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David Brooks Blames the Victim in Haiti
Is David Brooks competing with Pat Robertson to make the most callous commentary on Haiti's earthquake?
As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book "The Central Liberal Truth," Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.
We're all supposed to politely respect each other's cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.
Yes, poverty is the underlying reason that Port-au-Prince now lies in ruins. But his claim that Haiti's poverty is rooted in its "progress-resistant" culture is otherwise known as blaming the victim. Like all poor people, Haitians are used to being blamed for their own poverty, but David Brooks picked a hell of a time to point his finger.
[I]t's time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.
Ironically, Brooks' prescription of "intrusive paternalism" to "fix the culture," aptly sums up US policy towards Haiti for the past 100 years: a brutal military occupation from 1915 to 1934; support for dictatorship from 1957 to 1986; and more recently, the imposition of trade policies that have further impoverished people. What the outside world needs to "fix" is not Haitian culture, but its own self-serving policies that have left thousands of Haitians literally buried alive.
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45 Comments so far
Show AllDavid Brooks called the bank ceo's superstars who were needed to fix the economy.
If there was a god, surely he would create micro earthquakes that would swallow whole the likes of David Brooks and grind them into corporate fascist grist. Alas, it is not to be. The injustice and depravity of this nation boggles my mind.
Brooks has his head in an anatomical location which no head should be in -- but is all too common for the wealthy, the neocons and neoliberals, the Republicans -- many politicians and pundits and so-called 'leaders'who would rather lie than deal with reality.
A horrible catastrophe? Send soldiers to take over the country -- and see if some 'opportunities' exist for the empire (remember Katrina?) -- oh, and control the situation so no one else can get in there.
The only people Brooks are fooling are those who are already fooled, or like being part of the evil empire. We can expect more of this sort of stuff to come, with arguments that the US needs to take tighter control of Haiti, probably put more troops there, and further exploit the people who survive. Isn't that what the empire does? Always?
"Brooks has his head in an anatomical location which no head should be in"
My compliments on your use of the English language!
It seems to me that Brooks has decided to compete with Pat Robertson for who has their head farthest up a certain anatomical orifice.
What else should we expect from someone who used to work for William Kristol at the Weekly Standard. As it did with William Safire, the Times plucked him out of the rightwing sewer to make it seem that the paper is centrist.
Then, if David Brooks' suggestion doesn't work, Haiti might benefit from Kissinger's policy of "benign neglect". These oligarchs inhabit a world so different and unrelated to the one most of us live in that their thoughts seem worse than crazy. Ditto for the 'Rev.' Robertson.
Hey, benign neglect would be an improvement on the hyperactive fucking up of Haiti that the US has been doing for the last several decades.Benign neglect would have allowed the Haitians to continue to grow enough rice to feed themselves, rather than be forced to buy cheap imported rice from Arkanasas-now 75% of rice consumed by Haitians-or work in American-owned sweatshops for .28 cents an hour so they can buy that rice.The amount of money sent home by Haitians living abroad is three times the size of Haitian exports anyway. That tells you something.Once the emergency is over, I'm all for benign neglect.
David Brooks is a privileged, clueless prick.
Watched a few minutes of PBS news last night. Brooks was on. Didn't know who he was but do now. Pathetic! Public Corporate TV, really sad. And Moyers is leaving. Waste Land!
W and Bill Clinton heading Haiti relief when at least one of them should be in prison. Good job Mr Obama.
Yup, they are giving Dubya an opportunity to refurbish his image, nice PR for a man who is responsible for an incredible amount of human suffering here and in the world. Disgusting, but typical of our day and age where all the neocons - in government and the press - who were sssooo wrong about everything get a free pass and never get called on their BS.
F*** Brooks, Bush and all the rest
Contrary to Brooks' assertion that voudou is fatalistic, the revolution that produced Haiti's independence grew out of a voodou ceremony.
It is evangelicalism which is fatalistic, and one should inquire into the role of evangelical christianity in Haiti, known as the "honey pot" of missionary evangelicalism [Kim Ives] , or
as having more missionaries per capita than any place on earth.
Haiti should threw out the zealots, like Cuba did.
It's due to the missionaries that some people in Haiti are clapping and praying instead of organizing.
Why is our relief effort all about the military?
Why are the 10,000 troops were sending to Haiti dressed in full combat gear and most carrying killing machines?
Over 20% of able bodied Americans are unemployed, most because of the economy, and several hundred thousand would be willing to help in Haiti for nothing more then room and board. So why is most of the $100 million promised by Obama going to be spent on troop deployment?
All of the liberal media now in Haiti say there is no violence going on, and virtually no theft. And the taking of what very little food can be found, surely only a corrupt media would call it looting.
And so, now that our troops are in place to prevent a riot, the CIA and British Intelligence will have their paid actors proceed to start a riot.
SEE TROOPER WITH GUN AND SUN GLASSES PRETEND TO HEAL
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/haiti-earthquake-breaking_n_421644.html
Very valid questions.
"And the taking of what very little food can be found, surely only a corrupt media would call it looting."
Ahh yes. Remember Hurricane Katrina? The news would show blacks taking groceries from a food store and call it "looting." However, when they showed a white family doing the exact same thing, they were "trying to survive."
The chipmunk is a right wing schmuck. Incidentally, the Yiddish word comes from the German word meaning "cheep jewelry".
It does not mean "cheep (sic) jewelery;" it simply means jewelery.
