Haiti (Catch all)

[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

[Backwards Observer]

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.

Someone should have told them... parliamentary democracy just doesn't work.

[marct]

Someone should have told them... parliamentary democracy just doesn't work.

Naw, it works fine . The "problem" with applying it is that Voodoo has way too many paparazzi "spirits"

[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."

[Beelzebubalicious]

Here's one person's take-away from that op-ed:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/20...-by-awful.html

[Stan]

Here's one person's take-away from that op-ed:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/20...-by-awful.html

Hey Eric,
Seems the link to Reuters is more to the point without the voodoo sierra. Sounds abysmal but then sounds much like Africa with overwhelming logistics and looting. Should have been someone coordinating the relief effort before friends starting flying in from all over

"The sad truth is that no one is in charge of Haiti today. This vacuum, coupled with the robust response from the Obama administration, has inevitably created a situation where the U.S. will be the de facto decision-maker in Haiti."

Pickup trucks stacked high with bodies could be seen making their way through traffic-clogged streets on Thursday morning, on their way to drop off the dead at the morgue attached to Hospital General, the city's main health facility.

But Guy LaRoche, the hospital's director, said it was already filled to overflowing with more than 1,500 rapidly decomposing bodies. Many had been left lying out in the sun. LaRoche said he had had no contact with any government officials to see what to do with them.

[Tom Kratman]

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

Unless, of course, those preformed beliefs are true and the postulated 'anything' is simply incompatable with the truth.

[tequila]

After all, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

[Tom Kratman]

After all, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

Well, if it's WaPo or NYT, I'm disinclined to believe anything reported that has even a scintilla of political impact unless the information was gained from both editors and both reporters, each isolated from all the others, and under torture until the stories matched.

[marct]

Unless, of course, those preformed beliefs are true and the postulated 'anything' is simply incompatable with the truth.

That, of course, assumes that any human can know "truth" . Do we really want to open up that can of epistemological worms?

[Tom Kratman]

That, of course, assumes that any human can know "truth" . Do we really want to open up that can of epistemological worms?

Those worms strike me as being very artificial, Marc, the constructs of people who desperately want there to be no truth, so that they can substitute their own. "War is Peace." "Freedom is Slavery." "Ignorance is Strength."

Conversely: I am truly here, even if no one can see it. I am smoking a real cigarette and flicking the ash into a solid ashtray. And Haiti is hopeless.

[marct]

Hi Tom,

Those worms strike me as being very artificial, Marc, the constructs of people who desperately want there to be no truth, so that they can substitute their own. "War is Peace." "Freedom is Slavery." "Ignorance is Strength."

As a note, I may end up moving this to another forum, but we'll see where it goes.....

Okay, couple of points. First, yeah, the worms are artificial, as are all human concepts. If you notice the way I phrased my comment - "...that any human can know "truth"" (emphasis added) - it was aimed in a very particular manner based on, yes, artificial constructions . If I wanted to be really technical about it, I would have written "know and intelligeably communicate", but "know" is the short hand reference.

Second, the examples you give are ones that are part and parcel of manipulating a communicative system - playing word games if you will. What they really underscore is two things: the map ain't the territory and the inherent paradoxical nature of abstraction. Basically, they highlight one of the quintessential problems with all human systems of communication, which is that we build these systems using fuzzy sets since it is actually impossible (or has been to date), to build an exact, non-fuzzy, symbol system that accurately reflects our experiences in reality and allows us to precisely communicate them to others. The closest that we have come to such systems are the various dialects of mathematics but, in order to actually get decent representations, we have had to invent dialects such as fuzzy set theory, chaos mechanics, quantum indeterminacy, catastrophe theory, etc.

Okay, so back to this union of opposites type of manipulation: this is a very common manipulation of symbols based on the nature of the symbol systems. The "paradoxical nature of abstraction" really comes about as a result of us, as a species, taking some perception and abstracting it. Since our sensory perceptions are based on ratios and perceived oppositions, we tend to abstract along supposed scales or lines that we then proceed to "name".

To add insult to injury, we then add in the pernicious influence of Plato, specifically his concept of Ideal Types. We take a "name" and abstract it (that's twice now!) from it's already abstracted and constructed line or scale, and treat it as if it were "real", a thing in and of itself. This process, reification, shows up all over the place for one simple reason: it makes communication, knowledge and action simpler. But remember, we are dealing with an abstraction of an abstraction as if it were a thing in and of itself, which "it" isn't (BTW, notice how it is really tricky to use English to talk about this; "it"? That implies existence...).

Conversely: I am truly here, even if no one can see it. I am smoking a real cigarette and flicking the ash into a solid ashtray. And Haiti is hopeless.

