Saturday, June 27, 2009


Le bas-fond
Kirsti Ottem Langeland
Posted by at

41 comments:

  1. mollyJune 27, 2009 at 7:09 AM

    Beautiful, what does the title mean?

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  2. vzaJune 27, 2009 at 8:47 AM

    This worries me a great deal.

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  3. MaracatuJune 27, 2009 at 6:31 PM

    I like the Renoir film.

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  4. mollyJune 27, 2009 at 7:16 PM

    Worries you?  Why?

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  5. vzaJune 27, 2009 at 7:49 PM

    This work is about depression. The lowest depths.

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  6. vJune 27, 2009 at 10:33 PM

    If there is depression it is indeed a terrbile thing. It may be that TGIA is dealing with it himself, or there may be a family member that is having problems. If this is the case, either way it is a very difficult matter.

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  7. vzaJune 27, 2009 at 10:54 PM

    Are you okay, tgia? You are not responding to any of our comments. Not to be nosy, but just to let you know we are thinking of you.

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  8. thankgodimatheistJune 28, 2009 at 3:10 AM

    Thank you all for your concern. A time will come, I'm hopoing, when it'll become much easier to talk about it.

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  9. thankgodimatheistJune 28, 2009 at 6:52 AM

    Thank you for your concern. A time will come, I'm hopoing, when it'll become much easier to talk about it.

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  10. vzaJune 28, 2009 at 7:32 AM

    Just remember, you are a great guy, a wonderful and talented person. and we all appreciate you and wish you the best. Take care.

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  11. anandJune 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM

    It is a very nice painting. ;)

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  12. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 2:09 PM

    I guess imperialist expediency overrules democracy once again.

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  13. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 2:11 PM

    I guess imperialist expediency overrules democracy once again.

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  14. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 2:33 PM

    Currently there are reports of the military pursuing civil society leaders in the street. COPINH, the National Council of Indigenous Peoples has strongly backed the constitutional reform effort. The home of Bertha Caceres, a leader of COPINH, has been under military and police surveillance for several days. Today leaders of COPINH have been pursued by the military in the street, and are in hiding.
    On Tuesday of last week Fabio Ochoa, the regional coordinator promoting the Constitutional reform consultations, was shot five times when leaving a television station after promoting the constitutional reform. He is in intensive care.
    The proposal to draft a new constitution is the culmination of a series of controversial measures undertaken in his presidency, which include a significant raise in the minimum wage, measures to re- nationalize energy generation plants and the telephone system, signing a bill that vastly improves labor conditions for teachers, joining the Venezuelan Petrocaribe program which provides soft loans for development initiatives via petroleum sales, delaying recognition of the new US ambassador after the Bolivian government implicated the US embassy in supporting fascist paramilitary groups destabilizing Bolivia, and others.

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  15. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 2:52 PM

    The U.S. has had a lasting presence in modern Honduras, primarily at the Soto Cano airbase, which has witnessed scores of human rights abuses during the 1980s. The American troops now stationed in Honduras are known as Joint Task Force Bravo (JTF-Bravo), a component of the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), which was formed in 1983 under the original name of Joint Task Force 11. At that time, handsomely bribed Honduran officials closed their eyes to the fact that U.S.-backed insurgents were staging sorties into Nicaragua from Honduran territory, while Tegucigalpa concomitantly refused to acknowledge the covert ventures.

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  16. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 3:08 PM

    These cats moved fast.  The ink isn't even dry on the wing-nut talking points in the US when Honduras already has a new "president".

    Shall we examine the differences between this case and Iran?

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  17. vJune 28, 2009 at 3:53 PM

    Is everybody shocked? Not, lets see how loudly the Obama adminisitration "denies" this one.

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  18. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 3:55 PM

    Obama refuses to call it a "coup".

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  19. vJune 28, 2009 at 4:31 PM

    This incident has helped to solidify the major characteristics of this administration, and will appear in an article tonight -

    HONDURAS - U.S. OFFICIAL DENIAL, OBVIOUS COMPLICITY

    It is the era of official denial and obvious complicity, less overtly "offensive" but just as deadly. Obama does it with a smile while he says he loves you.

