Obama Memuji Islam, Budaya Islam memperkaya AS

Presiden AS Barack Obama memuji Islam sebagai bagian integral dari Amerika. Obama juga menyebut budaya Islam telah memperkaya negara yang dipimpinnya itu.

Washington, Presiden AS Barack Obama Selasa [01/09] waktu setempat memuji Islam sebagai bagian integral dari Amerika, ketika ia menjamu orang-orang Islam penting AS pada buka puasa untuk menandai bulan puasa Ramadhan.

“Bagi lebih dari satu miliar lebih umat Islam, Ramadhan adalah waktu bagi peningkatan ketaatan dan perenungan,” kata Obama, dalam pidato menyambut para tamunya di Ruang Makan Kebesaran Gedung Putih. “Buka puasa malam ini adalah ritual yang dilakukan di bulan Ramadhan ini di meja dapur dan masjid di seluruh 50 negara bagian,” kata Obama.

“Islam seperti yang kita tahu adalah bagian dari Amerika. Seperti penduduk Amerika yang lebih luas, masyarakat Muslim Amerika adalah satu dari dinamisme dan keragaman yang luar biasa.

“Pada kesempatan ini, kita merayakan bulan suci Ramadhan dan kita juga merayakan bagaimana banyak orang Islam yang telah memperkaya Amerika dan kebudayaannya di jalan yang besar dan kecil,” ujar presiden.

Di antara para tamu yang Obama puji adalah Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, seorang mahasiswi tahun pertama di University of Memphis yang mencatat lebih banyak nilai ketimbang anak perempuan dan anak laki-laki lainnya dalam sejarah bola basket sekolah menengah atas di negara bagian Massachusetts.

“Ia belum lama ini mengatakan pada seorang wartawan, ‘Saya ingin mengilhami banyak remaja putri Muslim jika mereka ingin bermain bola basket’. Apapun mungkin, mereka dapat melakukan itu juga,” kata Obama, yang dikenal mencintai olahraga itu. “Bilqis adalah inspirasi bukan hanya bagi anak-anak perempuan Muslim, ia adalah inspirasi bagi kita semua.”

Presiden juga mengakui dua anggota parlemen Muslim pertama di Kongres AS, Keith Ellison dan Andre Carson. Dalam satu pesan untuk menandai Ramadhan pekan lalu, Obama menjanjikan “tindakan konkrit” untuk memperbarui hubungan dengan negara-negara Islam, kurang dari tiga bulan setelah pidatonya yang bersejarah pada dunia Muslim di Kairo.

“Saya ingin menegaskan kembali komitmen saya pada awal baru antara Amerika dan Muslim di sekeliling dunia,” kata Obama dalam pidato video yang disiarkan ketika sekitar 1,5 umat Islam di seluruh dunia bersiap untuk melakukan satu bulan puasa dan perenungan.

Presiden itu, yang memiliki akar Muslim pada pihak keluarga ayahnya, juga menjanjikan dukungan “keras hati” pada penyelesaian dua-negara bagi konflik Palestina-Israel, serta untuk “akhir perang yang bertanggungjawab di Irak”.

Bulan puasa Ramadhan dimulai bulan lalu di sebagian besar dunia Arab dan Iran.

Umat Muslim Berkontribusi Banyak Di AS

Presiden Amerika Serikat (AS) Barack Obama menegaskan kontribusi umat Islam pada AS sudah tak terhitung banyaknya dan mereka telah menjadi bagian yang tak terpisahkan dari masyarakat dan negara.

Muslim Amerika meraih sukses dalam dunia usaha dan hiburan, dalam bidang kesenian dan olah raga, ilmu pengetahuan dan kedokteran, dan di atas itu semua, mereka merupakan orangtua yang sukses, tetangga yang baik, dan warga negara yang aktif, kata Obama saat melakukan jamuan buka puasa di Istana Kepresiden, Gedung Putih, Washington, Selasa (WIB).

“Oleh karena itu, pada kesempatan kita merayakan bulan Suci Ramadhan ini, kita juga merayakan kontribusi umat Islam dalam memperkaya Amerika dan kebudayaannya, baik sumbangan besar maupun kecil,” katanya seperti dikutip siaran pers Kedubes AS di Jakarta, Rabu.

Obama lalu bercerita tentang putra Elsheba Khan yang bernama Kareem yang melakukan pengorbanan besar bagi negaranya ketika ia gugur di Irak. Kareem menjadi tentara setelah ia menamatkan sekolah menengah. Dalam karirnya, ia dianugerahi tanda jasa ‘Purple Heart dan Bronze Star’. Ia pun dikagumi oleh rekan-rekannya sesama tentara.

Presiden Obama mengutip Elsheba mengenai putranya, dengan mengatakan, “Ia selalu ingin membantu dengan cara apapun yang ia bisa.” Malam ini, ia telah dikebumikan di tengah-tengah ribuan pahlawan lain di Pemakaman Nasional Arlington. Sebuah tanda berbentuk bulan sabit terukir di batu nisannya, sebagaimana tanda salib Kristen atau bintang Yahudi terukir pada batu-batu nisan lainnya, katanya.

