Author's posts
Oct 25 2009
Honduras: A Sign That The Coup Has Won
I know, I know. I’m hypersensitive, I’ve lost my sense of humor, I’m out of touch with common reality. I’m making mountains out of mole hills. And I sound angry.
All of that about me might be so, but today’s Washington Post article about Honduras seems to me to be a sign that the coup has won, as far as the Trad Media are concerned, and that deserves at least brief mention here. Put another way, I don’t think you’re going to read more about Honduras in the Trad Media until the end of November when the presidential election is held there.
Join me in Tegucigalpa.
Oct 23 2009
Honduras: The Golpistas Raise Their Middle Finger
The news of an impending resolution to Honduras’s coup was hopeful, but apparently too good to be true. Today it’s clear that nothing has been decided, that rightful, democratically elected President Manual Zelaya is still stuck in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and that the negotiations to resolve the crisis are now totally dead. This should not be a big surprise to anyone.
The New York Times reports:
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya pulled out of talks with the country’s post-coup de facto leaders on Friday, throwing efforts to resolve a months-long political crisis back to square one.
Zelaya pulled his representatives out of meetings with envoys of de facto leader Roberto Micheletti that were the latest in a series of attempts to resolve the political deadlock sparked by a June 28 military coup.
“As of now we see this phase as finished,” Zelaya envoy Mayra Mejia said shortly after midnight (7 a.m. British time) at the hotel where both sides have been negotiating for three weeks.
All attempts to reach a deal have snagged over whether Zelaya can return to power for the last few months of his term, which ends in January.
“Post-coup de facto leaders” is an interesting turn of phrase. I prefer “golpistas.” Or if you prefer, “leaders of the coup d’etat.” But the bottom line is that no matter what you call Roberto Micheletti and his friends in the oligarchy, their coup continues despite virtually universal condemnation. And it only has to continue, as far as the golpistas are concerned, until November 29, 2009, the present date for elections of a new president. That date is right around the corner. The golpistas have no intention, none whatsoever of restoring Manual Zelaya to his rightful presidency. That is the one, single thing they will not permit. And, unfortunately, that’s the one single step the rest of the world believes is an essential first step to end the crisis.
This is what is called a deadlock.
The rest of the world may insist on restoration of Zelaya to the presidency as an initial step, and it may insist as well that the coup’s running the national election in November undermines the legitimacy of the “democratic election.” But the golpistas don’t see it that way. At all. To them, surviving all the diplomatic initiatives and the sternly worded verbal condemnations and the impounding of funds until there’s an election is the goal. They’ll happily argue about the legitimacy of the election after its been held. And nothing is going to budge them from their present stranglehold on Honduras’s government or move them to restore Manual Zelaya to the presidency.
The golpistas would rather clamp down on the demonstrators than move their position toward a possible resolution. This is what one should expect of them. The burden of the unrest, and especially the present damage to the Honduras economy fall on the poorest people in Honduras. These are not the golpistas. They are quite powerless to resist the military government and the US equipped and trained army.
And what of the US and it’s recently announced “better relations” with Latin America?
The deadlock in Honduras is proving a challenge for U.S. President Barack Obama after he vowed better relations with Latin America. Washington suspended the visas of more figures in the de facto government this week to pressure a settlement.
“The two sides need to seal this deal now. Time is running out,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Friday. “We have not given up on a deal yet … We are focussed on these guys sitting down and agreeing,” he said.
This is nice. There is no deal to seal. There is no agreement. And now there are no talks. Put another way, US insistence on an agreement is and continues to be an utter non starter. Similarly, negotiations brokered by Oscar Arias. Similarly, the impounding of non-essential US aid to Honduras. The golpistas have raised their middle finger and most observers are making believe it’s to tell which way the wind is blowing.
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simulposted at The Dream Antilles
Oct 19 2009
On An Ethnic Slur
When it comes to cluelessness, a characteristic demonstrated repeatedly in rightwing politics, the world record always seems to be harder to reach, always seems to be harder to match. The goal posts just seem to move further and further away. And now we have two South Carolina GOP County Chairman entering the South Carolina division of the clueless sweeps to defend Jim DeMint (R-SC) by invoking an antisemitic stereotype in print, in an guest editorial.
