin America struggling for justice and a better future for their countries free of economic, military and cultural imperialism."
From December 28, 2009 - January 7, 2010 (five days before the quake), its 11-member delegation visited Haiti to investigate UN Blue Helmet (MINUSTAH) human rights abuses. On returning, it published a report titled, "Haiti: An Oppressed State," its highlights reviewed below.
LASC met with over 70 individuals and organization representatives in Port-au-Prince and two of its most impoverished neighborhoods, Cite Soleil and Bel Air. It also spent two days in Jacmel visiting sustainable development projects.
Testimonies from MINUSTAH-inflicted violence victims were gotten, including people whose family members were murdered. Virtually everyone:
-- demanded Aristide's return;
-- called MINUSTAH a repressive, criminal force;
-- said international aid hasn't reached the poor, but instead has been diverted to predatory NGOs, prison building, or stolen by corrupt politicians; and
-- believed economic development is exploitive, not providing a living wage, or benefitting poor Haitians productively.
The story is long, painful and familiar. "For over 200 years (and 300 before that), the US, France, and Western Europe (actively) ble(d) and exploit(ed) Haitians and prevent(ed) the only nation born of a slave revolt from becoming successful." It endured "military invasions, economic embargoes, gunboat blockades, trade barriers, diplomatic quarantines, subsidized armed subversions, US-armed black dictators, and finally, two US-supported coups against" its only beloved leader since liberation, twice democratically elected overwhelmingly, now exiled, and kept from returning.
Repeatedly people said:
"We want Preval to send President Aristide a passport. If Obama wants that to happen it will, because Preval takes his orders from the powerful nations." Representing hope, Aristide "values social justice and would be an inspiration to the grassroots majority. When he was president, there were more jobs, healthcare and education for our children." No longer since 2004 or Preval's 2006 election.
"They don't hear our demands for better education, healthcare, better roads, and an end to malnutrition. Where does the international aid go? We don't see it. Preval is weak and corrupt. We want him to listen to us. We want the return of Aristide, and Preval should change and not exclude Lavalas."
Preval was complicit in the 2004 coup, then allied with the Washington-installed interim Latortue government to prevent Aristide's return after a more people-oriented 1996 - 2001 first term.
Post-quake, he's been pathetic, inept, and indifferent to his peoples' plight - largely invisible, out of sight, silent, and on the sidelines when he's most needed. Public anger toward him is palpable. For one Haitian, he's "the devil and we don't want him" any more. His prospects for a third term are likely nil - he himself saying in a radio interview, "I don't do politics, okey?" Former opposition figure, Evans Paul, accused him of "single-handedly show(ing) the Haitian people that he cannot lead them."
MINUSTAH, the Problem, Not the Solution
It was established on June 1, 2004 for an initial six month renewable period to "promote interaction with the Haitian authorities as partners," operating under the following mandate:
-- "in support of the Transitional Government, to ensure a secure and stable environment within which the constitutional and political process in Haiti can take place;
-- to assist with the restoration and maintenance of the rule of law, public safety and public order....;
-- to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence; and
-- to promote and protect human rights, particularly of women and children among other responsibilities."
In fact, for the first time in UN history, a Blue Helmet force supported a coup d'etat regime, allied with imperial forces, prevented a democratically leader from returning, and systematically committed human rights abuses, including, persecutions, violence, rape, and cold-blooded murder.
Haiti Liberte journalist Yves Pierre Louis said:
"Since 2004, the only human rights violations are by the UN. In Cite Soleil, they break into houses and kill people. They shot into a protest by students. At Jean Juste's funeral, the UN shot a mourner. People from the Central Plateau were demonstrating for electricity and the UN killed two of them. They commit rape and sexual abuse. They steal peasants' goats....They are protecting the elites by terrorizing the population."
Another Cite Soleil resident said "Now that there are no bandits, the UN are the bandits. If they search you and find jewelry, they steal it. They make women take off their clothes to humiliate them."
Other accounts accused UN forces of shooting up a market, killing and wounding people there, Nigerian soldiers beating a man so severely he nearly died, and no investigations conducted of these or other incidents when demanded.
The case of human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine is shocking and disturbing. After announcing his 2007 Senate candidacy and participating in sit-ins denouncing UN human rights violations, he was disappeared without a trace.
