Obama & Honduran Coup: Democracy V. The Rich & Powerful Elites ???

UPDATE 12:35 AM & 1:59 PM July 15, 2009

No surprise as US media acts as defenders of the Honduran Coup. The media owned & run by Neocons & Neoliberals who distrust any real reform in the United States itself or elsewhere is of course against President Zelaya . Being part of America's elite of the rich & powerful & the well connected are by definition in favor of the Elites who engineered the Coup possibly with the knowledge of the US Embassy in Honduras.

US Mainstream Media Complicit in producing misinformation , lies & propaganda to show erroneously that the majority of Hondurans were in favor of the Coup.GORD.

US Press Falsely Claims Honduran Plurality for Coup by robert Naiman, TruthOut.org, July 14, 2009

Did a CID-Gallup poll last week indicate that a plurality of Hondurans support the military coup against democratically elected President Zelaya? Yes, according to The Washington Post [July 9], The Wall Street Journal [July 10], The Christian Science Monitor [July 11], and Reuters [July 9], which all reported that the poll showed 41 percent in favor of the coup, with only 28 percent opposed.

But in fact the poll showed that 46 percent - a plurality - were opposed to the coup, according to The New York Times [July 10], The Associated Press [July 11] - and the president of CID-Gallup, in an interview with Voice of America on July 9.

As of this writing - Sunday evening, 5:30 pm Eastern time - none of the outlets which reported the poll incorrectly had corrected their earlier, inaccurate, reports.

DN! Honduran Coup Regime Hires US Lobbyists with Clinton Ties-July 14, 2009



More on Lobbyist Lanny Davis from Daily Kos
President Zelaya of Honduras Gains more support
Did Selaya Suffer from Hyper-Presidentialism
US system of governance Exceptional ? answer: President Bush???
Democracy & the Will of the people v the Elites & Rich & Powerful
Coup Made In America?

The writers of the following article accuses President Zelaya of Honduras of the crime of what they call Hyper-presidentialism. Given the attitude and actions of the Bush/Cheney Regime during its eight years is this article a piece of satire, are we being punked ?

Is this just more knee-jerk anti-progressives anti-left paranoid mania. Are we to read between the lines and see this as an attack or warning for President Obama if he dares go too far with his reforms. Are they setting the stage for ousting President Obama. Or are they just victims of their own narrow Conservative or Neo-Liberal ideological point of view so that they are unable to accept that Zelaya may in fact be supported by a majority of Hondurans. But the writers care little about this support because is mainly from the lower classes of Honduras who have little power or clout in their own country and are just depicted by those in power as the "Unwashed Masses" whom those who actually rule Honduras are permitted to just ignore . If those who support Zelaya continue to protest then the American Conservatives & their Conservative counterparts including the Religious Right in Honduras made up of the Catholic hierarchy & Right Wing Evangelicals can just start killing & terrorizing the majority of citizens in Honduras. Like the Religious Right in the United States they preach an Americanized form of Christianity which promotes the Gospel of Prosperity & that the wealthy are the chosen of God & so have no interest in implementing programs to help the poor & the lower classes. In the past the US has often encouraged the use of military force, torture, disappearing people & death squads to keep a US friendly elite in power in various countries around the Globe and especially in Latin America.


Is the OAS Against Democracy? by Javier Corrales and Daniel Altschuler at Huffington Post July 7,2009

Hyper-presidentialism occurs when elected presidents try to take the law into their hands, ignore constitutional limits, supersede the Congress and the courts, and use every possible trick to prolong their stay in office. Hyper-presidentialism directs a grave assault on democracy, because it is a challenge to political institutions coming from none other than the commander and spender in chief.

Hyper-presidentialism has become a recurrent problem in many Latin American democracies since the 1990s, and it set the stage for the Honduras coup. The democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, tried to run roughshod over the judiciary and the legislature.

The trigger was Zelaya's desire to seek another term in office. The Honduran Constitution prohibits re-election and, remarkably, the mention of one's desire to end this prohibition. Under normal circumstances, calling to reform this excessive constitutional restriction would seem perfectly reasonable. But democratic presidents must convince people of the need to reform, not exacerbate citizens' insecurity. Zelaya failed in this task. Everything he did suggested that his ultimate goal was to empower the Executive to the detriment of the other branches of government, and this scared all democratic forces.

...The lesson for the inter-American community is clear. Unless it develops a more sophisticated mechanism for Latin American democracies to help themselves from hyper-presidentialism, the region will also fail to deal with the other ghosts of its authoritarian past.

The writers claim President Zelaya of Honduras was in fact ignoring the Honduran constitution & laws and was expanding the executive. Doesn't this sound familiar didn't the Bush/Cheney do the same things. They claimed that they were above the law especially since America was at war.

They used the Department of Justice in a partisan manner going against the original intent of the Department of Justice. They used the DOJ to justify their illegal unethical & unconstitutional actions. Bush & Cheney used the Intelligence community especially the CIA to back their agenda with skewed & cooked up & fabricated intelligence some of it based on the false confessions of detainees who were tortured.They ignored the advice of senior military personnel . They manipulated the Media and the American people with lies & propaganda so they could invade Iraq & to justify illegal warrantless wire taping & the abuse & torture of POWs. As for Bush being the democratically elected president there are still questions about whether or not he wan the presidency. It was decided by a member of the Supreme Court who was a conservative Republican. In the 2000 & 2004 election there questions raised about vote rigging & such. So are these writers suggesting that the US congress & military would have been justified in removing Bush& Cheney & Rumsfeld etc. with the help of the US military rather than some other legal process.

The fear that Latin Americans have is that this will create a precedent and that other countries will undergo a coup d`etat using similar reasoning. The authors suggest that this form of Hyper-presidentialism is a problem possibly unique in Latin America and that other Presidents have over-reached in their use of power and should also be replaced such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

and they conclude with this patronizing statement:

"The lesson for the inter-American community is clear. Unless it develops a more sophisticated mechanism for Latin American democracies to help themselves from hyper-presidentialism, the region will also fail to deal with the other ghosts of its authoritarian past."

So we can ask what do they mean by using the words "sophisticated mechanism" which again sounds patronizing . It suggests that America has in fact such a "sophisticated mechanism' to counter-act an over-reaching president. Isn't this a bit far-fetched and a tad disingenuous If that is so why wasn't it used to replace the corrupt Bush/Cheney Regime. No instead it was used to rid the United States of President Clinton for what having an extra -marital affair or for lying about it. Yet the President lies takes the US to war costing the lives of over 4400 US personnel & destroying Iraq & murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis & yet Bush and Cheney et al get away with it and day in and day out they are still defended by the Neoconservative /Right-Wing Fox News Network while they attack President Obama like their counterparts have been doing in Honduras in their ongoing propaganda against President Zelaya.

This sounds at the very least as a typical American bit of patronizing towards Latin American countries as if they were children who were in need of guidance or adult supervision by the superior Americans who's system of governance is according to many Americans absolutely perfect. These writers I presume believe in American Exceptionalism which claims the American democracy is superior all other democracies or any other form of government. They seem to assume the poor and the lower classes in America are treated far better than any other industrialized nation which is far from the truth. America also does not have superior Helathcare or a superior public school system . See for instance Godfrey Hodgson's book ' The Myth of American Exceptionalism' pub. 2009.

Also see Karl Rove once again defending the Imperial Presidency or Hyperpresidentialism as a good thing in explaining that the executive branch should not share information with Congress because Congress has been infiltrated by "Leftists" who will leak the intel to the left-wing media. Also not Karl Rove claims those who leaked the information broke the law when did he or anyone in the Bush administration show any interests in the Rule of Law.

