[Marxism] "It's Aristede's fault!" exclaims Walter Lippmann

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Walter Lippmann" wrote:

Why can't you focus on ARISTEDE'S errors?

Don't you see Aristede collaborated with
imperialism to crush the Haitian people?
You're totally off-base about Haiti but
here's the truth: It's Aristede's fault!
http://www.themilitant.com/2004/6809/index.shtml

Say, Walter, are you being sarcastic?
Is it a typo or do you spell Aristide's name wrong all the time because
you don't know how to spell it?  Are you really up on the developments
in Haiti?

   I don't claim to be an expert, however, I am aware of some of
Aristide's actions, or events that occurred while he was ostensibly in
power, that wouldn't find a place in the playbook, policies or
programmes of dedicated, principled Marxists.  I have mentioned such
things, but as I also argue, Aristide was not really in total control;
he had been brought to heal [sic], as it were; yet reticently,
incorrigibly he still managed to push things to the side of the masses
(that is the people, since he had been excommunicated or defrocked by
the Holy Mother of A Church)-or as I insist, certainly did not privatize
the country at the rate and to the degree that imperialists craved,
desired-nay: require.

    In fact, instead of handing Haiti and Haitians over wholesale to the
whims of capital, he had the audacity to demand they hand over billions
in reparations to them!  That was his big mistake, and that has been
mentioned several times by me and by many others who took a dash of time
and a bit of care to notice.

    I also am aware of certain tendencies to hone in on the errors,
mistakes, blunders, and miscalculations of the prey of imperialism over
and above the famished appetites of predatory capital.  Allende was thus
thrice victimized: by his treacherous armed forces, by the forces of
imperialism, and by some "dedicated, principled Marxists" who blamed him
above all for his own demise.  We are all captains of our own destinies,
though, aren't we?  Irrespective of poverty, gender, "race", class, or
sexual orientation?  What about an impoverished, historically
beleaguered nation that has as many people as a large American city, an
island-literally!-in a hostile sea?

    How much were pro-Aristide "thugs" actually people who knew the
state was broke and broken, and took action to defend whatever
pro-people progress could be saved from the incursions of revanchists?
We should be acquainted with how moralistic, legalistic bourgeois
critics fondly smear the "mob" with depravities, while giving short
shrift to their own quite legal armies of supremely well-equipped
killers and torturers.  The scattered cowardly cops armed with pistols
and badges ran from a dense, disciplined, dynamic battalion of
well-known-FRAPHistes trained by the School of the Americas, CIA, US
Secret Service, and other armies, covered in body armour, helmets, and
brandishing modern automatic weapons?  They refused to be slaughtered.
That proves they did not love Aristide, which proves they hated him
which proves he deserved what he got.  He must have failed-because he
failed!  There's the proof!

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