Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
For all the polarizing division in US politics on the issue of foreign policy (and even on many domestic issues) the two major parties are completely aligned to protect and benefit the capital-owning class.
Sanctions on Cuba? This is not because Cuba or Castro is "bad". We have absolutely no problem propping up horrific dictators as "allies" when it suits us (eg Pinochet, MBS, Saddam Hussein until it didn't suit us, even Erdogan, arguably even Netanyahu). What's the real issue with Cuba? Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to US corporations.
Sanctions on Venezuela? Again, Venezuela took the unacceptable step of nationalizing their oil assets. And with Russia's unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine now threatening the energy sector, suddenly the Venezuelan sanctions aren't as important as we made out [1].
Sanctions on Iraq following the first Gulf War? Consider the words of our then UN Ambassador later Secretary of State Madeline Albright [2]:
> In that now-iconic interview, veteran journalist Lesley Stahl questioned Albright – then the US ambassador to the United Nations – on the catastrophic effect the rigorous US sanctions imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had on the Iraqi population.
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
The US government works for the Bezoses, Gates, Buffetts and Musks of the world. Never forget that.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/17/venezuela-oi...
[2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
Close, but not quite right. Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to various people all of whom now live in Florida and vote as a bloc. Note that Obama actually tried to end the Cuban embargo, but was stopped due to politicians afraid of upsetting the various people-who-hate-Cuba-for-this-specific-reason.
Funny how left leaning voters call out imperialism but forget that Cuba, Russia and China have been doing that in Venezuela the last 30 years
While it’s only one state in the US it cannot be downplayed that it has an outsize influence compared to, say, Wyoming.
The two largest states reliably vote the same way in each election, but Florida is at least somewhat up for grabs. So Florida is one of the most important opportunities to make a big impact with a small advantage.
If this seems like an incredibly stupid way to run things... yes, we know.
The modern image of Cubans in the U.S. is effectively of white people, on account of the particular classes of Cubans which emigrated to the U.S. This also belies Cuba's own racial hierarchy, which mirrors that of most of the Americas.
A bloc that resides in Florida is not responsible for the US policy against Cuba over the last 60+ years. Not to say it's not an element, but it's simply impractical as a flat reasoning. The nearby danger narrative is useful is another aspect. There are a few in aggregate.
1. Florida has (3 times IIRC) voted to legalize recreational marijuana. All of those have been thrown on by a court on procedural grounds; and
2. In 2018, Floridians voted to restore the right to vote to the state's estimated 1.5 million felons, which would've been an amazing step forward. The response? DeSantis basically waited until the last possible moment of the next election and instituted a poll tax, that is that any felon would have to pay full restitution to the state. Not enough time to challenge this before the election. Felons tend to skew poor so having to pay several thousand dollars in, say, court costs and probation "costs" acted as an effective barrier to the will of the people.
One should remember that as horrible as almost every Republican state government is, most of them are minority governments that are kept in power by extreme gerrymandering. Wisconsin is a prime example, where Democrats lead by 10 points but the Republicans hold an unassailable super majority in the state legislature.
Fun fact: Texas has more registered Democrats than registered Republicans.
Change is inevitable. REpublican voters like to hold onto to the past (up to and including chattel slavery, sorry "state's rights"). These people skew older and religious. The former is dying off from old age (and Covid) and the latter is in historical decline.
I mention this because despite Florida's reputation, voting to restore voting rights to felons passed and is remarkably progressive for the US and we can draw some comfort from that.
Also set up one party states which ideologically align with every US enemy out there including USSR/Russia while completely ruining their own countries.
> We have absolutely no problem propping up horrific dictators as "allies" when it suits us (eg Pinochet, MBS, Saddam Hussein until it didn't suit us, even Erdogan, arguably even Netanyahu)
MBS doesn't even rule Saudi yet, despite having a lot of power. Erdogan is likely to lose the next election. Nethanyahu is out of office and facing charges. Leaders can suck without being dictators or preventing fair elections.
>And with Russia's unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine now threatening the energy sector, suddenly the Venezuelan sanctions aren't as important as we made out
Don't make too much of it. The admin will soon find out that Chaves/Maduro ruined the energy sector so thoroughly there isn't any oil to pump in the next decade.