Orang-orang Amerika yang gagah berani ini dipersatukan dalam kematian sebagaimana mereka dipersatukan ketika masih hidup — oleh sebuah komitmen pada negara dan nilai-nilai yang dianut warga AS.

“Salah satu dari nilai-nilai tersebut adalah kebebasan untuk menjalankan agama Anda – sebuah hak yang tercantum dalam Amandemen Pertama Konstitusi kita,” katanya.

Ia juga menceritakan, Nashala Hearn dari Muskogee, Oklahoma, yang bergabung mempertahankan hak tersebut di usianya yang belia. Ketika sekolah melarangnya mengenakan jilbab, ia memprotes dengan mengatakan bahwa jilbab adalah bagian dari agamanya. Departemen Kehakiman mendukungnya, dan ia memenangkan haknya untuk menjalankan keyakinannya.

Ia bahkan melawat ke Washington untuk memberikan kesaksian di hadapan Kongres. Kesaksiannya mengatakan bahwa toleransi jauh lebih mulia ketimbang ketidakpercayaan – dan ketika ia pertama kali mengenakan jilbab ke sekolah, ia bilang, “saya menerima pujian dari anak-anak lain”.

Wanita muda lain yang telah bekerja keras di sekolahnya adalah Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir. Bilqis telah memecahkan rekor Rebecca Lobo untuk nilai skor terbanyak yang dihasilkan oleh pemain bola basket Sekolah Menengah Atas dalam sejarah Massachusetts.

Baru-baru ini ia berkata kepada wartawan, “Saya benar-benar ingin menginspirasi banyak gadis muda muslim kalau mereka ingin bermain basket. Segala sesuatu itu mungkin. Mereka juga bisa melakukannya.”

Sebagai siswa kehormatan, dan seorang atlet yang menuju ke Memphis, Bilqis merupakan sebuah inspirasi bukan hanya bagi gadis-gadis muslim – tetapi ia adalah inspirasi bagi semua warga AS.

“Tentu saja kita semua tahu apabila kita bicara tentang atlet yang telah menginspirasi Amerika, maka semua daftar akan mencantumkan seorang atlet yang dikenal dengan sebutan Yang Terhebat (The Greatest). Sayangnya, Muhammad Ali tidak bisa bergabung dengan kita di sini,” kata Obama.

“Tetapi sangatlah bermakna untuk bercermin pada kontribusinya luar biasa, karena ia tumbuh dari seorang petarung yang tiada tandingannya di ring tinju hingga menjadi seorang pria yang bermartabat dan berwibawa yang terus memperjuangkan keyakinannya -dan itu termasuk pemikiran bahwa semua orang dengan keyakinan berbeda memiliki sesuatu yang sama.”

Presiden AS lalu mengutip ungkapan Ali dengan mengatakan, beberapa tahun lalu ia menguraikan pandangannya – dan ini merupakan bagian mengapa ia adalah Yang Terhebat – ketika mengatakan, “Sungai, kolam, danau dan kali – semuanya mempunyai nama yang berbeda, tetapi mereka semua berisi air. Sama seperti agama – mereka berisi kebenaran.”

Semuanya mengandung sejumlah kebenaran. Dan di antara kebenaran-kebenaran tersebut ada keinginan bersama untuk hidup damai dan mendapatkan pengakuan atas martabat sebagai manusia. Hal-hal tersebut harus menjadi dasar untuk menemukan kebersamaan.

“Itulah sebabnya saya sangat bahagia karena pada malam ini kita tidak saja didampingi oleh begitu banyak pemeluk Islam Amerika yang terpandang serta perwakilan dari korps diplomatik, namun juga ada hadirin dari agama-agama lainnya – seperti pemeluk Kristen, Yahudi dan Hindu – yang duduk bersama di antara begitu banyak tokoh muslim terkemuka,” katanya.

Ia mengatakan, secara bersama-sama warga AS memiliki tanggung jawab untuk memelihara hubungan baik berdasarkan kepentingan bersama dan rasa saling menghargai.

“Dan itulah salah satu komitmen dasar saya sebagai Presiden, baik di dalam maupun di luar negeri. Hal ini menjadi inti dari awal hubungan baru yang saya inginkan antara Amerika dan kaum muslim di seluruh dunia. Dan ini adalah sebuah komitmen yang kita semua dapat perbarui lagi dalam bulan suci ini,” lanjutnya.

“Malam ini kita memberikan penghargaan kepada sebuah agama yang agung, agama yang berkomitmen pada keadilan dan kemajuan. Kita hargai juga kontribusi dari muslim-muslim di Amerika, dan suri teladan yang telah mereka berikan pada kehidupan kita. Dan kita perbarui dedikasi kita bersama untuk membangun sebuah dunia yang lebih baik dan penuh harapan,” kata Obama.

