Link to source

 Well, in ten minutes it's hard to say a great deal, above all when referring to a process as rich and as complicated as this. Of the three themes that are established here, it appears to me that the least important is the first one, the most important are the second and third, that is, a critical and self-critical evaluation of this process and to think a bit about the things that can be done. But the second is a pre-requisite for the third, that is, firstly we need to carry out a critical evaluation in order to then think about what can be done. Therefore, I'm going to refer fundamentally to a critical evaluation of this process, beginning with what Juan Carlos Monedero said a little while ago, which is something I agree with: there has to be space for criticism here, we have to lose our fear of making criticisms due to any dismissive insult of what we say.  

Link to source

A few months back, in “From State Secrets to War to Wiretaps: Two Sides of the Same Coin�, former FBI language specialist and also the founder / director of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, Sibel Edmonds reflected upon the first leg of the Obama administration. It was not a settling pensivity.

Link to source

 Capitalism’s biggest crisis since the 1930s raises the question of what can replace it.

A SPECTER is haunting capitalism. As the world economy plunges into its worst crisis since the Great Depression, political discourse in the United States has been dominated by a discussion of socialism. John McCain accused Barack Obama of supporting socialist policies during last year’s presidential election campaign. Since then scores of right-wing pundits and talk show hosts have been screaming that the new administration, with its stimulus bill, bank bailout plan, and unprecedented budget deficits is turning America into either a European socialist state or a Leninist dictatorship.

Link to source

 In his new book, "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order," F. William Engdahl explained a new form of US covert warfare - first played out in Belgrade, Serbia in 2000. What appeared to be "a spontaneous and genuine political 'movement,' (in fact) was the product of techniques" developed in America over decades.

Sunday 28th-29th night will be a key moment for the Honduran army  and President Zelaya’s future.

Some Sunday Facts

On his early afternoon television program of Sunday 28th, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez talked, to a Honduran peasant leader, Rafael Alegría.

President Chávez reminded the listener’s of the need of the coup’s army to return to the legal frame of the country.

Chávez also recommended the army men, especially the young soldiers and officials who are not personally committed to the Honduran oligarchy and US Army School of the Americas training project, not to accept to be used by the reactionary forces behind the coup.

Link to source

 President Zelaya of Honduras has just been kidnapped

[Note: As of 11:15am, Caracas time, President Zelaya is speaking live on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He has verified the soldiers entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup. He was forced to go with the soldiers who took him to the air base and flew him to Costa Rica. He has requested the U.S. Government make a public statement condemning the coup, otherwise, it will indicate their compliance.]

Caracas, Venezuela - The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’etat underway in Honduras, spread the word.� It’s a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today’s scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.

Caracas - Source Telesur in Spanish - The Tegucigalpa population, is informing Telesur TV, through Madelain García’s voice, that in Honduras capital city and provinces the population is in the streets exercising their Consulta right to vote. They are especially concentrated in the two nearest blocks of the Presidential House where they preceed with the voting in what has become an electoral plebiscite. The Consulta goes ahead in its projected electoral process and the citizens are voting as was planned while still in the middle of the chaotic situation. The streets are witness to the organizational process of the Honduran people against the coup soldiers. The voters are also trying to convince the soldiers to retract their support to the coup.

García also informed Telesur viewers that the President of the National Congress and of the Liberal Party, Roberto Micheletti, supported by members of some of the official institutions, assumed the position of interim  president while the people of Hounduras continue demanding for the return of President Manuel Zelaya. He has been kidnapped and is actually in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he has been sent by the coup forces.

The images being passed on Telesur are showing Tegucigalpa people rejecting, once again as they did before in democratic elections, Roberto Micheletti as the de facto temporary self-proclaimed president.

The population is asking support from international organizations against the coup and for the return of Manuel Zelaya, as the legal president and to reject the de facto self-proclaimed  president, Robeto Michelletti, who is the president of the Honduran Congress and the  oppositional Liberal Party.

Telesur TV images are passing from the streets of Tegucigalpa showing an increasing number of people rejecting the coup. The popular sectors, especially many women, are seen talking to the tank soldiers. People are pleading with the soldiers not to use their weapons against the Consulta of the citizens on the option of establishing in the future a Constituent Assembly for the redaction of a new national Constitution.

In a Telesur inteview form Costa Rica’s airport, Zelaya talked as the legal President of Honduras. He was surrounded by two vice-ministers and some Latin American ambassadors. Still in his sleeping clothes, Manuel Zelaya expressed his pain for the Honduras population, and ask them protest through civil desobedience to defend their rights. He also claimed to the unions and peasant and indigenous’ social movements to impede the coup and defend their rights with unity.

The “traitor army men,� according to the President, went against him with their rifles pointing to his head and heart. He made public that a plot of a voracious elite of his country, who wish to isolate the country and maintain the state of poverty, led the coup. He also explained how traitor sectors of the Army kidnapped him through force interrupting the democratic process. However, he also made public that he has not been killed thanks to the intervention of other loyal soldiers.

Electricity and telephone local services have been taken over.

He asked the US ambassador in Tegucigalpa to make it public that this country is not behind this coup. He also asked to Latin American presidents to reject the coup. Daniel Ortega talked by the telephone with Zelaya and expressed his support while saying that as the Nicaraguan president he made it known that President Zelaya continued to be the official representative of Honduras.

Zelaya expressed his will to hear the voice against the coup from the Honduran Catholic and Protestant Churches. While claiming for the safety of his family, he reminded the international opinion that the Police Chief as well as some army leaders do not support the coup. He talked directly to Honduras soldiers in the name of God and of the Honduras people, not to permit a bloody aggresion to the President and the people. Zelaya reminded the soldiers that they were creating a monster that will be very difficult to stop in the future. The population needs to answer by passive resistence while making clear that nobody and no institution can support a bloody coup.

He thanked all the people that support him while defending his and Honduras people’s rights.

Zelaya reminded Michelotti to avoid a mistake that later will be difficult to undo.

President Obama also expressed his concerns on the difficult circumstances that Honduras experiences.

Meanwhile the images from Tegucigalpa streets showed again and again a great mobilzation in favor of the constitutional process which the people are continuing to promote through the symbolic act of voting as it was originally planned.

Link to source

As the continuities and disjunctures between the Bush and Obama administrations come into focus it becomes increasingly clear that while Obama’s domestic agenda has some identifiable breaks with Bush’s, at its core, the new administration remains committed to staying the course of American militarization. Now we have an articulate, nuanced president who supports elements of progressive domestic policies, can even comfortably say the phrase LGBT in public speeches, while funding military programs at alarming levels and continuing the Bush administration’s military and intelligence invasion of what used to be civilian life.

Link to source

Link to source

Following the announcement of victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran’s presidential election on June 12, the country erupted in turmoil as supporters of Mousavi flocked to the streets to protest what they claimed was a fraudulent election, while state security and militia forces cracked down on dissenters, sometimes violently. Iran claimed that the unrest was being fueled by foreign interference, a charge reported but generally dismissed in Western media accounts. But there is ample reason to believe that the U.S. likely had a hand in fomenting the chaos that has since plagued the country many commentators have compared to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah.

Link to source

 When politicians plan reform, it's wise to be skeptical and hold on to your wallets. So fixing the economy by bailing out Wall Street is wrecking it, and Obama's proposed health care reform taxes more, provides less, places profits above human need, avoids the most vital solutions, and leaves a broken system in place.

Link to source