did two US companies engineer Honduran coup? [Archive] - The Orange Mane

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mhgaffney

08-07-2009, 06:26 PM

I tried but failed to find the former thread on the Honduran coup. So I am starting a new one. This is important new information.

The author John Perkins knows the score. He used to work for the war machine.
MHG

Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?

By John Perkins

August 07, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.

Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.

Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.

I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, “Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.”

It did not take much imagination to envision the turmoil sweeping through every Latin American capital. There had been a collective sign of relief at Barack Obama’s election in the U.S., a sense of hope that the empire in the North would finally exhibit compassion toward its southern neighbors, that the unfair trade agreements, privatizations, draconian IMF Structural Adjustment Programs, and threats of military intervention would slow down and perhaps even fade away. Now, that optimism was turning sour.

The cozy relationship between Honduras’s military coup leaders and the corporatocracy were confirmed a couple of days after my arrival in Panama. England’s The Guardian ran an article announcing that “two of the Honduran coup government's top advisers have close ties to the US secretary of state. One is Lanny Davis, an influential lobbyist who was a personal lawyer for President Bill Clinton and also campaigned for Hillary. . . The other hired gun for the coup government that has deep Clinton ties is (lobbyist) Bennett Ratcliff.” (1)

DemocracyNow! broke the news that Chiquita was represented by a powerful Washington law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, and its consultant, McLarty Associates (2). President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder had been a Covington partner and a defender of Chiquita when the company was accused of hiring “assassination squads” in Colombia (Chiquita was found guilty, admitting that it had paid organizations listed by the US government as terrorist groups “for protection” and agreeing in 2004 to a $25 million fine). (3) George W. Bush’s UN Ambassador, John Bolton, a former Covington lawyer, had fiercely opposed Latin American leaders who fought for their peoples’ rights to larger shares of the profits derived from their resources; after leaving the government in 2006, Bolton became involved with the Project for the New American Century, the Council for National Policy, and a number of other programs that promote corporate hegemony in Honduras and elsewhere.

McLarty Vice Chairman John Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, and U.S. Representative to the United Nations; he played a major role in the U.S.-backed Contra’s secret war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and has consistently opposed the policies of the democratically-elected pro-reform Latin American presidents. (4) These three men symbolize the insidious power of the corporatocracy, its bipartisan composition, and the fact that the Obama Administration has been sucked in.

The Los Angeles Times went to the heart of this matter when it concluded:

What happened in Honduras is a classic Latin American coup in another sense: Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who led it, is an alumnus of the United States' School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). The school is best known for producing Latin American officers who have committed major human rights abuses, including military coups. (5)
All of this leads us once again to the inevitable conclusion: you and I must change the system. The president – whether Democrat or Republican – needs us to speak out.

Chiquita, Dole and all your representatives need to hear from you. Zelaya must be reinstated.

FOOTNOTES

(1)

“Who's in charge of US foreign policy? The coup in Honduras has exposed divisions between Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton” by Mark Weisbrot http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/16/honduras-coup-obama-clinton (July 23, 2009)

(2) http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/21/from_arbenz_to_zelaya_chiquita_in (July 23, 2009)

(3) “Chiquita admits to paying Colombia terrorists: Banana company agrees to $25 million fine for paying AUC for protection” MSNBC March 15, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17615143/ (July 24, 2009)

(4) Fore more information: http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2009/07/eric-holder-and-chaquita-covington.html (July 23, 2009)

(5) “The high-powered hidden support for Honduras' coup: The country's rightful president was ousted by a military leadership that takes many of its cues from Washington insiders.” by Mark Weisbrot, Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2009

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-weisbrot23-2009jul23,0,7566740.story (July 23, 2009)

spdirty

08-07-2009, 06:51 PM

SPfloppy

08-07-2009, 07:37 PM

I'm gonna make a BBQ Briskett on my next days off. I'll let you know if it turns out ok. Have you been grilling this summer?

spdirty

08-07-2009, 07:55 PM

little bit. You know the old lady in her backwood ways, you know we have a nice propane grill and one of those cheap ass charcoal grills. Tiny little thing. She likes to use wood to cook her food with that charcoal grill.. tastes like shlt, smells like shlt, but I dont say anything, dont want to get in trouble, just let the wheels turn in her head, and hope she doesnt burn the house down.

SoCalBronco

08-07-2009, 08:05 PM

Hey Gaff,

That Epstein kid is looking great in camp.

