Daily Kos: Whom the gods would destroy, part 2: The crisis in Honduras.

[Downwinder]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/25/808168/-Whom-the-gods-would-destroy,-part-2:-The-crisis-in-Honduras

[Peace Patriot]

1. What they did to President Zelaya was foul, foul, foul!

Shakespeare's play, "Julius Caesar," comes to mind. The treachery of Brutus and other Roman Senators in cornering and stabbing Caesar to death as the only way to get rid of a popular leader who was threatening their 'noble' prerogatives. And "Macbeth," in that so many good people die as the result of evil ambition . And "Hamlet," and his excruciating pangs of conscience as to determining what justice is, in a murky and emotionally charged situation, and then whether or not to act on it. And, finally, "King Lear," who cannot understand the injustice he had done, and in which, good people suffer at the hands of the treacherous and sadistic, also for power and riches.

The coup plotters and connivers, and the murderers and torturers, in Honduras remind me of these favorite themes of Shakespeare and the villains he created to express them--driven by ambition to treacherous or bloody deeds, all the while justifying themselves with this legalism or that "principle"-and in Lear's case unleashing the evil in others by his initial injustice.

First, there were legalisms, and self-justifications and contrivances; then the good are disempowered; then mayhem in which the innocent suffer.

Zelaya, who was trying to be a good president, and respond to the pleas of the people for political reform and relief from poverty. Those whose "noble" prerogatives were threatened moving against him, swiftly in the night, out of their own ambition and greed, mouthing platitudes about "the Constitution" and telling lies the next day, compounded with more lies in the days after that, with that murky power behind them--the residue of the Bushwhack regime, still operating in Honduras, and the new U.S. government just sitting back and letting it all unfold, and not lifting finger to preserve what it purported to believe in--democracy, the rule of law.

Thence to the crushing of the good people--the courageous Hondurans, some hundred of them shot or tortured and beaten or stabbed to death, and thousands suffering mistreatment and deprivation trying to restore their democracy--the true nobles of Honduras. The "good king," Zelaya, confined to a "tower"--the Brazilian embassy--where the perversity of the Junta expresses itself in restricting food and water and harassing the "tower" with sound weapons and periodically threatening him with arrest if he dares to step outside to help his people. Zelaya is surely "Hamlet" tonight, wanting to contest this fraudulent election, torn between the requirements of justice and fear of more evil being inflicted on others. He has made mistakes--like all tragic heroes. He has sought the good and didn't know how to get there. He has been betrayed, stabbed in the back, and tonight wonders what the final act will bring. He is moved by his peoples' struggle and wants to join them. What should he do? What is best? How to turn this tragedy around?

That's what I see--a dramatic and complex struggle over the powers of state, and the fate of a whole people and land, with the individual actors in this drama revealing their truest inner selves, as the events unfold.

That's what I got from reading "Whom the gods would destroy," part 2, after following these events for five months.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Looked up the quote: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

Lord, there is a mighty long list of sources and discussion about it here
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Euripides

It has been attributed to the ancient Greek playwright, Euripides (d. 406 BC), but the wiki scholar says that's wrong--it's a much older bit of wisdom that has been stated in various ways--none as succinct and elegant as the above--down through the Ages, all meaning approximately the same thing.

This is an interesting alternative:

Nor do the gods appear in warrior's armour clad
To strike them down with sword and spear
Those whom they would destroy
They first make mad.

Bhartṛhari, 7th c. AD; as quoted in John Brough,Poems from the Sanskrit, (1968), p, 67

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As part 2 of the Daily Kos narrative reveals, the golpistas tried to allege that Zelaya is "mad" (had lost his mind). (Cuz they couldn't imagine one of their own--a member of the aristocracy--genuinely seeking the good of the people.)

But the quote is more pertinent to the golpistas themselves. They are mad to think that they can govern the people of Honduras--who have caught the fire of real democracy in their hearts--with martial law--brutality, violent repression--and phony elections. That is the real madness. They have been wrong and illegitimate from Day One. Yet--driven by ambition, greed and their U.S. advisers--they persist with their lies and "nazi boot" methods though the Honduran people and all of Latin America (the real democrats of our hemisphere) oppose them. They are like "Macbeth." They will have a bloodbath before they will give up their unseemly power.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Great info., hope to finish it later. Excellent posts from Peace Patriot, as well. Thanks, n/t