I think that the video is a tremendous promotional piece. The production values are gorgeous. I love the music: “Ode to Joy” is one of my favorites. I will admit that I cannot get a truly satisfying sense of what, when, why, where, or how any of the scenes are happening, because they are all still shots edited together to create an overall message, but perhaps that’s a minor quibble.

Do you have any actual live footage of actual events with the sounds that were being made at the event itself? As much as I do love Beethoven, it’s a bit difficult to get any sense of actual real events as they happened from this one.

Yes, you have. You have much more energy than me.

I saw Zelaya on his propaganda channel the day after the Supreme Court decision say, “This poll won’t be stopped! Only God and the Virgin Suyapa can stop me!” Maybe that’s why it took the army to get rid of him. It’s a mistake to look at this as if Honduras was the same (or should be the same) as the US. It isn’t so civilized. Even if Honduras had an impeachment clause in their constitution, which they don’t, it probably still would have taken the army to get him out. He wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.

I would invite Kathy to watch this video. Of course, she could say that the army was behind the scenes pointing guns at the people to make them march in the pro-government demonstrations, but look at their faces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da9etL5uqy8

The SC had ruled that conducting even the “poll” was illegal, and had ordered the ballots confiscated and kept under lock and key.

Zelaya, via stealing the ballots, via conspiring with compatriots to illegally conduct the “poll”, had thus broken Honduran law, and deserved arrest.

It was on this basis that the SC ordered Zelaya’s arrest.

Now, had Zelaya been deposed, would he have been allowed bail, and thus allowed to return to office? Never! Zelaya’s action constituted grave danger to the Honduran nation. Bail denied, absolutely. Zelaya would have never made another decision as President of Honduras; would have been impeached and convicted, then criminally tried and convicted, and would have stayed inside a prison cell for a long time. The only exception would have been if Zelaya were hanged for treason.

So, I hope this drills down to the bottom of why the Honduran SC, via ordering the arrest of Zelaya, was acting in accordance with Honduran Law. If Zelaya disagreed with the SC’s decision regarding his poll, he ought to have fought the decision through legal means, or through political/electoral means which complied with the Honduran Constitution; as opposed to fighting the SC decision through illegal means.

The SC had ruled that the Honduran Congress could order a national poll on the question of whether Honduras should write a new Constitution. If this was Zelaya’s true goal, he could have rallied support for such an order – either now in future – in the Honduran Congress.

I hope this extra explanation helps. God knows I’ve done my best.

The Honduran Supreme Court, in a 15-0 decision, ordered the Honduran Military to arrest Zelaya. The action of the Honduran Supreme Court was completely legal, and displayed fidelity to the Honduran Constitution. Zelaya’s arrest was ordered by the Honduran Supreme Court, in accordance with Honduran Law. In this situation, there was no legal requirement to try him and to convict him before ordering his arrest.

These circumstances are what you, so far, refuse to look at or acknowledge (and the Obama Administration also refuses to acknowledge this, and also chooses to speak in generalities [and even in probabilities], and deliberately chooses to avoid the specifics of the situation).

The military decision to deport, while questionable, arguably was legal under Honduran Penal Code 24.

But, the decision to deport pales next to the legal arrest order. If Zelaya had not been deported, he still would not now be in power as President of Honduras. He would instead be incarcerated and out of power. The key data are the Honduran Supreme Court’s investigation of Zelaya (documents from which have been made publicly available), and the Honduran SC’s subsequent arrest order (which has also been made publicly available).

Question: Why did the Honduran SC act, rather than waiting a couple of days for impeachment proceedings to be completed?

Answer: Zelaya had to be arrested early Monday morning, as he had scheduled the illegal “poll” for Monday during the day. The Supreme Court followed Honduran law and ordered Zelaya arrested.

Kathy, I cannot overemphasize how strong is the evidence indicating Zelaya’s guilt, if you will only read into it. The most damning evidence, to me, is that Zelaya could have led the Honduran Congress in changing or eliminating 368 articles of the Honduran Constitution, and was only constitutionally barred from changing 7 articles of the Honduran Constitution – one of which was the article concerning Presidential term limit.

Use you head here. It is extremely foolish to claim Zelaya had innocent intention for Honduras; and foolish (at minimum) to claim the Honduran Government was trying to evade the responsibilities of Constitutional governing. The Honduran Government was and is desperately trying to save Constitutional Government in Honduras. Barack gaffed by speaking before he had sufficiently investigated, and now Barack is politically unwilling to back down and admit the truth. You don’t have to be like Barack Obama. You’re a smart person. You can look at data and tell truth about what the data indicates.

