Beste Cees Zoon van de Volkskrant: waarom zijn die militairen gewapend? Immers, jij schreef: ''Een legerwoordvoerder ontkende dat er sprake is van een staatsgreep. De soldaten, die onder meer het vliegveld en het presidentiële paleis omsingelden, zouden zijn uitgerukt omdat ‘er geruchten gingen dat aanhangers van de president rellen voorbereidden’." Kennelijk is er volgens jouw niks aan de hand. Waarom dan die bewapening? Leg het ons uit.Terwijl de Nederlandse 'kwaliteitspers' nog druk doende is de militaire staatsgreep in Honduras in een zo gunstig mogelijk daglicht te plaatsen bericht The New York Times het volgende:
'Protesters Confront Soldiers After Coup in Honduras
By MARC LACEY and ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: June 29, 2009
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — One day after the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya, was abruptly awakened, ousted and deported by the army here, hundreds of protesters massed at the presidential offices in an increasingly tense face-off with hundreds of camouflage-clad soldiers carrying riot shields and automatic weapons.The protesters, many wearing masks and carrying wooden or metal sticks, yelled taunts at the soldiers across the fences ringing the compound and braced for the army to try to dispel them. “We’re defending our president,” said one protester, Umberto Guebara, who appeared to be in his 30s. “I’m not afraid. I’d give my life for my country.”
Leaders across the hemisphere joined in condemning the coup. Mr. Zelaya, who touched down Sunday in Costa Rica, still in his pajamas, insisted, “I am the president of Honduras.”
The Honduran Congress late Sunday officially voted Mr. Zelaya out of office, replacing him with the president of Congress, Roberto Micheletti, who said Monday that he would resist pressure from other nations demanding the reinstatement of the ousted president, news agencies reported.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the last senior member of the administration to visit Honduras, just three weeks ago, said that the United States was working toward “full restoration of democratic order in Honduras.”
She said that the situation in Honduras “has evolved into a coup.” But when pressed by a reporter, she refused to say explicitly that the United States was demanding that Mr. Zelaya be returned to power, although senior administration officials pointed out that the United States had signed on to an Organization of American States statement on Sunday that included such a demand.
Lees verder: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/world/americas/30honduras.html
Cees Zoon, beste collega van me, valt het jou ook zo op, het verschil van verslaggeving van de krant die jou heeft ontslagen? Ik bedoel hoe de Volkskrant over Iran bericht, waar geen militaire coup heeft plaatsgevonden, en Honduras, waar er wel een staatsgreep heeft plaatsgevonden? Hoe verklaar je dat verschil? Kijk, Cees, het probleem voor jou en veel andere commerciele journalisten is dat vroeger de mensen deze propaganda gelaten over zich heen moesten laten komen, maar dat sinds de komst van internet de consumenten van nieuws niet alleen zelf op zoek kunnen gaan naar de werkelijkheid en die werkelijkheid uit verschillende bronnen kunnen halen, maar het publiek kan nu ook terugpraten. Dat is in de meeste gevallen een democratische vooruitgang. Jij en onze collega's hebben het monopolie op de berichtgeving verloren. Dus blijf niet stil. Reageer nu eens op mijn kritiek. Zwijgen helpt je niet.
12 opmerkingen:
Was Cees hier wel bij, en wat waren zijn bevindingen?
Grote stilte...
De Nederlandse krant heeft het monopolie op het zwijgen, internet op informatie.
Lekker laten zwijgen, komt toch geen zinnig woord uit.
anzi
Beste Stan,
Inderdaad kunnen meer lezers nu zelf op internet zoeken naar de waarheid. Als zij dat kunnen, kun jij dat toch ook?
Er is inderdaad de afgelopen week veel propaganda op gang gekomen ..... daardoor is de balans verstoord geraakt. Daarop reageer ik nu door een tegengeluid te plaatsen.
Beste Stan, lees ook andere artikelen, zoals in de NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/world/americas/13honduras.html
Maar lees ook in andere kranten, zoals the Wall Street Journal, tenslotte ook uit New York:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html
Of bijvoorbeeld een magazine zoals Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/09/zelaya-president-constitution-opinions-contributors-honduras-coup.html
Of nog een ander artikel:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10341
Wellicht is het ook eens verstandig om naar deze link te kijken; het is wel in het Spaans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y7uWoODTTg
Kortom, verzamel eerst de feiten, analyseer deze dan vervolgens en trek dan pas een conclusie.
Dat heb ik de afgelopen twee weken ook gedaan.
Manuel Zelaya was democratisch gekozen, maar dat betekent niet dat hij boven de Grondwet is komen te staan. Nu hij diverse artikelen uit de Grondwet van Honduras heeft genegeerd, kon hij een tegenreactie in de machtsbalans verwachten.
