I’m told that the Love Haiti gig raised over £1,000. Donations for the gig are still possible online by clicking here. Thanks to Clair Chapman for organising the night.
Bandinabox TV produced this excellent short film on the night which features an interview with me.
Those who saw the original will notice that this version has been cleaned up. My new song has some naughty words in!! So the video that featured that has gone and been replaced with a different clip from the same song.
The lyrics of the chorus are: “Piss on pity, shit on their charity, slay the rich and spread their wealth” and pretty much sums up my feelings of disgust that people in such deep need have to rely on charity.
Do any of your remember the big charity bashes that we had this time last year to save the banks? No nor do I. Round the world, governments put their hand in their pocket and paid for that without hesitation.
Anyone remember the big charity benefits to raise money to pay for the Iraq War? No nor me. The government thought that important too, so once more they paid up with no quibbles.
We weren’t expected to scuttle around trying to fill the gap with charity events that time.
But a human catastrophe on such devastating proportions and it’s charity gigs all round to try and provide what the powers that be don’t care about providing.
Makes you think. So whenever you see ordinary folk doing their best by organising charity events, you can be pretty sure that it’s something that our rulers just don’t give a toss about.
If they did, they’d have already sorted it and wouldn’t be leaving it to us.
It’s never paying for bombs that they leave to chance, and it’s never bankers. It’s always us and people like us.
Why do the people of Haiti have to wait on us raising £1,000 here and there when they need massive help now?
Before I go, there is a meeting at The Casa on Thursday 4th February to build solidarity with the trade unions in Haiti.
It starts at 7pm and features speakers from the Cuban Solidarity Campaign and the Fire Brigades Union.
Excellent comment.
It’s sad that ordinary people are continually exposed to traumatic events and feel the overwhelming sense of devastation and burden and are so moved into action when those who have the means to have the greatest impact sit back and watch.
There are real parallels with the New Orleans flood a couple of years back, in both cases largely poor black populations left to suffer, while a rich elite look on.
The shocking truth is that Medicines Sans Frontier and other medical help and much needed food and other supplies have been refused entry or held up at the Airport by US military. So capitalist USA sends in the military and troops (just what the people didn’t need) while in contrast socialist Cuba provides doctors giving much needed *free* medical support. Cuba also offered doctors for New Orleans but the US turned the offer down.
The best thing for Haiti is if the West stopped interferring in the affairs of the country, allow the people’s chosen elected representative, namely President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return.
Here’s a quote from Naomi Clein, who wrote The Shock Doctrine. “[After] early 1994 . . . Washington’s negotiators made one demand that Aristide could not accept: the immediate selloff of Haiti’s state-owned enterprises, including phones and electricity. Aristide argued that unregulated privatization would transform state monopolies into private oligarchies, increasing the riches of Haiti’s elite and stripping the poor of their national wealth.”[1]
The 2004 Haitian rebellion was a coup d’etat that happened after conflicts that occurred for several weeks in Haiti during February 2004. It resulted in the premature end of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s second term, in which he left Haiti on a United States (U.S.) plane accompanied by U.S. military/security personnel. Controversy remains regarding the extent of the involvement of the U.S. in his departure and whether or not the departure was voluntary. Aristide described his departure as a kidnapping.
By the way large and as yet untapped oil reserves have been found off the coast of Haiti.