Sunday, January 17, 2010

It's the Fear

"People are scared of the poor." -- Gen Russel Honore (Ret) to CNN regarding the evacuation of Belgian medical personnel from a makeshift clinic in Port-Au-Prince


I don't have cable teevee, so there is no 24 hour news cycle to keep me in a constant state of agitation and OUTRAGE!!!!!™, but the stories out of Haiti are getting more and more outrageous, even in the print and online versions of the news I do see.

Many times, it's been pointed out that the survivors of the earthquake have no access to food, water, emergency medical attention and care, and that they are doing for themselves what they can while aid pours into the airport and sits there.

It is said to sit there for two reasons: "There's no infrastructure" for transport and distribution of the pallets of supplies, and "There's no security" for those doing the distribution.

In other words, "It's not safe," and "We couldn't get it to Those People anyway."

Huh.

Just like Katrina.

The aid agents, even Our Dauntless Armed Forces, are scared to death of the Natives running wild, and they have no idea how they can possibly get supplies to the survivors anyway, not having clear, smooth access roads and convenient helipads and distribution nodes around the suffering city.

This is disgusting.

But it has become the Status Quo thanks to the "success of the Katrina Exercise" in which the suffering survivors were made to suffer further while political campaigns continued (seeing President Clinton stumping for Coakley in Massachusetts the other day, though he's supposed to be UN Special Envoy to Haiti, more than chapped my gizzard, let me tell you) and everyone who could provide immediate assistance to the survivors was belayed from doing so for Fear of the Native Hordes and what they would do to their rescuers.

"Force Protection" was the most important thing of all, and until that was sorted out completely, no one could either enter or leave New Orleans except under very special circumstances.

For days on end. And many people suffered needlessly and some died because of it.

So it is now in Port-Au-Prince.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable.

"Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there." -- Gen Russel Honore, Ret.


Yes, well, sorry General, the VouDou is gonna getcha if Les Noirs don't do it first. {{{{{{{shudder}}}}}}

Priorities.

And for poor Haiti, the priority appears to be applying even more of Le Doctrine de Choc through fear and neglect because doing anything else is simply outside the parameters of Good Practice.

Peoples of the World arise. This is your fate, too.

3 comments:

  1. Ché, saw your response to me after I left the thread and checked the archives. Easy to miss stuff otherwise. Thanks for filling me in on the Sunstein thing. I don't know what countermisinformation means, either, but it sounds like lying. Duh, as the young kids used to say?

    ;>)

    It seems an odd way to go about it, though. It's far more effective when it comes through "normal" channels. Psychologists have studied the effect of first hearings. People are inclined to hold fast to the first thing they hear on a topic, and fight against revisions and refutations, etc. One recent study said that conservatives appear to be more tenacious in that regard than liberals -- though, admittedly, it's probably difficult to be sure about those labels. But it does sync up with my own experience with conservatives, etc.

    They noticed another effect. Not only did conservatives cling more mightily to first hearings, facing refutations actually drove them more fully into the corner of the folks being refuted. Liberals were a bit more open to second and third versions, and they didn't seem to get them to rally the wagons so much in response.

    Anyway, some interesting discussion in UT recently, though I'm getting pretty tired of a lot of the holier than thou purists. One can't be a part of the cool guy club unless one is sufficiently angry about everything 24/7.

    As for Haiti. It's perhaps the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. It's going to need a hell of a lot more than just disaster relief. And I hope Naomi Klein doesn't feel the need to write another book because it's been used as another test run for Blackwater economics.

    Hope all is well --

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  2. Hey Cu-hool (you don't mind if I call you Cu-hool, do you, rather than use the confusing Irish spelling?)

    On the Sunstein paper, it really seems to me that there's something else going on with it than appears to be the case.

    "Countermisinformation?" WTF?

    There are plenty of other clues throughout it that it's not what it seems to be, especially the focus on "refuting" 9/11 CT and the interest in childhood beliefs as models for CT.

    Some have claimed it's because Sunstein is really a Straussian Neo-Con out of the University of Chicago and what he's written here (with a co-author) is of a piece with Straussian social manipulation and control theories.