Wait a minute. You mean, Zelaya was charged, tried, and convicted in legal democratic proceedings subject to due process?

Whoa, that would make me happy. But in sad reality — not so much.

I want to rebut any lies about Honduras, until this post fades from the front page.

Okay, Greg, you are good to go (please).

I hope you appreciate all the hard work I did to make this happen for you.

Zelaya broke the law (burglary, treason, and at least 13 other violations which Honduras has indicted him for) and violated the Honduran Constitution. If you care about the law, then you are happy the law was enforced and Zelaya was arrested. If you care about the law, and you are acting without prejudice, then you will quit thinking and speaking in generalities, and instead look at the specific data.

If you look at the specific data, you will see this began as a political disagreement, yet Zelaya morphed it into treason, and ousted himself from office, via violating Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution:

Article 239: “No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”

In other words, by proposing to change this law, Zelaya constitutionally and immediately ousted himself from office.

Bloomberg:

The arrest order she [SC Justice Rosalinda Cruz] cited, approved unanimously by the court’s 15 justices, was released this afternoon along with documents pertaining to a secret investigation [of Zelaya] that went on for weeks under the high court’s supervision.
[...]
David Matamoros, a member of Honduras’ Supreme Electoral Tribunal, also defended the military’s action.

He said Zelaya originally called the vote a plebiscite, then, when that was barred [the Honduran Supreme Court ruled that only the Honduran Congress could call such an election], shifted to describing it as a poll, creating uncertainty as to its legal standing and his intent. No government agency was willing to conduct the vote, he said. All the ballots and equipment for the illegal poll were flown in on a Venezuelan plane, he said. The court ordered the materials confiscated.

Miami Herald:

After the Honduran supreme court ruled that only the country’s congress could call such an election, Zelaya ordered the army to help him stage it anyway. (It would be ”non-binding,” he said.) When the head of the armed forces, acting on orders from the supreme court, refused, Zelaya fired him, then led a mob to break into a military base where the ballots were stored.

His actions have been repudiated by the country’s supreme court, its congress, its attorney-general, its chief human-rights advocate, all its major churches, its main business association, his own political party (which recently began debating an inquiry into Zelaya’s sanity)

Here we have Zelaya leading a mob in a burglary. Burglars deserve to be arrested at gunpoint. Further, carefully consider which party(s) is demonstrating fidelity to Constitutional process and to rule of law, and which party (hint: Mel Zelaya) is not.

The available data has your opinion stone cold exposed as illogical and uninformed. I don’t believe you have both read and considered the above quotations and the above data. If you had, you would then have apologized and commented upon how embarrassed you are at your own actions. That you have not read and have not considered the above data is the circumstance which drives my speculation that – at best – you are in denial about the current risk to the freedom of the Honduran people. Why would you not read and fairly consider the above data? That is also a good question.

Of course this was after Manuel Zelaya was ousted from the presidency — to which office he had been elected in free and fair elections — and exiled from the country. Whether you call that a coup, or use some other euphemistic language, the point is, it was illegal, unconstitutional, inappropriate, undemocratic, and a very dangerous, divisive, and unnecessarily confrontational way to handle a political disagreement. You can talk about guilt, innocence, communism, socialism, Chavez, leftist thugs, and outside agitators from now until the cows come home, and the central issue will STILL be the coup and all of the totally predictable violence and escalation that has come from that.

However, Chavez enthusiasm for Zelaya is, actually, peripheral to the main issue, which is Zelaya’s own actions and words – which actions and words you ought take a hard look at before making further pronouncements of Zelaya’s innocence.

Wrong. The main issue is that Velaya’s right-wing political enemies in the Honduran government handled their ideological differences with him by staging a military coup instead of using the democratic, legal processes set up to handle such disagreements.

In case it’s not completely plain to you by now (which it probably is not), I don’t give a fig for Zelaya or his politics or his guilt or innocence. I simply don’t care about him one way or the other. What I care about is the rule of law. If Zelaya were Micheletti and Micheletti were Zelaya and the same events had occurred, I would still be saying the coup was illegal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inestroza believes Zelaya’s arrest was legal. Inestroza does not believe a coup occurred. Inestroza believes a deportation occurred, and “Article 24 of Honduras’ penal code will exonerate the joint chiefs of staff who made the decision, because it allows for making tough decisions based on the good of the state, Inestroza said.” Inestroza’s point is clear. If you read it differently, then you have misinterpreted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Guilt does not strictly refer to legal guilt. Merriam Webster: “Guilt … 2 a: the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously”.

