Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer -- We Must Help Haiti
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:02:39 EST
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

It is Our Moral  Responsibility to Help Haiti  – And It’s In America’s  
Interest 

For those of us who have a special place in our hearts for the  
long-suffering people of Haiti, the horrific pictures and  tragic news reports of the 
earthquake’s devastation seem as though they were  lifted directly from the 
biblical Book of Job.  
The people of Haiti have borne so much sorrow, so  much suffering.  It 
breaks your  heart.  
My wife, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, and I were both in  Haiti last year. 
 Jan has been there many times before and  for a number of years has helped 
support the work of Dr. Paul Farmer and his  remarkable organization – 
Partners in Health – as it has worked with the Haitian  government to radically 
improve health care in our hemisphere’s poorest  nation. 
When we were there, it seemed that Haiti might be  approaching an economic 
tipping point -- that a little ray of sunlight might  finally be breaking 
through the dark years of poverty and exploitation. In  addition to the 
expanding health care system, new highways have been paved.  The UN and Haitian 
government had  finally gotten a handle on the security situation. Just the 
other day we heard  about a huge new project to plant millions of trees in 
this largely deforested  land – a critical component for the country’s  
long-term economic success.  Now this. 
But one thing is striking.  Through it all, Haitians are remarkably 
resilient and optimistic.  
That’s why, out of this unspeakable tragedy, the one hope is that this  can 
be the occasion that draws the world’s attention to Haiti and creates the  
resolve to provide the funds to give Haiti a chance – after all these years –
 to  recreate itself. 
Before yesterday’s disaster, Haiti needed $3 billion to execute the dev
elopment plan  that has been designed by the government and international 
community.  That is the equivalent to the price of  about ten F-22 fighters.  Now, 
of  course, it will need more.  But  frankly, for the price a few CEO 
bonuses, the lives of 8.2 million people -- our  next-door neighbors -- could be 
changed forever.  
Of course the first priority is the massive rescue and relief effort that  
is being spearheaded today by the Obama Administration and international aid 
 organizations.  But we must hope  that the world’s concern will not die 
immediately once the worst of the  short-term suffering is ameliorated. And  
that’s not just because helping Haiti fundamentally escape its  poverty is 
the right thing to do.  It is also the smart thing to do. 
The world economy is not a zero sum game.  For us to be richer, someone 
else  doesn’t have to be poorer.  In fact  just the opposite is true.   
If you think of the earth as a huge space vehicle—or a ship at sea -- it  
just doesn’t make sense that a big proportion of the crew isn’t able to pull 
its  weight because they are undereducated, unproductive and constantly in 
need of  handouts from the rest of us. The Navy wouldn’t tolerate it; 
neither should the  world community. 
The more skilled, the more  educated, the more productive, the more 
efficient every one of us is, the more  successful we will all be in our common 
mission of forging a better life for  future generations.  
Every  kid in Haiti who grows up to be a surgeon or  an engineer instead of 
a stoop laborer contributes to the common store of our  wealth. If a girl 
is sentenced, by accident of her birth, to spend hours each  day washing 
clothes in a Haitian stream instead of going to school, all of us  miss out on 
the possibility that she might contribute to finding a cure for  cancer.  
Millions of minds are indeed a terrible  thing to waste. 
And the effect of this waste plays itself out in the terms of pure  
economics. Several years into the Great Depression, the New Deal began to close  
the gap between supply and demand in the American economy.  Roosevelt began to 
use public sector demand to fill the  demand gap, and move the economy 
toward full employment.  But Emperor Hirohito’s attack on Pearl  Harbor was 
necessary to give America the political will to fully  utilize the tools of the 
New Deal – to stop worrying about short-term deficits –  and create full 
employment.  After  all, it was do-or-die. 
There was great concern at the end of World War II that demobilization  
would result in a precipitous new economic downturn.  One of the major factors 
that prevented  that downturn – and fueled world economic growth for the 
next 20 years – was the  Marshall Plan. America  invested massively in 
rebuilding Europe.  In the short term, that created huge new  markets for American 
products.  In  the longer term, it allowed the rebirth of an economically 
prosperous Europe that contributed to the store of our common  productive 
capacity. 
In the same way today, long-term economic growth in the developed world  
will require a massive investment to jumpstart the economies of countries like 
 Haiti and the entire developing  world. And like the Marshall Plan, we 
will all benefit. 
In addition to that, helping  countries like Haiti escape poverty is about 
our own  national security. The fact is that  an island of at least relative 
prosperity cannot exist forever in a sea of  poverty.  Ask Louis XIV of  
France how that works out.  
Kids who grow up in  poverty in countries like Haiti don’t see the “good 
life” in  American commercials and movies and then resign themselves to 
suffer quietly. A  recent survey showed that 75% of the people in Haiti want to  
leave the country.  Many of them  will try, even if they risk their lives in 
a leaky wooden boat. Many will try to  come illegally to the United  
States.  
People have never left their homes and families to emigrate to foreign  
lands unless they felt they had no choice.  The millions of immigrants at our 
borders are the waves crashing over the  seawalls of our island of relative 
prosperity. If you want to do something serious about  illegal immigration, 
you need to help create economies in countries like  Haiti and Mexico that  
allow people to believe they have a future there at home. Everything else  is 
simply a band-aid.  
Without economic development in Haiti, other children will grow up to join  
criminal gangs that promise them a relative fortune of a few thousand 
dollars to  transport drugs to the United  States.  
In other parts of the world kids like them will resort to strapping on  
bombs in the vain hope of giving their lives some meaning. Or they’ll hijack  
ships.  Or they will join  revolutionary movements to challenge the wealth 
and power of those who have it.  
A recent report made public by  our own CIA described world poverty as the 
greatest single long-term threat to  world stability and our own national 
security.   There has never been a time when  the old Catholic Worker slogan 
was more correct: “If you want peace, work for  justice.” 
And finally, of course, it  is our moral responsibility.  Well-being is not 
just a matter of the number of rooms in our houses or  the quality of our 
vacations.  People – especially young people – want meaning in their lives.  
They want to commit themselves to other  people – not just for the sake of 
the other people – but because it fulfills  them – it makes them feel that 
their lives matter.  Our well-being as individuals and as a  people is not 
simply measured by our GDP.  It is measured by whether we can be proud of 
ourselves.   
Right now to be proud of ourselves, we have to step up to help the people  
of Haiti.  Do what you can right now to help the  Red Cross and other relief 
agencies cope with this massive humanitarian  crisis.  And once that’s 
done, tell  your Members of Congress that one of the foundations of our own 
long-term  economic security is creation of growth and opportunity in places 
like  Haiti. 
Robert Creamer is a long-time  political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent book:  Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can  Win, 
available on _Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1)
 
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