Common Folk Using Common Sense

OK, let’s get away from all the screaming headlines and global half-truths and examine the real story.

From author/journalist Kari Lydersen:

When Manuel Zelaya Rosales of the left-center Liberal Party was elected president of Honduras in November 2005, many in the country and internationally heralded him as the latest member of Latin America’s “New Left” club, joining leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner and of course Cuba’s Fidel Castro, whom Zelaya initiated relations with for the first time in Honduras’s recent history.

Latin America’s “New Left” club, huh?

Zelaya, a rich and flamboyant landowner, was elected as a conservative but in the past two years embraced Chavez’s form of “21st century socialism”.

Zelaya closely watched his buddy Hugo Chavez re-write his country’s constitution and practically elect himself Dictator For Life, and Zelaya thought he could do the same in Honduras. But he thought wrong.

Says Neal Boortz:

To change the constitution in Honduras you have to convene a constituent assembly. The president cannot do that. The Honduran congress must approve a national referendum calling for the constituent assembly to consider changes to the constitution. Zelaya didn’t like the part about the constitution requiring approval of the congress before a national referendum could be called. So … he decided to call one on his own.

Yep, neither the Honduran Congress or Supreme Court recognized or authorized Zelaya’s attempt to illegally re-elect himself ahead of the normal November elections.

The Supreme Court had told the military not to assist in the referendum because it’s illegal. So Zelaya fires the chief of staff of the army. The Supreme Court orders him reinstated, and Zelaya fires him again. After all, what are pesky national laws doing impeding Zelaya’s personal quest? What would you say if Obama decided to elect himself as lifetime US President?

Under the constitution as it stands, Zelaya would have been due to leave office in early 2010. The supreme court said it had told the army to remove the president.

With a crisis about to explode, Zelaya was arrested in his pajamas Sunday morning by soldiers and flown into exile.

Roberto Micheletti, named by Congress to serve out the final seven months of Zelaya’s term, vowed to ignore foreign pressure and began naming Cabinet members, including a new minister of defense. “We respect everybody and we ask only that they respect us and leave us in peace because the country is headed toward free and transparent general elections in November,” Micheletti told HRN radio. He insisted Zelaya’s ouster was legal and accused the former president himself of violating the constitution by sponsoring a referendum that was outlawed by the Supreme Court.

Now does this sound like a military coup-de-etat to you, like so many in the media would have you believe? The U.N. General Assembly demanded the immediate restoration of Zelaya. The world body called on all 192 U.N. member states to avoid recognizing any government in Honduras other than Zelaya’s, even though he was preparing to shred the Honduran Constitution and elect himself Dictator For Life.

OK, so what has this to do with the US? More from Boortz:

North Korea launches a missile and it takes Barack Obama and the UN five days to respond. Iran holds fraudulent elections, kills protesters and it takes weeks before Barack Obama can stand up and say that he is “concerned” about the situation.

Then the people of Honduras try to uphold their constitution and laws of the land from being trampled by a Chavez-wanna be … and it takes Barack Obama one day to proclaim that this was not a legal coup.

That’s right. Almost immediately Obama denounced the action and called for Zelaya to be restored. Absolutely amazing. Obama has a knack for getting all of the big decisions wrong. Two weeks ago he refuses to meddle in a country where peaceful demonstrators are getting shot by a theocratic dictatorship. He doesn’t want to choose sides.

And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the action against the ousted Honduran President should be, quote, “condemned by all.”

Fidel Castro, Daniel Noriega, Hugo Chavez, and US President Obama are all on the side of Zelaya, a man trying his best to dismantle his country’s laws in favor of getting himself elected or appointed Dictator For Life. Zelaya was acting contrary to the congress and supreme court of Honduras. Does this sound like something Washington, Lincoln, Adams, or Jefferson would have approved or supported?

Here is more of that Hope And Change you demanded last November.

Manuel Zelaya, Honduras, Obama, Roberto Micheletti

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