In October of 2009, in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Evo Morales said that "Social peace cannot exist if economic inequalities still remain."
Lenin has written that "Social democracy knows that as long as society is divided into classes, as long as there is exploitation of human by human, wars are inevitable."
Fidel castro has written, "End the philosophy of plunder, and the philosophy of war will be ended as well."
The message is clear; peace cannot exist as long as there are pre-determined and forced divisions. Equality is the only option, Equality is paramount to our survival and to respect for life.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A Picture of A Society Asleep
I wrote this thinkpiece, or rant, or article quite a few months ago, but am putting on the blog just now.
____________________________________
A New York City hip-hop artist once wrote that "sleep is the cousin of death", and so if sleep is the cousin of death, then fatigue and exhaustion must be its correlatives.
On the bus and on subway trains we see people seemingly miserable, struggling, and half-hearted in their approach to daily life. The majority are immigrants, poor single mothers, the disregarded, disadvantaged, and underprivileged working class, competing in a contest of survival for the lowest paying, most undesirable blue-collar jobs that earn them less than the cost of living. The remainder are the middle class which are divided into two groups: thousands of faceless students emerging from private universities and colleges with $ 40,000 clouds already over their heads, for the simple "privilege" of holding a useless, generic undergraduate degree.
Along with them are the lower-wrung rat race "urban professionals" who pursue happiness in the form of fiance status and furniture they can't afford, and whose only comforts are pumpkin spice lattes, Stephanie Meyer novels, and a bottle of Merlot. The simplistic conversations about their dogs and their trips to Europe, and their regurgitation of everything the media feeds them from pop culture to status-quo politics, helps you understand the obliviousness and indifference which dominates the thinking of western culture. An isolated people who don't smile at strangers, collectively carrying the gloomy weight of soul-bleaching subservience and conformism. All of them pressured and stressed by the pervasive burden of competition, have they any choice but to become jaded and dejected, demoralized and hopeless? Fidel Castro once wrote, "there is nothing in this world as bitter as a people who go to sleep in liberty, and awaken in slavery." The citizens of the West think they live in the most just and equal societies of the world, yet they are victims to the hoax of the two-party system "democracies" which control their lives. Neo-democracy, as I refer to this system, is a system based on individualism, selfishness, and isolation which breaks down the social fabric, and makes the population tired, lethargic, cynical, and confused.
We live in a world where we concern ourselves about a healthy and robust economy, but not about healthy citizens. We live in a world where people absolutely must get their Tim Horton's or Starbucks coffee in the morning even if it means wasting thirty minutes of their day waiting in line to get it. We live in a world where you get a free handy picnic chicken bag wiht your KFC mega meal, and the latest ice cream flavours are peppermint stick, Festive Eggnog, Apple Pie, and Santa's Milk and Cookies. We live in a wold where body wash has you feeling ready to take on your day, and where "revolutionary" is understood to explain what the new stain remover can do for your bathtub and your old silverware. We live in a world where people are consumed with tomorrow night's results of So You Think You Dance, or the next episode of Heroes, when imperialist wars and occupations are ravaging the Middle-East, and the majority of resource rich countries. We live in a world where shopping carts get shelters, and homeless people don't.
We live in a world where the poor are forced to shop at Wal-Mart and other mega discount department stores, because these stores are the only ones to offer products which are affordable to them. The way these mega discount store corporations keep prices exceptionally low is by externalising costs. They externalize costs by paying low employee salaries, by providing little or non-existant health insurance, through mass production and mass distribution, with cheap oil from Iraq, and cheap production labour from China, Mexico and many other countries. They externalize costs by making Indigineous and poor working people pay when neoliberal governments give corporations permission to exploit lands and extract natural resources that don't belong to them, for free, and by receiving permission for 100 % repatriation of profits. They make everything else, and everyone else pay for their profits. The wealth and natural resources of the people are handed to corporations on a silver platter. So the planet, the indigenous, and poor working people are the ones actually paying for the true costs of production all along the chain of extraction, production, and distribution, and not the consumers paying the ridiculously low prices for these products. But, since poor working people, third world immigrant families, single mothers, etc, can afford to buy these products only from these mega discount stores, they are keeping these corporations alive, healthy, and wealthy. And, because they are the ones, vassals to plunder and exploitation, paying for the true costs of production in the first place, the very victims of this system then become the market which perpetuates the same vicious cycle of destitution. In other words, their poverty and desperation feeds their own misery and exploitation; as consumers they are fueling the very system which destroys them as workers.
We live in a world subjugated by a cycle of perpetuating poverty.
____________________________________
A New York City hip-hop artist once wrote that "sleep is the cousin of death", and so if sleep is the cousin of death, then fatigue and exhaustion must be its correlatives.
On the bus and on subway trains we see people seemingly miserable, struggling, and half-hearted in their approach to daily life. The majority are immigrants, poor single mothers, the disregarded, disadvantaged, and underprivileged working class, competing in a contest of survival for the lowest paying, most undesirable blue-collar jobs that earn them less than the cost of living. The remainder are the middle class which are divided into two groups: thousands of faceless students emerging from private universities and colleges with $ 40,000 clouds already over their heads, for the simple "privilege" of holding a useless, generic undergraduate degree.
Along with them are the lower-wrung rat race "urban professionals" who pursue happiness in the form of fiance status and furniture they can't afford, and whose only comforts are pumpkin spice lattes, Stephanie Meyer novels, and a bottle of Merlot. The simplistic conversations about their dogs and their trips to Europe, and their regurgitation of everything the media feeds them from pop culture to status-quo politics, helps you understand the obliviousness and indifference which dominates the thinking of western culture. An isolated people who don't smile at strangers, collectively carrying the gloomy weight of soul-bleaching subservience and conformism. All of them pressured and stressed by the pervasive burden of competition, have they any choice but to become jaded and dejected, demoralized and hopeless? Fidel Castro once wrote, "there is nothing in this world as bitter as a people who go to sleep in liberty, and awaken in slavery." The citizens of the West think they live in the most just and equal societies of the world, yet they are victims to the hoax of the two-party system "democracies" which control their lives. Neo-democracy, as I refer to this system, is a system based on individualism, selfishness, and isolation which breaks down the social fabric, and makes the population tired, lethargic, cynical, and confused.
We live in a world where we concern ourselves about a healthy and robust economy, but not about healthy citizens. We live in a world where people absolutely must get their Tim Horton's or Starbucks coffee in the morning even if it means wasting thirty minutes of their day waiting in line to get it. We live in a world where you get a free handy picnic chicken bag wiht your KFC mega meal, and the latest ice cream flavours are peppermint stick, Festive Eggnog, Apple Pie, and Santa's Milk and Cookies. We live in a wold where body wash has you feeling ready to take on your day, and where "revolutionary" is understood to explain what the new stain remover can do for your bathtub and your old silverware. We live in a world where people are consumed with tomorrow night's results of So You Think You Dance, or the next episode of Heroes, when imperialist wars and occupations are ravaging the Middle-East, and the majority of resource rich countries. We live in a world where shopping carts get shelters, and homeless people don't.
We live in a world where the poor are forced to shop at Wal-Mart and other mega discount department stores, because these stores are the only ones to offer products which are affordable to them. The way these mega discount store corporations keep prices exceptionally low is by externalising costs. They externalize costs by paying low employee salaries, by providing little or non-existant health insurance, through mass production and mass distribution, with cheap oil from Iraq, and cheap production labour from China, Mexico and many other countries. They externalize costs by making Indigineous and poor working people pay when neoliberal governments give corporations permission to exploit lands and extract natural resources that don't belong to them, for free, and by receiving permission for 100 % repatriation of profits. They make everything else, and everyone else pay for their profits. The wealth and natural resources of the people are handed to corporations on a silver platter. So the planet, the indigenous, and poor working people are the ones actually paying for the true costs of production all along the chain of extraction, production, and distribution, and not the consumers paying the ridiculously low prices for these products. But, since poor working people, third world immigrant families, single mothers, etc, can afford to buy these products only from these mega discount stores, they are keeping these corporations alive, healthy, and wealthy. And, because they are the ones, vassals to plunder and exploitation, paying for the true costs of production in the first place, the very victims of this system then become the market which perpetuates the same vicious cycle of destitution. In other words, their poverty and desperation feeds their own misery and exploitation; as consumers they are fueling the very system which destroys them as workers.
