What it would require would be putting toll barriers in place to make Chinese imports cost more than domestic ones. [...] It would also re-create all those lost manufacturing jobs, increasing prosperity and well-being in the West.
Government regulating trade? Government job creation and economic stimulation?
Sounds, respectively, anti-freetrade and pro-socialism.
Even if 'controlling interests' like large corporations and PACs were not a factor, the two aforementioned positions can never exist in American politics. Anything even slightly socialist is an unspoken taboo while free trade sits on the altar being worshipped.
But then, who does it really surprise that a conceived 'fix,' the merits of which could never really be known unless we tried it, is found to be fundamentally incompatible with the popular ideology dominating American politics?
You really aren't trying very hard. You would wall off say, Morocco? What? I mean, it's one thing to talk about "violence" if you live in say, Zimbabwe, and are a supporter of, say, the MDC. But "wall off Africa"...?
I mean, equipment wise, the game basically had 3 classes. Not to mention it suffered from Diablo Recolor Syndrome - you're fighting almost exactly the same thing, over and over again, except they change colors and get harder. The thing is, when Diablo did it, there was "Story" and "Plot" to interest the player. For anyone that's even played a little Hellgate, the "story" is revealed to you via what are essentailly world of warcraft style quests.
It's telling enough that I summed up the game in terms of other games.
I don't know. It seems reasonable enough to submit one's SSN to the relevant government office tasked with managing voting at that level, just as it seems reasonable enough to give the IRS your SSN. Although it would be authentication of sensitive information, it would still be, simply, authentication - SSN check (and/or other mechanisms) ought to make it so only registered constituents of a given official influence that official's electronic channels, and his or hers only.
It just seems to me that ensuring proper representation wouldn't be any great feat. I can't help but feel that the draconian process of physical balloting just keeps more people from voting.
I'm not convinced that many people even necessarily know what they're voting for. For example, if Voter X didn't research the items on the ballot beforehand, and went with the "snippets" of information you get with your ballot, he or she may very well vote either way.
Just recently, Prop 98 and 99 were voted on; thankfully 99 received more votes and won. The blurbs that appeared on the ballot are as follows:
98 EMIMENT DOMAIN. LIMITS ON GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
followed by about six sentences; the other read,
99 EMINENT DOMAIN. LIMITS ON GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION OF OWNER-OCCUPIED RESIDENCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
followed by three sentences. I researched the two beforehand, and in no way could the state-provided materials have adequately informed me such that I could make my decision.
Frankly, the USA seems beyond simple political inefficacy. At this point, "politics" is what people think when they hear familiar names like "George Bush," just as they think "movies" upon hearing "Tom Cruise." Popular politics has always struck me as vastly commoditized, mostly by media forces such as television news.
The sad part is that what many of my fellow Americans seem to know about the workings of our government is really limited to Sophomore-year government (or whatever your school called it) class. The bad part is that the older the American is, the more years since Sophomore year.
I said: You stubbornly cling to your imagined notions that the disadvantaged of the world are being ignored under the banner of "there just aren't enough resources for everyone."
And because you can't understand the argument at hand, my post is an insubstantial troll? The person I wrote that in reply to was ceaselessly asserting that there are "enough" resources "for everyone." But no one is contesting that. No one believes that poor people are poor because we don't have the land to grow food or the resources for energy or materials with which to build.
However, the person I was replying to does appear to believe that certain parts of the world, such as Haiti or Zimbabwe, are as they unfortunately are because of the iron-grip of "thugocracies." I don't think I could make an argument that violent paramilitary groups are good for a nation even if I tried. But in reality, the existence of said groups is symptomatic of a state with serious economic trouble. Regardless of what I write, it seems, he or she cannot let go of the "thugocracy" hypothesis; I refer you to this post. I could link others, but it's funny, they all kind of read the same.
The replied-to's comments assert, for one, that the nation of Haiti exists in economic peril because "some places," such as "Myanmar, and Zimbabwe, and Haiti," "don't want or care for free trade." To name a few, countries like Jamaica and Haiti are basically in indentured servitude after the likes of the IMF's structural "adjustments." Free trade rapes and leaves for dead.
It irks me just a little bit that you accuse me essentially of 'lacking evidence' while all the evidence in the world won't persuade this fool. Also, that post might seem dismissive to you, but you haven't exhausted yourself trying to educate him or her.