See: Karl Rove: It's Dangerous to Give Congress Information By Ben Armbruster at "Think Progress" via Information Clearing House, July 14, 2009-

ROVE: Well, because, look, it’s interesting. The CIA briefed Congress to this, I guess, in June. And the Congress immediately leaks it. That, itself is, a violation, I think, of several statutes and indicative of why it is so dangerous to give Congress information.

Remember, this is about according to The Wall Street Journal a program that was designed and for which people were trained, but a program which was never put into effect. And so Congress is saying we want you to — we want you to brief us. We, the left wing in Congress, want you to brief us on ideas you have. Not necessarily on programs that you executed.

O’REILLY: Right, so we can tell The New York Times what they are. That’s what they want.



So given America's deep flaws & its recent history of an Imperial Presidency under the Bush/Cheney Regime & its manipulation of the Inrtelligence Community, the Congress & Senate the Department of Justice & US media & its manipulation of the United Nations & its disregard for its own laws & Constitution & its disregard for International Laws & agreements it is rather disengenuous to attack President Zelaya.

The other issue which is considered the core of the issue in Honduras is that President Zelaya was not removed from power by the will of the majority of the Honduran people but by the elites of the wealthy & the well connected & the Privileged members of society who were fearful of reforms that might undermine their power & influence over the government in order to defend their interests at all cost.

And from the Daily Kos we get another indication of who the people in America and elsewhere who support the Coup & the removal of President Zelaya. The article points out the Honduran Coup has hired a notorious right wing Lobbyist Lanny Davis to lobby on their behalf in the US media & to members of Congress & Senate etc. But Lanny Davis was one the chief Lobbyist who ran an all out attack campaign against Barack Obama when he was running to lead the Democratic Party. Lanny Davis attack campaign use lies & misinformation & distortions to try to undermine Barack Obama's campagn. So the logic goes if Lanny Davis is backing the coup this means that coup was in fact illegal or unnecessary and was merely a means to kick out someone who leaned the wrong way politically.

Honduras Coup Daily Kos

Lobbyist Lanny Davis Seeks Rematch w. Obama over Honduras Coup by The Field at Daily Kos, July 13, 2009

Dear Mr. President:

Remember, during the 2008 presidential primaries, the constant screeching national media presence from lawyer-lobbyist Lanny Davis? Yeah, him. The guy who night after night went on every cable TV channel to scream that Obama wasn't electable, that Obama couldn't win swing states, that Obama couldn't win white voters, that Obama had to explain his position on race, that Obama couldn't answer the 3 a.m. phone call...

He's baaaack.

And now he's representing the Honduran coup d'etat...

Yup, one of those very same bottom-feeding lobbyists who you banned from your administration is now out to prove that you really are the "inexperienced" rube he said you were.

And (as your Spanish-speaking US citizen it is my duty to inform you) the way that much of Latin America sees it, your administration - and particularly your Secretary of State - are being successfully played by.. cough... cough... Lanny Davis!


...See what he's trying to do with the Honduras coup, Mr. President? Lanny Davis' Honduras gambit is an attempt to prove that he was right all along: that you are "indecisive," and that you'll "duck" your civic duty to put the hammer down on the coup through the tools at your immediate disposal: full-on economic sanctions and by unleashing your law enforcement agencies on the gang of money launderers, narco-traffickers, ex-Cuban terrorists and others that have conspired and acted to turn Honduras into the rebirth of the 1950s Batista project in Cuba: a veritable mobster-state and safe haven for all of them.

...Let me remind you of the most important thing to know about Lanny Davis: He's always wrong.

But now, in 2009, here he is, causing an international scandal: his sudden mercenary presence on the scene is viewed by many throughout Latin America as proof positive that the putsch in Tegucigalpa is "Obama's coup," or, at very least, "Secretary Clinton's coup." It's not, you say? I've said that, too. But Lanny Davis is trying his darnedest to make you own it, and make me eat those words.

Just like most US citizens have a hard time understanding different democratic systems of government in other countries, people abroad think Washington has pretty weird form of democracy, too, with its lobbyists like Lanny Davis pushing and pulling government around by the nose ring.

When they see someone like Lanny Davis, such a notorious cheerleader for the political ambitions of your Secretary of State, so closely allied with her over so many years, now lobbying for a military coup, her every move is scrutinized through that lens. She's taking an even bigger hit, so far, than you are over this. But in the end this will fall on you.
Obama must come out and boldly condemn the Coup & follow this with action

...Nobody's asking you to send in the Marines. All you need to do is to zealously enforce the laws of your own country, where the coup plotters deposit so many of the dollars that they've looted from the majority of Hondurans, and where they and their family members need visas to go shop in Miami with all that dirty money. Their bluff is in a Prada bag. You play poker. Call it.

And Zelaya is right. Playing along with such talks with an illegitimate coup regime any longer than they've gone on already would be folly. Diplomacy is for dealing with legitimate governments, not for criminals and terrorists.

And, Mr. President, even if that story blows over in the news media, because Honduras is a relatively small country, you just know that if the Honduras coup succeeds in remaining in power that other military generals in other Latin American countries are going to take it as a green light to do the same. And when that happens, the next coup - in Bolivia, perhaps? El Salvador? Nicaragua? Or completing the circle from 1955, Guatemala, Señor Presidente? - will be known far and wide as "Obama's coup," because your administration will then be accurately perceived as having not lowered the boom - in all the economic, political and judicial ways that everybody knows you can and must do - on its predecessor.

Worse, they'll say you got beat by Lanny Davis.

They'll even say that kooky Lanny fellow was right about you in 2008.

Those are his chips on the card table.

Now show us yours.


" US accused of backing Honduras coup " Agence France-Presse via The Australianonline.com, July 14, 2009

Bolivian leader Evo Morales has accused the US military of being behind the coup in Honduras, saying the "imperial structure remains in force", despite President Barack Obama's inauguration.

"I have first-hand information that the empire, through the US Southern Command, made the coup d'etat in Honduras," President Morales said during a visit to the Uruguayan capital Montevideo.

The coup that saw Honduran President Manuel Zelaya swept up by the military on June 28 in his pajamas and expelled from the country "is an aggression, a provocation of the empire," he said.

"Maybe I do not know Obama, but the imperial structure remains in force."

Anyway given the treatment of the Honduran media & foreign media by the new government it has all the trappings of a coup. Shutting down any opposition media, the use of a curfew , a ban on public demonstrations, shutting down the University, arresting and or intimidating dissidents, a military presence across the nation- looks like a coup - was it engineered with outside help ie wealthy American conservatives & the angry anti-communist extremists & the American Religious Right who believe taxing the rich or providing adequate funding for public education or Health Care is downright evil and anti-Christian & anti-American (as Pastor Hagee would argue- if the poor are hungry Jesus said let them starve!!!)- was the campaign to oust Zelaya a rogue operation of the CIA or the US military or the Embassy in Honduras. As I have said before the Bush regime had authorized several campaigns in Latin America in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez so was this a continuation & expansion of that program and did it operate without Obama's knowledge ???

"Chavez-funded Telesur flourishes in Honduras coup " By Frank Jack Daniel,CARACAS, July 14 (Reuters)

-

It was a dramatic scoop, a live conversation with a coup-ousted president broadcast from the cockpit of his jet as it swooped over clashes between soldiers and his supporters in the capital below.

