Honduras Coup, Act III, Day 38

I have been very much tied up, but will try to do an update late tonight.

RAJ has an answer to pro-coup partisans who don’t imagine that Americans have any idea what’s really going on in Honduras.

magbana at HondurasOye has discovered the Naumann Foundation, a German version of the National Endowment for Democracy (which devotes itself to undermining democracy), which Telesur mentioned some time ago.

Election season began. The Frente Contra el Golpe has threatened a boycott, but Carlos Reyes (independent) and Cesar Ham (UD) are candidates of the anti-coupistas, according to Tiempo. Elvin Santos will be the Liberal candidate and Porfirio Lobos the Nationalist. The pretend government says that Zelaya can return on in 2010.

Radio Globo is talking about Billy Joya, of the 3-16 batallion death squad. Juan Evangelista Lopez Grijalba (see also here and here), a colonel. Luis Alonso Morán Ñorel, ? Alvaro Ponce, Colonel Alexander Raimundo Hernandez Santos, and one other. There will be a march beginning at 8AM starting at the Universidad Pedagogica.

Adrienne Pine has been devoting effort to promoting the defense of Dario Euraque, a historian at Trinity College. The Hartford Courant has given him some considerable ink, which may help to spread the word that something is actually happening in Honduras.

Another source goes down: The TR-Honduras page has been suspended. My guess is that there is some cyber warfare going on. It’s a good time to make sure your software is up-to-date and that you don’t download anything you don’t absolutely need.

Brother John has an English translation of a statement by Franciscan Friars in Honduras. I have to say that statements like this remind me of the resistance song “No, no, no basta rezar. Hace falta muchas cosas para conseguir la paz.” The Sisters of Mercy (to whom Brother John also links) have more practical advice:

We urge the U.S. government to:

be unequivocal and very public in denouncing the brutal human rights violations committed by Honduran military and police forces;

cancel diplomatic as well as tourist and business visas for a broader group of those implicated in orchestrating or leading the coup;

freeze the accounts in U.S. banks of these same coup leaders; and

follow the example of other nations by recalling Ambassador Llorens until the legitimate president of Honduras is restored to office.

…

We also urge the Catholic community worldwide and all people of good will to strengthen international solidarity with the Honduran people, accompanying those whose basic human rights are being violated, advocating for a just and enduring resolution to this crisis, and addressing the many ways in which international greed for minerals and markets, wealth, power and control provide fertile ground for the suffering in Honduras. Long-term peace and stability depend on ensuring that the poor and marginalized sectors of society be included in the economic and political life of the country.

At its heart, the Honduran coup (and all the violence against the leftists of Central and South America) is because some business owners refuse to provide fair pay, engage in abominable environmental practices, and otherwise don’t practice the Christianity which most of them profess. If these people were behaving even slightly along the lines Jesus instructed, there would be no left.

In Other News, Sun Rises In East

Scott Rasmussen is an unabashed Republican, yet — up until the latest election cycle — he generally played it fairly straight for a GOP pollster, in that while he had bias, it was predictable and consistent enough to allow one to adjust for it. You could take his numbers, shave off a point from the Republican and give it to the Democrats, and usually arrive at the truth.

Not so this year. The gloves are off and Rasmussen’s thumb is now heavily, blatantly on the scale. Per Greg Sargent (via DKos’ Steve Singiser):

But now take a look at the question wording:

Suppose that Democrats agreed on a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress. Should the Democrats pass that bill or should they change the bill to win support from a reasonable number of Republicans?

24% They should pass the bill
58% They should change the bill
19% Not sure

Fifty eight percent say Dems should craft health care in order to get support from a “reasonable” number of Republicans. Yet the poll also includes the amusing caveat that the pollster did not quantify what constitutes “a reasonable number” of Republican supporters. Clever, eh?

A-yep. As Singiser points out, that’s not the only evidence of Rasmussen fudging their polls lately:

Now, polling on health care has been all over the map, as Nate over at 538 pointed out earlier this week in a piece which attempted to address the common flaws which led to biased results.

What is consistent about Rasmussen’s coverage of the health care debate is their incessant desire to frame the debate in ways designed to denigrate both the Congress and President Obama. One of the most insipid examples of this was a survey earlier in the week in which Rasmussen reported that two-thirds of voters believed that they understood the health care reform proposal as well, or better, than President Obama.

Of course, there is objective evidence to prove that this poll is false. Indeed, in the recent poll conducted for AARP, just thirty-seven percent of Americans could correctly identify what is meant by a “public option”. Nearly one-half of voters either thought it was a total nationalized healthcare program, or admitted that they had no idea.  

Asking voters how well they understand a certain piece of legislation is not unlike asking them if they are patriotic, or if they are middle class. The default answer is always going to be “yes”. Surely, Rasmussen must know this this, and just as clearly, they must have understood that the poll’s results were essentially meaningless. They ran with it, anyway, apparently more enthused at the prospect of taking another quick shot at the President’s knees than they were with actually divining public opinion on a sensitive issue like health care.

There’s more at the post link. It’s truly amazing and will almost certainly be ignored by the GOP/Media Complex.