Good afternoon. Here is why I will support Bernie Sanders until the convention.
Latinos still living in Latin America and Caribbean people have long known that the USA has been destroying the lives of children for centuries through American imperial policy and economic subjugation. For the past forty years or more the destruction continues through neo-liberal economics as supported by both Clintons and corporations which donate to their cause.
The goal of neo-liberals and their politicians is to suck up as much profit from our countries as is possible. To do this the US government uses CIA operatives, USAID, DEA, NED and the upper classes and oligarchs of our countries. Economic disasters are created through trade deals, bankers, vulture fund managers and manipulations. Historically, the grossest bloodthirsty recent violations come from supporting invasions and coups. We can use Reagan as a starting point: the invasions of Grenada and Panama and the support of Contras and death squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador. President Bill Clinton sent a US-led intervention force to Haiti in 1994. It stayed two years.
Fast forward to present day neo-liberals and the American ruling class as they continue to stage coups and manipulate economic collapse for the benefit of big banks, hedge funds and American hegemony. Examples from the Clintons regimes show they are responsible parties, for example,
forcing the EU to stop importing bananas from the Caribbean in 1997-1998. That is a result of a USA complaint to the WTO during the Bill Clinton administration, a free trade complaint. In the Commonwealth of Dominica (91% Black), where I live, it destroyed our economy. with resultant hungry and sick children. That includes many of the elderly ex-banana workers thrown out of work in my village. Corporations and big banks were the winners. We know Sec. Clinton supported and still does, free trade. www.theguardian.com/...
The US government is pressured by powerful US-based multinationals which dominate the Latin American banana industry, “In 1996, Chiquita Brands' CEO Carl Lindner donated $US500,000 to US President Bill Clinton's re-election campaign.”
Later, the owner of Chiquita Brands, Carl Linder, “…arranged for a meeting with Bill Clinton’s trade representative and pleaded his case for trade sanctions against Europe in retaliation to their protected markets in the Caribbean. The Clinton administration took the Chiquita Brands "banana wars" to the WTO , a powerful, previously Republican-supporting banana multinational, which had donated $2,000,000 to both parties. nacla.org/… www.greenleft.org.au/… And that is how Clinton destroyed our economy. thebiasedreporter.wordpress.com/...
Then there is the support of the coup in Honduras by then Sec. Clinton as part of her policy of regime change. Zelaya was no commie, he was a landowner class reformist elected by large margins to fix some of the gross inequalities in Honduran society. He was ousted in an illegal coup with aid, including military, from Clinton’s State Department and kept in power until rigged elections. There have been hundreds of political assassinations since the coup. They continue to the present, as the case with Berta Caceres. Drug Lords and Death Squads are ruining the country which has become so violent that it has caused a flood of refugees. www.commondreams.org/...
I think the Black community should be aware of the Clinton’s record in Haiti. I will leave off the accusations of money laundering through the Clinton Foundation and look at what they are proven to have done. One of the programs supported by both Clintons was the establishment of sweat shops for manufacturing clothing for export. It never was successful and a lot of aid money was wasted. The Haitian workers demanded a pay increase to $.61 an hour ($4.88 a day is less than 25% of daily cost of living) which passed Parliament. The Clinton State Department with her allies: “factory owners, free trade proponents, U.S. politicians, economists, and American companies strongly opposed a minimum wage increase in Haiti in 2009.” The wage was thus lowered to $.31 an hour or $2.48 a day. ... www.snopes.com… (read the articles, please.) www.greenleft.org.au/
To be blunt, Hillary Clinton and her supporting cast of bankers, elites, hedge vultures etc. who pay for her campaign have destroyed our economies, instituted sweat shop slave labor again in the Caribbean and destroyed millions of lives in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Then we can talk about the brown children who live in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. If you don’t know that Clinton supported or supports all these wars you didn’t listen to the debates. There are a couple of brief examples: Her unwavering support of the right-wing extremist Netanyahu and Likud government and support of ever increasing military aid. She blames the Gazan victims of the 2014 massacre, which killed over 500 children, and completely ignores the facts which were presented to her in those e-mails by her friend Sid Blumenthal. Under Clinton the Israelis slaughtered hundreds of children in Gaza in during Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) and Operation Pillar of Defense. And PLEEZ don’t start this crap about Gaza “rockets” to try and excuse disproportionate force. Its like comparing a sparkler to a Hiroshima class nukes. mondoweiss.net… www.goodreads.com…
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And last, for your consideration is this article
, “Hillary Clinton Oversaw US Arms Deals to Clinton Foundation Donors.” www.motherjones.com… These are the same arms that Saudi Arabia is using to kill thousands of children in Yemen and to the same regime which wants to execute LGBT people on the street. www.pinknews.co.uk… and stones women to death www.mirror.co.uk
Venceremos! Pati nan viktwa!