That nail-biting drama is one of a clutch of exclusives that made Latin America's left-wing news network Telesur vital viewing as a coup against President Manuel Zelaya unfolded in Honduras, from the first interview with the deposed leader to rolling coverage of the protests that followed.

Founded four years ago and funded by President Hugo Chavez in oil-rich Venezuela, Telesur was created as an alternative to U.S.-based networks, partly to further Chavez's goal of uniting Latin America under his vision of "21st Century Socialism."

It has been criticized as a propaganda tool for the anti-U.S leader, and its impartiality was questioned over its coverage of hostage releases by Colombian guerrillas.

During the crisis in Honduras, a Central American nation of 7 million people, Caracas-based Telesur has unequivocally favored Chavez ally Zelaya and his supporters, although it has also covered rallies by Hondurans who back his ouster.

The channel has come into its own by providing a podium for Zelaya loyalists and allies when the coup leaders censored the national press, and it has given established competitors like CNN a run for their money with up-to-the-minute reports.

"I congratulate Telesur, its journalists, its cameramen. If Telesur did not exist a good part of the world would not know the real truth of what is happening, the real truth of what is happening in Honduras," Chavez said last week.

Most of the channel's $45 million annual budget is financed by Chavez's government, partly to weaken Latin America's private media, which Chavez has not forgiven for helping a brief 2002 coup that ousted him for two days.

Honduras Coup Expels Venezuela TV By Redaction AHORA / July 13, 2009

A team of reporters arrived in Venezuela after aggressions and threats from the Honduras de facto government of Roberti Micheletti, reported VTV Monday.

According to this TV News the journalists arrived Sunday night at the Venezuelan Simon Bolivar International Airport.

Journalist Eduardo Silvera considered Saturday night, when they were kidnapped by Coupists, the most difficult in Honduras.

Silvera said the TeleSur group of journalists, also expelled by coup forces had to leave Honduras through the frontier with Nicaragua and were escorted by a delegation from the Organization of American States.

He also declared there is still much to report about Honduras and the Honduran people and world must be aware of that.

In addition VTV editor Alexander Salas denounced that since they arrived in Honduras the coup forces of Micheletti's de facto government were always harassing and pursuing them.

This Sunday the Chairwoman of the Inter American Human Rights Commission Luz Patricia Mejia denounced arrest and subsequent release of Tele Sur and Venezuelan TV staff.

TeleSur and Venezuelan TV were the only channels broadcasting in details the coup against Constitutional president Manuel Zelaya who was taken away from his country by military forces last June 28./PL

Honduras Coup Enters Third Week by Redaction AHORA, July 13, 2009

Honduran popular organizations enter Monday the third week of protests to the June 28 military coup, demanding the restitution of constitutional order. Juan Barahona, one of the leaders of the National Front against the Coup, stated that rallies will continue today, after a meeting of the leadership.

"We will continue protests until the de facto government abandons the power it has usurped," stressed the president of the United Federation of Honduran Workers during an act held in the capital's central park on Sunday.

The leadership of teachers' union, on strike for an indefinite period in rejection of the coup, will also analyze peaceful resistance's strategies for the return of the democratic legality to the country, Barahona stressed.

The Front convened a plenary meeting for Tuesday with the groups that comprise trade, rural, student, human rights, environmental and teachers unions.

Singers and songwriters like Karla Lara, Duet Cafe Guancasco and Griton group, among others, have confirmed their willingness to support people's democratic struggles./PL

Honduras Bans Freedom of Expression by Redaction AHORA, July 13, 2009

Freedom of expression was eliminated in Honduras and many journalists have been threatened, arrested and expelled from the country since the coup was perpetrated, denounced CIAP-FELAP Monday.

According to a report of the Investigating Commission of Attacks against Journalists (CIAP attached to the Latin American Federation of Journalists (FELAP) arrest and removal of Tele Sur and Venezuelan TV (VTV) reporters are important episodes.

After denouncing arrest and expulsion of Eduardo Silvera, VTV special correspondent, and Madeleine Garcia from TeleSur, the situation was considered a clear violation of human rights.

The action took place this Sunday on the date political leader Rager Bados was murdered in San Pedro Sula.

After summarizing other incidents against Honduran and foreign journalists the CIAP and FELAP, throughout their President Hernan Uribe and executive secretary Ernesto Carmona, both from Chile, urged journalist organizations to denounce and show themselves in solidarity with the Honduras case./PL

and more support for President Zelaya:

NAM countries condemn Honduras coup July 12, 2009 SHARM EL-SHEIKH, July 12 (Xinhua)

-- The countries of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) condemned coup d'etat in Honduras, saying they support the immediate restoration of the ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, said a statement issued by NAM summit secretariat on Sunday.

The overthrowing of Zelaya constitutes a flagrant violation of the constitutional and democratic order of that country, affecting democracy, human rights and the rule of law, the statement said.

The heads of state and government of NAM countries supported the demands made by the international community on the immediate and unconditional restoration of the legitimate and constitutional government of Zelaya in Honduras, it added.

They welcomed the call to recognize no government than that of the constitutional President Zelaya, and called on the continuation of all regional and multilateral efforts aimed at the restoration of the democratically elected government of Honduras, in accordance with the UN General Assembly resolution.

and so it goes ,
GORD.

Obama & Big Coal" There Is No Such Thing As Clean Coal "

Anyway here's a bit of an update on the efforts being made to stop Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining. There are on going ptotest & commentary criticizing the practice and pleas for the Obama administration to put a moratorium on the practice. There is also a new documentary out "Coal Country". Obama it appears once again has compromised on the issue to the point of not taking any real action to stop the destruction caused by this form of coal mining. During the election campaign Obama made some great speeches but now it is time to use advantageous position to take action. Big Coal is not concerned about a negative environmental impact nor are they concerned about the health of thew people in the areas where these practices are taking place. Their only agenda is to keep America addicted to coal & to increase their profits each quarter. Once the Appalachian are destroyed they are gone forever.

Coal Country Mountaintop Removal Mining




"A President Breaks Hearts in Appalachia" By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Washington Post,July 3, 2009

Mountaintop removal coal mining is the worst environmental tragedy in American history. When will the Obama administration finally stop this Appalachian apocalypse?

If ever an issue deserved President Obama's promise of change, this is it. Mining syndicates are detonating 2,500 tons of explosives each day -- the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb weekly -- to blow up Appalachia's mountains and extract sub-surface coal seams. They have demolished 500 mountains -- encompassing about a million acres -- buried hundreds of valley streams under tons of rubble, poisoned and uprooted countless communities, and caused widespread contamination to the region's air and water. On this continent, only Appalachia's rich woodlands survived the Pleistocene ice ages that turned the rest of North America into a treeless tundra. King Coal is now accomplishing what the glaciers could not -- obliterating the hemisphere's oldest, most biologically dense and diverse forests. Highly mechanized processes allow giant machines to flatten in months mountains older than the Himalayas -- while employing fewer workers for far less time than other types of mining. The coal industry's promise to restore the desolate wastelands is a cruel joke, and the industry's fallback position, that the flattened landscapes will provide space for economic development, is the weak punchline. America adores its Adirondacks and reveres the Rockies, while the Appalachian Mountains -- with their impoverished and alienated population -- are dismantled by coal moguls who dominate state politics and have little to prevent them from blasting the physical landscape to smithereens.

Obama promised science-based policies that would save what remains of Appalachia, but last month senior administration officials finally weighed in with a mixture of strong words and weak action that broke hearts across the region. The modest measures federal bureaucrats promised amount to little more than a tepid pledge of better enforcement of existing laws.

