Here's an excellent explanation of the coup in Honduras

Honduras. Why was there a coup against President Zelaya?

Charles II has an excellent series explaining the problems there.

Whom the gods would destroy, part 1: the crisis in Honduras.

A big part of the problem in Honduras is the irrational and disorganized Constitution. It is widely recognized that the Constituion of Honduras must be changed. The powers of the status quo. Chiquita, the descendant of United Fruit; the military, a number of oil companies and mining companies and some sweatshop operators do not want this to happen. There are 12 families in Honduras who control almost all business. Ten of them were behind this coup.
Whom the gods would destroy, part 2: The crisis in Honduras.
The following were the reasons given for the coup:

• Zelaya was trying to succeed himself in office, either by re-election or by seizing power, specifically by having a referendum (note the term) on whether to hold a Constitutional Convention
• Zelaya was mentally ill
• Zelaya had broken one or more "set-in-stone" articles of the Constitution, whose punishment is immediate removal from office
• Zelaya had committed numerous civil crimes and had to be removed from office
• Zelaya was a communist or, at least, an acolyte of Hugo Chavez, who wanted to turn Honduras into a new Venezuela or a new Cuba.

The following were the explanations for why the coup was wrong:

• Zelaya had raised the minimum wage from about $1.20 per hour to $1.70 per hour, angering sweatshop owners, the restaurant owners, Chiquita, and others who rely on low wages (Honduran minimum wage laws are complex, and beyond the scope of the present work.)

• Zelaya had refused to illegalize the "morning after" pill, angering the Roman Catholic hierarchy, as well as most evangelicals
• Zelaya had resisted privatization of the electrical an phone companies, angering those who hoped to profit from privatization
• Zelaya had ended the Byzantine regulation of gasoline, which had boosted prices, obtaining cheap gas through Petrocaribe, and angering international oil companies and those who profited from the existing system
• Zelaya had joined the Bolivaran organization ALBA, which includes Cuba and Venezuela, providing a pretext to anti-communists to accuse him of communist sympathies
• Zelaya wanted to convert Palmerola airbase to civilian use (the runway at Toncontin airport is too short for civilian aircraft to safely land), angering the US military
• Zelaya wanted to fulfill the campaign rhetoric on an Asamblea Nacional Constituyente (Constitutional Convention), and was laying the framework by holding a non-binding poll to put political pressure on Congress to act. Since the power of the oligarchy requires that the political system frustrate any possible reform, this threatened their interests

Part III is yet to be published.

Needless to say, Charles II provides good explanations of what I have written here.

It is my opinion that this political battle is another in the interminable war between the social forces of tradition, the social forces of global trade, and the social forces of the even more recent Industrialization.

I suspect they are all connected in the French Revolution, U.S. Civil War, the Great War and WW II, the Cold War, and the current battles in America between the conservatives and the liberal/progressives. A lot of it is carried by global trade, while more of it is involved in both the advances in communications technology, the growth of populations, and the movement of the growing populations off the farms and into the cities - something that passed 50% of the World population about half a century ago.

As the urban technological societies expand they demand oil and raw materials, so they create and manipulate local elites in third world societies. All of these social changes are being fought against by the forces of the status quo who will lose because of them. Khadaffy took over Libya because of this dynamic. The Iranians kicked out the Shah because of it. The Saudi royal family runs scared of the religious elites because of it. The Muslim Brotherhood grew up in Egypt because of it.

The difference between the voters in America for the Democrats and those for the Republicans also reflect this urban - rural split. You will notice that in 2008 Democrats overwhelmingly carried the metropolitan areas, and the Republicans carried the rural counties.

When people who grew up in a rural farming family are forced to move to cities to support their families, the city dwellers and the rural elites both lose power. The new urban residents are not, in fact, urban culturally. That takes a generation.

Another problem occurs when rural herders are forced to live inside fenced land. They do not adapt well to the societies of farmers or to city societies. We are seeing this dynamic occur world wide.

Honduras is just one more example of these problems of various societies adapting to the new economic, demographic and social changes. Zelaya tried to change government and the powers of the status quo conducted a coup to remove him. Charles II also alludes to a similar problem which hamstrung Clinton when he was elected President. I suggest that the same dynamic is behind teh desperate battle by the powers of the status quo to stop Obama from reforming the disastrous American health insurance system.

