Haiti Earthquake- Video

Here is a video with Paul and Leisa of Children's Hope.
The Untold Story
http://www.archive.org/details/HaitiTheUntoldStory

Thousands of Haitians will die.

Thousands Of Haitians Will Die Unless U.S. Beefs-Up Relief Efforts
By MARK WEISBROT


WASHINGTON -- President Clinton apologized on March 10
for the role that his government played in destroying a
big part of Haitian agriculture: "It may have been good
for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not
worked. ... I have to live every day with the loss of
capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti, to feed those
people, because of what I did."

Beginning in the 1980s, subsidized U.S. rice wiped out
thousands of Haitian rice farmers and made the country
dependent on imported food.

Clinton's apology is important and presents an
opportunity to change U.S. policy toward Haiti that has
been a major cause of suffering in this desperately poor
country.

Most urgently, the current relief effort has to be
ramped up immediately to help the 1.3 million homeless
Haitians before thousands are killed by rains or the
hurricane season. A relatively brief rain on March 19
brought images of Haitians struggling through mud in
squalid camps to try to keep from being overwhelmed by
flooding.

The rainy season is just beginning and it will get much
worse, especially for 200,000 homeless in 29 camps that
could get washed away when the rains get heavy.

Danny Glover is an actor and chairman of the board of
the TransAfrica Forum. Both he and TransAfrica have
worked to help Haiti for many years.

"It doesn't make sense that they can't even get people
tents two and a half months after the earthquake," he
told me in Washington.

Indeed it does not: the needed tents cost about $100
apiece; even if we double the government's request for
200,000 tents, the cost is $40 million, not even 2
percent of the public and private donations coming from
the U.S. and other countries.

Congress needs to turn up the heat by immediately
announcing that it will fulfill its oversight role,
complete with hearings and a report on how U.S. dollars
- taxpayer and private donations - have been spent in
Haiti. This would give some incentive to the larger
organizations and U.S. government contractors to help
save thousands of Haitian before they are killed by
rains or the hurricane season, which begins in June.

Chemonics, which has received multiple contracts
totaling tens of millions of dollars from USAID, is a
subsidiary of ERLY Industries, which is also the parent
company of American Rice Corp., a major beneficiary of
the policies that Clinton apologized for.

The American Red Cross has received an estimated one-
third of the billion dollars that American relief
organizations have raised for Haiti. It has had some
scandals in recent years involving the receipt of some
hundreds of millions of dollars of funds that were not
spent on the particular relief efforts for which they
were raised.

The most urgent needs are clear: in addition to the
necessary shelter and relocations, there needs to be
more aid provided outside Port-au-Prince so that people
are more able to live elsewhere. More aid to agriculture
for the current planting season is also urgent.

The international community, which is currently
providing most of Haiti's food, should commit to buying
at least the current and next season's crop of locally
produced rice at a profitable, guaranteed price, before
distributing any imported rice. Currently, as has
happened in the past, imported rice is pushing down the
price of local rice and can make it difficult or
impossible for farmers to survive.

The Haitian government also needs budget support; it is
currently getting only a tiny fraction of U.S.
government dollars, not nearly enough to even have a
functioning government that is necessary for the
reconstruction effort.

It is both wrong and counter-productive to try to
exclude Haitians from having a voice in the future of
their own country.

_____________________________________

National Network supports immigrant participation in census

We ALL Count!

Stand up. Be counted. It's safe. It's our right.

Dear Friends,

Thanks to everyone who supported the letter to President Obama and DHS Secretary Napolitano, asking that they suspend enforcement activities to encourage immigrant participation in Census 2010. With Census Day less than a week away, on April 1, there has been no commitment from the Administration to take any such steps.

The message from the DHS has been that they will "not interfere" with the Census, but there has been no mention of suspending enforcement actions as during the past two census counts in 2000 and 1990. Instead, a statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) states that the agency "fully supports an accurate count of the U.S. population" and would prioritize enforcing laws "on those dangerous criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities..." The NNIRR letter to suspend enforcement for the 2010 Census, signed by more than 200 organizations, identified numerous programs that supposedly target "criminal aliens" and which have been responsible for the round-up, arrest and deportations of hundreds of thousands of immigrant men, women and children on immigration violations.

