Born to Run the Rebuilding of Third World Countries
Wait, did Bruce Springsteen's guitar player take to the pages of Politico (!) and urge readers not to help rebuild Haiti, but instead help "reimagine" it? Did the former Sopranos actor and host of Little Steven's Underground Garage suggest, in the pages of Politico (!), that Sean Combs, Angelina Jolie, and The Beatles (does he mean Ringo and Paul?) band together and "make [Haiti] the high-tech capital of the world?" Just what kind of disaster capitalism are these rock stars demanding?
The Haitian people need a partnership with a group of individuals that will help them, for the first time in their existence, establish a state-of-the-art infrastructure that will last 100 years, unencumbered by political and economic corruption. Then let the ingenuity, work ethic and spirit of the people do the rest.
So it's time to call on Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Paul Allen, George Clooney, Robert Johnson, Angelina Jolie, Jay-Z, Brad Pitt, Wyclef Jean…
You get the idea.
Next week, according to sources at Politico HQ in Arlington: Ernest "Boom" Carter on the Iranian nuclear threat.
Speaking of "disaster capitalism," Naomi Klein has discovered "a document" that outlines a sinister free market plan for remaking the Haitian economy, which was so awesome and egalitarian (i.e. everyone was equally poor) before the earthquake. The "document," this Protocols of the Elders of Port-au-Prince, turns out to be a brief, vacuous blog post on the Heritage Foundation website.
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Someone actually read Ralph Nader’s book? And LIKED it ????
I was about to point that out.
Stevie is SO cool. This dude is just totally amazing
Tus
http://www.web-privacy.cz.tc
Anonalluiaja!
What is it that every political commentator with the last name Klein is an idiot? Joel, Ezra, Naomi… wtf?
Klein = small. You may fill in the rest.
If your pinzelschnizten ist klein, you might not fill in the rest.
rapunzelschnitzel?
I’ve tried repeatedly to make purple jeans and a mumu work…
It takes the perfect pair of slipper to pull the entire ensamble together.
I like the Springsteen song about leaving your small town behind to chase your dreams and that other one about how much it sucks to be a working class American.
John Mellencamp had a good song like that too.
I thought that was Bob Goldthwaite, at first. Now I’m disappointed.
If Goldthwaite were President, I might actually listen to the State of the Union address.
I would love to hear it delivered by Gilbert Gottfried.
Better if it were Bob Goldthwaite.
Correction: the late Sam Kinnison is who I meant. He would give one kick ass SOTU.
The worst thing we could ever do for Haiti would be to trade with them and help them get horrible exploitive capitalist jobs. My God, Klein is an idiot. If only there were a free market plot to help Haiti.
Don’t worry Naomi, the idiots in Congress and the Unions will ensure that capitalism does nothing to help Haiti anytime soon.
Ya know, I really like the Underground Garage station, especially the Andrew Loog Oldham show, but this is blithering idiocy.
And I’m trying really hard to not imagine that purple outfit.
Capitalist Haiti would look like Tampa in the background of Klein’s vacation photos. Can’t have that.
Can’t have those Haitians helping themselves and exploiting each other. No. Can’t have that. The only way to really help them is for the help to come from the elightened class of people like Klein.
Whenever I see a picture of the comely Naomi Klein, I can only wonder: What kind of awesome pick-up line can I deliver that would lead her to invite me to put it in her ass?
Strangely, I only have this reaction to one other person ? Dick Cheney.
Just for the record, that’s not Naomi Klein; that’s Little Steven. But hey, it’s your fantasy…
+1
Even Naomi Klein would not wear shoes that ugly.
I can only imagine the kind of beta male whinney liberal men that could up with a woman like Klein. I would imagine she is a very frustraited woman.
John, she’s actually married to Avi Lewis who is the son of Stephen Lewis and the grandson of David Lewis, who were both leaders of the New Democratic Party the only explicitly (ie nationalize the means of production) socialist party to ever control a government at any significant level in North America.
In spite of having a membership composed entirely of college professors and United Church clergypersons the NDP claims to be the spokesparty of the workers of Canada.
The “people” are never worthy of their progressive leaders.
Kind of like the ol’ Ann Coulter treatment, huh?
How about “Hey baby, did you know the sole responsibility of a corporation is to increase its profits?”
Then when it’s time to close, say “I want to force my policies on your unwilling ass.”
“Miss Klein, would you like to discuss ‘The Shocker Doctrine’?”
So it’s time to call on Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Paul Allen, George Clooney, Robert Johnson, Angelina Jolie, Jay-Z, Brad Pitt, Wyclef Jean…
You would think the host of Little Steven’s Underground Garage would know that Robert Johnson died a long, long time ago. Maybe Howlin’ Wolf and Little Walter can pitch in as well?
This is a job for Muddy Waters.
I saw Muddy warm up Clapton. But on a Waters / Clapton bill, who’s really the headliner?
Wow that is awesome. And Muddy is definitely the headliner on that or any other bill. I am sadly too young to have ever seen many of the real deal bluesman live. I did, get to see John Lee Hooker once in college. And it kicked ass. But seeing Muddy would have been a dream come true.
35 years later and I haven’t forgotten that show.
Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil to play guitar, true story.
And according the Pat Robertson so did the Haitians. Maybe Robert is the man for the job.
Maybe he is talking about Robert Wood Johnson IV? Perhaps the Jets could run next season’s training camp from Haiti?
A bobby wood johnson?
And what will the re-imagined Hatians eat? Not that nasty rice and beans and bananas.
No they’ll be feasting on unicorn steaks all seasoned with Klein’s morale outrage.