Either way, Brooks is certainly a world-class schmuck.
I meant to add that the reason 'schmuck' is derogatory is a play on 'family jewels.'
In other words, a prick.
David Brooks Gateskeeps for BushCo. spooks!
Yesterday, I tried to post on the New York Times in response to Brooks's horribly historically inaccurate and racist article, but it was closed. Fortunately, many of the readers took him to task. The "reader approval" to posts skewering him outnumbered the ignorant ones by a ratio of at least 5:1. The article is by far one of the worst I have read in 30 years.
US troops needed in Haiti to enforce shock doctrine.
Immiseration will incentivize compliance.
You want a drink of water, crawl to boss class and kiss boot.
How can Anybody with a College Degree not know the - clearly factual - historical record ???
Purposeful maliciousness in the highest degree.
How can such a malingerer possibly hold a job - let alone at the "Newspaper of Record"
Disgusting in the extreme.
David Brooks either knows better and is another presstitute and MSM ad hominem, whore or he has not studied the history of Haiti and is very ignorant. I would think it was the former.
Paul Revere
Well said! Haiti today would be much different if it weren't for the French. The Dominican Republic on a third of the Island exemplifies the difference. They were under Spanish control.
Brooks surely knows this, so we are left with whore or ignorant. Could it be both?
Yeah, maybe he is just an intellectual eunuch!
Both it is! Loved the phrase!
"...Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences."
Yeah. So do we. They're called conservatives.
Right-freakin-on!!!!!!!!!!!!!
However, I prefer the term "regressive" and I hope it catches on more.
I favor "reprobates" myself, check out the definition.
Gary
Brooks should be forced to apologize and, I predict, will respond with the typographic equivalent of his trademark smirk. He is no better than Pat Robertson. His audience is just different.
What's the point in "forcing" someone to apologize?
We already have a culture of absurdly false 'apologies.'
The last conservative "intellectual".
There was a first one?
"Paternalism" the wave of the future??!!??
Does reading one or two books on the British Empire really qualify one to write on such issues for the New York Times now?
I'm more bothered by how completely moronic Brooks' argument is than by how callous it is, myself.
Paternalism, huh, Mr. Brooks?
So what has been ABSENT from Haiti's history is a government based on a family heirarchy where a father figure makes all the decisions for everybody?!?
Somebody better call the ghosts of Papa and Baby Doc Chevalier and tell them they never existed!
W.T.F.?
Where can I get the frontal lobotomy that would enable me to make such "expert analyses" for the NYT?
-matti.
When in doubt, blame the victim. After all, it's not as if they can defend themselves.
Uh-oh, there's that "culture of achievement" jazz again.
Yeah, Haitians and everyone else, including workin' guys like myself just need to sit through a Zig Ziglar seminar.
"I love my job, I love my job, I love my job!"
Yeah, old Zig loves HIS job alrighty.
It must be nice for people like Ziglar and Brooks to make cozy living by just telling people to "man up."
Fred Honsberger used to tell people that until he died recently.
Will Lucifer tell them all the same while jabbing with his talons?
David Brooks will keep on writing smug, supercilious, fatuous articles for the New York Times-- and I'll keep sticking pins into my David Brooks doll.
ยท Yr Obd't Servant
Until I read that excerpt from David Brook's article, I didn't know I believed in some of the central tenets of Voodoo. Yes, life is capricious, and , while planning may not be entirely futile,people who think they can outsmart Fate, or game the odds if they have enough information, often get whupped up side the head, just like the rest of us.Hard to plan your way out of disease, or death, for instance.Trust in God, but tie your camel.
Young David Brooks has a lesson to learn. Colonialism. occupation, military domination shape culture. He should stop blaming those dying under slabs of lousy concrete.
So.... what does David Brooks think Haiti has that Israel wants?
That's all he is....a shill.
We can all remember a very well to do "being" saying "that is good enough for them" when asked to assess the conditions many of the citizens of this country had been forced in to during the Katrina disaster . Why is it all the mean people are Republicans with access to the public media ?
jonabark
What successes might he be talking about? He obviously has something in mind , but what in the world is it? What programs of intrusive paternalism ended poverty and why then is poverty in the US on the rise?
This is hardly news because the rich are always blaming the poo4 for being down and out. Even in Haiti where one would think that any sentient being would quickly realize that there are them that have (around 1 percent of the population) with the rest of the people not only have-nots, but giving their all just to stay alive. What a surprise it was, then, upon returning from a visit to Haiti many years ago, to meet a prosperous Haitian immigrant to this country who, after I commented on the desperate plight of the Haitian people, responded with "It's their own fault because they're lazy." And that was before faux news.
Brooks is simply using the Haiti disaster as a vehicle to re-tell the one story that he tells; it has nothing to do with Haiti per se.
More deserving of notice is the cultural drift in the US that allows him to speak this way at the height of a monstrous natural catastrophe affecting hundreds of thousands. Despite his sophisticated veneer of smarm (he has read a book! or his research assistant has...), his base assumptions are one with those of Robertson, Beck, et al. -- essentially, white is right; and let each express this truth according to his station and the language thereof. No one bats an eye.
Who would have guessed that the election of Barack Obama would merely accelerate the rightist push backward to the glory days before WWII, perhaps even before WWI, before the fall of empires, before the Great Leveling?
And soon the N.Y.T. will start charging a fee for online content.It will be time to say goodbye to the "Old Grey Lady"which used to be a term of endearment but now could use some more base editing. peace