In the meantime, we encourage all of you to help mobilize immigrant community participation in the Census. Again, April 1 is national Census Day and is the target date for the return of census surveys, which most households received this past week. If households do not return their census surveys, they will receive a follow-up visit from a census outreach worker. For immigrant households concerned about such visits, they should return their forms now.

Immigrants rights activist Nativo Lopez arrested

Nativo was arrested today
at his Mental Competency Hearing,
Next Court Date
March 26,
1150 N. San Fernando Rd.
Los Angeles, CA An Open Letter

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

This morning Nativo Lopez, was arrested during his mental competency hearing and held under Contempt of Court, he will have another hearing tomorrow morning at the same location mentioned below, (1150 N. San Fernando Rd. Los Angeles, Ca Dept 95.)

He is being held with the most dangerous prisoners and was forced to get naked and watched and video taped by three female guards. He has decided to begin a hunger strike. We need your help and support during this moment and need help spreading the word. Please notify any media and come out and show your support. This is extremely unjust and we must get him out of prison and make everyone aware of what is going on.

Thank you for any questions or concerns please call
(714) 483-9137, Taina Lopez or
(714) 920-5452, Maria Rosa Ibarra.

Winnemem-Wintu travel to New Zealand to protect salmon

Winnemem Wintu Leaders in New Zealand to Call McCloud Salmon Home 

by Dan Bacher 

Two dozen members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe are now on a spiritual mission in New Zealand to ask Chinook salmon native to the McCloud River, a tributary of the Sacramento River, to return home to northern California. 

Tribal representatives will gather on the banks of the Rakaia River, in Canterbury, on Sunday, March 28 to apologize to the winter run Chinook salmon - a species that was introduced to the river over 100 years ago. The winter Chinook is also known as "quinnat" in New Zealand. 

At the culmination of a four-day ceremony, tribal members will perform the "nur chonas winyupus" or middle water salmon dance, according to a news release from Tourism New Zealand. 

In California, the winter run is a listed as an endangered species under state and federal law. Only 4,483 adult winter Chinook returned to spawn in the Sacramento River below Shasta Dam in 2009, down from approximately 120,000 fish in 1969. 

Viva La Causa: Wed

Click on image to enlarge to readable size.

Immigration reform: Stuck in the shadows

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

On Sunday, tens of thousands of Americans who supported Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 will gather on the Mall to protest the president's lack of action on a cause to which he had committed himself throughout the campaign: immigration reform.

As a candidate, Obama spoke eloquently of the need to bring the estimated 11 million immigrants here without documentation "out of the shadows." As president, he stepped up the number of deportations to an all-time high: 298,401 in fiscal 2009, a 13 percent increase over the last year of George W. Bush's presidency. But reforming our ridiculous immigration laws so that the millions of immigrants here illegally could have a path to legalization was deferred, like so many administration commitments, until health-care reform was enacted.

Immigrants all

San Patricio

On this day of all days in the Irish-American calendar, when ethnic pride swells, let’s raise a toast: Here’s to the Irish, and here’s to the rest of us. May we never forget where we came from. Nearly all of us were Mexicans once. That is: the new immigrants, poor and reviled, propelled by hope and hunger into America’s prickly embrace.

Multimedia

Video

Los Tigres Del Norte and The Chieftains performing ‘Canción Mixteca’ (YouTube)

