Totalitarian Rightists Put Orwellian Spin on Honduras Coup

To hear Rush Limbaugh and the tribunes of the totalitarian right tell it, everything is going swimmingly in Honduras.

Yes, the military invaded the home of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya
with guns blazing, kidnapped the country's elected leader and forced
him to leave the country.

Yes, the military then installed an unelected president and a new "interim" cabinet.

But, says Limbaugh,
"It really wasn't a coup. It was the constitution being upheld. It was
not a government being overthrown. It was a government being upheld, a
government being sustained and getting rid of somebody who wanted to
turn into an Ortega, who wanted to turn into a Chavez, who wanted to
become a Castro, and these are the people our president of the United
States is siding with."

Reading from the same script, Fox's Sean Hannity
declared that it was "mind-numbing" that the Obama administration would
side with the world community to condemn the removal of Zelaya by the
military and its political allies. While Hannity undoubtedly knows a
good deal about what it takes to numb a mind, this spin is surreal even
by the standards of the totalitarian right that has so besmirched the
name of traditional, antiinterventionist conservatism.

Putting aside concerns that Limbaugh, Hannity and their lesser
compatriots appear to be suffering from severe Obama Derangement
Syndrome - a condition characterized by bouts of uncontrollable rage
and deep depression separated by rambling ruminations on the need to
prevent regulation of pharmaceutical products -- the argument that
there was no coup in Honduras was pretty much put Wednesday. The
country's new rulers established a sweeping nighttime curfew, during which the following sections of the Honduran Constitution are specifically suspended:

ARTICLE 69.- Personal liberty is inviolable and can
only be restricted or suspended temporarily through modification of the
laws.

ARTICLE 71.- No person can be detained or held incommunicado for
more than twenty-four hours, without appearing before a competent
authority for trial.

ARTICLE 78.- The freedoms to assemble and meet are guaranteed, as long as they are not contrary to public order and good custom.

ARTICLE 81.- Every person has the right to circulate freely, leave, enter and remain in the national territory.

Honduran politicians and jurists who have aligned with the country's
powerful military - and been well rewarded for doing so -- make a point
that not all basic freedoms have been suspended all the time.

Fair enough. But there are still some Americans who think that the
suspensions of any basic freedoms any of the time is problematic.

In fact, the way that Limbaugh, Hannity and their echo chamber are
talking, you'd think that Zelaya was the one assaulting liberty.

The complaint about Zelaya from the people who have taken over the
country was that the legitimately elected president of Honduras wanted
to hold an advisory referendum on whether to consider altering the
constitution to allow elected executives to serve two terms.

In order to prevent the referendum vote, the coup kidnapped an
elected president, spirited him out of the country and installed a new
unelected president. Then they suspended civil liberties.

Outside of an Orwellian novel, or the mid-day slot on talk radio stations, some basic principles still apply:

Getting elected. Organizing referendums. Proposing constitutional
amendments. These are the sorts of things that happen in a country that
is experiencing democracy.

Kidnapping the president. Installing an unelected strongman. Suspending civil liberties. These are the sorts of things that happen in a country that is experiencing a coup.