Fact-esque

Lost Footing

This Waco Tribune-Herald story remembers incorrectly history that's just a year old:

The anti-war movement lost its footing with the re-election of President Bush in November 2004. But Sheehan's highly publicized vigil has brought to surface long-simmering doubts about the Iraq war among some Americans.

The anti-war movement lost its footing fleetingly when the craven, politically inept Democratic party shut down the anti-war candidates and pushed the "more electible," completely incomprehensible John Kerry:

Responding to President Bush's challenge to clarify his position, Sen. John F. Kerry said Monday that he still would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq even if he had known then that U.S. and allied forces would not find weapons of mass destruction.

The anti-war movement was nothing but energized around the BushCo campaign and what happened on November 2. The poll numbers that allowed the anti-war message to get some traction in the corporate media come from documents like the Downing Street Memos and the well-footed persistance of the anti-war movement.  But hey, thanks for helping Dems dodge the bullet, Herald-Tribune.  They need all the help they can get.

Hurricane Stories the Corporate Media Won't Tell

Two good Hurricane Katrina diaries at dKos:

Patricia Taylor asks where are the Louisiana National Guard?  Of course we know where they are. 

MsLibertarian remembers that BushCo cut Hurricane projects in New Orleans:

""I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to. There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms.  Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.""

Dying so that Others May Die

Since Cindy Sheehan showed up in Crawford, I've been saying that she's a better political strategist than anyone the Democrats have had on their payroll. She isn't only subdued on camera, she's truly peaceful. She doesn't just stay on message, she has an uncanny ability to cut through any distraction built into a question from the corporate media and get right to the core of her message. She asked the corporate media why they don't scrutinize every word that BushCo, the president, speaks as they do hers? She reminds people that in the Downing Street Memos and other documents she has proof that BushCo lied to his country and so betrayed all the soldiers who are killing and dying for his lies. She knows the value of an image and so in the very beginning America saw two women in a ditch asking for an audience with Dear Leader, who is infamous for only meeting with sycophants, which ties back to the nagging questions about why we had a 9/11 in the first place. The white cross memorial, a mini-Arlington, isn't only genuinely patriotic, spiritual, tragic and poignant, it's the million dollar PR shot, which is why some crackpot tried to destroy it.

Now she's managed to destroy the only defense BushCo has left for his miserable, murderous adventure. From her diary at dKos:

Our rally had about 2500 people jammed into the Camp Casey II tent. The speakers and music were awesome. Joan sang a few more songs. I told the crowd that I totally understand George Bush's noble cause for continuing the war: I have to kill more Americans because I have already killed so many. Then I posed the question to them that we will pose to Congress and the small minority of Americans (38-40%) who still believe in George's oil war. How many more lives are you willing to sacrifice before you bring the troops home? I led the crowd in a deafening chant of "Not One More," aimed at George's vacation home.

As the Corporate Democrats cower in silence, desperate to figure out how to maintain their devotion to the corpo-fascist interests who benefit from war while at the same time tapping into America's growing disgust for the war those interests started, Cindy Sheehan is speaking to and for America.

Huge amounts of blood means death — you need blood.

Is it generally accepted that Greta Van Sustern isn't as dumb as post?  Because she's blowing that  image with her blog.

8/25: The fact that Natalee Holloway has not returned and the fact she left behind a passport and was looking forward to college persuades me that she is dead, but this is not "legal evidence" of murder. People take off — e.g. the Runaway Bride. People also have accidents (drown.) I don't think Natalee took off, but there is no legal evidence to the contrary. I don't think her death was accidental — but I have no evidence other than my personal speculation. I assume Natalee is dead and assume it was foul play —- but my assumption is my speculation. Speculation is not evidence. Convictions require evidence. When looking at any investigation, you have to step back and think, “Am I guessing this?” Guessing is speculation — not evidence. Can I point to specific facts that actually prove this?