If what he’s calling for is a private investment in Haiti, I say go for it if you’ve got the money to burn.
Good luck, what with the kleptocracy, unskilled workforce, and all that, but hey, as long as you’re not proposing to take money from me and send it there, I’m good.
Gotta start somewhere. They may be unskilled but they will work cheap. And there has never been a kleptocrat who can’t be bought off. Like South Korea wasn’t a kelptocracy in 1954. And it was poorer than Haiti. If the US would just open up our markets, you might be surprised at what would happen.
What I want to know is why, with all this latent raw macroeconomic talent, why haven’t any countries revolted to create the perfect dem-rockcracy? If only those with a platinum album or better were allowed to hold the reins, we’d have much better social awareness and kickin’ national anthems.
Top 40 Men
Poor countries without infrastructure or governance exhibit a disappointing lack of well-intentioned totalitarianism. Such a shame.
Well, Naomi and company will always have Zimbabwe. Now there is a poor country that got it right.
Nerdy bearded socialist lardass in my town has been posting bills that claim the Haiti earthquake was more deadly, compared to San Fransisco 1989, because of “capitalist exploitation and corruption”.
No fucking way. Tony lives in San Fran?
It amazes me how stupid people are. What makes that guy even worse than your ordinary stupid guy is that I he probably has a college degree from some hate studies department and no doubt thinks it is the rest of the country that is stupid.
Not in San Fran, just comparing the two earthquakes. He’s trying to get people to go to discussion groups at the hippie center.
This guy posts so many bills, I think I should buy stock in Weyerhauser or something. If people rip them down, he puts up new ones.
“hate studies”
Jesus Had Two Dads likes this
i want to major in hate studies.
Didn’t your college have a women’s studies department?
i’m not sure reading stultifying prose is the same as studying hate. otherwise i woulda had a new minor.
Oh, I see. You want to study hate, not learn how to become more hateful. The distinction is very important.
dhex has been here long enough. He should have learned how to be more hateful by now.
dhex = Stupid, slow piece of pig shit.
Supposedly it’s been found that Haiti has more oil reserves than Venezuela.
Great. Now the incipient kleptocrats have some real wealth to fight over. If there were any hope for a freer economy for Haiti, that will surely end it.
I’d like the United States government (which I am forced to fund), and me personally, to have as little to do with Haiti going forward as is possible to arrange, thank you very much.
If the others want to take a shot at a crusade like this, hey, good luck. I’ll express my skepticism however. Good intentions and altruism don’t build a functioning new world. Skills, liberty and moral fiber do.
If you built a high-tech center in Haiti, the locals would tear it down and sell the wiring.
Right but Steven wants to “establish a state-of-the-art infrastructure that will last 100 years, unencumbered by political and economic corruption,” thus he’s imagining a tech center guarded by robot dogs.
Oh, so the Haitians can sell the robot dogs and the wiring on the black market?
You would think the host of Little Steven’s Underground Garage would know that Robert Johnson died a long, long time ago. Maybe Howlin’ Wolf and Little Walter can pitch in as well?
We’re talking about Haiti. Deadness is not a major obstacle.
I’m confused by the “unencumbered by political and economic corruption” part. Are we going to grind the bones of the powerful, the thuggish, and the capitalist to make the mortar for this high-tech infrastructure? I’m not coming up with many (any) examples of where political corruption was stamped out from external sources. Anyone?
Political corruption is never stamped out. It exists wherever their is politics. You could make the place better by making it a colony and a ward of the international community like Kosovo. But, that would cost a fortune and the UN wouldn’t do anything for long term success.
“You could make the place better by making it a colony and a ward of the international community like Kosovo. But, that would cost a fortune and the UN wouldn’t do anything for long term success.”
Not in my ass.
No. I’m talking lessening the corruption, not put blue-helmets in charge of it. I don’t really want any child slavery rings to be better organized.
I read Klein’s blog alert and, try as I might, all I can figure is that she has a secret decoder ring somewhere that allows her to divine things that aren’t in the text… If someone “read” her texts that leadingly, who knows what they’d find in them.
Yeah, because the little haitian kids are afraid to go to sleep at night because of the roving bands of rapists, thieves wielding machetes, and the scariest of all, the threat that someone might put a fucking starbucks down the street from their tar paper shack with a tin roof.
Or worse yet give them a job making some money. Better to live in a shack and eat garbage than work at an exploitive sweatshop.
It’s not eating garbage, it’s ‘recycling’ and keeps my carbon footprint small.
Does weed grow there?
Narcotourism?
You know Haiti can’t be all bad.
If Naomi Klein lived there, I could probably pay only a small sum of money to see her face smashed in with a hammer.
HAMMER SMASHED FAAAAAAACE
The correct video is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvAkWxwUszk
And to imagine, people used to laugh at Jim Carrey.
“establish a state-of-the-art infrastructure that will last 100 years, unencumbered by political and economic corruption,” I would love to hear his plan to clean up political and economic corruption. btw,is it coincidence that many former french colonies are the hellhole of their continents? Haiti, sierra leone, ivory coast, laso, cambodia etc.
did anyone hear about how lady gaga et al are getting together to re-record “we are the world” and donate the $$$ to haiti?
And since I’ve only heard Little Steven’s on the radio and never taken a regular interest, I had no idea the host was Van Zandt. I’d always figured it was some zonked-out stoner who looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
The more you know.
so, uh, what happens on the 101st year?
I thought I was ugly but that Stevie dude is making me reconsider.
“btw,is it coincidence that many former french colonies are the hellhole of their continents? Haiti, sierra leone, ivory coast, laso, cambodia etc.”
No, I don’t think so — if the movie Papillon is any evidence.