Haiti (Catch all)

[marct]

Hi Tom,

No definition for such a complex matter could hope to be both comprehensible and perfect..... They're not perfect descriptors, but they're close while being simple enough to comprehend and explain. There's also the factor that, whatever up down variance there may be, the existence of "the other" tends to organize people along one or another end of the line.

Actually, you've hit the nail on the head as to one of the main reasons I reject the line or spectrum model; the polarizing effect it has. That polarizing effect, at least in my experience, all too often serves to stifle debate and exert an if-then influence that just serves to make people less thinking and less accountable.

I mean Viet Cong in the "Worm in the wood" sense; the dissenters from left wing, political anthropology, who undermine it from inside the beast.

Ah, you mean like insurgent . yup; I'm just not a populist insurgent.

I was pulling Eric Flint's leg one time, by claiming to be a libertarian fascist. He denied this, insisting I was an anarcho-nationalist. He had a point.

Yup, I can see that. It certainly does come through in your writing ....

Are you sure they'd be irrelevant if, say, the cultural expectations of those they claim to rule include, "if we do not obey, we will be tortured and killed, our wives and daughters raped, then sold as slaves...." presupposing the cabal has the means of doing that, of course?

Well, let's put it this way - if those are the cultural expectations on the ground, then if they don't do it or don't threaten it at least enough for people to believe they can (and will) do it, then they are are irrelevant since some other cabal will come along and say "Look, a real ruler would kill and torture you, but these slobs can't even do that. They're not strong enough to be real rulers; they are sell outs - namby-pamby LIBERALS!!!! - who we have to get rid of for our own good otherwise they will all have us hugging trees, thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts until we all just lie back and spend our days watching reruns of Baywatch! This has to stop! we need to return to the values of our Founding Fathers and restore our greatness as a people!"

So, yeah, under those conditions, the international "facts" are pretty irrelevant....

Factual may come from factus, and coupled with manu turn into manufacture. What it means now, though, is "real" or "true." You're right, however, that both sovereignty and legitimacy have, in public discourse, become terms fuzzy to the point of near uselessness. It isn't entirely, though, that the words have lost their meaning as that they've been deliberately prostituted to serve anti-sovereignty ends.

Agreed on all counts, although I would have added "convenient" to the list. Then again, I don't accept New Speak from my students (or colleagues), so I see no need to pander to the linguistic deficiencies of anyone else. 'sides that, I can be a linguistic SOB and use it to quickly separate people out into those who can think and those who just spout party lines <damn, there ain't an "evil grin" smiley!!!!>.

Seriously, though, just because popular usage of a word shifts, and English is actually one of the worst languages for that, it still retains older implications which usually give away people's agendas.

[Tom Kratman]

(From Marct;92264)Hi Tom,

Actually, you've hit the nail on the head as to one of the main reasons I reject the line or spectrum model; the polarizing effect it has. That polarizing effect, at least in my experience, all too often serves to stifle debate and exert an if-then influence that just serves to make people less thinking and less accountable.

Well...if you mean there's an element of self-fulfilling prophecy to the thing, sure, okay. On the other hand, if you get rid of it someone (me, say) will just come along and reinvent the concept.

Ah, you mean like insurgent . yup; I'm just not a populist insurgent.

There have been right wing guerillas, too, here and there. Until I was effectively barred from speaking to foreigners, I held that job at the PKSOI.

Yup, I can see that. It certainly does come through in your writing ....

Well, let's put it this way - if those are the cultural expectations on the ground, then if they don't do it or don't threaten it at least enough for people to believe they can (and will) do it, then they are are irrelevant since some other cabal will come along and say "Look, a real ruler would kill and torture you, but these slobs can't even do that. They're not strong enough to be real rulers; they are sell outs - namby-pamby LIBERALS!!!! - who we have to get rid of for our own good otherwise they will all have us hugging trees, thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts until we all just lie back and spend our days watching reruns of Baywatch! This has to stop! we need to return to the values of our Founding Fathers and restore our greatness as a people!"

So, yeah, under those conditions, the international "facts" are pretty irrelevant....

