Direct Relief to Haiti

You can also help by making a donation at www.yele.org. Yele is Wyclef Jean's non-profit organization.

You can text 'YELE' to 501501 to make a $5 donation (USA only) or go to www.yele.org to donate from anywhere in the world. Haiti needs us. Please donate if you can.

D.R.I. and Wycliff Jean are both reputable.

Yes, these are both reputable, unlike the other two charities (one claiming to help people and the other pretending it helps animals) who always seem to be first to jump in front of the cameras at any disaster, with their hands out, grubbing for money. Then they disappear when the cameras are gone.

DRI, however, quietly and effectively does its job and does it well, and deserves every penny, as does Wyclef Jean. Both are unimpeachable.

Also, here is a link to Charity Navigator's site regarding the Haitian Earthquake and how to give responsibly:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index...

If you want your donation to really count, DRI is the best way to make it happen. This organization has been assisting Haiti for over 40 years and has the infrastructure in place to get aid to the neediest as quickly as possible. Santa Barbara is blessed to have one of the most reputable and effective non profit, non governmental charity groups in the world founded and still located right here in paradise. Give what ever you can.

It is commonplace to see the American people step up to the plate to donate after a disaster. We The People are a extremely generous bunch, and the same outpouring of aid was seen in the wake of 9/11, Katrina and the SE Asian tsunami for recent examples.

It can't be helped noticing that the powers-that-be are also stepping up the aid effort: President Obama has enlisted former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to help in fundraising.

The motivation to help on the part of the people is clearly out of genuine concern and empathy for our fellow humans, regardless of race, color, creed or nationality.

However, the motivation to help on the part of the establishment/powers-that-be, as an entity in itself, is not so clear, and more likely highly questionable:

* Haiti is one of the poorest nations on Earth, and they contribute little towards to the bottom lines of big business. In the words of Henry Kissinger, they are some of the "world's useless eaters". Why then, the concern by a system headed by people who only answer to money?

* Does the US military involvement have more to do with maintaining security and ensuring the continuity of a government which was installed as the result of (an illegal) US/French aided coup d'état in 2004?

* Is this a political PR exercise, taken up by both major parties, senior politicians, and the establishment in general, to make it appear that the powers-that-be in the U.S. have an element of humanity (especially after the last 10 years of infamy)? This is also a very handy opportunity to restore some much needed respectability to the office of President.

To put this into a harsh reality perspective in an uncomfortable thought experiment: Had a large earthquake hit Iran instead of Haiti, leveling Tehran and killing 10s of thousands, you can bet that the American people would also voluntarily step up to the plate and donate $Billions in aid, despite the labeling by the corporate media and powers-that-be, that Iranians (and all Muslims by extension) are all "evil", "terrorists" or "potential terrorists". There would also be a similar exercise in PR-mongering by the administration to broadcast a phony show of "humanitarianism", while behind the scenes, a sizable portion of influential DC policy-makers and members of certain high profile think-tanks would be High Fiving and laughing like drains, realizing that Mother Nature had pulled off the wrecking job that has been a part of their agenda since 1999, and all for free.

There's the harsh reality.

Although I'm down with the music of the Fugees and Wyclef Jean, and I don't doubt his sincerity, I'm not so sure about Wyclef's charity. Their efficiency is in question and so are the charity's expenditures to companies controlled by two board directors, Jean and Jerry Duplessis:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

Appalling post by bloggulator. Learn a little history:

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/...

And weep for what privatization has done to Haiiti, as well as coup d'etats, the last one backed by the last admin. In short, the US owes Haiti big time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7oc9...

"Years ago Haiti was forced by foreign aid donors to drop its tariffs and allow in cheap food from America and elsewhere. Local farmers couldn't compete and now Haiti imports almost everything it eats. When world food prices started skyrocketing last year Haitians had nothing to protect them from the worst impacts of a global food crisis."

Also, read "Economic Hitman" by John Perkins.

I wonder if Tabatha can explain which aspects of my post she finds "appalling", and why?

She has undoubtedly missed one of the point I was making, namely the sharp difference between the motivations of ordinary American *people* and the US *Government*, when it comes to disaster relief.

The Obama administration, comprising largely of Wall Street elites doesn't give a rat's a$$ about Haitians any more than the Bush Administration did about the fate of inhabitants of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The "humanitarian concerns" echoing out of Washington DC for Haiti are as sincere as a "john's" professed love for a street hooker in a minute of passing passion: Empty, bogus and misleading. If the US government is exhibiting such keenness in going into Haiti, the real purpose is far more likely to be based in economic and security matters.