Serpents and rainbows

While it's nice to see the generous outpouring of support for Haiti from celebrities and private citizens alike -- Twitter and Facebook all-calls, charity concerts and telethons, donations of everything from tour proceeds to planes -- I can't help but wonder where all this public outcry was through 30 years of the Duvalier regime, one of the most ludicrously corrupt, backward, and savage kleptocracies to ever exist in the Western hemisphere. Between the two of them, "Papa" and "Bebe Doc" Duvalier oversaw the siphoning of millions of dollars in GDP and charity money, created a private terror death-squad much like Ivan the Terrible's 16th century Oprichniki, and, apart from ordering the torture, rape, and murder of tens of thousands of people, were also famous for being completely fucking nuts. And throughout most of these three decades, the US firmly continued its tacit financial support, because there couldn't be another Cuba, and better dead than red.

To make the obvious, and by now totally hackneyed comparison, it also took mass devastation for anyone to pay attention to the fact that Louisiana was a cesspit of poverty and political corruption. Doesn't this just give credence to the idea that natural disasters are a sign from the heavens for us to pay attention to what's happening on earth? -- an idea that implicitly feeds into the Pat Robertson-style logic of God as wrathful panopticon. Why does sudden, unexpected destruction fill us with so much awe and reverence, while an ongoing repetition of man-made destruction just makes us yawn and change the channel?

And, obviously, the "throw money at it!" strategy sounds like a good one when faced with an unprecedented natural disaster, millions dead or missing, and an entire national infrastructure destroyed. But isn't that sort of what led to Haiti being the wreck it's been since Toussaint? You can generate all the charity money you want, but the bigger the unattended honey pot, the greater the chance that some rabid bear like a Papa or Bebe Doc will come along and gorge himself on it.