And government claims of doing everything possible to halt the holocaust are simply not true. George Bush gutted Clean Water Act protections. Obama must restore them.

"Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer."
Daryl Hannah

Ashley Judd:
Let's End Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining-March 4,2009 Sierra Club



Actress Daryl Hannah and climatologist James Hansen arrested at mountaintop removal protest

Daryl Hannah, NASA scientist James Hansen and former W.Va. Congressman Ken Hechler were among 31 people arrested at a non-violent protest of mountaintop removal coal mining near Massey Energy's Goals Coal processing plant on June 23, 2009.



Daryl Hannah explains why she is involved with the movement to stop Mountaintop Removal Mining.

"Why I Was Arrested in Coal River, West Virginia" by Daryl Hannah at Huffington Post, July 1, 2009

Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America?

Well, have you ever heard of MTR?

Don't feel bad, my friends are intelligent, well-read and informed people, but most of them had never heard of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) either.

...Mountain Top Removal is a devastatingly destructive form of mining and has already destroyed 2,000,000 acres in the Appalachian Mountains.

Coal companies have literally blown up over 500 mountain tops to access the coal seams and then dumped the refuse into the valleys below, killing over 3000 miles of headwater streams. The EPA just gave the go ahead for an additional 42 mountaintops to be blown off with another 6 permits pending.

Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer.

...While it takes fewer miners to remove coal with Mountain Top Removal, there are just as many dangers, accidents and fatalities! It is a cheaper way for the companies to mine and that's why it's becoming so pervasive.

According to WVU's institute for health policy research, coal county residents are more likely to suffer from chronic heart, lung and kidney diseases, cancers and generally suffer from excess numbers of premature death. There's a high cancer risk for up to 1 out of every 50 Americans living near the more than 100 billion gallons of toxic sludge in the clay-lined and unlined (the majority unlined) coal ash landfills and slurry ponds, such as the TVA Kingston ash sludge landfill that collapsed into the Emory River in December.

Tennessee Valley Authority officials consistently have said the ash spilled in December from the utility's Kingston Fossil Plant wet landfill in Harriman, Tenn., and in January from its Widows Creek pond in Stevenson, Ala., is non-hazardous... but after the spill, regulatory and independent testing have found high levels of toxicity in the spilled waste and raw water where the two spills occurred. Thirty-one of the landfills and slurry ponds in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama are on or near major waterways!

The slurry pond above the Marsh fork elementary school where we held our protest holds 2.8 billion gallons (it's one of the smallest ponds -- one nearby in brushing fork holds 9 billion gallons) of sludge in unlined pits containing arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury

...Let me make one thing clear... there is no such thing as clean coal!!!

I wish President Obama would stop using the term and take CEQ chief Nancy Sutley and EPA head Lisa Jackson to visit these unfortunate mining sites under their jurisdiction.

And a recent study illustrates the negative effects of Mountain Top Removal Mining on the environment & on the people & communities.Its positive aspects are far outweighed by its negative impact.

" New Study Lifts the Curtain on Clean Coal", Reuters,July 12, 2009 By Cleantechnica -By Tina Casey

A new study from West Virginia University exposes one more dirty little secret about America's favorite fossil fuel, coal. Though coal mining is touted as an economic boon to local communities, the study reviews mortality statistics to conclude that coal mining communities in Appalachia are among the weakest economies in their home states, and in the country. The study, "Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions," appears in the July-August issue of Public Health Reports, the official journal of the U.S. Public Health Services.

Mountaintop Removal and Clean Coal

The promotion of "clean coal" as a sustainable fuel hearkens back to the days when cigarette smoking was promoted as a healthy habit. Sure, you get a kick, but there's a cost. Regardless of any new technology for burning coal or converting it to other fuels, coal comes from the ground. The worst damage is done by the relatively new phenomenon of mountaintop removal - literally blowing up mountains to reach coal seams close to the surface. It's a cheaper method than underground mining, but as the environmental equivalent of lung cancer, mountaintop removal has leveled hundred of pristine mountains and obliterated hundreds of miles of streams in one of America's richest ecosystems, the Appalachian region.

Coal Ash Dumps and Clean Coal

Given the devastating effects of mountaintop removal, clearly the "clean" in clean coal refers only to emissions from coal fired power plants, not to coal extraction methods. That's quite a narrow definition, especially when you factor in the impact of coal ash disposal. Ash is the stuff left over from burning coal. With about 50% of the electricity in the U.S. currently generated by coal, that adds up to a lot of ash.

The disposal method of choice is to quarantine the ash in open reservoirs. It was barely a year ago that the dam on one such reservoir failed, spilling 5 million cubic yards of coal ash into a Tennessee community. The U.S. EPA responded by proposing new regulations for coal ash dumps. That's hardly a comfort to communities that host hundreds of ash dumps in the U.S., especially the 44 coal ash dumps that the EPA lists as "potentially high hazard" due to the risk of human fatalities from a dam failure.

The Impact of Coal Mining on Local Economies

As revealed by the new West Virginia University study, the "clean" in clean coal pulls an even more impressive disappearing act when it comes to the benefits of coal on the communities that are home to mining operations. Charleston Gazette writer Ken Ward Jr., whose previous work includes an article on the health effects of coal mining operations, covered the release of "Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining" and has made a pdf of the study available through his blog, Coal Tattoo. The authors are Michael Hendryx, associate director of the WVU Institute for Health Policy Research with co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University. As Ward notes, the authors determined that the coal industry contributes about $8 billion annually to the Appalachian economy, but under their analysis the economic losses attributable to premature deaths associated with coal operations are in the range of $42 billion.

The Hidden Costs of Clean Coal

The authors of the study emphasize that their estimate is conservative, based primarily on the well documented connection between early mortality and economic health. Ward's blog cites additional factors that were not part of the study, which make the economic picture even gloomier: the effect of poor health on worker productivity, the increase in public aid for foods stamps and Medicaid, and the economic consequences of natural resource destruction. This last item is particularly relevant to mountaintop removal, which is a highly mechanized process linked with job loss, not job creation. Appalachia lost more than half of its coal mining jobs in the 20 years following 1985, when mountaintop mining came into its own. On top of that, the destruction of pristine, tourist-friendly areas near the famous Appalachian Trail closes at least one door to alternative employment opportunities that could help improve community health.

see article:
"Demolishing Appalachia" by Debra McCown TiCities.com July 12, 2009

...The film, “Coal Country,” looks at the negative effects of surface coal mining on Appalachian residents and communities in four states. Kathy Selvage, a Wise County activist opposed to mining practices used in the region, is among those featured in the documentary.

“I believe our hope is it brings international exposure to that and also that it furthers a conversation about where we go in energy policy in this country,” Selvage said of the film. “I hope it opens people’s minds to the problems that are the side effects of mountaintop removal coal mining. I hope it opens people’s hearts to the suffering that goes on in communities where this mining occurs right where people live.”

Coal Country Premiere: Big Coal Lobby Does Not Want You to See This Powerful New Film by Jeff Biggers at Huffington Post

...Why is Big Coal so afraid of this documentary film by native Appalachian daughters Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller, producer and director of three-part award-winning landmark PBS series, The Appalachians?

If anything, Coal Country goes out of its way to include the views and voices of the Big Coal lobby and its executives, engineers and miners. This, in fact, might be why Coal Country is so compelling; far from any hackneyed agenda, Coal Country simply allows the coal industry and those affected by its mountaintop removal operations and coal-fired plants to tell their personal stories. The end result is devastating. In a methodical and deliberate fashion, Coal Country brilliantly takes viewers on a rare journey through our nation's coal-fired electricity, from the extraction, processing, transport, and burning of coal.