Honduras and the coup against Zelaya is another example of the battle between the forces of the status quo and those demanding change to meet new economic and social conditions.

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Addendum 12/13/09 12:54 pm
Here is Part III of Charles II's diary on the Honduran Coup. This part of the diary covers the responses of the various players to whom the coup has been important.

Housing values continue to decline

Countrywide Mortgage Co is the largest mortgage company in the U.S. Here is what they have to say about home prices.:

"Company is seeing home price depreciation at levels not seen since the Great Depression"

-Previously, the company had stated they expected a turnaround in mid-2008; now, they say they are not sure when housing declines will cease. Refuse to rule out house price declines in 2009;

The value of the home is the largest piece of wealth normally owned by members of the American middle class. This decline in housing prices means that the American middle class as a whole is losing a great deal of its wealth.

Bush has frequently spoken of creating the Ownership Society in which every person's value will be the total sum of the values of what he or she owns. (And nothing else counts for value. Mother Theresa, for example, was worthless at her death, since she owned nothing.)

This is the new America. This is the America given to us by the Goldwater Revolution. It is the America brought to us by Nixon, Reagan, the Bush family and Dick Cheney. It is an America in which the U.S. Constitution is rapidly becoming a quaint document left over from that strange period of the American Republic, where criticizing the government or the vice President can get you arrested, investigated and fired from your job.

It is also an America in which only the extremely wealthy count. That's what the Ownership Society really means. Remember that. In the Ownership Society your only value is what you own and the government can take that away with a policy, a whim, or the anger of a government official. If the government decides to take your property there is nothing you can do. From TPM Muckraker:

The order empowers Treasury, in consultation with the State and Defense Departments, to target those individuals or organizations that either "have committed, or ... pose a significant risk of committing" acts of violence with the "purpose or effect" of harming the Iraqi government or hindering reconstruction efforts. It applies to "U.S. persons," a category including American citizens. It had not previously been disclosed -- and still hasn't -- that U.S. persons are abetting the Iraqi insurgency, nor that Iraqi insurgents have property in the United States, raising questions about who in fact the order targets.

"The part where they reserve lots of discretion to themselves is the list of conditions that goes beyond determination of acts of violence. 'Threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq,' that could be anything," says Ken Mayer, an expert in executive orders and a University of Wisconsin political scientist. "Think of the possibilities: it could be charities that send a small amount of money (to groups linked to) the insurgency, or it could be the government of Iran that has assets in the U.S. and has money that flows through a U.S. bank or something like that."

The order permits the targeting of those who aid someone else whose assets have been blocked under the order -- wittingly or not. And under Section Five, the government does not have to disclose which organizations are subject to having their assets frozen

Surely the Department of Justice, filled with government officers who have each sworn to Defend the U.S. Constitution, would not let these injustices against Americans get out of hand? Well, that is the Department of Justice led by Alberto Gonzales, who no longer even tries to appear as though he is not lying to Congress about how little respect they have for the Constitution or for the American people.

There has been a coup. The wealthy no longer pay taxes to keep the country going, the middle class does that. Now we can begin to see that this is a country that works to protect and build the wealth of the super rich while it allows the wealth of the middle class to be destroyed. And the government is using every police power it has to expand this new aristocracy of the super rich from the rest of the American citizens.

The sharp decline in the value of homes is just one more step in the coup.

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Addendum 07 25 2007 11:01 CDT
Here is what I suggested be watched for in December 2006 -

• Watch the dollar in 2007

It is dropping, and that will be a major consideration the Federal Reserve has to keep in mind if they want to lower interest rates to stimulate the economy. Any significant increase in the interest rates will increase the loss of value of the dollar greatly.

The fed is in a bind, and the economic problems are largely created by the Bush administration policies.

The wealthy, if they have any good sense, will take any money they get from tax cuts and immediately invest it outside the U.S. in EUROs or Yen. The result will be a hemorrhage of money that should have gone into investment. That will further depress the economy. The poor and the middle class will continue to see their financial situations deteriorate, and the middle class will see their wealth melt away.

The Republicans will try to delay the worst of it for 28 more months so that they can blame the Democrats. In the meantime, the Republicans will continue to do everything possible to keep Congress from doing anything successful, and as long as they have 41 votes in the Senate, they will be able to paralyze Congress. They have done this for six months now, and they are already blaming the Democrats for not doing anything. we can expect more in the future. They want control of the government back, and they will put the American economy into the toilet to achieve their takeover.