We live in a world subjugated by a cycle of perpetuating poverty.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Quote of the Week - Oct 26th
"Despising the bourgeoisie, and yet belonging to it, they add to its strength and glory.... The lives of these infinitely numerous persons makes no claim to the tragic; but they live under an evil star in a quite considerable affliction; and in this hell their talents ripen and bear fruit.... The few who break free seek their reward in the unconditioned and go down in splendor. They wear the thorn crown and their number is small." - Hermann Hesse.
"I will return and I will be millions." - Tupac Katari.
Thanks Raul.
"I will return and I will be millions." - Tupac Katari.
Thanks Raul.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The New Age Hippie Revolutionary??
The Sustainable movement, in my opinion, is unstoppable because it combines so many different shades and branches of social justice. It is a personal, economic, political, and social philosophy all in one convenient, organized, and politically sexy portfolio. Green, vegan and vegetarian, environmental, equality, anti-corporate, fair trade, anti-capitalist, sustainable are all terms that relate to this movement, and together they form the splendid new-age fusion of environmental crusader, hippie, and revolutionary.
Having thrown this idea into the universe for everyone to share, lets join together to coin a new term to define this new human of the future. "At the risk of sounding ridiculous", as Che Guevara has said, I request your input and suggestions for this proposal which may seem dreamy and gung ho. I say it with absolute happiness and spiritual liberty, because its a good thing to be in love with the movement.
Have fun with it.
Having thrown this idea into the universe for everyone to share, lets join together to coin a new term to define this new human of the future. "At the risk of sounding ridiculous", as Che Guevara has said, I request your input and suggestions for this proposal which may seem dreamy and gung ho. I say it with absolute happiness and spiritual liberty, because its a good thing to be in love with the movement.
Have fun with it.
Happiness, The Inner-Activist, and the Collective Community Quest of Fair Trade and The Sustainable Movement
As a young activist one of the first things I notice in social justice circles is the significant absence of an understanding of the necessity to link the struggle for social justice with that of environmental justice. There is also an overinsistence on political change with insufficient weight granted to the subsequent need for economic change. It is unrealistic to expect political progress without first targeting capitalism for what it is; a system based on capital, money, and profits. And, it is equally as impossible to weaken that foundation of capital and profits, without first seriously questioning and altering our consumption habits in western society. How can we claim to be activists, or revolutionaries for great political and social change internationally without first changing the most basic and fundamental elements of our lives? These fundamental aspects of our lives such as the products we buy, the clothes we wear, and the food we eat must necesarily be the starting point. Before we change the world, we must first change ourselves, change our lives, and change the habits that define us as uninformed and unconcerned consumers.
These two factors, the environmental emphasis, and the necessary focus on our consumption habits, bring the question of fair trade into context. Supporting and understanding fair trade can generate a lot of personal happiness and satisfaction in living a non-corporate, and sustainability oriented lifestyle. It is not just a matter of figthing against the system, but of rejecting the most basic elements that bind us to it. On a daily basis, if we are drinking Tim Horton's or Starbucks coffee, or handing out plastic bottled water at solidarity events, then we are simply not identifying the problem at its roots. By keeping our corporate life habits unchecked and unchanged we are supporting NAFTA, we are supporting free trade, we are behaving hypocritically as our indifference and disregard continues to feed the system of consumption that perpetuates the very injustices we are fighting against in the first place.
Free trade by nature enslaves people into dependence, and fair trade by nature liberates people; it liberates people not only because it pays them exponentially higher prices for their products, but because it gives them a choice, a choice to offer their children a quality education, a choice to always have enough to feed their families with no concerns.
Part of our political position must be a staunch opposition to free trade, and fair trade is the exact opposite, the direct alternative to free trade. Fair trade, however, more than a poltical philosophy, is a lifestyle choice, almost a spiritual choice. And so because our alternative lifestyle choices are relevant at such a personal level, whether that be buying fairtrade, living green and sustainable, boycotting corporate products, or even making the move to being vegan or vegetarian, they allow us an opportunity to be proud about the way we live, and to be happy in the struggle. Being an activist or revolutionary, fighting for social justice of any kind, or simply living a progressive lifestyle often requires a lot of discipline and sacrifice, and sometimes that level of committment can be very difficult. But our dedication to social justice should not be a committment beyond recognition of our happiness, and it is not selfish to want things for ourselves, as long as they are not ignorant or detriment to the greater good. Being happy is the first step, first and foremost because it is human nature to desire it, and because happiness is humanity's most valuable gift, but also because we can never be fully effective in the struggle without it. We have to fight for what we believe in with dedication, but we have to attain fulfillment while doing it. It is the happy and complementary union of two elements in physical and intuative expression through our daily routine.
We must appreciate and embrace the beauty and richness of this social justice struggle, and we must take the challenge of the 'inner revolution' as a quest for personal change, as "an opportunity to live a future-self now, a future-self that offers a deeper acceptance of our humanity." That personal connection with the movement, provides us with comfort, and happiness that is almost necessary to making the full leap, the full committment to an alternative life and/or revolutionary activism. It is something lodged within our psyche, something spiritually tangible that we can identify with directly at anytime, perhaps when nothing else seems within reach, or when the struggle is at its most difficult moments. This binary ethos bridges the inner-self with outer challenges, like a sort of crossbow that combines the spiritual with the ideological. It is reaching a level of inner peace and comfort in the transition from treading water to dwelving into the deep. Our inherent lives begin to sync in harmony with our social, political, and humanitarian aspirations.
Another very important characteristic of the sustainable movement is its strength in existing through a collective identity and orientation. People love to, and want to feel like they belong to a greater common entity. That is why we must talk to neighbours, we must discuss with our co-workers, friends, and family on a daily basis, we must exchange ideas, stories, and solutions to help broaden the fabric of our social project. All of our social justice, environmental, sustainable living, anti-corporate initiatives, etc., must be based on complete and uncompromised inclusion. Fair trade is a socio-economic model rooted in community building at the local, national, and international level. Fair trade theory often talks about creating a link between northern consumers and marginalized southern producers, but we also need to emphasize the more simple connection from people to people, the action of an equal, reciprocal exchange. We must be a people of community and togetherness who complement the growth of each other's livelihoods in tangible and positive ways. Fair trade is proof that a smaller-scale, grassroots, and symbiotic economy can not only sustain, but enhance the collective threads of our human community. The sustainable movement, while creating a very profound and deep-rooted sense of belonging, participation, and community, allows us to become the living agents of what we believe in.
These two factors, the environmental emphasis, and the necessary focus on our consumption habits, bring the question of fair trade into context. Supporting and understanding fair trade can generate a lot of personal happiness and satisfaction in living a non-corporate, and sustainability oriented lifestyle. It is not just a matter of figthing against the system, but of rejecting the most basic elements that bind us to it. On a daily basis, if we are drinking Tim Horton's or Starbucks coffee, or handing out plastic bottled water at solidarity events, then we are simply not identifying the problem at its roots. By keeping our corporate life habits unchecked and unchanged we are supporting NAFTA, we are supporting free trade, we are behaving hypocritically as our indifference and disregard continues to feed the system of consumption that perpetuates the very injustices we are fighting against in the first place.
Free trade by nature enslaves people into dependence, and fair trade by nature liberates people; it liberates people not only because it pays them exponentially higher prices for their products, but because it gives them a choice, a choice to offer their children a quality education, a choice to always have enough to feed their families with no concerns.
Part of our political position must be a staunch opposition to free trade, and fair trade is the exact opposite, the direct alternative to free trade. Fair trade, however, more than a poltical philosophy, is a lifestyle choice, almost a spiritual choice. And so because our alternative lifestyle choices are relevant at such a personal level, whether that be buying fairtrade, living green and sustainable, boycotting corporate products, or even making the move to being vegan or vegetarian, they allow us an opportunity to be proud about the way we live, and to be happy in the struggle. Being an activist or revolutionary, fighting for social justice of any kind, or simply living a progressive lifestyle often requires a lot of discipline and sacrifice, and sometimes that level of committment can be very difficult. But our dedication to social justice should not be a committment beyond recognition of our happiness, and it is not selfish to want things for ourselves, as long as they are not ignorant or detriment to the greater good. Being happy is the first step, first and foremost because it is human nature to desire it, and because happiness is humanity's most valuable gift, but also because we can never be fully effective in the struggle without it. We have to fight for what we believe in with dedication, but we have to attain fulfillment while doing it. It is the happy and complementary union of two elements in physical and intuative expression through our daily routine.