Once you see the breathtaking footage by cameraman Jordan Freeman, and the unaffected and heart-rending portraits of coal mining families, you will never flick on your light switch again without thinking about Coal Country.

From the git-go, West Virginia governor and coal peddler Joe Manchin declares: "There is no replacement for coal. There might be 30 or 50 or 100 years from now, but there's not today."

A French engineer cheerfully proclaims, "Coal is a wonderful resource. It's too bad it's dirty."

As one coal company executive coldly states, the millions of pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives that rip through the Appalachian mountains and poison the watersheds and air of local communities daily, "might make some people uncomfortable."

Another coal engineer playfully recalls teaching his children to refer to coal-fired plants as "cloud factories" to bring the rain, in the face of some of the highest cancer and heart disease rates in the country, and an American Lung Association study that 24,000 Americans die prematurely from coal-fired plant pollution each year.

and concludes:

Coal Country should be required viewing for our nation's elected officials, and the administrators at the Council on Environmental Quality, the EPA and the Department of Interior.

In fact, Coal Country needs to be screened at the White House theater.

also see:

Movie Goers React to “Coal Country” July 3,2009

and:
Coal Country:The Movie website

and so it goes,
GORD.

Convoy Of Death Revisited US Has No Interest in Afghan Army Massacre of POWS & A.G Eric Holder & Abu Ghraib's " A Few Bad Apples"

UPDATE: 3:10 PM ,July 13, 2009
An about face on the part of Obama-

It appears Obama does want at least an initial investigation into the Afghan Massacre aka "Convoy of Death" let's see how far he's willing to go if it turns out the allegations are true that US allies in Afghan committed a War Crime & were American personnel complicit in the crime or its coverup.

obama war crime-Afghan Massacre Convoy of Death




Obama Orders Probe of Alleged Mass Grave by Associated press,July 12, 2009 via TruthOut

Investigation to focus on the deaths of up to 2,000 Taliban in Afghanistan.

Washington - President Barack Obama has ordered his national security team to investigate reports that U.S. allies were responsible for the deaths of as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war during the opening days of the war in Afghanistan.

Obama told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday that he doesn't know how the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance behaved in November 2001, but he wants a full accounting before deciding how to move forward.

"I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war," Obama said during an interview at the end of a six-day trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana.

"And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that."

Were They Killed by US-Backed Forces?

The president's comments seem to reverse officials' statements from Friday, when they said they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces.

Reacting to the interview, Physicians for Human Rights hailed Obama's decision.

--------------------------------------

UPDATE: 12:49 AM July 13, 2009

The Death Convoy Of Afghanistan:Witness Reports And The Probing Of A Mass Grave Point To War Crimes. Does The United States Have Any Responsibility For The Atrocities Of Its Allies? A Newsweek Investigation.
By BY BABAK DEHGHANPISHEH, JOHN BARRY AND ROY GUTMAN | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Aug 26, 2002

"How many are buried at Dasht-e Leili? Haglund won't speculate. "The only thing we know is that it's a very large site," says a U.N. official privy to the investigation, and there was "a high density of bodies in the trial trench." Other sources who have investigated the killings aren't surprised. "I can say with confidence that more than a thousand people died in the containers," says Aziz ur Rahman Razekh, director of the Afghan Organization of Human Rights. NEWSWEEK's extensive inquiries of prisoners, truckdrivers, Afghan militiamen and local villagers--including interviews with survivors who licked and chewed each other's skin to stay alive--suggest also that many hundreds of people died"


One wonders if those who are supposed to replace the Taliban in Afghanistan are in many ways no better than the Taliban Regime. Anyway we see that there was apattern of covering up War Crimes committed by US allies or the US itself. If America would insist on pursuing investigations & War Crimes trials of Afghans or American personnel who might have been involved in the alleged massacre then this might lead to investigations into War Crimes committed by the US in Iraq ie torture & abuse of prisoners, massacres of families or entire villages or the fire-bombing of Fallujah etc. This of course the Obama administration is not willing to investigate such crimes committed by US forces & the Obama administration appears to claim no international body or organization has any right to hold the US responsible for its actions. America is after all above reproach they claim because it is guided by Divine Providence.

Afghanistan massacre -- the convoy of death pt. 1 of 6




President Obama's desire to look forward & not back is just another way of sweeping the past crimes of the Bush era under the rug. Obama appears to fear causing what he considers to be undue anguish in the nation by seeking the truth. Obama agrees it seems with the Republicans & Bush apologist that what they did was done with the best of intentions and in "Good Faith". So if the Bush Regime created a policy which led to widespread abuse of POWs in Guantanamo , or Abu Ghraib or Bagram or a dozen other detention facilities run by US personnel its no big deal because it was all done in "Good Faith" or as President Bush would say God Told Him To invade Iraq & abuse & torture as many Iraqis & Afghans as he wished. After all America always has God on its side so it can do no wrong . Maybe more people who arrested for various crimes in America should appeal to the courts claiming they killed someone but it was done in Good Faith and therefore are innocent. One wonders is Obama really trying to avoid setting a precedent in which his administration or other future administrations would be open to being investigated . So much for "the Rule of Law" and integrity & responsibility & transparency.

and in a related story about possible US involvement in the so called "Convoy of Death" in Afghanistan in which it is alleged that upwards of 3,000 Taliban prisoners were massacred by US allies in Afghanistan. The official US position is that no Americans were killed or took part in the killings so the US refuses to investigate. So the attitude is that if the massacre occurred it is of no interest to the US government even though the Afghanistan General who allegedly was in charge & may have personally order the massacre was an ally of the US government. Ah but what the Hell no Americans were killed. Besides the US military & CIA & US government & its congress etc. have little regard for the lives of "Foreigners". We see this over & over again at Gitmo or other prisons and in the streets of Iraqi cities & Afghan villages that can be wiped out by US Drones. So is it the case that there many people in the Obama administration who seem to think like the Bush/Cheney Regime that those people murdered by US soldiers are just "Collateral Damage".

Even if legally the US has no jurisdiction in this alleged massacre surely there is a moral & ethical responsibility on the part of the US government to pursue some form of investigation or to pressure on the UN or the World Court or other appropriate bodies to seek a thorough investigation into this matter. After all the Afghanistan government is one of America's allies and yet the US claims it has not vested interests in such a massacre carried out by Afghan forces. Is it just that the US government doesn't want to open this rather nasty can of worms for if they insisted on investigating this incident as a War Crime it might lead to attempts by others to open up investigations into the War Crimes committed by the Bush /Cheney Regime.

Obama Admin: No Grounds to Probe Afghan War Crimes" by: Lara Jakes The Associated Press July11,2009 via Truthout

Washington - Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces.

The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times on its Web site. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners.

U.S. officials said Friday they did not have legal grounds to investigate the deaths because only foreigners were involved and the alleged killings occurred in a foreign country.

The Times cited U.S. military and CIA ties to Afghan Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom human rights groups accuse of ordering the killings. The newspaper said the Defense Department and FBI never fully investigated the incident.

Asked about the report, Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that since U.S. military forces were not involved in the killings, there is nothing the Defense Department could investigate.

"There is no indication that U.S. military forces were there, or involved, or had any knowledge of this," Lapan said. "So there was not a full investigation conducted because there was no evidence that there was anything from a DoD (Department of Defense) perspective to investigate."