Further, throughout this thread, I have carefully referred to “evidence as it exists”, and have not referred to conclusive evidence, and have not referred to evidence which is irrefutable or which is beyond a reasonable doubt. It is misguided, at best, for you to imply that I have referred to anecdotal evidence as being either absolutely true, or in some way dispositive.

That said, at this point, if one looks at the totality of evidence as it exists: Zelaya is almost certainly guilty of trying to overturn the Honduran Constitution, of trying to extend his Presidential term, of trying to either a) limit Honduran democracy or b) overthrow Honduran democracy. It’s difficult, at this point, to envision circumstances which might show Zelaya to be innocent.

You have a different opinion. Your opinion is so misguided that you ought be embarrassed to claim it. Maybe you have been too busy to look at the totality of the data. Or, maybe the movie in your head (which is telling you what is happening) is so loud and so vivid that it obscures the data which exists (data I have carefully pointed to in the comments above; data which is not matched – and cannot be matched – by evidence of Zelaya’s good intent, as evidence of Zelaya’s good intent does not exist in the public sphere at this time).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You write: it seems unjust to me that you should accuse me of not caring about Hondurans, or Iranians

This has a ring of authenticity which I appreciate.
Re Honduras: you believe the arrest was illegal, yet you can only believe this b/c you are really, really, really, really ignoring available data which points to Zelaya’s guilt and to the arrest being legal. Why would you so blatantly ignore this data?
–I suspect you care more about being right than you do about Honduran people.
–I suspect you care more about protecting your self-image as a virtuous person(virtuous via your righteous political beliefs) than you care about the Honduran people.
–I suspect you care more about supporting Obama than you care about a struggling Honduran people who are on the brink of losing their democracy, as the Nicaraguan people recently lost their democracy.

If there is another explanation for your ignoring of the data, please share.

Iran is pretty much the same story: you are more wed to your political beliefs than to compassion for the Iranian people. Your political beliefs integral to your self esteem and self image as a virtuous and worthy person. Your political beliefs tell you Iranians are happy b/c Khamenei (figuratively) keeps the trains running on time; your political beliefs tell you most Iranians – reasonable people they – cannot be so very unhappy over a tiny matter such as self-determination and freedom from oppression. Your political beliefs are so important to your conception of yourself that the sacrifice of Iranians who are risking their lives really doesn’t sink in with you at a bone deep level. Oh, you see it. You sort of intellectually acknowledge it. But it doesn’t sink in at a human level; at a gut level. Your psychological defense mechanisms prevent it from doing so. Amending your political beliefs – even in face of the evidence which even today is risking life and health in the streets of Iran – amending your political beliefs would be too painful and too threatening. You would have to rethink who you are as a person who is walking this Earth. That is a threatening thing to do. You are not up to it.

Which, btw, is not to raise myself above you. I, also, am not up to many things, and am cowardly in many areas, and am ashamed of my weakness and cowardice.

Now, could my speculation be wrong? Absolutely. I would love it if you would prove me wrong. Honest to God, it would make me very happy to be wrong, b/c I have love for you, and I would be very happy if you have strength and courage beyond what I have observed.

The way to prove me wrong is to explain why you ignore the data and evidence which indicates Zelaya’s nefarious intention(such as the evidence I pointed to on July 5 @ 8:14PM); to explain why you fail to champion an Iranian people who are protesting in the fashion of Gandhi and MLK.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
re: your complaint about my “tone”
Complaining of written “tone” is so ethereal as to be useless. Can you point to a specific aspect of my reasoning which indicates my “cruel and indifferent attitude towards … brutality”? If you can, I will address it.

I do not think it heartless to acknowledge the truth that soldiers are going to commit war crimes. This has been true throughout world history. I do not believe the commissions of war crimes necessarily invalidate the pursuit of larger objectives. I specifically do not believe a single murder (if it indeed was committed by the Honduran Military) invalidates the objective of protecting the Honduran Constitution and of protecting self-determination for the Honduran people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Re: Evidence that Chavez sent agitators to the airport: I linked to this evidence today, July 9 @ 12:19 PM, in a comment which is awaiting moderation.

The blog at that link discusses (in other blogposts – especially in “Chavez Chess”) a possible reason for Chavez’ aggressive actions in Honduras: Chavez wants an American military base in Honduras closed. The closing of the American base would especially smooth the way for smugglers who fly illegal narcotics through the area – smuggling flights which Chavez allegedly profits from. Already, today, Nicaragua’s Ortega has publicly called for the U.S. to close it’s military base in Honduras.