Acara berbuka puasa tersebut, yang juga ketika itu sedang dilakukan di meja-meja makan dan mesjid-mesjid di seluruh 50 negara bagian AS, dihadiri, antara lain, oleh para korps diplomatik, Menteri Pertahanan, Jaksa Agung, sejumlah pejabat pemerintah, serta para anggota Kongres, termasuk dua anggota muslim yang pertama kali menjadi anggota Kongres–Keith Ellison dan Andre Carson.

Puji Batik

Presiden Amerika Serikat Barack Obama, Selasa malam waktu setempat, di sela berbuka puasa bersama para duta besar negara berpenduduk Muslim di Gedung Putih, Washington DC, memuji batik. Ketika itu, Obama memuji pakaian batik yang dikenakan Duta Besar RI untuk AS, Sudjadnan Parnohadingrat.

Seperti dituturkan Sudjanan ketika dihubungi ANTARA dari New York pada Selasa malam, acara di Gedung Putih itu dihadiri oleh sekitar 90 tamu undangan yang terdiri atas duta besar negara-negara dengan jumlah penduduk Muslim terbanyak serta tokoh-tokoh masyarakat Islam AS.

Buka puasa bersama juga dihadiri oleh pejabat tinggi AS, antara lain Menteri Pertahanan Robert Gates, Menteri Kesehatan Kathleen Sebelius, dan Jaksa Agung Eric Holder.

Setelah adzan Maghrib, para undangan berbuka dengan minuman dan kurma.

Para tamu beragama Islam kemudian melakukan shalat Maghrib dan setelah itu bergabung dengan tamu undangan lainnya memasuki ruangan tempat mereka dijamu makan malam.

Untuk makan malam, para tamu disuguhi menu ayam panggang dan “mashed potato”, pudding, serta minuman campuran buah-buahan.

Presiden Obama kemudian tampil menyampaikan pidato singkat, yang pada intinya ia menyampaian penghargaan kepada umat Muslim di AS yang menurutnya banyak memberikan kontribusi kemasyarakatan.

Obama juga mengingatkan bahwa berbagai agama pada intinya sama-sama membawa kebenaran. Ia menggambarkannya seperti sungai atau danau –yang kesemuanya sama-sama merupakan tempat yang terdiri atas air.

Batik

Menurut Sudjadnan, acara berbuka puasa bersama berlangsung secara sederhana namun sarat makna. ”Acaranya sederhana tapi suasananya enak dengan disampaikannya pidato oleh Presiden Obama,” kata Dubes RI.

Dalam acara tersebut, Obama juga berkesempatan mengunjungi meja-meja untuk menyalami para tamunya, termasuk Dubes Sudjadnan.

“Seperti biasa, beliau menjawab sapaan dengan Bahasa Indonesia. Beliau mengatakan ‘Kabar saya baik’. Beliau juga menyampaikan salam kembali untuk Presiden (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, red),” kata Sudjadnan.

Pakaian batik yang dikenakan oleh Dubes Sudjadnan tak luput dari perhatian Obama. ”Beliau mengatakan pakaian saya bagus dan batik yang saya kenakan bagus,” ungkap Sudjadnan, yang pada malam itu mengenakan kemeja batik dengan motif tradisional serta peci hitam.

Dalam undangan, pakaian yang dianjurkan kepada para tamu untuk menghadiri acara berbuka puasa bersama di Gedung Putih itu adalah pakaian resmi atau pakaian nasional. “Saya sengaja memakai batik agar makin banyak yang tahu bahwa batik sebenarnya berasal dari dan merupakan ciri khas Indonesia,” kata Sudjadnan.

KBRI Washington DC bersama keluarga adik Obama –Maya Soetoro Ng– baru-baru ini selesai memamerkan koleksi batik Indonesia peninggalan ibunda Presiden Obama dan Maya Soetora, mendiang Ann Dunham, di enam kota besar di AS, yaitu di Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, New York dan Washington DC.

[Via http://samudro.wordpress.com]

The Honduras Crisis Simply Won't Go Quietly Into That Good Night

Today, Secretary Clinton is meeting with ousted Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya. At issue is the current impasse between Zelaya, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the de-facto, illegitimate government of Roberto Micheletti. Also at issue is millions in aid which current law stipulates must be cut-off, should the State Department find that a military coup has in fact taken place. Some are beginning to wonder what exactly is taking so long given the US generally responds very quickly in cutting off funds to de-facto regimes where coups have taken place.

I’ve blogged about the coup in Honduras in varying degreeshere, here, here and here.

Reasonable people may disagree about whether leftist President Manuel Zelaya is good for Honduras, good for Latin America and good for the United States and people may also disagree about the implications of Zelaya’s recent political love-affair of sorts with Venezuela’s colorful leftist leader, Hugo Chavez. But that is really neither here nor there, or at least it shouldn’t be the issue (although someone forgot to tell the Republicans in Congress that). That said, it’s difficult to argue that the way in which President Zelaya was removed from office, ie. the military surrounding him in his bed in the middle of the night, guns drawn and skirting him off, against his will to another country, comports with any long-established democratic principles. This is why almost the entire international community and certainly those who consider themselves democracies, have been united in condemning the coup.