You speak of the benevolent nations giving aid to these "poor" countries. Watch a film called Life and Debt. I know it's easier to blame the "upper class enslavers" but in reality the workings of international economy, specifically the West's heavyhanded wealth-backed irresponsibility, are to blame.
One time there was the notion of the "white man's burden" - at the time this was probably rhetoric, and it certainly is now. But it's sad that we've come to the point where some nations loan "aid" money and other nations enter indentured servitude.
The companies I'm discussing do oil and gas operations, sure, but they do much more. Right now, Dick Cheney's good ol boys at Halliburton, among others, are facing dozens of lawsuits alleging some $24 billion dollars have been misappropriated. Halliburton ESG have been getting their Iraq contract money for years now. The article you link is about "short term" contracts with a handful of foreign oil players, and the "agreement" to allow their business is only ~7 days old. Assuming that the agreement went as planned; the article doesn't say.
Look at those getting handed contracts for things like energy infrastructure in Iraq.
It seems this was a bit much for you to comprehend. Are you so dense that you don't see the disparity between foreign oil companies that will begin operations in Iraq in the future and, say, Halliburton ESG that's been raking in the [BORROWED] government funds? This isn't about barrels of oil. This is about barrels of pork.
Beyond all that, the only reason so many foreign groups have been awarded contracts is because international sanctions crippled the nation's oil and gas infrastructure - modern drilling and extraction technology was outright withheld. Now, the people of that country get to pay those that stunted its infrastructure out of pocket for past unfair competition. For how much you decry "European colonialism," you are blind to the modern manifestation.
That's right. I choose to work for the means to exist. I guess I could just not make any money and survive on nothing, like in your ideas.
How sustainable would it be for me to travel to and from my residence in the aforementioned areas? Not everyone has the luxury of spending that much on transportation costs. Citing the low home price in "Hayfork" is likewise silly; how am I supposed to afford that house? With all that work you can get in Hayfork?
For how vehemently you can rationalize things, you're surprisingly ignorant. A lot of us are trapped in the places we live - not everyone has your level of socioeconomic sovereignty. How can you not understand this, having been to those 94 countries?
Every single thing that you lovingly glamorize in your post is an example of American warmongering. It is an example of neoconservative overspending. It's so typical that your posts oft-mention the "defeat" of the USSR; it was the same fear-tactics of the cold war that let the "Defense" budget quadruple, and it is that very same ridiculously unchecked spending that has made us so in-debt. Or, as you put it, "literally lightyears beyond" what is out there. You know, you developed a little bit.
Upon that, you go to exorbitant lengths to explain to us (because it certainly isn't obvious) how the United States will inevitably "win." Win what? We already lost. We lost control of our government.
And its people like you with your disgusting status quo attitudes and "supremacy" fascination that are at the core of the problem.
Frankly, I could mostly tell that you were a whore of the Pentagon in your other posts. I feel pretty satisfied that I could pick up that stench. And here is the evidence.
Weapons, not food not homes not shoes
What we don't know keeps the contracts alive n movin
Oh, and my experience: 5 trips to Haiti on a medical team, 2 trips on a medical team to Burundi and Malawi, one trip to teach basic language and building skills to Myanmar, twice (2005 and 2006) to Iraq to teach English and commerce, and one trip to teach English to North Korea (where I also handed out 24 copies of the US Declaration of Indepedence and the Constitution, translated to Korean). I've been in the shitholes, and I'll say unequivocally that most of the general population prefer to try a new government - ESPECIALLY a puppet government that was stable - than keep the shit they had.
Yeah. None of which, apparently, gives you any working grasp of the political and social forces at work in these places. In another post, you tried to argue that Haiti was in its current state because of its anti-free-trade "attitudes," or something. Maybe through medical school or whatever, you should have taken a history class.
When you're shown to be wrong, you just assume the same authoritarian tone and start to reconcile how your argument is legitimate.
Throw in a little (heh, who am I kidding) generalization and BAM, someone skimming one of your posts might have mistaken it for substance.
You seem to have completely missed other posters' points. Regardless of whether or not the current "thugs" are left to live or brutally removed, an alternative functional societal system needs to be in place. Killing the "thugs" wouldn't remove the "thugocracy," it would be like any other political or social system. Someone else would step up to be Thug #1.
