7553: Re: 7507: Driver responds to McCalla (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "Tom F. Driver" <tfd3@columbia.edu>

I think my friend Jocelyn McCalla's reply to Amy Wilentz (below) is a bit 
disingenuous.  If Al Gore just went around on his own calling himself 
President, that might be considered a joke.  But if he called for an army to 
support him, if he was taken seriously by the foreign press and dignified by 
the title of "the opposition," and if it was suspected that he had powerful 
supporters in high places both at home and abroad, the joke would be over.  
It is most likely that he would be incarcerated -- either in a jail or a hospital.  
Let's get real.

Tom Driver

---------- In reply to: -----------
Date sent:      	Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:04:27 -0600 (CST)
From:           	Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>
To:             	Haiti mailing list <haiti@lists.webster.edu>
Subject:        	7507:  Re: Re: 7438:  Haiti violence spreads to provinces (fwd)

> 
> 
> From: Jocelyn McCalla <makala99@yahoo.com>
> 
> Reply to Amy Willentz.
> 
> I am not sure that Gore would have been arrested had he set up in the US a
> "government" comparable to the one "established" by some of the political
> leaders in haiti. The media, in particular late night show hosts, would have
> have a field day with this new phenomenon as long as Gore continued to claim
> popular legitimiacy. Pundits would have argued both sides of the issues on
> CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, WB, HBO at least 23 hours a day. Specials would have
> pushed "Temptation Island" off the ratings charts. Dozens of psychiatrists
> would have offered their opinions and their services free to the
> Vice-President. Any attempt to arrest Gore would have provoked the rise of a
> legion of civil rights lawyers, and international human rights advocates --
> including yours truly -- and unrepentant activists, all of us ready and
> willing to protest loudly the suppression of freedom of expression, assembly
> and opinion. What Haiti needs is a little more political maturity and an
> abiding devotion to respecting human rights, including the right to express
> an opinion contrary to that held by those in power and to communicate that
> opinion to the public.
> 
> Jocelyn McCalla
> 
> 
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-------------
Tom F. Driver
New York City
<tfd3@columbia.edu>