Note however, that when you have sufficient pieces of evidence pointing in one direction (circumstantial evidence), it can rise to the level of proof needed for a conviction. You don't need eyewitnesses to prove something. For instance, if a huge pool of Natalee's blood were found someplace but not her body, that blood would not be speculation of death or foul play but rather circumstantial (and convincing in my mind) evidence of death and foul play. People don't bleed profusely, survive and take off. Huge amounts of blood means death — you need blood.

I swear that that is a representative sample. 

According to Van Sustern, her blog has been going on for two years.  Two years is a long time.  Not as long as three years but it's a long time when you compare it to one year.  Or ten months.  Or six months.  Or one month.  Or a week.  A week is a short amount of time.  I have spent weeks in foreign countries and that time just flew by.  But sometimes it doesn't.  For instance, I was in Kuala Lumpur for a week about five years ago and because the hotel I stayed in was a good one, the week felt like a short time.  Maybe a few days - or one day even.  But right after that trip I had to fly to Ankara.  That hotel wasn't as nice as the one in Kuala Lumpur.  The rooms weren't as clean and as everyone knows, clean hotel rooms make for a pleasant stay.   These rooms were very dirty.  Very, very, very dirty - dirty rooms don't make the time fly by.  Looking at a diry room, you have to step back and think, "Will those antibacterial wet naps in my suitcase sanitize this bathroom?"  That trip felt more like a month than a week.  A month is longer than a week.  But not as long as two years.  And that's how old her blog is.

If You Ran the Universe

It's Saturday and my pride has taken the weekend off so even though I will expose the size of my readership by doing so, I feel compelled to post the blogging equivalent of an all-skate.

Mick is over at the Early-Warning Frog giving into the progressive fantasy of a third party to take on the hor-hor-horrible Dems. Here's Mick, god bless him:

Yes, I know this will throw the political scene into chaos. I know that third parties have historically found it extraordinarily difficult to get traction in a political landscape hopelessly tilted toward the 2-party system. I know that means throwing some elections to wing-nut Pubs who might otherwise lose. But it's becoming more and more unarguable that Ralph was right: the Democratic party as it is radiates fear of the people who used to support it and doesn't look a helluva lot different from the Pubs, so what's actually gained when they win? We get cowards who won't stand up to Bush and the crazies in the GOP (Santorum, DeLay, Sensenbrenner, DeMint, Ehrlich, Norquist--the list is practically endless) but who support them instead. Dozens of these so-called Democrats voted for the illegal war, the bankruptcy bill, the energy bill, the tax give-away to the rich, the PATRIOT Act, and every other ill-formed, anti-worker, anti-consumer, anti-Democratic initiative and anti-democratic abuse Bush and his team of crypto-fascists could come up with. I don't see that we have that much to lose.

I'm not going to argue that we'd have anything to lose if we pulled a Perot in '08 but I'd rather not go into the proposition expecting to lose. I share Mick's disgust with the Dems but I've been thinking along slightly different lines as to the best way to ditch them. Last year, the most exciting period of the Kerry campaign came when he made noise about stealing BushCo's nemesis, John McCain, for the VP slot. It not only had the corporate media in a tizzy over the prospect of getting back on McCain's totally cool bus, it also made BushCo nervous enough that he instantly reined Johnny in and dragged him around on a Kiss and Make-Up solidarity tour. Can you see where I'm going? I knew that you could.

Here comes the embarassing part, where I throw open the door to the comment cellar and bats fly out:

Give me your dream cross-party ticket. Ideally it would have a good shot at winning as well as governing well, but it you want to go in only one of those directions, fine. I'm stuck in the McCain rut. Even though I can't stand him, I know that most of the country thinks he's trust worthy and tough as nails so he's hard to resist from the best-chance-to-win angle. And I think that if the gimmick has any shot at success in the corporate media, it has to have a Republican at the top of the ticket. That works for McCain since he'd never take VP. So what then? McCain-Clark? I can see their slogan now: "All war all the time. But this time we'll win a few." Oooh, McCain-Richardson? He's hispanic you know.

Can you think of a Republican who would take the VP slot to any Dem? Richardson-??