I think that the likes of Tsvangirai and the MDC are a far more feasible force for change than your "blowing off heads" Americana. They are working and succeeding in things such as encouraging political efficacy and demanding accountability from government. Mugabe's pseudo-Communist style is very authoritarian; on the contrary, Tsvangirai's camp seems to reflect a social movement towards autonomy and thinking-for-oneself. I think that, as I noted was necessary, this will bring Zimbabwe closer to the aforementioned alternative, functioning system.
However, I must say that you're childish for imagining that a violent solution could solve Zimbabwe's "problems." It is not a situation of establishment as you try to portray, and thereby "destroying," "removing," or "changing regimes" will not address it; quite the contrary, the rampant violence reflects the lack of structure where there ought to be structure.
When you can expend say, 1 unit of energy to make available 10, (by say, refining oil) the return is a lot greater. If you can spent 1 unit of your energy (and resources etc) and get back 2, it still looks good on paper but nobody wants it because that means expending more of their energy to eventually get things done, and people are lazy by nature.
Not to mention, try competing with the 1:10 oil guy using the 1:2 process.
Competition would hard enough on a practical basis alone. Let alone the modern world's worship of free trade.
I think where he or she wrote "political corectness," he or she could have better used "socializing forces that perpetuate the authoritarian submission to so-called American concepts and ideals."
A similar example is the stigmatization of all things communist. Over the last century, it had gotten to the point where it wasn't about wilfully ignoring the potential virtues of a communist society - you were unAmerican if you didn't use the word "Communist" in place of the word "evil."
Perhaps the population density in the US is low because, for one, its borders include in part huge tracts of land that anyone has yet to put a real use to? The fact is, it is functional population density that is important. Do you think that everyone lives around cities because they just love other people?
In the game of capitalism, money is your score. This is unfortunate. As such, it's necessary for one to come by money, a metaphor for one's own worth, by some means in order to survive. As hard as you might try, there's only one way to get this money - from other people.
Living far from other people in this country is a prerogative mostly reserved for the elite.
Anyhow, the parent's comments about population that you quoted hold true, or at least moreso than your counterclaims. Look at American communities like, say, Los Altos Hills. Is that a community that is sustainable without the constunt influx of persons that serves to fill the ranks of the "working class?" No.
It is truly the hallmark of a simple mind to say "well, all these things around me work" and believe "if only everyone could have access to all these things, all would be good." It reveals that the author is truly unappreciative of the massive human effort that goes into allowing, let's call it, the "middle class" way of life.
Your post is definitely an interesting way of saying:
deposing Saddam and his party is like the United States' "apology" to world politics. More like a guilty ass-covering. Do you know why we were so tight with Mr. Hussein (by we, I mean older George Bush and his political)?
It's because he ran Iraq as a secular republic. That's really the only reason. Iran was more "threatening" to certain persons and so the US became Saddam Hussein's PR machine.
I really don't think you can consider the federal government's actions over the past several years as "fixing" the problem. Inasmuch as Iraq had a problem, the United States' heavyhanded politics of containment and fear of all things Islamic led to the way things are today.
Where di the above poster say that the war was about oil? It was certainly for tenuous "political" purposes and shady economic ones. Look at those getting handed contracts for things like energy infrastructure in Iraq. When the people who cause the wars give massive business to the people payed to come and build things up, and these people were all friends to begin with, I call conflict of interest. But then, since when has that sort of thing had any bearing on US politicing?
I'm sorry, but did you just say that Haiti "doesn't care for" free trade? If I was a Haitian, I wouldn't care for free trade either.
Haiti used to grow most of the food needed by its people. This is not at all the case today, and what free trade has done to local growers is a prominent cause.
This is not to mention Haiti's problems from the Duvaliers' greed and the likes of the VSN. How functional would the society you grew up in be if you had to fear death squads?
Even post-Duvaliers, Haitian politics had been in constant turmoil as the US constantly rallied support for the least-populist Haitian leaders, the one's for the free trade. I wonder why that was.
You seem to think that the impoverished are at fault for attempting some communist scheme to avoid buying American products, a scheme that ultimately fails and leaves them the unfortunate "losers" to capitalism. You need to look at the big picture.
Slashdot Mirror
What it would require would be putting toll barriers in place to make Chinese imports cost more than domestic ones. [...] It would also re-create all those lost manufacturing jobs, increasing prosperity and well-being in the West.
Government regulating trade? Government job creation and economic stimulation?
