....LMB: "Oddz N Enz"....

February 24, 2004

First of all, thanks for all the compliments on the new site design. To those of you having trouble with viewing it, it seems that most of you are using older versions of Internet Explorer (below v6.0). Web guru Mark recommends the following:

A quick fix for now is to go to http://www.favelets.com and follow the instructions to use the "Toggle CSS style sheets" favelet.

Using that will toggle the stylesheets off (which causes those issues on smaller screen), and make the site more readable for those having trouble.

And personally, I recommend that everyone simply drop whatever browser they're using and download Firefox. It's fast, blocks most pop-up ad windows, and I'm just now learning the joys of of tab-browsing. Also, Firefox views the new LMB just fine.

I posted a short piece about Haiti recently, and due to my own ignorance on the subject, invited others to do a bit of research and share their findings. A couple folks did, but posted their findings over at the old site. I'm reposting them here for better visibility.

From Eric:

From what I gather, it's no black-and-white issue. Aristide is a "left" nationalist with all the baggage that implies. He came to power as a so-called "man of the people." It seems to be a classic story of a leftist nationalist selling his country out by turning to U.S. imperialist intervention when his social reforms (contained within the Haitian power structure) failed miserably (Haitian Gray Davis?). Aristide became a junior partner of the U.S. in looting the Haitian population of its wealth.

There is no doubt popular discontent with Aristide and his government, but the opposition seems to be a gang of rival right-wing thugs seeking to replace one tyranny for another, given that an infamous sweatshop owner and black-market gangsters are at the forefront of this "opposition." It's all too typical that popular outrage is channeled away from any progressive solutions and through backwards, reactionary lines. This seems to be the case here as well.

The U.S. elites would be on the fence about this, no doubt. Do they support precarious ally Aristide or deal with the right-wing opposition, which may benefit them economically, but politcally, may cast them in a bad light?

Unless there is a progressive solution inititated by the Haitian population itself, there doesn't seem to be any good that will come out of this.

And from James R MacLean, rebutting Eric somewhat:

"It seems to be a classic story of a leftist nationalist selling his country out by turning to U.S. imperialist intervention when his social reforms (contained within the Haitian power structure) failed miserably (Haitian Gray Davis?). Aristide became a junior partner of the U.S. in looting the Haitian population of its wealth."

No it wouldn't, actually. (The Gray Davis analogy is so bizarre I can't imagine what was meant by that.)

I've spent rather a while tracking down the gist of the complaints agianst Aristide and they boil down to this: after 20,000 US Marines occupied the country between 1994 and 1997, then handed it over to the civilian government and demanded that he impose order and cleanliness they could not.

I seldom agree with Zmag because I've seen too many cases where they showed no discrimination in the causes they embrace, but this excerpt you have is quite good. The Famnie Lavalas (FL) had been elected with 67% of the vote and it inherited a terrorized, brutalized, and massively armed vigilante constituency. Reining them in was to prove beyond the agency of Aristie, and of course he can't just order a country to disarm when 20,000 marines couldn't and the FRAPH junta didn't. Your humble poster has observed several far-right web sites accusing FL/Aristide of creating armed gangs, which is absurd--Haiti's been heavily armed and dominated by vigilantes for decades.

The "political opposition" to Aristide was dominated by ex-FRAPH people or collaborators. For completeness, the old OPL--the original Lavalas Party--also represents a rival party which contested the electoral victories of 10 senators in 2002. The right-left split involves the "leftist" Aristide calling for civil services like water, drains, and so on; the "right" are demanding that Haitian fortunes be tax-free (income is extremely highly concentrated; the neoliberal model of economic development has manifestly failed since all rents and profits made in Haiti are repatriated outside of the country).

This is the first I've heard of Aristide looting the nation of its wealth.

Again, I don't know enough to verify any of that. I think I'm going to interview my friend JG about the issues next week on my radio show. JG is of Hatian decent, very politically-minded, and part of the Florida hip-hop duo Over the Counter Intelligence. Or barring an actual interview, he promises to send me some links to more info.

In response to my post about the recent race riots in the Redfern district of Sydney, Stuart Graham sent me this link from the Sydney Morning Herald, a collection of black and white photographs of Redfern and its residents. At once vibrant and bleak.

Thanks, everybody.

And finally, some folks have been criticizing my "get Bush out of the White House, even if it means voting Democrat" stance, taking the "both parties are pretty much the same" point of view. While I largely agree, I do think that the Bush administration's foreign policy under the necons is a significant change. Both parties seek American dominance over all other nations, but with a slight difference in tactics. The Democratic stance is "American supremacy, by any means necessary." The necon Republican stance is "American supremacy, by force." The Democrats are willing to entertain other means of persuasion, while the Bushies have dropped all their gear 'cept their shootin' irons.