On the other hand, you’re doing relatively well if Haiti’s even on your radar screen. For most Americans, it’s just another peripheral skirmish in a world full of crazy, bloody third world turmoil. Who has time to keep track of all these exploitative regimes and murderous drug-smuggling guerrillas? Who really knows what’s going on in Haiti, and who, frankly, gives a crap?

Not you, I bet. In an informal poll I just took of the three people sitting next to me, 100% of respondents have no clue about the Haitian situation at all, aside from a general impression that all Haitians have AIDS, their refugees should be classified as biological weapons, and they’re poor as hell. One third of my sample group knows that Haiti’s recently deposed ruler’s name is "Artsy-tide or something," while another third thinks that Haiti is in Africa. No wonder those boat people seem so tired.

To be fair, I’ve also been relatively ignorant regarding Haiti’s seemingly hopeless situation. Our mainstream press has done an amazing job at shielding us from the details of various raging conflicts that we could hit with a well-thrown rock from the coast of Florida, but lately they’ve been forced to cover Haiti, if only in their traditional truth-dodging style.

As I write this, Aristide’s entirely credible claims that he was forcibly abducted and exiled by "American security agents" are screaming across the AP wire. The typically brazen Bush administration casually dismisses these claims as "Nonsense." Colin Powell, who seems to be getting more comfortable with lying as a matter of routine, put it this way: "He was not kidnapped. We did not force him on to the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly, and that's the truth." Forced him onto the runway, maybe. But never the airplane.

Bush and the CIA seem to have tipped their hand a bit here; one wonders why they didn’t just kill the pesky populist rather than force him into exile, jaws flapping all the way. Now they’ll have to stay up all night figuring out new ways to discredit and demonize Aristide, until the gullible American majority is cowed either into believing the dream that we were doing "the right thing," or imagining him to be a delusional paranoiac who’s not to be believed.,

Still, they’ve got a head start; even these damaging reports are peppered with references to "flawed elections," in 2000, an ironic misgiving even by Bush administration standards, and "rebel forces," in reference to US-supplied and trained insurgent paramilitaries. In reality, the only election results disputed by international observers were for seven senate seats, which should have gone to runoff elections, and those senators have since resigned their posts. The language that pervades the airwaves on Haiti betrays the White House’s intentions, just as the use of key words like "terrorist" and "Islamic" show their true feeling about other "rebels" across the globe. "Rebels rolled into the capital to cheering crowds," claims an AP report, while the Guardian tells us that they were only "Cheered by a small crowd." Aristide is described as having "broken promises" to his supporters, when his hands have been tied by the omnipotent IMF and World Bank, who require corporate-friendly, anti-labor policies that Aristide has largely resisted, and the restriction of $500 million in aid. It is, in fact, Aristide’s gradual softening toward such IMF and World Bank demands that has undermined his popularity in Haiti.

Aristide is a democratically elected president, one who rescued his country from the unimaginably ruthless dictatorship of "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Despite countless assertions that this is a popular uprising, Aristide is still favored by the majority of Haitians, many of whom were shocked that he would "abandon" them. However, hearing of his abduction may invigorate a protest movement, which the new bosses will no doubt attempt to quell with hot lead.

The forces moving into Port-au-Prince are already killing Aristide supporters; you can be sure that these numbers will go underreported, but will vastly exceed the number of deaths recently blamed on Aristide. They had claimed that they would lay down their weapons if only Aristide would leave, but now that he’s gone, they’re changing their tune. These are the same military guys who forcibly ousted Aristide in ’91, and were disbanded by him in ’95 after Bill Clinton returned him to power. Now they’re back, and it’s not a good thing, not for the people of Haiti. "Rebel leader" Paul Arcelin was quoted as saying: "We don't need peacekeepers, we need military help. We need more guns." That’s all Haiti needs, more guns. Forget the clean drinking water and all that.

It’s key for the White House that they don’t get too much scrutiny here; they’ve got similar machinations in the works in neighboring Venezuela, where they staged a nearly identical coup two years ago, complete with a CIA-engineered brainwashing media blitz, against popular, left-leaning Hugo Chavez. Pedro Carmona, the wealthy businessman and Bush Sr. associate who supplanted Chavez, immediately moved to "dissolve the Constitution, national legislature, Supreme Court, attorney general's office, and comptroller's office." All that effort, only to have to return Chavez to power within days, as the nation bogged down with protesters, joined by several branches of the Venezuelan military. The G-men haven’t given up, however, and are currently agitating for a "referendum" on Chavez’s rule, precipitating the hilarious Reuters leap-day headline, "Chavez Calls Bush 'Asshole' as Foes Fight Troops."

But Venezuela is our third largest oil supplier, and Chavez has nationalized its oil company, PDVSA. What has Haiti got that our Executive’s puppeteers want so badly? Maybe they think that $500 million in suspended aid would look prettier in Halliburton’s coffers? Certainly control of the voluminous drug-trafficking industry in Haiti could be a goal. But more important is the general suppression of real democracy in impoverished nations such as Haiti.

You see, The White House, and its motivating forces of globalization, have a problem: Nations with a vast majority of destitute people tend to elect leaders who intend to give some power back to the poor. Both Chavez and Aristide enjoy widespread popular support, and have repeatedly won landslide elections. This is why democracy is the last thing that Bush or his corporate benefactors want for these countries. After all, when you’re in the business of separating people from their money and resources, you need to plan for the day when there isn’t much left to take. When the power balance starts to finally shift to the long-suffering masses, it’s good to have a few adequately trained and equipped bands of mercenaries to shed some blood and tilt it back. It’s regime change time again, and so it will be for any leader who refuses to play ball with the forces of globalization, privatization, and deregulation. This has implications for our future, too; our media can only convince us we’re not poor for so long before the hunger pangs start to kick in. Then what? Anti-Nader revolutionaries? Well, perhaps those new-fangled touch-screen voting machines will be up and running in enough places to take care of it by that time.

It will be interesting to see how Bush and his cabinet try to spin the forced removal of a democratically elected leader in favor of military thugs as being in the interests of freedom or democracy, but our government has pulled it off before, and Bush has the added credibility of a guy who believes his own bullshit.

"This is the beginning of a new chapter in the country's history," Bush said of Haiti recently, in a rare moment of accuracy. "I would urge the people of Haiti to reject violence to give this break from the past a chance to work. The United States is prepared to help."

Bush is right about one thing; the people of Haiti, now on their thirty-second coup, need to once and for all reject violence as a means for political change. But to do this, they need to reject the United States altogether, as we’re behind much of the violence. We may be "prepared to help," but perhaps we’ve helped enough already.