Related

Times Topics: Irish-Americans

What brings this juxtaposition to mind is “San Patricio,” a new album from Paddy Moloney of the great Irish traditionalist band the Chieftains. It commemorates a historical footnote: the San Patricio battalion of Irish-immigrant soldiers who deserted the United States Army and fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. They picked the losing side, were captured, executed or branded as traitors, and then forgotten, except by Mexicans.
Mr. Moloney, a musician of restless curiosity, saw it as a tale of tragedy and loss, but also a chance for creative collision. “If the Irish were there, there would most certainly have been music,” he says. The same goes for the Mexicans. He invited Irish, Mexican and American musicians to play and sing, to see what would happen.
What happened was not all dolorous lamentation, though there is some of that. The rest is joy, thoroughly Mexican yet utterly Irish, carried aloft by tin whistles, skin drums, pipes, harps, guitars and stomping feet. It’s a mix you’ve never heard, but eerily familiar. Listen to the classic “Canción Mixteca,” sung in Spanish by the Mexican supergroup Los Tigres del Norte, accompanied by accordion, bajo sexto, tin whistle and uilleann pipes.
“How far I am from the land where I was born! Immense longing invades my thoughts, and when I see myself as alone and sad as a leaf in the wind, I want to cry. I want to die of sorrow.”
That old song, woven into the Mexican soul, is as Irish as it gets. And it’s an American song, too. We are all people who have lost our land in one sad way and found another. Whether we lament and celebrate in a pub or cantina, whether our tricolor flag has a cactus on it or not, we are closer to one another than we remember.

New York Times 

What the anti immigrant campaign looks like

This statement is being posted on blogs.  It reveals some of the major ideas being used.
I ran into these in a workshop on health care among the elderly.

This really is the time when jobless American or any citizen and legal resident needs be a member of RECLAIM AMERICAN JOBS caucus. Only together can we stop this travesty of our immigration laws? Whatever our party consideration, we need to make it clear to all politicians that America belongs to THE PEOPLE-not to the open border demented fools, pariah businesses or the politicians themselves. There are three main enforcement tools within the United States. E-Verify, 287(g) local police alien enforcement and ICE raids. Reps. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Gary Miller (R-CA) and Sue Myrick (R-NC) have formed the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus to raise public awareness of the connection between illegal immigration and unemployment. To pressure the Obama Administration to vigorously enforce the laws against the employment of illegal aliens, work to implement legislation that will protect U.S. jobs from the impact of illegal immigration (especially to make E-Verify mandatory) Working to defeat legislation that will put U.S. jobs at risk from the impact of illegal immigration (especially to defeat amnesty.)

The Tea party movement have many objections to the Republican usurpers and the majority certainly don't agree with Dick Armey. But then Steve Poizner would be a great win for California, as he promised he would halt the draining of public entitlements to illegal aliens and give full reign to ICE to investigate and place in detention the millions of foreign families living illegally there. Certainly Governor Schwarzenegger did nothing and allowed this epidemic to spread statewide. California taxpayers have been shoved to the back, when they voted for Proposition 176--eliminating benefits to illegal families. The schools system has slowly deteriorated to the bottom rungs of performance with crammed classes of illegal immigrant children and the inability of teachers to offer a decent education to the offspring of American parents. In the last decade the prison system has been the place of last resort, for the rising crime rate of illegal immigrants from across the globe. Border state hospitals including California are overrun by illegal alien families who cannot afford to pay, leaving the bill for the taxpayers to collect the tab.

Go to numbersusa.com to learn the ropes. Don't forget to call your Senator or Representative at 202-224-3121. Don't forget to give your state incumbent lawmaker an ultimatum; NO RE-ELECTION VOTE. We are a sympathetic people, but Americans must come first and any lawmaker who represents the illegal immigrant, must be kicked out of office. This is not mean-spirited, this is survival of our nation, our flag and our language. American jobs for American people. Learn about the rampant corruption at Judicialwatch.org. OVERPOPULATION is another hidden issue, that will cause major environmental problems by 2040.

No copyright for comments, blogs or articles. Distribute it to the people. copy and paste. 

Dedicated to U.S. veterans in Afghanistan and Iraq

After watching Burn Locker.

Broad Black Brimmer

Evo Morales in Coyoacan

An analysis of Latin America and U.S. hegemony.