Sounds, respectively, anti-freetrade and pro-socialism.
Even if 'controlling interests' like large corporations and PACs were not a factor, the two aforementioned positions can never exist in American politics. Anything even slightly socialist is an unspoken taboo while free trade sits on the altar being worshipped.
But then, who does it really surprise that a conceived 'fix,' the merits of which could never really be known unless we tried it, is found to be fundamentally incompatible with the popular ideology dominating American politics?
Not I.
[...] its the best I can think of [...]
You really aren't trying very hard. You would wall off say, Morocco? What? I mean, it's one thing to talk about "violence" if you live in say, Zimbabwe, and are a supporter of, say, the MDC. But "wall off Africa"...?
You're right. It's clearly the only way.
It's a shame you got modded flamebait! I thought your hilarious post was definitely +funny!
Wish I had mod points. I think we all know why.
All for defying authority.
Fixed. Good citizens submit, everyone knows.
i'm pretty sure the guns are for shooting people.
Now if you had said police officers, the "defensive-gun" concept could stand up a little better. A little.
God, you aren't helping your case.
It's like the president of some hobby club quitting without any warning.
Yeah, after he realizes that the hobby the club pursues sucks.
[...] making quality games [...]
I think someone has yet to play Hellgate London.
I mean, equipment wise, the game basically had 3 classes. Not to mention it suffered from Diablo Recolor Syndrome - you're fighting almost exactly the same thing, over and over again, except they change colors and get harder. The thing is, when Diablo did it, there was "Story" and "Plot" to interest the player. For anyone that's even played a little Hellgate, the "story" is revealed to you via what are essentailly world of warcraft style quests.
It's telling enough that I summed up the game in terms of other games.
I don't know. It seems reasonable enough to submit one's SSN to the relevant government office tasked with managing voting at that level, just as it seems reasonable enough to give the IRS your SSN. Although it would be authentication of sensitive information, it would still be, simply, authentication - SSN check (and/or other mechanisms) ought to make it so only registered constituents of a given official influence that official's electronic channels, and his or hers only.
It just seems to me that ensuring proper representation wouldn't be any great feat. I can't help but feel that the draconian process of physical balloting just keeps more people from voting.
Just recently, Prop 98 and 99 were voted on; thankfully 99 received more votes and won. The blurbs that appeared on the ballot are as follows:
98 EMIMENT DOMAIN. LIMITS ON GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
followed by about six sentences; the other read,
99 EMINENT DOMAIN. LIMITS ON GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION OF OWNER-OCCUPIED RESIDENCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
followed by three sentences. I researched the two beforehand, and in no way could the state-provided materials have adequately informed me such that I could make my decision.
Frankly, the USA seems beyond simple political inefficacy. At this point, "politics" is what people think when they hear familiar names like "George Bush," just as they think "movies" upon hearing "Tom Cruise." Popular politics has always struck me as vastly commoditized, mostly by media forces such as television news.
The sad part is that what many of my fellow Americans seem to know about the workings of our government is really limited to Sophomore-year government (or whatever your school called it) class. The bad part is that the older the American is, the more years since Sophomore year.
I saw the troll mod and I shed an e-tear.
I said: You stubbornly cling to your imagined notions that the disadvantaged of the world are being ignored under the banner of "there just aren't enough resources for everyone."
And because you can't understand the argument at hand, my post is an insubstantial troll? The person I wrote that in reply to was ceaselessly asserting that there are "enough" resources "for everyone." But no one is contesting that. No one believes that poor people are poor because we don't have the land to grow food or the resources for energy or materials with which to build.
However, the person I was replying to does appear to believe that certain parts of the world, such as Haiti or Zimbabwe, are as they unfortunately are because of the iron-grip of "thugocracies." I don't think I could make an argument that violent paramilitary groups are good for a nation even if I tried. But in reality, the existence of said groups is symptomatic of a state with serious economic trouble. Regardless of what I write, it seems, he or she cannot let go of the "thugocracy" hypothesis; I refer you to this post. I could link others, but it's funny, they all kind of read the same.
The replied-to's comments assert, for one, that the nation of Haiti exists in economic peril because "some places," such as "Myanmar, and Zimbabwe, and Haiti," "don't want or care for free trade." To name a few, countries like Jamaica and Haiti are basically in indentured servitude after the likes of the IMF's structural "adjustments." Free trade rapes and leaves for dead.