We must appreciate and embrace the beauty and richness of this social justice struggle, and we must take the challenge of the 'inner revolution' as a quest for personal change, as "an opportunity to live a future-self now, a future-self that offers a deeper acceptance of our humanity." That personal connection with the movement, provides us with comfort, and happiness that is almost necessary to making the full leap, the full committment to an alternative life and/or revolutionary activism. It is something lodged within our psyche, something spiritually tangible that we can identify with directly at anytime, perhaps when nothing else seems within reach, or when the struggle is at its most difficult moments. This binary ethos bridges the inner-self with outer challenges, like a sort of crossbow that combines the spiritual with the ideological. It is reaching a level of inner peace and comfort in the transition from treading water to dwelving into the deep. Our inherent lives begin to sync in harmony with our social, political, and humanitarian aspirations.
Another very important characteristic of the sustainable movement is its strength in existing through a collective identity and orientation. People love to, and want to feel like they belong to a greater common entity. That is why we must talk to neighbours, we must discuss with our co-workers, friends, and family on a daily basis, we must exchange ideas, stories, and solutions to help broaden the fabric of our social project. All of our social justice, environmental, sustainable living, anti-corporate initiatives, etc., must be based on complete and uncompromised inclusion. Fair trade is a socio-economic model rooted in community building at the local, national, and international level. Fair trade theory often talks about creating a link between northern consumers and marginalized southern producers, but we also need to emphasize the more simple connection from people to people, the action of an equal, reciprocal exchange. We must be a people of community and togetherness who complement the growth of each other's livelihoods in tangible and positive ways. Fair trade is proof that a smaller-scale, grassroots, and symbiotic economy can not only sustain, but enhance the collective threads of our human community. The sustainable movement, while creating a very profound and deep-rooted sense of belonging, participation, and community, allows us to become the living agents of what we believe in.
Monday, September 28, 2009
ALBA: Latin American Integration for Political Sovereignty and Economic Independence
A Brief Overview of ALBA's Values, and 21st Century Sustainable Ideas
The dysfunctional, status-quo, market-oriented system has given Latin America nothing other than economic and social crisis for decades, focusing solely on foreign investment, and measuring national progress and living conditions by inaccurate growth rates. It is an unrealistic model of infinite growth, precisely at a time when we need to immediately and considerably check our consumption habits, and slow the exploitation of the planet. Evo Morales has said that "Mother Earth cannot be a piece of merchandise.... Under capitalism, we are not human beings, but consumers. Under capitalism, mother earth does not exist, instead there are raw materials."
As both an economic and a social alternative, ALBA will work to develop a completely different way of reshaping society, focusing instead on the development of human capital, namely through improved health and education. These social programs emanating from ALBA, known as missions, operate in many South American countries, even many which are not official members of ALBA. The Cuban 'Yo, Si Puedo' reading and writing campaign, for example, has wiped out illiteracy in Venezuela and Bolivia, Bolivia being the most recent announcing itself free of illiteracy in December 2008. 'Operacion Milagro', a program to provide free eye care procedures and restore eyesight has benefitted more than one million eight hundred thousand people in 35 countries across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. And, directly in the field of education, the formation of thousands of doctors, technical professionals, and engineers free of charge is strengthening the social and communal fabric of Latin America. The creation of Bolivarian universities in Venezuela to promote social embodiment, and the introduction of Indigenous universities in Bolivia are strong examples.
As a 21st century alternative, ALBA must encourage and support cooperative workplaces with democratic decision-making, and smaller-scale, local, and sustainable production and consumption. Financial and technical collaboration between nations will provide cohesion to existing state industries and newly-acquired ones, to strengthen industry in general, and to prevent the flight of foreign capital, and subsequent instability and unemployment.
ALBA, in contrast to other regional trade organizations, is putting forward cooperation in trade of goods and services for sustainable resources and food security, toward the goal of self-sufficiency for the continent. This begins with the development of local and national agriculture and industry to end foreign dependence. Most of Latin America, and especially South America, is an area where forests and rivers are plentiful, and where the land is extremely rich in natural resources, from a large variety of food crops, to natural gas, oil, and minerals. Despite this tremendous natural wealth, Latin America is heavily dependent on imports, namely food imports, a trend which must be urgently reversed; as Jose Marti has said, "a people that cannot produce its own food are slaves; they don't have the slightest freedom. If a society doesn't produce what it eats, it will always be dependent on someone else". Food sovereignty, by extension, will serve to protect traditional and indigenous culture, subsistence, and employment. In other words, if the peoples of Latin America wish to attain genuine and permanent independence, they must first and foremost break the economic chains of neo-liberalism. Capitalist globalization is attempting to turn Latin America into another cookie jar, and ALBA must be there as the necessary alternative to reclaim the continent's markets and resources, not in competition with the rest of the world, but in collaboration, to ensure that the economy serves as a tool for the prosperity of people, and not the other way around.
Ideologically, ALBA will help to build anti-imperialist solidarity in a tangible way, and not just in rhetoric. ALBA serves as an engine for the battle of ideas, as a means to disseminate the human values of love, truth, justice, equality, and community, to break with the invisible cage of selfishness and individualism, qualities which are inherent in the culture of capitalism.
One of the main components working in concert with ALBA will be the Banco Del Sur (or Bank of the South), which will serve as a necessary feature, for the time being, to counter the capital power of the traditional international finance and lending institutions. The Banco Del Sur will provide countries and people with an alternative to weaken the economic grip of, namely, the International Monetary Fund(IMF), The World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank(IADB), and to minimize the influence of the World Trade Organization, at least in Latin America and the Caribbean. Typically the IMF, and the World Bank, etc. will hand out loans packaged with conditions of economic structural adjustments, trade liberalization, and privatization, and often with extremely high interest rates. The Banco Del Sur on the other hand will charge very low interest rates, and will be geared toward social programs and development. The original founding members of the Bank are Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Ecuador. One of the main tenets along with the initial idea for the bank is that each member is assigned one vote, regardless of the size of its financial contribution. On Sunday Sept.27, 2009 the second Africa South America Summit (ASA) took place on Isla Margarita, and in addition to expanding South-South solidarity across the Atlantic, the original seven Banco Del Sur countries concluded the formalized creation of the bank, with a start-up capital of $ 20 billion. Hugo Chavez even floated the idea of adding African countries as members in the future to expand the bank under the new name of BancASA. Chavez also announced intentions to create PETROSUR oil company, an intercontinental oil giant to serve the peoples of Africa and South America.
Simply put, we proclaim ALBA for liberty, because self-sufficiency is self-determination.
The current brutal military coup in Honduras, which continues its attempts to cut down the peaceful resistance on a daily basis, has attacked not only Hondurans, but the Bolivarian movement as a whole. This aggression has reaffirmed with absolute certainty that the reactionary forces of the hemisphere will not tolerate social advancement, and will not go quietly, or peacefully. The relevance of ALBA suddenly becomes even more imperative, and undeniable.
The dysfunctional, status-quo, market-oriented system has given Latin America nothing other than economic and social crisis for decades, focusing solely on foreign investment, and measuring national progress and living conditions by inaccurate growth rates. It is an unrealistic model of infinite growth, precisely at a time when we need to immediately and considerably check our consumption habits, and slow the exploitation of the planet. Evo Morales has said that "Mother Earth cannot be a piece of merchandise.... Under capitalism, we are not human beings, but consumers. Under capitalism, mother earth does not exist, instead there are raw materials."
