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27892: Kondrat (long question) Re: 27858: Morse (comment) Reuters fiction? (fwd)
From Peter Kondrat [kondr8@gmail.com]
Richard,
If we can agree that Preval has a strong base of support among the poor
and
the marginalized in Haiti, then I ask you this question:
Can you name me a single leader in the world who has (or had) a strong
base of
support among the poor and the marginalized, who was embraced by Washington?
I cannot think of one.
For anyone who has paid attention to US foreign policy in, say, the past
50
or 60 years, it is a simple equation: men and women who articulate policies
that favor the poor and the disenfranchised are, ipso facto, enemies of
Washington. Washington at first will not say so aloud. They often first try
to
subvert or corrupt or dilute the program of the populist. That is what they
have done with Lula in Brazil; their failure to do so in Venezuela and Cuba
is
why they cannot forgive Chavez, and Castro.
If you know a bit about how business and politics are interconnected in
the
US, it only makes sense that US foreign policy would seek to defend the
interests of the corporations who keep our politicians in power. And what
corporation wishes to do anything other than extract profit from developing
nations? In order to extract profit, a developing nation needs to have a
leadership in place that will provide a "willing" (or hungry) workforce,
"favorable" (to business) labor laws and tax codes, with minimal
interference
from institutions like labor unions and peasant organizations, and the big
stick of a repressive military at the ready.
Does Preval seem likely to create these conditions? I don't think so.
So why would you be so surprised that a Reuters reporter would
cite Haiti
experts as saying that a Preval victory is "something the United States ...
very much wanted to avoid"?
Peter Kondrat
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