13897: Durban Issues Challenge to Speechwriters (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>

 In a recent post, Kathy Dorce writes:
    Breaking things and discarding them is part of Haiti's
    illness.  How bout trying to make things better within
    the government that was voted in?   Demonstrate.....YES!
    Make demands of your government...YES!   But give up
    this self destructive behavior of throwing the baby out
    with the bath water.
    Democracy is a process.... Let Aristide finish his term
    (even if it isn't very pretty to look at) and let him
    hand over the mantle to the next (unfortunate) president.
    ... If Haitians put as much effort into making the welfare
    of Haiti a priority as they do trying to destroy one man,
    that place would be the Pearl of the Antilles again.


Kathy:
    Your comments above to Simidor are fine, but your other
recent postings are way off the mark.  The protests now
developing in Haiti are simply NOT caused or financed by
specifically-aimed forces coming from outside of Haiti, but
rather they are a reaction to an increasingly impossible
economic climate inside Haiti.  Mr. Aristide still has the
tremendous advantage in that there is no viable competitor on
the Haitian stage, but that does not mean people are happy with
the way the country is being run.
    Don't bother dredging up the canard about the lack of 500
million dollars in loans being to blame.  Given the tremendous
waste in what little resources are available in Haiti right now,
many people are just thankful that future Haitian governments
are not going to be obliged to repay monies that quite likely
would not be invested wisely in Haitian development.  (To little
old me bopping around in my 1996 Suzuki, the number of large
government vehicles in Haiti these days is quite amazing).
    Kathy, I do support Bob Corbett's point made the other day
about the importance of following the 5 year presidential
mandate laid down in the Haitian constitution.  And of course,
some of the nonsense put out by some of Aristide's political
oppostition IS simply ridiculous (Nadal's list of medications...
gimme a break!), but Aristide's main problem right now is that
his government has been performing poorly, worse even than
Preval's on the economic front.  Not ALL Aristide's fault
perhaps:  The U.S. recession and reduction in foreign
remittances HAS eliminated a margin of error that was accorded
his predecessor.  Still, when any government is performing
poorly, it will inevitably have to answer to its citizens.  I do
hope that pep-la can wait until the next presidential election,
AND that that election will be run fairly with full
participation of all parties.  Perhaps equally important, to
avoid 3 more years of economic disaster, I do hope Aristide is
able to turn the ship of state around and get it moving once
again.
    Let me issue another BIG challenge to the Corbett online
family:  It's almost prime time and you have been hired to write
the 750 word speech that Aristide will be delivering to the
nation tonight.  Could we have some speech submissions, followed
by some democratic Corbettesque discussion, and then ask list
member Michelle Karshan to slip the best proposals under the
President's door over at the palace?

Lance Durban



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