As both an economic and a social alternative, ALBA will work to develop a completely different way of reshaping society, focusing instead on the development of human capital, namely through improved health and education. These social programs emanating from ALBA, known as missions, operate in many South American countries, even many which are not official members of ALBA. The Cuban 'Yo, Si Puedo' reading and writing campaign, for example, has wiped out illiteracy in Venezuela and Bolivia, Bolivia being the most recent announcing itself free of illiteracy in December 2008. 'Operacion Milagro', a program to provide free eye care procedures and restore eyesight has benefitted more than one million eight hundred thousand people in 35 countries across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. And, directly in the field of education, the formation of thousands of doctors, technical professionals, and engineers free of charge is strengthening the social and communal fabric of Latin America. The creation of Bolivarian universities in Venezuela to promote social embodiment, and the introduction of Indigenous universities in Bolivia are strong examples.
As a 21st century alternative, ALBA must encourage and support cooperative workplaces with democratic decision-making, and smaller-scale, local, and sustainable production and consumption. Financial and technical collaboration between nations will provide cohesion to existing state industries and newly-acquired ones, to strengthen industry in general, and to prevent the flight of foreign capital, and subsequent instability and unemployment.
ALBA, in contrast to other regional trade organizations, is putting forward cooperation in trade of goods and services for sustainable resources and food security, toward the goal of self-sufficiency for the continent. This begins with the development of local and national agriculture and industry to end foreign dependence. Most of Latin America, and especially South America, is an area where forests and rivers are plentiful, and where the land is extremely rich in natural resources, from a large variety of food crops, to natural gas, oil, and minerals. Despite this tremendous natural wealth, Latin America is heavily dependent on imports, namely food imports, a trend which must be urgently reversed; as Jose Marti has said, "a people that cannot produce its own food are slaves; they don't have the slightest freedom. If a society doesn't produce what it eats, it will always be dependent on someone else". Food sovereignty, by extension, will serve to protect traditional and indigenous culture, subsistence, and employment. In other words, if the peoples of Latin America wish to attain genuine and permanent independence, they must first and foremost break the economic chains of neo-liberalism. Capitalist globalization is attempting to turn Latin America into another cookie jar, and ALBA must be there as the necessary alternative to reclaim the continent's markets and resources, not in competition with the rest of the world, but in collaboration, to ensure that the economy serves as a tool for the prosperity of people, and not the other way around.
Ideologically, ALBA will help to build anti-imperialist solidarity in a tangible way, and not just in rhetoric. ALBA serves as an engine for the battle of ideas, as a means to disseminate the human values of love, truth, justice, equality, and community, to break with the invisible cage of selfishness and individualism, qualities which are inherent in the culture of capitalism.
One of the main components working in concert with ALBA will be the Banco Del Sur (or Bank of the South), which will serve as a necessary feature, for the time being, to counter the capital power of the traditional international finance and lending institutions. The Banco Del Sur will provide countries and people with an alternative to weaken the economic grip of, namely, the International Monetary Fund(IMF), The World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank(IADB), and to minimize the influence of the World Trade Organization, at least in Latin America and the Caribbean. Typically the IMF, and the World Bank, etc. will hand out loans packaged with conditions of economic structural adjustments, trade liberalization, and privatization, and often with extremely high interest rates. The Banco Del Sur on the other hand will charge very low interest rates, and will be geared toward social programs and development. The original founding members of the Bank are Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Ecuador. One of the main tenets along with the initial idea for the bank is that each member is assigned one vote, regardless of the size of its financial contribution. On Sunday Sept.27, 2009 the second Africa South America Summit (ASA) took place on Isla Margarita, and in addition to expanding South-South solidarity across the Atlantic, the original seven Banco Del Sur countries concluded the formalized creation of the bank, with a start-up capital of $ 20 billion. Hugo Chavez even floated the idea of adding African countries as members in the future to expand the bank under the new name of BancASA. Chavez also announced intentions to create PETROSUR oil company, an intercontinental oil giant to serve the peoples of Africa and South America.
Simply put, we proclaim ALBA for liberty, because self-sufficiency is self-determination.
The current brutal military coup in Honduras, which continues its attempts to cut down the peaceful resistance on a daily basis, has attacked not only Hondurans, but the Bolivarian movement as a whole. This aggression has reaffirmed with absolute certainty that the reactionary forces of the hemisphere will not tolerate social advancement, and will not go quietly, or peacefully. The relevance of ALBA suddenly becomes even more imperative, and undeniable.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
100 Days of Honduran Resistance - A Canadian Solidarity Perspective
Oct/7/2009
On Saturday Sept.26, 2009 the Latin American Solidarity Network Toronto (LASN) held a day long teach-in, with panels on Honduras, the Venezuela-Colombia dynamic, and North American foreign policy in Latin America. Despite a modest turnout, the gathering was hugely successful with very enthusiastic interaction, and valuable dialogue, as inspiration was generated, connections were cultivated, and strong commitments reaffirmed. It really had the feeling of being a momentous, and very significant meeting, as many people pointed out during the discussion. Everyone dispersed afterwards having taken away something positive. It was a great exercise of solidarity building.
It was an important event for LASN which had just recently sent a three man delegation to Honduras to help with the resistance efforts, which have been sustained now for more than 90 days without pause, in response to the military coup of June 28th, 2009. The report back from the three companeros who had the opportunity to work firsthand with the resistance movement provided valuable insight to Toronto activists in helping to understand the important dynamic of what is taking shape in Honduras as we speak.
Honduras After 100 Days
One of the most consequential elements of the standoff at this time is that the balance of forces has been clearly established. After three months of confrontation a few things have occurred. The coup regime has shown persistence, and is unyielding despite significant international political pressure. The resistance movement has demonstrated even greater resolve, and even in the face of severe repression, the people have committed themselves to a decisive struggle. All Latin American governments have strongly condemned the coup-makers and have demanded the return of President Zelaya, the majority of them unconditionally so. The international solidarity community has completely and whole-heartedly supported the resistance, and will continue to do so until a conclusion is reached.
The military regime, not surprisingly, has come down hard on the resistance with the violent dispersal of daily mobilizations; water cannons, tear gas, beatings, live rounds have been common place, even reports of chemical weapons being used against the Brazilian Embassy where president Zelaya has taken refuge. Killings, injuries, arbitrary detentions, and disappearances have been daily occurrences. Not to mention the media has been silenced, internet access has been restricted, and curfews have been imposed since day 1. These numerous, blatant human rights violations have been documented and condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, European countries, and even the Organization of American States (OAS), which is not always sympathetic to leftist causes to say the least. The U.S. government however, while mildly disapproving of the coup and quietly asking for the return of President Zelaya, has done so only behind the guise of the San Jose Accord, an agreement pushed and written by the U.S, with Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias as the token conciliatory figure. The traitorous, watered-down San Jose accord is not even a mediated dialogue, but rather a one sided power-sharing deal which extends a gold-plated olive branch to the Micheletti regime, and sets a terrible precedent in Latin America by rewarding military coups instead of punishing them. Beyond labeling the situation in Honduras as a coup, and not even as a military coup, the U.S has done nothing concrete to reverse the coup, and has said nothing about the rampant human rights violations which have been condemned by so many other organizations worldwide.
All these factors lead us to an apparent stalemate.
However! Drawing from momentum, from international opinion, from the reports of those who have witnessed Honduras in transition from up close, and from the unshakable determination of the resistance, it would seem that the political initiative now lies in the hands of the Honduran people.
Most likely, if the coup had not taken place on June 28th, the people of Honduras would probably have been satisfied with President Zelaya's progressive reforms, and with the hope that the promise of the referendum on a constituent assembly, as proposed by Zelaya, would bring greater change in the near future. Roberto Micheletti, the de facto military president, has said that what is taking place in Honduras is not a coup, but a "constitutional succession". Perhaps it was not a good idea for the far-right to overreact. They are obviously uneasy, and very nervous about the Bolivarian process, but perhaps they would have been better off with a few liberal reforms, rather than with an entire people, infuriated, and ready and willing to take matters into their own hands.