Added in answer to a question concerning Aristide: KBS666. “You used as one of your points the US led diplomatic and military operation that returned the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide to office in 1994 after a coup in Haiti as if that was somehow a bad thing.”
First let me remind you that Bill Clinton made an election promise that, "If I were President, I would -- in the absence of clear and compelling evidence that they [Haitian boat people] weren't political refugees -- give them temporary asylum until we restored the elected Government of Haiti."
On January 4, 1993 his tune had changed. “Those who leave Haiti by boat for the United States will be intercepted and returned to Haiti by the U.S. Coast Guard.” www.nytimes.com…
Fast forward to June 18, 2014, before she declared her candidacy. Here is the headline Hillary Clinton: Unaccompanied Minors ‘Should Be Sent Back’ It was that speech that gave me the idea that H. Clinton was using our children as a “message” and that her real policy was just like her husband’s. She said, “We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay,” www.huffingtonpost.com… Then I heard her on the debate saying, “with respect to children on the border, if you remember, we had an emergency, and it was very important to send a message to families in Central America: Do not let your children take this very dangerous journey,” My kids are messages? In all events, after first encouraging Haitians to climb aboard huckster boats H. Clinton blockaded them. 30,000 were interned at, you guessed it, Guantanamo in tents. Nobody knows how many died. Most were sent back into the hands of the ‘generals’ who were well known to put tires over refugee’s necks and set them on fire. Cuban boat people got a free pass if I remember correctly..
The forgotten background was that this was after a long blockade and sanctions which Boosh (sic) started and B. Clinton intensified. The sanctions destroyed the already poorest economy in the W. Hemisphere while the ruling elite got rich on smuggling. The poor starved.
June 5, 1993, Clinton Imposes New Sanctions on Haiti Junta articles.latimes.com/...
October 16, 1993. U.S. Warships Sent to Enforce Haiti Embargo articles.latimes.com/...
Aristide, who was painted as a democrat never was. He was an autocrat. More importantly, he promised the Clinton administration to privatize Haiti’s state-owned enterprises i.e. sell them off to American corporations at fire sale prices. Once restored to office he reneged and (thank you) never privatized them. He more or less told the USA to shove it and became the same old autocratic ruler Haitians are accustomed to. The USA and the donors who promised economic reconstruction after years of sanctions vanished when the promise of a corporate takeover of Haitian resources wasn’t fulfilled.
All of us in Latin America and the Caribbean know to watch out as soon as the USA starts talking about “human rights”. What it really means has always meant a new way to steal everything in sight.
To bring you back to H. Clinton. Her policies don’t differ nothing from her husband’s or the corporate, banker, hedge fund vultures who donate to her campaign and her foundation. Just check out the story on the Caracol sweatshops and both H & B Clinton’s relationship to the thug President Martelly and rigged elections , forced evictions from tent cities. UN rape squads, unnecessary cholera epidemics. www.blackagendareport.com/...
After reading Black Agenda Report (BAR), and knowing that the same goes on worldwide, go and vote for perpetrators and their mega-rich corporate owners who have consistently fucked us over since Columbus landed in the Bahamas. I hope you hear the children crying in the dark.
