On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 9:42 PM, Chuck Grimes <[email protected]> wrote: >> If more Americans could get unplugged from the myths which have been >> used historically to engineer public acquiescence in U.S. foreign >> policy, how much could that help us reform U.S. foreign policy in the >> future? >> >> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/oliver-stone-untold-history_b_2272971.html >> > It's a thoughtful essay but it needs expansion. Get back to why Haiti > elected Arriste. My guess is he promised land reform and support for small > farmers and a return to agricultural self-sufficiency at least on basic food > items like rice, fruits, vegetables, chickens, etc.
One can always say more. The thing about blogging in a place like Huffington Post is that the cost of increased length is pretty obvious in terms of decreased readership and response; this was already very much on the long side. > That return has to start with land reform, reduction of private property, > and other socialist/communist reforms like public ownership of basic > resources of land, water, transportation, energy, and the infrastructure > necessary to sustain society. > > All of that has been thwarted and prevented by the tiny landowner class of > the country who also because of their wealth control the political and legal > institutions of the country. > > So just a restitution check would do next to nothing and the UN wouldn't > authorize such a solution in the first place. The standard story would be Actually, what we are talking about here is not a "restitution check" but a UN-led plan to eliminate cholera from Haiti. Such a plan has already been drawn up and is likely to be announced soon, perhaps tomorrow. The key questions are to what extent the plan will be implemented and how fast; in particular, will donors come up with pledges and will they follow through. It is quite plausible, but very far from guaranteed, that this will occur. So it's worth writing about, caring about, agitating about. It's just not accurate to say that this is pie in the sky based on an informed understanding of the situation; it's quite plausible that this will come to pass in some form. > internal corruption. That same argument stalled any aid getting to the > people in the first place, caused the political turmoil that could never > re-established public institutions. > > The same dynamic was in effect in Cuba. The Cuban revolution came to > confront these problems as they took over government and power. They studied > their country in bureaucratic detail that only government institutions can. > Who owns what and what are we going to do about it? Their answer was to > nationalize large land owner property. In the long run, I totally agree with your basic thrust: in order to prosper, Haitians need to take control of their government and "kick the gringos out" (not necessarily physically, but kick them out from controlling their government.) However, this is not a near prospect on the horizon and people are dying unjustly in the meantime and something could be done about that; also, one has to acknowledge that Haitians have in fact taken control of their government and kicked the gringos out multiple times in the past, only to have government by foreigners reimposed by external force. When people have had that experience multiple times that tends to fundamentally alter their perception of what's plausible in the future that they can see, as happened in Nicaragua and El Salvador after the contra war; a lot of people on the left said, there's no point fighting and dying to take control of the government, since the US isn't going to allow us to rule anyway. It's a sad but plausible conclusion. Not clear, obviously, which way things could go in Haiti over the medium term, but I think the history suggests that people outside should keep an open mind about what the overall path forward might look like. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