W*GS

08-07-2009, 08:08 PM

I actually ran out of propane on the ol' grill already. One thing about Colorado - grillin' is a year-round activity. Nothing like making steaks and watching the snow turn to steam hitting the grill.

Plus, burgers and fries in the dead of winter just hits the spot.

alkemical

08-07-2009, 08:29 PM

mhgaffney

08-07-2009, 08:53 PM

Like Ellsberg said - - America is in denial.

watermock

08-07-2009, 08:55 PM

Banana Republic.

But we got them drones reapin' justice....

Odysseus

08-07-2009, 09:06 PM

watermock

08-07-2009, 09:17 PM

And look how Obama is restoring democracy.

Oh, I forget, the big news is 200 days?

Oh, right... only 300,000 jobs lost!

We are IN the 3rd Q and still losing jobs, despite spending 23 trillion.

Does anyone know we sold the dollar out for toilet paper?

The Gov't is spending lke Nero on a wet dream.

Spider

08-07-2009, 10:53 PM

mhgaffney

08-07-2009, 11:51 PM

We really never did talk about Iran Contra affair. I wonder if now is the right time to bring that back up? I wonder what connections to our past actions / reactions connect with today's global situations?

Check out Russ Baker's book FAMILY OF SECRETS.

There is little doubt that G H W Bush was up to his neck in Iran Contra -- but Mr Teflon never got caught.

The Bush crime family was then on the rise.

W*GS

08-08-2009, 07:59 AM

you need to get laid ...........

gaff-o thinks he is getting laid - excepting that it's Madame Palm and her five daughters.

Odysseus

08-08-2009, 08:31 AM

Check out Russ Baker's book FAMILY OF SECRETS.

There is little doubt that G H W Bush was up to his neck in Iran Contra -- but Mr Teflon never got caught.

The Bush crime family was then on the rise.

I don't know if I have time for 600 pages. I read Executive Summaries to keep up on my reading and take online classes. I just don't have the time.

Review

Praise for Family of Secrets:

“Shocking in its disclosures, elegantly crafted, and faultlessly measured in its judgments, Family of Secrets is nothing less than a first historic portrait in full of the Bush dynasty and the era it shaped. From revelation to revelation, insight to insight—from the Kennedy assassination to Watergate to the oil and financial intrigues that lie behind today's headlines—this is a sweeping drama of money and power, unseen forces, and the emblematic triumph of a lineage that sowed national tragedy. Russ Baker’s Family of Secrets is sure to take its place as one of the most startling and influential works of American history and journalism.”—Roger Morris, former senior staff member, National Security Council, and author of Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician and Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America

“Left-wing paranoia? Baker, a solid investigative journalist, works hard to back up his claims – a reader could choke on the complex, interwoven details in Family of Secrets. He's a man on a mission, desperate to stop the “methods of stealth and manipulation that ... reflect a deeper ill: the American public's increasingly tenuous hold upon the levers of its own democracy.”—San Diego Union-Tribune

“Prodigiously industrious investigative journalist Russ Baker…. connects the dots between the Bushes and Watergate.” —Lev Grossman, Time Magazine

Praise for Russ Baker:

“In an era dominated by corporate journalism and an ideological right-wing media, Russ Baker’s work stands out for its fierce independence, fact-based reporting, and concern for what matters most to our democracy…A lot of us look to Russ to tell us what we didn’t know.” —Bill Moyers, author and host, Bill Moyers’ Journal (PBS)

“Russ Baker has the three most important attributes of any great investigative reporter: He is skeptical, he is fearless, and he is indefatigable. Whenever he examines anything—including the most allegedly wellcovered topics—he breaks important new ground.” —David Margolick, author and contributing editor, Vanity Fair

Rohirrim

08-08-2009, 09:10 AM

alkemical

08-09-2009, 08:20 AM

We really never did talk about Iran Contra affair. I wonder if now is the right time to bring that back up? I wonder what connections to our past actions / reactions connect with today's global situations?

honestly man...people dont want to hear it and dont care - look at the idiots here whod rather ridicule someone - its the american way.

ive been spending time looking at different sides of iran contra. mostly due to gary webb and his assasination. but one t hing i found interesting was - many flights came into mena, ark - while clinton was gov.

he must have really pleased the guys that are really in power.

rastaman

08-09-2009, 10:37 AM

So today my brother in law made roast beef and gave some to me for dinner. I tell you what, I was able to cut that beef with a fork, man it was good. potatoes were great, carrots awesome, dinner was nearly orgasmic tonight.