However, Chavez enthusiasm for Zelaya is, actually, peripheral to the main issue, which is Zelaya’s own actions and words – which actions and words you ought take a hard look at before making further pronouncements of Zelaya’s innocence.

Am I precluded from admiring some things Arthur Miller wrote? some thoughts Arthur Miller had?

Not at all. But you were the one who spent several very long comments making up all kinds of unsubstantiated and inaccurate accusations against Zelaya, and justifying his overthrow and exile from Honduras, on the basis of his left-wing politics and associations. Clearly, a coup does not become justifiable or legal simply because the target of the coup is a leftist and has leftist friends and colleagues. And I could not understand why you were using Arthur Miller to buttress your extreme rantings about how monstrous and evil Zelaya and Chavez are because they have left-wing beliefs, when Arthur Miller himself was left-wing.

Or, put a bit differently, if Arthur Miller’s wisdom and talent are obvious to you despite the fact he was on the left pollitically, perhaps the same is true of Zelaya and Chavez, and other leftist thinkers.

Was Arthur Miller so small minded and ungracious that he could not have enjoyed a couple of beers and a couple of laughs with me and Pope Benedict?

Absolutely not. It’s you who might be too small-minded to enjoy such a moment with Arthur Miller, if he were still alive. After all, he was left-wing politically, and you seem to think that left-wing thinkers are thuggish, propagandists with strong criminal tendencies. I have never gotten the impression from you that you believe any left-wing thinker has anything to say or to contribute that is worth listening to.

You are, in today’s post quoting Inestroza, misinterpreting what Inestroza is saying in the Miami Herald article.

In your opinion. I read the entire article, too.

Inestroza is saying Zelaya’s deportation broke the letter of the law, yet was justified by circumstances, and therefore the military officers who took the action will not be convicted of crimes.

Yeah, he hopes and believes. The point is, he is admitting the coup was illegal, but that’s okay in his mind because the end — again in his opinion — is a good one, and the end justifies the means. It’s entirely possible — even probable, if Zelaya is not restored to his rightful position as president — that the military officers who “took the action” will not be convicted of crimes. That doesn’t mean they did not commit crimes. And on what basis you believe that the probability of the military officers being exonerated means that they actually did nothing wrong, illegal, or criminal, is beyond me. I guess you believe that the end justifies the means, too.

If you carefully read the article which you linked to in today’s post, it contains evidence of Zelaya’s guilt and zero evidence of Zelaya’s innocence; it contains more evidence of the Honduran Government’s good intention than of the Honduran Government’s bad intention.

Actually, it contains no such thing. “Guilt” and “innocence” are legal concepts that can only be factually demonstrated to be present or absent in the context of a legally prescribed, constitutionally guided process. That did not happen in this situation. The Honduran military, Supreme Court, and legislature acted outside of the law, and they know it.

Your Honduran premise is: if a military person goes against orders and unjustly kills a protester, then whatever cause that particular military force is supporting is therefore proven unjust. I disagree.

That is not my premise, but (a) I don’t think that’s an accurate description of what happened; and (b) your tone with regard to the tear gassing, and possibly responsibility for shooting, angry but basically peaceful protesters was, to my perception, very callous. And it seems unjust to me that you should accuse me of not caring about Hondurans, or Iranians, when it seemed to me that you were expressing such a cruel and indifferent attitude toward brutal treatment of Honduran supporters of Zelaya.

Honduras says the soldiers had rubber bullets.

Okay, and that may or may not be true. Neither one of us knows for sure.

Honduras says the caliber of ammunition used in the murder has never been used by Honduran military.

Ditto. And consider also the possibility that Honduras has already committed an arguably illegal and inarguably ill-advised and overly confrontational action (i.e., the coup), so their claims are also to be greeted with some skepticism.

We do know one protester smeared blood on himself and then rushed to get before cameras and interviews. The blogger at Honduras Abandoned personally observed this.

That is a highly conclusive and biased interpretation of behavior (if it happened at all) that is subject to several differing explanations. One cannot take either one blogger’s or one protester’s claims as ironclad proof.

We do know of evidence (inconclusive, but indicative) that Chavez sent agitators to the airport with intention of riling emotion against the Honduran Government.

We do? What evidence? How does Chavez send “agitators” to the Honduran airport? By remote control?

I don’t understand your point re Iran. If it has to do with supporting the Iranian people via not supporting them in cyberspace, I disagree.

I am responding to your statement about my supposed lack of concern for the Iranian people.