Capitalist motivated military reactions to social progress have a tendency to take things too far, to take things beyond the point where people will just let things slide, or forget about it, either out of fear, or simply because time elapses. By doing this, they are instead fueling the fire they wish to extinguish. To a degree, western democracy now has become synonymous with injustice, and repression. In Latin America, many of these so-called democracies have introduced laws against "terrorism". In El Salavador, the fascist ARENA party has used this law to suppress social movements fighting against the privatization of water. In Chile, allegedly Latin America's most exemplary democracy, the government of Michelle Bachelet has used an "anti-terrorist" law against the indigenous Mapuche people in their struggle. In Colombia, a similar law is used regularly to ruthlessly expel indigenous communities and campesinos from their traditional lands, to make room for monoculture crops. And, most recently the APRA party government of Alan Garcia in Peru has also made use of a law against "terrorism", in June, 2009, to put down indigenous protests against the granting of exploration and exploitation contracts in the Amazon. These perverse reversals of justice, often coinciding with legislation required by free trade agreements, are all carried out to honor neoliberal commitments.
Naomi Klein has written about cultural warfare, or genocide saying that it is “part of a system....with clear intent not of attacking individual persons but of destroying the parts of society that those people represented” or a “clear and deliberate region-wide strategy…to uproot and erase the left,” a declaration of war against an entire culture. The same historical pattern seems to be repeating itself in Honduras today; curfews, arbitrary detentions, shootings, killings, disappearances, restrictions on all freedoms, including media and the right to organize. Pinochet's Chile, or any other of a number of military dictatorships that have terrorized Latin America in the last 60 years, have far more similarities than differences to the current regime in Honduras. What these historical precedents have in common with Honduras' current regime, is the criminalization of protest.
What they are attempting to carry out is an attack against a social vision, against an alternative culture, they are telling people that they are not allowed to fight for social justice, that they are not allowed to stand against capitalist and neoliberal domination. When mass violence and human rights violations are required to maintain a government, or a system, whether that system be religious, economic, or political, any such attempts to derail social movements amounts to cultural warfare. There comes a point when it is no longer just a struggle for certain elements of social justice, but literally a fight for your very existence, a fight to preserve and save a way of life, and the people of Honduras, it seems, whether it be within the context of humanity's fight, or within the context of ALBA, have realized this to the fullest extent.
Che Guevara has aid that "there is nothing better to give solidarity to a people than a U.S backed invasion," and the same can be said about a U.S backed military coup. The failed 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela proved exactly that. The June 28th coup, it seems, has really brought the various social forces of Honduras together in unity. The resistance at this time is rallying behind the slogan of the reinstatement of President Zelaya, but what is most significant is that they have decided for themselves, that a true emancipatory process has begun. The resistance has already declared some districts liberated. To borrow from the brilliant vice-president of Bolivia, Alvaro Linera Garcia, perhaps Honduras is preparing to go through its own "point of bifurcation"; when a decision is made by a people to physically take the revolutionary process to the next level, in one concrete, discernible, and definable action. The people of Honduras at this point, have to either take that route, or understand that they will be forced to tolerate further injustice if they do not make the commitment.
The conclusion is that the Honduran people, and by extension the peoples of Latin America and the world, are reaching a decisive moment in their history, a crossroads in the struggle. Another possibility if the conflict does not head acutely in one direction or the other, would be a behind the scenes U.S. brokered power-sharing deal which will simply squander the efforts of the resistance to the capitalist abyss of stagnancy and regression, and will force the Honduran people to head down the road of unjust neo-democracy. So Honduras cannot rely on the rhetoric and promises of the international political community, and they also cannot rely on the simple reinstatement of president Zelaya. It doesn’t really matter if Zelaya is reinstated, because the struggle is not about a presidential face, it is not about symbolically removing or reinstating a token figurehead. Overthrowing the coup at this point must mean eliminating the School of the Americas influence in the country, permanently, and dismantling the corrupt, right-wing elements of the military. There will be no change unless their capacity for repression is removed.
The resistance’s organizational structure for its regional and national assemblies is very highly developed and efficient, a well-oiled union and dialogue of diverse social movements in solidarity, comparable in some ways to the process which took place in Oaxaca, Mexico, from June to November of 2006, with the A.P.P.O (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca), a model which has been considered one of the highest forms of organized resistance. For Honduras, perhaps the answer to managing their country and their communities after the dust settles, is simply a slight variation of their instinctive response to the coup’s repression, the rebellious popular power in motion they have created as their means of struggle. Fidel Castro has said that “ history has demonstrated that great solutions have only emerged from great crises.” For resistance movements all over the world during transitory or emancipatory processes, it can be said that the question is not simply about taking power, but about knowing what to do with that power. The people of Honduras with their high level of organization, and with their political maturity throughout this confrontation, have clearly proven that they are in fact ready and willing to take on the responsibility of creating a permanent and meaningful solution.
Solidarity with the Honduran People!
On Saturday Sept.26, 2009 the Latin American Solidarity Network Toronto (LASN) held a day long teach-in, with panels on Honduras, the Venezuela-Colombia dynamic, and North American foreign policy in Latin America. Despite a modest turnout, the gathering was hugely successful with very enthusiastic interaction, and valuable dialogue, as inspiration was generated, connections were cultivated, and strong commitments reaffirmed. It really had the feeling of being a momentous, and very significant meeting, as many people pointed out during the discussion. Everyone dispersed afterwards having taken away something positive. It was a great exercise of solidarity building.
It was an important event for LASN which had just recently sent a three man delegation to Honduras to help with the resistance efforts, which have been sustained now for more than 90 days without pause, in response to the military coup of June 28th, 2009. The report back from the three companeros who had the opportunity to work firsthand with the resistance movement provided valuable insight to Toronto activists in helping to understand the important dynamic of what is taking shape in Honduras as we speak.
Honduras After 100 Days
One of the most consequential elements of the standoff at this time is that the balance of forces has been clearly established. After three months of confrontation a few things have occurred. The coup regime has shown persistence, and is unyielding despite significant international political pressure. The resistance movement has demonstrated even greater resolve, and even in the face of severe repression, the people have committed themselves to a decisive struggle. All Latin American governments have strongly condemned the coup-makers and have demanded the return of President Zelaya, the majority of them unconditionally so. The international solidarity community has completely and whole-heartedly supported the resistance, and will continue to do so until a conclusion is reached.
The military regime, not surprisingly, has come down hard on the resistance with the violent dispersal of daily mobilizations; water cannons, tear gas, beatings, live rounds have been common place, even reports of chemical weapons being used against the Brazilian Embassy where president Zelaya has taken refuge. Killings, injuries, arbitrary detentions, and disappearances have been daily occurrences. Not to mention the media has been silenced, internet access has been restricted, and curfews have been imposed since day 1. These numerous, blatant human rights violations have been documented and condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, European countries, and even the Organization of American States (OAS), which is not always sympathetic to leftist causes to say the least. The U.S. government however, while mildly disapproving of the coup and quietly asking for the return of President Zelaya, has done so only behind the guise of the San Jose Accord, an agreement pushed and written by the U.S, with Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias as the token conciliatory figure. The traitorous, watered-down San Jose accord is not even a mediated dialogue, but rather a one sided power-sharing deal which extends a gold-plated olive branch to the Micheletti regime, and sets a terrible precedent in Latin America by rewarding military coups instead of punishing them. Beyond labeling the situation in Honduras as a coup, and not even as a military coup, the U.S has done nothing concrete to reverse the coup, and has said nothing about the rampant human rights violations which have been condemned by so many other organizations worldwide.
All these factors lead us to an apparent stalemate.
However! Drawing from momentum, from international opinion, from the reports of those who have witnessed Honduras in transition from up close, and from the unshakable determination of the resistance, it would seem that the political initiative now lies in the hands of the Honduran people.
Most likely, if the coup had not taken place on June 28th, the people of Honduras would probably have been satisfied with President Zelaya's progressive reforms, and with the hope that the promise of the referendum on a constituent assembly, as proposed by Zelaya, would bring greater change in the near future. Roberto Micheletti, the de facto military president, has said that what is taking place in Honduras is not a coup, but a "constitutional succession". Perhaps it was not a good idea for the far-right to overreact. They are obviously uneasy, and very nervous about the Bolivarian process, but perhaps they would have been better off with a few liberal reforms, rather than with an entire people, infuriated, and ready and willing to take matters into their own hands.