De huidige interim-regering van Honduras bestaat niet uit militairen, maar ook burgers. Mijn conclusie is dat er geen sprake is van een militaire coup !
Ik ben benieuwd wat jouw mening is nu je dit weet. In afwachting van een reactie,
Saludos
stan zei
gilbert van
The Netherlands
Honduras Promotion
e-mail: Honduras@wanadoo.nl
je mag van mij hoog van de toren blazen, maar ga wel in op argumenten. zo nee, ga dan er ergens anders spelen.
stan
9:43 PM
Ik weet niet aan wat voor promotion jij doet, maar ik kan me er wel iets bij voorstellen. luister, gilbert, ik beschik over feiten die jij probeert te negeren. dat is jouw goed recht. je mag partij kiezen voor militairen die vooral naam hebben gemaakt als moordenaars en martelaars. zie daarvoor de rapporten van de mensenrechtenorganisaties. maar respect voor je standpunt heb ik niet, en al helmaal niet voor je aanmatigende en onnozele houding. ik vermoed dat je nooit slachtoffers van terreur hebt gesproken.
Lees dit voordat je doorgaat met je aanmatigende toontje:
School of the Americas Connection
The crisis in Honduras began when the military refused to distribute ballot boxes for the opinion poll in a new Constitution. President Zelaya fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, who refused to step down. The heads of all branches of the Honduran armed forces quit in solidarity with Vasquez. Vasquez, however, refused to step down, bolstered by support in Congress and a Supreme Court ruling that reinstated him. Vasquez remains in control of the armed forces.
Vasquez, along with other military leaders, graduated from the United States' infamous School of the Americas (SOA). According to a School of the Americas Watch database compiled from information obtained from the US government, Vasquez studied in the SOA at least twice: once in 1976 and again in 1984.
The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica.
Congressman Joseph Kennedy has stated, "The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."
The School of the Americas has a long, tortured history in Honduras. According to School of the Americas Watch, "In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates)."
Honduran Gen. Humberto Regalado Hernandez was inducted into the SOA's Hall of Fame. School of the Americas Watch notes that he was a four-time graduate. As head of the armed forces, he refused to take action against soldiers invovled in the Battalion 3-16 death squad.
School of the Americas Watch points out that this is not the first time the SOA has been involved in Latin American coups. "In April 2002, the democratically elected Chavez government of Venezuela was briefly overthrown, and the School of the Americas-trained Efrain Vasquez Velasco, ex-army commander, and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were key players in the coup attempt."
According to School of the Americas Watch, "Over its 58 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques, sniper skills, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the school, is the SOA's largest customer. Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in Latin America."
Met andere woorden: jij steunt geweld, ik niet. Daar zul je toch respect voor moeten opbrengen. Als je dat niet kunt, heeft het geen zin te reageren. Desondanks, wil je meer over Honduras weten, email me even.
Generals Who Led Honduras Military Coup Trained at the School of the Americas
Vasquez-web
Romeo Vasquez, a general who led the military coup in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya, received training at the US School of the Americas. The SOA has trained more than 60,000 soldiers, many of whom have returned home and committed human rights abuses, torture, extrajudicial execution and massacres. According to School of the Americas Watch, Vasquez attended the SOA in 1976 and 1984. The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, also studied there in 1996. We speak with Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of the School of the Americas Watch. [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/1/generals_who_led_honduras_military_coup
Honduras: Military Coup a Blow to Democracy
OAS Should Apply Democratic Charter
June 28, 2009
The OAS has a key role to play now. It must rapidly find a multilateral solution to this breach of democracy in Honduras. To allow this coup to stand would be a huge step back from the progress that the region has made towards democracy in recent decades.
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.
(Washington, DC) - The Organization of American States (OAS) must act quickly to push for the reestablishment of democracy in Honduras after a military coup, Human Rights Watch said today.
The coup took place this morning, when members of the Honduran military reportedly arrested democratically elected president José Manuel Zelaya. Human Rights Watch called on the OAS to urgently apply the body's Democratic Charter to the situation in Honduras.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/28/honduras-military-coup-blow-democracy
Hoe ga jij dit met je promotion verkopen aan het publiek, gilbert? of geloof je human rights watch niet?
gilbert
namens wie spreek jij? welk belang vertegenwoordig je? ik lees dit op internet over een bijeenkomst waar jij was en dat tot doel o.a. dit had:
'Developing a strategic alliance between volunteer workers
and businesses in Honduras.
We have more than 5,000 individuals in our Worldwide Honduras Network, and it is
incredible to see the impact many of these private citizens are quietly making on
Honduras. What we are trying to do with the conference is simply give people the chance
to meet face-to-face, exchange business cards and information, and perhaps discover ways
to complement each other's efforts.