Sharpton in Crawford

Al Sharpton is going to visit Camp Casey.  If you hear anyone slamming Sharpton for past transgressions and then tarring Cindy Sheehan and the peace movement with that brush, point them to the video of Sharpton's speech at the Democratic National Convention.  From that speech:

Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats.

Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham.

This vote is sacred to us.

This vote can't be bargained away.

This vote can't be given away.

...

Few days after, I left home -- my family had taken in a young man even who lost his family. And as they gave comfort to him, I had to do a radio show that morning. When I got there, my friend James Entome (sp?) said, "Reverend, we're going to stop at a certain hour and play a song, synchronized with 900 and 90 other stations."

I said, "That's fine."

He said, "We're dedicating it to the victims of 9/11."

I said, "What song are you playing?"

He said, "We're playing 'America the Beautiful.'"

And the particular station I was at, they played that rendition song by Ray Charles.

As you know, we lost Ray a few weeks ago, but I sat there that morning and listened to Ray sing through those speakers, "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains' majesty across the fruited plain."

And it occurred to me as I heard Ray singing, that Ray wasn't singing about what he knew, 'cause Ray had been blind since he was a child. He hadn't seen many purple mountains. He hadn't seen many fruited plains. He was singing about what he believed to be.

Mr. President, we love America, not because of all of us have seen the beauty all the time.

But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

Why I Must March

With Cindy Sheehan and a few hundred supporters camped out in the backyard of BushCo's vacation home and a mass anti-war mobilization scheduled for September 24th in D.C. (and LA, San Francisco and Seattle), protest is in on people's minds.  So it's not surprising that if you bop around blogtopia for a while - especially the comment threads of the big blogs - you'll be able to piece together a discussion of the value of anti-war protests.  Among the crowd that doesn't support them, and it's substantial, the opinions can be divided into two camps:  At best, they're goofy, fractured, off-message wastes of time and at worst they are the reason that the mythical centrist American voter won't vote for Democrats, supplanting for at least a few minutes, the single-issue villians of the pro-choice movement.   

I've been struggling to put together a grand unified theory of protest politics for a while.  It's a struggle because while I support peaceful protests of all shapes and sizes,  I understand the frustration people have with anyone who distracts from what they consider to be the Big Idea.  I also understand, but disagree with, the argument that the message is weakened by  protesters who confuse some Americans by not looking exactly like those Americans.  I admit frustration with the "anarchists" whose affinity for violence not only doesn't fit into my definition of peaceful, but is also way too easy an image to hang on the non-violent protest efforts. But, at the end of the day, I would rather have to deal with all of those weaknesses inherent in protest politics than voluntarily give up my right to assemble and air grievances.  And today, Women's Equality Day, is a good reminder why.

The women's suffrage movement was in place for over seventy years when the 19th Amedment finally gave me the right to vote as a US citizen and a woman.  Although the amendment passed in 1920, women had the right to vote in twelve western states by 1917.  It was in one of those western states that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns formed the National Women's Party.  Here's what that party did for my mother, my daughter and for me:

The NWP staged more demonstrations, parades, mass meetings, picketing,           suffrage watch fires, hunger strikes, press communications, and lobbying. It published a stylish Suffragist weekly paper, organizing  women in the west who could vote. Their tactic was to hold the party  in power (the Democrats) responsible for failure to pass the amendment   -- and they urged women who could to vote against Democrats.   NAWSA   leaders condemned the policy, saying pro-suffrage politicians were  in both parties.   Suffragists released from prison, in prison uniforms,  rode a "Prison Special" train, speaking throughout the country.  Other women held automobile petition drives across the country.

Beginning January 10, 1917, the NWP began picketing the White House -- the             first group in the U.S. to wage a nonviolent civil disobedience campaign.             They became known as the Silent Sentinels, standing silently by the gates, carrying purple, white and gold banners saying "Mr. President, what will you do for suffrage?" and "Mr. President, how  long must women wait for liberty?" The first day, 12 NWP members marched in a slow, square movement so passers-by could see the banners.   Over the next 18 months, more than 1,000 women picketed, including  Alice, day and night, winter and summer, every day except Sunday.        

