Walmart Culture

[cantdog]

My point is, however, that the alternatives are worse only and precisely because the moderates in charge of the place and the US Marines and whatnot which back them up want to make it that way.

Third world conditions are not just deplorable, they are enforced. Cheap labor, the kind which will work a sixty-hour week for not enough to feed herself and her family? That kind of cheap labor is made, not born. Nobody would do it, as you so rightly say, unless it was the alternative to death.

 

[BlackShanglan]

My point is, however, that the alternatives are worse only and precisely because the moderates in charge of the place and the US Marines and whatnot which back them up want to make it that way.

Third world conditions are not just deplorable, they are enforced. Cheap labor, the kind which will work a sixty-hour week for not enough to feed herself and her family? That kind of cheap labor is made, not born. Nobody would do it, as you so rightly say, unless it was the alternative to death.

Agreed. But I would argue that the real problem here, as in most countries where the populace is being wholesale exploited, is a lack of any governing force that gives a damn about the people.

As for Haiti ... hmmm. Parents were there before Baby Doc went down. They have a photo they took in the market of someone selling rice. It was coming out of a big bag stamped "Gift of the American people. Not to be sold." on the side.

 

[cantdog]

Yes, they don't give much of a damn about the people. But they couldn't if they wanted to. It's been tried. Lavalas was a grassroots popular effort to displace "Duvalierism san Duvalier" and it required incredible courage.

But it's over now, and the thugs are going about the country killing suspected Lavalas supporters outright. The US soldiery put him on a plane and sent him off. They had to, because Caracas was threatening to intervene under the OAS charter.

Duvalier didn't want to correct any of the conditions I describe, so we supported him.

The observation that the governing forces don't care leaves open the question, why is that, exactly?

And it is because the exploiting forces use goons. And when the people revolt anyway, the exploiting forces call for the marines. That's why.