Joe Biden In 1994: If Haiti Fell In The Sea, ‘It Wouldn't Matter A Whole Lot’

A 90s clip of Joe Biden talking about Haiti's worth to the United States has resurfaced, and it is not good... BIDEN: "If Haiti—a God-awful thing to say—if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn't matter a whole lot to our (USA's) interests." Emma Vigeland and the Majority Report crew discuss this.

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EMMA VIGELAND: So we're getting more information but still not a ton about the assassination of Haitian President Moise, which happened not yesterday, but I believe in the dead of night leading up to to yesterday. Which has sent shockwaves throughout the country, understandably, and it's also particularly relevant when looking at U.S. empire, because U.S. foreign policy with Haiti has been long; it's been bloody; it's been colored by fears of Black liberation; and of course, U.S. imperialism and economic dominance.

We've been interfering with Haiti throughout its country's history, and of course, it's always about exerting U.S. hegemony and global dominance at all costs. Particularly for our economic interests, as I say. We had journalist Jeremy Scahill on a few months ago, or weeks ago, he dubbed Joe Biden the empire politician, and that's evident in this 1994 clip. Is that what year this is? '90s clip at the very least. Biden talking about Haiti within the context of U.S. interests.

I think this is relevant just given how the U.S. is going to respond to this power vacuum in Haiti, and was there any United States involvement, despite the U.S. propping up Moise for many years and other members of the the bourgeoisie. Let's take a listen, though, to Biden some years ago talking about Haiti.

Joe Biden: You all went into Grenada for 40, 100, 70, not 500 medical students, and here there are thousands of Blacks being persecuted, killed, death squads, and you're not doing anything. Clearly Haiti is no more or less in the interest of the United States than Grenada. So what you have, for example, a leading editor of a paper in the Delaware Valley wrote, asked their reporters to come down and talk to me and said, "Why is Biden so concerned about Bosnia and not about Haiti? Is it because Blacks are involved in Haiti? Blacks are what at stake in Haiti and in Bosnia they are European whites?" There is that notion abroad, in the Congress, in the country. It's not substantially different than when lequelencia came along and all the polls in the state of Delaware, in the United States of America, focused. Or when Israel is in trouble and the American Jewish community and those who believe strongly in Israel, focus. Or you can list throughout our history circumstances where our our multiethnic community looks to things happening in a constituency that they are from, represent, or feel having a stake in. So if Haiti — a god-awful thing to say — if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn't matter a whole lot in terms of our interests.

Emma Vigeland: So that clip was circulating about Haiti falling into the sea and a lot of people who are supporters of Joe Biden said that it was taken out of context. But I'm not sure contextualizing it with how we view nations and helping them as purely an effort to exert U.S. hegemony, I'm not sure how much that makes a difference, Matt.