It is unclear if you're referring to Cuba or to Venezuela or both. What exactly does "ideologically aligning" mean? Also does actions taken by a global superpower's military on behalf of elites in that superpower (I'm referencing the article here, "Invade Haiti, Wall Street urged, the US obliged") to steal, confiscate, block trade count towards "ruining their own countries"? My guess is that you're kind of trying to imply they caused their own ruin and deserved it by not being "ideologically aligned" with the US (does that mean Wall Street?), is that inaccurate?
There's making different choices and there's 'being friendly to the Soviets which were also very much into overthrowing the US' or 'Driving double digit percentage of your own population out to the point you're a foreign policy problem' or 'undermining neighbouring states due to your 'wrong' ideology'.
"Ideologically align" ==> Bequeath all ownership of a developing country's national resources from citizens to NATO corporations. You have to be really blind to not have realized what Ideological alignment with United states actually means. Hint: it's not democracy.
NATO places world wide economic sanctions on small countries that are "ideologically misaligned" with NATO to devastate their economy, reduce it to ruins while simultaneously organizing coups. They have no option to trade with the other block to survive. Its either gives us control over all of your natural resources OR trade with Russia to survive.
Yes they definitely work for three new-money tech billionaires and not the old money generational wealth families that nobody talks about.
Because then it would be, "The US government works for the Clarks of the world," and we'd all be going, "Huh?".
I see two big factors in play here:
1. The widespread belief in American exceptionalism, once characterized as every American thinks of themselves as a temporarily embarrassed millionaire [1]; and
2. The power of propaganda. The number of low-income people who will fight to the hilt that Jeff Bezos shouldn't pay slightly more taxes to pay for the society that made his wealth possible and continues to make it possible is astounding.
I’d like to see something that specifically targets the loophole of borrowing against stocks & repaying by taking additional loans and selling only assets which have declined in price.
He's not a dictator for the israelis, but let's not forget that he rules over an apartheid state and for the palestinians (who don't get to vote, don't get to have their own country and yet get opressed by his rule) he is a dictator.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/02/most-cuban-...
Ethnic voting blocs are truly powerful. Religious fanaticism waxes and wanes, but strong ethnic identity endured for a few generations. That’s why southern baptists are suddenly sucking up to Catholic judges - it’s seen as a way to connect to Hispanic voters as conservative boomers die off.
> Ethnic voting blocs are truly powerful.
I'd generalize this further. Any substantial voting bloc is powerful, ethnic or otherwise. The NRA and, anti-choice lobbies and the pro-Israel lobby, for example. There is generational voting patterns (as you mention) but this seems to a subset of single-issue voters.
There's a reason we can precisely draw Congressional maps to gerrymander the electorate: voting patterns are highly predictable.
But a voting bloc can be a double edged sword. Cubans in Florida only hold power because they're the difference between the state being red and blue. It's why certain states are completely ignored in the election. One party or the other will comfortably win. Nothing will change that.
Disproportionate power only comes when you're the balance of power.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...
the tax department maybe but America's billionaire tech entrepreneurs have barely any relationship with America's foreign policy establishment. It's not clear to me what Bill Gates gains out of subduing Latin American countries and Musk and Cook seem to be pretty positive on China given that they make and sell a lot of their stuff there.
America's foreign policy establishment consists of think tanks, intellectuals, politicians, paperbelt types, ideologues and so forth but America's tech sector is to a large extent disconnected from this stuff if not straight up an alternative power center which routinely makes foreign policy hawks very mad.
The energy/construction/resource extraction sector is very closely tied with US foreign policy.
It’s not like this is new. John Bagot Glubb talks about this in “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival”. Our ruling class is showing the same patterns of those ruling an empire at the end of its days. Squabbling over the riches earned by those who came before with no regard for their people or the future.
This is pure cynicism. It is both lazy and false.
