What Some US Reporters Don't Get About Brazil and the Honduras Crisis

It's not just the American media that's missing the story here... Globo News in Brasil had a commentary this morning by "political commentator" Alexandre Garcia that recited a number of golpista claims verbatim and tried to make it look like Lula was bungling by allowing Zelaya to remain in the Embassy.  And this immediately after an impressively factual straight-news report on the situation in Honduras!  Globo's corporate paymasters must have sent orders to start muddying the waters... I guess I should consider it a plus that they aren't openly shilling for the coup leaders like they were from 1964-84.

Oops - forgot to add to that last comment that I don't think it's a surprise that Brazil is emerging "as the community organizer among nations in the hemisphere" when you consider Lula's background as a labor organizer.

Interesting that you think of China as a wealthier country than Brazil.  According to the World Bank, in 2007 Brazil had a per capita income of $3,550 and China $1,740.

Kaleidescope - I said "wealthier countries," not "countries with wealthier people." Multiply that $1,740 by every Chinese citizen and the sum total rises way above the $3,550 multiplied by every Brazilian citizen. There are about ten times as many Chinese as Brazilians, which makes the overall producer and consumer power of the Chinese government much greater.

This could be the worst precedent for the fagile democracies of our western hemisphere.  Zelaya is no angel but we have tu sopport his restitution and judge him in a fair trial if he ever made and violation of the constitution.

There is also the need to judge all the people that perpetrated this coup, so that everybody knows  this is a punishable crime.

I always thought of countries as being rich/poor based on the standard of living of the people living there.  It never occurred to me that Brazil would be a wealthier country than, say, Canada, Sweeden, Switzerland or Saudi Arabia simply because Brazil -- with so many more (basically poor) people -- has a bigger GDP (at least according to the CIA World Factbook) than any of those countries.  I always thought of Canada and Switzerland as wealthy countries and Brazil as a poor one.

Had Zelaya looked for more avert support from Chavez, he would have been handing the Liberal party ammunition. One of the criticisms the golpistas have laid out is that he was overly allied with Chavez. He had to look to other nations within ALBA in order to still accomplish his political goals without committing political suicide. Hence, the only  nation left which still had some standing within the international community was Brazil. That does not diminish Lula's progressive changes nor mute his accomplishments, it just shows the political pragmatism of Zelaya.

 

 

Of course, it's one that the corporate US press won't notice, even as every friggin' Honduran understands what it means:  That Micheletti's a puppet of moneyed multinational forces, and his stringpullers (the same guys who pay Lanny Davis' salary) don't speak Spanish or Portugese as a first language.

The perfect "tell" of official U.S. attitude and role was today's State briefing - if you really read/listen to what's being said - and what's not - the foolish Chavez/riot/surprise meme just falls away like so many scales and the Obama Administration's actual position is clear:

QUESTION: Thanks, Ian. A quick question about the secret return of President Zelaya to Honduras. I mean, it was described by Hugo Chavez as courageous. Do you feel that it is helpful, it’s a good thing to have him come back in that way?

MR. KELLY: Well, in foreign policy, we deal with the facts that we have, and the fact that we have is that he’s in Honduras. We do have our concerns about the possible impact it may have on the situation on the ground, especially with the possibilities for clashes. And for this reason, we’ve called on both sides to exercise restraint with this new situation.

But also, since we are dealing with this fact, you’ve heard Secretary Clinton a couple of days ago say, let’s take this opportunity to open up channels of communication. So, that’s basically – I mean, our efforts are in those two tracks: take advantage of this opportunity for dialogue, but at the same time, urge restraint on both sides.

[Translation: we're not taking the Chavez bait and we're actively involved with all the players]

QUESTION: Is there any talk of maybe helping him leave if things get really violent, or --
MR. KELLY: No, we’re not at that point. President Zelaya is still in the Embassy, in the Brazilian Embassy. It looks like things have calmed down there. Water and power have been restored. Food and water are being delivered to the Embassy. And also, the staff has been allowed to depart under police – with police coordination. And we’re happy that we were able to play a helpful, facilitative role in helping restore these services and lower the tension around the compound.

