16770: Vishnusurf: Re: 16754: JHudicourt: Dr. Farmer (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: VISHNUSURF@aol.com

thanks to JHudicourt for this insightful post. i am sure that farmer would
agree that many others deserve recognition... bref...

i would only like to make 2 points, briefly, in response, for what it's
worth...

1) the elite, whom JHudicourt defends with a couple of convincing examples,
often in fact recall with fondness that very Duvalier period "when things", as
JHudicourt rightly notes, "were really grim". yes, things were really grim
then, but for most in haiti they are even worse now, AND many among the morally
unrepugnant elite actually pine for that very Duvalierist time, which they now
refer to as "la belle epoque..." for back then they did not have to sit in
such horrendous traffic and they could exploit unrecalcitrant poor people who,
unlike the masses today--whom "that little priest" woke up in the late
1980s--have come to realize that they do not have to submit to being treated by the
elite like draught animals.

2. to contrast miami's "luxury" with haiti's poverty, as JHudicourt does,
belies the fact that miami is america's poorest big city... many people here in
"the magic city" could use a dr. farmer too, or a dr. bartoli, or even a
"little priest"...  those kinds of people are few and far between, however, whether
american or haitian, in pap or mia...

voila, ainsi ...