Lavalas organizer Rene Civil said "The occupation is killing and humiliating the people. At any time it could explode into a revolt. MINUSTAH has incited the people to be violent. They live and eat well while we are hungry, homeless, and without schools....If not for the UN guns, Haiti would already have its freedom."
Haiti's Dysfunctional Judicial System
LASC investigated four areas:
(1) Lack of Legal Recourse
Victims of MINUSTAH violence are pressured to drop charges. Street vendors in Haiti's informal sector report attacks that are ruining them financially, the police doing nothing to intervene or investigate. When suits are filed, the court system disadvantages the poor, including by transferring venues to distant locations, making it hard and costly for plaintiffs.
(2) Legal Limbo
Although Haitian law requires prisoner court hearings within 48 hours of arrest, delays of three months or longer are common, and according to Amnesty International, fewer than 20% of many thousands of prisoners ever get to trial, leaving innocent victims languishing under horrific confinement for years.
(3) Prison Conditions
Unconscionable describes them because of mistreatment, extreme overcrowding, prisoners forced to sleep in shifts, inadequate poor food, unsafe water, poor sanitation, little or no medical care, and no remediation efforts for change.
(4) Activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine
His prominence was his undoing, LASC speculating that his abductors don't intend to release him. Perhaps he's dead, and efforts to learn the truth have been stonewalled.
Haitian Elections
The most recent April 19, 2009 one to fill 12 open Senate seats was a sham after Haiti's Provisional Election Council (CEP) disqualified Fanmi Lavalas (FL) candidates on procedural grounds. Mass outrage showed up in pre-election polls with only 5% of eligible voters saying they'd participate.
Imagine holding a national election and virtually no one showed up. Because of clear election rigging, FL leaders urged a national boycott. They complied, discrediting the results. LASC testimonies called it a continuation of the 2004 coup, the people given no choice except hand-picked candidates they opposed.
Predatory NGOs
Haiti is called "the Republic of NGOs" for good reason, with over 10,000 in country, according to World Bank estimates, the highest per capital presence worldwide in all sectors of activity and society, many with sizable budgets and very much operating for profit.
LASC repeatedly heard complaints that they "reinforce systems of oppression and exclusion rather than ameliorate the economic and political conditions that lead to poverty and inequality."
Common criticisms were that aid rarely goes for people needs or to grassroots activists who can best use it. In communities like Cite Soleil, residents get nothing - no schools, hospitals, just police stations. Organizations like Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and many others exploit people they claim to serve, especially after disasters like wars, floods, famine, and earthquakes.
A peasant group complained that CARE International dumped cheap rice in the country that destroyed local agriculture, and ultimately Haiti's ability to feed itself. International aid agencies divert funds for high salaries, luxury living, other business ventures, and according to Rene Civil, to co-opt social movement leaders, leaving little for poor Haitians.
After the quake, NGOs scrambled for their share of donations, over $700 million and rising, a bonanza ripe for plunder, so they're lining up for their share, with plenty more expected to come.
The Economy
Pre-quake, Haiti was heavily dependent on foreign interests, especially American, at the expense of worker rights, a fair wage, even a job with mass unemployment or underemployed for the Hemisphere's poorest nation, 80% of its population so deeply impoverished that malnutrition is rampant.
The result is a vulnerable population, most on small, subsistence farms, others easily exploited in corporate-run sweatshops, the kinds Bush and Clinton want more of as well as sweeping privatizations, tourism ventures, port development, free trade zones, and deregulatory freedom creating worker hell. Besides unmentioned resource development, the benefits solely for business, not people.
Haitian oligarchs control local agriculture and industry. Cheap imports, privatizations, poor infrastructure, slave wages, too few jobs, and management co-opted unions control Haiti, exploiting people deprived of their rights.
Conditions in Haiti's sweatshops are instructive. They're inhumane workplaces where employees work for starvation wages, few or no benefits, in unsafe, unfavorable, harsh, and/or hazardous environments with no ability to organize for redress.
In a 1990s report (still relevant now), the National Labor Committee (NLC) explained the dark, "pernicious...US corporate presence in Haiti: that many of the companies profiting from the abuse and exploitation of Haitian workers are among the largest and most successful US corporations: Disney, Wal-Mart, Kmart, JC Penney, Sears, Hanes/Sara Lee and Kellwood," among the many.
