Haven't had a provocative political post in a while
"Mixed US Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos" - New York Times
The whole story of what the US government has done to Haiti in the last 15 years is just sickening. Now people are questioning what the Bush administration really wants when it talks about democracy in the Middle East... but I think the case of Haiti makes it pretty clear what "democracy" in the third world really means to the American right wing. It means trade liberalization, a secure foreign investment environment, cheap labor and cheap export goods, and has very little to do with actual power to the people. Since 1990, Aristide has clearly been the choice of the majority of Haitians, opposed mainly by an elite of wealthy businessmen with US connections who benefit more from having the country be a source of cheap manufactured goods for rich nations than from having it achieve any meaningful progress out of poverty. Not once, but twice, those wealthy businessmen have engineered his overthrow, with the implicit and in some cases explicit support of US politicians and special interests and in particular the Republican Party. Time and time again, the right wing demonstrates that it believes any movement on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised in the third world is a threat to "democracy." Why should we trust them when they talk about democracy in Iraq, or anywhere else?
Democracy to me means local power, and local power requires local control of economic resources. The right (and large elements of the left as well) in this country are tirelessly working to craft a world order where there are no barriers to "free" trade, where any country can interfere in another's sovereign affairs if it has enough military and economic power, and where the very concept of local control is rapidly becoming obsolete.
The whole story of what the US government has done to Haiti in the last 15 years is just sickening. Now people are questioning what the Bush administration really wants when it talks about democracy in the Middle East... but I think the case of Haiti makes it pretty clear what "democracy" in the third world really means to the American right wing. It means trade liberalization, a secure foreign investment environment, cheap labor and cheap export goods, and has very little to do with actual power to the people. Since 1990, Aristide has clearly been the choice of the majority of Haitians, opposed mainly by an elite of wealthy businessmen with US connections who benefit more from having the country be a source of cheap manufactured goods for rich nations than from having it achieve any meaningful progress out of poverty. Not once, but twice, those wealthy businessmen have engineered his overthrow, with the implicit and in some cases explicit support of US politicians and special interests and in particular the Republican Party. Time and time again, the right wing demonstrates that it believes any movement on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised in the third world is a threat to "democracy." Why should we trust them when they talk about democracy in Iraq, or anywhere else?
Democracy to me means local power, and local power requires local control of economic resources. The right (and large elements of the left as well) in this country are tirelessly working to craft a world order where there are no barriers to "free" trade, where any country can interfere in another's sovereign affairs if it has enough military and economic power, and where the very concept of local control is rapidly becoming obsolete.