Does any of this mean President Zelaya is a great guy who had no intention of subverting Honduran law to try to increase term limits or do some other dasterdly deed? Of course not. I honestly don’t know exactly what Zelaya was up to but what I do know is that there is more to this issue than simply left vs. right ideology, which unfortunately, is how it seems to be being viewed.

Some people argue that because Zelaya broke the law and because the Honduran Supreme Court “ordered” his removal from office, the coup was therefore de facto legal. They argue that Zelaya had sought to change the constitution in a way deemed impermissible by the courts in Honduras. That argument ignores several key factors highlighted below. The first is that President Zelaya had not violated the constitution- at least not yet. I think this article does a nice job cutting through the political rhetoric and explaining exactly what Zelaya was planning to do:

Americans, relying on media reports, are likely to believe that Zelaya was ousted because he tried to use a referendum to extend his term of office. This is false.

Zelaya’s referendum, planned for the day the coup took place, was a nonbinding poll. It only asked voters if they wanted to have an actual referendum on reforming the country’s Constitution on the November ballot. Even if Zelaya had gotten everything he was looking for, a new president would have been elected on the same November ballot. So Zelaya would be out of office in January, no matter what steps were taken toward constitutional reform. Further, Zelaya has repeatedly said that if the Constitution were changed, he would not seek another term.

[snip]

So it’s up to Obama to do the right thing. He can have the U.S. Treasury freeze the coup leaders’ personal bank accounts and the assets of the coup leaders and their supporters, and deny them visas to the United States. He could also impose trade sanctions — 70 of Honduran exports go to the United States. He would have worldwide support for such steps: Both the Organization of American States and the U.N. General Assembly have voted unanimously to demand the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of Zelaya.

Almost all of the Latin American governments — which are mostly left of center — also sympathize with Zelaya because he is a reform president fighting against a corrupt oligarchy. In one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, he raised the minimum wage by 60 percent and increased teachers’ salaries and public pensions, as well as access to education.

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.[emphasis added]

The above high-lighted portion is key because it specifies what Zelaya had in mind- a non-binding poll as opposed to a referendum. Even assuming what Zelaya was planning was illegal, we (ie. democracies) generally don’t remove duly-elected presidents from office at gunpoint because of planning to do something which may be deemed illegal. Additionally, even if the Honduran courts were empowered to prevent Zelaya’s actions (similar to a US court issuing an injunction to prevent further harm while the legal issues are ironed out), generally some sort of adversarial proceedings [where both parties get to make their case and present whatever evidence allowed by the particular court] take place.

Now, I am not an expert on Honduran law but it seems to me that the issue of the legality of a “non-binding poll” vs. a referendum to per se extend Zelaya’s period in office, is exactly the type of issue which adversarial proceedings could adjudicate, after which a formal legal opinion could issue forth and all parties would go from there. As far as I have been able to tell, no such adversarial proceedings took place. Instead, the court deemed Zelaya’s actions (which was actually a plan to act) a per se violation of law without any opportunity for him to make his case in court and instead of even being arrested, he was forcibly removed from office by the military and taken to another country. I don’t want to oversimplify the legal issues involved because just as with anything, nothing is simply black and white and certainly shades of gray exist in this case, but it seems that politics has trumped reason. Just ask yourself this- if President Zelaya had been a conservative, right-leaning leader who vocally opposed the policies of Hugo Chavez and he been overthrown by a leftist, would Republicans and others be supporting the legality of the coup? Of course not.

When looking at the politics of Latin America, some historical context is helpful and about two weeks ago, the Nation Magazine provided that context to help understand what may be going on behind the scenes in the current conflict:

… In the 1980s Honduras served as a staging ground for Ronald Reagan’s anticommunist operations in neighboring Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala and as a portal for New Right Christians to roll back liberation theology. Central America’s anticommunist crusade became something of a death-squad Da Vinci Code, pulling together a carnivalesque cast that included first-generation neocons, Latin American torturers, local oligarchs, anti-Castro Cubans, mercenaries, Opus Dei ideologues and pulpit-thumping evangelicals.

The campaign to oust Zelaya and prevent his restoration has reunited old comrades from that struggle, including shadowy figures like Fernando “Billy” Joya (who in the 1980s was a member of Battalion 316, a Honduran paramilitary unit responsible for the disappearance of hundreds, and who now works as Micheletti’s security adviser) and Iran/Contra veterans like Otto Reich (who ran Reagan’s Office of Public Diplomacy, which misused public money to manipulate public opinion to support the Contra war against Nicaragua). The Honduran generals who deposed Zelaya received their military training at the height of the region’s dirty wars, including courses at the notorious School of the Americas. And the current crisis reveals a familiar schism between conservative Catholic hierarchs and evangelical Protestants who back the coup, on the one hand, and progressive Christians who are being hounded by security forces, on the other.

[snip]

In Honduras, Zelaya shook things up by raising the minimum wage and apologizing for the executions of street children and gang members carried out by security forces in the 1990s. He moved to reduce the US military presence and refused to privatize Hondutel, the state-owned telecommunications firm, a deal that Micheletti, as president of Congress, pushed.