At firs they were politely ignored, but then World War I began on April 6 and the picketers' signs became more pointed -- often using the president's quotes against him. One banner read: "Democracy Should Begin at Home." They asked, how could he fight to help disenfranchised  people when he had disenfranchised people at home? They became an embarassment.

Spectators began assaulting the women verbally and physically -- while the police did nothing to protect them. Then in June, the police began arresting the picketers on charges of "obstructing traffic." First the charges were dropped, then the women were sentenced to a few days' jail terms. But the suffragists kept picketing, and the jail terms grew longer. Finally, to try to break their spirit, the police arrested Alice on October 20, 1917, and she was sentenced to seven months in prison. The banner she carried that day said:

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT, FOR US THERE CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT." (President Wilson's words)

Inspiring political strategizing and committed grassroots dedictation for sure.  But four years earlier, despite a loyal and active following and progress made at the state level, the national movement for universal sufferage was languishing. Alice Paul, patriot, returned from England with a Big Idea:

In November 1912, as suffrage leaders were casting about for new means to ensure their victory, Alice Paul arrived at the NAWSA annual convention in Philadelphia.  A 28-year-old Quaker from New Jersey, she had recently returned to the United States fresh from helping the militant branch of the British suffrage movement.  She had been arrested repeatedly, been imprisoned, gone on a hunger strike and been forcibly fed. Paul was full of ideas for the American movement.  She asked to be allowed to organize a suffrage parade to be held in Washington at the time of the president's inauguration, thus ensuring maximum press attention.  She also promised to raise the necessary funds.  NAWSA happily accepted her offer and gave her the title Chairman of the Congressional Committee. In December 1912, she moved to Washington, where she discovered that the committee she chaired had no headquarters and most of the members had died or moved away.

Undaunted, Alice Paul convened the first meeting of her new committee on Jan. 2, 1913, in the newly rented basement headquarters at 1420 F Street N.W.  She started raising funds.  According to one friend, "it was very difficult to refuse Alice Paul."  She and the others she recruited worked nonstop for two months. By March 3 this fledgling committee had organized and found the money for a major suffrage parade with floats, banners, speakers and a 20-page official program. The total cost of the event was $14,906.08, a princely sum in 1913, when the average annual wage was $621. The programs and tableau each cost over $1,000.

Suffrage groups across the nation contributed to the success of the procession.  From its New York headquarters, NAWSA urged suffrage supporters to gather in Washington:

 

---

WHY YOU MUST MARCH

Because this is the most conspicuous and important demonstration that has ever been attempted by suffragists in this country.  

Because this parade will be taken to indicate the importance of the suffrage movement by the press of the country and the thousands of spectators from all over the United States gathered in Washington for the Inauguration.

As the Woman's Journal put it, "the parade struggled to victory despite some disgraceful scenes" on the part of spectators who disagreed with the proposition that women were created equal to men and so deserved the blessings of liberty guaranteed in the Constitution.  Participants, male and female, were mocked.  When the jeers proved useless, spectators turned to physical violence.  Hundreds of marchers ended up at local emergency rooms.  But the parade staged to ensure my right to vote as an American continued.

Images and accounts from the day make it clear that the demonstration was not without a sense of drama.

Upon reaching the Treasury Building, a hundred women and children from the procession presented an allegorical tableau written especially for the occasion to show "those ideals toward which both men and women have been struggling through the ages and toward which, in co-operation and equality, they will continue to strive." The pageant began with "The Star Spangled Banner" and the commanding figure of Columbia dressed in national colors, emerging from the great columns at the top of the Treasury Building steps. Charity entered, her path strewn with rose petals; Liberty followed to the "Triumphal March" from Aida, and a dove of peace was released. In the final tableau, Columbia, surrounded by Justice, Charity, Liberty, Peace and Hope, all in flowing robes and colorful scarves, with trumpets sounding, stood to watch the oncoming procession.

