Amid this catastrophe, imperial powers and corporate vultures are circling, eyeing the profits to be made from reconstruction.

The Street, an investment Web site, published an article, misleadingly titled “An Opportunity to Heal Haiti,” that lays out how U.S. corporations can cash in on the catastrophe. “Here are some companies,” they write, “that could potentially benefit: General Electric, Caterpillar, Deere, Fluor, Jacobs Engineering.”

Other commentators–like James Dobbins, a former U.S. special envoy to Haiti under President Bill Clinton–likewise see an opportunity to remake Haiti along free market lines. As he wrote in the New York Times, “This disaster is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms.” As director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation, the reforms he advocates are not designed to meet people’s needs, but to pad corporate profits through mechanisms like privatization.

THE U.S., a few other imperial powers, some lesser countries and the UN convened a meeting on January 26 in Montreal to profess their concern and promise to aid Haiti.

The 14 so-called “friends of Haiti” at the conference made sure to include Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive to at least give the illusion of respect for the country’s sovereignty. But outside, a protest organized by Haiti Action Montreal challenged the meeting with signs demanding “Medical relief not guns,” “Grants not loans” and “Reconstruction for people not profit.”

Guardian columnist Gary Younge criticized the summit for failing to produce any solutions:

Even as corpses remained under the earthquake’s rubble, and the government operated out of a police station, the assembled “friends” would not commit to canceling Haiti’s $1 billion debt. Instead, they agreed to a 10-year plan with no details and a commitment to meet again–when the bodies have been buried along with coverage of the country–sometime in the future.

By contrast, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and his Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas grouping of Latin American and Caribbean nations opposed to U.S. neoliberal plans has called for relief not troops and cancellation of Haiti’s debt. On his weekly television show, Chávez declared that thousands of “soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals–that’s what the United States should send. They are occupying Haiti undercover.”

Source: Ashley Smith

So many people do not know that one of the reasons Haiti is a poor country is because of direct involvement from the United States stemming all the way back to 1910.   Watch and listen to the below report which talks about the conditions in Haiti and the U.S. involvment in Haiti from the Clinton and Bush eras.

Newly disclosed emails show the New York Federal Reserve attempted to keep secret many of the details of the AIG bailout, citing national security grounds. The emails were released last week by the New York Fed ahead of a congressional hearing on the bailout. The Fed’s bailout of AIG remains controversial, in part because it secretly funneled nearly $70 billion to sixteen big US and European banks in what many described as a backdoor bailout. It was later disclosed that recipients of the AIG bailout included Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

It is truly sickening that we cannot care for our solidiers who put their lives in danger.  This is an article by the AFP that shows the lack of healthcare support to our veterans are costing them their lives.

The number of US veterans who died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance was 14 times higher than the US military death toll in Afghanistan that year, according to a new study.  The analysis produced by two Harvard medical researchers estimates that 2,266 US military veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they lacked health coverage and had reduced access to medical care.  That figure is more than 14 times higher than the 155 US troop deaths in Afghanistan in 2008, the study says.

Released as the United States commemorates fallen soldiers on Veterans Day, the study warns that even health care provided by the Veterans Health Administration (VA) leaves many veterans without coverage.  The analysis uses census data to isolate the number of US veterans who lack both private health coverage and care offered by the VA.  “That’s a group that’s about 1.5 million people,” said David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program who co-authored the study.  Himmelstein and co-author Stephanie Woolhandler, also a Harvard medical professor, overlaid that figure with another study examining the mortality rate associated with lack of health insurance.

“The uninsured have about a 40 percent higher risk of dying each year than otherwise comparable insured individuals,” Himmelstein told AFP.  “Putting that all together you get an estimate of almost 2,300 — 2,266 veterans who die each year from lack of health insurance.”  Only some US veterans have access to medical care through the VA and coverage is apportioned on the basis of eight “priority groups.”

“They range from things like people who were prisoners of war, who have coverage for life, or who have battle injuries and therefore have coverage for their injuries for life,” said Himmelstein.  Veterans who fall below an income threshold that is determined on a county-by-county basis can qualify for care, but many veterans are “working poor” and fall just above the bracket.  “The priority eight group, the lowest priority, are veterans above the very poor group who have no other reason to be eligible and that group is essentially shut out of the VA,” according to Himmelstein.

The study comes as the US Senate weighs health care reform legislation and whether to offer government health insurance.  Himmelstein warns that congressional proposals could still leave veterans uncovered and favors a national health care program similar to those in Britain and Canada.

A major investigation by the New York Times has found that chemical companies have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times in the last five years. Most of the violations have gone unpunished, with state regulators taking significant action in just three percent of all cases. An estimated one in ten Americans has been exposed to drinking water that has dangerous chemicals or falls short of federal standards.

Is your water safe?  Find out which water companies in your area have violations against them!  Click here to find out.

Here are parts 3 & 4.

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 2 of Race, class and opportunity.   Why bail out Wall St. but punish Detroit? New administration’s policies -- old pattern.

A very good 4 part series on race, class and opportunity done by the Real News Network.   Part 1 is below.