If a man smokes by himself, is he really smoking?

Silly paraphrases aside, you are taking one of the few positions that I can see that has any real worth - very Baconian of you . Notice how you built this phrase - "I am smoking a real cigarette". Okay, you're smoking a cigarette (so am I BTW). "Cigarette" is a class word, and while adding the modifier "real" to it let's me drop out such sillyness as herb cigarettes, it doesn't really tell me much more than you are smoking some type of an object that falls into the general parameters of the set "cigarette". I have to make certain additional assumption that may, or may not be warranted. For example, since you are American and living in the US, you are probably not smoking an Indian Beedi and I doubt you are smoking either Turkish cigarettes or Sobranies, so I will make an assumption that your cigarette is white (or a vaguely related colour). I have no idea if it has a filter, how long it may be (beyond a range guesstimate), or it is menthol or some other flavour of tobacco. I also have no idea of what additives may be in it.

So, you may have empirically experiences a "truth", but by the time you come to communicate it, much of the quality of that experience is either lost or incommunicable. And that's for something as simple as smoking a cigarette!

But, you know, cigarettes are really good examples to use. When we say that we "smoked a cigarette", we can communicate a representation of the truth of that experience in a satisficing manner; basically, it's good enough to work, even though the "truth" of the experience cannot be communicated in its fullness.

Gregory Bateson, one of my "heroes", had a definition of information that fits here: "information is difference that makes a difference" (A Sacred Unity, page 309; originally written for a lecture on October 28, 1979). NB: this is the exact quote; it is often misquoted as "information is a difference that makes a difference". So, whether or not your cigarette is white, filtered and menthol is, for our purposes, difference that doesn't make a difference, at least as far as both of our original purposes of communication were concerned. However, it we are talking about "truth" as in the "truth" of an experience, then those differences might make a difference. Can the absence of data make a difference?

Yup, and the very absence of data on your experience of smoking that cigarette may be relevant. For example, it might be part of your normal experience of smoking to burn your fingers towards the end of the cigarette, causing you exasperation and a flash of anger. If that is normal for you, it is a difference that makes no difference to you, but would to me since it isn't my "normal". Maybe you only smoke cigarettes when you are writing and, in your mind, part of the normal truth of smoking is conveying ideas in short, pithy sentences. Maybe you are one of those people who only smokes when you are drinking (hey, I've know a few).

Feeling like I'm leading you down some academic, fuzzy headed semantic game? In some ways, I am, but there is a distinct purpose to it, which comes directly out of the last part of your comment - "And Haiti is hopeless". Basically, you are judging Haiti based on what you consider to be "normal", establishing you scale or line with, I would guess, the US (or an idealization of it) at one end and your perceptions of Haiti at the other. Nothing surprising about that; the process, if not the content, seems to be hardwired into our brains. We just need to be aware that it is not an absolute "Truth", merely a situated "truth" that may or may not be shared by someone in a different position.

Remember that discussion of the problem of amoral familiarism and the state in the H&MP context in Carnifex? There are a couple of points I've raised that play directly into that. First, you have to work with what you have, not idealizations - I think you noted that that was one of Marx's faults (amongst many). So, constructing models, which is what H&MP is about, leads to the interesting problem of how can you incorporate situated truth into a system such that it supports the desired end goal (much in the same manner as allowing some degree of "free enterprise" [ not that we've ever had it! ] into a system uses our instinctual resource acquisitiveness - aka greed - to bolster a system).

Second, you have to have a symbol system - an ideology, religion, mental discipline or whatever - that encourages a balance between certainty ("situated truth") and uncertainty (a quest for absolute Truth). This, BTW, is a crucial falure in most modern, Western cultures.

Third, and finally, you (generic - I'm preaching right now ) have to be able to step into other people's "minds", regardless of their culture or social position at least to the extent of being able to establish some form of commonality of interpretation of experience so that you can actually communicate with them (technically, it's called verstehen or empathic understanding).

One last point before I end this post. All to often inside academia, this third point is interpreted as you have to "feel their pain" and "stand with them against oppression". That is one possible result of attempting to establish verstehen, and some element of it is probably inevitable. That said, it is also a warm and fuzzy fantasy that too many of my colleagues have fallen in to since they fail to actually judge what they "understand"; the don't exercise "critical thinking" since they forget that the word "critical" comes from two Greek roots: "kriticos" (discerning judgement) and "kriterion" (standards). They apply what I consider to be a flawed judgement based on incorrect standards by assuming that understanding (verstehen) equates with agreement.

That is a round about way of saying that sometimes the only way to effectively establish communication with someone is to eliminate them from the conversation; a point well known by many of those same PC colleagues - they just use exclusionary hiring practices rather than bullets.