You're not a comedian.....you post is an indictment why conservatives-republicans and their corporate entities are so loathed, dispised and yes even hated around the world. Keep up the great work.

SPfloppy

08-09-2009, 10:43 AM

You're not a comedian.....you post is an indictment why conservatives-republicans and their corporate entities are so loathed, dispised and yes even hated around the world. Keep up the great work.

Since I don't think he is around to post today allow me to ask for him. Would you care to qualify that remark? I believe he was posting something absurd ti illustrate how absurd a notion the thread topic was. then again I dunno maybe he was just highjacking the thread to screw with Gaff. Either way bite my a$$ and dirty's too while your at it

rastaman

08-09-2009, 10:56 AM

actually one of thew things gaff is right on.

but americans are dumb ****ing hypocrites..so they dont care and understand what sort of impact this really has - and how its been done before.

the death squads run by coke-cola in south america is pretty ****ty.

Correction....in general there are about 30 million conservatives out of 305 millions Americans, who vote Republican and believe in Empire building so long as its for the corporate bottom line are the real dumb ****ing hypocrites. These so called Americans don't care or ignore the damage, murder, and exploitation done in our name both domestically and around the globe.

Conservative Battle Cry........"MY COUNTRY-RIGHT-OR-WRONG"

So long as conservataives in general can grill steaks, hang on to their 19th & 20th Century ideologies and howl at the moon in the name of their religion, they are so happy and content.

Sadly evolution has not been kind to these 30 million "Party First" Country second "So Called" Americans, and they have yet to join the 21st Century.

rastaman

08-09-2009, 10:58 AM

Since I don't think he is around to post today allow me to ask for him. Would you care to qualify that remark? I believe he was posting something absurd ti illustrate how absurd a notion the thread topic was. then again I dunno maybe he was just highjacking the thread to screw with Gaff. Either way bite my a$$ and dirty's too while your at it

Wow a conservative to lazy to wipe and wash his dirty VD infected AZZ.....who would have ever THUNKED!!!!!;)

SPfloppy

08-09-2009, 11:41 AM

rastaman

08-09-2009, 12:07 PM

Does it make it more appetizing for you to say it's VD infected? If so I'll talk dirty while ur down there. Anyway I wish you well on your search for the right liberal persident to usher in the dystopian society you all have fought and strove so hard for. I've done enough damage here. I am now in full retreat from this thread

I never new you were so sensitive about VD! Here's a hint....you either have VD or you don't---why dwell on it!

However, VD aside, electing the next "REAL" Liberal Democrat President will be difficult due to the stangle hold Wallstreet, the Banks, the Corporations, and powerfully old oliarchy families truly have on this country.

The voters in this country in the income brackets from minimum wage to under $100K dollars have been haplessly "Conquered and Divided" by the status quo or the 1% of the wealth who control out country.

SPfloppy

08-09-2009, 03:06 PM

I never new you were so sensitive about VD! Here's a hint....you either have VD or you don't---why dwell on it!

However, VD aside, electing the next "REAL" Liberal Democrat President will be difficult due to the stangle hold Wallstreet, the Banks, the Corporations, and powerfully old oliarchy families truly have on this country.

The voters in this country in the income brackets from minimum wage to under $100K dollars have been haplessly "Conquered and Divided" by the status quo or the 1% of the wealth who control out country.

Hey man no real offense intended but when I see a softball set-up I gotta swing;

If I got VD it was from your sister or your your mom. Cheers!

To the remainder of your post I add that old money means we have been stable for a long time. that huge amounts of capital have been here in good supply for a long time. This is indicative of a prosperous nation. Free enterprise means any of us could come upon the answer to many ills and become wealthy ourselves or fail and at least have had the opportunity. For every guy who started as a busboy and ended up owning his own resturant is an entire kitchen full of potential to do the same and they all start at the minimum wage. Not everybody can grow up to be John Elway. For them there are jobs that pay minimum wage with opportunities for advancement. Ah the American dream!

Odysseus

08-09-2009, 05:40 PM

honestly man...people dont want to hear it and dont care - look at the idiots here whod rather ridicule someone - its the american way.

ive been spending time looking at different sides of iran contra. mostly due to gary webb and his assasination. but one t hing i found interesting was - many flights came into mena, ark - while clinton was gov.

he must have really pleased the guys that are really in power.