Agreed on all counts, although I would have added "convenient" to the list. Then again, I don't accept New Speak from my students (or colleagues), so I see no need to pander to the linguistic deficiencies of anyone else. 'sides that, I can be a linguistic SOB and use it to quickly separate people out into those who can think and those who just spout party lines <damn, there ain't an "evil grin" smiley!!!!>.

Seriously, though, just because popular usage of a word shifts, and English is actually one of the worst languages for that, it still retains older implications which usually give away people's agendas.

Someone, James Nichol, maybe, wrote something to the effect that English doesn't 'borrow' from foreign languages; it follows them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and then goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary. It has unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry. And it is a Corcyrean Rebellion on the hoof. ("First, words had to lose their meanings...") And there is virtually no other major language in which gender-neutral speech (Gag!) is so easy.

[marct]

Hi Tom,

Well...if you mean there's an element of self-fulfilling prophecy to the thing, sure, okay. On the other hand, if you get rid of it someone (me, say) will just come along and reinvent the concept.

Probably inevitable; at least if you buy into Levy Strauss (Anthropology, not jeans ). Still, I'd rather fight against the self-fulfilling prophecy trend, at least as much as possible.

Ah, you mean like insurgent. yup; I'm just not a populist insurgent.

There have been right wing guerillas, too, here and there. Until I was effectively barred from speaking to foreigners, I held that job at the PKSOI.

LOL - I remember once asking a friend what my security jacket said. his response was that it said "Known subversive, but we don't know what type!". Along the same lines (hey, all anthropologists are story-tellers), I remember spending a couple of hours chatting with Montgomery McFate over cocktails. Part of the chat, inevitably, moved into politics and I told her I was a "right wing conservative". I then had to take about 20 minutes to explain that that meant something totally different from her expectations.

Honestly, a large part of the reason why I reject the right-left binary opposition model comes down not only to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, and that's a pretty bad one (if we ever get together for a few pints I'll tell you some stories...) but, also, to the implicit metaphysics behind the entire model. That would probably lead us into a really strange turn of discussion...

Someone, James Nichol, maybe, wrote something to the effect that English doesn't 'borrow' from foreign languages; it follows them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and then goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary. It has unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry. And it is a Corcyrean Rebellion on the hoof. ("First, words had to lose their meanings...") And there is virtually no other major language in which gender-neutral speech (Gag!) is so easy.

LOL. Back when i was teaching Intro to Anth, I used to describe English as a polymorphously erotic language that would roll anyone for anything .

Actually, I happen to really like English as a language - as you say, "unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry". I have no problems with it mugging other languages for words or just making them up because they are cool and "fit" the concept. At the same time, I get truly pissed with people who treat English as if it was a nickle and dime, statue of Venus hooker and don't realize that they have picked up intellectual clap from their activities (hey, I've had to read a LOT of first year papers.... !).

So, let's get back to that lovely word "sovereignty" for a bit. Remember the infamous, and eponymous, phrase "Let them eat cake" from the French revolution? It plays back into the comments I was making about cultural expectations. In the West, as Machiavelli so astutely noted, our sovereigns are first amongst equals. Other cultures have other models like the God King model so beloved of the Middle east (and didn't Gilgamesh have to go through all sorts of hoops to get THAT established! Three parents?!?!?!).

But there is always a "contract" of some form built in; a "balance of terror" if you will, that seems to go back to well before we had writing and, possibly, to before horticulture (no, not Hobbes, this is from Sahlins Stone Age Economics ). We (as a species) would, I suggest, tend to reify our "contracted wills", for want of a better term, onto something - a deity, a clan, a monarch, a concept, etc.. These reifications, in turn, are the focus (not source) of "sovereignty" and, as long as they follow the cultural rules for reification, including the inevitable changes that happen over time, they are "legitimate" in that culture. If they get too far out of touch with the culture, they will inevitably loose legitimacy and, probably, their lives.

[Tom Kratman]

Hi Tom,



Probably inevitable; at least if you buy into Levy Strauss (Anthropology, not jeans ). Still, I'd rather fight against the self-fulfilling prophecy trend, at least as much as possible.