Democratic goals: - address climate change - extend the social insurance programs that are foundational to the welfare state: social security, the ACA, medicare, etc. - election integrity: ensure equal access to the ballot, eliminate gerrymandering, eliminate the electoral college - legislative reform: eliminate the filibuster - education: address educational debt - address inequality through tax measures and public expenditures - appoint liberal judges - preserve access to abortion and contraception - reform policing, making it more community based, less punitive, more accountable in the case of police wrongdoing, etc. - etc.
Republican goals: - facilitate resource extraction - privatize public assets - roll back environmental protections and regulations of all sorts - roll back the social insurance programs that are foundational to the welfare state: social security, the ACA, medicare, etc. - reduce taxes, particularly on the wealthy - roll back commitments to international agreements and organizations - enshrine Christian morality and customs in law - roll back protections for historically disadvantaged groups - reduce ballot access for constituencies that tend not to vote Republican - preserve the electoral college and gerrymandering (see previous point) - prevent the teaching of anything touching on diversity or historical prejudices or injustice - appoint conservative judges - prevent access to abortion and contraception - reform policing, making it more lethal, more punitive, less accountable in the case of police wrongdoing, etc. - etc.
This lists could be much longer. There are thousands of passionate politicians and activists for both parties who work on these things all the time. However, people are more motivated by negative partisanship than anything else. It turns out listing good stuff you intend to do on behalf of your voters is much less motivating than detailing the perfidy, real or imagined, of the other party and promising to punish it.
False equivalence is the way you create oligarchy, not how you fight it.
> Democratic goals: ...
This is propaganda I'm afraid. The goals of the Democratic Party are to systematically erase any progressive element from the party (eg Bernie, AOC) while positioning themselves as being not as bad as the Republicans for pure fundraising reasons without ever actually having to do anything.
Roe v. Wade was handed down 49 years ago. There have been multiple opportunities since then to codify this in Federal law. Most recently Obama the candidate campaigned on doing this as his #1 priority. Obama the new president, who had a super-majority in the Senate and thus didn't even need to repeal the filibuster (which he should've anyway) decided it wasn't that important. To the contrary, Obama actually made abortion less accessible [2].
The Democrats are absolutely feckless and are quite happy to do so as long as they can maintain office. The Republicans are straight up monsters but they are effective in that they give their base what they want.
Example: compare whipping efforts by the GOP and disciplining its members (eg Kevin McCarthy and Madison Cawthorn) vs the Democrats. If the GOP was faced with a Manchin or Sinema they would be primaried and stripped of key committee positions (most notably Manchin's on Energy) to bring them into line.
Don't for a second think the Democrats actually want to do anything.
[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fox-news-g...
The Democrats have 50 seats in the Senate. The Republicans have 50 seats. The Democrats have control only because Kamala Harris provides a tie-breaking vote. Sinema and Manchin are actively being courted by the Republicans ceaselessly. So if the Democrats try to whip them into line they can just withdraw their support from the Democratic caucus and then Mitch McConnell has the power. This isn't to say that the everything the Democrats have done to try to control the situation has been perfect, but these are the parameters they're working with. The story that the Democrats are feckless and happy to achieve nothing is the propaganda. It is spread both by idealists working with a fantasy notion of US politics and agents provocateurs who prefer the left stay cynical and demoralized.
Another element of this fantasy version of politics: the "Obama had a super majority" story, which echoes endlessly. Obama had this super majority for a number of weeks. First Republicans prevented the seating of Al Franken for months. Finally he was seated. Several weeks later Ted Kennedy has to withdraw entirely from his job because he was dying of a brain tumor. Then he died. During this time the legislative priority was passing the ACA. They wasted vast amounts of time with the Republicans playing a Lucy-and-the-football delaying tactic. But ever since defeatists trot this out as though Obama could have passed virtually everything during this brief window and the fact that he didn't proves his fecklessness. This is the propaganda. The Democrats have failed to achieve more not because they as a party don't want to achieve anything but because they are a relatively disunited party with different people pulling in different directions and they have only had very brief moments when they could exercise significant power. This is why everyone but Sinema and Manchin want to reform or abolish the filibuster: they realize that it prevents their ever achieving anything because at this point the Republicans will never work with them except on trivial matters.
