13256: Re: 13231: Dorce posts: to Durban on Racine's Embargo-busting Profiteers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: LAKAT47@aol.com

In a message dated 9/20/02 5:17:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Lance Durban
<lpdurban@yahoo.com> writes:

<< There certainly WERE people making money on contraband gas
 during the embargo, but probably not many members of the
 "reactionary upper class". >>
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I don't dispute your story of an opportunist and clever businessman making
hay while the sun shines.  However I doubt that he made a small fortune,
unless you really mean a "small" fortune.  I also think that your logic fails
when you assume that because you heard about a man of modest means taking
advantage of the embargo that the "reactionary upper class" did not take such
advantage.  Black market prices have never disappeared and the days that you
could make a good meal from less than a dollar are long gone, perhaps never
to return.  The elite families were not hurt by the embargo, quite to the
contrary, they were in position to take advantage of it, furthering Haiti's
deterioration (as if they care).  I am outraged that the US did this to Haiti
then left without undoing the harm caused by the embargo, as though they had
done nothing wrong.  But then the military complex supports the right wing
position on Haiti and did not want to give Aristide a level playing field.

I'm sure your intention was not to belittle the damage done to the poorest
people in Haiti and to defend the upper class, but it sure sounded like it.

Kathy Dorce~