The allegations date back to November 2001, when as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime's last stands, according to a State Department report from 2002.

Witnesses have claimed that forces with the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance placed the prisoners in sealed cargo containers over the two-day voyage to Sheberghan Prison, suffocating them and then burying them en masse using bulldozers to move the bodies, according to the State Department report. Some Northern Alliance soldiers have said that some of their troops opened fire on the containers, killing those within.

Dostum, the Northern Alliance general who is accused of overseeing the atrocities, has previously denied the allegations.

A former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, Pierre Prosper, told the Times that the Bush administration was reluctant to investigate the deaths, even though Dostum was on the payroll of the CIA and his soldiers worked with U.S. special forces in 2001.

Dostum was suspended from his military post last year on suspicion of threatening a political rival, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently rehired him, the Times reported.

A pattern of secrecy & cover-ups & whitewashing seems to be emerging in the Obama administration following in the footsteps of Bush & Cheney. Or is this just the way America has always operated committing War Crimes or Crimes Against Humanity yet answerable to no one ???

Attorney General of the US Eric Holder investigation of allegations of abuse & torture of POWs or detainees by US personnel will only focus on low level interrogators & will not go after those who created & ordered the implementation of these so called Harsh Techniques & would therefore be just another white wash of the crimes committed under the Bush/Cheney Regime.

Once again Obama administration is disappointing to those who had believed he would as President go after those who committed crimes. And once again Obama sides with Conservative Democrats & the Republicans & all those committed to upholding the status quo while wrapping themselves in the American flag claiming that America does not have to answer to anyone for its actions. If the President or Vice President ordered it then they claim it was legal. And of course they still claim no matter how many speeches Obama makes about " the rule of law" that that the rule of law & the AGeneva Conventions & International Laws on torture or war crimes & crimes against humanity when all is said & done does not apply to America's government or to the CIA or the Pentagon or even American citizens. What Holder is suggesting is treating Abu Ghraib scandal & the abuses at other US run facilities as if they were merely the result of a few bad apples & so he will seek out a few scape-goats to make it look as if he is serious about uncovering the extent of abuse by US personnel.



"The Holder Trial Balloon: Abu Ghraib Redux" by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com July 12, 2009

Yesterday, I treated this new Newsweek report that Eric Holder is "leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices" as something to celebrate. But new facts about what that investigation would entail and, more importantly, would exclude -- facts added by today's Washington Post -- strongly suggest it's the opposite. ...the investigation will only target "rogue" CIA interrogators who exceeded the limits of what John Yoo authorized, and would not include high-level policy makers who authorized the torture tactics and implemented America's torture regime:

... the sources said an inquiry would apply only to activities by interrogators, working in bad faith, that fell outside the "four corners" of the legal memos. . . . The actions of higher-level Bush policymakers are not under consideration for possible investigation.

... targeting low-level interrogators while shielding high-level policy-makers from prosecution -- would be "something close to the worst of both worlds." That's true not only because it would replicate the disgraceful whitewashing of the Abu Ghraib prosecutions. It would do that, but even worse, it would bolster the principal instrument of executive lawlessness -- the Beltway orthodoxy that any time a President can find a low-level DOJ functionary to authorize what he wants to do, then it is, by definition, "legal" and he's immune from prosecution when he does it, no matter how blatantly criminal it is...

... Holder’s probe will take John Yoo’s work . . . and treat them as the settled law of the time. Already clear and public evidence that DOJ lawyers drafted those memos entirely in bad faith, on orders from Bush officials who literally dictated what they wanted the memos to say, will be similarly ignored.

...If this is the approach Holder takes -- one that, yet again, shields high-level Bush officials while targeting low-level "rogue" agents -- one can make a strong argument that it is worse than doing nothing, that this will actually further subvert the rule of law rather than strengthen it.

...But whatever else is true, the tactics authorized by George Bush and Dick Cheney were patently criminal regardless of how many memos they directed John Yoo to write.

And Cheney's shadow still hangs over Washington:

"Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of CIA Project" by Scott Shane New York Times, July 11,2009 via CommonDreams.org

WASHINGTON - The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.


The disclosure about Mr. Cheney's role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general's report underscored the central role of the former vice president's office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency's program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

...Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, said last week that he believed Congress would have approved of the program only in the angry and panicky days after 9/11, on 9/12, he said, but not later, after fears and tempers had begun to cool.

One intelligence official, who would speak about the classified program only on condition of anonymity, said there was no resistance inside the C.I.A. to Mr. Panetta's decision to end the program last month.

"Because this program never went fully operational and hadn't been briefed as Panetta thought it should have been, his decision to kill it was neither difficult nor controversial," the official said. "That's worth remembering amid all the drama."

...Questions over the adequacy and the truthfulness of the C.I.A.'s briefings for Congress date to the creation of the intelligence oversight committees in the 1970s after disclosures of agency assassination and mind-control programs and other abuses. But complaints increased in the Bush years, when the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies took the major role in pursuing Al Qaeda.

The use of harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, for instance, was first described to a handful of lawmakers for the first time in September 2002. Ms. Pelosi and the C.I.A. have disagreed about what she was told, but in any case, the briefing occurred only after a terrorism suspect, Abu Zubaydah, had been waterboarded 83 times.

Democrats in Congress, who contend that the Bush administration improperly limited Congressional briefings on intelligence, are seeking to change the National Security Act to permit the full intelligence committees to be briefed on more matters. President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if the changes go too far, and the proposal is now being negotiated by the White House and the intelligence committees.

--
"Bush Surveillance Program Was Massive" by Pamela Hess the Associated Press,July 11,2009 via CommonDreams.org

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.

The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use of the secret programs must be "carefully monitored."

The report says too few relevant officials knew of the size and depth of the program, let alone signed off on it. They particularly criticize John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general who wrote legal memos undergirding the policy. His boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, was not aware until March 2004 of the exact nature of the intelligence operations beyond wiretapping that he had been approving for the previous two and a half years, the report says.

Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said...

The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 people inside and outside the government, but five former Bush administration officials refused to be questioned. They were Ashcroft, Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and David Addington, an aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

According to the report, Addington could personally decide who in the administration was "read into" - allowed access to - the classified program.

The only piece of the intelligence-gathering operation acknowledged by the Bush White House was the wiretapping-without-warrants effort...

...In the wake of the new report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, renewed his call Friday for a formal nonpartisan inquiry into the government's information-gathering programs.

...The report questioned the legal advice used by Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo, in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel...

The report says Yoo's analysis approving the program ignored a law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime, and did so without fully notifying Congress. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.

Yoo insisted that the president's wiretapping program had only to comply with Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure - but the report said Yoo ignored the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had previously overseen federal national security surveillance.

(Obama's reaction to maintain the status Quo :)

...House Democrats are pressing for legislation that would expand congressional access to secret intelligence briefings, but the White House has threatened to veto it.

---



and so it goes,
GORD.

