América Held Hostage: Day Two of the Coup in Honduras

[Joanne98]

By Al Giordano




During the 2002 coup in Venezuela by an alliance of military generals, corporate media, that country's disgraced political class and the Bush administration in Washington, our colleague (and victorious codefendant) Mario Menéndez Rodríguez spoke some words to me that I've never forgotten:

"You will know the true character of a person by his actions during an hour of moral crisis."

As the coup-plotters in Honduras (similarly of a military-media-political class alliance, but this time without the support of Washington) enter their second day of temporary power with the rejection of the entire hemisphere and planet upon them, and the inconformity of the Honduran people (who defied martial law last night to erect barricades in the streets and otherwise resist the coup), we can observe "the true character" of various media and political voices across the political spectrum.

Let's start with the "newspaper of record," the New York Times, which in 2002 at first editorialized in praise of the Venezuelan coup, only to be forced to publish an unprecedented correction and apology (in large part urged by an email campaign sparked by readers of Narco News) for its initial anti-democratic position.

This time, the Timesmen are more circumspect, acknowledging that there was indeed a coup d'etat in Honduras, but they're having a very hard time wrapping their Columbia School of Journalism-addled brains around the reality that Washington is on the same page as Caracas and the rest of the hemisphere's democracies in opposing the coup. In what is billed as a "news analysis," titled "Rare Hemisphere Unity in Assailing Honduran Coup," Simon Romero, who holds the Gray Lady's Juan Forero seat in defense of oligarchies, Romero tries to come to grips with the new geopolitical realities of our América. He almost pulls it off, but then the fangs come out:

And while governments in the region may reject military ousters much more easily than, say, the civilian demonstrations that forced democratically elected leaders to resign earlier this decade in Argentina and Bolivia, the Obama administration has also shifted the way in which Washington reacts to such events.

In other words, Romero equates mostly peaceful acts of civil resistance by societies with those of violent military coups d'etat if social movements cause the resignation of a president. The means mean nothing, to Romero, compared to the ends. (There were, in the United States in 1974, a certain similar group of crazies that thought President Nixon's resignation was akin to a coup, too.) In those words is Romero's "tell," in poker terms, of how exasperating he finds this situation. It's unfamiliar to him, and to so many, that Washington would, for the first time, side against an oligarchic coup in Latin America. The only handle of hope Romero can grasp onto now is to try and lump nonviolent civil resistance (what the US Constitution calls "redress of grievances") of the kind that has changed our América for the better in recent years in with the violent actions of military gorillas at the bidding of the upper classes.

That the New York Times struggles bombastically to adjust to new realities shouldn't surprise anyone. Big, lumbering and bureaucratic institutions, including those in the corporate media, don't adapt well to change and consider it instinctually as threatening.

But there has also been a very similar dynamic in response to the new reality from some corners of the left (this is very similar to - in some cases overlapping with - responses we recently covered to the crisis in Iran, too).

Over just 24 hours, we have seen certain colleagues first claim that if there is a coup in Latin America, Washington must be behind it. Then when Washington - in contrast to the Bush administration's cheerleading reaction to the 2002 coup in Venezuela - rejected the coup plotters' scam that the removed president had "resigned," that line of critique began moving the goal posts. Okay, some said, Washington says it opposes the coup but it hasn't denounced it strongly enough!

They sound like John McCain scolding the Obama administration for not denouncing the regime in Iran with sufficient testosterone.

My point is this: Look at Simon Romero's spin in the NY Times, and deduce where it is coming from: He is fundamentally uncomfortable with a situation in which an overreaching oligarchy in Latin America can't count on Washington for support of its violent coup against a left-leaning government. And in some corners of the left, there are counterparts to Romero that have the exact same unease, only from an equal and opposite direction.

For years we (this newspaper included) have justifiably denounced it when US foreign policy got out ahead of the democratic aspirations of Latin Americans and began dictating what other countries should do through tough talk and open blackmail. Such "cowboy diplomacy" was inherently anti-democratic and imperialistic.

Today, when Washington has taken the opposite stance, there are some misguided voices that express upset with that, too. First, because they are deprived of the same easy-to-navigate script that has allowed them to drive on automatic pilot for so many years. It's confusing to some to have to navigate new terrain, even if it is improved terrain. Second, without the bogeyman of Washington to blame as the root of all evil in the hemisphere, they are at an exasperated loss for an enemy to demonize. (One would think that the Honduran oligarchy, or the capitalist system, alone would be a sufficiently bad actor to cast in the role of devil - indeed, they are the source of this coup d'etat - but for some it appears to involve too much heavy lifting to educate and inform the public of that reality.) They seem surprisingly nostalgic for the old Uncle Sam as the villain in every movie.

I should add that Washington's clear opposition to the coup plotters in Honduras - and its unambiguous stance that it will not recognize any president other than the elected one, Manuel Zelaya - is immensely demoralizing to the Honduran oligarchy and its own cast of upper class esqualidos, or "squalid ones."

Since demoralizing the enemy is one of the first rules of battle, one would think that all intelligent opponents of the coup would find this development - Washington's clear rejection of the coup - very satisfying, for it will speed the collapse of the coup. Reading the "oh noes" Twitter comments from coup defenders, their heads exploding over Obama's opposition to their coup, should be gratifying enough. But some are so addicted to the comfort of the past roadmap that they fail to think strategically about how this coup will be dismantled most quickly and bloodlessly.

Complaints that Washington hasn't acted fast enough to denounce the Honduran coup are silly and ignorant on the face of them. The Obama administration has already acted faster - in a single day - than the Organization of American states acted when it denounced the 2002 coup in Venezuela. In fact, Washington was very much involved in yesterday's OAS statement, which it endorsed.

Continued>>>
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/américa-held-hostage-day-two-coup-honduras

[bertman]

1. The U.S. government working cooperatively with O.A.S. is a very positive step.

Interesting that there was no mention whatsoever of the murder of the leftist candidate by the plotters.

Recommend.

[Billy Burnett]

2. Update. Congressman Ham is alive. Story has been retracted.

Here --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x16880

[bertman]

3. Thanks for the update, Billy. That's a relief.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. Is it possible that Obama was initially kind of pressured onboard, but quickly reading the signs

of the times in South America, realised that they needed to disown it, and pronto. Hence, for instance, the bizarrely uncharacteristic censure of the coup by the School of the Americas, whose alumni some of the junta apparently had been (or was it some of their "aides"?)

"The Obama administration has already acted faster - in a single day - than the Organization of American states acted when it denounced the 2002 coup in Venezuela." Is he suggesting that the SOA are kind of Quakers? A dauntingly high target of moral rectitude to emulate?