How’s that for stepping up to the competition? A breathtaking feat.
Writing a guest editorial for the South Carolina Times and Democrat, Edwin O. Merwin Jr., Chairman, Bamberg County Republican Party, and James S. Ulmer Jr., Chairman, Orangeburg County Republican Party, give us these pithy bon mots:
There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed.
Nice. Real nice. No, they are not saying Jim DeMint is a Jew. That’s not their point.
And I don’t know who might be taking credit for being the source of this “saying,” or who might have said it when he wasn’t wearing white sheets and a pointed hood and standing before a flaming cross.
But you do have to admit that this writing shows a remarkable degree of cluelessness. These guys actually wrote this down, and then they had it printed in a newspaper with their names on it.
Predictably, this flourish of profound cluelessness was lambasted in the editorial of the conservative Palmetto Scoop:
Umm… who in mainstream America thinks it’s a good idea to write something like that in a guest editorial? Especially in light of the racially-motivated attention garnered by South Carolina Republican activists over the past few months.
It’s people like Ulmer and Merwin that make many folks fear for the future of the once Grand Ole Party.
Lest you forgot, the “racially-motivated attention,” referred to, had to do with the remarks of one Rusty Depass that an escaped gorilla was an ancestor of Michele Obama.
That, I thought, had set the previous South Carolina mark for cluelessness. And I expected that remark to keep the title for decades. What an error on my part. Evidently Ulmer and Merwin want to contest the record.
Can we expect the powers that be in the GOP to condemn this remark? More when I stop laughing.
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simulposted at The Dream Antilles
Oct 14 2009
Honduras: Is There A Deal To End The Coup?
Maybe. Today the BBC is reporting there’s a deal of sorts but it’s not giving any details:
The political crisis in Honduras appears to be closer to a resolution after negotiators reached a deal.
However few details are known of the deal which has yet to be approved by ousted President Manuel Zelaya and interim President Roberto Micheletti….snip
Mr Zelaya’s lead negotiator Victor Meza said the two sides had “agreed on one unified text that will be discussed and analysed by President Zelaya and Mr Micheletti.”
“I wouldn’t talk of an end to the political crisis, but an exit, yes,” he was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
Mr Zelaya has set a deadline of Thursday for agreement to be reached.
Reuters has the same story with some additional comments but no additional details:
The central issue being discussed was the return of Zelaya to power, but neither side was prepared to give details of the agreement and Micheletti’s negotiators did not immediately comment.
Still, army chief Romeo Vasquez, a key figure in the coup, also said a deal appeared close. “I know that we have advanced significantly, we are almost at the end of this crisis,” he told local radio HRN.
So maybe after all of this time there is an end to the golpe de estado in sight. If the deadline is tomorrow, we should know tomorrow what, if anything, has been agreed to.
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simul-posted at The Dream Antilles
Oct 04 2009
Honduras: Finally Talking About Talking
Today is Sunday. Democratically elected, legal President Manual Zelaya of Honduras remains in sanctuary in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. And the military golpistas remain in control of the Government. But today there is the tentative news of a beginning of negotiations finally to end the coup. The end of the crisis and the restoration of normalcy can’t come soon enough for the people of Honduras.
Join me in Tegucigalpa.
Oct 04 2009
Starting Over: Pontifications From A Nobody
Yesterday, I put up a diary at GOS decrying how our writing had become so completely predictable, so formulaic, so prosaic. It was derivative, and it was funny. But it was also extremely sad. In many ways it was a commentary on the powerlessness of progressive bloggers: we can yell louder, we can scream, we can write explosive rants. But you know what? It isn’t changing anything. And frankly, I’m tired of our dogged, persistent pursuit of something that’s not working. And, I suspect, isn’t going to work.
