RED EYE 2/15/12

U.S. helped rich to ruin Haiti

NYT, 1/9 — The slave revolution that ended with Haiti’s creation in 1804 led to what the sociologist Jean Casimir dubbed a “counter-plantation” system….— a kind of sustainable agriculture that involved planting a variety of crops close together….

This system of agricultural self-reliance provided a better quality of life than that of African descendants anywhere else in the Americas….

In the 20th century, however, this system came under increasing pressure. Outsiders, along with many in the Haitian elite, saw small farms as a barrier to [their profits]. When the United States occupied Haiti, from 1914 to 1934, it worked to centralize the economy….It pushed through a re-writing of the Haitian Constitution to allow foreigners to own land, which the country’s founders had banned for fear of re-enslavement, and worked to replace small farms with large plantations owned by foreign corporations. Many farmers saw their land expropriated.

…When the countryside erupted in a revolt against [U.S.] occupation and the use of forced labor to build roads, the United States created a newly centralized gendarmerie to suppress the insurrection. Violence and economic decline in the countryside forced many Haitians to flee…..The countryside has continued to experience environmental degradation as well as exodus….Haiti’s now chronic problems [include] malnutrition and food insecurity.

Hospitals crowded — by rich suites

NYT, 1/22 — Greenberg 14 South [is] the elite wing on the new penthouse floor of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital. Pampering and décor to rival a grand hotel…have long been the hallmark of such “amenities units,” often hidden behind closed doors at New York’s premier hospitals….part of an international competition for wealthy patients willing to pay extra….

“These kinds of patients, they’re paying cash — they’re the best kind of patient to have….”

The rise of medical tourism to glittering hospitals in places like Singapore and Thailand has turned coddling and elegance into marketing necessities, designers say.

….In space-starved New York, many regular hospital rooms are still double-occupancy, though singles are now the national standard….

Recall the tale of a family friend stuck for three days in the New York-Presbyterian emergency room for lack of a hospital bed last winter. At the time…the Saudi king had been….granted the whole 14th floor for his entourage.

Great work based on cooperation

NYT — To the Editor: Susan Cain (“The Rise of the New Groupthink,” Sunday Review, Jan. 15) writes that creative people are more likely to be introverts; that students learn better when alone; and that solitary computer programmers write better code. In each of these cases, research shows just the opposite. Decades of scientific research have revealed that great creativity is almost always based in collaboration, conversation and social networks — just the opposite of our mythical image of the isolated genius.

History says capitalism must go

GW, 12/30 — To the Editor: I really hope…that a “good capitalism” is the…way forward, but I fear that the lessons of history tend to a more catastrophic outcome….Capitalism has established itself as a system based on exploitation, competition, monopoly and wealth for a tiny elite.

Exploitation of labour — wealth from the slave trade — provided seed investment for manufacturing in both the UK and the US. Cheap labour from dispensable rural workers provided the unskilled proletariat of 19th century capitalism, until the emergence of trades unions and a very real fear of revolution brought some sharing of wealth….

Finally, competition between capitalist nations brought the horrific wars of the 20th century….

Capitalism succeeds not so much through innovation as by eliminating its competitors….The electorate…and government crumble before the might of capital. Our “competing” parties have become clones of each other [to] the point where governments used our money to pay the bills of bankers who had already gambled with our money and lost it.

….It is unsustainable to continue with such an economic system. If a “good capitalism” cannot be found, then perhaps we need to find another sustainable, equitable and democratic system.

Bigger lockout threat, fewer strikes

NYT, 1/23 — Lockouts were once so rare they were almost unheard of. Now, not only are employers increasingly on the offensive and trying to call the shots in bargaining, but they’re backing that up with action — in the form of lockouts.

The number of strikes has declined to just one-sixth the annual level of two decades ago….Workers worry that if they strike they will lose pay and might lose their jobs….

….At American Crystal Sugar, the nation’s largest sugar beet processor….after the 1,300 unionized workers — spread among five plants in North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa — voted overwhelmingly to reject [employer] demands, the company locked them out and hired replacement workers [scabs]....

Racist NYPD film demonizes Muslims

NYT, 1/24 — Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

“This in the true agenda of much of the Islam in America,” a narrator intone. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America…This is the war you don’t know about.”

This is the feature-length film…shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department… the [NYPD] offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department…has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims…The [NYPD] had no plans to correct any false impression the movie might have left behind.

