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TechnoratiHonduran Dictatorship Is A Threat to Democracy In the Hemisphere
A small group of rich people who own most of Honduras and its politicians enlist the military to kidnap the elected president at gunpoint and take him into exile. They then arrest thousands of people opposed to the coup, shut down and intimidate independent media, shoot and kill some demonstrators, torture and beat many others. This goes on for more than four months, including more than two of the three months legally designated for electoral campaigning. Then the dictatorship holds an "election."
Should other countries recognize the results of such an election, to be held on November 29th? Latin America says absolutely not; the United States is saying, well, "yes we can"- if we can get away with it.
"There has been a sharp rise in police beatings, mass arrests of demonstrators and intimidation of human rights defenders," since President Zelaya slipped back into Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, wrote Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch, the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and human rights groups worldwide have also condemned the violence and repression perpetrated by the Honduran dictatorship.
On November 5, the 25 nations of the Rio Group, which includes virtually all of Latin America, declared that they would not recognize the results of the November 29th elections in Honduras if the elected President Manuel Zelaya were not first restored.
Why is it that Latin American governments can recognize this threat to democracy but Washington cannot? One reason is that many of the governments are run by people who have lived under dictatorships. President Lula da Silva of Brazil was imprisoned by the Brazilian dictatorship in the 1980s. President Michele Bachelet of Chile was tortured in prison under the brutal Pinochet dictatorship that was installed with the help of the Nixon administration. The presidents of Bolivia, Argentina, Guatemala, and others have all lived through the repression of right-wing dictatorships.
Nor is this threat merely a thing of the past. Just two weeks ago the President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, had to fire most of the military leadership because of credible evidence that they were conspiring with the political opposition. This is one of the consequences of not reversing the Honduran military coup of June 28th.
Here in the United States we have been subjected to a relentless campaign of lies and distortions intended to justify the coup, which have been taken up by Republican supporters of the dictatorship, as well as by hired guns like Lanny Davis, a close associate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the biggest lie, repeated thousands of times in the news reporting and op-eds of the major media, was that Zelaya was overthrown because he was trying to extend his term of office. In fact, the non-binding referendum that Zelaya proposed had nothing to do with term limits. And even if this poll of the electorate had led eventually to a new constitution, any legal changes would have been far too late for Zelaya to stay in office beyond January 29.
Another surreal part of the whole political discussion has been the attempt to portray Zelaya, who was merely delivering on his campaign promises to the Honduran electorate, as a pawn of some foreign power - conveniently chosen to be the much-demonized Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The anti-communist hysteria of 1950s McCarthyism is still the model for these uncreative political hacks.
What a disgrace it will be to our country if the Obama team follows through on its current strategy and recognizes these "elections!" It's hard to imagine a stronger statement than that human rights and democracy in this hemisphere count for zero in the political calculations of this administration.
18 Comments so far
Show AllIt is urgently and critically important that people quickly get over any doubts they have that Obama will act in the interests of the two party ruling class consensus of the U.S. which brought him to power in the elections of 2008 through the usual mechanism of corporate controlled media, elite-run party aparatus, and shutting the door in the face of anyone (Kucinich comes to mind) with balls to challenge them from within the system. The U.S. is fully capable of and is in fact well advanced in its plans to overthrow more than one government in Latin America. Be very clear in understanding that numerous Latin American governments representing some 320 million people (equivalent to the population of the U.S.) hold to some sort of progressive, left, revolutionary, and/or anti-imperialist positions. They have been very unified in opposing the coup in Honduras and U.S. support for it as well as opposing vociferously the U.S. pact with Colombia for basing of U.S. troops and weapons as well as mercenaries at 7 or more bases in Colombia. To stand up against the U.S. is to become a target of the U.S. CIA, military and reactionary economic/politcial forces. It is time right NOW to speak, act and denounce U.S. actions in Latin America. Our Latin American brothers and sisters deserve our active involvement and solidarity NOW. Check sites like UpSideDownWorld.org, machetera.wordpress.com, and http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=region®ionId=3
Something is seriously wrong when a President elected for change does not stand up for democracy. It was Reverend Martin Luther King who said " Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. President Obama would not be president if it was not for the civil rights movement. It's a shame that we are not moving toward a more just, more sustainable and more peaceful world. Our current leader does not seem to have the ability to prioritize and stick with an issue until it is completed. Win or lose we have to stand for something.