Maybe you’re lucky and can write face blistering essays on this site and you can have readers tell you how right on you are. How smart, how important, how clear. But if you’re poor and without a job, or if you’re sick and you don’t have insurance, or if you’re running out of unemployment benefits and the next job isn’t in sight, or if your kids are in trouble and you don’t know how to help them out, or if you are overdue to retire and you don’t have the funds and have to work, or your wage slave pay isn’t going to bail you out unless you win Megamillions and you’re not too big to fail, or your kids are in the military, these essays aren’t going to help you. Not at all. They’re just going to highlight how you have somebody’s boot on your neck. And you cannot get it off. And they’re bound to inform you, if you don’t know it already, about how very weak you are and how very powerless we as a group (I’m talking about progressives) remain.
Sep 30 2009
Inspiration: Activism From Where You Are
Years ago, when I was training for and running marathons, I learned that the best way to perfect form, to have economy of movement, and a smooth, fluid style, was to watch others who ran beautifully and just imitate what they were doing. It was basic, monkey see; monkey do. Similarly, when I see somebody who has seized the moment to make the world better, I wonder about what I could do that would imitate what s/he did. I’m inspired when I see people nourish their activism.
Here’s today’s example from the New York Times:
Playwrights and producers have used scathing commentary, heartbreaking drama and sharp satire to score political points about war, torture, presidents, AIDS, race relations and women’s rights with New York theater audiences. Now the Broadway musical “Hair” is expanding the concept of stage activism by taking to the streets and urging audiences to follow. The producers canceled a Sunday matinee so that the cast and crew could attend and perform at a march for gay rights in Washington on Oct. 11.
That unusual – and expensive – decision to skip a popular weekend performance at the beginning of the theater season originated with the show’s star, Gavin Creel.
“I said, ‘My God, we have to go, we have to go,’ ” Mr. Creel recalled when he first heard about the rally late last spring.
Although Mr. Creel, 33, stars in a show that is associated with ’60s-style activism and sexual liberation, he personally wasn’t much interested in politics before Barack Obama ran for president. On Election Day last November, he said, he was ecstatic that his candidate won, but was crushed by the victory of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. So he decided to help create the activist organization Broadway Impact to mobilize the theater community.
Then in May Mr. Creel met Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, when he came to see “Hair” with Dustin Lance Black, author of the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Milk.” At a party afterward for the release of the cast recording, they all talked about the Oct. 11 National Equality March that Mr. Jones was helping to organize. The rally’s organizers say they are seeking “equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states” for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.
And so, to make a longer, interesting story more concise, Gavin Creel and the tribe, the cast of “Hair”, are going to DC for the Equality March. And they’re closing a Broadway Sunday matinee to do so. With the full support of the producers of the show. Because, and this is the important part, because Gavin Creel thought it was a good idea and he decided to try to make it happen.
I just love this story. It’s inspiring.
It’s a reminder, a beautiful reminder that even seemingly impossible ideas can be brought into reality, and that you and I and everybody else who is passionate about something can make a difference. It’s surprisingly simple. When we have a good idea, we can decide to try to make it happen.
Here’s to Gavin Creel with thanks for being a great example. One I happily will copy. Please join me in that.
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simulposted at The Dream Antilles
Sep 29 2009
Honduras In State Of Siege While US Blathers That Zelaya’s “Foolish”
Lest anyone think that the US had suddenly reversed centuries of supporting and/or creating rightwing, military coups all across Latin America and was going to stand firm in support of restoring democracy in Honduras, today the US sent unmistakable signs that it wasn’t changing anything. It was sticking with historical tradition. The US today lashed out at Manual Zelaya for returning to the country of which he is the legitimate president.
Join me in Tegucigalpa.
Sep 27 2009
Honduras: A Stand Off (Breaking News Update)
You will recall that the legitimate president of Honduras Manual Zelaya evaded the golpistas who wanted to arrest him and secretly returned to Honduras, where he found refuge in the Brazilian embassy. First, there was this essay; then this. Zelaya’s still there. And this is an update on the present stand off.
Please join me in Tegucigalpa.
Sep 25 2009
What Are We Up To Anyway?