Use Occam's Razor. It isn't secret cabals and epicycles that govern the political universe. It is exactly what you see: disunited people, some of whom are corrupt (Sinema and Manchin, e.g.) or stupid (Sinema and Manchin, e.g.), working with brief windows of opportunity within the campaign cycle. If you actually want leftist ideas enacted, working with a fantasy version of politics is worst way to go about it. It may make you feel individually virtuous and important, which is a great temptation for everyone, but it doesn't get anything done.
P.S. Obama could not abolish the filibuster. This is something the Senate has to do by amending the rules they are organized by. They can do it with a simple majority, but it has to be a majority of senators. And Obama's chief priorities when he came in were the ACA and enacting carbon pricing, not codifying Roe v. Wade into law. He managed to achieve one of these things largely because Nancy Pelosi gave up the House's more progressive plans when Ted Kennedy was gone and she realized further negotiation was fruitless. And despite herculean efforts on the part of all the Democrats in power at the time (well, except certain assholes), the circular firing squad devotees paint them all as feckless.
Even that is an exaggeration. There was never a Democratic supermajority.
He was able to cobble together a super majority on one issue. One of the Senators making up the supermajority that passed ACA literally spoke at the RNC convention and endorsed Obama's opponent[1].
The problem with this theory is that it doesn't account for all of the nationalizations that the US didn't respond to with sanctions or invasions. Which is, I believe, larger in number than the reverse.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nationalizations_by_co...
For Sri Lanka, it seems it wasn’t oil production but merely the domestic petrol distribution? Also unclear how much of it was British and not American.
For Turkey I can’t find the company at issue, but it apparently happened before the Second World War and I’d guess American interests just weren’t very substantial at the time? The article suggests the US was supporting Turkey in getting out from under existing relationships with the old powers of Europe.
It's fun to demonize, isn't? But in the glare of attention we all say stupid things at point or another. In her own words (per WP):
Albright later criticized Stahl's segment as "amount[ing] to Iraqi propaganda", saying that her question was a loaded question.“I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” She wrote, "I had fallen into a trap and said something I did not mean",[127] and that she regretted coming "across as cold-blooded and cruel".[121] She apologized for her remarks in a 2020 interview with The New York Times, calling them "totally stupid".[128][122]
Here is the actual strategy laid out in an official government document: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/10/20/2017-22...
This policy was released in 2017. In 2021, there was a brief and ineffective attempt at a color revolution in Cuba.
It is not surprising that US reacts more harshly when a foreign country violates human rights of US citizens than when it 'just' opresses their own citizens.
They work for banks and resource mining corporations. They don't work for software technology new money titans.
> Section 1. Purpose: The United States recognizes the need for more freedom and democracy, improved respect for human rights, and increased free enterprise in Cuba
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/10/20/2017-22...
> Sanctions on Venezuela? Again, Venezuela took the unacceptable step of nationalizing their oil assets.
But is this not saying that the real issue with Cuba is [actual] communism? This requires no conspiracy, it is the root of publicly-cited reasons for US policy towards the island.
I think the reason these statements have the allure of revelation despite not being so is an unresolved dissonance in the American civic religion.
Capitalism and property have displaced most other rights of the liberal pantheon, old and new. Merely to discover the once unremarkable fact that capitalism in inherently unjust, and that neither property nor free enterprise are actually its synonyms, is lamentably revelatory.
I suppose the deliberate destruction of any rational, shared understanding of what communism actually entails, enacted by demagogues attacking Democratic politicians and policy, has also helped break the prior clarity of these embargoes' official justification.
China?
So a country that lets it's capital get destroyed is pretty much fucked.
This is the fundamental issue with most forms of communism, socialism and theocracy: they're perpetually short of capital.
Places like Northern Europe work very hard to simultaneously protect capital and human assets. And that's good. And we should emulate that. But all to often people try to down grade capital instead of upgrading people.
The places people so often think of as alternatives (Venezuela as a recent example) all too often fall for this error and doom themselves.
Iran, Afghanistan and the Vatican are the only modern theocracies.
Anyhow, Haiti is a truly tragic story. Just in terms of the real estate it's sitting on there's a massive opportunity for anyone who could get the country semi-functional to build a thriving tourism industry.
