A RETREAT FROM HAPPINESS

I had originally intended this post to be made last week, but the utterly ridiculous and unconstitutional Supreme Court decision lifting all restrictions on corporate campaign contributions derailed my initial plan. IMPEACH JOHN ROBERTS!

Here, now, retitled and rewritten, is the post I had earlier intended to make...



It states in our Declaration of Independence "...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

It would appear that we in the United State have viewed that statement as pertaining only to us, or to those living within our borders. For, ever since our independence, we have taken it upon ourselves to meddle in and dominate the affairs of nearly every other nation in our hemisphere. Haiti is but one example, as I will outline below.

Haiti, a former French colony for slaves, won its independence from France in 1804. Undoubtedly fearful of a nearby nation made up of freed blacks and wishing to protect its own slave-driven economy in the American South, the U.S. and a number of other countries immediately began a boycott of Haiti. Naturally, this crippled the Haitian economy and helped cause unrest. Former abusive white French slaveowners were understandably killed or exiled, a number of whom migrated to New Orleans. Years of instability followed. In 1825, France's King Charles X displatched a fleet to reconquer the island. Hasty negotiations between Haiti and France produced a treaty whereby France recognized Haiti's independence in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs as reparation for lost slave profits. While this figure was reduced to 90 million francs thirteen years later, it was still a huge and unjust burden on the tiny Haitian economy. Beginning in 1843, a long succession of coups and instability plagued the country. Its weakened state made it fall prey to economic exploitation from businessmen of many countries. On a number of occasions, various French, German, British, and U.S. forces have laid claim to large sums of money in the National Bank of Haiti. U.S. Marines occupied the country from 1915-1934, taking over Haiti's banks and forcibly repealed a Haitian law which had made foreign ownership of Haitian land illegal. (Curiously enough, little mention of this is made in U.S. history texts). Instability and periods of outright oppression continued long after the Marines pulled out. From 1957-1986, the country was ruled by the father-son "Papa Doc" and then "Baby Doc" Duvalier regime. A revolt against corruption and neglect broke out in 1986, creating further instability and resulting in Baby Doc's exile to France.

In 1990, former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristede won election as Haiti's President with two-thirds of the vote, under a new constitution. But his use of paramilitary forces caused him to quickly lose favor and be forced into exile. The military began de facto rule of the country. In 1994, the U.S. sent a team to negotiate the departure of the military to pave the way for democratic elections. U.S. forces entered the country peacefully under the Operation Uphold Democracy campaign, which proved to be a good move. Aristede returned then to resume his term in office, and relenquished it in 1996, as he would have originally. He ran for and again won re-election in 2000, although this election was boycotted by his opposition and so only about 10% of eligible voters took part. More instability followed. In 2004, Aristede and his wife were spirited away in the middle of the night, allegedly by the CIA and anti-Aristede forces, and put on a one-way flight to the Central African Republic. Charges of embezzlement, drug trafficking, and corruption were raised against him, but who knows what the actual truth is? One thing remains certain: repeated European and American interference in Haiti's economic and internal affairs for more than 200 years has not helped the country. Instead, it has ensured its instability.

As I began looking into historical U.S.-Haiti relations, I was astounded to see the huge amount of interference we have had with not only Haiti's, but ALL of Latin America's affairs over the past 100+ years. Just look at this ridiculously long list (and it's only a PARTIAL):

1900 - U.S. troops occupy Puerto Rico.
1903 - U.S. intervened in Panama's struggle with Colombia so as to be able to build the Panama Canal.
1906 - U.S. invades Cuba to supress revolutionary activity.
1910 - U.S. invades Nicaragua during her civil war.
1912 - U.S. mercenaries illegally invade Honduras to prevent the Honduran government from acquiring a U.S.-owned railroad.
1912-1920 - U.S. troops reoccupy Nicaragua to maintain American control.
1915-1934 - U.S. troops occupy Haiti.
1930 - U.S. troops enter Guatemala to protect our interests there.
1934 - U.S. troops prevent a trade union strike in El Salvador. U.S. warships stand offshore during a peasant revolution.
1947 - U.S. troops invade Paraguay to defeat a liberation movement.
1950 - U.S. intervenes to supress an independent movement.
1954 - CIA organizes a military coup against a popularly-elected leftist government in Guatemala which threatened to nationalize the U.S.-owned conglomerate American Fruit Company.
1961 - CIA plans, funds, and carries out Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
1965 - U.S. lands 20,000 troops in Dominican Republic to quell a leftist uprising.
1973 - Nixon administration and CIA engineer military coup against popularly-elected Marxist government in Chile, culminating in murder of Chilean President Salvador Allende and installation of brutally repressive right wing Pinochet dictatorship.
1970s - CIA supports bloody Somoza dictatorship over rising popularity of the Sandinistas, and undermines Sandanista government once in power.
1982-1986 - U.S. mercenaries support brutally oppressive right-wing dictatorship in El Salvador civil war.
1999-present - U.S. undermines UN and uses the WTO to bully poorer countries into restructuring their economies to benefit huge multinational corporations. Hugo Chavez is elected President of Venezuela, proclaims friendship with Cuba, and begins a broad, leftist reform campaign.
2002 - Hugo Chavez is briefly overthrown in a coup d'etat he alleges occurred as a result of U.S. backing. He regains power after a few months. Who knows if what he alleges is true?