Moerkerk, Gilbert
Maastricht, The Netherlands
Honduras Promotion
Honduras@wanadoo.nl
hoeveel business cards heb jij kunnen uitdelen en ontvangen? hoe ging het?
Een van de bekendste mensen die de business met Honduras op poten zette was de Amerikaan Edward Bernays. Even voor jouw informatie: Edward Bernays, was een neef van Sigmund Freud en de ‘grondlegger van de public relations’, wiens handboek Propaganda als de bijbel van de pr-industrie werd gezien. Bernays stelde het volgende: ‘If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.' (Propaganda, 2005 ed., p. 71.) Hij noemde 'this scientific technique of opinion-molding the “engineering of consent”.'
In de ogen van Bernays en de Amerikaanse elite, voor wie hij werkte, zou de democratie in chaos eindigen als mensen niet constant en via alle beschikbare kanalen verteld werd wat belangrijk is en wat niet, hoe ze zich moeten gedragen en hoe niet, wat de normen en waarden van een kapitalistische samenleving zijn en wat niet. Het spreekt voor zich dat daarmee de belangen van allereerst en vooral de economische en politieke elite worden gediend. Bernays was ervan overtuigd dat de rijken zich moesten concentreren op ‘regimenting the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers.’ De Amerikaanse hoogleraar Noam Chomsky schreef over hem: ‘Bernays was drawing from his experience in Woodrow Wilson’s state propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information. “It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind,” he wrote. His goal was to adapt these experiences to the need of the “intelligent minorities,” primarily business leaders, whose task is “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses.” Such “engineering of consent” is the very “essence of the democratic process,” Bernays wrote shortly before he was honoured for his contributions by the American Psychological Association in 1949. The importance of “controlling the public mind” has been recognized with increasing clarity as popular struggles succeeded in extending the modalities of democracy, thus giving rise to what liberal elites call “the crisis of democracy” as when normally passive and apathetic populations become organized and seek to enter the political arena to pursue their interests and demands, threatening stability and order. As Bernays explained the problem, with “universal suffrage and universal schooling,… at last even the bourgeoisie stood in fear of the common people. For the masses promised to become king,” a tendency fortunately reversed – so it has been hoped – as new methods “to mold the mind of the masses” were devised and implemented.’ Een dergelijke ‘engineering of consent´ was volgens Bernays juist de ´essence of the democratic process.´
Daarbij was ´controlling the public mind´ van eminent belang voor de rijken en machtigen om het volk in het gareel te houden en in de juiste richting te laten marcheren. Het belang van propaganda begreep ook Sam Zemurray, die uitgestrekte bananenplantages bezat in Midden Amerika. Eerder al had hij een staatsgreep in Honduras gefinancierd om de president ten val te brengen, aangezien die erop had gestaan dat de rijken belasting betaalden over hun grondbezit en zich ook nog eens de Hondurese wet zouden houden. Begin jaren vijftig van de vorige eeuw werd Bernays door Zemurray ingehuurd om de democratische regering van Guatemala ten val te brengen omdat die van plan was grote stukken ongebruikt land van het concern van Zemurray, United Fruit, te confisqueren om het onder de arme boeren te herverdelen.
Bernays adviseerde zijn client om ogenblikkelijk een mediahetze te starten. ‘I have the feeling that Guatemala might respond to pitiless publicity in this country,’ zo verklaarde hij later trots. Onder andere via een perscampagne werd de democratische regering afgeschilderd als communistisch. Tegelijkertijd werden prominente Congresleden bewerkt en tenslotte viel de regering dankzij een CIA-complot. Het gevolg was dat er een meedogeloze drie decennia durende oorlog burgeroorlog ontstond waarbij tenminste 200.000 doden vielen. 93 procent werd vermoord door het leger, de doodseskaders en andere door de VS opgeleide gangsters, aldus een officieel overheidsrapport. Het toont aan hoe dodelijk propaganda kan zijn.
Voor mogelijke twijfelaars onder ons nog even een boekbespreking:
'The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & The Birth of PR
by Larry Tye
book review by John Stauber and Sheldon
Bernays' life was amazing in many ways. He had a role in many of the seminal intellectual and commercial events of this century. "The techniques he developed fast became staples of political campaigns and of image-making in general," Tye notes. "That is why it is essential to understand Edward L. Bernays if we are to understand what Hill and Knowlton did in Iraq--not to mention how Richard Nixon was able to dig his way out of his post-Watergate depths and remake himself into an elder statesman worthy of a lavish state funeral, how Richard Morris repositioned President Bill Clinton as an ideological centrist in order to get him reelected, and how most other modern-day miracles of public relations are conceived and carried out."