Haiti's GDP per capita in 1990 was higher than China's[1]. I'm skeptical of the ability of history from 100-200 years ago to explain why there's been such a massive divergence since. Put another way, if you looked at the picture in 1990 where China and Haiti GDP per capita have been similar for decades with Haiti often in the lead, what facts would have led you to correctly predict the massive divergence over the next 30 years? The events of 1914 or 1803 in Haiti? But the opium wars, China being subjugated by Japan, Mao killing ~45 million of his own people would not similarly handicap China? See also Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, etc.
[1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=gdp+per+capita+haiti%2C...
The U.S. has been meddling in Haiti's affairs ever since, threatening leaders who dare to raise the minimum wage, among other things. Your skepticism of "history from 100-200 years ago to explain" seems more like a straw man argument. The comparison between Haiti (10 million residents) and China (1 billion residents) is kind of strange, for GDP per capita is not dependent on the work of independent individuals. You take the total for the country and divide by the number of individuals, so any country with a billion residents and the ability to produce and set wages without restrictions has a massive advantage over any country with 1 percent of their population. Lastly, your comparison with China could be done with a hundred other countries, so you could easily dismiss their history just the same. There's a lot going on you might not be aware of.
> Some historians cite tangible gains, like hospitals, 800 miles of roads and a more efficient civil service, but they also point to the American use of forced labor, with soldiers tying up civilians in ropes, making them work for no pay and shooting those who tried to flee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jovenel_Mo%C3...
Those old black and white photos of troops boarding a ship to Haiti in 1915 is focused through a lens to arrive at the present here, https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1439989195871825921
The phrase "America is the worlds police" is now understood in its rightful context. America keeps its own peace by killing and shaking down those who it can.
Someday, hopefully, powerful nations will not feel the need to be in control of other nations even when those nations do uppity things like control their own destiny.
As one rabiblanco put it to me the last time I was there, “When America left we had to grow up.” Therein lies the pernicious nature of benign colonialism.
You have no idea what Panama would look like had the canal not been built. Maybe it would be more like Costa Rica than Nicaragua. The difference between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is that Nicaragua had the temerity to get a government we didn’t like. Heck, you don’t even know if Panama would be a country in the alternate timeline where the canal isn’t built.
How do you know the extent of my knowledge of Panama’s history based on my original response? Must I be ignorant simply because I believe the U.S. ended up being bad for Panama by the time of the Treaty? Who propped up Noriega and encouraged the expansion of the PDF? Who wanted Battalon 2000 to be in Amador and was fine with the PDF being the de facto rulers of Panama? (Until Herrara Diaz made his accusations and the people rose up.)
I mean, the US more or less sponsored Panamanian independence from Colombia solely because they didn't like Colombia's terms on offer for acquiring the land for the Panama Canal.
Ask anyone in Panama, they feel much better being independent. Yes Panama is obviously still having strong ties with the US, but they are happy that their own land is not owned and managed by of a foreign army.
A guarantee of force by a different nation isn’t always in the best interest of a nation: the comparison that comes to my mind for external application of force when a canal’s “security” was threatened, is the Suez Canal.
For one, Panama doesn't have a military anymore since Noriega was ousted in the invasion. That's a huge blessing of stability to the country. You don't have to look far in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to see how dangerous a military is to democracy. And we don't need a military for defence, because everyone knows the US will rush to the defence of Panama if the canal were threatened. Purely from self interest, but that aligns nicely with the intersts of Panama in this case.
(Although one could say it was stolen from Colombia, through support of Panama independence.)
The Panamanian independence movement from Colombia had existed for decades. Did the US leverage it to obtain territory for the canal? Yes. Did independence reflect local sentiment? Yes.
However, the Noriega business would have the death of Panama had it not been for the US intervention. That was some necessary tough love for Panama.
You're right though that, at the end anyway, the canal zone was holding the country back. In the early days it may have been different. It's tough to say.
Several other Central American states are still extremely poor due to the banana republic economic imperialism supported by the United States.
Neighboring Costa Rica avoided that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
The excerpt isn't long.
> War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
> I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
> I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
> There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
> It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
> I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
> I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
> During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
You can see him in archival footage talking to the Bonus Army in Washington DC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOsIB5VMSQ
Analysis of speech to Bonus Army https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/marine-medal-of-honor-sm...
