Once more, into the breech!

My plans were to spend a relaxing, Labor Day weekend; watch a few college football games on TV and just take things easy.

Then my idyll was interrupted by a willful act of ignorance.

I had TiVo slow down the football game for me; I like to do that so that I can speed past the penalties, the commercials and the inane blather that accompanies an Irish game.

Still, I watched halftime almost straight through - I thought that interview with Peyton Manning was very interesting - and prepared to watch the second half excited to watch the rest of the Georgia Tech blowout.

And then they inserted that little advert for the University of Notre Dame: "We are the Fighting Irish!" It was here that I learned that the chaplins or the bishops or whomever at Notre Dame were so concerned about the plight of the people of Haiti ("it is one of the least developed countries in the world", said one erstwhile student). This young man was followed by the friendly father, who leads the program and his comments about the university's commitment to ended some mosquito born disease that was afflicting the Haitian people.

This little interlude was structured to make my heart well with gratitude for the wonderful example of community service this school and these kids were providing to the world. Instead, I became incensed.

Haiti is poor because the United States wants it to be poor and has always wanted it to be so - or at least ever since the first successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere concluded so early in the presidency of one of our own great slave owners: Thomas Jefferson.

Haiti is poor because after the slave revolt, France demanded payment for the loss of their assets - what you and I might call people. This demand for payment was accepted by the powers of the Western world as an official debt and it has been on the Haitian books ever since. This debt is now owed to the US; part of the Monroe Doctrine, I believe, wherein the US told the European nations that we were the big dog in this hemisphere and we would handle collections from now on.

I have written about this twice on my blog:

http://allpanthersareblack.blogspot.com/2004/05/why-is-us-in-haiti.html

http://allpanthersareblack.blogspot.com/2007/03/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics.html

And the history on this matter is very clear. For a "professor" at a major university (a status that is self-professed by the school) to act ignorant on this matter is insulting.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HNW/11_2_4.html

Haiti is not poor because its people are incapable of running their own land; they are poor because of this 400-year record of practiced hatred - far too much of it by folks with deceptive collars wrapped around their necks.

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