[Repeat: active role, most crucially with Brazil - which is a win/win for both nations independent of little Honduras]

QUESTION: What exactly was the U.S. role?
MR. KELLY: Well, I think that we helped as to reinforce the message that the – not Geneva – Vienna Convention had to be respected, the inviolability of the Brazilian Embassy had to be respected. We helped get some of the personnel out. We provided some vehicles. But mostly, it was a liaison role to help restore the power and water, and also get personnel out and back to their homes.

[We played a big role!]

Does anyone at any of these outlets do any reporting any more? Have they ever played wave off? Do they have no sources? Or is it all personality these days. Good lord.

What Some US Reporters Don't Get About Brazil and the Honduras Crisis
Posted by Al Giordano - September 23, 2009 at 11:17 am. I might add that it is also something that Canadian reporters do not get; perhaps this is because they are owned by corporate media. Thank the public media for revealing the truth. 

Al:

It is really ironic that you mention those two articles -- the one from Reuters and the one from the CSM. As we were obsessing over anything new coming out of the corporate media, we noticed both of those articles here and marveled over how far off their "analysis" was.

What these people don't get -- or what they don't want people to know -- is that these Latin American governments are all performing different roles to create a bloc that is powerful enough to overcome the world's greatest superpower. Lula cannot be Chavez. Chavez cannot be Lula. None of them can play the role that Castro & Cuba play. Each of these countries has their own "mission," so to speak .... Brazil as the global player with unquestionable legitimacy. Venezuela & Cuba providing the context of revolutionary social justice. Bolivia doing the same, with more emphasis on the power of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.

Of course, this is a quick and possibly simplistic overview but what has been demonstrated by this incredible action of Zelaya's return is:

1) The undeniable unity of the Latin American left,

2) The undeniable courage of different types -- courage of Zelaya, who risked his life for his people and for social justice (he could have easily melted away into a life of privileged exile) ... the courage of Lula, using Brazil's political muscle to bodyslam the coup regime and even the cunning of Chavez, to change his way of speaking about this crisis in the last week or two,

3) The undeniable strategy that has gone into all of this -- each of these players doing their part as a real team in a disciplined way, for 3 months now, from Kirchner to Correa to Morales to Chavez to Castro to Ortega and, more importantly, the social movements that are the real mechanisms of change behind these leaders.

I couldn't be more proud and impressed! Try as they might, the corporate media cannot spin this away. Latin America, united, has shown the world what they have struggled to create over the last 20 years -- and it is an amazing creation.

All over Latin America this week, everyone can say:

"En mi pais, somos duros! En mi pais, somos miles y miles de lágrimas y de fusiles, un puño y un canto vibrante, una llama encendida, un gigante, que grita, adelante! adelante!"

Our corporate elite and their foreign policy henchmen are still the major problem of the Latin America.

We who want social justice in the US, of course, want to see it in Latin America.

However, the people of Latin America many times put their bodies, if not lives, on the line to pursue it.

When are we going to have to stop analyzing the Honduran social movement's strategies and tactics and, instead, start learning from them and putting what we learn into practice?

By the way, the large majority of peoples in Brazil and China live in poverty.  They are not wealthy in the sense we still are in the First World.

And China's business and Party elite are at a crossroads.  They realize that they have to transform their socioeconomic structure from one based on cheap labor producing goods for export into one where the wages of the average working person are raised high enough to support a large internal market for goods produced in China.

The reason for this transformational imperative? The huge US market for Chinese commodities is rapidly disappearing.

However, this social reconstruction could let all hell break loose.  And China may find its economic and global stature plummet.

Remember, under capitalism, "all that is solid turns into air (Marx)."

To present another reminder of the trickiness of history.  During the 1930s - 1940s Argentina was one of the top ten industrial nations, globally.  However, recently, its economy collapsed and people were forced into a barter economy while, in some instances, workers took over factories and ran them autonomously.

How about those frijoles!

 

"the tear gas canisters shot by the National Police yesterday were stamped as property of the government of Perú, suggesting strongly that Peruvian President Alan García is a participant"

 

My father-in-law was a member of the APRA party since his late teens, organizing the campisinos at a time when simply possessing APRA literature was punishable by prison.  He supported Alan Garcia all through is tragic first term, and would have been elated to see him re-elected.

 

In Adrian's memory I've tried my best to give Garcia the benefit of the doubt, but it's long past that time.  Something awful has happened to Garcia and the APRA, and I'm glad Adrian wasn't here to see it.

