To the chagrin of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the other Usual Suspects, the Honduran elections scheduled for November 29th are proceding on schedule:
Honduras elections: Security
Soldiers in La Ceiba
Z-day, June 28, 2009The military and police have been in strategy sessions in preparation for election security. Approximately 5,000 reservists have been called in to help as well. The reservists are primarily retired military and these old folks are showing great patriotism and enthusiasm for the task. “We won’t have communism in this country!”
In an announcement last night, a military spokesman gave a long list of events that they are completely prepared for, up to and including extraterrestrial landings, he joked. Hahaha.
This is a case where readers from other countries need to adjust your thinking to understand the customs and the culture of Honduras. It is NORMAL to have soldiers assisting the election process and maintaining security at the polling places. Control of the military was passed to the independent Election Tribunal (TSE) on October 29 and will remain with the TSE until the election results are announced, expected to be November 30. This is NORMAL and required by the constitution.
Many voices, loudest of all Zelaya’s, are trying to claim that the military presence will intimidate people. Not so, and nobody knows that better than Zelaya, who won the last presidential election while polls were guarded by the military. While it might give you pause in the US to have armed soldiers outside your polling place, this is not the US. This is Honduras, and the vast majority of the population will be reassured to see them. Those who hope to cause trouble, however, will be crying “Oppression!”
Another thing to keep in mind is that Hondurans are used to seeing armed guards everywhere. While it is often surprising to new visitors, it is common in Central America where crime is so high. The military are often used to provide security and to work on special anti-crime projects. Zelaya himself enlisted the military earlier this year in a crime task force. Former President Ricardo Maduro used the military to combat gangs. Right now in El Salvador, the Salvadoran military are being used in a project to support the police.
Honduras has a well respected military. Just the other day, I read that they are considered the best and most professional in Central America. Unlike the police, the military is also admired and well respected by the vast majority of the population. I remember reading a poll a year or so ago in which people were asked to rate various sectors of society as to their respectability and honor. Religious leaders were at the top of the list, followed closely by the military. Police, and politicians of course, were at the bottom.
Channel 10 had a poll which completed yesterday. It asked if viewers felt that the military would keep the elections secure. 94% voted yes.
Former President Manuel Zelaya is, of course, very upset:
This is an illegal process, an electoral farce. These are false elections, fraudulent elections. It’s grotesque. The elections will have to be repeated under a legitimate government. It’s an electoral farce. The US ambiguous position is lamentable. I seriously question the government of President Obama.
Well, yeah, sometimes I seriously question the government of President Obama, too! 
But after the initial silliness of demanding President Zelaya’s reinstallation, it looks like the Obama Administration is backing off, trying to save face with some platitudes, but really doing the right thing and staying out of it.
Zelaya’s not even running! Why’s he bellyaching?
At least they got around the coup problem; that’s a good thing.
Zelaya is campaigning for his party/ideology, that’s what all the bellyaching is about.
But let’s talk Venezuela for a minute. Like him or not, Chavez represents a response to a societal situation that had all of the wealth and power in the hands of a wealthy elite. Castro, years ago, responded to a similar situation.
I fear that a similar response could well occur in our country, unless we find ways to peacefully depower our wealthy elite, who have participated in the corruption of our government to the point where too much wealth, in spite of our Great Recession, continues to flow from us to them.
I don’t think the average American has internalized this problem, including the right wing man in the street, like most of our bloggers/commenters here, who foolishly work their typing fingers to the bone in promoting a continuation of this American economic distortion which even the Obama people have yet to change significantly.
Please, folks, don’t wait until blood begins flowing in our streets, before you throw off your ideology and instead, attack our problems by facing reality!
Perry – “…unless we find ways to peacefully depower our wealthy elite, who have participated in the corruption of our government…”
To help us all understand who you have in mind here, might you be kind enough to us lower-thinking people to please specify exactly who “our wealthy elite” might be? By chance, would any of the names you have on your list happen to appear on the left side of the ledger?