Honduran Junta Foreign Minister Refers to Obama as "the little black sugar plantation worker " & Latin América’s Neda & CIA's Habit of Lying

Today's Menu:

Honduran Coup Foreign Minister Racist remarks about Obama

Anti-Democratic Coup in Honduras ignored by US Media

Latin América’s Neda

CIA 's History of Lying to Congress , the President & the American people


Racist & Elitist Honduran Junta Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez Colindres Refers to Obama as "the little black sugar plantation worker " & "a little black man who doesn't know where Tegucigalpa is" and "a little black man who doesn't know anything about anything."

and: "I have negotiated with queers, prostitutes, leftists, blacks, whites. This is my job, I studied for it. I am not racially prejudiced. I like the little black sugar plantation worker who is president of the United States." Enrique Ortez Colindres


...“The liberating army we need in the Americas today is one of leaders who come together in peace, in the spirit of cooperation,” Arias continues. “We need an army of doctors and teachers, of engineers and scientists. We need a force that recognizes that only through development and liberty, through education and health care, through better priorities and wiser investments, can we achieve the stability we seek.”
Quote from Oscar Arias President of Costa Rica referring to Honduran situation.

" It appears that President Obama has no desire to demand any change in the current system of intelligence community oversight. That’s unfortunate, and dangerous to our Democracy." Sherwood Ross

Sherwood Ross In his article below points out that contrary to popular opinion & the Republicans & the US media there has never been adequate oversite of the CIA & the intelligence community by the US government . The CIA he points out has had a habit or a tradition of misleading the Congress & even the Whitehouse. Unfortunately President Obama has bought into this policy as we have seen of always defending the CIA even when it acts as a rogue department setting its own agenda even keeping presidents in the dark about its covert sometimes illegal operations.


anyway here's a video of Ortez via YouTube & Daily Kos:



Q: Do you think the "gringos," as you call them, would permit an invasion of Honduras promoted by Chavez?

A: They permit anything. The United States is no longer a defender of democracy. In the first place, the president of the republic [the U.S.], with all due respect to the little black man, doesn’t know where Tegucigalpa is. We’re the ones who know where Washington is and we’re the ones who are obliged, as a small country, a democratic pygmy, to clarify the concepts for him and read to him, maybe in his language, what’s going on.
Honduran Foreign Minister Calls Obama

Honduras: "El negrito del batey" by cadejo4 at DailyKOs.com, July 8, 2009

...racist comments by Enrique Ortez Colindres, "foreign minister" for the de facto regime sworn in following the June 28 military coup in Honduras...Ortez has called President Barack a "little black man" at least three times in public interviews since the coup.

...A third quote by Ortez Colindres...

"He negociado con maricones, prostitutas, con ñángaras (izquierdistas), negros, blancos. Ese es mi trabajo, yo estudié eso. No tengo prejuicios raciales, me gusta el negrito del batey que está presidiendo los Estados Unidos."

Translation: "I have negotiated with queers, prostitutes, leftists, blacks, whites. This is my job, I studied for it. I am not racially prejudiced. I like the little black sugar plantation worker who is president of the United States."

The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, responded in the strongest possible terms yesterday...

In other press statements, Ortez Colindres has called President Obama "a little black man who doesn't know where Tegucigalpa is" and "a little black man who doesn't know anything about anything." Hondurans opposed to the de facto regime have posted at least six videos of one of his comments to YouTube...

Anyway ,Given these remarks by a member of the recently installed Junta in Honduras one can better understand why the Republican Party & US conservatives & their Media Echo-chamber are in favor of the newly installed regime. Birds of a Feather & all that...

The Republicans are also elitists in their ideology & a tad racist but will use various issues & groups to try to expand their base unconcerned about how extremist those groups might be . Their main concern though is to protect the rights & property of the Rich & Powerful & the well connected at the expense of the average American citizen. Obama should stop trying to appease these Republicans & Conservatives & start doing the right thing & not just talk about it ad nauseum .
For instance cut off any aid to Honduras especially military aid since the new government is not the legitimate government according to US law no aid is to be given to such a government.

Anyway the US & the CIA have been backing dictatorships & Military Juntas since at least the 1950s & Obama seems to be following the same pattern. The Coup in Honduras which ousted President Zelaya was in all probablity given the "Green Light" by the CIA if not also by the Obama Whitehouse .

Americans seem to prefer Military Juntas & dictatorships rather than allow a country to have a government of its own choosing with policies which reflect the will of the people. But in America as we are constantly told only the rich & powerful have a right to rule the country though political parties might change & the Presidents might change the status quo must be maintained at all costs. President Obama may have started out wanting to change the way things are done in Washington but the lobbyists & the self-serving elected politicians are little interested in such change.

One wonders if Obama now finds himself with little room to maneuver as he is surrounded by these influence peddlers & elected officials & the Washington Establishment who are so used to corruption that they resist any change . Or is Obama just another run of the mill politician after all is said & done. So Obama continues with a number of the same policies which Bush initiated from harsh interrogation techniques AKA prisoner abue & torture ; indefinite detention even for those who are found innocent; misinforming the American public & the world on the numbers of people detained in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan & secret sites run by US personnel around the globe besides all those who have sent to countries where they can be tortured by proxy ; meanwhile continuing the propaganda war against Iran & threatening to destroy the country like America did to Iraq & increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan in the Escalation of the war reminding one of Vietnam ie trying to win an already lost war - if America can't win then it will punish the citizens of Afghanistan & Pakistan by killing as many citizens as they can & destroying what little they have. Will the American Military turn the region into another Cambodia in which any sort of civil society is destroyed allowing for a new bunch of thugs to take over. Like Empires before them the American Empire does not tolerate dissent & does not recognize the sovereignty of other nations or peoples.

Latin América’s Neda:The Killing of Isis Oved Murillo by Roberto Lovato - Of América at Information Clearing House

The differences between coverage and official treatment here in the U.S. of the situation in Iran and the situation in Honduras couldn’t be starker.

Check out this video and see for yourself what most U.S. media and many elected officials in the U.S. are mum about

Warning: this video is extremely graphic, gut wrenchingly so

U.S. Needs To Heed Arias On Latin Issues by Sherwood Ross at Media With Conscience, July 10, 2009

Stop Military Aid To Region

Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica and the man who will serve as mediator of the crisis in Honduras, writes in an OpEd piece this morning (July 10th) in the Miami Herald, “This coup demonstrates, once more, that the combination of powerful militaries and fragile democracies creates a terrible risk.”

Arias never once mentions the role of the United States in destabilizing democracy across Latin America but he doesn’t have to. Uncle Sam is the world’s Numero Uno arms dealer. What Arias does say is: “This year alone, the governments of Latin America will spend nearly $50 billion on their armies. That’s nearly double the amount spent five years ago, a ridiculous sum in a region where 200 million people live on fewer than $2 a day and where only Colombia is engaged in an armed conflict.”

The Pentagon’s Latin influence, always powerful, has been gaining steadily for years and few Americans appear either to know, or to care, what’s been going down the tubes South of the Border. In the five years ended in 2003---under both Presidents Clinton and Bush---U.S. military aid to the region more than tripled, Jim Lobe wrote on “Common Dreams.” “While the militarization of U.S. aid in Latin America actually began under former President Bill Clinton….trends established then have become more pronounced under Bush,” Lobe wrote, citing a report by the Latin America Working Group Education Fund. “Despite pervasive problems of poverty in Latin America, the United States’ focus on military rather than economic aid to the region is increasing,” he quoted Lisa Haugaard of LAWGEF as stating.

You can get the Pentagon’s slant on why Latins must be armed to the teeth from Stephen Johnson, installed two years ago by the Bush regime as Assistant Defense Secretary for the Western Hemisphere. Reuters quotes him as saying (May 21, 2007): “Right now funds for security assistance are slim and what programs we can offer are limited by complicated sanctions. That leaves a vacuum for powers like China and Russia to fill.” This statement is fairly hilarious considering that Russia can scarcely defend its borders and the sinister Chinese are keeping the U.S. economy afloat by lending us billions. (And what’s “slim?”)