10 minute newsreel https://youtu.be/Q_vJH2nrMl8?t=120
This is phenomenal, MacArthur, Patton and Eisenhower led the removal of the Bonus Army from Washington DC and showed their colors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Angelo
This is shit we should have learned in history class.
*Yes I know what Haitian constitution said about everyone being black but unlike Polish Haitians German Haitians resolutely intermarried only with each other to the point of inbreeding like Greeks in Ancient Egypt.
Well then...
This just makes me so sad.
Here's the thing: what's in the past is over; what can we do about it today is all that matters.
Wouldn't be great if the French decided to spend a couple of billion dollars to set up schools, hospitals, colleges, etc. in Haiti?
Everybody makes mistakes. But it takes real courage to own up your mistakes and fix them.
Yes, but like you said, this happened in the past. The current French citizens are not the ones who made these mistakes.
For the same reason that we don't punish the children for the crimes of their parents, we shouldn't be accusing people today of the crimes of their ancestors. I agree that it would be amazing if the French decided to help restore Haiti, but it's not beneficial to cast blame on the French people of today and demand reparations.
At the very least, if we demand reparations of them today how far back do we go and who else do we demand reparations from? The Germans committed atrocities against the Jews less than 100 years ago, but nobody is demanding reparations there? What about Mao Zedong, also less than 100 years ago? Or how about the evils going on right now in places like Saudi Arabia[0], Afghanistan[1], or the very alive slave trade of over 21-45 million people right now[2]?
[0]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/30/saudi-arabia-10-reasons-...
[1]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-depr...
[2]: https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/human-traffickin...
Think about it: THE FRENCH FORCED THEIR SLAVES TO BUY THEIR OWN FREEDOM FOR 150,000,000 FRANCS!
Please read the gory details here before replying: https://theconversation.com/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-g...
This is what's shameful and the French _should_ be ashamed.
If a Swiss banker today is in charge of the gold extracted from the teeth of Jews, Romani, communists, homosexuals, etc. murdered in concentration camps, must he give it back to the descendants of the victims? He was neither a Nazi nor the banker the Nazis sent the gold to originally. He is not responsible for their actions, but he is now the steward of this stolen wealth. What is his responsibility at this point?
Money seems different from gold because it is fungible and abstract. Your standard of living may be based in part upon some historical theft, but which part and how much? There isn't a particular dollar bill or pound note you can point to as stolen. Gold melted down from fillings isn't like that. But this just speaks to the poverty of our imagination, not anything morally relevant.
As it seems, reparations were demanded (and payed) sometimes, cp. e.g. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/german-holocaust-repara...
(Emphasis mine)
I think this final paragraph in that article says it all. Who are the reparations going to? The Holocaust survivors. I'm not aware of any Haitians that were wronged by France in the 1800s that are still alive today, but if any of them are still alive that makes it much easier to figure out how to pay reparations :)
My general point was that it's ridiculous to pay reparations of wrongdoing to people that weren't wronged. And you can go down the whole path of how certain people are born into higher social statuses and whatnot, but that's a different argument and that ultimately boils down to the fact that life isn't fair or equal. There's nothing we can do about that.
What we can do is fight the crimes against humanity that are happening right now. We can make life better for the people around us. We can help influence our small circle of impact, and hopefully make the world a better place in the process. Focusing on the evils of our ancestors won't get us anywhere (unless we're studying them to avoid making the same mistakes). But maybe we can fight the crimes that are going on right now so that our posterity won't have the same arguments about how we wronged them by not fighting the injustice that is now.
As someone from a third world country, I’m ambivalent about these “blame the white people” stories.
> They reveal a debt so large, and so lasting, that it would help cement Haiti’s path to poverty and underdevelopment. Haiti became the first and only country where the descendants of enslaved people paid the families of their former masters for generations.
> In 1825, France demanded five annual payments of 30 million francs. The amount was far beyond Haiti’s meager means. The first payment alone was about six times Haiti’s entire revenue that year, according to the prominent 19th-century Haitian historian Beaubrun Ardouin.