Zelaya also vetoed legislation, likewise supported by Micheletti, that would have banned sale of the morning-after pill. Considering Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s shameful support of the Catholic Church’s position on abortion, which resulted in legislation mandating up to thirty-year jail terms for women who receive them, this was perhaps Zelaya’s most courageous move. He also accepted foreign aid, in the form of low-cost petroleum, from Venezuela. It would be impossible to overstate the Central American ruling class’s hatred of Chávez, whose hand is seen behind every peasant protest and every call to democratize the region’s politics and economics. The president of a Honduran business council recently said Chávez “had Honduras in his mouth. He was a cat with a mouse that got away.”

The fixation on Chávez usefully diverts attention from the gnawing poverty in the region, as well as from the failure of the neoliberal economic model promoted by Washington in recent decades. Forty percent of Central Americans, and more than 50 percent of Hondurans, live in poverty. The Chávez mania also distracts from the fact that under Washington’s equally disastrous “war on drugs,” crime cartels, deeply rooted in the military and traditional oligarchic families, have rendered much of Central America into what the Washington Office on Latin America calls “captive states.”

For the White House, Honduras is proving to be an unexpectedly difficult foreign-policy test. After condemning the coup, Obama handed the crisis to the State Department. Rather than working with the Organization of American States (OAS), Secretary of State Clinton unilaterally charged Oscar Arias with brokering a compromise, ignoring the concerns of most other Latin American governments that negotiations would grant too much legitimacy to the coup. Clinton has so far been unwilling to apply a range of possible sanctions, including freezing the bank accounts of those who carried out the coup, to force Micheletti to accept the Arias plan. And for those who see Micheletti as the last line against the spread of Chavismo–be it in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador or elsewhere in the Americas–the return of Zelaya, even just to finish the few months left in his term, is unacceptable.

In the late 1970s the Sandinista revolution revealed the limits of Jimmy Carter’s tolerance of Third World nationalism. The more Carter tried to appease hawks in his administration, the more he was accused of vacillating, thus paving the way for neoconservatives, under Reagan, to use Central America to showcase their hard line.

A similar dynamic is taking place today. Republicans have rallied around Micheletti, sending a Congressional delegation led by Connie Mack to visit Tegucigalpa. Taking a page out of the Latin American right’s playbook, they have red-baited Obama by associating him with Chávez. Obama, said Texas Senator John Cornyn, “must stand with the Honduran people, not with Hugo Chávez.” It’s the kind of grandstanding that Republicans, absent a domestic agenda, have come to rely on. Venezuela’s position on Honduras is identical to that of Brazil and Chile–and, for that matter, the European Union. But the right-wing attacks are effective, largely because self-described liberals repeatedly indulge in the demonization not just of Chávez, as Lanny Davis recently did, but of leftists like Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador.

In early August the State Department seemed to give ground to Republicans, stating in a letter to Republican Senator Richard Lugar that Zelaya’s “provocative actions…unleashed the events that led to his removal.” This statement, as well as other tepid efforts to pressure Micheletti, bodes ill for the Obama administration’s willingness to stand up to right-wing pressure.

[snip]

The failure to restore Zelaya to power will send a clear message to Latin American conservatives that Washington will tolerate coups, provided they are carried out under a democratic guise…

All of the above is why the current situation in Honduras seems to be, at least to hear the media, the pundits and the politicians tell it, less about the facts and more about whether one agrees with the leftist policies of Hugo Chavez and Manuel Zelaya and continuing to enable certain trade policies and powerful, monied business interests in Latin America. Make no mistake, when one looks at the supporters of Zelaya and the supporters of Micheletti, the class implications are difficult to ignore:

…it’s no secret that the President was at odds politically with the Honduran elite for the past few years and had become one of Washington’s fiercest critics in the region.

Zelaya committed his first sin when he began to criticize the media and owners of sweatshops which “produced goods for export in industrial free zones.” Kozloff reports that Zelaya began to adopt some socially progressive policies that included a minimum wage, drug legalization, and bilateral relations with Cuba. Zelaya sealed his fate when he joined the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, an alliance of leftist Latin American and Caribbean nations headed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.

The Hondurans have reacted to this coup with as much gusto as the Iranians did during their supposed election fraud. The military has shut down public transportation and put up roadblocks to prevent protesters from reaching the capital. ¡Presente!’s Kristin Bricker writes that unknown numbers of citizens have taken to the streets, and she even includes photos in her report that are available for the taking by any network (CNN, MSNBC, FOX).

Somehow, the U.S. media isn’t picking up on these details. A democratically elected president has been ousted by a military strongly supported and trained by the US government as apparent punishment for his adoption of progressive ideals. Where is the outrage, or at the least, the intrigue? Where are the solidarity movements?