    When he and his co-author wrote, that Straussian model of control and manipulation was already being applied, extensively, at home and abroad. He cites "admirable" examples in Iraq and suggests various ways and means for the Government to counter "misinformation" and get correct "information" (ie: propaganda) into wider circulation and currency at home, through the use of "infiltrators" online among other means. Sometimes the infiltration would be overt, sometimes covert.

    Yes, well. All of this was already going on, long since in practice. The Straussian model was like the Instruction Manual for the Bush/Cheney regime.

    To a certain extent, it works. The paper was written during the later stage of the Bush/Cheney regime, when most of what it proposes had already been put in place.

    So my question is, what was the point? It seems to be justifying what was already being done, in other words. Why? To whom is it addressed? The Social Sciences Community? Hmmm?

    (You have to join the Social Science Research Network to download the paper)

    That's probably the clue here. Part of "control" is what the Nazis called: Gleichschaltung ("synchronization"), basically bringing all aspects of civil society into coordination and collaboration with the Government/Party. It's a fundamental step toward totalitarian rule. It's not just Nazi; all totalitarian states engage in it. We've been in a protracted Authoritarian stage which never seemed to get to the Totalitarian one. There is still plenty of dissent, plenty of dispute, plenty of independent sectors of the society and economy. The Social Sciences have been hotbeds of dispute of the whole Neo-Con experiment; the Social Science field disputes the Neo-Liberal experiment as well.

    So was this paper an attempt to "synchronize" the Social Science field? Or at least lay more of the groundwork for synchronization?

    Glenn is so het up over the Gruber Thing because it seems to be an example of what Sunstein and Vermeule were advocating: pseudo-independent "experts" in the employ of the Government disseminating information or counter information or misinformation that will benefit the Government. My point is that it was already going on, and the Sunstein paper is serving as justification to an audience that is still largely skeptical.

    The United States is not a Totalitarian society and empire yet, but apparently we're still on that path, being "nudged" rather than forced.

    And yes, so far as I can tell, Glenn is opposed.

    What pass for Conservatives now, and their Teabagger Populist allies serve as the popular base for advancing the Straussian vision. Libertarians, Progressives, Liberals are simply dismissed out of hand. That's still going on, isn't it? The White House and Congress rather gleefully engage in it under Obama just as they did under Bush/Cheney. Exposing it now is kind of anti-climactic. But the paper will prove to be an interesting historical document....

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  3. No problem with the name, Ché. No worries one way or another.

    Again, have not read the paper, but from your description, it sounds puzzling to say the least. Belated. Misdirected, too. It's either a brilliant example of multi-dimensional chess, or simply a theoretical paper, never meant to be anything more. But it does bring out strong responses on the UT forum. Question its import, and one is just about instantly lumped in with the bad guys. The level of suspicion over there can't be cut with a knife. It needs a chainsaw.

    :>)

    I see your point about "why now"? And if it is meant to be anything nefarious, I think "laying the groundwork" is the most likely thing. Your "synchronization".

    My guess is that it won't be successful. If the universities are its chosen launching pad, wouldn't you say that's where the left is strongest and least likely to bite on something so clumsy and seemingly nasty?

    My mother was in the social sciences. Doctorate in counseling. She ended up teaching other counselors how to counsel. My father taught English and History. Aunts and uncles were writers, poets, artists, teachers as well. I have two degrees, but never went into Academia, which I now regret. Have published poetry, and finished four novels (not published yet), and have my own floundering journal of the arts, but never got into the social science or educator gig.

    (I do enjoy the occasional debate over at Crooked Timber. Lots of smart people there, and the social sciences seem to be one of their specialties.)

    Can I ask what you do for a living? After bouncing around between school, sales, bartender, bouncer, school, sales, bartending and school again, I find myself now doing tech support for a Telco. It's the longest stretch of work stability in my life to date. I'd rather be a novelist and painter, but haven't found a way to make that work yet . . .

    Oh, well.

    Honestly. Have enjoyed your posts and the writings on this blog. I think we're on the same page about a lot of things, and it's good to bump into someone who espouses things I believe in and hope for . . . even though it all seems like a pipe-dream. In short, I'd rather live in Europe.

    Take care --

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