April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

population blindly following one populist leader after another. In typical
fashion, the Washington Post described the January 27 marches in the
capital and two other cities simply as “protests by supporters of ousted
former leader Manuel Zelaya.” As one gay activist explained, however,
“Zelaya is part of the movement, but the movement transcends Zelaya. He
gave people hope and started a process, but it is our goal to continue and
finish that process, the process of re-founding Honduras.”
That’s why we’re greeting Obama on Tuesday with the message that his
regional track record so far includes little change that Central Americans
can believe in. Salvadorans still labor under the burden of CAFTA and its
costly barrage of big business litigation aimed at punishing even the
smallest exercises of national sovereignty. Meanwhile, Hondurans are
experiencing a rapid U.S.-assisted return to the past, in the form of a
country that is poor, militarized, and terrorized--the same set of
conditions that so many Central Americans have long struggled to escape.
www.zcommunications.org
Alexandra Early is a 2007 graduate of Wesleyan University. A former union
staffer in California, she now works for U.S.- El Salvador Sister Cities, an
organization that promotes cross-border solidarity between communities in
North and Central America. She can be reached at earlyave@gmail.com
Punishing the Truth-Tellers
Robert Parry 15 March 2011
It appears the most serious offense you can commit in Washington these
days is telling the truth. You get a pass on torture, aggressive war, killing
civilians, lying, destroying evidence and such, but don’t dare give honest
information to the American people.
The penalties can range from possible life imprisonment for Pvt. Bradley
Manning, who allegedly disclosed classified information to the public via
WikiLeaks, to getting fired, like what happened to State Department
spokesman P.J. Crowley for calling the Pentagon’s harsh and humiliating
treatment of Manning “counterproductive and stupid.”
Yet, no one suggests that what Manning allegedly released wasn’t true; nor
could you dispute Crowley’s assessment that the forced nudity and the
maximum security treatment of Manning hurt the U.S. image, especially
since these acts recall George W. Bush’s mistreatment of “war on terror”
detainees.
But it seems President Barack Obama is especially eager to go the extra
mile to show the Establishment that he can be trusted with the secrets,
that his administration can hide the truth as assiduously as the last one, if
not more so.
There’s also the recent case of NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller who was
secretly videotaped noting that the Tea Party included some “racist”
individuals. For making that startling comment -- which the full video
indicates he was attributing to some disaffected Republicans he knew --
Schiller was not only canned by NPR but was stripped of a prospective job
at the Aspen Institute.
Yet, Schiller (and his Republican friends) may have been thinking about