LOL - I remember once asking a friend what my security jacket said. his response was that it said "Known subversive, but we don't know what type!". Along the same lines (hey, all anthropologists are story-tellers), I remember spending a couple of hours chatting with Montgomery McFate over cocktails. Part of the chat, inevitably, moved into politics and I told her I was a "right wing conservative". I then had to take about 20 minutes to explain that that meant something totally different from her expectations.

Honestly, a large part of the reason why I reject the right-left binary opposition model comes down not only to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, and that's a pretty bad one (if we ever get together for a few pints I'll tell you some stories...) but, also, to the implicit metaphysics behind the entire model. That would probably lead us into a really strange turn of discussion...



LOL. Back when i was teaching Intro to Anth, I used to describe English as a polymorphously erotic language that would roll anyone for anything .

Actually, I happen to really like English as a language - as you say, "unequaled vocabulary, subtlety, scope, and poetry". I have no problems with it mugging other languages for words or just making them up because they are cool and "fit" the concept. At the same time, I get truly pissed with people who treat English as if it was a nickle and dime, statue of Venus hooker and don't realize that they have picked up intellectual clap from their activities (hey, I've had to read a LOT of first year papers.... !).

So, let's get back to that lovely word "sovereignty" for a bit. Remember the infamous, and eponymous, phrase "Let them eat cake" from the French revolution? It plays back into the comments I was making about cultural expectations. In the West, as Machiavelli so astutely noted, our sovereigns are first amongst equals. Other cultures have other models like the God King model so beloved of the Middle east (and didn't Gilgamesh have to go through all sorts of hoops to get THAT established! Three parents?!?!?!).

But there is always a "contract" of some form built in; a "balance of terror" if you will, that seems to go back to well before we had writing and, possibly, to before horticulture (no, not Hobbes, this is from Sahlins Stone Age Economics ). We (as a species) would, I suggest, tend to reify our "contracted wills", for want of a better term, onto something - a deity, a clan, a monarch, a concept, etc.. These reifications, in turn, are the focus (not source) of "sovereignty" and, as long as they follow the cultural rules for reification, including the inevitable changes that happen over time, they are "legitimate" in that culture. If they get too far out of touch with the culture, they will inevitably loose legitimacy and, probably, their lives.

Neologisms...Ah hates me some neologisms. Sometime remind me to discuss the crime of linguistic matricide, the calculated, premeditated murder of one's mother tongue.

I'm reasonably equipped to at least discuss the legal and practical aspects of sovereignty. The cultural aspects are outside my skill set, sadly. That said, that sounds about right.

Let me posit something. The key philosophical question is and always has been "What is the nature of man," generally meaning, "Is he perfectable, or at least improvable, by breeding (nature), training (nurture), or none of the above?" Few people think about the question, of course, but nearly everybody _feels_ about it.

Now consider the whole smorgasbord of things we (at least when we're not tilting at windmills) think of as liberal/left wing. How many are driven by the usually unreasoning assumption that man is malleable by training/education/environment? Maybe the better question isn't how many are, but how few are not. Many? Any? Think Lenin's 'New Soviet Man.' Think the original draft of the Port Huron Statement ("man is infinitely perfectable'). Think rehabilitation / psychological-psychiatric treatment (as opposed to punishment) for criminal behavior. Think about the psychological scars on those poor, spanked children! Think about - horror of horrors! - the IQ/Academic Potential testing that expressly refutes this...and how much the left hates that testing and classification. Don't forget to include in there the intellectual sleight of hand, popular these last couple of decades, that man is already naturally perfect and good, and only our badwickedevilnaughtybadbadbad society turns him from that - yes, that's just another way of saying man is completely malleable, through non-genetic means.

On the other side is the notion that man is perfectable only by breeding. Beyond the Nazis (and, yes, I'm aware of the argument that they were a left wing movement. I don't buy it; similar behavior can arise out of apparently diverging goals, when there's a higher goal - perfection); these seem rare. Still, they exist and have existed, openly or tacitly.

I suspect that those are the two far points that define the line or spectrum, which is why - whether I were to go and reinvent the concept or not - I still think the left-right spectrum would continue to exist as an effective, albeit imperfect, model.

[Rex Brynen]

An interesting piece in today's WaPo. I've also heard less positive appraisals of the HNP, but those came from Cité Soleil, where the HNP barely penetrated before the earthquake. Still, it does all suggest that SSR was having some effect in the country.

