8605: Re: 8594: O'Grady article: Dorce to Chamberlain (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: LAKAT47@aol.com

In a message dated 07/08/2001 12:36:48 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Greg 
Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>writes:

<< I hope, though, that her piece won't set off an equally demented attack
 here on journalism and journalists by those who, like her, have made no
 serious effort to inform themselves about the object of their hatred. 
 Journalists are good and bad, just like those other everyday "authorities,"
 cops, doctors and politicians.  People like O'Grady are thankfully a
 minority. >>
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I heard the word demented and knew that was my cue.  Agreed that journalists 
are both good and bad to one degree or another.  However, the enormous power 
of the press, especially in a paper like the Wall St. Journal, makes the bad 
ones stand out and taint the group.  Too bad the group doesn't police itself 
and drum out the irresponsible, the ignorant and the abusers of the power.  
Then it would have more honor and respect.  As it is, these people are free 
(freedom of speech is sacred, apparently more than is the truth) to say 
whatever they want to unaware people who take it as fact and to legislators 
who use it as justification for legislation or policy that is harmful to 
Haiti.  Haiti cannot bear this kind of journalism.  Haiti needs journalists 
to tell the truth so that the world will know the truth.  How tough is 
that???  If it isn't outside forces acting through the media, then how do you 
explain this misinformation?  This propaganda?  In fairness, the Boston Globe 
published a good article on Haiti on June 30, as was posted on the Corbett 
List.

<<However, let's not forget either the sack of ferrets that Lavalas is and
has been, with all the thugs and deadly rivals spilling out the sides,
because it's now simply a bandwagon in power in a poor country.  If
Aristide died tomorrow, it would fall apart before he was six-feet-under,>>

I agree that if Aristide died tomorrow it would all fall apart.  So, is this 
the result of the "cult of personality" brush that people who support 
Aristide always get tarred with?  Or is it exactly what it is: the fact that 
an extraordinary man with charisma and a history of helping his people (I 
know, he has warts too) is the only man the people see who has the will and 
the way to help them improve their lives.  No one ever comes up with anyone 
else's name.  It's sad, it's a shame and it's criminal that he is the only 
game in town for them.  But it's not their fault, and it isn't mine either if 
there is no one else who will step up to the plate in the way Aristide has.  
He has made tactical errors.  He needs to correct them.  But he is in the 
middle of a hornets nest and everyone but the people of Haiti (you know who 
you are) wants him neutralized.  He is also under a microscope and has 
journalists, who either know better and have an agenda or don't know better 
and don't care, killing him and Haiti with words.  An impossible job with 
impossible odds and no one else has what it takes to do it but him.  Any 
takers on the list??

Kathy Dorce~