It irks me just a little bit that you accuse me essentially of 'lacking evidence' while all the evidence in the world won't persuade this fool. Also, that post might seem dismissive to you, but you haven't exhausted yourself trying to educate him or her.
You speak of the benevolent nations giving aid to these "poor" countries. Watch a film called Life and Debt. I know it's easier to blame the "upper class enslavers" but in reality the workings of international economy, specifically the West's heavyhanded wealth-backed irresponsibility, are to blame.
One time there was the notion of the "white man's burden" - at the time this was probably rhetoric, and it certainly is now. But it's sad that we've come to the point where some nations loan "aid" money and other nations enter indentured servitude.
[...] Royal Dutch Shell? British Petroleum? [...]
The companies I'm discussing do oil and gas operations, sure, but they do much more. Right now, Dick Cheney's good ol boys at Halliburton, among others, are facing dozens of lawsuits alleging some $24 billion dollars have been misappropriated. Halliburton ESG have been getting their Iraq contract money for years now. The article you link is about "short term" contracts with a handful of foreign oil players, and the "agreement" to allow their business is only ~7 days old. Assuming that the agreement went as planned; the article doesn't say.
Look at those getting handed contracts for things like energy infrastructure in Iraq.
It seems this was a bit much for you to comprehend. Are you so dense that you don't see the disparity between foreign oil companies that will begin operations in Iraq in the future and, say, Halliburton ESG that's been raking in the [BORROWED] government funds? This isn't about barrels of oil. This is about barrels of pork.
Beyond all that, the only reason so many foreign groups have been awarded contracts is because international sanctions crippled the nation's oil and gas infrastructure - modern drilling and extraction technology was outright withheld. Now, the people of that country get to pay those that stunted its infrastructure out of pocket for past unfair competition. For how much you decry "European colonialism," you are blind to the modern manifestation.
That's right. I choose to work for the means to exist. I guess I could just not make any money and survive on nothing, like in your ideas.
How sustainable would it be for me to travel to and from my residence in the aforementioned areas? Not everyone has the luxury of spending that much on transportation costs. Citing the low home price in "Hayfork" is likewise silly; how am I supposed to afford that house? With all that work you can get in Hayfork?
For how vehemently you can rationalize things, you're surprisingly ignorant. A lot of us are trapped in the places we live - not everyone has your level of socioeconomic sovereignty. How can you not understand this, having been to those 94 countries?
Every single thing that you lovingly glamorize in your post is an example of American warmongering. It is an example of neoconservative overspending. It's so typical that your posts oft-mention the "defeat" of the USSR; it was the same fear-tactics of the cold war that let the "Defense" budget quadruple, and it is that very same ridiculously unchecked spending that has made us so in-debt. Or, as you put it, "literally lightyears beyond" what is out there. You know, you developed a little bit.
Upon that, you go to exorbitant lengths to explain to us (because it certainly isn't obvious) how the United States will inevitably "win." Win what? We already lost. We lost control of our government.
And its people like you with your disgusting status quo attitudes and "supremacy" fascination that are at the core of the problem.
Frankly, I could mostly tell that you were a whore of the Pentagon in your other posts. I feel pretty satisfied that I could pick up that stench. And here is the evidence.
Weapons, not food not homes not shoes
What we don't know keeps the contracts alive n movin
Oh, and my experience: 5 trips to Haiti on a medical team, 2 trips on a medical team to Burundi and Malawi, one trip to teach basic language and building skills to Myanmar, twice (2005 and 2006) to Iraq to teach English and commerce, and one trip to teach English to North Korea (where I also handed out 24 copies of the US Declaration of Indepedence and the Constitution, translated to Korean). I've been in the shitholes, and I'll say unequivocally that most of the general population prefer to try a new government - ESPECIALLY a puppet government that was stable - than keep the shit they had.
Yeah. None of which, apparently, gives you any working grasp of the political and social forces at work in these places. In another post, you tried to argue that Haiti was in its current state because of its anti-free-trade "attitudes," or something. Maybe through medical school or whatever, you should have taken a history class.
When you're shown to be wrong, you just assume the same authoritarian tone and start to reconcile how your argument is legitimate.
Throw in a little (heh, who am I kidding) generalization and BAM, someone skimming one of your posts might have mistaken it for substance.