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  20. vJune 28, 2009 at 4:39 PM

    "Around midday June 25, President Zelaya and thousands of civilian supporters left the presidential palace in city buses and headed to a military base outside the capital, where they were reported to have successfully recovered the ballot boxed needed for the referendum. The referendum is said to have 80% support. (BBC News, Americas Society, June 26; NYT, Rights Action via MarxMail list, June 25)
    Last month, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) threatened civil disobedience and insurrection if there are any attempts to impede the vote on the formation of a Constituent National Assembly. On May 18, over one hundred campesinos, machetes in hand, staged a protest outside the Public Ministry building in Tegucigalpa. In a comuniqué distributed to the press, COPINH sent out a “call to all sectors of Honduran society, stating that if the obscurantist and power groups and the transnationals and their spokespersons deny us our right to a consultation and to reforms to transform Honduras into a people's democratic state, we will organize a massive popular insurrection.""

    http://ww4report.com/node/7498

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  21. vJune 28, 2009 at 4:45 PM

    Below is an example of the atmosphere taking place, the referendum are the instruments necessary to "...transform Honduras into a people's democratic state..."

    "Around midday June 25, President Zelaya and thousands of civilian supporters left the presidential palace in city buses and headed to a military base outside the capital, where they were reported to have successfully recovered the ballot boxed needed for the referendum. The referendum is said to have 80% support. (BBC News, Americas Society, June 26; NYT, Rights Action via MarxMail list, June 25)  
    Last month, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) threatened civil disobedience and insurrection if there are any attempts to impede the vote on the formation of a Constituent National Assembly. On May 18, over one hundred campesinos, machetes in hand, staged a protest outside the Public Ministry building in Tegucigalpa. In a comuniqué distributed to the press, COPINH sent out a “call to all sectors of Honduran society, stating that if the obscurantist and power groups and the transnationals and their spokespersons deny us our right to a consultation and to reforms to transform Honduras into a people's democratic state, we will organize a massive popular insurrection."" 

    http://ww4report.com/node/7498

    This gives you a little idea of what is happening, and why the "powers that be" have staged a coup.

    "The current constitution was written in 1982, when Honduras was controlled by a US-backed military regime, and the US itself had a huge military presence in the country. The Honduran armed forces initially pledged support to provide logistical support for the referendum. Then, on June 23, the army informed the president they would not support the vote. The president fired the head of the armed forces, Gen. Vásquez, and Minister of Defense Edmundo Orellana resigned. Fearing for the safety of Zelaya, thousands of Hondurans surrounded the presidential palace."

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  22. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 4:52 PM

    Thanks for the English language sources.

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  23. vzaJune 28, 2009 at 5:21 PM

    <h1 class="newsartsubtitle">WSJ Update: Obama Worked To Prevent Ouster of Honduras President</h1>


    http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200906281405dowjonesdjonline000276&title=wsj-update-obama-worked-to-prevent-ouster-of-honduras-president

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  24. vzaJune 28, 2009 at 5:22 PM

    WSJ Update: Obama Worked To Prevent Ouster of Honduras President
    http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200906281405dowjonesdjonline000276&title=wsj-update-obama-worked-to-prevent-ouster-of-honduras-president

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  25. vJune 28, 2009 at 5:30 PM

    Never believe anything until it is officially denied

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  26. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 5:31 PM

    Updates here.

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  27. vJune 28, 2009 at 5:41 PM

    Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).

    <div id="articleCntent">"COPINH condemns before national and world public opinion the attempted coup launched during the night of June 24 against the constitutional government of Manuel Zelaya Rosales and the Honduran people and its most important aspirations.

    This action is a desperate response by right-wing forces and their allies to frustrate the people’s will to find a democratic path for national transformation. The reactionary right wing has been desperately trying to block steps towards the creation of a constituent assembly to draw up a new constitution.

    This drive toward a coup was planned and carried out through collaboration between the fascist National Congress, the lords of the communication media, the ministry of public safety, the country’s strongest businessmen, and the Armed Forces, who have acted in open defiance of government decisions.

    We therefore denounce the army for playing a role similar to that of the 1980s, when it was an agency for destabilisation and repression.

    This campaign won support from some sectors of the Evangelical and Catholic hierarchy, who have encouraged, justified, and acted as middlemen for the coup-like actions.</div>
    <div>
    </div>
    <div>We also denounce the interference and involvement of the US government and its ambassador to Honduras. Told in advance of these actions, they quit the country, and called on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and other institutions under their influence to do the same.

    This clearly shows their complicity with the pro-coup forces.