Suspend immigration enforcement

Over 200 organizations appeal to President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security to Suspend Immigration Enforcement Activities for Census 2010

Encouraging hard-to-count populations to participate in the Census means reducing the climate of fear and distrust in immigrant communities

Oakland, CA: As Census 2010 gears up to count all residents in the United States, immigrants are at risk of being undercounted due to the climate of fear and distrust stemming from immigration raids and other enforcement actions. With Census forms due to arrive in all households in the coming week, more than 200 concerned organizations nationwide have joined with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to ask President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano to halt enforcement activities for the Census.  Not only are many immigrants not familiar with the Census, but many households will be reluctant to return their Census forms or talk with outreach workers for fear of detection if they or someone in their home is undocumented.

Thousands march for Education in California

By Duane Campbell

Over  2000  union faculty, students and their supporters rallied at the California State Capitol in Sacramento on March 4,2010,  in support of adequate funding for public education , both k-12 and higher education.  The rally was one of more than 40 events across the state asking people to Stand up for Education.  Faculty and students came from U.C. Davis, Santa Cruz, and Berkeley, as well as CSU Sacramento, Chico, and  community colleges.  Rallies  and protests also occurred on other CSU,U.C.  and community colleges across the state.

George Lakoff,  well known  for his works on framing issues argued for signing petitions for the  California Democracy Act which would reduce the requirement to pass a state budget from the current 2/3 vote to a simple majority.

Lakoff asserted that the  demonstrations will mean little unless the California Democracy Act gets on the ballot by April 12 and passes in the November election. That is the only way that revenue can be raised to fund California's needs, including education. Lakoff criticized leaders of the California Democratic Party for not getting enthusiastically behind the initiative.

The California Democracy Act is simple. It changes just two words in the Constitution: "two-thirds" becomes "a majority" in two places. That's all. The initiative is one sentence long: "All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote." It's simple democracy. And because it is a ballot initiative, a simple majority can bring democracy by eliminating the two-thirds vote requirements. The initiative has until April 12 to gather over 600,000 signatures of registered voters.  At present the campaign is far behind the required number of signatures.    Lakoff argued that an on-line campaign which would  ‘go viral” was needed to push the initiative over the required signatures.

March 4, Stand up for Education

March 4, 2010.

Rally for Education

IT IS UP TO US !

JOIN THE SACRAMENTO RALLY FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE! 11Am. North Steps. State Capitol.

Students and Faculty, will march to demand a decent budget for California’s schools and universities. Protests will occur around the state, at universities and work sites at the Capitol in Sacramento. Please join us.

The campaign for majority rule has a new web site.

http://www.ca4democracy.com/ Help us with signature gathering.

In the last two years California’s k-12 schools have received over a $16 Billion cut back. California presently ranks 45th of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size. Now, the Governor proposes to reduce k-12 spending by another $2.4 Billion. The U.C’s and the CSU campuses have suffered over a $2 billion cut while tuition and fees were increased over 30%. Classes have been cut, graduation delayed, and faculty dismissed. They must not be cut more. We must work together to save public education.

UFW President Slams California Water Bonds

Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farmworkers Union (UFW), today blasted the $11.1 billion water bond on the November ballot in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

"The water bond that was recently approved by our lawmakers will give agricultural companies billions more in subsidized water," said Rodiguez. "The state treasurer has asked the right question: Why aren't these giant ag industry operators paying for their water like everyone else?" 

Rodriguez's eloquent slam against the water bond rammed through the California Legislature by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger completely negates the argument of corporate agribusiness "Astroturf" groups, such as the Latino Water Coalition, that the battle against the water bond and the peripheral canal is a conflict of "fish versus people" or "fish versus jobs." 

In reality, the campaign to restore the Delta, stop the peripheral canal and defeat the water bond is a conflict between the vast majority of people - including farmworkers, fishermen, Delta family farmers, California Indian Tribes and environmentalists - and greedy agribusiness corporations that don't care about the health and safety of their workers or the thousands of workers and fishermen unemployed because of the Central Valley salmon collapse. 

"The $800 million per year in annual bond payments required under the new water bond is more than California spends on health care for farmworkers and their children, more than the entire worker-safety budget, more than on farmworker housing, more than on pesticide regulations and food safety. In fact, it's more than all those things added together," noted Rodriguez. 