Today, once again, U.S. troops have been dispatched to Haiti, ostensibly to preserve order and provide relief assistence in the wake of Haiti's recent devastating earthquake. This may actually be the case, and, naturally, we hope so. But given our sordid record of frequent political and military intervention throughout Latin America since our own beginning, we cannot say for sure. And, in light of our checkered past regarding our southern neighbors, how can Fidel Castro OR Hugo Chavez be rightfully castigated for having referred to us as their big devil to the north? For, as we have been busy with our own pursuit of happiness, have we not often simultaneously been responsible for a retreat FROM happiness among our southern neighbors?

COMING SOON: AN INSIDER'S VIEW OF CUBA!

MEMORABLE QUOTES

I am still working on and gathering information on what I hope will be a significantly interesting piece on government-run health care systems. I apologize for the delay, but the subject is important enough to deserve all the accuracy it can get, so that particular post may be a while in coming. But it WILL be worth the wait! Meanwhile, I present you with a treasure trove of thoughtful, memorable quotes to mull over. Thank you for your patience.


"People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights."
- Indira Gandhi -

"The school is the last expenditure upon which Americans should be willing to economize."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt -

"The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes."
- Aristotle -

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wicked of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes -

"When the rich think about the poor, they have poor ideas."
- Evita Peron -

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life."
- Teddy Roosevelt -

"We must confront the privileged elite who have destroyed a large part of the world."
- Hugo Chavez -

"Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light."
- Helen Keller -

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
- Margaret Thatcher -

"Poverty is the worst form of violence."
- Mahatma Gandhi -

"Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle or impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance."
- William O. Douglas -

"We must stop thinking about the individual and start thinking about what is best for society."
- Hillary Rodham Clinton -

"America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand."
- Harry S Truman -

"Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity of which our heritage of religious freedom inspired."
- Robert F. Kennedy -

"Politics is a profession, a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one."
- Dwight David Eisenhower -

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."
- Mother Teresa -

"Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative."
- John Kenneth Galbraith -

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
- Barack Obama -

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people."
- Teddy Roosevelt -

"Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt -

"Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism."
- Earl Warren -

"The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself."
- John Kenneth Galbraith -

A NEW LATIN AMERICAN TSUNAMI

"People don't give one shit [about Latin America]."
- Richard M. Nixon -

"Well, I learned a lot. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries."
- Ronald Reagan -

"[Latin America] is a dagger pointed at the heart of America."
- Henry Kissinger -

Gone are the days we could smugly consider Central and South America "ours." The arrogance and ignorance which led then-Vice President Nixon to dismiss Cuba's Fidel Castro as "a communist" after meeting with him for only one hour in 1959 (and for President Eisenhower to blow off that meeting altogether to play golf), and for President Ronald Reagan to assume that Latin America was monolithic, was as fatally flawed then as that condescending attitude is today. Nixon and Reagan would shit hemorrhages if they could see the state of Latin America at present. For what was once an entire region wholly dominated by the United States is now one acting completely independent of, and often contrary to, the wishes of Washington. Nixon, Reagan, corporate America, and even Bush never realized it, but their short-sighted and self-centered policies have pushed nearly all of our southern neighbors into the varying degrees of anti-Washington frenzy they are now in. Unless we soon alter our course and apractice, we will feel negative consequences from this for many years to come.

One might assume that our current dicey scenario in Latin America is all the fault of Republican rule. That is not the case. Democratic Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson also contributed, albeit with GOP pressure and influence never far removed. The Cuban embargo, begun under Eisenhower (but tightened under Kennedy) remains in force to this very day. The ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion (another Eisenhower/CIA gem) was foolishly followed through upon by Kennedy. Both actions pushed Cuba further away from us and firmly into the outstretched arms of the Soviet Union. Johnson sent American troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965 to "restore order," but the end result was the same it has always been: The overthrow of a democratically-elected leftist government and its replacement by a military junta or repressive right-wing dictatorship beholden and subservient to the United States. There is a shamefully long list of countries in this region we have directly or indirectly interfered with just in my lifetime: Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. Our business interests and CIA have also worked diligently and clandestinely in Honduras and Mexico to influence their economies and politics. These actions have not spoken well for our supposed desire to spread freedom and democracy all across the globe, our moral and ethical standards, or our credibility. For, in much of Latin America (as in Iraq) we have often attempted to forcibly install democracy at the point of a gun. In extreme cases, we haven't even attempted to install a democracy, but have instead overthrown governments we felt would threaten our business or strategic interests, and then accepted whatever new, U.S.-friendly group came in to fill the power vacuum. In 1973, for example, our CIA (with Nixon White House backing) even directed the coup in Chile which resulted in the death of the first democratically-elected Marxist President, Salvador Allende. No matter that he won fair and square, or that he was committed to democracy and a free press: He threatened our business interests and was too friendly with Cuba. His replacement? The brutally repressive and murderous military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Shameful indeed. But, at last, there are clear signs today that Latin America as a whole is finally throwing off the burdensome yoke of Yankee domination in favor of radical reform designed to greatly reduce our influence and relieve longstanding, widespread poverty.