Germany took huge amounts of money from the US, Japan (the CIA were rigging elections in Japan until a few decades ago), South Korea...in the 1940s, 100% this argument was justifiable.
But after that point, particularly if you look at what happened in Central and South America, it is very clear that other explanations pre-dominate (and, not coincidentally, some of these places have been content to blame others all the way...Singapore was poorer than any country in Africa 60 years ago, had race riots worse than any place, they are now richer than most of Europe).
Also, I did my PG thesis on this specific issue: whether you think it is right or wrong, this is how sovereign debt crises were resolved at the time. Egypt, Ottomans...there were few other options that creditors had because most of these places weren't nation states in the way we perceive them today. So passing financial management over to creditors or hypothecating specific revenues (something not mentioned in the article, but which happened in Haiti) were the only way that people agreed to lend...and they lent, they provided financing for everything. The article doesn't invert their question (deliberately, I think we all know what the agenda is here...it relates to contemporary politics only): if the US and France didn't lend, how does Haiti industrialise? The population had no savings, do you think roads and hospitals just spring up for free out of nothing? The US, Germany (in part), Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea...they all industrialised using foreign capital.
Finally, I think forced labour was used in road construction in almost every country (certainly in the US). The implication today has to be that this was because of racism or some inherent desire for evil...it wasn't, it was because (once again) of the lack of reasonable alternatives.
> The comparison with other countries tends not to be made.
I find that problematic because it reduces the situation in these developing countries to a moral narrative with the ultimate purposes of embettering descendants of european countries. But these narratives don’t facilitate solutions. The French are not, for example, going to ever pay back the $20 billion or so in reparations they demanded from Haiti. Nor are the British going to pay back the $1 trillion+ they expropriated from India.
I’m much more interested in cross comparisons to industrial development to European countries. Bangladesh is currently industrializing using foreign capital. What parallels can be drawn to Germany or the US that would help keep that going? Because at the end of the day, the 6-7% annual GDP growth the country is currently enjoying is more significant to Bangladeshis than the combined effect of all the moral narratives ever penned about the country by the likes of the New York Times.
But that doesn’t top India’s recent preoccupation with being mad not about the 700 years of Muslim rule prior to British colonization…
http://cyberspacei.com/jesusi/authors/chomsky/year/y501_008....
Though I believe the poster was asking about the economy post independence.
After two centuries, one might start to think that the problem with Haiti is Haitians, were such a concept not wrongthink and therefore verboten.
Relevant Reddit post:
>TIL that Haiti has had 23 constitutions since 1801, with the most recent being enacted in 2012. At least two have declared the country to be an empire. <https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3t5wzt/til_t...>
Tldr - France and french banks forced haiti to pay reparations for having earned their freedoms for so long that 2.53 out of every 3 dollars they made for centuries went to “white people”. This led to a loss of 25 billion dollars conservatively or 200 if you’re being real.
The US just took over as the next colonial power.
Too often people take these articles and say "well I didn't do that" "what do I have to do with it" "that happened hundreds of years ago, there's a whole new set of people nowadays". It's not just the actions in the moment, but the fact that actions have an effect over time.
Take for example a country that loses a certain number of men in some battle many years ago. Well some of those men would have gone on to work on the land and have offspring, now no longer. Because of that, there was a hit to birth rates, and food production, which in turn affected nourishment country wide, and a smaller next generation adjusting for growth. Which later in turn affected GDP overall and other certain critical economic factors. The point is that actions don't happen in isolation, one might know this as the butterfly effect.
How does this implicate "the white man that lives in america"? Because of all of this plundering and horrid behavior done on foreign soil and because of the slavery that happened in this country, it was a large contributing factor to bringing us to where we are now. And in the same way that it contributed to our success, it detracted from those oppressed group's success. We now live in a world that whether we like it or not, is founded on these horrible truths, and whether we like it or not there are groups of people, countries even, that are worse off because of that, sometimes significantly so.
This is the foundation for conversations about reparations. What can we do now to balance the playing field, a field that we ourselves didn't throw out of balance, but that we are in the singular position to fix.