Also: could Chavez be partially motivated by desire to force removal of a U.S. Military base in Honduras? I don’t know, but it seems plausible. http://ferdsblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/huevos-drogas/

Was Arthur Miller so small minded and ungracious that he could not have enjoyed a couple of beers and a couple of laughs with me and Pope Benedict? For that would be very small-minded, indeed. I guess I will go back and kick fantasy inside-the-joke Greg‘s ass for being a presumptuous bastard. I don’t know why the heck fantasy inside-the-joke Greg believed he could disagree with many of Arthur Miller’s opinions and yet still love Arthur Miller and still share some beers with him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

re “two flying fucks”

Your Honduran premise is: if a military person goes against orders and unjustly kills a protester, then whatever cause that particular military force is supporting is therefore proven unjust. I disagree.

Further, the jury is still out on whether or not that protester was murdered by a Honduran soldier. Honduras says the soldiers had rubber bullets. Honduras says the caliber of ammunition used in the murder has never been used by Honduran military. We do know one protester smeared blood on himself and then rushed to get before cameras and interviews. The blogger at Honduras Abandoned personally observed this. We do know of evidence (inconclusive, but indicative) that Chavez sent agitators to the airport with intention of riling emotion against the Honduran Government. Is is beyond Chavez’ capabilities to kill an innocent for propaganda purposes?

I don’t understand your point re Iran. If it has to do with supporting the Iranian people via not supporting them in cyberspace, I disagree.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are, in today’s post quoting Inestroza, misinterpreting what Inestroza is saying in the Miami Herald article. I recognize this b/c I read the same article, and quoted some of the same quote you used, and tried to link (above, July 3 @5:33 PM) but apparently put in the wrong link.
Anyway, I also initially misinterpreted what Inestroza is saying.

Inestroza is not saying Zelaya’s arrest was illegal. Inestroza believes Zelaya’s arrest was perfectly legal. Inestroza is saying Zelaya’s deportation broke the letter of the law, yet was justified by circumstances, and therefore the military officers who took the action will not be convicted of crimes. If you carefully read the article which you linked to in today’s post, it contains evidence of Zelaya’s guilt and zero evidence of Zelaya’s innocence; it contains more evidence of the Honduran Government’s good intention than of the Honduran Government’s bad intention. Perhaps you were fooled by the headline (which would have been composed by an editor)?

Re “shooting them in some instances”

This is typical Utopian horse manure and/or leftist public relations strategy: try to discredit something b/c it’s implementation is imperfect.
[...]
As to curfews, et al: Honduras is not Canada. I suspect you have led a sheltered life, and harbor Utopian assumptions.

Gcotharn, to me:

I remain flabbergasted at your lack of grace in this matter, and at your lack of concern for the Honduran people, as demonstrated by your refusal to acknowledge evidence of events.

It’s the same with your lack of grace about Iran, and with your lack of concern for the Iranian people. I didn’t expect this from you. It is unattractive.

You don’t give two flying fucks about the Honduran people. Or the Iranian people.

Me, Arthur Miller, and Pope Benedict walk into a bar.

Arthur Miller was a strong liberal with many left-leaning friends. He was accused of being a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era, he broke with former friends like Elia Kazan who betrayed friends and colleagues at the witch-trial hearings, he wrote “The Crucible” in response to McCarthyism, and he stood up against all forms of ideological extremism all his life.

I really don’t think that you can afford to associate yourself, even fictionally, with Arthur Miller, Greg. It’s very unlikely that, were he alive now, he would be supporting the Honduran military against the man whom the Honduran people chose to lead them in totally democratic, fair elections. I would stop acting like you admire Arthur Miller, Greg. People might start to think you’re a follower of… well, you know, Mr. Hugo Chavez.

Just a friendly warning.

Bartender: “Gentlemen, your arrogance, presumption, and mental rigidity know no bounds.”
Arthur Miller: “What an ugly and illogical statement.”
Pope Benedict: “That’s the truth.”
Me: “Three beers, please. Um … in unopened bottles.”

All of us have ugliness within us. To acknowledge it, to ourselves – to embrace the reality of it – is to take a step towards wisdom; is to take a step towards some liberation from the ugliness.

Your arrogance, presumption, and mental rigidity know no bounds. I will try to hasten the post’s “fading” from the front page, at which point you can leave with a clear conscience.

Something else you might allow to marinate, from Pope Benedict’s recently released Caritas in Veritate:

“Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived…Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love.”

More from Benedict:

“Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom and of the possibility of integral human development.”