http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Secundarias/Videos?v=8xhzctcz2ehs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL3TqjA_LUA

Of course, this is not definitive one way or the other. As in Iran, mass protests in cities may not be representative of the entire population and may be made up of mostly upscale citizens who already have reasons to dislike Zelaya. It is quite possible that these are all National Party enthusiasts rejoicing in Zelaya’s removal. It is also possible that pro-Zelaya rallies are being actively discouraged and broken up by the government, so that the support for him appears weaker than it really is. That said, there seem to be a great many Hondurans who are pleased with what has happened.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/baring-its-fangs-ctd.html#more

Diplomatic and economic isolationism does not make a targeted government more accommodating and reasonable, but pretty much every time makes it dig in its heels and embrace paranoia and repression in response to outside hostility. All of this isolation isn’t going to make Honduras’ internal political problems any easier to solve, and even as poor and dependent as Honduras is these measures aren’t going to dislodge the new government anytime soon. In the meantime, of course, it will be the poor who will suffer the adverse effects of trade embargoes and suspensions of aid more than any of the people the outside world is trying to penalize.

The entire world has overreacted to Zelaya’s removal, and now the new government in Honduras has overreacted, but spare me the Giordano party line about all of this. If the suspension of liberties tells us anything interesting, it is that the world’s overreaction has been counterproductive and has directly contributed to the worsening of the situation in the country. In the end, the main beneficiaries of all this pro-Zelaya activism will be those who worship executive power and disdain checks on executive abuses. Executive misrule will become more widely tolerated in the region. Whether or not the isolation forces Micheletti out, no other political leadership in Latin America will want to risk the treatment that is being meted out to Honduras for daring to try to hold their president accountable.

If Honduras’ constitution actually does allow for THE MILITARY to unilaterally toss their president whenever they feel that he’s broken the law, with no legal evaluation of whether or not he actually did, then Honduras’ constitution is simply ridiculous.

No, the binding resolution was declared illegal. So Zumaya changed it to a non-binding resolution. Which the military (not the Supreme Court) declared illegal.

On what basis do you conclude Zelaya would adhere to a constitutional removal?

I don’t have to conclude that. But the Honduran government has the responsibility to move via legal means.

Just like the only basis for your conclusion that the “whole Iranian people” support Mousavi–

I don’t conclude that. I just conclude that peaceable assembly and protest is a universal human right. Unconstitutionally deposing an elected official is not.

Meanwhile, the Honduran Congress has passed an emergency decree eliminating the right to protest, freedom from unwarranted search, seizure and arrest, freedom of association, guarantees of due process, and freedom of transit.

But sure, they are the guardians of the Honduran Constitution.

But what do you think of the argument that silence would have been considered by everyone in Latin America to mean the US was behind the military’s action? In other words, history leaves the US no plausible way of being considered neutral.

But I’d like to disagree with some of the points in this post, please.

The idea that simple “majoritarianism” is the essence of democracy, which like a seething brute must be kept under chains by something called “constitutionalism” seems like an old aristocratic theme that carries some baggage.

A more basic way of considering democracy is simply accountability: citizens lend their sovereignty to the elected, and we get that loan back every few years, getting the chance to turf our servants out of their jobs. Majoritarianism is thus one method of ensuring accountability, it is not the goal itself.

A constitution that is not capable of being amended – nor of even being legally open to the possibility of allowing formal discussion of amendment! – is accountable to… who, exactly? To God, the military, and the five families who own the country, apparently.

And another thing: since when has any political class anywhere been necessarily the best and most responsible gauge of the welfare of the people who elect them? They tend to wind up having more in common with each other than their constituents the more comfortable they get. E.g. the political class right across Europe are determined to force the Lisbon “Constitreaty” down our throats, despite citizen’s voting it down repeatedly (France, Holland, Ireland) – but the politicians love it, because it give their class and hangers-on continental-sized power without pesky elections in the wrong places. There is an old Soviet joke – the people and the Party are one, like oil and water – that could equally apply to most if not all political classes.

I realise this doesn’t disprove El Prez shouldn’t have been turfed out in his jammies – and I’m beginning to think that it maybe even bolsters the case for it – but perhaps invoking hoi-polloi majoritarianism versus high-church constitutionalism isn’t _necessarily_ the best argument. Especially when “constitutional” can reference anything from the US libertarian tract, through the Honduran Holy-of-Holy That Shall Not Be Touched By The Great Unwashed, right down to that British gentleman’s agreement circulating in their parliamentary dictatorship.

[[Ducks, runs for cover - exit stage left]]

Justin Raimondo wrote a detailed analysis today on Honduras and various power plays amongst the various factions:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/06/30/history-haunts-honduras/

Elsewhere in TAC blogs, I have cited articles containing analysis from non-Western commentators about Iran. They take a critical look on the mechanics of the election process in Iran, leaders like Mousavi and Rafsanjani, their support base, and the many faceted corruption problems in Iran, all resulting in the current power play. Philip Giraldi wrote that he found one set of those analyses very convincing. Thus there is a counter narrative on Iran, but a lot of people in the west would rather prefer to have a belief in a good guy-bad guy scenario based on Twitter and You Tube.

There were a lot of street protests in 1953 in Iran prior to the overthrow of Mossadegh. We now know how genuine they were, how they were orchestrated, and how they were presented to the western audience, don’t we?

Bottom line: Just stay out of Iran and Honduras.

And how do you know the Hondurans had “democratic, constitutional means of redressing the issues posed by Zelaya’s actions”? The Supreme Court declared his referendum illegal. His attorney general refused to carry out the referendum as did the chief of the military. His response was to fire the head of the military and storm an air force base with a mob to sieze the referendum ballots. On what basis do you conclude Zelaya would adhere to a constitutional removal? Why does the evidence not more support that he would whip mob chaos that would result in actual bloodshed as opposed to merely the arrest and removal of a self-serving demagogue?

And this one is really cute? “You are equating the Honduran “political class” with the Iranian people as a whole. Moreover, the statement that the government and people of Honduras were unanimously against Zelaya seems born of uncritical acceptance of statements by anti-Zelaya forces.”

Just like the only basis for your conclusion that the “whole Iranian people” support Mousavi–an utterly absurd claim–is based on nothing more than the propaganda fed out to us by the Westernized elites and entrenched interests who support him.

That Honduran society is split over the action against Zelaya only bolsters Daniel’s point. Iran is most certainly split and the “reformers” may well be in the minority since most of the population lives outside urban centers. Yet, somehow a different standard applies to Honduras.

What really irks Westerners who have invested so much energy into Mousavi’s cause is not that Iranian laws were broken or its constitution violated, but that the will of the majority was presumably thwarted and in any case the people were denied their voice.

Even though the whole of Honduras’ political class was in agreement that Zelaya had to go because they believe he threatened the Honduran constitution, this does not matter to the rest of the world.

I see what you did there. You are equating the Honduran “political class” with the Iranian people as a whole. Moreover, the statement that the government and people of Honduras were unanimously against Zelaya seems born of uncritical acceptance of statements by anti-Zelaya forces. Currently the largest Honduran labor unions are on general strike protesting the coup, and there have been attacks by government forces on protesters.

whose tenure has been no less of a failure and whose designs on perpetuating his own power are apparently no less unscrupulous than Ahmadinejad’s,

This is pure propaganda. Now calling for a non-binding referendum is to be equated with forging the results of an entire election?