Tuesday Half Dozen

By John Ballard

Yeah, I know. It's not the weekend and most people clean caches when they run out of steam at the end of the week. But with events in Tunisia and Haiti getting stacked on the Tucson mess and climate events I got a case of bloggers constipation. Too many items to blog about and too little time and energy to follow up. After I drop these and clear my head I will be better focused. (And in case the reader hasn't noticed, Steve and David are totally on a roll the last couple of days and I'm blown away with the weight of their content. Makes me feel like a court jester beside them.)

?HuffPo: How an Arab Autocrat Falls by Sohrab Ahmari is recommended reading by Kal, The Moor Next Door. As with daily newspapers I don't routinely track the Huffington Post, but when someone I follow points to an article I check it out. in this case the writer opens with a narrative of the Tunisian uprising, comments on the importance of social media and makes this excellent observation.

Yet as the events unfolding in Tunisia demonstrate, the bargain struck by the West with autocrats sitting atop social pressure cookers ready to erupt at any minute is a bad one. For stability based solely on naked power is short-lasting. (As his regime was crumbling before his eyes, Ben Ali himself all but openly conceded this point.) For more than a decade, many of these autocrats have been promising to commence cycles of democratization to introduce political freedom and civil rights. Their promises are broken. Sensing that the free world under President Obama is even less inclined to press them on rights, they have reprised the one role they know best: that of absolutist dictator.

Washington and Brussels have for the most part been oblivious, content to reduce the entire Middle East to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ignore a much more important conflict: that between citizens and absolutist dictators of all stripes. But history in Middle East and North Africa is not going to wait for a peaceful way out of the Arab-Israeli impasse. After two years of new management in the White House, and much treasure and prestige expended by both the United States and its European allies on solving the Israel-Palestinian problem, Middle East autocracies remain sinking ships that no power on earth can save from their own people.

?Tunisia: Can We Please Stop Talking About 'Twitter Revolutions'? I linked this article previously but repeat it here to balance what the previous writer said. Both are correct. The impact of modern telecommunication cannot be disregarded in current events, but the causes and roots of unrest usually run deeply into the past, way before the Internet was imagined. And I like what this writer said:

...Twitter revolution narratives are popular because rather than being about Tunisia, they are often really about ourselves. When we glorify the role of social media we are partly glorifying ourselves. Some of us are not only praising the tools we know and love and use every day, but also the tools we build and have stakes in. To proclaim a Twitter revolution is almost a form of intellectual colonialism, stealthy and mildly delusional: We project our world, our values, and concerns onto theirs and we shouldn�t. We use Twitter and so must they. In our rush to christen the uprising, did we think to ask Tunisians what they wanted to call their revolution?

?Here is a link to a striking collection of pictures from North Korea. I think Blake Hounshell found them. These images are a stark contrast to the mental images I have of that closed society. One journalist's report I read dismissed the lifestyle of Pyongyang as a Potemkin Village. If that is true, the image is much more detailed than I had imagined. I will discuss these images with a close friend from Korea when he visits in a few weeks. Maybe he can give me a more balanced view.

?Stanley Lucas: Haiti Solutions -- Duvalier Returns to Haiti; Merely a Pawn in the Political Chaos by Stanley Luca.   I haven't had time to do homework about Stanley Lucas or study this piece closely. But at a glance it seems to make sense. Perhaps a reader better informed than I will leave more information in the comments.

News coverage of Duvalier�s return has also called his return �inexplicable�, but many Haitians are speculating about three likely scenarios:

1. Preval is using Duvalier�s return to create political confusion and a distraction for the international community.
   

   Preval received the OAS�s report of recommendations on how to resolve the fraudulent elections last Thursday. On Monday, the OAS Secretary General will visit Haiti to get Preval�s official response to the report findings.

   
   

   The report recommends a run off elections between the top two candidates: Martelly and Manigat. International officials have stated that the report �makes sense� and the methodology is �flawless� and the credentials of the report team are �impeccable�. Haitians are questioning what methodology would actually account for the thousands of ballots littering the streets, uncounted after the elections. Apparently the recount process was carried out by using a small percentage of the tally sheets from the voting precincts. It was widely reported and observed that tally sheets were manipulated before they even arrived at the tabulation center.

   
   

   In this scenario, Duvalier�s return creates an enormous distraction, serious confusion and has the added benefit of rallying his base against Duvalier. Essentially, Duvalier is a pawn in Preval�s transparent and desperate attempts to maintain power.

   
   


2. People believe that Dr. Paul Farmer, head of Partners in Health and Mr. Clinton�s deputy UN special envoy to Haiti, is has orchestrated Duvalier�s return behind the scenes. Farmer is an ardent Aristide supporter and Duvalier�s return opens a window for Aristide�s return. If Duvalier can return, why not Aristide? Aristide has an equally despotic track record in Haiti stealing elections, trafficking drugs and overseeing political persecution, violence and murder. His return would be disastrous for Haitians. Ever since the earthquake, however, there has been speculation about Aristide�s return. He has tested the waters as have his political supporters, so people believe this is their political play to get him back in country


3. Duvalier�s return creates a level of political chaos that will be impossible to resolve without foreign political occupation � and someone, somewhere benefits from that with billions of aid money on the line. The Haitian people will resolutely reject foreign occupation, however.

?Got Dough? Public School Reform in the Age of Venture Philanthropy by Joanne Barkan. This article in Dissent was recommended by Naomi Klein. And yes, this is another one I haven't read closely but when someone has the nerve to be critical of Bill and Melinda Gates, and seems to have done a lot of background work, I want to see what she says.  Scanning it makes me want to go back and take a closer look.

I want to connect this piece with the next one, but haven't found the hook.

?And finally, When is "Community" Not "Community"? by Renee Glover who runs the Atlanta Housing Authority is full of good stuff. This woman has been on the cutting edge of more effective ways to address the challenges of urban poverty and the social traps that so-called "community housing" have become. This is tagged as the first in a three-part series. Interested readers are invited to read the whole thing. What AHA has done in Atlanta is visionary and exciting.

...The so-called community in housing projects was the offshoot of failed public policies. From transitional housing for people looking to rebuild their lives, public housing projects devolved into housing of last resort, inescapable prisons of concentrated poverty. The ills that accompany such poisonous levels of poverty and devastatingly low expectations undermined any civility and any real community in the projects. Community is not achievable when your life and your children's lives are in danger on a daily basis. You cannot retain a sense of hopefulness when you know your child is attending schools at the bottom of achievement rankings. You cannot maintain respect when the expectations are so low that virtually any behavior is tolerated. You cannot have community when there are no quality grocery stores and retailers within a reasonable distance. You cannot build community when the strain and stress of the living conditions in the projects means a disproportionately large number of the residents will have more illnesses, more mental problems and earlier deaths than the larger population.