the passion of the aristide

[phamos]

just wanted to say upfront that i know precious little about haiti. but i'm getting kind of upset at how people on the left are painting the situation in strokes just as broad as those in the major media. "the US staged a coup to remove a democratically elected leader!" well, ok. but from my understanding, the US "democratically" put him in power in the first place, and he proceeded to "democratically" fix all future elections. aristide is not a good guy. these thugs who were demanding a voice in the government? they used to be aristide's thugs. he used them to intimidate political foes and pretty much violently hold up his regime. then there was some kind of falling out and they turned on him (notice maggie's very limited detail). neither side is right. both are bad. no need for the left to respond to overgeneralized representations of the facts with their own blanket statements. just because the US removed aristide from power doesn't mean we should all hold aristide up as some kind of champion of the people.

why does recognizing that there are two sides to every issue suddenly make me a moderate? i don't think the one logically proceeds from the other.

oh, and re: my subject line? if i never hear another word about mel gibson and the stupid passion of the christ, i will die happy. shut up, people! we get it: it's controversial and successful and violent! oh my! now SHUT IT.

Comments

Haiti is on Tavis Smiley like every day

[aspara.livejournal.com]

So Tavis seems to go on about Haiti every single day, and maybe I'm just a dumbass, but why is Haiti a black issue? I don't get it. Are haitians especially black, african, or ex-slave? I guess they're probably african...that whole voodoo thing, right? But Tavis sure seems to talk about this Haiti business a lot more than he does about africa, and the black democratic caucus is making quite the huff, too.

Maybe I just don't understand why guerrillas ousting a two-bit dictator is of any particular interest to anybody. Especially black americans, who have a pretty big job already just looking out for themselves.

Re: Haiti is on Tavis Smiley like every day

[phamos818.livejournal.com]

i kinda wonder why there's such an outcry about this and you never hear about liberia anymore. when we ousted chuck taylor over there, did everything get magically better? maybe the same thing will happen in haiti! yay, lack of followthrough!