It would also help if you could define for us “right wing” men what “too much wealth” is? $100K/yr?, $500K/yr? $5M/yr? Where’s the line?
“…don’t wait until blood begins flowing in our streets…”.
Have you considered that maybe many of us “right wing” men who “…foolishly work their typing fingers to the bone…”, are attempting to do just that? I must admit it’s a bit hard not to, as we watch our Constitution under continuous assault by The Left, with bills like Healthcare, Cap & Trade, and an unending myriad of other Socialist plans being rammed down our throats to further rob us and future generations of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Perhaps we may be locked in a philosophical stalemate as we wait for you to come to your senses and “…throw off your ideology and instead, attack our problems by facing reality!”
Joe Shallenberger, thank you!
Thank you for your support of Honduras and for helping to spread the word about the situation here. I’d like to ask, though, that when you publish my articles and photos that you include a textual mention of my blog. That seems to be standard practice among bloggers. I would appreciate it. Thank you.
La Gringa, your work on the article Mr Pico excerpted was good and I, for one, appreciate it. I cannot speak for Mr Pico but I often use links as their own mention. It may be a bit of a lazy short-hand to foot-notes and in-text notation, but I base my decision on flow and my own reading practices. When I see a link to something interesting, I roll-over it to see where that link goes.
But I can indeed speak for Mr Pico in saying he meant no slight and he gave you credit for the work he cited.
La Gringa: I have in the past, but you’re right, I should have done so again for this one.
Joe S:“To help us all understand who you have in mind here, might you be kind enough to us lower-thinking people to please specify exactly who “our wealthy elite” might be?”
Joe, I’ll ignore your snark and answer your question, which I already answered once. I am talking about the wealthy elite “who have participated in the corruption of our government”. If you don’t know about them, then you live in a different country than I!
Regarding “too much wealth”, I am talking about, for example, the Bush tax cuts that favor the wealthy over the middle. It is the supply side mentality, initiated by Reagan when he drastically reduced the top tax brackets, the beginning of supply side economics, which even Reagan and Bush-41 had to later renounce. Clinton moved us away and more toward demand side tax policy, and it worked very well indeed.
I think you will agree that in our system, money is power, in terms of the ability of the wealthy to influence elections and legislation with their campaign contributions and outright bribes via special interest lobbyists.
Regarding our Constitution being “under continuous assault by the left”, you need to explain to me how health care reform, cap and trade, and other “socialist” reforms violate the Constitution, which I hear from the Right all the time. Let us see if the SCOTUS agrees with your hyperbolic statement. We have Social Security now for how long, 70 plus years, Medicare for how long, 40 plus years? Why hasn’t SCOTUS overturned these? Simple, because you are wrong, these “socialistic” programs are not unconstitutional.
Regarding “facing reality”, if you don’t think health care insurance policy does not need reform, if you don’t think that our energy policy does not need revision, then I accuse you of not facing reality.
Instead of looking at these challenges through ideological lenses, I suggest we view them as issues needing honest evaluation and remediation. If we all do that, then we can make progress, instead of a portion of our body politic saying “no” to everything while refusing to be held accountable for mistakes made in the recent past, going back three decades or so.
Perry wrote:
Except, of course, that the top 1% of earners have been paying an ever-increasing share of total federal income taxes paid. There was a dip from tax year 2000, due to the recession, but beginning in 2005, the top 1% paid a higher percentage of total income taxes than they did before the Bush tax cuts.
You want to blame President Reagan’s tax cuts, but in 1982, the top 1% paid virtually the same percentage as they did in 1980, before the Reagan tax cuts, and starting in 1983 they always paid more, an ever increasing share. You can also look at the bottom 50%, and see that they’ve been paying a diminishing share of total federal income taxes.
The top 1% of earners, as defined by AGI, paid 22.45% of their income in federal income taxes in 2007. That is more than enough.
Perry’s use of the word “honest” is laughable since he can’t even honestly say whose money it is that the government taxes.