Thursday, May 13, 2004

Presidential Auction 2004

Perhaps the only thing more depressing about Haiti than the still-unconsolidated coup there is the refusal of the US press to even investigate the circumstances of it. I mean, said investigation would require more effort than walking a dog but less effort than mating a hamper full of socks. Google search “Haiti coup,” and you’ll get about a million hits. And I know a few journalists. They are driven, ambitious work-aholics. So laziness cannot account for their abject failure to represent this as a coup d’etat, which it clearly is, engineered by the United States government, which it just as clearly is. If it’s not laziness, then it’s either complicity with the government or plain, racist apathy – or a combination of both.

But I’m taking up the pen today not merely to lament what we all know, that the white, male capitalist press represents, well… white, male capitalists. I’m going to suggest an action, aimed not at the white, state-corporate perception managers of the press, but at a rich white man who is a candidate for President of the United States, and who cannot possibly hope to win that position without the support of the majority of the nation’s politically engaged African Americans.


I saw Louis Farrakhan speaking at the National Press Club recently on CNN. He was telling his black audience to hold Kerry's feet to the fire as well. But on another issue: reparations.

It doesn't look like the black community has much of a choice in November. Nor the leftist community. Nor the progressive community. Nor the green community. Nor...

At any rate, read the rest of Stan Goff's article in the May 6 issue of The Black Commentator. Mr. Goff has written some very fine anti-war articles, and I have referred to his writings a few times in past posts. He participated as a U.S. soldier in the 1994 invasion of Haiti (What invasion?), and in this article offers some historical background to the current U.S.-led coup.

"...white supremacy is not an aberration held within it, but part of the genetic code of capitalism."

"The reason this story is important to Haiti is that all the main actors from the Iran-Contra-Cocaine adventure are behind the current coup in Haiti."

Read a little of Goff's book Hideous Dream about his military service in the Haiti invasion here.

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