“There no plan to contact officers who saw it…or to add other programming as a result.”

Media love ‘freedom’ — for bosses

GW, 12/30 — Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the ringhtwing press and blogosphere, among think tanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us….

In the name of freedom — freedom from regulation — the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause…big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor…

“If the liberty of myself or my class or nation depends on the misery of…other human beings, the system which promotes this is unjust ad immoral.”….

But rightwing libertarians do not recognize this conflict. They speak…as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even…to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights.

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations, and the rich…they have turned “freedom” into an instrument of oppression…

Occupy encourages these workers

NYT, 1/17 — They describe themselves as beaten up workhorses, these burly fellows with linebacker shoulders and bass-register voices.

Four [black] men sit in a union hall on a darkened stretch of Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, talking about life as cable installers for Cablevision and efforts to bring in a union, in this case the Communication Workers of America.

“It’s very hard to retire here. You get hurt, you can’t work as hard and you disappear…I’ve had shoulder surgery. You haul than ladder, climbing poles, crawling through basements, half an hour for lunch.”

He shrugs. “You start to take insane risks. That’s why I signed a union card.”… Last decade, the Communication Workers lost a similar battle with Cablevision, but this struggle has a different feel. In the Occupy age, thousands of houses sit in foreclosure in Brooklyn, and labour marches with kids through the streets. These workers sound disinclined to stand down….

Guantanamo-style abuse will go on

NYT, 1/17 — To the editor: “My Guantanamo Nightmare,” by Lakhdar Boumediene (Sunday Review, Jan. 8), is a chilling reminder that most terrorist suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo were released without ever being charged — but not before suffering the physical and emotional pain of abuse such as stress positions, sleep deprivation and the gnawing uncertainty of indefinite detention.

In our 20 years of examining torture victims, we have seen few as traumatized as the several Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and black site (secret prison) detainees whom we evaluated. They deserve an apology and our help.

Sadly, now that Obama has codified indefinite detention by signing the National Defense Authorization Act, there will be many more torture victims to come.

Women in revolt now sidelined

NYT, 1/10 — Egyptian soldiers had…stripped off her clothes, and watched as she was forcibly subjected to a “virginity test.”

….Ms. Ibrahim’s story in many ways illustrates the paradoxical position of women in the new Egypt. Emboldened by the revolution to claim a new voice in public life, many are finding that they are still dependent on the protection of men…back in the heady days of the revolution, they played an active role, side by side with men, to bring down a dictator.

“Changing the patriarchal culture is not so easy.”…Egyptian feminists said they were thrilled by the size of the march — but winced at its dependence on men.

“If you are calling for men to protect you…they define you and they stick to the traditional roles”…women have almost no leadership roles in the various activists groups that formed out of the original protests that ousted Mubarak…Statistics showing that a third of Egyptian households depend on female earners….

Jobs? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

NYT, 1/25 — ….In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average, is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software…. “In the years ending in 2009….roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6 million in total — disappeared.”

And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

World opens to anti-greed struggle

NYT, 1/25 — ….Today, the gap between eh haves and the have-nots is no longer just a rallying cry to incite anticapitalist advocates. It has become a mainstream issue, debated openly in arenas where the primacy of laissez-faire capitalism used to be taken for granted and where talk of inequality used to be derided as class warfare.

In the united states, the issue surfaced when protesters proclaimed they were the “99 percent” of the population who were paying for the sins of the wealthy “1 percent,” taking their grievances directly to the epicentre of capitalism. The Occupy Wall Street protests, which began in New York, spread to other cities around the united stated and across the world.

In Spain, thousands of “indignados” converged on Madrid and other cities to vent their frustration… In the Arab world, a wave of unrest…began with a protest over a lack of economic opportunities in Tunisia….

Court: okay for biz to buy election

Otherwords.org — …Last year’s democracy-killing decision by the U.S. supreme court…decreed that…lifeless, soulless corporations are henceforth person with human political rights.

Moreover, said the five justices, these tongueless entities must be allowed to “speak” by dumping unlimited sums of their corporate cash into our election campaigns, thus giving them a far bigger voice than us real-life persons.

Egypt military likes being boss

NYT, 1/12 — CAIRO — Former president Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that after meeting with Egypt’s military rulers he doubted they would fully submit to the authority of the civilian democracy they had promised to install…Some privileges of the military would probably be protected.”