******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
Here's a Marxist critique of Farmer. Anyone who wants the full piece, please email me. http://coa.sagepub.com/content/33/4/447.abstract Here is a snippet: *A Rigorous Detour through Marx is Essential* Dr. Farmer has vigorously renounced Marxist approaches for diagnosing and transforming the world. In a text from the bestselling *New York Times* book, *Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World*,” Kidder writes of Dr. Farmer, “He had studied the world’s ideologies. . . . .But years ago he’d concluded that Marxism wouldn’t answer the questions posed by the suffering he encountered in Haiti. And he had quarrels with the Marxists he’d read: ‘What I don’t like about Marxist literature is what I don’t like about academic pursuits–and isn’t that what Marxism is, now? In general, the arrogance, the petty infighting, the dishonesty, the desire for self-promotion, the orthodoxy: I can’t stand the orthodoxy, and I’ll bet that’s one reason that science did not flourish in the former Soviet Union.’” Like Kim, Farmer’s assertions distort Freire’s essential message. In Freire’s final publication, a posthumous collection of letters titled, *“Pedagogy of Indignation*, published in 2004, Freire’s colleague Donaldo Macedo puts the issue succinctly, “. . . . one cannot understand Freire’s theories without taking a rigorous detour through a Marxist analysis, and [any] offhand dismissal of Marx is nothing more than a vain attempt to remove the sociohistorical context that grounds *Pedagogy of the Oppressed*” (Freire 2004:xiv-xv). Macedo underscores that “the misunderstanding, even by those who claim to be Freirean, is not innocent. It allows many liberal educators to appropriate selective aspects of Freire’s theory and practice it as a badge of progressiveness while conveniently dismissing or ignoring the ‘Marxist perspectives’ that would question their complicity with the very structures that created human misery in the first place” (Freire 2004:xvi). *Naming the Pathologies of Power* For some time Farmer himself has been reluctant to critique capitalism per se, instead tending to cite “structural violence” as the source of the problems of many of the world’s poor. Still, in his recent book *Haiti After the Earthquake* he does acknowledge that “growing inequality, both within countries and between them, is the linchpin of modern servitude” (Farmer 2011:117). PIH is becoming more and more closely tied to corporate capital. In 2011 PIH generated revenues of $88 million. There were more than 15,000 new donors the last fiscal year. Among its corporate and foundation donors are Abbot Laboratories, Aetna Foundation, Inc. American Express, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, General Electric, Co, Goldman, Sachs Co., Google, Home Depot, HSBC Philanthropic Programs, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Novartis, Pfizer, UPS, U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo and Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation (PIH Annual Report 2011). In a February 23, 2013 article by Henry Giroux titled *The Politics of Disimagination and the Pathologies of Power*, Giroux charged that “American Society is awash in a culture of civic illiteracy, cruelty andcorruption. For example, major banks such as Barclays and HSBC swindle billions from clients and increase their profit margins by laundering money for terrorist organizations, and no one goes to jail” (Giroux 2013). Dr. Farmer, who receives support from HSBC, among other financial institutions, has chosen not to make these kinds of linkages in his public pedagogy. Drs. Farmer and Kim work closely with Presidents Obama and former President Clinton. When he was president, Clinton forced Haiti to drop tariffs on imported subsidized U.S. rice. This neoliberal policy destroyed Haitian rice farming and seriously undercut Haiti’s ability to become a self-sufficient country. It is widely viewed as contributing to Haiti’s forced urbanization, an event that increased the earthquake toll. Clinton, of course, also passed NAFTA which significantly hurt the US working class. He destroyed welfare and in 1999 was responsible for tearing down the firewalls between investment and commercial banking which opened the banking system to speculators and contributed to much human misery associated with the 2008 financial meltdown. Obama raised more than $600 million for his 2008 election and over $715 million for the 2012 election, most from corporations, and has served those same corporations as well as his Republican predecessor. He has stood by while those same corporations looted the treasury and has done little to help the millions of Americans who have lost their homes to Liars Loans and bank repossessions. The list of accommodations to capital is long. Dr. Farmer’s close alliance with former President Clinton, and relative silence over many controversial issues such as a raise in the minimum wage for Haitians, has led to a critique by Ansel Herz, a Haitian based reporter who has written for the *Nation*, the *New York Daily News* and *Al Jazeera*. Writing in *Counterpunch* on January 17, 2013, Herz titled his piece, “*The Doctor and the Haitian Machine, The Uses of Paul Farmer*” reporting on his interview with Dr. Farmer. While Kim and Farmer work closely with these elites – two of the most powerful men in the world – they simultaneously tout Freire while ignoring his wealth of theory and practice as well as the work of legions of critical pedagogues around the globe. As Donaldo Macedo puts it, “the misunderstanding of Paulo Freire’s leading theoretical ideas is also implicated in the facile dismissal of Freire’s legacy and influence, which has actually shaped a vibrant field of critical pedagogy that has taken root throughout the United States and the world in the last two decades or so . . . .