You seem to have completely missed other posters' points. Regardless of whether or not the current "thugs" are left to live or brutally removed, an alternative functional societal system needs to be in place. Killing the "thugs" wouldn't remove the "thugocracy," it would be like any other political or social system. Someone else would step up to be Thug #1.
I think that the likes of Tsvangirai and the MDC are a far more feasible force for change than your "blowing off heads" Americana. They are working and succeeding in things such as encouraging political efficacy and demanding accountability from government. Mugabe's pseudo-Communist style is very authoritarian; on the contrary, Tsvangirai's camp seems to reflect a social movement towards autonomy and thinking-for-oneself. I think that, as I noted was necessary, this will bring Zimbabwe closer to the aforementioned alternative, functioning system.
However, I must say that you're childish for imagining that a violent solution could solve Zimbabwe's "problems." It is not a situation of establishment as you try to portray, and thereby "destroying," "removing," or "changing regimes" will not address it; quite the contrary, the rampant violence reflects the lack of structure where there ought to be structure.
When you can expend say, 1 unit of energy to make available 10, (by say, refining oil) the return is a lot greater. If you can spent 1 unit of your energy (and resources etc) and get back 2, it still looks good on paper but nobody wants it because that means expending more of their energy to eventually get things done, and people are lazy by nature.
Not to mention, try competing with the 1:10 oil guy using the 1:2 process.
Competition would hard enough on a practical basis alone. Let alone the modern world's worship of free trade.
I think where he or she wrote "political corectness," he or she could have better used "socializing forces that perpetuate the authoritarian submission to so-called American concepts and ideals."
A similar example is the stigmatization of all things communist. Over the last century, it had gotten to the point where it wasn't about wilfully ignoring the potential virtues of a communist society - you were unAmerican if you didn't use the word "Communist" in place of the word "evil."
Perhaps the population density in the US is low because, for one, its borders include in part huge tracts of land that anyone has yet to put a real use to? The fact is, it is functional population density that is important. Do you think that everyone lives around cities because they just love other people?
In the game of capitalism, money is your score. This is unfortunate. As such, it's necessary for one to come by money, a metaphor for one's own worth, by some means in order to survive. As hard as you might try, there's only one way to get this money - from other people.
Living far from other people in this country is a prerogative mostly reserved for the elite.
Anyhow, the parent's comments about population that you quoted hold true, or at least moreso than your counterclaims. Look at American communities like, say, Los Altos Hills. Is that a community that is sustainable without the constunt influx of persons that serves to fill the ranks of the "working class?" No.
Amen.
It is truly the hallmark of a simple mind to say "well, all these things around me work" and believe "if only everyone could have access to all these things, all would be good." It reveals that the author is truly unappreciative of the massive human effort that goes into allowing, let's call it, the "middle class" way of life.
Your post is definitely an interesting way of saying:
deposing Saddam and his party is like the United States' "apology" to world politics. More like a guilty ass-covering. Do you know why we were so tight with Mr. Hussein (by we, I mean older George Bush and his political)?
It's because he ran Iraq as a secular republic. That's really the only reason. Iran was more "threatening" to certain persons and so the US became Saddam Hussein's PR machine.
I really don't think you can consider the federal government's actions over the past several years as "fixing" the problem. Inasmuch as Iraq had a problem, the United States' heavyhanded politics of containment and fear of all things Islamic led to the way things are today.
Where di the above poster say that the war was about oil? It was certainly for tenuous "political" purposes and shady economic ones. Look at those getting handed contracts for things like energy infrastructure in Iraq. When the people who cause the wars give massive business to the people payed to come and build things up, and these people were all friends to begin with, I call conflict of interest. But then, since when has that sort of thing had any bearing on US politicing?
I'm sorry, but did you just say that Haiti "doesn't care for" free trade? If I was a Haitian, I wouldn't care for free trade either.
Haiti used to grow most of the food needed by its people. This is not at all the case today, and what free trade has done to local growers is a prominent cause.
This is not to mention Haiti's problems from the Duvaliers' greed and the likes of the VSN. How functional would the society you grew up in be if you had to fear death squads?
Even post-Duvaliers, Haitian politics had been in constant turmoil as the US constantly rallied support for the least-populist Haitian leaders, the one's for the free trade. I wonder why that was.
You seem to think that the impoverished are at fault for attempting some communist scheme to avoid buying American products, a scheme that ultimately fails and leaves them the unfortunate "losers" to capitalism. You need to look at the big picture.