No puppets, but still that's some show.  And, since publicity was something the parade's organizers craved instead of feared, the drama and stagecraft started a month before the parade stepped off:

On Feb. 12, with cameras clicking, 16 "suffrage pilgrims" left New York City to walk to Washington for the parade. Many other people joined the original hikers at various stages, and the New York State Woman Suffrage Association's journal crowed that "no propaganda work undertaken by the State Association and Party has ever achieved such publicity." One of the New York group, Elizabeth Freeman, dressed as a gypsy and drove a yellow, horse-drawn wagon decorated with Votes for Women symbols and filled with pro-suffrage literature, a sure way to attract publicity.

Faux-gypsies, pilgrims, pageants, Liberty entering on rose pedals.  That's passion.  That's a sense of the moment.  Those are images that endure.  Not to mention also part of a political strategy that  resulted in the enfranchisement of half the population.   I could no more turn my back on that proud tradition of political action than I could stay home on Election Day. 

And so I will proudly march in D.C. on September 24th to stand with Cindy Sheehan and thousands like her and to expose the growing tide of public disapproval for an illegal war of choice sold to America with lies and being paid for with the blood of American soldiers and Iraqis alike as well as with the misery of the families they leave behind.  I believe, as Alice Paul did almost a hundred years ago about her parade, that this  march will be taken to indicate the importance of the peace movement by the press of the country and the thousands of spectators from all over the United States.  And if the young man next to me has green hair and a t-shirt that says "Buck Fush," and if the woman behind me is carrying a sign that says "Free Mummia,"  and the group behind her wants to free Haitians from their current torment and a future of corporate slavery, then I'll say "Welcome, brothers and sisters.  Let me shake your hand and thank you for marching today.  Maybe now  is the time that we change the course of history together and in peace."

Most of the information about the Inauguration Day Parade for Women's Suffrage came from this site.

UPDATE: I put quotes around the term "anarchists" to indicate that I don't know much about the anarchist movement and have to take the world of people who use that label to describe themselves.

Party over Country, Over Self, Over Everything That's Holy

Place your bets - who's the most pathetic example of the most tragic and despicable Republican on Earth?

A) John McCain (see Shakespeare's Sister, who makes a good case) or

B) Colin Powell, who, refused to resign in protest over the rush to BushCo's War in Iraq although he knew that the rationale for the war was built on lies and although he knew that the people who were planning it had no hope of being able to fight it competently much less win it and knew that because their planning contradicted everything in a little something we like to call the Powell Doctrine. And who, even now, refuses to swallow his pride and speak up for the men and women he sent on this deadly fool's errand.

C) Your choice here. But remember, it has to be someone absolutely Faustian and they have to be taking the country down with them. (I think that's what gives Powell the slight edge.)

Catapulting the Propaganda

Wow, The Daily Show is on fire tonight. Stewart took no prisoners with a bit on BushCo's attacks on Cindy Sheehan and his unrelenting repetition of now-meaningless talking points. He actually looked disgusted, but I'm probably projecting. It's hard not to when the use the "catapulting the propaganda" clip, which is a personal favorite of mine.

Hitchens wrote a book about Thomas Jefferson?

UPDATE: No, I wasn't projecting. He is disgusted. I hope Crooks and Liars gets the clips up early.

Haiti Primer

Last month CNTodd at Freiheit und Weissen had a brilliant inspiration to start a ten-day blogswarm about  Haiti.   I joined because I agreed with him that the destruction of Haiti by corpofascist forces of globalization  is a story that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves in Blogtopia and you know, be the change you want to see, right?     I made it through the ten days and kept going for a few weeks after that but my last post on Haiti was almost two weeks ago.   I've hit a wall.

