We're good at it. And it's a good thing. Because we're not much good at anything else! We can't make a decent car anymore. Can't make a VCR or a TV worth a fuck. Got no steel industry left. Can't provide decent health care for our old people. Can't educate our young. But, we can bomb the hell out of your country alright! Especially, if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that. That's our hobby That's our new job in the world - bombing brown people!

      Iraq, Panama, Greneda, Lybia - you got some brown people in your country? Tell them to watch out! Or we'll god damn bomb them. Who were the last white people you can remember that we bombed? The Germans. They're the only ones. And that's because they wanted to cut in on our action - dominating the world. Bullshit! That's our fucking job!" - George Carlin

     The economic disparity created by our system in the United States is 
but a microcosm of that which has been created throughout the world.  Under 
the capitalistic structure, rich countries are encouraged to exploit poorer 
and weaker countries.  President Eisenhower, one of our few exceptionally 
candid presidents, when asked why he thought we were involved in Viet Nam, 
replied: "I believe it has to do with the tin and the tungsten!"

     Since the inception of the industrial age there has been a large gap  
in wealth possessed between the rich and the poor countries.  This 
disparity shows no sign of diminishing to this date.   It certainly may be 
argued that great material and technological progress has occurred under 
the prevalence of the perhaps misnomered free-enterprise system.  Yet, 
economic parity appears to be the victim.  This, at a time now when parity 
is becoming ever-increasingly essential to the survival of the  human 
species!

     The wealthy industrialized societies have at their disposal many means 
of maintaining their advantages.  Military might, bribery, economic 
embargoes, trade tariffs, espionage, sabotage, assassinations, propaganda, 
even religion, are tools enhanced by wealth, which have throughout the past 
and into the present, enabled the rich and powerful nations to plunder the 
resources of impoverished, but mineral rich countries.  The Gulf War is a 
prime example of the use of military superiority used to maintain the 
mineral exploitation which has existed in the Near East for the last 
seventy years (refer to section on the Gulf War).  As well, highly visible 
in this case were the elements of bribery, embargoes, and propaganda.

     The Spanish, of course, used religion, as well as might, to subjugate 
and plunder the South American continent in the past.  However, for the 
last century it has been mainly the good old U.S.A. which has taken the 
lead in suppressing the efforts of indigenous peoples of that continent to 
gain control of their own resources.  In keeping  with U.S. policy of 
installing and maintaining puppet dictators who take bribes and offer 
sweetheart deals to northern industrialists.  The  dictators pad the 
pockets of themselves, the military and the surrounding oligarchies, while 
the majority remain in poverty and fear.

    Author Gore Vidal (The Nation, June 5, '95) credits his stay in 
Guatamala during his early twenties with providing the enlightenment which 
initiated the  transformation of his political philosophy from conservative 
to liberal.  Vidal relates a prophetic conversation he had in the late 
forties with a man named Mario Monteforte Toledo, then President of the 
Guatemalan Congress, during the days when Guatamala was a bonafide 
democratic republic. The experience, incidentally, led to one of Vidal's 
first novels, "Dark Green, Bright Red".

     Here is Gore Vidal's account: "After a ritual denunciation of the rich 
and indifferent, Mario started to talk politics, 'We may not last much 
longer,'  "We ...who?"

     "Our government.  At some point we're going to have to raise revenue.  
The only place where there is any money to be raised is 'el pulpo".  El 
pulpo meant the Octopus, also known as the United Fruit Company, whose 
annual revenues were twice that of the Guatemalan state.  Recently workers 
had gone on strike; selfishly, they had wanted to be paid $1.50 a day for 
their interesting work.
     "What's going to stop you from taxing them?"  I was naive.  This was 
long ago, and the United States had just become the Leader of the Lucky 
Free World.
     "Your government.  Who else?  They kept Ubico in power all those 
years.  Now they're getting ready to replace us."

     I was astonished. I had known vaguely about our numerous past 
interventions in Central America.  But that was in the past.  Why should 
we bother now?  We controlled the world.  Why should we care what happens 
in a small country like this?"