Why is the UFW opposing the bond? "We don't believe that the giant agriculture corporations should get more subsidized water until farmworkers get the right to protect themselves, including the right to clean and fresh drinking water," explained Rodriguez. 

"We see a clear and ironic link between a state government unwilling to enforce its own laws protecting farmworkers, a governor vetoing legislation to allow farmworkers to protect themselves, and a Legislature that bemoans budget cuts while giving the agriculture industry water subsidies at a cost of $800 million every year," said Rodriguez. 

Last year SEIU and the Teamsters Union put $1 million into a UFW "war chest" to fight Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's water bond. The groups fighting the peripheral canal and water bond were eagerly awaiting an official announcement by UFW against the water bond - and that announcement took place today. 

In the New York Times on April 17, 2009, Rodriguez condemned the Latino Water Coalition's "March for Water" for being a "farmer march orchestrated and financed by growers.” 

The UFW joins a growing group of conservation, fishing, environmental, tribal and family farming groups opposed to the water bond's bailout to corporate agribusiness. Everybody who cares about the future of California fisheries and Delta farms and the thousands of jobs that depend on them must applaud Rodriguez for speaking out against the budget-busting water bond! 

To read the article, go to: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/22/ED7U1BUUH3.DTL. 

Winnemem Wintu Tribe Urges Feinstein to Withdraw Salmon Killer Legislation

"The actions that are being taken to weaken Endangered Species Act protections are an affront to the Tribal nations of the State of California,” said Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “They violate the spirit of the treaties signed and consultative processes that California Indians have fought for centuries to ensure remain in place." 

Photo of Mark Franco and Calleen Sisk-Franco courtesy of Indigenius .

By Dan Bacher 

The Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe of northern California today joined environmental organizations and fishing groups in strongly opposing legislation sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein to waive Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for imperiled Central Valley Chinook salmon. 

Feinstein has attached an amendment to a jobs stimulus bill that would increase pumping to subsidized corporate agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley. The amendment would convert the “jobs bill” into a “job killer bill” that would result in the destruction of California and Oregon’s once vibrant salmon fishing industry. 

"The actions that are being taken to weaken Endangered Species Act protections are an affront to the Tribal nations of the State of California,” said Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “They violate the spirit of the treaties signed and consultative processes that California Indians have fought for centuries to ensure remain in place. These proposed actions and the failure of the government to even once engage in any discussion with the first people of this state regarding water rights and needs of tribal reservations, rancherias and communities is offensive and a slap in the face of all people of this state who believe in the truth behind the bromide ‘one nation under god, with liberty and justice for all.’” 

Haiti: Journal #8

Dear Friends,

Coming home from Haiti was very difficult and emotional for our team...some (including Paul) are sick, all have been touched...the following journal describes well a bit of our experience...it will also be printed in the (San Diego) OB Rag, since it was written, not by me, but by one of my sons, Jordan Barnes, who offered his service and skills as one of our team to Haiti.

Jordan writes:

I could not have anticipated what I was to see, or the affect that our experience in Haiti would have on me. 

My fiance Christene and I left from Ocean Beach to join ten others and 1,200 lbs of medicine and supplies that had been donated.  This is only a fraction of the donations that "Children's Hope" has received since the catastrophic quake, but such was our weight allotment, the rest will go down in subsequent trips. 

My mother Leisa Faulkner began Children's Hope, a non-profit/non-religious organization, in 2004 to help the desperate situation of the children of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.  Along with humanitarian aid, my mother has become very involved in the political situation there.  Our last trip down there was her 12th. 

We spent most all our time in Port au Prince, where through her previous trips, my mother had established ties with community leaders.  Governing now only exists at the local level, "mayors" of what are now tent cities have the best idea of what the people in their area need most. 