Weisbrot asks: "Why is it that Latin American governments can recognize this threat to democracy but Washington cannot? The biggest threat to any amount of People Power--real participatory democracy--is centered in Depravity Central, Metropole of the US Empire, because real participatory democracy will reduce the oligarchy of Fat Cats that holds power in the US Empire and its allies in placess like Honduras, Paraguay, Venezuela, etc., while allowing the masses to better their livelihoods.
karlof1: "Weisbrot asks: "Why is it that Latin American governments can recognize this threat to democracy but Washington cannot?"
... and to your answers to that question, karlof1, I add ... because we have been so brainwashed for so many years that we haven't understood that this government is only a PRETEND DEMOCRACY. We are really a Fascistic Corporatocracy now, and for quite some time, and all the rules and regs for our total suppression were put in place during the GWBush administration after the very well-planned Inside Job of 9-11 with the neo-cons and our partner Israel.
Obama is obviously trying to finish the job in his mild-mannered way. He's a phony, a well-behaved puppet, and a shill for Mega-money/Mega-power.
Support genuine democracy in Honduras and help restore the elected president brought down by a military coup? R U kidding? The Honduran president was doing what Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales and others are doing, starting to really help The People to even up land ownership and a share of the wealth of the countries they live in.
Obviously, the U.S. wouldn't be setting up seven more military bases in Colombia [our sock puppet "friend" who gets military supplies & money from us] to be ready to strike any South American or Latin American country AGAIN if the rich corporatists don't get their way, retrieve all their assets, and retain their power.
United Fruit Cakes have been calling the shots for more than an hundred years. And sock-puppet Obama is right there to help them, and Hillary too.
The problem for the folks of the U.S. is that as more and more and more rottenness and corruption is exposed, only a small percentage go past the TV babble, open their minds to possibilities other than what they are being told, and read sites like this.
[personal musings]
I have a lovely daughter and son, both 50-ish, good parents and family people and solid middle-class. We don't live near each other, and my life is very different from theirs. Obviously I became a maverick in my thinking, in what I did, what I risked, quite a long time ago now, and my lifestyle is no longer the mainstream one it once was by any stretch of the imagination.
As I have evolved and the blinders came off, what I think or have to say to my family or even local people, is not really welcome. There is no way to interest them or rouse them to the seriousness of what's happening in this country or in this world, and that includes mates and in-laws and step-siblings and cousins. They are all busy with their lives and children and the usual demands of family life and home ownership, and they cannot stretch beyond that.
They are not unusual.
Our president is of their generation, and I keep getting astounded because I know he doesn't get it; he doesn't feel it; he lacks all passion.
The malaise for recent generations seems to be an apathy of the soul. The buzz words of the '60's, the Civil Rights movement, the era of Vietnam protests were about Soul, including Soul Food, Soulfulness, Singing from the Soul ... and PASSION for JUSTICE and the RIGHT. Dangerous stuff that was programmed away ... deliberately. Much easier to have a nation of apathetic souls with passions made tepid and minds that are educated to think small and not deal with complexities and complex questions and issues.
I am unusual for my generation. I know that too. It's been a most unusual journey, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Even though it is frustrating as hell at times, it is better to be able to see and hear and cut through the crap to understand the bamboozlement that is passed off as TRUTH by those who lead us or provide us with information.
What goes around comes around. It continues to be an interesting ride.
... and I do appreciate so the thoughtful, knowledgeable and intelligent comments many of you make. And I delight when I hear the passion in some of you.
The essays and headline information gathered by the folks who run this site are frequently outstanding, some of them a little so-so, and a few not so good, but the "audience"/you commenters set it right immediately by what you say.
I'm in that childlike feeling of long ago, right now, of deeply wishing that we on this earth could all just get along and help each other and respect each other as fellow human-beings. It seems such an easy solution, but I guess you have to see and feel it that way.
peace, cm
Great post, Cee Miracles - providing needed confirmations for many of us. Tnx.
When Chavez accused Obama of being a prisoner of the military, he was exactly right.He has been told to back the coup d'etat in Honduras by the people that really run our foreign policy, namely the MIC, but he is very good at hiding what he has been ordered to do.