     Mario gave me a compassionate look--compassion for my stupidity.  
"Businessmen.  Like the owners of United Fruit.  They care.  They used to 
pay for our politicians.  They still pay for yours.  Why, one of your big 
senators is on the board of El pulpo."

     I knew something about senators.  Which one?  Mario was vague.  "He 
has three names.  He's from Boston, I think..."

     "Henry Cabot Lodge?  I don't believe it."  Lodge was a family friend;
as a boy I had discussed poetry with him--he was a poet's son.

     As we drank beer and the light faded, Mario described the trap that a 
small country like Guatamala was in.  I can't say that I took him seriously.
With all the world, except the satanic Soviet Union, under our control it 
was hardly in our national interest to overthrow a democratic neighbor, no 
matter how much it's government irritated the board of directors of United 
Fruit.  But in those days I was not aware to what extent big business 
controlled the government of our own rapidly expiring republic. Now, of 
course, everyone knows to what extent our subsequent empire, with it's 
militarized economy, controls business  The end result is much the same for 
the rest of the world, only the killing fields are more vast than before 
and we make mischief not just with weak neighbors, but on every continent."

     A few years following his conversation with Mario Toledo, Vidal 
relates, " Senator Lodge denounced Arbenz (Popularly elected Guatemalan 
President), as a communist because, in June 1952, Ar,valo (Arbenz's 
predecessor) had ordered the expropriation of some of United Fruit's unused 
land, which he gave to 100,000 Guatemalan families.  Ar,valo paid the 
company what he thought was a fair price; one based on the United Fruit 
Company's own evaluation of the land for tax purposes.  The American Empire
went into action, and through the C.I.A., it put together an army and 
bombed Guatamala City. Arbenz resigned.  U.S. Ambassador John Peurifoy 
wanted the Guatemalan Army's chief of staff to become president, and gave 
him a list of "communists" to be shot.  The chief of staff declined: "It 
would be better," he said, "that you actually sit on the presidential 
chair, and that the Stars and Stripes fly over the palace."

     Peurifoy picked another military man to represent the interests of 
company and empire.  Since then, Guatamala has been a slaughterground."

     More recently U.S. lawyer, Jennifer Harbury has managed to gain the 
public eye.  She was "outraged" to learn that the C.I.A. payroll included 
Guatemalan military officers implicated in the 1990 assassination of U.S. 
citizen Michael Devine and the 1992 torture-murder of Efrain Bamaca, her 
own husband.  She learned that Col. Alpirez, the officer responsible for 
the Devine and Bamaca killings, participated in two officer training 
programs at the U.S. School of the Americas.  She has to live with the 
knowledge that American tax dollars contributed to the killing of her  
husband - yours, mine, and her own!

     Upon investigation, Jennifer came to the conclusion that "What we 
know about the C.I.A. involvement in Guatamala, represents only the tip of 
the iceberg." In the past 40 years, nearly 50,000 Guatemalans have been 
"disappeared;" more than 150,000 civilians killed; and over 440 indigenous 
villages have been completely destroyed by army violence.

     Michael Willis, National Coordinator for NISGUA (Network in Solidarity 
with the People of Guatemala) reports that "At this very moment (June, '95) 
the United States continues assisting the Guatemalan army with training, 
funding, and weapons sales programs.  Army Reserve and National Guard 
troops are working "shoulder to shoulder" with the Guatemalan army in a 
six-month long "nation-building" exercise which lasts from January to June 
involving 4,500 U.S. soldiers.  The United States claims programs like 
these helps provide leverage over the Guatemalan army and train them in 
democracy-building skills."             

     Under Pres. Nixon, the C.I.A. through a process of bribery and 
assassination had Chilean Pres. Salvador Alenede eliminated.  Alenede was 
a popular democratically elected leader who espoused socialism as a means 
to restore parity to the people of his country.  He was replaced by a 
military dictator for the following decade.  Chilean strong-man Pinchot 
presided over a police state decried by Amnesty International as one of 
the worst in the continent on human rights abuses.

     Cuba, is another example, where the people, through the installation 
of socialism, have attempted to break the stranglehold of outsiders on the 
resources, production and local economy.  Though U.S. attempts at military 
force, and assassination failed to bring the Cubans to their knees, a 
prolonged economic embargo appears to be having a telling effect.