Many of the new insights that Tye offers have to do with Bernays's relationship with his family and his uncle Sigmund Freud, whose reputation as "the father of psychoanalysis" owes something to Bernays' publicity efforts. Bernays regarded Uncle Sigmund as a mentor, and used Freud's insights into the human psyche and motivation to design his PR campaigns, while also trading on his famous uncle's name to inflate his own stature.
There is, however, a striking paradox in the relationship between the two. Uncle Sigmund's "talking cure" was designed to unearth his patients' unconscious drives and hidden motives, in the belief that bringing them into conscious discourse would help people lead healthier lives. Bernays, by contrast, used psychological techniques to mask the motives of his clients, as part of a deliberate strategy aimed at keeping the public unconscious of the forces that were working to mold their minds.
Characteristically (and again paradoxically), Bernays was remarkably candid about his manipulative intent. "If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it," he argued in Propaganda, one of his first books. In a later book, he coined the term "engineering of consent" to describe his technique for controlling the masses.
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society," Bernays argued. "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. . . . In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."
This definition of "democratic society" is itself a contradiction in terms--a theoretical attempt to reconcile rule by the few with the democratic system which threatened (and still threatens) the privileges and powers of the governing elite. On occasion, Bernays himself recoiled from the anti-democratic implications of his theory.
During Bernays' lifetime and since, propaganda has usually had dirty connotations, loaded and identified with the evils of Nazi PR genius Joseph Goebbels, or the oafish efforts of the Soviet Communists. In his memoirs, Bernays wrote that he was "shocked" to discover that Goebbels kept copies of Bernays' writings in his own personal library, and that his theories were therefore helping to "engineer" the rise of the Third Reich.
Bernays liked to cultivate an image as a supporter of feminism and other liberating ideas, but his work on behalf of the United Fruit Company had consequences just as evil and terrifying as if he'd worked directly for the Nazis. The Father of Spin sheds new and important light on the extent to which the Bernays' propaganda campaign for the United Fruit Company (today's United Brands) led directly to the CIA's overthrow of the elected government of Guatemala.
The term "banana republic" actually originated in reference to United Fruit's domination of corrupt governments in Guatemala and other Central American countries. The company brutally exploited virtual slave labor in order to produce cheap bananas for the lucrative U.S. market. When a mildly reformist Guatemala government attempted to reign in the company's power, Bernays whipped up media and political sentiment against it in the commie-crazed 1950s.
"Articles began appearing in the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Atlantic Monthly, Time, Newsweek, the New Leader, and other publications all discussing the growing influence of Guatemala's Communists," Tye writes. "The fact that liberal journals like the Nation were also coming around was especially satisfying to Bernays, who believed that winning the liberals over was essential. . . . At the same time, plans were under way to mail to American Legion posts and auxiliaries 300,000 copies of a brochure entitled 'Communism in Guatemala--22 Facts.'"
His efforts led directly to a brutal military coup. Tye writes that Bernays "remained a key source of information for the press, especially the liberal press, right through the takeover. In fact, as the invasion was commencing on June 18, his personal papers indicate he was giving the 'first news anyone received on the situation' to the Associate Press, United Press, the International News Service, and the New York Times, with contacts intensifying over the next several days."
The result, tragically, has meant decades of tyranny under a Guatemalan government whose brutality rivaled the Nazis as it condemned hundreds of thousands of people (mostly members of the country's impoverished Maya Indian majority) to dislocation, torture and death.
Bernays relished and apparently never regretted his work for United Fruit, for which he was reportedly paid $100,000 a year, a huge fee in the early 1950s. Tye writes that Bernays' papers "make clear how the United States viewed its Latin neighbors as ripe for economic exploitation and political manipulation--and how the propaganda war Bernays waged in Guatemala set the pattern for future U.S.-led campaigns in Cuba and, much later, Vietnam."
As these examples show, Tye's biography of Bernays is important. It casts a spotlight on the anti-democratic and dangerous corporate worldview of the public relations industry. The significance of these dangers is often overlooked, in large part because of the PR industry's deliberate efforts to operate behind the scenes as it manages and manipulates opinions and public policies. This strategy of invisibility is the reason that PR academic Scott Cutlip refers to public relations as "the unseen power."
Bernays pioneered many of the industry's techniques for achieving invisibility, yet his self-aggrandizing personality drove him to leave behind a record of how and for whom he worked. By compiling this information and presenting it to the public in a readable form, Tye has accomplished something similar to the therapeutic mission that Freud attempted with his patients--a recovery of historical memories that a psychoanalyst might term a "return of the repressed."
Published in PR Watch, Second Quarter 1999, Volume 6, No. 2
Zie: http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html
Dit is voorlopig wel genoeg achtergrond Gilbert. Dit is de context van de gebeurtenissen.
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