Too tired to edit for punctuation and grammar. So please, would the proofreaders take a break? Note: Sanders is certainly far from perfect, I know. What is needed is a foreign policy paradigm shift That is what I am seeing and why we march to the convention.
CORRUPTION KILLS
I don’t expect anyone to care, but I hope my friends in P.R. and St, Thomas & St. Croix will remember that many vulture hedge funds who have destroyed the economy in Puerto Rico are donors to the Clinton campaign. I question why funds who are lobbying against bankruptcy would give money to a candidate that purports to be for bankruptcy.
“Hillary Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, has received the legal maximum donation of $2,700 from bankers at Fortress Investment Group and four-figure contributions from bankers at Perry Capital,Blue Mountain Capital, and Angelo, Gordon & Co., according to Federal Election Commission filings.
A banker with Apollo Global Management also donated the legal limit to Clinton, and that hedge fund paid her $250,000 for a speech in May, according to her personal finance disclosure.
All of these hedge funds have been deeply involved in the Puerto Rican debt crisis. Several of them, including Blue Mountain Capital, the Managed Funds Association, and Angelo, Gordon & Co., have spent big this year lobbying Congress not to give the island bankruptcy protections.”
thinkprogress.org/… and confirmed at the FEC website.
Vulture Fund Donors to H. Clinton Campaign
I hope my friends in P.R. and St, Thomas & St. Croix will remember that many vulture hedge funds who have destroyed the economy in Puerto Rico are donors to the Clinton campaign. I question why funds who are lobbying against bankruptcy would give money to a candidate that purports to be for bankruptcy. “Hillary Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, has received the legal maximum donation of $2,700 from bankers at Fortress Investment Group and four-figure contributions from bankers at Perry Capital,Blue Mountain Capital, and Angelo, Gordon & Co., according to Federal Election Commission filings.
A banker with Apollo Global Management also donated the legal limit to Clinton, and that hedge fund paid her $250,000 for a speech in May, according to her personal finance disclosure.
All of these hedge funds have been deeply involved in the Puerto Rican debt crisis. Several of them, including Blue Mountain Capital, the Managed Funds Association, and Angelo, Gordon & Co., have spent big this year lobbying Congress not to give the island bankruptcy protections.”
thinkprogress.org/...
The Big Truck That Went By
I want to suggest a book title which deals with Haiti The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan M. Katz. If you live in the USA or Europe, please request it from your local library, or buy it. For those in poor countries where there are no libraries, and the cost of a single book is more than a day’s wages, and where downloading is legal, it can be found at Library Genesis.
Here is an excerpt www.democracynow.org… “I wanted to write this book to understand how a massive humanitarian effort, led by the most powerful nation in the world—my country—could cause so much harm and heartache in another that wanted its help so badly.”
“Humanitarian aid was delivered in all the wrong ways, gaining confidence. Rich countries focused on setting trade regulations that benefited themselves.” — Haitian President Préval at the United Nations to an an almost empty chamber.
And lastly, the recent Haitian response
Protests continue against Hillary Clinton’s role in Haiti after earthquake www.caribbean360.com/...
And a quote from www.democracynow.org/...
JANUARY 13, 2016
NYC: Protesters Target Bill Clinton over Conditions in Haiti 6 Years After Earthquake "Today is the 12th of January 2016, six years after the earthquake. And for us, it was important to be in front of the Clinton Foundation, because Bill Clinton, as head of the IHRC, Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, was responsible for the $6 billion that came into his hands. He had unlimited control of this money. Six years after the earthquake, not much has changed, and as a matter of fact, Haiti is in worse condition than it was in 2010. Only Bill Clinton can tell the world what happened with this money."
