aiti reveled in democracy Sunday as President Jean Bertrand Aristide stepped down following the results of a spontaneous recall election held in the country during the past two weeks. When the grassroots campaign effort reached Haiti's capital of Port-Au-Prince, the defeated president made a quick recession speech and left the country by plane very fast.

"Thanks for nothing, assholes," Aristide was reported to have said as he climbed the steps into his private jet in a hurry. A short, emotionally-charged speech by the disappointed former leader of the country ending his 14-year role as a power player in Haitian politics.

The fly-by-night recall process demonstrated how strongly rooted in democracy Haiti has become since achieving its independence from France in 1804, even after years of violent revolutions and overthrowing of dictators. With its people suffering results of extreme poverty and allegations of government corruption, the country celebrated its bicentennial by holding an unwritten referendum to removes its first free-elected president from office.

In fact, so fast was the democratic recall held, no candidate had a chance to get on the ballot as an alternative to Aristide's platform. Insiders in the unofficial Aristide opposition party would not confirm if Gary Coleman or Ariana Huffington had been contacted to fill the open presidency. At press time, hypothetical control of the government rested in the hands of some guy who claimed to be the chief justice of the Haiti Supreme Court, who asked we refer to him as "Jimbo."

The United States initially sided with Aristide at the first sign of violent democratic reform, but changed its tune last week when opponents of Aristide demonstrated considerable political sway by unleashing anarchy in cities surrounding the capital of Port-Au-Prince. Sunday, following the news of Aristide's hasty concession, hundreds of Haitians took to the streets to celebrate pure, uncut democracy.

Professor Vander La Baptiste of Port-Au-Prince University's Department of Coups expressed pride in the country's grassroots political upheaval.

"For too long Haiti was content with sham 'representative democracy,' like a lot of the western world. Finally, we have instituted true democracy," said La Baptiste. "After years of low voter turnout, five percent or less in many cases, Haitians are interested in politics. You can look out any window—careful, watch out for gunfire—and see them expressing political dissent in a democratic fashion. No longer will we waste time voting on bills and budgets about who gets a television. If someone wants a television, they will exercise their democratic right to go right into the store and take it. The police have respectfully stepped aside and allowed us to express our opinions in every matter, whether you are pro-Aristide or anti-Aristide. Just make sure if you are expressing pro-Aristide opinion you are not in a prominent anti-Aristide party territory."

La Baptiste added that mob turnout was as high as 54%, but expected those numbers to grow much higher as political fever spread through the population.

On the part of the United States, President George "Whiter than White" Bush promised to show his support for the display of democracy by sending Marines in cooperation with U.N. forces to "visit" U.S. interests in the country—"You know, just to see how they're enjoying the expression of political opinion down there."

ll over the United States the average viewer is being treated to the site of black people running through the streets, burning flags, and throwing shrapnel as well as shooting guns, in the midst of full-blown rebellion. Unfortunately, this isn't in America, it's in Haiti, and Americans everywhere nervously wonder: Who exactly is the bad guy and whose side am I supposed to be on?

It's a fair question, as the White House has yet to make an announcement on where they stand on the Haiti situation, pending a review of the situation by a panel heading south, which should have an answer this coming week. Of course, angry black people are something the Bush administration traditionally stands against, and this is no exception; but the real question for them is, can President Jean-Bertrand Aristide keep the population down and the bucks flowing to America for a few more terms? Or is it time to scrap him and install a new puppet government?

That's right, the p-word: Puppet. The unofficial word is a claymation Gumby would have more spine for standing up to the U.S. than Aristide. Now the U.S. seeks damage control as Aristide finds himself the victim of a coup yet again. The wonderful "liberal" administration of Bill Clinton helped put Aristide back in power after his earlier ousting in 1994, and he was certainly a good lapdog after that. Clinton defended the action as restoring the rightfully-elected Haitian president to power, but nobody in the country bothered asking how he was elected or by whom. In recent years Haitian voter turnout has peaked at about 5%—even for Americans, that's pretty low turnout.

For those Americans with your average high school education, Haiti may seem like a mystery. It is one of Caribbean island nations not communist and therefore of little interest to U.S. diplomats. It is populated almost entirely by black people, but it's not the one Bob Marley is from, and it's not a popular resort. It suffers from extreme poverty and high occurrences of AIDS and HIV, and the last time you saw it on TV may have been when a boatload of refugees were drowning in an effort to reach the continental United States, unless they were being turned back by U.S. coast guard.