When I started writing about Haiti,  I couldn't find enough information.   I spent hours looking for sites devoted to stories told by Haitians instead of whatever is left over after information gets run through the corporate media sausage grinder.   Now that I've found some reliable but conflicting  sources, I'm paralysed.   Contrary to what my public image may be, I'm not a bomb thrower.  I like to believe I have a fact right when I write about it, although I allow that I could certainly be mistaken.   As I've gotten deeper into the Haiti story, it's getting harder to keep the players and their stories  straight.   The same person, who on one site is claimed to be a hero of the people, is reviled on another site as a murderer of innocents.   Aristide himself is a good example of this kind of figure.

I'm coming around to the realization that there isn't too much I can do about wanting to know and report the sacred truth.  It isn't going to happen.   But I don't want to stop writing about Haiti because I believe that what we are doing there in the name of corpo-globalization  is really just a clever form of fascism and is a crime equal to what is being perpetrated in Iraq.   We should know what is going on in our names - in fact, in the names of the world since it is the U.N. which is facilitating much of the killing and oppression that is paving the way for a corporate takeover of the country. 

So here's the deal.   What follows is the most comprehensive list of links I can put together about Haiti.    I'd encourage you to jump in and start sorting out any information you can find.   Add to the list if you know something I left out.   Why?  Haitian elections are coming up in the fall.   I'm convinced that they will be shams designed to install a government owned by corporate forces but no matter what happens, they will throw Haiti into the media spotlight for a short time anyway as we watch more of BushCo-brand Democracy on the March.   You'll want to hit that story running.  Believe me when I tell you, it's a doozy.

History of Haiti: Haitian Revolution: The Haitian Revolution was a watershed moment in Carribbean history.  The historical significance it is undoubtedly still in the minds of people who want to enslave third world workers under the banner of globalization:

The impact of the Haitian Revolution was both immediate and widespread. The antislavery fighting immediately spawned unrest throughout the region, especially in communities of Maroons in Jamaica, and among slaves in St. Kitts. It sent a wave of immigrants flooding outward to the neighboring islands, and to the United States and Europe. It revitalized agricultural production in Cuba and Puerto Rico. As Alfred Hunt has shown, Haitian emigrants also profoundly affected American language, religion, politics, culture, cuisine, architecture, medicine, and the conflict over slavery, especially in Louisiana. Most of all, the revolution deeply affected the psychology of the whites throughout the Atlantic world. The Haitian Revolution undoubtedly accentuated the sensitivity to race, color, and status across the Caribbean. Among the political and economic elites of the neighboring Caribbean states, the example of a black independent state as a viable alternative to the Maroon complicated their domestic relations.

News Sources:
Haiti Action
Haiti Progress
Windows on Haiti
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
ZNet HaitiWatch
Investigating Imperialism: Haiti News

You can also read the corporate media but you have to keep a weather eye out for corporate bias and loaded words like "bandits," which is code for Lavalas supporters.    Contrast the corporate media coverage of the massacre in Cite Soleil with what you'll find on HaitiAction, for instance.  It's night and day.

People and Players: (tip of the iceberg, I'm afraid)

Lavalas:   Aristede's political party and current target of Latortue's coup government via U.N. troops and the Haitian police force.  It's unclear whether Lavalas will participate in any meaningful way in the elections.  Some members are calling for a boycott since the elections are doomed to be unfair, an idea supported by the jailing of most of the most prominent and popular Lavalas leaders.   Some Lavalas members have registered as candidates for the fall.   Jailed priest, Fr. Jean-Juste has announced that he will run if he can get the approval of Aristede and survive his most recent imprisonment.
Aristide: democratically-elected president of Haiti, currently living in South Africa in exile after US-sponsored coup
Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste: considered to be the de facto Lavallas leader, currently in jail on charges of  "incendiary sermons" and "public clamor."  (UPDATE 2/6: Fr. Gerry is in Miami receiving treatment for pneumonia and leukemia.) Here is part of his latest message from prison:

I now have discovered so much support for the Haitian people and me from people all over the world. I am in awe. I add my strength to those who stand all over the world for the rights of everyone whatever color, whatever creed, whatever nationality. To Cite Soleil, to Bel-Air, Veye Yo, the 10th department, the Lavalas family, to all of you around the world, to the churches especially my own St. Clare's, I say to you "Chapo Ba!" (I tip my hat!) There is a great fraternity in jail and with the poor. In jail we pray loudly - day and night. Our spirits are uplifted when we hear about your work for Haiti, because we hear hope coming. We hear hope coming and we know our victory for human rights and respect and democracy will be total one day.