NLC asked why can't manufacturers and retailers pay a living wage? Why won't they give independent human rights monitors access to their contractors' plants? Why do they extract the most work for starvation wages? Why is the air heavy with dust and lint with no ventilation to speak of? Why are factories hot, dimly lit and crowded? Why do workers have sad, tired faces?
Why are they forced to work seven days a week (with no overtime pay) to accommodate company order schedules? Why must they work 70 hours a week during the year's hottest season under stifling hot conditions? Why are they treated more like slaves than human beings? Why is none of this reported publicly so consumers can decide whether or not to support these practices by buying or boycotting sweatshop products?
Haitians Explain MINUSTAH violence
An unnamed man said a neighborhood youth disappeared. Many were killed. There's shooting every day. People can't conduct their daily activities safely. They're threatened by MINUSTAH. They enter the area, shoot in the air or randomly at people, terrifying everyone.
Azy Jean Delanio mentioned an August 8, 2005 incident. He was visiting another home when UN soldiers "started shooting and people were just going crazy everywhere so I didn't want to just run because I could get face to face with them and it would be worse for me."
Outside, a soldier pushed him down and shot him in the neck. His partner wanted to get him to a hospital. At first, she couldn't when beaten. Finally, he was treated, asked a lawyer for help, but nothing happened. Since the incident, the bullet is still in his body. He can't walk, care for himself, or afford surgery to correct the problem. He's like many others, victimized by a brutal occupier.
Bernard Maudler discussed a June 22, 2009 incident involving UN forces. They shot him in the legs and feet. He still can't move his toe. He has iron in his leg to fix the bone. He needs medical help to remove it because it's painful. But it's too close to his spine for Doctors Without Borders. They don't have the proper equipment. The bullet entered his stomach causing him cramps.
Jean-Baptist Ristil explained a July 6, 2005 incident. He was sleeping, heard shooting, and went outside to check. Jordanian and Brazilian soldiers were in the street. They had tanks, an MPV, and a helicopter overhead. He heard screams. They were shooting everywhere. He saw a man struck. His mouth was paralyzed. Others were hit. Dead bodies were on the street.
"The same day an old guy was shot and before they killed him, (UN soldiers) put like doo doo fecal from a goat on bread and told him to eat it, and then they killed him."
It was a reprisal raid. MINUSTAH later blamed gangs for the incident.
Marie Therese Gazie discussed a July 6, 2005 incident from 3AM until 12:30 PM. Gangs had nothing to do with it. A "cannon bullet" hit the side of her house and smashed it. Her husband inside was killed. She's now a single mother on her own with three children. She can't afford to send them to school, pay rent, or feed them properly.
Lenene Morice described a December 22, 2006 incident. There was a lot of shooting in the neighborhood. Everyone was screaming. She was by herself, went outside, and was shot in the stomach. With help, she was taken to the hospital, was in pain, spent a month there, couldn't get food down, and thought she wouldn't survive. She was told if she got pregnant again she'd die because of the bullet's location.
Edline Pierre Louis discussed a July 6, 2006 incident. She was sleeping when struck with a bullet in her stomach. At the time, she was seven months pregnant. The baby was prematurely delivered but died. She was the only one hurt. Her other children were screaming but not hit.
Pierre Jean Bernard described a July 6, 2005 incident when MINUSTAH shot and killed his brother. He wasn't a bandit, had no gun, and never owned one. He was a domestic worker, played casino in the streets, but wasn't involved with gangs. Soldiers claimed they were after bandits, but only hurt civilians going about their activities peacefully.
His brother had four children. They can't go to school or have the basics for daily life. They're victims like their father.
Lumane Etienne discussed a June 7, 2007 incident. Two of her children were going to visit a cousin, were shot in the street and killed. Five others survive, but life is very hard for her with everything going on in Haiti.
Cine Mirlande spoke about two incidents - on October 5 and 15, 2008. On October 5, UN soldiers killed her father. Then on October 15, they killed her eight-year-old son en route to school. The pretext again was going after bandits.
The above incidents describe daily life for poor Haitians, especially in the most impoverished areas. US and MINUSTAH forces are in charge along with repressive Haitian police as brutal as UN paramilitaries. From one day to the next, Haitians aren't sure they'll survive, now more than ever post-quake.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/
http://lendmennews.progressiveradionetwork.org/
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