Capitalist motivated military reactions to social progress have a tendency to take things too far, to take things beyond the point where people will just let things slide, or forget about it, either out of fear, or simply because time elapses. By doing this, they are instead fueling the fire they wish to extinguish. To a degree, western democracy now has become synonymous with injustice, and repression. In Latin America, many of these so-called democracies have introduced laws against "terrorism". In El Salavador, the fascist ARENA party has used this law to suppress social movements fighting against the privatization of water. In Chile, allegedly Latin America's most exemplary democracy, the government of Michelle Bachelet has used an "anti-terrorist" law against the indigenous Mapuche people in their struggle. In Colombia, a similar law is used regularly to ruthlessly expel indigenous communities and campesinos from their traditional lands, to make room for monoculture crops. And, most recently the APRA party government of Alan Garcia in Peru has also made use of a law against "terrorism", in June, 2009, to put down indigenous protests against the granting of exploration and exploitation contracts in the Amazon. These perverse reversals of justice, often coinciding with legislation required by free trade agreements, are all carried out to honor neoliberal commitments.
Naomi Klein has written about cultural warfare, or genocide saying that it is “part of a system....with clear intent not of attacking individual persons but of destroying the parts of society that those people represented” or a “clear and deliberate region-wide strategy…to uproot and erase the left,” a declaration of war against an entire culture. The same historical pattern seems to be repeating itself in Honduras today; curfews, arbitrary detentions, shootings, killings, disappearances, restrictions on all freedoms, including media and the right to organize. Pinochet's Chile, or any other of a number of military dictatorships that have terrorized Latin America in the last 60 years, have far more similarities than differences to the current regime in Honduras. What these historical precedents have in common with Honduras' current regime, is the criminalization of protest.
What they are attempting to carry out is an attack against a social vision, against an alternative culture, they are telling people that they are not allowed to fight for social justice, that they are not allowed to stand against capitalist and neoliberal domination. When mass violence and human rights violations are required to maintain a government, or a system, whether that system be religious, economic, or political, any such attempts to derail social movements amounts to cultural warfare. There comes a point when it is no longer just a struggle for certain elements of social justice, but literally a fight for your very existence, a fight to preserve and save a way of life, and the people of Honduras, it seems, whether it be within the context of humanity's fight, or within the context of ALBA, have realized this to the fullest extent.
Che Guevara has aid that "there is nothing better to give solidarity to a people than a U.S backed invasion," and the same can be said about a U.S backed military coup. The failed 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela proved exactly that. The June 28th coup, it seems, has really brought the various social forces of Honduras together in unity. The resistance at this time is rallying behind the slogan of the reinstatement of President Zelaya, but what is most significant is that they have decided for themselves, that a true emancipatory process has begun. The resistance has already declared some districts liberated. To borrow from the brilliant vice-president of Bolivia, Alvaro Linera Garcia, perhaps Honduras is preparing to go through its own "point of bifurcation"; when a decision is made by a people to physically take the revolutionary process to the next level, in one concrete, discernible, and definable action. The people of Honduras at this point, have to either take that route, or understand that they will be forced to tolerate further injustice if they do not make the commitment.
The conclusion is that the Honduran people, and by extension the peoples of Latin America and the world, are reaching a decisive moment in their history, a crossroads in the struggle. Another possibility if the conflict does not head acutely in one direction or the other, would be a behind the scenes U.S. brokered power-sharing deal which will simply squander the efforts of the resistance to the capitalist abyss of stagnancy and regression, and will force the Honduran people to head down the road of unjust neo-democracy. So Honduras cannot rely on the rhetoric and promises of the international political community, and they also cannot rely on the simple reinstatement of president Zelaya. It doesn’t really matter if Zelaya is reinstated, because the struggle is not about a presidential face, it is not about symbolically removing or reinstating a token figurehead. Overthrowing the coup at this point must mean eliminating the School of the Americas influence in the country, permanently, and dismantling the corrupt, right-wing elements of the military. There will be no change unless their capacity for repression is removed.
The resistance’s organizational structure for its regional and national assemblies is very highly developed and efficient, a well-oiled union and dialogue of diverse social movements in solidarity, comparable in some ways to the process which took place in Oaxaca, Mexico, from June to November of 2006, with the A.P.P.O (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca), a model which has been considered one of the highest forms of organized resistance. For Honduras, perhaps the answer to managing their country and their communities after the dust settles, is simply a slight variation of their instinctive response to the coup’s repression, the rebellious popular power in motion they have created as their means of struggle. Fidel Castro has said that “ history has demonstrated that great solutions have only emerged from great crises.” For resistance movements all over the world during transitory or emancipatory processes, it can be said that the question is not simply about taking power, but about knowing what to do with that power. The people of Honduras with their high level of organization, and with their political maturity throughout this confrontation, have clearly proven that they are in fact ready and willing to take on the responsibility of creating a permanent and meaningful solution.
Solidarity with the Honduran People!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Continued Media Misinformation on Honduras
A July 30th article in The New York Times by Ginger Thompson entitled "De Facto Leader is Said to Back Deal in Honduras" claimed that de facto president Roberto Micheletti is reaching out to Costa Rican president Oscar Arias in an attempt to bring an end to the month old crisis in Honduras. The New York Times reports that Micheletti has expressed support for the 12 point "San Jose Accord" outlined by Arias, which would allow President Zelaya to return to his country with limited powers.
According to the article, "The officials said Mr. Micheletti warned President Arias that he had not been able to persuade other parts of the Honduran government, or the leaders of the Honduran business community, to go along with the proposal. So he asked Mr. Arias to consider sending a prominent international political figure to help him stem the fierce opposition." This means simply that the dynamic of the situation between the military government and the international community will remain unchanged, only the tone of the crisis is being adjusted, and the media interpretation and presentation of information regarding the conflict is being altered; the media story is being remodelled or rearranged.
In other words, the coup government continues to receive only a mild slap on the wrist, and the situation remains the same, as the near legitimacy of the military coup government endures with the inaction and neutrality of the international community. What is meant by neutrality is that most influential countries have condemned the coup in rhetoric only, and have done nothing to actually pressure or dislodge the illegal coup government. The U.S. for example has "condemned" the coup and acknowledged that Manuel Zelaya is the democratically elected President of Honduras, yet at the same time have said that the coup was not legal, but that it also wasn't illegal. This means the U.S. State Department has refused to officially label the incident as a 'coup d'etat', which would by law force the U.S. to suspend all financial support to the country, be it military or economic "aid". The U.S. has cut $ 16.5 million in military funding, but continues to flow $ 180 million of economic "aid". Experts have argued that cutting economic aid would hurt the population of Honduras directly, which is not entirely true. The complete suspension of economic support to the country could hurt a certain number of Hondurans, but only in the
long-term, and under the current far-right illegal government, the people of Honduras would never benefit from that money anyway. U.S. economic "aid" doesn't help in pulling ordinary citizens out of poverty, it serves only to assist private interests and foreign investment.
To further that point, it is noteworthy that the article also twice mentions business in the same breadth as political figures; "the Honduran business community" and the powerful "business leaders in Honduras". To be sure the military coup plotters have no interests other than the interests of the Honduran elites and of multinational corporations, and will attempt, as U.S. and international economic "aid" would have it, to re-establish and maintain an acceptable economic order. In fact the article goes on to mention that "one of those whom officials mentioned as a possibility" for a prominent international political figure to help solve the stalemate inside Honduras, "was Enrique V. Iglesias, a former president of the Inter-American Development Bank." The Inter-American Development Bank is the Latin American equivalent of the IMF or the World Bank, a facilitator of foreign interests, and is widely reported to have played a prominent role in the overthrow of democratically elected President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in a 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti.
The article also mentions the legal position taken by the military government; "Honduran lawmakers and the supreme court have said that it was a mistake for the military to have forced Mr. Zelaya into exile, but that the accusations against him are valid. And they argue that the only way he should be allowed back is to face trial." This is a very weak, unimaginative attempt to try and paint a convincing legal argument against Zelaya's return. Lets take a closer look at the realities of the situation vs. the media distortions being presented daily, and the flawed legal logic of the coup government. The following are extracts from an article on the NACLA website (nacla.org/news), written on Monday August 3rd by Michael Fox entitled 'Honduras and Washington: A Few Contradictions':
"Along with many U.S. papers, the Post (The Washington Post) has painted Zelaya as a Hugo Chávez-backed caudillo, attempting to overtake the powers of the Honduran government. The Post quickly echoed the talking points of the coup plotters that Zelaya was ripped from office because he was attempting an unconstitutional referendum to extend his term in office. In fact, the Honduran President was actually planning a non-binding referendum that according to the Spanish news agency, EFE , asked the Honduran people if 'during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?'"