…

One rather large problem the Micheletti government is having with respect to ensuring it’s democratic legitimacy in the face of international outrage, is that it essentially admitted it should have arrested President Zelaya[ie. initiated the democratic, adversarial legal process] rather than invoking the military and forcibly removing him from office:

Acting Honduran President Roberto Micheletti said forcing deposed President Manuel Zelaya to leave the country, instead of arresting him, was a mistake.

“There was an error by a certain sector,” Micheletti said today in an interview in Tegucigalpa. “It wasn’t correct. We have to punish whoever allowed that to happen. The rest was framed within what the constitution requires.”

Micheletti repeated that the military was following the law when soldiers seized Zelaya at his house early June 28 because he had ignored court rulings and was illegally seeking to change the constitution in order to run for office again. A mistake was made when Zelaya, still wearing pajamas, was put on a plane to Costa Rica instead of being held for trial, Micheletti said.

[snip]

Supporters of the interim government say that Zelaya became too closely aligned with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his plan for “21st-century socialism” after being elected in 2005. Zelaya signed the nation up for aid programs including Petrocaribe, which offered oil at discounted prices.

Approval of his government fell to a record 30 percent in February from a high of 57 percent in January 2007, according to a nationwide poll by CID-Gallup.

Honduras’s business leaders are “paranoid about Chavez, and that’s probably unwarranted,” said Kevin Casas Zamora, a former vice president of Costa Rica and fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The real and perceived closeness between Zelaya and Hugo Chavez is the absolute essence of this crisis as seen from the lens of the Honduran elite.”

…

Given the military overthrow of Zelaya and the Micheletti government’s resulting crack-down on the media and civil liberties such as freedom to assemble and freedom of speech, not to mention the imprisonment and abuse of pro-Zelaya supporters, one would think the American media would be all over this issue, particularly given it comes on the heels of having watched protesters in the streets of Iran being beaten and killed by a government intent on squelching dissent. Yes, one would think. But one would be wrong. The media and the Obama administration itself have been eerily silent about the human rights abuses taking place right this minute in Honduras. So, what gives? Perhaps this:

But when viewed from the closer physical (Miami is just 800 miles from Honduras) and historical proximity of the United States, the differences between Iran and Honduras are marked and clear in important ways: the M-16’s pointing at this very moment at the thousands of peaceful protesters are paid for with U.S. tax dollars and still carry a “Made in America” label; the military airplane in which they kidnapped and exiled President Zelaya was purchased with the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid the Honduran government has been the benefactor of since the Cold War military build-up that began in 1980’s; the leader of the coup, General Romeo Vasquez, and many other military leaders repressing the populace received “counterinsurgency” training at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the infamous “School of the Americas,” responsible for training those who perpetrated the greatest atrocities in the Americas.

The big difference between Iran and Honduras? President Obama and the U.S. can actually do something about a military crackdown that our tax dollars are helping pay for. That Vasquez and other coup leaders were trained at the WHINSEC, which also trained Agusto Pinochet and other military dictators responsible for the deaths, disappearances, tortures of hundreds of thousands in Latin America, sends profound chills throughout a region still trying to overcome decades U.S.-backed militarism.

Hemispheric concerns about the coup were expressed in the rapid, historic and almost universal condemnation of the plot by almost all Latin American governments. Such concerns in the region represent an opportunity for the United States. But, while the Honduran coup represents a major opportunity for Obama to make real his recent and repeated calls for a “new” relationship to the Americas, failure to take actions that send a rapid and unequivocal denunciation of the coup will be devastating to the Honduran people — and to the still-fragile U.S. image in the region.

Recent declarations by the Administration — expressions of “concern” by the President and statements by Secretary of State Clinton recognizing Zelaya as the only legitimate, elected leader of Honduras — appear to indicate preliminary disapproval of the putsch. Yet, the even more unequivocal statements of condemnation from U.N. President Miguel D’Escoto, the Organization of American States, the European Union, and the Presidents of Argentina, Costa Rica and many other governments raise greatly the bar of expectation before the Obama Administration…[emphasis added]

As usual, the media has been ignoring the plight of the most economically disadvantaged of the pro-Zelaya supporters in Honduras, and particularly it’s women:

On the morning of June 28, women’s organizations throughout Honduras were preparing to promote a yes vote on the national survey to hold a Constitutional Assembly. Then the phones lines started buzzing.

In this poor Central American nation, feminists have been organizing for years in defense of women’s rights, equality and against violence. When the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya was forcibly exiled by the armed forces, women from all over the country spontaneously organized to protect themselves and their families and demand a return to democracy. They called the new umbrella organization “Feminists in Resistance.”

On Aug. 18, Feminists in Resistance sat down with women from the international delegation for Women’s Human Rights Week, which they organized to monitor and analyze human rights violations and challenges for the organization. One after another they told their stories in a long session that combined group therapy and political analysis–a natural mix at this critical point in Honduran history and the history of their movement.

Miriam Suazo relates the events of the day of the coup. “On the 28th, women began calling each other, saying ‘what’s happening?’” At first no-one really understood the full extent of the coup, she says, but networks mobilized quickly and women began to gather to share information and plan actions. Independent feminists and feminists from different organizations immediately identified with each other and with the rising resistance to the coup. They began going out to help those who had been beaten and to trace individuals arrested by security forces.

