US still treats second/third world as its own plaything.... or padded cell

It's a great joke about how Washington and Big Business have cannibalized the more enduringly agricultural countries of Latin America, isn't it? Why, the very phrase "banana republic" has been bringing guffaws on numerous different contexts for something between 30 and 100 years. Woody Allen spoofed the situation in the 1971 comedy movie Bananas. 7 years later the Banana Republic clothing chain was formed. Get it -- hyuk -- Banana Republic? Mow that independent mass media are exposing everything the System is up to, and it's over 20 years since DC gave up on trying to "save" Panama, El Salvador and Nicaragua, things are better for Latin America. Certainly we who dream of life in a freer society are stunned to discover that there basically isn't any war per se going on in all that region anymore. Things are radically better in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay -- former battlegrounds. There's still drug warfare in Colombia, but it causes a tiny fraction of the trouble it used to. However, does anybody remember a tropical wonderland called Honduras? It's still in hell -- largely, it seems, because DC (I can't bring myself to call it Washington, or the United States) wants it for a footstool, or more precisely a drug den. Don't worry, we're still exploiting the daylights out of those countries. But DC's long years of truancy down there have temporarily helped it see the futility of openly trying to play USSR on them. Drugs are the new bananas. Below are a heartbreaking article about it, and the page it came from. Been way too long since we toured the Freedom's Phoenix smorgasbord of news excellence -- please do! /\/.\/\/. http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Front-Page.htm http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/112566-2012-05-30-violence-wracked-honduras.htm Police state Violence-Wracked Honduras by Stephen Lendman On June 28, 2009, a coordinated State Department-Pentagon project allied with Honduran military commanders and top opposition figures ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Industrialists, financial interests, large landowners, and transnational corporations supported the coup. A Porfirio Lobo fascist dictatorship replaced him. Washington backs, arms and funds it. All Honduran officers from captains on up train at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). Formerly it was called the School of the Americas (SOA). It's popularly known as the "School of Assassins." It teaches how to torture, repress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrow democratically elected governments, assassinate targeted leaders, and suppress popular resistance when it erupts. Its graduates specialize in state terror. They brutalize, disappear, and massacre elements perceived as threats to their authority. No one lives safe under these conditions. Honduras' reputation as the world's murder capital is well deserved. Political and human rights activists, unionists and independent journalists are especially at risk. Conditions are exacerbated by Washington's complicity. On May 11, a US helicopter attack killed four Hondurans, including two pregnant women. Another four were wounded during an anti-drug raid. American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) militants were involved. They then stormed homes while occupants slept. Witnesses said masked men spoke English. Hilaria Zavala said six men kicked in her door at 3AM, threw her husband to the floor, and threatened him at gunpoint. Earlier, the DEA acknowledged its involvement in Honduras. Nonetheless, spokeswoman Dawn Dearden said agency personnel weren't in the village on May 11. Honduran security ministry spokesman Hector Ivan Mejia said he knew nothing about the raid. Police claimed cocaine was aboard the targeted vessel. They said those onboard fired first. They shot back in "self-defense." Conflicting Honduran military reports said agents fired on civilians by mistake. Another claimed those killed were drugs traffickers. Villagers are enraged. Nearby Ahuas Mayor Lucio Vaquedano said they have nothing to do with drugs. Victims were fishing. Helicopter fire machine-gunned them to death. It was cold-blooded murder............ (This was supposed to be Saturday's entry but apparently it didn't take)