Obama is going to rollback into Clinton II. As soon as Obama picked up the Clinton people in his campaign everything took a decidedly nastier tone.

I posted some (1984) George Orwell quotes in another thread. My favorite has always been "War is peace". Where are we now? That should not even make sense but it's crystal clear. That book is not even shocking anymore. It' more like a documentary or boring how to guide. We have devolved from not being able to ask questions to not even being able to understand them.

SPfloppy

08-09-2009, 06:48 PM

rastaman

08-09-2009, 07:43 PM

Hey man no real offense intended but when I see a softball set-up I gotta swing;

If I got VD it was from your sister or your your mom. Cheers!

Hey man....you swing at any pitch b/c you're a stealth "Switch Hitter" who has WIDE RECEIVER SKILLS!

Don't you mean if you have aids you contacted it from your grandmother, your sisters, your mom, your father or foster mothers. Who the hell knows or care. I heard Garlic oil or Oregano oil applied to a cup of warm micro waved milked might allow you to live longer should you find you have aids. But moving on to your post........

To the remainder of your post I add that old money means we have been stable for a long time. that huge amounts of capital have been here in good supply for a long time. This is indicative of a prosperous nation. Free enterprise means any of us could come upon the answer to many ills and become wealthy ourselves or fail and at least have had the opportunity. For every guy who started as a busboy and ended up owning his own resturant is an entire kitchen full of potential to do the same and they all start at the minimum wage. Not everybody can grow up to be John Elway. For them there are jobs that pay minimum wage with opportunities for advancement. Ah the American dream!

What you fail to realize the type of capitalism you are supporting and evidently have sold your miserable soul for is unsustainable! Where does Repsonsible Capitalism come into play?

Free enterprise does not equal prosperity to all who are willing to work hard. The key here is Capitalism must be conducted to ensure all who participates thru hard work can prosper and live the American dream.

Of course this is difficult to allow all to prosper if there is obsene wanton greed at every turn. Fair trade and a well regulated Capitalistic model works best in the long run for all who participates.

Republican economic theology is not complicated. Republicans intentionally transfer wealth from the poor to the rich, a kind of mix of fascism and feudalism. Yes, it's dishonest and hypocritical; they know that, and they are not troubled by it.

Here is the reality, 9 out of the last 10 recessions have happened with a Republican president in office. The best Republican on economic and job growth in the modern era was Reagan, the worst Democratic president was Jimmy Carter, yet Carter still had better job and economic growth than Reagan did. The best Republican isn't even as good as the worst Democrat on economics. It's ideology. One philosophy works, and the other one really doesn't.

alkemical

08-09-2009, 08:39 PM

Obama is going to rollback into Clinton II. As soon as Obama picked up the Clinton people in his campaign everything took a decidedly nastier tone.

I posted some (1984) George Orwell quotes in another thread. My favorite has always been "War is peace". Where are we now? That should not even make sense but it's crystal clear. That book is not even shocking anymore. It' more like a documentary or boring how to guide. We have devolved from not being able to ask questions to not even being able to understand them.

You want to hear something even scarier?

1984 is/was a documentary. I always envisioned a synergy between brave new world and 1984. I feel 1984 was more of a male pov and bnw more of a female persona of the state.

even worse - these are now outdated models. they are now obsolete with the mechanisms that 'got them to where they were'.

the tools such as doublethink and newspeak do apply - but notice how blatent they are?

I sorta like philip k ***** black iron prison metaphor.

but really - we -as the general public are 50yrs behind. good news is - there are ways out...bad news is each person has to give permission.

finnegans wake is a great tool when applied with gyson and burroughs cut up method... with some viral marketing.

Info:

Black iron prison:

Black Iron Prison

The Black Iron Prison is a concept of an all-pervasive system of social control postulated in the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura, a summary of an unpublished Gnostic exegesis included in VALIS. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALIS#Black_Iron_Prison)
“ Once, in a cheap science fiction novel, Fat had come across a perfect description of the Black Iron Prison, but set in the far future. So if you superimposed the past (ancient Rome) over the present (California in the twentieth century) and superimposed the far future world of The Android Cried Me a River over that, you got the Empire, as the supra- or trans-temporal constant. Everyone who had ever lived was literally surrounded by the iron walls of the prison; they were all inside it and none of them knew it.