For some, the shock of waking up to a coup d’état wasn’t new.

“This is my third coup,” relates Marielena. “I was girl when the coup in 1963 happened. Then I lived through the coup in 1972. We lived in front of a school and I saw how my mother faced the bullets, we thought they were going to kill her… Later in the university in the ’80s I lived through the repression with many of the women here… So this has revived the story of my life.”

There is a saying in Honduras about the Central American dirty war that “While the U.S. had its eye on Nicaragua and its hands in El Salvador, it had its boot on Honduras.” For the older women who remember the terror of that time when over 200 people were disappeared and hundreds tortured and assassinated, the current coup stirs up deep fears. Gilda Rivera, director of the Center for Women’s Rights in Tegucigalpa, says, “I’ve had a messed-up life. I was among the students kidnapped by Billy Joya in the ’80s… Now I’ve been to the border twice, I’ve lived with a curfew over my head. Sometimes I wake up alone, terrified…”

Ah, yes, the women. They always seem to get hit the hardest in situations like these, don’t they? And as usual, the media has been eerily silent about their plight.

Very soon today Secretary Clinton will be meeting with President Zelaya and I think that if anyone can broker some sort of solution that does not involve completely validating the Micheletti government’s actions, she can.

[Via http://secretaryclinton.wordpress.com]

Are health insurers too profitable?

According to one report:

Health insurers, in fact, ranked below many other industries in profitability, including other health sectors, according to the latest Fortune magazine rankings. While pharmaceutical companies were the third-most profitable industry last year, with a 19.3 percent profit margin, health insurers ranked 35th, with a 2.2 percent profit margin. Health insurers also ranked lower in profitability than medical products and equipment makers, pharmacies and medical facilities.

Click here for a previous post on the topic.

HT: Marginal Revolution

[Via http://freemarketmojo.wordpress.com]

The Art of Language

It’s now in the papers that because of the “unexpected” thumping that President Obama and the Democrats got in August over the Health Care bill that “sources say” the President will not push for the “Public Option” (formerly National Health Care until that became a politically unpopular phrase so they changed it, in pure Orwellian fashion).

First off, let me state, I’m one of those people who believe the less government in any of our lives the better. Period.

Why was it “unexpected”?

An interesting choice of words and an interesting show of the mind set. Why would people be unhappy with reforming Health Care?

We just wanna help the poor, the uninsured…:)

Who could be against that?

Well, when you try to read that 1000+ monster that is HR 3200, you know why. I have tried. It’s duller than a bowling ball.

And the simple fact is that there isn’t actually a real “plan” out there, just all these various bills, from BOTH Parties (not that the “Mainstream” Media will tell you that) doesn’t help. And the Democrats can’t articulate their vision (because if they did no would buy it so let’s be vague and sneaky–didn’t work– so we have to come up with a new plan to be vague and sneaky).

So there is no coherent plan. That way, we can speak in generalities, and euphemisms, like “Hope and Change”.

But it was crafted by the Democrats to be “competition” for private health care.

So they are competing for the uninsured? the poor who can’t afford it? (and the illegal aliens, but we don’t want to talk about them…) because if you have a plan you like, you can keep it – so the Democrats say (but HR3200 clearly disagrees with that but you aren’t suppose to notice that and if you do you’re “Un-American” “Racist” “stupid” and a “mob” whipped by paid organizers!!).

So, a program that is run by the government (but it’s not “government run” health care according to Obama earlier this year) that doesn’t actually have to show any profit because it can just either print more money or raise taxes (or cut services!) if it spirals out of control on spending (and when does that ever happen! ) is going to “fairly” compete with private enterprise?

Think about that one for a moment.

If  Government has no money until it takes it from you. Then, logically, it has a completely unfair advantage.

Which is the point. But you’re not suppose to notice that.

It’s the Unfair “fair” competition. Orwell would be proud.

Be careful of words. They have power. Both good and bad.

Then there’s always  “sources say”, it such a cowardly way of leaking something you want out there but you want neither credit or blame if they mislead you in the end.

And then there’s the “public option”, aka National Health Care. Which they tried to call “Co-Ops” and now they are saying that the President will not recommend it any longer.

But he will, just not by that name. Time for a new Orwellian code word.

And since President’s don’t write legislation (unless you’re George W. Bush that is-then he wrote everything and forced Congress to pass it- they were the victims!), he can recommend all he wants, but Congress writes it.

More word games.

Be careful of the words, after all, considering Obama has wanted this as far back as his Senatorial Campaign to just give up is unlikely. What is more likely is more strategic Orwellian word game.

Not to mention, putting the blame on Congress (after he let them craft it and it blow up in his face) for the whole debacle and he strides in on his horse and saves the day for the people by appearing to be Presidential.

From the Politico:

On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.

“We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,” an aide said. “There are lots of different ways to get there.”

So you have to see through the smoke to the mirrors.

