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Panel 2: For disputes on the legality of the coup and Zelaya’s supposed infraction of the Honduran Constitution, see the first part of the graphic history as well as the legal evidence here.
Panel 3: Go here for a list of such principles outlined by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva.
You can still pre-order your own 32p hard copy comic of the Honduran Coup here – $5 plus shipping (US – $2, rest of the world $4)
Before I kick things off, become a fan of the newborn Archcomix Facebook Fan page here and get more updates than you can shake a digitized stick at. Now, onwards. Heroes of the week – In West Virginia, Protestors associated with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice have managed to halt blasting on Coal River Mountain for the last week by staging a three-person tree-sit. David Aaron Smith, 23, Amber Nitchman, 19 and Eric Blevins, 28 are on platforms approximately 60 feet up two tulip poplar trees and one oak tree. They are located next to where Massey Energy is blasting to build an access road to the Brushy Fork Impoundment on its Bee Tree Strip Mine. One of them came down two days ago suffering from the cold, although the incessant horn blaring and siren wailing of vindictive Massey energy workers to prevent them from sleeping might have also had something to do with it.Today is National Coal Ash day of action so inform yerselves by watching this video, or reading my comic about Mountain Top Removal (pasted below). Please share this post with others via the buttons at the bottom too.
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Legendary leftist historian activist Howard Zinn also gets a special mention after suffering a fatal heart attack yesterday. Here’s a good interview with him by way of an introduction. Of course, there’s always his seminal A People’s History of the US (later adapted into a graphic novel) too.
Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long one to reflect what an ugly week it’s been in US-related politics. First up, here’s the latest part of the School of the Americas piece – skip back 3 steps to get to the beginning and find out more about SOA/WHINSEC and their illustrious graduates’ violent pasts.
As the estimated number of dead in Haiti rises past the 200,000 mark, several news reports (Democracy Now!, The Guardian and Al Jazeera for starters) are describing the US’s apparent takeover of the main airport at Port-au-Prince. Convoys carrying aid, medical supplies and water are being re-directed to make way for a worrying number of US troops, who are being deployed ‘to ensure security’. Yes Magazine had a great quote from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, after declaring her expectation that the Haitian government would pass an emergency decree – including things like the right to impose curfews – said, “The decree would give the government an enormous amount of authority, which in practice they would delegate to us”. Of course they would.
Naomi Klein leads the charge for transparency to prevent Haiti from succumbing to the free market agenda that New Orleans did in the aftermath of Katrina. Here’s a checklist of suggested actions sent by Rep. Paul Teller on September 13, 2005 – let’s hope they don’t start happening in Port-au-Prince. One other chilling similarity with Katrina is the already conspicuous presence of Blackwater-esque private mercenary forces, operating under the philanthropically-tinged moniker International Peace Operations Association. For an altogether more upfront description of their services in Haiti, checkout this webpage hosted by a similar private outfit called All Pro Legal Investigations – under the ‘Personal Protection’ header they’ll even deal with ‘worker unrest’ and ‘high-threat terminations’. What more could an International Peacekeeping force want? Jeremy Scahill has the whole scoop over at the Nation.
The bad news then came home, not only with the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat for the Democrats, but also yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that curbing corporate donations to electoral campaigns is unconstitutional. Why? Because it infringes on the said corporations’ first amendment rights to free speech. I’m sure that’s exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he said, “the end of democracy will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” See corporate watch for more info.
Lastly, one piece of good news to try and even up the balance. The online human rights and social justice magazine Independent World Report will publish my 4-page piece on Diego Garcia in their next issue.