— Dahoud Andre on www.democracynow.org/…
Its very sad to the people of the Caribbean that billions of dollars, donated by half of the adults in the USA through small donations, were more or less wasted on a relief effort that was misguided neoliberal, imperial policies and, “aid groups’ power to act without oversight or accountability was almost absolute. There was no way for Haitians to appeal an NGO decision, prosecute a bad UN soldier, or vote an unwanted USAID project out of a neighborhood.“ — Katz
Caveats to Katz’ book from a highly critical review by Molly at Goodreads.
Here is a very critical review by “Molly” at Goodreads. I recommend the book for those who want a mild preview of a continuation of 100 years of American policy, as is promised by Clinton. But read remembering with the caveats in the review I have quoted at length.
What everyone needs to understand is that what I stand for is an end to the policies that have destroyed much of the world. Hillary Clinton, as clearly stated in the debates and elsewhere, is an Imperial American who thinks nothing of threatening to nuke Iran, or step on nuclear holocaust’s edge (no-fly zone) to play her stupid games to control the world for the benefit of her donors.
If anyone remembers or cares, the USA invaded Haiti in 1915 and has invaded numerous times since. America has destroyed the economy of Haiti and other Caribbean and Latin American nations more than once. The invasion in 1915 resulted in stripping ALL the gold out of Haiti’s reserves as a proxy for Citibank, “Seven months before the assassination of President Sam and the start of the U.S. occupation, U.S. Marines had gone ashore to seize the gold in Haiti’s national bank and take it to the National City Bank of New York (now Citibank), on the pretext of securing payment on those mounting debts.” (Katz). Not Clinton’s fault obviously, what is there fault is waste of relief funds, continued manipulation of Haitian economy and elections, support of disastrous trade deals and continued support of the modern day “Monroe Doctrine”.
“It's yet another instance of a spokesman for the conquerors of Haiti insisting his paymasters made immense fortunes while plundering and exploiting the citizenry and their resources "by accident", when they really meant -- Katz never offers any evidence for this supposition -- to be benevolent and magnanimous saviours. Ooops we blocked the minimum wage! Oops we rigged the election! Oops we tore down the Presidential Palace! Ooops we invaded with Marines again! The most damning wikileaks cables - which show unequivocally the malicious US policy including immense pressure on the Brazilian military officers in charge of MINUSTAH (the blue helmet 'peacekeepers' that are actually the puppet military of yet another US occupation of this country) to commit crimes against humanity and carry out massacres of Lavalas supporters and the poor-- are completely ignored while the more ambiguous ones are misrepresented to reduce intent and responsibility of the perpetrators of mass crimes. Katz wilfully ignores the staggering cruelty, indeed the sadism, of the last US invasion of Haiti, when just after the earthquake the US invaded the country and imposed a blockade, obstructing rescue and aid for weeks, refusing entry to rescue teams, to MSF, to other countries' ready to rescue and provide and even to the diaspora who were forced to try to drive in from DR, so that thousands who could have been saved died under rubble and of thirst and injuries, and severely injured Haitians including children were forced to undergo even amputations without anaesthetic.” www.goodreads.com/…
American Red Cross squandered aid after Haiti earthquake, report alleges
Despite raising nearly half a billion dollars and allocating $170m to ‘shelter relief’, the aid organization built only six permanent homes, an investigation has found www.theguardian.com/…
Haiti earthquake: where is US aid money going? Get the data
Four years on from the disaster, the bulk of US funding still goes via American firms and NGOs rather than Haitian organisations
Bill Clinton was the UN special envoy for Haiti and Hillary as SOS made big promises that were never even remotely accomplished, The Clinton Foundation in Haiti? Google it yourself, I don’t want to get banned.
“Racist preconceptions, reinforced by the current debasement of Haiti’s political institutions, places the Haitians far below levels Americans considered necessary for democracy, self-government, and constitutionalism.” — Katz. Racism is why Haitians are not allowed to develop on their own and are forced to accept 1000’s of white westerner NGO’s and conditional support while having no say in planning or development. Only Venezuela and Cuba gives aid with no strings attached, no attempt to rig elections, or subvert Haitian sovereignty.