Since 1959, Fidel Castro's Cuba had been a lonely voice repeatedly calling out for an end to U.S. domination of Central and South America. In 1999 it was finally joined by Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Both countries nationalized American and foreign-owned companies and subsidiaries and began a long series of radical reforms designed to aid their poor and end the poor's exploitation by big business interests. Regrettably, Cuba's revolution evolved into a dictatorship, with murder and imprisonment of opponents and political prisoners, as well as suppression of press freedom. But Cuba now has universal education and a literacy rate of 96%, compared with an ILLITERACY rate of 95% when its 1959 revolution began. It also has universal health care in many ways superior to that received by the "free" citizens of many other Latin American countries! Thankfully, subsequent change in Venezuela and other Latin American nations has not been as brutal or undemocratic. In the past few years, Cuba and Venezuela have been joined by a tsunami of popularly-elected leftist governments dedicated to similar reforms. Their degree of radicalism varies from Cuba's, Venezuela's, and Bolivia's to more moderate forms found in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The extent of this wave of change is phenomenally widespread, from Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua, to Evo Morales' Bolivia, to Rafael Correa's Ecuador, to Fernando Lugo's Paraguay, to Argentina's Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner, to Michelle Bachelet's Chile, and beyond. These are indeed monumental and exciting times south of our border! ALL of these governments are leftist, which would give both Nixon and Reagan severe indigestion. In fact, a recent conference of Latin American countries held in Costa Do Sauipe, Brazil, was attended by 33 like-minded nations and included our neighbor, Mexico. They called for a regional union of these countries (to EXCLUDE the United States), and for the U.S. to end its unnecessary 49 year embargo against Cuba. A number of these governments are now even courting direct Chinese investment. Such occurrences would have been unthinkable even 15-20 years ago!

Naturally, little of this amazing transformation has been covered in much detail by our corporatist, sensationalist media. They have been far too busy dazzling us with stories about the excesses of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, Sarah Palin's clothes and calendars, Barack Obama's beach physique and basketball prowess, and Joe the phony Plumber's attempts to secure a country music recording contract. They have severely underreported the breadth and scope of Latin American change. The overwhelming majority of Americans are as painfully ignorant about events in our own back yard as Sarah Palin is about foreign affairs generally. Unforgivable. Our media provides us with more info on the planet MARS than it does on our southern neighbors! This is disgraceful and cannot serve us well long term. For the days are gone where we can immorally prop up corrupt and friendly Latin American regimes doing our bidding and representing only the 1-2% wealthiest elite while the rest of the population struggles and suffers. Our government, media and people MUST begin developing a better knowledge and understanding of our southern neighbors. Continued ignorance and benign neglect of these countries is inexcusable and cannot continue.

We are NOT the center of the universe! Readers of this blog, and ALL Americans, can take the lead by Google-ing each Latin American country and each leader and learning more about them. Hopefully, with a new and more enlightened administration set to take office soon, our CIA will finally be directed to keep its nose out of Latin America's private affairs and will begin to aim its focus where it should, as in defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The incoming Obama administration can work wonders in Latin diplomacy right off the bat by ending the ridulous Cuban embargo. ALL of our friends and allies alike, including Canada, Mexico, and the European community, trade with Cuba. So does China. And so, at long last, should we. Our new administration can also encourage new and greatly expanded cultural, educational, and trade relations with Latin America. Properly doing so will restore good will and may also limit China's penetration and influence in our own neighborhood. We can even learn from these countries and gain from their experience, but not if they hate us or we have blinders on. Brazil, for example, took only about a decade to become fully energy independent, and achieved this long ago. Rather than fight the forces of change, as we have so often done in Latin America in the past, we now have a golden opportunity to embrace and ride the crest of this exciting new wave of Central and South American independence. Doing so will benefit all nations in this hemisphere immeasurably!

NEXT WEEK: AN END TO DIVISIVE WEDGE ISSUES!