So Obama is going to slay the evil dragon that is Congress and save the People from their horrible bill (the one he let Congress craft in a “bi-Partisan” fashion so that they could plop it on his desk and he could sign it and be a hero of the people). Ta da!

Notice the turn of phrase here about Obama wanting to confront Congress on “no health care law than an incremental one” (and several Democrats, Like Nancy Pelosi have said that if their was no “public Option” there would be no bill worth doing) is the same argument that the Democrats have been trying for the last month on the Republicans saying they don’t want any change at all because they are opposed to the Democrats “Public Option”.

Curiouser, and Curiouser.

Yet, a scaled down, most like highly suspect cousin of the “public option” will sneak through just because the Democrats feel they must do it anyways. And that way, they get their foot in the door and Obama looks like a hero.

Congress can afford to be the goat in this game of Judas.

Obama can’t, not after losing 1/3 of his popularity in the polls over this mess.

And he still has Wall Street to bash in, Cap and Trade, and Amnesty.

He needs to be popular again, so Congress has to suffer the slings and arrows, so much the better for him if he’s seen chucking a few of them himself.

A real Hero of The Pipples!  (”History of the World Part 1″ reference)

And the 180 degree turn will be artfully crafted and The Ministry of Truth will be out in force to give their guy a make-over.

And they won’t even notice.

And that is the art of Newspeak:

The underlying theory of Newspeak is that if something can’t be said, then it can’t be thought.

Illegal Aliens, becomes Undocumented Immigrant, becomes Immigrant without Documentation,becomes Immigrant.

National Health Care becomes Public Option, becomes Co-Op,becomes Health Care Reform, becomes whatever they come up with next.

Global Cooling (1975), becomes Global Warming, because Global Climate Change, becomes Climate Change.

Gee, the Climate changes? I hadn’t noticed?

And that’s man’s fault!

Truly horrific….:)

Then there’s my other favourite in the manipulation of language: Crimestop

“The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short….protective stupidity.”

Does this sound like political correctness and the Mainstream Media to you?

Or is it just me, the kid who used to read the fine print on the TV ads just to see what they actually meant?

Read them sometime, they can be quite hilarious.

[Via http://indyfromaz.wordpress.com]

"Change" at the mall!

I’m walking around the mall, and to my surprise, I find two pennies and a nickel!  This is my lucky day!  After finding these three wonderful pieces of metal, I walk around, pondering whether to go back for more happy hour appetizers at Applebee’s (I highly recommend the BBQ pork sliders), and it hits me:  I am essentially using some stranger’s money, without them knowing I’ve got it, and  will eventually use it to buy something from someone else.  In my case though, I’ll just leave some extra pennies in at a gas station, or something of the sort.  Nearly everyone goes to get gas, a coffee, or something in the convenient store portion of it.  In my case, EVERYONE actually has a chance of moving up in life, albeit a penny or two at a time, but progress is progress.

This whole thing reminds me of something else going on nowadays, with essentially the same result in the end.

• Someone is taking somebody’s money, and claiming it as their own.
• They are then spending it on something that the rightful owner would never spend it on.
• They are claiming it could help everyone in the long run.
• They agree these results may vary.

The moral of the story:  It must be OK to gamble with money that doesn’t belong to you.  Just don’t call it gambling, risk taking, or taking a chance.  Call it stimulation.  People seem to get excited about that.

-RR

[Via http://randomrobotrants.wordpress.com]

Poll: Obama Approval Plummets

Zogby: Obama Approval Plummets to 42 Percent

Aug.31,2009

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating is down to 42%, with a decline in approval from Democrats the leading factor.

The latest Zogby Interactive poll of 4,518 likely voters conducted from August 28-31 found 48% disapprove and 42% approve of the job Obama is doing. The poll found 75% of Democrats approve of Obama’s performance, a drop of 13 points among Democrats from an interactive poll done July 21-24 of this year. That same poll found 48% of all likely voters approving of Obama’s job performance, and 49% disapproving. poll here

[Via http://riffenberg.wordpress.com]

Health-Care Anger Has Deeper Roots - WSJ.com

SEPTEMBER 1, 2009

Health-Care Anger Has Deeper Roots

By JANET ADAMY and JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON — Recent town-hall uproars weren’t just about health care. They were also eruptions of concern that the government is taking on too much at once.

That suggests trouble for the president and his party, and fears of losses in next year’s midterm election are likely to shape the Democrats’ fall agenda.

The uproar at town-hall meetings in August has been as much about the role of government as it has been about the health overhaul, WSJ’s Janet Adamy reports.

At August’s town-hall meetings, voters often started with complaints about health care, only to shift to frustrations about all the other things President Barack Obama and the Democrats have done or tried to do since January. The $787 billion economic-stimulus package, the government-led rescue of General Motors Corp. and climate-change legislation all came in for criticism.

“A lot of the anxiety we face here has less to do with health care and everything to do with the overall state of the economy and government,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat.

via Health-Care Anger Has Deeper Roots – WSJ.com.

[Via http://sroblog.com]