In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti

By William Booth
Washington Post
Saturday, January 30, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- In the hours and days after the city crumbled and the enfeebled government of Haiti disappeared from public view, a remarkable thing happened here: The police showed up for work.

A force previously dominated by thugs has transformed itself, according to international advisers, U.N. police officers and Haitians. In Port-au-Prince today, there is something almost heroic about an officer trying to direct traffic on Grand Rue Dessalines.

...

Foreign diplomats with long histories in Haiti confess near-amazement that the police did not fold. A decade ago, during cycles of hurricanes and coups, it would have been the police careening through the city in trucks stuffed with stolen electronics.

"In the old days, you ran away from the Haitian police, you didn't run toward them. They were the bad guys," said Richard Warren, the U.N. deputy police commissioner in charge of helping the Haitian National Police. "That has changed, and you can see the change with your own eyes."

Haitian police officers are directing traffic at crazy intersections -- and most vehicles actually stop. When drivers ignore them, the police seize their licenses on the spot. The police escort water trucks into desperately thirsty neighborhoods and keep order, which the U.N. forces have not managed to do with food deliveries.

The Haitian police guarded banks, gas stations and cash delivery outlets such as Western Union when they reopened this week.

...

According to the Haitian National Police, there were about 2,500 officers in Port-au-Prince before the earthquake. At least 66 died and 50 were seriously injured in the quake, according to Haitian authorities. The police chief said 491 officers are still unaccounted for -- they could be AWOL or dead; he is not sure.

"The foreigners need to understand the earthquake did the same thing to the police it did to the population," said Antoine Franck, an officer on duty at the Champ du Mars park. "My house fell down. I lost everything. Everyone's house fell down. My dear brother's house fell down, and he is dead under there. Every policeman has dead family."

Neither Haiti's president nor prime minister has yet addressed the public. For all the talk by the U.S. Embassy and U.N. officials about operating under the command of Haitian authorities, the government is barely functioning.

"At this point, the Haitian National Police are the only real government institution that the people on the street can see," said Jean-Pierre Esnault, a U.N. official who is working on issues of law and order.

The chief of police, Mario Andresol, is operating out of the former SWAT compound near the international airport. His office is a conference table under a tree where goats wander. Andresol considers himself a swashbuckling man of the people and he understands the value of good PR. He compared himself to an actor in an action movie.

"I like to ride my motorcycle and talk to the people, to show them I was one of you and I am still one of you," he said. "In the old days, the chief is the one who sits in the big chair and acts like the big man with the dark sunglasses. I want the people to see it is not like that anymore. . . . I want the kids to say they want to be a cop when they grow up."

Just a few years ago, Andresol said, "Twenty-five percent of the police were corrupt, and they were responsible for 65 percent of the crime in the country. Now we're making some progress."

[Tom Kratman]

An interesting piece in today's WaPo. I've also heard less positive appraisals of the HNP, but those came from Cité Soleil, where the HNP barely penetrated before the earthquake. Still, it does all suggest that SSR was having some effect in the country.

In a turnabout, police are the good guys in post-quake Haiti

By William Booth
Washington Post
Saturday, January 30, 2010

I am reminded of the saying, "Anything that sounds too good to be true, isn't."

[Beelzebubalicious]

This one in the WSJ. Hmmm...I couldn't/didn't read the rest of it so I'm curious to know if anyone did and what the take-aways are.

Haiti has received billions of dollars in foreign aid over the last 50 years, and yet it remains the least developed country in the Western Hemisphere. Its indicators of progress are closer to Africa's than to those of Latin America. It has defied all development prescriptions.

Why? Because Haiti's culture is powerfully influenced by its religion, voodoo. Voodoo is one of numerous spirit-based religions common to Africa. It is without ethical content. Its followers believe that their destinies are controlled by hundreds of capricious spirits who must be propitiated through voodoo ceremonies. It is a species of the sorcery religions.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_Most_Popular

[tequila]

I am reminded of the saying, "Anything that sounds too good to be true, isn't."

Beware its corollary: "anything that does not conform to my preformed beliefs, I reject."