18907: Dailey on #18707 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Peter Dailey <phdailey@msn.com>

Although the task of deflecting inconvenient questions about the "PPN"-
whether it has any members, the extent to which Aristide funds it, etc.- has
been keeping Kim Ives at work, he still found time to post a collection of
remarkably stupid and ill-informed personal attacks on list member Amy
Wilentz. These, according to Ives, originated on "Portside", which he
cheerfully assures us is "very popular." If the individuals Ives quotes are
at all representative, then Portside's popularity is with those who believe
that the CIA has taken over the offices of The Nation magazine, that Rep.
Maxine Waters is generally regarded as an expert on Haiti, and that Amy
Wilentz believes that "those colorful darkies just aren't ready for
democracy." Wilentz is taken to task for describing Amiot Metayer as a
"thug" after Kevin Pina had insisted he was no such thing, and branded a
"running dog," a nostalgic reference to the good old days of China's
Cultural Revolution when several million of such types were dispatched with
a pistol shot to the back of the head. Criticism of this spectacularly
witless sort invariably sinks into permanent oblivion within hours, carried
there by the sheer weight of its own inanity.

One of the Portside commentators likens Wilentz's description of Aristide to
the "demonization" of Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh, a comparison that it
is doubtful that Aristide would appreciate. "Where were you," the author of
this last demands of Wilentz, "during the time of Duvalier?" Although the
author shows no signs of being aware of it, there were in fact two
Duvaliers. I suspect that during the reign of the first Amy Wilentz was in
kindergarten and grade school. However, we all know where she was at the
fall of the second: In Haiti reporting, at considerable personal risk to
herself, on the Haitian peoples' struggle for democracy. Her narrative of
these events, published as The Rainy Season, is a work of real literary
distinction and remains the classic account to date.

Peter Dailey

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