In the past 24 hours there have been four recommended essays on this blog devoted to the governance and/or publication policies of another, larger group blog dedicated to electing more and better Democrats. I wrote a fifth essay last night about the topic and then deleted it. I deleted it because it wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t sure why, and I couldn’t fix it, so I deleted it.
What I wanted to say then, and am saying now, is this:
My Brother and Sister Bloguer@s:
Like many of you, I have written for Naranja for many years. And I still post there. Like many of you, I have lived through all of the pie fights, the flame wars, and the bannings, always hoping that blog would continue to morph and change and grow ultimately into a progressive group blog.Needless to say, it hasn’t. And I doubt it ever will. I think it has slowly but surely become part of the main stream and that the level of control there has become unacceptable at the same time that nastiness of commenters has run amok. I am not going to take the time to chronicle the many events that led to its present senescence. I will still post there occasionally because, as Robyn pointed out yesterday, that’s where the people are who need to be taught. And I have some things I would like to tell them. But I don’t see that blog being or becoming a progressive blog. Ever. No matter what. That has never been its collective intent.
Which brings me here, to docuDharma. This lovely blog, which I have considered a home for a full f*cking two years now, is so much freer, so much more wide ranging, so much more progressive, so much more interesting, that I don’t want to spend time looking ruefully at disappointing Naranja in my rear view mirror. I want to look out the front windshield at blogging the future, and I want to point out to you, brothers and sisters, what lies ahead for us in the future of progressive blogging.
I have no proprietary or financial interest in this blog. I know that those who own it and run it and make it continue to operate have allowed all kinds of ideas freely to be expressed here. Including topics that can get you banned elsewhere. So it seems to me that if we really want a progressive, leftwing (am I being redundant?) group blog, and I think we all do, what we need now is to build docuDharma and help it grow. Then we will have what we want.
How do we do that? We can build it in two simple ways: first, we put up lots of writing that is as excellent as it can be, and second, we let others know how excellent this blog is. In other words, building docuDharma, if you’re like me and have no responsibilities at all for the behind the scenes part of the blog or its governance or its technology or its finances, is easy. All you have to do is write well and let others know that there’s good, progressive reading here. If you build it here at docuDharma, they will come.
I think Naranja has jumped the shark. I’m disappointed but not surprised by that. But the best answer to its obsolescence, to its impending irrelevance, is right here. It’s to build a larger, more excellent docuDharma with your creativity and love.
Hasta la victoria siempre, davidseth
Sep 25 2009
DD: Kick It Up A Notch!
My brother and sister bloguer@s:
There are at least four (4) essays on the present “recommended” list that relate to the control/censorship and governance issues of a blog devoted to “more and better Democrats.” The underlying assumption of all four essays, if I can be so bold, is that that blog matters. Guess what? It doesn’t. Not really. It has a lot of interesting history. It has had a lot of great writers. It has done some wonderful things. At one time it was innovative. But, and this is the big but, it hasn’t aged well. In its senescence it has turned into something far more traditional, far less creative. It was a plum, now it’s a prune. A prune making believe it’s still a plum. So be it.
I am wondering whether we can look at that growing train wreck in our rear view mirrors and just go on to something else. Put another way, can we pick up the remote control and change the channel to something interesting? Can we go on to creating something different, something that arguably matters. Can we stop worrying about events in orange and build something better?
I know that when chaos hits our extended family, however remote it might be, it tends to siphon off a lot of our energy and time. I wouldn’t expect anything different just because it’s a blog rather than a person that’s jumping the shark. This happens. I’m sad that it’s happened, but I’m not surprised. I’d just like us to recognize what’s happened, and to kick it up a notch here.
PS. If this essay is recommended it will be the fifth such essay. That’s enough, isn’t it?
Sep 24 2009
Honduras: The Crisis Continues
Manual Zelaya In The Brazilian Embassy, Tegucigalpa
The two sides aren’t talking to each other in Honduras, even though they are just miles from each other. The golpistas use the military to repress the people on the streets and to continue the curfews. The real president of Honduras has asylum in the Brazilian embassy.
Join me in Tegucigalpa.