See also the efforts for years now that US govt officials have been pushing for the "recognition" of the "interim government" of Venezuela, who sits on large publicly-owned oil reserves.
That is the most crucial part, because you will have to repent and atone for those deeds, never them.
TL;DR - France and french banks forced haiti to pay reparations for having earned their freedoms for so long that 2.53 out of every 3 dollars they made for centuries went to “white people”. This led to a loss of 25 billion dollars conservatively or 200 billion if you’re being real.
The US just took over as the next colonial power. They even helped get rid of the only President in decades to have brought this whole thing up as an issue again.
Independence. Was that a trap for Haiti? Would they have been better off as a vassal state of France? Should they have just fought the French again? Is there a counterfactual that suggests what could have been done differently?
>Should they have just fought the French again?
Without the distraction of the French Revolution, I can't picture France losing that war. From the article, the US lost ~15 men in the 1915 war to ostensibly conquer the country, throughout most of the 19th century France likely could have won with similar ease. That's surely what the Haitians believed, as they only agreed to the indemnity due to gunboat diplomacy.
> Is there a counterfactual that suggests what could have been done differently?
The best counterfactual is the US, where the French acknowledged and supported us allowing a new nation to be built. Nobody gave Haiti support, save a couple thousand Polish soldiers.
At most, maybe without the 1804 massacre of the French the Haitians would have gotten somewhat better treatment. But as they were already given such poor treatment, I doubt it'd have vastly improved things.
Collectivism at its worst.
There is a direct causal through-line between those actions and some of the benefits you enjoy.
I’ll vote unequivocally against any reparations. It’s illogical, immoral and unjust.
I'm an immigrant too, and I am definitely benefitting. Not as much as some, but it would be closing my eyes to ignore how I benefit from past and present imperialism.
This is probably the most offensive thing you can say to anyone. It is so strange to see young generation of this place veering towards Autoritarian socialist nation. We've seen how that turns out (North vs South Korea, Cambodia, USSR, Cuba). Universities in the US is the hotbed for this non-sense.
Regarding reparations, Russia paying reparations after the war to Ukraine? Probably OK. Woke Russians 600 years later telling the new generation to feel guilty about what Putin did 6 centuries ago? NOT OK.
Immigrants are the probably the most American people in US it feels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4E9usD_4Fo
If you want to serve the country: build good communities, hold government accountable, make it efficient, engage in philantropy, join your local soup kitchen, be thankful for people that serve in the military and public services, serve if you can, run for public office and build good products/services that improve lives of people.
I'd argue that not supporting individualism is doing a disservice to the country. It is the reason why we have transistors and MRI machines, medicines and vaccines, iPhones and semiconductors, agriculture and roads (paid by taxes, 40% from large corporations). The impact of which is on an unprecedented scale compared to virtue signaling reparations.
This isn't to say this is any more than an ideal, but it is a mark worth aiming for, and when a country grants you citizenship it expects that you buy into this notion at least as an ideal. Yes, you can in effect buy citizenship in many places, but this is generally regarded as a shame and an embarrassment.
I am sure you would agree, given the definition, it is Un-American.
> when a country grants you citizenship it expects that you buy into this notion at least as an ideal
I hope this is not an accussation inclined towards my loathing of what's going on in this nation. If it is not, well said, if it is, then it is extremely condescending because any immigrant knows this better than anyone else. It is obvious and I live by it every single day. It makes me uneasy to hear this from someone, almost offensive and alienating.
Why are you sure? What definition of "American" are you referring to? Do you claim authority to state what are America's values?
It sounds like you insist that we obey the founding fathers' wishes about what constitutes the nation of the USA, grounded in some nebulous-if-real sense of "national identity and culture". Do you actually know what their positions are on matters of resource distribution, immigration, or healthy democracy?
What I find really sad is, that the same people who have ukraine flags and "putin bad" everywhere, ignore eg. US soldiers that were just sent to somalia, and a bunch of other us/nato missions, eg syria, libya, not to mention "allies", from saudis to israel.
I edited the wiki page of C.I.C bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Industriel_et_Comm... today after reading the part of NYTimes about French involvement in late 19th century before the Americans decided to join the party. More people should know that almost every big bank in the west has a very shady past.