27892: Kondrat (long question) Re: 27858: Morse (comment) Reuters fiction? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

> 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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