[A-List] Haiti updates

[James Daly]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bon moun" <sherrynstan at igc.org>
To: <a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 8:22 PM
Subject: [A-List] Haiti updates


I posted the Media Lens piece Part 1 in anticipation of a better
critique in Part 2 of British press and TV reports of Haiti, because I
have been flabbergasted by the unchallenged barefaced lies and
outrageous disinformation from all quarters.  Eli Stevens has pointed
out that American coverage of Iraq was infinitely worse than the
British, but I doubt if that is true of the coverage of Haiti.  The
reason is the enormous mobilisation against the war in Britain, which
forced a certain "balance" in reporting, whereas there has been no
mobilisation on behalf of of Haiti (or, by the way, of Venezuela, or
of Cuba).
I greatly appreciate the expert and first-hand experience behind
Stan's invaluable contributions to our understanding of Haiti (and to
the anti-imperialist struggle in general).  About the Media Lens piece
he writes :
*This is all good, very Chomskian as it were, looking at the political
dimension of Haiti yet with very little of anything that looks like a
class analysis... without which Haiti remains internally
unintelligible.*
*****
But its analysis is at least clearly anti-imperialist, and does not
indulge in evenhanded "condemnation of both sides".  Also could Stan
explain the following criticism:
*This piece, like thousands of others from the left, portrays Papa
Doc, for example, as a long standing ally of the US. This was never
true.* This seems to be in conflict with Stan's earlier posting:
*Historic Roots of the Haitian Civil War by Morpheus
...The US supported several dictators after the end of the occupation,
including Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude "Baby
Doc" Duvalier.*
Comradely, James

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