Honduras back in the news (except for U.S. corporate news)

Amazing. Honduras is once again making international news, with the return of President Zelaya and his holing up in the Brazilian Embassy, and I couldn't find one word of it on the cable channels. Just more proof of Noam Chomsky's thesis in Manufacturing Consent. Of course, Democracy Now! aired almost a half-hour worth of coverage.

Corporate news drops the Honduras story

CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg, all of these outfits are corporate-owned. Given their economic power and control of the media, their political interests get favored in the news. Worse, they decide what is news, and given our corporate culture in the U.S., it is mostly what people end up hearing.

This reality is always there, but the extent of the corporate news bias never ceases to amaze me. The most recent surprise was the rapidity that the major news outlets have dropped the Honduras story. With Iran, when U.S. oil interests are at stake, the story of an oppressed political opposition lasted weeks and continues. With Honduras, a story that involves a murderous military coup against a popularly elected leader, and one that might involve players here in the U.S., well.... that doesn't count as a news item. But the resistance there continues, and it is getting reported on, just not on CNN.

Are there alternatives? Yes, many, mostly on the Internet, and in many leftist mags and newsletters. One good place to start, however, is Democracy Now! news with Amy Goodman. I'm extremely appreciative that they exist and can even be found on the Dish Network on Free Speech TV, channel 9415.

On the need to oppose Obama's support for the Honduran coup

The blogger American Leftist has a good recent post assessing Obama's position on the Honduran coup. He mentions that Hillary Clinton's last statement critical of the ousted Zelaya - that Zelaya's symbolic return to Honduras was reckless - is more proof that the Obama Administration is providing support to the military coup there.

Actually, there is great deal of evidence amounting that the Obama Administration supports the Honduran military coup, which in my opinion, was entirely predictable from the very beginning.

From the outset, the Obama Administration refused to call what happened in Honduras a coup. They won't call a spade a spade because to do so would mean that the U.S. is obligated under law to stop economic and military aid, and bringing an end to that aid would likely stop the coup in its tracks. All of this is perfectly in line with Obama being a conservative establishment figure, who in perfect alignment with the Clintonites, prefers a reactionary coup leadership against a leader like Zelaya. While Zelaya is no radical, his call for reform, such as an increased minimum wage and agrarian reform, might inspire the Honduran people to further confront the wealthy oligarchy traditionally aligned with U.S. imperial interests.

Obama's support of the coup is very subtle yet effective. He supports negotiation, but negotiation of terms implies that there is something to negotiate, people with whom it is worthwhile negotiating, when again, the military leaders would probably fold with strong opposition from the U.S. Also, the fact that old-time Clinton lawyers and associates are actually running the PR game for the coup leaders shows that more is afoot than what is being said.

In the days following the coup, I listened to some of the views of my Democratic Party friends, such as "Obama did the right thing by denouncing the Honduran coup," or "the Administration had no hand in what occurred." These assumptions fly in the face of the historical, and reactionary, military relationship between the two countries, and Obama's belated announcement condemning the coup should have been a further tip-off. I wouldn't mention this error in judgment if I didn't think it had no negative consequences. We can't build movements to force the government to do the right thing, against its own very entrenched interests, if we assume that we have a friend in the White House. The biggest obstacle to change now, in this assessment, is the faith that liberals have in their president.

Where is the outrage over Honduras?

Notice how the politicians, in particular Fox News, are quiet over the military coup in Honduras? All the outrage over Iran, and yet with a country that we largely control, turns out democracy isn't all that important to them. (Of course, we know that Washington politicians across the spectrum don't want Hondurans to push for real democracy because that will mean a confrontation with the ruling elite there and U.S. imperialists allied with them.) In fact, Fox News has featured a Heritage Foundation piece in support of the coup, accompanied with their typical corporate propaganda.

Background to the Honduras coup

Defeat the reactionary military coup in Honduras!

This article on the Workers International League (WIL) is the best background and analysis I could find on the Honduran coup. My view is that we need to pressure the U.S. government, after their belated condemnation of the coup after virtually everyone else already had acted, to pull their ambassador, cut off funding to the government, among other acts. Yesterday, in order to avoid applying adequate pressure, Sec. of State Clinton actually said that they weren't yet willing to say a coup had taken place!