...“The liberating army we need in the Americas today is one of leaders who come together in peace, in the spirit of cooperation,” Arias continues. “We need an army of doctors and teachers, of engineers and scientists. We need a force that recognizes that only through development and liberty, through education and health care, through better priorities and wiser investments, can we achieve the stability we seek.”

And he concludes:

“I urge all leaders in the Americas to see the Honduran crisis for what it is: an urgent call for the profound social and institutional changes our region has delayed for far too long.”(Oscar Arias)

... The U.S. Congress needs to stop unequivocally spending a dime on Latin militaries and instead divert those monies to the areas Arias outlined. And after years of spreading terror and death across Latin America, the CIA needs to be removed from that continent and dissolved. If the American people tried this approach, their reputation and standing would soar across Latin America. Powerful militaries do not make good neighbors.

--

"CIA's History of Lying to Congress" by lisa Pease at Consortium News via Truthout,July 10,2009

...Author Kathryn Olmstead explored the failure of government to properly oversee the Agency in her book Challenging the Secret Government and found three culprits:

First, the House and Senate were unwilling to challenge the CIA on policy, whether from fear, support, or sheer laziness.

Second, Olmstead believes the press, which seemed hell-bent on exposing the excesses of covert action in the wake of Watergate, pulled back for fear reporters had gone too far in bringing down President Richard Nixon. (Olmstead notes only in passing CIA’s longstanding relationships with the media, so well detailed in Carl Bernstein’s landmark article “The CIA and the Media,” published in Rolling Stone in 1977.)

But Olmstead really hits the mark with her third point, criticism of the American people for turning a blind eye to the excesses of the National Security State.

“[T]he American people, acculturated for years to view their country and their leaders as moral and democratic, were reluctant to acknowledge unpleasant truths about their secret agencies, Olmstead wrote. "[A]s William W. Keller has explained in ‘The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover,’ the liberal state did not like to admit that it had violated its ideology in any way.

“Therefore, the extensive powers of its clandestine agencies were kept secret. This secrecy enabled Americans to assume that the nation’s foreign policy goals were compatible with traditional American ideals.

“But the intelligence investigations brought these secret powers into the open; they forced American to acknowledge that their country had tried to kill foreign leaders, had spied on civil rights leaders, and had tested drugs on innocent people.

“Because this knowledge was very painful, many Americans, including members of Congress, refused to accept it. Secrecy, as journalist Taylor Branch has said, ‘protects the American people from grisly facts at variance with their self-image.’”

and :

The legacy of the investigations of the CIA in the 1970s was the perception, though not the reality, that effective CIA oversight had been implemented.

We’re now seeing that, in reality, almost nothing changed. The troubling insights of the committees that investigated the CIA were all but forgotten. No one went to jail for breaking laws or committing perjury.

(In 1977, former CIA Director Richard Helms was convicted of misleading Congress about the Nixon administration’s covert action to oust Chile’s socialist President Salvador Allende, who died in a 1973 coup. Helms received a two-year suspended sentence and a $2,000 fine, which was paid by friends at the CIA. Until his death in 2002, Helms wore the conviction as a badge of honor, and President Ronald Reagan awarded him the National Security Medal in 1983.)

(In the 1980s, CIA Director William J. Casey delighted in mumbling through his congressional testimony making it nearly impossible for the Intelligence Committee members to understand what he was saying or grasp its import. When the deceptions of the Iran-Contra Affair were exposed in 1986, Casey was accused of misleading Congress but died in May 1987 before any legal action could be taken. Three other implicated CIA officers were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992.)

It appears that President Obama has no desire to demand any change in the current system of intelligence community oversight. That’s unfortunate, and dangerous to our Democracy.

How can there be consent of the governed, as our Constitution demands, if the governed, or at least, their representatives, have no knowledge of what they are consenting to?

Should we then demand a new investigation of the intelligence communities? Of course we should, and regularly. But we should also do so with a genuine desire for change.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Hannity & Drudge Report Smears Obama & Racism in Philadelphia Black Kids Kicked out of Pool & More

Yes, Virginia Photos can lie if they are taken out of context. Obama looks as if he is admiring young girls behind but video shows a different story. Druge Report & Sean Hannity owe the president & the public an apology. This was an outrigh smear-job on President Obama. Fox News, Sean Hannity & Drudge Report have no sense of decency or integrity. They make up stuff & then just move on.



Update on Photo Smear of Obama from Media Matters: July 11, 2009 2;42 & 3:26 PM

Media Matters' Frisch Debunks Obama G8 Photo Smear On MSNBC

Media Matters Senior Fellow Karl Frisch debunks conservative smears of President Obama based on a misrepresentation of a photograph from the G8 summit.






Fox News in their on-going attacks & smear campaign against Barack Obama uses a photo to accuse Obama of inappropriate behavior toward a young 17 year old girl. Biut as we see it is just a lot of nonsense. once again Hannity tries to make a federal case out of a photo taken out of context at G8 Summit. Fox & Hannity & co. will go to any lengths to attack Obama. Sean Hannity accuses Obama of eyeing young girl's butt - the still photo doesn't capture the context as Obama navigates stairs and helps girl behind him. Hannity calls it Obama's Bill Clinton moment . Hannity goes over the top as usual.

Is this smear a tad bit racist ? Is the suggestion that Obama has an uncontrollable libido - Is this just the old stereotype of black men as having no control over their sexual urges because they are more like animals than human beings or like white men who white racist claim can control themselves.

Ignorant Ass Drudge & the Freepers Have Media Running Obama Photo That Doesn't Show What They Say



Van Susteren airs video of Obama G8 photo shoot to counter "lying picture that's going around the Web"
8 hours and 6 minutes ago at MediaMatters.org

From the July 9 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta van Susteren:



The problem with this correction by Van Susteren is that the damage has already been done & many of the viewers will not see the correction . Others will see this correction as Fox News trying to protect itself. The correction was also not accompanied by an apology by Sean Hannity & his anti-Obama friends.


Even though the United States now has a black president this does not mean that racism is dead in America. Here is a disturbing story about a private club in Philadelphia which decided to kick a group of black children out of their pool . So Yes Virginia there are racist in America in private clubs & on Fox News & other mainstream media.

Racism alive & well in Philadelphia
The Young Turks
Black Kids Get Kicked Out Of Pool - Find Out Why? July 8, 2009

Watch more at http://www.theyoungturks.com



Philadelphia: Swim Club kicks out Black kids - Racism?



Racism and the Pool-
shadmia July 09, 2009

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion and the atmosphere of the club." John Duesler, president of the Valley Swim Club. Read all about the details in my Blog...


also see: at YouTube: Racism Charges At Swim Club

A suburban swim club outside Philadelphia is coming under fire after being accused of racism. Bianca Solorzano reports.

And another example of racism & stupidity at Fox News
Fox News America not a pure society like the Swedes & Finns:
They have not bred with non-Aryans ???
Fox Anchor: Americans Marry "Ethnics" and Other "Species"

Watch more at http://www.theyoungturks.com



From The Young Turks Racist Rep. Steve King Votes Against Memorial For Slavery



Steve King has a history of sounding racist for example he believed Al Qaeda would be quite happy if Obama won because Obama is black, his father was a muslim & Obama's middle name Hussein has according to King some special meaning for Muslims & people in the Middle East.

Rep. Steve King smears Obama: al-Qaida dancing in the street
March 8, 2008 Crooks & Liars/ via Think Progress



and so it goes,
GORD.