[including] contributions of scholars such as Henry Giroux, Stanley Aronowitz, Michele Fine, Antonia Darder, Linda Brodkey, and Peter McLaren” (Freire: xvi-xvii). On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 8:45 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism < [email protected]> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > From a New Yorker Magazine profile on Paul Farmer: >> >> Leaving Haiti, Farmer didn’t stare down through the airplane window at >> that brown and barren third of an island. "It bothers me even to look at >> it," he explained, glancing out. "It can’t support eight million people, >> and there they are. There they are, kidnapped from West Africa." >> >> But when we descended toward Havana he gazed out the window intently, >> making exclamations: "Only ninety miles from Haiti, and look! Trees! >> Crops! It’s all so verdant. At the height of the dry season! The same >> ecology as Haiti’s, and look!" >> >> An American who finds anything good to say about Cuba under Castro runs >> the risk of being labelled a Communist stooge, and Farmer is fond of >> Cuba. But not for ideological reasons. He says he distrusts all >> ideologies, including his own. "It’s an ‘ology,’ after all," he wrote to >> me once, about liberation theology. "And all ologies fail us at some >> point." Cuba was a great relief to me. Paved roads and old American >> cars, instead of litters on the 'gwo wout ia'. Cuba had food rationing >> and allotments of coffee adulterated with ground peas, but no >> starvation, no enforced malnutrition. I noticed groups of prostitutes on >> one main road, and housing projects in need of repair and paint, like >> most buildings in the city. But I still had in mind the howling slums of >> Port-au-Prince, and Cuba looked lovely to me. What looked loveliest to >> Farmer was its public-health statistics. >> >> Many things affect a public’s health, of course—nutrition and >> transportation, crime and housing, pest control and sanitation, as well >> as medicine. In Cuba, life expectancies are among the highest in the >> world. Diseases endemic to Haiti, such as malaria, dengue fever, T.B., >> and AIDS, are rare. Cuba was training medical students gratis from all >> over Latin America, and exporting doctors gratis— nearly a thousand to >> Haiti, two en route just now to Zanmi Lasante. In the midst of the hard >> times that came when the Soviet Union dissolved, the government actually >> increased its spending on health care. By American standards, Cuban >> doctors lack equipment, and are very poorly paid, but they are generally >> well trained. At the moment, Cuba has more doctors per capita than any >> other country in the world—more than twice as many as the United States. >> "I can sleep here," Farmer said when we got to our hotel. "Everyone here >> has a doctor." >> >> Farmer gave two talks at the conference, one on Haiti, the other on "the >> noxious synergy" between H.I.V. and T.B.—an active case of one often >> makes a latent case of the other active, too. He worked on a grant >> proposal to get anti-retroviral medicines for Cange, and at the >> conference met a woman who could help. She was in charge of the United >> Nations’ project on AIDS in the Caribbean. He lobbied her over several >> days. Finally, she said, "O.K., let’s make it happen." ("Can I give you >> a kiss?" Farmer asked. "Can I give you two?") And an old friend, Dr. >> Jorge Perez, arranged a private meeting between Farmer and the Secretary >> of Cuba’s Council of State, Dr. José Miyar Barruecos. Farmer asked him >> if he could send two youths from Cange to Cuban medical school. "Of >> course," the Secretary replied. >> >> Again and again during our stay, Farmer marvelled at the warmth with >> which the Cubans received him. What did I think accounted for this? >> >> I said I imagined they liked his connection to Harvard, his published >> attacks on American foreign policy in Latin America, his admiration of >> Cuban medicine. >> >> I looked up and found his pale-blue eyes fixed on me. "I think it’s >> because of Haiti," he declared. "I think it’s because I serve the poor." >> > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt > ions/marxism/mckennab%40umich.edu -- Brian McKenna, Ph.D. Anthropologist Department of Behavioral Sciences CASL 4025 University of Michigan-Dearborn Dearborn, Michigan _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