Yvon Neptune: a former prime minister under Aristide.  Currently in jail where he's been for over a year without trial.
Kevin Pina: journalist and film maker  His detailed, well-sourced articles are frequently published at Black Commentator.    Read his story, The Bush Administration's End Game for Haiti,  in the Black Commentator for an outstanding explanation of Haiti's current political situation and how it ties back to Washington.  In it, he gives lists of names and background information that are invaluable.   It's part three of a series you shouldn't miss.
Bill Quiqley: law professor at Loyola University New Orleans School of Law, has visited Haiti four times in the last three months as one of the attorneys representing the imprisoned Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste.  He writes a lot about Haiti.  His access to political prisoner Fr. Jean-Juste is coming in handy now. 
Mario Joseph:  Fr. Jean-Juste's other attorney

Guy Phillippe: rebel leader who overthrew Aristide with the help of foreign financing and other aid
Gerard Latortue: appointed president of Haiti's coup government.
MINUSTAH:  the UN military mission in Haiti
Haiti Democracy Project: privately funded NGO.  According to its website it's going to save Haiti.  According to Jeff Sprague, writing at Narcosphere, it's a whitewash.   The new charger d'affaires for Haiti, Timothy Carney, served on the board of HDP until his appointment to his current post.  While at HDP he helped write the report that Spraque criticizes as one-sided.  Kevin Pina writes this about the HDP membership:

This impressive list is the crème de la crème of Washington’s “big thinkers” on Haiti and they are out for nothing short of regime change. Former Ambassador Carney summed up their position in a Reuters  interview November 27, 2002, “The big question is whether Aristide is going to understand that he has no future,” said Timothy Carney, a former U.S. ambassador to Haiti. "Without massive reform, Haiti is once again headed for the kind of chaos that has intermittently dogged its history.” It is now clear that HDP’s version of “massive reform” is predicated upon the removal from office of a constitutionally elected president, and the Lavalas movement of the majority of the poor that supports him, whose reputation they have systematically sought to destroy.

Group 184:  the official opposition to Lavalas.   Again, Kevin Pina:

a new public relations face for the official opposition, the "Coalition of 184 Civic Institutions," a laundry list of Haitian NGOs funded by USAID and/or the IRI (International Republican Institute), as well as by the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce and other groups.”

International Republican Institute:  A group through which USAID funnels millions of dollars in "aid" to Haiti.   From Salon:

By the time of Curran's departure, IRI's Haiti program was flush with a $1.2 million grant from USAID for 2003 and 2004. According to IRI's Scott, "roughly $200,000" of that grant was used to junket over 600 Haitian opposition figures to the Dominican Republic and the U.S. to meet with IRI. With IRI's help, they formed a new coalition called Group of 184 representing the "civil society" wing of the opposition. IRI currently hosts Group of 184's home page on its Haiti policy Web site, which features photos of anti-Aristide demonstrations in Port-au-Prince last March. And Scott acknowledged that "IRI played an advisory role in Group of 184's formation."

and did business with some unsavory characters:

Others describe more formal ties between IRI and the insurgents. Jean Michel Caroit, chief correspondent in the Dominican Republic for the French daily Le Monde, says he saw Phillippe's political advisor, Paul Arcelin, at an IRI meeting at Hotel Santo Domingo in December 2003. Caroit, who was having drinks in the lobby with several attendees, said the meeting was convened "quite discreetly." His account dovetailed with that of a Haitian journalist who told Salon on condition of anonymity that Arcelin often attended IRI meetings in Santo Domingo as Convergence's representative to the Dominican Republic.