Obama supposts the American oligarchs that feel threatened by South America's many country's peoples who have reestablished people control over their governments at the expense of corporations. Obama wants to undo this before it spreads to America. So, he supports the coop in Honduras and the establishment of an enormously powerful American military base in Columbia. In my opinion, Obama is a dangerous man who opposes democracy and supports the corptocracy.
Let's not discount Hillary Clinton's involvement in this attack against democracy.....up to her neck in corruption and knee deep in blood.......
nice legacy!
Now that Chiquita is in the driver's seat can we accurately call the Honduran government a Banana Republic?
This article is pretty much right on the mark. The USA could take action which would bring a half to the coup gangsters running the Honduran government.
AD
Obama's inaction on every front is breathtaking in it's scope.
Obama is all about political expediency....witness the reform-less health reform, the justice-less terrorist show trials, the solution-less climate change policy, the dumb, deaf and blind "looking forward" past Bush criminal activities.
His main goal seems to be getting through his first term without giving the GOP any ammunition to use against him. Unfortunately this means he will neither be giving his supporters any reason to continue supporting him.
All in all. Obama is a dud.
"Obama is a dud" - as in 'an attack (on a situation) that failed to function' - is the best and most sparing summing up yet, done in four words and only six (!) extra letters. Neat and exact.
By now it must be faced:
Obama is a dud.
*
The following from an article on Alternet.org, "November 21, 2009More »15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams." - but a part of it which wasn't posted there (cf. http://ampedstatus.com/the-critical-unraveling-of-us-society ):
"The Obama Myth
I don’t mean to dismiss the Obama myth, his words, the change we need is real, its just his actions don’t even come close to measuring up. Just read the legal documents he has signed his name to. Read them. His actions are most often the opposite of what he says. I venture to say a 10 year old can recognize that after doing a school day’s worth of research.
Obama is a national tragedy. He is a symbol of the times. He is not a leader, just a symbol. He projects the change we need. He was our shortcut to correcting our diseased political system, a way to rid it of corruption. He symbolized the change millions so desperately need. People came out in the millions for the first time “hoping” if they could work and organize to put him in office, we would have some representation to defend against the economic elite that have put the overwhelming majority of US politicians on the payroll and brought humanity to a breaking point.
People just need to research how the Obama myth was hatched. Goldman Sachs saw Obama early on and said, “He’s our guy!” When Obama became THE MAN in Iowa, he was on the Goldman Sachs pay roll [2. largest Obama campaign-contributor - $994,795 - cf. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638]. Goldman financed the psychological operation that is the Obama myth, the Illusion of HOPE - something to keep a suffering nation pacified just a little bit longer. Obama is truly a national tragedy. His failure and inaction has disillusioned millions upon millions of desperate citizens who turned to him as their best chance for justice.
As further evidence of Obama’s duplicity — beyond repeatedly signing his name to documents covering up the Bush Adminstration’s highest crimes and increasing an already bloated military budget — in one of his very first moves as President he put Goldman Sachs’ criminal mastermind Tim Geitner in charge of the treasury.
A new report from the TARP Inspector General further exposes Tim Geithner’s role “in overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs.”
Which brings us to the ultimate theft of wealth in history, and to the root cause of our current crisis."
The article then goes on to Part IV: "Economic Coup - Theft of Trillions", and Part V: "National Emergency". Read it and weep.
Expediency has a short shelf life and the GOP will attack him even if he serves their agenda exclusively. A dud he is.
The Obama Administration has no problem with the coup regime.
Of course not. Their Sec'y of State's contributors bankrolled it at first, and the IMF has bankrolled it since.
Inaction is the best of 0bama's qualities.
He has hedged and failed to come out against the coup because Honduras is not high enough on his priorities to risk his ventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the surrounding areas by coming out honestly and clearly in favor of obviously criminal and despotic actions in front of the American public at the same time that he ignores the desires of his constituency on just about every issue.
But the underlying policy shows clear in his filling Colombia with bases.
Clearly the coup and the dictatorship of the coupsters constitutes a threat to democracy throughout the Americas and elswhere. Of course the 0bama administration is not against the coup.
Come on, folks; this policy has not changed materially since James Monroe. Let us recognize American handiwork and move towards response.
A small group of rich people who own most of Honduras and its politicians --- like Chiquita and Dole....and a few Republicans.
Exactly! Now that is the point!