@ Ryan Vaquero

"In my country, we're tough!" In my country, there are thousands and thousands of tears and rifles, a fist and a vibrant edge, a flame, a giant, screaming, forward forward! "

 

This is the googletranslation of the above. I think I get it...  duros, I assume, is more 'durable' than tough? Flows very nicely in original tongue.

Don't you think the rifles counter-cuts the statement that this expression of popular will they are sticking to nonviolence?

It is pretty sweet, though, to see not only forces of Empire being thwarted, but the region being cleansed of some of it's authoritarian fascist capitalist goo. If you think of this kind of authoritarian right-neoliberalism as the pollution, the Bush Regime pumped eight years of that pollution, while the Obama administration is closing the pipe, and not rushing to help the coup succeed.

I wonder how much of the coordination of the nation's leaders is mirrored by coordination of the nation's peoples? Are there the same kind of people's movements in these countries? What are their labor unions like? Are there significant indigenous peoples uniformly, or do they vary, and how else does economic discrimination vary from country to country and group to group?

In addition to learning Spanish, I think I need a graduate level 'left political movements in the Americas' course... this blog and some others providing a great introductory level class!

The coup regime has slowly been imploding and with the golpistas calling for a "pro-coup" demonstration tomorrow, they are only solidifying their demise.  It is a drawn out version of what happened in Caracas in 2002.  No matter how much effort is thrown into the golpistas misinformation campaign, the power is in the people and once again the organizing from below demonstrates the efficacy of the truly Latin American "participatory democracy". A concept that has only recently been validated in US politics.

gente, su lucha no se acaba

@ Tom W, Ryan Vaquero, John Slade, Al and just everybody.

Thanks for the brilliant analysis & comments.  This whole thing has never been "just" about Hondurus.  I really appreciated Ryan Vaguero's analysis that the current phase of the struggle demonstrates the incredible "unity of the Latin American left", although I'm a little concerned at Peru's supplying the regime with weapons.  What's up with that?  I thought the only remaining fascist right wing governments in Latin America were Mexico & Columbia.

Immanuel Wallerstein's July 15th, 2009 essay titled, "The Right Strikes Back" assessed the coup regime had international oligarchic, right wing support from the get go and also viewed the Hondurus coup with grave concern.

I. Wallerstein, 261, "The Right Strikes Back!"

The Honduran right is playing for time, until Zelaya's term ends. If they reach that goal, they will have won. And the Guatemalan, Salvadorian, and Nicaraguan right are watching in the wings, itching to start their own coups against their no longer rightwing governments.

http://fbc.binghamton.edu/261en.htm

is getting so heavy and irritating. I can't even bear to watch Miami television where they are assuring audiences Zelaya has little support among the people. NarcoNews is a breath of fresh air.

It looks likely now that Zelaya will soon return to office.  The real question, though, is what will happen to the fascist army and police.  Only if they can be replaced, will the road be open to real democracy and real socialism, throughout Central America and perhaps beyond.

None of the leftist regimes surrounding Honduras could provide crucial assistance, because the civilian governments do not control their right wing armies.  Only a real peoples' army in at least one of the Central American countries will make a real difference.  Now that the people of Honduras have become mobilized, then perhaps they can make it happen.  It is fascinating to watch, and maybe, just maybe, we in the US can learn from these struggles.

Al, rumors have been circulating about what the golpistas might try to do to get Zelaya out of the Brazilian Embassy.

Thursday morning, there won´t be curfew so that "los perfumados" march to the UN bulding!

Remembering the events of 2002 Venezuela coup d'etat where an opposition march was rerouted to intersect the pro-Chavez rally.

As can be seen in this video, los blanquitos gather people from poor barrios offering money that at the end don't get. There is a possibility that this march would be rerouted to the Brazilian Embassy where the protesters would try to break into the Embassy, and kill Zelaya with the golpista goverment claiming the  "people" did it themselves.

The Resistance Front made a call to people stay in their neighborhoods and protest there while not allowing the opposition busses slip their nose.

Tomorrow will be a hell of the day!

Great reporting, keep posting!

What Central America needs -as with the rest of Latin America- is to follow the example of Costa Rica and rid themselves of their military altogether.

Though Costa Rica is not a wealthy nation, it does possess a much better health, education and welfare system than most of Latin America...not to mention Central America.