    We call on the ranks of COPINH and the Honduran people as a whole, whether or not they are organised, to mobilise in their communities, villages, or cities, to express their defiance and indignation. We call on them not to be intimidated by the terrorist media campaign unleashed against the people’s desire for a new country with justice and equity.

    We call on the international community to speak out decisively against this attack on the Honduran people, and to express its solidarity with the people and support for their human rights.

    We call for intensification of the organised struggle to establish a constituent assembly now, at this historic juncture for our homeland.

    COPINH recognises Zelaya as the only constitutional president of the republic and rejects any “substitute” imposed by imperialist power.

    With the power of our ancestors, we raise our voices for life, justice, dignity, liberty and peace."</div>

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  28. thankgodimatheistJune 28, 2009 at 5:51 PM

    Thank you. Very kind of you.

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  29. vJune 28, 2009 at 5:56 PM

    It must also be noted that all of the military that helped to launch this coup were trained at the "School Of The Americas."

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  30. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 6:00 PM

    CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Sunday put his troops on alert over a coup in Honduras and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to the Central American country was killed or kidnapped.
    Chavez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the army's coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
    The Honduran army ousted Zelaya and exiled him Sunday in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the army by trying to win re-election.
    Chavez, on state television, said if the Venezuela ambassador was killed, or troops entered the Venezuela embassy, "that military junta would be entering a defacto state of war, we would have to act militarily." He said,"I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert."
    Chavez said that if a new government is sworn in after the coup it would be defeated. "We will bring them down, we will bring them down, I tell you," he said.

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  31. vzaJune 28, 2009 at 6:04 PM

    Who on earth, in this case, are "the powers that be"?

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  32. vJune 28, 2009 at 6:08 PM

    The indecisiveness of President Obama (unwillingness to call it a coup, etc.) is a sign of the fluidity of the situation. This is where coup's are launched and than ears go to the ground, to see if you can get away with it or not.

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  33. vJune 28, 2009 at 6:16 PM

    The question that everyone has to ask is where did this type of power structure come from in Honduras? The answer is that they were created by imperial design, only the SAME thing I have been talking about forever.  You are seeing live the result of such foreign policy being played out.

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  34. MaracatuJune 28, 2009 at 7:34 PM

    From the US State Department:

    The following human rights problems were reported: unlawful killings by members of the police and government agents; arbitrary and summary killings committed by vigilantes, street gangs, and former members of the security forces; beatings and other abuse of detainees by security forces; harsh prison conditions; failure to provide due process of law; lengthy pretrial detention; politicization of the judiciary, as well as judicial corruption and institutional weakness; erosion of press freedom; government restrictions on recognition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); violence and discrimination against women; child prostitution and abuse; trafficking in persons; discrimination against indigenous communities; violence and discrimination against persons based on sexual orientation; ineffective enforcement of labor laws; and child labor.

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  35. vJune 28, 2009 at 7:58 PM

    Hence the need for the referendum -

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mev5gNhcr2I

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  36. vJune 28, 2009 at 8:40 PM

    WHAT IS THAT ON YOUR HANDS?

    http://www.brownpride.com/bp_videos/video.asp?a=102

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  37. MarionJune 29, 2009 at 4:23 PM

    A beautiful painting even if it does represent a deep depression...

    I am still battling back and forth with my own depression regarding the Saudi Arabia move...I just cannot overcome the sinking sick feeling I get everytime I think about it...

    My commenting here will probably become less over the next couple of weeks and than you may not hear anything from me if I cannot access the internet right away or in the case that this site is being banned in Saudi...

    I went on a trip over the weekend to my hometown area and said a very emotional goodbye to my brother and his family... I am  not in the mood for goodbyes and I wish that I could just avoid it all together, even though I know that the people who care about me will not let me go without saying goodbye.......

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  38. thankgodimatheistJune 29, 2009 at 5:06 PM

    All my best wishes of good luck and best of fortunes Marion. We will miss you but I'm hoping you would still manage to get your word through to us. How long will you be living in Saudi?

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  39. MarionJune 29, 2009 at 5:53 PM

    My husband has a two year contract which might or might not be extended, but I am hoping that he will eventually find a job elsehwere in a more open society. Of course, during our time in Saudi, in order to stay sane, we will be getting out at every opportunity we can get by either traveling to Lebanon or back here to the states...

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  40. thankgodimatheistJune 29, 2009 at 8:36 PM

    Keep us posted Marion. Good luck.

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  41. MarionJune 30, 2009 at 8:09 AM

    Thank you tgia....

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