tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post7475373014500402145..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Haiti EverywhereUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-67789055700777710692010-01-23T02:03:48.947-05:002010-01-23T02:03:48.947-05:00One of the issues with Haiti is that it basically ...One of the issues with Haiti is that it basically has no (zero) natural resources. No decent arable farmland. No mineral wealth. No coal. No rivers that could be dammed for hydroelectric power. Nothing, nada. The land is not even sufficient to produce food for domestic consumption, much less for export, and the local fisheries have been depleted by commercial fishermen from outside the area who have come and trawled every last fish out of their waters after paying off coast guard captains whose leaky scows in any event would hardly be capable of dealing with a 20,000 ton factory fishing ship. Our oligarchs have not turned their eyes towards Haiti because there's no there there -- nothing of any value for them to exploit other than hoards of starving citizens, and they can get that in Mexico without even needing a boat.<br /><br />What I see, mostly, is that our oligarchs want the United States to basically become Mexico North. More specifically, Cancun is their model. They all went to Cancun on spring break when they were in college. They stayed in luxurious resort hotels with restaurants and white sands. They had servants for their every need. And at the end of the day, the poorly paid servants went home to decrepit shanty towns that lacked even the most basic services, despite the fact that the resorts were charging hundreds of dollars per night. That is our oligarchs' notion of the proper future for America -- a gleaming DIsneyland of luxury for the elites, an impoverished peasantry living in falling-down shanties to provide servants for their every need, and nothing inbetween. Cancun. That's their model.<br /><br />Haiti? Our Masters of the Universe have never been to Haiti. It's not exactly a spring break destination. A kegger there would be a real bummer, doncha know? But Mexico... ah, Mexico. That, they know.<br /><br />The only question now, for our children, is whether they will be one of the peasants in the new Cancun North, or one of the masters. Sadly, odds are that 95% of them shall be the peasant servants of our new overlord class. So it goes.BadTuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-12297788606958198742010-01-22T21:28:14.128-05:002010-01-22T21:28:14.128-05:00Apropos of ceding power to the corporate world, mo...Apropos of ceding power to the corporate world, more evidence is the US Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in <i>Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</i>, handed down on 2010/01/21. This removes limitations on corporate political spending, paving the way to the unfettered Swift-Boating of all aspects of American political and policy discourse. I don't necessarily share gordon's sentimentality for the word "conservative," but "radical" does fit this development.A.J. Sutternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-38968321623584200442010-01-22T20:57:50.307-05:002010-01-22T20:57:50.307-05:00Prof. Perelman has disturbed a hobby-horse of mine...Prof. Perelman has disturbed a hobby-horse of mine; the word "conservative". <br /><br />He says (inter alia) "...every Democratic administration with the exception of Lyndon Johnson’s has been more conservative—often far more conservative—than the previous Democratic administration".<br /><br />I'm not an American, but it's easy to see that contemporary US politics is notably lacking in conservatives. What you call "conservatives" are howling radicals, anxious to make big changes quickly.<br /><br />Trash the regulatory framework which has served well for sixy-plus years; Engage in costly foreign military adventures; abandon the rule of law; trash the US constitution. These are not conservative things, they are Radical with a capital "R".<br /><br />Call them radicals; call them right-wing extremists; call them Fascists, but please don't call them conservatives.gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-63667954427365476872010-01-22T12:55:47.558-05:002010-01-22T12:55:47.558-05:00Thank you very much. I cannot think of anything h...Thank you very much. I cannot think of anything here with which I could possibly disagree.michael perelmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01520556020371833990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-15578739122901959782010-01-22T12:40:11.776-05:002010-01-22T12:40:11.776-05:00Your connection between the US and Haiti is odd - ...Your connection between the US and Haiti is odd - I had the same flash this morning, in the dark, about 3AM. It suddenly dawned on me that there is a connection between Haiti, the US and Africa.<br /><br />At the critical moment in their history Africans were subject to the most unrelenting and continuous catastrophe ever witnessed in human history. A sustained and systematic pillage of their human capital, imposed in such a way that literally neighboring related family groups were harvesting their not so distant relatives down the road a bit to supply the prodigious hunger of the new world for cheap labor.<br /><br />The barbarism of slavery is incontestable, but the barbarism of cousins who descend upon you as locusts on wheat field to drag you off into bondage must still echo in the race memory of every descendant of slaves.<br /><br />Those people were deposited here and in Haiti - they had no commonality, no kinship, no communal trust, no history, no bonds of affection. They were as victims subjected to the most brutal horrifying rape for years on end - and then being asked to form bonds of affection, to trust, to build a common community.<br /><br />By some dint of luck and persistence, the slaves of Haiti were able to overthrow their masters. But what basis was there to build a nation?<br /><br />In some sense, that is America's story as well. I mean, atop the obvious connection to its slave past is its immigrant past - the sudden juxtaposition of tongues and cultures and conventions and mores. No bonds of affection beyond isolated communities of like individuals who looked outside of their small circles on others with some combination of suspicion and avarice.<br /><br />Here, however, unlike Haiti, a difference: the slave masters were never overthrown - they just became industrialists, financiers, and Senators.Charleynoreply@blogger.com