Now the legal side.
"According to a legal memorandum prepared by Micheletti supporters on June 29 and available on the website of the conservative Virginia-based think tank, Americans for Limited Government, the Honduran Supreme Court had found the referendum 'illegal', because the Honduran Constitution explicitly states that certain Constitutional articles cannot be reformed; such as those that 'refer to the type of government, the national territory, the presidential term and the prohibition of serving again as President of the Republic.' The Supreme Court thus inferred that since a Constituent Assembly may have attempted to reform these articles, it was unconstitutional. Therefore, they said, a referendum on the possibility of holding a Constituent Assembly was also unconstitutional."
The coup plotters in this declaration are explicitly saying that they assumed Mr. Zelaya may have attempted changes to the type of government, and to presidential term limits, and therefore they were justified in staging a military coup. This sounds eerily similar to the aggressive preemptive logic of the United-States.
The position of the Honduran coup government, and the media statements mentioned above, thus far have all been based on lies, false accusations, and assumptions. Since Zelaya's ouster over a month ago, the mainstream media namely The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Spain's El Pais have all juggled their lies and misinformation. Zelaya has been kicked out of Honduras either because of his close ties with Hugo Chavez, because he was operating with recklessness in planning an "unconstitutional" referendum for a constituent assembly which he had not yet carried out, and/or because he was planning to try and pass a constitutional amendment to extend his term in office. Now in early August, the military government in a public address has made allegations that Guerrillas are being trained in Nicaraguan encampments, with the support of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and the FARC(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.) It is amazing, ridiculous, almost amusing how the elites and the media have decided to just throw in the FARC, almost as an added bonus; why not include them as well? The web they are trying to spin is to link all the forces opposed to neo-liberalism in Latin America, as a sort of big, incredible, socialist alliance of guerrilla subversion. In the past week alone, the media has reported that Colombia has found arms that belonged to the FARC, arms that had undoubtedly been provided to them by Venezuela. They have resurfaced a story which made headlines in March of 2008 when Colombia had bombed a FARC camp inside Ecuador and allegedly retrieved laptops containing information that provided absolute proof that Venezuela had been providing funds and facilitating arms deals for the FARC. And now, they claim that Guerrillas are training inside Nicaragua with the support of President Daniel Ortega, of course Hugo Chavez, and the FARC. They see opportunities to link different stories together, and to inculpate several groups simultaneously through various networks of misinformation. This latest attack on Honduras is not just an attack against Honduras, it is an attack on a continental social movement that is growing, an attack on the will of Latin Americans everywhere.
The Times article goes on to quote an unnamed official; "'Today is an important day,' said one of the officials who spoke about Mr. Micheletti's call to Mr. Arias. 'President Arias essentially has Mr. Micheletti calling to say he thinks the San Jose Accord is a good framework." So all of a sudden Mr. Micheletti, the leading representative of the de facto, illegal, military coup government is a goodwill ambassador, a brilliant messiah with a solution to a nasty, unworkable conflict. The media is trying to twist the story and to portray Micheletti almost as a unifying figure, or at least as a promising, moderate element of the coup leadership. The situation is almost comparable to that of Israel and Palestine; allow the aggressors to commit the injustices, and then glorify them for making insignificant, arrogant, hypocritical concessions.
According to the article, "The officials said Mr. Micheletti warned President Arias that he had not been able to persuade other parts of the Honduran government, or the leaders of the Honduran business community, to go along with the proposal. So he asked Mr. Arias to consider sending a prominent international political figure to help him stem the fierce opposition." This means simply that the dynamic of the situation between the military government and the international community will remain unchanged, only the tone of the crisis is being adjusted, and the media interpretation and presentation of information regarding the conflict is being altered; the media story is being remodelled or rearranged.
In other words, the coup government continues to receive only a mild slap on the wrist, and the situation remains the same, as the near legitimacy of the military coup government endures with the inaction and neutrality of the international community. What is meant by neutrality is that most influential countries have condemned the coup in rhetoric only, and have done nothing to actually pressure or dislodge the illegal coup government. The U.S. for example has "condemned" the coup and acknowledged that Manuel Zelaya is the democratically elected President of Honduras, yet at the same time have said that the coup was not legal, but that it also wasn't illegal. This means the U.S. State Department has refused to officially label the incident as a 'coup d'etat', which would by law force the U.S. to suspend all financial support to the country, be it military or economic "aid". The U.S. has cut $ 16.5 million in military funding, but continues to flow $ 180 million of economic "aid". Experts have argued that cutting economic aid would hurt the population of Honduras directly, which is not entirely true. The complete suspension of economic support to the country could hurt a certain number of Hondurans, but only in the
long-term, and under the current far-right illegal government, the people of Honduras would never benefit from that money anyway. U.S. economic "aid" doesn't help in pulling ordinary citizens out of poverty, it serves only to assist private interests and foreign investment.
To further that point, it is noteworthy that the article also twice mentions business in the same breadth as political figures; "the Honduran business community" and the powerful "business leaders in Honduras". To be sure the military coup plotters have no interests other than the interests of the Honduran elites and of multinational corporations, and will attempt, as U.S. and international economic "aid" would have it, to re-establish and maintain an acceptable economic order. In fact the article goes on to mention that "one of those whom officials mentioned as a possibility" for a prominent international political figure to help solve the stalemate inside Honduras, "was Enrique V. Iglesias, a former president of the Inter-American Development Bank." The Inter-American Development Bank is the Latin American equivalent of the IMF or the World Bank, a facilitator of foreign interests, and is widely reported to have played a prominent role in the overthrow of democratically elected President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in a 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti.
The article also mentions the legal position taken by the military government; "Honduran lawmakers and the supreme court have said that it was a mistake for the military to have forced Mr. Zelaya into exile, but that the accusations against him are valid. And they argue that the only way he should be allowed back is to face trial." This is a very weak, unimaginative attempt to try and paint a convincing legal argument against Zelaya's return. Lets take a closer look at the realities of the situation vs. the media distortions being presented daily, and the flawed legal logic of the coup government. The following are extracts from an article on the NACLA website (nacla.org/news), written on Monday August 3rd by Michael Fox entitled 'Honduras and Washington: A Few Contradictions':
"Along with many U.S. papers, the Post (The Washington Post) has painted Zelaya as a Hugo Chávez-backed caudillo, attempting to overtake the powers of the Honduran government. The Post quickly echoed the talking points of the coup plotters that Zelaya was ripped from office because he was attempting an unconstitutional referendum to extend his term in office. In fact, the Honduran President was actually planning a non-binding referendum that according to the Spanish news agency, EFE , asked the Honduran people if 'during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?'"
Now the legal side.
"According to a legal memorandum prepared by Micheletti supporters on June 29 and available on the website of the conservative Virginia-based think tank, Americans for Limited Government, the Honduran Supreme Court had found the referendum 'illegal', because the Honduran Constitution explicitly states that certain Constitutional articles cannot be reformed; such as those that 'refer to the type of government, the national territory, the presidential term and the prohibition of serving again as President of the Republic.' The Supreme Court thus inferred that since a Constituent Assembly may have attempted to reform these articles, it was unconstitutional. Therefore, they said, a referendum on the possibility of holding a Constituent Assembly was also unconstitutional."
The coup plotters in this declaration are explicitly saying that they assumed Mr. Zelaya may have attempted changes to the type of government, and to presidential term limits, and therefore they were justified in staging a military coup. This sounds eerily similar to the aggressive preemptive logic of the United-States.
