13 January 2010 Mud pies today, pie in the sky tomorrow

Haiti, or that portion of it most urbanized, lies in ruins. As long as I can recall, Haiti has lain in ruins for one reason or another. The earthquake which happened yesterday is just one more reason that Haiti will never develop into anything more than a location that breeds poverty and sends its children into gangs or off to other nations.


Haiti wants us there today to help them clean up the mess, treat the injured, and bury the dead. When we have aided them in those tasks, when our pockets are no longer the source of food, water, shelter, and clothing, we will no longer be welcome. Instead of being the source of humanitarian aid and relief, we will be colonialists once again. Before long the poorest Haitians will once again be trying to subsist on a diet of mud cookies. There will be sufficient rice and flour, cheese and milk to feed nearly all of Haiti in storage on the island. But once it is off-loaded from U.S. vessels it will wind up in the hands of the men who so adeptly stole the meager future from today’s generations of Haitians. And because we don’t want to appear to be colonialists, we will allow the network of thieves and corrupt government officials to misappropriate nearly everything the U.S. government sends.

Because the American people are who they are today, we will send millions in charitable donations, tons of old clothes, and all manner of items that may or may not be useful in a third world refugee camp to our churches, our synagogues, and to various charitable organizations to transport and deliver to Haiti. Some will be useless, some will be sorely needed, and some, sad to say, will vanish into the off-shore bank accounts and warehouses of the various war lords, gang bosses, and crooked politicians who ruled Haiti before the earthquake.

Always ready to profit from the misery of others, there will be scam artists calling to solicit contributions for fake charities supposedly ready to immediately deliver those contributions to the needy people of Haiti. In fact, those monies will never leave the hands of the crooks that collect them from well-meaning but badly informed donors.

Missionaries will take up collections to send many of their number to Haiti. Surely this calamity can be used to benefit those evangelical sects who will point to Haiti and its citizens, proclaiming their distance from church “X”’s particular deity as the reason for the earthquake. Just as well-heeled televangelists were quick to proclaim that the attacks of 9-11, various tsunami, and hurricane Katrina were visited upon the victims by a vengeful deity; so will this event be used to swell the roles and further fill the coffers of those truly good men and women who profit from selling religion to those who can least afford it.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html

“(CNN) -- Pat Robertson, the evangelical Christian who once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina, says a "pact to the devil" brought on the devastating earthquake in Haiti.”

And in a timely manner, one of the leading scum of the earth blames the earthquake on a pact with the devil made by all Haitians in order to win independence from France. Robertson, Roberts, Falwell, Baker, Swaggert, and a host of less wealthy bible-thumpers will be happy to blame today’s misery on the mythology that fattens them so nicely. This flock of liars and con-men is never going to miss a meal or fail to find in their closets a suit worth a month’s salary for many who listen faithfully to their proclamations of piety. Their greed and their ability to lie with a straight face has most likely been the root cause of many poor and aging women going without adequate food and medication, without heat or air conditioning in order to send a few more dollars in so that these charlatans will supposedly mention their names in conversation with the deity.

While there are many missionaries who believe what they practice and who would never benefit monetarily from the misery that is Haiti today, there are enough televangelists willing to line their pockets by milking this misfortune that the breed should be branded and hounded from the airwaves.

Even the non-evangelical churches have already played a role in the problems facing Haiti. Over the Reagan and Bush years, any attempt to help poor nations implement family planning was immediately labeled immoral and un-Christian by the GOP and its religious right base. As a result the U.S. was not able to provide any assistance to poor nations interested in attacking poverty at its primary root. The demand of the Catholic Church that Catholics multiply might have provided a few more serfs to work the land and a few more yeoman to defeat the Moors when there was only the Catholic Church to make such rules. But no nation today needs or can afford unchecked reproduction. Over population is the root cause of poverty world-wide. For any church to tell its members that birth control is immoral is wrong. The decision to limit reproduction belongs to people, not to churches. And for any church to meddle in such decisions when they are being made by non-members is frankly unconstitutional and illegal. These churches have been allowed to behave as if they were state churches and to meddle in the process of law making in the U.S. and in other nations.

There may be “pie in the sky” for some believers. Some believers may convince their selves that they’re being served special pie right here, right now. But when the disasters strikes here the televangelists will be dining on filet mignon and the thousands of donors who sent them money to be prayed for and over will be joining the non-believers in the search for the mud they use in Haiti to bake cookies.