Posted on 01/14/2010 4:26:38 PM PST by americanophile
It is all too easy, seeing the appalling scenes from Port-au-Prince yesterday, to forget America's historic debt to Haiti, scene of the first successful slave revolt, which defined the destiny of Africans in the New World. The establishment of the first black independent state had tangible consequences. It denied Napoleon his foothold in the Caribbean and led him to sell New Orleans and the Louisiana territories to Jefferson. But, for as long as anyone can remember, Haiti has been treated as a basket case where corruption, gang violence and natural disaster combine to drag the country backwards. Now an earthquake may have killed up to 50,000, and rendered 3 million homeless. No one can prevent shallow earthquakes, but the consequences of this one have been made catastrophic by Haiti's condition.
The French saddled the nation with debt, the Americans with cheap rice imports in the 1980s; 98% of the land has been deforested, destroying watersheds, creating soil erosion and impoverishing agriculture.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
al-Guardian editors and writers should run the world, because it is always evident that only they could do it properly.........
When do we start paying the reparations?
Oh, and I am sorry, so-so very sorry about whatever I did back then. Heck, should I even quit eating rice as a sign of my very, very, very sincere sorryness?
BTW.. I know that sorryness has not been a real word, but so many words have been removed or made illegal over the past few years, I am now on a personal mission to create some new ones.
But it’s still America’s fault. If the USA hadn’t created so many cities, the world’s plates wouldn’t be so bogged down with all the weight.
/sarc
“the Americans with cheap rice imports”
How is cheap rice imports a bad thing?
Ironic that the English are attacking the US for the slave trade. Next it will be the Dutch doing this.
The Guardian is a little mouse, the Democrats’ answer to the “vast right wing conspiracy”.
Nobody pays attention to the Guardian.
the Americans with cheap rice imports in the 1980s;
The Guardian would have liked high priced rice imports?
There is no pleasing the left so F’em.
What you been smoking, Joe? :)
BTW, I couldn’t agree more.
That actually needed to be said three times.
I for one appreciated it.
Cheers,
knewshound
Before the days of the World Wide Web while living in England, I would walk by the newsstands and actually laugh at this newspaper awaiting to be bought by some lib clown.
The first four presidents of Haiti were all overthrown by the next, usually after proclaiming themselves emperors for life. The country was founded in 1804 but did not have a president who peacefully completed his term in office until 1874!
In total, 27 different Haitian heads of state have been forcibly overthrown - four of them killed in the process. Only 9 Haitian presidents have completed their terms by comparison, and that includes interim presidents who came to power after coups.
You can't blame America for that.
In fact, just about the ONLY period of stability in all of Haitian history was the U.S. occupation from 1915-34 (which is also when 4 of those 9 presidents served).
Guilty!
Believe it or not, I used to buy and read The Guardian for years, while living in England, long before the World Wide Web.
I know that newspaper and what they think pretty well.
Gross historical error in first sentence. (How about Spartacus, among others?) Why should I read any more?
Haiti need better leadership—in short a tyrant who could bring order and control the gangs and groups by force. They need a competent dictator who could rebuild the nation—A Juan Peron or Evita. Maybe we should take the place over and make it a “Commonwealth” like Porto Rico.
” Haiti has been treated as a basket case where corruption, gang violence and natural disaster combine to drag the country backwards.”
It has been treated that way because that is what it is. It doesn’t make the tragedy of the earthquake any less tragic. But the country was a basket case before the earthquake. It will almost certainly continue to be a basket case after it recovers.
But I don’t know why this has anything to do with the proper human response to a tragedy of this magnitude or why folks at the Guardian insist on seeing an earthquake as an occasion for lectures about imperialism blah blah blah.
They should take the ink wasted on this article, sell it, donate it to a charity that is actually doing something. At least a little something good would come from that.
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