     In the more recent, Haitian crisis, a curious reversal of normal U. S. 
policy has surfaced.  Pres. Clinton appears to be determined to restore (a 
better word would be create) democracy on that downtrodden island county 
off the U.S. coast.  He undertook this task in the face of apparent 
opposition from those commercial interests which routinely thrive off 
low-cost labor available in Haiti, the majority of the American people as 
well as members of both parties in Congress. (This also being somewhat 
abnormal presidential behavior)  Ordinarily "restoring democracy" is used 
as a code-word or an excuse for maintaining  or restoring some form  of 
imperialism.  Surprisingly this appears not to be the case with the Haitian 
adventure!  Pres. Clinton deserves plaudits for initiating this first step 
towards restoring a measure of compassion and human cooperation to American 
foreign policy.

     Nevertheless, all good intentions notwithstanding, Pres. Clinton may
be headed for a rude awakening!  If the plan be to simply move in; restore 
former Pres. Aristide to  power and leave, the desired outcome is seriously 
in question.  Realities must be faced.  Haiti is an impoverished country.  
The principle violated here relates to the previously mentioned adage.  
There can be no real democracy in an impoverished land where there exists 
a vastly unequal distribution of what meager wealth exists.

     Having gained power in the first real democratic election is the 
history of his country, Aristide had immediately set about  to carry out 
the mandate given to him by the people.  He tried to restore some measure 
of economic parity to his land.  He took  land from the wealthy church 
establishment to distribute among the poor, and proposed heavy taxes on 
the 500 or so rich families to build schools sorely needed in all the 
provinces.

Naturally the entrenched oligarchy was non-plussed by the whole idea.  Of 
course, wealth equals power and power equals money - money to buy the guns 
and soldiers to dispel Aristide.  It appears democracy is no match for 
unbridled wealth.  And unless Americans are willing to remain with it in 
Haiti until a great deal of economic and social parity is established, 
we're simply  looking  at a repeat of the past.

     If we take a more in depth view of the Haitian crisis, we may detect 
a microcosmic picture of the overall malaise which envelopes the world of 
the 90's, including the dilemma of democracy.  Alexis De Toqueville, a 
famous  French writer, upon touring the fledgling United States in the 
1840's, questioned whether the affairs of state could be successfully 
handled with power placed in the hands of the majority which consisted 
of comparatively uneducated masses, rather than the more capable 
intelligentsia. (Echoes of Plato several thousand years earlier)  There 
may have been some validity to De Toqueville's point.  However, Karl Marx,
a few years later may have been even closer to the point!  He seemed to 
feel that economic parity was the prime ingredient to the successful 
working of democracy.  Indeed, it may be readily observed that throughout 
the world there is a correlation between the economic status and the level 
of democracy operating in most countries.

     The history of Third World countries is replete with experiences 
similar to those experienced by the Haitians.   Whenever any type of 
revolution takes place with the goal of establishing a more equitable 
distribution of wealth between the impoverished and the rich, utilizing 
the well-intentioned establishment of a democratic structure, the outcome 
is generally failure.  This occurs primarily because the freedom of  
action allowable under  the democratic structure enables the more powerful 
rich to buy and bribe their way back to the more advantageous position.  
A dictatorship appears almost necessary to establish any measure of 
economic parity.  Of course, if this dictatorship sincerely attempts to 
raise the impoverished to a higher standard of living, it is inevitably 
viewed as a communistic menace by the capitalistic "Free World", which 
then engages in economic embargoes, boycotts, and perhaps even military 
intervention to restore the status quo.  And  if that ensuing dictatorship 
turns out to be simply self-serving, and insincere, (actually unlike the 
recent situation in Haiti) The "Free World" will generally decry the 
absence of democracy, but go on to make profitable industrial deals with 
the powers that rule.  All this, as one can see, bodes ill for the hope
of establishing a world climate of trust and cooperation needed to cope 
with the problem of world survival omnipresent in our future.  In fact, 
one might conclude that unless some concerted effort is made to restore a
measure of economic parity throughout the world, we stand doomed.