In fact, each citizen in Costa Rica has medical coverage; it is considered a democratic right.  (That type of thinking should tell us something about US democratic rights.)

In Latin America, the military has usually been an anti-democratic and anti-people's welfare force within society.  It also drains the nation's wealth.  In actuality, they tend to act as a handmaiden for US business and strategic interests rather than as an organization for the defence of the majority of their nation's citizens. (They usually do act in defence of a small number of citizens -the oligarchy.)

In fact, if the Latin American nations dissolved their military establishments, the local oligarchies would have to do some fancy footwork to stay in power very long.

A nice thought!

After dissolving the military, the Latin American people would have to make laws forbidding the establishment or use of mercenary armies. Why? The US corporate world and government have organized, or subsidized huge private corporate armies that work for any rightwing thug regime or private oligarchy that pays them.

That is why I am troubled by the term "mercenary" when the term is used to label these military corporations.

True mercenaries are the prostitutes of the military world.  They are supposed to work for any government or corporation that pays their wages.

However, these present corporate mercenaries are rightwing, "Christian" and "patriotic" in their ideology and they would never work for a foreign government that is labeled leftwing, Islamic fundamentalist, etc. by the US State Dept.

Fortunately, Costa Rica didn't have to deal with this problem when it dissolved its military.

 

 

Isnt it funny how this morning Honduras lifted their curfew? Looks like the rich cant survive either, without the "peasants" doing their work. Maybe they realized with a curfew, who will clean my yard, or do my grocery shopping.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8272176.stm

If you have lived in Honduras, as I have, you do notice certain things.

There is, of course, no middle class.  There are the upper-middle classes and the oligarchy and it hangerons.

However, these people make up a minute percentage of the population.  Most people are unbelievably impovershed.

Though the average Honduran is poor beyong belief, many have skills and abilities that make their better off fellow citizens appear to be simply useless paper pushers, constant schmoozers and status chasers.

I had to teach the kids of the Tegus oligarchy.  I never met unbelievably spoiled kids.  They had maids, drivers, guards and what-not wait on them hand and foot.  And if a male kid wanted to f**k a maid, she better comply or should would loose her hard- to-find-job.

I remember when I planned and organized a fieldtrip to National School of Music.  One of the kids fathers had two Hummers full of guards all wielding automatic weapons.  That was just one kid.

Of course, when arrived at music school, very few of these oligarch's kids were interested in the activities of these very talented kids. (The selection process is national, uncorrupt, and actually finds the most musically talented kids to receive this free musically-oriented public education.)

These kids are usually from poor families, and they were practicing tand performing he classics of Western Europe and Latin America.  But the oligarch's kids were only interested in listening to hip hop, rap and latin pop.

In fact, this institution was built by the Japanese government as a goodwill gesture.  However, much of the groundwork was done by the students, their families, the teachers and any supporters of the school.  After Mitch destroyed the original school, the oligarchs were not interested in rebuilding it.

I took the oligarch's kids on other fieldtrips and it was horrifing to observe their behavior toward their poorer and less powerful country(wo)men.

For example, the buses would go through the countryside to get to our destination.  If you looked out the window, you could see campesinos hauling in their maize using burros, or you could see a blacksmith shoeing a horse, or, again, if you looked, you would see women preparing snacks for roadside sales, and there were the artasinas also selling their unique and authentic handmade craftwork.

Not once did these oligarch's kids display an interest in the lives of their fellow citizens.  Instead, all they did was talk, talk and talk to their fellow oligarch's kids about the newest US pop group, the newest US electronic consumer gadget Dad bought them, etc.

The oligarchs lived in such a bubble.  Their impoverished fellow citizens are disposable and ignored at best.  If the oligarchs and their upper-middle class hangers-on do notice you, it probably won't go well for you.

 

 

As a brazillian cityzen (please, forgive my broken english), I'm glad to know that are media in USA who can go beyond the limits of the mass media and capable of big quality information.

"Since the coup plotters have urged their protesters to dress in the color red" You meant 'in the color _white_', yes? That's what they've been using since the coup, and what they appear to have showed up in again today. Hope some supporters of authentic democracy took advantage of the opportunity to get into the capital. (And that you have a highly successful event in our own capital on Oct. 10!)