Haiti is an independent nation in the Caribbean that occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, with the Dominican Republic to the east. The island was initially claimed by Spain, which later ceded the western third of the island to France.

The slave system in Saint-Domingue was regarded as one of the harshest in the Americas, with high levels of both mortality and violence. To supply the plantation system, French owners imported almost 800,000 Africans to the colony. :france-cool:

the Haitian Revolution stands out as the only instance in which enslaved people and free people of color fought and defeated the French, Spanish, and British to end slavery and the slave trade. This successful and complicated campaign for freedom and equality, begun in 1791, resulted in the creation of the second republic in the western hemisphere, an independent Republic of Haiti in 1804.

France agreed to recognize Haiti as a sovereign nation, but demanded that Haiti pay compensation and reparations in exchange. The Haitians, with their diplomatic and economic backs against the wall, agreed to pay the French.The French government sent a team of accountants into Haiti in order to place a value on all lands and physical assets, including the 500,000 citizens who were formerly enslaved, and declared the value at 150 million gold francs, which in contemporary terms would equate to well over $20 billion.

the United States Invaded and occupied Haiti from 1915-1934, changed Haiti’s constitution, and in many ways further contributed to its ongoing instability, many African-Americans denounced the occupation of a sovereign nation. :amerikkka:

the U.S. government still maintained fiscal control over the country until 1947, when Haiti finally paid off its loan to the United States. In order to do so, however, Haiti was forced to deplete its gold reserves, leaving the country bereft. Perhaps more importantly, the removal of the U.S. military did not result in the removal of U.S. influence in Haiti.

The Duvalier Years

As the Cold War set in after World War II, the most devastating impact of U.S. interference in Haiti was the government's ongoing support of the Duvalier regime, which ruled Haiti from 1957 to 1986. Fearful that Haiti would fall to communism, the U.S. government concluded that it would offer full support to the Duvalier government.

During that 30-year period, Haitians were forced to live under dictators "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier, a father and son team, who openly murdered their opponents and stole millions of dollars from the Haitian people. Some members of the Haitian leadership have since claimed that the Duvaliers stole close to $1 billion.

Baby Doc was forced to flee Haiti in 1986, in the face of growing opposition from the Haitian people. Shortly thereafter, in 1990, Haiti held free, peaceful, democratic elections which resulted in Jean-Bertrand Aristide's short-lived first presidency.

Since 1990, Haiti has continued to suffer extraordinary political conflict and violence. The last twenty years have only reinforced Haiti's popular negative reputation, as a country marred by corruption, poverty, incompetence, and ignorance.

Even today, Haiti is plagued by protests over financial mismanagement, riots in response to the October cholera epidemic and the November flooding from Hurricane Tomas, and outrage over alleged election fraud.


The State and Revolution :flag-su:

:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:
The Conquest of Bread :ancom:

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Yesterday’s megathread :sad-boi:

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  • IfIDontKnowNoOneDoes [undecided,any]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Remember that regardless of what you are doing or what the time is, I am always out there. I am a real person who does real things. I have a physical body and am currently typing this with my real, tangible fingers. My skin stretches across my muscle and my bones, both of which manifest themselves exclusively within the physical plane. If we were in the same room, you could touch me with your hand. If you cut me open, you would find that I have a red, syrupy center, just like everyone else. My consciousness is a result of my brain's existence in the universe. There is no me outside of the physical realm and the physical realm will be around long after I am gone. Though you may always live a life parallel to mine, I won't never not be unreal until I don't live anymore. Even once you stop reading this comment, and even once you forget that you read it at all, I will remain a persistent feature of this world. And maybe that means something to you, even if the only thing it could possibly mean is a small sort of change in the physical makeup of your brain which reflects what your consciousness (which in and of itself is an abstract concept used to represent what is in truth the algorithmic, biologically preordained process through which your brain makes many (thought not all) of it's decisions) believes that it has learned.

    In short, when you're feeling down, remind yourself that somewhere out there there is some dipshit, and that dipshit is me.

    I'm tired. Going to bed now.

  • lizbo [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I'm often skeptical of what I read on Wikipedia but I found this on the wiki page for Haiti:

    the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt.

    BASED

    Power the to Haitian people as they continue the fight to heal the deep wounds that colonialism has inflicted on their nation.

    • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
      hexagon
      M
      ·
      4 years ago

      yeah those facts are true, they were also the 1° latin american empire, hopefully they are able to beat their 3° US-backed dictator

      • lizbo [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I'm gonna read the article you linked on this tomorrow. I genuinely have learned so much from your megathreads :sankara-salute:

      • lizbo [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yep and that's exactly why America and European countries refused to trade with Haiti and cut them off from the global economy for decades

    • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
      hexagon
      M
      ·
      4 years ago

      They are currently trying to overthrow their current US-backed dictator, so i thought it would be a good time for an haiti megathread

  • fuckwit [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    shoutout to my adhd homies who fake a revelatory "Ohh okay" when you ask someone to explain something and still don't get what the fuck is going on.

      • viva_la_juche [they/them, any]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        idk if ill get around to fully producing anything tonight (i'm horribly unmotivated to do anything musical when it's not for work) but the chord progression is mostly done, probably need a bit more fleshing out on the timing of things but its something like (definitely not a 100% sure on these)

        Gmaj9 - D#7(b11) - Dmaj7Add11 - F7(b11) - Emadd9 - C#7(b11) - D11/C - Am9 - Ab7(#9)

        the way i'm playing it, it just sounds like a slow jazz song haha, could be cool as some lofi beats to study/read theory to tho

        also the am9 at the end technically breaks the 4 chord underlying structure but since its the relative minor to the IV chord i think it just sounds contextually like a shuffling around of the iv notes before the substituted b2 7 chord brings us back around to the I chord

          • viva_la_juche [they/them, any]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            yeah but up an octave right? i'm using some shell voicings for more ambiguous tone. for the b11s, the 3rds in there but the 11 is there too but flat so they kind of rub against each other and have a crunchy sound, i figured it was important to specify the b11 in that case, the chord is basically constructed of the root a major 3, (the fifth is omitted), a dominant 7, and the flat or minor 11. (but it's entirely probable that i'm somewhat off base in how i scribed it since i'm intentionally trying to use some weirder voicings. )

              • viva_la_juche [they/them, any]
                ·
                edit-2
                4 years ago

                yea i'm playing on guitar, i play piano well enough to produce but I'm not a pianist by any stretch haha. its basically what i said in the last comment so 1-major 3-m7-m11 (omitting the fifth to make it more ambiguous) so for d# its d#-g-c#-f#, how would characterize it?

      • RNAi [he/him]M
        ·
        4 years ago

        No he just admited: we lawfared Dilma because she wanted to trial generals for their crimes in the last dictatorship.

        Btw he also mentioned "cuz the economy", which only got worse after outing Dilma.

        Oh and I think that's the same shitstain that admitted fucking up the liberation of Lula cuz they knew that he would win if he was free.

        Anyways, Bolsonaro won without fraud and that's the real problem, how the fuck you have 50% of population voting for that monster

    • garbology [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Makes it even better and more obviously needed that :evo: is cleaning up the Bolivian military

  • Melon [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    I'm afraid my special boy Dennis has passed. A few days ago I took him in to help him with his dental studies. He wanted to be a dentist, but sadly he never got beyond the shit terrarium I made for him. I put a stink bug in the terrarium with him. Since stink bugs are invasive I figured that one would be a nice meal for Dennis. I didn't expect that it would kill Dennis.

    I thought brown recluses were better than that. RIP

    edit: here's a picture of Dennis in better days