SOCIAL CONTROL
Dick was always pretty paranoid. But when thieves broke into his home in 1971, it sent him over the edge. Soon he came to believe that all political tyrannies were facets of one cosmic oppressor: the Black Iron Prison, a timeless archetype that he associated with the Roman Empire. Dick sometimes thought that history was an illusion and that the Nixon administration's dirty tricks only proved that "The Empire never ended." One wonders what he would think today.

PKD quotes:

Doctor Labyrinth, like most people who read a great deal and who have too much time on their hands, had become convinced that our civilization was going the way of Rome. He saw, I think , the same cracks forming that had sundered the ancient world, the world of Greece and Rome; and it was his conviction that presently our world, our society, would pass away as theirs did, and a period of darkness would follow.

* "The Preserving Machine" (short story, 1953)

Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups...So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.

* To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement ... Whoever defeats the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus ... thereby it becomes its enemies.

They think they are free because they have never been free, and do not know what it means.

I'm working on this for the magazine -

Tetrad Management (http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/matrix.html)

Mysterious little synchronicities like these abound and soon become commonplace once you've been exposed to Dobbs. You begin to see hints of Dobbs' Tetrad Management everywhere - on license plates and old television shows, in crop circles and cigarette ads, in pinball machines and star-studded blockbuster movies... like The Matrix.

If I didn't know any better, I'd suspect that the Wachowski Bros. worked side by side with Dobbs to slip in signs of his presence throughout the course of the entire film. Keanu Reeves' character Neo (an obvious anagram for "one") is jumpstarted out of his humdrum existence by the use of synchronistic linguistics. During an interview on KPFK broadcast on September 24th, 1994, the following exchange occurs between Dobbs and an anonymous caller:

Caller: For the individual who called earlier who was wondering what you were talking about, I think you should've at least given him one word: synchronistic-linguistics. Basically that's what you're doing, you're just trying to encourage people to recognize the patterns for themselves - the ever-densifying retrievals of synchronicity.

Dobbs: You're making me feel like Rumplestiltskin. Remember how Rumplestiltskin did not want his name known? You have named me pretty accurately. Synchronistic-linguistics, if you include all technologies as linguistics, is the right term.

Caller: Yeah, exactly. And that's what Finnegans Wake presaged. That's what's so brilliant about it.

Dobbs: That's the electric environment. Dan Rather does synchronistic-linguistics. That's what Tetrad Management is, as it comes out of the DIA and the National Security Agency. That's how they manage the Global Theatre, through synchronistic linguistics which really numbs the population. So I am a mirror of that.

Caller: Well, they strive for control but the true natural phenomenon of synchronicity, as I'm often want to say, is the only thing they - whoever "they" are - can't actually control, not in the ultimate sense of Rupert Sheldrake's conceptions about morphogenesis and synchronistic patterns.

Dobbs: No, they can't control your private citadel of consciousness, and that means they can't control you, but they can control our synthetic crowd behavior. That's what you've got to realize. You've got to realize they are controlling us through synchronistic linguistics. They call it the audience participation mystique. They allow everybody to roam the planet to be what they want to be. In other words, read Marshall McLuhan's essay called "Catholic Humanism in Modern Letters" where he says the world government in 1954 understood that Finnegans Wake was the key to world management. They understood that, that early, and Marshall blew the whistle on them and they really nailed him for it.

alkemical

08-09-2009, 08:45 PM

1984 hmm....I dunno brother. I am a bushbot and I'd say that newspeak was more prevelent during Bush's admin. Besides there aren't three huge Hegemonies out there Perpetually at war. We have been for 7 years and I know that seems like forever but that is just a drop in the bucket of human history.

that is because it is an old model. look at the cold war era.....

ps - we've been at war since ive been alive. thats pretty close to perpetual war if ever i saw it....

cutthemdown

08-09-2009, 09:46 PM

alkemical

08-10-2009, 11:09 AM

I could really care less who is behind this coup. Does anyone really care? I cared because it was interesting for about 2 days then was over it.

Unless these ****ers are going to shoot it out I could care less about it. It's the most boring coup in the history of coups.

I do because it's my responsability as a citizen to care what businesses. Maybe if we paid attention, we'd see diamonds aren't really expensive and it's a created market - etc etc