Compare the Bush view of Congress to that of the Kaiser

Interesting - the Bush/Cheney view of the relationship between the President and the Congress is very close to the actual relationship between German Emperors Kaiser Wilhelm I and Kaiser Wilhelm II to the German Reichstag of that period. At least Mark Kleimsn thinks that is a good comparison.

Mark makes a good case. If this is what American conservatism has come to, and it looks like it with Bush attempting to assert the Judge-made law of "Executive Privilege to block any effort by Congress to subpoena individuals appointed to office by the President, then conservatism has followed the path of the lemmings and gone over a big cliff.

I thought that the term "Imperial Presidency" was just rhetoric to expose a severe overreaching by the administration. Who knew that it was the actual blue print for their behavior?

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Addendum 1:50 PM CDT
Mark Kleiman explains how to stop the Bush administration from making this current overreach work here.

Another good Digby Post - Press bias against Al Gore

This is a particularly interesting historical post by Digby. We have been following the misadventures of the sleazy individuals placed into the Department of Justice, most recently Monica Goodling. Digby goes back and looks at where so many of these low-lifes came from.

The connection runs through the Republican Opposition Research office for the 2000 Presidential Election, and includes Tim Griffin the mostly unqualified attorney who was recently a deputy to Karl Rove, and for whom the U.S. attorney in Arkansas was fired last December so that he could take the job.

Keep those things in mind as you read Digby's history. You might also see if you can find the BBC documentary "Digging The Dirt".

There have been only three U. S. Attorney's fired since 1981 - until now under Bush/Gonzales.

What do you think it means that there have only been three US Attorneys fired since 1981 until Alberto Gonzales just fired six in one day and two additional that we know of? That's what the diarist reports at dKos today.

It is my opinion that this is just one more step in the process the Bush/Cheney/Gonzales administration has set in place to replace the U.S. Constitution with a right-wing authoritarian theocratic government. US Attorney Lam got Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham from San Diego sent to prison, and indicted at least one more Republican Congressman before leaving office. US Attorney Ygliesias failed to respond to calls from Republican Sen. Dominici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson to bring an indictment against Congresswoman Wilson's opponent before the November 2006 election. Congresswoman Wilson won reelection by only 826 votes, which demonstrates how close the election was. The US Attorney for Arkansas was fired so that an aide to Karl Rove could be given his office.

Do you want to live in a nation operated under the Rule of Law? One where the US Constitution is the highest law of the land and no person, including the President, is above the law? Bush, Cheney and Gonzales don't want you to. They want a right-wing authoritarian theocratic government in which the highest law in the land is the one they want.

John Locke - Second Treatise on Government makes it clear that that the legislature MUST be the one supreme power in the government. The Founding Fathers were fully aware of this when they wrote into Article VI of the Constitution the following:

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

So the legislature is the supreme power in the land (as indicated by its position as Article I of the Constitution, before all other agencies of government) and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

The 1803 decision of Marbury vs Madison made clear what had been only implied in the Constitution, that the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the meaning of the U.S. Constitution when a case that requires such interpretation is appealed to them and they accept it.

Don't overlook the fact that the Courts cannot go our and decide to start a case. Every case must be brought to the court by a prosecutor, or appealed from such a properly initiated case in the various States. Federal cases must be initiated by a Federal Prosecutor. If the administration can intimidate the US Attorneys to stop them from initiating a case, that case will not be considered in the Courts for its Constitutionality. That is what is happening here with the firing of the many US Attorneys. The replacements will be a lot more amenable to "suggestions", and so will all the other US Attorneys who want to keep their jobs.

These are the major institutions that operate the Rule of Law in the United States. None of these instutions and decisions include the claim of Vice President Dick Cheney that the President can operate without constraint when he acts as Commander-in-Chief in time of war. There is no such power described anywhere, and the assertions of the Vice President do not change that in any way.

The coup-de-etate and elimination of the US Constitution being attempted by this administration has no basis in law whatsoever. The efforts of Gonzalez to remove all the US Attorneys he has suddenly removed are a desperate attempt by the attempted coup members to make an end run to avoid the law and the Constitution.

These people mst be removed from office before they really damage America beyong repair.