We worked to distribute the huge quantities of medicine, stocking "pharmacies" (usually located in one of the few buildings still sound in the area) with what they needed, and then off through the debris filled streets.  When we felt as if we most usefully proportioned out the medicines, we took to helping in the hospitals.  Now in what used to be orphanages, schools, and soccer fields, under tarpaulin roofs, the battle is on against the second wave of this disaster.  Malaria, typhoid, cholera, and hepatitis A are breaking out as sanitation is almost impossible and the density of people guarantees quick transmition.  We gave vaccinations, changed bandages of amputees and helped teach them to use crutches or wheelchairs, and helped the sick in outlaying regions get the treatment they needed. 

The dozen or so soccer balls we brought were worth their weight in gold, or rather smiles.  Watching the children play soccer together; smiling, hugging, and laughing they seemed to forget if only for a moment the pain and just be kids.     

Now what little infrastructure and "stability" the people of Haiti had is all but gone.  The devastation is total; government buildings, schools, hospitals, and homes flattened. 

They press on through resiliency of spirit and unity. 

A unity and oneness that Fox news and CNN would not have you believe, and the mounted 50 caliber weapons on UN tanks do not promote.  We never saw riot or looting, but only people pulling together, sharing, lifting each other up.  Because they have to, because it is what they have always done. 

As a man sitting atop a pile of rubble that used to be his neighborhood his, his family still buried somewhere below his feet proclaimed, "I realize that I am here to help those less fortunate than myself."  The only people that I can think of that are less fortunate than that man are those in that country that have lost not only family and friends, but arms and legs.  It is a horrible thing to say, but we met countless Haitians, mostly very young, who fell to such a fate.  A people that have endured disaster after disaster, oppression, slavery, coup upon coup are now faced with surviving the worst natural disaster on record. 

The people of Haiti are the most beautiful I have ever met, their smiles beaming from under the rubble, and hand in hand they stand up and dance. 

I will most likely be returning to Haiti soon, accompanied once again by my loving mother, to sit on an enormous donation (from a resident of Ocean Beach-THANK YOU!) of 15,000 bottles of antimicrobial cleanser/sanitizer and ensure its passage and proper distribution.  Please continue to support, you cannot give enough.  The need is truly great, and the people could not be more thankful.

Jordan Barnes

If you would like to donate through Children's Hope:

Children's Hope
3025 A Cambridge Road

Cameron Park, CA 95682

 

Immigration and African Americans

One Future: The Shared Economic, Political Plight of African Americans and Afro-Immigrants

Immigration Reform. It's an issue that evokes social, emotional, and economic unease in communities across the nation. It's an issue that conjures up a new kind of scape-goating, even unapologetic racism--pitting community against community, neighbor against neighbor, and worker against worker.

Haiti's catastrophic earthquake should remind all of us that it's these kinds of tragic circumstances that move immigrants to seek hope and refuge in America. This tragedy should also remind us of the unique circumstances facing Afro- immigrants--too often overlooked in today's immigration debate.

For years, Haitians and other Afro-immigrants from Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean, have sought and will continue to seek refuge from civil war, political and religious prosecution, and social and economic injustice.

African Americans should be especially mindful of the mistruths and divisiveness that anti-immigration advocates will use to block any type of immigration reform that would actually help uplift our communities.

The U.S. in Latin America

The US Game In Latin America
US interference in the politics of Haiti and
Honduras is only the latest example of its
long-term manipulations in Latin America
Mark Weisbrot
The Guardian
29 January 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/29/us-latin-america-haiti-honduras

When I write about US foreign policy in places such as
Haiti or Honduras, I often get responses from people who
find it difficult to believe that the US government
would care enough about these countries to try and
control or topple their governments. These are small,
poor countries with little in the way of resources or
markets. Why should Washington policymakers care who
runs them?

Unfortunately they do care. A lot. They care enough
about Haiti to have overthrown the elected president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide not once, but twice. The first
time, in 1991, it was done covertly. We only found out
after the fact that the people who led the coup were
paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency. And then
Emmanuel Constant, the leader of the most notorious
death squad there - which killed thousands of Aristide's
supporters after the coup - told CBS News that he, too,
was funded by the CIA.

