Zelaya returned to Honduras and Jason Beaubien was spinning for his new, fiesty grandpa. Robert Siegel asks Beaubien, "Tell us a bit about Zelaya's politics and what led to his ouster?"The version I transcribed Monday evening about 8pm:
Mentioned Zelaya shifting taxes away from the poor and onto the rich - and
"what really was the final straw was that he was attempting to put together a referendum that would have allowed him or someone else to run for president for a second term and that is when he was arrested. On the morning of June 28th soldiers burst into his bedroom, guns drawn, threw him on to a plane in his pajamas and dumped him on the airport in Costa Rica so that's basically what led to his ouster. Immediately after that, the next in line constitutionally was elevated to the president, and that's Roberto Micheletti..."The transcript on the NPR site looked different and so I listened to it. It had indeed changed - I guess Micheletti wasn't the only one discombobulated by Zelaya's return! Beaubien again notes Zelaya's leftist politics, indicates that he shifted resources to the poor, and
"his opponents say he was basically trying to put in a Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan style socialist state. And on the morning of June 28, he was about to hold a referendum on whether or not the president could run for a second term."One can debate about the legality of Zelaya's attempts to push a non-binding referendum - but the referendum would not have allowed anyone to run for a second term, it only would have allowed people to vote on whether a call for a constituent assembly should be made. You can read the text of the referendum here and get a moderate's reasonable view of the issue.
11 comments:
It [transcript] had indeed changed - I guess Micheletti wasn't the only one discombobulated by Zelaya's return! "
NPR is like a version of the "telephone game": you whisper something in the ear of one of their "journalists" (could be an actual fact) and by the time it gets "processed" by the NPR propaganda machine, it bears no relationship to its former self (or to reality).
I'd guess that someone from NPR management (perhaps even NPR CEO Vivian Schiller herself) weighed in on this "transcript" because they thought it was not right wing enough.
Hondurus? WTF??? We got bigger fish to fry here at NPR! Like trying to overthrow a terrorist regime in Iran, validating elections held in occupied countries (occupied by our masters in DC hence the task), making sure that insurance multi-nationals get their money-grubbing talons on that 47m co-hort of uninsured, working against the management class panicking during phoney financial crisis (which we of course never saw coming cause we only take faxes from Cabinent officials), and validating a minority of right-wing nut cases that still think Obabam somehow "seized" power just because he won an election.
Hondurus, Smundurus, we got a full plate and we are about to enter another fund raising extravaganza!!!
And take it from me V. Schiller (I'm not a right-wing nut case; I only play one in the NPR conference calls) that's plenty enough, ok?
edk
More gigantic evidence that these NPR-niks are in the world WAY over their heads. They never seem to have grown as individuals. But what am I thinking? Shills simply don't grow, they can't grow. They are in denial of their puppet strings because their egos are constantly being jacked off by the very fact that millions (?) of people are listening to them, and that they think they're doing 'journalism' and all that rot.
I can scarcely think of anyone now at NPR who has any of that classic and healthy skepticism that made Mencken so wise or Murrow so perceptive. All their academic accomplishment (totally conventional and mainstream) hasn't helped much, either. It's just made them into a rinkydink elite class - a fact they would of course vehemently deny.
Once every five centuries or so I dedicate about two seconds to actually feeling sorry for NPR. They're so hopelessly mixed up, and I'd brand them as a failure. They often come up with interesting subject matter (methods totally copied from BBC's much longer tradition), but to my mind, the botch-up frequency in handling said interesting subject matter is plainly unacceptable.
I'll revive an old war cry: Scrap NPR. Start over.
I could even adopt a Teabaggy point of view: I don't want no government in broadcasting!!!!
(I wonder what Mawra's & Yawn's health insurance is with: NPR or Fox? I know, stupid question...)
Y'all may be interested in this from FAIR:
New Developments in Honduras–Same Old Bad Media
http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/09/22/new-developments-in-honduras-same-old-bad-media/
It was quite a contrast, going from listening to Democracy Now's coverage of the events in Honduras (I live in Portland, OR where I can listen to Amy Goodman's program on KBOO-90.7) and then listening to the chicken scratching at NPR.
Suppress the wage! Suppress the wage!
Or else we'll run you out!
The Future is for the Ruling Class
The rest can go and pout!
++++
The mara liarssson M.E. stint on Tues was, as mentioned, outrageous. Mara's take on warrior body language was hilarious. Obama definitely aint got it, bush seriously has got it. I thought she was going to melt the (jack) boot-black right out of her scalp. Quelle toadie!
just let's work towards freedom in this county so that their people can stay there or go back to their homeland...this would make them happy.
Well, this makes me feel more sane. Several times I've heard one thing and read another on NPR. Once I emailed a comment only to be told that no editing had occurred. Unfortunately, I doubted my sanity, not theirs.
Song to Boobikins:
When You Awake
You will remember everything
You will be hanging on a string from
When you believe you will relieve the only soul
That you were born with, to grow old and never know
Long as I'm on a The Band riff:
To the tune of "Oh, Jaw Bone"
Oh Beaubien, he don't say what he's seen
Oh beaubien, the CIA has got your spleen
Two timing talker you never fess
Up to your lying, spying selfishness
You keep on spinning, hiding the truth
Incredulous, blatant, and so uncouth
You're a creep, just like Inskeep!
You're a creep, just like Inskeep!
It's an odd word, no doubt. People say something is "incredible" when they mean it's amazing and great and true. NPR is is incredible in the other sense: not credible.
Then we go a step further out in the orbits of meaning and find "incredulous". If you're credulous then you're believing. If you're credible then you're believable. So the vagaries are in the role of creed believer - is it the teller or the tellee?
NPR is both credulous (believes whatever the CIA/Pentagon/Corporate Entity tells them) and incredulous (not believable.)
Main Entry:in-cred-u-lous
Pronunciation:(*)in-*kre-j*-l*s, -dy*-l*s
Function:adjective
Etymology:Latin incredulus, from in- + credulus credulous
Date:1579
1 : unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true : not credulous : SKEPTICAL
2 : INCREDIBLE 1
3 : expressing incredulity *an incredulous stare*
–in£cred£u£lous£ly adverb
usage Sense 2 was revived in the 20th century after a couple of centuries of disuse. Although it is a sense with good literary precedent*among others Shakespeare used it*many people think it is a result of confusion with incredible, which is still the usual word in this sense.
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