There are positive things about Haiti, though, like its friendliness to American investors. When it's not in the midst of revolution, which is admittedly quite often, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere with a per capita income of $250; less than half of its population is literate and 80% of its people live in poverty, which means low, low wages for investors. The U.S.-friendly puppet government, put in place and held there by military force, means no minimum wage and bizarre laws that lower tariffs on imports and punish exports—a country with a high yield of agricultural products can't even produce rice for its own people, since it is cheaper to import it from American agricultural concerns, thanks to commerce legislation.

For the Bush administration, it's obviously good business to enforce "trickle down" economics and protect investments there by reinstalling a U.S.-friendly government by whatever means possible, even militarily, but since it's an election year and the American people are already getting a little sour about our efforts to protect business concerns in the Middle East, the stance our country is going to take on recent Haitian uprisings isn't quite square yet. But if it can be done without lowering anyone's approval rating, you can bet Haitian rebels and their underclass associates, maybe even Aristide himself, will soon join the Octagon of Evil, or whatever shape evil's taking these days.

Acting Editor's Note: Given that Red Bagel has refused to step outside his office since the November election, and has even stopped sliding articles to us under the door, we have opted to run a previous column of his in this slot. Here is some of Red's on-the-ball coverage of the 2000 presidential race, and we hope it seems as insightful now as it did back when it first ran in the commune then.

George W. Bush will never be president, and I'll tell you why.

For one, and let's call this exhibit A, sir: He's the son of another president, and people didn't like that president all that much. America learned its lesson from John Adams and John Quincy Adams, as well as the two Roosevelts. Having your son be president just doesn't work, it reminds people too much of the king system. The one bright side of electing idiot after idiot is we know we're working our way through the gene pool. Why go back for a dip in the shallow end? We tried the Bush lineage, no geniuses there. Even if the "bad president" gene skips a generation, you think we'd give another Bush four years to prove it? Not happening.

For two, exhibit B, and I don't quite know how to say this delicately: He's a bit monkey-looking. Just a wee bit, with the ears and the beedy eyes, and that big region between his nose and lip. And I swear I've seen him scratch his head with his foot. It was only once, but I did see it.

And third: Al Gore's got way too much personality to beat. The guy's on fire. Ever since he announced he was running for the White House he's been like a tornado of energy, a stunning speech on this hand, polemic debate on the next. People will be saying the W stands for "Who?"

Even if Bush could put together a solid platform and explain it in our English language, the people wouldn't be likely to elect him, since he stands for everything they disagree with. His far-right agenda, his insistence on pushing religion into the public sphere, his ludicrous Reaganesque chasing of a "Star Wars" missile defense program, he's clearly far behind on all real threats facing the nation. It's 2000 already, people have learned the lessons of right-wing Republicanism, they aren't about to repeat the scenario that drove them so deep into recession we had to elect a poontang-pursuing president like Bill Clinton to get us out of it.

No, sir, the real race this year will be between Gore and Nader. I know the numbers don't quite back me up on this yet, but I'm convinced all polling information is done five years before it's presented to the public, so just wait for the figures to catch up. Ralph Nader and his invincible Green Party have gotten the word out about his campaign, and his no-holds-barred approach to the issues that concern people, like the environment and national health care, are clearly in line with the nation's general status as leaning to the far left. The people are finding heart in Nader's message of tackling the corporate welfare system and policing the out-of-control business world. The real question, come November, is Gore or Nader the one to make corporations responsible for their actions?

A tough battle, but I think the Clinton "dynasty" will manage to succeed once again. Even liberal America isn't quite ready for the Nader revolution just yet. Gore will have a term to start setting things right, in his subtle but entrancing way, but come 2004, if he wants to hold the White House for another term, until Hillary is ready for her run, he will have to accommodate the vast legion of Naderites in some way. A Nader vice-presidency? I won't say anything to get me too far ahead of myself. Let's just see how it plays out. I'm safer making predictions about that Matrix sequel they're working on, which all my inside sources guarantee will be the movie to end all movies.

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