Dumas Simeus: Texas businessman who plans to run for president of Haiti in the fall.  The story at the link has the appropriately fawning tone for a corporate media profile of the candidate anointed by the Brothers BushCo.  (UPDATE: Simeus is out of the race because he is not a Haitian citizen)

Renee Préval: former ally of Aristide, favorite of the poor, currently expected to win the Feb. 7 elections.  From Wikipedia:

Préval is currently running as an independent candidate in the scheduled Haitian elections, 2006. During his campaigne, he has sought to distance himself from any former association with the Lavalas party. Preval supports the current occupation of Haiti by U.N. forces, saying they "should stay as long as it is necessary",[1] in contrast to Aristide and many members of Lavalas who denounce the U.N. forces and accuse them of carrying out a campaigne of repression and violence at the behest of the U.S., France, and Canada.

Marc Bezin: (from Wikipedia) is a former World Bank official, former United Nations functionary and Haitian Minister of Finance and Economy under the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier. He was prime minister of Haiti appointed on June 4, 1992 by the military government that had seized power on September 30, 1991.

He was considered the favorite candidate of the George H.W. Bush Administration and the borgeoisie population of Haiti when the country could no longer last in foreign relations as a military dictatorship and had to open the government up to free elections in 1990. Bazin was seen as a front runner if the elections were to happen before the Left in Haiti had time to reorganize. He received 14% of the vote, Jean-Bertrand Aristide winning with 67%. Aristide's popularity was with the people, not with the powers that be, and he was deposed of less than nine months into his term. In June of 1992, the military officials who had led the coup, appointed Bazin as acting prime minister. Washington's initial response was he held the post illegally, but they soon warmed up to him and pressured Aristide to negotiate with the military and Bazin.

Websites and Blogs:
LaLuchita
UnCapitalist Journal Haiti Forum
Marguerite Laurent
Free Haiti at Freiheit und Wissen
Haiti Report
The Heritik 
Fact-esque
Ruminations of a Haitian Mofo

Good articles:

Unspinning Haiti's 'Spiral of Violence  a look at Canadian media's coverage of the war in Haiti.  With the US and France, Canada is the other international powerhouse behind the destruction of Haiti.  With U.N. troops to do the dirty work, this coalition has no problem working together in their own Baghdad West.

Murdering the poor: Canadian tax dollars at work  " A fast-growing movement in Canada is demanding that the Canadian government support the return of constitutional democracy in Haiti."

Naomi Klein has two good stories on Haiti.  The first is Aristide in Exile, which makes this point: Poor Haitians are being slaughtered not for being “violent,” as we so often hear, but for being militant; for daring to demand the return of their elected president.  The second is her examination of Disaster Capitalism, which is definitely at work in Haiti:

It has been much the same story in Haiti, following the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In exchange for a $61 million loan, the bank is requiring "public-private partnership and governance in the education and health sectors," according to bank documents--i.e., private companies running schools and hospitals. Roger Noriega, US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, has made it clear that the Bush Administration shares these goals. "We will also encourage the government of Haiti to move forward, at the appropriate time, with restructuring and privatization of some public sector enterprises," he told the American Enterprise Institute on April 14, 2004. These are extraordinarily controversial plans in a country with a powerful socialist base, and the bank admits that this is precisely why it is pushing them now, with Haiti under what approaches military rule. "The Transitional Government provide[s] a window of opportunity for implementing economic governance reforms...that may be hard for a future government to undo," the bank notes in its Economic Governance Reform Operation Project agreement. For Haitians, this is a particularly bitter irony: Many blame multilateral institutions, including the World Bank, for deepening the political crisis that led to Aristide's ouster by withholding hundreds of millions in promised loans. At the time, the Inter-American Development Bank, under pressure from the State Department, claimed Haiti was insufficiently democratic to receive the money, pointing to minor irregularities in a legislative election. But now that Aristide is out, the World Bank is openly celebrating the perks of operating in a democracy-free zone.

That last phrase, "democracy-free zone" really gets me and keeps me trying to get out the word.  Read about Haiti.  Write letters.  People aren't just living without democracy, they're dying.