The position of the Honduran coup government, and the media statements mentioned above, thus far have all been based on lies, false accusations, and assumptions. Since Zelaya's ouster over a month ago, the mainstream media namely The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Spain's El Pais have all juggled their lies and misinformation. Zelaya has been kicked out of Honduras either because of his close ties with Hugo Chavez, because he was operating with recklessness in planning an "unconstitutional" referendum for a constituent assembly which he had not yet carried out, and/or because he was planning to try and pass a constitutional amendment to extend his term in office. Now in early August, the military government in a public address has made allegations that Guerrillas are being trained in Nicaraguan encampments, with the support of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and the FARC(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.) It is amazing, ridiculous, almost amusing how the elites and the media have decided to just throw in the FARC, almost as an added bonus; why not include them as well? The web they are trying to spin is to link all the forces opposed to neo-liberalism in Latin America, as a sort of big, incredible, socialist alliance of guerrilla subversion. In the past week alone, the media has reported that Colombia has found arms that belonged to the FARC, arms that had undoubtedly been provided to them by Venezuela. They have resurfaced a story which made headlines in March of 2008 when Colombia had bombed a FARC camp inside Ecuador and allegedly retrieved laptops containing information that provided absolute proof that Venezuela had been providing funds and facilitating arms deals for the FARC. And now, they claim that Guerrillas are training inside Nicaragua with the support of President Daniel Ortega, of course Hugo Chavez, and the FARC. They see opportunities to link different stories together, and to inculpate several groups simultaneously through various networks of misinformation. This latest attack on Honduras is not just an attack against Honduras, it is an attack on a continental social movement that is growing, an attack on the will of Latin Americans everywhere.
The Times article goes on to quote an unnamed official; "'Today is an important day,' said one of the officials who spoke about Mr. Micheletti's call to Mr. Arias. 'President Arias essentially has Mr. Micheletti calling to say he thinks the San Jose Accord is a good framework." So all of a sudden Mr. Micheletti, the leading representative of the de facto, illegal, military coup government is a goodwill ambassador, a brilliant messiah with a solution to a nasty, unworkable conflict. The media is trying to twist the story and to portray Micheletti almost as a unifying figure, or at least as a promising, moderate element of the coup leadership. The situation is almost comparable to that of Israel and Palestine; allow the aggressors to commit the injustices, and then glorify them for making insignificant, arrogant, hypocritical concessions.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The National Post gets Zelaya/Honduran Crisis Wrong!
On June 28th, a military coup in Honduras sent democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya into exile in Costa Rica. An article in the National Post from Saturday, July 25, 2009 entitled 'Exiled Leader Briefly Steps into Honduras - Symbolic Foray' by Ivan Castro and Sean Mattson doesn't give the full story of the real reasons behind the coup.
Over the past weekend of July 24-25-26, the Honduran coup leaders and military generals of that country imposed an
18-hour curfew on the area bordering Nicaragua where President Zelaya was set to attempt a re-entry into Honduras on Saturday. On this occasion the Honduran army released a statement saying; "we can't be responsible for the security of people who, by inciting generalized violence in the country, may be subject to attacks even from their own supporters who may have the sole aim of turning them into martyrs." So according to the coup plotters, Manuela Zelaya in a matter of weeks has gone from democratic reformer to inciter of violence, and this despite the fact that Zelaya has said on several occasions that he wants peace and stability for Honduras. The second part of that statement, a preposterous suggestion that President Zelaya may be killed by his own supporters if he re-enters Honduras, amounts to nothing less than a not so subtle threat of assassination against him.
The article also quotes U.S. State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley as saying, "we have said to President Zelaya on a number of occasions, that right now we think the focus should remain on the current negotiating and mediation effort of Oscar Arias, and that any return to Honduras would be premature." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also made similar comments in the past few days, warning Zelaya that an attempt at returning to Honduras would be imprudent and reckless. The negotiating and mediation efforts mentioned, advocated by the U.S. through President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, is simply a strategy of appeasement requiring almost complete concessions from Manuel Zelaya, in an attempt to mollify the Honduran people and the international reaction and solidarity campaigns. The initial proposal ironed out by Oscar Arias included some very questionable and unfavorable conditions for the Honduran people. The agreement essentially amounted to a
power-sharing deal which would set a horrible precedent in Latin America, as far-right ruling elites and military generals would be emboldened with the knowledge that staging a military coup will get them a power-sharing deal at the very least.
In typical slandering predictability and unoriginality of reactionary media, the article also claims that "Mr. Zelaya was toppled and sent into exile in a June 28 coup after angering critics over his alliance with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President." So as the media continues with its insistence that Hugo Chavez is exporting poisonous politics all over Latin America, this article makes no mention whatsoever that the real reason why President Zelaya was forced out of Honduras militarily is in fact because he had called for a national referendum on a constituent assembly.
Zelaya during his presidential campaign in 2005 and early 2006, ran on promises of economic empowerment for the citizenry, and of empowering the people socially, culturally, and politically, a formula together which he refers to as citizen power. His progressive policies in the past few years have included a sharp increase of minimum wage, free school lunches for children, and the lowering of the price of public transportation. He has also talked about citizen participation, which he claims is the reason why he had called for the referendum on a constituent assembly. This is a program which the rightist military and ruling elites of Honduras simply could not tolerate. Those are the real reasons behind the instability in Honduras.
"We have to reverse this coup, and I plan on doing it peacefully. With my presence in Honduras, the people will surround me and the soldiers will lower their rifles." - Manuel Zelaya.
Over the past weekend of July 24-25-26, the Honduran coup leaders and military generals of that country imposed an
18-hour curfew on the area bordering Nicaragua where President Zelaya was set to attempt a re-entry into Honduras on Saturday. On this occasion the Honduran army released a statement saying; "we can't be responsible for the security of people who, by inciting generalized violence in the country, may be subject to attacks even from their own supporters who may have the sole aim of turning them into martyrs." So according to the coup plotters, Manuela Zelaya in a matter of weeks has gone from democratic reformer to inciter of violence, and this despite the fact that Zelaya has said on several occasions that he wants peace and stability for Honduras. The second part of that statement, a preposterous suggestion that President Zelaya may be killed by his own supporters if he re-enters Honduras, amounts to nothing less than a not so subtle threat of assassination against him.
The article also quotes U.S. State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley as saying, "we have said to President Zelaya on a number of occasions, that right now we think the focus should remain on the current negotiating and mediation effort of Oscar Arias, and that any return to Honduras would be premature." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also made similar comments in the past few days, warning Zelaya that an attempt at returning to Honduras would be imprudent and reckless. The negotiating and mediation efforts mentioned, advocated by the U.S. through President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, is simply a strategy of appeasement requiring almost complete concessions from Manuel Zelaya, in an attempt to mollify the Honduran people and the international reaction and solidarity campaigns. The initial proposal ironed out by Oscar Arias included some very questionable and unfavorable conditions for the Honduran people. The agreement essentially amounted to a
power-sharing deal which would set a horrible precedent in Latin America, as far-right ruling elites and military generals would be emboldened with the knowledge that staging a military coup will get them a power-sharing deal at the very least.
In typical slandering predictability and unoriginality of reactionary media, the article also claims that "Mr. Zelaya was toppled and sent into exile in a June 28 coup after angering critics over his alliance with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President." So as the media continues with its insistence that Hugo Chavez is exporting poisonous politics all over Latin America, this article makes no mention whatsoever that the real reason why President Zelaya was forced out of Honduras militarily is in fact because he had called for a national referendum on a constituent assembly.
Zelaya during his presidential campaign in 2005 and early 2006, ran on promises of economic empowerment for the citizenry, and of empowering the people socially, culturally, and politically, a formula together which he refers to as citizen power. His progressive policies in the past few years have included a sharp increase of minimum wage, free school lunches for children, and the lowering of the price of public transportation. He has also talked about citizen participation, which he claims is the reason why he had called for the referendum on a constituent assembly. This is a program which the rightist military and ruling elites of Honduras simply could not tolerate. Those are the real reasons behind the instability in Honduras.
"We have to reverse this coup, and I plan on doing it peacefully. With my presence in Honduras, the people will surround me and the soldiers will lower their rifles." - Manuel Zelaya.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Media Accuracy on Venezuela Essay from 03/2007
An addition to go along with the Media Accuracy on Venezuela essay I posted a few days ago. This one was written in March of 2007. They were not meant to go together as part 1 and part 2 but are relevant to one another. Follow the Media Accuracy on Venezuela 03/2007 link.
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