In 2004, the US involvement in the coup was much more
open. Washington led a cut-off of almost all
international aid for four years, making the
government's collapse inevitable. As the New York Times
reported, while the US state department was telling
Aristide that he had to reach an agreement with the
political opposition (funded with millions of US
taxpayers' dollars), the International Republican
Institute was telling the opposition not to settle.

In Honduras last summer and autumn, the US government
did everything it could to prevent the rest of the
hemisphere from mounting an effective political
opposition to the coup government in Honduras. For
example, they blocked the Organisation of American
States from taking the position that it would not
recognise elections that took place under the
dictatorship. At the same time, the Obama administration
publicly pretended that it was against the coup.

This was only partly successful, from a public relations
point of view. Most of the US public thinks that the
Obama administration was against the Honduran coup,
although by November of last year there were numerous
press reports and even editorial criticisms that Obama
had caved to Republican pressure and not done enough.
But this was a misreading of what actually happened: the
Republican pressure in support of the Honduran coup
changed the administration's public relations strategy,
but not its political strategy. Those who followed
events closely from the beginning could see that the
political strategy was to blunt and delay any efforts to
restore the elected president, while pretending that a
return to democracy was actually the goal.

Among those who understood this were the governments of
Latin America, including such heavyweights as Brazil.
This is important because it shows that the State
Department was willing to pay a significant political
cost in order to help the right in Honduras. It
convinced the vast majority of Latin American
governments that it was no different from the Bush
administration in its goals for the hemisphere, which is
not a pleasant outcome from a diplomatic point of view.

Why do they care so much about who runs these poor
countries? As any good chess player knows, pawns matter.
The loss of a couple of pawns at the beginning of the
game can often make a difference between a win or a
loss. They are looking at these countries mostly in
straight power terms. Governments that are in agreement
with maximising US power in the world, they like. Those
who have other goals - not necessarily antagonistic to
the United States - they don't like.

Not surprisingly, the Obama administration's closest
allies in the hemisphere are rightwing governments such
as those of Colombia or Panama, even though Obama
himself is not a rightwing politician. This highlights
the continuity of the politics of control. The victory
of the right in Chile, the first time that it has won an
election in half a century, was a significant victory
for the US government. If Lula de Silva's Workers' party
were to lose the presidential election in Brazil this
autumn, that would be another win for the state
department. While US officials under both Bush and Obama
have maintained a friendly posture toward Brazil, it is
obvious that they deeply resent the changes in Brazilian
foreign policy that have allied it with other social
democratic governments in the hemisphere, and its
independent foreign policy stances with regard to the
Middle East, Iran, and elsewhere.

The US actually intervened in Brazilian politics as
recently as 2005, organising a conference to promote a
legal change that would make it more difficult for
legislators to switch parties. This would have
strengthened the opposition to Lula's Workers' party
(PT) government, since the PT has party discipline but
many opposition politicians do not. This intervention by
the US government was only discovered last year through
a Freedom of Information Act request filed in
Washington. There are many other interventions taking
place throughout the hemisphere that we do not know
about. The United States has been heavily involved in
Chilean politics since the 1960s, long before they
organised the overthrow of Chilean democracy in 1973.

In October 1970, President Richard Nixon was cursing in
the Oval Office about the Social Democratic president of
Chile, Salvador Allende. "That son of a bitch!" said
Richard Nixon on 15 October. "That son of a bitch
Allende - we're going to smash him." A few weeks later
he explained why:

The main concern in Chile is that [Allende] can
consolidate himself, and the picture projected to the
world will be his success ... If we let the potential
leaders in South America think they can move like Chile
and have it both ways, we will be in trouble.

That is another reason that pawns matter, and Nixon's
nightmare did in fact come true a quarter-century later,
as one country after another elected independent left
governments that Washington did not want. The United
States ended up "losing" most of the region. But they
are trying to get it back, one country at a time. The
smaller, poorer countries that are closer to the United
States are the most at risk. Honduras and Haiti will
have democratic elections some day, but only when
Washington's influence over their politics is further
reduced.

_____________________________________________